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LITERARY ENDEAVOUR
UGC Approved Quarterly International Refereed Journal of
English Language, Literature and Criticism
UGC Approved Under Arts and Humanities Journal No. 44728

VOL. X SPECIAL ISSUE MARCH 2019

Issue Editor
Dr. A. K. Muthusamy
Registered with the Registrar of Newspaper of India vide MAHENG/2010/35012 ISSN 0976-299X

ISSN 0976-299X www.literaryendeavour.org

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UGC Approved Under Arts and Humanities Journal No. 44728

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 ISSN 0976-299X
LITERARY ENDEAVOUR
A Quarterly International Refereed Journal of English Language, Literature and Criticism
UGC Approved Under Arts and Humanities Journal No. 44728
VOL. X : SPECIAL ISSUE : MARCH, 2019

Editorial...
Editorial Board
Issue Editor Literature is one of the aesthetic forms and is a powerful medium of
expression. Literature is the consequence of humanity's creative curiosity,
Dr. A. K. Muthusamy
and persistent efforts of a few extraordinary individuals who, despite the
Associate Professor,
Research Centre in English, devastating, depilating obstacles and obstructions, rise to articulate their
VHNSN College (Autonomous), Virudhunagar inner musings and inmost thoughts, their sobbing's and throbbing's. New
Literatures in English have emerged from colonial experiences and their
Editorial Members legacies and remade the forms and functions of English as a global
language. They are marked by complex transcultural diversity in an
Dr. A. Kalidass increasingly globalized world. New Literatures, phoenix-like, regenerate,
Associate Professor,
Research Centre in English,
renew themselves to meet startling changes and baffling challenges in life
VHNSN College (Autonomous), giving rise to a paradigm shift to new themes necessitating new narrative
Virudhunagar techniques and fresh assumptions without, of course, sacrificing artistic
brilliance or narrative coherence. New Literature are not prudish but all-
Dr. M. Meena Devi inclusive and aren't not their sharp and yearning gaze from prurient subjects
Assistant Professor, and sexual perspectives intelligently interwoven in an elegant and
Research Centre in English,
sophisticated style with the main narrative. The Conference on New
VHNSN College (Autonomous),
Virudhunagar Literatures in English: Themes and Techniques studiously explores the
emerging new literary situations and trends and discovers and discusses
new strategies to comprehend the increasingly incomprehensible
problems. This special issue carries articles focusing on the themes of New
Literatures in English. The contributors have attempted to throw light on the
issues of cultural plurality and hybridity, negotiations of colonization and
decolonization, migration, diaspora, women and social inequality.

Issue Editor

Dr. A. K. Muthusamy
 FROM EDITORS' DESK

Education is meaningless without research and its contribution to global knowledge is the call
of the day. It gives us immense pleasure in writing this message as Editors of this special issue which is
the compendium of articles by the authors who presented their papers at the International Conference
on “New Literatures in English: Themes and Techniques” organized by the Research Centre in English,
V.H.N. Senthikumara Nadars' College (Autonomous), Virudhunagar, on 15 February, 2019. The
th

selected articles are the outcome of the thought provoking views, discussions and interactions of the
presenters of the conference, covering almost all the aspects of New Literatures in English. The issue
contains a body of literary writings that react to the discourse of colonization. It also exhibits the
writings that deal with issues of decolonization or the political and cultural independence of people
formerly subjugated by colonial rule. On the whole, this issue is a literary critique on texts that carry
racist or colonial undertones. We are grateful to the Managing Board of V.H.N. Senthikumara
Nadars' College (Autonomous) for having provided an opportunity to organize the International
Conference which has helped the contributors to analyze and interpret themes and techniques
employed in New Literatures in English. As the Editors of this special issue, we seize this opportunity to
thank all the contributors for their positive response. We anticipate that this issue would be of immense
value to the Educational fraternity and the researchers by offering a window of new perspectives and
directions in the field of New Literatures in English.
We thank Literary Endeavour: An International Journal of Language, Literature and Criticism
for bringing out the papers on the International Conference on “New Literatures in English: Themes
and Techniques”

Dr. A. K. Muthusamy,
Dr. A. Kalidass,
Dr. M. Meena Devi
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 www.literaryendeavour.org ISSN 0976-299X

LITERARY ENDEAVOUR
A Quarterly International Refereed Journal of English
Language, Literature and Criticism
SPECIAL ISSUE MARCH 2019
UGC Approved Under Arts and Humanities Journal No. 44728

CONTENTS

No. Title & Author Page No.

1. Alice Walker and Her Feminist Perspectives 01-05

- Dr. S. Kanakaraj

2. Narrative Techniques in Shashi Deshpande's Roots and Shadow 04-06

- Dr. J. Samuel Kirubahar and S. Karthika

3. Ethnic Politics and Queer Identity in Shyam Selvadurai's Funny Boy 07-09
- Dr. A. K. Muthusamy

4. Torching the Psychic Turbulence of Women in Shashi Deshpande's 10-12

That Long Silence
- Dr. R. Priyakumar

5. Conflict, Negotiation, and Transformation: Postcolonial Reading of Rama 13-16

Mehta's Inside the Haveli
- Dr. S. Jesurajan

6. Gendered Language in Wole Soyinka's the Lion and the Jewel 17-19
- Dr. M. Meena Devi and J. J. Dony Preethii

7. The Bullied and the Bought: Arundhati Roy's Contentions in the Shape of 20-22
the Beast
- Dr. K. Muthamil Selvi

8. Psychoanalytical Study in Salman Khurshid's Sons of Babur 23-25

- Dr. L. Anushya Devi

9. Existential Entrapment of Ratan Rathore in Joshi's the Apprentice 26-29

- Dr. V. Navaneethamani

10. Surrealism in Mahesh Elkunchwar's Reflection 30-35

- Dr. Janardhanreddy. K
11. Image of Women in Kamala Markandaya's A Silence of Desire 36-38
- Dr. M. Jaganathan

12. Women's Agony in Anita Nair's Eating Wasp 39-40

- K. Kalyani and Dr. A. Subashini

13. Existentialism in Paulo Coelho's Veronika Decides to Die 41-44

- Dr. R. Vijay

14. Amitav Ghosh's Sea of Poppies: A Diasporic Journey 45-48

- Dr. Y. Vigila Jebaruby and G. Macky Annal Mary

15. A Study of the Cultural Concept of Marriage in Jhabvala's to Whom She Will 49-52
- Dr. M. P. Ganesan and Mrs. R. Chitra

16. Themes and Techniques in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Purple Hibiscus 53-55
- Dr. N. Gnanaselvi and S. Thasleema Yasmin

17. Eastern and Western Conflict in My Name is Red 56-60

- Dr. K. Bharathi Raj

18. A Study of Foreign Characters in the Novel of Jhabvala's Heat and Dust 61-65
- Dr. C. S. Jeyaraman

19. Astha's Aspiration for Independence in Manju Kapur's A Married Woman 66-69
- Dr. N. Kowsalya Devi

20. Diasporic Consciousness in Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni's Sister of My Heart 70-72

- B. V. Bividha and Dr. Y. Vigila Jebaruby

21. Transcultural Fluid Identities in Amulya Malladi's the Mango Season 73-76
- J. Rebecca Manonmani and Dr. Y. Vigila Jebaruby

22. Free Will in Anthony Burgess' the Wanting Seed 77-79

- R. Pradeeban and Dr. R. Suriya Prakash Narayanan

23. Convalescence and Hope as Elixir in the Girl with the Blackened Eye by 80-82
Joyce Carol Oates
- Dr. K. Sangeetha and S. Srinithi

24. Travel Writing 83-85

- Dr. S. Wilson

25. Historiographic Metafiction in Jhumpa Lahiri's the Lowland: 86-90

A Postmodernist's Perspective
- Ms. S. Kavitha and A. Hariharasudan
26. Struggle For Happiness: Bapsi Sidhwa's Water 91-92
- A. John Sujith and Dr. R. Suriya Prakash Narayanan

27. Vociferating the Mumbled Voice: A Reading of A. Revathi's the Truth 93-96
about Me: A Hijra Life Story
- Mr. Y. Jiny Amos and Dr. A. Nisha

28. Exploration of Multicultural Identities in Akhil Sharma's Family Life 97-101

- Mrs. S. Parimalah and Dr. S. Kanagaraj

29. Kamala To Surayya: Quest for Identity ? 102-103

- Mohammad Ameen Abdul Quadir

30. Postcolonial Environment in Michelle Cliff's Abeng, No Telephone to 104-107

Heaven and Jean Rhys' Wide Sargasso Sea
- J. Packia Jeslin and Dr. A. Evangeline Jemi

31. Coercion of the Hijras in Mahesh Dattani's Seven Steps around the Fire 108-112
- Dr. R. Priya

32. Immigrant Experience As Depicted In Amit Chaudhuri's Odysseus Abroad 113-115

- M. Subitha and Dr. J. Uma Samundeeswari

33. Factional Fiction -Uniqueness of Herta Müller 116-118

- Dr. S. Punitha

34. Grand Themes of Life in Khaled Hosseini's and the Mountains Echoed 119-122
- Dr. Y. Vidya

35. Is Woman Born Strong or Made Strong? - Hindsight into Chitra Banerjee 123-126
Divakaruni's Sister of My Heart
- Dr. Lanke. Subha

36. Cultural and Traditional Influences on Metropolitan Ethnicity 127-129

- Dr. Tummala. Sai Mamata

37. Role of Nature, Representation and the Natural Elements in Cormac 130-132
Mccarthy's All the Pretty Horses
- M. A. Poornima Priya Dharshini and Dr. Swarnalatha Joseph

38. Social Disharmony and Inequality Portrayed in Bama's Karukku and 133-135
Sangati
- Dr. R. Meena and K. Muthumurugan

39. Culminating Heroism in Farah Oomerbhoy's the Last of the Firedrakes 136-138
- G. Kameshwari and Dr. R. Suriya Prakash Narayanan
40. An Isolated Man's Attachment to Nature: A Study of Nadine Gordimer's 139-141
Get A Life
- A. Mohanraj and Dr. A. K. Muthusamy

41. Women's Self as a Taboo in African Society: A Study of Chimamanda Ngozi 142-146
Adichie's Purplehibiscus
- J. Aswini and Dr. J. Ragu Antony

42. Colonization in Chimamandangoziadichie's Jumping Monkey Hill 147-150

- Ms. Nanthini. C. and Dr. P. T. SelviKohila

43. Multiculturalism in Anita Desai's Bye-Bye Blackbird and Arundhati Roy's 151-153
the God of Small Things
- Dr. V. Prema

44. Memory Paradigm in the Select Poems of Jean Arasanayagam: 154-157

A Postcolonial Perspective
- Mary Josephine Jerina and Dr. P T. SelviKohila

45. Bharati Mukherjee's Depiction the Plight of Immigrants on Return to 158-160

the Native Land
- Dr. M. Mathivathanan

46. Cross Cultural Perpective in M.G Vassanji's the Gunny Sack 161-162
- Ambedkar Raja. S and Dr. Mohan. K

47. Synthesis of Two Diverse Cultures: A Postmodern Study of Chetan Bhagat's 163-165
2 States: The Story of My Marriage
- M. Krishna Veni and Dr. Y. Vigila Jeba Ruby

48. Who is My Neighbour? : A Study of Tim Winton's Neighbours 166-169

- P. T. SelviKohila

49. An Autobiographical Portrait in Amrita Pritam's the Revenue Stamp 170-172

- D. Soundarapandi and Dr. R. Kabilar

50. Scintillating Sexual Passion and Victimising Cultural Ethics in 173-176

Manju Kapur's the Immigrant
- Dr. M. Santhosh

51. Portrayal of Women in Bapsi Sidhwa's Pakistani Bride 177-180

- Dr. S. Jothi Basu

52. Subaltern Resistance, Survival, and Death in Mohammed Hanif's Our Lady 181-185
of Alice Bhatti
- Dr. D. Saraswathi
53. Geraldine Brooks' Year of Wonders- A Death Narrative 186-188
- S. Sree Sakthi Prem and Dr. P. T. Selvikohila

54. Existentialism in Old Man and the Sea 189-191

- E. Elamathiyan

55. Emergence of New Woman in Nayantara Sahgal's This Time of Morning 192-195
- R. Rajeev Kumar and Dr. A. K. Muthusamy

56. Shashi Deshpande's Narrative Technique 196-199

- Dr. P. Andrews Kennedy

57. Social Realism in Bhabani Bhattacharya's So Many Hungers! 200-202

- Dr. C. P. Swathimuthu and Dr. A. K. Muthusamy

58. Dogme ELT: A Constructive Method to Teach English Language 203-205

- S.Vivekha and Dr. Rakesh Babu. M

59. Dilemmatic Life Situation of Youngsters in Chetan Bhagat's 206-208

the Three Mistakes of My Life
- E. Titus Livingston and Dr. Rakesh Babu. M

60. Duplicate Domesticity and Culturein Imraan Coovadia's the Wedding 209-212
- R. S. Suganth and Dr. R. Jinu

61. J.M Coetzee's, Waiting For the Barbarians a New Historical Perspective 213-217
- Dr. Bhuvana and Sr. Sithara Joseph

62. Ntozake Shange's Boogie Woogie Landscapes: An Unconscious Psychoanalytic 218-221

Depiction of a Black Girl's Dreams, Visions, Fears and Fantasies
- Dr. S. Jayanthi

63. Gender Victimization in Margaret Atwood's Bodily Harm 222-224

- Dr. M. Meena Devi and K. Pouna

64. Motherhood and Child's Bond: A Critique of Maya Angelou's 225-227

the Heart of a Woman
- Dr. R. Meena and V. Karthigaiselvan

65. Feminism in India from the Past to the Present: An Eastern Perspective 228-232
- Dr. S. Barathi

66. The Dichotomy of Eastern and Western Culture in Vikram Seth's Novels 233-235
- Dr. B. RajKumar

67. A Psychic Exploration of Expatriates in the Select Novels of Anita Desai 236-238
- J. Rachel Bhuvaneswari
68. Racial Discrimination and Cultural Dominance in Anita Desai's 239-241
Bye Bye Blackbird
- Gandhimathi. G

69. East West Encounter in Preethi Nair's One Hundred Shades of White 242-246
- N. Tamilarasi

70. Exposing Human Predicaments in the Select Novels of Arun Joshi 247-249
- M. Potties Begum

71. Racial Discrimination of Women in Alice Walker's In Love & Trouble: 250-252
Stories of Black Women
- T. Hemalatha

72. Social Inequality in Aravind Adiga's White Tiger 253-256

- Ms. Jessy Mathew

73. The Quest for Identity - A Postcolonial Study of Ngugi Wa Thiong'o's Weep 257-260
Not, Child
- V. Anushya Devi

74. Racial Discrimination in Toni Morrisons's the Bluest Eye 261-262

- S. Umamaheswari

75. An Exploration of Human Relationship and the Interaction between 263-266

the Characters and the Landscape in Anita Nair's Select Novels
- G. Kayalvizhi

76. Journey of Transformation: A Study of Bharathi Mukherjee's the Tiger's 267-270

Daughter and Wife
- Mrs. R. Kavitha

77. Diasporic Perspectives in Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni's the Palace of Illusions 271-275
- S. Bala Murugan

78. Existentialism in Anita Desai's Fire on the Mountain 276-278

- T. Mariselvi

79. Identity Crisis in Shashi Deshpande's That Long Silence 279-281

- A. Padmapriya

80. A Study of Indian Marital Relationships in Jhabvala's Heat and Dust 282-286
- B. Marimuthu

81. Sign, Structure and Heterotopia in Culinary Activities: A Semiotic Study 287-290
- A. Aravinth Raja
82. Man's Accusing Finger Always Finds a Woman: A Study of Khaled 291-293
Hosseini's A Thousand Splendid Suns
- S. Sindhya

83. Multiculturalism in the Select Novels of Vikramseth And Aravind Adiga 294-298
- R. K. Krishnaveni

84. Diasporic View as a Comparative Study in Kamala Marakandaya and 299-302

Chitra Banerjee Divagaruni's Select Novels
- N. Vaigai

85. Mythology in Kazuo Ishiguro's the Buried Giant 303-304

- G. Akilan

86. Cultural Assimilation of the Indian Immigrant in Bharati Mukherjee's 305-307

Desirable Daughters
- R. Suganya

87. Conflicts and Challenges of Ashima Ganguli across Two Cultures in 308-311
Jhumpa Lahiri's the Namesake
- Mrs. M. Shanmuga Priya

88. Nefertiti - The Female Pharaoh 312-314

- G. Venugadevi

89. Gender Inequity in Girish Karnad's Fire and the Rain 315-317
- G. Krishnaveni

90. Beyond Silence: The Voice of The Voiceless in Bama's Sangati 318-320
- R. Piriyadharsini

91. The Equivocal Nature of Cuisine in Githahariharan's Short Story 321-323

“Gajarhalwa”
- K. ParvathaVarthini

92. Societal Bigotry in Mahesh Dattani's Seven Steps around the Fire 324-327
- A. Mahara Devi

93. Breaking the Barriers: A Study of Emerging New Woman in Manjukapur's 328-332
Difficult Daughters
- P. Subathra Devi

94. Portrayal of Gender Discrimination in Bama's Karukku and Sangati 333-335

- K. Chitradevi

95. Quest for Identity and Rootlessness in Arun Joshi's the Foreigner 336-337
- P. Rajkumar
96. The Placement of Agonized Culture on Subalterns in Jayakanthan's Oru 338-339
Manithan Oru Veedu Oru Ulagam [A Man A Home A World]
- I. Goerge Mary

97. Post Colonial Narrative in Australian Children's Book Seven Little 340-342
Australians
- R. Janani

98. Environmental Toxicology in Indra Sinha's Animal's People 343-345

- P. Sudha.

99. Mythological Background of Magical Realism in Jorge Luis Borges' 346-348

the Immortal and the Two Kings and the Two Labyrinths
- S. Ilakkiya Rani

100. A Subaltern Study on Maya Angelou's Select Poems 349-350

- V. Dhanalakshmi

101. Malala: A Crusader of Women's Education with Reference to I Am Malala 351-353

- A. Pavithra

102. Growing Up Gay: A Study on Shyam Selvadurai's Swimming in 354-356

the Monsoon Sea
- N. Barani

103. Gender and Literature in Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own 357-358
- Swetha Kannan

104. Food and Identity in Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni's The Mistress of Spices 359-361
- Dr. A. Subashini

105. Expedition for Self Discovery of Women in Manju Kapur's Difficult 362-364
Daughters: An Acute Study
- S. Pravinkumar

106. Language and Cultural Hybridization in Nadine Gordimer's the Pickup 365-368
- R. Vanmathi

107. Clash of Cultures: Plight of the Protagonist in Thrity Umrigar's If Today 369-372
Be Sweet
- S. Mary Sophia Rani

108. Diasporas and Conflicts - Admiring the Nexus 373-377

- K. Gunavathi

109. Chimmanda Ngozi Adichie's Halt of a Yellow Sun: A Thematic Study 378-380
- K. Rajkumar
110. Rohinton Mistry's Contribution to Diaspora in His Novel 381-382
- P. Sulochana

111. Incompleteness of Padmini in Girish Karnad's Hayavadana 383-387

- Mrs. L. Rani

112. Hybrid Identity and Multiculturalism in Bharati Mukherjee's Jasmine 388-390

- S. Gangalakshmi

113. Transcending the Borders of the Real and the Unreal in Ben Okri's 391-394
the Famished Road
- R. Aparna

114. The Pen That Sheds Blood: A Point Of No Return 395-397

- V. Balasingh

115. Social Inequalities in R. K. Narayan's Swami and Friends 398-400

- Ms. M. Vijayavalli

116. Survival of Maya Angelou in the Heart of a Woman 401-404

- G. Godwin

117. Refugee, Resettlement and Reminiscences: A Study on the Ethnographic 405-409

Memoir of Nujeen Mustafa with Christina Lamb in Nujeen: One Girl's
Incredible Journey from War- Torn Syria in a Wheelchair
- S. Jeyasiba Ponmani and Dr. M. Angeline

118. Exploration of Magical Elements in the Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern 410-412
- S. Mrinalini

119. Social Discourse through Rituals in Wole Soyinka's Kongi's Harvest 413-415
- V. Parvathi Meena

120. Sexual Difference in Revolutions of the World of Luce Irigarry 416-418

- I. Parsanapitchaimegruba

121. The Conflicting Values of East and West in Bhabani Bhattacharya's 419-422
A Dream in Hawaii
- K. Latha

122. Human Relationships in Ruskin Bond's Love Is a Sad Song and a Girl from 423-425
Copenhagen
- Mrs. V. Murugalakshmi

123. Structural Unbundling of Family in Metropolitan Indian Society in 426-429

Upamanyu Chatterjee's the Last Burden
- Ms. A. Aruna Devi
124. The Degradation of Nature: An Ecocritical Study of Amitav Ghosh's 430-433
Sea of Poppies
- N. Karpagavalli

125. Politics of Identity on Ha Jin's the War Trash 434-436

- S. Sabitha

126. Magical Realism in Girish Karnad's Naga-Mandala 437-439

- R. Priyadarshini

127. Untangled Soul through Origami in Ken Liu's the Paper Menagerie 440-442
- Karthika. B

128. Fantasy: Fabrication of 'Unrealities' and 'Realities' through Imagination 443-445

- K. Nithya

129. The Suffering of Subcultural Formation: An Investigation into Rohinton 446-451

Mistry's Novels
- Kiranmayee. A

130. A Study of Magical Realism in Kiran Desai's Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard 452-453
- D. Raechalglory

131. Magical Realism, Myth, Culture: A Thematic Study of Chitra Banerjee 454-456
Divakaruni's the Palace of Illusion
- S Sankareswari

132. The Racial Discrimination towards the Hazaras in Khaled Hosseini's 457-459
the Kite Runner
- R. Gurulatha

133. Writing Narratives of Travel through Chronicles: A Study of William 460-462

Dalrymple's City of Djinn and Nine Lives
- Biju Itukkapparakkal

134. Chetan Bhagat's One Night @ the Call Centre as a Reverie 463-464
- Ms. S. Maheswari

135. Theme of Self-Identity and Immigration in Bharathi Mukherjee's Jasmine 465-469

- R. Mahalakshmi

136. Identify Crisis in Shasi Despandes That Long Silence 470-471

- P. Anbuselvi

137. Unbelievable, But Make Us to Believe: A Fantasy in the Novel One Night @ 472-475
the Call Centre
- K. Bharathilakshmi and P. Nithiya
138. Diasporic Aspects in Naipaul's A Bend in the River 476-479
- C. Sankar Goud and G.Gulam Tariq

139. Cultural Hybridization in Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children 480-485

- S. Subha

140. Doris Lessing's the Grass Is Singing: A Psychoanalytical Study 486-489

- M. Murugesan and A. K. Muthusamy

141. Search for Identity in Nafisa Haji's the Writing Nn My Forehead 490-493
- B. Sinthiya

142. The Question of Bionomics in Anita Desai's Where Shall We Go This Summer ? 494-495
- V. Jeya Shibi

143. Magic Realism as a Means of Female Voice in Githa Hariharan's When 496-498
Dreams Travel
- Deepshikha K.

144. The Perception of Indianness in Topnotch in the Novels of R. K. Narayan 499-501

- M. Ranjith

145. Edith Wharton's Treatment of Love in the Age of Innocence 502-505

- J. Saravana Kumar and A. K. Muthusamy

146. A Study of Necrology in Ngugi Wa Thiango's Weep Not Child 506-508

- Dr. N. Gnana Selvi

147. Class, Gender and Caste Discrimination in Bama's Karukku 509-511

- P. Ilayaraja and Dr. R. Kabilar

148. Search for Strength and Independence in Anita Nair's Ladies Coupe 512-514
- Mrs. B. Mahalakshmi

149. Racial Discrimination in Maya Angelou's “I Know Why The Caged Sings” 515-517
Sings” and “Still I Rise.”
- B.Kalaivani

150. Space and Temporality in Amrit Lal Vegad's Travelogues on Narmada: 518-522
A Study
- Himani

151. Environmentalism of The Poor: Applying the Theory of Postcolonial 523-527

Ecocriticism on Indian Environmental Movements
- Sonika
152. Geocritical Representation of Space, Place and Landscape in Select 528-536
Works of V. S. Naipaul
- K. S. Saradhambal

153. Authoritarian Censorship: A Psycho-Historical Study Based on Brecht's 534-537

'The Burning of the Books’
- Raisun Mathew

154. Sexual Perversion and Physical Disability in Firdaus Kanga's Works 538-542
- Sk. Shaheen and Prof. K. Ratna Shiela Mani

155. Cultural Dislocations and Loss of Identity in Bapsi Sidhwa's 543-546

An American Brat
- D. Velvizhi and Dr.B.Thavaseelan

156. Sarah Daniels's Play Masterpieces: Empowering of Women through 547-551

Education in the Patriarchal Society
- Mr. Samadhan Jadhav and Dr. Prabhanjan B. Mane
Literary Endeavour (ISSN 0976-299X) : Special Issue : March, 2019 : (UGC No. 44728) www.literaryendeavour.org 1

01
ALICE WALKER AND HER FEMINIST PERSPECTIVES

Dr. S. Kanakaraj, Senior Prof & Head (Retd.,), D.D.E, M K University, Madurai, TN, India

Abstract:
Alice Walker has established her lasting reputation as the creative African American woman genius.
She continues to receive critical attention, and that is a measure of her artistic success. In fact, her literary
pre-eminence is on the ascendancy. It is simply because her art products are technically excellent,
structurally superb and contextually relevant. She employs innovative methods to project themes with a
new gloss. She responds to life and art with immense originality, and remarkable individuality. She has
been endowed with a keen sense of observation, sharp powers of perception, and artistic capacities to
translate her life experience into so many everlasting truths.

Key Words: Feminist, individuality, perception, new gloss.

With immense artistic maturation, Alice Walker offers recommendations to the Black women to
fully educate themselves, gain economic independence, shed their inferiority complex and fear psychosis,
and empower themselves. She wants the Black Women to assert themselves and not to live the life of
suspended women. She protests against all the ills, injuries and injustices meted out to the Black women.
She does so like the angry prophets of the Old Testament.
Walker projects contemporaneity in her works with clinical accuracy. But it is also to be recorded
that they are not Pontifical or School Teacherly. She only draws the attention of the perspective readers to
the social injustices ramphant in the American society, and thereby open their eyes. She is not a reformist.
She leaves the reforms and corrections to be effected by the public.
Another fact that requires to be emphasized is that Alice Walker is neither a defeatist nor does she
want the Black women to turn into defeatists. Her works are not abstracts of reality but they construct
reality, which mimic and perfect that reality. Moreover, her works cannot be termed as Protest Literature,
but effectual and influential social documents concerning the Blacks, particularly the Black women.
With a view to creating the right kind of Block consciousness, Walker systematically de-creates the
stereotypes that have been introduced by the whites during the period of the enslavement of the blacks to
justify slavery and slave trade. Franklin Frazier makes a pointed observation in this regard:“The Negro
(the Black) was taught that his enslavement was due to the fact that he had been cursed by God”(134).
This stereotype reveals the fact that when different communities migrated from Europe to
America, they reached out to the New World in pursuit of wealth, status, power and happiness. But the
Blacks alone were uprooted from their own African soil quite forcibly. Consequently the Blacks suffered
diaspora, disorientation, reorientation and nostalgia. The Blacks had to suffer the loss of their African
culture and their native language, precisely because the Western culture, the American English, and
Christianity were thrust upon them. As a result the Blacks had to pass through nostalgia, and cultural divide
and had to experience double consciousness. It is not God cursing the Blacks. It is the exploiters and
victimizers exploiting and victimizing the Blacks, and justifying their acts of exploitation and
dehumanization of the Blacks under the hoax and cover of imaging the Blacks as those cursed by God.
These trying conditions turned every Black, particularly the Black woman to pass through depressed
psyche.
The writes, over the centuries, born out of racism, have formed wrong images of the Blacks. It is
because of the wrong images of the Blacks, they have been misunderstood and misinterpreted. They have
ALICE WALKER AND HER FEMINIST PERSPECTIVES 2
been the most hated and most maligned because of these stereotypes. Alice Walker takes it upon herself as a
mission to correct such misconceptions and prejudicial categorization of the Black race.
Walker argues that to term the Blacks as savages and barbarians is a deliberate attempt on the part
of the Whites to eliminate and ignore the Blacks as human beings. By de-creating the wrong images
introduced by the Whites, Alice Walker creates the right kind of Black consciousness and Negritude. And
Negritude aims at discovering a distinct identity common to the Blacks everywhere. Negritude
recommends that the Blacks have to culture themselves to strike a balance between intuition and
intellection, so as to gain higher reaches in life. It also points out to them that they need not be ashamed of
their biological heritage. Negritude underscores the fact that the Blacks are not inferior to the White, but
that they are different from the whites. In these ways, Negritude asserts and insists on the sum total of the
values of the civilization of the Black world and Black culture and not on racism.
Alice Walker strongly argues in her writings that life for the Blacks, particularly the Black women,
must alter for the better in American society. Her contention is that life must change if some possibilities
are to be realized and others averted. This vision of a better world is the message of Walker. She also
expects the Black women to develop the sense of commitment without which they would turn out to be
wasters and drifters.
Walker's concern with feminism is usually more group centred than self-centred, more cultural
than political. She tends to be concerned more with the particular female cultural values of her own ethnic
group rather than with those of women in general. She may be called ethnic cultural feminist. In so doing,
she is able to address the rights and values of women without separating themselves from an allegiance to
her ethnic group. Alice Walker argues through her characters that they (the Blacks) should, with singleness
of purpose, rise in the social ladder, through rich education, which leads to a position of pelf and power and
finally to gain recognition, notwithstanding their plights and predicaments that they confront in their lives,
mainly because they are Blacks. She recommends to the Blacks to nurture faith in God, experience the joy
of God and to court patience and endurance, to prevail over the circumstances and triumph in life. In this
she reminds one of William Faulkner whose solid message through his novel The Sound and the Fury is
that only through patience and endurance one can prevail over the harsh actualities in life. They must
emerge fully empowered through education to ascend in the social hierarchy and strike upward mobility to
achieve real recognition.
The Black woman has her own experience of exploitation, political, racial, sexual and emotional;
she must openly find them mirrored in literature so as to enable her to be recognized in her own person, and
realize that there is nothing shameful; or abnormal in these experiences. This is precisely what Alice
Walker accomplishes in her magnum opus The Color Purple and in her other fiction Meridian.m It is quite
appropriate to quote the relevant observation of Indira Bhatt:
Alice Walker unveils a world of oppression and abuse of the Black girls and women a
matter of - fact world where the Black men do not give a second thought in maltreating
women. In simple language a fourteen-year old Celie narrates her experience of sexism, her
father sexually exploiting her. Celie's world is the world of unspoken and unspeakable
suffering, dark and dismal with no hope of colors, of spring, of Sunshine.(78)
Celie's father marries her to Albert, a widower with four children, much older to Celie. He
introduces Celie to Albert in quite uncharitable terms thus: “She ain't fresh too, but I spect you know that.
She spoiled, Tiwce. But you don't need a fresh woman no how… she ugly… you can do everything just like
you want to”(9).Celie becomes protective of her younger sister, Nettie. She wants her to study well and
escape from this evil world of abuse, insecurity, loneliness and despair. She even offers herself as a
sacrificial lamb to become the wife of Albert, who has lost his wife and has four children, only to save
Nettie from this unpleasant relationship. Once again, it is useful to record Indira Bhatt's brilliant analysis of

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ALICE WALKER AND HER FEMINIST PERSPECTIVES 3
Celie's character:
The novelist portrays deftly the two aspects of Celie's characters the outer considered dull
and ugly and passive which accepts the dismal world of reality, reconciling with the role
model destined for her in life, and the inner which shows her shrewd comprehension of her
plight and her strength to protect Nettie from evil experiences of life….(80)
Celie's anxieties, tensions and strains are due to living in a man-controlled world against which she
thinks she cannot rebel, and partly living with her lonely self which she finds very unsatisfactory.
Curiously enough the novelist depicts Celie as a daring woman. Even when she accepted her meaningless
existence with Albert and his children, she never misses any opportunity to demonstrate her dislike for
him. The following textual passage attests this:“I say, and men look like frogs to me. No matter how you
kiss'em, as far as I am concern frogs is what stay….”(224). The point that is made by the novelist through
the symbol of frog is the ugliness and weaknesses of Blackmen and their attitude of looking down upon
their women.
It is only her lesbian relationship with Shug Avery that takes her into a new dominion of peace and
happiness. Her relationship with Shug develops into an intimate one which the novelist describes in great
detail, with absolutely no trace of obscenity. She identifies Shug with man in her mannerism and speech. It
is the latter who explains to Celie her right to please herself. This relationship transcends Celie's dislike for
her own self into her love for her own body, and her ugliness into beauty. Walker asserts through this
relationship the affirmation of life forces and physical fulfillment which make living meaningful.
In her another novel, Meridian, Alice Walker delineates the everyday quality of familial rage. The
protagonist, Meridian is the woman who believes that her family and community as well as the racial
barriers and social order of the 'South' have all combined to rob her of a full life. Her mother channels her
anger through the electric iron as she irons into her children's and husband's clothes. This is the means to
pour out her anger, her frustrations, and her creativity.
Instead of loving her family openly or accusing anyone explicitly, she uses the ordinary domestic
chore to enclose her children in 'the starch of her anger'. The result is a tension 'ridden and guilt-ridden
existence. This suggests how personal outrage and anger stemming from social and historical forces,
particularly ignorance, discrimination, racism, exploitation and sexism, become warped and distorted in
the world of Merdian.
Thus, Alice Walker recommends to the Blacks, particularly the Black women, to assert themselves
and feel proud of their racial superiority and their Black skin. They must learn to discover their innate
potentialities and strike upward mobility through proper education, assertion and hard labour. Her feminist
perspectives revolve around these aspects of Black life.

Works Cited
Bhatt, Indira. “Towards Total Freedom: Alice Walker's The Color Purple.”
Feminism and American Literature. Ed. R. K. Dhawan. New Delhi: Prestige, 1996. Print.
Frazier, Franklin. The Black Bourgeoisie, New York: Simon and Schuster Inc., 1969. Print.
Walker, Alice. The Color Purple. New York: Washington Square press, 1982. Print.

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02
NARRATIVE TECHNIQUES IN SHASHI DESHPANDE'S ROOTS AND SHADOW

Dr. J. Samuel Kirubahar, Assc. Prof., VHNSN College (A), Virudhunagar

S. Karthika, Ph. D Scholar, VHNSN College (Autonomous), Virudhunagar

Abstract:
Roots and Shadows, Shashi Deshpande's second published novel, is the winner of Thirumathi
Rangamal Award. Written earlier than The Dark Holds No Terrors but published later in 1983, it is a much
acclaimed of Shashi Deshpande's novels. It is about a female protagonist Indu who is an educated lady and
represents middle class. Indu is a journalist and a writer. The novel deals with the theme of female
subjugation. It depicts the way how Indu sets out on her journey of self-realisation and eventually sheds
her inhibitions. Thus she moves on to the path of liberation.

The novel Roots and Shadows entails the journey of Indu who attains her feminist identity by
crossing over the impediments posited before her by the patriarchy. Through the character of Indu,
Deshpande tries to bring forward the voice of an educated woman for feminine urge in the form of creative
writing, but they are always men to protest this.
Jayant who disappoints Indu who contemplates to explore her notion. He says that Indu can do
nothing against the whole system by writing: What can one person do against the whole system! No point
making a spectacle of yourself with futile gestures. We need the money, don't we? Don't forget, we have a
long way to go (17). Wife and husband are in the bond of marriage, but they are non linear in relation; one is
the epitome of artistic selfhood while the other is in pursuit of materialistic desires. Indu silently bore the
grudges of her husband. She simply followed her husband suppressing her desires but gradually she felt
that she is self alienated from her ambition of becoming a creative writer.
The narrator is Indu herself. The narrative technique exploited in the novel is that of flashback. The
novel is a fine study in the psychological working of women as it records with minute details how Indu falls
on thinking and retrospection about the past which seems inevitable. Deshpande shows herself as a master
of the narrative form and her tryst with the pen is incredible. She writes with a luxurious exuberance and
the diction is spontaneous, each word crafted and used in a proper way adding significance.
Shadows use the first person narration. The narrator in each case is a participant observer. Indu
interweave their personal histories with their observation of what happens to others and with description of
events and lives, which do not involve them directly. The novels have a prologue at the beginning.
Shadows goes on to work through eleven chapters. The prologue in Shadows begins with the 'day before'
Mini's wedding and the end takes the readers to the time when Indu is mentally trying to decide to pay for
the wedding. The novel thus moves backward in time and the beginning and the end do not connect.
Indu is the wife of Jayant whom she had married according to her own will. She had lived under the
oppressive silence of Akka and she always craved for escaping her influence. Thus when she meets Jayant,
she is able to find her own individuality. Her joy has no bounds. With him, it is a new realization of her inner
purity, of her sentiments getting new shape. It was like she has found something which provides her utter
security. That is why she marries him irrespective of the fact that the man she is thinking of marrying is of
altogether different caste and culture. All contradict her stand of marrying him but she is rock steady. Akka
had strongly condemned her marriage, “Such marriages never work. Different castes, different
languages…it's all right for a while. Then they realise…”2 (RAS 69)
NARRATIVE TECHNIQUES IN SHASHI DESHPANDE'S ROOTS AND SHADOW 5
Perhaps because Akka was against her decision of her getting married to Jayant, her decision got
more firmed. It was with him that she could relive her own life. Her first meeting with Jayant was her first
realisation that she has found someone who is very endearing and the one who understands her fully. She
wants, “to belong, to be wanted, needed, loved, desired, admired.”(RAS 34) With him she felt as if she has
entered into a new phase of her life where there are no trials and tribulations, no restrictions; a space
spreading the fragrance of freedom and equality; a space where she can assert her own self, “This is my real
sorrow that I can never be complete in myself. Until I had met Jayant, I had not known it […] I met Jayant
and lost the ability to be alone.” (RAS 38) But how unlucky she is! Her earlier notion, “And in Jayant I
thought I had found the other part of my whole self. Not only that, but total understanding. Perfect
communication” (RAS 108) proves just an illusion and she comes to know, “And then, I had realised this
was an illusion. I had felt cheated. But, can perfect understanding ever exist?” (RAS 108)
Understanding means nothing but a kind of a system wherein one believes not to be contradicted,
not to be criticised rather being agreed to whatever one says. Indu realises that it was what they even
believed in. For them it is, “... Don't judge me. Don't criticise me. Just appreciate me. See only my virtues,
not my vices. My strengths, not my weaknesses” (RAS 108) and she finds herself befitting the role of
traditional women; whom she hated for the fact that they are so submissive, so meek, and docile rendering
themselves identity less; a role that she never had earlier imagined she would have to play. “Indu sprang out
of the claustrophobic world with a courage I admired. She was free. But often to be free is to be lonely. I
shared this bleak thought with Indu.”3
Indu feels that by marrying Jayant her identity has been lost. She is not able to identify her own self.
She does all the things which Jayant wishes. Shashi Deshpande says in a 'Talk on the Indian Woman-
Stereotypes, Images and Realities, “The good woman-whether she's the wife, mother, sister or daughter-in
law doesn't matter-is always so self less that she negates herself to the point of extinction.”4 She feels like
she has become a parasite on her husband. She has adapted herself according to the traditional values of
being an ideal woman.
It shocks Jayant even when Indu talks of her female craving for physical union. Indu is at times
quite passionate in the act of love making. Jayant could not digest the fact that a woman can be so
enthusiastic in love making. Jayant represents a typical patriarchal man who is alarmed at the female
sexual needs. For Indian society deems women as meek and passive. It is unbearable fact that a woman can
be vociferous in the articulation of her sexual needs as sex is thought to be a taboo for Indian women. As she
recollects, “it shocks him to find passion in a woman. It puts him off. When I'm like that, he turns away
from me. I've learnt my lesson now. And so I pretend. I'm passive. And unresponsive. I'm still and dead…A
woman who loves her husband too much. Too passionately. And is ashamed of it.” (RAS 82) A female's
quest for sexual pleasures is a taboo in the society. It is a restrictive action even in a marriage. A woman can
never openly talk of her sexual satisfaction even with regards to her husband not to talk of other men.
Religion and morality can never uphold it. Sex is only a means of reproduction.
Indu is confused as she does not know what she wants in life. She is amazed at the question of Old
Uncle also when he asks the same. She keeps thinking what after all she wants and her mind goes back to
success. She thinks, What did I want? Success at first. It was impossible, unimaginable for me not to
succeed. Not to have been the best would have been unbearable. And suddenly one day, self consciousness
had set in. And doubts...they castrate you...They destroy your self-confidence. And there's always a why
for whatever you do. So that the doing of it, the succeeding in it, is not enough. (RAS 100)
She thinks that she must know what is in life she wants. Without wants there is nothing in life. All
human endeavour to live a satisfactory life would come to an end without any purpose, without any wants.
It is only well defined goals that give life a sanctity. She thus is confused: “How can I live without knowing
what I want? I must know. To live without fear…fear of being unloved, misjudged, misunderstood,

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NARRATIVE TECHNIQUES IN SHASHI DESHPANDE'S ROOTS AND SHADOW 6
displeasing. Without the fear of failure.” (RAS 158) Indu sometimes wants that she should leave him one
day. Perhaps that would be the final solution of her problems. She often reflects about its possibility. Her
mind oscillates on the possible results.
Being a writer she has even written a short story about the same theme. In the story the woman
walks out on her husband. When a common friend enquires about the reason she says, “Because I love him
too much.”(RAS 86) But she is not able to bring the story to a conclusion. She believes that such a
proposition can never be possible. Society believes that marriage is something that brings two people
together. In Hinduism it is believed that marriage is not about the unification of the bodies rather it is the
union of two souls. Hindu marriage is not viewed as contracts which two persons-the groom and bride-
sign; it is a spiritual bonding where seven circles round the fire are not mere an ostentation but a
strengthening of the bond; seven pledges that both bride and groom have to comply with. It is a sentiment
too strong with
Deshpande who believes in its sanctity but is also aware of its seamy side. She knows that it is a trap
where a woman finds herself most confined. Indu visualizes its pros and cons and comes to the conclusion,
“What was marriage after all, but two people brought together after cold-blooded bargaining, to meet,
mate and reproduce so that the generations might continue?” (RAS 14-15).

Works Cited
Deshpande, Shashi. Roots and Shadows. Bombay: Sangam, 1983. Print.
Dhawan,R.K. Indian Writing in English Woman Novelists. New Delhi: Prestige Books, 1991. Print.

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03
ETHNIC POLITICS AND QUEER IDENTITY IN SHYAM SELVADURAI'S
FUNNY BOY

Dr. A. K. Muthusamy, Ph. D, Assc. Prof., V.H.N.S.N College (A) Virudhunagar

Abstract:
Shyam Selvadurai's Funny Boy is one of the popular gay novels. The novel has won the Lambda
Literary Award for gay male fiction. The story of the novel revolves around a prepubescent boy of seven
years old who grows into a teenager. This paper seeks to explore the protagonist Arjie's struggle to
establish his identity when he comes to understand that he is gay.

Keywords: ethnicity, queer identity, gay, prepubescent.

ShyamSelvadurai is a Sri Lankan born Canadian writer who has written Funny Boy, Cinnamon
Gardens, Swimming in the Monsoon Sea. He has edited the anthology, Story-Wallah! His fourth novel The
Hungry Ghosts has been short listed for Canada's prestigious Governor General's Award for fiction. His
latest work Many through Paradise is a comprehensive anthology of Sri Lankan Literature.
Sri Lankan Writing in English has an impressive range of writers like Zean Arasanayagam,
Yasmine Gooneratne and Ediriwira Sarachchandra and their works are considered the early foundations of
Sri Lankan Literature. Asoka Weerasinghe, ReinzCrusz, Krisantha Sri Bhaggyiadatta Michael Ondaatje
and Shyam Selvadurai, acclaimed and award- winning writers from Sri Lanka, write about their native
country, but are physically away from their country.
Arjun Chelvaratnam is the protagonist of ShyamSelvadurai's Funny Boy. The protagonist is also
known as Arjie to his friends and family. Arjie and his family members belong to Tamil minority group in
Sinhala-dominated Sri Lanka. The novel Funny Boy opens with Arjie, a boy of seven years old.
Funny Boy is a novel in six poignant stories which are chronologically interconnected, but they are
slightly autonomous. Characters in each story can be classified as subaltern in terms of race, sexuality or
gender. In it, the first and last stories are about Arjie; the second story is about Radha aunty who returns
from America; the third story is about the Burgher Daryl Brohier; the fourth one is about Jegan who has
link with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam; and the fifth story deals with Soyza or Shehan, who takes
Arjie into homosexuality.
The opening story “Pigs Can't Fly” justifies the title of the novel. Every month on a Sunday Arjie,
his brother Diggy, sister Sonali, gather at their grandparents' home, so that their parents can spend the day
free of their descendant. The grandparents' home has two gardens front garden and back garden. The front
garden, road and the open field of the house belongs to the boys where they play cricket. The back garden
and the kitchen of the home belong to the girls who play a favourite game called “bride-bride” game. Arjie
is gravitated to the game of “bride-bride”. So he joins the girls and plays the part of the bride. On seeing
this, one of his cousins calls him “pansy”, “faggot”, and “sissy”(11). Even the boys on the cricket field call
him “girlie-boy” (25). His parents discover him in a saree playing the game of “bride-bride”. His parents
are embarrassed, when they see him in a saree. Appa warns Amma that if Arjie turns out funny like that
“Rankotwera Boy” (14) or if he turns out to be the laughing stock of Colombo, it will be her mistakes alone.
The story ends with Arjie's confusion about his identity. He says, “I would be caught between the boys' and
the girls' worlds...”(39).
ETHNIC POLITICS AND QUEER IDENTITY IN SHYAM SELVADURAI'S FUNNY BOY 8
The second story “Radha Aunty” deals with Radha Aunty, Appa's youngest sister. She visits Sri
Lanka from the US. Arjie has picturised Radha Aunty as a glamorous woman in his mind before she
arrives. But he gets disappointed when he has actually met her. Because she is not like what Arjie has
imagined. She has frizzy hair and is looking thin. She wears a halter top and strange trousers instead of sari.
Then, she meets Anil Jayasinghe at a drama rehearsal and she develops into friendships with him. Her
marriage with Rajan Nagendra has been fixed. Both their families' oppose her friendship with Anil because
he is a Sinhalese and Radha is a Tamilian. Later in the story Radha Aunty marries Rajan Nagendra. Arjie is
not happy to witness Radha Aunty marrying Rajan Nagendra. He says “I couldn't bear to watch the
ceremony. I turned away” (99). His mental agony is acute and piercing.
“See No Evil, Hear No Evil” is the third story of the Novel, Funny Boy. Appa has gone to Europe to
promote his hotel. He asks his children to give him a list of five things that they would like him to buy back
for them in Europe. Arjie wants a copy of Little Woman. But he hesitates to mention it. Appa had once
caught him reading and scolded him for reading such a book because it is a book written for girls. Further,
he says the book is unsuitable for a boy of twelve. Uncle Daryl arrives Sri Lankan from Australia. It is
revealed that Amma was once in love with Daryl, the Correspondent of the Australian newspaper “Sydney
Morning Star”. He is quite an outlaw himself. The Burghers, as Daryl Uncle explains to Arjie, are of pitch
lineage; most of them left Sri Lanka when the government made Sinhala the national language in the 1950s
because they spoke only English. A few, like Daryl Uncle, however, stayed behind.
The fourth story “Small Choices” talks about Arjie's friend Jegan who is the son of Buddy
Parameswaran to whom Appa was embarrassingly close during his school days. Buddy and Appa made a
row to help each other's family. Buddy is now dead and his wife Grace sends Appa a letter requesting him to
do something for Jegan. Jegan procures a well-paying job at the hotel owned by Appa. Arjie is attracted to
Jegan in the story. Jegan's strong body causes him the first stirrings of sexuality. Arjie openly says” What
had struck me was the strength of his body. The muscles of his arms and neck, which would have been
visible on a fairer person, were hidden by the darkness of his skin. It was only when I was close to him that I
had noticed them. Now I admired how well-built he was, the way his thighs messed against his trousers”
(161). Appa becomes glad that Arjie and Jegan have become friends. He thinks it might help Arjie to get rid
of his certain odd behaviours. Jegan defends Arjie and it strengthens the bond between Jegan and Arjie.
The fifth story “The Best School of All” confronts Arjie's homosexuality directly. Appa transfers
him from St. Gabriel School to Victoria Academy, where his brother Diggy studies, Appa believes that the
academy will force him to become a man. Arjie is increasingly aware of the older boys at school who
swagger along the railway lines or on the beach, their arms around one another.
Arjie is attracted toa student named Shehan physically. He is fascinated by Shehan's
rebelliousness. Unlike other boys, Shehan defies the rules and wears his hair long. Diggy notices his
brother's homosexuality and warns Arjie to keep away from him. His homophobic contempt for Shehan
parallels Appa's for Jegan's terrorist activities. Arjie feels violated when Shehan first seduces him in a
garage behind his house. However, he soon realises that “Shehan had not debased, offered me his
love”(269).The last story “Riot Journal; An Epilogue” records the events in Sri Lanka for the one-month
period from July 25 to August 27, 1983 when the Tamil-Sinhala conflict culminated in nation-wide
violence.
The story of Funny Boy is set against the backdrop of the race riots between Tamils and Sinhalese in
Sri Lanka during 70s and 80s.So ethnic conflict is the major issue of the novel. As Shyam Selvadurai is of
mixed Tamil and Sinhalese parentage, he, using his own experiences of ethnic relations, expresses vividly
how the ethnic conflicts and ethnic intolerance affect people's lives. Minoli Salgado's close analysis of the
novel reveals that “ethnic, gender and special boundaries mutually reinforce one another and are central to
the structuration of queer identity” (7). Arjie is not able to understand the ethnic difference between Tamils

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ETHNIC POLITICS AND QUEER IDENTITY IN SHYAM SELVADURAI'S FUNNY BOY 9
and Sinhalese. In a heated argument between his grandmother Ammachi and his Radha Aunty, she calls
Ammachi a “racist.' Arjie does not know the meaning of it and he muses on:
The intensity of Ammchi's reaction had shaken me. I wondered why Anil being Sinhalese
upset so? I was in Sinhala class at school and my friends were Sinhalese. My parent's best
friends were too. Even our servant was Sinhalese, and, in fact, we spoke with her only in
Sinhalese. So what did it matter whether Anil was Sinhalese or not? (58-9)
Arjie does not speak Tamil, only Sinhalese. But he receives repeated insults at school because of his ethnic
identity as a Tamil. Later Arjie's association with Jegan makes him understand the real meaning of ethnic
politics. Jegan loses his job due to his liaison with terrorists organisations. Tamil- Sinhalese discord and
ethnic violence reach its height and as a result Arjie's home and hotel are burned down. His Appachi and
Ammachi get killed by an angry mob. And his family is forced to leave Sri Lanka and to move to Canada.
As Minoli Salgado points out: “At the end of the novel Selvadurai signals loss of home through breakdown
of physical boundaries” (11).
The novel also focuses on Arjie's queer identity. Of course, there is no mention of 'gay' or
'homosexual' anywhere in the novel. However his queer identity is exposed when he mingles with his
female cousins and plays games like 'bride-bride' with girls while other boys of his same age are interested
in playing cricket. He dresses up in saree and plays the role of bride in 'bride-bride' game. The girls like him
very much because he is an expert in playing the part of bride. His parents see him dressed up in saree and
get embarrassed. One of his uncle calls him “a funny one.” Arjie reflects upon this incident: “For me, the
primary attraction of the girls' territory was the potential for the free play of fantasy. Because of the force of
my imagination, I was selected as leader”(3). To begin with he does not understand his attraction towards
girls- but later when he has had sexual encounter with Shehan, he is aware of his queer identity. Thus the
novel Funny Boy deals with the ambiguity of sexual identity and ethnic difference.
The novel also reflects the intense pain and inexplicable passion and consequent pleasures of a
homosexual boy. The contrariness of feelings and conflict of emotions that perturb and disturb the
innocent mind of the homosexual boy, his inner joy and social ridicule and derision unsympathetic and
inhuman mockery, jeering and sneering, teasing and taunts that hurt and tear his adolescent mind because
of his explicit homosexual behaviour and attitude invest the story with a 'queer' profundity meaning. The
novel, in short, is a moving story a 'gay' boy's bitter experience in a hostile society; it is also a realistic
narrative of horrible ethnic conflict, hatred, mutual hostility, aversion and animosity.

Works Cited
1. Raj Rao, R. “Because Most People Marry Their Own Kind: A Reading of Shyam Selvadurai'sFunny
Boy.”ARIEL. 28.1 (Jan. 1997): 117-127. Print
2. Salgado, Minoli. “Writing Sri Lanka, Reading Resistance: Shyam Selvadurai's Funny BoyAnd A.
Sivanandhan's When Memory Dies.” Journal of Commonwealth Literature. vol. 39 (1) 2004:5-18
Print.
3. Selvadurai, Shyam. Funny Boy. New Delhi: Penguin India, 1994. Print.

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04
TORCHING THE PSYCHIC TURBULENCE OF WOMEN IN SHASHI
DESHPANDE'S THAT LONG SILENCE

Dr. R. Priyakumar, Assc. Prof.,V.H.N.S.N College (A), Virudhunagar

Abstract:
Shashi Deshpande's works are overcrowded with families and vivid portrayals of women and men
in blood and flesh with the rich air of life. She focuses on the women's awakening consciousness and her
confrontation against a male-dominated, tradition oriented society which gives image to women. She
admits that her writing has to do with women characters alone. Deshpande's women characters have a
strength of their own. They in spite of challenges and hostilities, remind uncrushed. They are sensitive,
intelligent and career oriented middle class women of a changed time and feel suffocated and engaged in
the male defined codes of life. Jaya the heroine of the novel recalls her married life with nostalgia. There is
hardly any communication between Jaya and Mohan neither verbal nor emotional. There is nothing
between them but suppressed silence. Their Silence is a disheartening one. Jaya is unable to speak her
troubles and Mohan's quarries remain unanswered by Jaya. Jaya's absorption into the family is totally
different from a fiercely independent girl, she gradually deteriorates into the stereotype of a woman. Thus
That Long Silence projects a modern woman who resents her husband's callousness and becomes the
victim of circumstances. Jaya the heroine of the novel gives the new image of the Indian woman

Key words: Torching, psychic, turbulence, confrontation, challenges.

Shashi Deshpande writes in a simple, elegant manner much similar to the Indian readers with real
life-like background. Her works are over crowded with families and vivid portrayals of women and men in
blood and flesh with the rich air of life. Her novels are filled with fine perceptions of human emotions.
Indian women can be divided in general into three groups according to the image of a woman. The first
group of women are traditional in approach and most of them are uneducated. The next one is filled with
those who realise what is good in life but are not able to come out of the traditional roles and images. The
third one is a rebellious one consisting of educated, self willed and independent women. She focuses on the
women's awakening consciousness and her confrontation against a male-dominated, tradition oriented
society which gives image to women.
Indian women novelists like Kamala Markandaya, Anita Desai, Nayanthara Sahgal, Attia Hosain
and Deshpande have written of Indian women their conflicts and predicaments against the background of
contemporary life in India with a brilliant analysis of the socio-cultural modes and values that have given
Indian writers their image and role towards themselves and Society. These women writers explore the
moral and psychic dilemmas and repercussions of their women characters along with their efforts to cope
with the challenges to achieve a new harmony and synthesis of themselves and their surroundings.
Deshpande deals with the middle class Indian women who represent the overwhelming majority of Indian
women and her struggling to adjust in it rather than get free from the traditional world.
For Deshpande every novel starts with people character is an important one in her fiction. She is
averse to idealising or sentimentalizing her women characters. She admits that her writing has to do with
women characters alone. Deshpande's women characters have a strength of their own. They in spite of
challenges and hostilities, remind uncrushed. It is true that her heroines voice their voices against the role
TORCHING THE PSYCHIC TURBULENCE OF WOMEN IN SHASHI DESHPANDE'S THAT LONG SILENCE 11
models of daughter, sister, wife and mother. They refused to be the objects of cultural or social oppressions
of age old patriarch society. They are sensitive, intelligent and career oriented middle class women of a
changed time and feel suffocated and engaged in the male defined codes of life.
The whole story of That Long Silence is a simple one. Jaya the heroine of the novel recalls her
married life with nostalgia. She was married to Mohan and lived with him at ten different places till he
went away from her. She bore him two children and try to come to terms with herself by trying to write
about herself and family and was determined to break a long silence. There is hardly any communication
between Jaya and Mohan neither verbal nor emotional. There is nothing between them but suppressed
silence. Jaya wants to flee from the confines and incarcerated domestic life in order to find a new identity
for herself. She ruminates: “nothing between us... nothing between me and Mohan we live together but
there had been only emptiness between us” (185)
Their Silence is a disheartening one. Jaya is unable to speak her troubles and Mohan's quarries
remain unanswered by Jaya. It is as Ramsharma in “Writing from the Margins: A Study of Shashi
Deshpande's That Long Silence observes:
Hindu womanhood where obedience and loyalty how she generated to the state of dogged
subservience and a modern women nestled like Jaya understands a traditionalist like
Mohan who is rooted out and out in customs and whose repressive use of silence makes
Jaya into conformity with his expectation. She presents here not a woman who has a desire
to revolve but the one who ultimately reconciles to her helplessness. (90)
With Jaya in Silence the bitterness of her relationship with her mother becomes deeply ingrained in her and
is linked to her relationship with her children. She feels that children are “Sacred cow, our justification for
everything, even for living. Everything we did, or didn't was of the children. (19-20) Jaya is an apparently
satisfied house-wife married to Mohan and bore two children Rahul and Rati. She has systematically
suppressed every aspect of her personality that refused to fit into her image as wise and mother to achieve
the stage of fulfillment as a woman. Her writing career and her association with Kamat make her realize
long silence. She loses confidence in her own self as a mother when she realises that her children do not
crave for her love and warmth. Regarding the role of silence in Silence Rupalee Burke in “The search for a
voice: A Study of Shashi Deshpande's That Long Silence” says; “Although as a child was born into an
above average household, she had developed the fear of speech for fear of ridicule from males beginning
with her father...” (64).
Jaya's absorption into the family is totally different from a fiercely independent girl, she gradually
deteriorates into the stereotype of a woman, “nervous, incompetent, needing male help and support” (76)
Mohan gets involved in a study deal and consequently faces enquiry into charges of corruption. Mohan
takes the misfortune in his stride. At the most in an apparent case of projection he accuses Jaya of being
indifferent and storms out of the house. To Jaya, the experience turns out to be traumatic. She lives several
days in a traumatic state. There is none to whom she can turn to, not even Kamat. She is suffering from
feelings of detachment, the self experience of split personality and a sense of disorientation. Jaya's psyche
reaches almost the point of total disintegration under the intense pressure and force of adverse
circumstances. She realises a new perception of life, the members of her family, herself are independent.
She has to compromise with the realities of life. She wants to erase the silence. She has to make the life
possible one.
Jaya finds fault with her mother for not preparing her well for the duties of a woman's life. She
attributes her failure as a mother to her own mother's neglect of her. She even reflects and finds that
besides being a failure as a mother. She has not been a good wife either. She betrays suppressed resentment
and patriarchy towards her mother. Jaya resents her sexist bias. She sees her mother unable to live up to the
ideal role of the perfect mother. Jaya in Silence wages a relentless guerilla warfare against Ai(mother) and

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Aiji (grand mother). Usha Bande in “mother, daughter and daughters' Daughter - A study of Shashi
Deshpande” says:
Deshpande displaces the mother from the hallowed altar of worship and installs her among
us; not a deity, but a woman, living and facing the realities of existence. (135)
Jaya tries hard to fit into the traditional mould. She seeks to become a smiling, passive and
motherly woman. It is a role given by her husband Mohan under the name Suhasini which suggests the
duty of a woman-stay at home, look after the babies and keep out of the rest of the world. She is a victim of
“ego-inflation” an account of her improper child rearing. As she had education from a convent English
school, she feels suffocated and trapped in the traditional image of a woman like sita in patriarchal society.
Her anger finds no direction as it is a displaced anger directed to nowhere and nobody. Patriarchal society,
her conformist husband, the very concepts of marriage and sex are the real objects that make her express
her resentment. Her convent education, vision of women and male dominated chauvinism would have
flared her anger but the traditional role-model that she has to play makes her accept the image of Sita and
Gandhari. Even when Mohan accuses her for no fault of hers, she wants to burst out her anger but remains
silent. However in heart she realises, “And oh God, why couldn't I speak? Why couldn't I say something”
(120-121).
Even in her parental house Jaya questions the idea of a family tree. She accepts the very idea that
the loss of place in the family tree is a symbolic enactment of the loss of identity, however in her marriage,
Mohan fails to be sheltering tree. She inwardly refuses to be Mohan's wife and she prefers to be Rahul's
and Rati's mother. She prefers to be Gandhari. She admits “I bandaged my eyes tightly. I didn't want to
know anything” (61). She learns to suppress her desires and learns to act according to her husband's likes
and dislikes. “She likes to see movie advertisements but as her husband dislikes that habit she does not like
to do it.” (144). Mohan has crashed the woman and the writer in Jaya as he never loved her nor encouraged
her. He has been responsible for her misery. In the end of the novel sense of shame that fits in the role of a
traditional wife and to break that long silence that she has maintained throughout the novel, develop fear
consciousness in her. When loneliness darkens her, her silence fails to be protective and Jaya goes
hysteric. Out of her anguish the long suppressed anger, she goes out of her house and in an unconscious
state walks aimlessly in the streets of Bombay. She understands that loneliness is the essential condition of
human existence. She does not want to be trapped in one prison house of marriage. The whole novel may
be said to be an enactment of breaking the long observed silence on the part of Jaya during the whole period
of her marriage with Mohan. Jaya openly admits this, “Nor I am writing a story of a Calius, insensitive
husband and a sensitive, suffering wife. I am writing of us, of Mohan and me.” (01)
That Long Silence projects a modern woman who resents her husband's callousness and becomes
the victim of circumstances. The story of Jaya illustrates modern woman's ambivalent attitude to married
life. The novel also bears frequent references to Indian epics and allusions to archetypal characters like
Ram, Sita, Draupati and Gandhari. Jaya the heroine of the novel gives the new image of the Indian woman
who tries to stand on her legs and seeks to break the age old silence.

Works Cited
1. Bande, Usha. “Mother, Daughter and Daughter's Daughter-A Study of Shashi Deshpande.”Mothers
and Mother-Figures in Indo-English Literature. Ed. Usha Bande, 134-142. Print.
2. Burke, Rupalee. “The Search for a Voice: A Study of Shashi Deshpande's That Long Silence.” Shashi
Deshpande: A Critical Elucidation. Ed. Amar Nath Prasad, 56-70. Print.
3. Deshpande, Shashi. That Long Silence. New Delhi: Penguin India, 1989. Print.
4. Sharma, Ram. “Writings from the Margins: A Study of Shashi Deshpande That Long Silence.”Shashi
Deshpande: A Critical Elucidation. Ed. Amar Nath Prasad, 86-93. Print.

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05
CONFLICT, NEGOTIATION, AND TRANSFORMATION: POSTCOLONIAL
READING OF RAMA MEHTA'S INSIDE THE HAVELI

Dr. S. Jesurajan, Head & Assc. Prof., Arul Anandar College (A), Karumathur

Abstract:
The focus of this paper is to interpret Rama Mehta's Inside the Haveli from the perspective of
postcolonial concepts. The novel illustrates the position of women in a tradition-bound Indian society.
Though everything is changing rapidly, women are still engulfed in a pattern of life that is alien to modern
woman, like Geeta who has been brought up in Bombay and is married to Ajay, son of an ex-prime minister
of a formerly princely state of Mewar. Geeta suffers in-betweenness; she is caught between the metro
culture of Bombay and the traditional culture of haveli in Udaipur. She is unable to reconcile with rigid
etiquettes of the haveli, outdated way of life, practice of purdah and so on. Her initial repulsion gradually
disappears when she understands that her parents-in-law are essentially kind and compassionate. She
adjusts herself and merges her identity with the tradition of her husband's family in order to bring in some
reforms for the women of haveli. She starts literacy classes for girl children since education is vital to
social change. With her charismatic approach she has nipped the rebellion in the bud and succeeds in her
move towards transformation.

Key Words: In-betweenness, ambivalence, purdah, female subordination, gender bias.

Indian fiction has gained worldwide recognition and high critical acclaim after nineteen sixties.
Women writers too have enriched it through their contributions and have created a distinctive place for
themin the genre of fiction. Some of them have been conferred with prestigious awards like Booker Prize,
Commonwealth Prize and Sahitya Akademy award in the Indian context.
The focus of this paper is to interpret Rama Mehta's Inside the Haveli from the perspective of
postcolonial concepts. Ambivalence is one the key concepts of postcolonial literature. The novel projects
Jeevan Niwas haveli ambivalently and the protagonist Geeta suffers in-betweenness; she is caught
between the metro culture of Bombay and the traditional culture of haveli in Udaipur. Homi Bhabha terms
it as “in-between spaces [that] provide the terrain for elaborating new strategies of selfhood - singular and
communal - that initiate new signs of identity and innovative sites of collaboration and contestation” (2).
At the surface level, the novel explores the relationship existing within the community, their
cultural identity and the uniqueness of their community living. But schematic reading of the novel will at
the deeper level disclose that Sangram Singhji's haveli is inclusive and exclusive, emancipatory and
oppressive, and harmonious and discordant simultaneously. The novelist describes: “The haveli may have
no shape from outside, but inside there is definite plan. The courtyards divide the haveli into various
sections. The separation of self-contained units was necessary because the woman of Udaipur kept
purdah” (6). Geeta is ambivalent about her position in haveli. She is not able to tune her mind and body to
the traditional way of life of Udaipur and at the same she is not able to go back to Bombay to restore her life
of liberty.
Inside Haveli tells the story of the protagonist Geeta who lives her life in flux. She is a college-
educated girl of Bombay and is married to Ajay, son of an ex-prime minister of formerly princely state of
Mewar and a professor of Physics at the University of Rajasthan. After her marriage she has to leave the
CONFLICT, NEGOTIATION, AND TRANSFORMATION: POSTCOLONIAL READING OF RAMA MEHTA'S INSIDE THE HAVELI 14
modern world of Bombay to settle in a traditional world of the haveli of Udaipur. The moment she lands in
Udaipur, she is surrounded by women relatives and maid-servants and is forced to cover her face with her
sari: “One of them came forward, pulled her sari over her face and exclaimed in horror, 'Where do you
come from that you show your face to the world?'” (17) Geeta is shocked at the awkward behaviour of the
haveli women. She does not resist instantly but remains silent since she is going to start a new life. She
experiences alienation, loneliness, marginalization, othering and cultural adjustments in the new
environment. The potentially hostile unknown place and the people of haveli invoke a sense of fear and
feeling of insecurity because she is considered as an outsider as she does not observe purdah. Jasbir Jain, in
her article “Erasing the Margins: Questioning Purdah” states how purdah, in the Indian society, represents
power relations:
The practice of purdah in many Asian countries is not merely a form of dress or custom, but
is indicative of a whole social system. Purdah reinforces the idea of female subordination in
built in patriarchal societies; it also defines family and political structures and constitutes
the basis of gender ideology. (243)
Though Geeta detests covering her face with purdah, at times she finds it useful and convenient to
hide her emotions and feelings. The writer herself makes the meaning of veiling ambivalent because Geeta
veils her face for her own reasons: “She came to love the veil that hid her face; this allowed her to think
while others talked. To her delight she had discovered that through her thin muslin sari, she could see
everyone and yet not be seen by them” (23).Veiling the face masks the inner emotions. Since she is the only
woman who goes around in haveli with uncovered face, other women call her an outsider. As Rama Mehta
characterizes, Geeta does not accept purdah system till end. She not only resists veiling her face but also
tries ending this system since it symbolizes physical restriction as well as spiritual restriction.
Haveli symbolizes silence and harmonious living for the outsiders. But the women suffocate inside
purdah. Women are not allowed to go out haveli and all activities are conducted inside. It has strict rules
for women. Geeta remains in haveli for two years but she never has opportunity to speak to her father-in-
law or grandfather-in-law. Moreover, she has been forbidden meeting and talking with women during the
day. Patriarchy has been subtly exercised and it is hinted by the novelist thus: “Nothing was done without
consulting them. It was around their desires that the whole routine of the house revolved” (19) No violence
against women is outwardly shown. Hence, nobody is able express their desire to go out and see the outside
world.
Dislocation and belonging is the complex view of the postcolonial society. The sense of dislocation
and the resultant conflict and confusion inside the haveli disturb Geeta much. She is caught between two
opposing trends modernity and tradition. She is nostalgic about her past. Geeta belongs to a different
world where she has enjoyed full freedom. But haveli takes away her liberty. The conservative society
forces her to come to terms with the life style of haveli. The rhythm of Bombay life still reverberates in her
mind though physically distanced. Discarding the old and adapting herself to the new environment cause
emotional displacement. The insurmountable suffering in the new environment alienates her and leads her
to identity crisis.
The kind of relationship Geeta has with her husband is only passive. It has been expected of her that
she has to carry out her domestic chores, maintain her husband's prestige and create peace on the domestic
space. Loomba, in her book Colonialism/Postcolonialism, cites her observation of how men have exerted
their power in the family situation during colonial times: “strengthening of patriarchy within the family
became one way for the colonized men to assert their otherwise eroded power” (184). Boehmer too says
that Indian women have been marginalized by the colonizers and by the Indian men: “colonized women
were, as it is called, doubly or triply marginalized. That is to say, they were disadvantaged on the grounds
not only of gender but also of race, social class, and, in some cases, religion and caste”. (224)

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Geeta has to sacrifice several things in haveli. She has no companion who she can trust. Since she is
from Bombay, she is considered as an outsider; men and women of haveli do not like to spend time with her
and help her accustomed to the new environment. She is sad that even after seven years, she remains a
stranger to her in-laws. Her husband Ajay understands her need but is afraid to “challenge his father's
authority” (22). Geeta observes that men have been quite comfortable in haveli and they have been
regarded as gods. They are the masters and “women kept their shadow and followed their instructions with
meticulous care” (21).Women are expected to adhere to the norms and patterns they have been following
for centuries. Even today they are considered to be properties of the men. Before marriage the fathers own
them and after marriage they belong to their husbands. Women's freedom and rights are restricted to
favourable marriage and safeguarding family's prestige.
Geeta finds herself engulfed and restrained haveli. Since she is treated as an outsider, even after
years of stay she has not learnt the etiquettes of haveli and adapted herself to the environment; she becomes
nervous when relatives gather. One of the maids ironically remarks, “She will never adjust, she is not one
of us” (28). Frustrated and unable to compromise with the life in haveli, Geeta pesters her husband Ajay to
try for transfer to Delhi University. But he refuses bluntly. Angered by the sharp reply of her husband,
Geeta remarks, “I know the men have no problems in this world of Udaipur; you are all pampered. You lead
your lives and think women are mere chattels” (53).
As years pass and when her father-in-law dies, Geeta becomes subdued and seems to accept the
culture of haveli. She gets closer to her family members but does not accept the purdah system. Nowhere in
the novel Rama Mehta depicts Geeta raising her voice to speak loudly. From the start to the close of the
novel, Geeta is silent. Her silence is ambivalent. Does the writer want to say that Geeta is always ready to
listen to others or does she mean to say that women are not allowed to speak loud? As Gayatri Spivak states
in her influential essay “Can the Subaltern Speak?” “The voice of the subaltern woman remains silent and
irreclaimable”.
Geeta often feels that she is emotionally, psychologically and physically confined and controlled.
She reminisces her past; she thinks she is trapped in haveli. She is ashamed of her education that has not
inspired her to assert her identity. At last, she decides to break her long silence raise her voice to crush the
walls of tradition that lie heavy on women. She tells herself: “What if I cannot trace my ancestry beyond
my grandfather? That is no reason why I should surrender; she was filled with rebellion and her face
stiffened. She was determined not to be crushed by the haveli (100). This realization makes her speak; she
says that Sita, the daughter of maid Laksmi and servant Gangaram should be sent to school. Initially,
opposition comes from Pari. Like her mother dealing with the servants in Bombay, Geeta authoritatively
replies to Pari, “Sita must go to school!”(198) No negative strokes come from anybody afterwards. Geeta
succeeds in convincing both men and women in haveli regarding the need for education to women.
Eventually, she brings some change in haveli, through her teaching to the children of the servants and
maids. Ajay appreciates his wife's boldness and is happy that she has initiated change in haveli. But Geeta
replies to him, “The change won't come as quickly as you think. You don't know the women here; they are
all rooted in ignorance and superstition” (138).
Though there are instances to show that Geeta has taken an upper hand in revolutionizing the taboo
customs and traditions without sacrificing family honour and certain other social customs, she has not
succeeded in her effort completely. Women, like Pari, are still sunk in false belifs. She says, “No one but
God can change one's destiny” (128). The writer too ends the novel abruptly. Z. N. Patil remarks critically
about the ambivalent ending of the novel thus:
…Geeta passing from out of the constricted, suffocating atmosphere of the haveli to some
breezes of freedom. But Mehta's attitude towards this conflict between tradition and
modernity is ambiguous. Nowhere do we hear the author talking either explicitly or

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implicitly against the traditional, auto telic world of the haveli. Neither does she explicitly
talk in favor of the little freedom Geeta gets at the end of the novel. (32)
It appears that Geeta's position is ambivalent. Caught between two extremes of acceptance and
rejection, flexibility and rigidity, resistance and compromise, she tries to strike a balance between
modernity and tradition in order to live peacefully.
Even after seven decades of Independence, Indian women have not found social freedom. The
nation is still caught in the web of patriarchal prejudices, narrow mindedness, gender bias, discrimination,
and marginalization. Women have not found economic, political and social freedom. There are thousands
of women like Geeta who battle against the patriarchal society that erodes the identity of a woman and
confines her to cloistered life. Against all odds, they live their lives with hope and despair.

Works Cited
Bhabha, Homi K. The Location of Culture. London and New York: Routledge, 1994. Print.
Boehmer, Elleke. Colonial & Postcolonial Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995. Print.
Jain, Jasbir. “Erasing the Margins: Questioning Purdah”,Women's Writing: Text and Context. Ed. Jasbir
Jain Jaipurand New Delhi: Rawat Publications. 1996. Print.
Loomba, Ania. Colonoalism and Postcolonialism. London: Routledge, 2005. Print.
Mehta, Rama. Inside the Haveli. New Delhi: Penguin Books, 1996. Print.
Pal, Sumita. “Tradition vs Modernity: The Existential Dilemma in Rama Mehta's Inside the Haveli”,
Writing the Female: Akademi Awarded Novels in English. Ed. Mithilesh K. Pandey. New Delhi:
Sarup & Sons, 2004. Print.
Patil, Z.N. “Indian Kinship Organization and Taboo Customs as Reflected in Rama Mehta's Inside the
Haveli”, Recent Commonwealth Literature. Ed.R.K. Dhawan. Vol.II. New Delhi: Prestige Books.
1989. Print.
Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorti. “Can the Subaltern Speak?” Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture. Ed.
Cary Nelson and Lawrence Grossberg. London: Macmillan, 1988. 271-313. Print.

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06
GENDERED LANGUAGE IN WOLE SOYINKA'S THE LION AND THE JEWEL

Dr. M. Meena Devi, Assistant Professor, V.H.N.S.N. College (A), Virudhunagar

J. J. Dony Preethii, Ph.D Scholar, V.H.N.S.N. College (A), Virudhunagar

The term 'gender', from the sociocultural point of view, is related to the biological characteristics of
a person. If sex relates to a biological distinction between male and female, gender refers to the social
behaviors, expectations and attitudes associated with being male and female. According to Talbot, sex is
binary but “the traits assigned to a sex by a culture are cultural constructions, socially determined and
alterable”(3). The feminists believe that gender is a socially constructed concept, associated with
stereotypes that are mostly negative. The feminists focus on “the social processes that turn young females
into girls, and later into women”(5), as pointed out by Von Flotow.
Significant differences occur with men and women due to culture, social class, ethnicity etc.,
Gender is related to and overlaps with the sociocultural and ethnic background of the interlocutors, with
their age, level of education, socioeconomic status, their emotion, and the specific power dynamics of the
discourse. Social constructionism sees gender as linguistic dealings with women, men, boys and girls, how
they are addressed, what is said to them and more importantly what is said and written about them
individually or in a group. Women's language has been said to reflect their conservatism, insecurity,
emotional expressivity, connectedness, sensitivity to others and men's language evinces their toughness,
competitiveness, independence, competence, hierarchy and control.
Through literature, writers reflect the prevailing social happenings, phenomenon and ideologies
and expose the question of gender and sexuality that could be found in specific societies where they are
produced. It is evident in Wole Soyinka's The Lion and the Jewel where the female has been looked upon as
being inferior to the male. As the most radical and powerful voice from Nigeria, Soyinka wrote about the
African experience. In this play, the women are under the dominance of the men and they follow their
African gender defined rules of servitude to the man as they do the mere activities such as “to fetch and
carry, to cook and scrub, to bring forth children by the gross” (8). All the activities of women are for the
benefits of the men in their lives, basically as husband figures, the African man is justified by his level of
intelligence, bravery, the wealth of his farms and barns and most importantly the capacity of his sexual
virility.
Sidi mocks at Lakunle saying, “I would demean my worth to wed a mere village school
teacher”(12). For Sidi, Lakunle has a very low purchasing power and so is not worthy for her standard.
Moreover he proves this by refusing to pay the bride price. So he is not considered a man. Even Sadiku
mocks him: “she can take better care of herself than you can of her. Fancy a thing like you actually wanting
a girl like that, all to your little self….. what a poor figure you cut!.... The bride-price, is that paid?”(36).
Baroka is presented as being wealthy, brave, clever and sexually capable as expected in the society
of The Lion and The Jewel. She proves his cleverness by his intervention in the public railway scheme and
his successful deception of Sidi at the end of the play. He boasts of his strength as man thus: “Did I not at the
festival of rain defeat the man in the log-tossing match? Do I not still, with the fearless ones hunt the
leopard and the boa at night….. Do any of my wives report a failing in my manliness?”(28)
The gendered language has two main theoretical positions: theories of dominance in the late 1970s.
The dominance model, proposes that any differences between women's and men's language are indicative
of women being dominated in interaction, and the ways in which women and men interact social structures
GENDERED LANGUAGE IN WOLE SOYINKA'S THE LION AND THE JEWEL 18
and ideology contribute to women's oppression and was being extended to language.
The language used by the characters in the play gives the picture of reality and brings out what goes
on around them and inside them. The men are portrayed as initiator and doer of something and women are
represented as goals or beneficiaries of men's actions. Baroka's exchanges with Sidi, Sadiku and his other
wives portray a man of authority and of action. This is found in the following utterances:
Sadiku : Baroka swears to take no other wife after you.
Sidi : Baroka merely seeks to raise his manhood above my beauty.(21)
Baroka : Did I not at the festival of rain, defeat the men in the log-tossing match(28).
Baroka : Do I not still with the most fearless ones, hunt the leopard and the boa at night(28).
Baroka : I also change my wife when I have learnt to tire them(43).
All the above utterances present Baroka in a dominating position, the beneficiaries of his action are
Sidi and Sadiku. He even boasts of his invincibility of influencing both the women. The polygamous
society gives importance to the Bale who marries as many girls as he wants. He uses them for his pleasure.
After the arrival of new favourite, he sends the last favourite, to an outhouse. In a civilized society, this is
considered to be disrespect to women and women feel themselves secondary and marginalized.
In literature, women are marginalized and relegated to positions to satisfy male fantasies. Women's
real experiences are hidden and obscured behind a language that insists on their passivity and silence.
Boys, who will become men, learn that they are the doers, “that a great man risks all for intellectual daring,
for progress and for the public good”(61), as mentioned by wolf, whereas young girls, who will become
women, learn that they have things done to them and for them and that their importance lies in how they
look. As a young girl grows up, she realizes but not only must she look beautiful, but she must be sexy and
desirable as well.
The place of woman revolves around her beauty, disposition and charm as well as her capacity of
being homely and domestic. A woman is expected to pay greater attention to her looks, her manners and her
purity or virginity so as to capture a desirable husband. The brideprice is a traditional African custom of
marriage, but Lakunle calls this system as “a savage custom, barbaric, out-dated…. unpalatable”(8). But
for Sidi, if the bride price is not paid, it will be a shame for her which will lead others to suspect her
virginity.
Sidi is portrayed as a girl gifted with beauty. Lakunle refers her to the jewel and Sidi is conscious
of this attribute ascribed to her. She is the carrier of the attribute 'beautiful'. Sidi's attitude regarding her
beauty is revealed in the following utterances:
Third girl: But the Bale is still feasting his eyes on the images. Oh Sidi, he was right. You are
beautiful (11).
Sidi: If that is true, then I am more esteemed than Bale Baroka the lion of Illujinle.
Thismeans that I am greater than the fox of the undergrowth(11).
Sidi: Sidi is more important than the Bale (12).
Sidi: He seeks new fame as one man who has possessed the jewel of Illujinle(21).
People make a particular linguistic choice according to the way they conceive the world. The
words used by Lakunle and Baroka show their attitude towards women.
Lakunle: But you are as stubborn as an illiterate goat (2).
Lakunle to Sadiku: For though you are nearly seventy, your mind is simple and unformed
(37).
Lakunle: The Scientists have proved it. It is in my books. Women have a smaller brain than
men (4).
Lakunle: That's why they are called weaker sex (4).
Lakunle: Bush-girl you are, bush-girl you will always be; uncivilized and primitive bush

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GENDERED LANGUAGE IN WOLE SOYINKA'S THE LION AND THE JEWEL 19
girl!(9).
The possessive attributes used by Lakunle such as 'smaller brain', 'ignorant girl', 'bush-girl',
'uncivilized' and 'primitive' to describe Sidi show how he conceives women in general and how he derides
women as well as his own culture.
Baroka also derides women and considers them as his subordinate which can be found in the
following utterances:
Baroka: Not even Ailatou, my favourite? Was she not at her usual place, beside my door?
Baroka: Sidi is the eye's delight, but she is vain, and her head is feather-light, and always
giddy with a trivial thought (49).
Gender and gendered identities vary from one generation to another and among language users
who belong to different groups in terms of age, race, class, sexuality, education etc., Soyinka depicts the
life of Africans realistically and presents life as it is. Through this play, he mirrors some of the customs of
Yoruba such as bride-price, polygamy and wife wooing girls for her husband and thus offers the native
tradition and confirmed the people's livelihood policy and role of women. Thus the text of Soyinka's The
Lion and The Jewel represent the perceptions of both men and women in respect to each other in the society
in which they find themselves.

Works Cited:
Soyinka, Wole. The Lion and The Jewel. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1963. Print.
Tablot, M. Language and Gender: An Introduction. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1998. Print.
Von Flotow, Luise. Translation and Gender: Translatingin the Era of Feminism. Manchester: St. Jerome
Publishing, 1997.Print.
Wolf, N. The Beauty Myth. Toronto: Vintage books, 1980.Print.

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07
THE BULLIED AND THE BOUGHT: ARUNDHATI ROY'S CONTENTIONS IN
THE SHAPE OF THE BEAST

Dr. K. Muthamil Selvi, Assc. Prof., SFR College for Women, Sivakasi

Abstract:
Arundhati Roy was seriously involved in public and political commitment. Against this backdrop
her responses to interviews are published under the title The Shape of the Beast. Her contentions in her
interviews is that, while some have hoarded wealth in the name of development projects and such, some
others have been reduced to penury and some others have sacrificed their lives. The annihilations of the
havenots is the most cruel part of a humane temperament and the writer in her interviews places her
arguments for their sake and safety. The land has seen many revolts and uprisings related to issues like
genocide in Gujarat, displacement of Adivasis, Military oppression to the people of Kashmir, Manipur and
Nagaland but the government faces them with threats, false accusations and foisted forged cases against
them. The exploitation of the underprevileged was on the rise and the government's repression
overpowered them. This unfair treatment makes her pour out her spirit of fight, against social injustice, in
her conversation with renowned minds: N.Ram and David Barsamian to name a few.

Keywords: Displacement, oppression, social injustice.

Arundhati Roy ventures to outline the figure of the political beast in power that annihilates the poor
and unleashes tyranny against the radicals who oppose the hegemonic powers reigning the Democratic
states. She volunteers to speak for the many that are bullied or bought by the religious, cultural, communal,
imperialistic and corporate powers. Her contention is that the politically, socially and economically 'well
favoured kine' devours upon the 'thin and lean fleshed kine'. Loss of life, land, loved ones and to loom in the
dark is the lot of the have-nots. The responsibility of haves is to bully, buy, build and better their prospects
in the society and the state. Roy's fourteen interviews with renowned journalists justify the jumbo size of
the beast's shape which bothers the weak and the voiceless. Her focus is on a variety of issues: the Kashmir
issue, the global war on terror, the genocide in Gujarat, the adivasis displaced by the construction of dams
and industries, and every other thing that perturbs the political activist within her. Her criterion is to take a
bold stand against the atrocities and injustice meted out to the economically weaker and socially
oppressed.
Roy avowedly discusses the repressions in Kashmir against the majority Muslim population. After
Independence, Kashmir sought a compromise with India for Islamist politics which required greater
autonomy within Indian federation. But it couldn't work well. A few Muslim outfits chose to break away
from the nationalistic coalition. Kashmiri youths were prepared for jihad sponsored by neighboring
Muslim countries with a lot of supply of arms and militants. Indian government grabbed the opportunity to
dub the protestors as Islamic terrorists. The blind shootings against the protestors for a separate land, the
brutal lathi-charges, enforcement of curfews for months in a row ingrained the feeling of insecurity among
the infants and in firms. Demonstrators were discharged by spreading tear gases. These incidents are a real
concern for the human rights activists.
The reality of India, however, to every ordinary Kashmiri, is an ugly, vicious reality they
encounter every day, energy ten steps at every check post, during every humiliating search.
THE BULLIED AND THE BOUGHT: ARUNDHATI ROY'S CONTENTIONS IN THE SHAPE OF THE BEAST 21
Clearly, the Indian army is not in Kashmir to control militants, it is there only to control the
Kashmiri people. (185)
Among other things, the Armed Forces Special power Act [A7 SPA] permits the army personal to
fire upon any suspect, arrest anyone without a warrant, invade homes and make thorough searches.
Kashmir has become one of the heavy policed and militarized places in the world. Both Pakistan and India
are keen on keeping the bloody legacy alive which originates from the religious and communal
intolerance. The governments exploit this conflict to gain individual political mileage whereas the
beaurocrats make good deal of money off arm deals. Human dignith was entirely degraded as in the case of
Auden's “Unknown Citizen”, she witnessed “The people instead of giving their names answer with card
numbers as if living in prision”(199), on her short vist toUri(Kashmir).
The human rights abuses and sectarianism harboured by Saddam Hussain ascertains that he is a
killer. The U.S and the U.K in the past have stood along with Saddam Hussain's “worst excesses” (161).
The allies have dilapidated Iraq's structures. Medical support has been blocked resulting in genocide. The
Bush's administration and its fine concern over the tyranny of Saddam Hussain is lucidly briefed up. She
makes a call to rise up against the apocalyptic apparatus of the American Empire.
In India, there is a dissonance between what people think of the war and the American
Empire, and the deliberately ambiguous position of the Indian government. This war
against Iraq has fuelled a lot of anger among a majority of people, . . . . The people of the
world will not be lining the streets raining roses on the emperor . . . . The dots have been
joined and the shape of the beast has emerged. (163)
She relates the history behind the series of wars against Iran, Syria and North Korea. These wars
never end. If one ends they find reasons with others to wage a new war; because the weapons deals should
never stop. That is the hidden agenda which keeps them going. The oil fields that never dry up are another
bright hope for future wars. Nations are not allowed to stay in peace, because the 'weapons deals' should
progress and the oil business should flourish. The increased profit announced by Halliburten-the venerable
corporation that supplies the entire stock of ammunition and arsenal is a solid proof for her vehement
accusations.
She reacts against the right-wing religious fundamentalists in India who subscribe to the evil
designs of President Bush. The Inter-Communal violence in Gujarat following the carnage of a train in
Godhra on 27th Feb 2002 is an incident of shame for a secular Democracy. In retaliation, within hours, the
delinquent were targeted and there were sporadic incidents of public gang rape, children being burnt alive,
widespread looting and destruction of property, desecration of worship centers. All these attacks were well
orchestrated and executed with the blessings from senior bureaucrats and the politically powerful. Roy
claims these events of 'legal genocide' as not isolated events, but brings them under the context of partition
of India and the religious and communal intolerance aftermath.
A child asked me quite recently, ' Is Bush better or is Modi better?' I said, 'Why are you
asking?' He said, 'Because Modi killed his own people and Bush is killing other people'.
That's how clear children can be. Eventually after thinking about it, I said, 'well, the people
they killed are all people'. We have to think like that. (118)
Martha Nussbaum relates Gujarat violence to ethnic cleansing and it seems to have been carried
out in full compliance with judiciary and bureaucracy. The rules didn't stop the illegal and unconstitutional
strikes which eventuated in the outbreak of violence. Roy is shocked to hear the fabricated false stories
propagated and patronised by the administrators and police officials. Condemnations like: “They deserved
it” (118) were thrown upon the guileless.
Roy raises varied questions regarding the cliché 'development'. The Narmada Dam Project,
projects “DAM/AGE” to lives and bio-diversity by inundating millions of lives and acres of forest, fallow

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THE BULLIED AND THE BOUGHT: ARUNDHATI ROY'S CONTENTIONS IN THE SHAPE OF THE BEAST 22
and agricultural land. The tribals are bribed off their land with a pittance. A lot of rationalized speculations
have been undertaken to assess the real price of 'development'. The assessment confirms the benefits of a
few at the expense of the poor and adivasi majority. In this context, she quotes Nehru's phrases of vanity. “If
you are to suffer, you should suffer in the interest of the country” (1). The price for development is not
equally shared by the haves and have-nots. This is unjustifiable and unfair treatment against the bullied.
Roy's interview embodies an activist agenda. She implores the innocents to adopt a strategy for
safeguarding their rights, to be made acceptable in the society. She poignantly calls the authorities of their
indifference towards the bullied and the bought. She does not allow the perpetrators to pass unnoticed by
depicting how the so called minorities are trampled upon, evicted and eradicated. Her interviews are an
account of ignominy that human lives are reduced to. Absolute disregard for humanitarian concerns are
elaborated in her speeches. The duplicity and disinterestedness of these in authority towards the hardships
of the bullied and the bought is the major concern of The Shape of the Beast.

Works Cited
Roy, Arundhati. The Shape of the Beast-Conversation with Arundhati Roy, New Delhi: Penguin,
2009.Print.
---. Biography, Books and Facts, 4 Nov 2015.Print.
Shingavi, Snehal. “Understanding Kashmir's and Struggle for Independence” International Socialist
Review, 23 April 2016.Print.

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08
PSYCHOANALYTICAL STUDY IN SALMAN KHURSHID'S SONS OF BABUR

Dr. L. Anushya Devi, Assistant Professor, VHNSN College (A), Virudhunagar

Abstract:
Salman Khurshid's Sons of Babur, explored the medieval history of India which is the rich history
of the Mughals who ruled India for many centuries is very significant in the development of modern India.
The title itself suggests about the relationship of India and all Indians with the history of Mughal Empire.
He highlights, Mughals' integration in the wider Indian society and he does not hesitate to deal with the
murky politics of several Mughal potentates and their lust for power and pelf, which even led father kills
sons and sons plot against fathers and the harsh policies of some of them towards their non-muslim
subjects. And he presents, how Mughals' legacy is strongly rooted still.

Keywords: Psychoanalytical, History, Mughal Empire, Legacy.

The Mughals ruled India for more than 300 years and consequently they left a lot in the form of
their legacy in the country. The Mughals were great builders. They built not only mosques, but also
palaces, tombs and gardens. They left Taj Mahal, Agra Fort, the Red Fort at Delhi and many other buildings
and paintings. They left their legacy in the system of administration. They recreated all-India political
authority and with it a united and a single loyalty. They brought almost the whole of the sub-continent
under their control. They brooked no rival authority in their domains. A single public service banded into
Mansabdars ran the administration throughout the country. A single language imposed an artificial
uniformity in official procedure. The Mughal an artificial uniformity in official procedure. The Mughal
coins passed throughout India. The splendour of the viceregal life was borrowed from the Mughal times.
The Mughal etiquette governed official intercourse. The agricultural policy of the East India Company
drew its inspirtation mainly from the experience of the Mughal practices. Hindu social manners, trades and
modes of living were influenced by the Muslims in the Mughal period. The Mughal Government was a
Government of men and not of laws.
The Mughal Empire had vanished but it left many traces like in our dress, speech, etiquette thought,
literature, music, painting and architecture. While the earlier Muslims merely destroyed everything that
came from a Hindu source, the Mughals assimilated, synthesised and recreated in immortal form.
Hindustani music and musical instruments are the same as those of the Mughal period. Another legacy of
the Mughals is the growth of the Urdu language.
The dramatic technique of the play is play within the play. The contemporary generation wants to
explore Mughal India. The play opens with the conversation of a group of college students, about Hindutva
agitation. One of the students, Rudranshu Mitra, travels to Mughal India with the last Mughal Emperor
Bahadur Shah Zafar. Bahdur Shah Zafar suffers emotionally that the Emperor Babur's descendants were
mercilessly slaughtered and the 'firangis' snatched their empire and killed their sons, royal princes, Mughal
princes of great Timur's lineage. He expresses his painful feelings to Rudra. Delhi is their heart and soul of
Mughals, but now it is, “Butchered and battered? (14). He tells the Britishers atrocities towards innocent
women and children in Delhi, hanged brave patriots like common thieves, humiliated Badshah. He could
not forget the cruelties of British. He sympathises that Hindustan did not win the freedom really. He is tired
of recollecting past.
PSYCHOANALYTICAL STUDY IN SALMAN KHURSHID'S SONS OF BABUR 24
In Rudra's expedition to the Mughal Empire, Babur comes first. From the historical details that we
know that Babur was a great soldier and brilliant generalship but at the same time Babur was a good father.
Once Humayun got severe fever, cold and shivering. A great warrior Babur, as a father, could not bear his
son's affliction. He goes to Humayun's side, kisses him and soothes his brow. He is fighting with his tears,
“Precious Prince, just hold on. Allah is great! Three years and twenty is no age to be so ill and helpless. You
are of brave Mughal descent. Petty afflictions cannot harm your glorious youth. Not while we live... oh!”
(34). He painfully says,” No pain is too intense, no sacrifice too great, to save the life of Mirza Humayun of
Hindustan. It is for us to follow the silent command of the Almighty. The Emperor must bow to His will”
(35). It reveals his parental care and love of his son.
Humayun was an exception in sibling rivalry. He divided his empire among his various brothers.
He was an ideal brother but his brothers were not. Inspite of the acts of treachery on the part of his brothers
and others he forgave them again and again. But this virtue was the undoing of his career. In the play,
Bairam Khan warns him that his brothers are traitors. They act against Humayun, particularly Kamran
Mirza looks upon his passage with concern in Kabul and Kandahas. But he says, “he is our brother, Bairam
Khan. We have played together as children. So have Askari and Hindal been our childhood companions...
Bairam, adversity has hardened you but it makes as compassionate” (38). It shows that Humayun was a
thoroughly cultured man. He was very polite in his conversation. The mildness and benevolence of
Humayun's character were excessive, if there can be in such noble qualities. He possessed the virtues of
charity and munificence in a very high degree.
Next in the play, Bahadur Shah Zafar and Rudra move to Akbar's royal court where Akbar is
engaged in an informal conversation with a Sufi about 'Din-e-illahi'. We thought that everyone has passion
for power and victory. But after getting the power or throne that it is not a bed of roses. As a matter of fact,
that is not a throne, sit on the throne like sit on the thorn. Even Akbar also realised:
Our Empire extends across Hindustan and Deccan. We have carved a great Empire and
therefore we cannot live in the isolation of the comfort that surrounds us. We are under an
obligation to share the living experience of all our subjects... Oh! We would give
everything to be a dervish! To be unburdened by both comfort and conceit. Even speaking
of that world eases the tension and care that sits heavy upon our brow. (55)
Akbar, the great was one of the greatest rulers of Indian history. He became a hero whose memory
is immortalized as a great king in the hearts of the people of India. But he also indulged in a desperate
position. He asks Sufi, “how is an emperor any different from his subjects? We all go six feet under when
the soul departs from our mortal bodies. Look, Baba, the source of worry” (55). Because he lost all his
friends in the battle. He desperates, with all the power in the world and conquest of many regions, he could
not protect his dearest friends. He dejects, “Emperor-to-be, how lonely throne can be... that mysterious
voice echoes of which make us fearful and curious, the irony of being a king's father and a king's son” (57).
Bahadur Shah I, turning to Aurangzeb; Aurangzeb, turning to Shah Jehan; Shah Jehan, turning to Salim;
Salim, turning to Akbar, the voice of All together, echoes, “Lord father, you did not love me, you only loved
your throne” (57).And they say, “Is this all, to be Emperor” (57).
Jehangir was a sensible, kind-hearted man with strong family affections and unstincted generosity
to all, with a burning hatred of oppression and a passion for justice. His wife Noor Jehan's love and
devotion to him was unbound. She was his guardian angel. Shah Jagan was favourite son of Jehangir.
During the reign of Shah Jagan, there was peace and prosperity in the country. He was a great builder and
he has rightly been called “the prince of builders”. In his senile age, he was not happy because of war of
succession among his four sons. Humayun, Akbar, Jehangir and Shah Jahan had to fight their rivals for the
throne. He says “Father and son; brother and brother; all bonds are too weak to withstand the thirst for the
throne. There is something terribly wrong somewhere but there is no time to put it right. It's too late, too

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PSYCHOANALYTICAL STUDY IN SALMAN KHURSHID'S SONS OF BABUR 25
late...” (81). He was made a prisoner by Aurangzeb. But during his last days, Aurangzeb realize that how
far he tormented his father. It pricks his conscience. Among all the Mughal emperors, Aurangazeb is
fiercer to capture the throne. His part inflicts him like:
And old! All but ninety years. But we cannot leave unchained lions together or else there
will be chaos after us... May Allah grant us the mercy of peace amongst our sons? We were
a haughty son to our father; and a lethal brother to Dara, Murad, Shuja and poor Sulaiman as
well, so young to die. We have been a cruel father too. It is too great a price for a kingdom.
Right? What a curse to have imprisoned our father and then our sons... we know not who
we are and what we have been doing. Life, so valuable, has gone away for nothing... Of the
future there is no hope... We know not what punishment will fall upon us. Whatever the
wind may be, we are launching our boat on the water. (93)
As he bends down to pray, he passes out. The Mughal Emperors are socially, mentally, emotionally
fragmented characters unable to decide between the several courses of action, none of which will lead
them to peace or eternal happiness. Bahadur Shah Zafar, ironically says that Aurangzeb was truly the last
of the great Mughal emperor. Bahadur Shah Zafar was allowed to retain the imperial title. He took part in
the mutiny of 1857. He was deported to Rangoon. He shared, Britisher's injustice in 1857 mutiny. He
caught between the past and the present which made him nostalgic and wistful longing for the true freedom
for India. He says, “If the nation truly has been born, we can die in peace” (107). The playwright presents
Bahadur Shah Zafar as a symbol of United Hindus and Muslims against British rule.

Works Cited
Khurshid, Salman. Sons of Babur:A Play in search of India. New Delhi: Rupa & Co., 2008. Print.
Mahajan, V.D. India, Since 1526. New Delhi: S.Chand & Company Ltd., 1980.Print.

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09
EXISTENTIAL ENTRAPMENT OF RATAN RATHORE IN JOSHI'S
THE APPRENTICE

Dr. V. Navaneethamani, Asst. Prof., V.V.V. College for Women (A), Virudhunagar

Abstract:
The twentieth century has let loose traumatic terrorism by killing loads of innocent men through
wars. Today, modern man has become a machine, automation, heartless and without any fellow feeling.
There has been a complete erosion of human values resulting in detachment and meaninglessness. As
meaninglessness has become inseparable with modern life, the modern novel in English too is wide awake
to the sentiment of meaninglessness. Joshi's novels are candid records of the existential turbulences and
angst of his protagonists. Men and women in Joshi's world flutter in the dark night in the ruined city of the
soul and fail to find their way, despite all their efforts. They are free to make their choices of negating or
accepting their existential situations. The Apprentice, the third novel of Joshi, psychoanalyses the mind of
RatanRathore who initially aspires to emulate the Gandhian ideals. Ratan feels that life is full of chaos,
absurdity and materialism which has corroded the humble man. He submits himself to all sorts of
corruption when he learns that honesty can never win in the modern world. The present paper attempts to
lay bare the existential dolor of Ratan and the choice he ultimately opts to get relieved from his guilt.

Keywords: terrorism, detachment, entiment, psychoanalyses.

The present world is plagued by neo-colonial catastrophes like economic disorder, social malaise
and incongruous forms of social behaviours. Unfortunately, the twentieth century has let loose traumatic
terrorism by killing loads of innocent men through wars. Modern man has become a machine, an
automation, heartless and without any fellow feeling. Human virtues like love, mercy, kindness, affection
have been pushed to the periphery, giving vent to loneliness, frustration, dejection, isolation and
alienation. There has been a complete erosion of human values resulting in detachment and
meaninglessness.
Haunted by the cultural lag, the post-world war writers have been naturally bound to present the
East-West socio-cultural dichotomy. They adopt a more individualistic pessimistic mode to write about
human beings, and are no longer interested in painting an optimistic picture of the world. Making an
attempt to explore the meaning which the individuals try to create for themselves, the writers unfold the
ugly and horrible face of human existence. As meaninglessness has become inseparable with modern life,
the modern novel in English too is wide awake to the sentiment of meaninglessness. Among such novels,
Arun Joshi's novels stand as exemplifications of existential predicament of modern men. The present paper
aims to explore the existential elements found scattered in Joshi's novel The Apprentice.
Arun Joshi's novels show a wide variety, ranging from downright denunciation to enthusiastic
eulogizing of existential concepts. Each of his novels offers interesting explorations of unavoidable
conflicts between inner needs and external social and moral norms. His novels deal with the existential
dilemma within the underworld of the soul of his characters. Pratap Chandra observes in his article
“Existential concern in Arun Joshi”,
All novels of Joshi are characterized by his treatment of certain metaphysical themes such
as rootlessness, detachment, self-dismemberment, psychic quest of the individual for
EXISTENTIAL ENTRAPMENT OF RATAN RATHORE IN JOSHI'S THE APPRENTICE 27
better alternatives in the ethics of being-all being different facets of the existential
predicament of modern man.(Indian Scholar45)
Indeed, Joshi's novels are candid records of the existential turbulences and angst of his
protagonists. Men and women in Joshi's world flutter in the dark night in the ruined city of the soul and fail
to find their way, despite all their efforts. They are free to make their choices of negating or accepting their
existential situations.
The Apprentice, the third novel of Joshi, psychoanalyses the mind of Ratan Rathore who initially
aspires to emulate the Gandhian ideals like his patriotic father. After his father being shot dead in freedom
struggle, he feverishly searches for a job and after much struggle, gets placed in the Government
Department of War supplies. Though he becomes affluent, he is devoid of mental peace. The higher he is
promoted, the greater is his moral downfall. He becomes wretched agent of unscrupulous politicians
against national honour by selling cheap war materials which causes the death of his Brigadier friend. His
guilty conscience pricks him. To atone for his guilt, at the end, he tries to do away with his sin by wiping the
shoes of the devotees visiting the temple and strives for salvation.
Ratan gets alienated from his true self in order to eke out a living. Ignace Fuerlichtopines,
Modern man may either try to adjust to the others, to society, to the system abdicating his
true self or he may strive to keep and develop his individuality and thus alienate himself
from society. (Indian Fiction in English 137)
Ratan feels crumpled under the burden of meaninglessness and the humiliating experience of job hunting.
He alienates himself from the youngman who came to Delhi with high ambitions and ideals. He is
sandwiched between his father's ideals and his mother's practicality. In the beginning, he wishes to lead the
life of an honest, true and righteous man like his father. But when he realizes that honesty has no practical
value and does not get him even the lowest job, he makes up his mind to choose the life that fits him.
When he gets a job as temporary clerk in the department of war purchases, his early sincerity and
loyalty are replaced by self-interest and practicality. He discards ordinary decency and friendship to
survive in his job. He forgets his roommates who saved him from death and fetched him a job and becomes
obsessed with wealth and influence. He says, “I was a different cut- educated, intelligent, cultured and it
was my right that I should rise in life to levels higher than the others aspired for” (A 31). By his obedience
and docility, he wins the confidence of the superintendent and gets his job confirmed.
Having lost the integrity of self, Ratan submits himself to all sorts of corruption. When he learns
that honesty can never win in the modern world, his individual self comes into conflict with his life of
hypocrisy. His idealism is forced by the compelling force of the civilized society and as a result, he turns
cynical and hypocritical. His conscience pricks him and he says to himself,
Be good. Be decent. Be of use. Then I beg forgiveness of a large host. My father, my mother,
the Brigadier, the unknown dead of the war, of those whom I harmed, with deliberation and
with cunning, of all those who have been the victims of my cleverness, those whom I could
have helped and did not. (A 143)
He has no other way but to keep up appearances and do away with the world of ordinary decencies.
Inspite of all the material comforts he has, Ratan loses his identity and feels discontented.
Acquisition of wealth emboldens him to give vent to his physical desires. He says, “I felt bold, unfettered. I
stared at them, the women- openly, wilfully. To the point of rudeness. What is interesting is that not only did
I stare them but I felt I had a right to stare…I felt confident” (A 74). He visits prostitutes and later realizes
that he was at the peak of dung heap that he had been climbing all his life. Despite his promotion and
material gains, he does not feel at home.
Ratan experiences crisis of identity and suffers from a sense of incomprehensible anguish as a
result of the separation of the self from 'being'. His life is full of compromises and deals and his conscience

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EXISTENTIAL ENTRAPMENT OF RATAN RATHORE IN JOSHI'S THE APPRENTICE 28
is restless. He spends sleepless nights due to his alienated self. He says, “To sleep is a privilege not given to
all. As long as you can sleep, all is well” (A 59). Highly confused by self-estrangement, he approves of
defective war material which results in the death of his own friend, the Brigadier.
The cause of alienation and emptiness of Ratan is the competing force of civilized society that
shatters his idealism at a very young age and compels him to be cynical and hypocritical. He is caught in the
dark labyrinth of life and is unable to see his true self that is within him. He cannot decide what is right and
what is wrong. He says,
What was right, what was wrong? What was the measure for doing things or not doing
them?...the confusion reduced me to the status of those leaves of autumn that are blown
here and there, at the mercy of the wind.(A 69)
Utterly perplexed with his conscious actions and sub-conscious mind, he feels he is losing his
mind. He realizes that there is no escape from crisis of the self. After his initial hesitation, he yields
completely to the corruption of modern society and thrives on it.
A battle rages in Ratan's mind when he discovers that he is the cause of his Brigadier friend's
suicide. In utter confusion, he feels fed up with the life of hypocrisy, deception and all round corruption and
becomes isolated and estranged from society. He unfolds the horror that harbours his soul and confesses,
How all these years, I have been alone, so horribly alone in my anger, in my failures,
carrying them in secret, like a thief, close to my heart, until their blazes have turned upon
me and turned me to ashes, believe me, I have seen it happen. I have seen my soul turn to
ashes. (A71)
Ratan feels crushed under the growing weight of meaninglessness and isolation from the inner self
and the outer world. Though he is married to a beautiful wife and had a daughter, he is existentially alone.
He suffers from incurable void and pestering want. He is a lonely existentialist who confesses, “I was a
nobody. A NOBODY- Deep down I was convinced that I had lost my significance: As an official, as a
citizen, as a man” (A 73).
It is evident that besides suffering from alienation, Ratan also suffers from the existential feeling of
absurdity. He feels that life is full of chaos, absurdity and materialism which has corroded the humble man.
He is very much troubled and cannot be at peace with himself. He utters, “Life has been a total waste, great
mistake, without purpose, without results” (A 135). His anxiety arises from an uncanny dread of
nothingness or absurdity. He is a man left completely alone to struggle with the existential dilemma. He is a
victim of the petrified and frozen society of the modern world continually engulfed by sadness and
absurdity.
The existentialist Sartre opines that man first exists, then he becomes whom he decides to be
through his free will orchoice.Ratan remains a perfect example of Sartre's dictum 'Existence precedes
essence' by struggling to prove his authentic existence as the son of a freedom fighter and is buffeted on the
waves of life and finally gets engulfed by the materialistic values. Thakur Guruprasadin his article “The
Lost Lonely Questers of Arun Joshi's Fiction” says,
Ratan Rathore, the protagonist of the novel conforms to the dictionary definition of
'existential', the doctrine that man forms his essence in the course of his life he chooses to
lead. He is born a good man, the son of a martyr in the national movement. But when he
goes out of his village to graduate in life of the crooked world, honesty does not get him the
lowest job and he makes his essence as he goes choosing the life he leads.( The Fictional
World of Arun Joshi99)
It is interesting to note that Ratan is thoroughly an existentialist character who exemplifies the
doctrine that man's salvation depends upon the course of life he chooses to lead. He genuinely becomes
penitent by doing the humble job of cleaning the shoes of devotees thereby cleaning his soul. He realizes

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that one cannot live for oneself as no human act is performed in isolation and without consequences. He
feels that the only way one can sustain in the world, by being answerable to one's conscience, is through
action which is of use to others. The spark of his life flares up only when he encounters it fully and makes a
choice that saves him from the despair and depression of everyday life.
Taking bribe as well as shining shoes are the choices made by Ratan and as Sartre would say, in his
choice, lay his freedom. His sense of freedom, makes him aware of the fact that only humanism and
religion can save mankind from the degrading and corrupt values of modern world. That is why, he finds
solace in some menial job of cleansing the shoes outside the temple thereby cleansing his soul. Hence Joshi
has portrayed Ratan as a typical victim of existentialism.
On the whole, existentialism is deemed to be a philosophical movement dealing with man's
disillusionment and despair. A close scrutiny, however, reveals the fact that it does not merely aim at
plunging man into despair; instead prepares man, through disillusionment and despair, for a genuine life, a
life that has some purpose, sense and meaning. It makes man realize his potentialities amidst chaos and
confusion of a hostile universe and it explicates man's search for himself and his own values. Joshi's novels
are not pessimistic in temper but they rejoice over man's capacity for enduring hardships. Hence, through
his novels, Joshi exemplifies that man turns into shining gold only by flinging himself into the fire of
hardships.

Works Cited
Desh, Pratap Chandra. “The Existential Concern in Arun Joshi.”Indian Scholar. 11.1 (1989): 45-54.Print.
Fuerlich, Ignace. “Alienation from the Past to the Future”. Indian Fiction in English. Connecticut.
Greenwood.1978. 41. Print.
GuruPrasad, Thakur. “The Lost Lonely Questers of Arun Joshi's Fiction” Dhawan.R.K.The Fictional
World of Arun Joshi. New Delhi: Classical PublishingCompany,1986. 99.Print.
Joshi, Arun. The Apprentice. New Delhi: Orient Paperbacks, 1993. Print.

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Literary Endeavour (ISSN 0976-299X) : Special Issue : March, 2019 : (UGC No. 44728) www.literaryendeavour.org 30

10
SURREALISM IN MAHESH ELKUNCHWAR'S REFLECTION

Dr. Janardhanreddy. K, Associate Professor of English, CBIT, Proddatur, AP

Abstract:
Mahesh Elkunchwar is one of the finest modern Marathi Playwrights who has shaped
experimental theatre. He along with Vijay Tendulkar and Satish Alekar is called the trinity of modern
Marathi Experimental Theatre. Experimental Theatre is probe… a search for new ways to express new
areas of Human experience. In it there is a pure exchange between the audience and the director, with no
other trappings or expectations. His experimental play Reflection takes a satirical look at the loss of an
ordinary man's identity in the anonymity of the urban jungle. It is a superb study in sub conscious and the
hidden regions of human mind.

Keywords: Blackhead, coquettish, experiment, hallucination, optimism, pessimism, protagonist,

reflection, surrealism and theatre.

The Marathi Playwright, Mahesh Elkunchwar is one of the finest Marathi writers with more than
twenty plays to his credit. He along with Vijay Tendulkar and Satish Alekar is called the trinity of modern
Marathi experimental Theatre. He owes much to Vijay Tendulkar who makes him to start his journey in
writing plays. Apart from Tendulkar he has been influenced by a number of western writers like Anton
Chekov, Jane-Paul-Sarte and Albert camus. He has shaped the modern Marathi experimental theatre.
Experimental theatre is a probe… a search for new ways to express new areas of human experience. It is a
pure exchange between the audience and the actors or the director, with no other trappings or expectations.
He has bridged the gap between experimental and professional theatre. He is a self-conscious modernist,
not a hoary traditionalist. He presents a wide range of dramatic situations, theatrical devices, and speech
rhythms in his plays which portray preoccupation with death, loneliness, creativity, the illusion of wealth
and the apparent purposelessness of choice or action, while the ultimate goal of life remained unknown. He
writes like the absurdists for whom reality being meaningless, there is no God and man's life is reduced to a
mere circular progress from nothing to nothing. The true field of battle is inside us, in the unconscious. The
absurdists abandoned the concept of character and motivation, and concentrated on the state of mind and
human situations. We do not find in the development of plot from exposition to solution. They have no
recognizable characters and no proper theme with a beginning and end. They confront the audience with
harsh facts of isolated life in an alien land. They reflected dreams and nightmares with incoherent
babbling.
Elkunchwuar has employed Surrealism, which emphasized the role of the unconscious in creative
activity and employed the psychic unconscious in more orderly and more serious manner. In its simple
form, Surrealism is present in Elkunchwar's play Reflection (Pratibimb). Here he has probed in to
meaningless lives of young people who live in our contemporary society, devoid of social and ethical
values, leading to loss of identity. In this article I have dealt with the play Reflection of Elkunchwar. The
play is a superb study in subconscious and the hidden regions of human mind.
The story begins with the protagonist fast asleep on his bed. He is startled to get up with the alarm,
but he remains directionless for some time. Suddenly he realizes he is late and rushed to the bathroom.
Listening to the city traffic, he shuts the window. He engages himself to brush his teeth and switches on the
SURREALISM IN MAHESH ELKUNCHWAR'S REFLECTION 31
radio. He tries to scan the newspaper but is unable to see anything printed on it. The sequence moves to a
coquettish woman coming with a cup of tea and a broom in one hand. She places the tea and sweeps in
haste, chiding him for his irresponsible living: “I get up at four in the morning all ready for the day's work.
Who do you think you are? You get up any time you like and expect me to get your tea? Even a paying guest
must have some discipline” (Elkunchwar 202). The woman continues to reproach him for his late getting
up, saying that when her husband was alive he would help her in all the household chores. Though she
treated the boy like one in the family, he had not responded responsibly. Meanwhile, a scream is heard in
the bathroom. When he came out, he had a scared appearance as he leaned against the doorjamb. He falls
into a chair terrified.
WOMAN (concerned): What's the matter?
HE: Tell me. Are the mirrors in the house okay?
WOMAN: What do you mean?
HE: Are they really okay?
WOMAN: What's okay supposed to mean? Don't I wipe them everyday? Even mirrors ought to be
spotless. It's no use being clean. If the mirror is dirty, you will look dirty. Don't you agree?
HE: That's not what I meant. (Pause.) Will you come and have a look at the mirror in the bathroom
please?..... Tell me what do you see there…
WOMAN: Now you're being childish. What should I see in the mirror? I say my reflection. That's all
(Elkunchwar 204).
The man begins to talk seriously, telling her about his predicament, that he is unable to see his
reflection in the mirror. He keeps telling her that he cleaned the mirror and checked if the mercury had
peeled off. The mystery still remained; he is unable to see his reflection even in other mirrors. In despair he
cries out: “I've lost my reflection. It has disappeared. It has gone away. Left me and gone”(206). The story
becomes a black comedy when he discovers he is unable to see his reflection in a mirror. The woman keeps
teasing him for getting intoxicated the previous night at the binge. He confesses that he had not been drunk
for over a week. She checks his breath to find if true, instead his mouth is full of toothpaste foam. He chides
her for mocking at him and taking it as a joke. She retorts telling him he is crazy: “How can you lose your
reflection? It must be hallucination. Or your mind is not there. Go and take another look in the mirror. Get
up. I'd just like to see how you lose your reflection. Utter rot. You're a paying guest here. I'm responsible if
you lose something… Get up and take a good look in the mirror again” (206). He is reluctant and scared of
looking again in the mirror. Finally he picks up courage as she persuades him to look into the mirror and
finds to his horror his image not reflected in it. The woman plans to advertise the bizarre incident to get
publicity and fame. Though he declines the offer, she convinces him that it is his only chance to get
recognized in the city of Bombay where he is a non-entity. “….Now is your chance. You have been staying
with me for the last three years. But I do not know your name. Everyone calls you Blockhead. So I also call
you Blockhead: (207).
The Dramatist reveals that the boy has no identity of his own. Hence, he has come to convince
himself psychosomatically that he has lost his reflection in the mirror. She wants to get to the media for
publicity so that he can easily enter the world of fame. She tells him that people would be flocking to see
him. With his fame as a man without a reflection, would let him have entry into inaccessible places. She
keeps telling him: “The whole world will know you as “The man without a Reflection! The wonder of
wonders! Travel all over the world. Stand in front of a mirror and hold one man shows of the Man without a
Reflection” (207). She promises to put a plaque on the door in his memory when his is dead: “Here lived
the famous Mr. Blockhead who didn't make a reflection” (207). But he is unaffected by her plans. He
doesn't want anyone to know about his strange experience. His fear looms large as people do not care for
the unexpected unnatural things that occur. They get terrified by them and merely keep jeering at the freak

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until he dies. He then narrates how his class mate who had a lump on his forehead threw himself into a pond
to die. The woman only hopes that he wouldn't resort to such extremes in her house. Her fear is that at the
event of his suicide, she wouldn't get another paying guest. She decides to put a mesh on his window on the
fifth floor, to ward off any such mishap.
In this confused state of mind, the boy invites her to check if she can really see him as he is. When
she reaches out to touch him, he squirms. However, he questions how she can prove that he exists. She
argues: “There are only two ways to prove that a body exists. One by reflection. Two, by another body. One
thing proves the existence of another. Or else an object has no meaning” (209). She keeps on arguing with
the example of an inkpot which has no meaning without a pen or a pack of cigarettes having no meaning
without a box of matches. She philosophies that if he wants to be sure of his own body, he has to depend on
another The conversation gets into deeper metaphysical questions.
HE:…..is a reflection just a body?
WOMAN: What else? What do you see in the mirror you mind? Your heart? Your soul?
HE:I wonder. What does a mirror show? What do we see?
WOMAN: Besides, instead of saying we look in the mirror, wouldn't it be more correct to say that it's the
reflection in the mirror that looks at us?
HE: That's also true.
WOMAN: There. So your reflection must have got a little bored of looking at you.... It must have got fed up
and walked off. How many years of blockheadedness can the poor thing take?....
HE: Could my own reflection be bored of me? )2019-10).
The dramatist very deftly plays on magic realism to delve into the story further in its absurd
movement. She goes on to speak of the body getting tired of itself while the mind keeps fresh with constant
activity. If mind is kept busy with fresh thoughts, it would remain “honest-to-goodness-real-and-alive”
solving the problem of missing one's reflection (210). When she questions him on the way he looked at his
reflection in the mirror, he confesses how he had become scared of his own image. He found himself
staring at his eyes which stared back at him in the mirror. He felt the piercing look from the marble turned
image with no blood. It would have pierced through him, had he not moved away. From then on he never
looked at the mirror straight. Occasionally he looked sideways and turned away quickly. Now that the
mystery has led to the vanishing of all reflections. But he feels devastated as he cannot live without his
reflection. “But, I can't bear the idea of living without it. Even the loss of a limb is okay. One manages
somehow. But how can you live without your reflection, even if it is useless?” (211).
On her part, the woman keeps advising him not to lose heart, but to keep the window of his mind
always open. She tells him to keep his window open and rushes out. But he doesn't open the window.
Calling him Blockhead, she pushed open the window and points out how tightly closed the window of his
mind is. She tries to climb on the window-stilt to enter into the room. She has to wriggle out through the
narrow window to enter in. Managing to fall on his bed she began to probe into the window of his mind:
“Oh dear! The window of your mind is so narrow. How can splendid, magnificent thoughts ever enter it?”
(212). She begins to be suggestive coming around him on tip to toe, wearing a flimsy nightie over her sari.
She tries to draw his attention, but he brushes her aside. She leaps into the air and falls on the ground and
claims to be playing the character of HemaMalini, imagining him to be Dharmindra. He begins to show his
annoyance, but she demands that they live in their make believe world of romance which she has brought to
his mind. She is absorbed in her absurd dream-play:
HE: (Shouts): Stop it, Bai.
Woman: Oh, how loud you shout! Don't you know that the walls of the mind are fragile?
HE: Stop this drama.
WOMAN: But in your mind.

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HE: It's my mind, isn't it?
WOMAN: Yes
HE: And you've come into it.
WOMAN: Yes
HE: Then how can you decide what should happen in my mind?....
WOMAN: But- but won't you listen to me?
HE: Out. Get out…. Go out the way you came in (212-213)
Wriggling out of the window she comes into the room through the door and questions him as to
what happened in his mind after she entered in. He, on his part, threatens her to let him into her mind.
Instead, she tells him to enter into his own mind to find his own reflection within. “You'll be surprised at the
things you can find in your mind. All you need to do is look. Things you've lost, forgotten, discarded,
thrown away. Things you don't want and so want, the modern, the ancient, the brand new things turned to
sawdust with white ants, try doing it, you must have his experience. It's like Alladin's treasure (216). He
tells her to go out, so that he could try the exercise himself. He goes out through the door and makes his
entry though the window. His movements are accompanied by the ringing of the telephone, alarm going off
and the door bell ringing suddenly all the ringing stops and a terrified scream could be heard with the sound
of someone stumbling on stage in the dark. He comes out through the door along with the woman. He feels
the intensity of the darkness surrounding with the deep silence enveloping the right atmosphere.
The sequence shifts to certain Flags entering into the room. The protagonist pitifully tells him that
he has lost his reflection in the mirror. Flags has no sympathy for Blocks and argues: “Blocks, do you know
that in this city alone ninety-nine per cent of the people live below the reflection line? Who listens to their
complaints? Only the petite-bourgeois like you go whining about things like that. You're really terrible
people - selfish and self-centered. Constantly thinking of yourselves and your reflections. Array, why the
hell do you need this worthless reflection?” (219). Observing him further, Flags says he doesn't remember
his looks. He sees only a vague shape with eyes, nose and ears. In his view Blocks would be lost amidst the
millions of people where his puny reflection wouldn't make any difference. Flags advise him to shave and
get to work instead of thinking about people losing their reflections. He recounts how people have no time
to think of their reflection as they are busy sweating away at their work places, from morning till night to
eke out a living. They have no time to look at the mirror to wipe off their sweat. Only the conceited ones like
Blockhead can indulge in such luxury. If everyone were to lose their reflections, there would be a perfect
society of equality where everyone would be reduced to a single class. But Blocks insists that his friend
looks at the mirror to observe him. Flag laughs his heart out and teases him. When the woman enters,
Blocks tell her to observe Flags in the mirror. He tells her that she has seen a cook instead of his reflection.
The arguments keep heightening when the protagonist begins to speak of exploitation, capitalism, class
struggle, blood, revolution and the masses. The crisis situation has reached such a stage whereby the
characters have strangely entered into each other.
WOMAN: Dear me! This is going to be a real mess. Blockhead's in Flag's mind and now Flags is trying to
get into Blockhead's. So A enters B which is already in A! (Flags is at the window).
HE: Don't you bite off more than you can chew. You'll get affright at the end.
FLAGS: Pooh! Pooh! (Flags bangs his head on the window trying to come in. Finally manages it. Instant
darkness. Flags screams. Sounds of someone stumbling around)
FLAGS: Hey, how do I get out of here?
HE: Sit and whine! I'm off.
FLAGS: (Mimes groping in the dark): Hey! You've got out of my mind, and I'm still stuck in yours. Help!
Help!
HE: Brother! Now have you got your sense back?

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FLAGS: Help! Help me get free (227)
Flags try to get out from the mental power of Blocks and finally succeeds in his effort. Meanwhile
the woman comes and persuades Blocks to go to his office. He begins to laugh saying that he is free at last
from all shackles and speaks out. “….I've got my freedom now. Freedom. You know how a sack feels once
it's relieved of all the grain? That's the kind of freedom I now have. It's my Independence Day today. I must
sing my song of freedom” (228). He goes on to sing “My reflection has left my body, my mind, my wealth”
(229). When the woman shows her annoyance at the way he was exulting in joy, he keeps singing
disregarding everyone boss and fat woman, bosom pal and politician. It is sense of liberation which cannot
be described. He wants to distribute sweets and booze to celebrate. He calls it the ultimate revelation in his
life when he is surrounded by darkness all around: “Darkness without. Darkness within. This is the
moment of darkness. This is the knowledge of the self. The knowledge of the self' (230).
The scene shifts to the ringing of the door bell and a young girl making her entry. He questions her
whereabouts as though he doesn't know her. She introduced herself as Broomstick. She tells him that she
works in his office in the same section. He disclaims her saying how could he recognize her among fifty
office girls wearing the same type of synthetic saris and using similar perfumes and lipsticks. He suspects
her advances as she is yet to hook a husband. She has come to take him away and go anywhere, even to the
ends of the earth. She bares out her love and longing for him. She had been silently in love with him in
office for so long. He is annoyed and tells her that he doesn't believe in her romantic outlook. When
questioned further as to the purpose of her visit, she tells him how he had lost his reflection in the mirror in
his office canteen. She had observed everything from behind him and had herself lost her own reflection.
She begins to recount how she found herself applying kumkum (vermilion) not on her forehead, instead on
her cheeks or nose. It happened that one day she applied it on herself and nothing could be seen on the
mirror except a red dot. It was a terrifying experience for her to lose her reflection in the mirror. The boy
becomes very sympathetic, hearing her lot as he found they were both in the same boat, having lost their
identity. Hearing the story, the woman begin to suspect the girl playing a trick on him. Suspecting her plan
he tells her to be off. But the girl pleads “I'm girl after all. What can I do alone? Help me. And I'll help you.
We are both people who have lost their reflections. We could help each other find them” (235)The
protagonist takes up her challenge to do things together. “The two of us together will fight for freedom. The
two of us together will abolish inequality. The two of us together will serve society. The two of us together
will set up an ashram for celibates” (235-6). The girl requests him to let her rest her head in a corner of his
mind. Her move makes the old woman call her a leech tying to play her trick on him. Meanwhile the
conversation between the boy and the girl reveals their confused minds:
GIRL: Give me a chance. Only one, I beg you.
HE: I tell you, there is total darkness in my mind. I can't see a thing there myself. Why do you want to go
stumbling through a strange place?
GIRL: I'll light the lamp of my love there and remove the darkness.
HE: But what do you get by lighting up that place? You won't see a thing there anyway. Besides, what's
light and what's darkness for those who have lost their reflections? Everything remains just the same (236)
The boy is wonderstruck by her optimism which the old woman terms leechiness. The girl begins
to move out of the room. He feels that his mind has become like a railway platform. Meanwhile, the stage
turns dark as the girl comes in through the window. Sobs could be heard. When the stage lights up, the girl
comes in through the door and begins to reveal herself to him:
HE: Happy?
GIRL: (angry): Are you?
HE: I'd warned you.
GIRL: How I sobbed in your mind! You could have spoken a few words of sympathy at least.

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HE: But I didn't hear you sob.
WOMAN: Nor did I!
GIRL: Brutal. Heartless. Cruel…You've never suffered… You haven't suffered because you don't know
what you've lost.
HE: Oh yes, I d,…But I know it's useless searching for what's lost…you and I are different. So our paths lie
in opposite directions. Since we have got this freedom to go our different ways, why don't we enjoy the
freedom? (237- 8).
The boy asks her to free him from her mind. He is bothered as he has been in and out of minds so
many times in the course of the day. He tells the girl to stop playing her love games on him. He feels that
love stumbles around in each other's darkness. He feel nothingness in his body as all things have vanished
with his reflection. For him there is no difference between pessimism and optimism since all time is dark.
The scene shifts to darkness in which only lips can be seen with total silence. He moves towards the
window and jumps out to his death. The play ends as the woman closes the window while the door bell
rings and stops. She runs to the mirror, stares at it and screams as the door bell keeps ringing. There is total
darkness and silence indicative of the loss of her identity.
Elkunchwar has very successful probed into the absurdities of human predicament and the angst
people suffer, which is portrayed through the protagonist's loss of identity. Through this play Elkunchwar
shows the intricate working of human psyche. It shows the hidden self that we do not see as we often hide
from ourselves, leading to negation of the self. When one hides from his/her vital spirits, due to human
frailty, life becomes meaningless, leading to loss of identity as a person and alienation of the individuals
from themselves, from the society and from the cosmos.

Works Cited
Elkunchwar, Mahesh. Reflection. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2009. Print.
Esslin, Martin. The Theatre of the Absurd. London: Penguin. 1968. Print.
Lal, Ananda, ed. The Oxford Companion to Indian Theatre. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2004.
Print.

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11
IMAGE OF WOMEN IN KAMALA MARKANDAYA'S A SILENCE OF DESIRE

Dr. M. Jaganathan, Assistant Professor, MKU College, Thirumanagalam

Abstract:
In a study of Kamala Markandaya, the woman - subject cannot be ignored, because women have a
significant place in her novels. Kamala Markandaya's A silence of Desire (1960) to highlight the impact of
the silence on the human relationship between husband and wife. This paper examines the women's mind
as delineated by Kamala Markandaya in her A silence of Desire. It analyzes the practicality of feminine
expectation in relationship which lies inert.

Keywords: Feminine, spiritual, assertion.

Kamala Markandaya was born in 1924. She was a well-to-do, rather orthodox Brahmin family of
Mysore, south India. Her father was a transport officer. Her father's work involved frequent transfers. She
got an intermittent and casual education. She belonged to the westernized upper class. She had first-hand
knowledge of western ways and manners. She is an extremely attractive woman who appears occasionally
on English radio and television programs. She migrated to England in 1948.she got an award the “National
Association of Independent School Award” (U.S.A) in 1967, and the “Asian prize” in 1974. Her other
novels are some Inner fury, A silence of Desire, Possession, A Handful of Rice, The coffer Dams, The
Nowhere man, Two virgins, The Golden Honeycomb, and Pleasure city. Kamala Markandaya has imaged
Indian Women in their infinite variety. Women play a significant and complex role in the novels of kamala
Markandaya. They have more depth, and richness than the men folk. Kamala Markandaya's women have
always been the heart of the family life. They are responsible in their roles as wife, mother, daughter-in-law
and mother-in-law for the solidarity of the family and the continuation of its values. The woman's power of
patient endurance, her inexhaustible capacity for love, her tenseness is astonishing.
Kamala Markandaya's A Silence of Desire (1960) unfolds a shade of human relationship. It is the
relationship between a husband and a wife with spiritual overtones. Kamala Markanday, here, choose a
middle- class family. The theme of the novel is the clash between faith and reason. It provides the
immediacy of a contemporary problem in India. In this novel, A silence of Desire, kamala Markandaya is
more concerned with spiritual problems and the clash between tradition and modernity within a family.
Sarojini, the woman protagonist of A silence of Desire, is happily married to Dandekar. They have
three children. Dandekar, with his English education procures a clerical job in a Government office. The
novelist gives us a word picture of the traditional Indian wife in Sarojini: “She was good wife…. Years of
marriage, less from the warmth of her responsethan from her unfailing acquiescence to his demands” (p.6)
In this novel, kamala Markandaya works on the clash between faith and reason. She dramatizes it
through Sarojini and Dandekar. Sarojini is the believer. She worships the tulasi and lights a lamp to it
evening. Her idolatrous worship of the tulasi plant is disturbing to Dandekar. The tulasi plant is a creature
of unshakable, pure faith to Sarojini. The tulasi plant is crammed into a bright and decorative brass. It
shows that in a prosperous family, the faith cannot have a free sway.Sarojini meets Swamy, and is deeply
involved with the Swamy. Sarojini guards her secret in silence because she knows her husband will want
her to go to hospital. Faith-healing is the main mode of treatment for the traditional Indian women.
Sarojini's faith in the healing power of Swamy is implicit and unquestioning. She believes that his touch on
IMAGE OF WOMEN IN KAMALA MARKANDAYA'S A SILENCE OF DESIRE 37
her head will dissolve the tumor in her womb. A look, a word, a smile from him is enough to strengthen her.
She behaves like a woman who is carrying on a passionate liaison. She has an unshakable faith in the
spiritual healing of the Swamy.
Sarojini unconsciously desires a freedom from her responsibilities at home and forgets all her
duties to the children. She surrenders her will to the Swamy and becomes indifferent to the family.
However, she has to return to her duties at home. she does not experience much conflict. she does not
deliberately rebel against Dandekar or hurt him. she exhibits the ultimate attitude to tradition and religious
beliefs. She is, however, tactful with Dandekar and, she gives him his freedom. A woman of the East may
be called a slave by western critics. But, in the Hindu society, freedom for the woman is not; identified with
mere self- assertion. Performance of duty in a spirit of self-sacrifice is also important. And, Sarojini proves
it through her actions.Sarojini absence makes Dandekar doubt her fidelity. He follows her without her
knowledge. He suspects her character after her formal visit to the Swamy, for the cure of her tumour. Her
giving away articles of precious jewellery to Swamy arouses suspicion in the mind of Dandekar. After her
first absence. from home, she is forced to lie to her husband that she had seen cousin Rajam to the bus stop.
But, When Dandekar meets Rajam, She says she has not visited sarojini for months. The seeds of doubt are
sown in the mind of Dandekar.Again, When Dandekar discovers a photograph in the trunk of Sarojini, his
suspicion grows. Dandekar accuses her of having her music teacher as lover. He calls her a soiled woman.
Sarojini is not at all disturbed. She carries on her domestic duty quietly, A.A Sinha comments. “Sarojini is a
legacy of tradition and therefore she is consistently, deeply orthodox in her faith, convinced of its total
beneficence” (Sinha 63-64)
Sarojini is a woman with grains of faith and wisdom. Her faith is extra-ordinary. Like Rukmani in
Nectar in a Sieve. Sarojini also develops endurance. Though her husband suspects her, she does not hate
him or her children. When the truth is revealed to him, she replies that he would have called her
superstitious, a fool and then reasoned with her until she lost all her faith. She is right in adding that his
Western notion cannot explain what lies beyond reason. When Dandekar learns the truth that Sarojini is
suffering from tumour in her womb, he compels her to go to the hospital. At first, she refuses to go to the
hospital, After the Swamy has left the village, Sarojini accepts to undergo the operation. Even here,
Dandekar cannot feel triumphant that he has helped his wife to accommodate herself to his modernized
notions, for Sarojini agrees to the surgery only because the Swamy has approved of it. Meena Shri Wadkar,
comments: “Sarojini's pain burn up in a spiritual calm, a serene resignation, impossible for her husband,
with his male ego to attain” (Wadkar 60).
Sarojini represents the segment of stable society, which has been highly religious-minded to the
point of blind worship for thousands of years. Science and Education have unhinged the faith of people in
God without recompensing them with sufficient knowledge and confidence in their own powers, making
them wander around aimlessly. It is the real religious situation in the changing India. Sarojini has faith in
the grace of God, Which provides her a sense of stability. It has been so in India for thousands of years
before the change came in the form of modern hospitals and medicines. But, with all his faith in science and
rationalism, Dandekar fails to persuade his wife to his view. And, it is her faith which provides stability to
herself as well as to the family.Since Indian culture is part and parcel of Markandaya's life and
consciousness. She has been able to delineate such an authentic character like Sarojini. In her quietness,
her endurance, her service and loyalty to her husband and at last, in her allegiance to the spirit of worship
and faith, sarojini comes out as a round, three dimensional Indian woman. Her contrast with Dandekar is
candidly forged, equality aware of western culture and its impact on Indian life and characters. At last,
Sarojini has turned into a woman with a will of her own.
In this novel, there are other women characters, who also serve to reveal the image of oriental
women. Like Sarojini, her cousin Rajam too believes in God. In support of her faith, Rajam narrates her

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IMAGE OF WOMEN IN KAMALA MARKANDAYA'S A SILENCE OF DESIRE 38
own experience how at once she used to get horrible pains which the doctors had failed to cure. It was her
faith in God that had cured her. Her Aunt Sita was also afflicted by a similar disease which a doctor failed to
cure, but a priest had termed it. Thus, like Sarojini, cousin Rajam and Aunt Sita belong to the religious-
minded section of the people. They have cherished faith in God for centuries. They still believe in the cure
by faith. The younger generation has been shown in A Silence of Desireto be more straight-forward,
realistic and conscious of its rights than the old one was. Markandaya, here, seems to be writing about the
conflict between stability and changing times. This changing time is represented by the children. Ramabai,
and her sister, Lakshmi have changed from what their parents used to be when they were children. The
children these days are not docile and obedient. They argue, discuss and reason out instead of accepting
everything as they are told.Sarojini does not disclose the gravity of her disease to avoid frightening her
children, because, Ramabai was still too small to know the matter. However, Sarojini and Dandekar get a
shock on learning that Ramabai has gone to the milkbar. Lakshmi justifies Ramabai's visit because there is
nothing to eat in the kitchen. Thus, the new generation continues drifting further away from the old
generation.
Kamala Markandaya can get a perfect picture of the woman from the character Sarojini, in A
Silence of Desire, Of these character of Kamala Markandaya, Sarojini has the capacity for suffering and
accepts it. She believes fate and accept everything as the gift of the Almighty. Sarojini face trials with
courage and dignity, without even uttering a word against the trials. The suffering of Sarojini spiritualizes
and leads to greater wisdom. The old, spiritual way of life. Sarojini stands for the God-fearing and religious
minded Indian People.

Works Cited
Markandaya, Kamala. A Silence of Desire. Great Britain: Putnam, 1960. Print
Sinha, A.A. The Novels of Kamala Markandaya and Arun Joshi. Jalandhar: ABs, 1998. Print.
Wadkar, Meena Shri. Image of women in Indo Anglian Novel. New Delhi: Sterling 1979. Print.

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12
WOMEN'S AGONY IN ANITA NAIR'S EATING WASP

K. Kalyani, Ph D Research Scholar, Aditanar Arts and Science College, Tiruchendur

Dr. A. Subashini, Assistant Professor, Kamaraj College, Thoothukudi

Abstract:
Anita Nair, the writer of Indian writing, records her experience of Indian women's conditions in the
society. The writer uses literature to express her views in a realistic way. Her latest novel Eating Wasps is
about women and discusses women's conditions how they go through the four letter word called 'life'. It
deals about women's stories. The Protagonist of the novel is a writer of her own life. In Nair's novel, women
suffer due to heart break and jealousy. At the same time their physical injury in a world is too sensitized
enough to compare with men and understand what women really seek and feel. In Eating Wasps, Anita Nair
discusses about women's boon and bane. Eating Wasps deals about the different women's circumstances,
invading their minds and hearts. This research paper titled Women's Agony in Anita Nair's Eating Wasps
deals with the life of SreeLakshmi, the problems in her life, and her agonies. The society fixes some patterns
for women; she should be dependent on man and submissive. This story represents the contemporary
women's struggle and abide.

Keywords: Abide, agonize, circumstances, sensitize, submissive.

Anita Nair has faced agony many times in life. She describes and feels the sting of a wasp as
extreme pain. The researcher probes into the behavior of wasps and its important role in Nair's new novel,
Eating Wasps. This book is not the first entry in literature, ancient writers like Aristophanes' play 'The
Wasps' in 422 BC have focused their attention on insects. Wasps are cruel and dangerous insects. In 'Eating
Wasps' a wasp is the foe of the protagonist. It vanquishes her life and she suffers agony throughout her life
because of the wasp. It flies into her mouth, and stings her, Lakshmi crunches and chews the wasp. It shows
her bravery in facing and controlling the wasps. This courageous act of the girl defines her life and
behavior. The narrator of the novel, Sreelakshmi tells about the word sutradhar. It would be more right for
a particular situation because she does not narrate and tell so much as she observes. Her story is just one of
the stories of a dozen women, she encounters in her life. All these women suffer agony. The connection of
Sreelaksmi's character is one among the other women. In this sense, the book is more related to short
stories than a novel right from the beginning till the end. Sreelakshmi's story is only one act in the course of
the book and other characters fit in and out. Sometimes it is a strange device.
The acquaintance with other characters is seen in her debut Ladies Coupé. If Ladies Coupé was
about women seeking an identity, Eating Wasps is about women who seek their identity and try to preserve
it. Lakshmi meets other women who too face many hurdles in their life, irrespective of their hardship they
try to cope up with life. Technology and society's impact on women is most defaulted in the analyses of
Sreelakshmi's character. Nair makes it very interested by the integral age and its curate perfection. Life is
not the same for everyone,each one faces difficulty in a different way and the way they handle problems are
also unique. Anita Nair's Ladies Coupe the sixth passenger Marikoluthu is completely feminist, she lives
for herself and takes the responsibility of her thirteen years old son. She tells Akhila, “I'm not telling you
that women are weak, women are strong, women can do everything, as well as men, women can do much
more, But a women has to seek that vein of strength in herself. It does not show itself naturally” (209-210).
WOMEN'S AGONY IN ANITA NAIR'S EATING WASP 40
Nair raises a question why a woman like Lakshmi would decide to end her life. She shoots out this question
through her novel Eating wasps through the character of Sreelakshmi.
Eating Wasps is filled with the deep monologues, and darkness of women's agony. Most of the
privileged women find their bad marriages misery and struggle in their life socially and personally in a
most affecting and memorable way. The story starts with Sreelakshmi's suicide a 30year old unmarried
woman who teaches zoology. A man stands as a reason behind her suicide. But it doesnot make a deep cut
in anyone's life. Nair explains Sreelakshmi's character in a three-dimensional way. First is, injustices.
Second is, self-belief, Third is, how she exhibits her wake of disasters. She brings her own story and also
of some other women. The other protagonist is Urvashi, a woman who is also in her 30s, who enjoys the
bliss of married life. She plays her role perfectly as a wife but lacks all chemistry and feeling of love for her
husband. She joins a dating app on the advice of her friends and finds a married man who she can share
about her feelings. Urvashi has a sexual chemistry, but sometimes it is dependent on sex. This relationship
also stops soon, when she expresses her feelings in a sexual way. Some men send threatening messages
hence she withdraws from the dating and sexual life.
In Eating Wasps, Nair describes the flaw, confusion of human beings and the means they try to find
happiness and enjoyment. Nair introduces a super human status in society's view related to women. Nair
explains and realizes women's speculation and their death. Nair says that any ordinary woman is a legend, a
tragic heroine, and they endanger themselves in extraordinary ways. Nair avoids the elevation of her
heroines to make them flawless.
Nair creates the portraits in a peculiar way. She creates the supporting characters with a blend of
caste, class, and religion in an easy manner. The narration has simple structure. The Malayalam poet and
novelist Rajalakshmi has influenced Nair in the portrayal of women's suffering. The Malayalam novel Oru
Vazhiyum Kure Nizhalukulum is a sort of advice to the women folk to cross all the hurdles in life with
enough courage and evil prowess. The problems that women face in life gives them the inner strength to
tackle the problems and to accept life as it is. In Nair's novel, Women suffer not only of heart break and
jealously but also physical injury in the patriarchal world. Men are analyzed to understand women's
condition, agony, seek and feel. In this novel Eating Wasps, Nair tells of women's agony. She captures the
female conditions in the society and elaborately deals about the emotions at different stages and
circumstances of their lives. As per Sreelakshmi and Urvashi's condition, Women must be brave and
courage. Women should not be controlled by emotions and feelings. One must burst out and express their
feeling in a good manner, within limits and control. Woman's agony a mistress, a child, two sisters, a
badminton player, a mother, a wife and a divorcee.
Through Eating Wasps Nair requests women to accept all ordeals in life, follow ethical values and
live a happy life in spite of the agony? Life teaches many lessons, ending one's life is not the ultimate end.
Response to life optimistically is more essential, pessimism kills the inner strength and pushes one to the
rear end. Women should possess more strength than men, for they have to face more problems than men.
Mere sympathy and consolation will push women to the corner. Women should be pillars of the family and
nation. If possible they should retaliate for the hardships faced by men. In the Feminist criticism in the
wilderness, Elaine Showalter says “We may never reach the promised land at all; . . . we realize that the
land promised to us is not the serenely undifferentiated universality but the tumultuous and intriguing
wilderness of difference itself” (345).
Works Cited
Nair, Anita.Eating Wasps, Westland :Literary Fiction Publisher, 2018. Print.
---. Ladies Coupe. New York: Penguin Group Publishers, 2006. Print
Showaltar, Elaine (1985) “Feminist Criticism in the wilderness”, Modern criticism and theory, University
of Massachusetts, Press, 1977. Print

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13
EXISTENTIALISM IN PAULO COELHO'S VERONIKA DECIDES TO DIE

Dr. R. Vijay, Asst. Prof., Mahendra Institute of Techonolgy, Mallasamudram, Namakkal

Abstract:
This research paper intends to explore the philosophy of existentialism in Paulo Coelho's novel
Veronika Decides to Die. As a philosophy of human, existentialism has an extensive assortment of
thoughts, conviction, credence and perceptions. It also seeks out the self-determination and freedom of
individual in the society. Paulo Coelho's protagonist Veronika is the ideal example of existence to explain
the way of life. She is involved in identity crisis concerned with finding her true self through own decision
and conscientiousness. Veronika's life is shown based on Coelho's real life situation and experience. This
paper also takes into consideration Jean Paul Sartre's perception and ideas to find out the fundamental
temperament of consequence in every individual's life. One of Coelho's passions is to illustrate the notion
of humanism and other profound philosophical themes. Indeed, existentialism is found in most of his
literary works including the novel, The Alchemist. This paper essentially attempts to travel around the
eventual transformation of the protagonist along with existential issues.

Keywords: The philosophy of existentialism, humanism, Paulo Coelho, Jean Paul Sartre.

The world is a miracle place for every human who has to find numerous secrets both externally and
internally. The Brazilian writer, Paulo Coelho depicts the personal uniqueness and psyche of different
persons through various characters in his novels. The theory of existentialism is a main source found in
many of Coelho's novels. In the novel, Veronika Decides to Die, Coelho attempts to explore various
emotional features like anxiety, disappointment, boredom, depression and so many other negative
feelings. There are abundant reasons for every individual captured by all sort of negative passions. The
protagonist, Veronika finds no meaning in being existed in the world and decides to end her life in the
beginning of the novel. This kind of circumstance is very common in everyone's life. Many may either
overcome or get caught in the state which leads them to even attempt suicide. The novel revolves around
the character of Veronika who is torn between the empty life and the reason of survival.
“When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it” (The Alchemist
23). This perception is found in many of Coelho's novels. According to Jean Paul Sartre, The acts of free
will, choice, and responsibility may lead a man towards the utmost satisfaction in the journey of life. The
purpose of life is a question and mystery to Veronika when she takes up sleeping pills to attempt suicide.
Though she has a good job, sophisticated and rich life style, she finds no peace. Fortunately, she is saved
and admitted into an asylum at Villete. For sake of experimental treatment, Dr.Igor tells Veronika that she
will live for some days. As she is shown the fear of counting final days towards the death, she begins to
realise the true identity. For the accomplishment of external circumstances, Veronika is convinced to
accept the responsibility of her free choice and decision. She meets a young man namely Eduard, a
schizophrenic patient in the asylum. Veronika also meets some other interesting inmates Mari and Zedka.
At first, Veronika hates everyone around her in the hospital including herself. Gradually, her attitude and
behaviour is changed in the asylum. She finds some huge differences between the life in the external
society and the asylum. Coelho clearly figures out the crucial insight of listening to own heart, intuition and
other personal perceptions through the character of Veronika.
EXISTENTIALISM IN PAULO COELHO'S VERONIKA DECIDES TO DIE 42
Zedka becomes a friend to Veronika who slowly gets rid of monotonous life and fear of
responsibility. Coelho shows Veronika as a gifted personality who elevates not only her meaningful
existence but other's life also. Zedka takes Veronika to show Mari, an elderly woman, the former lawyer
and a member of the fraternity group in the asylum. Coelho is excelled in showing real life experiences in
his works. Every individual overcome obstacle, repetitive failures and several difficulties while
encountering any successful deed. This is exactly found in Veronika's life. Though Veronika tries to
attempt suicide on the second time by asking the fraternity members to give her some sleeping pills, she
never worries about her guiltiness and she later realises the liberty enjoyed by those members. However,
she does not intend to become the member of the fraternity team. Mari is one of the important persons in the
fraternity group. Veronika trusts Mari who is no longer identified as a lunatic person. She also learns that
Mari is the only woman who is very close to Eduard.
Veronika is thrilled to speak with Eduard who gets scared everyone around him. When Veronika
finds a piano in the asylum, she recalls her childhood life. She remembers that she is very passionate to play
music. She also wonders how she has forgotten her childhood happiness and other pleasant experiences
throughout her life. She has been forced to leave her passion over music by parents. Veronika has been
prepared and convinced against her own choice and freedom. This is the reason why Veronika gets excited
while seeing the piano and takes it to play amusingly. She also wants to entertain Eduard who is also fond of
music. Both Veronika and Coelho gradually understand each other mutually through music. Veronika
declares:
No one should let themselves get used to anything, Eduard. Look at me, I was beginning to
enjoy the sun again, the mountains, even life's problems, I was beginning to accept that the
meaninglessness of life was not one's fault but mine. I wanted to see the main square in
Ljublijna again, to feel hatred and love, despair and tedium, all those simple, foolish things
that make up every day life, but which give pleasure to your existence. (86)
According to Coelho, the emotional quality and its various level of every individual is based on
their personal experience. Moreover, choice and freedom of making decisions are both in positive and
negative approaches. Though Veronika is obsessed with her inner feelings, she is able to realise that she
causes of her present position, being a patient in the asylum. This is exactly found in other novels of
Coelho. For instance, Coelho's protagonist in The Witch of Portobello is very firm in all sort of her choices.
She is also very much responsible for whatever she does. In The Alchemist, Santiago has a very strong
opinion about his proceedings through the novel. Likewise, Veronika identifies her uniqueness among the
other inmates in the asylum. She also finds it easier to differentiate her value after she enters the asylum.
Dr. Igor also plays a vital role in the life of Veronika who believes her valuable last days of life to be
excited. When every individual comes to know the day of death, they are very much aware of their valuable
existence in the world. In the case of Veronika, it comes true and she seriously attempts to live with pleasant
experience. That is how she falls in love with Eduard who is a symbol of peace. Before Zedka leaves the
asylum, she also finds the love affair between Veronika and Eduard. It helps Zedka to be self-motivated,
energetic and role model to Veronika since she is going to breathe the fresh air outside the asylum.
Moreover, Veronika's love on Edurad inspires Zedka who is about to dig out many hidden secrets waiting
in her life.
When Veronika is given the painful treatment, Eduard has a pity on her and moves behind her.
Eduard's past life is painful after he lost her lady love in an accident. All the inmates in the asylum have a
dark story to be revealed. Though Eduard sympathises the condition of Veronika, he gradually develops a
soft corner which later turns as pure love. Mari's faith on Dr.Igor is being reduced day by day and the secret
treatment of the doctor is questioned by her. Mari argues Dr.Igor for sake of Veronika who wants to live
meaningfully. Mari also finds that Veronika has personally inspired her to move out of the asylum to begin

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a new life.
Depression, hopelessness and disappointment are not new to Veronika who has already
experienced even up to the level of attempting suicide. But Veronika has decided to overcome her
depression and also to challenge the disappointment. She does not intend to feel low after she meets Eduard
who has given her a new hope towards the bright future. Eduard also accepts that Veronika is the symbol of
a good angel who has been waiting for him. Since the philosophy of existentialism deals with humanism,
Coelho's portrayal of Veronika is very much related to any individual who are ready to fight back even after
a number of failures, dejection, anxiety and loneliness.
Mari begins to encourage Eduard after she realises the true love of Veronika. Moreover, she is
ready to accept the reality which she finds odd when she has been embedded with the outside society. She
also identifies that the life inside asylum is supposed to be meaningless and her obssession with the
fraternity group is faded away. Coelho depicts Veronika as a symbol of existential being who also
motivates others to realise their identity and valuable contribution to the society. Veronika states:
I want to leave here so that I can die outside. I need to visit Ljubljana castle. It's always been
there and I've never even had the curiosity to go and see it close to. I need to talk to the
woman who sells chestnuts in winter and flowers in the spring. We passed each other so
often, and I never once asked her how she was. And I want to go out without a jacket and
walk in the snow; I want to find out what extreme cold feels like, I, who was always so well
wrapped up, so afraid of catching a cold. (127)
At the end of the novel, Veronika and Eduard secretly leave the asylum without the knowledge of
Dr.Igor. Since Veronika wants to realize her meaning of life, she once again takes up responsibility of her
decisions and choices. At the hotel, both Eduard and Veronika mutually understand the inner feelings of
them and exchange without any obstacles. She states:
You can. And I'll go further: thank you for giving meaning to my life. I came into this world
in order to go through everything I've gone through attempted suicide, ruining my heart,
meeting you, coming up to this castle, letting you engrave my face on your soul. That is the
only reason I came into the world, to make you go back to the path you strayed from. Don't
make me feel life has been in vain. (186)
Veronika also desires to encounter all sort of interesting things that has been missed so far. She
moves everywhere in the city along with Eduard. She learns that there is something good to be happened
beyond her expectations. This curiosity is very crucial to lead a life, according to Coelho. The portrayal of
Veronika profoundly shows up the value of being human throughout the novel.
Every individual has a different opinion about their life. At the same time, they become responsible
of their free will, choice, ideas, deeds, thought process, psychological attitudes and experiences when they
realise the true essence of meaningful proceedings. Both Veronika and Eduard possess an instinct that
Veronika is supposed to continue her survival even after she has damaged her heart irreversibly. That
becomes true at the end of the novel. Coelho is very proficient to show up the influence of faith, self
realisation and intuition in his novels. Like Santiago in The Alchemist, Veronika's faith and conviction lead
her from the position of pessimistic perception to optimistic one. Paulo Coelho is deeply concerned with
self determination, preference, own choices and liberty while portraying his characters in many novels.
These ideas are associated with the philosophy of existentialism. Veronika determines her own progress
through free choice and responsibility.

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Works Cited
Coelho, Paulo. Veronika Decides to Die. London: Harper Collins Publishers, 1999. Print.
---.The Alchemist. Trans. Alan R.Clarke. London: Harper Collins, 2002. Print.
McGrann, Molly. “Dr.Igor's Plan Rev. of Veronika Decides to Die.”The Times Literary Supplement.
(1999). Print.
Morais, Fernando. Paulo Coelho: A Warrior's Life. Harper Collins, 2009. Print.
Muraleedharan, Manju. “Multi-disciplinary dimensions in Paulo Coelho's Novel The Alchemist.”Journal
of Literature, Culture and Media Studies 3.5-6 (2011): 52-62. Print.

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14
AMITAV GHOSH'S SEA OF POPPIES: A DIASPORIC JOURNEY

Dr. Y. Vigila Jebaruby, Associate Professor, Rani Anna Govt. College for Women
G. Macky Annal Mary, Ph.D Research Scholar, Rani Anna Govt. College for Women

Abstract:
Amitav Ghosh is one of the prominent Indian English novelists. He is one among the postmodernists
who is immensely influenced by the political and cultural milieu of post independent India. The elemental
traits of post-modernism are obviously present in the novels of Amitav Ghosh. Sea of Poppies is a
remarkable novel for its portrayal of imperialism and the migration of the indentured labourers of North
India to Mauritius. In this novel AmitavGhosh reconstructs the first wave of history of Indian Diaspora.
AmitavGhosh highlights the different diasporic elements in the early Indian Diaspora. The main aspect of
the novel is the loss of the homeland, national and cultural identity because of the migration and how the
labourers try to form a new identity in a foreign land, exemplified by the slave-schooner Ibis.The present
paper examines the entire novel as a diasporic journey. It analyses the various impulses by exposing the
intricacies, contradictions, economic plunder re-enforced by the foreign powers, poverty, gender
hierarchy, the notorious Opium trade and the complexities of British oppression in Victorian India.

Keywords: Diaspora, history, displacement, cultural identity.

Diasporic literature represents the diasporic experiences of the displaced people. Diaspora is the
dispersal of people from their own land to a foreign land. The term 'Diaspora' was derived from the Greek
words 'dia' and 'speirein', etymologically means 'dispersal' or 'to scatter about'. The word indicates that the
scattered people had to leave their homeland and settle in a new different place. The term is highly related
with the refugees, immigrants, expatriates or the exiles.
Amitav Ghosh is one of the most popular novelists of the time. He makes a keen study of the
diasporic traumas with political and historical consciousness. All his novels had a sense of historical reality
which reflects the idea of displacement. The term 'displacement' is associated with diaspora and has got the
poignancy in the hands of Ghosh. The theme of 'displacement' is found in all the novels of Ghosh and it fills
both the structure and texture in the novels. The term 'displacement' has got a vast connotation with respect
to diasporic literature which involves the theme of a homeland, a place from where displacement took
place and narratives of tough journeys undertaken because of the economic compulsion.
Amitav Ghosh's Sea of Poppies, the novel in 'Ibis trilogy' is a historical saga set in the time when
opium trade was established during the colonial British rule. It reconstructs the first wave of history of
Indian Diaspora. Sea of Poppies is a historical novel that opens in 1838 on the eve of the opium wars.
According to Dr. B.K. Nagarajan:
Sea of Poppies tells the story of how it is that in the ship Ibis, headed to Caribbean sugar plantations; small
new worlds are forged, bringing together north Indian women, Bengali Zamindars, black man, rural
laborers and Chinese seamen. It is a story of people whose fate is written by poppy flower, the British who
forced opium cultivation on farmers, the ruined lives of farmers, the people who were addicted and poor
factory workers, deceit of the British, ship that transported the opium and which carried Indians to life of
slavery. (102-103)
AMITAV GHOSH'S SEA OF POPPIES: A DIASPORIC JOURNEY 46
Ghosh brought out the theme of diaspora related to the indentured labourers in his fiction, Sea of
Poppies. Sea of Poppies is a remarkable historical narrative that minutely captures the experience and
journey of the North Indian labourers who were indentured within the early Indian diaspora. Ghosh's novel
is well known for its intimate portrayal of the constant diasporic community who were willingly or forced
to lose their status and identity and face many hardships under the British colonialism. Nevertheless, in the
journey of the migration, Ghosh manifests how the migrants closed down the caste system and became
jahaz-behens and jahaz-bhais(ship sisters and ship brothers). They come out with the new reality and
struggle to survive in the poor circumstances. The novel Sea of Poppies is indeed a reflection of the old
Indian diaspora and a representation of their hopes, fears, and aspirations in the historical saga.
Sea of Poppies is remarkable for its portrayal of imperialism and the migration of the indentured
labourers of North India, specifically to Mauritius. The eradication of slavery in 1833, in the British
Empire stopped the supply of the slaves for the plantations of the colonies. Moreover there was an
upcoming threat to the opium trade because of the new trade regulations by the empire in China. In such
historical improvements, the transportation and the recruitment of indentured workers from India became
a commercial venture for the Britishers of imperialism. The workers had to sign an agreement which is
called as girmit in the North Indian language, so they were called as girmitiyas. “The total number of
girmitiyas exported to overseas colonies numbered some one and a half million people.”(Lal 46)
The novel depicts the East India Company's imperial designs by the Britishers' transportation of
girmitiyas to Mauritius. In this context, Mukherji opines: “The first novel of the Ibis trilogy, Amitav
Ghosh's Sea of Poppies tells the tale of the girmitiyas, a forgotten first of the Indian diaspora that was
marginalized and dispossessed, of labourers who quit their homes and hearth and were flung to remote
outposts of the Raj to work as virtual slaves of the empire.”(87) The metaphor of travel emphasizes the
theme of migration in the novel as the tales of each of the characters culminates in the journey in the
schooner Ibis. The novel unfolds the events that bring together the people with no difference of caste,
colour, religion, language or creed as they move towards a similar fate. The story is divided into three
parts- land, river and sea.The 'Land' part covers seven chapters which focus on the characters' introduction
and how they deal with various circumstances in their lives and finally come together to be acquaintances
on a ship. It gives in detail the lives of people who are to be migrated. It is their situations that lead them to
travel to Mauritius. In the second section 'River', the migrants travel in boats to reach the destination or to
reach the place where Ibis is located to carry opium and Girmitiyas. The 'Sea' section describes the life of
people on the Ibis as the ship is moving forward across the sea.
The novel is a saga of the girmitiyas those who were the first Indian diaspora. In this novel, Amitav
Ghosh highlights the different diasporic elements in the early Indian diaspora. The main aspects of the
novel are the loss of the homeland and national and cultural identity due to the migration. The novel
interweaves the stories of a number of characters involving a village woman named Deeti, an American
sailor named Zachary Reid, Indian rajah Neel Rattan, and the evangelist/opium trader Benjamin Burnham,
who, in the later half of the novel, find themselves taking passage from Calcutta to Mauritius on a schooner
named Ibis. The setting takes place along the banks of the holy river, the Ganges, and in Calcutta before the
First Opium War. The story begins with Deeti, a simple, pious lady, caring mother and an efficient
housewife. Married to Hukam Singh, a crippled worker in the Ghazipur Opium Factory, the unfortunate
Deeti figures out that on her wedding night, she was drugged with opium by her mother-in-law, so that her
brother-in-law could rape her and consummate the marriage in place of her impotent husband. This
brother-in-law is the real father of Deeti's daughter Kabutri. When her husband dies, Deeti sends Kabutri to
stay with her relatives. Deeti is almost certain to meet her doom when she is forced to consider sati ritual as
the only option in the face of threats of more rapes by the brother-in-law, but then Kalua, the untouchable
caste ox-man from the neighbouring village, comes to her rescue. The couple flees and unites. This is not

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acceptable to the high caste villagers. In order to escape Deeti's in-laws, she and Kalua become indentured
servants, travelling on the Ibis.
The next important figure is Zachary Reid, an American sailor born to a quadroon mother and a
white father. Escaping racism, he joins the Ibis on its first voyage for its new owner, Mr. Burnham, from
Baltimore to Calcutta. A series of misfortunes soon befall the ship, leading to the deaths of more senior
crew. With the support of the head of the lascars, Serang Ali, Zachary becomes the second in command of
the ship. In Calcutta, Zachary is mistaken for a gentleman and enjoys sophisticated life. He becomes a
second mate for the Ibis's next voyage, carrying indentured labour to the island of Mauritius.
Neel Rattan Halder, a wealthy and unworldly rajah whose dynasty has been ruling the zemindary of
Rakshali for centuries, is confronted by Mr. Burnham with the need to sell off his estates in order to pay for
the debt he had incurred when investing in the opium trade with China. Now that the trade has come to a
standstill, as a result of the resistance shown by the Chinese authorities, he is unable to clear his debt. When
Mr. Burnham proposes to settle the loan for Halder's zemindary, Halder refuses the deal as the zemindary is
his family's ancestral property and selling it would mean turning his back on his many dependents. In a trial
orchestrated by Burnham and his cronies, Halder is tried for forgery. The court sentences him to penal
transportation for seven years in Mauritius and leading him to lose his native identity. Neel, having lost his
status and caste, is asked to do some menial work of cleaning the dirty prison room and his cell mate Ah Fatt
thus prepares him for the task that he has to do in Mauritus as a prisoner. The examination of his body and
then the marking of it with the tattoo on his forehead of a forgerer brings his body totally under the control
of the new British rulers. Along with Ah Fatt, Jodu and Kalua with Serang Ali as their leader, Neel drifts
away from the Ibis into the watery oblivion.
Paulette is a French orphan who has grown up in India with Jodu, the son of her Ayah, as her best
friend. Her father was a politically radical botanist, her mother died in childbirth. Mr. and Mrs. Burnham
adopt Paulette after her father's death. Paulette meets Zachary Reid, the American sailor, at a dinner at the
Burnhams' and they are mutually attracted. Paulette becomes determined to run away because of sexual
harassment by Mr. Burnham and pressure to marry his friend, the stern, elderly Justice Kendalbushe. She
resolves to travel to Mauritius, as her great-aunt did, in the hope of finding a better future. Jodu and Paulette
separately gain passage on the Ibis, Jodu as a Laskar and Paulette in disguise as the Indian niece of one of
the Mr. Burnham's employees.
Baboo Nob Kissin was a minor character but he takes the important role in taking labourers to the
Ibis. He was a Vaishnavite would-be priest who is working as an overseer for Mr Burnham and comes to
believe that Zachary is an avatar of Krishna. He works for the position of gomusta, or agent, in charge of
shipping migrant labour for the firm of Burnham Bros, while also pursuing a lucrative money-lending
business on the side. Burnham has decided to send the Ibis, before it begins its opium trade, on a trip to
Mauritius carrying a human cargo of migrant labour. “As with many another slave-ship, the schooner's
new owner had acquired her with an eye to fitting her for a different trade: the export of Opium. In this
instance the purchasers were a firm called Burnham Bros., a shipping company and trading house that had
extensive interests in India and China.” (11)As all the characters occupied their place in the ship, the
responsibility of holding law and order in the Ibis is given to Subedar Bhyro Singh as he was a Zemindar
and in all sorts he obeys the captain. At the ship the identities of all are mingled, but some persons take
advantage of it. The novel closes with Neel, Ah Fatt, Jodu, Serang Ali and Kalua escaping in a longboat
towards Singapore, while Deeti, Paulette, and Zachary proceed towards Mauritius.The Sea of Poppies is
wonderfully evocative of the sorrow and suffering, torture and oppression, and most importantly, the
displacement and alienation of migrant labourers. The fabric of their lives was torn asunder by the
compulsions of colonial economic imperatives. The novel brings out the disparities of the diasporic
situation.

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Works Cited
Ghosh, Amitav. Sea of Poppies. New Delhi: Penguin Books, 2008. Print.
Lal, Brij. “The Indenture System.” In Brij V. Lal, Peter Reeves, and Rajesh Rai, eds., The
Encyclopedia of the Indian Diaspora. Singapore: Editions Didier Millet, 2006. 46-53. Print.
Mukherji , Sarvajeet. “Nativity Among the Natives: Sea of Poppies”. Indian English
Fiction in the New Millennium. (eds.) R.P. Pradhan New Delhi: Atlantic Publications, 2014. Print.
Nagarjun Dr, B.K. “Deconstruction Human Society: An Appreciation of Amitav Ghosh's
Sea of Poppies”. Amitav Ghosh: A Critical Study, Omega Publishers: New Delhi, 2011. Print.

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15
A STUDY OF THE CULTURAL CONCEPT OF MARRIAGE IN JHABVALA'S TO
WHOM SHE WILL

Dr. M. P. Ganesan, Assistant Professor, Sourastra College (Autonomous), Madurai

Mrs. R. Chitra, Assistant Professor, Devanga Arts College (A), Aruppukottai

Abstract:
Marriage is an analytical and critical study of To Whom She Will. Culture is the systems of
knowledge shared by a relatively large group of people. The position that the ideas, meanings, beliefs and
values people learn as members of society determines human nature. The interaction between two
cultures, European and Indian, is Ruth Prawer Jhabvala's strong point. Jhabvala's first novel To Whom
She Will bears the central problem of arranged versus the romantically-based marriage. In the earlier
novels the writer abundantly demonstrates the differences based on Indian culture and the western
culture: In India marriages are arranged in marriage. In the western concept of marriages, it is moreover
a love marriage or choice marriage where parents, society, tradition do not play very active role. Amrita
Chakravarty, the young protagonist has been brought - up in an anglicized way by her grandfather Rai
Bahadur Tara Chand. Amrita romances with Hari Sahani, her colleague at the All India Radio. When
Radha, Rai Bahadur's daughter tells him of Amrita's arranged marriage with Lady Ram Prasad's son in
the middle of the novel, he vehemently opposes her idea. Krishna, the other character who likes Hari is
partially a product of his upbringing. He takes his education in England and joins as a lecturer in Delhi
University. This article telling and that is the disinvite nature of her. She presents with utmost care the
Indian tradition, culture, civilization, manners, systems, pattern of living and values.

Keywords: Marriage, culture, optimistic, Indian and Westerners, love, mutual understanding.

Culture refers to the pattern of human activity and the symbols that give significance to these
activities. It manifests itself in terms of the art, literature, costumes, customs, languages, religion and
religious rituals. The people and their pattern of life make up the culture of a region. Cultures vary in the
different parts of the world. Culture is the systems of knowledge shared by a relatively large group of
people. The position that the ideas, meanings, beliefs and values people learn as members of society
determines human nature. Optimistic versions of cultural determinism place no limits on the abilities of
human beings to do or to be whatever they want. Some anthropologists suggest that there is no universal
'right way' of being human. “Right way” is almost always “our way” that “our way” in one society almost
never corresponds to “our way” in any other society. Proper attitude of an informed human being could
only be that of tolerance.
The optimistic version of this theory postulates that human nature being infinitely
malleable; human being can choose the ways of life. The pessimistic version maintains that people are
what they are conditioned to be; this is something over which they have no control. Human beings are
passive creatures and do whatever their culture tells them to do. This explanation leads to behaviorism that
locates the causes of human behavior in a realm that is totally beyond human control. The interaction
between two cultures, European and Indian, is Ruth Prawer Jhabvala's strong point. It forms the substances
and also shapes the process by which her personal experience in India is transformed into fiction. Jhabvala
usually writes about the rising commercial bourgeoisie from north India, mainly in and around Delhi and
A STUDY OF THE CULTURAL CONCEPT OF MARRIAGE IN JHABVALA'S TO WHOM SHE WILL 50
her characters, chosen from the social class and setting she knows the best, are sophisticated as well as
unsophisticated people.
In To Whom She Will, Jhabvala has presented a contrast between different societies or communities
very largely in terms of social behavior. Amrita, a fatherless child, is the only grand - daughter of an
aristocratic barrister Rai Bahadur Tara Chand. After graduation, she takes up a job of a radio announcer
and cultivates a liking for an announcer named Hari and starts loving him with a view to getting married.
But Hari is a traditional boy who is not free to contract a love for him. So he, without intimating Amrita,
gets married in traditional manner to girl of his own class and community. When Amrita gets to know
about Hari's marriage, she transfers her love to Krishna Sen Gupta, her lodger. Radha, Amrita's mother and
daughter of Rai Bahadur, is full of motherly concern, demanding total involvement in Amrit's life and
affairs, and is prepared to employ whatever strategies are required in order to maintain her authority over
Amrita.
Jhabvala is thoroughly familiar with life and manners of her adopted country, which endows her
with unique in insight into the typical traits of Indians. She presents with utmost care the Indian tradition,
culture, civilization, manners, systems, pattern of living and values. Jhabvala's first novel To Whom She
Will bears the central problem of arranged versus the romantically-based marriage. The parents fix the
engagement of a bride and a bridegroom. Unlike the western concept of marriage, the choice, feelings and
love for each other is not taken into consideration. In arranged marriage caste of a body and a girl plays a
conclusive role. They should belong to same caste. The economical background of each also is considered
absolute in match making. The parents of girl have to offer big amount of dowry to the bridegroom. There
is a strong hold of traditions in Indian system of marriage.
In the western concept of marriages, it is moreover a love marriage or choice marriage
where parents, society, tradition do not play very active role. The feelings of love, mutual understanding,
and consideration for each other have place in this kind of marriage. The boy or a girl above twenty one
years of age is free to select their life partners. Education plays very decisive role in this kind of marriage.
In the western culture the marriage of their children is not considered the duty of their parents. In Indian
culture, the parents consider their right and motto to get their children married and settled. There is a clash
of personality if an Indian boy or a girl tries to break strong bonds of family and follows choice marriage.
In To Whom She Will, Amrita Chakravarty, the young protagonist has been brought - up in an
anglicized way by her grandfather Rai Bahadur Tara Chand. Amrita romances with Hari Sahani, her
colleague at the All India Radio. Hari is simple, unspoiled and traditional. Amrita and Hari love each other
and want to marry in spite of their conflicting ways. But Rai Bahadur disapproves of Amrita's love affair
with Hari, who belongs to a different community with poor Punjabi refugee background. Radha, Amrita's
mother follows Amrita like a shadow in her selection of a boy for the marriage. According to Radha, love
marriages do not lead to happiness and to her happiness is calculated in terms of material prosperity and
luxury. She has a wrong fear that Amrita's wrong choice would ruin her dignity in modern society. Under
the influence of her widowed mother and her grandfather, Amrita relents and reconciles to the notion of
marrying Krishna Sen Gupta, a Bengali lecturer. Hari is emotionally forced by the protective love of his
old fashioned parents to accept their proposal for an arranged marriage with Sushila, a girl of his
community. Thus, ironically, both Amrita and Hari are married to parents arranged for them. Hari marries
Sushila not for love but for social compromise.
When Radha, Rai Bahadur's daughter tells him of Amrita's arranged marriage with Lady Ram
Prasad's son in the middle of the novel, he vehemently opposes her idea. His dreadful reactions are: “It is
shameful', he said after a short pause, that you do not allow your child the liberty which your parents
allowed you; that you should revert to - the primitive custom that I took pains to eradicate from our family”
(Jhabvala Whom 179). This remark shows the discrepancy between his thinking and deeds; he neither

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permits Amrita to select a suitable match for herself nor allows Radha to choose a bridegroom for Amrita to
select a suitable through selection. Once again we find deep-rooted materialism and strange views on
marriage. Rai bahadur remains a flat character, hardly adding to the plot of the novel.
Krishna, the other character in To Whom She Will, who likes Hari is partially a product of his
upbringing. He takes his education in England and joins as a lecturer in Delhi University. When he returns
from England his inherited idealism leads him towards disenchantment with the Independent India. He
hated the uncomplaining poverty, the apathy he saw all around him, in the streets, the bazaars, on the steps
of the temples.., He hated the beggars and the insolence with which they made it clear that they belonged to
this society, had every right to exist in it. … He hated… the complacency of his own class, the evil servant
min, the stoid satisfaction with the routine work, with salary and position for ever fixed, with yawning
pleasures in once English clubs…. He hated the women because they were ignorant, innocent and
submissive…. He hated - hated everything; even his parents because it was thy who had made him come
back to this (46-47)
His isolation in his own county as shown from the exposition of the novel, leads to disharmony in
his personality with regard to cultural relationship. Krishna's abomination for India gradually settles into
acceptance, which moreover reduces the discord from the point of view of Krishna and cultural contrasts.
England now appears to be “brown place” and not a reality. He writes of his intention to Amrita, declaring
his love for her. Hence there is no doubt or ambiguity in Krishn a's love for Amrita. His love based on
Western concept. The continual disparities of Amirta's love and the opposition by both her and Hari's
family get another setback when Amrita meets Hari's sister Prema. She is quite mistaken in understanding
Amrita. She before meeting Prema in her house expects supreme simplicity but she is awfully disappointed
to see Prema so lavishly dressed and her house arranged with admirable symmetry. The reason is that
Prema fancies Amrita to be utterly rich and modernized in her manners. Prema vehemently refuses Amrita
as suitable match for her brother. After meeting Amrita, Prema declares Amrita to be a proud and conceited
girl, and rather stupid girl without feelings. When Amrita firmly states her case to Krishna, the social and
cultural tension rises to its climax. Amrita cries out her agonized reaction, “Everybody is always telling us
to be emancipated, to be like European women but when we try to be they are shocked and say we are
behaving badly” (49).
There are series of events and incidents confronting Amrita's marriage to Hari. These events-
Amrita's family conferences, tricks employed by Radha and Prema, grandfather's insistence on sending
her to England, test Amirta's love and present traditional traits. She makes a plan to go away to England
with Hari. She takes the initiative firmly with characteristic gentleness, expresses her individual point of
view very boldly to Rai Bahadur. When amrita opposes or rather challenges her grandfather's views, we
find the generation gap widening between them due to the difference of opinions regarding love marriage
or arranged marriage. The protagonists of the novel Amrita and Hari's parents scheme to prevent their
marriage, considering them immature for the selection of suitable life partners. The subject of marriage is
very debatable in the novel. The theme rotates round the subject of marriage which is enhanced by the
proper selection of characters and setting. The end of the novel resolves the controversial problem of
marriage, regarding which type of marriage is largely conducive to happiness. The happy ending of the
novel reveals that arranged marriages of Hari with Sushi, and Amrita with Krishna bring happiness. The
Oriental concept of love i.e. the idea of arranged marriage overshadows the Western concept of love in the
novel. The mode of exhibiting the East-West cultural and social encounter is made highly comical through
characters and ironical situations in the novel.At the end of the novel when Amrita hears of Hari's marriage
to Sushila Anand, she diverts her love to Krishna Sen Gupta. A letter from Krishna resolves and clears all
the uncertainties: “Amrita paced up and down, too excited to stay still. She held Krishna's letter in her hand,
six pages of it beginning 'Amrita'…..……pluck a flower from the hedge and, inwardly bubbling over with

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laughter, stick into her hair” (236) Amirta accepts Krishna's love considering him a suitable match offered
by her family. Jhabvala has skillfully represented the clash in personality which is the result of her
exposure to two cultures.

Works Cited
Agarwal, Ramlal G. Ruth Prawer Jhabvala: A Study of Her Fiction. New Delhi: Sterling, 1990. Print.
Agawala, D.C.. To Whom She Will:Explorations in Modern Indo English Fiction. Ed. R.K.Dhavan. New
Delhi: Bahri Publications, 1982. Print
nd
Jhabvala, Ruth Prawer. To Whom She Will: 2 ed. New Delhi: Arnold-Heinemann, 1983. Print.

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16
THEMES AND TECHNIQUES IN CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE'S
PURPLE HIBISCUS

Dr. N. Gnanaselvi, Associate Professor, Sri Meenakshi Government Arts College, Madurai
S. Thasleema Yasmin, Research scholar, Sri Meenakshi Government Arts College, Madurai

Abstract:
Literature is generally defined as the body of artistic writings of a country which are characterized
by beauty of expression and by universality and emotional appeal. It can be literally translated means
acquaintance with letters (from the Latin word literalletters); it is the art of written works which are
usually creative that employs imagination to birth it; as a matter of fact, it is created or recreated from
imagination through which people can exhibit their culture. One of the scholars, Conrad expressed his
notion about literature Imagination, not invention, is the supreme master of art as of life.

Keywords: Nigeria, culture, colonization, political strife.

The theme can be defined as an aesthetic exhibition of a literary piece. The writers use literary
techniques in their texts in order to enhance the meaning of the literary work. Generally, literature deals
with writings about cultures and languages. Narratives have been one of the most effective techniques to
mirror the writer's cultural and sociological back ground. More so, narratives draw their authenticity and
absorbent capabilities through their experimental nature as any narrative is a cumulative result of the
writer's personal experience and predecessor influence of pre-existing master narratives.
Each narrative is individualistic because of variegated attitudes of writers hailing from different
socio-cultural worlds. Instances and events which would form the content of such narrative curiosity are
unearthed from common day to day lives. The narratives can be representative of an ethnic culture or a
person. My Research paper deals with Nigerian literature. Nigerian literature is defined to be a literary
work of imagination is written by Nigerians for Nigerians, it discusses Nigerian issues and shares the same
sensibilities, consciousness, world view and other aspects of the Nigerian cultural experience. Narratology
is a study of narrative in a comprehensive and complete way. The chain of events in a narrative may not be
necessarily arranged chronologically and so the cogitative movement of time is present and the flashbacks
and the flash forwards are also incorporated systematically to move the narrative forward. It reveals the toil
of a people whose country is still undergoing a painful transformation from colonisation, through
independence to internal wars, coups, counter coups and political strife. Generally, literary writers are
products of the society they write about; hence the society nurtures and nourish the writer. Nigerian
examines the harsh and inhuman condition in which the majority of Nigerians live in i.e., poverty, misery,
political oppression, economic exploitation, liquidation of humane traditional values and all forms of
injustices which seem to be a majority in most Nigerian societies.
Early writers are greatly inspired by their rich oral literature which is essentially pedantic. Most
writers make use of the functional didactism of oral literature to reflect the culture, history, politics and
society as a whole in their writings. Reincarnation, Anti-Colonialism, Religion, Tradition, Gender
Feminism, Marriage and Love are considered to be the recurrent themes in most of their writings. She is
one of the foremost Nigerian women writers who have paid tribute to speak highly of the Dark Continent.
She not only adores her descent and ancestry but also culminates various contemporary issues faced by
THEMES AND TECHNIQUES IN CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE'S PURPLE HIBISCUS 54
Nigerians in the recent times.
Her narratives trace how Africans bargain a new religion and new culture in exchange of their
identity. Her works pretends to be the realities of the country's social processes which exposes the bounce
of social and cultural issues, from women's rights and feminism to post-war and post-colonial identity. She
ought to be a great story teller telling the world about their experiences and fearlessly exposing such
themes as Racism, Class, Abuse and Violence as well as Patriotism, Beauty and Love. Being a Nigerian,
Adichie has observed a dual colonization in Igbo societies and therefore, she receptively exposes the
doubly colonized women in her native land. Adichie depicts the contemporary scenario in which though
women have been educated and belonging to a high position face tortures at the hands of their life partners.
Such abuses of women takes place through violence, aggression and mental subjugation by men in
patriarchal societies, and Adichie's protagonists scuttle their way out from brutality and hitting, adultery
and deception.
Women writers of Nigeria have examined the disputes they face while they tried to write about
strong Nigerian female characters that endure at the hands of men. The Nigerian world is still a male
dominated world, and female authors who dare to speak out about the condition of women in Nigeria have
a tough, uphill road ahead of them. Nigerian women writers built eloquent contributions to the country's
literary development in all the literary genres. Adichie's women characters are revenge seeking women,
who do not believe in quiet weeping but they seek justice and equality in the patriarchal society of Nigeria.
The first reversal of dichotomy happens in “Purple Hibiscus”, where the entire narrative reeks in
masculine based violence. A thorough study of the plots, narrative point of views, literary devices like
symbols, repetitions, revelations, etc. brings out the literary oeuvre of the writer. Adichie stands out as a
narrator of Igbo fables in English but she retains her individual distinctiveness.
Narratives have been one of the most effective techniques to mirror the writer's cultural and
sociological back ground. It can be representative of an ethnic culture or a person. In postcolonial nations,
people adapted various genres of literature to retell their version of colonialism and because these
confessions were honest so the oriental speaker/writer gained prominence on the literary pedestal.
Her first novel Purple Hibiscus, which explores patriarchy, domestic violence, religious
fundamentalism and general intolerance, was published in October in the year 2003 receiving extensive
international acclaim. It won Huston/Wright legacy award in the year 2004 and was short-listed for Orange
Broadband Prize for Fiction. Later it was awarded the Commonwealth Prize for the Best First Fiction Book
in the year 2005. Adichie is the latest Nigerian female writer to make a mark in the African literary scene
and to win several international prizes within a short time. She is quoted to have said that her greatest
inspiration comes from Chinua Achebe. In our reading and interpretation of Adichie's novels we explore
how she struggles to give African women a proper place with dignity denied by patriarchy and other forms
of subjugation. This is done through examining the state of personal or individual lives of characters such
as Aunty Ifeoma and Beatrice in Purple Hibiscus. In Purple Hibiscus, the narrator of the story, Kambili
Achike enumerates her father Eugene who is an upstanding catholic but so arrogant in home. Her mother
Beatrice, a calm lady who faces several miscarriages because of papa's beatings. Her brother Jaja who
refuses to attend the communion- getting beaten by her father Eugene. At the Christmas time, they visit
their native village, Abba. Their grandpa, Papa Nnukwu is a traditional idol worshipper lives there, who
doesn't like by Papa. Aunty Ifeoma, widowed sister of Eugene, along with her two children, Amaka and
Obiora visit the village for the Christmas. She has been worked as an university Lecturer in Nsukka.
She brought up her children a fearless and creative thinking. Kambili and Jaja meet aunty Ifeoma
and wonders by her way of acts and they visit grandpa's house without Papa's Knowledge. Both Kambili
and Jaja liked him. Father Amadi visits Aunty Ifeoma's home frequently thereby Kambili gets attracted and
falls in love with him. Soon grandpa becomes sick and died. Father Eugene comes to know that both shares

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a home with grandpa, a heathen, he punishes tem by pouring boiling water on their feet. Beatrice has faced
yet another miscarriage because of Eugene's beatings. Finally, Beatrice poisons him with tea and Eugene
died. Jaja accepts the prison and gets into the prison. After three years, kambili and her mother Beatrice
visits Jaja in Prison and the novel concludes in a positive note.
In Purple Hibiscus (2004), Adichie focuses the god‐like admiration Kambili grasps for her
father, Eugene Achike. She vies for her father's admiration, her almost obsessive desire to content
her father is also seen when she comes out second place in her class exams feeling “stained by
failure” (Adichie, 39). However, there is a complex correlation in the novel as Kambili's need to
please her father also stems from fear. Adichi describes the twisted psychological power held by
the father figure that moulds the female character's mind not only its fearful obedience but also an
undue admiration. When Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie came to the literary fore, a heritage of male
dominated Nigerian literature was already over. Adichie has been a true successor of Achebe1, because of
her indomitable expression as a Nigerian woman in her works. The fabric of her narrative landscape is
interwoven with the patterns of Nigerian Diaspora, Igbo ethnic ties, human relationships, political
upheavals in her native country Nigeria and feminism. Finnegan highlights that a suitable symbiotic
relationship of oral and written narrations are visible in the African literary tradition. Finnegan remarks
“There has been a co-existence of written narratives and performance poetry wherein one finds a
difference of degree between the two and not of kind”.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's narratives are a blend of her consciousness and experiences.
Adichie gives new dimensions to the narrative traditions of African origin and nature and presents very
contemporary tales of real people from her own surroundings. But before analyzing the narrative
approaches of Adichie and the elements which make the texture of her narratives, one must delve into the
nitty-gritty of narratology. Since Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is a postmodern, postcolonial writer, her
texts are replete with symbols pertaining to slavery and freedom, the resilience of women and children, the
audacity of the downtrodden and of course the metaphor of birth and death of a new country and quashing
of hopes of an ethnocentric free nation.

Works Cited
Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi. Purple Hibiscus. New York: Anchor Books, 2003. Print.
Afigbo, A.E. “Prolegomena to the Study of the Culture History of the Igbo-Speaking Peoples of Nigeria”.
Igbo Language and Culture. Great Britain: Oxford University Press, 1975. Print.
Douglas, Carol Anne, Women in Nigeria Today: Off our Backs, Washington: Nov. 30, 1987. Print.
Ezeigbo, Theodora Akachi. “Traditional Women's Institutions in Igbo Society: Implications for the Igbo
Female Writer”. African Languages and Cultures. Vol.3, No.2. 1990. web accessed on 23 July
2012.< http://www.jstor.org/stable/1771719 >
Falola, Toyin and Matthew M. Heaton. A History of Nigeria. U.K.: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2008. Print.
McLeod, John. Beginning Postcolonialism. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000. Print
Loomba, Ania. Colonialism/Postcolonialism. London: Routledge, 1998. Print.

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17
EASTERN AND WESTERN CONFLICT IN MY NAME IS RED

Dr. K. Bharathi Raj, Assistant Professor, Vivekananda College, Madurai

Abstract:
The present research investigates the dilemma of eastern and western culture in an allegorical
Turkish fiction My Name is Red which is one of the master pieces of Orhan Pamuk who has awarded Nobel
prize for literature in 2006, the chosen novel has crowned two prestigious awards: International IMPAC
Dublin Literary award in 2003 as well as French and Italian awards in the year 2003. The novel is rich in
its multi dynamic narrative style. The plot is set in Istanbul during the reign of Ottoman Sultan Murat III,
between 1574 and 1595, and somewhat beyond Sultan Ahmet I. It tells a hybrid mix of murder mystery and
love story. Further it investigates the root of traditional culture of miniaturist and illuminators of Ottoman
Empire. It is identified that some of the indigenous miniaturist has been gradually influencing European
style in their art which shows that both traditional and cultural identity are slowly vanishing from the
backbone of the nation. The study juxtaposes people and event in the past and diachronic of paintings.
Further it focuses on the textuality of the text.

Key Words: Diachronic, culture, dilemma, deconstruct, tradition.

Introduction
Despite the fact that investigation of a murder mystery is the main plot of the fiction, Orhan Pamuk
has given privileges to history and fabulous characters along with main characters of the novel. Its talks
about historical background knowledge of Istanbul, Ottoman reign, as “history is the records of past”. It is
identified through “the parallel study of historicist and textuality” (Barry166) that the murder has a strong
intention. Even though the murder is succeeded by a miniaturist, it is the concrete intention of a group of
people, moreover the murderer acted as an instrument of a particular association. The cropse initiates that
“my death conceals an appealing conspiracy against our religion, our tradition and the way we see the
world” (Pamuk 6). He has done it for the secularism of the nation.
Trustworthiness of the Artist
There is an unwritten fact among miniaturists and illuminators of Istanbul that those who become
blind are the blessed artist. They strongly believe that that blessing is given by the Muhammet (God). Their
ideology about miniature painting is “Islamic miniature painter sees the world through God's eyes or
mind's eyes” (Parpala and Afana 47). Hence much of the miniaturist blinds themselves in order to
show/pretend that they are the blessed miniaturist in other words, to make the nation to accept themselves
as the best or to get the respect of royal people/king/administrators. The great master Osman, head of the
illuminators, who is the teacher of the protagonist, Black and other three significant/famous miniaturists
Butterfly, Strok, and Olive, is not excluded from the above fabulous creation of blindness. It supports the
notions of new historicism that juxtaposes blindness of the main characters and real incidents happened
th th
during the reign of Ottaman Sultan Murat III, and beyond Sultan Ahmet I in 15 and 16 centuries. It
emphasizes that “moving away from text-centered” (Barry 167).
Woman: A Conservative Element
Black is called for associate with Enishte Effindi who is father of Shekure, teacher and uncle of
him, he is assigned a great secret work by the king, as he feels that Black certainly helps him to complete
EASTERN AND WESTERN CONFLICT IN MY NAME IS RED 57
the work, Enishte has called him back to his workshop after twelve years, he was in exile on that particular
period. Shekure and Black are childhood friends. They love each other. This is also noticed by Enishte, he
warned him that she is already married to a soldier: he never comes to home after their marriage. So she
needs a death certificate of him to marry Black. But, her bother-in-law Hasan tries to marry her, once he
attempts to rape her at their house, Shekure painfully says these lines that “when I realized how many
women like me with missing soldier-husbands there were in Istanbul, I realized myself to my fate” ( Pamuk
49). The incident clearly brings in to the notice of the reads that women are the victims of domestic
violence: Shekure has been suppressed at her husband's house, she is a big question there, her entire life is
depending on any of the masculine characters throughout the story. This is postulated in Arjomandi and
Faghfori's “Shekure's room for once own” as “women have always desired to be seen, heard, and
understood by their society” (110). It is proved that women like Shekure and Esther are the victims of
domestic violence against women between 15th and 16th century. It is considered the common factor
between eastern and western countries. Bronte sisters and their predecessors have propagated the same
(Makandar 27).
Man: The Preserver of Culture
Hasan portrays as the representative of the preserver of traditional culture and a flesh eater. He
never asks Shekures' desire to marry him but he has read the letter without her permission with the help of
Esther who helps to exchange letters between Black and Shekure that she sends to Black. Further he drags
Shekure for this sexual desire. It reveals that maternal relatives and joint families are the root cause of
domestic violence. Louis Montrose advocates the reciprocal of society that “new historicisms stands
centre upon the historicity of the text and the textuality of the text” (Barry 169).
Hasan wants to possess her and he never likes any other male characters to talk with her, further he
overhears and supervising Shekure's every activity. He doesn't like any one loves her. It juxtaposes the
villain, who has cut the neck of the suspected murderer at the climax of the story with Freud's notion of
“mother fixation”. In the essay “Pinter's Freudian Homecoming”, M.W.Rowse suggests that “all the male
characters are dragged towards a female character” (Barry103). Similarly, in Mahabharatha, Draupathy
has been administrating five husbands with her mother-in-law's a single word/ decision. As Kunthi, mother
of Pandavas, five in number: hubbies of Draupathy, once said “equally share” that without knowing what
her sons brought. Five princesses obeyed her without any argument, it shows that they like to be
administrate by mother i.e. what Freud initiated that “women are polarized into idealized maternal figures”
(Barry103).
As Hasan has strong influence on indigenous culture and tradition, he becomes a hindrance for
Shukere's love. He forced her to stay at house along with his father who is head of the family, having
enough experience in religious deity, he does not permit her to go out, insisted that tells/narrates stories to
children. Besides, he acts like a victim of “mother fixation” character and an ideological person of
historicity. He is the representative of old traditional culture. In the case of Hasan Oedipus complex is
higher, he wants to become the sexual partner of Shukere.
Tradition and Culture
Despite the fact that Turkey has been the first nation in the “Islamic world to officially transgress
the Koranic tradition and adopt the “western values” in her modernization process under the leadership of
Kemal Ataturk after the WW I” ( Sharma 5 ). Enishte Effindi, whom the king assigned the work of secret
book and asks to complete it quickly with new style, he is the uncle of Elegant who is murdered, does not
know whom the killer was but sure about the reason of his murder. Both Enishte and Elegant have
desire/influence towards realistic miniature pictures/drawing, in addition that adopting European style i.e.
having a model to draw the images which is not mostly practiced in Istanbul where drawing is considered
as natural arts with the blessing of the omnipotent. Drawing is a worship of god. Miniaturists are reputed

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EASTERN AND WESTERN CONFLICT IN MY NAME IS RED 58
with some privileged, they are all kind hearted artist. They are all influenced by olden day paintings:
Persian, Ottoman, and Herat. In history it is recorded that “in middle ages, Islam and Islamic culture
dominate the world, from Turkey to the Persian regions and India” (Sharma 7).
The murderer reveals that he has killed Elegant when he met Enishte at his home, and he smashes a
Mongol inkpot on the head of Enishte. The murderer understands that both are becoming the threat of
traditional identity, in order to secure/ retain the tradition, culture, religion, originality of the nation, he has
pulled out the weeds among budding grasses, it doesn't become the chip on his back. It is identified that
every nation has its own tradition. It is the duty of the citizen to preserve it. Through imitation and copying
of European drawings/paintings miniaturists are trying to recreate the history of the nation and shaking
their taproot its' branches are grown everywhere, which is going to vanish their inheritances. It is strongly
believed that authorities of the countries are sitting like the cat on the wall, they are having affiliation with
neighboring countries which leads them to have influence on European's attitude, culture, religion, and
languages.
Conflicted Identity and Religion
It is strongly believed that duty of the miniaturists to bring the inherent art of the nation to the notice
of the world. But, the Sultan Murat III has planned to honor the thousand anniversary of Hegira, (622 A.D)
with an illustrated book is being prepared by individual portraiture with “Frankish” or “Venetian” style.
Butterfly, Strok, and Olive are fellow portraiture but have been following Persian/Ottoman style of
pictorial art. It is revealed that they have lack of or null western influence not only in pictorial art but also
in their culture. Besides, they ask their disciples to undertake traditional methodologies in learning. It is
proved diachronically that Erzurums are working hard to hold the roots of tradition. Besides, they are
eradicating the western influence that comes from all the sides of the nation. Sharma states in
“Reinterpreting History and Culture: My Name is Red”that “European people have started to seek the
answers in their questions not in theology but in the real world that they tried to comprehend through their
own mind, thinks of themselves as individuals”(9).
As every detective story has a key, Pamuk has framed a clue in the form of horse picture. The twist
lies at nose of the horse which is “consciously” given by the murderer. To throw the light on the murder
case Sultan asks all the suspects to draw the same horse picture. But, he is unable to trace out none of them.
Like “there is nothing outside the text” (Derrida 66) the murderer has left a strong clue but it is very
difficult to identify that is slit of the nostril and image of the sultan: it is the murderer himself i.e. realistic
representation or idolatry. He is not worrying about this idolatry but he has strong emotional feeling for
isolated comparison with European paintings. The emotional feeling of the murderer about native
miniature paining is stated in Parpala and Afana's “Organ Pamuk and the East-West Dichotomy” as “nature
of painting among Islamic miniaturist, some perceived this as a thread to the style and purity of traditional
miniature painting” (49).
It is identified that the patriotic and traditional miniaturists as well as illuminators of the Istanbul
have blinded themselves when they forced to adopt new style which is energetically remembered by the
master Osman about Bihzad. For them being/making/getting blindness is a reward. But, the same concept
has a pessimistic understanding/interpretation among common people. It supports the idea of Derrida that
“center becomes decenter (72)”. Here the cultural and traditional pictorial art is center which deviates from
the middle position/ indigenous conflicted identity of westernizing style among citizens. Once the center is
adopting new things, it is demolished when the king Ahmet has destroyed the elaborated clock gift given
by the Queen Elizabeth with a strong big hammer. It clearly shows that European style becomes decenter in
Ottoman Empire that decreases the blasphemous among illustrators. In “Organ Pamuk and the East-West
Dichotomy” states that “Western: Frankish and Venetian do not render the essence of what they are
painting” (Parpala53)

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Patriotism
Smoking and drinking coffee are common among European people between 15tth to 17th centuries
(Xavier 78), wherever they go, they carry certain styles and they are proud of constructing such shops or
building in their colonies. The story-teller is usually narrating stories at coffee house where people are
gathering. Eruzumis has killed the story-teller and raided the coffee house. Pamuk says that “two style
heretofore never brought together have came together to create something new and wondrous” (194). It
clearly depicts that demolishing of coffee house is a reference of quit the whites away. Similarly many
colonial counties did in order to get liberty from the rulers especially, India had done heap of movements
against British government such as “Quit India Movement”, Sudhesi Movement, Jalian Walabag
Massacre, and “Salt Sathyakiraga”.
Chelete (gentleman) is an imaginary character created by the story-teller, he loves a married
woman, leaves it behind even from close friend but the secret is unknown by his neighbor while he is
blaring at night after intoxication. Despite the fact that dressing sense is a common factor among people's
culture and tradition that plays a pivotal role in an individual's emotional elements especially, the dresses
of women. European women uncover their body completely which makes the men to get erection but the
Istanbul women completely cover their body with veil. Moreover the conflicted identity has revealed the
affection of westernization. It is postulated by Monstrose as “text creates the culture by which it is created,
shapes the fantasies by which it is shaped” (168).
Identity Crisis
Pamuk has well furnished the character of Black, he is the revealer of all the twisted ties. The
significant work of identifying the murderer is succeeded by him but he is not a matured miniaturist, he
goes behind three suspects such as Butterfly, Strok and Olive. Butterfly is a pleasing and pious-man, he
does not adopt new style in painting. Strok is also not influenced by any new style, he is the best admirer of
master Osamn, and they have secret relationship. His statement against westernization is that “could the
blind and seeing ever be equal?” (Pamuk 237) Olive's house is dirty and cheaply furnished, he strongly
believes that Black is not only trying to untie the twist on the case for Shekure but also for the young and
future miniaturist to adopt European style. It is advocated in the lines of
a group of Turkish miniaturist, mostly young artist under the Ottoman in Middle ages, feel
that their art and their livelihood, is endangered to go to oblivion if they don't adopt the new
technique of rendering miniature, painting as real-life objects seen by man, a technique
introduced to them by foreigners:Italians. (Arslan 83)
Butterfly does treachery that Enishte and Black for European style. Through the words of Olive it is
clarified that eventually the death of Osman, Europeans certainly takes over the royal treasure, as a result
doors for the future miniaturist permanently closed. It is against the wish of Black that “East is east and
West is west” (Pamuk 405) and “if painters succumb to the Frankish manner, we might resemble ourselves,
but we don't be ourselves” (Pamuk 404). To make a full stop for westernizing the people, the new Sultan
has “turned his back to all the artistry”.
Conclusion:
The title of the study is one of the themes of the novel. It depicts multiple perceptive for the readers.
As it is an allegorical fiction, there are many characters are narrating the story such as I am a Corpse, and I
am Red. Pamuk has brought in to the notice of the reads that traditional values of the nations are destroyed
by external influence, in other words settlers. Further the study unveils that Europeans has been tried to
pull out the tap roots of every nation's inheritable skills, traditional identity and cultural norms and
religious believes. It is like a parasite which lives with the plant and at last kills. They have failed to
understand that traditional identities and values should be preserved. Westernization becomes the threat of
Ottoman's secularism that leads to westernizing Ottoman literature during the second half of the 19th

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EASTERN AND WESTERN CONFLICT IN MY NAME IS RED 60
century.

Works Cited
Arjomandi, Niloofar, and Faghfori, Sohila, “Shekure's room for her own: A Feminist reading of Orhan
Pamuk's My Name is Red.”Fe Dergi 7.1(2015): 108-116. Web. 28 Jan 2019.
Arslan, Nihayet. “The Dialogical Process in My Name is Red.”International Journal of Central Asian
Studies 17 (2013): 74-113. Web. 28 Jan 2019.
Barry, Peter. Beginning Theory. 3 rd ed. India: Viva Books, 2017. Print.
Gregorios, Zelia. “My Name is Red: Acts of Literature and Translation in the Margins of Cultural
Literacy.”Creative Education 4.4A (2003): 36-44. Web. 29 Jan 2019.
Makandar,A.Maulasab. “Color Symbolism in Orhan Pamuk's My Name is Red.”Contemporary Research
in India 8.1 (2018): 27-29. Web. 02 Feb 2019.
Pamuk, Orhan. My Name is Red. Trans. Erdag M.Goknar UK: Faber and Faber, 2001, Print.
Parpala, Emilia and Afana, Rimona. “Orhan Pamuk and th East-West Dichotomy.”Interliteraria 18.1
(2013): 42-55. Web. 28 Jan 2019.
Sharma, Pradeep. “Reinterpreting History and Culture: My Name is Red in Focus” academia.edu.com
Xavier. A.G. An Introduction to the Social history of England.India:Viswanathan.S., Pinters, 2009. Print.

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Literary Endeavour (ISSN 0976-299X) : Special Issue : March, 2019 : (UGC No. 44728) www.literaryendeavour.org 61

18
A STUDY OF FOREIGN CHARACTERS IN THE NOVEL OF JHABVALA'S
HEAT AND DUST

Dr. C. S. Jeyaraman, Assistant Professor, Devanga Arts College, Aruppukottai

Abstract:
Jhabvala's novelistic world is always women centred. Her fiction shows a passion for East-West
interaction on its familial, social, cultural and spiritual aspects. Jhabvala is very much concerned with the
problems of western women and men, who are trying to get adjusted to Indian society and its mores. In the
spiritual context, she portrays Europeans who are fascinated by the gurus of India's ancient spiritual
heritage. Her Indian characters, as seen by westerners, range from the comic to the beautiful. Her foreign
characters, as seen by Indian eyes, range from the sexuality to the grotesque. Love, Marriage and Sex, are
important and essential integral parts of Jhabvala's novels in which they are considered to be the basics of
human life in all her novels. Love can be said to be a beauteous form of life, which is manifested in different
writings by different writers in different ages. Sex is also a natural urge while marriage is a social ritual.
Marriage is a social institution to satiate the inborn urge of sex by love. The Western characters consist of
the narrator of the story, a young man Chidanand and a young foreigner who came to India in search of
peace and spiritualism. The young narrator is very important as it is through her that the entire story is
being narrated. It is she, who establishes a link between the two periods. Jhabvala nowhere mentions her
name, but only identifies her as the granddaughter of Douglas and Tessie. Beth Crawford was her aunt,
and Tessie, Beth's sister was her grand-mother. This paper focuses on foreign characters who took pride in
service and self-sacrifice.

Keywords: Love, sex, marriage, spirituality, dislike, bitterness and abhorrence.

Ruth Prawer Jhabvala's novelistic world, like that of other women novelists in Indian fiction in
English, is always women centred. She concentrates on the theme of meaninglessness and sexual
confusion suffered by married women in tradition - oriented Hindu society in India. For Jhabvala's women,
marriage is a serious conflict situation. The institution of marriage is also significantly the patriarchal
weapon that finalises the complete subversion and social obliteration of women. It acquires centrality in a
woman's life only and contains both her space and her identity. The phallocentric hold on the institution
determines her code of behaviour and the boundaries of her space. Exclusion and invisibility become
devices for patriarchy to foreground the image of ideal feminity. Patriarchy permits no alternatives to
marriage and holds in pity and contempt to those who attempt to thwart it. For women, who try to live out of
marriage or complain about the queer compulsions of married life, the institution of marriage remains a
deeply-rooted and strong edifice that conditions their consciousness. Marriage is initially represented as a
means of resistance. Love, Marriage and Sex, are important and essential integral parts of Jhabvala's
novels in which they are considered to be the basics of human life in all her novels. Love can be said to be a
beauteous form of life, which is manifested in different writings by different writers in different ages. Sex
is also a natural urge while marriage is a social ritual. Marriage is a social institution to satiate the inborn
urge of sex by love.
The narrative elements of Heat and Dust are as important as it is in A New Dominion. In both these
novels, Jhabvala displays a grasp of narrative mode and maturity of technique. A New Dominion has been
A STUDY OF FOREIGN CHARACTERS IN THE NOVEL OF JHABVALA'S HEAT AND DUST 62
divided into many sections, each written under a definite heading, whereas Heat and Dust has neither
chapters nor headings. A narrator hops between the India of 1923 and the contemporary India of 1975,
trying to establish a link between 1923 and 1975, for she lives in 1975 and tries to learn about 1923.
Jhabvala skillfully weaves an intricate design in which the experiences of two generation of English men
and women and their Indian counterparts are brought in a very close association with a view to highlight
the differences between them. It becomes more interesting to see the characters moving around the same
spot, the same center and relive that experience. It is also important to see how differently these characters
respond to the same situation. Once again, Meenakshi Mukherjee makes an interesting observation
describing Jhabvala's technique in the novel. She writes “One can see in the technique, how much Jhabvala
learnt from her experience with films. The two streams of the story are juxtaposed as if in an editing room
of a film studio where the available material is cut, trimmed and shuffled to make a contrastive pattern.”
(208)
V.A. Shahane has his own interpretation to this technique of double narration. He says “This mode
of double narration enables Jhabvala to cultivate a sense of detachatment. It also enables her to project the
novelist's vision amidst a human and natural landscape enveloped in heat and covered by dust.” (135)
Jhabvala portrays Indian as well as European characters, both in 1923 and in 1975. In 1923, the most
important character is a young European girl, Olivia, married to an Englishman Douglas, the Assistant
Collector of Satipur. Besides these two, there are a couple of old British officers and their families. Mr. and
Mrs. Beth Crawford, Mr. and Mrs. Minnies (Mr. Minnies was a political agent). Mr. and Mrs. Saunders (a
Doctor) and Harry, an Englishman who lives with the Nawab as his official guest. Along with European
characters, there are a few Indian characters, representing the lives of Indians of those days. There is the
young handsome Nawab of Khatm (a town near Satipur), his mother, the Begum and other courtiers. The
Nawab, in fact, is the only Indian character, who has been portrayed in detail. His presence is over-
whelming and it would not be an exaggeration if one can say that he almost overshadows all the European
characters. The story of 1923 in the novel is the story of Olivia and the Nawab.
The Western characters consist of the narrator of the story, a young man Chidanand and a young
foreigner who came to India in search of peace and spiritualism. The young narrator is very important as it
is through her that the entire story is being narrated. It is she, who establishes a link between the two
periods. Jhabvala nowhere mentions her name, but only identifies her as the granddaughter of Douglas and
Tessie. Beth Crawford was her aunt, and Tessie, Beth's sister was her grand-mother. (After divorcing
Olivia, Douglas married Tessie). The narrator somehow, gets half of the letters, which Olivia wrote to one
of her friends, Marcia. In these letters, she wrote about herself and the Nawab, and her life in India. The
narrator becomes interested in Olivia and decides to visit India to unravel the mysteries of Olivia's
existence, and the juicy dismal oddities of her life. She comes to India to discover Oliva's India, her way of
life, her friends, her partner, her going on and finally her elopement with the young Nawab. In this attempt,
the narrator is able to clear the dust off the India of the early nineteen thirties. She makes a judicious use of
Olivia's letters in this attempt.
The title of the novel is also very important and suggestive. After India as 'A Backward Place' and
then altogether 'A New Dominion', Jhabvala ultimately left it as a bowl of 'Heat and Dust'. Heat and
Dustare two things that haunt Jhabvala constantly in this novel. The entire story has been set in the summer
months, when the heat is immense, dust-storm are everyday occurrence, and all these cause a mental
depression. The readers are tempted to imagine that thedust storms are symbolic of Jhabvala's own state of
mind. She was unable to adjust in India and wanted to run away from this oppressive land, but could not do
so, as her strongest human ties, her Indian husband and children were in India. She was passing through a
stormy period hating everything Indian-Indian smells, food, landscape, language and people. That is why
she wrote this novel in a bitter mood, mentioning heat and dust over and over again.

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Besides the narrator, there are few more foreign characters, who come to India, in search of
spiritualism and peace. Their experiences also have been described with a touch of ironical humour. The
narrator meets a trio of foreigners (one girl and two young men) outside a travelers bungalow. The girl is
English with a pretty face, but now looks pale and dirty. The narrator asks her as to why she has come to
India. The girl promptly replies that she has come to India to find peace. She laughed grimly. “But all I
found was dysentery”, and her Youngman adds “That's all anyone over finds here” (25). This seems to be
the climax of Jhabvala's bitterness and criticism of this country, and in these lines she has also been able to
sum up the plight of foreigners in this country how they come here with high hopes and return, sick both
mentally and physically.
This young man and the girl happened to listen to a lecture in London by a Hindu Swami who was
there on a short visit. The lecture was on universal love. Jhabvala wrote in detail about it, the people who
listened to it, and also about the general atmosphere in the lecture theatre. This Youngman and girl were
also there and were influenced by him to the extent that they decided to come to India without any delay.
They have a series of experiences in India, which they have never anticipated before they came to India.
Jhabvala describes in detail how they are cheated, robbed and the girl is molested by a party of Sikh youths.
The young man suffers from jaundice, while the girl has contracted ringworms. It is a horrifying
description of their experiences and the treatment that they have received in India. Jhabvala suggests how
every foreigner who comes to India is disillusioned within no time because of the treatment he receives
from Indians.
The third foreigner, an ascetic (Chidanand) also came to India with a spiritual purpose. He was
attracted by the Holy Scriptures and decided to visit India. He was not disappointed initially, as he was
able to find a lot of it in the temples of South India and spent quite some time there. He fully merged
himself in the spiritualism that he could find there, so much so that when he did develop dysentery and
worms. He did not bother about them. Describing him, Jhabvala writes quite ironically :
… He too developed dysentery and ringworms but was not bothered by them, because of
living on such a higher plane; similarly he was not bothered by the disappearance of his few
possessions from the temple compound where he lived, He found a Guru to give him
initiation … He was given a new name Chidanand (his own companions called him Chid).
(27)
Also on the instructions of his Guru, he had set out on a pilgrimage on foot with a begging bowl in his hand,
and this is how he happened to be in Satipur. But he could not continue his journey beyond Satipur as he fell
sick and after a few days, the narrator found him groaning and in a terrible state in one of the royal tombs.
He lay there with all his belonging - an umbrella, a small bundle, beads and a begging bowl. He had fever,
the narrator who had met him outside the travellers' home, took pity on him and brought him to her room.
Chid recovered within a few days, but didn't show any signs of leaving her apartment. The narrator not only
provided him shelter and food, but she also had to satiate his hunger for sex.
Jhabvala makes her readers wonder why the narrator allowed Chid to use her in this manner. But
she offers an explanation herself. She says, she is physically much stronger as compared to Chid, and can
easily put him off, but she does not do it, because she finds that it is due to some emanation, which comes
not from within him, but some powers outside him. Normally, he appears to be utterly sexless, with
smooth cheeks and being awfully skinny. Jhabvala seems to present altogether new aspects of this land of
dust. She comes up with an odd combination of the sacred and the profane, the spiritual and the sexual and
the ideal and the earthly. Meenakshi Makherjee, once again analyzing Jhabvala's attitude towards those
foreigners, who land in this mysterious land, writes :
How India metamorphoses the foreigners, this is the theme of her earlier novels and short
stories as well. Also familiar is the manner of presentation the confident double edged

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irony which undermines the fine impartiality, those who come to India and the Indians with
whom they interact. Her method is to diminish her subject by making it ridiculous and at the
same time to appear to treat it with sympathetic concern. (209-10)
The narrator is unable to explain her sexual experience with Chid, but later on she has a sexual
intercourse with Inder Lal, the clerk, who is also her landlord. They both visit the Shrine of Baba Firdaus,
and while she takes out Sandwiches, he takes out two strings to be tied in the Shrine to get their wishes
fulfilled (this reminds one of Olivia and the Nawab). After tying their string, they are there alone and
together. Their desire for communication becomes stronger and more intimate. The narrator lays her hand
in his, and then he looks at her in an entirely different way and the narrator writes “he was a healthy young
man-his wife was away, we were alone in a romantic spot (getting more romantic every moment as the sun
began to set” (12). Chid lives with the narrator and spends a lot of time with her, but ultimately he
accompanies his mother and his wife Rita on a pilgrimage. Chid writes a lot of letters to the narrator and it is
here that Jhabvala takes an opportunity of bringing forth the differences between the east and the west. The
narrator had the letters which Olivia had written to Marcia long ago. But they were still fresh and had a
pleasant smell lingering on them, whereas the letters she received from Chid “appear soaked in all the
characteristic odours of India in spices, urine and betel.” (99) This is a nauseating description of Indian
odours. Obviously, the impression of Jhabvala herself. Not only here, but on many other occasions one is
tempted to identify the narrator with Jhabvala herself. Chid returns from his pilgrimage after a long time
but as an utterly changed person. His orange robe, beads and the begging bowl, all are gone. He is sick and
is suffering from acute diarrhea. The narrator takes Chid to the hospital and informs his relatives in
London, and asks them to arrange for a ticket for him. Chid passes his days quietly in the hospital, waiting
for the ticket, and all he used to say occasionally is “he can't stand the smell”. (162) He ultimately gets the
ticket and leaves the land of dustforever.
Besides Chid and the narrator, there are no other foreign characters in 1975. There is Harry who in
1923 was the Nawab's guest, and spent many years with him in his palace. Though he had all the comforts
provided by the Nawab, he was also very eager to go back to England, where he had an old mother, who
badly wanted him to come back to England. He was almost on the verge of leaving Nawab many a time, but
the Nawab would not let him go. Ultimately, the Nawab gave in and Harry left India for good. He went back
to England, to his mother. The ironical part is that he spent many years with the Nawab in comfort and
luxury. Yet, he recalls his days in India with dislike and a feeling of abhorrence for India. Jhabvala writes :
“Harry left India … He was glad when he looked back, on this time spent in the palace, it was always with
dislike even sometimes with abhorrence” (176). But on the contrary, Harry had no problem in India, except
that he used to miss his mother. So one can only conclude that any foreigner who comes to India, and
spends a few years in India must hate it or abhor it. That is how Jhabvala seems to feel.
Besides these foreign characters, the novel also presents a few Indian characters in the 1975 story.
There are people life Inder Lal's family and the old lady known as Maaji. They have all been used by
Jhabvala to bring forth Indian blind faith through superstition, their ignorance, disease and primitiveness.
It seems that Jhabvala does not want to leave out anything and wants to paint India in its worst form.
Describing Satipur, the narrator writes how people have preferred to sleep outdoors and on one of these
nights, the narrator heard a high-pitched wail piercing through the night. It was like a human sound, and she
was Rita, Inder Lal's wife, his mother was holding her tightly and then took her inside with the help of the
narrator. Once in the house, Inder Lal's mother had her own ways of dealing with her. Jhabvala describes it
in detail. She writes “The mother went to the jars where rice was stored and scattered a handful over Rita's
head … The mother opened and closed her hand and arched over that bowed head, cracking her knackles,
and she was also murmuring some incanatations.” (56)
Besides these superstitions and blind faith of Indian society, Jhabvala, was constantly haunted by

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the Indian poverty. She could never forget those millions who did not have a roof over their heads and
clothes to cover their bodies. Food was a rare commodity for them. Jhabvala was so oppressed by the time
she wrote this novel that she automatically portrayed Indian poverty in its worst form. She describes Indian
poor people almost like animals. She goes to the extent of writing that those who do not get enough to eat
look in the gutters to find what has been thrown away. It clearly reveals what Jhabvala felt about this
country. She thought India is only for the Indians. No foreigner could ever survive here. May be that is the
reason why all the foreign characters in the novel go back to their countries. And, of course, Jhabvala
herself left India, for she just could not live here. She has mentioned this clearly in the novel as to how
independent India was no good for Indians but too strong for European. All those British officers, who
were in India at the time of its independence, chose to go back to England. Douglas and Tessie went back,
the Crawfords who had a mind to stay in India (they even bought a cottage in Kasauli) could not stay here
for long as they felt : “The Indianisation of India was of course highly desirable … but it was desirable for
Indians rather than for the Crawfords themselves” (160). They also went back and bought a house in
Surrey. Major minnies spent a great part of his retirement in Ooty where he had a lot of time to think about
so many things. He later on published a monograph on the influence of India on the European
consciousness and character. He said “One has to be very determined to withstand to stand up to India.
And most vulnerable, he said, are always those who love her best. There are many ways of loving India,
many things to love her for the scenery, the history, the poetry, the music, and indeed the physical beauty of
men and women.” (175) Major minnies with all his conclusions chose to spend his last days in this country,
may be because he knew it so well and loved it so well.
Thus, Jhabvala's Heat and Dust is a sort of declaration of her dislike, bitterness and abhorrence.
She has openly and repeatedly admitted the fact that India, with all its good and bad points, is no place for
Europeans. The novel examines consciously the attitudes, bent of mind and sacrifices required of an
individual fore grounded from the West if he or she is to make India a permanent home. Though the
narrator (who is never fore grounded by being given a name) comes to India on a quest for the truth of a
relationship entered into by her grandfather's first wife, Olivia Rivers, and repeats most patterns of her
'ancestor's' behaviour, her real quest is for those constituents of personality which allow one to live on, and
at peace in India.

Works cited
Jhabvala, Ruth Prawer. Heat and Dust, London : John Murray, 1975. Print.
Kapur, Promilla. Love, Marriage, Sex, and the Indian Novel. New Delhi : Vikas Publishing House, 1973.
Print.
Mukerji, Nirmal. “Heat and Dust :A Tale of Two Women.”Kakatiya Journal of English Studies.3.1 (1978)
: 120-38 and also in Indian Fiction in English. Eds. P. Mallikarjuna Rao and M. Rajeshwar. New
Delhi : Atlantic Publishers and Distributors, 1999 : 183-95. Print.
Shahane, V.A. Ruth Prawer Jhabvala. New Delhi : Arnold-Heinemann, 1976. Print.

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19
ASTHA'S ASPIRATION FOR INDEPENDENCE IN MANJU KAPUR'S
A MARRIED WOMAN

Dr. N. Kowsalya Devi, Assistant Professor Devanga Arts College, Aruppukottai

Abstract:
Kapur's women are from middle class well to do families and their problems are not that of bread
and butter. They suffer the emotional trauma of being ignored in their own houses. They want to be their
own self and not the puppets at the hands of others. They aspire to be independent. To achieve this
independence they make many attempts to get educated and be the winner of the bread. Virginia Woolf's
philosophical assumption that economic independence is the base of familial and social independence is
the motto of the women in the novels of Kapur. Therefore, each of Kapur's protagonists struggles for the
financial settlement and their independence. They attempt to earn money by working gainfully. Still they
don't want to lose their own reputation. To be secure most of these women prefer teaching as the most
suitable career option. Younger women are educated and bold. They fight for their right to be individuals.
Her protagonists struggle for self-reliance. The struggle begins from home. It comes out as mother versus
daughter dichotomy. The nature of this struggle is complex as the women have to fight on diverse levels
such as physical, emotional, familial, social, economic etc.

Keywords: Aspiration, Liberty, Self-reliance, Dissatisfaction, Depression, Sacrifice.

India in the twenty-first century is not only known for the outstanding achievement in the field of
science and technology or gradually attaining materialistic prosperity, but also for remarkable
achievement of the writers in the literary world. There are a large number of writers who have shown their
unique talent in delineating the hopes and aspirations and failures and frustrations of the individuals in
their literary works, especially in novels. Indian novelists have got recognition and world-wide acceptance
for their outstanding contribution both in India and in abroad also. They show their supremacy among the
Western counterparts in terms of thematic and stylistic perception. It also seems that Indian novelists
writing in English have marginalized the other genres of literature like poetry, drama, etc.
Among the novelists, especially the woman novelists have shown stern consistency and stamina to
throw light on some of the important issues and trends. The woman novelists like Shobha De, Kiran Desai,
JhumpaLahiri, ManjuKapur, etc., have shown unique perception in terms of raising slogan for the
improvement in the condition of women in the male-dominated society. They try to present some of the
esoteric facts concerning to internal problem faced by women in the fast-developing Indian society in the
twenty-first century. All these novelists try to discover women within women and their place in the new
space in the typical traditional Indian society which is still in dilemma to provide desired place to them.
ManjuKapur is one of the most authentic and remarkable as far as traditional story-telling is
concerned. In all her five novels, she has narrated the real life of Indians, especially Indian women in
different contexts and milieu. In her novels like Difficult Daughters, A Married Women, Home, The
Immigrant and Custody are quite unique in searching new space for women belonging to middle-class or
upper-middle class. In her novels, she tries to highlight the new consequences of husband-wife
relationship and man-woman relationship. Her feminist stance is quite clear in the characterization.
Virmati, Astha, Nisha, Nina and Shagun are some of the memorable woman characters in her novels who
represent different modern perceptions, plea for liberty and continuous search of the place of women in the
ASTHA'S ASPIRATION FOR INDEPENDENCE IN MANJU KAPUR'S A MARRIED WOMAN 67
male-dominated society. All these characters seem real and live because they realistically present the
facets of modern life and its different consequences.
ManjuKapur's women are portrayed within the periphery of their respective territories subject to
gender prejudice and oppressed to the level of giving up individual identity. A self-effacing and selfless
living is thrust upon women, acclimatizing them to gender prejudice and willing accepting of their present
situation. In all her novels ManjuKapur place emphasis on the cultural conditioning of the girl child in an
Indian setup. From a social and psychoanalytic angle, she explores the manner in which Indian girls are
moulded to suit the needs and imperatives of a patriarchal society. While most novels dealing with feminist
issues begin with the problems affecting the marital life of an urban educated woman, the novels of
ManjuKapur trace the painful voyage of the heroines from childhood into adulthood.
Albert Comus: “The role of a writer is not to identify with the makers of history, but with its
victims.” Hence it becomes quite mandatory for us to ascertain that the perpetual subjugation of women is
divinely ordained. If the earliest scriptures have any relevance and validity, the things are clarified and the
role and place of woman is considered as sacred and pivotal one for the progress of any family, society and
the nation.
Kapur's women are divided into two categories: the elderly women who are carriers of culture, and
the younger women who defy the culture. The older women are submissive and their lives are dominated
by men. Younger women are educated and bold. They fight for their right to be individuals. Her
protagonists struggle for self-reliance. The struggle begins from home. It comes out as mother versus
daughter dichotomy. The nature of this struggle is complex as the women have to fight on diverse levels
such as physical, emotional, familial, social, economic etc.
Kapur's women are from middle class well to do families and their problems are not that of bread
and butter. They suffer the emotional trauma of being ignored in their own houses. They want to be their
own self and not the puppets at the hands of others. They aspire to be independent. To achieve this
independence they make many attempts to get educated and be the winner of the bread. Virginia Woolf's
philosophical assumption that economic independence is the base of familial and social independence is
the motto of the women in the novels of Kapur. Therefore, each of Kapur's protagonists struggles for the
financial settlement. They attempt to earn money by working gainfully. Still they don't want to lose their
own reputation. To be secure most of these women prefer teaching as the most suitable career option.
Among Kapur's five novels, A Married Woman seems to be revolutionary in initiating different
kind of home morality associated with feminism. The novel deals with the life of Astha, her marriage with
Hemant, her association with Pip and her involvement in social and political activites. Astha's journey in
this novel can be analysed in the light of feminism in the new era of liberty and freedom.
In A Married Woman, ManjuKapur sees the world from the woman's perspectives and that is why
in spite of several attempts, Hemant does not succeed in the marginalization of Astha. She seems to be the
representative of middle-class educated women who bear the burden of cultural and moral loads at the
time. A critic writes in The Independent: This fluent and witty novel gets under the skin of a marooned
woman giddily and triumphantly set adrift by the promise of love.(2)
Astha's stories are a different kind of disappointment. She is educated, she is an artist, she has a
loving and dutiful husband, she has a good house, she is economically stable, but she aspires for different
kind of freedom, which is quite symbolic and also complicated. Her story may not be story of every Indian
woman, but at the same time it challenges the traditional and conventional existence of a woman in which
Astha locates herself. Her journey clearly symbolizes the transformation in the outlook of the women after
independence. The novel can be studied to two ways, firstly in the light of Astha-Hemant relationship and
secondly, Astha Pipee relationship.
Right from the beginning of the novel, Astha has beenshown as a girl with strong likes and dislikes
and this nature of her character has been displayed in her affection towards Bunty. Many letters were

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exchanged between them from time to time. She lives in her own world which is full of fantasy.
She was living in a world of own, waiting for the holidays to come, so that she could see
Bunty. It would be different now, no awkwardness or shyness. They were closer, they had
shared their thoughts and feelings. Hopefully they would kiss.Where and how? She
imagined the places, grew lost in her fantasies. (6)
Astha was very curious about her education and she has the realization that only education can
bring real freedom in her life. She was admitted in a college for higher education. On the other hand, her
parents become conscious as well as anxious about her marriage:
Now Astha was in college her mother focuses anxiously on their primarily parental
obligation. Every Sunday she scanned the matrimonial page meticulously, pencil in hand,
circling ads. Later on she would show them to the father. (21)
Her mother's logic is quite obvious and could not be challenged. According to her, there is time for
everything. She wants to arrange the marriage of Astha within time. For her the education of her daughter
has no importance. She presents her logic:
There is a time for everything”, went on the mother. “The girl is blossoming now. When the
fruit is ripe it has to be picked. Later she might get into the wrong company and we will be
left wringing our hands. If she marries at this age, she will have not problem in adjusting.
We too are not so young we can afford to wait. (20)
On the other hand, Astha does not seem to be in hurry in her marriage. She still remembers her
affection for Bunty, her first love. She does not want to go with an unknown man. After her breakage from
Bunty, she finds a new love in the arms of Rohan,. Within very limited period Astha and Rohan become
very closed to each other. They begin to start physical interaction but their relationship between boys and
girls before marriage is unaccepted in Indian society. Even the relationship between Astha and Rohan do
not continue for a longer period. It has become fashion in colleges and universities that boys and girls are in
relationship and they are closed to each other on certain terms. After completing their education they
become free although some of them find themselves in the bondage of marriage. In the fast changing
Indian society, this type of relationship seems to be the outcome of the feminist movement although it is
still not accepted as good.
Finally, Astha was married to Hemant. They are satisfied with each other. They are in good terms of
physical fulfilment also. But after a few months they become dissatisfied. Astha tries consoling Hemant in
her own way. She tells him money is not everything. Money alone cannot bring happiness in human life.
She has the realization that real happiness can only be found in the success of fulfilment in family life.
“Money is not everythingdarling. Look, you have your family, me our parents (18)”. Astha wanted
to be the mother after two years of married life. She has a better sense of Indianness regarding motherhood.
Every woman wants to be mother and it is the victory of womanhood. Women play great role in the
continuation of this universe and without them the existence of the universe cannot be imagined. In spite of
this fact it is quite ironical that male dominated society still does not provide equal status to women. They
still seem to be in the state of marginalization.
Sometimes man does not have enough times of women. There may be some reasons. Business, job,
mental tiredness, social obligations, etc., are some of the obvious reasons which compel them to show little
interest. Hemant may have logic. He thinks good about Astha but only about the sexual completion of
Astha. But sex is nothing before mental satisfaction. It is the common habit of man to look after only
physical compulsion. On the other hand, Astha realizes the characteristic of marriage. Marriage means
sacrifice of personal interest, personal emotions of pride and self identity. Gradually, distance takes place
between Astha and Hemant. Astha had brought deformities in her life. She felt the horror of distance from
Hemant. She aspired for freedom and she was in search of liberty. She was educated, she was creative, she
was sensitive and she needed liberty:

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Astha was how virtually a single mother. Beleaguered by job, small children and house, and
sometimes toyed the idea of resigning from school, but between marriage and birth of her
children she too had changed from being a woman who only wanted love, to a woman who
valued independence. Besides there was the pleaser of interacting with minds instead of
needs. (33)
The novel is not only about journey of Astha's 'innocence to experience' but the novel deals with
Peeplika who seems to be unorthodox in every sense. She was a complete modern girl. She puts the
pleasure of human relationship above caste and religion. She married Izaz in spite of her mother's wish.
She becomes widow in very young age. She got enough time to do something unexpected. Peeplika is
always sympathetic in her action towards humanity. She told her that action, reaction and counteraction of
this world are not in the hands of human being. She forces her to start a new life. The attitude of Peeplika's
mother in quite suggestive in showing changing attitude in the era of globalization.
May be it is a blessing in disguise that you have no children. When you father felt me, I had
my Peepika, and my Ajay, I needed no, one else, but you with your youth, your intelligence,
your personality, you need other outlets. Aijaz would not want you to be unhappy or alone. I
know that. Life has its own laws that will be heard and felt. (44)
On the other hand, Astha had some other notions. She risks her own family for the sake of her social
life. It seems to be another notion of the novelist which she wants to propagate. Astha decided to visit
Ayodhaya along with other members to protest the demolition of the mosque she does not care about her
family responsibility. She shows her own likes and dislikes. Her character can be studied in the light of her
revolt against the traditional and conventional social duties assigned to women. In Ayodhya, she delivered
her speech in high tone. She advocated for violence free society. She tells people to respect other religions,
faith and values. She did not find any difference between temple and mosque. God is one He exists
everywhere, in temple, in mosque, in church and in Gurudhwara. For her, it is futile to search Him at one
particular place. Her speech is the symbol of her free thought irrespective of the clash between her personal
life and her social life.
Astha is a woman of self respect and self dignity. She cannot accept the burden of her husband's
whims. Even the small and little whims of her husband disturb her. That is why Astha began to think that
she was satisfied in the company of Peeplika. In her relationship with Peeplika, Astha was always in
dilemma. She was not able to decide about her fate. She would like to return home with respect and
enthusiasm but it was not possible. The novel seems to be the portrayal of the characters ofAstha and
Peeplika searching their identity in male dominated society. They are the typical victims of time and space.
They seem to be the typical representatives of the age of the transformation in which women cannot be
marginalized. ManjuKapur is aware of this fact. Astha's aspirations are not simple, her search of identity
and plea for liberty and independence are not baseless, and her frustration, depression and hostility are not
meaningless. Her unorthodox behaviour is not shocking. She along with Peeplika seems to challenge the
traditional concept of society in which women have a little role to play but they show that they are different
types of women and they have to play a bigger role not only in home but also outside of home.

Works Cited
Kapur, Manju. A Married Woman. New Delhi: India link, 2002. Print.
Singh, Chandra Bhushan. “Feminism in the Novels of ManjuKapur.”Women's Perspectives in the Novels
of ManjuKapur. Jaipur: Aadi Publications. 2016. Print.
Singh, K.K. “ManjuKapur's A Married Woman: Astha Challenges the Age-old Astha of Indian Women.”A
Critical Companion to ManjuKapur's Novels. Jaipur: Aadi Publications. 2015.Print.

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20
DIASPORIC CONSCIOUSNESS IN CHITRA BANERJEE DIVAKARUNI'S
SISTER OF MY HEART

B. V. Bividha, Research Scholar, Rani Anna Govt College for Women, Thirunelveli
Dr. Y. Vigila Jebaruby, Assc. Prof., Rani Anna Govt College for Women, Thirunelveli

Abstract:
This research paper focuses on the study of the novel Sister of My Heart by Chitra Banerjee
Divakaruni in the context of diasporic consciousness. It looks into the experience of diaspora. It is
necessary to understand the term “diaspora” and the received notions of diasporic characteristics and
their modes of existence. Sister of My Heart traces the many years experience between India and America
as the protagonist cousins, Anju and Sudha first grow apart and they eventually reunite. This paper also
shows how Divakaruni invests this domestic drama with poetry as she traces her heroines' lives from
infancy to motherhood. In this novel, Anju and Sudha immigrate to USA. It is Anju's dream to migrate to
America in order to have better prospects, freedom and marriage. But Sudha is driven to USA by the
burning traumatic homeland realities, which she faces in India. The author highlights that the pressures on
the Indian females make them move out of India, seeking better life and freedom. This novel shows that the
immigrant experience encompasses a wide variety of challenges, some of which are handled more
successfully than others by the female diaspora.

Key Words: Diaspora, Diasporic Consciousness, Immigrant Experience.

Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni is a novelist, poet and a social activist. Her works have been translated
into eleven languages. She has won accolades all over the world. Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni was born in
1957 in Calcutta, India. Her novels are set in both India and America, and the characters are torn between
old and new world. With her laser-like insight and a skilled use of story, plot and lyrical description, she
gives readers a many-layered look at her characters and their respective worlds, which are filled with fear,
hope, and discovery. Divakaruni is the one who makes repeated references to the tradition of Calcutta. Her
cherished moments of nostalgia and bewilderment encounters with real Calcutta. Divakaruni also tries to
relocate her cultural space and identity mediated by significant cross-cultural influences.
Representing second generation of Indian American writers, Chithra Banerjee Divakaruni
chooses to examine the world of middle class women. Most of the stories are about Indians who migrate to
the United States from the author's native land of Bengal. They are told by female narrators in the first
person singular point of view, often in the present tense imparting a voice of intimacy and cinematic
credibility. There are several immigrants who are struggling to carve out an identity of their own. A
diasporic community is varied and complex and hence all attempts at homogenization are likely to lead to
over-simplifications.
Diaspora fiction lingers over alienation, loneliness, homelessness, existential rootlessness,
nostalgia, questioning, protest, assertions, quest and identity. It also addresses issues related to
amalgamation of cultures. Here lies the clash between the past and the present, between two generation,
concern for root and rootlessness, native land and new land, singular culture and multiculture. Such trends
continue to occur in all the diasporic writings.
In the last few decades of 20th century migration to the west has increased because of professional
DIASPORIC CONSCIOUSNESS IN CHITRA BANERJEE DIVAKARUNI'S SISTER OF MY HEART 71
interest of both the genders. The members of middle and upper class populations of Indian origins marry
across the borders. These are the factors that generate many authors of Indian origin in English and affect
their writings. To retain the values of homeland in the new atmosphere of the adopted land which has its
own values creates particular kind of consciousness. This consciousness involves mental clashes,
unresolved dilemmas, unsettled conflicts, unread complexities, and unanswered questions.
Women's life in diasporic situations can be doubly painful- struggling with the material and
spiritual insecurities of exile, with the demands of family and work with the claims of old and new
patriarchies. Consequently, the women in South Asian women's literature question their identity. This self
evaluation is a preoccupation for diasporic women writers, but they give different conclusions at different
contexts. What comes out of their writings is a combination of concerns with migration and diaspora for
the new woman.
The novel Sister of My Heart focuses on the relationship between the two young girls, from the
shared experiences of their youth to the varied experiences of their married lives. The scenes of forbidden
love, demanding parental expectations and difficult-in-laws are predictable. Her poetic language,
elaborate descriptions, and symbolism are really at a higher level. This novel spins around two cousins
Anju and Sudha Chatterjee who are born a few hours apart from each other on the same day. Since the day
they were born, Sudha and Anju have been bonded in ways whichever their mothers cannot comprehend.
Urged into marriages, their lives take sudden opposite turns with Anju in India and Sudha in America. But
the women discover that, despite the distance that has grown between them, they have none but themselves
to support. They grow up in a very conservative upper-middle class home consisting solely of women
mothers, aunts and the maid. Although their personalities and ambitions are in contrast, they are intensely
close friends and soul mates. Sudha, the beautiful girl dreams of a romantic marriage and motherhood
based on Hindu fables and legends. On the other hand, Anju is somewhat physically unattractive, a book
worm and a rebel who dreams of higher education. Both of them lost their fathers on a ruby-hunting
expedition which was planned by Sudha's father. Sudha feels guilty for her father's actions. In turn, she
sacrifices her love for Ashok. She drops the idea of her elopement with Ashok because it might break
Anju's marriage. Sudha accepts to an arranged marriage with a weak willed man, who is dominated by his
widow mother. Anju gets married to a computer scientist Sunil who is working in America. The string of
the bond of both the sisters is somewhat stretched when Anjufinds that Sunil feels attracted towards the
beautiful Sudha.
The unlikely relationships they form with men and women in the world outside the immigrant
Indian Community as well as their families in India profoundly transform them. The story ends with Anju's
metaphorical declaration, “I've learned to fly” (318). Divakaruni deals with a new facet of immigrant
experience in the sense that the movement is not necessarily a physical one or from east to west. Sudha
decides that she is not interested in America any-more and likes to go back to her home in Bengal. Thus the
author wants to form a new ground.
In the second half of the novel titled The Queen of Swords, Sudha quickly learns the ways of her
demanding and controlling mother-in-law. Meanwhile Anju's life in the United States has not entirely
turned out as she expected. Anju and Sudha exchange letters and short phone calls, but their old intimacy is
missing. The friends discover that they are pregnant at the same time and both seem finally happy. Sudha's
mother-in-law insists to abort her baby because she comes to know that it is a girl baby. She believes that
the first child must be a son. Sudha is not able to accept her mother-in-law's decision and leaves her
husband. Refusing to tie her life with another man and realizing Anju needs her, Sudha and her daughter
decide to go to the United States. After many years, the sisters are reunited, but future obstacles still loom in
their horizon.
Whether set in America, or India, the plot features Indian-born women torn between old and new

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values. They provide the readers a many layered look at the characters and their respective world. The
characters in the novel are filled with dreams, desires, pain, struggle to lead with hope and discovery.
Whether in California or Calcutta, women learn to adapt to their new and changing culture and as a result,
discover their own sense of self in the midst of joy and heartbreak. Ironically, in her attempts to make the
novel unique Divakaruni seems to have made it melodramatic and hence, stereotype of South Asian
movies. She simply develops the story between the two sisters without trying to create grandeur where it
was not needed. Regardless of this, this is a highly emotional and beautiful written novel.
Through the eyes of people caught in the clash of cultures, and by constantly juxtaposing Calcutta
with a California city, Divakaruni reveals the rewards and the perils of breaking free from the past and the
complicated, often contradictory emotions that shape the passage to independence. Divakaruni's journey
from a young graduate student in Calcutta to a mature writer of repute in the United States seems to have
come a full circle. Whatever may be the reason for migration, diaspora community faces the problems of
dislocation, rootlessness, discrimination in the foreign countries. Clifford says that, “life for women in
diasporic situations can be doubly painfulstruggling with the material and spiritual insecurities of exile,
with the claims of old and new patriarchies” (314).
As female writers who are more conscious of the meaning of home as an exclusive space the
detailed descriptions of Calcutta houses in their writings give them a cultural identity apart from their
material reality. Thus each house is encased in different sets of vividly evoked specification-the verandahs,
the terraces, the courtyards-all essentially female spaces in the Indian culture that contribute to the
upbringing of the characters inhabiting them.
Most of the stories of Divakaruni are about Indian immigrants to the United States from her native
region of Bengal are told by female narrators in the first person singular point of view, often in the present
tense, imparting a voice of intimacy and cinematic credibility. There are several immigrant brides who are
both liberated and trapped by cultural changes and who are struggling to carve out an identity of their own.

Works Cited
William P. and Christman L., eds. Colonial Discourse and Post-Colonial Theory. New York: Columbia
University Press, 1994. Print.
Clifford, James. ''Diasporas''. Cultural Anthropology 9.3 (1994): 302-38.Print.
Divakaruni, Chitra Banerjee. Sister of My Heart. London: Penguin Books, 1999.Print.

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21
TRANSCULTURAL FLUID IDENTITIES IN AMULYA MALLADI'S
THE MANGO SEASON

J. Rebecca Manonmani, Ph.D. Scholar, Rani Anna College for Women, Tirunelveli
Dr. Y. Vigila Jebaruby, Assistant Professor, Rani Anna College for Women, Tirunelveli

Abstract:
This paper presentation analyses the effects of the transcultural fluid identities in Amulya
Malladi's The Mango Season. Transculturalism is a global phenomenon which describes the highlights
the very complex transmutations of culture and inter-cultural connectivity between the people. It focuses
on the transition of one culture into another culture and the acquisition of features of this new culture .In
the Malladi's novel The Mango Season, story revolves around the protagonist Priya, twenty year old girl
who comes to India after staying seven year in America. She meets many numbers of people, location,
situation and time that affects the process of her identity. Because of the endless transformation, the
identity is endured always as indefinite. Priya, the protagonist of ideal transnational identity finds herself
hanging in the sphere of cross national identities. Many women make their choice of moving to western
countries for getting education and job. After becoming a part of that culture, they face problems in
marriage, identity and longing for native land in the host land. Priya also faces all these problems. She is
not fully satisfied with the love she has experienced. The description of Priya by Malladi pictures fluid
identity. Though they are geographical located in one region, their trans-cultural consciousness makes
her wander aimlessly.

Keywords: Transculture, identity, transmutation, transnational.

Transculturalism is a universal aspect which describes and highlights the very complex
transmutations of culture and inter-cultural connectivity between the people. It focuses on the transition of
one culture into another culture and the acquisition of features of a new culture.According to Jeff Lewis,
“Transculturalism is characterised by cultural fluidity and the dynamics of cultural
change.(Transculturlism 2018) The term transculturalism was introduced as early as in the 1940s by
social scientists to refer to the emergence of a new culture. It refers to the impression that people can
proceed with an understanding of culture that surpasses or goes beyond specific cultures by
blending more than one culture. The mixing of the old and the new culture creates the gap between the real
and the received identity which leads to the multiple identities of the immigrants.
Amulya Malladi is one the greatest Indian diasporic women writers in English. She is an Indian
descent. She was born in Sagar, Madhya Pradesh in 1979. Her father worked in the Indian Army. It
comforted Malladi to enjoy her life in almost every part of our country. She had completed her Bachelor's
Degree in Electronic Engineering from Osmania University, Hyderabad. She moved on to Memphis
University and got Master's degree in journalism. She first started her career as an online editor for a high-
tech publishing house in San Francisco. Malladi now lives in Denmark with her husband Soren Rasmussen
and her two sons.Though Amulya Malladi is in Denmark, as a writer she uses Indian setting in almost all
her eight novels, typically depicting traditional life and values of India and their conflicts with modern
values. She wrote eight novels such as A Breath of Fresh Air , The Mango Season , Serving Crazy with
Curry, Song of the Cuckoo Bird, The Sound of Language, A House for Happy Mothers and The
TRANSCULTURAL FLUID IDENTITIES IN AMULYA MALLADI'S THE MANGO SEASON 74
Copenhagen Affair. Amulya Malladi potrays the characters from the urban middle class of modern India
and also elite people in India who settle in western world. Her characters often dispersed from their
homeland in search of education, work and survival. Most of the characters have developed a distinctive
identity. Though her characters settled up in another country, they carried a little homeland with them. The
little homeland baggage filled with the predefined social identity, religious belief, values of family and
food habits of their home country is often shown in her novels.
Priya the protagonist of the novel The Mango Season is a transculturalist. As a transculturalist, she
goes beyond the race and the religion in an unusual manner to codify her own rules for her own way of life.
When a person shifts from one country to another country, a pressure rests on the self development,
independence and empowerment. However the new region delights and threatens them, it is clear for the
migrants to originate their own identity because of the shift to the new and the unfamiliar environment.
This new locale in a new country creates a new gathering and new pathway for their development and
gradually develops a familiar space for diasporians. Priya, the protagonist is the paradigm of
transculturalism. She had internal conflicts from the beginning of the novel. She struggles with an
emotional problem because of her family's disapproval of her marriage proposal with Nick. She says, “I
didn't want to go. I had to go.. I didn't want to go. I had to go.” (3) It is like a psycho-social statement of a
transculturalist in the opening soliloquy phrase of Shakespeare's Hamlet “To be or not to be”. The repeated
lines of Priya say that she did not want to come to India because of the demanding explanation of the
parents. On the other hand, she wanted to come to India to inform their relatives that she was marrying a
nice American man. She finds herself swinging in the world of transcultural identities. She is in the fluid
state of moving from one country into another.
The Manogo Season is Amulya Malladi's third novel. Priya Rao the protagonist is a Brahmin
woman from Hyderabad. She is rightly 27 year old. She leaves India when she is twenty to pursue her
Masters in the United States. She also found a job in Silicon Valley. But she never came back in the middle
of seven years. She found several excuses to avoid visiting India. Her parents were urging her to come
back to India. Though Priya has lost her family and relationships when she left India, it was
counterbalanced by the love, happiness and comfort she received from Nick in America. Priya uses
multiple voices to express her emotion. In this novel, the character Priya experienced two cultures with two
challenges. The Indian culture made her to lead a selfless life. On the other hand, the American culture
expected her to lead a self centered life. Malladi says,”All Indian Parents who see their children off to the
western world have a few fear.”(3)These were the two extremes of life which turned Priya to face many
challenges. The protagonist is in search of identity. She is oscillating between Indian culture and American
culture. Though Priya was born and brought up in an orthodox Brahmin family which preached the culture,
tradition and custom of India, she has to merge with the western culture. Being an Indian, she is aware of
the Indianness in her life. Though the transformation is very clear, at times her mind longs for the tradition
too. Living for the family is bliss for Indian women in India. Priya says, “It was overpowering, the smell of
mangoes --- some fresh, some old, some rotten.”(7) The term overpowering gives us the meaning
something very powerful and uncontrollable. The fruit mango represents our culture. The mango fruit is
also known as the king of fruits. The fruit mango is celebrated in our culture since Vedic period. Here in the
novel The Mango Season, the mango represents our culture which is sometimes fresh, sometimes old and
sometimes rotten. But still the smell of the mangoes is overpowering. Like mangoes, Indian culture is
sometimes fresh, sometimes old and sometimes rotten. But it is always overpowering the life of Indians.
Though Priya accepts the transformation in her life, she likes the Indian mango which symbolizes Indian
tradition. Here the fruit mango is related to happiness. Mango is a sweet and juicy fruit known for its good
taste. Priya enjoys eating the mango. The smell of mango evokes the budded memories of her childhood.
With transcultural identities, she is loyal to the old culture and fluent to the new culture.

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India is a country well known for the racial discrimination and caste discrimination. Priya's
grandfather clearly brought up the terms and the conditions of tradition and culture of India. Though
Priya's parents accepted the love between her and an American man, her grandfather did not accept the love
affair. Untouchability is one of the characteristics of Indian culture. The grandfather also ill treated the
lower caste people. Rajini was a maid servant who worked in the house of Priya's grandfather. Priya says,
“Rajini was not a Brahmin and she was not allowed inside the kitchen.”(26). She was prohibited from
entering into the houses. Rajini was treated as an untouchable in their house. Priya's grandmother said,
“Brahimins have become more tolerant, what with the days being so modern and everything.”(26). Her
grandmother was not happy with modern changes of that period. Priya is often discriminated by her mother
for her complexion. In India, the fair skin is considered as the superior complexion. Many women in India
face discrimination like Priya. Priya's American lover was surprised to hear that she was discriminated for
her complexion. Priya says, “Nick was heartily amused when I told him how my own mother had
discriminated against me because I was dark.”(29). Nick, her American lover pointedly said that “All
Indians are dark.”(29). Indians may be dark or fair, but as per American terms the Indians are dark in
complexion.
Indian women inculcate their fundamental cultural and religious values into their children from
their childhood. India is a country which is deeply rooted in cultural values. Indian women want to transmit
the same values on their children. Priya's mother also tried her level best to inculcate the values of Indian
culture and tradition to her daughter. From the beginning to the end of the novel The Mango Season the
mother is advising her daughter to follow the Indian traditions. As per the Hindu religion eating cow is a
sin. But it is common in America. Priya's mother inculcates the Hindu religious belief in to her daughter.
This novel begins with the statement of Priya's mother, “Do not eat beaf.”(1) These are words of which her
mother repeatedly told while leaving her native place. These words were also used by the mother of
Gandhiji and Gadhiji promised that he would not eat meat. Gadhiji says, “I vowed not to touch wine,
woman and meat. This done, my mother gave her permission.”(Gandhi 35) when he started to leave India
to Britain to study Barrister course there. While in Britain, Gandhiji suffered a lot to keep the promise given
to her mother. From this one comes to know that Indian parents ask their children to follow Indian
traditions and culture at all cost in a foreign land.
Priya is very familiar with the American life. She fails to accept the same when she finds it in India.
Tara, Nate's friend is a typical American woman. When Tara moved to meet Nate and Priya after nine in the
night, she appeared in tight yellow blouse and small skirt. Though Priya was fond of the pop music in
America and she tapped her feet for the music. Though Priya lived the life in America as an American, she
was shocked and failed to accept it in India. This shows her halfway travel between the two cultures. As a
transculturlist, she decides to marry outside her caste, race, religion and nationality. She was hesitant to
bring out her secret love affair with Nick because she was afraid that no one in her family would accept it.
As well as, she was afraid to lose her love between her and her family members. As an Indo American, she
adopts some of the elements of American. She suppresses her parent culture to acquire the new culture in a
new way. “The adoption of some of the dominant culture by another group paves the way for absorption of
the new cultural group with the dominant culture.”( Bhushan 185) Priya in the The Mango Season is the
symbol of tranculturalist where she blends two cultures and she is also in a fluid state where she constantly
moves between two cultures. Afshar says, “To succeed, women across the word develop fluid
identities.”(1 Afshar)

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Work Cited
“A Quote from Deborah, Golda, and Me.” Goodreads, Goodreads, www.goodreads.com/quotes/ 411747.
Afshar, haleh. Women and fluid identities strategic and practical pathways selected by women University
of York, UK.print.
Bhushan, Vidhya, and D.R.SachDeva. Fundamentals of Sociology. Pearson.Print.
Gandhi, M. K. Autobiography: the story of my experiments with truth. New generation publishing, 2017.
Malladi, amulya. The mango season.usa:ballatine books,2004.print.
“Transculturalism.” Wikipedia, wikimedia foundation, 25 aug. 2018, en.wikipedia.org/
wiki/transculturalism.

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22
FREE WILL IN ANTHONY BURGESS' THE WANTING SEED

R. Pradeeban, PhD Research Scholar, Alagappa University, Karaikudi

Dr. R. Suriya Prakash Narayanan, Assistant Professor and Head I/C, Alagappa University
Model Constituent College of Arts and Science College, Paramakudi

Abstract:
The paper has presented about temptation of free will and chaotic future of human society
especially through protagonists. Anthony Burgess has depicted about free will, introducing Nadsat
language, alcoholism, women as a product, illegal relationship and homosexuality. His novels deal with
the purpose of human existence, the nature of human identity, the value and significance of language. In
the novel, The Wanting Seed, Tristram Foxe, apelphase history teacher and his wife Beatrice-Joanna, who
lose their son, fell prey to free will that lead to illegal relationship, addicted to alcohol, identity crisis, war
fare, state control and rehabilitation of mind. The characters are thirsty to enjoy free will so society should
not become an obstacle to an individual's life or actions and these restrictions hamper free will and the
development of the potential of individual. The two protagonists believe that they can define themselves
through the acts of will which creates their own identity.

Key words: Free Will, Nadsat Language, Homosexuality, Pelphase and Identity Crisis

Anthony burgess' novels concern the individual and the modern state of 1960s which approach life
indirectly by creating fantasies or fable which appeal to us in odd and disturbing ways. His creativity is a
matter of style, of words combined in strange new shapes rather than specifiable political, philosophical or
religious ideas. In the novel The Wanting Seed, he stated about the human free and its consequences.
Liberalism means laxness. We leave it a education and propaganda and free contraceptives,
abortion clinics and condolences. We encourage non-productive forms of sexual activity. We like to kid
ourselves that people are good enough and wise enough to be aware of their responsibilities. But what
happens? There was the case, only a few weeks ago, of a couple in Western Province who'd had six
children. Six. I ask you. And all alive, too. A very old-fashioned couple-God-followers (The Wanting Seed
43). The main catastrophe of novels of Anthony Burgess runs on dystopian panorama that is always
domination of power and their negative consequences on the society. The novels The Wanting Seed is
revolving around sex, reproduction, infanticide, alcoholism, autocratic, and war. The novels of social
critique, spot light on the sever effects on society which is between economic and individual society.
The protagonist Tristram is a scholar and history school teacher and his wife Beatrice-Joanna is
having an affair with her brother-in-law, Derek, who is a government official. In the very beginning of
novel Beatrice-Joanna handed over his son's body to Ministry of Agriculture department. She wanted to
rejoice mortal life upto the least rather worrying for her dead son. Beatrice-Joanna found shelter in her
sister's home after she was lashed out by Tristram when he knew about illegal relationship with his brother
Derek. She wrote a confidential letter to Derek to tell about his love. She says:”when we could lie together
loving each other, and not a care in the world except making sure that nobody knew what was going on
between us. I refuse to believe that those lovely times are over. I miss you so much; I miss your arms around
me and your lips on mine” (The Wanting Seed 63)
The government started to threaten random blood testing of women for pregnancy; apart from this,
FREE WILL IN ANTHONY BURGESS' THE WANTING SEED 78
the government enforced supplied contraceptives and social pressures for sterilization. The government
hired unemployed once as junior police officers and generals to keep off the populace under the control of
Ministry of Infertility. The government came out an idea of limiting families to one birth, allowing a high
infant mortality rate and ready to discourage pregnancy. Even though the government wanted to stop over
population; due to the illegal relationship of Beatrice- Joanna she purposely misusing her government
supplied contraceptives and become pregnant because of Derek. The ability to continue a family line
without intervention from ruling bodies is a key freedom in a democratic civilization. In the end of novel,
government fixed and felt guilty over stopping women from having children. “Too many illeg pregs trying
to escape to the provinces. You wouldn't be trying anything like that, would you? Your card says you've got
a child, a son. Where is he now? 'Dead'. I see. I see. Well. That's that then, isn't it? Off you go” (The Wanting
Seed 95)
The novel took out the population explosion as fictional opportunity and imagines a society
presided over by a Ministry of Infertility which encourages homosexuality. The novel was published in
1962, after the introduction of the female oral contraceptive known as the pill. It shows that even in 60s'
government stubborn to cease for heterosexuality and also control might be the active promotion for
homosexuality. Ministry of Infertility has a slogan such as “It's Sapiens to be Homo” and “Love your
fellow Men” is their motto. The favourable people to non-reproductive are taking up homosexuality and
behaving in an extremely effeminate manner by castrating themselves. “All over the country blared
posters put out by the ministry of infertility, showing, in ironical nursery colours, an embracing pair of one
sex or the other with the legend it's Sapiens to be Homo. The Homosex Institute even ran night-
classes.” (The Wanting Seed 6)
Anthony burgess state three types faces that lead whole of the novel which could teach about
human's nature, his attributes, good and evil nature. He wanted to portray the connection between human
and their inner psyche and also with almighty through Pelphase, Interphase and the Augustinian phase. The
Pelphase is named Pelagius, who believed in the innate goodness of mankind, government operating with
this view see man as innately good or at least reasonable. That can lead in a proper encouragement and in
the right direction; men will naturally act within a moral structure that benefits the larger community. Law
enforcement is lax, and people take pride in being part of peaceful, function optimistic society. People are
innocent until proven guilty. During Interphase, there was total disaster of utopia and chaotic situation of
pelphase. The pelphase has been exploited and anarchy ensues. It is phase disorder and prolonged fight for
authority and protection. The grey boys called as police were brutally rampanted.
St. Augustine believed that man have evil mind, states holding an Augustinian worldview enforce
order strictly and routinely assume the worst of every individual. Religion is encouraged and they believed
that man can be redeemed from this evil activist only through high power or else the almighty. The phase
demonstrates the ability to behave reasonably well, and eventually Gusphase pessimism gives way to
pelphase optimism and the cycle renews itself.
We have a Pelagian phase. Then we have an intermediate phase. His chalk thickened one
arc, then another. This leads into an Augustinian phase. More thickening, and the chalk was
back where it had started. Pelphase, Interphase, Gusphase, Pelphase, Interphase, Gusphase
and so on for ever and ever. A sort of perpetual waltz… (The Wanting Seed 17)
This norm is based, even among people who have never known war, on abstractions such as glory
and honor, heroism and romance that have been programmed into subjects for generations. Tristram sees
through the façade, but like the other “volunteers” for the war, he was targeted because of his poverty,
having accepted a small sum of money. The economic factor is major that could lead to violence among
everyone. The violent law is always favourable to the dominants. The war situations are theatrical that has
no real enemy to attack. Tristram who was trapped into war zone after he become mental and economical

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FREE WILL IN ANTHONY BURGESS' THE WANTING SEED 79
paralyzed due to circumstances. He longed to apologize and live in peaceful rather than to become pieces.
By what hypocritical gesture of the head were the supplies being maintained? Civilian
contracts with no questions asked; the troops called the anonymous tinned meat 'bully', and
there was no such animal as that; the keeping of law and order was not incompatible with
tolerance of the quiet work of the slaughter-house. Martial law was the only way, Tristram
supposed. An army being primarily an organization set up for mass murder, morality could
never be its concern. (The Wanting Seed 171)
Through the comprehensive of The Wanting Seed, it has stated about the condition of individuality
and the individual within society, infanticide, infertility, promoting homosexuality and indulge in war
without any means they are having democracy that destroy etiquette of utopian environment. The Wanting
Seed is that power rests in the hands of the State, even though the norm, the reality of every day, is
manipulated. The Wanting Seed has been moving from one extreme to the other, makes it relatively easy to
predict the future; a future which reproduces the existing one rather than a future of renewal. The principle
of dystopia is the individuality annihilation, because individuality defines the essence of human nature.
Without free individuality, society leads into doom but that free will at any cost of time should not harm
anyone.

Works Cited
Andrew Biswell. The Real Life of Anthony Burgess, London: Pan Macmillan, 2006. Print
Burgess, Anthony. The Wanting Seed, London: W.W.Norton & Company, 1996.Print
Burgess, Anthony. The Novel Now: A Student's Guide to Contemporary Fiction, London, Faber & Faber,
1967. Print
Burgess, Anthony. Modern Critical Views, Ed. Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea House publishers,
1987. Print
Burgess, Anthony. Conversation with Anthony Burgess, Eds. Earl G. Ingersoll and Mary C. Ingersoll.
USA: University Press of Mississippi, 2008. Print

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23
CONVALESCENCE AND HOPE AS ELIXIR IN THE GIRL WITH
THE BLACKENED EYE BY JOYCE CAROL OATES

Dr. K. Sangeetha, Assistant Professor, Sri Sarada College for Women, Salem
S. Srinithi, Research Scholar in English, Sri Sarada College for Women, Salem

Abstract:
The proposed article is titled as “Convalescence and Hope as Elixir in 'The Girl with the
Blackened Eye' by Joyce Carol Oates” portrays precisely the necessity of optimism and recuperation for
the trauma-stricken survivors of sexual abuse. Joyce Carol Oates writes in a realistic manner about the
most grim and sensitive issues such as rape, abduction, that women face and fear in everyday life. This
paper exposes how in the face of violence, the life of a teenage kid collapses. It also delineates her
unendurable suffering of the past memories. “Remember to the last, that while there is life there is hope”
(Charles Dickens) Never one to shrink away from shocking and stirring themes, Joyce Carol Oates writes
in a realistic manner about the most grim and sensitive issues such as rape, abduction, murder that women
face and fear in everyday life. Most of Oates' works focus on female victimization where teenage girls and
young women are made to suffer. Only Oates can unearth sordid crimes of men and how in the face of
violence, it affects the innocent women and female children. Women strive hard to overcome the inhuman
acts instigated against them. It is a real struggle for women to ensure their safety and the only possibility is
to remain hopeful that they will be freed from the grip of the men's voyeuristic stares, lewd comments,
groping and molestation.

Keywords: hope, optimism, violence, sufferings.

Joyce Carol Oates expounds on the predator and the prey, the captor and the captive in her short
story “The Girl with the Blackened Eye.”This gripping story expands from the perspective of an unnamed
twenty-seven-year-old female protagonist. The life of the survivor of child sexual abuse is a living hell. So
is the life of the girl with the blackened eye who was abducted at the age of fifteen in the parking lot of a
mall. She is an adult now and a mother to her daughters but cannot recognise herself whenever she stares at
the reflection of herself in the mirror. She is certainly not disfigured. But she has undergone a dental
surgery to fix her broken jaw and bleeding gum. It is her mental anguish that makes her think she is
disfigured even after so many years of the agonising incident.
Being the victim of sexual violence, she has never disclosed the past incident of the repaired mouth
or the blackened eye to her husband and children. Her parents too have never opened up either about the
man or what had happened to her. She has left her past behind, but the irony is that, it still haunts her
reminding of the physical as well as the internal agony she underwent. Despite the fact that her bodily harm
is extremely severe, it cannot be compared to the inward scars that are etched deep inside her as an
aftermath of never-ending conflict.
Oates tweet as follows: “Rape/sexual assault seem to be the only crimes that cast 'guilt' upon the
victim as if she/he is complicit in the crime: arousing another.” Oates suggests that the victim of sexual
abuse is falsely labelled being active agent in the participation of any sexual assault, triggering the
victimiser to abuse furthermore. This false assumption labelled on the victim can be interlinked to the ninth
grader who seems to oblige to her abductor's whim, but it is her way of coping and recuperating from the
CONVALESCENCE AND HOPE AS ELIXIR IN THE GIRL WITH THE BLACKENED EYE BY JOYCE CAROL OATES 81
abductor's clutch.
The narrator recounts her traumatic experience, trusting that the readers will not misuse her
personal information and her story unfolds. She is fifteen when the man who seems her father's age
forcibly abducts her to a cabin in Sonoma Mountains. She is given a blow which served the function of
anaesthesia. She has been abducted, raped and beaten. She has gone through all possible torments: “he
raped me, and beat me, and shocked me with electrical cords and he stubbed cigarette butts on my stomach
and breasts.... The lower parts of me were raw and throbbing with pain and other parts of me were in a haze
of pain so I wasn't able to think…My eyes had been hurt, he'd mashed his fists into my eyes. The eyelids
were puffy, I couldn't see very well.” (75). She is marred, violated, damaged but her hope cannot be
deterred. The eight-day torment knows no bound. She would have slipped inside the quicksand sucking all
her strength, but she clings on to her hope steadily. Unlike the rest of women who share her fate, the man
has not yet killed her. The reason is that according to the man, she is special and not like the others. She is
the youngest he has abducted and the only female he has spared from killing.
'Stockholm syndrome' is a condition that causes captives to build up a mental coalition with their
captors as a survival tactics during captivity. To survive is the ultimate drive of the Stockholm syndrome.
Victims live in enforced dependence and interpret rare or small acts of kindness shown by the captors in the
midst of horrible conditions as good treatment. By the twenty first century, psychologists had expanded
their understanding of the Stockholm syndrome from captives to other groups, including victims of
domestic violence, cult members, prisoners of war, procured prostitutes, and abused children. In this short
story, the girl being brutally assaulted begins to appreciate her abducter's considerations and “mercies”
(80) toward her and she slowly becomes a slave to her captor. He gives an oversized Tee shirt, allows her to
wash, provides her scraps of food and water, often checks and takes her for a stroll, makes her witness
another woman being raped. These are not mercies shown towards her but having been enslaved for a
longer time, she is grateful to him and falls a bait.
Once the girl gets a chance to escape. After raping another victim, a red-haired woman, the
abductor goes out to dispose her body. The girl is left alone in the car with the key. She could have driven
the car or run up to get help. But she stays. Her act of staying and remaining trustworthy to her abductor and
grateful for him do come under Stockholm syndrome. But it is necessary to remember that she is way too
feeble physically and drained emotionally. Only one of her eyes functions, the other eye is blackened.
Having been chained for eight consecutive days, she cannot even move her legs. She recalls having been
questioned if she had any chance to escape, to which she responds negatively. Because only she knows
how difficult it is to even think to escape when she is just a body with no soul in it. Her answering 'no' shows
how severe her inner scar is. She prefers to stay. She contemplates running away, hiding in a bush, but she
prefers to stay. She is loyal to her captor but the utmost reason to stay behind is that she cannot run. She
cannot be freed from the abyss all by herself. She needs to be rescued. She is weak, tormented, torn apart.
Enduring endless amount of pain, her identity gradually and malignantly is taken away from her,
the will to struggle and reason to battle for liberty seems impossible. Her suffering exceeds immeasurably,
and her hope is at the edge of diminishing: “I was holding onto being alive the way you would hold onto a
straw you could breathe through, lying at the bottom of deep water. And that water opaque, you can't see
through to the surface” (75). This flimsy layer of hope clings on to her and miraculously helps her to
breathe barely.
In this world, one can always lay his or her trust in God, should hope for the best and have will to
face the worst. One cannot predict what life can bring into one's life. It is better to use one's strength to face
life's challenges whether it be good or bad. The girl who is abducted is lucky enough to finally to have freed
from the clutches of her captor. The abductor is shot dead. He is just thirty-two years old when he dies. He
lets the police know about the girl's whereabouts. She is found.

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It is certain that no bodily harm can equal up to the harm and scar inflicted inwardly. No potion can
cure it. It takes time to heal both body and mind. In the present, the protagonist has graduated, married, and
has kids. But none seems real except those eight days of abduction. The events from the past haunt her and
she cannot overcome the effect it has on her. She is still in the process of recovering from the excruciating
memory that stays fresh in her. But there is no way of healing, if she still clutches to the past at the feet of
those who maimed and mangled one.The researcher believes that the girl's main hope, apart from the
apparent cruelty she went through and how it shapes her life, is to remain a self-sufficient adult and the
realisation that the disempowering thoughts imbibed in oneself at the time of the abuse will not change
with new exposure or new knowledge.
The survivors of sexual abuse should learn to unlock and release themselves. They certainly need
time to emerge from the dark tunnel of trauma into the light of healing and with hope, one can cross through
the darkest of times. Oates, through this story, tells the readers that, despite having lowest moments of life,
one should continue to stick on to life and fight.

Works Cited
Oates, Joyce Carol. “The Girl with the Blackened Eye.”I Am No One You Know: Stories, The Ontario
Review. Inc, 2004. Print.
---. Twitter, 22 July 2013, https://twitter.com/joycecaroloates/status/359348742677204994?lang=en.
Web.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_syndrome. Web.
https://www.britannica.com/science/Stockholm-syndrome. Web.

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TRAVEL WRITING

Dr. S. Wilson, Assistant Professor in Education, Government College of Education,

Orathanadu, Thanjavur

Abstract:
Write the travel story only you can tell with these. State your quest. Every journey is a quest,
whether you know it or not. Plant a question in the reader's mind. Tell the story of what drew you to this
place. Tell a small story. End with a change. There are several key features of this type of writing. People
and places are described in detail. The writer's thoughts and feelings about the place are made clear.
Language is descriptive and imaginative. Travel writing is usually written in the 1st person. How to
become a travel writer (seriously) Read. Start reading and don't stop. Redefine the genre of travel
writing.It is given an equal status with: romance, action adventure, fantasy, mystery, detective fiction, and
the list might continue. Surprising is the students' including of a different category which they call creative
non-fiction.

Keyword: Language, Reader and writer.

Introduction
Travel writing isn't writing about your family's vacation. It isn't writing about what you liked or
didn't like about your last trip. And it definitely isn't about writing about destinations so that you can travel
for free.
Travel writing is writing about places, persons, and things in other places--also writing about how
to travel, when to travel, and advice on travelingall with the reader in mind. It's about relaying your travel
experiences to others so that they may emulate them or at the very least not make the same mistakes you
did. And it's writing about things in your own that are exotic to everyone else---a local, historic site and
museum.
To be a good travel writer, you need to be ON all the time, not just when you want to. When you're
on vacation, you do what you want when you want. You're mind focuses on the place you're visiting only
when it wants to. But to interpret a destination for your readers, you have to look for new angles on the
same old things while at the same time sharing your pleasure with your readers.
But before we go further into travel writing, we need to take a look at the readers that will devour
what you say about a place. There are three parts to the communication processthe sender (the writer), the
receiver (the reader), and the message. When you were in school, you subconsciously learned that the
writer was the most important part of the process because in academic writing, that's the case. But in
general writing, including travel writing, the reader is the most important part of the process. If a writer
doesn't think about the reader before writing, the reader most likely won't be interested or might possibly
not understand what the writer is saying.
Travel has a long history. People have always traveled--from ancient to modern resorts. But travel
writing began, more or less, during Elizabethan times. Shakepeare got much of the background material
for his plays, such as the "Merchant of Venice" Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice is a story of
prejudice, social injustice, money and love. and "Romeo and Juliet" by William Shakespeare. The play
which is set in Verona is a story about a long feud between the Montague and Capulet families. This feud
TRAVEL WRITING 84
causes tragic results for the main characters in the play, Romeo and Juliet. Writing celebrates the
differences in manners and customs around the world. It helps the reader to understand other people and
places. And it helps readers plan their own trips and avoid costly mistakes while traveling.
What is the purpose of a travelogue?
Promotional Travelogue. It is the most commonly used way of creating writing skill through which
the writer induces a curiosity and interest to visit a particular area in to the reader's mind. Modern tourism
widely uses a term called advertisement which helps to persuade reader to visit a particular area.A
travelogue is a person's account of a journey to another country or place. It can either be a written report
with many factual details or a narrative story about personal impressions and experiences supported by
images.
Benefits of Travelogue :
— Improves Social and Communication Skills
One of the main benefits of travelling, especially to areas where your native language is not widely
used, is that you learn how to communicate better with other people. Brushing up your knowledge on the
most commonly used phrases or questions tourists ask can help you reach out to and relate better with the
locals.
— Ensures Peace of Mind
We all have stress and tension in our lives. Traveling forces us to temporarily disconnect from our
normal routine, helping us appreciate the people and things we have around. As per a famous saying “we
never know what we have until we lose it.”
— Helps You Get Original and Creative Thoughts
It is believed that if someone gets out of their comfort zone, the mind gets more creative. To
develop new neural connections that trigger original and creative thoughts, you must explore new places
and break out of your daily routine.
— Enhances Your Tolerance for Uncertainty
While travelling, you will find yourself stuck in situations where things don't always go as planned.
Such situations will help you learn to cope with the uncertainties in life.
— Boosts Up your Confidence
Being in a place where you do not know anyone will assist you to gain confidence and presence of
mind. You will develop the ability to cope with obstacles, which will make you a confident person.
— Gets You Real-life Education
Meeting different people from vast cultures and societies provides an education that is impossible
to get in a traditional school, college or a university. There is no substitute for the real thing.
Travel literature is travel writing of a non-fiction type. Travel writing typically records the experiences of
travellers in some interesting places and circumstances. It will include vivid descriptions, illustrations,
historical background, and possibly maps and diagrams."
It is given an equal status with: romance, action adventure, fantasy, mystery, detective fiction, and
the list might continue. Surprising is the students' including of a different category which they call creative
non-fiction, followed by the following explanation:
"According to Columbia College creative non-fiction comes in many forms: memoir, narrative
journalism, travel writing, personal essay, descriptive storytelling. What they all have in common is a basis
in reality from careful observation to honest emotional truth. Travel literature has preoccupied literary
critics and historians alike, and more than once these theorists have questioned the literary value of such an
enterprise as a travelogue. The holy scriptures of all religions include epics which cover large expanses of
time and space. Attempts have been made at including such important imaginary ancient epics like
Homer's Odyssey which offer fictional descriptions of journeys made in life in both the outer

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world and the inner world. In the Odyssey by Homer, the main idea would be a life's journey that is filled
with obstacles. Odysseus has been at war for ten years and now he has spent ten years trying to get home.
The journey has been long and full of trials, tribulations and obstacles. The Odyssey of Homer is a Greek
epic poem that tells of the return journey of Odysseus to the island of Ithaca from the war at Troy, which
Homer addressed in The Iliad. In the Greek tradition, the war lasted for ten years. Odysseus then spent a
further ten years getting home in the face of hostility from Poseidon, god of the earth and sea.
Gulliver's TravelsJonathan Swift uses travel as a satire. The general theme of Gulliver's Travels
is the inherently amusing nature of human tradition and custom, and the relative nature of morality and
society based on historical precedent. Like so many of Jonathan Swift's works, Gulliver's Travels is mostly
a satire of British royalty and Imperialism. Gulliver's Travels has been written by Jonathan Swift, and it is
the story of the various adventures of Lemuel Gulliver, who is basically the narrator and protagonist in the
book. Gulliver, a married surgeon from Nottinghamshire, England, is someone who loves traveling.
Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness (1899) is a novella by Polish-English novelist Joseph
Conrad about a narrated voyage up the Congo River into the Congo Free State in the so-called heart of
Africa. Charles Marlow, the narrator, tells his story to friends aboard a boat anchored on the River Thames.
This setting provides the frame for Marlow's story of his obsession with the ivory trader Kurtz, which
enables Conrad to create a parallel between what Conrad calls "the greatest town on earth", London, and
Africa as places of darkness.
Travelogues are also otherwise called itineraries. They are the recordings of personal experiences
of an author. Early Travelogues were combined with religion as in English literature; The Canterbury
Tales by Chaucer describe the pilgrimage to Canterbury undertaken by people from different walks of life.
The Canterbury Tales (Middle English: Tales of Caunterbury) is a collection of 24 stories that runs to over
17,000 lines written in Middle English by Geoffrey Chaucer between 1387 and 1400. The tales (mostly
written in verse, although some are in prose) are presented as part of a story-telling contest by a group of
pilgrims as they travel together from London to Canterbury to visit the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket at
Canterbury Cathedral. Write the travel story only you can tell with these. State your quest. Every journey is
a quest, whether you know it or not. Plant a question in the reader's mind. Tell the story of what drew you to
this place. Tell a small story. End with a change.There are several key features of this type of writing.
People and places are described in detail. The writer's thoughts and feelings about the place are made clear.
Language is descriptive and imaginative. Travel writing is usually written in the 1st person. How to
become a travel writer (seriously) Read. Start reading and don't stop. Redefine the genre of travel writing.

Works Cited:
Bloom, Harold, ed. Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. Infobase Publishing. 2009. Print.
nd
Cooper, Helen The Canterbury Tales. Oxford Guides to Chaucer 2 ed.Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1996. Print.
Griffin, J. Homer: The Odyssey. Landmarks in World Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1987. Print.
Levenson, Jill L., ed. Romeo and Juliet.Oxford: Oxford UP,2000. Print.
Spencer, T.J.B., ed. Romeo and Juliet. The New Penguin Shakespeare. London: Penguin, 1967. Print.
Swift, Jonathan.Gulliver's Travels. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005. Print.

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HISTORIOGRAPHIC METAFICTION IN JHUMPA LAHIRI'S THE LOWLAND:
A POSTMODERNIST'S PERSPECTIVE

Ms. S. Kavitha, M. Phil Scholar, Kalasalingam University, Krishnankoil

A. Hariharasudan, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Kalasalingam University, Krishnankoil

Abstract:
Jhumpa Lahiri's The Lowland explains the sufferings of the native people of Naxalbari, and it
portrays the loss of Economics and struggle of Education. Jhumpa Lahiri is a diaspora writer. This novel is
partially inspired by a true story that Lahiri has heard growing up. She pictures the sufferings and
struggles of native people of naxalite surrounded areas who lead their life very hard. The novel portrays
the real picture of Naxalbari. Most of the backgrounds of the novel are set up with historical elements. The
novel emphasises one of the elements of postmodernism, notably, Historiographic Metafiction, which is
proposed by Canadian literary theorist Linda Hutcheon. Lahiri incorporates most of the historical
backgrounds in the novel such as history of West Bengal, the Naxialite Movement, Indo-Pakistan War of
1971, Naxalbari, Charu Majumdar (Communist) and so on. The findings of the study clearly show that
there are lots of evidences available in the text in relation to Historiographic Metafiction; the authors also
highlight the same.

Keywords: Historiographic Metafiction, Postmodernism, Naxialites, Communism.

Introduction
Jhumpa Lahiri received prominent awards like Pulitzer Prize for fiction for her short-story
collection, her debut literary work Interpreter of Maladies (2000), PEN/Hemingway Award (1999), due to
her extraordinary literary genius. Her first novel The Namesake (2003) was adapted into the popular Hindi
film of the same name Lahiri's latest literary work The Lowland (2013) has won DSN award for South
Asian literature in Jaipur lit fest in Feb 2015.
Jhumpa Lahiri's writing is featured in her 'Plain' language and very clean, neat and engrossing
narrative technique. Her characters are mostly Indian (Bengali) navigating between the cultural values of
their adopted nation and their native lands. Her writing is autobiographical and frequently draws upon her
own experiences as well as those of her parents, friends, acquaintances, and others who are Bengalis.
Lahiri investigates her characters struggles, dilemmas to faithfully reflect the details of people's
psychology and behaviour. Lahiri focuses the populace dilemma whose lives cutting shuttle between India
and the United States over the course of five decades.
Jhumpa Lahiri's texts also focus on the historical events of India, especially, the history of Bengal.
The select text of the present study, The Lowland, also spins around the factual events of the Bengalis, more
accurately, Naxalbari inhabitants. There are a lot of Historiographic Metafictional elements found in The
Lowland. This study aims to identify every aspect of the Historiographic Metafiction in the novel. In this
line, the rest of the paper discusses the emergence of Historiographic Metafiction and its adoption in the
select text.
Historiographic Metafiction: An Overview
th
Postmodernism is a huge movement that developed in the mid of late 20 century. Across
philosophy, the arts, architecture, literature and criticism and that marked a division from modernism
HISTORIOGRAPHIC METAFICTION IN JHUMPA LAHIRI'S THE LOWLAND: A POSTMODERNIST'S PERSPECTIVE 87
(Hariharasudan 5). The term has also more generally been applied to the historical era following
modernity. The postmodernism adopts several techniques like Intertextuality, Metafiction, Pastiche,
Maximalist, Irony, Paradox, Intertextuality, Relativism, Feminism and so on in which this study deals with
Historiographic Metafiction.
Historiographic metafiction is typically a postmodern art form with its heavy reliance on the
parody, textual play, and developing or rewriting a new history through fictional characters
(Hariharasudan 185).
Historiographic Metafiction is yet another postmodern narrative technique, which is coined and
introduced by Linda Hutcheon. According to her,
The term postmodernism, when used in fiction, should, by analogy, best be reserved to
describe fiction that is at once metafictional andhistorical in its echoes of the texts and
contexts of the past. In order to distinguish this paradoxical beast from traditional historical
fiction, I would like to label it “historiographic metafiction” (Hutcheon 3).
History is limited to particular occurrences. Historiographic Metafiction works to “Demarginalize
the literary through confrontation with the historical, and it does so both thematically and formally”
(Hutcheon 108).
Historiographic metafiction emphasizes writers' intentions in telling the story in more artifice
style; such a fiction is far away from reality of any kind; this postmodern literary technique is employed by
many postmodern writers, for instance, Joseph Heller's war fiction, Catch 22, Arundhati Roy's The God of
Small Things, Manju Kapur's A Married Woman, and Aravind Adiga's The White Tiger do have this
technique. The writers of these fictions employ this to rebuild some breathtaking events of India in their
fiction. Predominantly, Salman Rushdie has employed this tool quite profitably in his fiction The
Midnight's Children. Historiographic metafiction has been used by all the above-mentioned authors in
making their sensational stories in the background of occurrences that rocked the Indian history in the
immediate past and present.
Historiographic metafiction attempts to distinguish between fiction and history. Linda Hutcheon
believes that “The Simultaneous and overt assertion and crossing of boundaries are more postmodern”
(Hutcheon 113),
Historiographic metafiction plays upon the truth and lies of the historical record. In historiographic
metafiction, the characters are often seen trying to decipher the data they have collected. Historiographic
metafiction acknowledges the paradox of the reality of the past but its textualized accessibility to us today,
Historical figures the role of secondary characters in the historical novel. Historical figures are often
incorporated into historical novels an authenticating the fictional text. Metafictional postmodern novels
question our ability to know the past. Historiographic metafiction is interested in making readers examine
historical texts as a means of authenticating the fictional text.
As most postmodern literature work tends not to conclude with the neatly tied-up ending as it often
found in modernist literature. As Historiographic Metafiction is one of the branches in postmodernism, it
highlights the novel has no neatly tied end postmodernism author tends to celebrate chance over craft, and
further employ metafiction to undermine the writer's authority. Another characteristic of postmodernism is
the questioning of the distinction between high and low culture through the use of pastiche, the
combinations of subjects and genres not previously used. Considering these theoretical statements, the
authors of this study analyse the application of Historiography Metafiction in the select text.
Historiographic Metafiction in The Lowland
Lahiri makes Udayan as the political magnet she depicts various views in postmodern society. The
novel fully contains historiographic metafiction. It is a quintessentially postmodern art form, with reliance
upon textual play, parody and historical re-conceptualization. It finds the relation between literature and

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th
history in the 19 century. Literary facts are not real Historical truth can be verified. Historiographic
Metafiction upholds the view that the term truth and falsity cannot be applied to fiction (Hutcheon 3).
“War will bring the revolution, the revolution will stop the war” (Lahiri 43), she fails to convey the
poverty which is the real history of India after Independence. Most of the communist are under great
poverty as a result, the early pages of the novel oscillate between stunning, intimate family scenes and
impersonal textbook description of the historical change, an awkward collection of the author's
Chekhovian and Dickensian impulses.
The individuals or groups who commit a crime for their societal pressures on them to achieve a
high standard or equality of life (Hariharasudan and Gnanamony 195). The assertion of Jhumpa Lahiri's
novel “The Lowland” topics about the starting Indian Udayan, an idealistic student in Calcutta in the 1960s
is drawn into Mao-inspired revolutionary politics that is the real movement, which is adopted in the text as
a historiographic metafiction. After his death, his brother Subhash marries his pregnant wife, Gauri and
brings her to America in hopes of giving her a new start in a new country.
The Lowland is certainly Jhumpa Lahiri most ambitious undertaking yet and it eventually opens
out into a moving family story. It exposes many historical expositions, by the plotline and the plain
narration of the author and the plain prose and drama and interesting events through her art is gradually
revealed. It is only in the 2nd half of the novel talent of her art is revealed in the small emotional details of the
lives of the character has been described. These emotional traits depict the emotions of the people in the
period of the 1960s.
Subhash leaves India to pursue a PhD in Rhode Island as many other youths in that periodurge to go
to other countries to get decent education like some youth who are inspired by Mao's and Karl Marx, this
inspiration is not only a fictional matter but also a real aspiration of third world countries' youngsters as it is
incorporated with this fictional character Udayan who is inspired by communist ideas remains in Calcutta
until he is captured and executed.
Historiographic metafiction is dissimilar from a historical novel. As Linda Hutcheon says in her
essay, “Historiographic Metafiction--Parody and the Intertextuality of History” (Hutcheon 3). Keeping in
mind, the Naxalitemovement started from 1967, Naxalbari, West Bengal. The term Naxalite is coined by
Mao that is used in the text. The upper-class peasants have seized the lower class people's land. They do not
accept their growth, lower class are treated like a slave. As a result, many people have died. The people
have got angry. They want a solution. So, they have formed Naxalite movement. Historically in India, the
Naxalite movement has originated in Bengal. To show this history in her novel, Jhumpa Lahiri sets the
entire story around Bengal where she was born and portrays the Subhash characters as the emotional state
of the people who urges for the foreign culture though he belongs to Bengal. Udayan and Subhash
characters may be the type of that explicit the dual emotion of the Jhumpa Lahiri. Gauri builds a
melancholy life with her husband.
Gauri abandons her daughter Bela conceived with Udayan and brought up by Subhash as his own
beloved child. Lahiri never gives us real insight into Gauri's decision-making or psychology, she comes
across not as a flawed and complicated person, but as a blend of a cold, selfish, lady who's fulfilling her
mother-in-law's orthodox notion as most of the women who belong to 1960s obeys mother-in-law / should
obey her because it is considered as the social trait. As most mothers in the earlier days wanted their child to
get married earlier so was her mother. The reader often has the sense that Jhumpa Lahiri is trying to fit her
character in this unsatisfying storytelling.
Readers imagination of Jhumpa Lahiri seizes deeply felt depiction of Subhash's relationship with
Bela his unwavering devotion to this good-hearted little girl, his bafflement as her grief over her mother's
abandonment leads her to withdraw from him the painful efforts to rebuild a life for himself in the wake of
Gauri's departure is portrayed in a subtle way.

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HISTORIOGRAPHIC METAFICTION IN JHUMPA LAHIRI'S THE LOWLAND: A POSTMODERNIST'S PERSPECTIVE 89
Mothers are usually with love and caring but there are also few mothers in the postmodern world
who abandons their daughter like Gauri and her cruelty leads her to leave her under non-biological father
as Historiographic Metafiction the reality is tangled with imagination. She also portrays the man who is not
like other commoners bring up her daughter with affection.
Jhumpa Lahiri portrays India sitting in the U.S out of horror of Gauri's betrayal, Bela Subhash
develop a tender, convincing bond that is pushed to its utmost limits when Bela, by the novel's end a grown
woman pregnant with a child of her own, learns that Udayan was her biological father the author also
reveals the1960's political assassination in Calcutta.
The Lowlandhas replaced dwarfs the revolutionary accomplishments of the past, suggesting that
the private world of the family endures wounds more painful than the public narratives of history can
describe.
The historical exposition and is done by Jhumpa Lahiri most shining gift as a writer come to the
force her ability to conjure the daily texture of people's lives, her understanding of how their personal
culture exceptions have shaped their choices, her talent for mapping moods and inchoate emotions.
Nevertheless, this novel advances the cause of contemporary American realist fiction, giving us a portrait
th
of an entire nation through its evocation of a single region The Lowland is the 20 novel about India. Lakiri
shuns postmodernism games that reorder history's hierarchies The Lowland defining project is not to tell a
story about Indians rather, the novel pinpoints America as an important element that marks our humanity.
Impermanence depicts Lahiri's life in America. The university students tell time by a metal dock,
its “giant hour and minute hand joining and separating throughout the day” depicts the migrants who are
separated from the map of their territory and lives elsewhere Subhash feeling nested inside Gauri her like a
baby, the footprints washed away in the beach of Atlantic ocean and Subhash in his old age returning to his
th
rented apartment depicts a preservation in society has restored to its 19 century society.
The Lowland is the most thematically violent of Lahiri's works, encompassing terrorism, self-
harm, and emotional abuse, but it backs the tone variety needed to devastate the reader. At the end of The
Lowland, Subhash marries a character named Elise Silva, a Rhode Island native of Portuguese descent.
Lahiri doesn't reassure us with universalizing about ageing and love. The Lowland reveals the honours
th
about the insiders and outsiders of Americanise and depicts the psychology of society of 20 century.
Summing up
Lahiri's latest novel, The Lowland explains the history, family life, and Naxalite movement. The
author of the text concludes that there is no solution can be found in terms of the war for the sufferings and
problems of the people. The elements of historiographic metafiction are found in abundance in The
Lowland. This paper depicts these incidents, which expose history with imagination in order to provoke
the reader's interest in the history of India, in the period in which new movement, named Naxalite
movement that is emerged against the government.
Interestingly, the select text is created in the background of certain disturbing events in the
homeland and the literary content in the impacting texts dominates the historical account of events.
Historiographic metafiction in this way helps the readers not to put into amnesia of the bygone events. At
the same time, it also helps the readers to enjoy the text.

Works Cited
Hariharasudan, A. and Gnanamony, Robert, S. “An Application of Strain Theory in Aravind Adiga's
Postmodern Indian Fiction: The White Tiger”. Journal of Advanced Research in Dynamical and
Control Systems, (07) 2017: 195. Print.
Hariharasudan, A. Postmodern Readings into Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things, Manju Kapur's A
Married Woman and Aravind Adiga's The White Tiger. Kalasalingam Academy of Research and

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HISTORIOGRAPHIC METAFICTION IN JHUMPA LAHIRI'S THE LOWLAND: A POSTMODERNIST'S PERSPECTIVE 90
Education: Thesis. March, 2018. Print
Hutcheon, Linda. “Historiographic Metafiction: Parody and the Intertextuality of History”. Intertextuality
and Contemporary American Fiction. Ed. Patrick O'Donnell and Robert
Hutcheon, Linda. A Poetics Of Postmodernism: History, Theory, Fiction. London: Routledge 1988. Print.
Lahiri, Jhumpa. The Lowland. New Delhi: Random House, India, 2013. Print.

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26
STRUGGLE FOR HAPPINESS: BAPSI SIDHWA'S WATER

A. John Sujith, PhD Research Scholar, Alagappa University, Karaikudi

Dr. R. Suriya Prakash Narayanan, Assistant professor and Head I/C, Department of English,
Alagappa University Model Constituent College of Arts and Science, Paramakudi

Abstract:
This paper reveals the darker side of the Indian society, which presents how women are cursed and
ignored when they become widows. Bapsi Sidhwa is one of the celebrated literary figures of the South
Asian continent. Her achievement as a feminist writer lies in bringing alive the everyday plights and pangs
of the widowed women in the Ashram. Their unfulfilled desires, unanswerable questions, painful memories
and the need for belongingness is portrayed through Sidhwa's childprotagonist Chuyia. The novel Water,
represents the struggle of the six years old child widow and also about a group of widows who faces
innumerable problems of the traditional patriarchal Indian society. The insignificant traditional beliefs
and superstitious values are used as weapons to threaten widowed women; hence they are unable to
liberate themselves from the male dominating society and its meaningless ideas.

KeyWords: Culture, Child Marriage, Indian Society, Widowhood and Tradition.

If a person wants to discover the real essence of life, there must be complete freedom from the
conditioning that a person lives in, which is bounded by superstitious beliefs and traditional values.
Women are always treated as mere sexual objects. Every day, from childhood, girl children are told what
marriage is, what is to become a mother, how to find satisfaction in doing household chores, through
bringing up children, through sacrificing their own needs for the welfare of others. There has been this
idea, that widows bring bad luck and they are neglected by their own families. This paper aims to expose
how the word widow, is heavily burdened in the ancient Indian patriarchal society.
Once they become widows, there is great disturbance. Widows are considered as bad omens. It is
dangerous for these widows to attend wedding ceremonies and family functions. They are not even
allowed to taste the food they like, wear the clothes they love, do what they want to do. Widows are forced
to suffer in Ashrams, far away from their relatives and family. The question is how can a woman, who is
cherished by the family suddenly becomes an unfortunate just because of her husband's death.
Bapsi Sidhwa, who is widely acknowledged as a Punjabi Parsi American writer exposes the
unimaginable sufferings of women in her novels. Sidhwa is greatly disturbed with the harsh realities of
Indian Hindu society. Thus, she penned the novel Water. The ignored screams of widows in the male
dominated Indian society tries to emancipate themselves from the shackles of traditional beliefs and
rituals.
Water, revolves around a group of widows living in the Ashram. The six years old widow Chuyia, is
shown as a rebel who fights against the dictates of the society. Women cannot lead their lives peacefully, so
can widows, be free of all the existing problems put in front of them? It is impossible for even to imagine
happiness for widows. Hence their life is perpetually a state of anxiety. In her interview with Francesco
Mannon, Sidhwa says about her collaboration with Deepa Mehta. She says:
I worked with Deepa Mehta on her 1999 film Earth, which was based on my novel,
La Spartizoine del cuore. Earth was the second film the trilogy, following Fire.
STRUGGLE FOR HAPPINESS: BAPSI SIDHWA'S WATER 92
Mehta sent me an early edit of the film Water and persuaded me to turn it into a
novel. Fortunately Chuyia is very like little Lenny in my novel Spartizoine del
Cuore and by bringing my imagination into play I could possess the narrative
through her. I created an early life chuyia in her village, and backgrounds for all the
characters; I entered their minds. I added incidents and dialogue and explained the
laws that governed the widow's lives. In other words I did what a film cannot
possibly do. I loved the film, and fortunately Deepa loves the novel.(n.p)
The novel Water talks about the injustices done to a group of widows. Chuyia is a child widow who
got married at the age of six and widowed at the age of eight. She is forced to live in ashram after her
husband's death. The baby girl who happily played with the dolls in her house is replaced with white saree
and shaven head. Before understanding what life is , what marriage is all about ,she is made to endure the
tortures of widowhood. As Shazrah Salam puts it ,”Through the story of Chuyia, Sidhwa captures the
descent of a Hindu Brahmin female into widowhood, highlighting the rituals involved and the symbolic
construction of widows as shamed bodies”.(36)
The ashram in which Chuyia, is made to live is functioning under the leadership of Madhumathi.
The other characters in the Ashram are Kalyani, Shakuntala and others. The society has favoured men by
setting different rules for them. A man can remarry when his wife dies, but a woman is supposed to live a
secluded life until death. The inequality attitude of the patriarchal Brahmin society is highlighted by
Sidhwa. She has remarked:
You are the wife and daughter of Brahmin priests; surely you are aware of our traditions,
outside of marriage the wife has no recognized existence in our tradition. A woman's role is
to get married and have sons. That is why she is created: to have sons! That is all !.( Water
15)
The above passage is the discussion between Chuyia's father Somnath and his wife Bhagya. These
lines clearly depict how giving birth to male children is considered as the privilege and be getting girl
babies is considered as a curse.
As days pass by, Chuyia befriends a young, beautiful widow Kalyani, who is compelled into
prostitution for supporting the ashram financially. The same society which is against the practices of
widow remarriage forces Kalyani to do prostitution.Chuyia finds tough to accommodate herself into the
norms of the ashram, thus she started to question that why there are no ashrams for male widows. The
rebelling nature of Chuyia is beautifully captured by Sidhwa. She says:
“Didi. Where is the house for the men widows”? There was a stunned silence, then
pandemonium broke out. A chorus of scolding erupted from the shocked widows. Good
God.” What a horrible thing to say”“God protect our men from such a fate” May your
tongue burn.(Water 98)
Throughout the novel, these widows struggle to live their lives in a meaningful way. Their need is
to be loved and to be cared by their family members. They deserve equal amount of respect and dignity, as
to which their lives are threatened by the patriarchal Indian society.

Works Cited
Interview by Francesco Mannoni. n.d. Web. 28 Nov. 2011.
Sidhwa, Bapsi. Water, Canada : Milkweed Editions, 2006. Print.
Salam, Shazrah, 2011, Unveiling the Sacred : Readingthe Gendered Female Body in Contemporary
Pakistani Fiction, thesis, M.Phil, Massey University, Manawatu, New Zealand.

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27
VOCIFERATING THE MUMBLED VOICE: A READING OF A. REVATHI'S
THE TRUTH ABOUT ME: A HIJRA LIFE STORY

Mr. Y. Jiny Amos, Research Scholar, Scott Christian College (Autonomous), Nagercoil
Dr. A. Nisha, Assistant Professor, Scott Christian College (Autonomous), Nagercoil

Abstract:
Literature is commonly accepted as a medium to express human feelings and emotions. The
injustice unflinchingly bestowed on the socially marginalized is mainly noted by literature. Transgender
community is one of the most backward and ostracized communities. In India, the community is kept at the
periphery of the society. They have no access with the mainstream society. A. Revathi's autobiography, The
Truth about Me: A Hijra Life Story delves deep into the tribulations of trans women with concern. The
paper aims at exploring the pain and agonies of trans women. Trans women are considered as a stigma to
the family as well as to the society. As a result, they are alienated and are denied to lead a normal life. They
become a subject of mockery and oddity in the face of the society. They endure humiliation, sexual abuse
and physical violence. For survival, they need to fight each and every day in their whole lifetime.

Key Words: Trans-women, Discrimination, Humiliation and Violence.

Queer theory is a critical theory developed out of queer studies and women's studies. This theory
has emerged in the early 1990s. Queer reading of texts and the theorization of queerness are incorporated in
this theory. Queer theory embraces any kind of sexual activity or identity that falls into normative and
deviant categories. It deals with bisexual, lesbian, gay, cross-dressing, intersex bodies, gender ambiguity
and gender corrective surgery. This theory believes that one's sexuality is fluid, fragmented, and dynamic
collectivity of possible sexualities which may differ at any point of one's life. The goal of this theory is to
deconstruct the monolithic ideals of social norms because the norms are rigid. The norms fail to describe
different attitudes, behaviours or conditions of one's experience. It analyses the relationship between
power distribution and identification while understanding the multifarious facets of oppression and
privilege. The term 'queer' is not only associated with sexually variant, but also employed to refer people
those who feel marginalized as a result of standard social practices.
Transgender is an umbrella term for the people whose gender identity or gender expression varies
from their biologically assigned sex. Most of the transgender people experience gender dysphoria and they
seek for medical assistance such as hormone replacement therapy, sex reassignment surgery and
psychotherapy. The term 'transsexual' is used to denote the people who want to change from one sex to
another i.e., male to female or female to male. It comprises of people who are not exclusively feminine or
masculine. Transgender or transsexual people are otherwise referred as third gender. Transgender
community comes under the sexually minority category.
The paper addresses the silent afflictions of trans women in the Indian scenario with reference to A.
Revathi's autobiography, The Truth about Me: A Hijra Life Story (2010). She is a Bengaluru-based trans
woman writer and activist. She works with Sangama, an organization formed to help the individuals who
are oppressed due to the gender preference. She also fights for the rights of the sexually minority
community. Her autobiography is a meticulous account of the ordeals she has endured as a trans woman.
The book echoes the chaotic life of the trans women in the society. It also serves as a platform to uplift the
VOCIFERATING THE MUMBLED VOICE: A READING OF A. REVATHI'S THE TRUTH ABOUT ME: A HIJRA LIFE STORY 94
third gender community. The book urges the other dominant genders to change their attitude towards the
sexually minority community.
In the Indian milieu, trans women experience alienation and remain at the perimeter of the society.
The gender-prejudiced society discriminates trans women to take active part in the society. The existence
of trans women is neglected and so they fail to get social acceptance. According to Naskar et al., “The
social acceptance of transgender people is not same as male/female gender in Indian cultures and they face.
. .” (1089). Trans women sustain ostracism in the Indian society. The plight of this community is miserable
as they strive hard to survive. Due to ostracism, they go through physical, social and economic alienation.
They turn into a subject of mockery and ridicule. Besides, they are humiliated, harassed and are branded as
worthless creatures which collapse the day to day life of these people.
Alienation is a feeling that develops when one is rejected and lacks support from the other people.
The conservative system of Indian families alienates trans women. Revathi, being a trans woman, is
alienated from her own family. The members in her family consider her transition as a contempt and curse
to their family. When she comes to visit her family after the sex reassignment surgery, her family treats her
badly and her brother utters, “. . .you had this operation done. . . .You've buried our honour deep and clothed
us in a shame. How does it matter to us if you're alive or dead?” (114). His words painfully reveal that the
family members are not ready to accept her as a trans woman. They think that having a trans woman at
home would bring dishonour or disrespect to their family and so they hate her presence completely. The
behaviour of the family members becomes indifferent. They expose an indignation towards her and do not
even bother about her existence in this earth. The fact is clear that her family has dismembered her and thus
she is alienated from her own family.
The prevalent gender prejudice plays a major role in affecting the lives of trans women. They are
ostracized from the mainstream society and are pushed towards the periphery of the society. The other
dominant genders keep themselves away from these people as if they are untouchables. Trans women are
not allowed to socialize with the other people in the society. Revathi states, “Once, when the bus was
empty. I sat down on a seat next to a girl. She got up, smiling, and found another seat. . . .” (172). This
incident has cut a deep wound in Revathi's mind. People consider them as a loathsome creature and so they
avoid the presence of trans women. The other gender people neglect these people from their surroundings
as they hold a kind of aversion towards them.
Trans women are financially deprived due to the lack of support from their own family and society.
As they are dismembered from the family, the other members of the family do not want to share any of the
family property with them. Samanta says, “In India, the transgender community is miserably colonized
economically. . .” (222). In Revathi's life, her brothers refuse to give her any share from the property. She is
threatened by her brothers not to claim any share. They ask her to be contented that they let her hang around
with other trans women and if she interferes in their lives, they will even throw her away from the home. As
she is a trans woman, her right to receive the property is denied by her brothers. The elimination from both
the family and the society propels her to lead a financially deprived life.
Trans women have little employment opportunities because the society possesses a negative
perception about them. Though they want to lead a financially independent life, the discrimination drive
them to remain unemployed. The standard of living stagnates and they fail to reach the top of the ladder.
The talents and potentials of transgender people are buried within them. When Revathi searches for a job,
she is simply rejected because of her gender. The employer says, “. . . .You're all fit only for dancing on the
roads, and having cheap, riotous fun!” (161). The society is preoccupied with the notion that the third
gender people are useless beings. They are excluded solely on the basis of their gender transition. Since the
society ostracizes these people, the opportunities and chances for them become less and less. The
inadequate prospects in life keep them in impoverishment.

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The third gender people are regarded as odd creatures who have nothing to do with the mainstream
society. The other people frown at the difference of transgender people. The society wonders at them and
fails to tolerate the gender difference of these people and as a result it gives an insulting gaze at them.
Chettiar asserts, “The Male to Female (MtF) Transgenders in India commonly known as Hijras. . .are often
considered as objects of curiosity, ridicule. . .” (754). Whenever people pass Revathi's home, they always
exchange words about her appearance. They talk behind her about her gender identity with inquisitive. She
is considered as an object to be laughed and stared at. People view her as an oddity and a comic figure. The
society that includes men, women, children, disabled and abnormal easily excludes the third gender
people. These people are not recognized by the society rather they are perceived as a figure to be wondered.
Trans women are subjected to mockery and ridicule which cause psychological sufferings. In
public places, people heap them with insults. They terribly bear the abusive and teasing commentary of the
people. They are not even accepted within the circle of the society, to make things worse, they become a
farce in the sight of the society. Revathi frequently faces all such painful situations in her life. She says, “. . .
.Younger men, little more than boys would call out: 'Macchan! Bus'll reach at nine o'clock!' Or 'Mapillai!
What's the time?' and the reply invariably would be 'Nine da!'. . . .” (172). The youngsters on the bus make
fun of her because of her gender variation. People cover her with words that hurt her deeply. The impact of
verbal abuse always has a long lasting effect on her. They forget that the third gender people too are human
beings. The third gender people are not granted any reverence or respect by the society. They encounter
humiliation and embarrassment in every walk of their life. They are put down and degraded by the other
genders. Their existence itself observed as disgusting. When Revathi goes to market to buy things, she is
treated more badly than an animal. She painfully states:
When I went to buy groceries and vegetables in the vegetable market, people sometimes
threw rotten tomatoes at me. They hit me on my back, or even aimed for my head. When I
turned back to identify the culprit, all the shopkeepers kept their gaze averted, and would
fuss around their vegetables, arranging them in a neat piles- as if they had had nothing to do
with the tomatoes. (193)
Revathi's statement vividly describes the pathetic situation of trans women. They are not treated with any
dignity but with contempt. They are regarded as stigma in the society which induces others to clothe them
with disgrace.
Trans women are often subjected to sexual harassment as they are at the edge of the society. In
addition, they are the easily available prey for the victimizers. In her life, she is sexually harassed by a bus
driver when she travels home on a bus. She explains, “I woke up, feeling something touch me. The driver
on the cot had opened the glass door and his hand was sliding up my leg. . . .I was scared that if I were to ask
him to remove his hand, he would get me into trouble. . . .” (155). It is obvious that sexual hunters take
advantage of the helplessness of the trans women to assault them sexually. The trans women, knowing
their position in the society, afraid to open their mouth against the atrocity bestowed on them.
Trans women become the victims of physical violence. In order to survive in the gender-prejudiced
society, they have to confront all the difficulties put before them. They are tortured and brutally attacked by
the society. As they are in the fragile position, they endure everything with resentment. Revathi has also
encountered the brutality of the society. With pain and agony, she describes, “. . . .I faced all sorts of
problems. I endured physical violence and torture of the mind. I had to fight everyday with police and
rowdies. The police took bribes from us all the time, and yet at the end of the month we were taken to the
police station. . . .” (210). People in the superior position misuse the third gender people for their benefit. It
clearly gives an idea that trans women have no support or no protection in the society. They are forced to
face the animosity of the society silently.
Thus, the paper spotlights the horrible situation of trans women in the Indian milieu. Transgender

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people are not allowed to play an active role in the mainstream society. Gender prejudice causes
discrimination, alienation and humiliation. The family and the society, where they live, alienate them
because of gender transition. The rights of third gender people are denied. The third gender people become
an object of mockery and ridicule. The opportunities for such people is in low rate. The fragile and
vulnerable position of transgender people results in physical violence and sexual harassment. Lack of
support and recognition propel these people to tolerate the atrocities bestowed on them. The silent cries of
these people demonstrates the extent of ostracism.

Works Cited
Chettiar, Anitha. “Problems Faced by Hijras (Male to Female Transgenders) in Mumbai with Reference to
their Health and Harassment by the Police.”International Journal of Social Science and Humanity
5.9 (2015): 752-759. Print.
Naskar, Prosenjit, et al. “An Assessment of Quality of Life of Transgender Adults in an Urban Area of
Burdwan District, West Bengal.”International Journal of Community Medicine and Public Health
5.3 (2018): 1089-1095. Print.
Revathi, A. The Truth About Me: A Hijra Life Story. Trans. V. Geetha. New Delhi: Penguin, 2010. Print.
Samanta, Atanu. “Gender Discrimination in A. Revathi's Autobiography The Truth About Me: A Hijra Life
Story.”International Journal of English Language, Literature and Translation Studies 4.1 (2017):
220-223. Print.

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28
EXPLORATION OF MULTICULTURAL IDENTITIES IN AKHIL SHARMA'S
FAMILY LIFE

Mrs. S. Parimalah, Research Scholar, Mother Theresa Women's University, Kodaikanal

Dr. S. Kanagaraj, Professor & Head (Rtd.), MaduraiKamarajUniversity, Madurai

Abstract:
Literature is the chronological account of books that are written with creative merit. It is the
creative art that fills the hearts of both the author and the readers. From generation to generation
literature changes and shows its growth. One studies literature to understand the culture and custom of a
nation. The book is a product of the author's thoughts, feelings and creative ideas. The author shifts the
readers into the world of purity, divinity and knowledge. Every writer brings some new things to the world
by incorporating them in their work. He shows his individuality. Each writer shows his growth, the place
he occupies and his relation with the other writers in his writing. Each age has particular interest and
different way of thinking. The writer who fulfills it becomes popular among the readers.

Keywords: Multiculture, identity, individuality, diaspora.

The diasporic writings in English and produced by the persons who live outside their mother
country at present. They differ in their themes. The first generation writers write mostly about their home
country because they very well know its origin and culture. It reflects their attachment to the native land.
The diasporic novels are the record of experience of diasporic community. It reflects the themes of
immigration, emigration, nostalgia, cultural conflict, alienation and multiculturalism. It gives voice to the
author's traumatic experience in the cultural clash and racial discrimination. The writers narrate their past
life, memories of the home land, remembered histories. Through their writings they make their homeland
popular. They identify themselves with the protagonist and other characters in the work.
Akhil Sharma is an Indian born American author. He is not only a novelist but also a short story
writer. He has written two novels and a collection of short stories. He was born on 22nd July 1971 in Delhi,
India. His family moved to United States in 1979. He was brought up in Edison, New Jersey. He had his
Bachelor's degree in public policy from Princeton University. He won a Stegner Fellowship for writing a
program at Stanford. He started his writings in late 1990s. He won the O. Henry Award twice in 1995 and
1997. During his college days he has written many short stories that made him receive many awards. As his
early ambition was to earn more money, he becomes an investment banker. In the mid years of writing his
second novel Family Life, he quit his job to concentrate on completing the book. Sharma is now working as
an Assistant Professor in Creative Writing MFA program at Rutgers University, New York.
His short stories have appeared in various magazines like The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The
Quarterly, Best American Short Stories and O. Henry Award Stories. His first novel An Obedient Father
was published in 2001. It was the New York Times Notable book of the year. It also won Hemingway
Fountain/PEN Award in 2001 and Whiting Writers' Award. In adopting the writing style he draws
inspiration from writers like Leo Tolstoy, Anton Chekhov, Ernest Hemingway, Thomas Hardy, V.S.
Naipaul, Upamanyu Chatterjee and Kiran Desai. He has admiration for Abraham Lincoln.
The accident causes the collapse of the family. He tells how the family and the society react to it.
The mother seeks for miracle workers and the after sinks into alcoholism. The family's happiness and
EXPLORATION OF MULTICULTURAL IDENTITIES IN AKHIL SHARMA'S FAMILY LIFE 98
prosperity get scattered. The description of cultural differences and the problems faced by the family in the
American society is the highlighting aspect of the novel. In the online article New York Times, the Dublin
Award jury gives out a statement which states, the readers of Family Life were left with the sense that while
reading you were actually at the core of human experience and what it is to be alive. This is the highest form
of achievement in literature. Few manage it. This novel does. Triumphantly. Luminously, Movingly.
The life of Ajay becomes odd and lonely. The books and the television fill his alienated life. He
searches for his identity. Sharma tells how Ajay balances his life and made it into a prospective one.
Sharma takes us to the motional world by using his own life experiences. It has the realism with humour.
The novel is more flexible in diction and structure. It is well written and gives reader to find way of possible
means in the tragic life. Sharma through his novel Family Life points out the problems of the immigrants
and their loss of identity. Hence forth, he portrays how they explore the identity in the multicultural land
through the protagonist Ajay.
Sharma gives importance to family bondage and emotionally connect with family members.
Family Life presents the life of an Indian immigrant family and their struggle in America. It is about the
nature of the family and the ways people deal with the tragedy. Being the Professor of creative writing,
Sharma carries out his creativity to the brim in Family Life. Though it is auto biographical, some events of
his life are fictionalized. He uses his imagination and creativity. In the novel, Ajai's father turns to be
alcoholic while in Sharma's life his father is not an alcoholic. Sharma keeps his brother's accident a secret
without letting it out. In the novel, Sharma makes it dramatic by lying that he has a wonderful brother.
The life of Mishra is extraordinary until the tragedy strikes them. The accident at the swimming
pool makes Birju brain damaged. Ajay loses his own self. But he yearns to find his identity among all the
ruins of life. Ajay feels lonely after the accident of his brother. He feels whether he will be the only son.
Sharma points out how bitter loneliness is. It can be viewed from the psychological perspective. Happiness
is completely taken away from the family when Birju meets with an accident in the swimming pool.
Though the situations are not good, Ajay's family faces it with self confidence and hope.
Family Life is about the life of an eight year old boy Ajay. It deals with his life both in India and
America. It portrays the suffering of the Mishra family. Sharma brings out how Ajay struggles in finding
his own self. He takes steps to identify himself. Involving in the world of literature, Ajay escapes from the
world of loneliness by reading and writing. While reading he immerses himself in the stories. It marks the
turning point in his life. He gets inspired and fascinated by Hemingway. He reads books on Hemingway.
The immigrants cherish the love-hate relationship in the host land. In the same way, Mishra and
Shuba develop the love hate relationship. The relationship between them gets flattened. Both are
psychologically affected because of the tragedy that happened to Birju. They feels disturbed. They behave
roughly by shouting at each other. Shuba shouts at Mishra for silly things. She scolds him for thanking the
nurse who visits the home. The love and the care Shuba has on Birjuy makes her shout at certain moments.
She expresses her emotions through anger. She says if they do not have insurance, Birju will be thrown out
in the streets. She adds that the hospital will put her son in the street if she does not fight with the hospital
administration.
Sharma portrays the web of relationship within a family. In Family Life, he shows the familial bond
and the grandparental love. When Shuba gets airplane tickets to America she takes the boys to their
grandparent's house to seek blessing for their new life in America. One seeing the boys their grandfather
becomes excited and says “who are these two princes? Are they saints who have come to bless my house?”.
His grandfather informs them that he will not let both of them go. He will keep one of them with him.
Sharma exhibits the parental love. In India, Shuba takes the decision about her sons. But after their
settlement in America, Ajay is surprised when his father makes plants for them. In America, Shuba is
enthusiastic in taking her sons to movies and restaurants. She takes them for a walk in grocery store to show

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things that they have not seen before in India. Shuba feels proud when people invite Birju to their home to
meet their children. Ajay checks the vocabulary of Birju on the day of the entrance exam to get into the
Bronx High School of Science. He gets panic when Birju struggles to answer most of the words. When his
parents notice it, Ajay's voice grew quieter and quieter. The hope of the family is on Birju. So Ajay feels
tensed on the day of Birju's exam. They feed him healthy foods.
The bond of love in the family of Mishra is carried out by Sharma in Family Life. The family
members surround Birju during the break to feed oranges to cool him and almonds to give him brain
strength. He analyses the brotherhood in addition to the relationship of husband wife and parenthood. The
beginning of the novel shows Ajay in eight years and Birju in twelve years. In India, they play together and
have a good bond of brotherhood. The author portrays the brotherly love and care. Ajay feels surprised
when Birju informs his parents about Ajay being bullied by his friends on his way to school. The sibling
relationship is carried out here. Birju helps Ajay in doing his home work. Ajay narrates how Birju takes
care of him when the mother is at work. He tells, Now, Birju was expected to take care of me until she
returned from work. He was supposed to boil frozen shelled corn for me and give me a glass of milk. He
was supposed to sit with me and watch me do my work as he did his. Till America, I had some how not paid
much attention to the fact that Birju was older than I was. I had thought that he was much bigger, but not
more mature. Now, I began to understand that Birju dealt with more complicated things than I did.
Shortly before the school reopens, the boys to go to their aunt's house in Arlington, Virginia. On an
August afternoon, Ajay watches television and lies back on the sofa with a book. Birju goes to the
swimming pool at the nearby apartment building. While diving, he hits his head at the bottom of the pool.
He remains there unconscious for three minutes. It brings out the catastrophe of brain damage. Shuba
reaches Arlington. One seeing Birju in the hospital bed with railings, she burst out. The family takes care
of Birju very much. Their love toward him increases. It is seen when Shuba cuts Birju's finger nails, kisses
and speaks with him in a childish voice. She treats him like a little child. She calls Birju by playful names.
The bond between Mishra and Ajay increases. As a son, he notices all the activities of his father
and worries about him. He notices whether Mishra puts his hand in railings when he gets on the steps. If
Mishra is drunk, he will do it for his support. When Ajay hears the shutting sound of the bathroom door he
wakes up. He checks whether there is any scotch bottle under the sink. Ajay's love towards Mishra gets
thickened. He says, “I looked at my father's eager face and felt full of love. I wanted to kiss him. He had a
hand on one of his knees, and I wanted to take it and kiss it”. The accident has made the family members to
exhibit their love towards each other. The familial bond is highly portrayed.
Nostalgia is pondering over the past experience in a place or a period with happy personal
association. It gives the belief where one feels past is better than present. It pacifies them when they think
about their homeland. Nostalgia is the psychological uneasiness of the displaced people who are
overwhelmed with the obsession of returning home. The book Bharati Mukherjee's Fiction: A
Perspective, points out the condition of the immigrant. It states the immigrant, alienated from his
homeland, his people and his family, feels the wrench of separation. He had been pushed violently out
from the nest of this birth. It proved a shattering experience and he longed to be back yearning for the
security and the warmth of the feathery place. In his struggle to spread his wings and learn to bear his
weight, he ventured to far off places, saw new people, new places, but could not cease to dream of home,
could not cease to regret the loss of security.
The immigrants recollect their memories about home land in order to soothe themselves with the
difficulties of the host land. They connect them with the nostalgic past. They cherish themselves with the
memories. The memories about the homeland are considered a treasure. One who undergoes the nostalgic
feelings considers the past as better than the present. Diasporas are haunted more with guilt and
responsibility, isolation and redemption, outward and inward suffering. Each incident in New York makes

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Ajay recollects India. He feels odd with the new culture. He compares the temples of India with that of the
temples of America. The American temples look different with that of Indian temples. Seeing the
appearance of the temple in Queens he gets the feels nostalgic. Ajay narrates, “In India, though, temples
also smelled of flowers, of sweat from the crowds, of spoilage from the milk used to bathe the idols”. In
Family Life, Sharma portrays India with the realities of culture, fancies and its rich tradition. He brings out
the picture of reality when he narrates his native land.
India is enriched by many cultures. In the context of India, post colonial writers especially the
diasporic writers have gained popularity. They write on various issues like cultural transformation and
multiculturalism. They keenly observe the changes in the immigrants. The problems of immigrants are
portrayed in contemporary literature. Multiculturalism is also known as cultural diversity, cultural
pluralism, and multiracialism. Each culture has something which does not exist in other culture. The
Introduction of Multicultural Literature in India: Critical Perception points out the word 'multiculturalism'
connotes either some mode of transnational interrelationships between the cultures of two or more
countries or it suggests in a more circumscribed manner, the broader dimensions of multiple cultural
identifies within the boundaries of a single nation. The word comprises different nationalities, ethnicity,
races, cultures and genders, yet they are mixed, intermingled and hybridized. In the process of writing,
Ajay writes about Birju with exaggerations. Reading inspires Ajay to become a writer. Ajay chooses
literature to come out of his loneliness and the pain he undergoes in his life. Ajay is the portrayal of Sharma
himself. He writes to break the silence around his life. It gives him a sense of relief.
Sharma brings out the multicultural world. He portrays how the people discover their self in the
multicultural society. The parents dream and hopes on Birju have scattered because of his brain damage.
Ajay has to make his life happy. He wants to be successful in his life. He applies to join in various
universities. He does not succeed in his attempt to get into Bron Univeristy. He feels ashamed that he is not
able to make his mother proud by getting it the university. He gets rejected many times. He feels a lot and
worries that he fails to make his parents proud. He has been interested in writing stories. While applying for
the Princeton University, he submits the copy of his own short story with the application and sends it to the
university. Finally, Ajay gets into Princeton after a long struggle. He feels as he had achieved something.
The novel represents the acceptance of the reality of life. Thus in the novel Family Life, Sharma has
highly dealt with many aspects of multiculturalism. Shuba finds herself a job in America. Among all the
discrimination and the struggles, Ajay has identified himself in the multicultural society. He creates his
own space which leads him to get the identity. He feels satisfied that he has filled the dreams of his parents.
He gets satisfied with the pleasures of his life.

Works Cited
Chandra, N.D.R. “Introduction.”Multicultural Literature in India: Critical Perceptions.Ed. Chandra.
New Delhi: Sarup, 2010. vii-xix. Print.
Deraniyagala, Sonali. “The Repercussions”. New York Times. N.P., 3 April 2014. Web. 23 Feb. 2018.
Dwivedi, A.N. “Diasporic Writings in English”. English Literature: Voices of Indian Diaspora. Ed. Multi
Agarwal. New Delhi: Atlantic, 2009. 1-11. Print.
Girija, S. “Indian Customs and Conventions depicted in the Writings of R.K. Narayan”. New Insights into
the novels of R.K. Narayan. Ed. M.K. Bhatnagar. New Delhi: Atlantic, 2008. 5-58. Print.
Jha, Gauri Shankar. Yatra of Indian Writing in English after independence. Jaipur: Yking Books, 2013.
Print.
Llobrera, Kairos G. “Immigrants and Illness”. Public Books. N.p. 13. Feb. 2015. web. 28 March 2018.
Print
Prasad, B. A Background to the Study of English Literature. Delhi: Macmillan. 2013. Print Rathor, Ila.

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EXPLORATION OF MULTICULTURAL IDENTITIES IN AKHIL SHARMA'S FAMILY LIFE 101
“Tight Rope Walk: Relationships in Multiethnic Space”. Ethnic Literatures of America: Diaspora
and Intercultural Studies. Eds. Somdatta Mandal and HImadiri Lahiri. New Delhi, Prestige, 2015.
168-76. Print
Shea, Christopher D. “Akhil Sharma and Lisa Mc Inerney Win Book Awards”. New York Times. N.p., 9,
June 2016. Web. 21 Feb. 2018.
Tandon, Sushma. Bharati Mukherjee's Fiction: A Perspective. New Delhi: Sarup, 2004. Print
Yadav B.L. “The Making of a Writer”. Critical Response to R.K.Narayan. Ed. Yadav, Delhi: Mangalam,
2010. 128-131. Print

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29
KAMALA TO SURAYYA: QUEST FOR IDENTITY ?

Mohammad Ameen Abdul Quadir, Assistant Professor in English, Arts, Comm. &
Sci. College, Malegaon City, India

Abstract:
Kamala Surayya Das, a poetess of a women's literature went through a long struggle to identify her
own identity. I deliberately used the term Women's literature because the struggle of a woman we found in
Kamala Das' poetry is different from the feminist literature. It is solely a quest of recognition of a woman
and its identification as a human being. This is an account of a woman's oppression and the dominance of
male with lust and arrogance. On 11 December 1999, Kamala Das converted to Islam and became
Surayya (means a group of star). This paper will try to evaluate either the conversion to Islam was still a
part of long last quest of identity or a mere conversion or the quest for physical love and satisfaction. The
Confessional mode is the outstanding feature of Kamala's Poetry. After the conversion she spoke on
various occasions about it. The efforts will be made to evaluate those statements and the memoirs.

Key Words: Conversion, Quest, Identity, Eroticism Surayya spiritual love etc.

Quest and identity have an archetypal and universal motif in almost all the literature of all the ages.
The identity crisis among the literary figures and in milieu, witnessed its grandeur after post World War
Era. The Era was a mark of solitude, alienation and loneliness of human being. In general every individual
was under the influence of quest for identity. A drift was drawn among human being. The rootlessness and
the quest for the root were the main motive of the man. Being and becoming were the quest of the Era.
Sometime this quest became desperate attempt of a desperate human being.
The identity crisis has many dimensions like cultural social and personal etc. When the self of an
individual is hampered emotionally or spiritually, it arise personal identity crisis.
Kamala das went through the personal identity crisis. The majority of literary works of Kamala Das has
autobiographical elements and has a clear record of her identity quest. She was born in 1934 and grew up in
a family of upper class artist andbeing a female child; she felt oppression and negligence and married in
early age to a much older relative. This arose sexual and emotional insatiability and paved way to write
such a bold confession of her sexual desires. She was much frustrated in her life and always been in the
search of true love and peace. The bold confession made her the originator of confessional poetry in Indian
English Writings. A 15 years old girl married an older person of 35 and faces challenges of unfaithfulness,
lust and all sorts of difficulties a girl can avoid in this age. This suppression first time evoked the quest of
identity in Kamala Das.
I focused on her three major works originally written in English language, The Summerin Calcutta,
The Descendants and The Old Play House and the Other Stories. The Summer in Calcutta is one of the
early work of Kamala Das. It depicts the suffocation of a woman who is in search of her identity. The
majority of the poems present kamala as a shattered women, her thirst for true physical love, burning
desires and whimsical husband, loss of identity and self in arrange marriage. The evaluation of the poem
The Freaks clearly explains the restless woman who is not satisfied by her arranged marriage and her
husband. She looks towards her husband as an ugly creature who doesn't have any attraction. A woman
always has a longing for a prince of her own dream. Kamala Das went through scarification and oppression
KAMALA TO SURAYYA: QUEST FOR IDENTITY ? 103
since her childhood. Being a daughter she sacrificed her desires and lowered her head towards the decision
of her parents and married a man who was not the prince of her dreams. This event was the starting of lost of
the identity and the first encounter to search identity. The disperse condition of mind and soul and the lost
of emotional and physical satisfaction are witnessed in the Anthology. The poem In Love is also an attempt
to find the true meaning of love. The love became an adhesive between heat and passion. The lines from the
poem My Grandmother's House;
...I who have lost my way and beg now at a stranger's doors to
Receive love, at least in small change?
It is a vivid description of the gloomy nature of a woman in search of her identity. Majority of the
poems presents poetess as a lonely and desperate figure in search of her dream and existence. These are the
incomplete longing of a woman. The anthology depicts kamala a restless figure in male dominant society.
The poems in The Descendants and The Old Playhouse also full of Identity Quest and in every succeeding
poem the quest became stronger than before.
The conversion to Islam was also a quest of Identity and Kamala Das admitted it publicly that many
characteristics of Islam influenced her and impressed her to convert into a Muslim, here her views
regarding Pardah System, is contradictory to what she ever projected through her poetry and confessional
memoirs. She once stated about the relationship with Sadique Ali and his preaching. She converted to
Islam when she was 65 years old; an age where almost all carnal and physical desires became weak and one
seeks a true spiritual love. The motif of physical love becomes weak in the age. A woman who protested
against thedominance male in society and felt suffocated under the restraints of society, felt safe and
protected under the veil of parda. The whole literary career was full of eroticism sensual images now
converted to coyness under the purda system. The story of Sadique Ali is also disputed in the sense that the
woman who has been against the man and the community suddenly and innocently followed the guidance.
As a poetess of women Literature she always advocated for her own identity and to become Surayya was
also one of the attempts to identify herself. To write a confessional poem and dared to express such an
erotic thoughts in the literature by a woman was not acceptable in the Indian society, but she dared because
of her quest of identity, the same spirit of Kamala Das is seen in the conversion that the people and the
relatives were against her conversion but she converted. The quest is for identity and not for physical
satisfaction at the age of 65.

Works Cited
Das, Kamala (Madhavikutty, Sarayya).Summer in Calcutta.Kottayam:D C Books, 2004,
---.The Descendants. Calcutta : Writers Workshop, 1991. Print.
---.The Old Playhouse and Other Poems. New Delhi : Orient Blackswan. 2011. Print.
---.My Story. Kottayam: DC Books, 2012. Print.

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30
POSTCOLONIAL ENVIRONMENT IN MICHELLE CLIFF'S ABENG,
NO TELEPHONE TO HEAVEN AND JEAN RHYS' WIDE SARGASSO SEA

J. Packia Jeslin, Research Scholar,Scott Christian College, Nagercoil

Dr. A. Evangeline Jemi, Assistant Professor, Scott Christian College, Nagercoil

Abstract:
The writings of the postcolonial Caribbean writers Michelle Cliff and Jean Rhys present an image
of the postcolonial environment and the changes it witnessed during the time of colonization. The cultural
baggage which is brought by the European and American colonizers into the Caribbean islands harms
both the culture and the environment of the colonized people. This paper highlight the changes that happen
in Caribbean environment due to colonization and gives a better understanding of the natives' existence
with the nature soon after the Emancipation act is passed. It also shows the ruination of flora and fauna
due to industrial revolution in Jamaica and the relationship between humans and nature.

Keywords: Environment, postcolonialism, nature and human beings.

The writings of Michelle Cliff and Jean Rhys present the relationship between nature and its
influence in the human beings. Both the writers drop an image on the postcolonial environment as a
deserted environment because the land is destroyed by the colonizers who once colonized Jamaica. Cliff's
Abeng, No Telephone to heaven and Rhys'Wide Sargasso Sea highlight the environmentally oriented
development and the downfall of Jamaica. The whole ecosphere in the novels of Cliff and Rhys show lot of
energy and ideas that shoots out from the interaction between man and nature.
Postcolonialism is primarily concerned with social justice whereas ecocriticism is concerned with
environmental conservation and animal rights. Deep ecology focuses on the need for human to live in
harmony with nature and it demands in the nature centered system than human centered. It shows the
intrinsic value of nature. Cliff and Rhys through their novels express the bio-centric egalitarianism, where
the things in the biosphere have an equal right to live and to reach their own religious unfolding. According
to Bakhtin deep ecology is, “an application of dialogic to the landscape literature can open up a text to
enable an analysis of ecological relationship among all the landscapes components including humans”
(374).
The people in Jamaica have a better understanding with the environment where they live. They
listen to the beauty and the fruit of the land because the island is a host to some plants like citrus, cane and
bananas. According to Jamaicans, “There are other wild fruit on the island-the bush of Jamaica had long
been written about as one of the most naturally fruitful places on earth- but the mango was supreme among
all other growing things-the paragon: 'Mother sugar herself'”( Cliff 5). Rhys too claims the richness of the
Coulibri estate in Caribbean island by expressing the beauty of the land. The garden in the estate is
juxtaposed to the large and beautiful garden in the Bible. The people in the estate eat the products which are
cultivated in the garden and they hate to eat and live with the imported products like that of the people in
America and so they say, “It was a beautiful place - wild, untouched, above all untouched, with an alien,
disturbing secret loveliness”(54).
Cliff and Rhys focus the circumstances on which the wild nature of forest is used as a weapon by
the natives to rebel against the colonizers. The forest in the island is wild and it reminds the Creoles of
POSTCOLONIAL ENVIRONMENT IN MICHELLE CLIFF'S ABENG, NO TELEPHONE TO HEAVEN AND JEAN RHYS' WIDE .... 105
Africa. The mountains that hold caves are used as a head quarter or a place to conceal the weapons of the
army. The natives mix the dyes from the roots and teach others to cast images in the walls. Nanny in Abeng,
collects barks from the trunks and limbs of the birch gum to touch the skins of their enemies to kill them.
But Christophine in Rhys'novel, as an Obeah woman uses feathers, dog's teeth and alligator's teeth for her
witchcraft to fulfill her needs. Brathwaite says that the Obeah women and men in Caribbean island use, “
Blood, Feathers, Parrots Beaks, Dogs Teeth ,Alligators Teeth, broken Bottles, Grave dirt, Rum, Egg Shells
or any other materials related to the implementation of Obeah or witchcraft, in order to delude and impose
on the minds of the others” (162). These practices indirectly refer to the destruction of natural plants and
animals in the forest.
Cliff claims that the Jamaican wildness is closely associated to the African nature because Clare's
ancestors who lived in Africa before colonization knows about the harshness of African wild biosphere.
The foods and the medicines used for healing sicknesses in Jamaica are more traditional like that of
Africans. Jamaicans teach the benefits of their wild nature to their younger generation to keep up the
traditional practices and to extract goods from nature. Kitty as a woman who is closely associated with
nature knows the uses of “Madame Fate” (53) a weed that can kill and cure. She is also convinced by her
ancestors that the cure for cancer is found in the bush of Jamaica.
Deforestation destroyed elm trees and when it is planted in Jamaica after a generation gap the trees
never managed to make an adjustment to Jamaican climate. The elm trees are closely associated to the lives
of Jamaican slaves. They live as a slave in their native land but when the emancipation act is passed they
fail to adjust with their slave owners and rebel against them. The slaves are the one who closely live with
the nature than the slave masters. They admire the beauty of the cane field and its harvest because cane
plantation depends on slavery to survive.
Rhys too describes the historical incident that harms the growth of the nature. After the
emancipation act is passed the slaves who are close towards nature rebels against the slave masters and
moves out of the plantation. As a result of it the plantations are grown into wild land. The paths of the
plantation grow wilder and the smell of the dead flowers mixes with the fresh smell and starts to pollute the
air.
Kitty, the native Jamaican in Abeng has a sense of admiration to nature. She lives amidst the nature
by loving it and she wishes to teach her granddaughter about the beauties that are hidden in the forest. She
walks with her granddaughter into the forest in bare foot with an intention to give respect to nature. Kitty
opines:
She thought that there was no other country on earth as beautiful as hers, and sometimes
would take Clare into the bush with her, where they would go bare foot, and hunt for
mangoes or avocadoes out of the season. Kitty believed that there were certain trees hidden
in the under bush; which boar the fruit as they, the trees wished. (52)
Like Kitty, Christophine in Wide Sargasso Sea also admires the beauty of the nature and as a result of her
love for nature she starts to sing her song by looking at the cedar tree flowers.
Friendship in Jamaica is associated close to the environment, because the Jamaican people built
their friendship by admiring the beauty of the nature. The friendship between Clare and Zoe in Abeng
existed close to the earth. They prepare earthen pots and walk in bare foot as a token of respect towards
their land and collect water from the natural sources. After their school they move towards the bush, where
there is no light to learn more about the harshness of Jamaican environment. The slave owners make their
slaves to cultivate their fields with yams, canes and coffee. It is not the slave owners but the slaves who
spent most of their time in the field and soothe their life with nature by eating cut canes and yams. On the
other hand the slave masters and their family admire the beauty of the nature and live with the income of
their field. Clare, as a daughter from a slave owner family, moves to the plantation to hunt an animal with a

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gun and kills an old Joe thereby destructing the harmony of nature.
In Wide Sargasso Sea the relationship between Tia and Antoinette is closely associated to the earth.
Tia is a girl who is born and brought up in the island spends, most of her days in the plantation as a slave's
daughter. When Antoinettie wishes to have a friend, she becomes the friend of her. They move deep into the
forest to spend their time with nature. They moved “every morning at the turn of the road to the river . . .
deep and dark green under the trees, brown green if it had rained, but a bright sparkling green in the
sun”(9).
Clare in No Telephone to Heaven wishes to see a gracious and beautiful land as an adult but “the
land which were once cleared for agricultural purposes and have now lapsed back into 'bush.' An
impressive variety of herbaceous Shrubs and woody type of vegetation appears in succession, becoming
thicker and taller over the years until high 'ruinate forest' may emerge” (Floyd 20). She sees this difference
when she returns to Jamaica after her education in England. The ruination in the environment destructs the
mind of Jamaicans due to American colonization in Jamaica. In Coulibri plantation Rhys exemplifies how
colonialization has ruined the land, “it had gone wild. The paths were overgrown . . . tall as forest tree ferns .
. . All Coiliburi Estate had gone wild like the garden gone into bush”(6).
When the colonisers enter the well grown ruined land with the frequent blast and constant rattle of
the truck the natives in Jamaica opposes the arrival of the colonizers and says, “ we don't need you here”(6).
It happens because the colonizers harm both the land and the minds of the people in Jamaica. They also
construct roads in the forest for their travelling purpose by destroying the forest resources and built huge
companies for their income. It indirectly shows how industrialism in Jamaica affects the natural growth of
the environment.
The colonizers enter into the forest and destroy the nature by constructing roads. Rhys too focuses
the impact of industrialism in the environment in Coulibri estate in Caribbean islands. When the colonizers
re-enter and start to walk deep into the forest by cutting off the branches of the trees and the creepers that
stopped them to move further and start to reconstruct the destructed roads from Spanish town to Coulibri
estate, they search for the roads constructed by them at the time of colonization for the purpose of
exportation.
Cultivation plays an important role among the natives in the island. The colonizers who come from
America refuse to cultivate their own land for their food but they make their imported and native slaves to
work for them. In No Telephone to Heaven people in America has less concern about nature and
cultivation. But the Italians in America grow grape arbors and plant tomatoes to get food naturally from
earth. The industrial revolution disturbs the natural growth of the environment. When Clare enters into her
homeland in a car, the plants and the animals in the ruinated land gets disturbed by the sound of the horn
and the car. She also watches the people in the beach and the aggressive nature of the environment. When
people try to destruct the natural boundaries and move into the place of flora and fauna they start to rebel
against humans and Clare finds that the people in Jamaica are killed by Shark when they enter into the sea.
In Rhys' novel Antoinette's husband comes into the estate with his car to look after the household and to
meet his wife by harming the natural growth of the plants and animals in the forest.
Eco criticism presents a critical animal studies, that focuses on the systemic and unintentional
damages to other species, including a wide range of animals and plants. In Cliff's novel relationship
between animals and the ruined land is closer than that of human beings. The animals hide themselves
beneath the bush because they know that the ruined land is not a protective place for them. The ruination is
connected to the noises of the animals moving through the undergrowth of the bushes and the population of
the wild birds.
Like Cliff, Rhys also presents the relationship between humans and animals in the ruinated land.
When the Slave owners lose their power after the Emancipation act, the cultivated land turns into a ruinated

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POSTCOLONIAL ENVIRONMENT IN MICHELLE CLIFF'S ABENG, NO TELEPHONE TO HEAVEN AND JEAN RHYS' WIDE .... 107
land. It affects the life style of the colonizers like Mr. Luttrell. He kills his dog for the reason that he should
come out of the land in secret. The slaves who are close to environment too destructs the animals owned by
the Slave owners to show their power over their owners
The colonizers who are living in the islands have a close relation towards nature. Clare as a girl
born and brought up in Jamaica finds the different characteristics and action in the native people. She asks
her people to remember their past in the earth and wishes to see the same safe soul environment. She
articulates:
Traces of desert peoples. People of the rain forest. People touched by sun. people who
worshiped fire. People lit by a purple light people who invented the compass . . . people who
made paper. People who married their sisters. People who dance in temples. People who
made war with fine stones. People who knew kindness. Chaos. Their traces collied here.
(113)
The changes that happen due to colonization and industrialization affect the growth of the natural
environment and the people who live in it. Rhys and Cliff's novels give a clear picture of the environment
before colonization and the environment after the colonization in Caribbean islands especially in West
Indies and in Jamaica. The changes put into practice by the colonizers affect the mindset of both the
colonizers and the colonized people, including the flora and fauna of the environment soon after the
Emancipation act is passed.
Works Cited:
Brathwaite, Edward. The Development of Creole Society in Jamaica1770-1820.Oxford: Claredon, 1971.
Print.
Bakhtin, Mikkhil M. Dialogic Imagination: Four essays. Ed. Michael Holquist. Tran. Caryl Emerson and
Michael Holquist. Austin: U of Texas. Print.
Cliff, Michelle. Abeng. New York: Plume, 1984. Print.
---. No Telephone to Heaven. New York: Plume, 1996. Print.
Floyd, B. Jamaica: An Island Microcosm. London:St. Martin's,1979. Print.
Rhys, Jeans. Wide Sargasso Sea. London: Penguin, 1966. Print.

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31
COERCION OF THE HIJRAS IN MAHESH DATTANI'S SEVEN STEPS AROUND
THE FIRE

Dr. R. Priya, Assistant Professor, V.V. Vanniaperumal College for Women, Virudhunagar

Abstract:
Mahesh Dattani, in his play Seven Steps around the Fire has spotlighted the plight of the hijras in
the Indian society. The play has a very strong exposition. Uma Rao, a teacher from Banglore University,
belongs to a reputed section of the society and she is writing her thesis on class-gender based power
implications. She is interested in a hijra (Kamala) murder case for which one of the hijra of her community,
Anarkali, has been arrested. The play reveals the chain of injustices that a hijra has to encounter in the
society that has inborn bias against them. Anarkali is physically, mentally, verbally and sexually abused in
the lock up but nobody bothers about her. Uma is the mouthpiece of the playwright and Dattani has
projected an image of modern Indian woman through her who fights against the traditional useless values
and questions the patriarchal system. Champa, the head of hijras, who lives in Shivaji nagar is the only
person who can bail Anarkali out because nobody else would care. She does not have enough money to get
her released on bail. Uma borrows Fifty Thousand rupees from her father. Her visit to Champa's house
reveals the remoteness of the hijras from the social stream. Here Dattani has exposed the multiple layers of
realities that co-exist in the Indian society. The reality of hijra existence is invisible to the society. Isolated
and humiliated, they are considered as the lowest of the low, but they crave for love and family. The
invisible chains of the society deny them family and love. Those who try to break free have to face dire
consequences. The same thing happened with Kamala, who loved Subbu and secretly married him, but was
eventually murdered, on the bidding of Mr. Sharma, who is an influential politician and Subbu's father.
Dattani very cleverly weaves the net of suspense to keep the audience on the edges of their seats. The play is
not only about the murder investigation of a hijra but also about their social positioning and the social
setup where a hijra cannot crave his feelings and emotions beyond the patterns and boundaries
recommended by the society. These individuals face threat or violence because of their position in the
society. The play depicts the social space of hostility faced by the hijras and the vindictive social responses
that they experience.

Key words: Coercion, Hijras, Patriarchal System, Existence.

Theatre represents human life on the stage with its all facets and dimensions as well as colour and
complexities. So the theatre has direct connection with human life. The great saga, Bharat Muni, in his
great treatise Natyashastra dictates: “Theatre is life. There is no art, no life, no craft, no learning, and no
action which cannot be seen in it. The dramatist attempts to reach audience through the means of stage via
performers”. Performance, idea and Paraphernalia, make continuity to seek 'wholeness'. The playwright is
bound by economy of characterization and depiction of the events or episodes.
Passing through the different stages of imitations and translations, Indian English Drama has
ultimately got an independent identity and status in the last quarter of the 20th century in the hands of
Mahesh Dattani. It is the dramatic vision of Dattani. It is the distinction of the dramatic vision of Dattani
that he took the tradition of Indian English Drama as the faint reflection of European traditions. He adopted
different forms of drama as a medium to represent the real depth and vitality of human experience.
COERCION OF THE HIJRAS IN MAHESH DATTANI'S SEVEN STEPS AROUND THE FIRE 109
The plays of Mahesh Dattani are characterized by some theatrical and thematic innovations. He is
confluence of art and craft. He has not only intellectual power and prowess to produce a play in text but also
has an ability to get it staged successfully. Dattani has an unconventional approach to theatre. He looks at
the theatre as the medium to manifest the cause of the unprivileged segments of our society. His plays
externalize the problems and pent up feeling of the subalterns in a very authentic and realistic manner.
Mahesh Dattani started his own theatre group named 'Playpen' in 1984. It can be interpreted as the
manifestation of his abstract ideas and knowledge of art and dance. Being the multifaceted literary and
dramatic figure, Mahesh Dattani has given a new height and dimension to Indian English Drama. Mahesh
Dattani intends to develop theatre which a problem that is the characteristic feature of the postcolonial
writers. Dattani intends to develop theatre which can be understood and enjoyed by multi lingual
community of India and abroad. He resorts English as a medium of communication of his theatre.
Dattani's Seven steps Around the Fire has spotlighted the plight of the hijras in the Indian society.
Having a recorded history of more than 4000 years, the hijra community is deprived of several rights under
the civil law because the Indian law recognised only two sexes. They are isolated and segregated and
constitute an 'invisible minority' within the society. They are neglected gender. They sing at the wedding
and at childbirth with other 'hijras' and people give them money otherwise they put a curse on them. For
many otherwise they put a curse on them. For many Indians, hijras exist at the periphery of their concern,
making themselves visible only on certain occasions. Mahesh Dattani is probably the first playwright who
has written a full length play about them. For the very first time they get a depiction in the theatre as human
beings with their individuality who crave for space in the society. Seven steps Around the Fire is a protest
play against the social exclusion of the hijras. Such exclusions can be found everywhere in the Indian
society like caste, class, religion or inclination based bias neutral gender. Dattani underlines the fact that
the social customs and bindings, the hijras have a 'self' that longs for dignity and when it is denied the same,
it tries to break free of such customs.
Seven Steps Around the Fire is one of the famous Radio plays of Dattani. It was first broadcast by
BBC Radio 4 on January 1999. This play uncovers the truth behind the murder of kamala, a eunuch through
Uma Rao, who is the daughter of the Vice Chancellor of Bangalore University and the wife of the chief
Superintendent, Suresh Rao. Uma teaches sociology and work on her research paper 'class and Gender
Related Violence.' Uma is a sleuth who is trying to uncover the truth behind the murder in the city's hijra
community. The play deals with an unusual theme concerning the life of hijras in our society. Throughout
the play, they are called 'it'. Their value is deteriorated to a thing rather than a human being. The eunuch
community usually occupy no honourable spaces in society and they are often pushed back to live on the
margins of the society. Uma Rao, swayed by human sympathy gets emotionally involved in the whole
affair and identifies herself with their suffering
The play, Seven Steps Around the Fire begins with the chanting of marriage mantras and that fade
out to the sound of the rules and his of fire. Uma visits the central jail to interview with Anarkali, the chief
accused in the case. The bias and discriminations towards the neuter gender, makes Dattani to explore the
emotional crisis and human aspect of them. To Anarkali, the chief accused hijra is addressed by Uma, with
pronoun 'she' and Munuswamy deliberately does not recognize this identity and with additional emphasis
uses the pronoun 'it'. Munuswamy exercises is absolute authority over Anarkali and does not recognise her
identity as a person. He asserts, “She! Of course it will talk to you. We will beat it up, if it doesn't”. (CP, 233)
In the opinion of constable, the idea of investigating the case of a hijra is a wasteful exercise. However,
forgetting her pride and high social status, Uma Rao decides to meet Anarkali in her barrack itself.
Munuswami does not hesitate to use uncanny words like 'worthless pig' Even Anarkali expresses her
contempt for the efforts of Uma but with her love and sympathy confidence comes to her. Anarkali
becomes sentimental and makes a confession of love. “I didn't kill her, she was my sister”(CP, 236). The

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address 'sister' gives an additional force to the need of human touch and interpersonal relationship even at
the face of social oddities.
The hijras live as a community in the small areas of Indian cities. They are marginalized or brushed
aside to the margins of the society. Their land is no man's land and neither of any women. The area of their
inhabitance is not trodden by the general people. But Uma treads and encounters the reality hidden in
mask. The invisible becomes visible; she comes to know about their society which is set apart from the
main stream society. Though they are isolated from the sexual majority, they form a community of their
own and seek identity of their own. Though it is difficult to get hold of the exact population of the hijaras,
yet it can be ascertained that their numbers approach several hundred thousand. They are also not provided
with any job opportunity, and earn their living through decent means in the world of male-female majority.
Through the play, Seven Steps around the Fire, Dattani poses the question of gender, sexuality and the
social position of the hijras.
The main stream society is so apathetic to the hijras that there is no provision of separate cell for a
hijra in prison. Uma draws the attention of her husband to this fact.
Uma: why do they put her in male prison...She is being beaten up by all the male prisoners (CP, 9).
Uma's husband, Suresh has no answer. Neither does he bother to provide one. In our country the 'hijras' are
called as 'the other', the third sex. The term 'hijra' is associated with inaction, cowardice, inactivity,
incapacity and above all impotency. Even though she is sympathetic in her approach to Anarkali, Uma
finds it difficult to win the confidence of the hijra, because the bitter realities of gender hegemony in a
capitalist patriarchal society and the consequent marginalization of the third sex stand in the way of such a
friendship.
In Seven Steps Around the Fire, Anarkali, the young hijra yearns for various relationships like
brother, sister, mother and father suggest that they have equal desire for the protection of personal
relationship. Her intense pain to have the pleasure of relationship is pathetic, “If you were a hijra, I would
have made you my sister”. (CP, 24). When Uma offers Anarkali that she would like to be her sister,
Anarkali is overwhelmed but fears of the consequences of it. She is torn between the fear of social code and
legal precisions but finds consolation in the love and sympathy of Uma. Here lies the distinction of
Dattani's art, he makes representation of subalterns, defends their cause and stirs awareness in them
through the bond of relationship. Uma and Anarkali represent the dichotomy of margin and centre.
The dramatic action of the play moves in the form of investigation of the Kamala's murder case by
Uma. Uma decides to see Anarkali's friend, Champa. On seeing Uma, Champa felt so nervous and
confused. But Uma offers the bail amount to champa for the release of Anarkali. The intervention of Salim
in search of one particular photograph brings complication in the play. Uma tries to stir confidence on her
to raise voice against injustice done to them. Infact, the socially acceptable relationship of Uma and
Suresh, seems to be mockery in contrast of irresistible warmth of relationship of Champa and Anarkali for
dead Kamala. Uma decides to visit the place of Salim who was expected to marry kamala. Dattani again
tries to project those hidden terrains of life that can be taboo but they are integral part of human
consciousness. Uma enquires at Mr. Sharma's place about the identity of Salim and the secret of his
relationship with kamala. The character of Subbu in the end of the play adds a complication. For Uma,
Subbu becomes a riddle. All these events in the play diverts in two distinction direction Uma's anguish of
her married life and her anxiety about kamala. The position of Uma is no better than Kamala and Champa.
They at least enjoy their individuality and freedom in their specific domains but Uma has no freedom of
choice in her home.
The climax of the play, Seven Steps Around the Fire is praise worthy for the emotional intensity
expressed in the texture of the play. Anarkali is bruised but even she doubts if doctor would attend her. After
the release, she was ordered to wear special 'ghanga' on the occasion of the marriage of chief minister's son.

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Mr. Sharma, the chief Minister all the time doubts about the intentions the truth and Mr. Sharma is all the
time apprehensive about the horrors implied in revelation of truth, the atmosphere is auspicious but Mr.
Sharma is in panic and Subbu is nervous. Champa appears for dance with her trail. Mr. Sharma does not
want their entry in his house and he calls the security guards to stop their access to the main building. Uma
intervenes; “No, it is a bad luck to turn away a hijra on a wedding or a birth.” Champa blessed Uma, may
you have hundred sons.” (CP, 298). As soon as hijras begin dancing and singing, Subbu comes forward
looking at them with dancing Anarkali, the vision of dead kamala start haunting his mind. In a State of
frenzy, he snatches the gun of Suresh. With the shift of consciousness into the past, he becomes restless to
consciousness into the past; he becomes restless to compromise with the restrictions imposed upon him
from outside. Self pity and self justice renders him blind to all myths and conventions in which he was
forced to live.
Subbu forgets everything and becomes highly excited in that occasion. He demands the
photography, the last memory of his union with kamala. Champa gives him the photograph with the
sympathy. As soon as he looks at that photograph, the living paraphernalia suspends and the dead kamala
assumes the role and significance of living entity governing and guiding the entire scene:
Subbu : They killed you kamala!
Kamala: (echoing) They killed me!
Subbu : Why?
Kamala: Because you loved me!
Subbu : I still love you kamala!
Kamala: I love you Subbu! (CP, 270)
Being occupied by deep depression, Subbu takes the gun, aims at his father, and reveals the secret
of the murder of kamala. He cries out “You killed her?” (CP, 55). Mr. Sharma, who earlier killed Kamala in
the snobbery of her status, pathetically implores Champa to pressure his son to forget kamala. Subbu takes
the gun and shoots himself. With his death, the real mystery of the murder of kamala starts echoing.
What does it matter, who killed kamala? She is dead... so many times I warned her. First I thought
Salim was taking her for his own pleasure. When she told me about Subbu, madam, I tried to stop her. I
fought with her. I scratched her face, hoping she will become ugly and Subbu will forget her. He wanted to
marry her... I was there at their wedding... (CP, 281)
The death of Subbu reveals the mystery of murder but makes Uma silent. The end is a bit
depressing but it shows that the 'voice' against oppression is in itself a great challenge of life.
They have no voice. The case was hushed up and it was not even reported in the newspaper...
Subbu's suicide was written off as an accident. The photograph was destroyed. So were the lives of two
young people... but Anarkali's blessings remain with me.... I did not want her blessing for a child. All I want
is what they want... to move on. To love, To live. (CP, 282)
The play, seven Steps Around the Fire ends with Uma's voice over that reveals the plights of hijra
community, the third sex in the hands of mainstream society. The polities of marginalization come into
forefront. Uma's opinion at lat is that is the second sex and the third sex, are powerless and passive, in the
hands of strong gender. The sense of subjugation develops a fellow feeling and solidarity among the
marginalized. Uma certainly feels isolated in her marriage life she lives in are out and this sense of isolation
tends to make Uma empathise with Anarkali, the hijra, the most isolated and utterly socially excluded. A
note of suspense hangs over the play, whether Uma will keep quite or bring forth the truth to the people?
Will she also fall prey to the powerful game of the mainstream sexual majority, and the socio-cultural
construct of gender hegemony? By raising these questions Dattani makes the readers' to think deeply of
how the second and third sex (hijras) are treated in the Indian society.

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Works Cited
Dattani, Mahesh. Collected Plays. New Delhi: Penquin Books, 2000. Print
Das, kumar Bijay. From and Meaning in Mahesh Dattani's plays. New Delhi: Atlantic Publishers,
2008.Print
Mortimer, Jeremy. “A note on the Play Seven Steps the Fire”, In Collected plays of Mahesh Dattani. New
Delhi: Penguin, 2000.Print
Stracb, Kristina and Epstein Julia (Eds.) Body Guards: The Cultural Polities of Gender Ambiguity. New
York: Routledge, 1991.Print.

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32
IMMIGRANT EXPERIENCE AS DEPICTED IN
AMIT CHAUDHURI'S ODYSSEUS ABROAD

M. Subitha, Research Scholar, A.V.V.M. Sri Pushpam College, Poondi, Thanjavur

Dr. J. Uma Samundeeswari, Assistant Professor, A.V.V.M. Sri Pushpam College, Poondi,
Thanjavur

Abstract:
Amit Chaudhuri, as a part of displaced community, explores the problems of immigrants through
his novel Odysseus Abroad (2014). This novel deals with the twenty-two year young Indian protagonist,
Ananda Sen, living in England who struggles to cope with his host culture. This novel centres on the themes
of alienation, and loneliness, homesickness, and assimilation in the new land. Chaudhuri discusses the key
theme of diasporic writing via identity through culture, tradition, history and other matters that relate his
homeland. Immigrants live with two cultures-host culture and home culture. When the question of identity
arises, immigrants always go with their own culture. Thus, the focus of the paper is to investigate the
immigrants' experiences in the novel Odysseus Abroad.

Keywords: Diaspora, immigrants, displaced community, alienation, host culture.

Diaspora has now emerged to be an important concept to discuss the relationship between place
and identity and the direction through which cultures and literatures interact. Even though diaspora has
assumed different meanings and interpretations, since its early times, it is used to ascribe a wide variety of
contexts, from dispersion to trade diaspora and worker/migrant diaspora. In the literary studies it has
achieved greater importance.
In the present modern era, many people undertake journey across the border in order to satisfy their needs
and to achieve something in their life this might be voluntary or involuntary. These people after going to a
foreign land feel nostalgic about their homeland and though few get accustomed and assimilate to the place
they migrate, the memories of their homeland haunt them and they are pulled towards their homeland due
to one reason or the other. This situation can be called as search for roots or journey to the roots.
Amit Chaudhuri belongs to the new breed of writers who choose to write on conventional themes
with an unconventional perspective. Chaudhuri, as a part of displaced community, explores the problems
of immigrants through his novel Odysseus Abroad (2014). This novel deals with the twenty-two year
young Indian protagonist, Ananda Sen, living in England who struggles to cope with his host culture. This
novel centres on the themes of alienation, and loneliness, homesickness, and assimilation in the new land.
Odysseus Abroad a diasporic novel, which narrates a day in the life of Ananda Sen, a twenty two
year old student, who studies Romantic Poets in London University. When Ananda is introduced to the
readers, the author introduces his interest towards English and its Literature, and as a person with unique
identity. In England this viewpoint undergoes changes. Ananda is fascinated towards the life of England
and he plans to shed his identity there, but unfortunately, he his ignored by the people of England.
Ananda has to adapt to a new circumstances. In India, he spoke and read a lot in English, he ate
sandwiches, used to wear jeans and their distinguished him from other students. But in England everyone
speaks English. “Since everyone here spoke English,…. wore jeans or corduroys. In this way, his identify
had been taken from him” (13). Chaudhuri as a migrant tries to replicate the scenario of beliefs, hybridized
IMMIGRANT EXPERIENCE AS DEPICTED IN AMIT CHAUDHURI'S ODYSSEUS ABROAD 114
cultures and religion, for the purpose he brings into discussion the dispute and contradiction between the
colonizers and colonized the inferior and superior. This contradiction or conflict is a part and parcel in
Edward Said's Orientalism.
The dilemma of the Indians and the Asians to mingle with the native people is clearly portrayed in
this novel. In London, Indians are always labeled as 'Asians'. This label made feel Ananda an outsider.
“Ananda didn't see himself as 'Asian'. He was keen to miligate against the category though his militancy
must, naturally, remain incommunicable to the people it was intended for. He was Indian. He'd go back
home someday….” (113). This clearly shows that Indians in abroad are divided among themselves. “The
gradations of colour between white and black were infinite in London, you didn't need the seven colours of
the rainbow here these two were heterogeneous enough to suffice”(115).
Though Ananda's uncle Radhesh, who spent nearly thirty years in London, “he saw as the very
antithesis of himself solitary, without roots, without family or clear future. I'm a black Englishman, 'he'd
say proudly to fresh acquaintances”(115). He use to dress like English men wears three piece suits. He
longs to mingle with the English race but when it doesn't happen, he comments that, “Western civilization
was all vanity” (116). This shows that longing for one's own identity in which he lived for thirty years.
In Britain, Ananda has his own opinions on English people:
The English were a strange lot: even if they didn't acknowledge your existence, they made
you feel on display…. Their books advocated the virtues of observation-but they didn't
look at you directly. If you sat opposite an English person, you may as well not be there that
was English politeness, or the rules of the culture. It wasn't obliviousness. They did
practice the art of looking in secret…(89)
Through this Chaudhuri criticizes that the English people are insensitive towards the settlers.
Likewise, English people differ from others by their beliefs too. They lead their life as they wish without
any basic values and faith towards God. “The English ignored the festivities, as Forster had said; they'd
never had Gods, only goblins and fairies. They wouldn't know what it meant to have gods watching over
you; they didn't know what to do with them” (118). As Robert Frost says, “East is East; West is West, never
shall the twin meet'. This clearly shows that the worlds of East and West are totally different and it can't be
assimilated.
Anand feels, the English people would behave in aggressive manner in public. He expresses his
feelings “What they do and how they behave is law…sometimes their laughter's like an assault on the
surrounding. It's a form of aggression” (225). By writing in Italics, Chaudhuri stresses that this idea crops
in the inner mind of the diasporic people. Likewise they are forced to bury their emotions, conflicts and
sufferings for their survival in their host land.
In Britain, Racism is one of the main problems to be tackled by the settlers. The situation is not
simple there; it is complicated for a people belonging to the different race. Once Ananda experiences the
pangs of racism, when an English man calls him as 'Vindaloo, Vindaloo' in the street. His uncle advises
him to understand the nature of racism that prevails in the English society, which threatens the settlers who
carve for their living in the host land, and at the same time they have a feeling of annoyance or disapproval
of the natives too. The English people considers the settlers as their rivals, who have come here to take
away their opportunities. In this novel, Ananda's mother khuku is often ill treated by her boss Ms.Watkins
This happens only because of jealousy and insecurity.
Radhesh, who has lived more than thirty years in London warns Ananda: “against making eye-
contact with skinheads and even punks; would you look an animal in the eye? No. Because it thinks it's a
challenge. Having a long life experience the uncle's life's motto is that of a slave. Never go into
conformation follow Gandhi. Turn the other cheek.” (17). Being young Anand is astounded by his uncle's
hypocrisy and he thought not follow his advice, but instead he confronted his neighbor who always

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humiliated him.
Ananda and his uncle, though they belong to different age groups, they have their own view of their
rights. Radhesh, who follows the life principle of being inferior (settler) towards the superior (native
people) which came from colonial times. On the other hand, Ananda is opposed to his uncle who has still a
colonial way of thinking. Because being young boy he is not aware of the colonial times and he is confident
about his rights.
In the novel, Odysseys Abroad Chaudhuri gives one solutions to such problems through the
character Radhesh. He says “Such people were to be ignored and avoided; there are certain demonical
beings in the universe, his uncle had said, quoting Taranath, the tantric, who are dim but incredible
powerful; they can grow a hundred times their size in a second; they have brute strength; they can fly; but
they are intelligent you won't be able to beat them in a contest of strength, but you have to hold your nerve
when facing them” (69). When the problem is metaphorically presented, the author tries to record the
difficulties of the Indians in an alien land and he suggests that it can't be won by Indians or other settlers, but
it can be avoided.
Chaudhuri accepts the fact that the settlers can never mingle with the native people of English.
This is expressed well through the description of Ananda. “Ananda was from a new breed on a new planet,
impossibly removed from the world that had formed his own parents” (217). In fact, this is the reality
faced by every Indian in any host land. Though the settlers' gains to attain a new identify in new land, but
they can never unmask themselves that has been with them since from their birth.

Works Cited
Chaudhuri, Amit. Odysseus Abroad. Penguin Books, 2014. Print.
Mulloo,A. Voices of Indian Diaspora. Motilal Banarsidass, 2007. Print.

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33
FACTIONAL FICTION -UNIQUENESS OF HERTA MÜLLER

Dr. S. Punitha, Assistant Professor, Vellalar College for Women, Thindal, Erode

Abstract:
th
In our factions, we find meaning, we find purpose, we find life- Veronica Roth. On 8 October
2009, the Swedish Academy declared the Nobel Prize in Literature had been awarded to a Romanian-born
German minority Herta Müller “who with the concentration of poetry and the frankness of prose, depicts
the landscape of the dispossessed.” These words of the Nobel Prize Committee picturize the literary
workmanship of Herta Müller making them to be her unique identity. Many of her novels revolve around
her own traumatic pains and sufferings as a minority German in Romania under the Stalinist-Communist
totalitarian regime of Nicolae Ceausescu.

Keywords: German minority, poetry, frankness of prose, dispossessed, unique, traumatic pains, minority,
totalitarian regime, surveillance, metonymic metaphors.

Through the unique, extraordinary prose with the visual presentation through the poetic language,
Müller, represents some of the great tragedies of the century dictatorship, exile and political oppression.
Brigid Haines and Lyn Marven remarked about the structure of her fictional work as:
The construction of her stories and novels out of details and fragments (adopting the
techniques of collage) represents the precision of the powerless, who are nevertheless
determined to wrest some control over what happens to them by means of minute
observation and the cataloguing of apparently unjoined-up aspects of their environment. It
also enacts a rejection of the prescriptive norms of Socialist Realism, and indeed of the
utopian meta-narratives of communism under which Müller grew up. (Herta Müller. 5)
The factions represented in her literary works stand a testimony for the different pains undergone by the
different sects of the people. Being the minority, forces them to lead a life under scrutiny for a long
duration.
The traumatic past is revealed through her characters portraying the pains, sufferings, isolation and
the utmost outcry of the public under the surveillance of the Securitate, the secret police service of the
Romanian government. Each of her work echoes the pains of her various stages of her life but not in a
chronological order: a harsh childhood in a rural German minority community in the Banat (The
Passport); a father who had been involved in the Nazi SS (The Land of Green Plums); the physical threat
and the psychological depression within the Ceausescu's totalitarian regime (The Land of Green Plums);
emigration to West Germany under pressure from the Securitate.
Bozzi in his essay 'Facts, Fiction, Autofiction, and Surfiction' rightly remarked about the narrative
structure of Müller in her work The Passport as:
In fact her texts operate with principles of fragmentation and omission that are expressed
on the level of syntax and in their narrative structure. The logical, semantic progression of
ideas, the progression of the texts themselves, is disrupted by frequent shifts in narrative
chronology as well; the sentences, as well as the individual chapters or incidents, are not
linked; the verbs point both to timelessness and a lack of movement; blank space and
silences often occur in the text; the description degenerates into a series of images or a list
FACTIONAL FICTION -UNIQUENESS OF HERTA MÜLLER 117
of nouns: “Amalie feels the heels of the white sandals in her stomach. The fire from her
forehead is burning in her eyes. Amalie's tongue pressed down in her mouth. The silver
gleams in the window pane. A shadow in the apple tree. It's black and disturbed. The
shadow is a grave” (The Passport 86). Within the text, individual words, innocuous at first,
gradually become weighted with significance through a process of juxtaposition, in a way
that renders any explicit narrative stance unnecessary. Sensory perceptions are privileged
over reflection, with the result that the text is no more than the impression of the world in a
strong sense upon a (mostly absent) narrator; the lack of subordinating conjunctions and
relative clauses suppresses causality.
Müller's protagonists and narrators are close to her own experience. This is evident even in her
earliest work, two collections of stories published in Bucharest under heavy censorship; here, alter ego
figures recur amongst surreal prose, child's-eye views of rural Romania, satirical depictions of the German
minority community and political parables. Her best known work is the densely poetic The Land of Green
Plums won various awards and it focusses on a group of friends, based on real-life poets and writers
(Richard Wagner, Rolf Bossert and Roland Kirsch), portrayed by a narrator whose best friend Tereza
secretly spies on her on behalf of the Securitateand eventually betrays her (as happened to Müller herself).
In The Hunger Angel, Müller had used collage as a mode of deliverance of the text. The title of the
text deals with the commonly found or daily encountered things in her day-to-day life. Through these
things the author tries to connect the emotions of the protagonist, Leo Auberg's (it's none other than her
poet friend, Oskar Pastior) tormented life in the deportation camp in the extreme weather conditions and in
a remote Ukrainian place.
The phrases and the choice of fragmented words reveal the intention of the author to provoke
interest and assumptions to the reader's choice. The standard portrait of the German-Romanian quasi-
dissident writer whose early political engagement under the Nicolae Ceausescu's authoritarian regime in
Romania led to her exile is given added flavor by the fall of Communism across east-central Europe.
Usually, the “minority writing” are viewed as documentary rather than literary, read for what it
reveals about the other lives and communities it depicts. The Nobel committee itself acknowledged this
referential function - in describing her work as a “chronicle” of “life under a dictatorship in her Romanian
homeland”. As Bauer points, “Müller's writing is not about authenticity or reproducing or explaining
reality, rather it aims to make visible the functionality and constructedness of reality”.
Müller's works are characterized by pure, simple poetic language and metonymic metaphors that
recur and evolve throughout her writings. Haines and Marven's in the 'Introduction' to the analysis of her
works points:
Her literary works exploit poetic intensification, the metaphoricity of ordinary language,
and the slippage between different languages and registers. They create a space where
reality can transcend itself, not in any linear or logical fashion but in a sustained productive
tension that keeps the moral challenges of the real world in view.
She regards poetics not as a stable system but as an ongoing process that is responsive to life and work.
Müller continues to show her protest against the regime and the authorities through her words and
actions proving that pen is mightier than sword. She favours simple sentences and a vivid style with
concrete vocabulary, while the occasional use of colloquialisms and dialect forms selectively imparts a
flavor of personal oral delivery, rooting reflection in concrete reality. The poetic language of Müller is
based on the gaps in language with a break in its normal flow, 'emphasizing stasis, freezing a moment of
perception in time and refusing it's incorporation into narrative memory' (Bozzi 171). Her writing finds a
path toward the neglected other and entails a body of poetry that opens up an alterity exceeding the
imagination of the author herself. Such a poetic language helps the author to distance herself from the

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actual suffering or scene and fill the gaps between the world of her text and the world of the reader. This
further helps the reader the possibility to understand the world predicted by the author in a very different
perspective.
“To posit an image,” writes Sartre, “is to construct an object on the fringe of the whole reality,
which therefore means to hold the real at a distance, to free oneself from it, in a word, to deny it” (266). The
interesting twists and turns by the sharp words in her writing is another sign that she uses to work through
the traumas. With sharp and precise deliverance of words as a tool in factions, Müller raised the curtains of
the Communist era behind the iron walls of Romania to the external world.

Works Cited
Bozzi, Paola. “Facts, Fiction, Autofiction, and Surfiction.”Herta Müller: Politics and Aesthetics. Ed.
Bettina Brandt and Valentina Glajar. University of Nebraska Press, 2013.Print
Haines, Brigid and Lyn Marven. Herta Müller. Oxford University Press, 2013. Print
Müller, Herta. The Land of Green Plums. Trans. Michael Hofmann. Metropolitan Books, 1996. Print
Marven, Lyn. Body and Narrative in Contemporary Literatures in German: Herta Müller,
LibušeMonikova and Kerstin Hensel. Oxford, 2005. Print
Router, Larry. “Naming Her World, Part by Part.”The New York Times, 18 May 2012,
/nytimes.com/2012/05/09/books/herta-müllers-literature-bornof-isolation.html.
Sartre, Jean-Paul. The Psychology of Imagination. Carol, 1991. Print

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34
GRAND THEMES OF LIFE IN KHALED HOSSEINI'S AND
THE MOUNTAINS ECHOED

Dr. Y. Vidya, Asst Prof of English, V.H.N.S.N College (Autonomous) Virudhunagar

Abstract:
Afghan unfolds a creative space owing to the mighty mimetic impulses of her masses. There are
umpteen illustrations covering a vast range of literary texture, modes of expression highlighting the
locale, atmosphere, Afghan environment conveyed through means of theory and concepts suggestive of
linguistic and social diversity. Hosseini's achievements in the sphere of literature and philosophy are
outstanding and extraordinary. As a contemporary creative genius of Africa, he has raised a huge
cathedral of literary culture, tradition, social order systems Her literary world gains prominence through
depiction of facts that have direct bearing upon Afghan phenomena. She has directed her attention to the
Afghan themes the essential dignity of Afghan men. Khaled Hosseini is indisputably one of the few front -
ranking fictionists of today. And the Mountains Echoed has been hailed as one of the most compelling
existential works of Afghan English Fiction. With it began Hosseini's odyssey into the dark, mysterious and
uncharted hinterland of the soul to plumb some perennial problems of human existence. The novel is
thorough existentialist as it is about an individual's loneliness and feelings of anguish emanating from his
estrangement from the environment, tradition and his true self.

Khaled Hosseini's And the Mountains Echoed holds up a mirror to the contemporary society in
ferment in the late twentieth and early twenty first centuries. His perspective of a society in conflict is
marked by an emphasis on humanistic values which, in fact, cut across all his writings and attempt at a
synthesis between the traditional concepts and modern concepts. A study of his novel, therefore, provides
not only a more comprehensive and authentic account of his literary genius but also initiates us into the
vitality of his vision of the cultural predicament. His themes are formed out of the matrix of social and
emotional life. The novel is a multi layered and multi dimensional novel connoting and encompassing
Weltanschauung as well as zeitgeist. The juxtaposition of antithetical pairs in this novel involves
contrasting human propensities and perceptions and is thus of perennial of universal interest. Through
complexity, the skilled novelist shows the frailties of the good the redeeming features of the bad, the
doubts, perplexities, conflicts of duties and interest, the variety of reaction to people and situation, and a
true picture of human complexity generally requires also some suggestion of an inner life, thoughts,
motives, emotions, and memories. He has philosophic formulation, but not the age -old philosophic
problems. He describes some of the phenomena of human life such as nature and values.
Hosseini is gifted with a fine faculty of artistic perception. He plays the role of a neutral in his novel.
His novel is a microcosm of life itself, the life which he keenly perceived around him. The focal theme of
the novel is the essentially required recognition of humanity, which is possible through understanding of
individuals, which Hosseini achieves in his characteristic way. Freedom is considered to be the
fundamental instrument to make an individual self - confident, which in turn lends courage of conviction
so essential to communicate oneself to others. Thus the novel succeeds in realism. The novel is a bold
attempt to exhort the people to strengthen the bonds of humanity on the pillars of love and fellow feelings.
It goes to Hosseini's credit that he uses fiction as a vehicle for communicating his vision of life. He explores
the theme of human relationship through a clash between faith and reason represented by Abdullah and his
GRAND THEMES OF LIFE IN KHALED HOSSEINI'S AND THE MOUNTAINS ECHOED 120
sister Pari. He has successfully delved deep into the relationship between them. His language flows, even
and beautiful like the Ganga in the plains. He has a facile pen and a sympathetic attitude. The novel
reveals a progressive improvement in his grasp of human reactions to events. Hosseini excels in recording
and describing the inner workings of a character's mind and heart. He uses devices as flashbacks and
vignettes and thought sequences to make the narrative interesting. He executes his themes skillfully and
has a commendable technique. His method of story - telling is straight forward, and he does not allow his
plot to be bogged down with numerous tangled threads. His story is complete in itself, and his plot moves
ahead step by step. His art of characterization does not permit too many characters in the novel; it is often
stringent and fastidious. His narrative power rises to the occasion and effectively meets the exigencies of
plot and story. If his diverse themes unfold the variegated vignettes of Afghanistan's social life and his
cultural contacts, his varying techniques remarkably tackle those vignettes skillfully in order to absorb and
transmute them into an artistic whole.
The simple language depicts the messages of human life, behavior and psychological facts. As a
creative genius, Hosseini becomes aware of the mental level of his characters and reveals their
conversation in an authentic manner. The minute analysis of nature, presented by him in the novel, shows
how he uses the everyday words for the sensitive language of emotions. His fictional genius is basically
imagistic. Self, the result of man's awareness of himself as a separate entity in the social environment
enables him to regard himself and emotionally experience his own integrity and identity in relation to his
past, present and future. Self and society are interconnected and this link is a kind of web, the construction
of which is partly under guidance from self and partly, the prevailing social pattern. The subtle by-play
between society and the individual by which the individual develops a sense of self through participation in
social interaction, and yet possessing a feeling of separation from others is a fundamental social process
which perpetuates culture and society.
In this modern era, the self finds it difficult to come to terms with the social environment because
the inner values nurtured by the self and the outer social demands are incompatible. This inability to
connect the self with the society results in the alienation of self. The tension between the self and society is
the main focus. Cybernation, technological development, globalization and mechanical pace of living
have had a significant effect on the social fabric of the society. These drastic changes that have taken place
through the late twentieth century into the twenty first century have given rise to a relatively new set of
complexities regarding self, identity and alienation. Today, people are hungry for meaning, identity, for
some roots in existence, for some purpose in human experience, for some protection against anxieties and
frustrations. But as the forces of cultural and societal expectations are a Herculean obstacle to overcome,
the individual self finds itself in a state of conflict. The disparity between what an individual wants to
desire for and the societal expectation is wide. This lack of compatibility between the self and society
(culture) is one of the themes.
The excellence of Hosseini's' protagonists lies in their drive to face the challenges of life. They do
not run away from the problems of life, but they learn to face them with a better vision without any kind of
subterfuge. Whether it is the West or the East, the inability of individuals to relate the inner sensibility with
the outer social climate remains the same. The twenty first - century Afghan, in which Hosseini emerged as
one the leading novelists, was the most transitional century in the millennium of the Afghan history. It was
an era of material affluence, political consciousness, democratic reforms, cybernation, technical
advancement, mechanical progress and educational expansion. These developments made Afghan self -
dependent both monetarily and technologically and changed the mode of living in the Afghan society.
Modern society created a new system of values in which the pursuit of wealth and technological efficiency
replaced the basic human values. This change in the social outlook affected the condition of women in
Afghan.

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Freedom lies in having the courage to do what one believes is the right thing to do and the
determination and tenacity to adhere to it; this can bring harmony in life. Freedom is the by - product of
individual efforts and sufferings. The more we make others responsible for our life, the move we are slaves.
If we realize the responsibilities, if we feel that I am the cause, then we can changes ourselves. And when
we are talking about spiritual quest, it must be clear that on this path each one has to realize his or her
individual identity and freedom. In the novel is shown the perennial truth of how all the human beings in
life- parents and children, relatives and strangers, men and women - are bound by the vine of emotional
attachment and struggle to enjoy the beauty of life and overcome the ugliness in various ways. The novelist
has succeeded in infusing a spirit of liberal humanism into the life of his times. Hosseini's work may be said
to have brought a new signification to the perennially profound issues confronting man in the
metaphysical, cultural, and social spheres. Though a romanticist at heart, he sought realistic modes of
presentation. His characterization, though dependent on the realistic psychological exploration, involve
existentialist choices. He is capable of clarifying social relationships and responsibilities deriving from the
character's engagement with life. It is the tensions, conflicts, contradictions, frustrations, and
embarrassments stemming from the polarities of tradition and modernity, past and present, orthodoxy and
radicalism, idealism and opportunism that seemed to interest him as a novelist. His writings encompass
almost the whole range of human experience, man's relation to his creator, to Nature and to his fellowmen.
The values that he cherishes in his novel - such as friendship, love and nature - are put to test, as it were, in
actual experience conditioned by time and place.
The group identity refers to the people within these narratives and their struggle to reconstruct their
battered ego. The individual identity within the narratives is interpreted from the main character's effort to
redefine 'self' (individuality) and how this self - conscious effort affects the group identity formulation and
enables a platform for complementary relationship between the individual and the society. In short, the
discussion is basically to depict how Hosseini explores the socio-political situations through personal
experiences and the use of archetypes that provides mythic quality in depicting the trauma of mankind as
hapless human, background against which men seeks what is the truth, measure social injustice; the
indifference of social and cultural structures to individual and societal predicaments. Invariably in trying
to find 'truth' of the human's desire in the production of an 'image of identification', Hosseini makes her
characters split from that 'Other' place from which they come by creating a process of experiences through
polar configuration of oppositions of 'self' and 'other' which depict an 'illusion of alternative': nature /
culture, passive/active, male/female and rather than a continuum of divisions. By so doing, he tries to
create a personal identity outside the social human reality, one that, in fact, is free of colonialism and
traditional tyranny through the process of opposing 'truth' in the unconscious to illusion of a false
consciousness. The act of creating the 'Otherness' (the inward desire of the subject) from the 'Other' (the
pre-given image by the self) acknowledges that identity is not an 'a priori', nor a finished product. It is a
continuous process influenced by the changing socio cultural conditions in a post - colonial world:
upwardly mobile, constituting a progressive formulation of personality (dynamic). In this case, such 'new'
personality includes freedom from patriarchal psychological subjugation, economic empowerment, and
racial and tribal tolerance.
The access to this contemporary identity is only ever possible in the inversion of the binaries,
through the creation of characters' displacements and differentiation / redefinition (absence/ presence). In
summation, the 'truth' in this sense has been figured as an individual/ personal interpretation of one's socio-
political condition. The understanding of this is what gives rise to the concept of 'Otherness'. The dynamic
identity that emerges from this literary depiction is conditioned by their mobility and hybridity - the
combination of these two processes lead to the representation of 'Otherness', which is an identity outside
the internalized 'self' and the 'Other', the ensemble of dynamic factors that enable a new definition of

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identity. Thus, the alienation of 'self' may be seen as the transgression of culture, which is an essence of
man.
Hossein's works is a reflection of the notion of difference represented at the level of spirituality: the
yearn for identity and to be identified; the reconciliation of the body with the soul and the transformation of
man's social and psychological relationship to which women, who have been inordinately subsumed will
benefit. Trying to find a middle ground for this ambivalent 'fantasy' in the process of identification, the
author returns to the historical past of the people (to represent how the past has influenced human
orientation and from there, build a utopian that grants space to communality and compromise. The writer
present two levels of issues, the dominant and the muted. The muted ineluctably benefits from the
dominant. It is when there is compromise and reconciliation at the dominant level, which is the global issue
of individual and society that the dominant. It is when there is compromise and reconciliation at the
dominant level, which is the global issue of individual and society that the muted, which is seen as the
relationship between individuals can be complementary and beneficial. Thus to drive home these issues,
Hosseini builds a utopian village of hope with all avarices which the human relationship and communality
overcome and the utopian becomes real in every soul and body that has experienced difference in terms of
victimization and alienation, which had been markers of their individuality. The Problem of self appears
basically a moral dilemma what shapes good and evil may assume, how sin has to be understood, whether
there is any compensation for those who suffer? It is in this search for the solutions of such problems that
the search of 'self' of Hosseini is implicit. This has been beautifully revealed in the novel.

Works Cited:
Hosseini, Khaled. And the Mountains Echoed. London: Bloombury, 2013. Print.

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35
IS WOMAN BORN STRONG OR MADE STRONG? - HINDSIGHT INTO CHITRA
BANERJEE DIVAKARUNI'S SISTER OF MY HEART

Dr. Lanke. Subha, Lecturer, Andhra Loyola College, Vijaywada

Abstract:
Woman is known for being gentle, friendly, sociable, and family oriented and easily approachable.
She had has been a symbol of love for beloved ones and a symbol of fire for the despised ones. Born as a
baby girl brings charm, as a daughter brings happiness, as a wife brings love, as a mother brings care, as a
grandmother brings the past. She moulds herself to the changing environment and always one the forefront
to fulfill the responsibility which is left behind by the man. She adopts herself to situations and adepts to
handle the same at ease. Whenever she meets crisis, she uses all her intellectual ability to solve the
problems. But when she couldn't solve it, is there anyone who could help her? If there is, it is all her beloved
ones. As a human each and everyone is tantalized with their own works pressures and responsibilities, we
find rarely a kind hearted person who would provide a lending hand to her. It is not that all the women need
to be helped or need of help; only those who are in need of should be focused on. We find many women
irrespective of the age, education, status around us suffer a lot because of the problems created by her own
people and make her sick of life. So, when beloved ones also become troublemakers who can be trusted?
This question puts each and everyone at cross roads about the thought of survival and happiness. When
there is no helping hand, no loved ones, life becomes a misery. How to lead a happy life with the loved
ones? How to make our surroundings beautiful with ever blooming smiles? These questions need to be
discussed. To answer these, I have made an attempt to analyze the novel The Sister of My Heart (1999)
written by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

Keywords: Depression, submission, domination, self-identity.

Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni is a diasporic writer. Her writings focus on the lives of the immigrant
women. Her novel The Sister of My Heart (1999)moves around the lives of the educated and uneducated
women folk life style in Calcutta and an immigrant in America. The writer has made an attempt to bring out
the loving relationships in Indian traditional joint family system that could overcome the perils in the
society.
The Sister of My Heart shows the life of a girl child before marriage and after marriage, the
problems faced by a single parent, the struggle to safe guard the traditions of the family and the passion to
lead a happy life. The story begins with the birth of two girls Anjali and Basudha to Gouri and Nalini in
Calcutta on the day they heard the tragic news of their husband's death. The writer touches the traditional
beliefs of the people in Calcutta - leaving sweets for Bidhata Purush who comes down to earth himself to
decide the fortune of the born babies and lit an oil lamp to keep aside the arrival of demons who write
misfortune. This makes the readers aware that the happening in one's life is already a determined one and
we are only a part to enact the roles on the stage. Gouri was married at the age of seventeen to Bijoy the son
of Chatterjees. She was obedient, humble, intelligent wife always guided her husband and warned him in
his hardship. She is a true replica of Indian traditional wife who never went against the words of her
husband. “Gouri would say, “Have you seen the accounts this month? She would point out how the
bookstore was running at a loss, and how Harihar the nayeb hadn't sent the full revenues from the village,
IS WOMAN BORN STRONG OR MADE STRONG? - HINDSIGHT INTO CHITRA BANERJEE DIVAKARUNI'S SISTER OF MY HEART 124
claiming that the paddy prices had fallen again. You've got to go and check on him, she said. He is stealing
from us with both hands.”(29).
When her husband would say that Chatterjees would never do such things in a firm voice, she
would remain silent, as she believed that a woman's first duty is to support her husband. Gouri is a firm lady
took the responsibility of the family after the death of her husband. Though her relatives criticized her for
working in the bookstore, she never cared about the bickering that went about her. She accepted the
situation and learnt to face the challenges ahead of her life. Her dedication to uplift the family gained
respect in the family and among the relatives. Gouri as a mother she cared, as a father she worked and as a
sister she loved all the members in the family. Gouri's promise to her husband “Then I expect you to bring
up my child as befits a descendant of the Chatterjees and said “I promise.”(37) Gouri was always
supportive and a loving mother to her daughters and never treated Sudha and her mother indifferently
though she knew well that Sudha's father played a major role in the death of her husband.
Pishi, the only sister of Bijoy, who became widow at a very young age, moved to her brother's
house for shelter. Pishi, a loving woman and an elder person in the Chattterjee's family always kept an eye
on the troublemakers and resolved the problem at ease. She loved the daughters and always mesmerized
them with different mythological stories. She is a pious lady who always prayed to god for the well being of
the family members. She never gave importance to money or other material related things, but loved the
relations around her. Though born in a traditional orthodox family, she was a woman who accepted the
change and became a part of the change.
Nalini, a daughter of a peasant eloped with Gopal dreaming to lead a luxurious life. She is a woman
known for her beauty, and throughout her life she was cautious to maintain her elegance and was a focus of
attraction. Nalini started to live in the world of fear, when her husband Gopal became a dependent in the
house of Chatterjees. She like other normal Indian wives wanted to lead a happy life with the income of her
husband, but when her husband became an idler she warned him to take up any job to lead a descent life.
“How are you going to beg your daily food from your brother just because he is kind? Running after no-
good schemes like a dog chasing his shadow. Why can't you get a job in an office like all the other men?
Chee chee, don't you see how even the servants look at us, with no respect in their eyes, how they whisper
about us in the kitchens? And finally, if the baby knew what kind of father he had, he too would be ashamed.
He would rather die than be born to you.” (31) As a wife she was able to accept her husband's laziness, but
as a mother to a child she couldn't tolerate him being an irresponsible father.
Anjali means offerings, for a good woman would offer life for the others. Anjali the only heir of
Chatterjees, is a bold, intelligent, kindhearted girl, always likes to live in the world of books. She always
loved to be with Basudha even though her relatives warned her to be away from her as she looks more
beautiful than her. “But never Sudha. I could never hate Sudha. Because she is my other half. The Sister of
my heart.” (12) She has passion to read books of Virginia Woolf. She always liked to live in reality and
never bothered about the past and unknown future. She loved her mother a lot, her wearisome face remains
of her father who had left the family for mindless adventures. She had the desire to complete her college
studies and help her mother in running the bookstore. But the sudden illness of her mother puts her at
crossroads, and forces her to marry Sunil, a computer engineer and an immigrant of America. She accepted
the proposal of the marriage, as Sunil promised her that she could continue her studies in America. After
marriage she learnt to adopt herself to the new culture in America, learnt to drive, joined in a college, took a
part time job too. As a daughter she was obedient to her mother and as a wife she fulfilled her duties. When
she felt something fishy happening in Sudha's marriage life, she immediately asked her to leave her
husband who insisted her to abort the girl baby. She knew well that her husband wouldn't support
financially Sudha, so she rolled her shoulders to work overtime in library to save money to get Sudha and
her child to America. She felt that America is a safe place for an independent woman to lead a free life.

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Though her health didn't support to work, she worked hard for her loved ones. She is the symbol of
braveness, cleverness and fighter against injustice.
Basudha means a symbol of earth goddess who is patient and borne all the pains within and gives
happiness to others. She is the daughter of Gopal and Nalini, who sheltered in Chatterjees family. Gopal,
the son of a poor maid servant was seduced by Bijoy's uncle and left behind in darkness. Gopal as an urchin,
left in the world without anyone to support him. He became a swindler and trapped Nalini and married her.
He entered Bijoy's house as his cousin and banked on him for his needs. Nalini dreamt of leading a
luxurious life with him but it was a crest fall. Sudha is known for her beauty, goodness. She always wanders
around Pishi for her stories. From Pishi she hears about the hidden truth of her father, her mother and the
clandestine behind the death of Anjali's father. She decides to move away from Anjali, but as she couldn't
do it, she promises herself to sacrifice anything in the world for the happiness of Anjali. She understands
the situation prevailing in the family, and decides not to study further, as she doesn't want to burden
Chatterjee's family like her father and mother.
Sudha agrees to her mother's words and decides to learn cooking at home. “As soon as she has
finished at the convent, I'll start looking for a suitable boy” (73) Sudha sacrifices her love for Anjali and
decides to marry Ramesh a railway employee from Sanyal family. Though she loved Ashok deeply, she
doesn't want to marry him secretly and bring a disgrace to the family like her mother. She served her in-
law's family with utmost dedication and sacrificed her life for the well being of her husband and family.
When Mrs.Sanyal and her husband ordered her either to abort the girl child or give divorce, she decides to
move to her mother's house. When she got the divorce paper from Ramesh she decides to be independent.
“I take off my wedding bracelets later that day, wipe off the sindur powder in spite of my mother's
lamentations.”(260)
Sudha turns to be “Rani of Jhani, the Queen of Swords. Bless me that I might have the courage to go
into battle when necessary, no matter how bleak the situation. Bless me that I may be able to fight for
myself and my child, no matter where I am.” (263) she had been a good daughter, a loving sister and a
caring wife for the family. But when there arouse a problem to her own child she turned to be a queen of
swords to fight against all the evils in the society and decided to lead an independent life though Ashok
welcomed her into his life. When she heard the news of Anju's abortion and her depressed condition, she
decides to move to America with her child as a savior of her better half.
The characters Gouri, Nalini, Pishi, Anju and Sudha depict the clear picture of modern women who
are bold enough to face the atrocities in the society. The writer pictures them as caught in the palace of
snakes and how they become the queen of swords to break the clusters to lead a happy life with their loved
ones. We see woman in subordination and how they become dominant when their loved ones are in
troubled situations. They never accept the failures, take up the challenges and view the life as Rani of
Jhansi. Pishi the elder member, mould in tradition welcomes Sudha and her child into family and decides to
sell the ancestral house of the Chatterjee to feed Sudha and her child well. They move to an apartment, and
decide to change their attire, habit of living that suits the city life. Though they are being criticized they
never lend their ears to them.
When the change of environment, the change of situation, the change of people, the change of
thoughts, and the change of habit makes a human being to lead a happy life with their loved ones, accept the
change. The writer highlights that a woman can, not only built up the relations but can also break the
relations to make her loved ones to be happy in this beautiful world. So, be adoptive and adaptive to
situation that demands the change. Always fill your life with the woman who empowers you, believes you,
assist you then, you become an incredible power to conquer the world before you.

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Works Cited
Babha, Homi.K.Nation and Narration.New York: Rouledge,1990.Print.
Curtis,Sarah.Rev.ofSisterof my Heart. The Times of Literary Supplement. (Dec10,1999):21.Print.
Divakaruni,Chitra Banerjee. Sister of My Heart. Great Britain: A Black Swan Book, 1999.Print

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36
CULTURAL AND TRADITIONAL INFLUENCES ON METROPOLITAN ETHNICITY

Dr. Tummala. Sai Mamata, Lecturer, Andhra Loyola College, Vijayawada

Abstract:
Human beings are social beings. No one can be isolated from the society they are living in. Every
individual is responsible for his deeds in the society. Life is not individual's choice. One should lead life
according to the social norms. Violation of societal norms marks an individual as a rebellion. As
education has laid its path, the differences between the life of the literates and illiterates have been clearly
identified. The so called civilized society has its own set of rules which the so called uncivilized society
doesn't accept. To be the part of the sophisticated society is a challenge for the past generations. One thing
is certain, accept change and become a part of it. Life becomes easier. Words are easy for conveying the
thoughts but actions are difficult for performance. Realism is entirely different from Idealism. Shobaa De,
a modern female writer has rightly touched the sensitive issues of the modern woman in her thoughtful
fiction Socialite Evening. She has created her own mark of feminism wiping out the old traditional values.
Her woman exemplifies the real shade and face of a modern woman who wants to lead a real life
Key Words: Metropolitan culture, Higher class, Middle class and so on.

The main aim of feminists is the search of identity of the weak sex. It is highly admirable that Indian
women's writings are recognized as literature with an essence. The past decades have witnessed the
contribution of female writers writings who have travelled ahead to interrogate and explore their own lives
and that of other women around them. Even today feminists are dealing with compound issues pertaining
to self and society. It is continuing as a significant body of criticism questioning on the several aspects of
the women. Sherry Ortner looks at “the universal devaluation of women by postulating that women are
seen as closer to nature than men [who are] seen as …. occupying the high ground of culture. The culture/
nature distinction is itself a product of culture” (83-84).
There are many feminists across the world who is struggling for their race. May be the perception
differs but the destination in one and the same for all. Among the feminists who have concentrated more on
the unique theme of modern woman, Shobaa De can be placed in the highest position as her woman are
more advanced and sophisticated. Traditions uproot the life of the individuals and in turn the society they
live in. When one compares the life styles of people from the past to the present, the change is certain and
clear. Everyone is ready to accept the changes in religion, social attitudes, technology and environment but
when it comes to women no one is ready to accept it. Women are still considered to be the traditional
specimens of the society.
Shobaa De's Socialite Evenings (1989) is a novel of the modern days where women are considered
as the primitive races in the existing society. The narrative is strong enough to lay emphasis on the
characters which though really do not exist amidst us but everyone naturally dreams about. Karuna born
and brought up in an orthodox family has a sophisticated view about her life. Orthodox families have their
own constraints on their families. Being a father of three daughters, Karuna's father was unyielding and
mother always supported her father. The elder ones could digest the family sentiments and live according
to their parent's wish. Being the younger one in the family, Karuna had taken the choice to lead her life
according to her wish. Though the parents did not support her she chose modeling as her career.
The age at which Karuna had gone to modeling was rather fanciful age. She could not think of the
CULTURAL AND TRADITIONAL INFLUENCES ON METROPOLITAN ETHNICITY 128
imaginative life which would not be bounded by security. She was attracted to the charm of Anjali, a high
society lady. There is a lot of difference between the upper and middle class societies. In the middle class
societies people give much importance to family and traditions and the children are also expected to take
shelter under the safe umbrella of the head of the family. They need to be dependent, whereas in the higher
societies the families expect their kids to be more sophisticated and independent. Naturally the differences
arise in habits and dressing.
Karuna was fascinated by the charm of Anjali. Though Anjali was born in a traditional family, she
had also chosen her life on her own. Against the wish of her parents, she married Abe, a muslim man
famous for wealth than discipline. Few instances were recorded to show how successful her married life
was with him. May be she gave importance to his money and could tolerate such a womanizer. Things
cannot be one and the same forever. Anjali could not continue her life with him and moves away from him.
She has the financial support from him and she continues to live with good financial assurance.
Karuna marries a wealthy man, may be following the footsteps of her friend Anjali. Karuna's
husband was cynical and he didn't care much about her. Unable to tolerate the silence in her life she moves
more with Anjali and Ritu, who are one and the same. Anjali and Ritu are the embodiment of modern
culture where importance is given to individual's life rather than the imposition of meaningless culture.
They knew that life is blissful if one lives according to their wish. May be that could be the reason they had
enjoyed their life with the men whom they felt were satisfying. Though Karuna was unhappy with her
marital life, she moves and enjoys with them but never follows them. Is it the traditional upbringing that
has made her to be an obedient wife? As she feels, “the more my marriage deadened the harder I tried to
convince myself that I was happy enough as I was. I began to see myself as a drifter, letting life happen to
me” (111).
Bombay is a rich metropolitan city where people from different cultures meet in the high society
meetings. Life is entirely different in such high class gatherings. Anjali trained Karuna to be a part of such
society by offering her own stuff. “The party was at a sprawling 'shack'. We could hear the music and
laughter as we looked for a parking spot” (47). For a traditional woman like Karuna who was brought up in
a strict and disciplined family, these parties were amusing. She felt she could identify a new world in her
dull world. Compared to her sisters, she was labeled as a rebel. May be her friendship with Anjali and Ritu
made her to choose Krish as a savior from her dull life.
Anjali leads a free life with whomever she wants. She doesn't continue to have a bonded relation
with men. After her few attempts with the man from Income Tax department and Karan, she marries
Kumar. He cleverly hides from her that he is a gay. May be vexed with her life, Anjali turns to religion. She
becomes a true housewife and entrepreneur. She knew her daughter would be the sufferer, so she silently
diverted her life towards God and made her life happy amidst diamonds and Benz cars. Ritu who according
to Karuna, “had managed to cope extremely well with the circumstances that straitjacketed wives like me”
(129). Ritu who also enjoyed her life freely and had suffered in the hands of a man brutally diverted her
attention towards farming.
Karuna was caught by her husband when her mother-in-law smells a rat about her illicit relation.
On one hand her husband tries to give her a chance and the other hand he tries to send her away from their
house. When she finds that she was pregnant, her husband decides to send her away. She moves aimlessly
towards Anjali's house, aborts the child and establishes herself as a talented artist. She meets many men
after she moves away from her husband but she refuses to marry them. She accepts her individual status
and becomes a son to her parents in their old age.
Shobaa De clearly portrays the characters of her women. Anjali, Ritu who had enjoyed life
according to their wish and returned to life without confining to the dark chambers. She showed her women
are bold enough to face the consequences and are not cowards to end their life foolishly. When her husband

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returns to Karuna and asks her to return she was a modern intellectual woman who could boldly put
forward her feelings without any hesitation. “Just get the hell out of my house and life. I don't ever want to
see you again. I let you in this time but never again. I'll call the cops if you try and invade my home in
future. You are even more of a worm than I thought” (327).
Never can a traditional society accept it. They want their daughter to return to her husband when he
comes to take her. When the pain is in the heart, it cannot be healed forever. Karuna's husband could not
know her value when she was with him. He was always superior to her and made her inferior. He compared
with his mother and made her worse. He
always blamed her for moving with friends like Anjali and Ritu. He also felt it was because of them that she
had spoiled her life. When she was dependent, he was secured. He knows the independent status of women
makes them superior.
Karuna's parents have digested the traditions and cultures of their religion, but unfortunately not
even a single daughter of theirs had settled in their family life. Karuna's elder sister also divorced her
husband; the other one became depressed and was left in the hospital. Though Karuna's father was never
close to them, they could understand the true love of a family and so they confined to their family. The
equation in modern woman's life is redefined. The hyped woman is replaced by the genuine woman.
Nayantara Sahgal binds out at those who regard women as property and discourage unique personality in
them: When I heard someone remark “We never allow our daughters to go out” or “I can't do that, my
husband would not like it”, it sounded a very peculiar, alien jargon. As if, I thought, women were property
not persons” (qtd. Dass220).
Karuna had transformed her parents' ideology from “My parents finally thought I'd done
something right. I could tell from the proud ring to Father's voice when he introduced his only married
daughter that he thought I'd done very well for myself indeed” (70) to “ You can wait for two more years
and then decide. Nowadays you girls are lucky- you can choose. You meet so many men. Take your time,
but marry. And marry the right one- that is important” (341). Has the modern Bombay culture taught her to
treat daughter as a human being with her own emotions? May be the mother who never tried to support her
could finally support her daughter. What more strength does a girl need? Her family and parents are her
own strength. She can happily cross the oceans of perils because she knows she will never be drowned.
Shobaa De has really made the readers to think about the modern woman. She has shown that
women are no more puppets in the hands of destiny. Whatever may happen, they can challenge and prove
themselves in the male dominated society. They are representatives of the transitory phases of the present
society, torn aside by the civilizing values, the country's inheritance and the modern, broadminded values
imbibed across the globe. Acceptance is bliss, it gives a better life. Accept change and be a part of it.
Though the title connotes more modernity, it gives an idea to imbibe the roots and allow the new branches
to sprout up. As it is crystal clear, old needs modification and that should be done according to the materials
of today using the foundation of yesterday.

Works Cited
Das, Bijay Kumar. Postmodern Indian English Literature. Delhi: Atlantic, 2003. Print
Dass, Veena Noble. Feminism and Literature. New Delhi: Prestige, 1995. Print
De, Shobaa. Socialite Evenings. Penguin Books, 1989. Print
Ortner, B. Sherry. “Is Female to Male as Nature is to Culture?”Woman, Culture and Society. Ed. Rosaldo
and Lamphere. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Print
Said, Edward. Culture and Imperialism. London: Chatto and Windus, 1993.Print
Weedon, Chris. Feminist Practice and Poststructuralist Theory. Basil Blackwell:Oxford,1987. Print.

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37
ROLE OF NATURE, REPRESENTATION AND THE NATURAL ELEMENTS IN
CORMAC MCCARTHY'S ALL THE PRETTY HORSES

M. A. Poornima Priya Dharshini, Guest Lecturer of English, Rani Anna Government College
for Women, Tirunelveli
Dr. Swarnalatha Joseph, Principal & Head, Government Arts and Science College,
Karamadai, Mettupalayam, Coimbatore

Abstract:
Ecocriticism can be defined as “the relationship between literature and environment”. Human life
is highly interconnected with environment. In Ecocriticism nature is a dominant factor and the society is
largely dependent on the forces of nature. According to the early American pieces of literature, wild-land is
mentioned as the place for demonic activities. But in modern literature, it is seen as a sanctuary where
animals can be kept safe and in their natural way of life. People of the modern world have documented the
wilderness in a positive perspective. The description of the wild in many novels has brought about a
transformation in the way man has so far perceived it. Literary theorist Terry Gifford in his book Pastoral
defined the pastoral in 3 ways. The first way is the historical literary perspective which recognizes the life
style of shepherds and discusses their hardship. The second way is about the literature that explains the
country life which is contrary to the urban life explicitly or implicitly. The third is about the way of
classification of the country life which has been portrayed in a derogative manner. In All the Pretty Horses,
the author pays special attention to nature in his novel. By delineating the beauty of nature the author
shows the characters' attitude to the earth, horses, wonderful landscapes, lakes and rivers and reveals
their best qualities. John's relationship with the horses shows the close connection between nature and all
human beings. He had a long journey which changed him as a man. He experiences love and cruelty, theft
and killing, prison and the system of justice. In each situation nature helps him to survive.

Keywords: Nature, earth, horse human beings.

Cormac McCarthy's All the Pretty Horses is one of his most popular works for many good reasons.
This work is an expertly executed novel that marries the pastoral with the western and manages to create a
narrative that weaves feminism, ecocriticism, and existentialism together in one theoretical tapestry.
Literary theorist Terry Gifford in his book Pastoral defined the pastoral in 3 ways. The first way is the
historical literary perspective which recognizes the life style of shepherds and discusses their hardship.
The second way is about the literature that explains the country life which is contrary to the urban life
explicitly or implicitly. The third is about the way of classification of the country life which has been
portrayed in a derogative manner. The reader can identify this theory while reading Cormac's All the Pretty
Horses.
How the first volume of Border Trilogy, All the Pretty Horses differs from other works? What
makes the work so convincing is the fact that McCarthy manages to project themes in a manner that reflects
their practical relevance through a narrative that is first and foremost human. The world presented in
Border Trilogy is drastically different from McCarthy's earlier works. The plot points are certainly
exceptional, they are not so far removed from the realm of possibility that readers cannot suspend their
sense of disbelief or relate to the characters. Moreover, McCarthy seems to be so much interested with this
ROLE OF NATURE, REPRESENTATION AND THE NATURAL ELEMENTS IN CORMAC MCCARTHY'S ALL THE PRETTY HORSES 131
pastoral world that his phraseology and vocabulary brings an authenticity to the story that seems like the
literary equivalent of hyperrealist paintings. Comparing to all the other great works of McCarthy in All the
Pretty Horses he manages to create a narrative that is intellectually stimulating and encrusted, whilst being
simultaneously being a story that is intrinsically entertaining.
The reader can identify All the Pretty Horses an ecocritical novel in which McCarthy humanizes
and celebrates the natural realm. When John Grady, the novel's protagonist, is faced with losing his home,
his father suggests that Grady stable his horse at a friend's ranch and trade work for up keep. Grady
suggests that 'he' won't like that, using a flaccid modifier. His father, demonstrating humanity's egocentric
mentality, assumes Grady is speaking of the farmer whose ranch he had just mentioned, but Grady clarifies
that he meant Redbo, his horse. It is a subtle piece of dialogue that beautifully encapsulates both the flaw
with our current thinking, and the way in which we might be able to correct it: by taking nature's needs into
consideration.
All the Pretty Horses presents a Texas landscape in the bleak contrast faced by the protagonist, John
Crady Cole. Once open range, the land is now restrained, divided into plots, fenced with snide wire and
crossed by train. In the plains buffalo and wolves have gone astray from the region. The wagon roads are
paved and dominated by automobiles. When Rawlins asks “how the hell do they expect a man to ride a
horse in this country”, John can only reply, “They don't”. Edwin. T. Arnold noted All the Pretty Horses as
“an affirmation of life and of humanity, however severe the experience”.
Grady's understanding of animals is reinforced when he is asked about a scar on his face. He
concedes, as is hypothesized, that a horse put the scar on his face, but admits that it was his own fault,
recognizing that he initiated the situation that created the conflict and taking ownership over the resulting
injury. In doing this, Grady recognizes that humanity is often at fault for conflicts it might have with nature,
a template that would be beneficial if dominant nations used it in their approach to dealing with conflicts in
countries that have occupied. ”It's only natural. I'm going to guess that the scar on your cheek was put there
by a horse. Yes mam. It was my own fault. She watched him, not unkindly. She smiled. Scars have the
strange power to remind us that our past is real. The events that cause them can never be forgotten, can
they?” (114) This consideration and understanding that Grady offers to the natural realm is reciprocated
when he returns to a farm he worked at. A ranch hand on the farm mumbles something about missing
Grady, and Grady “called back his thanks to the old man before he realized that the old man had not said
that he was glad to see him but that the horse was” (224-5).
This scene not only demonstrates that animals are capable of developing emotive bonds, but that
they are capable of transcending language barriers to do so, even when two humans, the ranch hand and
Grady, prove incapable of formulating such a bond. This serves to break the counterproductive spell of
'otherness' that humanity associates with nature and remediates the breach that exists between humanity
and nature. McCarthy's protagonist shows the flaws of humanity's egocentric mentality, whilst showing
not only the importance of considering nature's best interest, but also demonstrates the emotive capability
of the natural realm.
McCarthy through Grady's words expresses, “things he thought could be true to see how they would
sound if they were said. He told the horse why he liked it and why he'd chosen it to be his horse and he said
that he would allow no harm to come to it” (p.242) This illustrates his relationship with the horses as well as
his loneliness in the world. His determination to “allow no harm to come” to the horses expresses not only
his love of horses but also his aim to maintain an unfallen spirit through his union with nature. To John
Grady, the wild horses symbolize the unfallen spirit in nature that he desires. John Grady's mind and love of
horses has been expressed as: “What he loved in horses was what he loved in men, the blood and the heat of
the blood that ran them. All his reverence and all his fondness and all the leanings of his life were for the
ardent hearted and they would always be so and never be otherwise”(p.36)

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The narrative not only demonstrates that humanity and the natural realm are capable of
remediation, but frames nature on parity terms with humanity in terms of spirituality whilst also suggesting
that elements of the natural realm exceed humanity's ability for interconnectivity with other beings. In one
passage, Grady's employer tells him that all horses share “a common soul and its separate life only forms it
out of all horses and makes it mortal” and “that if a person understood the soul of the horse then he would
understand all horses that ever were” (p.111).
This suggestion that a horse has a soul places the horse on parity with humans spiritually by
suggesting they have the one thing that differentiates humanity from the natural realm: a soul. This passage
also implies a unity among horses. Grady's employer tells Grady that a horse trainer he knew “said that
among men there was no such communion as among horses and the notion that men can understand at all
was probably an illusion” (p.111).
This suggests that horses are capable of an interconnectivity that is utterly absent in the human
realm and suggests that the commonalities they each share allows them to understand each other. Such
commonalities are present in the human realm, but both in the narrative and in reality, humanity's ability to
understand and empathize with each other is absent. McCarthy's narrative, then, frames the natural realm
as a template of empathy and understanding that the human realm should aim to match.
The description of John Grady's close relationship with the horses reveals his affinity with nature
and the philosophical notion of an essential unity of human beings with the universe that connects the
external world and internal emotion.
Thus the author pays special attention to nature in his novel. By delineating the beauty of nature the
author shows the characters' attitude to the earth, horses, wonderful landscapes, lakes and rivers and
reveals their best qualities. John's relationship with the horses shows the close connection between nature
and all human beings. He had a long journey which changed him as a man. He experiences love and cruelty,
theft and killing, prison and the system of justice. In each situation nature helps him to survive. Thus this
study focuses on the role of nature, natural elements and human nature in the novel through the examples of
main characters and their attitude to horses as a part of nature.

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38
SOCIAL DISHARMONY AND INEQUALITY PORTRAYED IN
BAMA'S KARUKKU AND SANGATI

Dr. R. Meena, Assistant Professor, V.H.N.S.N. College (Autonomous), Virudhunagar

K. Muthumurugan, Assistant Professor, SBK College, Aruppukottai

Abstract:
India is a land of diverse cultures. Since we attained independence, we still live in a land of
inequalities. Upper class always occupies the centre and the lower class cannot move away from the
margin. Lower class people including the Dalit in our country not yet get independence from the upper
class people. Bama, one of the leading writers in India, voices against the oppression of the Dalit and
explores the social status of Dalit people in our society. Her works always access how Dalit people are
treated in the society by the upper class people. Bama's Karukku and Sangati access the oppression of
Dalit people, especially the struggles of Dalit women in the society. They also focus light on the
inequalities within the Dalit society where the Dalit women are not given equal rights. This paper presents
the social inequalities in the novels Bama's Karukku and Sangati.

Keywords: Disharmony, inequality, dalit, oppression, sufferings

Bama has remarkably portrayed the sufferings caused by inequality among the people in her
society. This paper attempts to explore Bama's varied representations of Dalit women in Karukku and
Sangati with a view to underline the interface between gender and caste signification in Dalit fiction.
Bama's intervention in Dalit literary discourse in the early 1990's made a significant contribution in the
arena of social inequality gender-caste intersections in the lives of Dalits. Bama's writings always focus the
status of Dalit people in the dominating society, especially the sufferings of Dalit women and how the Dalit
women treated by other people. Bama'sKarukku and Sangatipicturises the sufferings, feelings, social
status, sexual harassment of Dalit women and also criticizes the upper caste people who think that the Dalit
are not equal to them.'Karukku' which means the searing edges of a palmyra leaves, is indeed a double-
edged sword directed towards the reader which highlights the atrocities caused by the gender
discrimination, caste and class division. Bama explores the social status,the social inequality and the life
style of Dalit people in their society. She reflects her own experience, struggle and pain through the
characters in her works. In her early life she doesn't know about the untouchability. She says: “when I was
studying in the third class, I hadn't yet heard people speak openly ofuntouchability. But I had already seen,
felt.experienced and been humiliated bywhat it is.”(Karukku 13)
Before she realized the role of untouchability in the society, she had thought that our society was a
harmonious one in which all the people had equal rights in their lives. It was a shell shock to her when she
came to know about the state of inequality which was spread all over the society like a disease. Her
grandmother once said that the Naickers were the upper caste people and they would not touch the Dalit
people. She then sees some Naicker women give water to her grandmother: “The Naicker women would
pour out the water from a height of four feet, whilepaatti and the others received and drank It with cupped
hands held to their mouths. I always felt terrible when I watched this.” (Karukku 15-16)
Bama finds it difficult to understand the disavowal of the upper caste people to the Dalits. She
SOCIAL DISHARMONY AND INEQUALITY PORTRAYED IN BAMA'S KARUKKU AND SANGATI 134
cannot figure out the reason why the upper caste people are not giving responsibility to the Dalit people.
Moreover, if the upper caste people accidentally touch the Dalit, they consider it an inauspicious
happening ('thettu'). They are always very careful when they are around the Dalits. They blame the Dalits
for the accidental touching. Bama indicates thatthe taboos and social barriers are therefore enforced
through such prohibitions. When Bamawas a student, she was humiliated by the priest in the presence of
herclassmates. Her using of the term “Shamed” body presents the depth of the humiliation she faced. She
said: “When I entered the classroom, the entire class turned around to look at me, and I wanted to shrink
into myself as I went and sat on my bench, still weeping.” (Karukku 19)At the same time she made a firm
decision that only through education we could change the society. So, she concentrated only on her studies
with a view that the self-upliftment only could help the people of her class to get equality in the society. She
pondered: “I studied hard, with all my breath and being, in a frenzy almost. As Annan had urged I stood first
in my class. And because of that, many people became myfriends, even though. I 'am a paraichi. (Karukku
18)
Bama manages to complete her education successfully and alone she manages to survive among
those upper caste people who spoke ill of her people and treated them like animals. In Sangati, Bama
focuses many problems the Dalit people have to face in the society that is riven on the line of caste, gender
and social inequality. Both the novels present the oppression and social inequality about the Dalit women
in their society. Inside the Dalit society the men do not giveequal rights to the women. It showsthe pathetic
condition of women's status in the Dalit society. Bama expresses her feelings about the pathetic condition
of women in the Dalit society. She says, “If a boy cries, he is instantly picked up and given milk. It is not so
with the girl” (Sangati 7).
It exposes the domination and discrimination against the Dalit women. The Dalit pitifully say that
as the upper caste people dominate them, Dalit men dominate and illtreat them. In Sangati, Bama narrates
her childhood experience and how she was treated in her childhood days. She continues by saying that the
situation doesn't change even when they grow up. Boys are given more respect. They will eat as much as
they wish and run off to play. As for the girls, they must stay at home and keep on working all the time.
Bama recalls how she ate the “leftover skin” of the mangoes her grandmother brought:
If she brought anything home when she returned from work, it was always the grandsons
she called first. If she brought cucumber, she scooped out all the seedsWith her finger-nails,
since she had no teeth, and gave them the remaining fruit.If she brought mangoes, we only
got the skin, the stones and such; she gave the best pieces of fruit to boys. Because we had
no other way out, we picked up and are the leftover skins. (Sangati 8)
Bama says that in spite of being self-dependent, a Dalit woman can't get respect in society. She has
to face humiliation all through her life to the realization that there is no escape from subjugation, she has to
come to term with her identify as an educated, economically independent woman, who choose to live
alone. In reality, Bama turns Sangati into the story not just of an individual but of a parish community. At
time she is filled with deep pain and questions: “Is it our fault that we are Dalits? on the top of that, just
because I am a woman, I have to battle hard, not only do I have to struggle against men, I have to also bear
the insults from women of other castes.from how many directions must the blow come. And for how long”
(Sangati 122).
Bama's portrayal needs to be understood as representative of the experience. She exposed certain
aspects of our society. Karukku andSangati deal with the social reality and the sufferings of voiceless
people in the society. Untouchables and women face many types of problems created by the dominant
people. They are completely ignored and pushed to the outskirts of the mainstream society. Bama has
contributed enormously, in representing the Dalit women in their own world, analyzing their problems and
challenges and projecting their perspectives in various forms.

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SOCIAL DISHARMONY AND INEQUALITY PORTRAYED IN BAMA'S KARUKKU AND SANGATI 135
Works Cited
Ajayakumar, P.P. “Karukku: essentialism, difference and the politics of Dalit identity.” Littcrit 33.1-63
(Jun 2007) : 124- 132. Print.
Bama, Karukku. Trans. Lakshmi Holmstrom. Chennai: Macmillan, 2000. Print.
---, Sangati. Trans. Lakshmi Holmstrom, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2005. Print.
Binu, K.D. and Denis Joseph. “The Interstices of Silences and the Experience of the Real: the expression of
Dalit Voices in Bama'sSangati.”Eclectic Representations 1.2 (Feb 2012): 1- 58. Print.
Gnanadason, Aruna. “Dalit Women- The Dalit of the Dalit, “Towards a CommonDalit Ideology. Ed.
AravindP.Nirmal, Madras: Gurukul Lutheran Theological College and Research Institute,
1990.109-120. Print.
Nanda Kumar, Prema. “Function as God's Word.” Rev. of Karukku.The Book Review 25. 8
(Aug. 2001): 35- 36. Print.

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39
CULMINATING HEROISM IN FARAH OOMERBHOY'S
THE LAST OF THE FIREDRAKES

G. Kameshwari, Head & Assistant Professor, GVN College, Kovilpatti

Dr. R. Suriya Prakash Narayanan, Assistant Professor and Head i/c, Allagappa University
Model Constituent College of Arts & Science, Paramakudi

Abstract:
Literature is widely composed of two main different genres- fiction and non-fiction. Especially the
genre of fiction is formed with the imagination as well as fantasy. It covers wide range of area like drama,
poetry, fantasy, humor, fable, fairytales, folklore, historical and science fiction, horror, legend, mystery
and mythology. From the beginning supernatural and fantastic elements are indispensible part of literary
pieces of art.

Keywords: Heroism, fantacy, genre, adventure.

Fantasy is one of the literary genres posses a plot cannot be occurred in the world of reality. Its main
theme is always featured with witchcraft, magical place, undiscovered place or an unfamiliar world. Its
setting is the combination of technology, architecture and language resembles European medieval ages.
The notable thing on fantasy is that the plot involves witches, sorcerers and animals speaking like human
beings, what is impossible in the real world.
Fantasy may be called 'artificial memory' because it gives a manipulated version. In other words, it
tries to tell truth or facts in another way of experience. Many pieces of literature have been written in the
genre of fantasy and they have been registered in form of films, television programs, novels, video games.
They are formed with the nature of the acknowledged fictitious and the logic fantasy work.
This fantasy genre, in early period, is used in romance - Valentine an Orson, Gullaume de Palerme
and Queste del saint Graal are considered as the earliest works of applied fantasy which joins realism with
fantasy. In the world of today fantasy becomes as an expensive multi-layered medium that encompasses
many sub genres like toy fantasy, magic fantasy, supernatural fantasy and quest or heroic fantasy in
literature.These genres occupy the minds of children. So the literature created mainly for or read by
children takes the form of juvenile literature.
Farah Oomerbhoy, cleverly and successfully starts her career by choosing this genre performed by
young adults. She is in Mumbai with her husband and three children. She has completed master degree in
English literature in Mumbai University. The Last Of The Firedrakes is her debut of novel a series called
The Avalonia Chronicles. Farah Oomerbhoy employes her time in doing magic through words for young
adult readers. She creates this novel as heroic fantasy which includes few sub genres of fantasy-magic
fantasy, supernatural fantasy, alternative world or enchanted journey.
This novel revolves around the adventures with the quest of identity of aurora, the protoganist.
Azaren a mage and Elayna, a fae are the parents of Aurora. They are the king and queen of Illiador. As the
daughter of the mage and fae, Aurora is blessed with the magical power of both creatures. She is the only
fae-mage, who born after thousand years. Without right training, the power, she possesses, is impossible
to control.
In the beginning of the novel, Aurora is introduced as an ordinary sixteen years old orphan girl.
CULMINATING HEROISM IN FARAH OOMERBHOY'S THE LAST OF THE FIREDRAKES 137
She lives with her uncle's family. She often has a strange dream while sleeping. Yet she ignores that amdist
of the issues of her poor life. She is treated without kindness by the family. On a day her aunt tells, “For the
life of me, I cannot figure out why my husband agreed to take you in. If it were up to one, I would have sent
you back to the gutter you come from.” (3). While hearing these words filled with hatred, Aurora feels the
aching of her heart. Although she knows that her uncle's family doesn't like her arrival, she doesn't expect
this kind of merciless attitude of the family. In this movement, she understands the agony of being an
orphan. She doesn't wait up to became and adult because she doesn't want to be a burden to the family.
When she is thinking of, Aurora is unexpectedly dragged into a new world called Avalonia. “I don't
know anything about you people”, I whispered. “Until last night I didn't even believe that fairies
exist.”(57) Aurora cannot believe her own eyes. Because everything around her seems to be entirely very
different and unfamiliar. It takes so long time to believe the world where she stands. Then she comes to
know that the world is Avalonia feels that she is in danger. At this very moment, she remembers her dreams
and says herself. “I was taken from my home and my world in the middle of the night, thrown in a dungeon,
barely escaped with my life, and fought the Shadow Guard, who wants to take me to Margana.”(94)
In addition to her surprise, there she meets her grand uncle, the duke of silver throne. The duke
wants her to prove that she is Aurora. So Aurora has to face many hard examinations to be believed. At last
the duke trusts her and tells that she is the only hope of everyone in the world Avalonia. Due to the harsh
queen, Morgana. But as a little girl she is afraid of all happenings. “I just want to go home, but I don't have
anywhere to go. My adoptive parents are dead and so are my real ones. I have no family, no friends, and no
one cares what happens to me.” (94)
She feels alone, helpless and doesn't know what she has to do next except weeping. Soon duke of
silver throne comforts her. “Everything happens for a reason, and nothing is an accident. It is all part of a
much larger divine plan.”(95) At this time he discovers that true identity of Aurora by noticing the Amulet
of Auraken, he can't believe his own eyes. Then he discloses the miracle and explains to Aurora. “From the
beginning of this world, there have been only six known fae- mage in Avalonia. You, my dear, are the
seventh.” (100) Ultimately the duke knows that Aurora is the daughter if Azaren, the late king and queen
Elayna. Aurora starts to realize and believe who she is and her parents are “There have been instances when
a child has taken on both powers. It is very rare, and you are the only fae- mage to have been born over a
thousand years.”(102)
Aurora is totally astonished by knowing the history of her rare of birth of being born as a fae-mage.
The duke not only surprises but also warns her to be careful. Because it leads her to end if anyone knows
about the true image of Aurora. Morgana, the evil queen awaits getting the throne permanently. By awaring
this, Aurora decides to get back the throne of Avalonia from the evil queen, Morgana who is the reason for
the death of her biological parents.
For standing against Morgana Aurora needs much power of magic. So she is sent to Evolon, the
academy of magic for learning magical power properly with the support of the duke, Aunt Serena, her
cousin Erien and mainly Rafe as Black Wolf. Despite knowing the dangers of her life, Aurora takes
responsibility to protect herself and the people of her own kingdom. She is subjected to be in a disguise as
Rory in order to known about the plans of lucian who acts like right hand of Morgana. She is very curious
about the evil plans of Morgana, as she is aware of her contribution and tries to spoil Morgana's secret
plan. When she is in her magical classes, she comes to know from history professor Dekela about the tragic
death of her father. Morgana killed aurora's father as a revenge, because Auroa's father Azaren killed
Morgana's Mother.
Aurora pratises her magical skills with Damion. While attacking Damion, powerful bolts of raging
silver fire explodes out of her palms that shatters Damion's shield and hits his chest directly. The whole
school uproars that they finally find out that she is a fae- mage. “She is no ordinary fae. Can you feel the

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CULMINATING HEROISM IN FARAH OOMERBHOY'S THE LAST OF THE FIREDRAKES 138
power she is emitting? She is a fae-mage”. (301)
While attending the royal ball, unexpectedly, she has the chance of knowing his true image of Rafe.
Actually Rafe is prince of Rafael of Ravenswood Dynasty. Aurora loves Rafe but Rafe is betrothed with
Leticia. By knowing this, she feels disappointed. When she is feeling for this, she is captured by shadow
guards and brought in front of Morgona. Immediately aurora sounds brave and gains courage to speak
against the evil queen Morgana. She doesn't care about any consequences that she has to face.
Aurora is attacked by Morgana. While disputing, Morgana crackles that she stabs aurora's mother.
After awaring the nature of Aurora, Morgana disappears. Aurora's confident becomes very strong as she
knows that her mother is alive. “Your power is very strong, young fae- mage, but once I have regained my
body, not even you will be able to stand in my way.” (371) Lilith, a phantom comes from dark world, wants
Aurora for bringing a life of Pegasus. Even though there is indication of dangerous consequences, aurora
is ready to face for her loveable friends and relatives. She utters herself that she gas to bear everything for
her mother, father and her kingdom too. “If my mother is alive, I will find her. We cannot let Morgana use
the dagger to release Dragtha.” (387)
The experiences of Aurora make herself culminate and it adds to the totality of understanding her
true nature. Aurora gradually culminates herself with innate skills from an ordinary girl to a fae-mage that
owns supernatural magical powers. This culmination transforms her life meaningful.

Works Cited
Oomerbhoy, Farah. The Avalonia Chronicles: The Last of Firedrakes. Mumbai: VSSU Graphics, 2015.
Print.
http://www.genresofliterature.com
http://literarydevices.net/fantasy/
http://farahoomerbhoy.com/books/

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40
AN ISOLATED MAN'S ATTACHMENT TO NATURE: A STUDY OF NADINE
GORDIMER'S GET A LIFE

A. Mohanraj, Assistant Professor, SBK College, Aruppukottai

Dr. A. K. Muthusamy, Associate Professor, V.H.N.S.N College (Autonomous),
Virudhunagar

Abstract:
Nadine Gordimer garnered a well-established place among the white African writers in South
Africa. Her earlier apartheid novels are focused on political, racial, and personal freedom. Her later post-
apartheid novels examine identity crisis, corruption and loneliness. In Get a Life, Gordimer addresses
environmental issues, isolation, and suffering. This novel addresses the theme of detachment that assumes
significance in the twenty-first century. Paul Bannerman is a white South African ecologist. He is
diagnosed with thyroid cancer. So he is hospitalised and undergoes an operation in his neck. After the
surgery, he is treated with radioactive iodine. As he thinks it will affect his wife Benni and his son Nicholas,
he leaves them and gets isolated in his parents' home. This isolation leads him to have a strong attachment
to nature.

Keywords: Isolation, Suffering, Nature, Thyroid, Cancer.

Nadine Gordimer has been at the centre of South Africa's literary and socio-political
developments. As a writer whose career covers over more than sixty years, from the beginning of apartheid
until its demise and well into the post-apartheid period, Nadine Gordimer's fiction and non-fiction
represent a history of the problems the South African nation has faced throughout these years. At its core,
Gordimer always puts the themes of political, racial, and personal freedom. Her later post-apartheid novels
explore identity crisis, corruption and loneliness.
The story of the novel Get a Life, the novel revolves around 35-years-old South African middle-
class man, Paul Bannerman. He works at “universities and institutions in the USA and England. He has
experience in the forests, deserts, and savannahs of West Africa and South America” (6). Paul was
diagnosed with throat cancer. After the surgery his body treated with radioactive iodine. Paul is
“discharged after a few days of total isolation in hospital” (11). Paul starts a new life with his parents'
house. He wants to keep a distance from his wife, Benni and his son, Nicholas because he “still would be
radioactive and a treat to those in contact to him” (11)
The narrator reveals that Paul wants to protect his family and goes to parents' house [nature]. Paul
considers radioactive iodine as “Literally radiant” (3). It carries duel meaning, first, it tells the meaning of
enlightening. Paul fights for nature against the project of nuclear plantation. Secondly, his body emitted by
radiation causes danger to those who contact Paul. The word “Literally radiant” explains microcosm and
macrocosm of the environment. Paul spends most of his quarantine days in his parent's house garden. To
him, the garden is his personal Eden. This research paper analysis how an isolated man who has detached
from family gets a strong bond with nature.
Paul starts his “new phrase of existence” in his parent's house. He feels very lonely because of
emitted radioactive iodine. In his parent's house he is in need his parents' attention and caring. Paul feels
like a vulnerable child. He has a strong relationship with his mother, Lyndsay “the one who handles what
AN ISOLATED MAN'S ATTACHMENT TO NATURE: A STUDY OF NADINE GORDIMER'S GET A LIFE 140
touches him intimately, clothes and bedding, resists the move to follow him into his room and given him
the goodnight kiss that a mother is entitled to, form childhood surely for all his life” (32).Adrian and
Lyndsay look after him very well and sacrifice more for their son, Paul. His parents refuse to keep their
distance from him; even so far as that would be possible, sharing what's become the family house again”
(31), but before that Paul feels “No closeness to his parents” (10).
Paul spends his quarantine days in the Garden. He thinks it is the place where he can get rid of his
burdens. Day to day he develops an intimate relationship with the garden [nature]. He gets detached from
human beings and gets an attachment with nature. In fact Paul has an attachment to the garden form his
childhood onwards. The garden is “both the place banished to in order to be got rid of by the
preoccupations of an adult house, and the place to be, against orders” to the child Paul (GL 49). Gifford
aptly remarks that: Paul gets “an attempt to experience the positive emotions that a place may evoke” (3)
Apart from this Paul has a strong bond to nature. He served as an ecologist. He is very curious to
know more about nature. He tries to find the ecological problems. As Vital points out:
The narrative writes Paul's attention to nature as remaining mostly on the pleasure he takes
in recognizing and knowing about other species, in the comradeship of those with whom he
challenges social power viewed as dangerous and in being in a “wilderness” that supplies
him with a sort of religious experience. (98)
Paul is trapped in his parents' house to spend his quarantine days in the garden. Otherwise, Paul
spends his time on researching/working with his associates Thapelos and Derek's “'findings' of ecological
research by government approved project entrepreneurs are produced as some sort of justification in going
ahead with their project” (25).Now Paul has an attachment to the wilderness that becomes home his. In his
childhood, he thought, “only out there, the garden, could the wilderness be gained, the unfinished
homework can be escaped. Leg over the sill; lying on the grass the many hours not tallied with a stick
tracing in the sand” (51). Paul is now a grown-up man finding himself in the same garden with the same
aim of gaining the knowledge about the wilderness. Vital observers: “this mingling of memory and
perception grasps how the garden and wilderness are now profoundly connected in his adult mind” (100).
Gordimer describes vividly how Paul enjoys nature: “Grown man lies down on his back on grass;
there're the plastic-thonged chaises longues meant to be unfolded in the sun or under the shade of the
jacaranda. … there are beetles, ants, moving unseen as the predator cells in their terrains, all life is one, it's
said” (38). It shows how a man gets an intimate relationship with nature. According to Murphy “the
concept of otherness, based on the another not the Alien and not the Stranger, but the brother, the cousin,
the sister and not just the human ones, but all the creatures with whom we share the planet” (35).
Paul's marriage to Benni is another reason for his strong attachment to nature. Their life is filled
with some misunderstanding because they have different opinion with regards to values of nature, “when
he was in a wilderness her city place did not exist for him, as at her console in that city sphere his wilderness
did not exist for her” (15). The novelist portrays Benni as a selfish character who always thinks of herself
“first time since she took the call with his diagnosis, she was thinking not of him but of herself, herself. If
there had been tears now as she drove they would have been for her” (12). The narrator also tells that she
always isolates herself in her working place and she does not feel the need “to think of him when he was off
in his wilderness, passionate as he was to be there; she somehow could not, in need now, summon ability to
think of him” curtailing (41). When he is in the garden, this questioning about his wife intensifies along
with his pondering on how he is attached to the wilderness. He says, “While occupying the same bed you
don't occupy the same fundament” (57). He even thinks that he “living in isolation, all along. Even when
inside the woman” (58).Benn thinks of the garden as “other wilderness between them” as she becomes
more and more aware of their distance stemming from their different stances toward nature (41).
Paul creates a relationship between himself and nature in his quarantine days. He is searching for

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himself in his contact with nature. He thinks “dying is a remote business, has no reality when you are in
your thirties, all that can happen is you're run over by a bus. Shot by a hijacker” (GL 20). But now he finds
himself with the help of the garden (nature).
Paul wants to save nature from the project nuclear reactor. The nuclear engineers say: “The new
reactor at Koeberggonna be 'walk away safe'. 'Walk away safe.'”(GL 59). People are moving away from the
nuclear reactor and keep a distance from the nuclear plant. But Paul opposes it by saying, “I'm my own
experimental Pebble-bed nuclear reactor” (59).
In Get a Life, Gordimer explores, through inner life experiences of Paul Bannerman and his
interactions with other characters, his close bond with nature and the effects on ecological issues by
drawing an analogy as microcosm and macrocosm between them. As an ecologist he raises his voice
against a nuclear reactor to protect the wilderness.

Works Cited
Gordimer, Nadine. Get a Life. London: Bloomsbury, 2015. Print
Murphy, Patrick D. Eco-critical Explorations in Literary and Cultural Studies: Fences, Boundaries, and
Fields. Lexington Books, 2009. Print
Vital, Anthony. “'Another Kind of Combat in the Bush': Get a Life and Gordimer's Critique of Ecology in a
G l o b a l i z e d Wo r l d . ” E n g l i s h i n A f r i c a . 3 5 . 2 ( 2 0 0 8 ) : 8 9 - 1 1 8 . J S T O R ,
www.jstor.org/stable/40239110

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41
WOMEN'S SELF AS A TABOO IN AFRICAN SOCIETY: A STUDY OF
CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE'S PURPLEHIBISCUS

J. Aswini, Ph.D Research Scholar, V.O. Chidambaram College, Thoothukudi

Dr. J. Ragu Antony, Associate Professor, V.O. Chidambaram College, Thoothukudi

Abstract:
Chimamanda Adichie is a prominent Nigerian writer and feminist. Her works include Purple
Hibiscus, Half of a Yellow Sun, Americana; We Should All be Feminists and A Feminist Manifesto in
Fifteen Suggestions. Adichie's first novel Purple Hibiscus is about a fifteen-year-old Kambili whose world
is circumscribed by her family. Her father, under whose shadow Kambili lives is repressive and fanatically
religious at home. When Nigeria begins to fall apart under a military coup, Kambili's father sends her
away to stay with their aunt, a university professor. There, Kambili discovers a life and love beyond the
confines of their father's authority. This is a book about the turmoil of adolescence, bright promise of
freedom of women and discovering her real self.The proposed paper aims to analyze how ingrained
patriarchal forces in African society curb the freedom of women and their evolution as a self.

Keywords: Taboo, African society, women's self, feminism.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is an internationally acclaimed Nigerian writer of short stories, novels
and non-fiction. Her novels are Purple Hibiscus (2003), Half of an Yellow Sun (2006), and Americanah
(2013). Her feministic non-fiction are We Should All be Feminists and A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen
Suggestions. She is one of the noticeable voices of African feminism.
This Paper titled “Women's Self as a Taboo in African Society: A Study of Chimamanda Ngozi
Adichie's Purple Hibiscus” analyses a range of women who are subjected to patriarchy and strive for
freedom and self definition and also characters who are highly independent and remain unaffected by
societal conditioning. By presenting a contrast picture of women characters, Adichie brings in feministic
cognizance and the need for the liberation of women in African society, which perceives an assertive and
independent woman as a taboo.
The novel focuses on the lives of four important women: Kambili Achike, Beatrice Achike,
Ifeoma, and Amaka. Beatrice stands as a stereotypical wife, who submits herself to the family. She is a
devoted mother who plays an ideal woman's role expected by the society. She is submissive to her abusive
husband Eugene because she is not financially independent and not educated. She lacks the resources to be
on her own. Throughout the novel, her over-zealously religious husband Eugene beats her often which
leads to frequent abortions. “She had been pregnant again and after another beating, miscarried and was
taken to hospital” (248). Though Beatrice encounters domestic violence regularly, she has no courage to
leave her husband, because divorce is a taboo in African society. A woman without her husband is
considered worthless in African society. In this regard Enwereji informs that “A divorced woman suffers
discrimination because she is neither accepted in her matrimonial nor maternal home. However, some
actions against divorced women are done in order to humiliate them for bringing shame and dishonor to
their maternal families” (84). Beatrice is a powerless victim of patriarchy who cannot even shield her
children from the abusive and dominant husband. Eugene beats Kambili his daughter when she breaks the
Eucharistic fast before Sunday mass because of her cramps in abdomen due to menstrual cycle:
WOMEN'S SELF AS A TABOO IN AFRICAN SOCIETY: A STUDY OF CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE'S PURPLEHIBISCUS 143
What are you doing Kambili?”
I swallowed hard. “I… I…”
“You are eating ten minutes before Mass? Ten minutes before Mass?
“Her period started and she had cramps-” Mama said.
Jaja cut her short. “I told her to eat corn flakes before she took Panadol, Papa. I made it for
her.”
“Has the devil built a tent in my house?” He turned to Mama. “You sit there and watch her
desecrate the Eucharistic fast, maka nnidi? (101)
Eugene follows it with physical violence: he lashes everyone with his belt. He is not concerned
about his daughter's health, but insists on a strict observance of catholic practices. He wants only
obedience. As Kambili informs: “He unbuckled his belt slowly. It was a heavy belt made of layers of brown
leather with a sedate leather-covered buckle. It landed on Jaja first, across his shoulder. Then Mama raised
her hands as it landed on her upper arm, which was covered by the puffy sequined sleeve of church blouse, I
put the bowl down just as the belt landed on my back” (102).
Beatrice is helpless, muted by the fear for her husband. She never stands up to fight for her children
or for herself. She speaks in fright always: “she spoke the way a bird eats, in small amounts” (20).She
implicitly cooperates in the violence perpetrated on her. All her passivity is observed by her daughter
Kambili and this engenders in her an aversion towards her mother. Every day the domestic war at home
frustrates both of them with tears and pain.
Kambili a very intelligent girl in her teens, she turns timid because of her violently dominant father.
Kambili could never draw any inspiration for her freedom and assertion from her subservient mother. So,
Kambili develops a sharp interest towards Aunty Ifeoma who becomes a positive role model for her
because Aunty Ifeoma is marked by all admirable qualities which her mother lacks. Aunty Ifeoma is one of
the powerful characters in Purple Hibiscus. She is a widow. She works in the University of Nigeria as a
professor of African Studies. She refuses to remarry or take up help from anybody. She proves that a
woman can stand alone and support her children. She refuses to surrender herself to the demands of the
African tradition and the patriarchal constrains placed on widows in her society. She is open minded,
outspoken and she is never afraid to criticize her brother Eugene. She also boldly convinces her brother to
send his children to visit their native place Nsukka. This visit to Nsukka brings change in lifestyle and
personality of the children. For the first time Kambili and Jaja experience privacy and personal space and
freedom in Aunty Ifeoma's house which they never had enjoyed before in their lives.
Ifeoma is a very dynamic person, who energizes everyone around her. In her house Kambili's
observes “laughter floated” (119) and “words spurted from everywhere” (119) and “one can say anything
at anytime to anyone” (120). Kambili experiences freedom to talk at aunt's house: “The air was free for you
to breathe as you wished” (120). So, Kambili was filled with happiness and an explorative spirit and so
feels psychologically relieved in her aunty's house. All experiences at Nsukka were revealing for Kambili
and Jaja because they had never been allowed to open up themselves. The visit triggers their journey
towards freedom. At their home they were blindly dictated to follow their authoritative father's words.
They obey, fearing his religious threats and brutal physical beatings.
Kambili feels the difference of environment, ““Here are your schedules for the week you will stay
in Nsukka, “ Papa said The sheet of paper he thrust into my hand was similar to the schedule pasted above
my study desk upstairs , expect he has penciled in two hours of “ time with yours cousins” each day.”(108).
Later there was a small concession: “The only day you are excused from that schedule iswhen you go to
Aokpe with your aunt” (109). Every day in their home they follow a schedule to be followed very strictly.
Everything at home was prescribed only by her father. The vacation is no way an escape to the children
from the clutches of their father.

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Ifeoma house's is just a contrast: she wanted the children to relax in their vacation and allows them to watch
television and play around. Aunty Ifeoma plucks the schedule sheets from Kambili and Jaja in which
Eugene has planned for their days in Nsukka. She wanted them to be free from their father's strict
disciplinarian timetable which robes their childhood of all happiness and leisure.
Aunty, Papa's schedule says we should study in the
evenings; we brought our books.”
Aunty Ifeoma stared at the paper in Jaja's hand.
Then she started to laugh so hard that she staggered, her
tall body bending like a whistling pine tree on a windy
day. “Eugene gave you a schedule to follow when you're
here? Nekwanu anya, what does that mean?” Aunty
Ifeoma laughed some more before she held out her
hand and asked for the sheet of paper. When she
turned to me, I brought mine, folded in crisp quarters,
out of my skirt pocket.
“I will keep them for you until you leave.”
“Aunty . . . ,” Jaja started.
“If you do not tell Eugene, eh, then how will he know that you did not follow the schedule,
gbo? You are on holiday here and it is my house, so you will follow my
own rules.(124)
When Amaka and her friends converse in their room, one of them asks Kambili about her hair.
Kambili is too shy even to talk to her own age group. She is unable to move freely with people around,
because of the strict disciplinary upbringing. She is very reluctant to socialize with people.
“Is it all your hair?” the other one asked, and I did
not realise she was referring to me, until Amaka said,
“Kambili!”
I wanted to tell the girl that it was all my hair, that
there were no attachments, but the words would not
come. I knew they were still talking about hair, how long
and thick mine looked. I wanted to talk with them, to
laugh with them so much that I would start to jump up
and down in one place the way they did, but my lips
held stubbornly together. I did not want to stutter, so I
started to cough and then ran out and into the toilet (141).
She is hesitant even to reveal her feelings and opinions. She is a voiceless victim of suppression and
subordination of patriarchy. She longs to break the chains of religious stigmas at home and desires freedom
at home and an identity in society. However, this submissiveness is short-lived because her sojourn at her
aunty's house has kindled her spirit of freedom.
Amaka in the novel provides a glimmer of hope amidst the cherished ideas and traditional
institutions. Under the shadow of her independent mother Ifeoma, Amaka has been outspoken and strongly
resists every form of marginalization in Nigerian society. Even as a young girl when admitted to school she
successfully resisted an attempt to impose an English name on her; she wanted only an Igbo name. This act
of refusal to take up a foreign name demonstrates her sense of pride in her native identity that is Igbo
identity. Amaka is a goal oriented girl, who at a young age dreams of becoming an activist fighting for
social justice. Amaka stands as an example of a young feminist who is assertive and dares to speak up the
truth even when the African society is insensitive to the psychological needs of women.

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In Aunty Ifeoma's house children are free and independent; there are given the freedom to voice
their opinions with Aunty Ifeoma intervening occasionally and only when something inappropriate or
indecorous is spoken: “Amaka, you are free to have opinions, but you must treat your cousin with respect.
Do you understand that?” Aunty Ifeoma replied in English, her voice firm. “I was just asking a question,
showing respect is not calling your cousin a sheep.”“ (142).
This is in contrast to Kambili's house where she is deprived of meeting her grandfather often and
their relatives who still retain their allegiance to Igbo religion. Kambili is voiceless in front of her brutally
religious fanatic father. She acts like a programmed robot at her own home while at Nsukka she gets the
space to understand and express herself and realizes her potentialities.
Adichie's Aunty Ifeoma could resist all the pressures of society only because she is financially
independent. She is able to support herself and her children without any male companion. Her
independence and assertiveness influence the young Kambili and urges her to speak for herself at
situations. These are the catalysts for Kambili's quest for self.
“Kambili, I want you to help me do the orah leaves, so I can start the soup when I come
back,” she [Aunty Ifeoma] said.
“Orah leaves”? [Kambili] I asked, swallowing.
“Yes. Don't you know how to prepare orah?”
I shook my head. “No, Aunty.”
“Amaka will do it, then,” Aunty Ifeoma said. She unfolded and refolded her wrapper
around her waist, knotting it at her side.
“Why?” Amaka burst out. “Because rich people do not prepare orah in their houses? Won't
she participate in eating the orah soup?”
Aunty Ifeoma's eyes hardened-she was not looking at Amaka, she was looking at me. “O
ginidi, Kambili, have you no mouth? Talk back to her!”
I watched a wilted African lily fall from its stalk in the garden. The crotons rustled in the late
morning breeze. “You don't have to shout, Amaka,” I said, finally. “I don't know how to do
the orah leaves, but you can show me (170)
This is the first time Kambili has ever been outspoken about her own abilities, and acknowledging
even her ignorance and inabilities. In Aunty Ifeoma's presence Kambili has come to terms with herself; she
has gathered the courage to speak out. Thereafter the young girl begins to explore her freedom. Aunty
Ifeoma serves as a mentor to young minds to break off their shells and explore their self.Amaka nurtured by
an independent mother, establishes herself as an individual self successfully.
Aunty Ifeoma epitomizes Simone de Beauvoir's independent woman. In her Second Sex Simone de
Beauvoir says that only financial independence can offer women a meaningful and independent life:
A woman supported by a man - wife or courtesan - is not emancipated from the male just
because she has a vote; if custom imposes less constraint upon her than formerly, the
negative freedom implied has not profoundly modified her situation, she remains bound in
her vassalage. It is through reasonable and gainful employment that woman has traversed
most of the distance that separated her from the male, and nothing else can guarantee her
liberty in real practice. Once she ceases to be a parasite; the system based on her
dependence crumbles; between her and the universe there is no longer any need for a
masculine mediator. (689).
Aunty Ifeoma is Adichie's liberated woman who successfully establishes that a woman in a rigid
patriarchal society such as Africa's can still be strong, independent and dignified.

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Works Cited
Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi. Purple Hibiscus. London: Harper Perennial, 2003. Print.
De Beauvoir, Simone. The Second Sex. Trans. H. M. Parshley. New York: Alfred A. Knopf Books, 1999.
Print.
Enwereji, E. “Methods of Resolving Family Conflicts in Abia State: a Case Study of Spouses with
Matrimonial Problems”. Nigerian school health journal 1999; (1-2): 81-89. Print.

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42
COLONIZATION IN CHIMAMANDANGOZIADICHIE'S JUMPING MONKEY HILL

Ms. Nanthini. C., Ph D Research Scholar V. O. C. College, Thoothukudi

Dr. P. T. SelviKohila, Assistant Professor, V. O. C. College, Thoothukudi

Abstract:
The embryonic African writer of the era, ChimamandaNgoziAdichie divides her time between
Nigeria and Africa. She is a Nigerian novelist, writer of short stories and non-fiction. She is a critically
acclaimed young Anglophone authors who succeeds in attracting the new generations to African
literature. The explicit longing to challenge the grounds of colonialism is seen in the autobiography or
biography which describes the writer's journey from their native country to foreign country. Colonialism is
the extension of a nation's sovereignty over territory beyond its borders by the establishment of either
settler colonies in which the native people may be displaced or ruled. This paper is about the Ugandan
writer, Ujunwa and the Sengalese writer. They were colonized by a man named Edward in Cape Town. The
story ends where Ujunwa leaves the room with tears. She wants to know that the story which she has
written for the workshop would be considered plausible. The characters faced oppression even after
independence. Everyone is unique in God's creation. But in today's contemporary world people are
respected only by their status and wealth. But if they are treated on equal par, then there will be no rattle
between the colonizer and the colonized.

Keywords: African literature, colonialism, oppression, colonizer, colonized.

ChimamandaNgoziAdichie, grew up in Nigeria. Her work has been translated into thirty languages
and has appeared in various publications, including The New Yorker, Granta, The O. Henry Prize Stories,
the Financial Times and Zeotrope: All-Story. She is the author of the novels Purple Hibiscus which won the
Commonwealth Writer's Prize and the Hurston Legacy Award. Her second novel,Half of a Yellow Sunwon
the Orange Prize and was for a National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist, a New York Times Notable
Book, and a People and Black Issues Book Review Best Book of the Year. Her third novel, Americannah
won the National Book Critics Circle Award and was a New York Times, Washington Post, Chicago
Tribune, and Entertainment Weekly Best Book of the Year; and the story collection The Thing Around Your
Neck. As a recipient of MacArthur Fellowship, she divides her time between the U. S. and Nigeria.
Almost all the women African writers focus on colonization and feminism and Adichie also
follows them. 'Jumping Monkey Hill' is a short story that depicts the life of the colonized and the colonizer.
The present paper deals with 'Jumping Monkey Hill' from the short stories collection The Thing Around
Your Neck. This story discusses the relationship between the native people and the colonizers.
Colonisation is a political process. In the sixteenth century, the word 'colony' was borrowed from Latin
which means .settlement. It acquired the derivational word 'colonised' during the seventeenth century and
with the European colonies it expanded into 'colonized', 'colonial', 'colonist' and 'colonization'. Later,
'postcolonial', neocolonial', decolonize', 'decolonizing' critical concepts came into existence.
Colonialism is very much a part of the power-dynamics operating in any human situation.
According to etymology, colonialism is a practice by which a powerful country controls less powerful
countries and use their resources of their own interests, wealth and power. Fanon was fascinated by the
psychological effects of colonialism on both the colonizer and the colonized. He argued that, colonialism
COLONIZATION IN CHIMAMANDANGOZIADICHIE'S JUMPING MONKEY HILL 148
destroyed the very soulthe repressed and suffering native. The colonial master's constant representation of
the native as a non-human, animalized 'thing' annihilates the identity of the native.
In an article entitled “The Role of Literature in Modern Africa” ChimamandaNgoziAdichie
articulates the experience of many colonized people saying that:
We are a people conditioned by our history and by our place in the modern world to look
towards somewhere else for validation, to see ourselves as inhabitants of the periphery. I
am not merely referring to political expressions like Third World, but to the phenomenon of
being outside the centre in ways more subtle the mere politics, in ways metaphysical and
psychological. (96)
Adichie and Chinua Achebe citein the writing of John Lok, who is a sixteenth century London
merchant. Accordingly, Lok depicted Africa in an unfavourable light. His depiction of Africa as subhuman
world is reflected in the colonist tradition of writing that developed over the next three centuries. Like this,
the colonist literature served as a dual purpose for moral and evolutionary right for European imperialism.
This in turn established the dialect for the colonizer and the colonized. British imperialism
identified the colonizer's burden inquest to civilize the world's primitive people.
Colonization has been examined in the literary short story, Thomas King's “One Good Story, That
One” and Chinua Achebe's “Dead Men's Path”. They use characters and conflict to make a statement about
the loss of tradition and heritage in order to demonstrate the effect of colonialism on indigenous people and
their culture. “Colonialism breaks things…the self of the colonizer explodes a native cultural solidarity,
producing the spiritual confusion, psychic wounding and economic exploitation of a new dominated
other” (Houston A. Baker, Jr. PMLA Forum). It came through re-education (i.e) their knowledge which
had been by blood was erased by the colonized people. So, only negative image are associated with them
like darkness and evilness. They are considered as brutish people or uncivilized.
According to Fanon, 'native' culture producers would go through three phases in colonial culture.
In the first phase the native has assimilated the culture of occupying power. In the second phase the native
is disturbed. In the last phase the native after losing himself comes as a national literature. In Heart of
Darkness by Conrad, colonizers arrange binarism, the narrator goes to Africa as said by his aunt to wean
Africans out of their horrid ways, which brings about stereotypes. Colonialism also resulted in cultural
displacement as it is seen in the poem, “The Renegade” by David Diop. Here, Diop has lost his identity and
his sense of belongings.
In Adichie'sshort story, 'Jumping Monkey Hill', she focuses on colonialism that native Africans
experience. Adichie chronicles the fictional experiences of African writers at a writing workshop. The
writing workshop takes place in South Africa at a resort called, Jumping Monkey Hill. The story exposes
the native Africans as aboriginal people. Ujunwa, the protagonist who is a Nigerian goes to Cape Town for
attending the African Writers Workshop. “…African literature had been its cause for forty years, a lifelong
passion that started at Oxford” (The Thing Around Your Neck99).
Edward, a man of 65 years is the organizer of the workshop. He has come to receive Ujunwa at the
airport. Edward introduced the Zimbabwean writer, the Senegalese writer, the South African writer, the
Kenyan writer, and the Ugandan writer to each other. According to the story, each writer should read their
story and the best of it is to be published in the Oratory. Ujunwa writes a story, in which Chioma is jobless
so she goes to her father's office, there she sees a photo of the Yellow Woman. Her father and mother are
separated and she lives with her mother. One day Chioma gets a call from the Deputy Manager of
Mercantile Trust Bank. Yinka who is also like Chioma gets help from the Alhaji to get their jobs permanent
in the office. Alhaji says to be in his personal contact where Yinka agrees but Chioma walks into the street
and also empties the desk.
Nigeria has women in high positions. “The most powerful cabinet minister today is a woman”

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(113). He also adds that, “This is agenda writing, it isn't a real story of real people”(114).Ujunwa picks the
paper and looks at Edward eyes and says, “A real story of real people?” She added by saying that, “The
only thing I didn't add in the story is that after I left my coworker and walked out of the Alhaji's house, I got
into the jeep and insisted that the driver take me home because I knew it was the last time I would be riding
on it” (114).
Ujunwa is constantly made angry by Edward's comments, and asks to her fellow writers, “Why do
we always say nothing?” (112). Although this question was in response to Edward's suggestive comments
to Ujunwa, it still applies to every other offensive statement that she and others witness. Adichie shows
how frustrating it is to experience a micro-aggression because one often cannot speak out against micro-
aggressions, as they are made by someone who “means well.”
Edward was looking at Ujunwa only below the head, this also is a form of colonization by the
colonizer. The same historical event happened in Sri Lankan when army people assaulted the women in the
name of colonization. Here, Edward does not think from the point of view of Ujunwa. He has a
preconceived notion of Nigeria and deliberately refuses to accept the other side of it. Edward is the
embodiment of someone who holds onto his own perceptions and he supports those whom he deems notto
understand Africa the way he does. This is first demonstrated at one of the dinners at the workshop. When
Ujunwa, the protagonist, is skeptical of eating ostrichshe is not sure that people ate ostrichEdward “laughs
good-naturedly and says that of course ostrich was an African staple” (101). The phrase “of course”
contributes to Edward's arrogant attitude and it is ironic that Edward, a European, tells Ujunwa, a native
Nigerian, what foods are African staples. Moreover, his ignorance is revealed through the fact that he
makes general statements about Africa as a whole rather than recognizing the regional and cultural
differences of the African continent.
In another instance, Edward criticizes the story of the Senegalese writer. He says, “the homosexual
stories of that sort were not reflective of Africa” (108). He even says, his may indeed be the year 2000, but
how African is it for a person to tell her family that she is homosexual?”(108). From this, the readers
understand that Edward observes Africa through the eyes of the Westerners. In this way he acts like a
colonizer because he fails to understand the writings of the Senegalese writer. Colonialism 'infantilizes' the
native, rendering him/her helpless, vulnerable, and dependent on the colonizer. Here, I have focused on
Ujunwa and the Senegalese as colonized people. Their writings reflect their own culture. Edward on the
other hand tries to convince them according to his own thought process. It is clearly seen that not only
during the pre-independence times the difference of opinion between the colonizer and the colonized
existed, the so called legacy continues even in the present scenario. Adichie is clear in her statement that,
“Our histories cling to us. We are shaped by where we come from. Our art is shaped by where we come
from” (Adichie 2012).
Colonialism is a violent conjugation where the sense of self develops through a negotiation rather
than a separation, a relation rather than a disjunction with the 'Other'. On the other hand, the colonizers, like
Edward, come in and try to mould Africa into what they think it should be. Adichie's work takes place in
modern day Africa, but it is obvious to the reader that the misunderstandings between foreigners and
natives still exist today like the misunderstandings between the colonizers and the natives existed during
the period of colonization. ”Jumping Monkey Hill” is an ironic title for the short story. It emphasizes the
stereotypes of aboriginal African culture, but at the same time, those who stay at Jumping Monkey Hill are
really jumping monkeys.

Works Cited
Adichie, ChimamandaNgozi. The Thing Around Your Neck. London. 4th estate, 2009.Print.
----. 'The Role of Literature in Modern Africa'.New African, Nov. 2010: 96. Print.

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COLONIZATION IN CHIMAMANDANGOZIADICHIE'S JUMPING MONKEY HILL 150
----. 'To Instruct and Delight: A Case for Realist Literature'. Commonwealth Lecture London:
Commonwealth Foundation. 2012. Print.
“Awangaplit.Blogspot.com /2017/08/ Jumping Beyond Literal Meaning.Search.”Google.N.p., n.d. Web.
5 Feb. 2019.
Baker, Houston A. Jr. Workings of the Spirit: The Poetics of Afro-American Women's Writing. Chicago.
Chicago University, 1991. Print.
Krishnaswamy N., et al. Contemporary Literary Theory A Student's Companion . New Delhi. Trinity
Press. 2016. Print.
Nayar K. Pramod. Contemporary Literary and Cultural Theory.India. Pearson. 2010. Print

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43
MULTICULTURALISM IN ANITA DESAI'S BYE-BYE BLACKBIRD AND
ARUNDHATI ROY'S THE GOD OF SMALL THINGS

Dr. V. Prema, Assistant Professor, SBK College, Aruppukottai

Abstract:
Multiculturalism the presence of many cultures and as a value it legitimizes the relevance of all of
them in a geo-political area. It acknowledges cultural pluralism based on race, ethnicity and language.
The harmonious co-existence of diverse culture is a sign of healthy society. Multiculturalism responds to
the issue of cultural discrimination by privileging the goal of respecting minority cultures. It means there is
no point of comparing one culture with another, because all cultures are equally rich and deserve equal
value and respect. In the fictional world of Anita Desai, loneliness is at the core of existence. One of the
themes recurring in the novels is the individual nostalgia in treating the joint family. The woman in Desai's
novels, thus is a lonely woman stilled to silence, she is cribbed and confined within the cyclic parameters of
home-womb-tomb. Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things is basically about a family which consists of
twins and their cousin's visit to family to Ayemenem. As a social activist, Roy has tried to expose caste
issues in the novel with minute details, but is sceptical about the disappearance of caste system.

Keywords: Ethnicity, Cultural Discrimination, Cribbed, Diverse Culture.

Multiculturalism ensures equal respect and value to all cultures. In a sense, each culture contains
something that is valuable and admirable. Therefore, all cultures deserve equal respect and
value.”Multiculturalism is used to refer to a desired end-state,as a way of referring to a society in which
different cultures are respected and the reproduction of culturally defined group is protected and social
diversity celebrated. “Multiculturalism values dignity and status of the minority cultures”.
Multiculturalism is a new coinage with different implications. Multiculturalism involves identity
politics but it is a politics of difference. Identity no longer has a monolithic implication but it now carries
the notion of multiple identities, which include, culture, group, ethnicity, religion, community, nation and
universal identity. Such implications constitute identity politics. Cultural identity pertains to an
individual's affinity to his own particular cultural group which shares certain values and bonds.
Community identity also forms a major issue in multicultural studies. Another aspects that forms a major
theme of multiculturalism is ethnic identity. The different forms of recognition, the recognition of minority
culture has received the special attention of multiculturalists. Their attempt is to bring to the notice of the
wider public the derivation of minority cultures. Every culture has its own limitation and only dialogue
between desperate cultures can sort out the issues of differences.
Multiculturalism has its roots in the politics of diversity and heterogeneity. As such promoting
heterogeneity and diversity are two of its basic concerns. The purpose of such promotion is the generation
of cultural hybridity and novelty, which bring variety in human life. As a moment multiculturalism aims at
the empowerment of the weaker sections of society. All forms of cultural imperialism and homogenization
are an anathema to multiculturalism. Multiculturalism are aware of the emergence of cultural imperialism
of the recent times and they oppose it by arguing for cultural conservatism. Anita Desai was born in
Mussorie, a hill station north of Delhi, as the daughter of a D.N.Mazumdar, a Bengali businessman, and
MULTICULTURALISM IN ANITA DESAI'S BYE-BYE BLACKBIRD AND ARUNDHATI ROY'S THE GOD OF SMALL THINGS 152
the former Toni Nime, of German origin. She grew up speaking German at home and Bengali, Urdu, Hindi
and English at school and in the city streets. Her first book, Cry, the peacock was published in Engalnd in
1963, and her better known novel include in custody (1984) and Baumgartner's Bombay (1988).
In the fictional world of Anita Desai, loneliness is at the core of existence. One of the themes
recurring in the novels is the individual nostalgia in treating the joint family. Often the central figures in the
novels, inorder to seek their own identities consciously try to break away from the kind of life they are
nostalgic for. The institution of the joint family gives opportunity for group behaviour, it symbolizes an
expansive pre-industrial way of life, and it represents a deeply entrenched form of orthodoxy against
which the individual may find himself helpless.
Discrimination based on colour and race is treated with illustrations in Bye-Bye Blackbird. The
shocking fact is that even the white children grow up with a warped knowledge of colour and Race
differences. Thus, on a sightseeing trip to London, Dev is called a 'Wog' by a schoolboy. Dev is almost
treated like an untouchable who is culturally backward and socially mean. The fact that he has married
Sarah, a white woman, indicates that his anger is not aimed at the white human being but at their superiority
complex.
Sarah's marriage to Adit illustrates this point. By marrying Adit, a coloured indian, Sarah has
violated certain unwritten codes and conventions of the colour-conscious white society. However, what is
striking about Sarah's character is that she does not like to be a passive sufferer for long. She faces
marginalization at every place-home, school and supposed to maintain human values and relations. Sarah's
decision to adopt India as her homeland is an outcome of her feeling that “she had become nameless”.
Sarah's decision to move to India with her Indian husband has an element of protest in it. She is moving to a
country that was ruled by her country in the recent past. As such her own people, with their hegemonic
spirit, have been looking down upon the country and its people.
But Sarah quite challengingly establishes a blood relation with an Indian and further adopts a
British colony as her own motherland. When her own country disowns her, she makes her home in a
country that England subjugated. Sarah's marriage symbolically underscores the need to accept and
respect all kinds of diversities-cultural, religious, social and ideological and develops a sense of tolerance,
patience, open-mindedness and forbearance. Multiculturalism not only supports cultural pluralism but
also respects uniqueness and distinctiveness of each culture. Therefore, cultural clashes have no place on
the agenda of multiculturalism.
The God of Small Things is the only novel written by Roy. Since winning the booker prize, she has
concentrated her writing on political issues. She is a figure-head of the anti-globalization alter-
globalization movement and a vehement of neo-imperialism. Undoubtedly, Roy has managed to free her
from the shackles of conventional writing. She focused on the various social problems of India like
poverty, class discrimination, social dogmas, rigid religious norms etc. Among them Arundhati Roy has
emerged as the more significant on the contemporary literary scene. Perhaps no other Indian writer
reached so many parts of the world and upon such enthusiastic response.
It is a feminist novel in the pity and terror that it evokes for the condition of women in a particular
milieu also it is an autobiographical novel in the way of the facts of the author's life has been distilled into a
verbal artifact. The novel has such a rich texture that is eminently amendable to multiple approaches and
interpretations. Arundhati Roy's The God of small Things portrays the real picture of the downtrodden.
Roy takes this novel as an opportunity to depict the practical difficulties in the action of different caste
system mainly in Indian. She does not raise her voice for the upliftment of the downtrodden, but she tells us
the real situation and suffering of the downtrodden.
In The God of Small Things, Velutha is the representation of the subalterns who has been silenced
by the authorities. Ammu is the counter parts of velutha in The God of Small Things, Roy could present

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before the world the deplorable condition of the subalterns, As for Ammu, She is a victim of patriarchal
society. The ultimately death of Ammu in the novel reveal the fact that she has not been allowed to live in
this world with her whims and fancies.
In The God of Small Things, Ammu and Velutha is the tragic representative of subaltern identity.
Ammu the female protagonist struggle against incessant exploration by the male subjugated society. Her
brother chacko could become a Rhodes Scholar at oxford. Chacko and Ammu are the children of pappachi
and mammachi but right from infancy a special attachment is shown towards chacko by his parents.
Pappachi and mammachi strongly believe that their son chacko will look after them in their old age.
He is going to be the hier of their great family heritage. Whereas Ammu will marry to someone else and has
no role to play in the Ayemenemhouse. Ammu took the freedom to marry a person of her choice when 'she
was with a distant aunt in Calcutta, Ammu's decision to marry her. She married the wrong man. Ammu's
married life turned out to be an utter Fiasco as her husband was an addicted 'alcoholic 'stupor'. The God of
Small Things is a story of love and viciousness, the brutality against the Dalit. On one hand the human
rights and values are globally, seriously considered, on other hand, in rural Indian this sort of atrocity
against Dalit is going on. Throughout the ages literature has always explored human values and their
relevance in moments of crisis.
In Anita Desai's novel, Bye-Bye Blackbird, we see a continuous shift between the oriental and
occidental culture. In the eyes of the orientals, occidental culture is more rational and superior which is
characterized by logical thinking, tolerance, progress, modernism, independence and peace. However,
occidentals believe that orientals are primitive, black, savage, violent, fanatic, underdeveloped, traditional
and conservative. This has created a permanent rival relation of superiority-inferiority complex between
the occidentals and orientals. With the help of their mass media, occidentals have disarmed and and
neutralized the orientals and labeled them as 'others'or 'outsiders'. In power relations, occidentals have
placed orientals at the periphery and maintained their centrality at a global level. Thus, orientals becomes
the victims of western ideologies and philosophies, which conceive Europe as a symbol of supremacy of
power and civilization.
Adit, the protagonist of Bye-Bye Blackbird, leads a settled life as an immigrant in London with his
English wife Sarah, a leading female character of the novel. Adit is first of all fascinated by the occidental
culture and then disillusioned by it. Adit has moulded and transformed himself entirely upto the
expectations of England. The other reasons for Adit's admiration for England are social, political,
beauraucratic. While admiring the history and poetry of the west, Adit seems to forget, rather willingly, the
fact that the British have used them to play up their hegemony and maintain their central position at a global
level.
Dev, Adit's friend, comes to England for studying at the London school of economics. Initially he is
averse and reluctant to the idea of staying on in England as an immigrant. But gradually a slow change
occurs in the attitude of Dev. His initial encounter with British people and their culture brings unhappiness
and discontent. The cultural differences expand when Dev moves about in search of a job. He undergoes
various experiences and cultural shocks. The difference between expectation and reality upsets him and
makes him self-conscious and insecure. To conclude, Multiculturalism has several advantages and it needs
to be used correctly to avoid its negative implications. If multiculturalism is put into proper use, it has the
capability of making education a better experience.

Works Cited
Desai, Anita. Bye-Bye Blackbird. India: Prestige Books,1971. Print
Roy, Arundhati. The God Of Small Things. India: Penguin Books,1992. Print
Goldberg, D.T. Multiculturalism. U.S.A: BlackWell Publishers,1994. Print

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44
MEMORY PARADIGM IN THE SELECT POEMS OF JEAN ARASANAYAGAM:
A POSTCOLONIAL PERSPECTIVE

Mary Josephine Jerina, Ph.D Research Scholar, V. O. C. College, Thoothukudi

Dr. P T. SelviKohila, Assistant Professor, V.O.C. College, Thoothukudi

Abstract:
Jean Arasanayagamis one of the major women writers of Sri Lankan writing in English. Her
enormous volume of work spans almost half a century and covers almost every genre - poetry, drama,
fiction, and autobiography. Her writings deal with a vast range of subjects and concerns that are very
much part of Post Colonial narrative. However, they are not seen as issues but deeply human, personal
terms, and her interactions. Her poems are mostly recollection of events. This research paper titled
“Memory Paradigm in the Select Poems of Jean Arasanayagam : A Post Colonial Perspective” deals with
the recollection of her memory of her thick and thin relationship. Birth and Death are like the two sides of
a coin, birth brings joy and death brings sorrow. The poems subtitled “Recollections” proves that life of
the dead is placed in the memory of the living. She recollects fond memories of her friends and feel for their
loss. She also narrates a story which speaks about the life of an infant who was abandoned. Relationship
with everyone is not the same, memory is retrieved depending upon the relationship.

Keywords: Post Colonial, recollection,memory, relationship.

Jean Arasanayagam is one of the major women writers of Sri Lankan writing in English. Her
enormous volume of work spans almost half a century and covers almost every genre - poetry, drama,
fiction, and autobiography. Her writings deal with a vast range of subjects and concerns that are very much
part of Postcolonial narrative. However, they are not seen as issues but deeply human, personal terms, and
her interactions. Her poems are mostly recollection of events.
Postcolonial writers are concerned with the reclamation of memory. Writers from across Asia,
Africa and South America search for layers of memory that have remained untouched by colonial
historiography. This entails retrieving non-Western forms of memory, what may be termed as vernacular
memories. As Pramod K. Nayar says in Postcolonial Literature - An Introduction “Such memories are
almost always collective: racial, ethnic and communal” (60). He further adds, “Memory is spatial and
multi-layered. Memory is contested disputed and often tangential” (61). It draws upon many roots from
grandmother's tales to songs handed from generation to generation. No particular memory is privileged
over another and reflects the multiple facets of life itself.
The renewed interest in family history, memoir, and heritage, and the commemorative mania
seems increasingly a feature of contemporary cultural life in the postcolonial world. These phenomena
feature moments of melancholy and yearning. Many postcolonial writers like Lessing and W. G. Sebald,
Chinua Achebe and J. G. Ballard, have recalled their past and marked a place in the present. Thinking over
the ruins and finding the borderline area, is characterised by the historian E. J. Hobsbawm as a 'twilight
zone'. 'For all of us', he says in the Overture to the finale of The Age of Empire,
There is a twilight zone between history and memory; between the past as a generalized
record which is open to relatively dispassionate inspection and the past as a remembered
part of, or background to, one's own life. For individual human beings this zone stretches
MEMORY PARADIGM IN THE SELECT POEMS OF JEAN ARASANAYAGAM: A POSTCOLONIAL PERSPECTIVE 155
from the point where living family traditions or memories beginsay, from the earliest
family photo which the oldest living family member can identify or explicate to the end of
infancy, when public and private destinies are recognized as inseparable and as mutually
defining one another. (3)
E.J. Hobsbawm further adds that the length of the zone varies for each individual, as that homely,
domestic object the family photo suggests, it could be a visual representation or image that becomes the
only remaining, half-remembered trace of the point at which the past of an individual connects with the
wider, collective pasts of family, society, and history (3).
As Dennis Walder states in Postcolonial Nostalgia: Writing, Representation, and Memory, that it is
through the inscription of the past the complexities of memoryare produced. Writers like Plato and
Aristotle also has thought of memory as a kind of impression made upon the mind, such as that made by a
stylus upon a piece of wax. Writers use a variety of metaphors, including the image of memory as a
storehouse or archive, the metaphor of memory as imprinting continues to resonate-in Freud, for example,
for whom the earliest memories impressed upon the mind continue to survive in the unconscious. Arguably
memory tends in any case towards narrative representation even in strictly non-narrative genres. Memory,
or Mnemosyne as the Greeks called her, is the mother of all the Muses, and invention or imagination
depends utterly upon remembering. Our consciousness, as thinkers from St Augustine to Hume and Locke,
from Rousseau to Freud and Damasio have suggested, is held together by a narrative of memory. Memory
and fictional creation are inextricably entwined (4).
Jean Arasanayagam's poems are a clear rooting of memory of her day to day experiences. She
recalls what she has seen, heard and witnessed. Memories in Postcolonial writing respond to the moral
claims of the past. Memory is a single unitary process which has different types of memory. The Human
Brain is a complex web of neural patterns which recalls and reactivates. Some are short termed and some
long-term. Long term memory is typically divided into two; explicit and implicit. Emotional memory
evokes particular emotions. Though emotional memories are conscious, they elicit a powerful
unconscious psychological reaction. The poet, Jean Arasanayagam has a sort of emotional memory
wherein she recalls the past. Many events or incidents are stored in the brain, but certain incidents kindle
our emotions for a long time, especially the loss of near and dear ones or the pathetic condition of known or
unknown acquaintances. Memory is the major force that develops a poet's writing and the moral character.
All genuine poetry takes its origin from emotion recollected. There is always a vital relationship between
the past and the present, thus emotion is purified and second emotion generated.
Jean Arasanayagam in The Colour of My Mind gives special attention to her recollections. The life
of the dead is placed in the memory of the living. In the poem “Requiem for Anna,” she recalls the moments
shared with her friend Anna Rutherford. She looks at all the presents given by her friend, and feels for the
loss of her presence. Her heart shrivels when she receives the news about the death of Anna. “I cannot help
thinking what that last / Dream you had, was, did you feel Death's icy fingers / Touch at the edge of your
heart?/ Your warm blood growing chill? (12-15).
The poet personifies death which has taken her friend away from her. One of the realities of
remembering a dead person is honouring them in different ways. The poet remembers all the fond
memories she had with her friend. The poet looks at all the presents she has received on each occasion,
whatever she sees, reminds her of Anna. The photographs taken “With smiling faces that bore no portents
of / Catastrophes, tragedy, disasters, wearing masks/ In Time's clever concealment” (23-25), are stored in
an album. She has even kept Anna's writings safely. But the poet at present stands alone fretting and fuming
over the loss of a wonderful friend.
Their bond was different, no expectations, no ego, no monetary benefits, it was pure love wherein
each considered the other one among the family. Visitations to the poet's house and their get together,

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sharing childhood stories, eating together, talking of all they know and write all stay evergreen in the poet's
thoughts. She even looks at the vacant chair she loved to sit sipping her favourite drink, “A chair that is now
empty, vacant, On that very chair she had lain back Stretched her legs, sipped chilled Carlsberg beer,
Narrated countless tales of her life, her friendships, Her loves, her feudings too.” (50-54)
Anna also introduces her other friends to the poet, maybe she did not want this friend of hers to be
alone. Something has haunted the poet during Anna's last visit, she questions “When will I see you again
Anna” (60). Anna replies positively but time has taken her life, so the poet takes the chance to tell the dead
friend that she would always remember her friend and cherish every moment she spent with her. Though
her friend has vanished from her sight, she turns recurrently “But to reappear one day/On my threshold
unexpectedly/ And then return again and yet again/ Until you finally vanished” (73-76).
Jean Arasanayagam recalls the memories of another childhood friend Alfreda de Silva, in
“Recollections”. The poet begins with the description of an unanswered call which makes the poet feel
lonely and understand that something has happened to her friend. Though time has distanced them
telephone conversations have kept them lively. The conversation with the poet has always “lightened” (8)
Alfreda's day. The poet describes Alfreda's voice as soft, “almost a whisper” (4). As both were poets, they
had much to share apart from day to day happenings, “We talked of journeys, search, encounters, people, /
Everything under the sun, of poems we have once / Written, sharing the same theme as in her poem /
“Birthing” and my poems, “ My Birth”(19-22). They have also travelled together except on pilgrimages.
Though time has distanced them, the poet remembers all the memories of their youthful days. Of late, the
friend has shared her lonely feelings and her loss of physical fitness. She has shared her health problems
too, listening to her woe, the poet too suffers on her friend's accord. The poet wonders how Alfreda's voice
stopped without speaking to her. She wants to know the actual reason for the death of her friend, but
nothing seems important when she has passed away, knowing the facts would never bring her back. The
poet ruminates over betrayal and falsities that are present in the world and how “Ruin and Destruction”
(63) are doomed.
The poet assures her friend that though her voice is unheard she would never forget her. Until the
poet lives she cannot forget her friend and her sweet voice, “No, never, your voice still plays Those
sensitive chords in my mind Perhaps they'll form intoa delicate sonatina, I'll play it on the harpsichord of
memory I will remember until . . . until . . . . . .” (64-69)
Death takes hold of living beings at some point of time or other, death either natural or unnatural
gives pain to those who live in their memory. As a teacher Jean Arasanayagam feels for the unnatural death
of a student in “Memory” - an elegy for a student. Youth is the time to enjoy life. In schools and colleges
one can see energy brimming to its utmost listening to classes of lyrics, sonnets, love and immortality. In
convents the choir songs, the sounds of bells and the cloisters are always heard. In such a situation the poet
hears the news of the death of a student who has set herself on fire. No one knows the reason, but the image
of the girl still haunts the poet, she says, ”All I have is now the feel/ Of her remembered gaze,/Limpid eyes”
(34-36) and her smiling face crawls into the memory of the poet. Nothing is permanent in life, everything
vanishes, but a horrible death like this silences the song of joy forever.
Life gives hope for some and for the rest it is a mess. Poverty stricken life is worse. Jean portrays
the sorrow of a mother who abandons her baby due to poverty. “On a Theme of Infanticide” speaks of the
humanity of an unknown passerby who takes pity on the infant. War, selfishness, power and arrogance has
degenerated humanity. Humanity is a forgotten concept in this vast technological world. Man has started
to live with machines and so has turned out mechanical. Charity has gone out of the minds of people and
gadgets have replaced love. The poet portrays the poverty stricken parents who do not even have proper
clothes to wear. The mother and the father have nothing to eat, but for the last time she breast feeds her child
with a hope that it will not feel hungry for long. After feeding she leaves the infant on an abandoned tomb

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and walks away. The little one does not know what has happened and what is yet to happen.
The mother moves away with a heavy heart and tears overflowing. Her hands are empty and her
heart too is drained out. No one knows the reason for her abandonment, may be there are too many mouths
to be fed. Even the animals did not harm the infant. A passerby who hears the cry of the infant clears the
place, finds the infant and hold the little one with love, “shares the warmth of breath and body from his own
flesh. Stranger. Nameless, Gave life.” (46-49)
The poet questions every human being whether we have that sort of humanity. To find such a
selfless person is a rare phenomena. Most of us are worried about our own problems and walk away in
times of need. We live only for us “until our own breath, ceases” (57). AvishaiMargalit suggests that life
should be measured by addition and not subtraction. “Science contends that addition should encompass all
the experiences in one's life, remembered as well as unremembered. Literature contends that Addition
should comprise all the highlights that are remembered and that go into a coherent story of one's life. The
picture of life views it on subtraction not on addition. This idea is that one shapes one's life as a sculptor
shapes a statue by removing the inessential parts so as to 'bring to life' the figure” (138).
The world is a huge workshop where each one tries to find a place. Everyone is involved as
workers, not as partial spectators. Relationship with everyone is not the same, some are remembered
lifelong some are forgotten soon. The interest in the way past emotions are remembered is an interest
among other things.

Works Cited
Arasanayagam, Jean. “Memory”, The Colour of My Mind. Colombo: Godage International, 200: 99-100.
Print
---. “On a Theme of Infanticide”, The Colour of My Mind. Colombo: Godage International, 2009: 101-103.
Print
---.” Recollections”, The Colour of My Mind. Colombo: Godage International, 2009: 95-97. Print
---. “Requiem For Anna”, The Colour of My Mind. Colombo: Godage International, 2009: 92-94. Print
Hobsbawn, Eric. The Age of Empire, 1875-1914. New York: Vintage/ Random House, 1987. Print.
Margalit, Avishai. The Ethics of Linguistics. Massachusetts: Harvard UP, 2002. Print
Nayar, K Parmod. Postcolonial Literature An Introduction. Noida: Pearson India, 2019. Print.
Walder, Dennis. Postcolonial Nostalgias: Writing, Representing, and Memory. New York: Routledge,
2011. Print

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45
BHARATI MUKHERJEE'S DEPICTION THE PLIGHT OF IMMIGRANTS ON
RETURN TO THE NATIVE LAND

Dr. M. Mathivathanan, Assistant Professor, MKU Constituent, College, Thirumangalam

Abstract:
A cross-cultural argument has gained momentum since the beginning of the Twentieth century.
Globalization has increased multi-culturalism. With the advent of Science and Technology, people have
started migrating to different countries in order to achieve their aims and ambitions. This trend has
developed intercultural and interracial awareness. The migrated people find it difficult to adjust to the new
culture and undergo the cultural transformation. In this process, they lost the roots of their native culture.
They struggle mutely to survive. They try to adopt the new culture but in vain. Their psyche is torn between
the feeling of rootlessness and nostalgia. When they overcome such feelings, they get a new personality.
They try to attach themselves to the place where they live and gradually forget their own culture. At this
point, their visit to the native land makes it appear alien to them. Once again their mind is torn between two
cultures. Finally, they develop a split personality. This problem of immigrant has been vividly expressed by
Bharati Mukherjee in her novel The Tiger's Daughter. This paper explicates how Bharati Mukherjee
depicts the plight of an immigrant, Tara, the protagonist on her return to her native land, Calcutta through
this novel.

Keywords: Cross-cultre, multi-culturalism, globalization, migration.

Twentieth-century fiction abounds in portraits of women who experience torment, unfulfilled

desire, a search for freedom and struggle for artistic achievement as against the traditional picture of
passive, submissive women. Women rebel under extremely oppressive conditions, but the inner fury
articulated is silenced by multiple factors and many times she chooses to reconcile herself to the
environment. The women writers of the Indian Diaspora present characters that break the traditional
conventions, customs, and religion. These women writers present more or less the experiences they
encountered as immigrants.
Bharati Mukherjee defines expatriates as a conscious knower of their fate and immigrants in
particular to Canada as “lost souls put upon and pathetic”. She reveals that she is freed of the ability of
expatriate nostalgia by the astringencies of life in the new world. Immigration becomes the only reason for
the identity crisis suffered by Tara Banerjee Cartwright of Bharati Mukherjee's The Tiger's Daughter. Any
effort to acquire an identity of one's own in a multicultural context is often a troublesome and tedious task.
The focus of this study is to trace and analyze the aspects and facts in Mukherjee's novels. Immigrants
mostly from Asia have found the United States a virtual “Paradise on Earth'. However, every immigrant
had to undergo the process of becoming Americanized naturalized and assimilated into the social and
economic structure of the Nation.
In the case of Tara, Tara has her own profession as a writer, which enables her to meet people and it
opens wide vistas to a lot of opportunities. Tara is placed in a situation where she is not accepted by Indians
nor can she accept the American way of life; Dr. Padma comments that “Tara's predicament is that of the
divided self, suspended between two worlds and rooted in neither.” There is a nagging regret in her heart
about her having to remain an exile all her life. Mukherjee portrays this aspect of an immigrant through her
BHARATI MUKHERJEE'S DEPICTION THE PLIGHT OF IMMIGRANTS ON RETURN TO THE NATIVE LAND 159
character Tara Banerjee in The Tiger's Daughter who confronts bewilderment when she visits India after a
gap of seven years. It has become a trend among affluent and educated people to send their children at a
very young age to foreign countries for pursuing higher studies. The protagonist Tara's father also fall in
line with this category. Tara, a Bengali Brahmin girl, readily obeys her father's decision of taking up her
higher studies in New York. Both Tara and her father do not know what destiny has in store for her. Thus
Tara's journey to acculturation starts at the age of fifteen.
As a student, Tara faces discrimination on the alien soil. She feels home-sickness: For Tara, Vassar
had been an almost unsalvageable mistake. If she had not been a Bengali Brahmin, the great-
granddaughter of Hari Lal or perhaps if she had not been trained by the good nuns at St.Blaisse, to remain
composed and ladylike in all emergencies, she would have rushed home to India at the end of the first
week”.
The alien soil troubles Tara and she faces it on the strength gained through her up to bring. The
docile girl reacts aggressively in defense of her culture the moment her classmates ridicule India and its
tradition. Whenever her spirits fail her, she prays to goddess Kali for strength. Tara would have been mute
had she stayed in the protected milieu of Calcutta. With this exposure to alien culture and its oddities, Tara
finds the emergence of a new self. She develops qualities such as courage, determination, and strength.
Tara's one year stay at America totally changes her nature. She thinks on her own and gives
importance to her desires. She thinks individualistically. She comes across cultural conflicts and ponders
over it to resolve independently. Meanwhile, she meets David Cartwright, an American, falls in love with
him and takes a bold decision to marry him. Tara, who once defended her Indian genealogy, breaks it with
courage. She believes that her marriage will give a new definition to her American existence. Alien culture
has both merits and demerits. On the other hand, it removes her Indianness-breaking the social taboo of
marrying a foreigner, in her case, an American.
Tara and David lead a contented life, yet Tara is apprehensive of the fact that he is a Westerner.
When David asks Tara minute details about Indian Life, she fails to communicate its finer aspects. In this
connection, Nagendra Kumar observes: Her failure to do so is rooted in their cultural differences. In India,
marriage is not simply a union of two individuals, it is coming together of two families as well. But in
Western countries like America, a marriage is simply a contract between two individuals. (Kumar,30).
The cultural differences between Tara and David give her the feeling of insecurity. To overcome
this feeling, she decides to visit India after a gap of seven years. A quote from Shobha Shinde explains the
mind of an immigrant like Tara in these lines: “An immigrant away from home idealizes his home- country
and cherishes nostalgic memories of it”. (Dhawan, 58)
Tara lands on her native soil with little awareness that her seven years at America have changed her
outlook. In turn, her hope of getting solace on her native soil gets shattered. She feels lonely and insecure
even amidst friends and relatives. After seeing Tara's negative reaction to the deterioration of the Calcutta
city, her friend Reema comments that she has “become self-centered and European”. Tara desperately tries
to look Indian but to her dismay, she finds herself a misfit wherever she goes. She realizes that she is torn
between two different cultures that are wide apart. Reality dawns on Tara that she can no longer continue
her life in India. It is interesting to note that Tara's husband has the temperament of an Indian husband. For
instance, when Tara writes letters to him about her Indian experience, David wars her of the possible
dangers and cautions her against the politician Tuntunwala. Unfortunately, Tara fells a prey to his lust. It is
an irony that a foreign returned Indian woman is raped on her own native soil, whereas nothing of this sort
happened to her on the alien soil. Tara feels the deterioration of Indian culture. Victimized Tara realizes that
her feeling of insecurity on the alien soil is a manifestation of her homesickness. Sensing safety in her
husband's company, Tara reserves a seat on a flight to New York.
Mukherjee gives an open ending to this novel. Tara's way to the airport is hindered by a violent

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mob. Tara gets locked inside a car and her end remains a mystery. Whether she meets her husband or not is
unknown. Desolate Tara thinks about her husband and the novel ends with these lines: “And Tara, still
locked in a car across the street from the Catelli-Continental, wondered whether she would ever get out of
Calcutta and if she didn't, whether David would ever know that she loved him fiercely”. (TD, 210)
Thus Mukherjee portrays the plight of an immigrant on her return to the native soil. The irony of
Tara's life is that she survives racial discrimination on alien soil but gets victimized on her native soil.

Works Cited
Dhawan R.K., ed. The fiction of Bharati Mukherjee: A Cultural Perspective. New Delhi: Atlantic
Publishers, 1998. Print.
Mukherjee, Bharati: The Tiger's Daughter, Penguin Books Ltd., India, 1991.Print.

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46
CROSS CULTURAL PERPECTIVE IN M.G VASSANJI'S THE GUNNY SACK

Ambedkar Raja. S, Research Scholar, Department of English, MKU, Madurai

Dr. Mohan. K, Associate Professor & Head, MKU College, Madurai

Abstract:
This paper tries to explore how M.G Vassanji assuages between the nostalgic desire for home and
community through the characters in The Gunny sack on the one hand, and the inescapable consciousness
of the reality of exile and the absence of community on the other hand on the basis of the idea of a multi-
locational home. The Gunny sack, curiously parallels Vassanji's own story of a non-descript migrant
writer in an alien land, who struggled for identity and cultural survival through spinning an endless yarn
of stories of migration. Vassanji strikes discursive postures of a return to an imagined originary home,
while paradoxically critiquing at the same time the notions of originary home and identity.

Keywords: Postcolonial studies, M. G Vassanji, Diaspora, Gunny sack.

Races and societies are delightfully portrayed in M.G vassanji. The Gunny Sack which investigates
the history and the narrative of the Indians in East Africa amid the pilgrim time frame thatwere to leave
alien the Independence of Africa with sentiments of alienation. 'The tale is the beneficiary of the best First
Novel for the African district of the Award Writer's prize, 1900. 'This first novel by a Nairobi-conceived
essayist raised in Liar-es-Salaam. Tanzania praises the soul of Asian pioneers. Muslims from India who
moved to Africa in the mid-1000s are living under German pilgrim rule, the fatality of DhanjiGiovindji
wind up lasting inhabitants of Aliici while seeing chronicled occasions that outcome in the introduction of
African patriotism. Vassanji has made a family diary, a story about growing up that takes a gander at the
past with love and comprehension. Itslows that the deepest desires of Indian foreigners were basically the
normal as those of Europeans who went through Ellis Island: training for their youngsters and a
progressively prosperous future for the next age.
This rumoured and famous novel The Gunny Suck traverses four ages, right from the earliest
starting point of the Indian settlement on the bank of East Africa which is under the (iceman and afterward
changes hands and passes on to the British lastly to its Freedom when the Indians never again feel welcome
or safe and pull back from East Africa. Vassanji starts the novel at the sequential start of the Shamsi
network in Cutch in India and proceeds onward from that point to the present, through the advancement
and decrease of the Indian Shamsi people group in East Africa. When they are compelled to leave Africa,
they don't consider coming back to India yet just of an ahead, forward-looking voyage, further toward the
west.”MemoryJiRai would say. is this old sack here, this poor dear that nobody has any use for any more”.
The Gunny Suck problematizes the idea of limits and space by questioning the essential space
country of Sona and Kala - is Africa. their country, where they were conceived and grew up and which is
the main home that they have seen however just has now as the country of their progenitors, which is bolted
in the memory of JiRai and given to then1 as learning, from the past, or is their country the present area of
their relocation to another nation The account investigates this inquiry as it travels through memory and
envisioned areas dependent on genuine geological space: it interfaces the individual and the network so
that the ID of homeland as a spatial) and transientlycantered around explicit area becomes troublesome
suggestion. As tile contrary space of tilefirst age progressively moves toward becoming the essential space
CROSS CULTURAL PERPECTIVE IN M.G VASSANJI'S THE GUNNY SACK 162
for the next generations, it causes perplexity in the view of the second and third ages; which is their
homeland and essential space? They don't know where they really have a place due to blended loyalties,
hovel their present setting of majoritarian status makes a neo-provincial circumstance.
As the novel starts SalimSunia who estranged abroad from Tanzania, opens up The Gunny Sack
given to him by a cherished distant auntie. Inside it he finds the past his own family ancestry and the
narrative of the Asian experience in East Africa. Its relics and antiquities carry with them the lives of
Salim's Indian incredible granddad, DhanjiGovindji, his broad family and every one of their loves and
disloyalties.
DhanjiGovindji touches base in Matamu - from Zanzibar, lorbandar and at last, Junapur and has a
child with an African slave named BibiTaratibu. Afterward, developing in flourishing he weds Fatima, the
lady who will bear his other youngsters. Be that as it may, when his half-African child lutein vanishes,
DhanjiGovindji pays out his fortune in attempting to discover him once more. As the tentacles of the First
World War venture into Africa, with the nearby German settlers battling British trespassers, he spends
more and additional time seeking. One morning he is abruptly killed; he had spent not simply his possess
cash yet embezzled that of others to lenience the quest for his lost child.
Multiculturalism works are constantly worried about outcast, memory, diasporic cognizance,
aching for return, distance and scan for personality. A11 these attributes discover interesting explanation in
the books of M.G.Vassanji. Vassanji has delivered five books following the relocation of individuals from
South Asia in the late 19th century to East Africa and after that from Africa to North America during the
1960s and 1970s. The Gunny Sack is one of them. It manages the account of four ages of Asians in
Tanzania. Here the creator has analysed the topic of personality, relocation also, race-relations. He
additionally has attempted to hold and re-make oral his~ories and folklores that have for quite some time
been hushed.
The Gunny Stick commends the soul at Asian pioneers who moved to East Africa in the late 1800s
and mid-1900s. The novelist gives {Ininsightful look too into the way of life of one specific gathering of
Indians who were conceived and experienced childhood in East Africa amid the mid-20th century living
under German provincial standard. The group of DhanjiGovindji end up changeless inhabitants of Africa
while seeing chronicled occasions that outcome in the introduction of African nationalism. In this
awesome bit of work the essayist centreson the hazardous association of South Asia. The strain emerging
from the contact between the two grounds is caught for the most part it1 the characters that relocated from
India to East Africa. Here the greater part of the Asian African characters for example, DhanjiGovindji and
his descendent SalimJunia participate in the journey for new homes and character. It is intriguing that a
similar mission for new countries that were additional promising as far as prosperity was to be Govindjiin
all. Thus this paper explores cross cultural perspective through vassanji in this novel.

Work cited
Vassanji, M.G. The Gunny Sack. Oxford: Henemann, 1989.7.Print.
Rhodes, Shane. “Frontier Fiction: Reading Books in M.G. Vassanji's TheBook of Secrets.” Ariel, 29.1
(January 1998): 179-93.Print.
---. “M.G. Vassanji: An Interview.” Studies in Canadian Literature 22.2(1997): 105-17.Print.
Spivak, GayatriChakravorty. “The New Historicism: Political Commitment and the Post-Modern Critic.”
Post-Colonial Critic: Interviews, Strategies, Dialogues. Ed. Sarah Harasym. New York:
Routledge, 1990. 152-68. Print.
Pratt, Mary Louise. Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation.London: Routledge, 1992. Print.

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47
SYNTHESIS OF TWO DIVERSE CULTURES: A POSTMODERN STUDY OF
CHETAN BHAGAT'S 2 STATES: THE STORY OF MY MARRIAGE

M. Krishna Veni, Ph.D Research Scholar, Rani Anna Govt. College for Women, Tirunelveli
Dr. Y. Vigila Jeba Ruby, Associate Professor, Rani Anna Government College for Women

Abstract:
Chetan Bhagat is one of the best selling novelist in Indian Writing in English. He is the Icon of the
new India. His Writings are mainly on the sensitive issues of young Indians. This paper focuses on the study
of the Cultural differences of the contemporary Indians through the novel 2 States: The Story of My
Marriage. India is a country of different cultures. Chetan Bhagat's 2 States: The Story of My Marriage
portrays the multicultural society. The protagonist of the novel and his companion lead to close
observation on two things. One is the South Indian culture and the other is North Indian culture.
Throughout the novel these two characters throwing light on the cultural differences between these two
cultures of the same nation and their assimilation of the new culture in order to survive.

Keywords: Multicultural, assimilation, North India, South India.

Chetan Bhagat (1973) is an Indian author, columnist, screenwriter, television personality and
motivational speaker. He is the author of best selling novels in India and also one of the hundred most
influential people in the world. Very few authors have tried to showcase India's culture and its people.
Chetan Bhagat has constantly tried to bring this crisis in his works. India is a multicultural society.
Multicultural Literature is based on realism and deals around issues related to race, class and gender. India
is a country of different cultures with their unique customs. Globalization in India has resulted into a fast
growing cities and over all urbanization. Chetan Bhagat has inaugurated a new era of English fiction which
exposes the life of young generation.
Chetan Bhagat's 2 states: The story of my marriage truly reflects the conflicts of two cultures in
India. It is fictionalized autobiography revolving around the incident of love marriage taking place in
typical Indian condition. The two states denote the two dimensions of the personalities of the main
characters. Krish Malhotra is a North Indian, Punjabi while Tamil Brahmin girl, Ananya Swaminathan is
from South India. They fall in love and wish to marry. In the new millennium, information technology and
globalization have changed the established patterns of behavior and modified the structures of
professional life, personal life, values of morality, economic structure and the commitments of life
conditions. The young generation follow the post modern culture. Yet they do not give up their traditional
ethnic heritage. They move towards integrity.
The meeting of two families on the convocation day at IIMA - Ahmedabad sets the drama into
motion. It suggests two regions of the India - Punjab and Tamil Nadu. They follow different culture when
both families meet each other, they find fault with other's culture. Krish's mother gives more importance
for her traditional culture and criticizes Ananya's South Indian culture. Krish's mother attacks South Indian
culture. “They are Madrasi?”“I have come to see you, not sit next to Madrasi”(46). “From Hema Malini to
Sridevi , all of them trying to catch Punjabi men” (48) . krish's mother's sister Shipra Masi assumes,
“Your son is gone. I am sorry, but this boy belongs to Jeyalatha now”.(69)
Indian food reflects a perfect blend of various cultures and ages. Food provides an important link to
SYNTHESIS OF TWO DIVERSE CULTURES: A POSTMODERN STUDY OF CHETAN BHAGAT'S 2 STATES: THE STORY OF MY .... 164
our cultural heritage, and also tied to religion and ritual. Food reflects the one's culture and identity. Idly,
dosa, sambhar, rice and various vegetables reflect the South Indian identity, where as Punjabi food
Samosas, Jalebis, Chole bhature, Milk Cake, Kachoris and the red and green chutneys reflect the North
Indian identity. When Krish is served south Indian food at Ananya's house he mistakes banana leaf as food.
“We sat on the floor for dinner. Ananya's father passed me a banana leaf. I wondered if I had to eat or wipe
my hands with it” (93).
“Place it down, it is the plate,' Ananya whispered”.
“I followed Ananya as she loaded her plate with rice, sambhar,
funny looking vegetables and two kinds of brown powders”.
“What is this?” I asked.”
Gunpowder, try it, she said”.
“I tasted it”. “It felt like sawdust mixed with chillies”.
“Yummy, no?”.
“I nodded at Ananya. Everyone first kept neat little lumps of dishes
on their banana leaf. Soon they mixed it into a slurry heap” (94).
The symbolism of clothing is another part of delivering once identity. This cultural identity
highlights the differences of other people. Ananya follows the conventional life style at Chennai, where as
at IIMA campus she follows unconventional life style. Krish compares the appearance between Ananya
and the old mess worker. “However, I saw her face, now prettier with a hint of pink”. “Her tiny blue bindi
matched her sky-blue and white Salwar Kameez. She looked like Sridevi's smarter cousin”. I compared her
to the fifty-year-old mess worker. He wore a lungi and had visible grey hair on his chest” (4). Ananya
gladly says that his father is so cute. But Krish's opinion is different from Ananya. “I looked carefully, A
Middle - aged man with neatly combed hair rationed his grin. He wore a half- sleeve shirt with a dhoti in
mist of the pictures”(13). Krish knows and understands that his mother would not accept Ananya as her
daughter-in-law because she is a Tamilian. She wishes her son to marry a traditional girl from Punjab. She
is more concerned with the girl's property.
Modern women has empowered herself with financial and economic independence. Ananya is
just an example of that empowerment. She likes to have non-vegetarian food and beer. She is bold and
defiant, wears Indian and Western dresses. At Krish's cousin, Minti's wedding she stands for the righteous
thing. The groom's family demanded an accent car. They are adamant and not ready to go on with the
marriage rituals, unless their demands are met out. Ananya handles the situation perfectly and the marriage
is solemnized. There is a reflection of generation gap between the older and younger generation. Their
divergent thinking, new ideology, different culture has further promoted the differences between them.
Krish and Ananya couldn't easily convince their parents. Krish's mother reacts against his wishes. Krish
reacts that “Aren't they all Indian? Can't they be good human beings” (69). Apart from those difficulties
Krish concentrates and tries to mingle with them and get good name from them so as to become their son-
in-law. After taking IIT tution to Manju, Ananya's brother gradually her father becomes close to Krish.
They meet and eat together and like to talk each other about the Bank issues.
The resemblance and diversities between the cities in North India and South India are authentically
narrated in the novel. Krish comes across Chennai having standard Indian elements like autos, packed
public buses, hassled traffic cops and tiny shops that sold groceries, fruits, utensils, clothes or novelty
items. The dissimilarity finds in the words of Krish.
I saw the city. However, it did feel different. First, the sign
in every shop was in Tamil. The Tamil font resembles those
optical illusion puzzles that give you headache if you stare
at them long enough. Tamil women, all of them, wear flowers

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in their hair. Tamil men don't believe in pants and wear lungis
even in shopping districts. The city is filled with film posters.
The heroes' pictures make you feel even your uncles can be movie
stars. The heroes are fat, balding, have thick moustaches and the heroine
next to them is a ravishing beauty. May be my mother has a point I saying
that Tamil women have a thing for North Indian men.”(77-78)
The protagonist gradually moves towards the Tamil culture. Assimilation of the new culture shows
the values of family relationship. They adopt the new culture in order to success in their love making.
However, their love is so intense they forget their cultural differences and accept others culture also. Thus
they merge two cultures as one. Thus how the author synthesis two cultures in the new era of contemporary
globalization and these two cultures synthesis two diverse cultures and reconcile to each other. After their
marriage none of their children is identified as a particular culture. Thus the new era is an era of cultural
hybridity.

Works Cited
Barry, Peter. Beginning Theory: An Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory. New Delhi: Viva Books,
2014.Print.
Bhagat, Chetan. 2 States: The story of my Marriage. New Delhi: Rupa, 2009.Print.

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48
WHO IS MY NEIGHBOUR? : A STUDY OF TIM WINTON'S NEIGHBOURS

P. T. SelviKohila, Asst. Professor, Department of English, V.O.C. College, Tuticorin

Abstract:
The embryonic African writer of the era, ChimamandaNgoziAdichie divides her time between
Nigeria and Africa. She is a Nigerian novelist, writer of short stories and non-fiction. She is a critically
acclaimed young Anglophone authors who succeeds in attracting the new generations to African
literature. The explicit longing to challenge the grounds of colonialism is seen in the autobiography or
biography which describes the writer's journey from their native country to foreign country. Colonialism is
the extension of a nation's sovereignty over territory beyond its borders by the establishment of either
settler colonies in which the native people may be displaced or ruled. This paper is about the Ugandan
writer, Ujunwa and the Sengalese writer. They were colonized by a man named Edward in Cape Town. The
story ends where Ujunwa leaves the room with tears. She wants to know that the story which she has
written for the workshop would be considered plausible. The characters faced oppression even after
independence. Everyone is unique in God's creation. But in today's contemporary world people are
respected only by their status and wealth. But if they are treated on equal par, then there will be no rattle
between the colonizer and the colonized.

Keywords: African literature, colonialism, oppression, colonizer, colonized.

Neighbor is an elusive concept that is some what out dated but the concept of neighbor is
everywhere irrespective of personal circumstances. Unless the society moves at least to a position where
there is respect for neighbors as fellow beings we shall fail in our attempt to create a harmonious society.
The word 'neighbor' is explained as a person regarded as having the duties or claims to the others.
Neighbor's figure refers to the biblical injunction, “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as they thyself “
(Leviticus 19: 18). This concern for the neighbor goes along with the concern for the stranger; thou shalt
neither vex a stranger nor oppress him for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt. In an Australian context,
the politics of the neighbor has relation to the immigrant crisis.
Tim Winton, an Australian writer and winner of the 2009 Miles Franklin Awards, frames his short
story 'Neighbours' as a saga in the light of Levinas's ethics ofalterity and the Christian principle of loving
thy neighbor. Philosopher Emmanuel Levinas's ethics of alterity is founded on one's infinite responsibility
for the neighbor or the face of the 'other'. His ethics demands nothing short of a reverential attitude toward
the 'other'. The short story “Neighbour' traces how the indifferent attitude towards the neighbor gradually
learns to respect the 'other'.
The storyline of Tim Winton's 'Neighbours' is that a young couple from the Melbournian suburb
find hard to understand the neighbors. They moved from a quiet and peaceful suburb and in the new
circumstances the behavior of the immigrants make them “feel like soujourners in a foreign land” (64). A
sense of ostracism is event and it is felt by the young couple. The readers are exposed to varying values and
attitudes which are connected with many aspects of Australian multicultural life. In the new surroundings,
next door on the left lived a Macedonian family and on the right a widower from Poland. It is evident that
all the characters in the story find themselves displaced in one way or the other. The young couple are
displaced from the expansive outer suburbiansurroundings, the other two are immigrant from Europe.
WHO IS MY NEIGHBOUR? : A STUDY OF TIM WINTON'S NEIGHBOURS 167
Thus social interaction is absent. The displaced status makes them as a matter of course marginalized on
the periphery of the society in which they find themselves.
The young couple were weary of the neighbor for, the streets were full of migrants. They were used
to the environment where neighbors were seldom seen and never heard but in the new surrounding the
sounds of spitting and washing and day break watering came as a shock to them. The old polishman spent
most of his day hammering nails in to wood. Winton's reference to the noise which irritate the couple is an
example of deterritorialisation with sound flowing through the boundaries between nominally discreet
units. The young couple from the suburbs try to be more civilized and in such a place it is difficult to
express their personal identity. This demonstratesthat despite the desire for a unique existence they are
driven to belong to a migrant based community. There is antagonistic tone and the young couple watched
in disgust the neighbors. The guarded feeling about their neighbor depends on their cultural background
and neighbors have been reduced to strangers. Thebehavior of the young couple can be read as an
indictment of Australian's moral failings epitomized by its selective refusal to ethics of neighborliness to
refugees / immigrants.
Lacan in his The Ethics of Psychoanalytic engages in a thorough critique of the notion of the
neighbor by arguing that the aggressive narcissism of humanity makes the idea of loving a neighbor a
horrifying preposition. The couple has difficulties in expressing themselves in the new neighborhood.
These situations arise asa consequence of migration of the couple from the suburbs. Anti suburban
tradition is in effect an anti Australian tradition, a manifestation of cultural cringe and an expression of
dissatisfaction of the nation as a whole. The young couple have no sense of belonging in the environment
because perceptions of belonging and non belonging is by one's connection to place. It is hard to move
from one environment to another and in the transitory state the couple are in the no man's land. This
particular space recurs ever so frequently in post colonial literature. Moreover in a globalized world it is
very often the case that people do not just wander between to cultures but may be among three are even
more. The young couple meet people of various cultures that is Macedonian, the Polish and the Greek.
The neighbors are portrayed as different. The little boy who stood at the fence with cobalt eyes
maid the young man nervous. Faced with an incomprehensible and multifaceted alterity the couple have
the objection of responding to the 'other' in terms of difference. The young man sees the 'other' as
irredeemably different and adopt the view of that alterity and tend to turn to the security of his own cultural
perspective.
In the beginning there is no genuine and thorough comprehension of otherness in the mind of the
young couple because of 'the self' is not ready to negate or at least severely bracket the values, assumptions
and ideology of his culture. It takes time for the self to understand the 'other': “Relations were
uncomfortable for many months” (64). Discovery does not complete straight way. Without passage of
time significant discoveries cannot blossom. Tim Winton in this story uses season as a motif for the
passage of time. The story is enhanced with the seasons introducing the reader to new activities. In the
autumn, the young couple cleared rubbish from their back yard and turned and manured the soil under the
open and measured gaze of the neighbors. The contrast between peasant style of migrant and professional
young couple is overcome in the vegetable garden. The migrants share their knowledge and value of life
skills. The young man resented the interference but took careful note of what was said. The behavior of the
people around are very welcoming and they involve in every business of the couple. People from the
second world countries like Poland and Macedonia are renowned for being hard workers and they love
cultural activities. True to this character the Polish widower slid through the fence uninvited and he helped
the couple to rebuild the falling hen house. In the Australian social imaginary 'fence' illustrates the
continuing power of settlers discourse and the Polish widower discloses his new visions of identity and
otherness. While helping to build the hen house the young couple could not understand a word of the

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WHO IS MY NEIGHBOUR? : A STUDY OF TIM WINTON'S NEIGHBOURS 168
Polish widower. It is evident that to show milk of human kindness language is not necessary. The neighbor
is characterized as the figure of the 'other' that is an entity viewed as distinctly foreign from the community
but it is he who ultimately plays a role in the society.In the spring the Macedonian family shared the
knowledge how to slaughter and pluck and dress ducks. There was exchange of fracture dialogue. The
divide between culture, language and education is narrowing and all the characters begin to develop a
sense of community.
Further the pregnancy of the woman opens up new forms of relation which is a more respectful
approach to alterity. Woman in her uniqueness opens up the space of the neighbor. People smiled tirelessly
at them when they heard about her pregnancy. The man in the deli gave the pregnant woman small presents
of chocolates. Italian women became to offer names for the baby in the womb. These actions of kindness
and expression of love underline the fact that responsibility for the neighbor is inescapable and has no
measure. The young woman felt flattered, claustrophobic, grateful and peeved. The whole neighborhood
anxiously waits for the baby and then they celebrate the arrival of the new baby by cheering. Here the
opening of transcendence makes possible a relation to the 'other' which cannot be reduced to a
comprehension or appropriation but 'a relation without relation' in which the 'other' is greeted or received
without being known. The young manheard the shouting outside and he saw a small queue of bleary faces
cheering and the young man began to weep.
The absence of names in the story gives it a quality that it is similar to that of a parable. Through the
ethical figure of the neighbor drawn in particular from the biblical parable of the Good Samaritan Winton
focuses on the concept of 'other'. In Gospel according to St. Luke the parable of Good Samaritan is used to
illustrate the meaning of love of neighbor. The parable is that when a man on the road from Jerusalem to
Jericho falls among thieves and is left half dead by the road side, it is neither the priest nor the Levite who
comes to his aid but rather a Samaritan. Samaritan in Jesus' time was regarded as a religious outsider.
However Jesus holds this outsider as an example of the love of neighbor which is one of the two great
commandments. The parable ends with the word “go and do like wise”, throwing a challenge to see in
group / out group. Jesus' radically inclusive understanding of neighbor love reflects the Book of Genesis's
affirmation that all persons have been created in the image of God and all are brothers and sisters in a single
human family no matter what their nationality or ethnicity is. God created the whole human race so that
they could occupy the entire earth. This challenges any understanding of the moral significance of borders
that leads to denying 'other', the kind of respect and care that are required by the commandment to love
them as oneself. Therefore extending care only to those who are like us is thus religiously unacceptable in a
Christian normative perspective. The young couple in the story “Neighbours” takes time to live as
neighbors. Prejudice in the mind of the couple get assuaged by close encounters with alterity. The story
implies that meaningful human relationships are always complex and it also portrays the barriers to
acceptance and explores the individual's transition from ostracism to an innate sense of belonging within
their respective contexts.Tim Winton ends the story with a striking sentence that “The twentieth century
novel had not prepared him for this”(67). So understanding and accepting others cannot be taught or read in
a novel but circumstances teach 'love thy neighbors as thyself'. The cultural difference is meant to be an
occasion for considering alterity. Through the epic of neighbor Winton offers his readers religious or
otherwise an opportunity to make a different choice in favor of empathy so that 'what is done not to be done
again'.

Works Cited
Lacan, Jacques. The Ethics of Psychoanalysis.Trans. Dennis Porter. London: Routledge, 2008. Print.
Levinas, Emmanuel. Alterity and Transcendence. Trans. Michael B.Smith. New York: Columbia
University, Press, 1999. Print.

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WHO IS MY NEIGHBOUR? : A STUDY OF TIM WINTON'S NEIGHBOURS 169
The Holy Bible : New International Version. Bombay: Bharatiya Bible League, 1984. Print.
Winton, Tim. Neighbours.A Text book of Australian Literature.Ed. Board of Editors. Chennai : Angel
Publishers, 2017. Print.

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49
AN AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL PORTRAIT IN AMRITA PRITAM'S
THE REVENUE STAMP

D. Soundarapandi, Assistant Professor, MKU College, Thirumangalam

Dr. R. Kabilar, Associate Professor, V.H.N.S.N. College (Autonomous), Virudhunagar

Abstract:
An autobiography is a genre. The writers expresses their experience of being in the world. An
autobiography is a critical and political retrospective journey of reconstruction of the past. It is preferred
here for study The Revenue Stamp(1976)by Amrita Pritam. She describes the struggles of postcolonial
women in India to encounter, discuss an overthrow the preconceptions of third world women's experience.

Keywords: Post colonial, Political, agony, idealism.

Amrita Pritam (1919) is a poet, essayist and novelist of Punjabi literature. She was the first leading
poet of Punjabi literature, migrated to India from Lahore after the India Pakistan partition in the year 1947.
She was the only child of a poet and schoolteacher. Her father was a pracharak, a preacher of the Sikh faith.
Amrita's mother died when she was eleven. She has remembered for her pathetic poem, 'AjjAkhaan Waris
Shah'. It is an elegy to the 18th century Punjabi poet, an expresses of her agony over eliminated during the
partition of India.
She was eleven years old and had not developed the sense of reciprocity by then with either of her
parents. She suffered a profound feeling of loneliness, since she had no brother or sister to share her grief.
In her sixteen year, Amrita started writing love poems secretly and tore them, as she was afraid of her
father. He encouraged her to write poems but only on religious and patriotic events. Her father represents
the patriarch of discipline and orderliness of life. Amrita has no option but to follow the orders obediently.
Apparently, she was praying to show obedience to her father, but actually was thinking and visualizing
about her friend whom she had named 'Raj'. Her inner self was already moving towards the unconventional
ideas. At the age of four, Amrita was engaged and was a teenager of sixteen when she was married off to
Pritam Singh of Lahore. Thus, the name 'Pritam' was suffixed to her name from 1935 She married Pritam
Singh an Editor, to whom she was engaged in early childhood and changed her name to Amrita Pritam.
Half A dozen poems were to follow in as many years between 1936 and 1943.Though, she began her
journey as a romantic poet soon he sifted gear and became part of the progressive writers movement and its
effect was seen in her Look Peed, 1944, which was openly criticized. Amrita started working at Lahore and
Delhi Radio stations, as an announcer and writing poems, stories, novels, articles on various themes.
Amrita Pritam's The Revenue Stamp,(1976) throws light on how postcolonial women in India have
detached themselves from the nationalistic discourse of women being bearers and custodians of culture.
Outgrowing the nationalist and colonialist discourse and the pre-conceptions of Western Feminist thought
regarding the Third World Women experience, Amrita Pritam has successfully established her identity in
the context of postcolonial, resisting and contesting the problematic of the above mentioned her mode of
writing. A reading of her autobiography would clearly establish this fact.
The writer reveals an uncommon sense of self-analysis with no conscious regard for social criteria
of moral judgments. Being a poet, she maintains the grace of her creativity while narrating the story of her
life. Her vision of life is broad enough to make her story the 'Stamp of Truth.' Her unusual feminine
AN AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL PORTRAIT IN AMRITA PRITAM'S THE REVENUE STAMP 171
awareness explores a process of development and she visualizes this process as a fulfillment of her quest
for life
The Revenue Stamp, consists of six chapters entitle as (1) Resurrecting time (2) Meeting with
centuries (3) Ordeal by fire (4) In silence passion smote (5) The phoenix dynasty and (6) On one palm
Henna. It demonstrates in great detail a rejection of conventional life and thought since the days of her
childhood. Her narrative, rather subtly presents an alternative history, be it, the women question in
postcolonial India or the issue of partition of India. The autobiography severs itself from a typical
misogynist nationalist discourse. Yet the text is not dominated by the waves of western feminism. It lies
success to audaciously hold on to its integrity and identity.
As a child, Amrita Pritam was taught poetry by her father. He also taught her to meditate on God.
But, she found herself unable to adhere to the strict rhythm and rhyme of poetry. Her father expected her to
write 'religious verses, orthodox and conventional in style' (12). 'Rebellious thoughts' found expression in
her poetry but scared of her 'Father', she tore her writings into bits of paper and appeared as an innocent
child in front of him. She gradually grew much aware of her body and the pen became her weapon while
language her mode of resistance.
Thus, an appeal from Cixous to free the self from those structured homogeneous codes is apparent,
and Pritam too displays such an awareness in her autobiography. She audaciously reports that 'forbidden
desires' and rebellious thoughts' pursued her, and it was not easy for her to stick to the norm and write
poetry in orthodox and conventional style as expected by her father, Kartar Singh, who was a school
teacher cum a Sikh preacher. Instead, she started to write in an unconventional and subversive style right
from her teens. As far as meditation is concerned she refused to meditate on God. When she failed to resist
her father any longer she understood that she could control her thoughts. And she started to meditate on
'Rajan', someone who existed in her dreams as a teen.
Amrita Pritam had a platonic love for Sahir Ludhianvi which she has expressed in Sunehadey, and
she was awarded Sahitya Academy Award for it in the year 1956. Later she moved into a live-in
relationship with Imroz in Delhi and spent the rest of her forty years of life with him. For this, she had to
face a lot of criticism. During her stay with Imroz, she was awarded Padmashree in 1969, Bharatiya
Jnanpith, one of the highest literary awards in 1982 for Kagaz Te Canvas (The Paper and the Canvas) and
Padma Vibhusan in 2004. Amrita Pritam possessed 'a room of her own'. Negating all the conventions and
norms she lived on in her own terms producing a plethora of powerfully significant and rebellious works.
Pritam's autobiographical gives an alternative picture of the history of partition from a perspective
much beyond the nationalist enterprise and jingoistic ideology. She contemplates deeply on the idea of
possession and sense of belongingness the image of her grandfather who refused to leave his birth place
and home in Pakistan after partition. Her writings depict the trauma and turmoil endured by the ordinary
citizen on either side of the border at the collapse of British Raj. The dislocation of people and their
consequent sufferings, mainly women, made Pritam lament for them. This is very well reflected in the
hymns she wrote during partition for the victimised on both the sides of the border. There are other such
instances from her autobiography which establish and validate her as a woman of dignity and substance in
the realm of postcolonial context.
Life is not a bed of roses and Amrita Pritam was not an exception. She had to face harsh criticism by
her contemporaries. Her works were labeled as being too sensuous and pornographic. However, it can also
be inferred that hers was a semiotic way of writing, rupturing the phallocentric discourse and hence much a
threat to the established conventions. Her writings were often inspired by dreams which in turn influenced
her life. Amrita Pritam's non-conforming style which often contests the dominating ideologies is
analogous to the concept of Helene Cixous' Ecriture feminine. At times she also had to face financial crisis.
But during her difficult times she mentions in her autobiography that it was her 'pen' which was her true

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support and even dreamt of talking to her pen.
Women were not much encouraged to be a part of this public sphere and were not addressed by
nationalist political activity. Amrita Pritam has defined a position which does not align itself with this
image of women. Rather, instances from the autobiography show that they part identify with, and in part
also disengage itself from such stereotypes of images. For example, Amrita Pritam tries to dissolve the
religious differences and social conventions and yet unifies motherhood and the creative spark into a
whole. Thus there is a sense of plurality in her as reflected in her writing which can be located as an in-
between position- a position that keeps on oscillating between nationalist discourse and western feminism,
not belonging to any one position. Thus, she writes, un-conditioning herself from the constraints of the
society and family in an in-between position celebrating the pluralities and synthesizing the binaries of the
maternal and the erotic, the terrible and the benign, the hungry and the nourishing, the norm and the
deviation, the public and the private, the authority and the obedience thereby confusing all the tight
divisions between the phallocentric order of the masculine and the feminine. With a dislocated subject
position Amrita Pritam has also equally disrupted (de-centred) her readers by her linguistic force, which
goes close to semiotic way of writing.
Amrita Pritam's autobiography is shades by her romantic idealism, which is self-imagined. In the
world of self, she forgets the external drudgery of life, escapes into, and visions that inspire her creativity.
Her autobiography reveals her courage of consideration and psychological insight yet believes in the
intuitive knowledge of prophetic gestures and suggestive dreams. Amrita Pritam has been successful
enough to detach herself from fixed signification with the very play with her language, incorporating
dreams and visions; and at the same time has countered the hegemonic ideologies by audacious
expressions of her thoughts and perspectives.

Works Cited
Cixus, Helene. “The laugh of the Medusa”. Feminisms: An Anthology of Literary Theory and Criticism.
Eds. Robyn R. Warhol and Diane Price Herndl. New Brunswick, UP 2000. Print.
Pritam Amrita. The Revenue Stamp. New Delhi:Vikas Publishing House,1996. Print

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50
SCINTILLATING SEXUAL PASSION AND VICTIMISING CULTURAL ETHICS IN
MANJU KAPUR'S THE IMMIGRANT

Dr. M. Santhosh, Assistant Professor, MKU College, Tirumangalam, Madurai

Abstract:
The study of this paper is to analyse the state of women who are primeval symbol of suffering and
sacrifice. Women in Kapur's novels seems to be a personification of a tradition and modern women, who
has been continuously trying to throw off the burden of inhibitions she has carried for ages. Kapur has
deep concerns about the problems being faced by the woman in a male-dominated society, chiefly Indian
society. Women are acute sufferers of gender biasing. The cruelties that are exercised on women by the
male dominated world are metaphorically termed as slaughter house. The glorified woman is transformed
into a real woman in the novels of Kapur. She has great reverence and veneration for women. She has
understood the female psyche and depicted the inner subtlety of woman's mind through her novels.

Key words: Cultural Ethics, Victimization, Sexual Passion.

The study of this paper is to analyse the state of women who are primeval symbol of suffering and
sacrifice. Women in Kapur's novels seems to be a personification of a tradition and modern women, who
has been continuously trying to throw off the burden of inhibitions she has carried for ages. Kapur has deep
concerns about the problems being faced by the woman in a male-dominated society, chiefly Indian
society. Women are acute sufferers of gender biasing.The cruelties that are exercised on women by the
male dominated world are metaphorically termed as slaughter house. The glorified woman is transformed
into a real woman in the novels of Kapur. She has great reverence and veneration for women. She has
understood the female psyche and depicted the inner subtlety of woman's mind through her novels.
Manju Kapur has arisen among the women writers that are forming a body of Indian literature that
is committed to feminist and social issues. Her novels illustrate how the woman of modern age in India is
torn between tradition and modernity in trying to shape her life in her own ways. Her protagonists want to
assert their individuality, carry her responsibilities on her own and prove her existence in a culture where
individualism and protest have often remained foreign ideas, and marital bliss and a woman's role at home
is the central focus. Kapur displays mature understanding of the female psyche in portraying the inner
subtlety of a woman's mind, as she has intellectually described through her novels, the different states of
woman's mind in altered circumstances. The concept of the new woman in Indian society varies from the
one in the west; therefore, the characterization in the novels of Kapur is based on a ground reality.
Kapur registers her concern for the Indian woman and deals with various feministic issues like
female education, their empowerment, financial independence, eradication of child marriages, the
abolition of the dowry system, elimination of a woman's sexual abuse, etc. She has taken up cudgels to
fight for woman's cause. She narrates important issues of class and nationhood and connects them to the
emerging sense of female identity in postcolonial India. The novelist is quite down to earth in her feminist
approach to the woman's problems. All her protagonists protest against the social rules to become self-
dependent, but finally compromise for the sake of social harmony. Kapur truly considers her role as Indian
feminist as one of a humanist feminist. She draws the images of the woman who is rising in power and
strength, claiming responsibility for their life and declaring that society will be better with effective and
SCINTILLATING SEXUAL PASSION AND VICTIMISING CULTURAL ETHICS IN MANJU KAPUR'S THE IMMIGRANT 174
capable females.
In 1999, Manju Kapur's first novel, Difficult Daughters, received the Commonwealth Writers'
Prize for the best first book in the Eurasian region. Her second novel, A Married Woman, was the best seller
in both India and U.K., and her third novel, Home, was nominated for the Hutch Crossword Book Award
2007. The Immigrant was short listed for DSC prize for South Asian Literature in 2011. Her latest novel is
Custody. Besides these novels, Kapur has also touched other genre of writing i.e. short stories- The
Necklace, The Birth of a Baby, The Power behind the Shame and Speaking up for Inter-Community or
Cross Marriages. In all her novels, we meet the woman of modern era, her problems and her desire to
become independent. The husband-wife relationship has been taken up as a major theme in all her novels.
She exposes the exploitative trends of the patriarchal society in which male plays the dominating role, and
portrays the woman who want changes in the norms of traditions. She has basically written about women,
their marriage and their quest for identity in her novels. But in the novel, The Immigrant, she shows the
culture of an adopted alien land and brings about a transformation in the inherited tradition and culture of
the immigrants.
Kapur beautifully portrays the Indian Political Scenario from 1975 to 1977 in this novel as a
background. This Scenario is the most talked matter for the Indian living in Canada. Ananda Sharma faces
such an immigrant experience. He was practicing as dentist in Dehradun and he never thought that he
would leave India. Although his uncle was practicing in Canada, he had no idea about his future
unfortunately. Amanda's parents died in an accident and after that his uncle forced him to come to Canada
and settle with him. His uncle settled in Halifax for the past twenty years. Due to his uncle's compulsion, he
went to Halifax on the 15th August.
Ananda felt the immigrant experience while he walked in the streets of Canada. He found lot of
empty places. He started thinking and comparing with his native country, India. He asked his uncle about
the top place of Canada. His uncle replied that the Canada had twenty million population and in Halifax
only 80,000. He says to him:'Ananda was used to the hustle bustle and crowd of India but there he was find
no crowd in Canada so he was feeling strange…the whole country has barely 20 million and Halifax only
80000… Now 80001'. (36)
Dr. Sharma submitted Ananda's application form to the Dean of Admissions at the Dental School.
He also promised him to give one hundred dollars a month for his spending but he had a pricking in his
mind of getting the amount from his uncle. After settling in Canada, often Ananda felt home sickness.
During the breakfast Nancy, Ananda's aunty taught him the manner and customs of Canada. His Uncle
instructed him to keep manners, clean the bathroom and do all his work by himself. He was not treated as a
privileged person even by his close relatives. After some days had been spent, Ananda learnt now the
manners of people and life were in Canada. Slowly, he started to behave like a Canadian.
Ananda got familiar with dressing, food and people. But he was a conscious Indian who respected
his culture. One day in his college, he got an opportunity to date with Sue, a Canadian lady. She indulged
him to have a physical relationship but he refused. Even when his manhood questioned, he didn't give up
his morals. This incident drove him to choose his partner from his homeland. He wanted a girl of his
nativity and culture so that he could be familiar and she would not dominate or question his manhood like
the Canadian lady and further he could recreate the familiar surroundings in the new milieu Kapur writes:
“the Immigrant man needed a bride, who would surround him with familiar, habits and attitudes, whose
reward… freedom often now available to her at home.”(47)
In this novel, Nina, the next protagonist of the novel, also faced the immigrant experiences. She
was thirty years old who worked as a lecturer in Miranda House, Delhi. After her marriage with Ananda,
she went alone to Halifax and her first experience at the Toronto airport was quite unnatural. She passed
through rigorous process of close examination. She was enquired by various questions by the immigration

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women that she thought that they were all irrelevant.
Immigrant psyche had very deep effect on Nina as a house wife because she cried and felt
homesick. When she was alone, she started passing time by reading books. Nina's struggle was a little bit
different from her predecessors. She, at home, had to stand against the patriarchal set-up of the Indian
Middle-class society. But on the other hand, she had to fight against her loneliness, frustration and western
ethos. Nina had still had reminiscences of Indian life style and meals. She took her favorite pickle which
her mother gave to her which she secretly carried to Canada. Nina thought that all Indians became
immigrants slowly because they were not among those who fled due to some reasons.
Nina faced multiple problems in the new environment. Even after changing her outlook, she was
not able to convince people and gain respect. Before marriage, she was identified as a lecturer but things
were different in a new place. She was no more a lecturer; she was identified as Nina Sharma and not by her
individuality. She was suggested her to come out of her work and disrespectful status and encouraged to
join two year library science course. But this economic independence introduced Nina to many other inner
conflicts. Apart from the migration issues, the couple's family life, culture and marital fidelity was
challenged in an alienated place. Indians were known to value their morals and ethics but their attitude
changes when they are in foreign land. As people got introduced to new set up, their values too degenerate.
They failed to decide by their attitudes. They had to live to please everyone and they lost their identity and
became a perfect example of 'the survival of the fittest'.
Nina's quest for freedom and independent life made her to believe people easily Nina's sudden
change of eating non-vegetarian and morning with new entities ruined her life. Slowly, she buried the
traditional values and morals in alien soil. She and her husband both lived with ego and misunderstanding
and never felt guilty consciousness. Nina also showed her change in her dresses. She started to wear Jeans
and T-shirts. She also changed her hair colour and she was no more in cultural castle or religious taboo.
Glitter and the taste of western life dominated her western sense. Just to be independent, she lost her
modesty and identity. Now she becomes a good example of western women.
But her non-working status inspired her to find her feet in foreign soil and to remove her loneliness,
she, on the suggestion of Sue, joined in La Leche League, a group which focuses on feminist issues and
later went for the two year library Science Course so that she could be independent financially. Thus,
Nina's action substantiated the diasporic theme of 'economic integration than cultural preservation'.
Besides, in the immigration struggle, adultery and infidelity challenged the notion of family life, cultural
recognition and marital fidelity. Kapur has engraved this issue on the canvass of this novel through Nina
and Ananda. Both of them had involved in pre-marital affair instead of making their marriage worth and
successful, neither of them missed the opportunity to get in relation with other partner. Ananda was unable
to satisfy Nina biologically because of his impotency and filled the vacuum of marital lies. Dissatisfaction
distracted their minds; they both played the game of hide and seek.
On the one hand, Ananda enjoyed another woman, Mandy, in the absence of his wife. On the other
side, thought of Nina, She encounterd Anton a guy from New York, who never missed an opportunity to
appreciate and please Nina. The relationship seemed to be platonic in the beginning but in aspiring the new
world and adventures Nina forgot her entity and enjoyed cigarette smoking, alcohol and all the pub activity
like a Canadian. Thereby, Nina was trapped and she surrendered herself to Anton more like experiencing
the difference and establishing her independency. From the very first day of college, Anton had a bad eye
on her and by making her feel special, he got as closer to her at whom Nina surrendered herself
wholeheartedly and when she tried to come out of his relationship she was raped by Anton, and Nina is just
shocked and did not react more than that.
She felt sexually liberated, more Canadian less Indian and in this dualism of identity, she started
believing in the dictum often quoted by her husband. Which, in turn, challenged her Indian ethics and

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values because in the company of Anton she adopted those things which she had never dreamt of. Till now,
she had never touched the meat but now with him she ate red meat and flesh of cows that'her mother
worshipped on fixed days of the Hindu calendar'(97). But this sense of autonomy and freedom dissolved in
air on the recognition that she was being used by Anton and she decided not to get in affair again but fate
gave him one more chance and he recreated in New York and at this time she was badly raped by him.
Nina's life passed through certain ups and downs. Nina experienced the toughest phase in her life,
when she came to know of her mother's death. She visited India. She witnessed the rituals and remembered
the days spent with her mother, morals that were taught to her, and the bond she had with the nation and its
values moved her to tears. Nina avoided meeting her friends; the sense of guilt pre-dominated her soul. In
the journey of exploring a new life style, Nina lost her identity. Before she had to return to Canada she
decided not to commit the sin again.
Kapur has beautifully brought out the pride of Indian culture in the Immigrant. Immediately Nina
returned from India, Nina found a blond hair on the pillow and there after the mystery of Ananda's
relationship with Mandy came to light. Nina took some time to decide her life and she wanted to end up the
hide and seek game which was played between them. Bold Nina wanted to get rid of all the dirt and decided
to make a fresh start to which Ananda did not react much. Nina gave up her western life and marriage. She
began to search for a job at the University of New Brunswick. Whether she would ever get back to Halifax
was not revealed by the author.
Nina is a new woman who wants to make a fresh start to correct and forget her past mistakes.
Whether she will be a Canadian, Indian or global woman, the choice is left to the reader. All we know from
Kapur is Nina's changeover and like an eagle she renews her strength and identifies to fly high above all the
immigrants who are still suppressed in foreign land. Kapur revealed the life of immigrants and their
problems. She tries to find new ways of being human, new ways to redefine the humanity. All immigrants
want a better life but the realization that east is east and west is west and never shall these meet shatters their
dreams. Kapur stresses in this novel that these individuals find themselves in the process of naturalizing
their immigration experiences in a world of increasing globalization.

Works Cited
Agarwal, Malti. Manju Kapur's the Immigrant, a Gynocentric Text with Diasporic Issues, 2011.Print.
Kapur Manju. The Immigrant, Random House India, New Delhi, 2008.Print.
Pandey, Abha. Indian Diasporic Literature. New Delhi: Creative Books, 2008.Print.
Sharma. S. L. Perspectives on Indian Abroad: The Indian Diaspora. Ed. N. Jayaram. New Delhi: Sage
Publication, 2004.Print.
Uniyal, Ram. Women in Indian Writing: From Difference to Diversity, New Delhi: Prestige 2009.Print.

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51
PORTRAYAL OF WOMEN IN BAPSI SIDHWA'S PAKISTANI BRIDE

Dr. S. Jothi Basu, Assistant Professor of English, MKU College, Madurai

Abstract:
Bapsi Sidwa occupies an important place in post colonial period. The novel Pakistani Bride is
based on an incident which occurred in Pakistan in reality. Women are fairly beautiful, intelligent, modest
but strong-willed, and courageous. They try to cope with the parental, societal and cultural pressures in
their life as much as they can but when they find their very life or identity in danger, they throw off all
shackles and fight with full force to foil the foul attempts of their adversary.

Keywords: Post-colonial, women, marginalized, dislocation.

Bapsi Sidhwa indubitably belongs to an elite circle, yet she is able to give voice to the marginalized
figures of Pakistani society, mainly women. She poses a strong counter-voice to the dominant patriarchal
narrative which has subdued women's roles to the absolute minimum, through silencing female literature
in one form or the other. She rigorously questions the histories and the assumptions of contemporary
Pakistani society and literature.
All her novels are gynocentric but her second published novel, The Pakistani Bride, based on a real
life story, is an exclusive paean to women's zest for life, their adaptability and indomitable courage. In this
novel Sidhwa confronts a number of issues faced by the members of general populace of Pakistan during
and since the Partition of 1947, with a particular interest in the condition of women who are positioned at
different levels in the class structure. This novel is a damning indictment of the Kohistani community in
particular and the Pakistani society in general with regard to its brutal treatment of women.
The women are marginalized and have, in a number of cases, no say in decision-making processes
oractions which ultimately seals their fates. Women are denied an influential voice both in national issues
and those which concern the power over their every day lives. Sidhwa'sfemale characters in The Pakistani
Bride, as in all her other novels, are as strong if not stronger than the men who run their lives in the way that
they resist the limitations of the definition of 'woman'which circumscribes their identity. “The Bride is
dedicated to the incredibly simple, deprived, and courageous women of this magnificent country”
(Paranjape94).
It is mainly a story of two brides Zaitoon and Carol, but it is prefaced with a short account of yet
another bride, Afshan. She, at fifteen, is given in marriage to Qasim, a boy of ten, just because her father
Resham Khan has not been able to repay the loan he took from the boy's father, Arbab, a year ago. So
Afshan is sold into marriage to compensate for her father's failure to repay the money. This is not a pre-
arrangement settlement, but is done to prevent a blood feud. The amount of money is not significant; it
could have been ten rupees or a thousand rupees, the daughter was available anyway. This transaction
reveals the status of woman as nothing more than a bargaining commodity, whose role as such has already
been decided. The full extent of this injustice is brought into focus when it is revealed that Qasim's father
“had thought of marrying the girl himself” (8).
Afshan becomes Qasim's wife without knowing how close she had been to ending up as his step-
mother. The entire matter rested in Qasim's father's hands and the decision could have gone either way or
all without Afshan having any say in the matter at all. She is forcibly snatched from her family and
PORTRAYAL OF WOMEN IN BAPSI SIDHWA'S PAKISTANI BRIDE 178
dislocated from her home to a new environment which she now has to call the 'home'. But she, like the other
female characters, has the resilience to adapt quickly to her new environment and she easily wins the love
of Qasim's mother. Her feelings towards Qasim are maternal rather than that of the wife he expected.
Scared stiff of hismature looking bride, the boy Qasim on his wedding night slips into a corner of the room
and sobbing angrily falls asleep. Afshan lifts him to her bed, tucks his legs between her thighs and
consummates her marriage in a way. She accepts her lot cheerfully. She helps her mother-inlawwith
domestic chores and occasionally joins her in punishing Qasim for his stubbornness. He protests, “I am
your husband. How dare you!” (10)
Afshan's story encapsulates women's power of resilience. Her father has bartered her away and
married her to a boy five years younger than her but she does not lose heart. She takes command of the
situation from day one. She assists her mother-in-law in housekeeping, grooms her young husband and
bears him six children. Unfortunately, neither she nor her children survive the ravages of the epidemic.
Qasim goes to Jullundar, gets a job as watchman at a bank and lives there happily for three years. In the
wake of Partition violence he kills one person and boards a train to Pakistan. Of thousands of people, sitting
on the roof of the train, there are Sikandar, his wife Zohra with a baby on her lap and their little daughter,
Munni. The train is ambushed near the border. Zohra and Sikandar are killed among others.
Of the few lucky survivors there are Qasim and Munni. Munni clings to his legs saying, “Abba,
Abba, my Abba!” (29) For a moment Qasim is at his wit's end. Her size and sobs remind him of his own
little Zaitoon lost long ago but he suppresses his nostalgia and moves forward untangling the girl's grasp
mercilessly. She stumbles after him, screaming with terror. Fearing the danger from the noise he stops. He
takes out his knife to cut her throat but she presses herself to him for protection. He closes the knife. The girl
looks up and in her tear-stained face he finds a resemblance to his daughter. He kneels before her and the
girl looking into his eyes, says, “You aren't my Abba” (30).
At the refugee camp in Lahore, Qasim befriends Nikka Pehelwan who has come from Pannapur in
Amritsar. After spending a few days at the camp, they settle in QilaGujjarSingh. Nikka's childless wife,
Miriam, treats Zaitoon like a daughter. She is sent to a school. She passes class three. But at eleven when
she becomes pubescent, Qasim in deference to Miriam's wishes stops sending her to school. Miriam trains
her in household chores and in her spare time takes her out to her neighbours. On these visits Zaitoon gets a
glimpse of the “fecund, fetid world of mothers and babies” (55).
The writer again notices the differences between the two cultures and how Ashiq is worried about
the safety of Zaitoon. Sidhwa marks out the old world of savagery into which Zaitoon has to step in.
Zaitoon herself is aware of this and says “I cross this spot and my lifechanges…. But the step into her new
life had been taken a month back and she was moving fatefully on its momentum” (153). Although she is
just sixteen yet she is aware of her predicament, she steps into the closed world of mountains almost the
pathless wilderness. Here BapsiSidhwa comments, “Brown mountainsrose endlessly, followed far up and
away by endless snow. Before them stretched centuries of an intractable wilderness, unpeopled and
soundless. . .” (154). the nature which is attractive and majestic is also terrifying and dangerously
suffocating.
Sidhwa emphasizes the two aspects of nature and symbolically presents the eternal adventure of
man into the unknown and his struggle for the survival against the cruelty of nature. At one level Zaitoon's
struggle is a\ struggle of man against nature but at another level it is also the struggle of a woman against
both man and nature. Sidhwa sharply focuses on the significant events and situation of life into which
Zaitoon finds herself. She is revulsed by the faces around her, the rubbery bread offered to her and the cave
like huts instead of the rosy picture of her dreams. She is haunted by the unpleasantness around her and
dreams about herself, “standing by the river, admiring its vivid colours, when a hand had come out of the
ice-blue depths and dragged her in, pulling her down, down” (The Pakistani Bride 156). Her fear

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crystallizes. She senses the savagery of the people, their poverty and the harshness of their fight for
survival. “Her mind revolts at the that to share their lives she would have to become like them” (156).
The two cultures cannot meet, be they of Pakistan and America or the mountains and the plains.
Carol's conflicts are resolved when she decides to accept her failure in her marriage to Pakistani Farukh
and decides to go back to her own culture and land. Zaitoon's successfully getting the help from across the
bridge, from the Major, resolves her struggle and she may seethe light of the rising sun in her own land.The
novelist has used the bridge as a symbol of the divide between the two cultures. Zaitoon of the plains
awakens the tribal women to comprehend their plight which is crystallized in Hamida whose sympathies
are with Zaitoon and who does not want Zaitoon to be caught and killed by her own men. She feels,
“Anyway, this would teach the menfolk a lesson” (The Pakistani Bride 216).
The images and glimpses of the life of other women in The Pakistani Bride are not less
encouraging. Hamida, Miriam and Shahnaz counteract the patriarchal power in their own ways. On
hearing the voice of the ox being mercilessly beaten by her son, Sakhi, Hamida not only rushes to the spot
but flings herself at him, wedging her body between him and the ox. The cruel Sakhi does not spare even
his mother and hits her on the shoulder and the legs with his staff. She gets badly injured but she succeeds in
saving the life of the ox. Again, she feelsgreat sympathy for Zaitoon though she has run away. The very
thought that Zaitoon will be killed by her son and his clansmen fills her with disgust for their code of
honour: Honour! She thought bitterly Everything for honor and another life lost! Her loved ones dead and
now the girl she was beginning to hold so dear sacrificed. She knew the infallibility of the mountain
huntsmen. The old woman was overcome by the memory of her three dead sons: the weight of each child in
her body for nine months, the excruciating pain, drudgery, sweat: and scant years later, the heartbreak
when, one by one, each of her sons was carried home on a crude stretcher swinging from the men's
shoulders, their faces grim with the weight of the corpse under an impoverished shroud. In each grief, a
nameless dread: how many more lives would the dead one
claim? The set faces of the men, their eyes burning with hate and a lust for revenge, their old make-shift
guns forever loved and polished, the leather slings decorated with coloured bands and tassels, cherished
even more for the men they killed. Men and honour.And now the girl. . . (The Pakistani Bride 190-191).
Miriam is thoroughly a domesticated woman. She regards Qasim as brother and though they live in
the same house as one family, she seldom talks to him but when she learns of his decision to give Zaitoon in
marriage to a tribal, she gets so overwrought that she uses harsh words not only for him but also for his
whole clan. Her protest has no immediate effect as Zaitoon is married to a tribal but on the very next day of
the marriage Qasimrealizes, “Miriam after all might have been right” (166).
Nikka and Qasim, with their carnal desires fully roused, want to fall on her to satisfy their lust but
they find themselves utterly helpless as their doctored drink has fixed them to their place. They are not in
position even to sit properly. Shahnaz and her so-called mother succeed in safeguarding their
honour.Sidhwa exposes the patriarchal practices of the society which marginalize their growth and
development and also represents women's psychology that has been toned by centuries of conditioning.
Hence, we can conclude that Sidhwa as a writer has a constructive approach towards women's
predicament. By leading a contented life they paralyze their lives but if they desire they will have option to
break through their plight and get opportunities for betterment. Hence we see that all her novels end on a
positive note and no woman characteris found as a defeatist in her works. It matters little whether they
succeed in changing the course of their life or not. What is remarkable is that they never yield. They always
strive to come out of their plight. They protest and fight against injustice, exploitation and oppression with
vehemence and show the way for other women so that they may move forward from their degraded and
tormented state to start their lives afresh.Zaitoon in The Pakistani Bride manages to save her life despite the
looming threat. In the same novel, Carol, an American girl who is equally oppressed in her married life,

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decides to break free and returns to her own American culture. Hence we find that Sidhwa's women are
strongwilled, assertive and courageous. They resolve their crisis in their own way.

Works cited
Sidhwa, Bapsi. Pakistani Bride. New Delhi: Penguin Books.2000. Print.

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52
SUBALTERN RESISTANCE, SURVIVAL, AND DEATH IN
MOHAMMED HANIF'S OUR LADY OF ALICE BHATTI

Dr. D. Saraswathi, Assistant Professor, Sri.S.R.N.M College, Sattur

Abstract:
The post-colonial nations through their writers are trying to forge and present their perspective to
the world. In doing so they are using the language of their once colonial masters i.e. English, to produce
literature which aims at portraying a variant and a distinct national viewpoint besides re-writing and re-
imagining the history of their people and their nations. These 'others' previously did not have the liberty
and privilege to speak but now when they do, they are not merely responding to the world audience
including colonizers but are shouting and smashing. It is the Empire writing back. Today, the
contemporary Pakistani English novel depicts no idealization or euphoria about the post-colonial world
or the notions of patriotism but is a phase of self-realization. Novelists like Mohammed Hanif, a
contemporary Pakistani writer, writing in English have given it a distinct Pakistani flavour and have
moulded it to suit their purposes. The eponymous protagonist of Mohammed Hanif's Our Lady of Alice
Bhatti is an untouchable, lower-class Christian woman in contemporary Pakistan who is determined to
survive and surpass her subaltern status but dies a brutal death, following which her father makes a case
for her canonization. This article is an in-depth analysis of the depiction of Alice's multifaceted
subalternity and the strategies of resistance that she deploys as well as an evaluation of the portrayal of her
death to demonstrate that the novel unequivocally rejects an idealization of both subaltern life and death.

Keywords: Postcolonial literature, Pakistani fiction, satire, Hanif, Zia ul Haq regime.

In critical theory and postcolonialism, the term subaltern designates the populations which are
socially, politically, and geographically outside of the hegemonic power structure of the colony and of the
colonial homeland. In describing “history told from below”, subaltern was coined by Antonio Gramsci,
notably through his work on cultural hegemony, which identified the groups that are excluded from a
society's established institutions and thus denied the means by which people have a voice in their society.
Colonized were the subaltern of colonial era and Postcolonial societies have created their own
subaltern. Women being disempowered in every society became the subaltern of Postcolonial societies.
Phallocentric tradition has reduced the chances of women representation in literature. When a group is
entitled 'subaltern' it cannot be represented. Spivak has altogether rejected the idea of representation of the
subaltern. Spivak has called it the silenced Centre or Margin. Spivak argues that the representation of our
'subjects' are coded or framed in terms of an us/ them dichotomy in which we develop or civilize or
empower 'them.' Whenever someone attempts to represent someone else, he is already caught up in 'us'/
'them' dichotomy.
Marginalized, oppressed and disempowered are the focus of Spivak's attention. Giving voice to the
disempowered of a society is her aim. Her struggle starts from finding an appropriate word for the
oppressed to challenge their representation. Gyatri Spivak argues that there is a 'Crisis in Vocabulary'
whenever the disempowered or oppressed groups appear in the discourse. She is of the view that the master
words like 'women', 'workers' and 'the colonized' are usually used for the disempowered or oppressed
group of the society but she considered them 'deficient' for the justifiable representation of the down
SUBALTERN RESISTANCE, SURVIVAL, AND DEATH IN MOHAMMED HANIF'S OUR LADY OF ALICE BHATTI 182
trodden and marginalized groups of the society. This dissatisfaction led her towards finding new and
more appropriate vocabulary for the representation of the marginalized groups. GyatriSpivak has
selected the term 'Sublatern' for the disempowered groups of the society. Subaltern is a more fluid and
subtle term for encompassing the diverse struggles and lives of the oppressed.
Spivak argues that the disempowered became the marginalia both in the history writing and the
dominant political discourse. In this research, this fluid term 'Subaltern' is used for the women of Pakistan.
Pakistani women cannot be defined by simplification or in abstractions. They are a myriad group of people
living in diverse circumstances. The representation of subaltern is a hideous task and when these are
subaltern women, it becomes impossible. As Spivak (1988) remarks not only colonial representations are
faulty but some native representations are also problematic. Spivak has borrowed the term “Native
Informants” from Demography. She has highlighted the problems and politics of representation. In all
claims of giving voice and representing the subaltern (here Pakistani women), the Subject is further
rendered voiceless. The native informant is found guilty of a certain kind of epistemic violence which robs
them of their individuality thus further silencing them. Spivak has called the Imperial epistemic violence
just an 'imperfect allegory' of the extent of violence that is the possibility of an episteme. These Native
informants are unable to represent the subaltern women because of various reasons.
Mohammed Hanif was born in Okara, Pakistan. After leaving the Pakistan Air Force Academy to
pursue a career in journalism, he worked for Newsline, India Today, and The Washington Post. He has
written plays for the stage and screen, including a critically acclaimed BBC drama and the feature film The
Long Night (2002), Pakistan's first digital feature film. Hanif is a graduate of the University of East
Anglia's creative writing programme. His first novel, A Case of Exploding Mangoes, was published in
2008. It was long listed for the 2008 Booker Prize, and shortlisted for the 2008 Guardian First Book Award
and the 2009 Commonwealth Writers' Prize in the Best First Book category. He was head of the BBC's
Urdu Service and lived in London but moved back to Pakistan in 2008. His second book Our Lady of Alice
Bhatti won the Wellcome Book Prize.
In his second novel, Our Lady of Alice Bhatti, Mohammed Hanif explores the relationships among
caste, gender, and religion in modern Pakistan through his protagonist, Alice Bhatti. Alice is a Catholic
nurse at a corrupt and crumbling Karachi hospital, Sacred Heart Hospital for All Ailments, and the
daughter of a Catholic chuhra who travels the city curing ulcers by reciting Muslim prayers when he is not
cleaning the sewers as a lower-caste worker. In coming to work as a junior nurse at the hospital, Alice seeks
to surmount her caste and religious identity and find fulfillment through honest work.
However, at every turn of the novel Alice is confronted with the corruption and perversion that is
indicative of Pakistani life today. While treating VIP patients, Alice is molested by the patients' visiting
relations. In seeking love, she finds herself married to a thug-for-hire of the local police, Teddy, who
disappears for days at a time with his work. Even in his deep love for Alice, Teddy must give way to the
perverse speculation and advice of his crooked superior, Inspector Malangi. When paired with the advice
on marriage that Alice receives from her superior, Sister Hina Alvi, the couple falls, powerless, into a trap
of distrust.
As if trying to work a thankless job and balance an unstable marriage to a Muslim man she hardly
knows were not difficult enough, Alice finds herself suddenly engulfed in acts of divine intervention at the
Sacred Heart. It is through the juxtaposition of human baseness and seemingly miraculous events that
Hanif weaves his tale, thus exploring the bounds of humanity at both ends, in depravity and in divinity.
With a profession of love at gunpoint, a man severing his own thumb, and a laborious stillbirth, this
novel is not for the faint of heart. The action of the novel steamrolls through to the end, thus keeping readers
engaged through the last page, even if the novel does seem to end a bit abruptly. Once the action of the
novel is concluded, Hanif includes a letter from Alice's father that calls into question the nature of Alice as a

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person, a nurse, and a wife.
Much like E. M. Forster's A Passage to India, Hanif ends the novel with more ambiguity over the
very questions he begins with-namely, what roles truth and order have in current Pakistani life and whether
or not Catholic and Muslim relations can find common ground. Although the novel does not conclude as
neatly as Hanif's first novel, A Case of Exploding Mangoes, it is just as well written. What's more, the
characters who comprise Our Lady of Alice Bhatti offer more dimension than their predecessors in A Case
of Exploding Mangoes. Mohammed Hanif's second novel proves to be a deep, gritty, and exciting addition
to his literary career.
Hanif has portrayed his characters in dark shades. Alice is “rendered destitute, disenfranchised,
and economically powerless” by Hanif. There is not even a single crack left open through which a small ray
of hope can enter. Although now and then her plight rises sympathy but it is conforming the pre-existing
stereo type of a powerless Pakistani woman. Margery Fee (1989) has named such practices as “the
oppressive tactics and stereotyping romanticisation” where female characters are romanticised and
mythologized. Hanif has used the word “Choora” community for the Christians of Karachi slums, this
visual code is used to show the prejudice persistent in the people against the groups of different religions
and castes and Hanif has employed this difference as a tool to create a stereotype.
Alice Bhatti, the centre of gravity in the novel is a Christian nurse freshly returned from Borstal Jail
for Women and Children. She is introduced as a distraught woman. She is over obsessed with her
femininity and deeply frustrated. She is humiliated, maltreated and exploited again and again. The whole
atmosphere is suffocating for her. As Muhammad Hanif writes, Life has taught Alice Bhatti that every little
step forward in life is preceded by a ritual humiliation. Every little happiness asks for a down payment. Too
many humiliations and a journey that goes in circles mean that her fate is permanently in the red. She
accepts that role.
Hanif has propagated the stereotype of a typically oppressed woman. She is represented as a
tortured being. Life brings nothing but pain and humiliation to her and she has accepted that role. Alice is
depicted as the pariah of Pakistani society. She is an “untouchable “of Islamic Republic of Pakistan. She is
not depicted as a human being of free will rather a pathological condition left on the misery of fate. She
knows very well that she is from the untouchables. This reality has left her alone to accept the role assigned
to her. Hanif has drawn her character on the same lines as Farber writes about the appropriate conditions for
being categorized as a pariah, “To be a pariah is to be shunned and isolated, to be treated as if one had a
loathsome and contagious disease…Outcasts are not merely inferior; they are not fully human and contact
with them is dangerous and degrading”.
Alice Bhatti is a part of a minority in Pakistan. Hanif has created a fictional world in which there is
a binary of Self and Other established. In this Postcolonial world, the oppressed are involved in a struggle
of survival between the Haves and Have-Nots. Postcolonial writers are trying to create a balance between
the opposites, a middle way for survival by reconciling the opposites. The Others are represented and given
voice but in Hanif's fictive world, he has further exaggerated the Otherness of Alice Bhatti and as a result he
has strengthened the pre-existing dichotomy.
Women are depicted as a nameless category, as an ocean of nameless figures. From the herd of this
endangered species (women), only three figures are emerging. One figure is of Alice Bhatti, this is the only
neatly sketched character in the whole novel. Second character is a stern female, it is left semi-drawn while
the last one is more so a shadow. The last character is almost dead mother of Noor, suffering from three
types of cancer. She is introduced as the half dead Zainab, who is completely dependent upon her thirteen
years old son Noor.
There is a downward journey of woman's realization of herself worth as depicted by Muhammad
Hanif. These three characters represent the three stages of woman's consciousness. Alice Bhattiis a

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beautiful but poor girl. She is humiliated at every step of her life. Every small happiness demands a down
payment from her. She is struggling against the religious, cultural and patriarchal tyrannies of the society.
She is the kind of woman, who attracts the wrong type of attraction. She is represented as a weak woman.
All her life, she has been passing doctrines of passive resistance, bowing down her eyes and avoiding male
gaze. Hanif has portrayed her a weak character. One who is sure about her weakness and her nothingness.
Her nothingness is strengthened at every moment.
HinaAlvi is standing at the second stage of this earthward journey of female consciousness. Alvi
has adjusted herself into the 'absence'. She has accepted the norms and tyrannies as 'normal'. She has grown
herself into the role of a triply marginalized other. Hanif has declared her uselessness into the interview
panel that her main contribution to the proceedings was of 'licking the crimson juice occasionally dripping
from the corner of her mouth'. Only as a silent Other, she is acceptable. She is not talking, participating in
any activity while all the male members are negotiating with Alice Bhatti.
Senior Sister Hina's character symbolizes a passive woman who has to tame her consciousness.
This is the only way, a woman is acceptable in Hanif's world of fiction. She has to accept her status as lower
to men. She has to accept men as the norm, as the ultimate authority. They can shot, kick or hack a woman
but one has to behave as it is normal. Pakistani women do not question their place in Hanif's fictive world.
Teaching the same lesson to Alice Bhatti, Alvi says, “But your duty is to convince them to put it back in
their pants.You are not taught to go around hacking them”. In Hanif's world of fiction, the common sense of
Pakistani woman is moving in the reverse order. It is moving towards extinction, going to be ended soon.
The only way to survive is not to light a candle but to adjust their eyes with the darkness.
HinaAliva is a symbol of this adjustment with the darkness. She becomes the Queen of a sick
Charya world. The last stage of a traumatized female consciousness is symbolized by Zanib, the lead
pencil sketch of a female character. She is more so a shadow; a complete absence. Her lips are pursed.
Using religion, patriarchy and social oppression as tools, Hanif has completely dehumanized her. She is
pampered by her thirteen years old son Noor. She is even unable to shoo the flies off her mouth. Noor
sweeps her drippings. He feeds her. She is totally dependent upon him.
Zanib symbolizes the last stage of female consciousness. Female consciousness is dead. The fits of
unconsciousness which occasionally made Alice see a stagnant lizard on the wall, have now completely
overwhelmed Zainab. She is unconscious, she is not at all aware of her rights. She has lost her fight against
tyrannies and couched herself into a position favoured by the male members. She is in a state of complete
dependency upon male. She is fed by them, cared by them. Her consciousness is completely dead. She
cannot stand up any more. She represents a completely subjugated, silenced woman.
Such a depiction on one hand highlights the marginalized status of women in Pakistan but on the
other hand it risks the integrity of womanhood .Women are shown as passive actors, puppets whose strings
are tightened by the male members of the society. Women's lives are shadowed forever. They move from
one man to another, being kicked, punched and then sometimes bounced back. No one speaks for them, law
politics, religion, culture and tradition all are hand in glove with for the deterioration of women. Women
are doubly marginalized in the Postcolonial societies, firstly by the colonizers and secondly, by their male
members.
Hanif's emphasis is upon the marginalized status of women in Pakistan .There is no place for a
happy woman in Hanif's fictive world. All women are hopeless, only two are properly named Alice Bhatti
and HinaAlvi. Remaining all is described as nameless creatures, facing the overwhelming oppression of
the society. Such a portrayal reinforces the pre- established stereotype of a passive victim. There is no
space for a woman to educate herself. Reading this book may leads to depression and disruption. Such a
passive, victimized portrait of women threatens the individuality and courage of woman, her realization to
speak for herself and love herself as an individual of free will. Throughout the novel, there are instances of

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the objectification and commoditisation of women. Spivak has always been vocal against this
marginalization of women. This 'guise of sympathy' is threatening their individuality. They should not be
depicted as mummies forever silent, forever deaf. Women should be depicted as courageous women, who
can raise a voice for themselves. This is the only chink from where a ray of hope can enter.

Works Cited
Ahmad, I. In Theory: Classes, Nations and Literature. London: Verso. 1992. Print.
Hanif, M. Our Lady of Alice Bhatti. London: Random House Publishers. 2011. Print.
Jones, R. B. Postcolonial Representations of Women: Critical Issues for Education. Vol.18. 2011. Print.
Parmar, P., & Mirza, N. Growing Angry: Growing Strong. Spare Rib, 1981.Print.
Robins, R. Literary Feminisms. New York: St.Martin's Press Rich, 2000.Print.
Spivak,G. The Spivak Reader: Selected Works of Gayati Chakravorty Spivak.London:Routledge. 1995.
Print.

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53
GERALDINE BROOKS' YEAR OF WONDERS- A DEATH NARRATIVE

S. Sree Sakthi Prem, Ph.D. Scholar, V. O. C. College, Thoothukudi

Dr. P. T. Selvikohila, Assistant Professor, V. O. C. College, Thoothukudi

Abstract:
Reading a literary text is a process that requires the active functioning of various cognitive
facilities available at the reader's disposal. Literature is not about how a work is written but, how it is read.
The literary text is turned into a mental representation in the reader by certain processes. The act of
reading and making this representation has been illustrated by various models. Despite their differences,
they do share a common formula. In Ogden's Semantic Triangle, we find that the “symbol” (word, text) is
perceived by the “reference”or thought (idea) and is turned into the “referent” (mental representation).
“Symbol and Referent, that is to say, are not connected directly (and when, for grammatical reasons, we
imply such a relation, it will merely be an imputed as opposed to a real, relation) but only indirectly round
the two sides of the triangle” (Ogden Richards 11-12). The text may be taken here as the symbol and the
mental representation of the text can be the referent. It is not very much clear how the symbols from the text
are transformed into the referent or mental representation.

In reader response theory, Wolfgang Iser tells about the importance of this mental representation
as, “. . . the literary work has two poles, which we might call the artistic and the aesthetic: the artistic refers
to the text created by the author, and the aesthetic to the realization accomplished by the reader.”(Iser 381).
Iser has used the theory of levels by Roman Ingarden where he gives four layers to text itself. They are the
phonetic layer, the meaningful units, the represented objects and the schematized objects. Here the final
output, that is, the schematised object becomes the mental representation of the text. Hence, Ingarden also
lays foundational emphasis on the final output. Iser tells that the various processes involved in turning the
written word into the mental representation results in an awakened response.
Based on all the theories that pertain to describing the process of creating a mental representation
made out of the written word, it can be well ascertained that the relationship between the sign and the
referent is causal. This bridging of the gap between the text and its response has not been clearly stated and
is subject to confusion. One of the least disputable explanations to this gap would be the essay “The
Cognitive View of Reading Comprehension: Implications for Reading Difficulties” by Paul van den
Broek, Anne Helder, and Josefine Karlsson. In this essay, a cognitive procedure has been set up. According
to the this essay, “Inferencing Making”, “Executive Functions” and “Attention Allocation”are considered
as fundamental components. Though it is not theorized exclusively for reading narratives, it sheds
valuable explanation to the forming of mental representations. Inferences making helps to connect the gap
between the text and relevant background knowledge. Executive Functions include two cognitive
processes that occur at the time the reader is performing the act of reading. It includes “Working Memory”
and “Inhibition”. The former refers to the ability of the reader to hold on to one information at the time of
obtaining more information and hence connecting them for coherence. The latter makes the decision to
leave out pieces of information that need not be taken into the active or working memory. Attention
Allocation enables the reader to give emphasis to that part of the text that enables the rapid formation of the
mental representation of the text. These procedures are those which enable the bridging of the gap between
the sign and the referent.
GERALDINE BROOKS' YEAR OF WONDERS- A DEATH NARRATIVE 187
Inhibition as practised by the reader to leave out aspects that are useless is highly subjective. If we
take into account Julia Kristeva's concept of abjection, it refers to that aspect of our own “Self” that would
create an inevitable threat to our own existence. “. . .concept and refers to something that has been part of a
human being, but after separation from the subject it creates a threat to identity and needs to be cut loose.
The experience of abjection is also linked to dead bodies and to death itself…” (Hakola and Kivisto
Introduction ix).
The inhibition that is created by the nature of abjection imbedded deep within the human psyche
creates a sense of misasumed mental representation of a text. In literature, especially in novels, the
“Literary fiction” is a genre that has long been hailed as being difficult to enjoy as compared to the
entertaining “Popular or Genre fiction”. Literary Fiction deals with aspects of the human condition that
serves as reply to the questions of existence. One of the most eminent and crucial aspects of life and living
would be death. But people prefer to be ignorant of it. Shelley tells it clearly in this poetic line “Lift not the
painted veil which those who live/ Call Life” (Shelley line, 1-2). Beyond this so called “painted veil” is but
death. People yet, refrain from even the idea of it.
Fiction in general is a narrative format. Cognitive psychology says that reading narratives is more
difficult a task than reading facts and information. The right hemisphere of the brain requires lesser amount
of activity when taking in a string of facts. But, when reading narratives the amount of effort taken by the
spatial regions associated with the formation of mental representation of the text requires more effort. In
narratives too, the most difficult format to read and understand would be that of “literary fiction”
narratives. They offer deep connotations that are not always clearly comprehended.
Having fixed upon the key points, i.e., the process of forming mental representations and the most
difficult of narratives to make representations of, the paper will throw light upon one of the most
underrated and unappreciated genres of literature, the “death narrative”. The name by itself is an abjection
as it reminds the reader of the end. The end of life is often seen with a negative and pessimistic overtone.
“The awareness of the finitude of life may thus lead us to ponder the human condition or to structure our
lives in a meaningful way.”(Hakola and Kivisto Introduction viii). Death is that which gives life meaning.
It is the only way man can refrain from the illusions of existing. This is not a widely accepted claim.
Readers often have their referencing fixed with inhibitions based on their abjection towards death. Thus
the real purpose or philosophical insight a text pertaining to the “death narrative” is willing to inscribe
upon the reader is never truly taken in. Hence they are always commented upon as pessimistic and is
nullified in most cases as most readers prefer fiction as a escape from dreadful reality. Literary fiction and
especially the “death narrative” makes the reader face this truth.
The death narrative, when read, should kindle the reader's thoughts regarding the true purpose of
life, that is death. “Death exists, not as the opposite but as a part of life” (trans. Jay Rubin)”( Hakola and
Kivisto Introduction VIII). This statement which may be the rallying cry of the “death narrative” often
disregarded as pessimistic and a vain glorification of self pity, is but the one true source of creating hope
and salvation in existence.
Geraldine Brooks' first novel Year of Wonders can be looked at as a “death narrative”. The novel is
set in the historic setting of the plague years. The description of death as cited in this novel brings new
perspective to that all encompassing end. The protagonist, Anna Firth, is devastated psychologically due to
the number of deaths she is forced to witness. The first death that she witnessed would be that of her
husband Sam Firth. “Since then, I've tended so many bodies, people I loved and people I barely knew. But
Sam's was the first.” (Brooks 8). Anna also loses her two sons to the plague and through a series of deaths
she consequently understands her own purpose of existence. The novel could be a testament to the concept
of giving emphasis to a higher and more painful form of death. That would be the loss the people close to
the deceased suffer. In the words of Hakola and Kivisto,the “. . .abrupt physical death is (nearly) always

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GERALDINE BROOKS' YEAR OF WONDERS- A DEATH NARRATIVE 188
accompanied by a second, longer and even more painful form of death that takes place in the mind of the
survivor who has lost his loved one.”(Hakola and Kivisto introduction viii). Anna suffers from the pangs of
losing her loved ones and the rest of the story only brings her further hardship and misery.
Another important witness to death would be the rector Michael Mompellion. He was a man of zeal
and strength. He could organize sermons despite the despair that filled the whole village. At one point in the
novel, the cruel murder of his wife Elinor Mompellion, shakes Michael even of his trusted beliefs. The so
called “death narrative” makes emphasis on the effects that those who have lost their loved ones. Here, the
rector loses all belief in god, and he gives up all his benevolence.
Not many get the first hand experience to witness death. The death that takes away the loved one of
the reader, it is impossible to have a clear state of mind to respect it or to take a good impression of its
importance in life. Thus, death in literature offers the reader offers him a keener insight into the meaning of
existence. The “death narrative” should be given it place as a prominent genre or type of narrative.

Works Cited
Ogden, C. K., and I. A. Richards. The Meaning of Meaning ; a Study of the Influence of Language upon
Thought and of the Science of Symbolism, by C.K. Ogden &amp; I.A. Richards. With
Supplementary Essays by B. Malinowski and F.G. Crookshank. Harcourt, Brace &amp; World,
1964.Print.
Hakola, Outi, and Sari Kivisto, editors. Death in Literature. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2014.Print.
Reader, Author The. “Featured Poem: Lift Not the Painted Veil by Percy Bysshe Shelley.”The Reader
Blog. N.p., 06 Feb. 2017. Web. 11 Feb. 2019.
Brooks, Geraldine. Year of Wonders. London: Harper Perennial, 2008. Print.
Farner, Geir. Literary Fiction: The Ways We Read Narrative Literature. New York: Bloomsbury
Academic, 2014. Print.
Lambropoulos, Vassilis, and David Neal Miller. Twentieth Century Literary Theory: An Introductory
Anthology. Albany, NY: Published by State U of New York, 1987. Print.

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54
EXISTENTIALISM IN OLD MAN AND THE SEA

E. Elamathiyan, Ph. D Scholar, V.H.N.S.N College (Autonomous), Virudhunagar

Abstract:
th th
Existentialism is a tradition of philosophical inquiry associated mainly with 19 and 20 century
European philosophers who, despite profound doctrinal difference shared the belief that philosophical
thinking begins with human subject- not just thinking subject, acting, feeling, living human individual;
individual are responsible for giving meaning to their own lives by overcoming feeling of angst and
despair. Old Man and the Sea revolves around the life of main character Santiago who is a fisherman by
occupation. Sartre's existentialism outlines that one identity is not shaped by culture or nature but to
“exist” is exactly what forms such an “identity”. The concept of existentialism is explained in the novel
through the relationship, mood, physical struggle and inner spirit of the characters. This paper attempts to
approach the novel old man and the sea by Earnest Hemingway with a view of existentialism.

The Old Man and the Sea was the last major work of fiction by Ernest Hemingway published in
1951. This novel was awarded Pulitzer price of fiction and Nobel Prize in Literature. The novel become a
Book of the month club selection and made Hemingway a celebrity. The Old Man and the Sea has been
adapted for the screen three times. The Old Man and the Sea revolves around one central character
Santiago and another minor character Manolin. “Everything about him was old except his eyes” this shows
that though the man was very old, he wasn't weak; his thirst to achieve big was within him until it was
quenched.“The old man thin and gaunt with deep wrinkles in the back of his neck. The brown blochtes of
the benevolent skin cancer the sun brings from its reflection on the tropic sea were on his cheeks” (1).
The existentialist protagonist seeks meaning and order in chaotic and meaningless universe.
Similarly, existentialist protagonist struggles with his own sense of alienation and isolation in order to
define him or herself. “Soren Kierkegaard is generally regarded to have been the first existentialist
philosopher though he did not use the term existentialism. He proposed that each individual not society or
religion is solely responsible for giving meaning to life and living it passionately and sincerely or
authentically” (37-40).Soren said “the thing is to understand oneself, to see what God really wishes one to
do. The thing is to find a truth which is true for me”. It is important to notice the emphasis there on his
feelings about what is right and what is wrong, not necessarily what god thinks about the matter.
Literature mostly followed the socio economic topics. The feeling of war, depression and vainness
of life appeared in existential work or absurd drama, novel etc. as a branch of philosophy, existentialism
focus on human existence through its meaning varies from philosopher to philosopher. Whatever the
variation, an existentialist generally assumes that the existence precedes essence and the significant fact is
that things have no meaning on their own as we through acting upon them can create meaning.
“Existentialism became popular in the years following World War II, and strongly influenced many
disciples besides philosophy, including theology, drama, art, literature and psychology” (Vol XIII).
The novel The Old Man and the Sea was written in time of significant political changes in Cuba.
Just for the atmosphere of the 1950s, it is added that the post war Europe lived under the thread of cold war.
These changes were essential for the lives of many people and there is no doubt that literature stayed at the
end of general interest. Jean-Paul Sartre claims that the fundamental truth of existentialism is in Descartes
formula “I think therefore, I exist” (Vol XI). Existentialism basically urges us to live our lives to the fullest,
EXISTENTIALISM IN OLD MAN AND THE SEA 190
according to our own individual understanding. The message of existentialism is simple as it can be. It is
that every one of us, as an individual, is responsible for who we are, responsible for the way we face and
deal with the world. It is, in a very short phrase “the philosophy of no excuse!”(15-21). One can see in the
novel Santiago and Manolin lead their lives on their own will.
Hemingway uses external conflicts between Santiago and the fisherman, the fish, and the struggle at
the sea to enforce the idea of existentialism. He emphasizes the uniqueness of individuality, freedom of
choice and outcome of ones action. Within the external conflicts, with his inner sprit Santiago raises above
as an individual.
There is no reason or meaning to the old man having lost his luck at fishing,
he was a old man who fished alone in the skiff in the Gulf streams and he had gone 84 days
now without taking a fish. In the first forty days a boy had been with him. But after forty
days without a fish the boys parents had told him that the old man was now definitely and
finally salao, which is the worst form of unlucky and the boy had gone at their order in
another boat which has caught three good fish the first week.(1)
The old man was lonely and was not worried about other people's thought “they sat on the terrace
and many of the fisherman made fun of the old man and he was not angry” (2). The fisherman teased him
constantly and Santiago didn't care. He made the choice not to care or listen to what other people said. His
choice not to give up nor chance made him an individual.
Santiago shows freedom of choice when he went alone in his skiff for three days beyond all people
in the world. He know people did not fish far out as it could be dangerous. His action of fishing far out
caused him to starve in the sea. The concept of deep sea and being alone is life threatening but it did not fear
Santiago like others through this action he proves to be an individual who follows his own idea and
thoughts. He overcame his hunger, nausea, cramps and sleeplessness to follow his decision.
Santiago's choose to pursue marlin, stay with it the entire way, and fight tooth and nail at the end
“my choice was to go there to find him beyond all people”(4) is how Santiago explains his action to
challenge the fish. He explains how he was born to be a fisherman and by chasing the marlin, he will give
his life the meaning of existence. He chose to kill a fish who was like his brother “fish, I love you and
respect you very much. But I will kill you before this day ends”(19)When it comes to final struggle,
Santiago pits all of the pain, strength and pride he has left against the fish in order to bring it down.
Santiago also insists on staying with the fish until one of them is dead, which exemplifies his will to
fulfil his goals in life “fight them, he said. Ill fight them until I die”(43) He was attacked by sharks and
injured. He chose to stay and to endure. He had opportunity to walk away but did not. His choice of
catching marlin caused him physical and mental suffering.Even through all his struggle he never let
despair take over him “think about something cheerful old man”(47). Even when he finally lost to the
galanos he chose to justify his action by saying “I went out too far”(45). Santiago wanted to prove his
existentialism by bringing back the merlin's skeleton and kept it tied to his boat. Santiago value allowed
him to take charge of his life.
The outcome of Santiago actions made him a role model for his apprentice fisherman Manolin.
Santiago did not hide from the fisherman when they made fun of him. Santiago still had hope. He did not
allow negative ideas and thoughts to drag him down. Santiago attitude towards life was inspirational to
Manolin. The old man's obstacle made Manolin to make his own decision in life and to be an individualist
“but there is only you”(136).Existentialist finds the beauty in themselves and makes their own decision.
They do not follow society. Existentialists have freedom of choice and take responsibility for their actions.
Santiago has his own value in life. He lived life differently, made his own decision and questioned the
social orders.

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EXISTENTIALISM IN OLD MAN AND THE SEA 191
Works Cited
Descartes, R. Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting Ones Reason and of Seeking Truth in the
Sciences. 1637. Print.
Hemingway, E. The Old Man and the Sea. Penguin Books, 1970. Print.
Guignon and Pereboom, Derk, Charles B. Existentialism: basic Writings. Hackett Publishing, 2001. xiii.
Print.
Lowrie, Walter. Kierkegaard's attack upon Christendom. 1969. Print.
Sartre, J.P. Existentialism and Humanism. Trans. and introd. Philip Mairet. London: Macquarrie, J.
Existentialism, New York, 1972. Print.
Sartre, J.P. Being and nothingness. Trans. Hazel E. Barnes, Washington Square Press. 1984. Print.
Solomon, R.C. No. Excuses: Existentialism and the Meaning of Life. The teaching company lecture series.
2000.
---.Being and Nothingness. trans: Barnes, H.E. London: Routledge. 2002. Print.
Watts, Michael. Kierkegaard. 2003. Print.

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55
EMERGENCE OF NEW WOMAN IN NAYANTARA SAHGAL'S
THIS TIME OF MORNING

R. Rajeev Kumar, Ph.D. Scholar, V.H.N.S.N. College (Autonomous) Virudhunagar

Dr. A. K. Muthusamy, Associate Professor of English, V.H.N.S.N. College Virudhunagar

Abstract:
The mid-20th century saw the upsurge of a new awareness about the women's marginalized
position resulting into the birth of women's liberation movement. Literature, as it mirrors society, could not
remain unaffected by the women's subjugation in society especially patriarchal society. The post-
independence period has brought the women novelists by a creative release of feminine sensibility in
Indian English fiction.The position of women has given a clarion call to women to emerge as a 'new
women' journeying towards freedom. The concept of 'New Women' with a “new morality” based on reason
and justice is of recent origin, struggling to grow into any reasonable form. This research article focuses
on the concept of Indian Woman in Nayantara Sahgal's This Time of Morning.

Keywords: Feminism, Marriage, Struggle, New Women.

Sahgal's This Time of Morning has portrayed modern women who can envision life on a broader
canvas unlike the traditional women depicted in A Time to be Happy who cannot think beyond marriage. In
this novel, the women characters are bold enough to take non-conventional path; they even dare to walk-
out from their marriages if they feel uncomfortable in their married life. M.L. Malhotra in Bridges of
Literature precisely observes “If Nayantara Sahgal's women characters have any passion; it is longing to
be free, freedom from all restraints in word and deed, being their monomania” (224).
Two different shades of women characters have been portrayed by Sahgal in this novel; one is flag
bearer of older generation while another is from younger generation. Mira, who represents first shade, has
shown complete devotion for her husband Kailas, while same is not reflected back by Kailas towards her.
However, she has been able to enjoy martial harmony and bliss as she has, right from the beginning of her
marriage, agreed to identify herself not only with Kailas but also with his cause for his country and the
effort to be put in for the same. This mindset enables her to set unison with her husband's cause and to come
on terms with her identity.
In contrast, her daughter Rashmi shocks Mira when she bluntly apprises about her willingness for
getting divorce. It is difficult for Mira to comprehend the mental state of Rashmi and alike cases, when they
are undergoing dilemma as it is very difficult for them to comprise with selfhood. Rashmi fully believes in
living the life to the fullest and to cherish it, but her failed marriage saps her energy and enthusiasm for life
and makes her feel suffocating like, 'moth trapped in cement'(TTM 44). Though, she suffers a lot due to
incompatibility with Dalip right from the beginning, but initially she is not very much clear about the next
course of action. This state of indecision is due to her upbringing in the conventional environment of
households, where girls are educated to be non-assertive and silent followers.
This deep rooted training from childhood has kept herself glued to marriage life and made her to
remain faithful towards it even when she is not happy with it. But she got the much needed solace from a
stranger Neil Berenson who hailed from peace institute of Europe. His company has provided her relief for
the time being, from all tensions and miseries Rashmi realizes that Neil belongs to the present “age of
EMERGENCE OF NEW WOMAN IN NAYANTARA SAHGAL'S THIS TIME OF MORNING 193
impermanence, of brief meetings and partings. It was not the setting for completeness of any sort. One's
self was burden enough. Who would take on another total commitment, another portion of weakness and
strength, good and bad, courage and fear”? (TTM 219-220).
Rashmi's search for selfhood has led her to various places and persons and finally she is able to find
her the destination in the form of Rakesh. Rashmi definitely does not come under the category of modern
woman as she lacked firmness depicted by Simirt in The Day in Shadow and Anna in Mistaken Identity.
S.K. Yadav in his article “Feminism in India and Nayantara Sahgal exile and sharpened sensibility”
rightly remarks:
Rashmi who wants to be and finally comes out of marriage vow, indulges in extramarital
affairs with a Danish man Neil Berensen, a divorcee himself, and also wants to have a
permanent or long term relationship after being denied by Neil, she rediscover herself but
without being injured and having any guilt for her sexual encounter with him. It is her own
conscious desire -a relationship based on equality. No one is a victim here rather they share
and share alike. No rape and no treachery. And when she discovers that a long term
relationship, as she desires to have, is not possible, she stops the journey there. Perhaps
Sahgal wants to convey the message through Rashmi Neil- relationship that all sorts of
relationship between man and woman are justified except rape and treachery. (42-43)
Rashmi has strong liking towards love as she believes in self-discovery with love as means for its
attainment. She finds that sharing and love based on the principles of equality may help in her journey for
self-realization. This awakening made her to visualize Rakesh as her true companion in this journey. Thus,
she is able to come out from the state of confusion at the end.
Nita is more pronounced in her search for selfhood than Rashmi. Nita attempts to find her place in
society even before marriage while Rashmi tries in this direction after failure in her marriage. She has her
own set of values, different from those imposed by her parents. Having independent attitude with disliking
for all establishments; she intends to live life on her own terms. She is basically a fun loving girl who
enjoys smoking and going to clubs but pretends before her parents. She is not a person who is to be kept
under constraints; but as and when she gets chance to move alone she makes uses most of it as per her own
likings, Sahgal in an article Women: Persons or Possessions? aptly writes that women are treated as
property: “When I heard someone remark, we never allow daughters to go out, or I can't do what my
husband would not like it, it sounded a very peculiar alien jargon. As if, I thought women were property not
persons” (iv).
Nita in her quest to express herself needs freedom and independence; while her parents are very
much averse of such ideas. Although they allow her to take up a job but that decision is under pressure as
job is offered by powerful minister Kalyan Sinha, and her mother cannot refuse. Betty Freidan in the book
The Feminist Mystique points the finger at such type of society: “The crisis of growing up of choosing his
identity, the decision as to what one is and is going to be, are considered only male prerogatives, and
women are told that, truly feminine women do not want career, higher education, political rights,
independence and opportunities” (68).
Nita is a character that shows defiance for conventions but at the same time appears to be adhering
to it. Nita is also very choosy and clear about her choice of husband and marriage. She is very much
opposed of idea of being, parcel bride “and intended to marry only if she finds soul mate of her choice, not
imposed by family or society. Her parents chose Vijay for her, but she wanted man who has compatibility
with her at mental level; with whom she can converse and share ideas easily” and wonders, “what about her
body and its desires ….the body that pulsated for something with an urgency she had never known?”(TTM
207), but she finally gets ready to accept Vijay as groom according to her parents” wishes. In fact, she is
fully aware that she will be treated like an object by Vijay after marriage and there are very remote chances

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of success of this marriage. She gets dreadful at some times, even with the thoughts of being physically
intimate with Vijay “She could bear all the rest forever afterwards as long as there was no first time”. Her
parent's decision was in confrontation with her desire for self-realization; In the deep inside, Nita has the
burning desire to live life on her own terms without unnecessarily carrying the burden imposed by previous
generation values and ethos. She dares to take drastic step as per the criteria of traditional society, by going
along with the man of her choice, Kalyan. When inquired about her initiative from Kalyan, she replies, I've
thought about that so often…every time I came I wondered why. I used to think about it getting into the taxi
and every minute the taxi took to come here, and all the while I was here. I didn't know why I came. I only
knew I would die if I didn't….because I wanted to and it's the only thing I've ever really wanted to do”
(TTM 307).
Nita has a strong urge to express herself and gets inclined towards Kalyan Sinha with whom she
can share her views very easily and can have space for herself. She fact that this has been entirely her
decision that has been frutified, and gave means to release her anguish over herparents and Vijay. Nita
relishes the company of Kalyan, as he has given her the hitherto unachieved opportunity for discovering
her own/be herself. “The freedom to be myself. I had never had that before. I'd never had known it but for
you” (TTM 307). Regardless of the risky freedom to be herself which Nita deviously enjoys, she still
believes in the institution of arranged marriage while Kalyan sees marriage as an “act of barbarism”
Although Kalyan is not her decided man, yet her deep desire for self-realization has driven her towards
Kalyan. Dr. Kanupriya in her article Feminist Consciousness in the Novels of Nayantara Sahgal rightly
remarks:
In the character of Nita in This Time of Morning Sahgal explores the place of women in
Indian society before marriage and the kind of freedom young women desire outside
marriage. Sahgal refers to the rigid codes in a traditional society when a young girl reaches
puberty; her movements are restricted, whereas marriage seems to be a license to do the
things hitherto prohibited. Nita resents the idea of an arranged marriage. To her this kind of
marriage does not offer any prospect of fulfillment” (47).
Leela represents similar case just like Nita who hails from similar traditional background with not
much acquaintance with freedom. These women don't know how to deal with much freedom if they
suddenly get it. In absence of clarity of thoughts, this may lead to doom as they get easily misguided. It may
be inferred that such false impression of freedom is equally dangerous/harmful just as the shackles of
orthodox conventions. Her husband still remains indifferent towards Uma, which provokes her towards
any male that comes her way. This is the gory details of a social system with no room for individual
freedom and gratification. Sahgal herself says that through Uma, she wants to show that: “A woman is not
allowed to be a woman in orthodox thinking. She has to be good and good means virtuous in the sense of
chaste. Uma was a woman with appetites that her husband could not satisfy, so she indulged them
elsewhere. Men do it and there is no comment” (114).
Uma Mitra is victimized by the existing social system which is virtually not in favour of individual
freedom. Uma, who is younger to him by fourteen years, is amazed to know that: “What is taken for
granted in man is horrifying in woman. Even in this day and age. Imagine it's a man's privilege to get drunk,
for instance and no one thinks him any worse for it, or to be a liberate or other thing. Important or frigid or
whatever they call it. It never matters everyone thinks it's all right” (TTM 226).
When young Uma cannot finds any means of self expression in her marriage, with older Arjun
Mitra, she gives liberated sovereignty to her sensuousness though flaunting traditional values. This creates
'a labyrinth of tortured vanity', a sort of, 'abysmal gulf' in their relationship. Uma lacks self-expression in
her marriage to Arjun Mitra and turns towards Neil because in his company she has the feeling of freedom
and the sense of release and joy in the activity of painting. Just like Rashmi, Uma also feels very

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comfortable and at ease in the company of Neil. Neil helps her in developing/involving into an integrated
person, “Go back to it….So often one can't get to particular person or a situation but one can to art and
music and the writing of a poem The years don't matter, except in the sense they have enriched and added
something, so one goes back with an advantage” (TTM 229).
Dr. Kanupriya in her article Violence and Loneliness in Nayantara Sahgal's Major Novels remarks:
Instead of love, self-gratification becomes the basis of marriage for man and he usually
deprives woman of togetherness and warmth. The denial of love can deviate from the social
norm sometimes. Sahgal deals with anomie in human situation in This Time of Morning.
Arjun Mitra…The brilliant successful officer however, remains absorbed in his
officialdom……Uma longs for his love and company, but Arjun “condemned himself to an
isolation where she could never reach or touch him again Uma was dead” for him …His
indifferent behaviour makes her so desperate emotionally and sexually that she takes to
drinking and moving alone with men, deviating from the social norms (61).
Thus, Sahgal has portrayed the emergenceof new women who look beyond marriage in her novel
This Time of Morning incontrast with older and younger generation. The couples Kailas and Mira represent
older generation whereas Rashmi, Nita and Uma, stand for the new women who require total involvement
without self-effacement in marriage.

Works Cited:
Arora, Neena, Nayantara Sahgal and Dorris Lessing.New Delhi: Prestige Books, 1991Print.
Friedan, Betty. The Feminine Mystique. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1965. Print.
Kanupriya. “Feminist Consciousness in the Novels of NayantaraSahgal.” New lights on Indian Women
Novelists in English. Vol II. Ed. Amar Nath Prasad. New Delhi: Sarup and Sons, 2004, Print.
---.“Violence and Loneliness in Nayantara Sahgal's Major Novels.” Indian Women Writers in English:
New Perspectives Ed. Sathupati Prasanna Sree, New Delhi: Sarup and Sons, 2005, Print.
Malhotra, M.L. Bridges of Literature. Azmer: Sunanda Publications,1971, 224 Print.
Sahgal, Nayantara. “Women: Persons and Possessions?”The Hindustan Times, Sunday Magzine,19 July,
1970, iv. Print.
Yadav, S.K. “Feminism in India and Nayantara Sahgal Exile and Sharpened Sensibility.” Critical
Responses to Feminism,Ed. Binod Mishra, New Delhi: Sarup and Sons, 2006, 42-43. Print.

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56
SHASHI DESHPANDE'S NARRATIVE TECHNIQUE

Dr. P. Andrews Kennedy, Lecturer in English, Sri Shankara Bhagavathi Arts & Sci., College,
Kommadikottai

Abstract:
Technique is an important aspect of creative writing's Shashi Deshpande believes that fiction
writers have many choices at their disposal while narrating a story. And she believes that once a choice is
made the writer has to be faithful and meticulous about it. As a matured writer she has been conscious of
the significance of this aspect of fiction writing right from the beginning. She learnt the secrets of
craftsmanship assiduously.

Shashi Deshpande believes in being brief, concise, and precise. She was never melodramatic in her
writings. In an interview, she told Lakshmi Halmstrom: “I learnt about language. Craftsmanship is so
1
important in writing and you only learn it by doing it” . Deshpande's writings prove that art lies in
concealing art. The highly functional language with effective economy of words that she uses is an
important asset of hers as a fiction writer. While revising her manuscripts she takes a closer look at her
language and is very particular with her usage of it. Her handling of the English language is rooted in her
background. Her writings reveal the complexities of the modern woman's predicament. Her use of English
is racy and lucid. She has clearly shown, in the words of Salman Rushdie, how “English could be bent and
kneaded until it spoke in an authentically Indian Voice”2.
She has been so much careful about the technique in her fiction. Her writings are singularly free
from strain form has never been allowed to smother content of her works. Consequently despite their
serious tone and tenor her novels make a fascinating reading. One may find in her novels, an occasional
autobiographical strain, but her characters and incidents are not directly lifted from her own life. The
novelist only makes creative use of her experience and memories in her works. This is particularly true of
her early writings. She says approvingly to Geetha Gangadharan thus, “most of what a creative writer
3
writes is autobiography, is not of his life, of his thoughts. All one's life doesn't go into writing” .
It may, however, be remembered that the novelist does not always give her thoughts to the first
person narrator. The first person may be someone also in the world. The autobiographical flashes impart
human interest and credibility to her works. Memory plays a significant role in her novels. The narrative
keeps on moving back and forth in time.
The non-linear arrangement in her novels gives the narration, the integrative structure they obtain.
The novelist also uses some devices like the stream of consciousness technique; and the narrations like
flashback, “light of memory', interior monologues and so on to probe into the psyche of her characters.
Dashpande views her wirings as a 'multi-coloured patch work quilt'. Creditably enough this kind of
presentation never designates into a senseless collage. She does not write for foreign readers and there is no
attempt in her novels at window-dressing and so her characters remain in their locale's.
Because she does not write for Western readers, her novels are free from stuffing and padding
which had affected even some very competent, Indian novelists' writings. Her novels have an interesting
beginning and both the beginning and the end are convincing. She never takes her reader's naivete and
credulity nor does she give unexpected jolts to them. Most of her novels and short stories appear open
ended, and the reader is free to supply the conclusion the way he deems it fit. This has been done to
SHASHI DESHPANDE'S NARRATIVE TECHNIQUE 197
encapsulate the reality, which is certainly not unidirectional. For her fictional concerns and art, she has
made a niche for her among the Indian English novelists.
While her short stories follow conventional linear narrative structures, often in the first person
narrative, her novels have a more complex structure. They have digressive patterns with the present
juxtaposed with flashbacks from the past. Most of her novels and many of her short stories are in the form
of the first person narrative. And it is usually the protagonist herself who is narrating it. It is through her
point of view that we are watching the action. It is true that when the protagonist tells her own story she
doesn't have the mobility or sources of information that a witness has. She is limited to her own thoughts
and feelings and the angle of view of that of fixed centre. But when the aim of the novel is to pursue the
personality development of the protagonist, the first person narrative suits well.
K.S. Ramamurti has rightly pointed out, regarding the first person narration: “The strands of
personal and autobiographical elements running through these novels are so pronounced that it is so
4
difficult to measure the gap between the 'I' of the narrator and the real self of the writer” .
In spite of this restriction imposed by the single point of view, Shashi Deshpande has created an
extremely authentic picture of Indian reality. The authenticity of description in any novel has immense
value. Like the romance, the action cannot be located in a forest or a castle. The novelist's characters are
contemporary figures moving in a concrete world. So, they have to be localized. Localization in a novel is
actually planting the characters in an environment within which they can act out their stories.
In the novel The Dark Holds No Terrors the narrative follows the alternating patterns of the third
person narrative and the first person narrative. Deshpande uses first person narrative for the present and the
third person narrative for the past actions. The story opens with the description of Saru's nightmare; then
she understands that it is not a dream but a reality and the man is none other than her husband himself. The
nightmare is used as a device to confuse the dreamer and the reader. Saru would much prefer it to be a
nightmare rather than talk about it to Manu and confirm the fact that he is a sadist. But the body aches and
bruises blaringly assert that the happening is real.
Saru's return to her mother's house is an action in the present. The rest of the narrative meanders
from present to past and vice-versa. Saru also indulges in flashback exercises when she sees the 'Attar tray'
and rose water sprinklers in the almirah in her mother's house. The first part of the novel is narrative in the
third person. Part two and three are narrated in the first person. Again the narration shifts to third person in
the fourth part. There are too many turns and twists taking the readers backwards and forwards in time.
While reviewing her life Saru sees all the incidents in her life - from her birth to the present -
confused state of ennui in flashback and the reader gets the whole picture of Saru's life in bits and pieces.
Her stock taking in her material house is not a journey from innocence to experience rather it is a review to
find out leisure how to save her marriage from going to rocks.
In the process she brings to forefront all her problems, her pitfalls, her ego trips of non-
communication with her mother and her husband, her drawbacks in not giving herself fully to the children
and her failure as a daughter, wife and mother.
Deshpande does not use the omniscient story telling method here and this makes the novel a
complex one. Saru indulges in interior monologues and soliloquy while reviewing her life but most of the
one she is a thoughtful and pensive mood recalling all the forgotten memories of her life. And this she does
in minute details reliving even the agonies and anger.
Roots and Shadows, Binding Vine, That Long Silence, are first person narratives with the
protagonists returning to the past to find solutions to her present problems. The past and the present are thus
strongly bound to each other. The protagonists seem to be progressing from a given state of mind to a more
positive state as the narrative proceeds. However, this is no 'bildungsroman' or the 'innocence to
experience' kind of progress mainly because the protagonists do not grow up in the sense that the heroes of

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a bildundgsroman do. The progress lies purely in the protagonist's recognition of her situation, and her
resolve to change it.
Deshpande's technique is the Order-Disorder-New order structure, as her protagonists decide to
arrest and wrest their self-respect and identity from patriarchal society. She follows a technique similar to
that of Indian regional cinema. The narrative moves in flashback, from past to present, creating the
background through minute details and picking up a single moment for closer scrutiny. The novelist is of
the opinion that that is how life is seen. Her methods fuse the modernist, the post-modernist and the
traditional story-teller.
The digressive intermittent quality of indigenous narrative whose influence Deshpande has
acknowledged as moulding the mind of every Indian is reflected in the structure of the novel That Long
Silence. The influence of post-modernism shows in the metafictionality of her novels where each of her
protagonist is a writer pre-occupied with the act and art of writing. All her novels employ deconstructive
structuralism to foreground the hidden ideologies of gender. The narrative of TheBinding Vine seeks to
recover the lost writings of an unknown woman writer, Mira.
In her novels she presents a balance between tradition and modernity. By tradition she means those
values of security and harmony that symbolizes the Indian way of life, while modernity essentially refers
to the assertion of the independent, individual self. Deshpande compares her protagonists with women
from an earlier generation as well as with women from lower class in her novels. Through her
representation of these women, she suggests that some of the older women and the lower class women,
devoid of the freedom and choice of the protagonists, are strong women determined to better their lives.
The protagonists learn from these minor characters that it is they who have to make life possible by
standing up for themselves and resisting oppression. By portraying the minor characters and the
protagonists together, Deshpande seems to be suggesting a reworking of the Indian idea of womanhood
which recognizes both reality of Indian society and repudiates stereotypes about woman.
Although Deshpande's primary focus is on man-woman relationship in Indian marriages, she also
concerns herself with the exploration of various human relationships within family. It is in this respect that
she progresses from the particular to the universal. The protagonists' recall of the traditional precepts from
the Gita and Mahabharata emphasizing larger existential questions is a piece in this respect. The basic
solitariness f human beings (Dark Holds No Terrors), the recognition of responsibility in choice making
(That Long Silence), the meaning of dharma in one's life (The Binding Vine) are serious metaphysical
issues that subtly envelop Deshpande's works and take them beyond the feminist concerns. Deshpande's
human centeredness makes her more than just a significant woman writer of our times.
In Roots and ShadowsDeshpande follows the Order-Disorder-New Order technique of story
telling. In the first chapter itself the end of the novel is mentioned. This fact of the end being mentioned
right at the outset is in itself a unique technique of narration adopted by the novelist. Though this may be
viewed, as anti-climax by some it should be mentioned that the novelist has successfully maintained the
interest and the curiosity of the reader throughout the novel. This the novelist has observed instead of
introducing the supposed to be anti-climax technique.
The readers understand the other characters in the novel only through the eyes of Indu. Though this
technique is adopted, the novelist has successfully and methodically taken pains to ensure that the
portrayal of other characters through main characters has not been mired by the views and experiences of
the narrating character with respect to the other characters portrayed in the novel. This again shows the
professional approach to narration by making the entire process of narration unbiased and realistic.
Indu Under narrates her seventeen years of her married life with Mohan in bits and pieces along with
her childhood experiences and ordeals. Then onwards the novelist has adopted the stream of consciousness
technique till the end of the novel. Jaya lives in the present and recalls all the past hurtful incidents and

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wallows in painful sorrow. Through her eyes the readers see the crude mother, the smart and shrewd
brothers, the dominating husband, the indifferent children, the disappointing neighbours, the taunting
relatives, the helpful servants, the infatuated elderly neighbours, etc.
The novel is divided into four parts. At the end of each part and before the beginning of the next part
there is a blank page, which is indicative of the long silence suffered by the protagonist. The stream of
consciousness technique makes the story true of life. Jaya's interior dialogues again help the readers to get
a clear picture of her masochistic moods and thoughts. The area of operation is just the Dadar flat. All other
houses are in memory.
The autobiographical strain in the novel cannot be dismissed. Sometimes the 'I' of Jaya and that of
Deshpande merge so finely that the reader is under confusion where one ends and where the other begins.
The novelist craftily and subtly deals with the autobiographical strands in the novel. These strands may not
generally be visible to casual reader of the novel. Only a serious reading will enable the reader to know the
presence of such autobiographical strands in the novels.
Technically speaking, the novel The Binding Vinecane be called a pure novel. It has the action
divided into four evenly balanced parts. There is very scanty physical action shown. In The Binding
Vineonly two places are described - Bombay and Ranidurg. But in both the descriptions the place interest is
almost negligible; only the palatial house at Ranidurg has scenic interest. Emphasis is always laid on
human relationships, behaviour and mutual acts. The action of the novel begins in part One, gathers gears
and develops in part Two and Three and reaches the Aristotelian end in the last part.
The narrative technique in The Binding Vineis the first person autobiographical type. Urmila, the
heroine is the narrator, and remains as the pivot of the plot, who connects all the threads in the plots the
stories of Mira, Sakutai and Kalpana, Vanaa and Harish, Kishore and Amrut, Inni and Akka, Anu and
Baiajji, and the obscure figure of Mira's husband and Bhaskar and Malcolm. It is Urmila's agony at the
death of Anu, which weaves all emotions and themes into unity. The novelist powerfully projects the
intensity of her emotions and experiences.
The central symbolism in the novel is contained in the title of the novel. Urmila is like an oak and the
infant Anu is like a creeper around her. The daughter-mother relationship between Urmila and her mother
Inni is expressed through the image of a plant. Inni is compared to tender plant. Thus Shashi Deshpande
makes an effective use of narrative techniques and has established herself as a supreme novelist.

Works Cited
Gangadharan, Geetha. “Denying the otherness.” The Fiction of Shashi Deshpande.Ed. R.S. Pathak. New
Delhi: Creative Books, 1998:253.Print.
Ramamurthi, K.S. Rise of the Indian Novel in English, New Delhi, Sterling Publishers 1987.Print
Holmstrom, Lakshmi.“Shashi Deshpande Talks to Lakshmi Holmstrom.”The Fiction of Shashi
Deshpande.Ed. R.S. Pathak. New Delhi, Creative Books, 1998.Print.
Rushdie, Salman.Imaginary Homelands.London: Grant Books, 1991.Print.

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57
SOCIAL REALISM IN BHABANI BHATTACHARYA'S SO MANY HUNGERS!

Dr. C. P. Swathimuthu, Assisstant Professor, Rajapalayam Rajus' College, Rajapalayam

Dr. A. K. Muthusamy, Associate Professor, VHNSN College (Autonomous), Virudhunagar

Abstract:
So Many Hungers! is one of the most acclaimed novels of Bhabani Bhattacharya. Bhatacharya
presents a moving and a lacerating account of one of the most horrible and often down tragedies that
struck Bengal. He portrays the angst and trauma of the famine-afflicted people with touching and realistic
manner. The novel is a realistic piece of fiction with its graphic, grim, gripping description of the grinding
poverty of the people and their pity cry for food. This paper aims to show Battacharya's realistic portrayal
of social issues.

Keywords: Realism, poverty, famine, hunger.

Bhabani Bhattacharya, the most acclaimed novelist of his time, is well-known for his realistic
portrayal of India in his novels. His Ph D degree in History helped him to assimilate the literary concepts of
great, famous English writers and develop an intuitive knowledge of a wide range of themes and subjects
and as well as of their different stylistic features in consonance with their subjects chosen. His profound
study of English literature deepened his literary consciousness and his knowledge of historical theories
sharpened his sensibility.
Bhattacharya is not interested in the famous dictum of Art for Art's sake. His novels express his
fictional theory of 'Art for Society's sake. He writes novels to promote social good. His novels convey a
strong social message. Bhattacharya in his interview to Sudhakar Joshi makes a policy-statement, as it
were with regard to his role as a committed social artist: “I hold that a novel must have a social purpose . . .
Purposeless art and literature which is much in vogue does not appear to me a sound judgement” (“An
Evening with Bhabani” vii). Each of his novels fictionalizes a social problem. This does not mean that all
his novels are a mere social document written in a dull, monotonous style. His art of characterization and
his 'live' style (a style that animates and sparkles) breathe a new life and spirit into characters.
So Many Hungers! is the debut and the most acclaimed novel of Bhabani Bhattacharya. The novel
is woven out of the hideous and dreadful Bengal Famine of 1943. The novel So Many Hungers! is a rich
tribute to Bhattacharya's highly refined artistry and imaginative power and historical perspective and is
discerningly linked to the freedom struggle of India with a deep sense of national and patriotic fervour.
Commenting on the author's creativity, and touching portrayal of the angst and trauma of the famine -
affected people, Balram S. Sorot observes, “So Many Hungers! is one of the finest pieces of creative
writing born out of the agonized torment of body and spirit endured by the sacred soil of Bengal during the
hideous famine years and the early stages of the Second World War” (17).
Nearly the lives of two million people were consumed by the fierce, wild and voracious fire of
famine. History mourns it and terms it as the Bengal Famine of 1943 which, as M. K. Naik puts it, “crushed
millions under its devastating truculence” (120). Nehru, endowed as he was with a poetic power of a high
order and deep sensitivity to human suffering and death, dolefully observes, bringing out the dreadful
intensity of the appalling hunger and density of death caused by it: “. . . . But here death had no purpose, no
logic, no necessity: it was the result of man's incompetence and callousness, man-made, a slow-creeping
SOCIAL REALISM IN BHABANI BHATTACHARYA'S SO MANY HUNGERS! 201
thing of horror with nothing to redeem it, life merging and fading into death looking out of its shrunken
eyes and with frame while life still lingered for a while” (14). The horrible impact of hunger and the
consequent death continue to haunt the novelist's memory and sensitive soul and he continues to make a
reference to it in his novels He Who Rides a Tiger and Shadow from Ladakh and other novels.
The Bengal Famine of 1943, as Nehru has rightly diagnosed, was man-made, was wrought by
vicious, vile, expectative human nature with scant regard for humaneness. With considerable concern,
anguish and sadness K. R. Srinivasa Iyengar observes: “So Many Hungers! is no doubt an impeachment of
man's inhumanity to man, but it is also a dramatic study of a set of human beings trapped in a unique tragic
predicament” (414).
So Many Hungers! is an appropriate amalgamation of art and life. It exemplifies the definition of
literature as a subtle coalescence as well as an astonishing reflection of life as observed and experienced by
the author. Bhattacharya achieves with éclat and zest this distinction of marrying of realistic and authentic
portrayal of the squalor and starvation, terrifying, macabre scenes of hunger and death with commendable
creative ardour.
Malta Grover comments: “It was his sense of social realism which made him react with particular
moral vigour and indignation to the Great Famine of Bengal” (78). Kwaja Ahmed Abbas, as quoted by
Malta Grover, also observes that So ManyHungers! And He Who Rides a Tiger are “two of the most
significant novels written by Indians in the English language and among the aptest illustrations of social
realism” (79).
It is relevant to point out that Bhattacharya has made insightful exploration in his novel of various
dimensions of hunger. With his powerful imaginative power, exceptional narrative skill and historical
sensibility Bhattacharya has injected new vigour and life into the past happenings and transformed them
into an absorbing story without transgressing historical exactness. 'Hunger' in this novel, has a variety of
meanings and implications and Bhattacharya examines them all with creative zeal; it has a multiple
perspective. Hunger for food is its primary meaning. It also implies hungers of different kinds. It has its
astounding variations which astonish and confound Bhattacharya himself who places an exclamatory
mark after the caption So Many Hungers! Its diversity is simply stunning and breath-taking; hunger for
power and authority, hunger for freedoms, hunger for sex, hunger for a happier life for the common man.
The novel So Many Hungers! is an exemplication of various forms of hunger.
The story of the novel comprises two families the family of Rahoul, his wife Monju, brother
Kunal, father Samarendra Basu, Grandfather 'Dadu' and the other one includes the family of Kajoli (the
female protagonist), her husband Kishore, her mother and father and their elder son Kanu and younger son
Onu, Rahoul and 'Dadu' and some other characters are associated with the National Struggle for Freedom
carried on by great and selfless leaders like Gandhi and Nehru. Gandhi and Nehru are invisible characters,
though their dynamic presence is felt throughout the novel and references are made to them and their
speeches and thoughts and views.
The novel Hungers! abounds in incidents and episodes that illustrate the distress, sufferings and
struggles and eventual death caused by prolonged hunger. Bhattacharya shows how extreme hunger has
driven people to indulge in deeds that are ignoble, disgraceful and high inhumane. If intense hunger can
debase a man or woman, it can also bring to light the hidden virtue of kindness and humanism.
Bhattacharya develops the theme of hunger through a series of incidents or episodes which bring
into sharp focus the pains and privations of the poor villagers, their forced migration to Calcutta in search
of food and jobs to sustain themselves and their innumerable sufferings and hardships on their way. For
instance, Kajoli suffered sexual assault from a soldier. One can also refer to Kajoli's bitter experiences in
Calcutta and her encounter with a procuress from her brother.
There are moving, lacerating scenes showing how unbearable hunger has an agonizing impact on

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people. It is clear that only Bhattacharya, who is a realist to the core keenly aware of the sufferings of the
poor and the down-trodden and is empathetic, can depict such scenes of misery, despair and wretchedness.
For example one can cite a mother, who has no milk to feed her crying baby, is digging a trench to bury it
alive. Jackals and vultures have their fill. Bhattacharya describes how “A woman lay stretched by the tree-
trunk, groaning, while a jackal crouched and ate her body” (140). There are many such poignant, heart-
breaking scenes. There are also scenes which bring the inherent humanism and inner goodwill in man or
woman. Kajoli's mother gifting her cow 'Mangala' to a hungry woman to feed her baby, Onu's willingness
to share the figs with a boy who needs to feed her little baby.
Bhattacharya's So Many Hungers! is an unsparing criticism of exploitative motives of man as well
as the celebration of the assertion of the good inner spirit of humanity and compassion. The novel's social
message has the power to awaken the social consciousness of man and remind him of his duty to society.

Works Cited
Bhattacharya, Bhabani. So Many Hungers! 1947. New Delhi: Orient Paperbacks. 2014. Print.
Grover, Malta. Bhabani Bhattacharya: As a Novelist of Social Conscience. New Delhi: Shalabh
Publishing House. 2009. Print.
Iyengar, Sriniwasa K.R. Indian Writing in English. New Delhi: Sterling Publishers, 2008. Print.
Naik, M.K. Aspects of Indian Writing in English. New Delhi: Macmillan, 1999. Print.
Nehru, Jawaharlal. The Discovery of India. 1946. New Delhi: Penguin, 1989. Print.
Sorot, S Balram. The Novels of Bhabani Bhattacharya, New Delhi: Prestige Books, 1991. Print.

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58
DOGME ELT: A CONSTRUCTIVE METHOD TO TEACH ENGLISH LANGUAGE

S.Vivekha, Ph.D Scholar, Noorul Islam Centre for Higher Education, Kumaracoil
Dr. Rakesh Babu. M, Asst. Prof., Noorul Islam Centre for Higher Education Kumaracoil

Abstract:
The paper entitled “Dogme ELT: A Constructive Method to Teach English Language” discusses
the importance of introducing the Dogme philosophy in language teaching. Scott Thornbuy revolutionized
a new movement in language teaching called Dogme ELT. The idea of implementing the Dogme approach
in English Language Teaching classes occupied his mind when he witnessed too much of classes being
wasted by the common teaching pedagogy. He considered the distribution of the syllabus, the writing of the
lesson plan, the placards etc... to be disturbing the flow of language teaching, since, it was an obstacle
which tends to be a barrier in the students' focus. There evolved the new teaching philosophy called Dogme
ELT. It countered all the other standard teaching pedagogies. It propagated that interest and involvement
can only kindle the students towards learning. He thought that the only way to hold on the students'
concentration was by removing all the irrelevant materials from the subject. It also relieves the teacher
from the over dependency of text book and technology. .The paper examines the importance of Dogme
language teaching. It is a communicative approach to language teaching that encourages teaching
without textbook and concentrates on conversational communication.

Keywords: Dogme, Pedagogy, Lesson plan,teaching philosophy, conversational communication.

Introduction
The prime function of language acquisition is communication. Yet sometimes the ultimate goal of
language teaching loses its importance. Teaching is a profession which is covered by a plenty of teaching
materials and resources, text books, worksheets, workbooks, DVD's, CD ROM's and websites. Due to the
availability of plenty of materials there is a danger that teachers are submerging themselves deeply into the
materials and not abiding the learning opportunities that social interaction brings their way.
The Dogme ELT movement was given birth by the article of Scott Thornbuy and his discussion
group. The Dogme philosophy in teaching provided a platform for teachers who wanted to free themselves
from the over dependency of materials and technology. It also enabled the students to express their
thoughts on the topic provided. It gives room for the students to share their thoughts, to check their
vocabulary, and to rightly pronounce. Thornbuy explains Dogme lesson as “…one that is grounded in the
experiences, beliefs, desires and knowledge of the people in the room. It is a lesson that is language-rich,
where language is used not for display but for meaningful exchange.” (Thornbuy, Scott, A Dogma for
EFL,2)
Aim of the study
The paper aims at highlighting the needs of Dogme classrooms in the present scenario, where the
learners toil and moil to conversate in L2. It also adds that Dogme pedagogy is the need of the hour since
the rote learning system is a failure at achieving the prime end of language learning (communication).
Research questions
There are certain questions raised while introducing a new methodology in language teaching and
learning, having those things in mind the paper tries to find answer for the following questions.
DOGME ELT: A CONSTRUCTIVE METHOD TO TEACH ENGLISH LANGUAGE 204
1. What are the problems in introducing Dogme ELT classes?
2. Will there be a clash in the traditional and the Dogme classroom?
3. Can the students shift easily to the Dogme approach?
4. What is the role of the teacher in this pedagogy?
History of Dogme
The word Dogme has its roots in the name of a Danish film company- 'Dogma 95'. They owned a
set of protocol in filming. They wanted to film without any artificiality. The rules of the particular film
company are as follows. Filming should be done with natural lightings. Filming needs no artificial sets but
done in the location itself. Film should be filmed only with a handicam. They called their rules as the “vow
of chastity”. Influenced by the war cry of this film company Thornbuy sowed the seeds of the new
pedagogy in his article titled “A Dogma for EFL”. He also aimed at creating a naturalistic classroom
without any teaching aid.
Pedagogical foundation
Dogme is deeply rooted in communicative language teaching. Dogme has been noted for its
compatibility with reflexive teaching and for its intention to humanize the classroom through a radical
pedagogy of dialogue. Task based language learning also owns the same methodology as Dogme.
Key principles
The first Dogme bookTeaching Unplugged (2009) holds the view that the following three ideas
were the pivot of language learning.
— In Dogme approach of language teaching conversation is the key element.
— The Dogme classroom demands no materials or hardly a few materials.
— Dogme language teaching insists teaching a language which the students intuitively use for
communication.
Dogme- a constructivist approach
In the Dogme classroom a teacher keenly examines the language of the student and provide them
with the ideas through his thoughts can be expressed. Dogme ELT can suit only a well experienced
language teacher. He ought to be linguistically skilled. He should know the function of language and howit
can be used as a tool in language learning and teaching. Dogme practitioners insist that language is
acquired not learned. It should be done intuitively and not by someone's force. Learning a language should
engage the students in real life interaction. Dogme classroom is more lively which won't shrink the
students in a text. It helps the learners in boosting up their confidence and keeps them motivated.
Dogme classrooms are learner-centered, where the learner is in the center and the facilitator just
revolves around him. In the former CLT the teacher is the “sage in the stage” and the students are dependent
on them for the completion of their syllabus. In Dogme the teacher is the” friend on the side”. The
Dogmeticians opposes to the traditional classroom set up demands a circular seating where they can
interact with their peers and learn language with no or a few teaching materials such as pen and paper. In
such a classroom setup twin sided interaction the teacher and learner, and the interaction among the peers is
possible.
The Dogme pedagogy for sure put some strain on the facilitator they should possess a sound
teaching skill. The facilitator must be an active listener who can lend his ears to the conversation of the
learners and also an activist who can take quick actions for their queries. The facilitator should come to the
class well prepared. A least experienced teacher can feel such type of language teaching over burdening
and can slide away from this minimalistic pedagogy.
Pros
— The learners are provided with time for oral communication in the classroom where the teacher
plays the role of a prompter.

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— The classroom set up is transparent where the teacher and the learner can open up.
— The learning process is in the control of the learner so that they can be kept motivated.
— In the teachers perspective they are freed from the boring lesson plan and notes.
— The topic of discussion is chosen by the learner itself.
Cons
— A least experienced language teacher may feel unsecure without the aid of the textbook.
— The teacher loses his authoritative power.
— Shifting a learner to this method all of a sudden may make them confused.
— All the four skills are not emphasized. The speaking skills are only given more attention.
— Shy students who can't open up and speak will lose their academic achievement.
Conclusion
Dogmeticians claim that Dogme is not only the single method in language teaching. They admit the
bitter truth that there are more successful methods before Dogme in language learning. They add on that
the teacher autonomy can also influence more efficient teaching in this method. A single method of
language teaching cannot suit all the classes in all situations. A method that is appropriate for a class will
not go with the other. It is in the hands of a successful language teacher to not shrink himself in a single
method but to find out the apt method for tor the apt class and to lead the learners towards achieving the
goal of language learning.

Works Cited
Thornbuy, Scott. A Dogma for EFL, IATEFL, no.153, mar. 2000, p.2, britishcouncil.org.
Thornbuy, Scott. Nothing for Critical, 2009, teachingenglish.org.
Thornbuy, Scott. Teaching Unplugged, 2014, teachingunplugged.com.

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59
DILEMMATIC LIFE SITUATION OF YOUNGSTERS IN
CHETAN BHAGAT'S THE THREE MISTAKES OF MY LIFE

E. Titus Livingston, Ph.D. Scholar, Noorul Islam Centre for Higher Education, Kumaracoil
Dr. Rakesh Babu. M, Asst. Prof., Noorul Islam Centre for Higher Education, Kumaracoil

Abstract:
The paper entitled “Dilemmatic life situation of youngsters in Chetan Bhagat's “The Three
Mistakes of My Life”. Examines the difficult life situation of youngsters is the novel. It deals with the
sentiment, business life, religion and cricket. The character in this novel leads a vague life without any aim
or passion. They are spendthrift young people have no responsibility and they like only modern life. Most
of the youngsters can't understand their family situation by wasting the money and spoiling their precious
time. The character Vidya in the novel has an aversion following Indian tradition and culture. She falls a
victim to European illusion, leading to the obvious changes in her dressing sense and behavior. Their life is
without any moral values of our nation. The paper is to show the worse life style followed by the youngsters
of this present scenario.

Keywords: Dilemmatic, Tradition, Sentiment, Religion, Modern Life.

Chetan Bhagat,a revolutionary writer of younger generation has produced some amazing novels
that delve into the aspirations, aims, alienations and sufferings of youngsters.Chetan Bhagat's TheThree
Mistakes of Life is the third book wherein he discusses the tribulation and passions that young people
undergo. The tribulations that he refers to are the unfavorable situations and hard experiences of life as a
young person growing up will have to confront. In this novel, Chetan Bhagat underscores thefactorswhich
lead to sufferings and pain in the lives of every Indian youngster. The dilemmas that make if the fabric of a
young person's life have been oncea favorite subject of Chetan Bhagat. He picks the thread of narrative
with the mission of sharing something with the readers, characters and critics.
This book contains all the essences of what a young person faces fiction, sentiment, romance,
social message, business life, relations, religion, and cricket. The story is pinned around the life of three
friends who, struggle in deciding their life's goals. The protagonist is a very brilliant Mathematic student
and is the dramatic persona. The Three Mistakes of My Lifeis interwoven along with his attitude and
penchant for business. The protagonist is a true Gujarati who tries to stamp his feet in business. The other
two characters include Ishaan a great cricketer butpoor in studies, who is passionate towards coaching and
playing cricket. The third of the trio Omi belongs to a family of priests and has a strong aversion to become
a priest. He moves out with his true friends with no particular goal to pursue. Ali is another character
portrayed, who is a cricket buff and the son of popular Muslim politician.
Chetan Bhagat is a simple and efficient author brilliantly portrays the journey of those three friends
and how their lives are affected. What one comes to understand as they read this book is to havetheirlives
crashed into pieces by unexpectedevents. Another important aspect that this book portrays and instructs
every young person is that failure and other obstacles need not bring about despondency in a young
person's life. There are good people around who will help in bringing about a person whose dreams are
shattered back to life and ultimately achieve them.
The plot of the story is centered around the three friends the protagonist Govind, Ishaan the
DILEMMATIC LIFE SITUATION OF YOUNGSTERS IN CHETAN BHAGAT'S THE THREE MISTAKES OF MY LIFE 207
cricketer and Omi the priest's son. They open a sports store and later on supplement it with Maths tuition
and cricket coaching classes. Chetan focuses on how Ali and Ishan's passionsare merged together. Ali, a
batsman is in need of a coach and Ishaan who is passionate in teaching, playing and watching cricket comes
in as Ali's rescuer as he doesn't want to see young talent wasted.Chetan doesn't forget to include the love
angle of Vidyaand Govind, a phase that young people go through. The author doesn't forget to incorporate
the sufferings of the people ofAhmadabadin the aftermath of a crippling earthquake and the religious riot
that took place. The trials and tribulations that these characters undergo for in the pivot of the plot.
The softer and caring side of a young person is depicted though the characters of, Ishaan and Omi
who are sympathetic towards everyone. Both of them work hard to inculcate a sportsman like spirit in Ali,
who until then used to be busy only in playing with marbles. “As soon as Ali picks bat, a new confidence
prevails in his stooping spirit. They agree to give him coaching of cricket free” (58).
Vidya has been introduced by Chetan who has an aversion for mathematics and intends to enjoy
with Govind,who is hertutor. Ali another of his students is passionate about cricket and dislike
Mathematics, but still undergoes cricket training. However, Ali finds himself comfortable participating in
marble tournaments. Ishaan the second of the key characters gets frustrated and tries to seek consolation in
wine. He slaps Ali once because he loses patience in dealing with Ali's awkward questions. These qualities
of frustration, impatience and losing of one's temper are the hallmarks of a young person trying to find his
or her place in the pecking order of society.
Chetan Bhagat also focuses on Vidya and Govind as he intends to construct some inner reality that
governs human motives. When solving Maths problems, Vidya considers herself as a caged bird. When it
comes to vidya, the dreams and directions of parent's work like a cage that does not permit free growth of
her sensibility. Govind, her tutor advises her to make an affirmation of her own choices. Govind's
suggestion to break the cage of parental authority does not sound amicable but it distinctively suggests his
idea of the reorientation of power relationship even within the structure of parental authority.
It is not an easy task for the youngsters to choose passion and the profession. They are confused as
to what would be the best path for their lives. But Chetan tries to point out that between passion and
parents; passion dominates in a young person's life. Listening to one's parents all the time would have
locked the progression of humanity. Vidya almost becomes restless to break the bondages of family
restrictions to make an assertion of her choices for the full growth of herself and sensibility.
The romantic ingredient in a young person's life is also illustrates when Govind realizes the
intensity of his relationship with Vidyaduring his time in Australia along with Ishaan, Omi and Ali. When
he watches couple wandering here and there, his emotions erupt and he is in need of Vidya's presence. He
phones upVidya and asks her aboutwhat she felt about the whole things. In the mean while Omi suspects
the nature of Govindand he asks, “Now tell me, which stage are you in the relationship'' (173). Omi
makesGovind aware about Ishaan's anger on knowing about his relationship with his sisterVidya. This
situation has played out quite often among friends who fall in love with someone from their families.
Chetan continues to raise the tempo in the context of Govind and Vidya by taking it to the next
level. He tries to whet the appetite of the sours reader Govind returns from Australia and his dormant
passion becomes unsustainable. 'Vidya' name keeps echoing in his mind again and again, “Vidya, Vidya,
Vidya-her name rang like an alarm in my head. I ran through tomato sellers and marble playing kids to
reach her house on time” (180). Their relationship attains the height of romance. She invites Govind, on her
birthday for a party. Govind was waiting for the right time to propose her, but to his surpriseVidya takes the
initiative and proposes to him. They both make love. Govind's heart toils and moils between love and
friendship. Towards the end of the novel he commits suicide. Govind'slife and reckless decision finds
resonance with many young people today, who are in no mood to sit down, analyse the situation and come
up with a win-win proposition. Their short sightedness and penchant for instant gratification makes them

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opt for the worst possible scenario.
A cold war always prevails between the Hindus and Muslims. In this novel, Ali represents the
Muslim mind set and Govind, Ishaan, Omi theHindu one. In one instance, the prevailing cold war erupts
into a religious war. Ali is the target of the Hindu young man. The duel between the Hindus and Muslim
results in bloodshed. Omi who went to thedefiance of Ali was killed by the people of his own religion, and
Ali loses his right hand.
A natural calamity and its aftermath also form a part of the plot. Govind is disgusted after the
earthquake. He realizes that the two years of savings and twenty years of dreams have all crumbled to
pieces.When Govind's dreams are shattered,Chetan clearly portrays how Govind pours out the agony of
his heart and whathe thinks of the loses brought by the way of the earthquake that included the loss of
business, loss of property and the loss of solid foundation of the situation.
The impact of religion in a young Indian's life finds. An average Indian's social life is organized
with religious activities such as rituals and worships. Inter community clashes are part of the equation that
leads to all social conflicts. Religionhas also been politically painted with the bushes of business and
cricket. In this novel Omi who is the friend of the protagonist is the son of a priest has no passion, to become
one, but it yet forced to continue in the work of his father, who is a Hindu priest.
The novel attempts to establish the link between politics and religion. Bittoo mama, a member of
the political party is a staunch follower of the preaching of Parekh-ji, who is a political and spiritual leader.
Politics and religion go hand in hand. Religion is a tool which is being used by the member of a political
party, where Parekh-ji is a leader. Parekh-ji, though being educated and rich, is only concerned with
theHindus. He, along with his party, always confronts the people of other religion. As every political party
invites young people to join themBittoo mama also invites Omi to join his party. Omi being secular, is least
attracted towards the party. In 1947, when India got divided into two parts Pakistan and India, an election
was going on in Gujarat. Parekh-ji who wanted the Hindu votes raised the Ayodhya temple issue to gain the
Hindu votes. He states quite frankly that, Hindu religion teaches one to bear a lot and as Hindus they have
been bearing the lot. He then goes on to ask “How much bearing is enough? Until when does a Hindu keep
bearing pain?''(42)
The young generation in India today faces multidimensional issues. These range from finding
one's calling, pursuing one's passion, coming out from the wings of parental authority, earning a livelihood
and falling in love. These personal challenges are coupled with how religion and politics influence today's
youth. The short-sightedness attitude of a young person that makes them take their lives is also clearly
portrayed in the novel.

Works Cited
Agarwal, Beena. “Chetan Bhagat: The Three mistakes of My Life” Accepting the Life of Passions. Yking
Books, 2013: 73-90. Print.
Ajgaonkar- Nayak, Smita. “The Youth in Three Mistakes of My Life.” Strategies of popular fiction.Cyber
Literature, 2008: 101-105. Print.
Bhagat, Chetan.The Three Mistakes of My Life. Rupa, 2008. Print.
Bloom, Harold. Viva Modern Critical interpretation Fyode Dostoevsky' s Crime and Punishment, Vinod
Vaishtha, 2007. Print.
Dora, Mridul. A Delineation of youth in the Novels of Chetan Bhagat.The Vedic Path, 2009: 147-154.
Print.
Dwivedi, Vivek. The Literary and the Non-literary Novel in the Twenty-First Century. The Atlantic
Review, 2011. Print.

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60
DUPLICATE DOMESTICITY AND CULTUREIN IMRAAN COOVADIA'S
THE WEDDING

R. S. Suganth, Ph. D. Sholar, Noorul Islam Centre for Higher Education, Kumaracoil
Dr. R. Jinu, Assistant Professor, Noorul Islam Centre for Higher Education, Kumaracoil

Abstract:
The paper discusses the life of a young couple in their homeland and in imaginary homeland. In
India the main characters Ismet and Khateja lead a realistic life. Ismet stick on towards tradition and
culture and Khateja wants to reach her goal in education. Ismet obeys the rules of his country and Khateja
wants liberty from social rules. They moved to South Africa in order to lead a happy and luxurious life. But,
there they both adopt a duplicate life style which ruins their real identity. Ismet loses his goodness and
behaves like an irresponsible being. Khateja is forced to be in the kitchen to show the uniqueness of Indian
society in an imaginary homeland. They are forced to adapt duplicate domestic life which as opposite of
their life in their homeland. Ismet marries a young girl to soothe his physical needs and Khateja is helpless.
The impact of diasporic and duplicate life style makes them as a victim in an imaginary homeland.

Keywords: Duplicate domesticity, Homeland, Imaginary Homeland, Diaspora, Identity.

The word domesticity refers to the household and the way of living in one's house. In certain
circumstances life style also can be considered as domesticity. The people may follow certain principles
and ideas in their house. The people of a particular community follow certain rituals and tradition. The
word duplicate refers to something which is not original. The term duplicate domesticity is a complex felt
by most of the people who live in a foreign land for their education, profession or on any other purposes. In
their homeland they follow certain principles and ideas. But in a foreign land, they have to act as if they
belong to the same community.
Imraan Coovadia focuses on the concept of duplicate domesticity in all his novels. The major
characters of the novels migrated from one place to the other for their career, education and more. The
people with different culture move to foreign lands and accepts a new culture. Even though they accept a
new culture, they would still feel the undercurrents of their root culture. Finally, there will some hybridity
in their behaviour which would become completely a new style of living. The people follows duplicate
domestic life with the influence of two strong cultural forces.
The narrative of the novelThe Wedding is comical and the story centres on how Ismet and Khateja
find themselves in a new surroundings and being forced to accept a new culture. When Ismet travels in a
train, he happens to see Khateja through the window. Khateja is not interested in marriage because she
wants to fulfil her wishes and goals. She has different ideas and aims to achieve great success in her
life.Khateja refuses to marry Ismet when he proposes to her. The villagers warned her about social
problems and her decision would lead her in danger. The warnings given by the people made a sudden
change in her mind and she accepts the marriage proposal of Ismet. After the marriage, they both go to
Hyderabad as a honeymoon trip and they return to Ismet's house in Bombay. Bombay is the place of
tradition and household practice but it is completely opposed by Khateja.
Khateja's acts are totally opposite from the wish of Ismet and Rashida (Ismet's mother). They wish
Khateja to do all the traditional domestic course but Khateja is not ready to serve her mother in law as well
DUPLICATE DOMESTICITY AND CULTUREIN IMRAAN COOVADIA'S THE WEDDING 210
as her husband. Khateja ill-treats her mother in law and her attitudes are completely negative. Khateja is
very upset and she does not want to do domestic works and she wants to do things within her ideas.The first
refusal of Khateja gets started in the form of arrogant action. She sets fire to the kitchen because of tension.
She does not want to help her mother-in-law in kitchen but accidently she throws a lamp which burns the
entire kitchen. She refused to cook food and does not want to serve food for her husband and her mother-in-
law. Ismet wants Khateja to do domestic work and does not allow her to go to the village.
The problems that Ismet faces-such as restless household, hunger and a successive vision of
peaceful and prosperous life which lead him to make a plan to settle in South Africa. Ismet decides to move
to Africa because of his friend Tjepal who gives an idea of migration to Africa for peaceful family setup and
good career.Tjepal thinks that a nuclear family will change the mind set of Khateja and he firmly believes
that she will change her attitude. Tjepal's idea impresses Ismet very much. He thinks that it will change the
mind set of Khateja and she will definitely change her attitude. Ismet accepts the fact that duplicate
domestic society could give him peace. Khateja is not ready to accept this idea and writes a letter to her
father to take her back to their village. Her father accepts her wish and he is ready to take her back home on
condition thatshe would marry an illiterate village man, Ahmedu. Ahmedu is an ill-literate and marrying
him will be a great disaster in her life. So, she thinks that Ismet is better than Ahmedu and she accepts
Ismet's plan to move to South Africa. Khateja accepts Ismet's idea in order to escape from the new
suggestion given by her father. She accepts a different domestic life rather than her own.
Durban is a city with good population, port, complex, holy places and also sizable number of
diasporic Indians. An Indian might feel that the city of Durban is a place of distance relations.The Indian
diasporic people needed the sense of unity in a foreign land as one community. Ismet is treated differently
by the land lord, Vikram. He says Ismet that, “We must be together as Indians. Must be” (145). Vikram
seems to follow Indian concept in South Africa, but he advises Ismet to accept all the traditions of colonial
countries. Vikram does not seem to have a fixed policy and he seems to be a timeserver. Most of the Indian
people living in South Africa are not sure as to what sort of lifestyle they should lead in a new land.
Vikram makes an attempt to construct unity among the Indians to form a separate community with
power. His attempt for separating the private from public is his main notion. He acts as an incubator of new
Indian society in Africa. He advices Khateja to cook and do all the household work just like an Indian
woman. This idea evokes a sense of rejection and she feels that she is helpless in a foreign land. Khateja in
her own land refuses to cook and serve but now she acquires a false domestic life. Khateja forgets her aim
and ideas and now she is just a domesticated woman doing all household works.
The practice and ritual followed in Grey Street becomes gender biased. In most of the places Ismet
has privilege to move all over the city. He moves to market and holy places and behaves as if he is a part of
the society. But, Khateja is not allowed to move out in grey street. She is forced to stay in her house and her
mobility is restricted. The main idea of the society is that woman are born just for doing household works
and cooking is their hobby. Once Khateja had all privileges in her homeland but now everything has
changed. She is under the influence of a new tradition or duplicate domestic life.
Khateja is forced to be in the kitchen and her duty is to cook for her husband.But, on the other hand
Ismet has a complete change and he enjoys his life without doing any household duties. They follow an
idea that women's role is to cook food and take care of house hold works. But, men are to do all the works
around the city and there is no restriction for them in the society.
Khateja does not want to follow the role of traditional woman who wants to do all household
works. She does not want to be in kitchen but even though she takes control of the kitchen materials and
other groceries. She decides to move from the kitchen and have some control over the daily life. She goes to
market and bargain with the shopkeepers and buys materials according to her daily dish plan. Khateja is the
commander who decides what to do specially to attack her husband. She is now good at culinary works and

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she is ready to command on Ismet's physical body. She also wants to take over the credit that Ismet
succeeded in his life because of her effort.
Ismet thinks about his desire of making Khateja a good housewife along with his control over her.
His idea of insisting on her to be in tune within the community becomes successful. But in some situation
she is not ready to accept the constructed patriarchal society. So Ismet acts as a soldier who severe attacks
his enemies with what he has in his hand. Here, Khateja uses food as her tool to show her hatred towards the
position of being in kitchen. She uses chilly and chilly powder to give a hint to Ismet that she still has a
desire to live a happy life with freedom. This shows she is acting as if she is the new member of Grey Street
but she longs for her homeland.Khateja is completely dissatisfied with the burden of responsibility placed
on a woman in their homeland as well as in the foreign land.
Ismet's attitude is completely towards sex and getting a child. Khateja shows her opposite views
through her attitude in many ways and this attitude of Khateja makes Ismet take Yasmin as his second wife.
In those nations polygamy is not a crime and Ismet comes under African influence which leads to his
second marriage. He is now completely a man who has forgotten all his reality and under the influence of
duplicate domestic life followed in colonial South Africa.The second wedding of Ismet is completely
different from the first one. This marriage consists of dance, party and songs. Ismet has an idea that
arranging dance in wedding is like saving Indian tradition in South Africa. In Indian context ritual dance is
practised according to their culture. But he forgets getting second marriage is sin according to Indian
tradition. His views are not fair and he has broken the tradition and culture of Indian people. He thinks that
he is following original life style but he adapts the life style of Africa.
Khateja is frustrated and upset when she meets her husband's second wife, Yasmin. She makes an
attempt to create a problem in the wedding. In the wedding Khateja uses food as the weapon again. She
spills some yellow rice and sweet meat on the new dress of Yasmin. This shows the hatred of Khateja
towards her husband and Yasmin.Ismet adopts a false domestic life rather than saving his real culture. In
the beginning, Khateja wants to get divorce from Ismet but now she has completely transformed to a good
house wife.
In most of the situation Khateja shows her pain in order to get rid of kitchen duties. Her marriage
life too consumes her aim and freedom and she is kept under the control of her husband. Khateja herself is
kept under a separate boundary formulated by the society. She cannot break the rules of the society. At first
she does not follow the rules in homeland. But, in diasporic situation she is forced to follow the rules. Her
transoceanic mobility paradoxically becomes immobilizing.
Yasmin does not have any role at the last part and what happened to her is not revealed by the
narrator. This can be an another duplicate domestic issue that leaving their wives and moving to other place
is a trend followed in those places. Ismet's love for Indian culture at first completely change at the end. He
marries Yasmin without Khateja's permission and leaves her without taking care. Yasmin is the victim of
the duplicate nature developed within Ismet. The women characters Khateja and Yasmin have to accept
their fate and problems caused by inheriting false domestic life.In an imaginary homeland Khateja and
Ismet have lost their identity, culture and real domestic life. They transform to a new being in an imaginary
society.

Works Cited
Archer, Margart. Culture and Agency. CUP,1988. Print.
Avatar, Brah. Cartographies of Diaspora: Contesting Identities in the Third Space. Blackwell, 2003. Print.
Chetty, Rajendra. South Africa Indian Writings in English. Maoliba Publishers, 2002.
Coovadia, Imraan. The Wedding. Picador Publishers, 2001.
Delanti, Gerard. “Two Conceptions of Cultural Citizenship: A Review of RecentLiterature on Cultural

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DUPLICATE DOMESTICITY AND CULTUREIN IMRAAN COOVADIA'S THE WEDDING 212
Citizenship.” The Global Review of Ethnopolitics, vol.1, no. 3, pp. 60-66.
Govinden, Betty. “The Performance of Post- Colonial writing: An Analysis of Imraan Coovadia's The
Wedding.” The Diaspora Writes Back, vol. 1, no. 3, pp. 158-168. Print.
Mamet, Claudia. “Reconstructing Grey Street in Imraan Coovadia's The Wedding.”Alternation, ed. 6, vol.
2, pp. 68-90.Print.
Welsh, Wolfgang. “Transculturality- The Puzzling Form of Cultures Today.” Spaces of Culture: City,
Nation, World, vol. 13, no. 7, pp. 194- 213.

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61
J.M COETZEE'S, WAITING FOR THE BARBARIANS A NEW HISTORICAL
PERSPECTIVE

Dr. Bhuvana, HOD and Asst. Professor in English, Providence College for Women Nilgiris,
Springfield, Coonoor, Ooty
Sr. Sithara Joseph, Asst. Professor in English, Providence College for Women Nilgiris,
Springfield, Coonoor, Ooty

Abstract:
This research paper is an attempt to study J.M. Coetzee's Waiting for the Barbarians. This work
falls into the genre of literary fiction, which focuses its attention towards the Psyche of the person. The
author tries to portray the struggle of the people at the hands of the colonizers, the characters are unnamed
except Col. Joll and the people are considered as barbarians not civilized. The analysis identifies the
elements of New Historicism, reflexivity, hyper reality. Another important aspect of the novel is its
postcolonial element, where “Empire” tries to conquer the land of the native people who are considered as
Barbarians', the paper also focuses its attention towards the psychological aspect of the native people and
of the good natured Magistrate.J.M. Coetzee brings out historical perspective of racial apartheid as he is a
South African writer, and being a victim of racial discrimination. The novel depicts the reality of life. J.M.
Coetzee has chosen the plot for the story very carefully by giving no names for the magistrate and the
Empire and the Barbarian girl whom Magistrate takes care and takes the responsibity of leaving her with
her clan. Consequently the novel is analyzed and arguments are based on the New Historical perspective
and also concentrate on the psychological struggle of the 'Barbarians'.

Keywords: Psyche, colonized, identity, hyper reality.

The Prisoners aren't the barbarians but that the “barbarians'” lives inside everyone.
“Barbarians'” are not the outsider, but the colonizer.
- J.M. Coetzee

They have lived here all their lives, they know the land, You and I are strangers. You, even
more than I. The Prisoners aren't the barbarians but the “barbarians” lives inside everyone.
Barbarians are not the outsider, but the colonizer.
(J.M. Coetzee, WFB)
th
The earliest historical writings about South Africa produced in the latter half of the 19 century,
reflected the Eurocentric and paternalistic biases of high imperialism. The colonial administration
intended to improve the indigenous people, themselves civilizes they were forced to accept the superiority
of European religion and willingness to endure the hardship of manual labour particularly in the diamond
and gold mines. Refusal to convert or to work was deemed to sign 'barbarians.'
Apartheid literally means 'apartness' or 'separateness'. It is a racial segregation that existed in South
Africa. In the Dutch language name that was given to a policy of separating people by race with regard to
where they lived, where they died. This policy was introduced in South Africa in 1948 by National Party
government and it remained the official practice until the fall of the party. Racial Discrimination can be
traced back to 1652 when the Dutch colonized the Cape of Good Hope and their economy was based on the
J.M COETZEE'S, WAITING FOR THE BARBARIANS A NEW HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE 214
use of slaves imported from East Africa and South East Asia. In 1830 slavery was abolished but racial
discrimination still continued by the European settlers. The natives did not have any freedom. Having
personally witnessed J.M. Coetzee a South African writer allegorically narrates the Colonial power of the
'Empire' and his experiences in his writings.
John Maxwell Coetzee born on February 9, 1940, Cape Town South Africa, is a South African
novelist, critic and translator, noted for his novels about the effects of colonization. In 2003 he won the
Noble Prize for literature Coetzee was a strong opponent of apartheid he returned to South Africa where he
taught English at the University of Cape Town. Coetzee's novels frequently establishes dialogue with
various historical ages and territories in Waiting for the Barbarians (1980) the imaginary setting time,
filtering reality through allegory clearly portrays the racist South Africa of which Coetzee had the first
hand experience. Some of his famous works are Dusklands (1974), In the Heart of the Country (1977),
Foe (1986), and Age of Iron (1990).
The paper tries to analyze the New Historical perspective in the novel Waiting for the Barbarians.
New Historicism is a form of literary theory which aims to understand intellectual history through
literature and literature through cultural context. The term was coined by Stephen Greenbalt who believed
that history is as important as the text. New historicism is a method of literary criticism that emphasizes the
history of the text by relating to the configuration of power society or ideology in a given time.
J.M. Coetzee and Constantine Cavafy share the same title Waiting for the Barbarians. In Cavafy's
poem the empire sends a scroll and disappointment at the realization that there are no barbarians. The word
'barbaric' is derived from the Greek Barbarous meaning foreign. The term barbarian originally described a
great member of people not belonging to one of the great civilizations. Michael Foucault “…the barbarians
as someone who can be understood characterized and defined only in relation to a civilization and by the
fact that he exists outside it.”(45)
Waiting for the Barbarians allegorizes and transforms the events into narratives there by
interpreting and exploring all the historical events. The magistrate believes in recording of the time and
history. He contemplates the history of his settlement. He feels that the meaning of his existence lies with
the greater cycle of nature. The Magistrate notices that every generation has its own 'barbaric scare.' He
sees history at the level of human events, history repeats Coetzee's work focuses its attention of history in a
more ethical manner than it is concerned with how the past relates to the present. The empires goal of
expansion and self protection runs through the time line heading from beginning to an end. Col. Joll
embodies the rigorous rule of the empire. He represents the need for safeguarding the empire. When the
Magistrate comes to know about the Col. Joll's method it leads him towards the broader understanding of
the injustice of the empire.
Edward Said's Orientalism (1978) states “Which is a specific exposition of Eurocentric
universalism which takes for granted both the superiority of what is European or western, and the
inferiority of what is not, 'East' as the 'Other 'and inferior to the West.” Coetzee has clearly depicted in the
novel the “otherness.” The empire considers the barbarians as inferior and other so the empire decides to
hunt down the barbarians. In this expedition the fisher folk become the victim and a young boy and
grandfather. The Magistrate's varied and unsuccessful attempt in closing the gap and to know the “Other”
enables him to enter into a relationship with one of Col. Jolls victims a young girl. The novel opens with the
arrival of Col. Joll an interrogator from the empires security service the Third Bureau Col. Joll has been
sent on emergency service to investigate the rumors about the up rise of barbarians against the empire. He
tortures the prisoners in a brutal way to get the truth. The magistrate is sympathetic towards the suffering
prisoners but does not intervene to stop it. Having completed his interrogation Col .Joll returns to the
empire and the administration of law and order comes back to the Magistrate. The magistrate takes into his
home, bed, one of Col. Joll's victim's young girl who was tortured and left partially blind and, scared later

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J.M COETZEE'S, WAITING FOR THE BARBARIANS A NEW HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE 215
he travels into barbarian territory to take the girl back to her people. When the Magistrate returns he finds
that the army has arrived to wage war against the barbarians and the Magistrate is arrested by the Warrant
Officer in the Third Bureau for consorting with enemy there after he is subjected to torture.
The Magistrate is the figure of the ordinary rule of law that he represents the 'liberal humanist ideal'
the woman who is left behind the woman is only known as 'the Barbarian girl' who becomes the key figure
in the text. Her body bears the scars of the violence which her body endures; she is blinded and terribly
crippled from having her feet smashed with a hot poker. The Magistrate takes her into his apartment there
he begins the ritual bathing, massaging her feet and legs and shares her bed. “I feed her, shelter her, use her
body if that is what I am doing in this foreign way… She yields to everything sometimes she slips off into
sleep before I am.” (WFB 32)
Though the Magistrate appears to be a savior for the barbarian girl in a subtle way he manipulates
her for his own sensual desires. Coetzee clearly pictuarises the imperial power of the Magistrate who is the
mouth piece of the empire and the barbarian girl, 'Oppressor and the oppressed' the Magistrate colonizes
the body of the barbarian girl, the girl yields to the Magistrate's attitude.
The ritual washing, bathing, massaging fall short of sexual domination, her is still strange, erotic
energy in their engagement as well as there is difference of his status as a 'imperial official', representative
of the empire and the girls place as displaced barbarian. Barbara Eckstein says “despite his ritual washing
he never understood nor her language, he is not the humbled and perfect Christ. He cannot read her and she
cannot put her pain into words he understands.”(188)
There is gap between the both the Magistrates effort to understand the 'Other' depends on the
observation of Elaine Scary, whose book The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World
(1987) it explores the intersection of bodily pain and language. For the Scary pain is characterized by its
very private and incommunicative quality.
It is to the individual experience it overwhelming present, more empathetically real than any other human
experience and yet it almost invisible to anyone else unfelt and unknown. (55)
There is a split between ones sense of own reality and the reality of the other person. In the novel the
Magistrate realizes that there is an absolute spilt or gap between him and the girl.
These bodies of hers and mine are diffuse, gaseous centreless at one moment spinning, but often also flat
blank, I know what to do with her, no more than one cloud in the sky knows what to do with another.(WFB
34)
Having realized that he will never comprehend the barbarian woman, the Magistrate decides to
take her back to her people he along with a small troop make their journey in a harsh environment there
they fight storms, lose their horses to exhaustion and finally they meet barbarians who accept to take the
girl back. As he returns to his frontier the Magistrate is been arrested by Mandel the warrant Officer and the
war against the barbarians, the magistrate is imprisoned , deprived of him all the basic necessities,
subjected to the tortures, beaten cruelly and allowed him to stay in the filth until the people forget his
previous position.
The Magistrate experiences pain and tortures and injustice of the empire he does not have
connection with the other because they do not share the common language. As Michael Moses
Summarizes:
The language that connects the civilized Magistrate with Barbarians victim of the empire
proves indistinguishable from the subhuman roar of a tortured animal body. The
unmediated and pre-historical language of men and beast naturally contains no discrete or
articulate words; in such a tongue the name of the justice cannot be spoken. (127)
The language that tries to connect the Magistrate with other is no really language at all as he himself
narrates while trying to decipher the letter it looked just like lines the magistrate did not know whether to

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J.M COETZEE'S, WAITING FOR THE BARBARIANS A NEW HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE 216
read from the right to left or from the left to right. He was in a confused state to understand to identify
whether it is a circle, triangle for triangle or a wave. Though the Magistrate took the barbarian girl to his
apartment but he never aspired to learn the language of the girl, but the barbarian girl had to learn the
language of the Magistrate- the Colonizer. The Magistrate like Thomas Babington Macaulay wanted the
native in blood to be native but intellectually British or Colonizer. The barbarian girl becomes the bridge of
communication between the Magistrate and the barbarians this is the clear sign of the imposing the master
language to the slave. “I cannot make out a word, 'what a waste' I think: She could have spent those long
empty evenings teaching me he tongue! Too late now.” (WFB 78)She looks sideways at me and gives a
little smile. 'You really want me to tell them the truth? (WFB 77)
Coetzee in his novel Waiting for the Barbarians the novel neatly maps the events on South African
politics the citizen live in regime where their human rights are violated the allegorical nature of the story
with its unnamed charcters points out its complex situation in comprehending the 'Other' to understand the
strained relationship between the colonizer and the colonized in the Post colonial world. “In 1980 I
published a novel about the impact of the torture chamber on the life of a man of conscience.” (Coetzee,
Doubling 363)
Psychological perspective is a process of awakening a painful and ambivalent course that allows a
deep understanding of humanity. David Atwell (1993) often describes the Magistrate as 'displaced subject'
as a result the magistrate has become quite restless. He expresses his restlessness as he says: “I sleep
whenever I can now days and when I wake up, Wake reluctantly, sleep is no longer a healing bath a
recuperation of vital forces but oblivion a nightly brush with annihilation.” (WFB 21)
The magistrate spends his night with the young girl he does not enjoy a good sleep. In his sleep he
pushes the girl. This shows the psychic disturbance in the mind of the magistrate. Freudian terminology of
'dream work' the process, by which real events or desires are transformed into dream images. These include
'displacement' whereby one person or event is represented by another, which is in some way linked or
associated. The dream of Magistrate the earth all white in snow he sees walls, trees, houses have dwindled,
lost their solidity retire over to the rim of the world. This corresponds to the desires transformed into dream
images which have led to displacement the images or events are linked, it states the mental agony of a man
and hyper reality in which Magistrate is living. The dream has a psychological impact on the magistrate; he
is torn between two realities _his faithfulness to the empire he is serving for a long time and his sympathy
for the colonized natives. Such harsh realities create a restless without having a good sleep.
Teresa Dovey's (1993) article entitled J.M Coetzee Writing in the middle voices points out that;
The Magistrates obsessive gesture of massaging the barbarian girls scarred and damaged feet implies the
fetishtic and guilt ridden attachment of South African liberal humanist discourse to figure of the victim. (pg
22)
The massaging and healing treatment embodies the feeling of guilt and objection of magistrate
towards the colonial policy as he washes her deformed he is in a psychological state that takes him to the
imaginary level of tranquility and peace. The sufferings of the victims disturb his consciousness. This
realization forces itself upon his mind where he feels that somewhere away a child is being beaten, his ears
become a tuned to the sigs and cries of abused prisoners which the air is full of and which are never lost.
Historical and geographical settings are unspecified except for Col. Joll and Mandel the other
characters do not have named even the empire. Name represents identity the magistrate is known in the
novel by his position who is the representative of the empire. Others remain unnamed which makes them
insignificant. The post colonial aspect of fragmentation, hyper reality New historical way of
understanding the political history of South African native the novel has peeped into the inner realm of
characters by penetrating to the dark experiences of the barbarians, magistrate and the innocent victims is
clearly situated in colonial context which can be interpreted as a representative of Apartheid South Africa

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J.M COETZEE'S, WAITING FOR THE BARBARIANS A NEW HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE 217
Work Cited
Bloom, Harold. and Blake Hobby. Ed . Exploration and Colonization: Blooms Literary Themes `U.S.A :
Yale University Press. 2010. Print
Clark, Nancy L and William H. Worger. South Africa: The rise and fall of Apartheid.New York: Routledge,
2004. Print
Coetzee J.M. Waiting for the Barbarians. Great Britain: Vintage P, 2000. Print.
Farrell, Michelle. (2013) The Prohibition of Torture in Exceptional Circumstances. New York: Cambridge
University Press. 2013. Print.
Scarry, Elaine. The Making and Unmaking of the World. New York: Oxford University.1987. Print.

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Literary Endeavour (ISSN 0976-299X) : Special Issue : March, 2019 : (UGC No. 44728) www.literaryendeavour.org 218

62
NTOZAKE SHANGE'S BOOGIE WOOGIE LANDSCAPES: AN UNCONSCIOUS
PSYCHOANALYTIC DEPICTION OF A BLACK GIRL'S DREAMS, VISIONS,
FEARS AND FANTASIES

Dr. S. Jayanthi, Assistant Professor, Sri S. Ramasamy Naidu Memorial College, Sattur

Abstract:
It is a challenge for the black female dramatist to try to treat women right and make them legitimate
literary figures. It complicates the terms of the debate on black cultural identity because the demands of
the moment are radically new horizons and previously unexplored and unconsidered domains. The female
playwright had an additional burden, as Cheryl Wall argues, that women were denied participation in
many of these forms, citing the example of speechifying, which, “whether in the pulpit or on the block, has
been a mainly male prerogative” (685). The biggest challenge was that the Afro-Americans were duped by
the same artificial aesthetics that plagued their white counterparts. The perfect play with European
framework for European psychology could not function efficiently for those from the other hemisphere that
is the Afro-Americans. Ntozake Shange makes use of 'choreopoem' a theatrical expression that comes from
the African American tradition of storytelling, rhythm, physical movement and emotional catharsis. She
dissects the psyche of black girl bringing out her innermost thoughts and feelings on her identity crisis in
her choreopoem boogie woogie landscapes

Keywords: African American, Black, Gender, Oppression, Identity

Shange's boogie woogie landscapes is an in-depth character analysis defining and legitimizing a
black female's ever-threatening realities. Shange analyses aspects of Layla's psyche along with her
audience. Layla's dreams of the night highlights the victimization of female's politically, socially and
sexually. Layla's dreams are not just nightmares because there are instances of celebration of life and her
identity. She overcomes her dual victimization through dance and recollections of happier times.
Layla learns that being black means being oppressed, and discovers that being female also means
being denied certain freedoms of existence and feeling like an oven. The oven imagery effectively
reiterates her emptiness and the need to be filled with something to justify her existence and worth. The
oven imagery also recalls a myth that explained to black children about the reason for their dark skin.
Shange isolates the themes of gender in boogie. She depicts a black girl's dreams, visions, and
memories, fears, and fantasies through the character's unconscious psychoanalytic. In for colored girls,
Shange elevates and glamorizes the social status of black women, but in boogie, she explores in detail a
black woman's identity problems of growing up in a sexist and racist North America. Layla's responses to
and the social manifestations of racism and sexism impacting her identity are as ever-changing as are the
emotional, physical, and cultural landscapes which change without warning. Her efforts to re-order
permanently natural order are often futile and disillusioning. The play is a stream-of-consciousness
presentation set at night in Layla's bedroom, when she is most physically vulnerable and consciously
unaware and dreams. Shange introduces the poem thus:
…this is a geography of whimsy, fantasy, memory & the night: a bedroom. the bedroom of
layla (“born at night”: arabic), an all-american colored girl. there is what furniture a
bedroom might accommodate, though not too much of it. the most important thing is that a
NTOZAKE SHANGE'S BOOGIE WOOGIE LANDSCAPES: AN UNCONSCIOUS PSYCHOANALYTIC DEPICTION OF A BLACK GIRL'S .... 219
bedroom is suggested...(BWL 113)
Shange defines boogie as “one night of dreams and memories of a young woman who has grown up in
America” (BWL 7). It traces a black female's growth from childhood, perceptions about herself and her
world to painful experiences associated with being black, a woman, and a black. As Layla's dreams,
visions, and fears are disclosed, personal issues in her life become political ones and she, learns that “bein
alive &bein a woman &bein/ colored is a metaphysical dilemma” (FCG 48). Shange represents Layla as a
complex character.
As Lester in NtozakeShange: A Critical Study of the Plays says boogie is divided into three
overlapping thematic movements. It begins with Layla's discovery and acceptance of her blackness
moving to her awareness of the social and political injustices suffered by her femaleness, and finally her
recollections of times when neither gender nor race was an environmental determinant. The movements
reveal her complex identity and prove that positive selfhood is under attack by forces which are ready to
conquer and destroy. She accepts herself in the face of forces that move her towards self-improvement.
Kay Lindsey in her essay “The Black Woman as Woman” observes that a black woman “discovers
[her] sex sometime before [she] discovers [her] racial clarification” (87). She adds: “Our first perception of
ourselves is of our physical bodies, which we...compare with...those [of our families]” (87). Layla in her
attempt to overcome her physical powerlessness uses her power of imagination to substantiate her
existence with meaningful activities like cooking. But she is unsuccessful. In this she connects herself with
her mother in the context of traditional female culinary responsibilities. She rejects the idea of being an
oppressed, self-restricted being like her mother even at this subconscious level. Layla's inability to define
her experiences in a language understood by her leads to frustration and alienates her from her social and
familial surroundings.
Layla experiences a conversion ritual and spiritual rebirth quite similar to the women in for colored
girls who rise from the ashes of despair and enter the realm of momentary selfhood. Her new identity is not
other-directed so she is left alone in her enlightenment. But she experiences her own sense of self-worth.
Shange analyses Layla's physical development as a woman. As Helene Keyssar acknowledges,
“To be black and a woman, to be each of these, is to have two distinct mountains to climb, and having
conquered one, Layla must as a woman begin to climb again” (146). Shange with Layla follows the
physical growth pattern of discovering ones' skin color then wondering about his or her physical body in
terms of sexual identity. As Layla's night companion says:
n.l.c. #5
…she studied the legs & arms of herself/ the hair & lips
of herself/ before the burst of spirit let her hold herself. (BWL 118)
Layla discovers her sexuality. But she is not as traumatized by her body. She accepts her skin color
because this awareness of her body changes during the “burst of spirit” (BWL 118).
Layla's identity as an adult female is defined by her attractiveness to men. This brings a woman's
sexual and gender awakening. With the recognition of her sexual identity comes the subsequent sexual
victimization. Layla's physical passions are aroused by the appeal of the night life companion #4 who
enacts the part of a cunning lover. He identifies himself as an accomplice, implying that Layla is the
instigator of her own victimization, while he is just her willing partner. She is mystified that the body that
she once hated is desired by men. She refuses to sleep with him but this does not mean that she condemns
female sexuality. Her hesitancy only shows the need for a woman to be cautious in a sexual relationship.
Her encounter reveals the typical nature that men want only sex with women and for this purpose they
resort to any manifestation. This issue is raised in Act II of spell # 7 where a paradoxical acknowledgment
is seen. A woman is considered to be a positive force and at the same time as Neal Lester says Layla is
vulnerable to the “potential physical, psychological, and social power” (195) while a male's sexuality is

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perceived as social empowerment.
Layla as a physical being, found her safety and her very existence as an independent being
threatened by the world at large. She says:
when i became a woman, my world got smaller, my grandma closed up the windows/ so the
birds wdnt fly in the house any more,…i didntcelebrate the basketball team anymore/ cuz
they were yng&handsame/ &yng& handsome cd mean trouble...but trouble waz when
white kids called you names or beat you up cuz you had no older brother/...as i understood
it/ my mama & my grandma were sending me out to be with trouble/ but not to get into
trouble...so i counted all 492 times this condition wd make me victim to this trouble...(BWL
49-50)
As a child her trouble involved racial tensions and natural disasters. But the definition of trouble is
changed when she attains puberty. Her mother and grandmothers define trouble according to the physical
condition of being a female
This situation is very well portrayed by The Lady in Blue in for colored girls wherein a girls'
movement in a patriarchal society is controlled by the onset of night. Her life becomes a restricted
existence being threatened at virtually any moment by the aggression of any “young man fulla // his
power” to make her powerless” (BWL 29). Shange thus attacks the social dictate that being born a female
is synonymous with being born a victim. Susan Griffin's summarizes a woman's fear in “Rape: The All-
American Crime”:
I have never been free of the fear of rape. From a very early age I, like most women, have
thought of rape as part of my natural environment something to be feared and prayed
against like fire or lightning. I never asked why men raped; I simply thought it one of the
many mysteries of human nature…I observed that my grandmother was meticulous about
locks and quick to draw the shades before anyone removed so much as a shoe. I sensed that
danger lurked outside. (24-25)
Thus, Layla becomes aware of the omnipresent potential for victimization of women individually and
collectively. Shange's attack of the perceived connection between “female” and “victim” is evident in
night-life companion #3's feminist editorial: “It's not so good to be born a girl/ sometimes...it really is not
so good to be born a girl when we have to be infibulated, excised, clitorectomized& STILL be afraid to
walk the streets or stay home at night” (BWL 135-136).
Shange summarizes the physical, psychological, and political problems plaguing females. She says that
women have historically been considered and treated as men's property, to be thrown away, sold, mutilated
or played with as objects of male fancy. She shows that the role of women as a sex-object in modern
industrialized societies is proved because if little girls are allowed “to live to be women,” (BWL 136) their
value is increased through ability to fetch and carry and reproduce. It defines a woman's role in terms of
how she can be used by men across cultures. Lester questions the “legal systems that traditionally defend
perpetrators of crimes against women, systems that justify or excuse men's behavior while further
victimizing women.” (Lester 1995: 202)
A woman's fears are intensified when she realizes that male's assertion of power is not just outside
her home. She understands from reports of incestuous molestation, that even her home is not safe. It leaves
her trapped, displaced, and afraid. In this regard Shange recommends training women and children in
physical self-defense techniques. She also wants the government to rightfully honor rather than ignore
survivors of sexual assault. She proposes to honour the rape victims by giving them 60 second prime time
to narrate their story, and wants the state authorities to apologize for the municipal negligence in
safeguarding its citizens. Shange thus centers her attention on the survivors' sufferings, and does not show
any sympathy for females' attackers.

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Shange in boogie woogie landscapes presents a distinctly black feminist voice but she
acknowledges a black male's emotional realities and vulnerabilities during the death of his child. She
dramatizes a father's agony at the loss of a child. This contrasts the two-near seduction episodes where
males want to seduce and objectify women. Layla dramatizes a father's response to his child's death:
i lay in the cellar/ fractured/ crumbled / over unevencasing
i crawled without my body/ thru Sicilian ashes/
jewish cadavers moanin in the beams/ i crawled to my
children. (BWL 137)
The suffering of the father in seclusion contrasts with the previous image of fathers as molesters, rapists
and baby-killers in boogie and for colored girls. In this he is unable to shield himself with the stereotyped
and socially conditioned masculinity.
Shange highlights the victimization of females politically, socially, and sexually. Her dreams are
not all nightmares but there are instances when she celebrates life and her identity. She overcomes her dual
victimization through dance and recollections of happier times. She defies a society that would render
women of color powerless or insignificant. It reaffirms boldly that “we [women] are born to live to be
women who live our own lives/ to live our lives. to have/ our lives/ to live. we are born girls/ to live to be
women...”. (BWL 136) It makes the very fact of her existence an occasion for rejoicing. Shange believes
that if black men and women are aware of these tradition-bound roles, the solutions to the gender-related
problems might evolve from within.

Work Cited
Griffin, Susan. “Rape: The All American Crime,” Women: A Feminist Perspective Ed. Jo Freeman. Palo
Atlo, California: Mayfield, 1975. 24-39. Print.
Keyssar, Helene. “Communities of Women in Drama: Pam Gems, Michelene Wander, Ntozake Shange.”
Feminist Theatre. New York: Grove 1985: 126-147. Print.
Lindsey, Kay. “The Black Woman as Woman.” The Black Woman: An Anthology. Ed. Toni Cade Bambara.
New York: Mentor/ Penguin, 1970: 85-88. Print.
Lester, Neal. Ntozake Shange: A Critical Study of the Plays. New York & London: Garland Publishing Inc.
1995. Print.
Shange, Ntozake. for colored girls who have considered suicide when the rainbow is enuf. New York:
Macmillan Publish Co., 1977.Print.
---. Three Pieces. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1981.Print.
Wall, Cheryl A., ed. Changing Our Own Words: Essays on Criticism, Theory, and Writing by Women. New
Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1989.Print.

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63
GENDER VICTIMIZATION IN MARGARET ATWOOD'S BODILY HARM

Dr. M. Meena Devi, Assistant Professor, V.H.N.S.N College, Virudhunagar

K. Pouna, Assistant Professor, Noble College of Arts and Science for Women, Aruppukottai

Abstract:
Margaret Atwood is interested in the inner life of the women who are dissatisfied with man-made
values. They are in search of their freedom and liberty. They are victims either of man or of authority or of a
particular social order. Rennie Wilford, the protagonist of Bodily Harm discovers in a dramatic moment
that Canadian women's power of compassion on its own in a world dominated by narcissistic men amounts
to little power at all. Inspite of all the social and traditional shackles around her, Reneta Wilford accepts
life as it is and tries to assert herself in solving the problems of life.

Key Words: Violence, Victimization, Female Body, Self identity, Gender issues.

Gender violence embodies power imbalances inherent in patriarchal society. Structural inequality
of power in relation between men and women provides the objective conditions for male abuse of power.
The difficult processes of socialization strengthen the gendered identity and each adorns the stereotyped
gender roles, males for domination and female for submission. Violence against women, stem from the
concept of male superiority and power. The problem of violence against women cuts across race, religion,
income, class, caste, creed and culture. It is manifested in physical aggression, sexual abuse, psychological
violence through insults, humiliation, coercion, blackmailing, economic or emotional threats and control
over speech and action against female dignity. These expressions of violence against women take place in
male female relationship within the family in particular and society in general. Karnika Panwar is of the
opinion that “societal tolerance of domestic abuse of women is a reflection of patriarchal norms which
support male dominance in family and society” (38).
Margaret Atwood, a canadian novelist and an active member of the Amnesty International is
interested in gender/sexual power politics. Atwood's novel Bodily Harm (1981) explores the imperialistic
harm done to the women's physical body and the sufferings of women both physically and psychologically.
As Howells says, “In Bodily Harm female bodies are all passive, distorted, dismembered or coerced”
(120).
Renata Wilford, the narrator protagonist of Atwood's Bodily Harm is a freelance journalist. She has
spent her early life in the small town of Griswold, Ontario where the environment was both constricting
and narrowing. In Griswold, everyone deserves the worst. Rennie regards Griswold as a 'backdrop' rather
than as her background. If the light bulb goes out, the people in Griswold believe that it is the will of God,
and nobody is ready to change the bulb. Rennie grew up surrounded by old people: grandfather,
grandmother, great- aunts and great- uncles. Her grandmother told her many maxims: “Laugh and the
world laughs with you Cry and you cry alone (54). If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at
all”(66).
As a child Rennie learned three things well: how to be quiet, what not to say, and how to look at
things without touching them. Rennie realizes that women relished sacrificing their lives, serving others,
being subordinates. She hates the self - abnegation of her mother and chooses to break away from such an
environment: “I didn't want to be trapped, like my mother. Although I admired her- everyone was always
GENDER VICTIMIZATION IN MARGARET ATWOOD'S BODILY HARM 223
telling me how admirable she was, she was practically a saint - I didn't want to be like her in any way”(178).
In order to live a free life she escapes to Toronto as a university student. Rennie leaves Griswold in
order to lead a life of freedom where there would be no fetters to bind to such an extent as to kill her own
individuality and identity. Prabhakar in Pen as a Weapon in Margaret Atwood's Bodily Harm, comments,
“Rennies's impressionistic years of childhood are suppressed and spoiled by her grandmother's traditional
approach. She detests the servile existence in Griswold and leaves the place in order to lead a life of
freedom in Toronto” (127).
Jocasta, a feminist activist, is Rennie's friend in Canada. She is a liberated woman. For Rennie,
Jocasta represents a complete and complex socio - gender system. Jocasta believes that men are desperate
to assert their superiority over women one way to another. Her theory is that, “they don't want love and
understanding and meaningful relationships, they still want sex, but only if they can take it” (156).
Rennie's association with Jocasta raises her feminine consciousness. According to Jocasta, women think
that they are liberated, but in reality it is like a distant dream. Nothing has really changed with women.
They consider women as rental objects for the pleasure of men.
Keith, the editor of Visor, assigned Rennie to do a piece on pornography from women's angle.
Rennie visits the Toronta policeman's pornography museum along with Jocasta, and interviews the
policemen. There she encounters with the evidence of male brutality and violence against women. She is
shocked to see the film clips of nude women, and different postures of naked women. The policeman
shows her some film clips of women with animals. Film clips of women copulating with animals make her
physically ill. Rennie sees all ugly and horrible films displaying bodies of women as maps of violence. She
feels that men destroy women's individuality in a subtle and invisible manner with the help of cultural
codes.
Rennie discovers from Dr.Daniel Luoma that she has cancer. As for Rennie, “Daniel is the only
man in the world who knows the truth. He's looked into each of his patients and seen death. He knows they
have been resurrected, he knows they are not all that well glued together, any minute they will vaporize.
The bodies are only provisional”.(142) As WainWright says, Rennie can't bear not knowing, but Daniel is,
afraid of emotional commitment, and is unable to offer her anything but platitudes”(58). Ultimately,
Rennie realizes that Dr. Daniel is a victimizer who exploits women in the guise of medicine and surgery.
After Rennie's mastectomy, things begin to sour between her lover Jake and Rennie. Before her operation,
Rennie and Jake seem to be perfectly suited to each other but after operation Rennie realizes that Jake was
all along packaging her according to his taste and pleasure till he realizes that packing was rotting from
inside. She blames herself for allowing him to use her as a commodity and decides to leave him. Jake, who
is tragically alienated from his innerself, is not at all the hero Rennie once thought him to be. It would take a
long time to scrape the true nature of Jake.
Rennie realizes that Jake's interest in her is limited to the gratification of his carnal desires. She also
allows herself to be used by Jake as a commodity. She feels the need to get away, so she visits the Caribbean
Island called St. Antoine to do a travel piece. She travels around the Caribbean Island meeting people.
There she meets Lora, who has led a life of complete terror under the exploitation of her step- father. She
stabs him and leaves the place as he tries to rape her. After her escape, she starts working in a boat. She is
surprised that all men around expect her to sleep with them and the condition is either to comply or lose the
job.
Lora asks Rennie to pick up a package at customs and deliver it to Elva, a friend living in the
neighbouring island of St Agatha. In doing so, Rennie accidentally discovers that the package contains a
sub machine gun. Lora with a rage of grief, attacks the guards. But they beat her till she becomes
unconscious. Lora is sexually assaulted and beaten, mutilated and killed by the policemen:
He catches the raised leg, lifts tips her backward towards the boy, who's quick enough, he's

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not stoned after all, he catches her and jerks her arms behind her. Morton knees her in the
belly, he's knocked the air out of her[….]. Morton got the gun out and he's hitting her with it,
he'll break her so that she'll never make another sound. Lora twists on the floor of the
corridor, surely she can't feel it anymore but she's still twisting, like a worm that's been cut
in half, trying to avoid the feet, they have shoes on, there's nothing she can avoid.(331)
Rennie and Lora in their prison cells symbolize how women are victimized and oppressed by male
power and authority. According to Prabhakar: “The brutality done to Lora is the real “bodily harm” which
surpasses both in agony and shock the partial mastectomy done to Rennie. The brutal and heartless
mutilation of Lora is symbolic of the limited gender specific role of women in society” (132).
Rennie is released from the prison. The government cannot make a public apology but they would
like her to know that they consider it a regrettable incident. They believe that she is a journalist and such
things should not happen to a journalist. They think that she is an agent of a foreign government. Though
Lora is dead, Rennie wants to restore her back to life. Her action is described thus:
Nothing is moving, and yet she knows she is pulling on the hand, as hard as she can, there's
an invisible hole in the air, Lora is on the other side of it and she has to pull her through, she's
gritting her teeth with effort, she can hear herself, a moaning, it must be her own voice, this
is a gift, this is the hardest thing she's ever done.(338)
After the victimization and death of Lora, Rennie is not afraid of cancer. The scar and cancer has no
significance. “She's afraid of men and it's simple, it's rational, she's afraid of men because men are
frightening[…]. Rennie understands for the first time that it is not necessarily a place she will get out of,
ever. She is not exempt. Nobody is exempt from anything” (328).
Finally Rennie realizes that partial mastectomy of the breast has no significance and it is only a
minor accident of her life. She realizes that all the men in her life are, in reality, one man. Rennie rejects her
submissive role as a woman and is ready to speak out the truth about the exploited women. She emerges as
a warning against disabling female fantasies of innocence and victimization, Rennie accomplishes herself
a subversive journalist who is bold enough to narrate her experience in the form of travelogue called
“Bodily Harm”. A journalist has a power to influence and initiate the public against any harm. It is proved
in Rennie's hope.
Gender victimization is embedded in the socio cultural, economic, political and ideological
context of power relations. In the social context, women undergo physical coercion for personal or group
ends. It is deeply rooted in gender based power relations, sexuality, self- identity, and social institutions.
Atwood, in Bodily Harm has effectively projected the condition of women in the patriarchal society and
how women are in a position to merely accept their subversive role and at times try to show their opposition
against gender victimization but in vain.

Works Cited:
Atwood, Margaret. Bodily Harm. London : Vintage Books, 2007. Print.
Howells, Coral Ann. Margaret Atwood. London : Macmillian Private Ltd.,1996. Print.
Panwar, Karnika. Violence Against Women. Jaipur: Ritu Publications, 2011.Print.
Prabhakar, M.“Penas a “weapon” in Margaret Atwood's Bodily Harm”. Canadian Literature Today. Ed.
R.k. Dhawan, New Delhi : Prestige, 1995.
WainWright, J.A. “Rev. Bodily Harm, Dalhousie Review”, 61, Autumn 1981, 58.

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64
MOTHERHOOD AND CHILD'S BOND: A CRITIQUE OF MAYA ANGELOU'S
THE HEART OF A WOMAN

Dr. R. Meena, Assistant Professor, V.H.N. S. N College (A), Virudhunagar

V. Karthigaiselvan, Assistant Professor, SBK College, Aruppukottai

Autobiography as a genre appeared toward the end of eighteenth century and became very
common in America. Particularly it was in the hands of female writers to project their painful life against
white society. The life narratives are the landmarks of self-exploration, confession and self-discovery.
An acclaimed American poet, storyteller, activist, and autobiographer, Maya Angelou was born
Marguerite Johnson in St. Louis, Missouri. Angelou has had a broad career as a singer, dancer, actress,
composer, and Hollywood's first female black director, but is most famous as a writer, editor, essayist,
playwright, and poet. She published seven autobiographies, three books of essays, several books of poetry,
and is credited with a list of plays, movies, and television shows spanning over 50 years. She received
dozens of awards and more than 50 honourary degrees. Angelou is best known for her series of seven
autobiographies, which focus her entire painful and struggling life.
The Heart of a Woman is the fourth autobiographical book of Maya. It deals Angelou's life between
the year 1957 and1962. One of the most important themes of this memoir is motherhood, as Maya strives to
raise her son. And also, it talks about the relationship between mother and child from the black community.
Maya beautifully portrays the bondage between herself and her son.It talks about motherhood and the
bondage between mother and child in an African society. Maya presents herself as a dominant mother
figure and shares her personal experiences of motherhood after the birth of her son. It is about the struggle,
longing and the fear of the future as a mother from black American society. It also deals with the fear and
problems of women in bringing up the child.
Maya Angelou left California with her son, Guy, to go to New York. There she enteredhe world of
black artists and writers. Since her childhood, she has been living in an almost black environment, and she
is now surprised at the obsession her new friends have with the white world around them. She stayed for
awhile with John and Grace Killens and began to read her writings at the Harlem, but more and more she
began to take part in the struggle of black Americans for their rightful place in the world. She was
appointed Martin Luther King's Northern coordinator.
In the meantime, her personal life had taken a tempestuous turn. She had left New York, she was
intending to marry and fallen in love with a South African freedom fighter named Vusumzi Make, who
swept her off. Then she became the first female editor of the English- language magazine.
The Heart of womenis filled with unforgettable vignettes of famous people, from Billie Holiday to
Malcom X, but perhaps the important is the story of Maya Angelou's relationship with her son:
He had been born to me when I was an unmarried adventurous seventeen-year-old; we
grown up together. Since he was fatherless most of his fourteen years, the flash of panic in
his eyes was exchanged for scorn whenever I brought a new man into our lives.(The
Heart35)
Maya got pregnancy at the age of sixteen when she did not know the real meaning of the word 'mother' and
what were the responsibilities of the mother. Even she did not know how to touch her child. Maya grew as a
mother with her child. She could easily understand the feelings of her son Guy since she used to have
similar thoughts when she was a child. Both Maya and Guy were grown up in a disunited familial bond. As
MOTHERHOOD AND CHILD'S BOND: A CRITIQUE OF MAYA ANGELOU'S THE HEART OF A WOMAN 226
a single mother, Maya raised Guy. Maya knew how it would be a fatherless child that's why she made an
emotional bondwith Guy. When a new man came to Maya's life, Guy found him as a threat who came to
break the relationship between him and his mother. He relieved when he found out that the man cared for
his mother. However, when Maya left the man, he again started to worry. He wanted to hear the permanent
love of his mother as he did not want to be left by her.
Angelou described the fear and problems of women in bringing out their children for their better
future. So she writes “How could he know what a young Negro boy needed in a racist world” (The
Heart29).Even though Maya's son is in the teenage, fourteen years old, she could not take him as a
matured. She always considered him as new born baby. So, she scared about the society which threatened
the whole African society. This is not only the mind of Maya, but of a passionate mother who is from the
black society.In this autobiography Maya mentions that “Of course, we can meet, of course, I want to see
you, baby'. Six feet tall, with a fourteen-year-old son, and I was still called baby” (The Heart23). Not only
Maya, her mother Vivian also considers Maya as a child even though she gets a matured son.
Maya Angelou defines the black mothers as suspicious and anxious women who only think about
their children. She adds in her definition of black motherhood if she 'the black mother' is single, this
indicates that her partner has rejected her. She says that in the outer world all authority is in the hands of
whites who do not think of her. Every work field consists of whites. Angelou thinks that a black mother is
always anxious at home since serenity will be destroyed by a phone call from the police declaring her
child's lynching or a knock at the door announcing her daughter's lynching. With these words, Angelou
warns black mothers to be aware of the white power which can devastate their peaceful homes. While she
expresses her own feelings about being a black mother, she also becomes the voice of other black mothers.
When Maya was out of town, there was a trouble with Guy again. She immediately came to New
York to see what happened. She encountered with her friends in the plane and she drank and chatted with
them. She thinks, “what a poor kind of mother I was. Drinking and laughing it up with a group of strangers
white men at that, while my son was in some kind of trouble” (The Heart 75). She wanted to move to
another place since the gang threatened her son Guy. However Guy did not want to move because he
thoughtthat it was not a solution and that would be the same in another place. Therefore he did not want to
run away from those boys.
Maya as a mother in order to protect her son, went to the house of Susie to find the head of the gang.
When she went and threatened Jerry that she would kill Susie and her mother and she would also kill Jerry
and family if he touched her son. Therefore the mother instinct of protection can be understood by this
reaction of Maya. When she came back to home at night and asked Guy about the gang, he told that he had
talked with the gang and he also had a gang in California in order to make them afraid. Maya found out that
her son was “following her steps” and said “He was definitely my son” (The Heart84).
She thinks that raising a black boy in this world is not that easy. She adds when they're young, you
only pray God to feed them. Mom Willie states that when they grow up, the mother starts to fear about
lynching, when they get older, the black mother again prays God for her children not to be get killed in the
war of whites. Maya writes:
They come of age and white men call them up to go fight, and you pray they don't get killed
over there fighting some white folk's war. Now, raising a black boy makes you sit down and
think (The Heart 78).
But Guy is very bold and courageous. He learns more from his mother and his black community. So he
does not have any fear about the society. He is also trying to give hope on him. He says:
Mom, I know I'm your only child and you love me. But there is something for you to
remember. It is my neck and my life. I will live it whole or not at all (The Heart 271).
At the end of The Heart of a Woman, Maya is alone because of her son's separation. After a long time Maya

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MOTHERHOOD AND CHILD'S BOND: A CRITIQUE OF MAYA ANGELOU'S THE HEART OF A WOMAN 227
gets mind to live without her son, Guy who also prepares himself to live without his mother. She says:
For the first time in his life, he was going to live alone, away from my persistent commands.
Responsible to himself and for himself. My reaction was in direct contrast with his
excitement. I was going to be alone, also for the first time. (The Heart271).

Works Cited
Angelou, Maya. The Heart of a Woman. Virago Press. London.1971.Print.
Braxton, Joanne M. Autobiography by Black American Women: Tradition within a Tradition. Connecticut:
Yale University Press.1984.Print.
Koyana, Siphokazi Z. The Heart of a Woman: Black Women's Lives in the U.S and South Africa as
Portrayed in the Autobiographies of Maya Angelou and Sindiwe Magona. Philadelphia:Temple
University.1999.Print.

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65
FEMINISM IN INDIA FROM THE PAST TO THE PRESENT: AN EASTERN
PERSPECTIVE

Dr. S. Barathi, Assistant Professor, Srinivavsa Ramanujan Centre SASTRA Deemed to be

University, Kumbakonam

Abstract:
For centuries, Feminism has been a widely discussed topic across the globe, yet it faces much
trouble as women are still in need of due recognition in various fields they work with. The present research
focuses on the condition of women in the Eastern world, especially in India with a specific reference to
Indian writing in English. In a country like India which is deep-rooted in tradition and culture, women play
a crucial role in the development of society. Many women writers from the country like Toru Dutt, Kamala
Das, Arundhati Roy, had followed their western counterparts but writers like Mahasweta Devi, Sarojini
Sahoo, C. S. Lakshmi had carved their own niche in the field of feminism. The major problem with the
Indian feminists is that they are entirely dependent on their western counterparts forgetting Indian custom
and culture. In India, great writers of the past like Thiruvalluvar (the author of Thirukkural) and Kambar
(a great Sangam poet) had appreciated the qualities of women. Male domination came into existence only
with the westernisation of the country. Thus, this article analyses the trends in Feminism as portrayed in
the scriptures of the past to the present.

Key Words: Domination, Femdom, Weaker Sex, Proto feminist, Suppression, Social acceptance, Female
empowerment.

Women throughout the world had faced hurdles in their lives at some stage of their lives. Women of
the East are grown in a different social and cultural setup than the West. In general, the Eastern world is
considered as a conservative and closed system with its orthodox views by the Westerners, whose system
appears to be more open and less aggressive. But when reading the critical essays by Western theorists
from the 17th to 21st Century there is more focus on emancipation of Women to a great extent than any
other social cause which appears somewhat similar to narcissism as the women of the West were too much
obsessed with themselves that modern women fail to recognise the importance of the equality of sexes.
There is always an inner urge in women to come out of the clutches of the patriarchal society. The reason
for the birth of feminism in the West is that the women tried to prove themselves and also felt that they
could possibly perform better than their menfolks. This had led to a different stream of literature as well as
sociology called feminism. It is not essentially seeking freedom, but it sought autonomy of the individual
who is not marginalised and seen as a woman or rather being treated as a human.
Feminist movements gained prominence as early as in the late 17th Century where women sought
the right of being treated as equal to their counterparts. But when thinking about the East, especially, the
middle east, the condition of women is not so encouraging till now. It has worsened in the past few decades
due to the patriarchal system that prevails over the nation. Asian countries like Japan, Korea, Taiwan and
China are also deeply rooted in the patriarchal system, where women find it hard to create an identity of
themselves. When compared to India, and other south Asian countries only a handful of female writers are
found in the other parts of the continent. The reason is these women face economic issues and need to
support their families. Hence, they are forced to either leave their education in the middle and seek some
FEMINISM IN INDIA FROM THE PAST TO THE PRESENT: AN EASTERN PERSPECTIVE 229
job or expected to help their family at home. This has an adverse effect on the mind of women as they are
treated like puppets by men who on other hand enjoy vast freedom. The present paper focuses on the
position of women in India in past from the Vedic period to the present century.
Literature Review:
In countries like Malaysia and Thailand, girl children are forced as sex workers to earn money.
Many foreigners visit these countries to satisfy their urge. This makes the situation still worse for women
as they have no choice but to obey their parents or superiors. Even educated women are subjugated by their
own male counterparts or most of the time by their male boss, where they were destined to yield to the
whims and fancies of their employers. Hence, there is a dire need to look into the problems faced by women
and offer them possible solutions.
Women are suppressed in all areas and considered as physically weaker and branded as the
“Weaker sex.” But scientifically speaking, women are stronger than men and they are less prone to certain
diseases. Also, the body of women supports the development of the child. Biologically, women are strong
due to the presence of a uterus. They endure the pain during childbirth and the monthly menstrual cycles.
Thus making the female community superior to others. Though a patriarchal society, India has great regard
for women, right from the religion to the participation in various activities of the country, women were
given due importance and respect.
In Hindu religion, women are worshipped as “Shakti” the reservoir of energy. They are a great source of
energy and thus were prone to multitasking tending their family, serving them as well as earning and
assisting others. If giving birth to a child is a herculean task, caring and nurturing it is yet another hard task.
Patriarchy is deep-rooted in India even now with diverse women. There are many inspiring women
such as Savitribai Phule, along with her husband Jyoti Rao Phule who is a kind of proto-feminists in India
and fought against the injustices of women.
Women in Vedic Period:
Many female scholars like Lopamudra, Gargi and Mytrayei existed during the Vedic period which
is evident through Brihadaranyaka Upanishad. Among the educated women of the era, Gargi Vachaknavi
is believed to be a pioneer (“The Better India”). In the Brahadaranyaka Upanishad, she has been credited to
have drawn some of the most profound questions of Vedanta the nature of the Soul and the origins of the
universe during a public debate with Vedic philosopher Yajnavalkya. Thus, in ancient India, women
played a crucial role in all walks of life and they enjoyed liberty and equality. women were given equal
importance in the family and society. For instance, in the past, there were female teachers who taught
Vedas and Upanishads to their wards.
During the Vedic period, there were female priests who performed Yagnas and other poojas. They also
participated in weddings as purohits. This is evident in the works of the Devdutt Patnaik's book Sikhandi
and The Pregnant King, where the writer talks about the queen who teaches Brahma Gyana to her King.
Such things did exist in the Vedic period in India.
Women Writers of the Past and Feminism:
Indian feminist writings, especially those by Toru Dutt, Ismat Chutagi, Mahashweta Devi, also
made their presence felt global. Quotes from Jasbir Jain that feminist discourse in India over the past 200
years has been shaped by our colonial past, on one hand, and our opposition to foreign domination, on the
other. Also, it has always struggled to create space for women to fight against cultural impositions and
religious restrictions, which underline and reinforce the economic, social, political and psychological
suppression (“The Hindu”). There is also a dire need to represent the entire “femdom” rather than a
particular sect. Indian feminism has tended to represent the interests and concerns of upper-caste women
rather than reflecting the experiences of Indian women en masse.
By recognising this fact, Indian feminism can more effectively challenge historically entrenched

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FEMINISM IN INDIA FROM THE PAST TO THE PRESENT: AN EASTERN PERSPECTIVE 230
and varied [systems of oppression] (“HuffPost”). Commenting on feminism in India, Dwijendre Nath
Thakur opines that “The history of feminism in India is regarded as mainly a practical effort and mostly
non-existent. Compared to some other countries there has been only sparse theoretical writing in
feminism” (458). On the role of alternative media like facebook, and on the empowerment of women,
research has shown that many of the Indian women are comfortable with social media with some privacy
settings. Due to the privacy settings, they feel comfortable and secure as they could choose with whom
they should interact.
Taraasha Chopra, an Indian Psychologist comments on the feminism that prevails in the present scenario
as:
The more education I received, the more aware I became, the conversation on feminism changed. The
problems of underprivileged women became nothing more than just facts and figures on a paper. The
feminist discourse became more nuanced and we moved on to talking about issues such as socialization,
subtle messages of discrimination, rape culture, glass ceilings etc. So the focus of my feminism was more
oriented towards the privileged, urban, educated women who were stuck in traditionalist roles while
having modern mindsets (“The Ugly Truth About Feminism in India “).
Feminism in the Pre Colonial Era:
Even in the recent past, there were many women who actively participated in the freedom moment
such as Jhansi Rani, Thillayadi Valliyammmai, Velu Natchiyar to mention a few. Women excelled in
various fields which include teaching, medicine, military, business, etc. Only in the medieval ages due to
foreign invasions and post colonisation, the importance of women has diminished and they were crumbled
and made to play the role of a homemaker, caring for children and family. Further, they were treated as
inferior to men. Hence there were lots of freedom moments that emerged in the country to protect the rights
of women. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, in her seminal work “Can the Subaltern Speak?” (1988) notes
that:One never encounters the testimony of the women's voice-consciousness. (Qt in Donald.E. Hall, 119).
Further, the condition of women in society could be understood through “Such testimony would not be
ideology-transcendent or 'fully' subjective, of course, but it would constitute the ingredients for producing
a counter-sentence. As one goes down the grotesquely mistranscribed names of these women, the
sacrificed widows, in the police reports including the records of the East India Company, one cannot put
together a 'voice'” (Qt in “Feminism in India”). The above quotes from feminist theorists question the
prejudices and force their audience to escape a theoretical interpretation. While some of these texts might
be complicated than others, it is this complicated thinking that leads to a practice of looking closely at
human relations.
Status of Women during Colonisation:
In the 17th Century, Bibi Dalbir Kaur fought bravely against Mughal forces. Similarly, in the south,
Rani Rudramma Devi, a successor of her Kakatiya ruler, fought with nobles for her right to rule. Rani
Chennama of Karnataka was the first woman to head the rebellion against the British East India Company.
Present Generation Indian Feminists:
Kruttika Susarla, a Delhi based graphic designer and illustrator focuses on the Indian feminist
movement, by using an alphanumeric character each day to represent a different facet, personality or issue
within the diverse Indian feminist movement. She states that: I wanted to work on a series that would
contextualise the feminist movement within the realities and experiences of women and minorities in
India… the issues surrounding women and minorities here are so complexit's mixed with religion, caste,
sexuality and majority of public discourse (“Feminism in India”). Jasbir Jain analyses the feminist
movement in India from a historical perspective, free from the hangover of western concerns. In six
chapters, she makes a clear survey of the feminist discourse, textualising history and historicising texts.
She holds up for close examination select principal texts, ranging from the Upanishads and the Itihasas

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FEMINISM IN INDIA FROM THE PAST TO THE PRESENT: AN EASTERN PERSPECTIVE 231
(epics) down to the contemporary regional novels and films. Vandana Shrivatsava on Jasbir's conviction of
feminismstates that “feminism is more than a voice of protest or questioning. It is moral self-reflection, a
conquering of inner fears and a realisation of self-worth ... It does not abandon values or relationships, but
goes on to create new ones” (3). According to her, feminism represents the struggle of women against
cultural and religious restriction as well as socio-political and economic oppression.
The Emerging Concept of the East:
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni on the feminism in India observes that “Indian style: Independence
with social acceptance, success and autonomy that set its boundaries but not require a complete break from
the traditional, extended, semi-feudal family structure” (32). In a conversation with her Indian friend, she
revealsthat it is astonishing that she was able to balance her professional and personal life, whereas in the
U.S. could not manage as once she is out, her home becomes messy. One reason is that the familial system
in India is such that Mothers-in-law too take care of the grandchildren thus facilitating the growth of their
niece. Thus a daughter in law could be relieved of the tension while at work, an option which is unavailable
in the foreign countries. Thus the family system proves to be a boon for married women. According to
Kanchan C Bhattacharya, “If women want a change, they must begin with their psyche”(35).
Female Empowerment in India:
Women, in order to survive in the present world, needs a lot of self-confidence, will power i.e the
strength to face even unpleasant things in life, the capacity to take up challenges that might hurt. In a
women initiative programme held at Jaipur, the former Chief Minister of Tamilnadu, Ms J. Jayalalitha
opined:
I think both films and politics are equally bad. But in films, a woman is an essential commodity
whether you like it or not... In politics, you can do without them. They try very hard to do without them but
where people like me are concerned it's not so easy to just wish me away. Many people would love to…One
of the most demanding fields in the world is politics and for women to be a success in politics is still a rarity
in the entire world (“jaipurwomeninitiative”). About the position and prospects of women, comments that,
“women must be put in a position to solve their own problems in their own way” (65). this demonstrates the
fact that Indian women are as efficient as any one else in the world.
Conclusion:
Women of the past from the mythologies such as Sita from Ramayana, Kunti and Draupadi from
Mahabharata, till modern era are engulfed by posterity. But times are changing in India, where women
enjoy the dual role of a homemaker and a working woman. They are traditional as wives, sisters, mothers,
daughters balancing the cultural expectation at the same time not losing their individual self. Today,
women shine in various fields as business entrepreneurs, professionals, scientists, politicians, actors, etc.
on one end and also end up as housemaids or helpers, but whatever be their job, they are financially
independent and secure thus redefining their roles in the globe.

Works Cited
Divakaruni Chitra Banerjee. “Power Goddess.”Women's Spec. Issue of India Today. 30. 3 April (2005): 30-
33.Print.
Dwijendra Nath Thakur. “Feminism and Feminist Movements in India.”Research journal of Humanities
and Social Sciences. 3.4 (2012): 458-464.<http://jaipurwomeninitiative>. Web. Hall, Donald E.
Subjectivity. NY: Routledge, 2004.Print.
Rahman, Bithika Misha. “The Ugly Truth About Feminism in India.” Huffpost. Ser. 2. Nov 30, 2017. Web.
Kashyap, Geeta. “Role of Alternative Media in the Empowerment of Women.” Journal of Mass
communication and Journalism. 4.8 (2014) :1-3. Print.
Kumar, Radha. “Contemporary Indian Feminism”Feminist Review. 33 (1989): 20-29. Jstor. Nagarajan M

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FEMINISM IN INDIA FROM THE PAST TO THE PRESENT: AN EASTERN PERSPECTIVE 232
S “Feminism; The Indian Context”The Hindu. 31 Oct 2011. Web.
Neha Thirani, Bagri. “Where is the feminist movements head?”New York Times. March 8, 2013. Web.
Pal, Sanchari. “Feminism through ages in India: An empowering Journey.”The BetterIndia. 30 Sep 2016.
Web.
Pasricha, Japleen. Research report on Cyber violence Against Women in India.
<https://feminisminindia.com/research/>.
“Feminist Theory.” Qwiklit.com. Web.<https://qwiklit.com/learn/feminist-theory/>.
Sen, Samita “Towards a Feminist Poetics?” A report. April 2000. Pdf.
Shrivastava, Vandana. “Feminism in India.”Global Journal of HUMAN-SOCIAL SCIENCE: A Arts &
Humanities - Psychology. Vol. 16.6 (2016):1-3.Print.
Swami Vivekananda, Our Women. 25th Rpt. Kolkata: Advaita Ashrama, 2013.

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66
THE DICHOTOMY OF EASTERN AND WESTERN CULTURE IN
VIKRAM SETH'S NOVELS

Dr. B. RajKumar, Assistant Professor, V.H.N.S.N College, Virudhunagar

In Vikram Seth one finds a multi-faceted personality. He has written three novels set in the
background of three different countries - America, India, and in a European country. Being born in India
and studied abroad he had acquainted himself not only with Indian culture and tradition but Western
culture also. In Indian culture he has made the readers familiar with the culture of the Hindu and the
Muslim religions and in Western he has described about the American and European cultures, traditions,
their way of living, and their mentality. Seth's literature is multi-dimensional, multi-layered and it does not
focus on single event or character but there are many stories within the main plot and a host of characters
with distinct qualities providing distinct messages.
In The Golden Gate, Vikram Seth has depicted the life of American people, their way of living,
their customs, marriage system and the concepts of romance, love, and marriage. Here he has depicted the
life of an engineer, a lawyer, a sculptor, a doctor, and the countrymen in American scenario. The life of an
engineer, like John, is described as dull, monotonous and lonely; the life of a lawyer as Liz is full of
aggression; a sculptor, like Janet, has to face criticism and humiliation and has to undergo a lot of struggle
to get name and fame and worldwide recognition; whereas the life of country people as Mr and Mrs Dorati
is described full of contentment and satisfaction. Seth has depicted a range of loves in The Golden Gate
which are possible and acceptable in a modern metropolis evincing unique culture and lifestyle and the
characters' attitudes to love reveal their attitudes to life and to issues though they are beyond the reach of
romantic or sexual love. The Americans believe romance and love as a means of getting rid of boredom, to
have a company to share ones ideas and feelings and to be happy having a companion. Seth presents the
romantic love as a weapon in the battle against the loneliness and boredom of life. John feels boredom and
lonely and his anguish and loneliness is universal and it symbolizes the Californian life where he has to
struggle for his happiness and existence, learn about his follies, accept his pre-destined fate and is alone in
a world where no one can look up to someone for guidance and for spiritual sustenance. Through his
characters Seth has described his philosophy of victory of understanding and good sense over romance and
passionate love. Phil and Claire fall in love and get married despite of the objections of Claire's family as
they do not find Phil a suitable boy and their love marriage starts gasping very early after their marriage and
they fall apart very soon.
Through the marriage of Liz and Phil, Seth has described about marriage in American society and
made us to differentiate between Indian and American marriage system. N Punekar talks about this in
Vikram Seth's Art: An Appraisal, “It is a traditional church wedding amidst family and friends, with the
bride in white, children and cats gorging on the tiered wedding cake and confetti raining down on
everyone” (83). Seth is a genius as he not only makes the readers familiar with the marriage rites of Indian
society which he belongs to but he also describes about the marriage rites prevailing in American and
European societies. In Indian marriage system he not only describes about Hindu marriage system in
northern India but aspects of marriage in Muslim community also find place in A Suitable Boy. It is not
easy to have insight and understanding of distinct traditions and rites of different nations and Seth could
make himself master of these rites and traditions because of his longing for travelling and his stay in
different countries. He has visited different countries and accustomed himself with distinct cultures and
THE DICHOTOMY OF EASTERN AND WESTERN CULTURE IN VIKRAM SETH'S NOVELS 234
traditions. Describing about these different countries, Seth has enabled himself to compare and contrast
the marriage rites of these countries.
In Indian marriage system, a bride is clad in red not in white like a western bride. Indian marriage is
generally conducted at the home or very rarely in hotels or restaurants but American and European
countries, marriage is conducted in Church. In Indian marriage, vows are pronounced by the priest but in
western culture these vows are pronounced by the couple. In The Golden Gate Vikram Seth has given a
minute description of homosexuality through the characters of Phil and Ed. Vikram Seth's versatility is
seen in A Suitable Boy. He has proved himself a multifaceted novelist as he has vast knowledge of political,
social, and cultural aspects of India. Due to his political perspective, he has made us to know about India's
procedures of the legislative assembly, the procedure of handling a law case, making of a law, election,
campaigning and voting system. Seth has tried to erect a true picture of India in her fifties by touching all
the possible aspects. He has described religion in politics and politics in religion. As for his socio-cultural
insight, Seth has made us to look deeply into the lives of poor country people, untouchables, women -
Hindu and Muslim, their critical situation in their in laws where their freedom is curtailed, and even
prostitutes - without any identity and proper place in the society.
The pathetic condition of the scheduled caste also finds place in the novel where Kachheru, a very
old, bonded labourer works earnestly on Rashid's father's land throughout his life but Rasheed's father
takes pride in exploiting the helpless tenant and wants to keep him subservient to him. Vikram Seth has
presented northern India as a whole before the readers to know it, to appreciate it, particularly its moral
values, age-old culture, traditions and to learn and adopt it in their lives. Seth has also described about
Indians' faiths, beliefs, superstitions, and women's regard for their husbands - their life-long owners. As a
realist fiction writer, Seth gives the reader the feel of the event, “almost as if he or she has 'entered' the scene
in some way. He has presented north India with the descriptions of the life of doctors, professors, ministers,
house-wives, prostitutes, shoemakers, scheduled castes, businessmen, lawyers, tenants, landlords, poets,
saints, and university scholars and painted every aspect of their lives explicitly on a vast canvas. Seth has
presented multi perspective issues in his novels, especially in A Suitable Boy.
The life in boarding school and bullying of the younger ones by their seniors; conflicts,
competition and struggle in university professors for higher post; politics in ministers and personal hatred
and jealousy is also pointed out here. People's faith in religion is described through the references of Pul
Mela, descriptions of saints, Nagas, Sanki Baba, adherence to rituals and a simple faith in the superior
wisdom of a Guru, Dipankar's wandering in search of knowledge, descriptions of Ram Lila, Bhart Milap,
Karva Chouth, shraddhs, funeral ceremony,as well as Muslim festivals like - Muharram, Bakar-Id and
process of their celebrations. Through the character of Dipankar, Seth has criticised the irrationality of the
educated man who runs behind the superstitious people striving to seek knowledge or blessings from the
sadhus or Babas. Seth's message is that going on a pilgrimage, having a dip in Ganges to purify their sins, or
relying on Baba's assurance only explains people's need and desire, but not faith in God. Seth has depicted
the mentality of Indian people about romance, love and marriage thoroughly. In India, romance, love,
passion, and love-marriages are discarded totally and more preference is given to arranged marriages. It
has been proved through the marriage of Arun and Meenakshi that love-marriage, based on passion, ends
in failure as they are not satisfied with each other, do not share their feelings and ideas, and there is no
mutual understanding, trust or faith between them which is the basis of successful marriage. On the other
hand, the other couples enjoy the bliss of married life and there is a hope of Lata and Haresh's marriage
being successful, as their marriage is based on the strong foundation of trust, mutual-understanding, and
regard. By Lata's sane decision about marriage with Haresh, Seth has propounded his theory about victory
of certain virtues over passion. Thus Seth has explored many aspects of Indian life as commented by
Rupali Gupta in Vikram Seth's Art: An Appraisal: “arranged marriage, independence, love, family,

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THE DICHOTOMY OF EASTERN AND WESTERN CULTURE IN VIKRAM SETH'S NOVELS 235
prostitution, politics, poverty, culture, and individualism-all under the grab of a gently-paced tale of social
manners” (62).
In An Equal Music Seth has created a living, breathing world that enchants and grips the readers
and as a love-epic of Michael and Julia, it depicts the concepts of romance, love, and marriage thoroughly.
Seth has presented them as music students, lost deep in love but fall apart before their love could bear any
fruit. They meet again after ten years' parting and they establish physical relationship despite of Julia's
being married to James. But sexuality is acceptable neither to Seth nor to society. So, Seth has made her to
recognise the value of marriage and to return back to her loving, caring, helpful, and understanding
husband, renouncing her passionate love for Michael who later goes to call girls to have solace. Seth has
made the two lovers realise that they cannot resume their earlier intimacy because of the existing facts of
life.
Seth weaves the novel in a realistic web of musicians, critics, rehearsals, music, musical
instruments, relationship between the musicians - their disputes, resolutions, living like an integrated
family. Love and music are the two operating themes in the novel that run simultaneously and even
sometime merge with each other in perfect equilibrium. Literature is the mirror of society and it reflects the
particular society in its true form with its features or limitations. As all the novels of Vikram Seth are set in
different countries, so it will be easy to have a comparative insight of three distinct countries - their
cultures, religions, traditions, rituals, beliefs, people's attitudes, and other activities. His novels can be
studied as a comparative study of Eastern, particularly Indian, and Western, particularly American and
European culture and traditions. All the countries have their own distinct cultures, moral values, and other
special hallmarks and Seth has made us to peep into the lives of the people of different countries and to
know about the social, political, economic, religious scenario of the particular country. Seth is a master in
the delineation of characters of foreign countries also. He has depicted not only the characters of Indian
society but American and European characters also with the same artistic insight and presented them
breathing full life.
In Indian society, marriage is considered a sacrosanct custom and a basis for society. There are
different types of systems of marriage but Vikram Seth is in favour of arranged marriage and considers it a
source of happiness and bliss in life. Vikram Seth has emphasized that the family is a source of inevitable
warmth, happiness, tranquillity, and bliss but it must be made of suitable life-partners sharing mutual
understanding and respect. Marriage with a suitable life-partner provides basis to the stable and happy
family. Such emphasis on familial relations may be termed as a traditional outlook of life. But in the fast
changing societies where values, relationships are at a stake, where separated families, divorce cases are
on rise, Vikram Seth has provided a soothing balm to the weary minds by emphasising the value of family.
Seth compels his characters to search for true meaning of life, to assume responsibility for their actions
instead of blaming the world for everything that goes awry. Seth has focused on different cultures.

Works Cited:
Seth, Vikram. A Suitable Boy. New Delhi: Penguin Books India, 1993. Print.
Gupta, Roopali. Vikram Seth's Art: An Appraisal. New Delhi: Atlantic Publishers & Distributors, 2005.
Punekar, Rohini Mokshi. Contemporary Indian Writers in English Vikram Seth: An Introduction. New
Delhi: Cambridge University Press India Pvt. Ltd., 2008. Print.

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67
A PSYCHIC EXPLORATION OF EXPATRIATES IN THE SELECT NOVELS OF
ANITA DESAI

J. Rachel Bhuvaneswari, Research Scholar, Volunteer, Newman International Academy,

Texas 75115, USA

Abstract:
Anita Desai is one of the contemporary women writers in India. Being a consummate novelist, she
plunges in to the characters' subconscious and unfolds the interior landscape of their psyche using the
kaleidoscopic devices such as stream of consciousness, the interior monologue, flashback, pattern and
rhythm, fantasy, and symbolism. In Bye-Bye Blackbird and Baumgartner's Bombay, Desai focuses the
spotlight from women to men and takes a new direction in Desai's growth as an eminent writer. Bye-Bye,
Blackbird, which dealt with the plight of Indian immigrants in England and explored the distinction
between the cultural differences and psychic distance. In Baumgartner's Bombay, Desai turns to the
experiences of an Austrian Jew who escapes from the Nazis and comes as an immigrant to seek refuge in
India, but there, too, is always treated as an outsider. In depicting Baumgartner's view of India, Desai was
probably empathizing with her own mother's experiences as an expatriate. This paper describes how
Desai explores the psyche of expatriates through her works.

Keywords: Expatriate, psyche, immigrants, kaleidoscopic.

Anita Desai givesa clear graphic picture of the alienated and uprooted expatriates in her novels
Bye-Bye Blackbird and Baumgartner's Bombay. Desai, a consummate novelist, plumbs in to the
characters' subconscious and unfolds the interior landscape of their psyche using thekaleidoscopic devices
such as stream of consciousness, the interior monologue, flashback, pattern and rhythm, fantasy, and
symbolism and so on. Bye-Bye, Blackbird, which dealt with the plight of Indian immigrants in England and
explored the distinction between the cultural differences and psychic distance. In Baumgartner's Bombay,
Desai turns to the experiences of an Austrian Jew who escapes from the Nazis and comes as an immigrant
to seek refuge in India, but there, too, is always treated as an outsider. In depicting Baumgartner's view of
India, Desai was probably empathizing with her own mother's experiences as an expatriate. This paper
explores how Desai picturizes the psyche of expatriates through her characters.
Anita Desai serious concern is with the cross-cultural consciousness of her characters. She gives a
graphic picture of the theme of immigration and alienation of the expatriates in her novels Bye-Bye
Blackbird and Baumgartner's Bombay. In the novel Bye-Bye, Blackbird (1971), the major character is Dev.
The novel is based on the theme of immigration of native Indians who went to England; it deals with the
theme of colored immigrants in the U.K and presents their difficulties of adjustment there, as well as the
sufferings of those who return to the mother land, which is often complicated by inter-racial marriages.
These expatriates, Dev in Bye-Bye Blackbird and Hugo Baumgartner in Baumgartner's Bombay have
constant identity crises and suffer from exile, alienation and humiliation largely on account of racial and
cultural prejudices throughout the novels. Desai, tries to capture the poignant moments of suffering and
oppression that seem to crush the spirit of the immigrants.
Since the age of Adam and Eve when they were evacuated from the Garden of Eden and to labour in
Earth by the sweat of their brows, everybody knows that expatiates do not feel comfort in the land of exile.
A PSYCHIC EXPLORATION OF EXPATRIATES IN THE SELECT NOVELS OF ANITA DESAI 237
The reason for the expatriates may differ from earning to learning, or learning to earning or cross cultural
marriages etc. For the first time, when a child or grown up leaves the home for a day or two and stay in hotel
or hostel or in the relatives house leaving their kith and kins at home, won't they feel home-sick? When a
baby in crèche/daycare or a toddler in playschool/kindergarden for the first time, won't they feel home-
sick? Crossing the barriers of nationality, caste, and culture, the 20th century authors have the major theme
in their novels: expatriation and the problems and complexities emerged in the life of the expatriates.
In her novel, Bye-Bye, Blackbird, Anita Desai captures a clear longing picture for returning back to
one's homeland and hating picture of being in the host land in her own rich virtual imagination. Being an
expatriate in a host land, the three major characters of the novel reflects their total reaction against the
hostile atmosphere. The tensions and the conflicts that arise in the mind of a person in anadapted land is a
good example of diasporic description which explores the psyche of the expatriates.
Bye-Bye Blackbird set in the 1960s, explores the lives of 3 characters -Adit a recent Indian
immigrant lives in England refusing to fit in and looking at those who do with scorn. He reconciles to his
stay in England even though he suffers humiliations ungrudgingly and he inwardly identifies himself with
Indian. Apart from this he obviously longs for Indian friends, activities, food, dress, music and culture.
Dev- an Indian immigrant trying to adopt and loving everything about the new place. In seeking her own
self Adit is totally unaware of the loss of self that his decision implies for Sarah. Dev's contact begins from
Adit who has settled in London with an English wife. The cultural differences expand and Dev moves out
in search of a job. He undergoes various experiences and cultural shocks. The difference between
expectation and reality disturbs him and makes him feel self-conscious. Dev found it difficult to adjust to
the silence and emptiness that prevailed in London which was uncharacteristic of India. The houses and
blocks of flats, streets and squares all appeared to him dead and unalive Also, Dev takes his final decision
not to return to India and not to lead the way of the masses there. He slowly and steadily adapts himself to
the new environment. His friend Adit Sen, a young man from India lives in England with his English wife.
And Sarah- a 'native' who marries Dev-an Indian immigrant. Sarah in spite of being a women from so
called advanced west is quiet meek and submissive. While, Adit and Dev have choice to opt for their
natural conditions, their true circumstances-Sarah has no choice she surrenders to the decision of her
husband. Bye- Bye Blackbird revolves around Adit, Sarah and Dev.
Desai made Adit and Sarah, as her own representation of her father and mother. Most of the time,
Adit is presented as a jovial person who adopts a positive attitude meant to facilitate his adaptation. During
most of his stay in England, Adit appears capable to blend his Bengali loyalties with a passionate
attachment to British values. On the one hand, Adit preserves his Indian/Bengali cultural core as he prefers
to spend his free time with friends from the South Asian community in Britain. Another symptom of his
attachment to Bengali practices is the character's refusal to take over English culinary habits, teaching
Sarah how to prepare Indian food: “No British broths and stews for me” (A. Desai 15). Adit neither
attempts to suppress his cultural specificity nor does he seek refuge into a safety zone of cultural purity, as
Biju. While he manifests a strong desire for inclusion, he preserves his respect for his Indian background.
Adit apparently succeeds in harmonizing his Bengali inheritance with a deep admiration for Britain, as he
often professes his reverence for British culture and lifestyle: “I love England. I admire England. I can
appreciate her history and her poetry as much as any Englishman. I feel a thrill about Nelson's battles,
about Waterloo, about Churchill (A. Desai 164).
While Dev, Adit and Sarah are having some choice between their homeland and chosen homes,
Hugo Baumgartner doesn't have any such option in his life. He is a homeless and nationless man. He has
nowhere to go because he is literally an exile driven out of Germany due to racial discrimination, to start a
new life in the unfamiliar India. Identity is a state of mind that is given by society and our acceptance in the
society. “In Germany, he had been dark- his darkness marked him the Jew. In India, he was fair and that

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marked him the firangi. In both lands the unacceptable” (Baumgartner's Bombay 20)
In Baumgartner's Bombay, Desai narrates more poignantly the story of Hugo from his childhood
days in Gemany to the horror of his murder in India by another German. During the anti-Jewish attitude in
Germany, his father committed suicide due to his financial crisis. Hugo was forced to leave his native land
in search of the safe shores. When he landed in India, all his imagination about India was shattered due to
the prevailing political turmoil. The episodes of calamities like losing his home, business and finally his
mother makes him dumbfound. “Defeat was heaped on him whether he deserved it or not” (135).As it was
mentioned earlier, social acceptance is the factor which creates in ma a sense of identity. When the new
host land fails to recognize him as an individual, he becomes culturally uprooted, geographical
displacement. Frustrated with the world, nowhere to go, no recognition for his honesty, Hugo is saved from
his unpleasant past and unknown future by the German youth who murders him.
While Adit, Dev and Sarah belong to someone or somewhere despite the psychic problems and
frustration, Baumgartner remains a 'firanghi' means a foreigner, especially a British or a white person.The
experience of expatriates begins as a “condition of living” often becomes a “condition of mind” as in the
case of Hugo.Desai, a brilliant and consummate writer, portrayed the complexities and problems of the
expatriates. The adversities of expatriates are photographed from the firsthand experience by Desai.

Works Cited
Basavaraj S.Naikar. Indian English Literature, Vol 7.Publishers &Dist, 2007.
Desai, Anita. Baumgartner's Bombay. London: Penguin, 1988. Print.
---.Bye-Bye Blackbird. New Delhi: Orient Paperbacks, 1985. Print.
Kirpal, Viney. The Third World Novel of Expatriation. New Delhi: Sterling, 1989.
Manmohan Krishna Bhatnagar, Mittapalli Rajeshwar. The Novels of Anita Desai: A Critical Study.
Atlantic Publishers & Dist, 2000. Print.
Sunita Peacock. “Sarah's Identity Crisis In Anita Desai's Bye, Bye Blackbird”. South Asian Review,
20.17(1996):43-56.Print.

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68
RACIAL DISCRIMINATION AND CULTURAL DOMINANCE IN ANITA DESAI'S
BYE BYE BLACKBIRD

Gandhimathi. G, M.Phil, Lecturer, Rani Anna Gov. College, Tirunelveli

Abstract:
Anita Desai is an effective Indian Writer. She born in Mussoorie, India. She is Novelist, short story
writer and children's author. She won lot of awards including Booker prize for fiction in 1983.Anita
Desai's fiction Bye Bye Blackbird clearly shows the dominant and racial discrimination between husband
and wife who are Oriental and Occidental. The novel starts the arrival of Dev from England. Adit who is
an Indian immigrant, marries Sarah who is a British girl. Their inter-racial and inter-cultural marriage
shows the clash between two various culture i.e. Oriental and Occidental. This paper is an attempt to
apprehent the Occidental culture dominates and discriminates Oriental culture on the basis of Origin and
Nationality. This paper also focus on the theme of discrimination and dominance.

Keywords: Racial, discrimination, cultural, domination.

In the novel Bye Bye Blackbird Anita Desai effectively depicts the problem of Indian immigrants in
England. She says that these immigrants as the 'blackbirds' who have been fluttering their wings in an alien
land of white people. She mentions blackbirds as marginalized and unwanted foreigners. These blackbirds
are struggling to make their life as significant. White people treats them as dislocated and rejected people
Indian immigrants are feeling their lives as emptiness, barrenness and more insecure in England. The
character Adit is an Indian immigrant who marry a British girl Sarah. The novel opens the arrival of Dev,
Adit's friend in England. Their interculture marriage clearly shows the conflict between two culture (i.e)
Oriental and Occidental. This paper makes an attempt to perceive the Occidental culture dominance and
discriminates towards the Oriental Culture on the basis of colour and nationality. This paper makes and
attempt to show the different causes of culture dominance and Racial discrimination in England.
Initially Dev is suffered and worried by the attitude of Racial discrimination and culture
dominance. At the end of the novel we can find the gradual changes in attitude of both Dev and Adit. The
Country like India (ex-colony), Colonisation was a system of compelled political force by a powerful
country could be able to control the perceptive of a weaker country. England is considered as the migrant
countries where the immigrants have initially get the good standard of living but soon the situation began
to change, because the fearness and solicitude of white people on the basis of Cultural, Social and
Economic insecurity. As a result, the anxious wite people started to ask for more arduous and unbowed law
against migration people because of the Self feeling of more insecure and self doubting. Therefore, day by
day the anxious feeling of insecurity became sharper, then they started intoning against the Asian
immigrants. About this survey Kipal Viney (1989:247) exactly says: “Englishmen's feeling of insecurity
made them accuse the immigrants of having lowered their standard of living of having deprived them of
employment of having fouled up their beautiful countryside of having brought crime and disease to their
land… and so on and so forth..” The perceptive of insecurity of British people compels them to practice
racial discrimination and cultural dominance.
In England, the Occidentals are in majority, whereas the Orientals are in minority. So the major part
of the novel is devoted for continuous oscillation between the Oriental and Occidental Culture. The
RACIAL DISCRIMINATION AND CULTURAL DOMINANCE IN ANITA DESAI'S BYE BYE BLACKBIRD 240
Occidentals continuously discriminate and dominate the Asian immigrant on the basis of race, colour,
culture and nationality. In the novel we can see how the Asian immigrant are the victims of racial
discrimination and cultural dominance. Dev is particularly dissatisfied by the manners of Occidentals. He
is totally upset in which the immigrants are subjected to racial discrimination and cultural dominance. As
Jha K.J. says:
Racial conflict and hostile opposition are the natural consequences the immigrants have to
face in the adopted counry. Bye Bye Blackbird is full of situations in which we find
characters strggling to survive the racial onslaught. Racial prejudice often gets expression
through the accusation against the coloured immigrants for spreading dirt and
filth…(2004:161-162)
In the novel, one of the British characters, Mr. Simpson who shows her dominance of antagonistic
towards the Asian immigrants who are sleeping in a park. This incident clearly shows her cultural
supremacy and racial prejudice against the Orientals, who are supposed to be exotic and savage in the eyes
of the British people. Dev considers English language and literature are the instruments that produce a
“Class of person Indian in blood and colour, but English in tastes, in opinions, in morals and in intellect”
(156). Dev appeals to the Indian immigrants for having respect to Indian Culture, as it is more rich,
accommodative and nondiscriminatory than the Occidental. He directly says that the racial discrimination
and Cultural dominance are the surpassing problems in England. Sarah's mother, Mrs. Roscommon-
James, a racist, finds unbearable situation, when her son-in-law, Adit encroaches into her kitchen along
with his Indian friends: “It was evident she was thinking that all she had heard about the filthy ways of the
Asian immigrants was correct” (133).
It obviously shows how the Occidental culture misunderstands and misinterprets the Oriental
culture. The Occidentals clearly knows the way to keep their centrality in power by side tracking 'other'
cultures, which are treated as inferior, substandard and weak. In the novel the character Mrs. Roscommon
James racial discrimination against the Asian immigrants in a result of her cultural supremacy,
governance, power and dominance. When she looks into her kitchen she becomes very furious because of
her guests excruciating manners. As she reacts: “her face as flushed and her eyes as big as though she
expected to find murder being committed in her Kitchen.” (157) Mrs. Roscommon-James reaction against
her guests clearly gives us an idea about her discriminatory attitude and culture dominance. Thus the
oppression of Indian immigrants in England appear to be racial discrimination and cultural dominance,
which always push them at the periphery.
The colour of skin is a main causes of racial discrimination and cultural dominance. As Pandeya
P.K (2001:20) views,
The novel touches on racial problems and feeling in England. This feeling becomes sharper
when it comes to a colonizer nation like England who has ruled over us for a long time. It is
not simply white man's burden but also the feeling of superiority by virtue of their being
ruler over us.
In post-colonial era world is becoming a multicultural global village, in which no single culture can be
allowed to dominante other weak cultures because each culture has its own value, place and identity in the
world. But in the novel, we came to know that how the Oriental culture can not able to breathing peacefully
because of discriminatory attitude of Occidental culture.
Actually all culture should be considered as equally because each culture has its own value, set of
rules, ethics, beliefs and ideologies. But in the novel, the Occidental culture dominates the Oriental and
drives it at the periphery. Dev is called 'wog' by a school boy, while making a sight seeing visit in London.
However, he speaks with Adit about the biased and discriminatory attitudes of the British people against
the Asian immigrants who are the victims of cultural dominance of British people. As Dev says: “you find

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that the London docks have three kinds of lavatories Ladies, Gents and Asiatics.”(17) This discrimination
is made not only on the basis of gender or sex but also on colour, race and nationality. An immigrant
housewife, Mala who also narrates her painful and distressing experience when a gang of English Children
chased her son. Her son screamed in despair: “I'm not black ! I'm not black I'm grey !” (26)
This incident clearly shows the evidence of insecurity among Indian immigrants in England who
are treated as 'outsiders' or 'others'. Another incident clearly illustrates peddler's biased attitude towards
Dev. When Dev passes by a booth of glinting icons from Russia, a shabby young man in charge of the booth
notices Dev's fifteen minutes presence before a Madonna and child. The peddler, ragged young man looks
suspiciously at Dev, Who is in mood to ask the price of a Russian icon. As Dev asks: “How much ?...''Very
much' the man bite on the words as though they were thin threads, snap-snap, still smiling like a jocular
alligator. 'Oh, very much. I wouldn't even name the price to you.' (71) The peddler strongly refuses to quote
the price of the Russian icon to Dev considering him as a poor-black immigrant who is not capable of
buying it. Thus peddler's approach to Dev is neither humanistic nor professional. He has the only
impression that Dev; a man of primitive culture is not a suitable customer for buying the costly Russian
icon. This incident clearly shows the rift between Oriental and Occidental Culture is still exists in England.
Dev experiences different forms of discrimination, when he appears for the interview, the
interviewer asks him about his religious and cultural background. The moment he learns that Dev is not a
Christian, he says: “not a catholic? not even Christian?...''I am sorry.' Dear me, 'I ought to hav mentioned it
at once… we simply must have a catholic, or at least a High Church man. It's public relations… I'm afraid it
wouldn't to do have a Hindu gentleman in this job.” (108).
Here we clearly see how the candidate is rejected on the basis of his religious identity and cultural
background. As a result of their discrimination, xenophobia and racial intolerance become the grave
problems that cause social disharmony and dissonance in England. By handling the theme of Indian
immigrants' problem of acculturation, Anita Desai has unfurled the causes of social disharmony and
unrest, which are rooted in racial discrimination and cultural dominance of one culture over the others.

Work Cited
Desai, A. Bye, Bye Blackbird1971. New Delhi: Orient Longman, 2001. Print.
Kirpal, V. The Third World Novel of Expatriation, New Delhi: Sterling, 1989. Print
Tiwari, S. Critical Responses to Anita Desai, Vol-I & II, New Delhi: Atlantic, 2004. Print.

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69
EAST WEST ENCOUNTER IN PREETHI NAIR'S
ONE HUNDRED SHADES OF WHITE

N. Tamilarasi, Assistant Professor of English, Sarah Tucker College, Tirunelveli

Abstract:
In the present day literary scenario, Indian English Literature is one component which incites a
curious literary tradition. Significantly, those women writers, living in India and abroad, have produced a
unique package of literature sented on the women protagonist. The works of Indian writers in English
revolve round the springs of human action and motivation behind human behaviour. In Preethi Nair's The
Colour of Love and One Hundred Shades of White the characters of the novel are in the process of
searching for their identity throughout the novels. She discusses the psychological problems of a women
career and the protagonists are bold and courage. These two novels can be justly called a treatise on
condition of women in middle class families.

Key Words: Tradition, Modernity, Traumatic Experiences, East West Encounter.

The contemporary women writers have moved away from the traditional portrayals of enduring
and self sacrificing women, female characters are searching for identity no longer characterized and
defined in terms of their victim status. Preethi Nair is born in Kerala and come to England as a child. She
works as a management consultant but give it up to follow her dream and become a writer. Her novels are
Gypsy masala (2000). One Hundred Shades of White (2003). The Colour of Love or Beyond Indigo
(2004). In her novels she describes the life of village cities, husband wife relations, mother daughter
relationships, social conflicts and lure for modernism.
Preethi Nair differs from other Indian novelists in many ways. When she started writing novels,
the themes of hunger and degradation, East- West Encounter, human relationships had already been dealt
with a number of Indian English Novelists. The cultural conflict between East and West is a recurrent
theme in Indian English literature. Preethi Nair depicts the clash of deep-rooted values of Indian culture,
characterized by Hindu culture, with these of the Christian in many of her novel.
Gypsy Masala is a stunning novel in which a young Indian woman raised in London to fulfill her
parents dream and disrupts the whole family. One Hundred Shades of White and The Colour of Love
explore the life of Indians who goes abroad and how to adjust or fails, alien culture, the cultural alienation
of Indian writers in English is most often referred as swing towards west, east west encounter or cross
cultural conflict.
One Hundred Shades of White is a story of Nalini, a village cook's daughter whose fate takes her
from a conservative Kerela setting to the big city of Mumbai. She becomes a mother of two children Maya
and Satchin. Her husband Raul stays mostly away on business trip and one fine day summons the family to
join him in London. Maya and Satchin enjoy the pleasures of new life they are introduced to but this does
not continue for long and Raul leaves the family, never to return back. In order to shield her children from
this brutal truth, Nalini tells them a white lie that their father is dead. She strives hard against all odds in an
alien land to provide a decent life to her children and with the help of some friends and her knowledge of
spices, she manages to rise above all these troubles. But later the truth does come back to haunt them.
While working for a better life for the children, she had a support of two friends and her mother's words on
EAST WEST ENCOUNTER IN PREETHI NAIR'S ONE HUNDRED SHADES OF WHITE 243
cooking and on one of the most important lessons of life about the magic of forgiveness and the miracles
which are made possible by it. Nalini practiced the art of combining the two forgiveness through the aroma
of spices and tampering them in the pickles to carve a successful life for herself and for the children. Later
Maya is pursuit of the truth, retraces her roots from London, back to Mumbai and then to kerela.
One Hundred Shades of White deals with mother and daughters barriers separate them, emotional
wounds as well. The novel indeed provides food for the body and the mind for the soul. Mother daughter
relationship, issues such as alienation, assimilation and the generation gap deals with the concept of the
surrogate mother role in helping to bridge the gap between mother and daughter. Maggie, an Irish family
friend serves as an effective 'other mother' to Maya, who finds herself unable to communicate with her own
mother Nalini. Both of them mingle with each other about their thoughts. The concept of sisterhood or
female bonding is also dealt with in the novel. Women with two different ethnic identities, but with a
common history of loss, pain and suffering, forge a relationship, they share their sorrows and comfort and
help each other. The relationship between immigrant mothers and daughters settled in an alien land and
gained some knowledge, diasporic experience.
When the mother move to a new land, they were forced to leave behind everything they loved
their parents, home, friends, home town, country and even their mother tongue. Quite often, their own
children were embarrassed by their strange ways, refused to have anything to do with their ethnic culture or
language.East is East and West is West and never the twain shall meet and whether indeed the two can meet
or not is a matter for debate. (Kipling6)The East and the West were first brought together in trade. But it
was due to the introduction of the English Language that a cultural dislocation took place in the general
life-style of the Indians.
The phrase East West Encounter stands for the conflict between religion and rationality, tradition
and modernity, spirituality and materialism, superstitions and scientific outlook, tyranny and democracy.
The term 'encounter' is a more descriptive term that carries one's analysis beyond the simplistic dualism of
East and West. The East West Encounter needs to be viewed from the point of view of a discursive break
between the East and the West. It is an understanding of one's singularity, with an infinite responsibility
towards the other. No interface between the East and the West can be situated in terms of linear
conjunctions whether political, historical and cultural. Rather it is a matter of separating the two sides of
the encounter, put in critical terms, which takes the form of disjunctions between a series of oppositions,
central or marginal, stable, cultural or economic and a whole lot of other eventual co-ordinates.
In spite of the possibility of constant overlapping of the values of the East and the West there are
some sort of basic differences between these two divergent civilizations. Rekha Jha notices that the values
of the Eastern Orientation are commonly associated with “passivity, stagnation, rootedness and a kind of
conservatism that seems antithetical to progress and material attainments”. The West similarly stands for
sceptical and pragmatic attitudes towards the problem of the world. The conflicting elements in the
kingdom of the divergence between the East and the West are easily recognized and certain factors in
operation in the modern age continue to make deep these points of difference between the East and the
West.
The East - West Encounter is represented by India's contact with Britain forms an important area of
concern in the novels of Kamala Markandaya. Her presentation of the East - West conflict, tension and
culture is characterized by her first hand experience. She shows her sharp historical consciousness by
treating the tensions and points of contact between people belonging to two various races and two different
attitudes of life from various perspectives by bringing them together in different relationships and
situations.
Preethi Nair rightly observes that her novels are bicultural without any partiality or favour either
for the East or for the West. She brings out the various points of weaknesses and strengths of both the

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cultures. She looks at the West through the eyes of the East and looks at the East through the eyes of the
West. The setting may be England or India, city or village. But she brings out clearly the barriers of
arrogance, colour and cultural differences that keep the East and the West apart. Hence, Preethi Nair is
considered as a distinguished novelist on the contemporary Commonwealth literary scene.
Preethi Nair's presentation of the East - West conflict arising out of socio-political and cultural
situations is certainly marked by exceptional perception, keenness and understanding. The confrontation
between the two has been objectively viewed on individual, group and political, cultural and artistic levels.
While acclaiming the traditional, philosophical, religious and ethical values of India, Preethi is not
uncritical of it economic backwardness, fatalism and passive endurance. Despite her strong contempt for
the heartless nature of the West, she is ready to acknowledge its scientific and technological advancement,
its rational and liberal outlook. She wants both the East and the West,” to be complementary to each other
so that the mechanized West may benefit from the ethical values of India from the modernization of the
West” (Iyer 136).
She emphatically says that India should be able to preserve her own soul and carve out her destiny
on the basis of her spiritual and ethical values. Preethi Nair seems to advocate a compromise between the
diverse values of the East and the West in her novels.Preethi Nair's novels have been read with deep interest
and have brought out wide critical acclaim. She is one of the most productive, popular and skilled Indo-
Anglican novelists and a magnificent representative of the growing number of Indian women writing in
English. As M.K.Naik rightly comments: “The East-West Encounter takes two forms - first a direct
relationship between Indian Characters, and the second, the impact of the modern urban culture brought in
by British rule on traditional Indian life” (54).
A culture can retain its identity only if it is flexible enough to take in changes and assimilate from
other culture.........In all societies, there are certain basic values which need to be perpetuated. These values
give a culture its identity. So, Loss of culture means loss of identity for a society. Perfection is possible only
growing and becoming in the light of reason and wisdom. Only when a society can develop a lasting
culture, self-guarding it from the threat of anarchy, either by external interference or by internal tensions.
(Agarwalla (36)
This title East-West conflict brings out the influence of western values on the east, and conversely,
the influence of eastern values on the west. The conflict of values may not be found everywhere. There are
several instances in the novels where the novels are accepted and observed without much conflict.Preethi
Nair's One Hundred Shades of White published in the year 2003, is a fascinating tale that deals with the
bonds that bind mothers and daughters, and the barriers that separate them. The reader is drawn into a word
of spices that heal not just physical ailments, but more significantly, emotional wounds as well. The novel
indeed provides food for the body, mind for the soul.
Maggie serves as an effective 'other mother' to Maya, who finds herself unable to communicate
with her own mother, Nalini. The concept of Sisterhood or female bonding is also dealt with in the novel.
When Nalini (Indian) and Maggie (Irish), Women with the two different ethnic identities, but with a
common history of loss, pain and suffering, forge relationship, they shared their sorrows and comfort and
help each other.
In, Preethi Nair focuses on the conflict-ridden relationship between Nalini and her daughter Maya.
Living in London, Nalini cannot forget the warmth of her relationship with her own mother, and attempts
to forge a similar relationship with her own daughter. However, hurt by her father's death, Maya is plagued
by fears that her mother too would be taken away from them. She hides her fears and finds herself unable
to express her feelings to her mother. Nor she is able to establish a loving bond with her mother. In fact she
is able to take with Maggie, their family friend about her needs and fears, but not to her mother. This proves
to be a source of great sorrow to Nalini who tries to do her best to provide for her children in an alien land.

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Nalini observes,
It was so hard to communicate with Maya. Maya never shared her thoughts with any of us,
except perhaps with Maggie. Maggie and Maya had some sort of pact so whenever I tried to
probe Maggie, she said nothing. I know that the person Maya showed us was not really the
person she was, but it was impossible to get through to her, there were no ways to
communicate. (OHSOW 118).
The reasons for the wide chasm between Nalini and Maya are multi-fold social, cultural, linguistic
and generational. Social and cultural factors such as family background, place of birth, upbringing and
cultural as well as religious practices have an adverse impact on the relationship between mothers and
daughters living in a diasporic context. Therefore, when she attempts to guide her daughter in a similar
fashion, especially in a new land, amidst new cultural practices, she finds it extremely challenging. The
daughter, excited about growing up in the new land, so different from her mother land, desires to be
accepted, assimilated into the main stream of British society which is the dominant culture. Nalini, who
faithfully adheres to all the cultural and religious practices of her native land, wishes her daughter Maya
also to do the same and be proud of her heritage.
Nalini expects her children to oil their hair every day before going to school, carry Indian food that
'smells' in their lunch boxes, and apply vibudhi on their forehead as well. Maya and Satchin her brother,
refuse to comply with such habits, they are teased by their classmates for their ethnic looks and customs.
This rejection of customary traditions and home cooked healthy food and the preference for English food,
clothes and manners, hurts Nalini who cannot begin to comprehend the reasons for such behaviour.
The distance between Nalini and Maya is not just physical as Maya moves to Spain, but more
importantly, it is emotional. Such distances can be traversed only when there is willingness from both sides
for a resolution. Fortunately, Maya discovers the truth about her father's infidelity on her own and this lead
her mother, “I am sorry for being wrong about everything, for not having faith in you.” (OHSOW 282) Her
decision not to marry Marcos is also a good one for her as she realizes that he was never faithful to her, and
that he would always try to control her life. Both these discoveries and Maggie's illness put her on a plane
back to London to mend her relationship with Maggie afterwards reunite with her mother. As a young
woman who has learnt from the experiences that life sent her way, she is now able to understand her
mother's decisions and sympathise with her. She also admires her for her courage and strength without
which she could not have accomplished so much. Maya also realizes that Nalini did all this for her sake and
Satchin's so that they may be protected and provided for. When mother and daughter talk in the shop's
kitchen, amidst the fragrance and abundance of spices all barriers fall away, leading to a sealing of bonds
with true love and understanding. A healing of past wounds occurs amidst the fragrance of spices. As
Nalini puts it
Wounds are sealed with turmeric and from the thousands of fronds from the Crocus flower,
which make saffron. Bright yellow and red-orange like the warmth of the sun, sent to heal
any place of hurt or injustice. It is a funny thing but we are unable to administer our own
medicine, healing others to cure our own insatiable grief (OHSOW 264).
When Maya travels to India as an adult and back to her routes in Mumbai and Kerala, she begins to
understand and appreciate her heritage and culture. She realizes why Nalini always insisted on retaining
the memory and customs of their life in India. This physical journey is thus also a journey of the self into the
inner recesses of the heart and mind, to recollect, reconsider and renew ties with the land and culture that is
her own.
The above discussion surely explains and justifies the East-West encounter based on India's
indigenous culture and postmodern culture of the west in the novel. It is the traditional value system in
which the people of India rely upon does not suit the Western way of life as depicted in the novel. As a result

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of such contrasted value system there occurred tension between the East and the West.

Work Cited
Agarwalla, Shyam S. Commonwealth Writing: The African Fiction. New Delhi: Prestiage, 2000. Print.
Iyengar, Srinivasan K.R. Indian Writing in English. Atlantic, Madras, 1990.Print.
Jha, Rekha. The Novels of Kamala Markandaya and Ruth Jhabvala: A Study in East-West Encounter. New
Delhi: Prestiage, 1990.Print.
Kipling, Rudyard and Balarama Gupta. England English Literature and the English through Indian Eyes.
The Journal of Indian Writing in English. 1987. Print.
Naik, M.K. A History of English Literature. New Delhi: Sahitya, 1982.Print.
Nair, Preethi. One Hundred Shades of White. India: Harper Collins, 2003.Print.

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70
EXPOSING HUMAN PREDICAMENTS IN THE SELECT NOVELS OF ARUN JOSHI

M. Potties Begum, Ph.D Research Scholar, VHNSN College, Virudhunagar

Abstract:
Arun Joshi exposes human predicament by showing the inner crisis of the modern human,
problems of the self, existential dilemma, identity crisis and sense of void. Arun Joshi honored our cultural
heritage and enduring moral values besides handling the problems of human predicament, mainly by
focusing on isolation from self as well as society. This paper is an endeavor to explore the human
predicament and various problems of the modern man. It throws the light on human predicament in Joshi's
novels especially The Foreigner and The Strange Case of Billy Biswas. Joshi's novels are relevant to
contemporary age and talk about the degraded soul of the civilized people and their setting of money
mindedness. Here Joshi illustrates the internal and external conflicts of the human. Joshi depicts the root
cause of conflict and its solution alsoin his novels.

Keywords: Predicaments, existential, identity, dilemma.

Indian English Literature demonstrates the work of the writers in India in English language. Indian
writing in English reflects Indian culture, tradition, and Indian history through depiction of life in India.
Some of the Indian novelists' switched towards illustrating the human's quest for the self in its varied and
complex form. Indian fiction writers have been trying to show Indian experience of the contemporary
predicaments. One among them is Arun Joshi whose strength lies in unknotting different facets of crisis in
modern man's life. His chief technique of self introspection opens a new aspect in the art of Indian English
fiction. Joshi is concerned with Indian form of existentialism as evinced in the Bhagavad Gita and The
Upanishads. Arun Joshi's fictional world reveals his craftsmanship through his social realism with
paradigm shift of values.
Arun Joshi became a writer in English when Indian fiction had poor chances of success at home.
Besides being an industrialist he proved that he was a good writer in presenting his views on existentialism
through his novels. Arun Joshi's fictional works are product of the various influences upon his mind and art
.These relate to literature, philosophy and language. Joshi has been influenced by the writers of both East
and West.Arun Joshi was greatly influenced by Albert Camus and Jean Paul Sartre in use of existentialism
as a main element in the novels. Example, like the heroes of Camus, Sindi Obero in the Foreigner is
involved in the crisis of the present. Sindi is devoid of emotion like Meursualt in The Outsider by Camus.
He is recognized for his novels The Strange Case of Billy and The Apprentice. His novel The Last
Labyrinth published in 1978 won the Sahitya Akademi Award.
Arun Joshi with his new dimension in the genre of Indian fiction in English has become prominent
as Indo-English novelist. His first novel, The Foreigner published in 1968 achieved literary fame. “It is
said to be one of the compelling existential works of Indian English fiction”. The novel portrays the
anguish, loneliness and isolation resultant from self and environmental and traditional estrangement.
Murali Das Melwani believes that the novel examines the effects of alienation on receptive Indians of
mixed heritage, as the protagonist in The Foreigner is an alien everywhere since he shares three cultures.
The protagonist of the novel Sindi Oberoi learns the hard way that 'foreignness' is more a state of
mind than an alienness caused by the accident of birth in any specific country. The hero's mother was an
EXPOSING HUMAN PREDICAMENTS IN THE SELECT NOVELS OF ARUN JOSHI 248
English woman and his father was a Kenyan Indian and when they die he is brought up in Kenya by his
uncle. Lack of familial ties leaves his childhood days under the veil of emotional aridity and this sense of
rootlessness dogs his footsteps even when he goes first to England and later to America to pursue his
studies. Sindi Oberio's quest for being for lacking a sense of belonging makes him a detached individual.
Though he receives the love of many women like Anny, Kathy and June he fights shy of getting involved
with any of them for love was equated by him with selfishness, attachment and possession. His objection to
marriage is rooted not so much in his defiance of accepted social norms as in his fear of its destructive
possessiveness. To him each human self is a solitary cell and nothing least of marriage can ever help
individuals to step out of that cell of loneliness. This is the reason for his refusing to marry June though he is
genuinely fond of her and is aware of her willingness to becoming his partner in life. He feels the need for
love but holds back from extending love to others because of his peculiar fear psychosis. His orphaned
condition, his lack of familial ties, his acute sense of rootlessness, his feeling like an alien in every country
he visits are all responsible for this quirk in his personality. Added to all this he has a misguided reverence
for 'detachment' which he has developed over the years more or less as a defense mechanism to avert all
possible encroachment on his closely guarded aloofness.
At the end of the story Sindi was shocked and distressed after the death of Babu, his friend leaves
for India. In India he works for Kemka and later after the collapse of Kemka's business his decision to take
up the responsibility of the firm to save the workers from being terminated reflects Sindi's realization of the
theory of detachment.
Arun Joshi's skill lies in subtly merging this with the Bhagavat Gita's version of detachment as
motive free disinterested involvement in the duties of life. Bimal Biswas known as Billy in the novel, The
Strange Case of Billy Biswas had all the luxuries of life and he is brought up with great love and affection.
His father was a Supreme Court judge so he was educated in the best school and college. He had been to
Doon school and later to St. Stephens and Columbia University, New York. As son of a Supreme Court
judge he did not lack material comforts. As an only child he had all the attention of his doting parents. He
had his share of love and loyalty in Tuula and Romesh but all these were offered to him on a platter so to say
and that left him with a nagging sense that his life lacked fullness and purpose. He longed to be understood,
Joshi attempts to portray the unsuccessful longing and desperate cry of Billy. Fascinated as he is by the
primitive way of life Billy finds in all his attainments only a superficial gloss that fails miserably to satisfy
his hunger for the peace and the adventure that only life in the jungle can offer.
The first few chapters of the novel are about Billy's social and intellectual life and his strong
primitive urge and his gradual spiritual decay, his rejection of social values. Romi, Billy's friend is a
detached narrator he is unable to comprehend the mysterious quest that impelled Billy to shun the so-called
civilized society. Unlike Sindi Oberio in the “The Foreigner or in The Apprentice Billy” is a rebel, he never
makes compromises, he never falters, and he courageous faces the crisis of life. Billy is from an elite
sophisticated family. He has a beautiful wife and son but in spite of his having all the material comforts he
does seem to relish them, his strange quest makes him uneasy. This strong spiritual urge, the intense
primitive cravings existed in Billy since his childhood days. Even at the age of fourteen a tribal dance
makes him extremely restless. His natural aptitude for anthropology made him give up engineering for a
Ph.D degree for Anthropology. The two people who understand Billy's excessive sensibility and profound
obsessions are his friend, and narrator, Romi and his Swedish friend, Tuula Lindgren. Billy's quest is
evident in his friend's Tuula's statement, she being a very observant and alert person notices that Billy is
overwhelmed by the great pull of the primitive influence which he finds difficult to resist. She very well
understands Billy pathetic condition, she says he is afraid of it and tries to suppress it. The letters written to
Tuula give us an idea of Billy's quest. Billy's strange love for primitive life is also reflected in his letters
written to Tuula, he had once written to her after his return from an expedition about his feelings and

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attachment with primitivism.
Billy had stated that the sense and feeling of oneness with the primitive world remained with him
for several days after returning from his expeditions. Billy's only recourse from the overpowering
influence of primitivism, at first was the going to the forests of various states of India with his students of
anthropology. During one such expedition to the Satpura Hills Billy is literary possessed by the beauty and
charm of the place, the obsession is unconquerable, he simply flees, disappears from the civilized world.
He gives up the civilized, hypocritical, deceitful society and opts for primitive life. As Nawale states Billy's
venture into the forest cannot be termed as an escape from reality, it can be stated as an escape into reality
on the lines of Prince Siddhartha. Billy unlike Sindi Oberio had a family, tradition, culture and values,
conventional roots to support him, guide him yet he feels like a foreigner in civilized society. Sindi's case
was different he had no moral or cultural support system or family whatsoever to retreat to.
Thus the novel is about the surrender to one's innate urge for simple, rustic life. It is about the
existential longing for unpretentious, uncomplicated life against modern and materialist sophisticated
urban life. Billy who is the city-dweller experiences the first intimations of actual fecundity through his
contact with the forest, of which Bilasia is indispensable element and the representative itself. The longing
for natural mode of existence is no mere fantasy or sentimental whim is another aspect represented by Arun
Joshi in this novel.
Arun Joshi is perturbed with the predicament of modern man and is sensitively buoyant to the
various dimensions of pressures deployed by the complex character and demands of the society in which
extant man is bound to live. The protagonists of his novels are craven outsiders and stark strangers. “Most
of Arun Joshi's heroes are alienated beings.” R.K. Dhawan believes that “Joshi's fictional world is a
revelation of a world where man is confronted by the self and the question of this existence”.

Workscited
Dhawan, R.K., ed.The Fictional World of Arun Joshi.New Delhi; Classical Publishing Company, 1986.
Print.
Pathak, R.S. Indian Fiction of NinetiesDelhi: Creative Books, 1997. Print.
Joshi, Arun.The City and the River New Delhi: Orient Paperbacks,1994. Print.
Bhavnagar, M.K., ed.The Novels of Arun Joshi: A Critical Study. New Delhi. Atlantic Publishers and
Distributers, 2001.Print.
Arun Joshi., The Last Labyrinth. New Delhi. Orient Paperbacks. 2010. Print.
Shankar Kumar., The Novels of Arun Joshi: A Critical Study. New Delhi. Atlantic Publishers and
Distributers 2001, Print.

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71
RACIAL DISCRIMINATION OF WOMEN IN ALICE WALKER'S IN LOVE &
TROUBLE: STORIES OF BLACK WOMEN

T. Hemalatha, Lecturer, Rani Anna Govt College for women, Tirunelveli

Abstract:
Racism is one thing that divides the humanity into two groups. One group of people is considered as
superior to the other group, making a great division among them. Generally white people enslave the black
people because they are considered as racially inferior. Right from the days of slavery, the blacks,
irrespective of sex, had realized the cruel reality of racism. We can find the theme of racial discrimination
especially in black women in Alice Walker's short story collection In Love & Trouble: Stories of Black
Women .The women, especially Afro-American women, who are responsible for their own and their
children's well-being and future, have to endure the reality of their relationship with white men and white
women. Throughout the collection we can see how the protagonists, the black women, encounter various
trying situations. The present paper “Racial Discrimination of Women in Alice Walker's In Love &
Trouble: Stories of Black Women” aims at exposing the racial discrimination faced by Afro-American
women in the white society.

Keywords: Racism, discrimination, African-American.

Racism has existed from time immemorial. Racism is defined as the hatred of one person for
another because of their particular race or the belief that another person is less than human because of
language, custom, place of birth or any factor that supposedly reveals the basic nature of that person. The
most notorious example of racism by the West has been slavery, particularly the enslavement of Africans in
the New World. Legally endorsed racial discrimination imposed a grave burden on African-Americans.
The white Americans were from the beginning at an advantage since the American law favoured them in
matters of voting rights, literary standards, immigration, land acquisition, citizenship, and criminal
th
procedure over periods of time extend from as early as the 17 century to the present time.
Slavery applied exclusively to black Africans and other people of African origin. Slavery was
imposed to the Africans because of their race and colour, and black women were also a victim to this racism
and slavery. In an illuminating study of the origin of racism in the United States, Joel Kovel says that the
white masters “first reduced the human self of his black slave to a body and then the body to a thing; he
dehumanized his slave, made him into a rising world market of productive exchange” (18).
According to Barbara Christian “Clearly sexism and racism are systems of societal and
psychological restrictions that have critically affected the lives of Afro-American women” (71). Judged
from the white man's standards of life and beauty, the black man's life became unbearable because of racial
oppression. Confronted on all sides by racial discrimination, the black women have no friends but only
liabilities and responsibilities. So, to be black and female is to suffer from racial discrimination. Racial
oppression is one of the major concerns of Alice Walker's works. Alice Walker has more than any other
contemporary writers in America exposed the twin afflictions, the racism and sexism that affect the black
women in America. Alice Walker's works typically focus on the struggles of African-Americans,
particularly women and their struggle against racism.
In Love & Trouble: Stories of Black Women, Walker takes a critical look at the oppression that black
RACIAL DISCRIMINATION OF WOMEN IN ALICE WALKER'S IN LOVE & TROUBLE: STORIES OF BLACK WOMEN 251
women face in America. Important to Walker's view is not only how black women are affected but also how
oppressive forces such as racism pollute the black community. These are stories about several generations
of black women whose lives were severely limited by racial oppression. The women in In Love & Trouble:
Stories of Black Women perform in large measure to the roles, relationships, and self-images imposed upon
them by a society which knows little and cares less about them as individuals. They try desperately to face
their situations and tries to take hold on them. A black father and a black daughter's desperate attitude
towards her affair with a white man is conveyed by alternative perspectives in “The Child Who Favored
Daughter”. When the father asks his daughter to deny her love for the white man “She says quietly no. No,
with simplicity, a shrug, finality. No” (IL&T 44). It traces the bloody history of a man defeated by the
economics of slavery. Walker tells that it is the result of an immense chaos of which his impotent rage
against the white world which abuses him.
Race structures the economic and social conditions of characters' daily lives in “Everyday Use”.
This injustice manifests itself in a multitude of ways, ranging from Mama's inability to look “a strange
white man in the eye” (IL&T 49), who says, “It seems to me I have talked to them always with one foot
raised in flight, with my head turned in whichever way is farthest from them” (IL&T 49).
Mama also mentions the racialized violence, when the time “the white folks poisoned” (IL&T 54)
her neighbour's herd of cattle. While Mama has a keen way of taking note of the racism she experiences,
she also seems unable to combat it, and simply accepts its effects as inevitable. Mama mentions that she did
not go to school after the second grade, she states that, “I never had an education myself. After second
grade the school was closed down. Don't ask me why: in 1927 colored asked fewer questions than they do
now” (IL&T 50). Mama implies that she, unlike Dee, was not taught to criticize or struggle against her
community's racial conditions.
When Mama talks about her neighbour's cows being poisoned, the racist violence of this anecdote
is not the point of the story, it is a part of the background information. To Mama, racism is an unfortunate
reality, a part of the unchangeable structure of her life. Dee acts as a foil to Mama in this respect. Unlike
Mama, Dee “would always look anyone in the eye” (IL&T 49). Mama's internalized racism and life of
hardship makes her unable to become someone that Dee would be proud of, and so unable to truly reconcile
with Dee. Walker articulates how racism destroys relationships not only between white people and
African-Americans, but also between African-Americans themselves.
Dee believes that in order to liberate herself from racial injustice, she must also distance herself
from the history of slavery and African-American oppression. When Dee rejects her given name for an
African one, which was named after her aunt, Dicie, she says it is because “I couldn't bear it any longer,
being named after the people who oppress me” (IL&T 53). “Everyday Use” understands the legacy of
racism as difficult to disrupt, in part because this legacy troublingly links African-American identity and
history with oppression.
Walker writes about the twentieth century South, entangled with the values of present day white
racial domination in “The Revenge of Hannah Kemhuff”. The racial domination is seen clearly during the
Depression in the South. The protagonist says, on those days “On one side of the big pile of food was the
white line- and on the other side there was the black line. I later heard, by the by, that the white folks in the
white line got bacon and grits, as well as meal, but that is neither here nor there” (IL&T 63). In “The
Welcome Table”, an old black lady having been ejected bodily from an all-white church, meets Christ on a
local road, walk and talk with him, and then is found frozen to death. The racial oppression can be seen
here, when the reverend of the church told her, “Auntie, you know this is not your church?” (IL&T 83) and
the white people “. . . throw the old colored woman out . . .” (IL&T 84) from their church.
Alice Walker's “Strong Horse Tea” is the story of Rannie Toomer and her sick infant son, Snooks.
Rannie still has hope in humanity that she refuses to give up on getting a white doctor, regardless of the

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racial discrimination that is prevailing in the area where she is living. In this story, the racial prejudice can
be seen from the white mail carrier. Rannie is certain that the white mail carrier whom she begs to find a
white doctor for her Snooks will actually go through with his word. But the disgust of the white mailman
about Rannie because she is black is expressed in the quotations: “He wished she would stand back from
his car so he could get going” (IL&T 91). “Black people as black as Rannie Mae always made him uneasy,
especially when they didn't smell good . . .” (IL&T 91-92). “Her dark dirty eyes clinging to his face with
such hungry desperation made him nervous. Why did colored folks always want you to do something for
them?” (IL&T 92). Instead of getting a white doctor, the white mail man drive down the street to tell old
Sarah that Snooks need aid. Thus the white mail carrier does not show any concern for Rannie and her son
because of her race.
The young girl in “The Flowers” is happy, enjoying the summer and innocent. However, in
stumbling upon the dead body, she is forced to see the plight of the black people and it also ends her
innocence by making her know that not everything is so good around her. It is said, “It was then she stepped
smack into his eyes. It was only when she saw his naked grin that she gave a little yelp of surprise” (IL&T
120). Racism is still prevalent in America. When Myop is collecting pretty flowers, she steps into the
human skull. She realizes that she is looking not only the dead, but the cruel racial violence of lynching.
The last sentence, “And the summer was over” (IL&T 120) clearly indicates a complete end of summer in
Myop's life. The stories in In Love & Trouble: Stories of Black Women constitute a sad commentary on the
human experience, but they serve a purpose. The evidence of racism mirrored in these events, and the
relevance of black liberation, is apparent. Racism has occurred for centuries, but it should be stopped. The
recognition of basic racial differences has to be the starting point of any vision for a multiracial and
multiethnic society.

Works cited
Christian, Barbara. Black Feminist Criticism. New York: Teachers' College P, 1992. Print.
Kovel, Joel. White Racism: A Psychohistory. New York: Columbia University P, 1984. Print.
Walker, Alice. In Love & Trouble: Stories of Black Women. Orlando: Harcourt, 1973. Print.

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72
SOCIAL INEQUALITY IN ARAVIND ADIGA'S WHITE TIGER

Ms. Jessy Mathew, Assistant Professor of English, Mahendra Institute of Technology,

Mahendrapuri, Mallasamudram, Namakkal

Abstract:
White Tiger, the debut novel written by Aravind Adiga is a social commentary on the dreadful facts
of social inequality and the pragmatic image of the independent India. The book which earned him 'Booker
Prize 2008' is considered as one of the most powerful tool for reacting against the present horrible
scenario of the country. This research paper tries to investigate the predicament of Balram Halwai in this
society by raising the significant issues like social inequalities and injustice based on the class, caste and
religion. The paper demonstrates the discrimination of people in a society in the name of financial status,
their rational state, how the rich dominating the poor and so on. The gap between the poor and the rich
creates instability that often leads to morality being compromised for personal gain. The point of view from
which the story is told, the use of humor, the prototype of imagery, and the novel emphasizes on the
dissimilarity in wealth and the immorality that result. Social equality and equal status in the society for
everyone still seem to be only a dream for the majority of the population, because the social order is still
determined by the existing caste system.

Keywords: Society, inequality, class, immorality.

We face the greatest atrocious problem of discrimination of poor and rich and injustice from the
beginning of the history. Social despondency and violence has been on the rise. Adiga's 'White Tiger'
highlights the sad scenario of social inequality and the ever widening gap between the rich and the poor and
the economic system that lets a small minority to prosper at the expense of the majority. “At a time when
India is going through great changes and, with China, is likely to inherit the world from the west, it is
important that writers like me try to highlight the brutal injustices of society… the great divide.” (Raaj,
2008, p. 9).The novel is indeed a convincing and humorous work which anatomizes the incredible
yearning of the rich in India. The work has been considered as a work which was much criticized by the
critics. It accurately pierces the brutal dealings of rich in the Indian society. It has both social and political
inferences which really deserve the attention of the state, community, media, judiciary and other
stakeholders of Indian governance.
State of Being Poor in India
The continuous growth of India's economic state is at par to the financially developed countries
such as America. But the state of poor people remains the same. They live with their minimum earnings and
their wages has been increased only marginally. This is the main theme that Aravind Adiga focused in his
novel The White Tiger which has won the Man Booker Prize in the year 2008. According to Adiga these
poor people mostly hail from the north eastern states of India. They work as drivers, cook, domestic
helpers, gardeners, construction workers and as full time servants and fulfill all the needs of their masters.
Adiga's The White Tiger mainly focuses on the problems of financially weak people of Indian society who
always suffer under severe poverty. As Adiga puts in The White Tiger, “These people were building homes
for the rich, but they lived in tents covered with blue tarpaulin sheets, and partitioned into lanes by lines of
sewage. It was even worse than Laxmangarh...The slum ended in an open sewer a small river of black
SOCIAL INEQUALITY IN ARAVIND ADIGA'S WHITE TIGER 254
water went sluggishly past me, bubbles sparkling in it and ...Two children were splashing about in the
black water “(260).
Although India is the world's greatest democratic country, the poor and needy people are in their
same pathetic condition. They don't have freedom or power to do anything what they like. The main theme
of Adiga's White Tiger is that even though India is developing economically, the deprived are still under
poverty line. They have very little political freedom. Adiga gives a lucid picture about the elections and
political influence of rich people. He also highlights the failure of India's present election system. Finger
prints of all the youngsters whether they are eighteen or below has been taken by the stork and he just sells
it to the social activists to earn money. All the campaign regarding works during the election are done by
the poor people for the rich politicians and vote for him dreaming of some better life. But after the election
is over, these politicians will never turn back. The Great Socialist himself is said to have embezzled one
billion rupees from the Darkness, and transferred the money into a bank account in a small, beautiful
country in Europe full of white people and black money. As he puts in The White Tiger, These are the three
main diseases of this country, sir: typhoid, cholera, and election fever. The last one is the worst; it makes
people talk and talk about things that they have no say in (Adiga 99).
Illustration of our Country in the Novel
In this novel the author tries to reveal the real image of modern India by stating its conditions of
poverty, misplaced health care and poor educational systems in rural areas, corruptions in all parts of the
country, and presumptuously moral superiority of upper-class people. The upper class rich people exploit
the poor in order to gain wealth and power. The poor work as their servants, drivers, watchmen etc., yet
they don't have the rights to express their own feelings anywhere. Speaking on the servant-master
relationship, Adiga says: The servant-master system implies two things: One is that the servants are far
poorer than the rich-a servant has no possibility of ever catching up to the master. And secondly, he has
access to the master- the master's money, the master's physical person. The poor just assume that the rich
are a fact of life…. But I think we're seeing what I believe is a class based resentment for the first time.
(Sawhney, 2008). The protagonist of the novel Balram explains the situation of him and the other poor
people in the country as they live in the Darkness, while the landlords and the rich people live in the Light,
he repeats the British colonizers' attitude towards the native people, and it implies that India is still
struggling with its own image, representing a two-tier society in almost the same manner as the colonized
country was seen before independence. Although the caste system is mentioned within the novel, the
central theme is Balram's struggle in poor India. “Caste is overshadowed in the novel by the spectre of
economic class and poverty, particularly the poverty of those at the very bottom of society” (Ashcroft 40).
When the British left “the cages had been let open; and the animals had attacked and ripped each other apart
and jungle law replaces zoo law” (Adiga 63-64). In this present India, only the rich can earn money and live
with all happiness to enjoy the life, but the poor struggling throughout their life without any gratification.
The despondency of his vain labour becomes clear to Balram when he sees the contrast between the rich
and the poor living in the same city. While he experiences how the upper class lives, he realizes that all his
hard work will not improve his own situation, because there are no resources for poor people to progress in
Indian society. The contrast between rich and poor is less in the countryside because everyone is just
equally poor, and there are not very many wealthy people apart from the landlords.
Narrative Story
India is a country where the upper class people dominate the lower class people. They employ poor
people for their own benefits as servants, drivers etc. Adiga goes so far as to say that “The trustworthiness
of servants is the basis of the entire Indian economy”(175). Its quite impressive that the story is narrated by
a poor servant in his perspective. Balram is a typical epitome of a trustworthy poor servant who works hard
for his survival. He is not educated and he belongs to a rural village. Balram starts as a driver for Mr. Ashok,

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but he acts as a servant for his every errand. This helps to earn him a reputable status in his village, because
“in India today domestic service is status-enhancing for some lower castes in comparison to the alternative
occupations open to them” (Srinivas 271). “Hisemployers trust Balram, because they know, orat least thin
kthey know, howthe Darknessproducesthe samekindofloyal servant over and over again. Stupid they
maybe, 'half-baked' (10) indeed, butloyal” (Masurczak 241). This devotion of servants totheir masters
andtherespect towardsstayingwithin theirsocialmarginsisa system that Balram calls “The Great Indian
Rooster Coop” (Adiga175). The Rooster Coopisincredibly successfulin keeping servants away from
poverty. Servants keep other servants down under themselves just like chickens in a coop. They fight each
other instead of staying united and fighting against their common problems. Theyareloyal to
theirmasterswith almostaslave-like attitude. As a whole, the rich not only demoralize the poor, but thepoor
undermine each other as well.
Consequences of Social Inequality
The egoism and voracity among the rich people is a disparity to the hard-working poor people who
are always destitute. On the matter of India's class and caste violence Narasiman and Chawdhry comment
that Adiga's “novel reflects how our economic system today creates socioeconomic gaps that create a big
division in society. It limits opportunity, social mobility, health, and other rights and pleasures that should
be given to all” (7). The consequence of the social inequality is a society that is extremely separated, not
only in social oppositions like rich and poor, but also by moral principles, or rather lack there of. It results
into the under development of the society. This underdevelopment of the poor in rural India still separates
them from the rich and thriving citizens. Balram does not have much care about his own family because
they always pester him for grabbing his hard earned money. So, he doesn't care about what happens to his
family, but cares about his master Mr.Ashok. Theresultisasocietywheremoreand more corruption will take
place, because the rich will keep inducing their way into any upper position they desire, and most of the
poor will never try to come out of their cage in the society. Some people like Balram will try to fight against
the injustice but the victory does not seem possible merely through truth and hard work. Balram only
managed to gain his freedom through committing a murder. In fact, he was very trustworthy and honest
when he started his job as a servant but seeing the ill-treatment of the rich people makes him annoyed, and
finally he had to confess to a murder. At first, Balram feels culpable for cheating Mr.Ashok, never the less,
hejustifieshis deeds with the degrading jobs Mr. Ashok had done for him and Pinky Madam. The
consequence is that rich dominating people will always be corrupt to earn money and power, as the poor
people will end up with immoral activities. Hopefully all the poor people are not so brave as to do such
crimes in the society.
Conclusion
The White Tiger deals with the different features of social criticism in contemporary India. The
social inequality in rural India is still an indicator for the huge population that shows which work they are
allowed to work, in which social class they belong etc. The majority of Indian population live in rural
countryside, the equality in society and equal opportunity are still remains as a dream. Therefore,most of
them are stillin poverty orevenbelow thepovertyline. Aravind Adiga's The White Tiger is a novel that
contains plethora of social condemnation, especially about India's exploitation of the poor by the rich, the
country's problem with corruption, and the discrimination between the rich and poor. The poor class
people have no hope in India, they are struggling for their lives and their lives are destined to end in
poverty. Until and unless a person like Balram Halwai is bold enough, the deprived cannot reach his
highest peak and by this means turning his life from subaltern to a successful entrepreneur.

Works Cited
Adiga, Aravind. The White Tiger. Atlantic Books, 2008. print.

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SOCIAL INEQUALITY IN ARAVIND ADIGA'S WHITE TIGER 256
Ashcroft, Bill. “Re-Writing India.”WritingIndiaAnew,IndianEnglishFiction2000-2010, edited by Krishna
Sen and Rituparna Roy, Amsterdam University Press, 2013, pp. 29-46.print.
Masurczak, Pia Florence. “The Global Metropolis: Tokyo Cancelled, The White Tiger, and Spatial
Politics.” Re-Inventing the Postcolonial (in the) Metropolis, edited by Cecile Sandten and Annika
Bauer, Brill Rodopi, 2016, pp. 231-247. print.
Narasiman, Renuka, and Vinita Singh Chawdhry. “Balram's Quest for Freedom in Adiga's The White
Tiger” . The Criterion: An International Journal in English, vol. 4, no. 5, 2013, pp. 1-10. Web.
Accessed 20 Feb. 2017. print.
Raaj, Neelam. “Any Tears for the Aam Aadmi?”Sunday Times of India, October 19, 2008, p.9. print.
Sawhney, Hirish. “India: A View from Below.” September,2008. print.
Srinivas, Lakshmi. “Master-Servant Relationship in a Cross-Cultural Perspective.” Economic and
Political Weekly, vol. 30, no. 5, 1995, pp. 269-278. Web. Accessed 12 Feb. 2017. print.

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73
THE QUEST FOR IDENTITY - A POSTCOLONIAL STUDY OF NGUGI WA
THIONG'O'S WEEP NOT, CHILD

V. Anushya Devi, Assistant Professor of English, Mangayarkarasi College of Arts & Science for
Women, Madurai

Abstract:
Post colonialism depicts the identity of the colonized society; it deals with the huge challenge of
building a national identity following a harmful experience and how writers talk about and celebrate that
identity and maintaining strong connections with the colonizer. The quest for identity is a very prominent
theme in postcolonial studies and literature. The exploration of such postcolonial writers as Ngugi in
terms of the depiction of their cultural identities of their people reveals the hybrid culture of the
postcolonial societies and writers. Ngugi wa Thiong'o is seen as a prominent figure among the
postcolonial writers who are preoccupied by notions such as nation and identity through the literature they
produce. He also reflects the experiences and relations of his society with the colonizing power. He
explores constantly this theme through his novels in a way or another. For instance, in his novel Weep Not,
Child he explores the story of Njoroge who finds himself unable to continue his studies but he is stroke with
the bitter reality about the colonizer, he understands that he is living a dream, then he begins to know who
really he is, and where he really wants to belong.

Keywords: Identity, postcolonial, quest, culture.

Every human being is having their individual identities and also hold an identity connected to their
societies and countries. This paper discusses this vast notion of identity and how it is shaped and
constructed through the works of postcolonial writers. Postcolonial literature deals with this notion of
identity at length because most of the postcolonial writers witnessed and experienced the process of
colonization and have been affected by it and also suffered from exile and alienation both at home and an
outside world.
To study this subject matter, one has to know the history of colonization. Colonies undergoes
several changes before, during and after colonization. During pre-colonialism, the natives followed their
original culture, the beliefs and customs of the postcolonial subjects in an ordinary way without feeling the
need to identify with a place. And they are not inferior to anyone.
Colonialism transforms and displaces everything. Through this process, traditions, beliefs and
cultural standards of the imperial canon are forced upon all of their subjects who find no choice but to
accept these new ways of life. This how the natives are displaced from their traditional culture. And as a
beginning and in order to create a communication between the colonizer and the colonized, the colonizer
forced the colonized to learn their language, and as a result they started mixing their native language with
that of the colonizer which is achieved through education or through subverting the colonized.
After a very long time of experiencing suffering and a brutal contact with the colonizer, the
colonized find themselves unconsciously accepting aspects of the colonial ways in their original identity.
The colonizers use education as a way to control their colonies, and change their national identities, with
this they control the thoughts and ideas of the younger generation through implanting colonial ideologies
in their minds. As a fact, the original culture and identity for the coming generation are lost in the new
world order.
THE QUEST FOR IDENTITY - A POSTCOLONIAL STUDY OF NGUGI WA THIONG'O'S WEEP NOT, CHILD 258
During the period of decolonization, postcolonial texts try not only bring back their land but also
their cultures. The process of post colonialism begins only after independence, in this process they start to
explore remaining original identity of the native people and they also analyze the newly acquired identity.
This subject of the quest for identity attempts to figure out the value of the new identity which is deeply
explored in postcolonial literature. Postcolonial literature comes from the broadest term postcolonialism
which deals basically with the period of colonialism and its present scenario. Postcolonial literature deals
with the challenges of creating a national identity with cruel experiences of the natives and also focus on
how writers talk about and celebrate that identity and maintaining strong connections with the colonizer.
They do it through writing postcolonial subjects that focus on cultural identity and also criticizes the
change that happened during colonization and in the present state of the postcolonial societies.
Postcolonial literature mainly based on cultural change that occurred in the postcolonial societies and led
to a cross-cultural state in literature and society.
This study on the quest for identity has been widely criticized by the ctitics in many ways. Some
scholars claim that this has become a passion for postcolonial writers to deal with this issue while others
argue that identity is a aspect which is an important thing for understanding of one's self and in identifying
with society and the rest of the world. It is apparent that characters and mainly protagonists in postcolonial
novels are often portrayed as struggling figure who tried to find out who they really are, and attempting to
locate their place in between the old native world and the imperial world. These literary works written by
postcolonial novelists like the Kenyan writer Ngugi wa Thiong‟ o raises a the crucial question for
postcolonial writers and their people about the temperament of the newly emerging identity. They arise a
more complicated question about where do they fit in this new modern world.
Identity in the postcolonial literature has been revolving around the key features that create and
build an identity. When we talk about these key features, we ourselves consciously or unconsciously
talking about the other. Some of these key features consist of the notions of language, home, hybridity,
multiculturalism and otherness.
The African novels are a very remarkable study of postcolonial literature because it explores the
struggle for the quest of identity. Ngugi wa Thiong'o is one of these writers who explore this notion of
identity with vast area. Through his writings he explores the features that build the postcolonial African
identity such as hybridity, Otherness, displacement and language.
The postcolonial writers are preoccupied by notions of nation and identity through the literature
they produce among whom Ngugi wa Thiong'o is seen as one of the prominent figures whose works also
reflects the experiences and relations of his society with the colonizing power. In his novel Weep Not,
Child, he explores the story of Njoroge who is unable to continue his studies but he has bitter experiences
with the colonizers. His character symbolizes the feelings of postcolonial subjects who always consider
western education as a sign of superiority but then understands the reality that they have to come back to
their origins and find their real self. He understands that he is living a dream, and then he begins to know
who really he is, and where he really wants to belong.
Through his characters Ngugi portrayed situation and many alteration in the lives of Kenyans who
cannot even choose which style of life to follow or how to merge between the two styles of life. Most of the
characters from Ngugi's works suffer most from this dilemma and they seek compromise between tradition
and modernity.In Weep Not, Child, Ngothois the character who represents as the image of the educated
African and a child of two worlds. And this is a reference to the feelings of Ngugi himself as he perceives
writing as an effort to understanding and redefining himself and his situation in society and history.The
works of Ngugi with their variety tend to create a spiritual link between people and their land. Ngugi has
bound to his land and to his identity. He doesn't bother about the matters the conditions surrounding him.
He maintains his national identity whether he uses English or Gikuyu to speak about it and represent it to

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THE QUEST FOR IDENTITY - A POSTCOLONIAL STUDY OF NGUGI WA THIONG'O'S WEEP NOT, CHILD 259
the world. In Weep Not, Child the same reference to gods giving the land to people is portrayed through
Ngotho reminding his children about it that the land is a gift of god which is given for his people but the
colonizers stole it from them. By telling this to his children Ngotho telling this to himself and remembers
past history. The spiritual ancestors creates a form of “collective identity” which is reflected through their
possession of the land. In the early novels of Ngugi, this type of identity is displayed through the use of the
language of idioms and of oral tradition and to make reference to Mount Kenya as a symbol for
nationalism.
His characters also portrays the displacement of Kenyan identity, for example, Njoroge in Weep
Not, Child portrays the childhood trauma caused by his educating oppressors. When the character of
Njoroge is at school and the teacher tries to evaluate with him a lesson. After giving the wrong answer the
teacher tries again the same quetion with the whole class and they give wrong answers so she punishes
them all. The characters of Ngugi portray the fact that the identityis not clear since they don't know their
shapes or origin. Gikuyu people fought for their lands against the white man to come back and find their
lands taken and their homes destroyed, so they indeed felt displaced.
They came to know their lands gone or divided, they are no longer the same lands they had left. They
found a change with their land and they felt confused and displaced. With this notion of land, Ngugi always
draws a relation between land, home and nation. Ngugi also stresses the meaning of land for him and his
people, possessing a land means holding a valuable social and economic status with them and it also helps
in the strengthening of one's personality and sense of identity. Ngugi writes in Weep Not, Child: “Any man
who had land was considered rich. If a man had plenty of money, many motor cars, but no land, he could
never be counted as rich. A man who went with tattered clothes but had at least an acre of red earth was
better off than the man with money.”(Ngugi 1964, 35)
This is a special indication to the fact that if one doesn't have land, that means he doesn't have a sense
of belonging or importance in his society since land is an important marker of belonging in Africa. Here we
notice with no doubt that people in Kenya are divided into two categories, those who fought for the
independence of their country at any cost and those who would have sold it at any moment, those who have
a strong sense of nationalism and belonging, and those who have been injected a feeling of loss and
unbelongingness. But in either way both categories are dislocated. Unfortunately, the colonized lost their
land with the arrival of the colonizer and they had the feeling of alienation with their own land, so the two
first novels of Ngugi, Weep Not, Child and The River Between, depict the alienation of Kenyan people and
African people by the colonizer from their homelands. After independence they lost their individual self
and they had feeling of spiritual alienation. And his later novels depict the alienation of individuals in the
newly formed society. Ngugi writes about not only alienation from home but a spiritual alienation.
Love of place is the dilemma which is presented in Ngugi's novels as another aspect of home. It
undermines the identity that is built around the aspects of home, land and community and the experience of
change is undermined by the arrival of the colonizer and the life in the modern world.
So, any individual especially those affected by the process of colonization, for whom this notion of home is
very vital. People work hard to have a better home and to feel better. This is what happened to the character
of Kamau in Weep Not, Child when he told his brother to get education and he will earn money through his
job and with this he plans to buy a home their family, through this he wants to create a identity for his family
and also for himself. So Ngugi tries to create a link between him and his land through his writings as a
reward for the alienation that he together with his people suffered from, during and after colonization.
All this makes it clear how home and its components are very crucial to African people, not only for
African but for all the people in the world. They represent an undeniable part of their heritage and
personality. For African people, owning land means to own social status and self-esteem. In addition to the
fact that land creates a sense of belonging to a place to avoid the feeling of loss and displacement.The story

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of Ngotho about the land, better illustrates the idea that land as being a mystical phenomenon which is
prominent to self-formation:
The creator who is called Murungu took Gikuyu and Mumbi from his holy mountain. He
took them to the country of ridges near Siriana and there stood them on a big ridge befor he
finally took them to Mukuruwe wa Gathanga about which you have heard so much. But he
has shown them all the languages, children, God showed Gikuyu and Mumbi all the land
and told them, This land I hand over to you. O man and woman it's yours to till in serenity
sacrificing only to me, your God, under my sacred tree. (2004, 82)
The notion of land in Kenya has spiritual associations. As a matter of fact, Ngotho speaks like that about the
land because he doesn't consider it as a mere property, on the contrary, he sees in it the spiritual bond
between him, his God and his ancestors. Ngugi rejected and opposed the Westernization of African
literature, he himself happens to be a product of the western tenet because he often uses quotations of
Western writers in his writings like William Shakespeare, Walt Whitman and even from the bible. Ngugi's
novel Weep Not, Child was written to unveil the struggle of Kenyans against Western ways.
Ngugi goes even to portray Njoroge as example of alterity. He conceived him as a character whose
education is not complete until he is convinced to give up the view that education as affected by colonial
identity is “unproblematic” and manages to deal with his own alterity. Ngugi thinks that writing is meant
for the “quest of identity”, and he made that clear especially through writing his novel Weep, Not Child in
which he has portrayed how the people of Kenya were alienated from their lands and from their social and
psychological background. So all that Ngugi wanted to convey is the idea that there are no such notions as
Otherness, centre/periphery, dominator/marginalized and so on. He wants to say that every one is the
centre of his own world and everybody else is an Other to him. There exists a immense amount of centers in
the world. So the centre is not a static notion and it moves.
That identity in Ngugi's view was lost with the coming of the colonizer and has to be restored. He
tries to give solution to this loss of identity through his works but all he does is raising more questions about
this issue. One of the solution he found, he started to apply, was the shift from writing in a foreign language
to writing in the mother tongue as a sign that those who use a foreign language wear “false robes” of
identity, and that to return to the original identity they had to write in their mother tongues. He preserved his
Kenyan identity through writing about traditions and using some techniques which are true to the African
societies such as prophecies, proverbs and so on.
His novels show that he has a strong sense of belonging and that he wants to reconstruct a pure
national identity. He also shows through his characters that the return to a pre-colonial identity is almost
impossible since this latter is constructed through experiences of people, and Ngugi cannot erase or deny
their colonial experience which became part of their personalities and lives. Another solution given by
Ngugi among many others is rebuilding a new home, thus a new identity, through integrating all the layers
of the African society including the intellectual élite especially the exiled ones. By doing this people accept
their differences and their hybrid natures and try to step up the neo-colonial identity in order not to become
a carbon copy of the west.
Works Cited
Anchimbe, Eric. A. Linguistic Identity in Postcolonial Multilingual Spaces. New Castle: Cambridge
Scholar Publishing, 2007. Print.
Blum. W. National Identity and Globalization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. Print.
Thiong'o, Ngugi wa. Weep Not, Child. Oxford: Heinemann Educational books, 1964. Print.
http://www.ifuw.org/seminars/1998/Literature.pdf
"Hybridity and National Identity in Postcolonial Literature." 123HelpMe.com. 15 Feb 2010
<http://www.123HelpMe.com/view.asp?id=6743>

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74
RACIAL DISCRIMINATION IN TONI MORRISONS'S THE BLUEST EYE
st
S. Umamaheswari, M.A., 1 year B.Ed, PSR College of Education, Sivakasi

Abstract:
Toni Morrison is an acclaimed African American novelist, Pulitzer and Nobel Prize winner. She is
one of those rare authors whose works have achieved a great critical acclaim and commercial success. The
lives of African-American women have been critically affected by racism, sexism, and classism which are
systems of social and psychological restrictions. Race and gender signify the traumatic condition under
which African American lived in white America. The Bluest Eye is a tragic tale about a young, black girl's
disire for the bluest eyes, the symbol for her of what it means to be beautiful and, therefore, worthy in
society. The story is about a year in the life of a young black girl in Lorain Ohio named Pecola. The novel
deals about the humilation and oppression faced by Black women.

Key words: Race, gender, black, slavery.

Literature is the sub-category of American Literature that includes work produced in the United
States by writers of African descent and directly pertains to the experiences and viewpoints of African-
Americans. Its generally known as African American Literature. African American writers are interested
in a creative dialogue with America literary ethos. Slave narratives essentially struggled to define Black
people's plight in the days of slavery. African American Literature rich in meaningful subtlety and social
intuition, offering descriptive estimation of American identifications and history. In African American
literature, they find traces of a number of West American literature and history, they realize that Black
Americans are not without influence of their African's past, culture and history.
African American literature has examined the problem of racial discrimination in all its
philosophical, existential and epistemological aspects. It has traveled from mid 18th century with slave
narratives to the current times with all its socio liter make clear African American Literature has become a
challenging task to every critic and academician. African- American literature starts with narratives by
slaves in the pre-revolutionary period focused on freedom and abolition of slavery. African American
writing addresses both the White and the Black audience about injustices done to the Blacks in American
society and their struggle for the freedom. Black writing speaks about sociological, ideological, political
and culture situations created by an unjust oppression, repression, harshness and marginalization of the
blacks in the states.
Alice Walker, Pearl Cleage, Gloria Naylor this writers are noted to be a prominent writers in
African- American Literature. Among these Toni Morrison is one of the most celebrated writers of the
second half of the 20th century in Afro- American writings. She is a Nobel Prize and Pulitzer Prize winning
novelist, editor and professor also. She played a vital role in bringing black literature into the mainstream.
Morrison's novels are known for their epic themes, exquisite language and richly detailed African
American characters who are the central to their narratives. One of the most obvious themes in Morrison's
novels is the idea of the racial tension between Whites and African Americans. Morrison presents a
thorough spectrum of perspective of African Americans by bluntly voicing the opinions many characters
of race.
In 1970 Morrison's literary career began when The Bluest Eye was published. Set in Morrison's
RACIAL DISCRIMINATION IN TONI MORRISONS'S THE BLUEST EYE 262
hometown, the novel received critical acclaim but failed to attract the public's interest. Her novels
typically concentrate on black women. The Bluest Eye traces the growing up Pecola and Claudia, two
ordinary African-American girls. At the same time, it illustrates the girl struggles with social forces of
racism and poverty. The story depicts two black families, the Mac.Teers and the Breedloves, Claudia and
ferida Mac.Teer and Pecola Breedlove- their happy and painful experience in growing up, and their formal
and informal education that leads them to self understanding.
The protagonist of The Bluest Eye is a little girl called Pecola Breedlove. Pecola is a neglected,
abused and even hated child. She and everyone around her think that she is ugly and useless. However
Pecola thinks that she has found the cure for her ugliness. Pecola is a symbol of the effect damaged self
image due to racism can have. The majority culture affects Pecola indirectly of course because there are
places she is not allowed access to because of her skin colour. The novel begins with two prologues. In the
first, the omniscient narrator foreshadows the progressive destruction of Pecola Breedlove by showing
how the same familiar story appears to her in three different versions. Morrison uses technique to
juxtaonpose the fiction of the white educational process with the realities of life for many black children.
The ironic duality of the school and home experiences reflected through the structure of the novel.
Racism is a major theme of the novel The Bluest Eye. The characters in the novel The Bluest Eye
clearly shows why such a movement was needed. All of these characters estimate themselves according to
their degree of blackness. Blue Eyes are here using a metaphor that is easily understood. When Peacola
wants blue eyes she is really saying that she wants to escape from her life and herself. She has defined
herself only by her degree of blackness. Pecola and her family regard being a dark skinned black as being
synonymous with being ugly. At only eleven years of age the solution Pecola can find regarding the feeling
of inferiority and worthless in acquiring the symbol of beauty in her community. Pecola is in a desperate
situation. She is not appreciated and cared by her family. Instead she is subjected to neglect and sexual
abuse.
The Bluest Eye uses techniques of involved flashbacks and a cyclical return to particular events.
Although the novel's narrative technique is accessible to many readers, it does not present the events
chronologically. It focuses on issues of its time but develops them with psychological profundity and
moral intensity. The Bluest Eye, hence, goes beyond the mindset of its own time to establish many of the
basic terms for subsequent discussion of racist psychology. It is an innovative novel in which its
experiment with form is determined by the perspectives and approaches which it brings to the condition of
critical attention. However, most Critics have either totally ignored the significance of family's role or
have with it in a passing reference.
In this novel initially brings up the predicament of a black woman in the predominantly white
American society in the 1930's nd 1940's since it was the time, of racial tensions which are evident and
extreme. Morrison makes a deep insight into the racial problems that are being confronted by the Blacks
since their existence. Being an African American woman, she boldly presents Afro-American feminist
consciousness through her literary endeavor as she strongly expresses her philosophy as a feminist. All
her novels reveals and highlight Black Women they are doubly differentiated in the form of male standard
and poverty as well as Euro-American women's standard. In her works, Morrison has explored the
experiences and roles of Black women in a racist and male-dominated society.
Works Cited
Dhawan, R.K. Afro-American Literature. New Delhi: Prestige Books, 2001. Print.
Morrison, Toni The Bluest Eye. London: Random House, Vintage: 1999. Print.
Ranveer, Kashinath. “African- American Feminist Consciousness in the Novel of Toni Morrison.” Indian
Journal of American Studies 23.2 (Sum 1993). Print.
Weixlmann, Joe et. al. Black American Literature Forum, vol. 20 Spring-summer, no.1-2, 1986.

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75
AN EXPLORATION OF HUMAN RELATIONSHIP AND THE INTERACTION
BETWEEN THE CHARACTERS AND THE LANDSCAPE IN ANITA NAIR'S
SELECT NOVELS

G. Kayalvizhi, Assistant Professor, Ayya Nadar Janaki Ammal College, Sivakasi

Abstract:
Women novelists have played a crucial and momentous role in enhancing the quality and quantity
of the Indian English fiction. Their rich contribution has widened the spectrum of issues deliberated in the
novel. Many Indian women novelists have explored female subjectivity in order to establish an identity that
is not imposed by a patriarchal society. Anita Nair (1966- ), the living writer of this century, is an Indian
English writer. She is a creative artist bestowed with immense proficiency and scholarly panorama. She is
regarded as one of the leading novelists in Indian English Literature. In her works, Anita Nair mainly
focuses on the real human condition on the earth. At the same time, she is artful in interweaving her stories
in the Indian scenario, unique in presenting her conceptions and innovative in sharing the experiences of
language. Exhibiting an individualistic flair in her writing style, Anita Nair's novels display an awe-
inspiring depth in her narration, and the main thrust of her novels is the confrontation between the self-
actualization and family responsibilities of the individuals.

Keywords: Relationship, landscape, identity.

Anita Nair has presented in her novels, modern Indian women's search for revival of relationships
that are central to women. Her own struggle as a writer is equally symptomatic of the resistance to feminist
expression that prevails in India in the middle of the twentieth century. As a women writer her dilemma was
either to give voice to women's concern and be branded as a 'women writer: removed from the mainstream
of literary scene: or, to deny her feminist and write like a man either with male name or male narrative
voice. Anita Nair reveals that her concern is with the exploration of human psyche. She explores the
emotional ecology of her protagonists.
No human stands alone. People are always in relationship with others and the world around them.
Love means supporting ourselves and others in our highest good, which never means giving ourselves up
to care-take others who are capable of taking care of them. The objective of this chapter is to bring out the
human relationships in the novels of Anita Nair. All the three novels has a galaxy of fictional characters
whose earnest endeavour is to establish, with varying degrees of success, happy and healthy relationship
with the people around them. Accepting this as its main theme the novels may justly be called a study of the
ways and means by which satisfy human relationship. Human relationships can be established and
sustained by the expressive power of words, by uttering out a few kind and affectionate words. The novelist
has assured of a fresh lease of time. Things will work out somehow. Nothing is over … we leave our marks
on the world. Although life is all mixed up, nothing is over, things keep coming back over again, and they're
all connected. This is possible only because of human relationships.
Family plays a vital task in our Indian society. Habitually nuptial and family are measured to be its
most sanctified institutions. They are the main source of console and raise the members living inside it. As
a wonderful bridge between nature and civilization, biology and culture, sex and virtue or righteousness,
private rivalry and public order, the society of marriage marks a unique development in the evolutionary
AN EXPLORATION OF HUMAN RELATIONSHIP AND THE INTERACTION BETWEEN THE CHARACTERS AND THE LANDSCAPE .... 264
history of humanity. Social roles and social constructs influence family relationships in multiple ways.
From the very ancient times, marriage is rooted in the basic need of the family and at the same time
it is an essential element for maintaining it. According to the Hindu tradition, marriage is regarded as a
'Sanskara' which initially transformed every man into a 'husband' and every woman a 'wife'; thus giving
each a social role and finally uniting them into an eternal bond of love, procreation and self realization.
Marriage seems to be a bridge for husband and wife. No doubt, love and marriage are complementary to
each other and without love married life is not supposed to be happy. Thus marriage is a social recognition
of love between two persons.
Anita Nair takes a great effort to uncover women characters in order to establish their self-identity,
self-discovery and finally their existence. These steps deal with an exploration of the existentialist concept
of freedom and responsibility. All the six characters on the basis of their freedom as a human being choose
the way they want to live their life. They were all in the situation where they were to prove that they can
take some serious steps in order to change their life and also to show their individual identity. Akhila,
protagonist begins her journey for self-discovery. She starts her journey to Kanyakumari without seeking
permission from her family members. She realizes that she as an individual is free to take decisions on her
own to change her life. Prior, she realizes that she has lost her own identity and is living life for others, she
wants to know what is her real desire and existence so she asks question to herself that: “Did the feel of rain
on her bare skin send a line of goose bumps down her spine Did she sing ? Did she dream? Did she weep for
reason? (L C 84). Other female characters also get their path of self discovery.
According to the oxford dictionary, landscape is 'a piece of inland scenery'. The various defining
features of scenery thus, contribute and represent the landscape of the area. Landscape in Literature has
become an important part of narrative at the hands of the writer. Through his creativity, the writer often
uses descriptions of the landscapeto compliment/add to the plot or the characters of his literary text.
Christopher Salter and William J. Lloyd write about landscape saying that it'is what lies between our minds
and our horizon.' The writer thus establishes a relationship between the mind and the horizon by creatively
relating the abstractness of the character's emotion with the concreteness of the geographical or physical
landscape that surrounds him/her. Thus, landscape in literature comes into close contact with the
development of a plot, theme or the characterization of a character, thereby complimenting not only the
geographical but also the psychological and cultural aspects of a literary text.
Localisation is a practical matter of placing the characters in an environment within which they
perform their roles. A study of Nair's use of landscape in her fiction will further justify the title of this
chapter. Place is vitally important in arguably every story Welty has ever written. She believed that place is
what makes fiction seem real, because with place comes customs, feelings, and associations. Similarly, for
Nair place plays a significant role in her novels. Nair is also noted for using mythology to connect to her
specific character and locations to universal truths and themes.
Characterization constitutes the real essence of all her novels. The story is set in a sleepy village
called Kaikurissi in Northern Kerala. This village conditions the novelist's mode of characterization. The
novel begins with a monologue by Bhasi, who introduces a host of characters: Vishnu, the priest, Che
Kutty the toddy seller, Shankar, the tea-wallah. These characters represent the essence of Kerala because
temples, toddy-shops and tea-stalls form the life of Kerala. The names assigned to the characters and the
towns are typical of Kerala.
In the South Asian fiction, the concept of landscape becomes a means through which the writer
gives his text both an aboriginal tinge as well as all encompassing. This paper attempts to explore the South
Asian novels, Noor and Ladies Coupe with reference to the environmental, psychosomatic and cultural
landscape that function visibly in these works of fiction. Herein, these nexuses are explored turn by turn by
developing a linkage of textually and intertexuality of these texts to substantiate thestance.

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The important aspect of landscape dominant in literary texts is the cultural landscape, which gives
the readers an insight into the way of life led by a particular society. Anita Nair's Ladies' Coupe can be
analysed in this term. The novel gives the readers an insight into the values, norms and the style of life that
governs the people of Bangalore. It emphasizes upon the power of the male gender over that of the female
and establishes the society as one that is based on patriarchal power. The novel thus, takes the readers on a
journey of the various experiences that women are made to go through under the cultural landscape of
patriarchal domination.
Through the narration of the experiences of these women, Anita Nair points out the gaping holes
within the cultural landscape that women were expected to abide by. Prabha Devi, in submitting herself to
the control of her husband sadly realizes how a woman is not taught to strike a balance in her marital
relationship. If submissive, the husband takes complete reign over her life, and if independent, she loses
the companionship she might need in hard times.
Even the unmarried protagonist of the novel, Akhila is brought up with these stereo typical
concepts. Her mother deliberately generated the myth 'about a tyrant husband who was easily annoyed and
could be placated only by her complete devotion.' (Nair 2003, 12) In fact the role of the dutiful/submissive
wife, as Nair points out seeped into the smallest aspects of the life of a woman. Even the kolam as Akhila
mentions had to 'reflect who you are: a good housewife'.
Within this cultural landscape Anita Nair situates the protagonist of the novel, Akhila who is
unmarried at forty-five. Through her situation Nair points out the vanity of the social and cultural
landscape, upon which the entire society functioned. Anita Nair points out how, despite being unmarried,
and being thrust upon with the role of the 'man of the house', Akhila still fails to escape from the cultural
system. While Akhila is expected to shoulder the burden of her entire family, and to fulfill their needs, she
is also expected to comply with the will of her younger brothers for the fulfillment of her personal needs
and desires. Her independence thus becomes limited only to the extent of providing for others and not to
the extent of providing for herself.
Anita Nair, also points out how the cultural landscape limits Akhila in nourishing her personal
desires. In catering to the needs of her family, the subject of Akhila's marriage shrinks into the background
before disappearing completely. However, with the appearance of Hari in Akhila's life, Nair establishes the
desires of women who nourish dreams of being cherished, wanted and loved. Akhila falls in love with Hari,
but it is her cultural limitation that hinders her from continuing her relationship with him. She realizes that
her relationship would be disapproved by her mother who lived in a world where 'women never knew what
it was to desire' (Nair, 160) Also on a social level, Akhila realizes that she and Hari 'were an anomaly'.
Moreover, Nair also points out how this claustrophobic system continues to demand more and
more from Akhila. Her desire to live on her own and to break free from the constraints of her family is
tainted with the social repute that she will have to endure. Thus, the novel 'Ladies' Coupe' establishes the
fickleness of the cultural system that limits the woman from asserting herself as an individual. Anita Nair
clearly voices this perception through the character of Karpagram, Akhila's friend who dares to defy the
cultural set-up that demands her to dress in white after the demise of her husband.
Landscapecanthereforebeseenas an important cohesive device that adds to the psychological,
geographical and cultural make-up of a literary text. Through the different forms of landscape, the writers
of South Asia render their texts with an indigenous flavour as well as a universal one. Moreover, these
concepts of landscapes add to the creativity of a literary work. Christopher Salter and William J. Lloyd
state that 'The strength of landscape in literature lies in its subtle human qualities, (in) it's potential for
revealing the hidden dimensions of human meanings, and not in its objectivity.'In short, this living writer is
a multi faceted one whose personal interests and experiences add spice to her writings.

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Works Cited
Agrawal and Sinha.M.P. Major Trends in the Post Independence Indian English Fiction. New Delhi:
Atlantic Publishers andDistributors, 2003. Print.
Devi, Indra. “Women in Postcolonial India: A Study of Anita Nair's Ladie's Coupe.” Proceedings of the
UGC Sponsored National Conference on The Postcolonial Novel Themes and Techniques. Eds.
Albert V.S,Joseph and John Peter Joseph. Palayamkottai: St. Xavier's College.2009. 219 221.
Print.
Nair, Anita. Ladies Coupe. New Delhi: Penguin Books, 2001. Print.
---. Lessons in Forgetting. New Delhi: Harper Collins Publishers, 2010. Print.
---. Mistress. New Delhi: Penguin Books, 2005. Print.
---. The Better Man. New Delhi: Penguin Books, 1999. Print.

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76
JOURNEY OF TRANSFORMATION: A STUDY OF BHARATHI MUKHERJEE'S
THE TIGER'S DAUGHTER AND WIFE

Mrs. R. Kavitha, Assistant Professor, Syed Ammal Engineering College, Ramanathapuram

Abstract:
Literature is a focal point that represents the real life of the people without concerning the races,
classes and genders. It is a powerful tool to explicate the value of the human life. The writers from the
various parts of the world sense the literature as a track to enunciate their outlook. Many women writers
exposed their views through their characterization and embodied the protagonists to be different from
others. Bharathi Mukherjee, a renowned author of Indian English Writing, emphasizes the real world of
women where they encounter the suppression and depression and in some cases her own experiences.
Being an accomplished writer, Mukherjee knows very well that the life moves not only based on the
individual's wish but also on other's impetus.

Keywords: Exile, suffering, journey.

The concept of East to West is due to the influence that was made by the west on the east.
Colonization is also one of the stream lines which created awareness among people about their education
and livelihood. Though colonisation was made for trade and expansion of the Britisher's ruling area
indirectly, it created the drastic change in the life of the Indians. People subtlety accepted some of the
Britisher's way of life, and one of the most important things is their language English.
People developed their interests in accepting and acquiring the language which paved the way to
the innumerable contribution of English Literary works. Though many writers write in their regional
languages, few of them get recognition whereas the writers who pen in English, reach the worldwide
acclamation. Due to the significant influence, they tried to get the national and international recognition.
The shift from migration studies to diaspora theories occurred rather seamlessly but it marks an
important nodal moment in our understanding of the phenomenon of cross - cultural and cross continental
journeys and settlements. The shift was enabling since it demonstrated how people living in diaspora are
capable of mastering the shifting dynamics of power and agency in order to produce alternative versions of
modernity and postmodernity and a new cosmopolitanism. Diaspora as a conceptual tool highlights the
multiple standpoints borne of migration and exiles.
Literature is one of the primary factors that help to construct and protect the cultural life of various
communities. The concept strengthened the mind of the Indian readers and energized` them to put those
things in their writing. The new great tradition could be experienced and imagined through the excellent
contribution of the literary authors Bharathi Mukherjee, is one of the South Asian American immigrant
writers.
Numerous women novelists focus attention on a journey, a move from one country or city to
another, the experience of meeting other people, massive environments and all the paraphernalia that goes
with actual physical movement from one place to another. They undergo the journey which represents the
upheavals and withdrawal of oneself from the set in which they are brought up and then another thing is
their bareness which induces them to learn about the different cultural background and social set up. The
shifting of one place in another demands not only mental and emotional acculturation of the new
JOURNEY OF TRANSFORMATION: A STUDY OF BHARATHI MUKHERJEE'S THE TIGER'S DAUGHTER AND WIFE 268
circumstances but also the physical re-orientation regarding surrounding, atmosphere and in precise they
have to be ready to accept to both state of mental and physical.
Bharathi Mukherjee portrays her own experiences of her life through the characterization. Being a
prominent writer of the women community, she had expressed her characters mostly to pronounce the
predicaments of the women in the society as well on their own personal ground. The purpose of journey
differs from one person to another and one place to another based on the needs and outlook. Though, she
was brought up in the pre-independence period, her parents gave her the freedom to select her own path.
That paved way to get the exposure led to her to initiate the new beginning in the field of writing.
Mukherjee's career was entirely around the writing and teaching. She is the embodiment of the
women who strive to achieve. She gives voice for the women who are suppressed in the four walls of the
kitchen. On account of that, she determines to focus the protagonists liberated self through her novels. So,
Mukherjee created her heroines as the replica of herself. She believes that transformation will result in the
betterment of the women. She depicts many fictions on the concept of transformation from one place to
another. As like Bharathi Mukherjee, her heroines also move to another landscape for various purposes
like education, marriage and in some cases for the sophisticated life.
Mukherjee, in her first novel The Tiger's Daughter deals with the journey from the homeland to
new space which results in transformation of Tara. Tara Banerjee, the protagonist of the novel The Tiger's
Daughter, was brought up in the family of different social perception. Her father Bengal Tiger had a very
determined notion, and he freed her daughter for education. Unlike, the other men, he offered her a good
education and the optimistic way of viewing the life. He has a firm determination in dealing with spiritual
and moral issues. He worked for justice and did a lot of things for the welfare of the factory workers. He
handled the classes for the illiterate workers. This kind of humanity nurtured and gave him a different
perspective in framing his daughter's career. He spotlighted the inner strength of his daughter and sent her
to U.S.A for higher education when she was at the age of 15. He did not bother about the criticism of
neighbourhood. He sent her to U.S.A to give the good education and liberation to lead the life. That journey
made a drastic change in Tara's life. She felt very liberated and spent her days at the new land with high
spirits.
Tara spent her seven years in Calcutta, is ready to enjoy her days amidst her relatives in the adult
age. The transportation changed her character and made her alone. The nostalgia of Tara came to be waste
when she regrets to face the situation at Calcutta. Again the shipment occurred not to comfort her but to
visualise the ideal image of India and Indians conventional way of living. She dreamt of coming to India
and posturized the new colourful part of India. She believed that travel had changed her entirely both in
academic and personal development as well as that the seven years of exile be led the betterment of India
when she arrived India, she comes to realise the fact that India is not be developed. Tara's seven years of
living at the new land shaped her mind to expect the different and distinguishable life at the homeland.
Tara's journey from Bombay to Calcutta gave her much tension and exasperation, and she could
assess the days which will be horrible in future. She realised that expectations never works. Tara feels as:
For years she had dreamed of this return to India. She had believed that all hesitations, all
shadowy fears of the time abroad would be erased quite magically if she could return home
to Calcutta. But so far the return had brought only wounds. First the corrosive hours on
Marin Drive, then the deformed beggars in the railway station and now the inexorable train
ride steadily --- what strength she had held in reserve. (TD.25)
Mukherjee's direct huddle in the unknown society created the painstaking minutes in her life, and
that motivated her to reflect her life through her Mukherjees. One may get homesick when he/she
happened to live in another state or another country. Instead, Tara felt that nostalgic when she realized in
the secret past of Calcutta. The minute she crosses was like the hours passed. She recognized the

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nothingness everywhere and not even ready to pay attention to the relatives. The change in the attitude
creates the large gap between the affect mates.
In her second novel Wife, Mukherjee's protagonist Dimple is introduced as the daughter of the Mr
Dasguspta who is an Electrical Engineer with the Calcutta Electric supply company. Dimple wanted a
different kind of life. She dreams of marrying a Neuro Surgeon, but her father is looking for the engineers
in the matrimonial ads. She imagines highly about the marriage life as “She fantasized about Youngman
with moustaches, dressed in spotless white, peering into opened skulls. Marriage would bring her freedom,
cocktail parties on the carpeted lawn, find raising dinners for worthy charities. Marriage would bring her
love.” (Wife 3)
Dimple, though born and brought up in the Bengal aristocratic family, is engaged with the groom
Amit Basu, 29, consulted an engineer, son of late Ajay Kumar Basu. He had applied for the immigration to
Canada and US. Dimple never thought this type of life. She got excited which gave her the new way of life
spending time at purchasing and collecting the things for the new life which is going to be shared with an
Amit Basu.Shifting from one place to another may have so many reasons. Marriage is the noble cause for
the immigration of Dimple from east to west. Even birds migrate from their homeland to another new land
which they feel that that may be the right time and place to breed. Seasonal change is the reason behind the
migration. It creates a sense of adjusting and adopting the new space.
Dimple had the sense of fear where she left for America about the things which are going to be the
unfamiliar one to her. “She had expected pain when she had come to America, had told herself that pain was
parts of any new beginning, and the sweet structures of that new life had allotted pain a particular place” (
Wife 109).
The migration creates a significant impact on Dimple's life. Though, she seems to be very much
interested in leaving for America, days after, she feels a sense of accepting all things which she comes
across. Communication is another thread to her to live her life at the new land. Meena Sen, who is the friend
of Dimple, encourages her to go to the shop alone, and she notices one by one inside the glass like hanging
salamis, salads, pink roast beef, roast duck, pickles. She was startled by the shopkeeper for repeating the
sentence. She thinks that “ she was caught in the crossfire of American communication. She could not and
instant she felt she'd come very close to getting killed on her third morning in America”(Wife60).
She passes the time under fear. She helps Meena Sen in domestic works and in watching T.V or
reading newspaper. Most of the time, she hears only about murder, smugglings in the basement of the
building. She has he friend called, Ina Mullick wife of Bijoy Mullick, Indian born women living in
America. She is disgusted by Dimple and also other Indians due to her ill like habits. Smoking and fights
with other men. She is “more American than the Americans”(Wife 68). Ina compels Dimple to take a small
amount of gin, but she avoids her. Otherwise, she will be named as the immoral, drunken daughter of
Dasgupta. Even though, she suppresses the tempting mind. The change tries to sprout out gradually.
When she was in India, she had spent her time with her friends and reading magazines. But her
attitudes slowly changes when she migrated to the West. Marriage has taught her much which is the
mainstream of her to fly under a different sky. Dimple's sense of insecurity pressurizes her to find fault with
Amit. She feels that Amit cannot be successful in America and she thinks that he is unfit. The journey from
India to America made her think beyond the normal Indian women because Indian born woman is always
ready to face the situation whatever comes in her way and she is bold enough to run the family if her
husband is unfit or lost. Instead, Dimple being on Indian born, woman indulges in unwanted behaviours
and has an affair with Milt Glasser. She thinks Amit's indifferent nature made a drastic change in attitude. It
created a gap comments, “ A weak-minded Bengali woman who migrates to NewYork with her engineer
husband in search of a better life; but her sensibilities become so confounded by her changing cultural
roles, the insidious television factitiousness, and the tensions of feminism that, ironically, she goes mad

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and kill her husband”( Wife 51).
Dimple's makeshift in acquiring the new land's trendy set up effectuates the mental discomfort in
her. The days in the East and the days in the West unhinge her, and she cannot concentrate on the things
whatever she does. Amit's uncaring activities cause her the mental illness, and even she is ready to abort her
child by skipping. She imagines, “Her life was slow, full of miscalculations” (Wife 178)
Dimple believed that leaving for America will be the right route for liberated from her traditional
and cultural set up of the Bengali culture. She dreamt of the life living at the new circumstances. Being
enjoyed the American way of life, she is not interested in deteriorating her long-lasting wishes which came
true due to marriage. She is ready to abort her child because she thinks that it will be an obstacle to enjoy a
happy life. She executes the plans to be unquestioned by others. Mukherjee's artistic picture of Dimple is
shown as:
She touched the mole very lightly and let her fingers draw a circle around the delectable
spot, then she brought her right hand up and with the Knife stapled the magical loop once,
twice, seven times each time a little harder, … then saw the head fall off but of course it was
her imagination because she was not sure any more what she had seen on the private screen
of three A.M. And it stayed upright, still with its eyes averted from her face… women on
television got away with murder(Wife 212-13).
Life is a memorable journey ensured with good, evil, joy, celebrations, hardships, lessons which
ultimately give the strength to lead the life purposefully. Expecting everything pleasantly and peacefully
means, it may be leading the life just for the sake of living from the birth, till the death, everyone needs to
face many problems and move their place to come out from the bewildered state of mind of mind. Some of
the incidents may test our courage, mental ability and belief in God. That may be the test of God on us to
assess the hope on him. The journey of life will be led in the right way means it will automatically provide
the physical and mental strength to acquire all the quality of balancing the situation at the right time and
right place.

Works Cited
Dhawan, R, K. The Fiction of Bharati Mukherjee: A critical Symposium. New Delhi, 1996.Print
Mukherjee, Bharati. The Tiger's Daughter, New York, Ballantine Books, 1971.Print
Mukherjee, Bharati. Wife, New York, Penguin Books, 1975.Print

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77
DIASPORIC PERSPECTIVES IN CHITRA BANERJEE DIVAKARUNI'S
THE PALACE OF ILLUSIONS

S. Bala Murugan, M.Phil, St. John's College, Palayamkottai

Abstract:
In contemporary literature, the term diasporic writing has come to be associated with works
produced by globally dispersed minority communities that have common ancestral homelands. Diaspora
illustrates the chronological event of shifting of a community from one land to some another one in a group.
During the unsophisticated times various group used to migrate from one geographical territory to the
other. Although the causes beyond their migrations might have been diverse, the prevalent ones can be the
natural calamities or some terminal disease. An effect of some external force or a man-made disaster like
war to reside in that valuable piece of land might have been by these earlier beings' migration. In that case
a variety of civilizations came on the front-end this process of immigration suited faster and much easier. A
few people shifted from their place in search of livelihood, some to occupy and to govern the inhabitants. In
the exile, Jews' migration can be found. Though this phrase moved in eminence much later or it can be
named as a twentieth century phenomena with the cross-country migration but is equally applicable to the
old time's events. We can easily establish examples of diasporic happenings, if we have a look upon the
histories of various customs and countries.

Keywords: Diaspora, migerartion, territory, abstracles.

We possess more than twenty Five languages in our state. We are still speaking and understanding
two languages Hindi and English. Even though we have twenty nine states, we still have one government.
We have cultural dissimilitude and even then celebrate all festivals communally and with great passion.
We have so many religions and still the country is secular and religious tolerant. The descendants of the
people uprooted from their homelands in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and transported from one
region of the globe to another to reach their ambitions and to execute their dreams. Today the needs are
economic. Various people attempt to improve their economic environment and thus they leave their own
countries for economic, political, cultural and familial or personal reasons and migrate to some other
country which many, as citizens of the Empire, considered their capital, and for North America and
Australia, continents that long had provided living space for peoples from overcrowded Europe. In such
environment they face a lot of problems because they left their relations, their customs, and their
individuality, everything behind them in their own countries. They bring a cultural bag and baggage along
with them. On getting to that altogether new region they fail to see that ambiance but following their
requirements they also try to integrate with their new found lands. In this integration the migrant has to
restructure a new self and wipe out something from his old self. Under the term 'Diaspora' we may learn all
the impediments faced by such people. But all the impediments interrelated with this term can be précised
in a phrase quest for identity.
The writers of Indian Diaspora have recorded about various obstacles met by them in their works.
They are V. S. Naipaul, Jhumpa Lahiri, Salman Rushdie, Rohinton Mistry, Bharati Mukherjee, Meena
Alexander, Sunetra Gupta and Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni. All of them focus on the themes of identity.
This quest for identity is remained at the centre of such writings. V. S. Naipaul is one of the prominent
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Diasporic writers. He was born in Trinidad and has written captivating it as the background of most of his
novels. His novel House for Mr. Biswas (1961) focuses on its lead character and his quest for his individual
uniqueness in the form of his own house. Jhumpa Lahiri is prominent for her work The Namesake in which
she has presented Aashima and Ashok as the first age group of the people who tolerates the trouble and
income of exile. She has sketched Gogol as an incarnation of hybrid generation who is neither absolutely
Indian nor American. There are two generation have been portrayed by her with two diverse perspectives.
The most significant writer, Rohinton Mistry in his decisive work Such a long Journey (1991) framed
journey as a phrase to convey the brutal effort of Parsi Community in India. He has presented Gustad as a
representative of parsi community. The hazards, threats, anxieties concerning their gradually perishing
community and culture, are well portrayed. The eminent writer, Bharati Mukherjee in her novel Jasmine
(1989) has explored minutely the complexity of fluid identity of a girl Jyoti who is with her changing
names changes herself too. She does accept the fluid or lenient identity very easily. Eventually, she herself
notices it eccentric to be in such a strange condition of fluctuation asserts, “Time will tell if I am a tornado,
rubble-maker, arising from nowhere and disappearing into a cloud” (Jasmine 241).
Now she hardly considers her origin and desires to live her life in this parallel ambiguity of life.
The other important writer Meena Alexander who has described the life struggle of an Indian woman,
Sandhya who is in her significant work Manhattan Music and after getting married a Jew man migrates
from India to America and tackles a lot of impediments in her life. Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni is an Indian
American writer. She was born in India but later on migrated to America and well-known there as a
professor of Creative Writing program. She has tried her hand in various genres like magic realism, fantasy
and many more but mostly writes on the backdrop of diasporic tone. In all her novels we find an inquisitive,
an eccentric and detained look on the foreign culture. Alternatively she appears back on her own country
and culture in a way to scrutinize, pierce, interpret and untie some of its concealed or unharmed curves of
thought patterns. Her foremost works include The Mistress of Spices (1997), Sister of My Heart (1999),
The Vine of Desire (2003) and The Palace of Illusions (2009). In most of her novels she concerns with
magic realism but the novel which can be seen completely under the light of this genre is The Mistress of
Spices.
In The Palace of Illusions she has aimed to deal with a creative genre of recreation of the epic
Mahabharata from the only perception of Panchaali. She herself has entitled it as “PANCHAALI'S
MAHABHARAT”, she has nominated only Draupadi to speak this novel other character s speak only
unceremoniously. She has made much research to present this epic from altogether new perspective of a
female. The main purpose of this paper would be, to prove and explore this novel from a diasporic
perspective.
In The Palace of Illusions also we can find this pattern of Diaspora easily. In this novel Draupadi's
birth from fire is the example of her strange or quite we can name it an imposed exile from the heaven to
earth. She before her birth inhabited devlok with her brother but on the call of King Darupad they were
required to come. But after ingoing on the earth she was always paid for as an unwanted child. Her father
Drupad did perform theyagya to have a son who may retaliate his offense done by Drona. He got a son with
a daughter from the sacred fire but remained an imposed child with a special responsibility because she
was confessed being able to “change the course of history” (Divakaruni 5).
Her nurse says to her the story of her birth from fire many a times on her assertion,
“…Dhai Ma puffed out her cheeks at my tendency to drama, calling me the Girl Who
Wasn't Invited” (Divakaruni 1).
Draupadi like an immigrant who has left her home at first got discarded by her new home and its
members. Though she doesn't have the nostalgic approaches concerning her lost home land but is very
astonishingly spellbound about her new home. Her dislocation from heaven and rehabilitation in King

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Drupad's palace both the events have set some influence on her approaches towards her life. Now she is a
matured girl but during her infancy she had tried rigid to incorporate with the ways of living in the palace.
Whenever she happens to meet queens who look elegant to her, she attempts to copy queens,
especially queen Sulochana. As she occurs to meet other princesses, she feels like a stranger and becomes
uncomfortable,
“If someone addressed me- a guest or a newcomer, usually, who didn't know who I was- I
tended to blush and stammer and (yes, even at this age) trip over the edge of my sari”
(Divakaruni 9).
She does find herself emotionally involved only to her brother and to Krishna. She has tried to
incorporate with this new society by connecting her own traits with others. As both of them were born
from fire, she relates her brother with herself on the basis and had a mutual love for each other. Due to their
similarity of complexion, she has a special friendship with Krishna. Where Draupadi has sensed a tinge of
shamefulness due to her dark complexion, for Krishna his dark complexion works as a magnet. Gradually
she has started becoming the centre of attraction due to her beauty. Now her charisma and the prophecy
have started making her an unfamiliar in the world of normal or we can say ordinary human beings.
She has perceived: I began to notice things, though. My maidservants-even those who had been
with me for years-kept their distance until summoned. If I asked them anything of a personal nature-how
their families were, for instance, or when they were getting married-they grew tongue-tied and escaped
from my presence as soon as they could…Even my father was uneasy when he visited me and rarely
looked directly into my eyes. I began to wonder whether Dhri's tutor's nervousness at my interruptions had
a less flattering cause than my beauty. (Divakaruni 32)
One day when her siarindhri was making her hairs another maids were discussing about a sage who
foretells about future happenings. She becomes interested to test prophecy made by the priests at the time
of birth. She has implored to Dhai Ma and somehow convinced her. She wishes to explore the darkest
corners of her upcoming life. When the spirits predict her future she becomes shun and regrets the future
destruction she would cause. On hearing the prediction from the spirits, she becomes afraid on the very
idea of the devastation and killings of her son's and her brother Dhri and laments on these prophecies by
spirits that she would have one of the wondrous palaces but she would have to lose it soon. The sage offered
her a new name Panchaali and suggested her that now onwards she should make others to call her by this
name. Though she becomes confused as well as tensed on the idea of marrying to five husbands and
remaining a magical palace but later on most of the times she muses over the later one.
She always imagines about her new home and in her dreams long for it, “…I thought also of the
palace the spirits had promised me. Most magical, they'd called it. I wondered how I would ever gain such a
palace” (Divakaruni 42). She has started imagining about her future palace after her nurse has informed her
that every girl has to leave her father's house and go to her husband' one. She has found out various
unsatisfying things in her father's palace.
She contemplates: I closed my eyes and imagined a riot of color and sound, birds singing in mango
and custard apple orchards, butterflies flirting among jasmines, and in the midst of it…Would it be elegant
as crystal? Solidly precious, like a jewel-studded goblet? Delicate and intricate, like gold filigree? I only
knew that it would mirror my deepest being. There I would finally be at home. (Divakaruni 7)
She has celebrated on the idea of being in love with any one of the great warriors and then selecting
him as her spouse. When questioned to choose Arjun as her husband from the group of warriors, but all her
dreams and imaginations altogether got traumatized. Now she senses as, “My mouth filled with ashes.
How foolish I'd been, dreaming of love when I was nothing but a wormdangled at the end of a fishing pole”
(Divakaruni 57). If she would marry Arjun only then Drupad would be able to have a fight against Drona.
As she has found some similarities between herself and Karna on the bases of strange births of both of

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them, she is fascinated towards him more than anyone else, even more than Arjun. After longing for him
but under the spell of Krishna's words she happened to abuse Karna in the gathering of the kings, but later
on regretting her doings, she put the garland into Arjuna's neck and started her journey with him. On the
way to his home in jungle she realizes, “An insidious voice inside me said, Karna would never have let you
suffer like this” (Divakaruni 99).
Her mother-in-law Kunti has not permitted her to find love for herself in Arjuna alone. The first
thing she alleged to her son is to share her between the brothers that troubled everything. She considers
Kunti, “A woman like her would never tolerate anyone who might lure her sons away” (Divakaruni 108).
She imagines, “Often I imagined my own palace, the one I would build someday” (Divakaruni 113). As she
meditates over, “I couldn't quite believe what a transformation my life had undergone-or that I had helped
to bring about this new destiny we were living” (Divakaruni 139). After her marriage she underwent her
life has completely changed with her five husbands. Still after marrying five males she had remained an
unknown as the Pandavas didn't share their pains with her or before her with their mother. They perform in
very strange manner, that made her think, “Did the massacre at Khandav Forest torment him? I would
never know. Though they must have disagreed with each other from time to time, my husbands never
revealed their dissension to outsiders. (And in this matter, I was still an outsider.) Kunti had trained them
well” (Divakaruni 143).
Her haughtiness creates her fall prey to a huge trap. She has poked fun at Duryodhana when he has
fallen in the illusionary pond which looked like a carpet to him. She laughed on this incident and satirized
him by calling him Blind's son is blind. This staunch remark invokes a fire of revenge in Duryodhan's heart.
Due to her husbands defeat of themselves and their wife as a slave, she is uncovered before the whole
gathering. After her this disgrace they were enforced to go on exile in forest. She had recorded all her
humiliations into her heart for the whole period of her exile. During her exile, she never forgot that
humiliation and never permitted her husbands to stop thinking about it. She always brought about feelings
of vengeance in them as:
Each day as I served their meals, I reminded the pandavas of how they'd failed me, and what
I'd suffered as a result in Duryodhan's sabha. Each night I recited the taunts of the Kauravas
so thatthey stayed fresh in their minds. When we blew out our lamps, I tossed and turned on
my bed, the rushes suddenly as hard as sticks, recalling Karna's face,…Each dawn when I
arose, sweaty with restlessness, I pictured our revenge: a fire-strewen battlefield, the air
grim with vultures, the mangled bodies of the Kaurvas and their allies-the way I would
transform history. (Divakaruni 199)
The vengeance she has yearned for years as a final point came in the shape of Battle of Kurukshetra
and a huge bloodshed took place. Finally when all her sons and her brother die, she grasped herself
responsible for the devastation that is caused by her retaliation. Still Pandavas believe cheated even after
winning the battle. They feel pillaged and consumed of everything as they have no one from their family to
take pleasure in their victory except for Krishna and Draupadi. However they have their descendant
Parikshit, who would take their names further except the space they have created, cannot be engaged by
anyone. They thought as if they have turn out to be failures even after winning the Battle. Eventually even
Panchaali was disappointed the ends of her life as:
I consider my life. What was it that made me joyful? What made me experience peace? …
I'd ridden all these years, delighted one moment, distraught the next. Certainly none of the
men or women I'd been close to had given me that type of joy-nor I them, if I were to admit
the truth. Even my palace with its strange and beautiful fantasies, the palace that in some
way I'd loved more than any of my husbands, the palace that was my greatest pride, had
ultimately brought me only sorrow. (Divakaruni 352)

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Though she has desired for perpetual love in her various relationships and even in material objects,
she never notices it for all her life. For her, the emotion of being at home was always interrelated to being in
deep love and affection with someone which she never got by any means. She thought that contentment
might be gotten by having the passions, objects or partners of your own choice, now which confirmed to be
wrong to her. Even though her infatuations on Karan languished, those passions for him seemed to her
fugitive and transitive. But, she realized the Krishna's love on her death and was eternal. She realized a
strong bond with him and did feel a sort of inactive situation under his touch. She does recognize through
her imagination:
He loved me even when I behaved in a most unloved manner. And his love was totally
different from every other in my life. Unlike them, it didn't expect me to behave in a certain
way. It didn't change into displeasure or anger or even hatred if I didn't comply. It healed
me. If what Ifelt for Karna was a cingeing fire, Krishna's love was a balm, moonlight over
a parched landscape. How blind I'd been not to recognize it for the precious gift it was!
(Divakaruni 356)
She does query his existence and ask again and again if he's divine. And if he is at that moment how
can she be in love with a divine qualities because she has always contemplation herself a very ordinary
person devoid of any divinity in herself. After existing her mortal body she feels as a divine being and so in
a devoted relationship with Krishna at last. And it is in him that she also finds herself as a factual woman
Panchaali and her adored Karna whom she couldn't uncover on earth.
She responds: Krishana touches my hand. If you can call it a hand, these pinpricks of light that are
newly coalescing into the shape of fingers and palm. At his touch something breaks, a chain that was tied to
the woman-shape crumpled on the snow below. I am buoyant and expansive and uncontainable- but I
always was so, only I never knew it! I am beyond name and gender and the imprisoning patterns of ego.
And yet, for the first time, I'm truly Panchaali. I reach with my other hand for Karna-how surprisingly solid
his clsp! Above us our palace waits, the only one I've ever needed. Its walls are space, its floor is sky, its
centre everywhere. We rise; the shapes cluster around us in welcome, dissolving and forming and
dissolving again like fireflies in a summer evening. (Divakaruni 360)
Thus in the vein of a person on his passage in explore of his home she finally discovers it with
Krishna in shape of Karna and a palace which is made up of perpetuity and perpetual things. It is a parallel
amalgamation of process called Diaspora in current times, as William Safran has specified three key words
to portray the whole process. He has said that a person who can be said on an exile from his homeland
undergoes through three main processes: dislocation, homelessness and return to that homeland.
Detachment and interruption has provided Divakaruni a new imminent to see through the heart of society
she has gone following and the epic is retold and with a new hallucination making the national and cultural
periphery extended by recollection.

Works Cited
Divakaruni, Chitra Banerjee. The Palace Of Illusions. London: Picador, 2009. Print.
Hoydis, Julia. “A Palace of Her Own: Feminine Identity in the Great India Story.” Gender Forum 38
(2012). Web. June 2012.

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78
EXISTENTIALISM IN ANITA DESAI'S FIRE ON THE MOUNTAIN

T. Mariselvi, M.Phil Scholar, St.John's College, Palayamkottai

Abstract:
The Research paper entitled with the topic on Exixtentialism in Anita Desai's Fire on the Mountain.
Anita Desai's novels deal with Female protagonist feels alienated, isolated, seperated and detached in this
modern world. These are the basic traits of existentialist behaviors. The novel Fire on the Mountain deals
with existential problems of people of the middle-class and that too mainly of women. This novel exhibits a
strong inclination towards the existentialist interpretation of the human predicament. Existentialism is
apparent in the symbology and the behavior of the women. Nanda, Raka and lla belong to different
spheres of life, but they all are trying to find their purpose in life. The story follows the emotions of three
women as they struggle with their existence. The novel runs in three parts, each part evolving around
arrival or departure of a character to the carignano. Existentialism in the three woman is shown through
their surroundings. In this paper, I will briefly analyze how Nanda kaul has decided to spend her last days
in quiet and peace.

Key words: Alienation, Existentialism, loneliness, pessimism.

Indian English Literature has attained an independent status in the realm of world literature. Indian
literature in English to cover the two hundred years from Raja Rammohan Ray to Arundhati Roy, who have
made significant contributions to the evolution of Indian literature in English. Indian English literature is
the body of work by writers in india who write in the English language. Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay
wrote Rajmohan's Wife, it is the first indian novel written in English. Anita Desai found a prominent place
in book reviews, journals, interviews and seminars. Desai has published works include novels, collections
of short stories, stories for children, articles and interviews. Her works have won wide acclaim and her
novels are a major contribution to literature. Anita Desai is an active woman writer in the Indian English
fiction. The female protagonists of the Desai's novels belong to the patriarchal family system. They have
little power in their family and they remain marginal. They are social outsiders as well as existential
outsiders. Maya in Cry, the Peacock, Sita in Where Shall We Go This Summer?, Nanda Kaul in Fire On the
Mountain are all best examples. These characters are sensitive individuals. Hence, they do not have a
respectable identity in the male-dominated society.
Desai's themes are about women. The characters sometimes react strongly and sometimes react
sensitively to the male-dominated society. She writes about sensitive women in an insensitive male world.
Her theme is the existential predicament in the present social milieu where the male is the ruler and female
is ruled over. In her novels, most of the women are housewives, but they are not happy. Desai's women
characters are always seen hypersensitive, lonely and helpless and they are tormented by the patriarchal
domination. She often gives stress on the feminine tragedy arising out of the marital disharmony. Cry, the
Peacock in three parts deals with the various forms and aspects of Maya's struggles. Three parts deal about
death of her pet dog, tragic death of Maya's husband Gautama, protagonist's loneliness and isolation after
her husband's death. Nanda Kaul in Fire on the Mountain is a victim of loveless marriage. All these novels
underline the tragedy of the fair sex.
Existentialism can be described as the theory which shows the relationship between existence and
EXISTENTIALISM IN ANITA DESAI'S FIRE ON THE MOUNTAIN 277
essence between being and becoming. Existentialists believe that existence takes precedence over
essence; they also believe that human beings are totally free and are completely responsible for the choices
they make as well as from their actions. Anita Desai's Fire on the Mountain has been described as a novel
that deals with existential problems of people of the middle-class and that too mainly of women. Desai
explores the psychic alienation of her characters and depicts the manner in which life becomes a burden to
these people who have no exist except to go on living from day to day but at the same time there is a
constant exploration and action. Anita Desai's one of the famous novel Fire on the Mountain. The story
revolves round the the inner lives of the two female protagonists, Nanda Kaul. It is divided into three parts.
The part is Nanda Kaul at Carignano, the second part is Raka comes to Carignano and the third part iIla
leaves Carignano. The title of the novel Fire, indicates an important dimension. The word Fire entails to
death and destruction. The Fire also represents the energy. In this novel, the character of Raka represents
with full of energy and the fire in her leads her to constant exploration and action. She gets vicarious
pleasure in thinking of setting fire to the hill. She is fascinated by the burnt cottage and is finally instrument
of causing the fire on the mountain.
The alienation is clearly depicted in the character of old lady Nanda Kaul who is so tired of her
family and responsibilities that now she wants to be alone. When she was as the Vice-Chancellor's wife, the
yoke of responsibilities used to ballyrag her but she was helpless to escape from those responsibilities.
Now, she wants and enjoys to be alone and does not allow anyone to intrude in her life. Raka is a child
herself suffers from acute alientation because she has been brought up with negligence and irresponsibility
by parents who seem to be uncaring of her sensitive being and therefore she is abnormal, maladjusted and
alienated from the world and its people.
The opening of the novel, Nanda Kaul is living in Carignano, far from the madding crowd. She is
leading a life of isloation and introspection. She shuns all human company. Even the postman's arrival to
deliver the letter is frowned upon by her. But this seeming quietude does not last long. Raka arrives at
Carignano to convalesce after her typhoid attack. The old woman and young girl live in double singleness.
But after some days, Nanda Kaul finds herself drawn towards Raka, something she had expected. But the
little girl refuses to be befriended and escapes into the hills looking for company in solitude. Nanda Kaul,
Raka and Ila Das are embodiments of the existential predicament experienced by the individual in an un-
understanding and even hostile universe. A detailed examination of the characters of these protagonists
bring to light how Anita Desai has succeeded in giving expression to her existentialist world-view through
these characters and by a subtle use of imagery and symbols.
Anita Desai unravel her past in the form of long interior monologues punctuated by authorial
interruptions, Nanda Kaul had witnessed only betrayals and demands in life before her retirement to
kasauli. She had lived a monotonous life receiving and treating the endless stream of visitors who used to
call on her vice-chancellor husband. Her husband had carried on a life-long affair with his mathematics
mistress Miss David, whom he would have married, had she not been a Christian. Again, the memories of
her children make Nanda Kaul shudder at the very thought of her past. As a mother of several children, all
demanding and unaccommodative, she had been given too many anxious moments. Now all alone in
Carignano, a house associated with many weird strories, Nanda Kaul feels that loneliness is the only
essential condition of human life.
Whenever Nanda Kaul looks at the tall pine trees that stand out from among the underwood, she is
reminded of her own alienation. She is haunted by the existential angst which has led her to conclude that
human life is basically a lonely struggle against the odds of life. In her case the odds have manifested
themselves in the form of an adulterous husband and cantankerous children. Raka slowed down, dragged
her foot, then came towards her great grandmother with something despairing in her attitude. She turned a
pair of extravagantly large and somewhat bulging eyes about in a way that made the old lady feel more than

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ever her resemblance to an insect. Ila Das, the third female protagonist of the novel quite different from
Nanda kaul and Raka, plays a minor role. However, Desai hold up another dimension of the existentialist
philosophy through this minor character, Ila. She is an allegorical figure. Though alone and paltry in both
strength and livelihood, she courageously and manically faces all the challenges cast towards her by the
brute majority.
The prominent character in this novel is Ila Das, in spite of ill health, poverty and loneliness
steadfastly continues her social work, nothing deters her. Ila pursues her innate sense of social
responsibility, her existential quest in spite of all the oddities of life until the end, when she is raped and
murdered. Ila's struggle represents the universal angst of oppression widely prevalent in a male dominated
society. Nanda Kaul dies of shock after hearing of Ila Das's death and Raka sets the forest on fire. Anita
Desai has taken three protagonists of entirely different characteristics suffering from different existential
issues and brought them together to convey the universal existential struggle of women to find a
meaningful existence. The protagonists of Anita Desai is all trying to lead an authentic life and in the
process the existential angst which they go through and the elucidations of their problems are all varied in
nature. In the Fire on the Mountain Desai is concerned with basically projecting the existential alienation
of her protagonists rather than narrating any story nor depicting any action. Anita Desai's novels are about
the helplessness of women confined in unpleasant marriages and their existential suffering. She attempts
to give expression to the silent voices of such women who are unable to escape from unfavourable
situations have to endure tension, conflict, angst, alienation and loneliness.

Works Cited
Desai, Anita, Fire on the Mountain: Penguin Book, London: 1977. Print

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79
IDENTITY CRISIS IN SHASHI DESHPANDE'S THAT LONG SILENCE

A. Padmapriya, M.Phil Scholar, St.John's College, Palayamkottai

Abstract:
The Research paper entitled with the topic on Identity crisis in Shashi Deshpande's That Long
Silence. Shashi Deshpande's has occupied a prominent place among Indian women writers in English.
The novel That Long Silence deals with the problem of identity crisis of female protagonist Jaya. It reveals
the intriguing picture of ordinary middle class educated women Jaya who is trapped in the institution of
marriage. In this novel she tries to search her identity. She reveals modern, educated and career-oriented
middle class women who are sensitive to the changing time and situation. The story tells a haunting tale of
how Jaya is disillusioned with herself. It is a complex story about a woman who rediscovers herself after
seventeen years of marriage and comes to term with her failure as a writer. In this paper I will briefly
analyze about the issue of identity crisis in That Long Silence.

Key words: Faminism, Patriarchal, identity, Solidarity.

The Indian literature tradition is the oldest it the world. It is primarily one of verse and essentially
oral. Indian literature most importance think is family. 'That Long Silence' the novel also discussion about
the family, identity crisis of the character Jaya. 'That long silence' is an acclaimed novel by Shashi
Deshpande, published in British by Virago, has won the prestigious Sahitya Akademi Award and it have
been translated into the French and the Dutch languages. The novel is based in the context of contemporary
Indian writing in English. Shashi Deshpande explores the universal and individual predicament through
the female psyche. The novel that Long Silence tells a haunting tale of how Jaya is enchant with her
marriage and her life, rediscover herself.
That Long Silence is a complicated story about woman who rediscovers herself after seventeen
years of marriage and comes to spoil with her failure as a writer. Deshpande uses this story to paint clearly
says about how the life of a woman like Jaya is. She says that the life of woman is invasion within the
boundaries of her husband's home. She must stay at home, look after her babies, keep out of the rest of the
world, and then only she is safe. Jaya's life was happy one as she had a happy family, her husband was in a
top position, they had two children-one boy and one girl and she was yet another wife and mother whose
life centered on her family and her home. That long Silence dispatches the conflagration, disappointment
and enslaves of middle class education Indian women.
The issue of identity crisis is strongly rooted and integrated in Indian consciousness since ages in
defiance of the fact that Indian women did enjoy equal status and rights during the early Vedic period. The
behavioral pattern of females in India can be to the ancient days. It is said that “In childhood a female must
be subject to her father, in youth to her husband, her lord is dead to her sons; women must never be
freedom.” In this opportunity Simon de Beauvoir's controversy of 'The Second Sex' is thought out
appropriate. Women have never share the worldly evenly with men for them re-dependent on men, which
are not a natural or biological characteristic, but natural upon them by social tradition through their
conditioning.
Jaya's character in this novel is a palatial creation. Jaya is a middle class educated woman, born and
brought up in a family with medium vision. After marriage she becomes the part of a typical Indian safety
IDENTITY CRISIS IN SHASHI DESHPANDE'S THAT LONG SILENCE 280
middle class family, Jaya is known by her husband. Before she has told her, “Remember Jaya, husband is
like a sheltering tree.” After marriage she has given up Jaya has individuality character and molded her to
collation sequence and needs of Mohan's family. Her marking is that she is Mohan's wife. She was author
who had given up serious writing, and had taken up writing a weekly column on seta. Deshpande's Jaya is
must participant to whatever is uncompromising in the Indian society. She doesn't have the practice if
asking so many questioning rather she is not decline to pose questions in a male predominate society.
Mohan is an ambitions person he did not have time for Jaya as he was busy realizing his actuality. He was
an Indian husband who cared very little about her like and dislikes.
Mohan did not understand his Jaya as a person. Marriage has changed Jaya and it has resulted in the
death of Jaya as Author. Jaya once wrote a novel about a couple, about a man who could not attain out to his
wife unless through her body. Jaya story won a prize in a magazine. Mohan is invert that people might
think the couple was them, that the man was him. Jaya thought that she did him wrong. She stopped writing
after that incident. She thus kill the writer within her. Jaya's search of stamp brings Mohan is under
ambiguity of having done something evasive. Both of them leave their posh church gate home and enter
the simple Dadar flat of Jaya's uncle. She takes the first step towards this reawakening by taking the key of
the flat and opening the door herself. It is at that moment that Mohan's control is shaken and Jaya starts
reassure control over herself and her life.
Jaya beings analyzing her life in a new circumstance. She knows in her heart that her marriage is
somewhat over. After a fight, Mohan leaves that flat and walks out. Jaya becomes pathfinder and
ultimately falls sick. She is taken care of by her neighbor Mukta, Mukta's daughter Nilima and the retainer
girl, Manda. It is through writing that she is able to cope up with the situation. Jaya life is meaningless
without her Mohan. Ruminating on the past, Jaya see her marriage has remit her to a sheer automation. She
realize how she clearing away the most in valuation time of her life in arranging and re-arranging things,
dusting, polishing, washing, ironing, cleaning the fridge and deviate the sheets. She is confused to find in
her diaries that she had spent her life engrossed in such trivialities , she bought, she paid for it, the date the
children schools have begun the servitor absence the carry on they have taken, etc..
Jaya, as a girl, was instructed by her father to have trust in her. He named her Jaya which stay for
Victory and have optimistic her to be resilient and doughty. He has made her feel that Jaya is someone
special and someone different from the other girls whose world normally ends up relevant house wives. He
would dream that Jaya or bags an international Award or goes to Oxford. However his ultimately death
crash her dream and makes her to face the verity that she is after all like any other middle class girl destined
to be a wife and a mother. There is no comfortable relationship. Jaya early training at homes has made her
obedient and servile towards her husband. Her relative taught her the importance of being with a husband
and husband is like a sheltering tree and without the tree, the wife is dangerously unprotected and
vulnerable. Jaya proceeds to “keep alive and flourishing even if you have to water it with deceit and lies”.
Jaya since her childhood has designed her life in according to her family member's yearn. Jaya marry
Mohan not out of choice but out closet. He is from same caste, decent, goods looking and has a good job.
Jaya has no reason to reject him. As a girl Jaya is not very practical and she romanticizes love. But she
promote up into a young woman, lieu make her look at marriage practically, not romantically. Generally, a
woman's identity is obvious in corrupt of her relationship with man as daughter, a wife and mother. It
means prowess a woman doesn't have n identity of her own. In keeping with the ritual of re-naming the
brick on the weddings day as in some Brahmin communities, Jaya also has been renamed as 'Suhasini' by
Mohan. 'Suhasini' means a soft, smiling placid, motherly woman, who makes herself loving and also
lovingly growing her family. Jaya her new name, it appears that the light-ardent and doughtly Jaya has
been remit to a sheer arrogant housewife and mother. Jaya wants to retain her own name given by her father
meaning victory. Her reprobation to adopt the name 'Suhasini' becomes emission of antithesis to the Indian

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society. Jaya rejection of the name 'Suhasini' now remains as a taken of victory as she cannot constitute to
enforce on for long as she has been thought to bearing her husband as tree of projector and so repress her
anger and resentment.
The loveless married life which urge the wife and the husband to roam away from each other results
in total defeat. By implication, the character Jaya represent modern woman's ambivalent demean our to
married life. It is only by negative her own personality that woman who is powerless in the patriarchal
order and society. Jaya in order to maintain her marriage as a happy one, slowly changes herself to this ideal
of womanhood, where she learn to repress her anger. Jaya always works up to please her husband. Jaya
even transform Jaya appearance to suit his idea of a modern woman-cuts her hair and wear dark glasses.
Jaya is ultimately gets so complete absorbed into the family fold that from a fiercely independent woman,
she is transformed into the stereotype of a woman. Jaya deeply clings to her husband as if her life depends
on him. Jaya's story, in the large context, is the story of generation of woman.
She does not wish to look outside; she wants to be safe looking after her husband and children. The
outside world has so far not affected her life though at times she feels dissatisfied with her life. The
relationship between a wife and husband is expected to be not only cordial but intimate and enduring. This
is so because there was no love between them. This disgust of living with a man who does love the woman
the way she expects him is burning problem the educated woman has to face in the contemporary society.
Marriage in India means marrying the husband's family traditions. The psychological and social realities in
which woman live has remained virtually unchanged Jaya makes a powerful statement on the totally undue
system of the slave in our society of the slave of woman.
Jaya understands that she has also contributed to her revenge and that she has to fight her own battle
and work out her own solution. Accordingly she feels the necessity to break the silence, articulate her
predicament, and establish her identity. She knows that there is always room for discussion and
compromise. It is not the mistake of men alone that has caused the feminine discontent. A patriarchal
order can be change if only women take their amour in the order of intelligent and individuality. She
decides that she will live from now onward without sacrificing her identity or individuality. She will make
adjustment but it will not be a servile one. Jaya giving u[p writing for the newspaper column 'seeta'
symbolize giving up her traditional role-model of wife now she will write a novel what she wants to write
and will not look up at Mohan's face an answer she wants. To write and will not look up at Mohan's face for
an answer she wants. This makes her voyage of discovery complete. Jaya decides to breaks between her
and Mohan. She marches ahead with renewed vigorous. According to Jaya discovering one's self does not
mean to stand aloof from the rest of the world.
The solution to problems within relationships does not lie in walking away from them, but rather in
rebuilding the relationships in such a way as to give little place for problems to crop up. 'That long
Silence'therefore, constitutes an outstanding contribution to Indian literature in English with the
exploration of identity crisis on the perspective.

Works Cited
Deshpande,Shashi. That Long Silence. New Delhi: Penguin Books, 1988. Print.

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80
A STUDY OF INDIAN MARITAL RELATIONSHIPS IN
JHABVALA'S HEAT AND DUST

B. Marimuthu, Assistant Professor, Devanga Arts College (Autonomous), Aruppukottai

Abstract:
Jhabvala's fiction is concerned with Indian theme and obsession. Her awareness of various
aspects of Indian life establishes the Indianness of her fiction. Jhabvala uses her novel as a powerful
medium for presenting the problems of the Indian society and suggesting ways and means to solve the
problems. Heat and Dust has two plots. One is Olivia's story in which the main action of the novel is related
to Olivia and her frustration in life, which make her fall in love with the Nawab. It ends with her pregnancy.
The secondary plot is about the unnamed narrator, who comes to India to solve the enigma of Olivia's life
but is also impregnated by Inder Lal like that of Olivia by the Nawab. It too centres round the theme of
Westerners' experiences in India. Using the flashback technique of narration, Jhabvala presents two
stories- One of Olivia and the other of the narrator. Olivia, the wife of Douglas, a district officer at Satipur,
falls for the charms of an Indian Nawab and leaves her husband to stay back in India as the Nawab's
mistress. Jhabvala remains sneering rather than objective in her treatment of India in this novel.

Keywords: Post-marital & extra-marital relationships, unnatural alliances, sexual desire, passion,
emotion and devotion.

In India, where as the external heat repels them, the emotional warmth attracts them. India with its
repulsive heat and dust and alluring warmth and love shocks and soothes the westerners. Ruth Prawer
Jhabvala experience is that of attraction, indifference, repulsion and aversion. She, after having shown her
romance and love with India, which ended in disillusionment with India's heat and dust, felt badly and
madly nostalgic for Europe. Jhabvala being an Anglo-Indian novelist picked up the threads of Anglo-
Indian fiction with a new perspective and found a unique place among the Anglo-Indian novelists. She is
essentially a European writer who lived for sometime in India and expressed through her words, the
experience of Indian life and society. Jhabvala's fiction is concerned with Indian theme and obsession. Her
awareness of various aspects of Indian life establishes the Indianness of her fiction. Living in Delhi in the
years after independence, Jhabvala has had opportunities of exercising her powers of close observation on
the milieu that changes chameleon - like from local to cosmopolitan, from traditional to conventional,
from native to sophisticated. Jhabvala has her own style and technique to portray the predicament of
individuals in their relationship with their families. She stands apart from the subject, sees the characters
and events as a whole and also as a part of the consistent pattern she has drawn; and her concern is to see
how art can arrange and re-arrange the shifting events of Indian life. Her characters travel in the quest of
better knowledge of their own minds and hearts although they journey through an Indian landscape,
Jhabvala uses her novel as a powerful medium for presenting the problems of the Indian society and
suggesting ways and means to solve the problems.
The India of 1923 which Jhabvala sketches is an India full of blood, cruelty and the decadence of
the Nawab. He gets his art and culture from the British, but retains within a 'primitive' code of values barely
disguised. He hates the British for their control over him as well as their insensitivity to his worth and that
of his ancestors, chiefly Amanullah Khan. He is portrayed as a man demanding in his loyalties and
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affections, and quite possessive. The manner in which he insidiously gains hold of Olivia's sympathies and
affection appears to parallel his early relationship with his English friend Harry. Harry is now completely
under the control of the Nawab. He cannot stay for a lengthy period without the Nawab pursuing him. He
probably finds the Nawab's pressing attentions claustrophobic and desires to flee back to England. But
here too, the Nawab thwarts Douglas's attempts to arrange home for Harry.
Jhabvala's India of 1923, a study of the decadent aristocracy, does not present any single
worthwhile Indian character. The Nawab is diabolic at times. The Nawab's mother is shown as somewhat
fiendish in her secret hatred of Olivia. It is only Olivia, who can see no wrong in the Nawab, and since her
passion is in the nature of an infatuation with the dark mystery and fertility of the East. She has to be
discounted. Jhabvala's account of this period, though colourful; dramatic and thoroughly engaging, leans
too heavily on the enigma of a small-town ruler and his family circle, to serve for a more substantial
reading of India. Heat and Dust compares Western and Indian cultures consciously, a favourite
preoccupation of the expatriate writer, ending unresolved for the seeker-figure in the novel. But a positive
vote appears to go to Indian culture for its close-knit family ties, the depth of its spirituality and its promise
of meaning, though Maji is the only strong and wholly admirable character portrayed. The westerners who
reject India are shown as shallow, insensitive and socially determined individuals. The tone and emphasis
in Jhabvala's writing on India (sexual) reaching a peak in this novel, make one feel she would have liked to
stay on. However, her Western value, bias and temperamental alienation did not permit a full immersion in
the experience of India. She discovered eventually that India remains a problematic dilemma which her
sensibility could neither resolve nor reconcile to.
The narrator, being young, gives at one stroke, a double view of India through old and young
English eyes, Olivia and hers. The double narration, skillfully constructed, gives an aura of insight with
detachment and keen observation and bridges the generation gap in the attitudes of English women in India
over a period of time and is, in its aspects of technique and structural compactness, no mean achievement
for a writer not born English or Indian. What strikes at the outset is the effect of the Indian environment on
the European sensibility. India seems to make demands on Olivia and the young narrator as well as the
other minor characters, demands which are difficult to reconcile. They are faced with Jhabvala's dilemma
of a breakdown of personality or salvation by withdrawal or flight, a dilemma that is absent in the earlier
novels. India overwhelms them. The narrator is warned the day she arrives at Bombay by the missionary
lady at her hostel that nothing human means anything here, not a thing. Olivia shuts-up in her bungalow all
day long, to protect herself from the harsh climate and reminds one of Jhabvala herself, who speaks of her
being immuned in an air conditioned room. Yet the electric power fails often, the oppressive heat and dust
seep in and affect the writer's sensitivity. “India swallows me up, and now it seems to me that I am no longer
in my room but in the whole hot city streets under a white hot sky” (42), This jaundiced view of India is
found repeatedly in Jhabvala's fiction.
Jhabvala very scrupulously observes the behaviour of the Anglo-Indians and says that the effect of
the heat and dust on them is such that they often become irritable and quarrelsome. The only escape for
them is to go to some hill station like Simla. Douglas, Saunders, Major Minnies and other Anglo-Indian
officials do not think of going to such hill resorts. However, the option is open for the ladies and they
generally make use of it to spend half the year at Simla. Douglas ascribes Olivia' s irritability to the
climate. Her cry at Douglas indicates this :
He sucked at his pipe in rather a pleased way which made her cry out sharply: “Don't do
that!” He took it out of his mouth and stared in surprise. “I hate you with that thing,
Douglas,” she explained. Although he didn't understand why, he saw that she was upset so
he laid it aside. “I don't like it much myself,” he said frankly. There was a pause. She
stopped sewing, stared into space; her pretty lower lip was sulky. (39)

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Douglas decides to send his wife to Simla with the other European ladies but Olivia's refusal to go to Simla
is beautifully illustrated in the following passage:
He said !”It'll be all right once you get to the hills. It's the heat, darling, that's getting you.”
“I know it is ... but when will you be able to get away?”
“Never mind about me. It's you we have to take care of. I was talking to Beth [wife of the
collector] today. They're thinking of leaving on the 17th, and I said kindly to book a berth
for you at the same train. It's the Kalka Mail-an overnight journey, but it won't be too bad, I
promise you!” He was so pleased with his arrangement that it didn't occur to him she could
be anything else. “It's another four hours up the mountains but what a journey! You'll love
it. The scenery, not to speak of the change of climate-” (39)
The conversation between Douglas and Olivia makes it clear that the situation of marital dissonance in
them is at a peak level. Douglas plans something and Olivia disagrees. He wants to provide comfortable
journey to Simla but she is not ready and discusses with Douglas in a negative way. This lack of mutual
understanding creates dissonance between them. Olivia tries to rationalize why she has been discussing
and quarreling with Douglas.
'Why are we quarreling?' she asked. He considered her question for a moment and then
came up with his reasoned reply : 'Because the climate is making you irritable. That's only
natural, it happens to all of us. And of course it's much worse for you having to stay home
all day with nothing to do. That's why I want you to go away.' After a moment, he added :
'You don't think I like it any better than you, do you?' Then she collapsed completely and
could only be held up by his strong arms. She said she'd be bored, she'd be irritable, she'd
hot, she'd quarrel with him-all right! But please not to send her away from him. (40)
Olivia does not like to go because of her growing involvement and interest with the Nawab. Thus, she
pleads with her husband not to send her to Simla. Her growing attraction towards the Nawab leads her
gradually to a different plane. K.P.K. Menon in “Parallel Plots in Heat and Dust”rightly remarks: “The
attraction is mutual and culminates in her elopement with him” (46). It is true that Douglas and Olivia are
wife and husband but the way their life is passing is typical. Olivia is sentimental and emotional whereas
Douglas is a man of practical bent of mind. They lack a mutual understanding. This dissonance may be
owing to different attitudes towards life. Douglas does everything for Olivia but the problem with him is
that he is so busy that he does not have time to talk to his wife leisurely and pleasantly. He does not have his
views in terms of personal life with her. He does the work mechanically. He does not take care of her views
for making life more pleasant, more enjoyable by going for outings, and other acticities.
Conveniently some convenient pretentious God men equate sexuality with spirituality. In this context the
significant observation of Vadana Bhagwat can be quoted here:
Jhabvala mentions a very sacred shrine of Baba Firdaus in the Heal and Dust, and makes
the happenings at that shrine an integral part of the story. Baba Firdaus had been a devout
soul devoted to prayer and solitude. He once gave shelter to Ammanullah Khan, a
freebooter…. Baba Firdaus shrine was sacred to Hindu women because offerings at the
shrine cured barrenness. It was given out that childless woman was driven away by her
husband who wanted to marry again. The woman went to Baba Firduas's shrine to hide her
shame. Here she had a vision that she would have a child in nine months. And so it
happened. The day is called Pati-ki-Shadi (Husband's Wedding Day). Since then all kinds
of women, the widows, and the barren women have been visiting the place and fair was
being held on that day every year: in the Grove near the shrine. (17)
Commenting on how the sacred shrine was ill-used by dacoits and sex crazy men and women, Vandana
Bhagwat makes a relevant observation, which is as follows:

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Jhabvala shatters the illusion about the sanctity of the shrine by showing that even the
dacoits laid garlands on the mound and set the sticks of incense smoldering. It was such a
romantic place that when Olivia with the Nawab during the British days visited the grove
she had very strong physical sensations and lured the Nawab to have sex with her. (17)
Jhabvala whiplashes such bogus Swamijis and Sadhus and Indian men and women who cancel the
borderlines between spirituality and sensuality in her fictions, A New Dominion and Heat and Dust. There
are many in India who turns the sacred to profane with the least moral compunction. The satire of Jhabvala
is aimed against such men. Vandana Bhagwat continuously argues “Jhabvala who seems to have been
influenced by the Upanishads, the Gita, the teachings of Rama Krishna Paramahamsa, of the Mother and of
Ramana Mahrishi does not spare a moment in satirizing the pseduo-religionist.” (17)
In Heat and Dust, the Nawab's attraction to Olivia is based on his passion and his revengeful
attitude towards British officialdom. He made Olivia a tool in his hands and seduced her. He felt delighted
in her pregnancy and often stroked her slender hips, her small, unmarked abdomen. His distrust of the
English is complete and irrevocable. He strongly feels that they are very cunning and conspirators. On the
other hand, everybody in the Europe camp has the opinion that the Nawab had used Olivia as a means of
revenge. Even the most liberal and sympathetic Anglo-Indian, Major Minnies, was convinced on it.
Commenting on Jhabvala's handling of the sex in Heat and Dust,T.S. Anand in “Heat and Dust: An
Evaluation of Cross-Cultural Conflicts” opines that
Sex provides a flimsy meeting ground of two cultures, it creates a temporal, anti-temporary
relation. Olivia seeks merger into India through sex but remains to suffer. She does not
return to England but stays in a house upon hills where she hoped to find the resolution of
conflict of two cultures. But the same is not true of the young narrator, though it is not the
intention of the author to suggest resolution through passion. The young narrator imbibes
the spirit of the land, identifies herself with India and is determined to have her baby, unlike
Olivia who consents to abort the child in her. One learns that Chid wants to go back, Harry
returns to England. (117)
Olivia has been sexually exploited by the Nawab. She never feels the same while being with the Nawab.
All that she feels is enchantment in the sexual domain. The heat, that is referred to in the title of the novel, is
not the external heat in the surrounding environment but the heat that Olivia likes / has due to the burning of
lust for the Nawab and his passionate sexual movement. She yields herself to sex and then to her death in
an elated and excited way. What she conceives from the Nawab leads her to death. Commenting on the end
of Olivia's life and finding reason for her death, M.A. Waheed in “Marriage without Love and Love
without Marriage : A Destructive Sexual Passion in Ruth Jhabvala's Heat and Dust”observes : Olivia's
tragedy is due to her marriage with Douglas without love and her love with the Nawab of Khatm without
marriage. Olivia's delusion of dissatisfaction and emotional behaviour lead her towards destructive sexual
passion for which she is responsible. Her obsession with the romantic Eastern view makes her a tragic
victim” (131). Douglas and Olivia are from the same culture, same religion, and same social and
educational background. Still, there is deficiency of love between them. It results in Olivia's emotional
dissatisfaction. They are married but they do not have psychological love between them. In fact, it may be
said that theirs is marriage without love and love without marriage.
Hence, there are also the cases of post-marital and extra-marital relationships. In Heat and Dust,
the problem of marriage without love and love without marriage is due to emotional and destructive sexual
desire. There are adulterous and unnatural alliances. Such is the conflict that one can find Jhabvala's novels
related to love, marriage and sex. However, her presentation is a realistic one with human passion, emotion
and in some cases devotion.

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Works Cited
Anand, T.S. “Heat and Dust:An Evaluation of Cross-Cultural Conflicts.”Indian Women Novelists.Set II
Vol. VI. Ed. R.K. Dhawan. New Delhi: Prestige Books, 1993:113-18. Print.
Bhagwat, Vandana. “A Frontic Cry of Disillusionment: A New Dominion.” Indian Women Novelists.Set.
II. Vol. V. Ed. R.K. Dhawan. New Delhi: Prestige Books, 1993 : 241-54. Print.
Jhabvala, Ruth Prawer. Heat and Dust, London: John Murray, 1975. Print.

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81
SIGN, STRUCTURE AND HETEROTOPIA IN CULINARY ACTIVITIES:
A SEMIOTIC STUDY

A. Aravinth Raja, Doctoral Research Scholar, Manonmaniam Sundaranar University

Abstract:
The paper attempts to study food as one of the sign systems in the select text and also the attempts of
the protagonist to escape her own world through culinary activities as 'Heterotopia'. Like Water for
Chocolate is a text which revolves around both food and a beautiful love story which are intertwined in its
discourse of narrative representation. Food, in the selected text, stands not only as a habitual activity that
takes place in a family or society but represented as a sign system which stands for something else by
convention. Every chapter is named after a dish which the novel's protagonist prepares for some special
event. The study frames a hypothesis that every dish symbolizes or stands for something which is
arbitrarily assigned and preparing a dish which is not meant to be prepared for a specific event instigates
turmoil. Food stands as a sign of heterotopia for Tita, the protagonist because she creates her own space by
involving herself in cooking in order to escape from the real world and the struggles. The paper is a study
done on the select text using the theoretical frameworksof Roland Barthes, Charles Sanders Peirce, and
Saussurein the branch of Semiotics.

Keywords: Food, Heterotopia, Displacement, Sign-System, Symbol.

Food, in literature, is used as a tool by authors to refer to the complex relationships between the
characters with others or with their own psyche, emotions and with the outer world. Like water for
Chocolate is one such text where the concept of food is dealt more and indistinguishable with the plot,
motif, characterization and composition. The protagonist of the novel Tita and incidents in her life are
intrinsically woven as she has spent even her early days in the kitchen of her house. She was born a few
days before her father's death which resulted in giving serious effects to her. Her mother's breast milk dried
up and Tita was taken care of by the cook in the house, who uses to be in the Kitchen. Food, kitchen, dining
are the recurring signs and patterns found exhaustively in the text. Not only the protagonist Tita but also
Roberto, the son of Pedro, Tita, the narrator of the novel and granddaughter of the protagonist Tita were
also brought up in the kitchen. This is because of the incidents which followed after their birth. The kitchen
stands as a sign of solace, consolation and relief for most of the characters in the novel except Mama Elena.
Wherever Mama Elena is found in the novel, the place seems to be kind of 'heterotopia' for Tita. She very
often gets scolded from Elena, because of her attachment in culinary activities. Firstly, she has not gained
an opportunity to feed by her mother but only through the cook which makes her ended up in the kitchen.
Secondly, she becomes the cook of the ranch because of a tradition which their family followed and Tita is
forced to follow at first. The last daughter of a family should not marry but should take care of her mother
till death is the traditional practice. In the case of Roberto, he was brought up in the kitchen for the same
reason and fed by Tita in the kitchen. The sign of kitchen in the text thus symbolizes a sign of relief, home,
and comfort. Those who could not feel comfortable with the outer world use the kitchen, which is a sign of
Foucault's concept of 'heterotopia'. Foucault explains this as:
In the so-called primitive societies, there is a certain form of heterotopia that I would call
crisis heterotopias, i.e., there are privileged or sacred or forbidden places, reserved for
SIGN, STRUCTURE AND HETEROTOPIA IN CULINARY ACTIVITIES: A SEMIOTIC STUDY 288
individuals who are, in relation to society and to the human environment in which they live,
in a state of crisis: adolescents, menstruating women, pregnant women, the elderly, etc. In
our society, these crisis heterotopias are persistently disappearing, though a few remnants
can still be found…. For girls, there was, until the middle of the twentieth century, a
tradition called the “honeymoon trip” which was an ancestral theme. The young woman's
deflowering could take place “nowhere” and, at the moment of its occurrence, the train or
honeymoon hotel was indeed the place of this nowhere, this heterotopia without
geographical markers. (Foucault)
Food is also one of the predominant signs in the selected text. Every chapter is named after a dish
which is prepared for special events or for some guest's arrival to the house. Christmas Rolls are prepared
in the first chapter of the novel,in the month of January for celebrating Tita's birthday because of the fact
that Christmas Rolls is her favourite dish. The dish here stands for characters exultation. Christmas Rolls
are usually prepared around Christmas, in the month of December but in the text, it is prepared in the month
of January, that too in honour of Tita's birthday which went not as expected. This particular dish is a sign of
exultation which but gives Tita also a sense of sorrow knowing that she will never be married in her life.
Yet, she prepares the food with a sense of attachment which brings the food taste better. It is also the same
day Pedro comes to Elena's ranch in order to get the hand of Tita. However, things turn odd when Mama
Elena says that Tita cannot get married because she is the last daughter of the family. Elena goes further and
puts forward the marriage proposal of Rosaura, her otherdaughter. This surprises Pedro yet he
accepts.Chabela wedding cake, another Mexican dish is prepared in the month of February, when the
marriage of Pedro and Rosaura is planned to take place. Tita and Nacha are the cooks who prepare the
particular dish. This dish is also used as a sign which stands for wedding ceremonies. Tita watches Pedro
getting married to her own sister yet she is happy because of the only thing that she is serving the wedding
cake which she herself has prepared. The attachment towards the culinary activities makes not detached
from other human emotions in the world. She cried only while she cuts onions and not even when she is left
alone in several places in the text. She escapes from the reality to the outer space through preparing food
which is also evident at umpteen occasions in the select text. She forms her own world of heterotopia,
being the person who struggles between two opposite poles of human emotion.
Food, while prepared with a sense of attachment communicates much than one expects and if it is
not it does not have its positive impact on the people but the other. When Rosaura cooked once, the food is
neither as delicious as Tita's nor it contained the aroma of Tita's cooking. The whole family went sick on the
day when Rosaura entered kitchen. Author has tried to emphasize the sense of attachment in cooking will
eventually lead to better results.
There was one day when Rosaura did attempt to cook. When Tita tried nicely to give her
some advice, Rosaura became irritated and asked Tita to leave her alone in the kitchen. The
rice was obviously scorched, the meat dried out, the dessert burnt. But no-one at the table
dared display the tiniest hint of displeasure, not after Mama Elena had pointedly remarked,
'As the first meal that Rosaura cooked it isn't bad. Don't you agree, Pedro?' Of course, that
afternoon the entire family felt sick to their stomachs. (Esquivel, 48)
Quail in Rose Petal Sauce is the food which she cooks in the third chapter of the novel, which is a
sign stands for liberation in the text. After the liberation of Gertrudis from the Ranch, Tita prepares the dish
every year in order to celebrate her sister's liberation. Quail in Rose Petal Sauce is her own recipe which
slightly gets moderated fromNacha's recipe as Nacha's does not include rose petals. Turkey Mole is
prepared on the event of the baptism of Tita's nephew, for whom she feeds for the years following. Turkey
Mole stands for something new and at the same time, something which is to be cherished happens. These
representation of signs which stands for something is what academicians call 'semiotics'. It is defined by

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Daniel Chandler as:
Semiotics is concerned with meaning-making and representation in many forms, perhaps
most obviously in the form of 'texts'and 'media'. Such terms are interpreted very broadly.
For the semiotician, a 'text' can exist in any medium and may be verbal, non-verbal, or both,
despite the logo centric bias of this distinction. Theterm text usually refers to a message
which has been recorded insome way (e.g. writing, audio- and video-recording) so that it
isphysically independent of its sender or receiver. A text is an assemblage of signs (such as
words, images, sounds and/or gestures) constructed (and interpreted) with reference to the
conventions associated with a genre and in a particular medium of communication.
(Chandler, 2-3)
Tita was taken to Dr. Brown's house after she was expelled from Mama Elena's Ranch.She findsits
comfort and warmth under the care of John. After several days, she feels satisfied, happy and warmth
because of not being in the house of Mama Elena. This is what she wished all through her life in the kitchen
which has now happened. So she decides to prepare a recipe which would suit the atmosphere of the house.
She calls the recipe as a recipe for making matches because she finds love in John for her which is evident
later in that particular chapter. “She had to find someone who could kindle her desire. Could that someone
be John?” (Esquivel, 107).
Oxtail soup is treated like a dish of nostalgia because the dish is brought and accompanied by
Chencha, a letter from Gertrudis, and few memories to kindle her joy and sorrow, both at a time.
Champandongo is prepared on the day when John has planned to come to Tita's house to ask for her Hand.
This stands as a sign of rejoicing for Tita because she is happy that her mother is no more to obstruct her
from getting married.
Chocolate and Three Kings' Day Bread is prepared for a few special guests who arrive on the Kings'
Day to have supper with Tita's family members. This food stands as a sign of celebration because Tita is
very much happy to consummate with Pedro since he is her true love. Dishes prepared as well as every
culinary activity in the text represents a symbol of something or the other. Every signification of the text is
a sign system which stands for something in the text or in the interpretive communities. Though food do
have any language of its own, it communicates much more through its sign. Such language can be equated
with Barthes concept of 'alimentary language', which he has defined and attributed with some
characteristics which are as follows:
The alimentary language is made of i) rules of exclusion (alimentarytaboos); ii) signifying
oppositions of units, the typeof which remains to be determined (for instance thetype
savoury Jsweet); iii) rules of association, eithersimultaneous (at the level of a dish) or
sticcessive (atthe level of a menu); iv) rituals of use which function,perhaps, as a kind of
alimentary rhetoric. As foralimentary 'speech', which is very rich, it comprisesall the
personal (or family) variations of preparationand association (one might consider cookery
withinone family, which is subject to a number of habits,as an idiolect). (Barthes, 28)
Tita is also now in fear of her pregnancy because of having intercourse with Pedro in the absence of
Rosaura. She is not as enthusiastic as she would while preparing dishes for Three Kings' Day because of
her fear. She is subjected to Hallucination which can be seen through her act of finding her dead mother's
ghost coming to her and scolding her for ruining the family's reputation by having intercourse with her
sister's husband. Cream fitters is another dish that finds a way in her life which is one of her favourites. This
is prepared on the request of Gertrudis, who has been in Ranch for more than a week and plans to leave the
next day. Cream fitters stand for happiness found in Tita and her siblings in the novel. Thus the
hypothesized statement stands true in the research study and every food in the selected text is a signifier
which signifies many things conventionally not limiting itself to the lexical signified.

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Works Cited:
Barthes, Roland. Elements of Semiology. Translated by Annette Lavers and Colin Smith, Hill and Wang,
1977, pp. 28.
Chandler, Daniel. Semiotics: The Basics. Routledge, 2002, pp. 2-3.
Esquivel, Laura. Like Water for Chocolate: A Novel in Monthly Instalments with Recipes, Romances and
Home Remedies. Black Swan, 1993.
Foucault, Michel. “Of Other Spaces: Utopias and Heterotopias.”Architecture /Mouvement/ Continuité,
Translated by Jay Miskowiec, Oct. 1984, pp. 19., web.mit.edu/allanmc/www/foucault1.pdf.

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82
MAN'S ACCUSING FINGER ALWAYS FINDS A WOMAN: A STUDY OF KHALED
HOSSEINI'S A THOUSAND SPLENDID SUNS

S. Sindhya, Assistant Professor, S.B.K College, Aruppukottai

Abstract:
The paper entitled 'Man's Accusing Finger Always Finds a Woman A Study of Khaled Hosseini's A
Thousand Splendid Suns' focuses on the mental derangement of post-war Afghan women particularly the
fictional characters Mariam and Laila. The novel is set against the background of Afghanistan's history
which follows the life of Mariam and Laila as wives to the inhuman and misogynistic Rasheed. The novel
centers around the change in Mariam's character from a woman of resistance to reclamation of all
Rasheed's brutality. Even though Islam demands equality between men and women, Afghan women have
been denied many of their rights including their right to live like human being. They are destined to live
under the shadow of men like their slaves.

Keywords: Suppression, patriarchy, humanity, history.

The title of the paper 'Man's Accusing Finger Always Finds a Woman' is an extract from the
concerned novel A Thousand Splendid Suns. While compared to men, there is only limited opportunity for
women in the areas such as law, education, and social power. The female suppression exists over many
centuries. Though the present twenty first century is celebrating the dimensions of Feminism, it is a painful
fact to accept that women in many societies have to sustain the forms of gender inequality and
discrimination. Islamic women in particular can see the world around them only through the mesh screen
of their burqa even though the Quran demands antipatriarchy. The present study aims to scrutinize the
pains and pangs of Afghan women under the cruel rule of the Talibans who restrict the Muslim women to
act on their own.
Khaled Hosseini enjoys an important place in the horizon of Asian American literature. Hosseini, a
physician by profession and writer by passion hails originally from Afghanistan.The war for power and
terrorist attacks in his birth place bring transformation in the thinking of Hosseini. He has produced
significant works about the dilemmas of life of the people of post-war countries like The Kite Runner
(2003), A Thousand Splendid Suns (2007), And the Mountains Echoed (2013) and Sea Prayer (2018).
Because even in this modern and globalised twenty first century, the people of those colonised countries
live in a nightmarish world. His social novels demonstrate the impact of social forces- the class structure of
norms and values, family patterns, etc- on the psychology and lives of the characters. His novels are
powerful and arresting as they are closely related to life. In his novels, there is search for beauty of life in an
ugly world.
The title of the novel A Thousand Splendid Suns is taken from the Afghan poem about Kabul by
Saib-e-Tabrizi. The title itself reveals the bright future of Laila who will shine like thousand splendid suns
under the motherly love and care of Mariam. Mariam is known as a 'harami' to everyone, which means an
illegitimate child. “Mariam was five years old the first time she heard the term harami” (3). Mariam is the
illegitimate daughter of Nana and Jalil who lives in a little house called kolba with her mother. Jalil is one
of the wealthiest businessman of Herat who has three legal wives and nine children. He owns a theatre in
Herat. On every Thursdays Jalil visits the kolba to see Mariam which creats a strong bonding with her
MAN'S ACCUSING FINGER ALWAYS FINDS A WOMAN: A STUDY OF KHALED HOSSEINI'S A THOUSAND SPLENDID SUNS 292
father. But Nana disapproves of Jalil's occasional visits because he is not ready to accept them legally.
Nana's indifference to her husband springs during her difficult childbirth which includes the absence of
nurse as well as Jalil.
Jalil never calls Mariam as a harami. For him she is his little flower. But Nana is very sure that “she,
Mariam was an illegitimate person who would never have legitimate claim to the things other people had,
things such as love, family, home and acceptance” (4). Mariam loves her father and admires his worldly
knowledge. Nana always reminds Mariam of her position as an illegitimate child as, “The children of
strangers get ice cream. What do you get, Mariam? Stories of ice cream.” (6). She calls Jalil a coward when
she says, “Jalil didn't have the dil either, Nana said, to do the honourable thing. To stand up to his family, to
his wives and in-laws, and accept responsibility for what he had done.” (7). Nana is aware of the patriarchal
society in which she lives and says, “Like a compass needle that points north, a man's accusing fingers
always finds a woman” (7).
Mariam longs for the fulfillment of her dream to see a film in his father's theatre on her birthday.
Jalil assures her to do so. But Nana says if Maiam leaves the house, she will die. As Jalil does not come to
the kolba to take her to the theatre, she herself goes to Jalil's home to see him. But she receives the news of
her mother's death. Nana hangs herself to death. The words of Nana continuously ringing in her ears as,
“I'll die if you go. I'll just die”(38). Because Nana very well knows that no one is there to care for her
daughter other than herslf and she always worries about the position of Mariam under the shadow of Jalil's
family. As she fears after her death Mariam is taken to Jalil's home at Herat and married at the age of fifteen
to Rasheed, a shoe maker from Kabul who is thirty years older than her. Thus her wish to get educated,
wathing a film, roaming in the costly car of Jalil in Herat and holding the hands of Jalil in her whole life are
all shattered. For the first time there is transformation of the image of Jalil from a hero to villain dawns in
her heart of heart. She starts realizing the words of her mother and her position as a woman as well as an
illegitimate child. Jalil turns a deaf ear to her cries and she claims not to see her father till her last breath.
The second phase of Mariam's life starts when Rasheed takes her from Herat to Kabul. Hosseini
draws a portrait of patriarchy in Afghanistan as a woman is expected to dependent on her fathers, husbands
and sons to live. “It is not the Islamic ideologies that determine the position of women in Islamic societies,
it is rather the pre- Islamic patriarchal ideologies existing in a particular society, combined with the lack of
education and ignorance, that construct the Muslim women's position” (Shorish- Shamley para 1).
Rasheed always insists Mariam to wear burqa when they go out which she never wears before. Maraim
feels that “the paddled headpiece felt tight and heavy on her skull and it was strange seeing the world
through mesh screen” (65). He compels her to be inside the four walls of house when he goes for work.
Mariam is shocked to notice the modern women in short dresses without burqa and ashamed of
“her lowliness, her lack of aspirations and her ignorance of many things” (68). Mariam is beaten up
brutally as she is unable to give birth to a child. She has got frequent miscarriages. With each miscarriage,
she is afraid of “his shifting moods, his volatile temperament … he would resolve with punches, slaps,
kicks and sometimes try to make amends for with polluted apologies and sometimes not” (89). He accuses
her particularly for not giving birth to a male child. Even though the Quran considers this attitude as evil,
the patriarchal Muslim society mourns for the birth of a girl child with grief.
Laila, the daughter of the broad minded parents enjoys a happy childhood in Kabul which is
disturbed by war. She loses her parents in shell fire and thus separated from her lover Tariq. Thus situation
compels fourteen years old Laila to take shelter in Rasheed's home. There she is forced to marry sixty
years old Rasheed. “The marriage to Rasheed is a cover for Laila who is carrying Tariq's child and there
was no better way to guard her honour” (Barathan 207). Rasheed is being infuriated by the birth of a girl
child Aziza. But the childless Mariam considers Laila as her daughter and Aziza as her grand daughter.
Their plan to escape to Peshawar ends in vain and Rasheed gets more angry and beats them brutally.

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The Soviet withdrawal causes four year civil war in Afghanistan by the Mujahideens for control
over the nation. Hosseini writes about the war as “The streets became littered with bodies, glass and
crumpled chunks of metal. There was looting, murder and increasingly, rape, which was used by to
intimidate civilians and reward militiamen” (226- 227). Poverty, corruption, instable government, lack of
health services, mental and psychological trauma and illiteracy are the cruel effects of war in Afghanistan.
Unable to bear poverty, Rasheed leaves Aziza in an orphanage. When Laila tries to see her by walking in
the street alone, “Oneday the young Talib beat Laila with a radio antenna… I see you again, I'll beat you
until your mother's milk leaks out of your bones” (313). The Talibans lists down the norms for the Islamic
people to follow. Hosseini depicts the sufferings faced by Laila without adequate medical aids when she
gives birth to Zalmai.
When Tariq comes to see Laila in the later part of the novel, Rasheed gets angry of their reunion as
Laila and Majnoon. To save Laila from the inhuman hands of Rasheed, Mariam hits him with a showel and
he dies immediately. Mariam is imprisioned and get the punishment of death by the Taliban officials. She is
killed by cutting off her head before thousands of people. Tariq takes Laila and her children to Murree to
start a happy life. They get married and renew their love. He whole heartedly accepts Aziza and Zalmai as
his own children. Laila often thinks of the sacrifice of Mariam and she visits the kolba in which Mariam
lived with her mother. Thus she gives honour and gratitude to her sacrifice like a mother. Amidst the
patriarchal ideologies followed by Rasheed and the Talibans there is the beautiful portrayal of bonding
between Mariam and Laila who belong to different generations by Khaled Hosseini. Women can sustain
happily in the male dominated society only through these bondings.

Works Cited
Barathan, Ladha. “The World through a Mesh- Screen- Khaled Hosseini'sA Thousand Splendid Suns”.
Indian Journal of Postcolonial Literatures 11 (Jul-Dec 2008): 205-211. Print.
Hosseini, Khaled. A Thousand Splendid Suns. London: Bloomsbury, 2007. Print.
Qalamuddin, Maulvi. Personal Interview by Ahmed Rashid. Kabul, June 1997.

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83
MULTICULTURALISM IN THE SELECT NOVELS OF VIKRAMSETH AND
ARAVIND ADIGA

R. K. Krishnaveni, HOD &Assistant Professor, Thiruvalluvar Arts & Science College for
Women, Soolappuram

Abstract:
The purpose of this paper is to determine`Multiculturalism or cultural diversity is a sociological
and cultural theoretical expression with multiple meanings, as described below. As a descriptive term, it
refers to a relationship in which several ethnic groups with different cultures come together in the same
political unit. Multiculturalism can also refer to ideological social analyses, which in varying degrees
affirm cultural origins by a variety of ethnic influences as something good or inevitable. Multiculturalism
deals with, among other things, the authorities' approach to a society with many ethnic backgrounds and
tolerance for cultural differences within the same State. The synonyms and related terms to
multiculturalism are “ethnic diversity” and “cultural pluralism”.

Keywords: Multiculturalism, different culture, religius background, positive social changes, caste, social
classes.

Multicultural Literature is based on realism and its subject matter centers around issues related to
race, class and gender. It shares some common themes in the writings of authors from many different
cultures like discovering personal identity in the society which marks multiculturalism, forming
individual and cultural values, familial relationships, childhood games, folklore of the culture, societal
pressures: rewards and punishments, religious background, environmental adaptations that resulted from
historical factors , socioeconomic changes , contact with other cultural group and forming personal
relationships such as establishing family/marital roles , understanding gender roles , developing
friendships and social groups and adapting to roles , developing friendships and social groups and adapting
to roles defined by age.
Multicultural literature explores and opposing social injustice and cultural conflicts in the people
of different ethnic, religious and social backgrounds. Multicultural literature often focuses on the social
contexts in the multicultural societies, on the experiences of the people of these societies, on the mixed
reception which the minorities may receive in the country of arrival, on experience of racism and hostility
and on the sense of rootlessness and the search for identity which can result from displacement and cultural
diversity. Multicultural literature sustains a strong ethnic group consciousness which is based on a sense of
distinctiveness. The sense of collectiveness or communitarianism in multicultural literature relates the
diaspora to homeland.
Balram Halwai narrates his life in a letter, written in seven consecutive nights and addressed to the
Chinese Premier, Wen Jiabao. In his letter, Balram explains how he, the son of a puller, escaped a life of
servitude to become a successful businessman, describing himself as an entrepreneur.Balram was born in
the rural village of Laxmangarh, where he lived with his grandmother, parents, brother and extended
family. He is a smart child but is forced to leave school in order to help pay for his cousin's dowry and
begins to work in a teashop with his brother in Dhanbad. While working there he begins to learn about
India's government and economy from the customers' conversations. Balram describes himself as a bad
MULTICULTURALISM IN THE SELECT NOVELS OF VIKRAMSETH AND ARAVIND ADIGA 295
servant but a good listener and decides to become a driver.
After learning how to drive, Balram finds a job driving Ashok, the son of one of Laxmangarh's
landlords. He takes over the job of the main driver, from a small car to a heavy-luxury described Honda
City. He stops sending money back to his family and disrespects his grandmother during a trip back to his
village. Balram moves to New Delhi with Ashok and his wife Pinky Madam. Throughout their time in
Delhi, Balram is exposed to extensive corruption, especially in the government. In Delhi, the contrast
between the poor and the wealthy is made even more evident by their proximity to one another.
One night Pinky Madam takes the wheel from Balram, while drunk, hits something in the road and
drives away; we are left to assume that she has killed a child. Ashok's family puts pressure on Balram to
confess that he had been driving alone. Ashok becomes increasingly involved in bribing government
officials for the benefit of the family coal business. Balram then decides that killing Ashok will be the only
way to escape India's Rooster Coop. After bludgeoning Ashok with a bottle and stealing a large bribe,
Balram moves to Bangalore, where he bribes the police in order to help start his own taxi business. Ashok
too is portrayed to be trapped in the metaphorical Rooster Coop: his family controls what he does and
society dictates how he acts. Just like Ashok, Balram pays off a family whose son one of his taxi drivers hit
and killed. Balram explains that his own family was almost certainly killed by Ashok's relatives as
retribution for his murder. At the end of the novel, Balram rationalizes his actions and considers that his
freedom is worth the lives of his family and of Ashok. And thus ends the letter to Jiabao, letting the reader
think of the dark humour of the tale, as well as the idea of life as a trap introduced by the writer.
The story shows a modern day, capitalist Indian society with free market and free business. It also
shows how it can create economic division. In India there are not social classes, there are social castes. The
novel portrays India's society as very negative towards the lower social caste.The novel is based on the
disparities of two worlds: darkness, inhabited by poor and underprivileged who cannot even meet their
bare minimums; and the lighted world, inhabited by zamindars, politicians, businessmen etc. who
shamelessly exploits the ones from darkness, making them even more poor and grows their own grandeur.
Balram refers to it as the “Darkness”. When Balram was asked which caste he was from, he knew
that it could ultimately cause a biased stance in his employer and determine the future of his employment.
There is definitely a big difference seen in Balram's lower caste from back home and his current higher
caste in their lifestyles, habits, and standards of living. This novel is showing how our economic system
today creates socioeconomic gaps that create a big division in society. It limits opportunity, social mobility,
health, and other rights and pleasures that should be given to all. There is a big difference in the amount of
money spread around in society today and this book is alluding to that fact.
Seth's The Golden Gate, his first novel, a satirical romance describing the stories of young
professionals in San Fransisco throughout their quests and questions to find and deal with love in their lives
as well as each other's lives. In 1993, Seth was propelled into the public spotlight with the publication of A
Suitable Boy, the 1349 page colossal work. It was followed up with An Equal Music (1999) and A Suitable
Girl. Besides his literary and poetic achievements, he wrote a libretto based on the Greek legend of Arion
and the Dolphin. In 2005, he published Two Lives, a non-fiction family memoir presenting his family
background. Vikram Seth is highly sensitive to the glassy undying essence, the true inwardness of Indian
culture. In 'The Novel of our Times', In an age of aggressive intellectualism, Seth has gone back to an older,
subtler narrative style of nineteenth century novelists. Vikram Seth's creative consciousness thrives on the
'pleasure' of having experienced a multiplicity of homes. Having traversed geographical / national
boundaries of three continents, Seth's subjectivity is 'migratory' in that it exists in multiple geographies and
literary constituencies. World- wide travel has given Seth the tremendous advantage of a wider exposure of
life and communication across cultural barriers and cultural background Indian, English, Chinese and
American.

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Cultural hybridity is highlighted in The Golden Gate (1986) which exposes the postmodern
element in contemporary culture the assumptions of ennui and purposelessness in the context of American
upper middle class. The central figure John, a young man of twenty six is a blondhaired, good-looking,
healthy, employed, sound, solvent, self-made, self-possessed but depressed person, aloof and lonely.
Throughout the novel, John Brown is engaged in constant change of partners similar to the game of
musical chairs. He is confronted with two eccentric candidates for marriage-wasp Bluestocking and
Belinda Beale. Both ladies desert him aggravating his feeling of loneliness, giving him a sense of injured
pride. Naturally he diverts his attention to Janet Hayakawa, John's former beloved but she too dies in an
accident, John is isolated forever, heartbroken and bereft. Seth unflinchingly presents the malady afflicting
modern society, the morbid preoccupation with own affairs to the exclusion of everything and everyone
else. Seth has chosen the title The Golden Gate with special import.
In ancient alchemy, the element corresponding to the emotion of love is gold that is pure and
precious in human life. The bridge, capturing the quintessence of modern California, becomes a symbol of
love reaching out and connecting the people. The problem confronting modern urban society is that all the
things that constitute the very structure of society have been torn down. Seth presents the pathology behind
the modern youth who has all in terms of material acquisitions. John is handsome, smart, well mannered,
well read in essence but lost in the shackles of matrimony. Seth makes his gentle satire upon urban life in a
fast paced culture.
The Golden Gate is a novel of manners, narrating the conjoined stories of five main characters,
Janet, John, Liz, Phil and Edward Dorati. They are in their twenties forming a part of the university-
educated professional milieu in which Seth found himself at ease and with whose social mores he was well
acquainted with his own experience at the boarding school in Oxford. Much of the insouciance ease seem
in the narration of the story in the backdrop of California is a result of his familiarity with the customs and
values of the urban class of society within a particular historical context. Seth portrays the world culture,
distilled out of his eclectic reading and moulded by his own personality. A Suitable Boy (1993) created
literary history with the book's mammoth size and the million copies sales a story involving a widow's
search for a 'suitable' (in the Indian context) bridegroom for her daughter. It is a social novel, not an 'Indian'
novel in the sense that Seth does not try to force his ethnicity on the reader. It chronicles a saga of four
intergenerational and interrelated families: the Mehras, the Chatterjis, the Kapoors and the Khans. It is the
wedding of Savita, the widowed Mrs.Rupa mehra's elder daughter to Pran, a University lecturer and the
son of the State Revenue Minister, Mahesh Kapoor. The three other families are the members of the
anglicized Chatterji clan, the Khan family of the Nawab of Baitar. The plot centres round the mothers
search for a suitable boy for Lata. Rupa Mehra's younger daughter Lata falls in love with a handsome
young Muslim student Kabir Duttani. Mrs. Rupa Mehra horrified by her daughter's rebellious art whisks
her off to Calcutta to the home of her eldest born Arun Mehra who is married to the daughter of a Bengali
Judge, Meenakshi. Meenakshi's brother Amit Chaterji falls in love with Lata. Mrs. Rupa discovers Harish,
a boy from Khan caste working in a leather manufacturing industry. Which of these three suitors will be the
most suitable boy?. For Lata, marriage entails stability and prosperity and she accepts Harish not at her
mother's behest or her brother's but as an independent decision.
Caste also plays an important role in maintaining the segregated structure of the society. Examples
of the difference between upper castes and lower castes find mention in the novel. The difference of the
rural and urban India is a new form of ethnic divide which we find in Seth's novels. Multilingualism in the
novel appears as one aspect of the diversity of India, and the novel's varied in range and scope implies a
commitment of the author to make a full presentation of that diversity of India, as a multi-cultural, multi-
religious and multi-linguistic society.
The characters are represented as speaking understanding, reading and writing varying

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combinations of four main languages namely Hindi, Bengali, Urdu and English. At least three other feature
in the background, they are Sanskrit, Arabic and German. Religious fanaticism also finds mention in the
book. In a country as big and ethnically diverse as India religion has always played a very important part in
the life of an Indian. For majority of Indians no other factor is more powerful and influential than their
religious beliefs and faith. Passion in religion is defined by Seth as fanaticism, bigotry and disgust towards
other's religions.
In A Suitable Boy a cultural diverse society has been shown yet there remains peace and harmony
inspite of all the diversities. Every minute detail of the cultural diversity has been shown by Seth. In a
globalized world the co-existence of varied cultures has become a common phenomenon and the biggest
question remains whether all these diverse cultures can remain within a single nation. Seth's India as
presented in A Suitable Boy answers this question as all ethnic groups diverse in terms of religion, caste,
sub-caste, gender, economy live under one umbrella i.e. a single nation.
Vikram Seth set out to write a novel in Europe in the high classical tradition of music, An Equal
Music (1999). He effaces his Indian identity and the novel is people of European musicians. Seth has some
training in classical music and he was trained under Pandit Amarnath, the renounced vocalist and he was
well learned to play the tablas and the flute. Michael Holme, the narrator and main protagonist, is a violinist
based in London. He is in his late thirties and earns his income as the second violinist in the groups by
teaching a number of unwilling students. Ten years ago, as a student of the Swedish maestro Carl Kall at
Musikhochschule in Vienna, he was in love with a young pianist, Julia, the daughter of an Oxford don and
an Australian mother. It is well known that art and music are absorbed without effort or explanation. They
become lovers and together with a cellist, Maria, they set up a trio and perform music. That time Michael is
badly insulted by his professor's apparent impatience with his style of playing. Julia too supports the
professor so betrayed by Julia, broken down physically, Michael flees Vienna and Julia. He flies to London
and lives like a fugitive.
After two months, he enrolls himself in music and manages to locate a recording of Beethoven:
Opus 104 in a dusty drawer of a music shop in London. While returning home, he looks up to find Julia
sitting five feet away in another bus. His impertinent cries do not reach Julia who is separated by twin
sheets of window glass. Michael goes off the bus chasing her in crowded streets in a taxi only to find her
gone and he has left the precious record in the cab. Once again, Julia makes her appearance at a concert by
the Maggiore at Wigmore Hall. Towards the end, Michael learns to his immense shock that Julia has
become deaf. She is acting from auto immune disease that has affected her hearing. A musician going deaf
in a novel about music is a great idea. Seth weaves the novel in a realistic web of musicians, agents, critics,
concert halls, rehearsals, details about music and musical instruments. Love and music are the two
operating themes in the novel which run simultaneously and sometimes merge with each other, yielding a
perfect equilibrium.
It is remarkable to note that Seth's marvellous sense of place which entails the ability to conjure up
visual spaces through aural cues. London is represented by the songs of robins in winter and blackbirds in
summer. Vienna is conjured up by the sound of Vivaldi. The description of London parks, Venice and
Vienna convey the mercurial moods of love and of music as is possible in words. The delicate love between
Michael and Julia is bathed in the glow of musical reference to Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert and Bach
virtually all great musicians of music because their love has their music which is a metaphor for their love.
Seth reiterates his own philosophy of family through music like string trio, quartet etc.
Conclusion
The White Tiger entertains and engrosses as a story. The increasing class divide, and a declining
sense of empathy for the less fortunate.The novel has been criticized for pandering to western audiences,
and projecting a “negative picture of modern India”. So plurality of culture is all about being human and

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expressing humanity without recourse. Indian English Writing has acquired a distinct and unparalled
position with an individual character of its own in a multicultural setting. Indian philosophy describes that
the world is a family. In this context multiculturalism is considered as amalgamation of various cultures,
achieving the great ideals of world peace and universal fraternity. The process of globalization has not only
unsettled people and cultures but has created new identities and affiliations in terms of both conflicts and
collaborations.

Works Cited:
Adiga, Aravind. The White Tiger. New Delhi:Free Press. 2008. Print
Gupta, Roopali. Vikram Seth's Art: An Appraisal. New Delhi: Atlantic Publishers and Distributors,
2005.Print
Seth, Vikram. The Golden Gate. New York: Random House Inc. 1986. Print
---, A Suitable Boy. New Delhi: Viking, Penguin India Ltd, 1993. Print
---.An Equal Music. New Delhi: Viking, Penguin India Ltd, 1999.Print
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?story Id
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The White Tiger
https://www.the-criterian.com/v4/n6/velmanipdf
http://research scholar.co.in/downloads/33mrskarunasharmapdf

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84
DIASPORIC VIEW AS A COMPARATIVE STUDY IN KAMALA MARAKANDAYA
AND CHITRA BANERJEE DIVAGARUNI'S SELECT NOVELS

N. Vaigai, Assistant Professor, Thiruvalluvar Arts and Science College, Soolapuram

Abstract:
Diaspora is an essential and inevitable phenomenon of the modern era. Due to the impact of
globalization men are moving to different countries for various reasons. Going to abroad in search of
green pastures has become the order of the day. Pursuits of material benefits and physical comforts have
made men and women move out of their roots. A migrant who is comfortable in his native land moves to a
new land in search of new experience and enrichment. But unfortunately his/her entry into alien
atmosphere lands him in different kinds of troubles like acculturation at different levels. Recently, scholars
have distinguished between different kinds of Diaspora, based on its causes such as imperialism, trade or
labor migration, or by the kind of social coherence the Diaspora community and its ties their ancestral
lands. some Diaspora communities maintain strong political ties with their home land.

Keywords: Diasporic, emigrant, alienation, culture, tradition, racial discrimination.

The term Diaspora carries a sense of displacement the population. Its finds itself for whatever
reason separated from its national territory and usually its people have a hope, orat least a desire, to return
to their homeland. Individual may have multiple homes throughout their Diaspora, with different reason
for maintaining some form of attachment communities. Cultural development often assumes a different
course from that of the population in the original place of settlement .overtime remotely separated
communities tend to vary in culture, tradition, language and other factors
Safran sets out six rules to distinguish Diasporas from migrant communities. These included
criteria that the group maintains myth or collective memory of their homeland As their true home,to which
they will eventually return; being committed to the restoration or maintenance of that homeland and they
relate “personally or vicariously” to the homeland where it shapes their identity .while saffron's definitions
were influenced by the idea of the Jewish Diaspora. Rais explains Diaspora formation in three critical
phases which are the classical period with Ancient ,Greek, Jewishand Armenian Diaspora; the
contemporary period with African Diaspora and economic migrants ;and late modern period with a much
wider range of Diasporic communities and the diverse reasons for dispersal for voluntary or involuntary
dispersal Clifford criitizes safran. Rogers notes that use of the term Diaspora has been widening he
discusses the proliferation of Diaspora as a term with a dispersion of the meaning of the term in semantic,
conceptual and disciplinary space Braker.
Brubaker argues that the initial expansion of the use of the phrase extended it to other, similar cases,
such as the Armenian and Greek Diasporas. More recently, it has been applied to emigrant groups that
continue their involvement in their homeland from overseas, such as the category of long-distance
nationalists identified by Benedict Anderson. Brubaker notes that (as example); Albanians, Basques,
Hindu Indians, Irish, Japanese, Kashmiri, Koreans, Kurds, Palestinians and Tamils have been
conceptualized as Diasporas in this sense. Furthermore, “Labour migrants who maintain (to some degree)
emotional and social ties with a homeland” have also been described as Diasporas. Some observers have
labeled evacuation from New Orleans and the Gulf Coast in the wake of Hurricane Katrina the New
DIASPORIC VIEW AS A COMPARATIVE STUDY IN KAMALA MARAKANDAYA AND CHITRA BANERJEE DIVAGARUNI'S SELECT .... 300
Orleans Diaspora, since a significant number of evacuees have not been able to return, yet maintain
aspirations to do so. Agnieszka Weinar (2010) notes tow the widening use of the term, arguing that
recently, “a growing body of literature succeeded in reformulating the definition, framing Diaspora as
almost any population on the move and so longer referring to the specific context of their existence”. It has
even been noted that as charismatic Christianity becomes increasingly globalized, many Christians
conceive of themselves as a Diaspora, and an imaginary that mimics salient features of ethnic Diasporas.
Chitra Banerjee divakruni is one of the major Indian diaspora writers in English. She is the author
of novel the mistress of spices .The palace of illusion, the theme of her works is diasporic experience. Her
aims to explore the diasporic elements in the mistress of the spices. It mainly deals with diasporic
experience of Indian emigrant Tilo. The protoganist. Laita haroun, geeta and her grandfather, shamsur,
andhameeda. The diasporic writing is characterised by pulls and pushes, migration, quixotic life ,cracked
images, multiple identities,identity crisis, racial discrimination, nostalgia, displacement, adjustment
problem, theorization, desire to be one with adopted land, homelessness, liberation from shackles of
customs of native country, decolonization etc.The mistress of spices had negative and positive aspects of
diasporic experience.
The novel revolves around the protagonist, Mistress of spices. She was born at unusual time it was
dry season, paddy field crackled, there was lightning, thundering, and heavy rain. Worried parents called
the astronomer. Looking at the girl's horoscope the astrologer wasshocked and surprised. He suggested
naming her as Nayana Tara.she was born with the ability to sense where under the earth gold lay buried,
could warn the village headman of the floods before the winds to blow favorably or unfavorably. She
becomes a famous fortune teller, her fame spread all over to people; they flooded from neighboring, cities
and mountains to change their luck with the touch of her hand. People brought costly gifts; she started
using gold- woven cushions, ivory Combs, parents did not Dare to voice their anger, goldsmiths carved
medallions with her images, sailors carried tales of her powers.
The news of horrible reached the pirates group which decided to kidnap her. The pirates of horrible
look raided, robbed, and burned the village Nayanatara cried out all the charms she knew,resorted to
calling thought ,effort ended in vain, so pirates bound her, killed her parents, carried through burning the
village and abducted. They took her to a far off place and named her as Bhagyavati .The major diasporic in
novel is multiple identities and resultant identify crisis and cracked image.
Many characters in the novel have multiple names which exemplify multiple identities for instant,
the protagonist has five names. She was named as Nayanatara by her parents, Bhagyavati by the pirates
whom kidnapped her, Tilo or Tilottama by her first mother who had trained her in mastering the power of
spices, Maya by Raven, an American, who loved her and the Mistress of Spices by the general public.
Raven too has many names it seems. When he met Tilo at spices store she asked him his name. He replied,
“What name shall I tell you? I have had so many '' Raven' mother Too has two names. Her first name was
Evvie but her later name was calestina.this signifies that Diasporas acquire multiple identities for various
reasons.
Another diasporic characteristic in the novel is migration or exile. In the broad sense the term are
used as synonyms, though exile has negative shade to it. Migration may be voluntary or involuntary .Most
of the characters in the novel migrate; their voluntary as well as involuntary. The exile of Nayantara from
her birth place to the place of the pirates is involuntary, where as her migration from pirates' place to island
of spices and from there to Oakland is voluntary. The migration of lalita from Khanpur to Oakland is
involuntary she is not ready to marry Ahuja and lead married life with him because of her family reputation
she went with ahuja to Oakland. In Oakland also she did not have freedom and experiencedtorture by her
husband.In order to get rid of it she went with members of an organization which came to help of such
women.

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Another important diasporic feature is racial discrimination. For instance, jagjit experienced brutal
racial experience. His parents admitted him to a school. He was frightened to go to school because he knew
only Punjab. His teacher put him in the last row. The first English word he learnt is,' idiot idiot idiot 'and the
second word is 'Asshole'. Even at night also “ he lies with his eyes open” seeing “ the jeering voices, the
spitting mouths, the hands that pull pants down in the playground and girls looking “ but with the help of
Tilo who had offered him cinnamon ' which is the destroyer of enemies ' provider of strength to legs, arms
and mouth he could resist it. Migrated people are often attacked and cheated by natives. Though emigrant
experience the racial discrimination, homelessness, adjustment problem their migration has empowered
and liberated many of them.
For instance, Hameed was divorced by her husband as she could not give birth to a male child. Her
brother brought her to USA and helped her to learn English and computer thereby she has acquired the
ability to earn and to be independent. Another important feature of diasporic literature is to reclaim native
culture and rewriting native culture rewriting it. It seems the main objective of the novel is to do so.
The title of the novel itself undergoes it. History is the witness that India has been known for its
spices. The mistress of spices diagnoses problems of emigrants and offers suitable spices to end their
problems vas physicians diagnose and prescribe medicine. Almost all who called on her rid of their
problems with the magical working of spices. Through this, Divakaruni wishes to decanter the centre
providing central space to marginalized knowledge system. Another feature of diasporic writing is conflict
or in-betweens. Most of the characters are caught between two ways of thinking; Western and eastern.
Emigrant parents strongly desire to give their children modern English education based in western model
but expect them to follow Indian traditions.
Kamala markandaya a pioneer member of the Indian diaspora occupies an outstanding place
among the Indian women novelist writing in English. she belongs to the body of the writers who by choice
or otherwise, have left their countries of origin and made their homes elsewhere .As a multi cultural
diaspora, post-colonial Indian living in London kamala markandaya 's works portray what constitutes her
experience the expatriate dilemma in NOWHERE MAN , markandaya delved insightfully into the
diasporic issues and problems of expatriation twenty years before others spoke of it. She was one of the
most politically acute and prescient novelists she foreshadows many of the issues of diaspora and race etc.
The novel has, besides explored diasporic elements. Srinivas, the dominant character in the novel,
is himself “the nowhere man” he is displaced man in the society, he is odd man out. Having come to
England for a better livelihood, he remains till his end, a separate entity, in spite of his trying to feel and
make England, a land of his own, though not by birth. He recollects the past events of his life in his present
and ruminates over the various events that occurred and how circumstances had played a great part in his
life. He is helpless and a silent spectator cum bearer of the happellings in his life. His reminiscence of the
past connects his life to the present. The flashback technique is very effectively employed by the novelist.
Though Srinivas willingly accepts and adjusts himself in the alien atmosphere,he is not made to feel
welcome and wanted, by the people of England, in the final stages of his life, when he actually needs moral
support and the feeling of one-ness.
Thus he made to feel miserable and lonely in the land which is not his by birth. He is shown to be
lead in a life of compromise, disconsolate, unwanted, a life of pricks and insults. He suffers all the miseries
noneviolently, suppressing his voice of rebellion and trying to find consolation and happiness in the least
possible way. He finally realizes that he belongs to no place, neither to the land of his birth nor to the land of
immigration -England. In spite of his best receptivity and adoptability to the alien land and its people, he is
never accepted and given a place among them.
In this Srinivas actually face racial animosity amongst his fellow Englishmen, extreme hatred is
expressed by his young neighbor Fred Fletcher, who is always antagonistic towards Srinivas. Fred Fletcher

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was a youth whom studied in Australia and returned home, he could not bear to see any stranger, be it an
African or an Indian, to live in his country. He was rude to peoplewhom he despised. He tells Srinivas, “you
got no right to believing in this country “Srinivas asked him, “ why not”) “ you telling me you' re English? “
asked Fred. “By adoption”,said Srinivas. Unable to tolerate his being so close to him in the wake of
neighbouring he misbehaves with the old man, forgetting his minimum courtesies and crossing limits. He
feels people like Srinivas have no right to live in their country and manhandles him. The height of
alienation is reached when he is caught in the trap of the evil Fred's plan of putting his life to an end.
Ironically Fred also dies, paying misdeeds, getting trapped in the coils that he had laid, for the murder of
Srinivas, though Srinivas also dies.
Dr Nirod banerji in his critical study on kamala markandaya writes, “The nowhere mans however
is a novel of confrontation, rather than reconciliation, between the East and West. Srinivas is a victim of
British cruelty and tyranny in India before his departure to England along with his family, and he is
subjected to racial discrimination and persecution of various kinds even in England.
Diasporic experience,thus is a spring of agonized inspiration, multiple identities, new
subjectivities, creative memories and fresh perspectives of language and life. Diasporic feminist writers
today proudly upholds their cause of ' womanhood' seen in the poetry and novels of writers like chitra
baneerji, kamala markandaya, Meena Alexander, Indira ganesan in a variety of theme and style.
This paper discusses the diasporic aspects and how the immigrant necessarily transforms
themselves by taking risks and letting the past to go off for the self in order to become assimilated in new
social and cultural role in their adopted homelands.

Works Cited
Divakaruni, Chitra Banerjee. Mistress of Spices.London: Blackswan, 2005.Print
Banerji, Nirod. Kamala Markandaya:A Critical Study. Allahabad: Kitab Mahal 1990. Print.
Markandaya,Kamala.The Nowhere Man.Bombay: Orient Longman,1975. Print.
Prasad, Madhuhuthan.Perspectives on Kamala Markandaya. Ghaziabad: Vimal Prakasham Publication,
1984. Print.

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85
MYTHOLOGY IN KAZUO ISHIGURO'S THE BURIED GIANT

G. Akilan, Assistant Professor, Madurai Kamaraj University College, Thirumanagalam

Abstract:
This paper explores “The Buried Giant” by Kazuo Ishiguro, how contemporary writers have to
find the voices buried in our history. His novels also evokes associations with medieval literary tradition.
Ishiguro hazards into retelling myth, transfiguring historical facts, and exposing what has been forgotten
in a process of establishing history and creating mythology. In the twentieth century modern writers have
hired materials from authorized classical mythologies, especially Greek mythology. It has related heroes
and myths in Britain. Ishiguro starts his own mythical story and space.

Key words: Mythology, history, psychology.

Kazuo Ishiguro was born in Nagasaki, Japan in 1954. He moved to Britain at the age of Five. His
Eight works of fiction have earned him many awards and honors around the world, including the Nobel
Prize in literature and Booker prize. He also writers screen plays and song lyrics. He lives in London with
his wife and daughter. His seventh novel The Buried Giant(2014). It shares some concurrences to works
such as Beowulf for inclusion of risky adventures, and fighting.
Kazuo Ishiguro is not frightened of a challenge. In the twentieth century literature needs reading
and teaching literature with understanding the messages hided in ideological discourse. The literature of
the golden age is more or less quality the globalized catastrophes caused by totalitarianism, the highly
technological weapons, expanding fierce terrorism, threatening environmental crisis, and incurable
psychology.
The Buried Giant(2014) manipulates the multiple and crossed meanings of memory and
memories As the ground of history. Memory is based on the individual intentions and abilities to remember
and store what has happened. It is, therefore, turned to be the faculty that formulate history as a collective
memory, which is transfigured into written, recorded, and retrieved document and information. On the
other hand, memories possess the commemoration of a dead person as well as the length of remembering
an event, an experience, an incident, and a person.
The novel is constructed upon the journey during which Axl and Beatrice seek for the revelations
and resolution of individual memories. The fact that Axl and Beatrice are excluded from a group of the
other Villagers and they are faced with difficulties in their daily lives embodies their secret dark past that
they bury and forget. It is clear that their exclusiveness is proven by the villager's negative and even hostile
attitude toward them. Because the lack of their purpose of life is ambivalent at the beginning. In such a
circumstance, however, they decide to go to find their lost son even though they do not know the reason
why he left them.
The seemingly ideal relationship between axl and Beatrice is eventually nothing but the broken one
that caused their son's departure from home and from them. They gradually remember that they betrayed
each other and axl's malady was caused by her initial betrayal to her husband and his betrayal to her. At the
beginning of their journey. Axl and Beatrice have no other people to rely on so that they keep reassuring
their strong tie and love whenever they face difficulties. At the beginning of their quest, the paradox
between their love and hate in their individual memories has already been engraved as the core of their
MYTHOLOGY IN KAZUO ISHIGURO'S THE BURIED GIANT 304
lives. Their journey brings to an ironical and shocking closure when Axl and Beatrice admits the fact that
their son has been dead and they misconducts and their son's death are forgotten as the worst private
memory that determined and enclosed their lives. Their journey ends when this past means in their lives.
Ishiguro manipulates how mythology works in his presentation of memory and oblivion. It is a well-
known in theory that modern writers such as James Joyce, William Butler Yeats, T.S.Eliot virtually connect
classical mythology with human consciousness and psychology in exploring the creative world in the
twentieth century.
King Arthur is the most famous figure as a British national hero and king and the landscape of the
British Isles in ancient times implies the essential time and space for the British subjects. According to
Geoffrey Ashe the earliest inhabitants in Britain , called Myrddin's precinct, were giants who ''are reputed
to have been descendants of Noah's son Ham, and to have come from Africa in the second millennium
before Christ and taken possession''.(p.13) Ishiguro's The Buried Giant is founded upon this paradoxical
implication of mythology of Ablion. In order to encode this paradox of mythology, the giant plays a leading
part as far as the buried giant embodies the buried history and memories. The giant, which is employed in
the title of the novel, therefore, implies the primary and profound darkness of mythology that is visually
associated with the long-lived vice on the globe so that it represents the paradox of mythology.
The Buried Giant outlines Ishiguro's trial to leave a message of remembering the repeatedly
occurred catastrophes that have threatened human bodies and souls. Instead of describing the
contemporary issues that most of the readers remember, Ishiguro dares to indulge himself into locating the
state in the ambiguous uncertain, and unclear.
The journey to clear the mist of this oblivion is nothing but the quest for the new concept and ideas
of history in this contemporary, society where we can receive all the visual and written documents,
whether reliable or not, through a countless of webs of internet . Memories are easily buried and forgotten
and wars are repeated.

Works Cited
Kazuo, Ishiguro. The Buried Giant. London: Faber& Faber, 2015. Print.
G.Ashe. Mythology of the British Isles.London: Michelin, 1990. Print.

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86
CULTURAL ASSIMILATION OF THE INDIAN IMMIGRANT IN BHARATI
MUKHERJEE'S DESIRABLE DAUGHTERS

R. Suganya, Research Scholar, M.K. University

Abstract:
Bharati Mukherjee, an Indian- born writer is one of the most widely known immigrant writers of
America. “She has been widely acknowledged as a 'voice' of expatriate- immigrant sensibility. The
twentieth century has witnessed huge migratory movements of various people across national and
continental boundaries. The reasons for the migration of people of various nations vary from one another
and the destinations they reach also differ. Yet all immigrants' experiences also differ.

Keywords: Culture, exile, immigrant, identity.

Bharati Mukherjee has spent most of her career portraying the humiliation and pain often
associated with people adapting American culture. In her fiction Mukherjee depicts problems faced by
Indian and other immigrants who attempt to assimilate into American lifestyles.
My attempt in this paper is to use Bharati Mukherjee's Desirable Daughters to highlight how Indian
women after becoming an immigrants cannot intense their links entirely with their own culture and they
come out from the cultural borders which assimilate their life. In depth, it deals with the immigrant life and
cultural assimilation of three daughters. The twentieth century has witnessed huge migratory movements
of various peopleacross national and continental boundaries. The reasons for the migration of people of
variousnations differ from one another and the goals they reach also differ. Yet all immigrants' experiences
share certain fundamental characteristics. They face racial problems, culturalshock, sense of alienation,
evoking memories of their native lands and the deeply distressingof displacement are common to the
people of various diasporas. The Indian-born writer Bharati Mukherjee is one of the most widely known
immigrant writers of America. The immigrant writers of America can be divided into two categories. They
are 'willing immigrant' and 'unwilling immigrant writers'. But Bharati Mukherjee considers herself
different from other European writers for a variety of reasons:
I am very different from other non-European writers in saying that, to me,
The loss of old culture is exciting. Is exhilarating. Is a plus rather than a minus.
Just describing the extraordinary wealth and comfort that was natural part of
My childhood and which I would have inherited, in whatever damaged ways, if
I had stayed on in India- made me realize that I was thrilled to have the
Opportunity to give it up, to assume a new identity. (219)
Bharati Mukherjee has spent most of her career portraying the humiliation and pain often associated
with people adapting American culture. In her fiction Mukherjee depict problems faced by Indian and
other immigrants who attempt to assimilate into American lifestyles. My attempt in this paper is to use
Bharati Mukherjee's Desirable Daughters to highlight how Indian women after becoming an immigrants
cannot intense their links entirely with their own culture and they come out from the cultural borders which
assimilate their life. In depth, it deals with the immigrant life and cultural assimilation of the three
daughters.
The novel Desirable Daughters suggests that daughters are the object of family prestige, so their
CULTURAL ASSIMILATION OF THE INDIAN IMMIGRANT IN BHARATI MUKHERJEE'S DESIRABLE DAUGHTERS 306
behaviour should be desirable; it was the norms laid by the society. Only such daughters do not cross their
borders and also they are appreciated but in the novel two daughters including protagonist cross the said
border. In Desirable Daughters, the three daughters namely Padma, Parvati and Tara comes from a
Brahmin- Bengali family, which is strict in following custom and tradition and it is believed that the sisters
are disciplined based on their cultural norms. Tara describes how she and her other sisters are protected and
safeguarded by their father before marriage, “Our father couldn't let either of my sisters out on the street.
Our car was equipped with window shades. We had a driver and the driver had a guard” (Mukherjee 29).
Tara and her sisters, being brought up from this kind of cultural norms but after their marriage they
became immigrants and come away from the bond. It leads their life into self-destruction. The three
Bengali sisters represent the three different aspects of female experiences. Parvati lives a complacement
confined domestic life with her husband. Auro, while Tara lives an ultramodern life as a divorce with every
opportunity to enjoy progress and liberty. Both the sisters exist on the two extremes whereas Padma seeks a
fine balance between the two. Padma who is often referred to as Didi is markedly different “in the way of
sisters who are socially and psychologically and in every definable Indian way so very much alike” (31).
Even at the age of fifteen Padma expresses her desire to become a performer. In fact, she is ever offered a
major role in Satyajit Ray's films. But her father does not permit her to take up a career in acting. This
shows the family tradition As the story open Padma works in theatre is living in New Jersey with her
Punjabi husband Harish Mehta, a divorcee with grown-up children. She falls in love with a Parsi boy
named sohrab, and later she realises that sohrab is 'gay'. Before her marriage in teens she had a lover and
become pregnant and had an illegitimate son. Parvati, the second of the Bhattacharjee daughters shocked
the family by choosing her own husband, and strangulated the father's efforts to find her a suitable
bridegroom.
Eventhough this kind of happenings are common in modern society but to the orthodox family this
is considered as cultural assimilation. Though the story revolves round the three 'desirable daughters', the
focus is on Tara, the youngest of the three of the sisters, Tara is the most removed from her family's
traditions and its legacy until events cause her to examine her tenuous relationships with her homeland, her
two sisters and her divorced husband. Tara is caught in this gulf between the two contrasting worlds and
realizes that she has forgotten many of her Hindu rituals now: “It was not simple loss, Tara feared, this
forgetting of prescribed actions; itwas a little death, a hardening of the heart, a cracking of axis and
centre.But her mother came quickly with the relief of words” (51).
Tara lost her own cultural heritage; she remembers that when she was a child she had sung bhajans.
Now, the American culture has covered her with some invisible spirit of darkness.
Tara married to Bishwapriya Chatterjee and settled in silicon valley. She divorced her husband and lived
with her son Rabi. Tara explains that it is part of tradition that a woman is expected not to tell the name of
her husband. When she moves to America, she has learnt to adopt the new culture and ready to call her
husband by his name. Tara has been brought up through Indian way of living, that of one man for one
woman; when she has crossed the borders of her country, she too has learnt to change her way of living. She
has opted for another man, Andy. After she is divorced from her husband. She asks for new things and
expects to make new adventures in Andy's company, “I don't live exclusively with my son. There's Andy,
my balding, red-bearded, former biker, former bad-boy, Hungarian Buddhist contractor/yoga instructor,
the man Bish calls “Tara's mistri,”“my carpenter” (25)which shows her intimacy with Andy. This is
possible only because she is out of her nativecountry. Divorce is a ridiculous thing in India. Tara enjoys her
love-life with Andy because she feels that there is something exotic, something that defies the set norms
and structures. Old rules of the game are gone. It is exciting to formulate new rules. “We were exotics to
each other, no familiar moves or rituals to fall back on.He interpreted my fear as shyness. He was not first
American lover, but hewas twice the mass of any man I'd ever known, a bear-man, red-bearded,woolly

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armed, hairy-chested, gently spoken but, I was sure, given toviolence.” (77)
Culture has imposed many restrictions on women, and one among them is liberty in sexuality.
Cultural codes, which are constructed as the consequence of socializing women, have prevented them
being truthful to their desires. Apart from their wishes, women need to think what is right or wrong
attempts in their culture. By keeping such cultural codes to women, the society to safeguard the honour and
once when women attempt to cross those cultural codes, the honour of man is lost. The women characters
in this novel are quite open to exhibit their sexual needs. Tara and Padma in Desirable Daughters come
under this category.
To conclude, women characters that is the three daughters belong to orthodox society who are strict
in protecting the honour of their respective communities. Apparently, all the women protagonists, who are
expected to up, hold their family honour, readily cross the cultural borders and they do it in secret.
However, they got the desired happiness in life when they reconnected to their cultural roots. The alien
country had changed them into perplex and emotionless beings. Like this, the three female protagonists
through their immigrant life experiences, they try to emerge themselves as new women.

Works Cited
Auradkhar, Sarika Pradiprao. “Bharati Mukherjee's DesirableDaughters: Cultural Perspectives”. The
Commomwealth Review 16.2: 288-297. Print.
Balakrishnan, Anita. “Transforming Spirit of Indian writers”. New Delhi: Authors Press, 2012. xii,
276.Print.
Dominic, K.V. “Concepts and Contexts of Diasporic Literature of India”. New Delhi: Gnosis, 2011. xi,
295.Print.
Joseph, Eliza. “Perspectives on the Mestiza consciousness: Bharati Mukherjee's Desirable Daughters”.
Indian Journal of Postcolonial literatures 9.1 (Jun 2009): 91-99.Print.
Stephen, Stanley M. “Bharati Mukherjee: A study in Immigrant Sensibility”. New Delhi: Prestige Books,
2010.Print.

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87
CONFLICTS AND CHALLENGES OF ASHIMA GANGULI ACROSS TWO
CULTURES IN JHUMPA LAHIRI'S THE NAMESAKE

Mrs. M. Shanmuga Priya, Ph.D. Research Scholar, Madurai Kamaraj University

Abstract:
JhumpaLahiri, one of the second generation immigrants in the U.S.A, acknowledged as one of the
women writers in Indian English literature for her Indian themes, is a recent new wave literary artist. In
The Namesake, a novel of uncommon elegance and poise, hits many familiar themes; the uneasy status of
the immigrant, the tension between family tradition and individual freedom. Ashima feels upset and
homesick, spatially and emotionally dislocated from her ancestral home. She tends to regard the past with
nostalgia and the present American experience as an alienating woman. She is always alone in her house
and spends the leisure time in reading Bengali poems, stories and articles. Ashima is always in the memory
of her relatives in India. Ashima suffer from a severe identity crisis right from the time she arrives in the
U.S. The crisis is further deepened after her childbirth and lonely life with a newborn child. For Ashima the
challenges of exile in America, the loneliness, the contrast sense of alienation and longing for a lost world
in India are more explicit. She meets the challenges of her disorientation and homesickness by developing
ties with Bengalis migrates to America. The Bengali foods create a nostalgic longing for a lost world
especially to Ashoke and AshimaGanguli. Ashima faces Ashoke' death with enormous fortitude. Gogol
realises his mistake after losing his father and comes back to his mother understanding her significance
before it gets too late. Ashima decides to spend six months in America dividing her time among her son,
daughter and her close Bengali friends and the other six months of a year in India staying with her brother.

Keywords: Identity, conflicts, alienation, culture.

Jhumpan Lahiri, one of the second generation immigrants in the U.S.A, acknowledged as one of
the women writers in Indian English literature for her Indian themes, is a recent new wave literary artist.
She has authored the Pulitzer Prize winning collection of short stories, Interpreter of Maladies: Stories of
Bengal, Boston and Beyond (1999) and the novel, The Namesake (2003). Being herself an immigrant, she
feels the significance of family and how it ties man to his homeland. As a diasporic writer, she deals with
multi cultural society, partly from 'inside' and partly from 'outside'. Lahiri strives for her nature identity
and simultaneously endeavours to evolve a new identity in an adopted Anglo-American cultural
landscape.
Lahiri's characters conceive of existence only by grasping their own immediate experiences. In
The Namesake, a novel of uncommon elegance and poise, hits many familiar themes; the uneasy status of
the immigrant, the tension between family tradition and individual freedom. A modest attempt is made in
this paper to bring out the conflicts and challenges of AshimaGanguli between her Bengali culture and the
western tradition. She struggles in an alienated life with her nostalgic memories. The Namesake narrates
the saga of Ganguli family in Calcutta and Boston. The Gangulis as educated, cultured and elite Calcuttans
are the lovers of Russian and English literatures.AshokeGanguli is a doctoral candidate in Electrical
Engineering at MIT, USA where he is engaged in “earning a Ph.D. in Boston, researching in the field of
fibre optics.” (NS,9). The saga of Ganguli family began in the imperial times of pre-independence era.
Ashoke's grandfather, former professor of European literature at Calcutta University, used to say,
CONFLICTS AND CHALLENGES OF ASHIMA GANGULI ACROSS TWO CULTURES IN JHUMPA LAHIRI'S THE NAMESAKE 309
“Ganguli is a legacy of the British, an anglicized way of pronouncing his real surname, Gangopadhyay”
(NS, 67). Ashoke's career in America made him a prospective groom in Calcutta where the Bhaduri family
got attracted to this ambitious Ganguli as “he was slightly plump, scholarly looking but still youthful with
black thick-framed glasses and a sharp, prominent nose. A neatly trimmed mustache connected to a beard
that covered only his chin lent him an elegant, vaguely aristocratic air” (NS ,8).
AshimaBhaduri is a nineteen year old girl studying in a college to get a degree. She is forced to
marry AshokeGanguli. She moves eight thousand miles from Calcutta to Cambridge trying to please her
husband by cooking his favourites and adjusting with the new life. She is a traditional Bengali woman and
her immigrant experience and non-acceptance of the American society are very well projected by Lahiri.”
By now she has learnt that her husband likes his food on the salty side, that his favourite thing about the
lamb curry is the potatoes and that he likes to finish his dinner with a small helping of ghee and dal.” (NS,
10)
In Boston Ashima spent her days in nostalgia in an apartment because, Ashoke remained busy in
his research. Ashima feels upset and homesick, spatially and emotionally dislocated from her ancestral
home. She tends to regard the past with nostalgia and the present American experience as an alienating
woman. She is always alone in her house and spends the leisure time in reading Bengali poems, stories and
articles. Pregnancy was a hard time for her for there was no one to soothe her. Motherhood is a glorious
experience for a woman but fearAshima as an immigrant in a foreign land, loneliness and strange
surroundings nearly kill such feelings. Her eighteen months life is in complete alienation.
During the difficult hours of her pregnancy she becomes more isolated. Ashima wishes to talk to
the other America women, but she understands. 'Inspite of their public declaration of affection in public,
inspite of their miniskirts and bikinis inspite of their handholding on the street and lying on top of each
other on Cambridge common prefer their privacy,” (NS, 3)
And if she was in Calcutta, she would have been surrounded by all elderly women to help her out. In
Cambridge, she is admitted to Auburn hospital, Cambridge for her first delivery, 'her motherhood in an
alien land'. Ashima feels restless being the only Indian in the hospital with three other American women in
an adjoining room. She “is terrified to raise a child in a country where she is related to no one, where she
knows so little, where life seems so tentative and spare” (NS, 6). She realizes that Americans prefer their
privacy to public declarations of affections.
Ashima is always in the memory of her relatives in India. After her son's birth, she says to Ashoke,
“I'm saying I don't want to raise Gogol alone in this country. It's not right. I want to go back” (NS ,33)
when Ashoke realizes her agony, he himself feels guilty for bringing Ashima into an alien country. Ashima
suffers from a sleep deprivation in the silent house with a newborn child (Gogol) in the absence of her
husband (Ashoke) and visits the supermarket of Cambridge where all Americas are perfect strangers to her.
At home, Ashima is disappointed for not receiving mails from Calcutta, and often recalls her paralysed
grandmother. Ashima becomes more depressed when he missed India and wants to go back to India after
Ashoke's doctorate, but it never happens. “He looks at Ashima, her face leaner, her features shaper than
before, as a wife has already taken a toll he has come home from University to find her morose, in bed,
rereading her sense that she is quietly crying...but can think of nothing to say.” (NS, 33)
Ashima suffer from a severe identity crisis right from the time she arrives in the U.S. The crisis is
further deepened after her childbirth and lonely life with a newborn child. The memory of her days in
Calcutta creates a terrible sense of rootlessness and loneliness in her. For Ashima, America can never
become her 'home' at any point. It is Ashima's life showcases the visible and invisible crevices that exist
between the land and culture of her heritage and the social environment of her life in the U.S.Lahiri tried to
portray Ashima's'double consciousness', a consciousness of being an outside in her adopted home and a
consciousness which informs her of her uprootednessfrom her 'homeland'

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After six weeks trip to homeland due to the tragic death of Ashima's father caused by heart attack,
the family returns to Boston. Ashoke has been hired as an assistant professor at the university; they migrate
to a university town outside Boston, a historic district with colonialarchitecture. For Ashima, this
migration is drastic and distressing. Her reaction is very poignant. For Ashima the challenges of exile in
America, the loneliness, the contrast sense of alienation and longing for a lost world in India are more
explicit. She meets the challenges of her disorientation and homesickness by developing ties with Bengalis
migrates to America.
Ashima tries to create a mini Calcutta in America with the help of her Bengali friends. During
Durga Puja they become nostalgic for Calcutta. On Puja and marriage occasions women wear Banarasi
silk sati, gold jewellery and men wear dhoti and topor, pyjamas. Ashima trained her son, Gogol to call the
elders 'Dada', 'Dadu', 'Mamu' and learns to recognise the photographs of his grandparents and relatives in
India. As Ashima is a first generation Bengali immigrant make her children Gogol and Sonia learn Bengali
language, literature and history by sending them to special Bengali classes. They are taught about their
family lineage, religious customs, rites, beliefs, food mannerisms. Ashima feels fine when her children
memories Tagore's poems, names of Hindu deities like Ganesha, Saraswati, Lakshmi and Durga during the
puja.
The Bengali foods create a nostalgic longing for a lost world especially to Ashoke and
AshimaGanguli. They cherish their Bengali food as a source of familial happiness and comfort; because, it
connects them with their past. Lahiri has paid great attention to the importance of this spicy Indian food in
the diasporic scenario. Ashima is living in a new country with no relatives or friends. To make herself feel
at home, she prepares food adding spices that makes her feel comfortable. In her new life, in America,
where everything is foreign, this food brings her closer to India and lake her feel at home. Ashima keeps
herself busy with cooking to fight with her loneliness. The flavour of Indian dishes help her to survive in an
alien and hostile environment. Ahima prepares a Bengali snack, Jhalmuri:“Rice crispies and planters
peanuts and chopped redonions in a bowl. She adds salt, lemon juice, thin slices of green chilli, pepper,
wishing there were mustard oil to pour into the mix.”(NS,1). The absence of 'mustard oil' reminds her of
Calcutta where it was easy to find it. The art of cooking, with different variety of spices give birth to
multiculturalism. It gives happiness, comfort and solace to the alienated immigrant woman like Ashima by
reducing her sense of loss.
Lahiri successfully shows the cultural rift between India and America and suggests the means to
bridge this gap through varies elements, especially through the conductive mixing of spices and Indian
ingredients. In The NamesakeAshima uses Ricotta choose in place of yogurt, while making the popular
Bengali sweet, Sandesh. These sorts of experiences haunt Ashima about her homeland some Five years
later Ashima becomes mother of a daughter, Sonia. Ashima tried to adapt many things from American way
of life for the sake of her children. Gogol and Sonia.Ashima learns to roast turkey in American style, nails a
wreath on the door for Christmas and celebrate it with her children etc. She is a dedicated and loving
mother who undergoes secure conflicts of assimilation in adapting the America culture for keeping her
children happy.
Gradually with the years going by, Ashima becomes a helpless mother with her children taking
different paths inspite her attempts give the best upbringing she could afford them.Instead of being crushed
down by the changer in her children, Ashima emerges out stoically. Ashima faces Ashoke' death with
enormous fortitude. Gogol realises his mistake after losing his father and comes back to his mother
understanding her significance before it gets too late. Ashima tries to settle her son's marriage with a
Bengali immigrant in America, but collapses within a year for no fault of his own. Ashima's daughter,
Sonia is of different cast. Sonia stays with her mother and works as a paralegal, hoping to apply to law
schools nearby. She takes care of her widowed mother. Sonia, like Ashima has a sense of duty. Like the

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traditional Indian woman, Sonia marries her boyfriend a half Chinese boy, Ben and is happy in their shares
world. Ashima is happy with Sonia. “Fortunately they have not considered it their duty to stay married as
Bengali..... They are not willing to accept, to adjust, to settle for something less than their ideal for
happiness.” (NS, 276)
Ashima reaches to her equation of spending her life. The flat at Pemberton road is sold and Ashima
decides to spend six months in America dividing her time among her son, daughter and her close Bengali
friends and the other six months of a year in India staying with her brother. True to her name, Ashima will
now be without borders, a resident of everywhere and nowhere. Her ideal world is shattered into pieces:
“Ashima feels lonely suddenly, horribly, permanently alone” (NS, 278) and sobs for her husband, Ashoke.
She missed her life in India for thirty three years and now she will miss the country in which she had loved
her husband. That's why she wants to spend half of the years in U.S, and the next half in India. Ashima
decides to move away desperately after the last celebration of Christmas together with her children.
Ashima like many first generation Bengali immigrant women is not culturally immunised by
American's multicultural milieu. On the contrary an old world sentimentality begins deep attachment
towards her family, parents and culture of India. What sets AshimaGanguli apart from the rest of her gender
through across the world is her ability to combine the traditional concept of the divine feminine with the
challenges of the western life she faces in America. Basically her struggle in the alien land begins with firt
of all trying to get accustomed in the new space rather than the struggle of the other women for power
worldwide. Ashima is considered as the embodiment of 'shakthi' which does not mean power but capacity
to do the thong well in the destiny's chosen niche for her. After her marriage with Ashoke, Ashima leaves
Calcutta to settle in Cambridge, Massachusetts to live with her husband. She feels the pangs of dislocation
and the pain of building a new life in a different world. Ashima carves out her own identity which is neither
uniquely Indian nor uniquely American but wrongly human making her voyage between the two worlds.
Finally an epitome of the new woman, Ashima reaches in reality towards the true meaning of her name
'Ashima' when she decides to be without borders a resident everywhere a well a nowhere according to her
choice.

Works Cited
Chhabbra, Reema. “The Namesake: A Diasporic Saga of lost identities and Fading Origins.”The SPIEL
Journal of English Studies 1:2 (July), 2010.Print.
Kaur, Tejinder “Cultural Dilemmas and Displacements of Immigrants in JhumpaLahiri'sThe Namesake”.
The Journal of Indian Writing in English. Vol.32, No.2, July 2012.Print.
Lahiri, Jhumpa.The Namesake, London: Harper Collins publishers. 2009. Print.
Nayar, Aruti. “An Interpreter of Exile”The Sunday Tribune. (Spectrum) May 28, 2011.Print.

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88
NEFERTITI - THE FEMALE PHARAOH

G. Venugadevi, M.Phil, English, Kalasalingam University, Krishnankovil

Abstract:
Michelle Moran's Nefertiti is about the Egyptian queen Nefertiti, who manifests unimaginable
beauty and fame even now. She lived in the Amarna period. Michelle Moran is an American novelist. She
has written many notable works like Heretic queen, Cleopatra's daughter. The specialty in this particular
novel is, she visited Egypt where Nefertiti lived and collected the required information about Nefertiti for
this novel and then combined the facts with her lovely imagination. Nefertiti tells the story of how the
fourteen year old girl captures the mind of King Amunhotep, who ruled Egypt in that time. The novel
reflects how her beauty, their monotheistic religion and the political status of those days affected the whole
reign of Egypt.

Keywords: Beauty of Nefertiti, The Bust of Nefertiti, Religion -The Sun God - Aten, Political status.

Michelle Moran is an international bestselling author of seven historical novels. During her six
years life as a public high school teacher, she spent her summers to travel around the world and it was her
experiences as a volunteer on archaeological digs that inspired her to write historical fiction. Her books
have been translated into more than twenty languages.
Nefertiti (c. 1370 BC- c.1330BC) is the great royal wife of the Egyptian Pharaoh Akhenaten.
Nefertiti and her husband are well- known for their religious revolution, in which they worshipped one
God only, Aten or the sun disc. Her name roughly translates to “the beautiful one is come”; she also shares
her name with a type of elongated gold bead known as “refer” beads that she is often portrayed as wearing.
She is famed throughout the ancient world for her outstanding beauty; Nefertiti is considered to be one of
the most well-known Queens of Egypt. Even though Akhenaten has several wives, Nefertiti is considered
as a great royal wife the chief wife. They have six daughters and those daughters become famous after the
death of Nefertiti and Akhenaten.
Nefertiti's cleverness is portrayed in this novel elaborately. She slowly enters into the heart and life
of Amenhotep which makes him totally forget about his first wife Kiya who gives birth to a boy child. At
that time, Nefertiti grabs his attention by pretending that she has fallen unwell. Amenhotep totally forgets
Kiya and her son and spends more time with Nefertiti. “You are the only thing that matters to me. We are
going build monuments to the gods together, he swore” (149).
Little is known about the origins of Nefertiti, but her legacy of beauty and power continue to
intrigue scholars even today. Other theories have suggested that she was born in a foreign country,
possibly Syria. The exact data when Nefertiti married Amenhotep III's son, the future Pharaoh Amenhotep
IV is unknown. It is believed that when she was 15, they married each other before Akhenaten assumed the
throne. They apparently ruled together from 1353 to 1336 BC. In Michelle Moran's novel, more
importance is given to her beauty. The reason is that, it is her beauty that helps her to attain her goal.
Nefertiti uses her fabulous beauty and her clever intelligence to achieve many things in her life.
When we read the novel Nefertiti, we are stunned by Nefertiti's ideas and thoughts and how
cunningly she manipulates (her husband) the king Amenhotep and attains her goals. She is very careful in
choosing her wig and clothes so that she can get attention from her husband. Slowly she erases all the
NEFERTITI - THE FEMALE PHARAOH 313
memories of the first wife Kiya and becomes the King's chief wife. Nefertiti encourages the King, so that
he will be at her side. Both Amenhotep and Nefertiti always think about their ambition of becoming the
Pharaoh of Egypt. Nefertiti helps him to attain the royal position, because if the king is the great Pharaoh of
Egypt, then automatically the great royal wife will become the Queen of Egypt. Her dreams turn true when
Nefertiti becomes the great Pharaoh of Egypt. Michelle Moran clearly portrays the minute things even
their kajal, dresses, their birth chair and other things. Anyone who reads the novel Nefertiti will feel that
they are travelling to the time of the Amarna Period.
Nefertiti gives birth to six girl children. The heir must be a boy, but Nefertiti changes the entire
thing and later the king Amenhotep announces that Nefertiti's child is also the heir of their empire. “The
bells must ring three times today! … Is our princess any less important than a prince? …'Instruct the men to
ring the bells three times. The princess…' He glanced at Nefertiti.” (180).
Nefertiti sister's Mutnodjmet, who is the opposite of Nefertiti. Mutnodjmet wants to lead a peaceful
ordinary life with her husband and children. She is not ambitious like Nefertiti, whenever Nefertiti does
anything wrong, Mutnodjmet who is also called Mutny advises her sister, but Nefertiti is determined and
she neglected the ideas of her sister, Mutnodjmet. That ambitious leads both king Akhenaten and Nefertiti
in a wrong path that leads the entire city in to a tragic situation.
Nefertiti - the queen of Egypt she always think about her after her death ,she want people to
remember her name forever and her every action assimilates to that point so she was very much concerned
about the Bust or statue of her own. Nefertiti urged the king Akhenaten to create a bust of Nefertiti and
everyone in the family. Yes she is right, the bust of Nefertiti will remains still in Berlin Museum. Even
though the bust of Nefertiti is slightly damaged in the side of her ear, it reminds a fabulous beauty. She is
made famous by her painted limestone bust. It is found in the workshop of the famed sculptor Thutmose,
the bust is believed to be a sculptor's model. The technique which begins with a carved piece of limestone
required the stone core to be first plastered and then richly painted.
“Amunhotep is an ambitious dreamer”(127). “To build a temple to Aten”(137). The king
Akhenaten, who has formed a new state of religion, focusing on the worship of the Aten. It stated that Aten
was the supreme God and there were no other Gods. It has been said that Akhenaten formed the first
monotheistic religion, Aten God. Aten was only accessible to the people through Akhenaten because
Akhenaten is the King of Eygpt.
“But I want my child blessed in Aten's temple,” (138). At first Akhenaten had concerned the first
wife Kiya. She also encouraged the king Akhenaten to work ship the God Aten. Nefertiti used the intention
of Akhenaten as a tool for her goal. Then she encourages Akhenaten to build a new temple for Aten. The
king Akhenaten had a habit of writing verse. He wrote many poems about Aten and also for his wives. After
become a pharaoh of Egypt, the king Akhenaten decided to build a new city of his capital and also the
temple for Aten. To build the temple of Aten, the priests of Amun became strained. The priests were a major
power in Egypt and if another god became supreme they would lose their own prestige. Eventually,
relations became so strained that Akhenaten decided to build his own capital city by the nice, which called,
'Akhenaten', the horizon of the Aten.
Akhenaten systematically began a campaign to erase all traces of the old gods, especially Amun.
He erased the name of Amun from the temples and public works. He even went so far as to erase his own
father's cartouche because the word Amun was featured in it. Even the word 'gods' was unacceptable
because it implied there were other deities besides Aten. But the people of Egypt did not accept the Aten as
the only god. This Monotheistic religion became their way to destroy their entire kingdom. After the death
of Akhenaten the Aten religion also destroyed. People destroyed all the traces of Aten and they believed the
only religion Amun. After the death of Akhenaten, Nefertiti became the pharaoh of Egypt, and slowly she
understands the minds of people about the religion. Later the entire empire accepted the Amun God as their

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God. And in the novel by Michelle Moran's Nefertiti, the queen Nefertiti was killed by the priests of Aten in
her own palace. So the Aten God - their Monotheism wrote their own fate in a wrong way. This religious
strategy is one of the reasons of their destiny. And another one reason for their destruction is the Black
Death - plague.
Plague is called the Black Death. It is widely believed to have been the result of plague, caused by
infection with the bacterium Yersinia pestis. Modern genetic analyses indicate that the strain of Y. pestis
introduced during the Black Death is ancestral to all extant circulating Y. pestis strains known to cause
disease in humans. Hence, the origin of modern plague epidemics lies in the medieval period. Other
scientific evidence has indicated that the Black Death may have been viral in origin.
“. . . Plague pandemic was the dreaded Black Death of Europe in the 18th century. The number of deaths
was enormous, reaching two - thirds or three - fourths of the population in various parts of Europe. It has
been calculated that one - third of the total population of Europe, or 25 million persons, deed . . .”
(Encyclopaedia Britannica, lnc.)
“Then invite the king of Nubia, but do not risk the Hitties. Do not risk bringing Plague into this
city.” (361). Everyone knows about the endanger of Plague and Nefertiti's father Uizier Ay warned him
about Plague, but the king Akhenaten didn't consider the suggestion of Ay. After completing the capital
city in Amarna, both the king Akhenaten and Queen Nefertiti wants to shown their entire empire, they want
to explicit their city to their neighbour countries, even though they were enemies of the King Akhenaten.
No one will accept the entries of enemies to their new build city, because an half of the Egyptians were
there in the city. Nefertiti's father who is Minister of the Amarna city advices the king to stop inviting their
enemies. But the king didn't have an ear on him. Nefertiti knows the effects of their enemies, but she also
not stopped the enemies who were all entering to the Durbar. She wants to show of the newly made Bust of
Nefertiti to everyone. In the time of that Durbar the king Akhenaten announces that the Queen Nefertiti as a
Female Pharaoh of Egypt. This announcement was in-script in the Akhenaten's verse. In that Durbar
Hittites enter with the Black Death Plague and spread the disease into the city. It was spread throughout the
city and it killed most of the Egyptians, and it also entries into the palace and killed many persons in the
royal family also like the king Akhenaten, his daughters and his mother. Thus the result of their over
ambitious it leads into their own destruction. After the destruction of Plague, Nefertiti ruled the Egypt in a
great manner.
In the novel Nefertiti, Moran attempts a new effort, she took an ancient history and adds her
creativity on it and delivers as a innovation. This novel explicates the courage, adamant, and laurel of
Nefertiti.

Works Cited
Moran, Michelle. Nefertiti. Quercus, 2008.Print.
Tyldesley, Joyce A. “Nefertiti: Egypt's Sun Queen.” Find in a Library with WorldCat. N.p., 31 Jan. 2019.
Web. 05 Feb. 2019.

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89
GENDER INEQUITY IN GIRISH KARNAD'S FIRE AND THE RAIN

G. Krishnaveni, M.Phil Scholar, V.V. Vanniaperumal College for Women, Virudhunagar

Abstract:
This paper aims to illustrate the male- chauvinist attitude of men and how they mistreat women. It
attempts to show that men believe that women always should be under the control of men. This paper
exposes how all men are behaving with selfishness to women to fulfil their desires. It shows the brutal
behaviour of men and also shows how they are cruel enough to do honour killing of woman from their
family. It also attempts to explore how women choose their desires by opposing the men folk.

Keywords: Inequality, male-chauvinism, freedom.

Girish Karnad's The Fire and the Rain is the English translation of the Kannada play Agni Mattu
Male. The plot of this play has been taken from the myth of Mahabharatha. It deals with the myth of
Yavakri. Karnad has shown the theme of gender inequity in this play. It is a multilayered enigmatic play. It
questions the human relationships in the patriarchal society. He has portrayed how the women have been
victimized in the name of tradition and culture. As a writer, he tactfully exposed the gender biased socio-
culture in India.
Though, Karnad also an Indian, he questioned his customs and beliefs, which is too much biased to
women. He enlightened the tribulations of women undergo to lead their family life as a daughter, sister,
wife, mother and grandmother. Every woman in India has been under the control of men. If the woman is a
daughter she will be controlled by her father. If she is a wife, she will be controlled by her husband. If she is
a mother, she will be controlled by her son. This archetypal method has been followed in India.
Marriage in the patriarchal society is inter- personal between the male and female. If the marriage
has been done without the interest of any one of the two will result in ending the relationship. This
happened in the life of Vishakha and Nittilai in this play. Vishakha loved Yavakri. Nittilai loved Arvasu.
While Yavakri went forest to do penance, Vishaka was married off to Paravasu. In the case of Nittilai,
Arvasu failed to be on the time to the meeting of Nittailai's community elders. So, she was married off to
one of her relations' son. Though both these two women were not interested in their marriage, they
accepted it because they were not able to raise their voice over their fathers.
Vishakha, in her-law's house was not given freedom even to talk to her husband. They lived happily
for a year. He used her for his sexual pleasures. She did not question him. Even she was not informed about
the fire sacrifice that is going to be held for 7 years by her husband. The pathetic situation was, she had been
waiting for him, by the thought that he would come home to meet her. When she came to know the fact
about her husband, she did not revolt against her husband but simply accepted her life as it is.
Abhishek Kosta has correctly remarked the character of Vishakha in the patriarchal society. “She is
like a true conventional Indian wife whose psyche gets moulded according to the social norms and
conditions. Age-old repression and suppression have become embedded in her sub-conscious mind and
her actions are guided by her collective unconscious” (206).
Yavakri, after getting knowledge had come to meet Vishakha not to get reunion with her but, to take
revenge on Raibhya's family by seducing her. Though, at first, she denied his proposal later accepted him
and had a relationship with him. Also, Paravasu went 7 years for the fire sacrifice by abandoned her. So she
GENDER INEQUITY IN GIRISH KARNAD'S FIRE AND THE RAIN 316
had become easily the victim to Yavakri's revenge. Vishakha said about her ruined marriage life with
Paravasu to Yavakri: “I was married off to Paravasu. I didn't want to, but that didn't matter. The night of the
wedding, my husband said to me: 'I know you didn't want to marry me. But don't worry. I'll make you happy
for a year.'... Then on the first day of the second year of our marriage, he said: 'Enough of that. We now start
on our search.” (18)
After meeting Yavakri, Vishakha went to the hermitage, where she was injured by the word of
Raibhya, her father-in- law. By knowing her illegal relationship with Yavakri, he became cold- hearted. Of
course, she had committed a treachery, as a father-in-law his behaviour and words to Vishakha was
unacceptable one. He called her: “You whore- you roving whore! I could reduce you to ashes- turn you into
a fistful of dust- with a simple curse....” (23)Jayalakshmi says, “most abhorrent is such behaviour and
language in one who claims superior intellectual and cultural calibre as Raibhya does” (256).
Being a Brahmin and known for his anger, Raibhya suddenly created Brahma Rakshasha from his
hair and ordered it to kill Yavakri. He also said, if Yavakri stayed inside his father's hermitage, he would be
safe. So, Vishakha rushed towards Yavakri. There, she came to know the treachery of Yavakri to molest her
to take revenge against Raibhya's family. Her heart was broken. At first, her husband used her for a year.
Now, though Yavakri was a former lover of Vishakha, just to take revenge he molested his lady love.
Vishakha in a desperate mode lamented: “Why is life so contrary, Yavakri? One thinks one has stepped to
the bit of solid ground- a little heaven- and the earth gives way” ( 28)
Betrayed by all men around her, Vishakha realized her condition in the gender biased society. Her
husband, her brother- in- law, and her father-in- law all have used her sexually just for their own sake. So,
she planned to take revenge on the exploiters. She split out the sanctified water from the Kamandalu, which
could save the life of Yavakri and shouted with happiness. “Yavakri, Hurry. Go to your father's hermitage.
Go! Run! Go! Don't stop till you reach your father's house.” (28)But he was not allowed to enter into the
hermitage of Bharadwaja by the blinded guardian, Andhaka. Mean while he was killed by the Brahma
Rakshasha.
Paravasu came to the hermitage without the knowledge of other priests in the fire sacrifice. When
Vishakha saw him, she wanted to share everything to him about her loneliness. But he did not bid any
words to her. She expressed her feelings to him but, he was not ready to understand her. She said about his
father that he too want to abuse her. On hearing this, Paravasu aimed his arrow and killed Raibhya and said
he killed his father not because of her but to kill Yavakri to disturb his fire sacrifice. Again he went to the
fire sacrifice left Vishakha lonely in the hermitage.
Anyhow, Vishaka took revenge on her father-in-law and Yavakri. Though she did not take revenge
on her husband, she clearly understands his nature, his tendency to do anything. When Paravasu asked
Arvasu to do ritual rites to her father's corpse, she instructed Arvasu not to do. Because, she thought behind
this there may be a trick. Her intuition did not come false. Paravasu accused Arvasu to be the murderer of
his father and thrown out from the fire sacrifice.
The second victim female character in this play was Nittilai. She was not one of the characters of
Mahabharatha but the imaginative character of Karnad. She belonged to the tribal community. Nittilai's
love on Arvasu was much pure. Arvasu too loved her truly. But situation did not lead them to live together.
After Nittilai's marriage, she came to know the treachery of Paravasu to Arvasu. She wanted to know the
real condition of Arvasu so she came out from her husband's house and met him in the forest. But she did
not want to live with him she said: “when I say we should go together I don't mean we have to live together-
like lovers or like husband and wife.... Let's be together- like brother and sister.” (49)Not only after her
marriage, Nittilai want to follow her tradition, before marriage also, she always kept herself away from the
physical touch of Arvasu.
Though, Nittilai and Vishakha were exploited by men, have different characteristics. They both

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after marriage met their lovers. To the contrast of Vishakha, Nittilai maintains a good relationship with
Arvasu. She sometimes bravely questioned the Brahmins, though she was a hunter girl. She questioned
“...Why are the Brahmins so secretive about everything? ... Even God appear so secretly. Why? What are
they afraid of? Look at my people. Everything is done in the public view there.” (12)She asked these
questions to Andhaka. All women in her caste simply had been accepted their oppression but she was the
only one, who voiced against the oppressors. Though Vishakha belonged to the higher caste, she had no
courage to question her elders or their patriarchal system.
When Vishakha betrayed Yavakri, the punishment was given to Yavakri not to her. But in the case
of Nittilai, the punishment was given to Nittilai, though she did not had any illegal relationship. Because, in
all patriarchal home women have been considered as their honour. Nittilai's brother said “This daughter of
mine has made me a laughing stock in the eyes of the word' he said. I'm willing to marry her off to anyone
who'll take her.” (32)When Nittilai had come out from her house her brother and husband searched her all
around. When they saw her they killed her for their family honour. It became the pathetic end of Nittilai.
Thus Nittilai and Vishakha are not just the literary constructs but the exact representation of women
in the patriarchal society. They are created just to oppose the ancient tradition. Women have overcome the
oppression and have chosen their own desires by opposing men folk.

Works Cited
Jayalakshmi.P. “Politics of Power: A Study of Gender and Caste in The Fire and the Rain.” Mukherjee,
Tutun256.
Karnad, Girish. The Fire and the Rain. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2011. Print.
Kosta, Abhishek. The Plays of Girish Karnad: A study in Myths and Gender. Chennai: Atlantic
Publishers& Distributors (P) LTD, 2012. Print.
Mukherjee, Tutun. Girish Karnad's Plays: Performance and Critical Perspectives. Delhi: Pencraft
International, 2006. Print.

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90
BEYOND SILENCE: THE VOICE OF THE VOICELESS IN BAMA'S SANGATI

R. Piriyadharsini, M.Phil Scholar, V.V. Vanniaperumal College for Women, Virudhunagar

Abstract:
The paper critically views Bama's Sangati to study about the Dalit's relegation, chauvinism,
segregation, mortification from the common folklore and particularly gives the catastrophic conditional
life of Dalit women in India. Indian women were culturally, emotionally, tyrannized, sexually subjucated
and biologically dominated in the male dominated patriarchal society. Dalit literature is about detailing
the sufferings of victimized oppressed people. Bama's Sangati stresses that Dalit's are not oppressed class,
but they are oppressed by those who claim themselves as highclass. Bama, a famous Tamil Dalit writer
contours the various issues and problems faced by Dalit women, which they are experiencing and
struggling for long duration due to their caste and gender. This paper is an attempt to delineate the issues
of woman in the course of novel and exposes the plight and sufferings of Dalit, especially women in the
hands of the people of their own community and also the people of the upper class. The novel focuses
different issues of women such as injustice, inequality, economic backwardness, ignorance, lack of
employment, illiteracy and trafficking of Dalit women are detailed. Bama has used various events of the
daily life of Dalit women. It implies some serious steps to be taken to stop the cruelties against Dalit women
and to create awareness among the people to treat them equally irrespective of class and gender.

Keywords: Oppression, inequality, patriarchy, injustice.

Bama is one of the Tamil Dalit writers whose fictions have been much recognized born in
Puthupatti village in Virudhunagar district in Southern Tamil Nadu in 1958. She has written a collection of
short stories and novels. The novels Karukku, Sangati and Vanmam is on about Dalit community. Besides
writing she teaches at a School in Ongur village in Kanchipuram district. The novel Karukku gets success
and follows she wrote an episodic novel Sangati in 1994. It was translated into English by Lakshmi
Holmstrom and it was published in 2005. This novel is basically about Dalit women whom she
encountered in the village, their struggle against the caste structure and their struggles within the male
dominated family and society.
The term “Sangati” literally means news with full of interrelated events the everyday activities in
Dalit community. Bama makes a special focus in her novel on the multiplicity and humiliation the Dalit
women faces. Apart from the plight and suffering it also touches on the Dalit culture. Sangati rejects dalit
women's passive self image in dalit literary discourses and celebrates their self pride and dauntless spirit.
In Sangati dalit women are transformed from being the mute objects to strong articulate women. Bama's
work challenges the reigning paradigm of dalitist and feminist discourse by analysing the overlapping
structure of caste patriarchy and gender regulation in an attempt to subvert them both. Her novels are
acclaimed for celebrating dalit women's “lives, their wit, their humour, their resilience and their creativity”
(Mangalam 3)
Sangati makes a departure towards being the story of many women whose lives in everyday
context are a veritable battle. The novel, as Lakshmi Holmstrong says in the Introduction is 'one of
interconnected anecdotes' (Sangati xvi). The anecdotes talk of Dalit women's courage their wit humour and
their independent spirit. Bama uses the form of oral narratives talking of the past, of the present, of the
BEYOND SILENCE: THE VOICE OF THE VOICELESS IN BAMA'S SANGATI 319
stories about different people in the community, of the many social ceremony held in the past and even of
the evil spirits that possessed woman at various times, thereby creating an altogether different world. As
Bama makes it clear in the Acknowledgement of the book,
My mind is crowded with many anecdotes: stories not only about the sorrows and tears of
Dalit women, but also about their lively and rebellious culture their eagerness not to let life
crush or shatter them, but rather to swim vigorously against the tide; about the self-
confidence and self-respect that enables them to leap over their adversities by laughing at
and ridiculing them; about their passion to live life with vitality truth and enjoyment; about
their hard labour. I wanted to shout out the stories. I was eager that through them, everyone
should know about our lives and us. (Sangati ix)
The novel starts with the narrator's grandmother Paatti's story. Paatti's name is Vellaiyamma
Kizhavi. Her husband left her when her daughter, the narrator's mother, was only three months old. She had
waited long for her husband and when he did not return, during a terrible famine she took off her Talli and
sold it off. She was now ready to lead the life of a single women ready to fight her own battle and fend for
herself. Bama thus begins her novel with the story from the earlier generation to represent the endless fight
that generations of Dalit women put up to survive. That this fight is an ongoing process is represented
through stories of different women from different generations. There are also common stories known by
the people of the community which Paatti tells the narrator. The stories represent extreme courage and
resilience shown by the women to overcome almost insurmountable situations that they face.
The novel probe deep into the cause of economic inequality which is the prime cause of dalit
women's oppression and their interface with caste and patriarchy. The nexus between caste and gender, and
the feudalistic social structure that exist in the village is laid bare. An episode narrated in the novel Sangati
Kumaraswamy Ayya, local landlord tries to molest Mariamma,a lower caste women, while she was
crosses his field. She resist and runs away. Later, fearing that Mariamma would report the matter to her
people, the landlord fabricates a story that he has seen Mariamma having relationship with the dalit youth
named Manikkam. The matter is brought before the Naattaamai-the village headman and Mariamma is
beaten and is fined as per the decision of the council of elders. The Naattaamai never tries to verify the truth
about Ayya's statements. In an attempt to appease the landlord, they pass the verdict against Mariamma.
This demonstrates that Dalit women, who are at the bottom of the caste hierarchy thanks to their
caste and gender, are subjected to the ill treatment of the feudal Lords along with caste and class
oppression. In fact, their plight does not end with the workplace sexual harassment by the upper-caste
landlords because, at home they are abused and ill treated by their own men. The paradigms of male power
permeate through caste differences. The women who have gathered to witness the trail grumble in protest
and a woman in the crowd speaks out. Bama's novel succeeds in articulating the agency of the women as
she allows Susaiamma her space in the narrative to say,
What can you say to these men Susaiamma replied sadly. There's no way of convincing
them the truth, even when we are sure of it. They never allow us tosit at the village
meetings. They won't even allow us to stand to one side,like this. But it's only to us that
they'll brag. Ask them to stand up to Mudhalaali. Not a bit, they will cover their mouths...
Everybody in the village knows about her father kept woman, even a baby who was born
just other day. Did anyone call a village meeting and question him about it? They say he's a
man: if he sees mud he'll step into it; if he sees water, he'll wash himself. It's one justice for
men and quiet another for women. (Sangati 24)
In Sangati, as a child, she is exposed questioning the unequal treatment meted out to her at the
hands of her own maternal grandmother- Vellaiyamma kizhavi in comparison to her brother. She also
argues that she is asked to eat after every male member in the family finishes eating. In fact, even the

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quality of food served to the girls is much poorer than the kind of which is served to the boys. She throws
several questions on an unequal treatment of female at home and outside.
Why can't we be the same as boys? We aren't allowed to talk loudly or laugh noisily; even
when we sleep, we can't stretch out on our backs nor lie face down on our bellies. We always
have to walk with our heads bowed down, gazing at our toes . . . even when our stomachs are
screaming with hunger, we mustn't eat first. We are allowed to eat only after the men in the
family have finished and gone. What, Paatti aren't we also human beings? (Sangati 29)
The stories of Maikanni, Muukkama, Irulaayi and Pecchiamma throw more light into the lives of
these women while discussing different aspects of their social system, of how women like pecchiamma
dare to end their marriage. Bama also discusses about the pathetic treatment in which dalit women beget
their children. She discusses about Pachamuukipillai who ended up giving birth to her child in the fields.
She herself cut the umbilical cord with the sickle. Even Bama's mother gave her birth when she was
grinding masala for the evening meal. All this while, Bama interrogates her mother and granny on various
issues like separation, child labour, choosing husband almost every aspect of society is discussed and
analysed.
The text comprises experiences and events that occurred in the life of dalit women of different age
groups. Though some of the dalit women are shown voiceless like Mariamma, Thaayi and Esakki; as these
women suffer in the fields as well as in the house. But there are also women like Raakkamma and
Kaaliamma who cannot assume silence.Bama also highlights and unearths the nexus of priest and menfolk
to control the dalit women. Even after conversion the dalit community remains marginalized. Bama also
discusses about the inability of dalit women to come up with their own political choices. She discusses the
inability of dalit women to cast vote. Even they don't know how to cast vote. Patti stamped all the pictures
and the writer stamped to two pictures making their votes invalid.
Bama realizes that she is rather proud to belong to her caste and that lack of education has actually
perpetrated their slave-like situation. She sums up their situation thus:
Everywhere you look, you see blows and beatings; shame and humiliation. If we had a little
schooling at least, we could live with more awareness. When they humiliate us, we do get
furious and frustrated . . . .because we haven't been to school or learnt anything, we go about
like slaves all our lives, from the day we are born till the day we die. As if we are blind, even
though we have eyes. (Sangati 118)
Therefore, Bama enlightens the people of their community to educate boys and girls alike, without
showing any difference. She wishes that girls should be brought up in a new way so that in future there will
be a day when men and women will be treated with equal rights.
Though through her education, Bama made a difference in her life. She brings the reality of dalit
women to the fore and poses a question as to why a woman cannot belong to no one but herself as she says:
“I have to struggle so hard because I am a woman. And exactly like that, my people are constantly punished
for the simple fact of having been born dalits. Is it our fault that we are dalits?” (Sangati121) The message
emanating from her experience and perception that a Dalit woman should never feel humiliated or broken.
She should instead be spirited and lead her life with self-respect. She should never give in to demands of
men, even if it is Dalit men. It is this Dalit feminist consciousness fighting patriarchy both outside and
inside the community that resonates most powerfully in Sangati and makes it so unique.

Works Cited
Bama .Sangati. Trans. Lakshmi Holmstrom. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. 2005. Print.
Mangalam.B. “Tamil Dalit Literature: An Overview.”Language Forum. Jan-June 2007.Print.

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91
THE EQUIVOCAL NATURE OF CUISINE IN GITHAHARIHARAN'S SHORT
STORY “GAJARHALWA”

K. ParvathaVarthini, M.Phil. Scholar, V.V.V College for Women, Virudhunagar

Abstract:
The main objective of the paper is to throw light on 'Food Imagery', a narrative technique which
effectively presents the intended idea creating a very vivid and moving picture in the minds of readers.
Food is a universal necessity and it is linked to occasions and memories. It feeds the soul, fuels the body,
affects the environment, inspires artists, influences politics, and impacts just about every part of one's life.
The most crucial thing about food lies in its methods and procedures of cooking wherein different
ingredients are put together to create a unified and complete recipe. Moreover, food serves as a symbol of a
society and its culture depicting deeper meaning especially in literary works. Here in GithaHariharan's
Short Story GajarHalwa, the preparation of the gajarhalwa by Perumayee, a sixteen year old domestic
help occupies the major part. The preparation requires lot of physical effort for a little girl, which is hard
yet tempting. And the preparation stands as a test of Perumayee's endurance as well as her attraction
towards the unfamiliar. Thus the making of gajarhalwa, a common homemade Punjabi sweet dessert
pudding is used as a metaphor to indicate social inequalities such as child labour, poverty, and illiteracy.
At the same time it also paves way for Perumayee's self-exploration.

Key words: Food, Society, Metaphor, Inequality.

Food is a universal necessity and it is linked to occasions and memories.It feeds the soul, fuels the
body, affects the environment, inspires artists, influences politics, and impacts just about every part of
one's life. The most crucial thing about food lies in its methods and procedures of cooking wherein
different ingredients are put together to create a unified and complete recipe. Food offers a means of
powerful imagery. Moreover, food serves as a symbol of a society and its culture depicting deeper meaning
especially in literary works.
In GithaHariharan's Short Story “GajarHalwa”, the preparation of the gajarhalwa by Perumayee, a
sixteen year old domestic help occupies the major part. GithaHariharan, an Indian writer has produced
highly acclaimed works which includes the novel, The Thousand Faces of Night, the short story collection
The Art of Dying, the essay Almost Home, etc.. She is the recipient of Commonwealth Writers' Prize in
1993. Hariharan's short story collection The Art of Dying (1993)has modestly entwined the various
survival tactics by stressing on the different strategies the characters adopt to assert themselves.
The story “GajarHalwa”centers on the character Perumayee, a sixteen year old village girl who
arrives in Delhi in search of a livelihood. Prumayee's mother who has been working as a construction
labourerand bread winner for her family suddenly finds herself with no means of living when the bridge
construction is complete. Her father, a drunkard abandons the family. The mother comes to know that
Chellamma, her neighbor's cousin has come to take four girls from the village as domestic help in the city.
Immediately Perumayee's mother requests Chellamma to take her daughter and get her work too.
In the story “GajarHalwa”, the protagonist Perumayee affirms her identity through the preparation
of the halwa. The preparation requires lot of physical effort for a little girl, which is hard yet tempting. And
the preparation stands as a test of Perumayee's endurance as well as her attraction towards the unfamiliar.
THE EQUIVOCAL NATURE OF CUISINE IN GITHAHARIHARAN'S SHORT STORY “GAJARHALWA” 322
Thus the making of gajarhalwa, a common homemade Punjabi sweet dessert pudding is used as a metaphor
to indicate social inequalities such as child labour, poverty, and illiteracy. At the same time it also paves
way for Perumayee's self-exploration.
During the process, at each stage, she compares her personal development with that of the dish
which is also evolving slowly. Food thereby achieves a peculiar status different from a primary need. Thus,
the theme of food takes a key place in many works of women's literature which features feminine identity
and domesticity. “Peel, peel, grate, grate, I have never seen such a pile of carrots before” (Hariharan80).
Perumayee, a girl from village has never cooked anything more than rice or gruel. This suggests the
financial status of the family who cannot afford to buy or eat food containing nutritional values.
The theme of food at first in older literature was used as a manifestation of togetherness. Food was
the only means which brought people close at weddings, traditional ceremonies, and festivals, etc. and
provided a platform to nurture and grow their relationships by dining together. People relaxed, expressed
emotions, and shared their feelings, stories, and concerns along with the meal creating a community. On
the contrary, in contemporary world, the theme of food in literature has become more private and
represents more complex issues. All the personal identity struggles, frustrations and secret fears are
expressed through food symbolism.
Here in the story “GajarHalwa”, not only does the food is projected as a status symbol, rather it has
been handled to express sensible issues. The rural to urban transition for a sixteen year old girl is no less
difficult. It results in feelings of isolation and emptiness which is the outcome of transition. “The shiny
peeler peels a fine skin off the carrot” (Hariharan80). Just as the act suggests the shedding of the outer layer
of the carrots, Perumayee metamorphoses from a meek village girl to a bold one leaving behind her qualms
and fears to survive in the city.
The city life has made Perumayee kill the innocence within her. She becomes clever enough to
reduce the work load. When the memsahib is out of home, Perumayeeswabs quickly, skipping corners and
under the bed. In kitchen, she turns on the gas knobs high to feel warm, and she squeezes out the baby's
clothes with stains in it. Further, though she knew little Hindi, she pretends as if she knew none when her
memsahib complaints her irregular activities. Perumayee thus decides not to a silly fool and slave to her
memsahib.
“I have only finished peeling them, and already I can feel the stiffness in my right hand and the
moistness in my underarm. My arm gets stiffer and stiffer. My fingers feel as if they will never straighten
out again” (Hariharan81). The hard work Perumayee does in order to earn her living suggests her
endurance as well as the inhuman attitude of her memsahib. Being a mother, the memsahib does not
empathize with the kid's efforts during the preparation. From the eyes of Perumayee, the reader comes to
know that the memsahib is a well-educated one who is having a job and drives car making her independent
woman. But neither education nor humanity has taught her not to encourage child labor due to which
innumerable Perumayees across the country is deprived of their childhood and dignity.
The orange-red color of the carrot is stressed throughout the story to evoke visual imagery as well
as to signify emotional intensities in the minds of the readers. Red is regarded as an archetypal color, also
the first color humans mastered, fabricated, reproduced, and broke down into different shades. In the story
“GajarHalwa”, terms like “naked red, angry like blood”, “great red-gold warmth”, “heave of red, like
heartbeat”, “thick orange-red raindrops”, and “red plastic container” suggests not only the color of the
food prepared but also explores the strong emotions such as energy, will-power, desire, and anger within
Perumayee.
Goethe remarks: “A bull becomes furious only if he is presented with a red cloth; a philosopher, on
the other hand, goes into a rage as soon as the color is mentioned.” (qtd. in Gladding 6) The writer
GithaHariharan has brought to light the social inequalities existing in the contemporary scenario through

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food imagery in “GajarHalwa”. As humans have natural attraction towards colors, the author has made
use of it to advocate psychological traumas happening in the mind of the protagonist Perumayee.
While going through the entanglements of cooking, Perumayee experiences the same kind of
entrapment the cuisine undergoes. “The gajar, absorbing, sucking in like a greedy round red mouth,
swallows the sugar, the ghee and the milk. It sucks in everything…”(Hariharan84) The gajar or carrot
serves as an indication of city people including her memsahib, which captivates the life of an ordinary
common man from rural background to dwell in the luxuries of the artificial life the cities offer.
The city life has attracted Perumayee too. Before sending any money home, she wishes to buy a
sweater, a blue one with shiny, beaded flowers, and the kind she saw a girl wearing at the milk booth queue,
for herself. Then she plans to buy a blanket so that she wouldn't have to pretend the thin mattress to be her
blanket. In the course of time in the capital city, Perumayee forgets that her mother and siblings back in the
village might not even have a morsel to eat leading them to a miserable condition. Actually the city life saps
human emotions, human ties, and human bonds. It attracts and distracts Perumayee from her purpose.
Thus Perumayee gradually becomes materialistic and it is evident that in a few years' time
Perumayee might be no different from the wise, fawning Chellama, bringing young girls from the village
and supplying maids to the city folks thus making her earnings out of it. So, Perumayee's transition from
rural to city life made her aware of her “Self” which is full of desires to make her life better as she is trapped
in the process of urbanization. The story on the whole is a moving picture of the Indian society.
“I am a part of it now, part of the thickening red sweetness in the open mouth of this strange city”
(Hariharan84). Towards the completion of the halwa, Perumayee becomes a part of her creation. Along
with the halwa, she disintegrates to the city life. Thus the author presents her concern for society and its
predicaments with utmost truth, reality, and simplicity capturing infinitesimal details.

Works Cited
Gladding, Jody, trans. Red: The History of a Color. By Michel Pastoureau. New Jersey: Princeton UP,
2017. Print.
Hariharan, Githa. The Art of Dying. Haryana: Random House India Pvt. Ltd.,1993. Print.

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92
SOCIETAL BIGOTRY IN MAHESH DATTANI'S SEVEN STEPS AROUND THE FIRE

A. Mahara Devi, M.Phil, V.V.V College for Women, Virudhunagar

Abstract:
The present study is an attempt to explain the ostracized people in Indian society. Mahesh Dattani
has taken a brave step by introducing transgender in his plays and he gave a new dimension to Indian
theatre. Social invisibility is the subjective experience of being unseen by others in the society. It refers to
the individuals who are all considered as marginalized people and untouchables. Through the play Seven
Steps around the Fire, Dattani portrays the sensational issues like the exploitation of hijra community and
their silent sufferings, because of social inequality. The play clearly exhibit the identity of the third gender
and their longing for social acceptance in the society. Throughout their life they faces discrimination and
that discrimination always translated into violence. Dattani highlight these issues before the audience, so
that everyone will come to know about the real conditions and their position in the society. Thus the paper
aims at setting a platform to encourage the hijra community to prove their talent and for their equal
treatment among the common people.

Key words: Exploitation, Marginalization, Oppression, Discrimination.

The tradition of Indian English drama developed in the middle of cultural diversities and linguistic
variations. Basically, India is a land of rich cultural heritage and having a wonderful tradition of art,
culture, dance and performances. Drama is a genre of literature in which the text and the performances both
have equal importance. A play demands the involvement of eyes, the ears, the intellect and the emotions of
the audience. Human sensibility, socio-political issues, and family concerns can be presented through the
form of drama in an effective manner. The present study is an attempt to explain the ostracized people in
Indian society.
Mahesh Dattani is the first Indian playwright who has been awarded with the Sahitya Academy
award. He has chosen the genre of drama so that he can share his views directly with the audience. Dattani
th
has entered into the theoretical world of English literature in the last quarter of 20 century. He tries to
present his opinions through drama with his creative innovations. His plays include diverse themes and
techniques to represent his thoughts to the audience. His plays are experimented on the stage and most of
his plays were staged first and then printed afterwards.
Dattani's Seven Steps around the Firewas first broadcasted under the title Seven Circles around the
Fire by BBC Radio on 9 January 1999. And it was first performed on the stage at the Stein Auditorium,
India Habitat Centre, New Delhi, under the title Seven Steps around the Fire. This play dramatizes the fight
of eunuch community in the hypocrite world. From the beginning to the end, the play has twenty
movements. Dattani have adopted different techniques to show the secret thoughts running in the mind of
the characters to the audience. The major technique in this play is, voice-over technique. Stillness, silence,
sound and movement are the important matter in theatre directions which will give unique identity to the
play and the settings also depends on the arrangement of these four elements. Dattani has tried to bring his
plays to the real life experience. Dattani has used innovative stage craft in his plays. Dattani used the world
of theatre as a powerful tool to cover the bitterness of the truth and highlights the necessity of social
changes.
SOCIETAL BIGOTRY IN MAHESH DATTANI'S SEVEN STEPS AROUND THE FIRE 325
Mahesh Dattani's plays deals with the sensational issues like exploitation of hijra community, child
sexual abuse, homosexual relationship, HIV and patriarchal society. Mahesh Dattani has taken a brave step
by introducing such themes in his plays and he gave a new dimension to Indian theatre. Social invisibility is
the subjective experience of being unseen by the others in the society. It refers to the individuals who are all
considered as marginalized people and untouchables in the society. Dattani skillfully presented the socio-
psychological crisis of hijras and their fight for identity with the society through the play Seven Steps
around the Fire.The word hijra come from Urdu means neither male nor female. Due to the subversive
nature of their sexuality, trans genders became the victims of the politics of exclusion. Bijay Kumar Das
remarked that, “Dattani has done a good job by introducing a new themes to Indian drama.Conservatives
and social activists should not turn a blind eye to reality…we have to accept the reality of life, however,
painful that might be” [Das 17]
Dattani attempts to raise the sympathetic pity of human beings towards the hijra community
through the protagonist, Uma in this play. She is doing her research work on class gender based power
implications. Her heart is full of concern and she gives respect to everyone. Dattani has used the voice-over
technique to reveal the inner thoughts of Uma. Voice-over technique is also known as off-camera or off-
stage commentary. This technique may be spoken by someone who appears elsewhere in the production or
it may be done by any voice actor. It is pre-recorded and placed over the top of a film or video and it is
commonly used in documentaries or in newspaper reports to explain information. It is used to reveal the
voice of a visible character to express their unspoken thoughts. The same thing is used in this play.
The play starts with the fading light and in the dark, the audience listens the recorded voice of Uma
which is played while Uma is shown on stage, she work silently on her laptop. Uma is articulating about the
hijras and she compares them with great mythological figures. This narration will help in securing a
respectable place for them in the society. Now Uma is visible to the audience and her voice-over,
Another legend traces their ancestry to Ramayana. The legend has it that God
Rama was in the forest to cross the river and go into exile. All the people of the
City wanted to follow him. He said, 'Men and Women, turn back'. Some of his
Male followers did not know what to do. They could not disobey him. So they
Sacrificed their masculinity, to become neither men nor women and followed him
to the forest. Rama was pleased with their devotion and blessed them. There are
transsexuals all over the world, and India is no exception. The purpose of this
case study is to show their position in society. Perceived as the lowest of the low,
they yearn for family and love [CP II 239]
When Uma goes to meet Anarkali, a hijra in the prison for her thesis the constable Munswamy tries
to divert her attention and says that there are many cases, “ Man killing wife, wife killing man's lover,
brother killing brother” [CP II 234]. This dialogue implies the social prejudice against them. They are not
given the status of a man, wife, brother and in the society they are denied the familial role also. Even, Uma's
husband used to mention Anarkali as “this thing”[CP II 245] and Munswamy used to call them as “it” [CP
II 233]. Again it showsthat how hijras are considered as an inferior and an unimportant persons in the
society and they are not even considered as a human being. When Uma thinks about hijras again her voice-
over is heard by the audience. “…Not for them the seven rounds witnessed by the Fire God, eternally
binding Man and woman in matrimony, or the blessings of 'May you be the mother of aHundred sons”
[CPII 239]
The play Seven Steps around the Firevisualize, how a normal marriage life between a hijra and a
normal man is not accepted by the society. In India, hijras does not have any respectable place. They
always faces discrimination and that discrimination always translated into violence. They are affected
mentally, psychologically and physically. Generally, hijras are accepted for two occasions. One is for

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child birth and another one is for wedding. They used to dance and sing to bless the new born baby and the
new couples. For that people will give them money, otherwise they will put curse on them. The fact is that
they are deprived from these two privileges by the man as well as by the nature.They always faces
oppression in the society.
Dattani has closely studied about hijras and their plights as well as men's attraction for them. Uma's
research work takes her to the next level of investigating the murder of Kamla, a hijra. Anarkali is arrested
for the murder of Kamla. There is no separate prison for them. She put it in a male sell and she tortured by
them physically and verbally. Uma's investigation tell the truth that Kamla has not been murdered by
Anarkali. Anarkali knows the real murderer, but she does not have the courage to reveal the truth. Even
when Uma asks her about the murder, she says that, “They will kill me also if I tell the truth. If I don't tell the
truth, I will die in jail”[CPII 244]. Uma wants to get justice for Anarkali. Hijras are marginalized even in
crime also. They areforced to be an invisible minority groups. Even the murder of Kamla has not been an
issue at all. Mr. Sharma is a Deputy Chief Minister and father of subbu. He wants to marry Kamla, but his
father does not like his son to marry a hijra. So he plays a villainous act and burn Kamla to death. It shows,
how men's irrational hate of hijra community and that hate leads to murder and suicide. It is a problem play
as well as a tragedy.
Dattani is much attached to the unprivileged sections of the society and he portrays their picture
before the audience, so that they come to know about the real condition of them. The play presents the
social disagreement through the characters in a different way. Anarkali always feels frustrated and she does
not have any faith. When she meets Uma, she tells her about the bail and she expects Uma's help to come
out from bail. Through this play Dattani exhibit the plurality of subalternity. There are different types of
marginalization. One is sexual subaltern and another one is gendered subaltern. These two things are
represent by Uma and Anarkali. Anarkali is a biological subaltern and Uma is a gendered subaltern. As a
hijra, she does not have any freedom to expose her talents and wishes. In the same way, Uma does not have
the courage to demand money from her husband. They are struggling to make their individual identity.
Uma always questions herself about the identity and the origin of hijras. Again Uma's voice-over:
…Nobody seems to know anything about them. Neither do they. Did they come
to this country with Islam, or are they a part of our glorious Hindu tradition? Why
are they so obsessed with weddings and ceremonies of childbirth? How do they
come to know of these weddings? Why do they just show up without being
invited? Are they just extortionists? And why do they not take singing lesson?
[CPII 246]
At once Uma's mother told her that they did not allow those people to sing and dance in their weddings, so
they put a curse on them. And they did not bear a child of their own and adopted Uma. There are so many
questions are running in the mind of Uma. She becomes restless to find the answers. She tries to tackle all
the problems and brings justice to Anarkali. Champa is the head and a motherly figure for whole hijra
group and she believes there is no other world for hijras than they have created for themselves. When she is
introduced to the audience, she is dramatized as a hijra who is reading Femina and maintains her dignity in
speech and action. She has her own respect and reputation in her own community. When Uma doubts
Champa in the murder of Kamla, even she throws the money and ask her to leave. She has not given rights
to anyone to insult and tease her.
When Subbu's wedding with another girl is going on, the truth about the murder comes out. The
true murderer is Salim, Sharma's guard and a friend of Subbu. During the wedding, Subbu can visualize
that Kamla is dancing among the group of hijras. He blames his father to separate him from Kamla. Then he
kills herself to meet his true love Kamla. The fact is that not only Mr. Sharma disapproved his son's
marriage with a hijra, but also the society is not ready to accept their marriage. Through the character Mr.

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Sharma, Dattani reflect the socio-political issues of the present day. So Kamla has to bear the consequences
of being in love with a man from a reputed family. Though they are true lover, they have to suffer a lot in the
hands of diplomatic society, because it does not allow them to live happily. Finally Uma's voice-over,
“They knew. Anarkali, Champa and all the hijra people knew who was behind the killing of Kamla. They
have no voice. The case was hushed up and was not even reported in the newspapers.” [CPII 282]
The play Seven Steps around the Fire, clearly shows how the life of a person can change after
taking seven steps around the fire. It raises many questions regarding hijra's identity and their social
acceptability and tolerability. They have no voice, no sympathies, no justice and they are longing for only
family and affection. Thus the paper aims at setting a platform to encourage the hijra community to prove
their talent and for their equal treatment among the common people. If we give them support and they will
get success in their life. Today there are some organizations that are bringing them forward as a part of
common man's life.

Works Cited
Agarwal, Beena. Mahesh Dattani's Plays: A New Horizon in Indian Theatre. Jaipur: Book Enclave, 2008.
Print.
Das, Bijay Kumar. Form and Meanings in Mahesh Dattani's Plays. New Delhi: Atlantic, 2008. Print.
Dattani, Mahesh. Collected Plays. Vol II. New Delhi: Penguine Books, 2005.Print.
Prasad, Amar Nath. The Dramatic World of Mahesh Dattani: A Critical Exploration. New Delhi: Sarup
Book Publishers, 2009.Print.

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93
BREAKING THE BARRIERS: A STUDY OF EMERGING NEW WOMAN IN
MANJUKAPUR'S DIFFICULT DAUGHTERS

P. Subathra Devi, Asst.Prof., A.K.D.Dahrma Raja Women's College, Rajapalayam

Abstract:
Indian English Literature has acquired remarkable recognition and has gained worldwide acclaim
mainly to the unfathomable heights of glory it has reached in the growth of novels. Indian novelists hold a
prominent place in world literature for intense and esoteric sensibility. Women writers have played a
prominent role in this area. The writers are aware of the needs of women like self- fulfillment and identity
formation which take shape in the form of alienation, communication gap, broken relationship and identity
crises.

Keywords: Barriers, new women, emerging, feminism.

Poetry or drama, novel or short story, history or biography, philosophical or political treatise,
Indian writing in English shows no signs whatever either of exhaustion or inanity. There is doubt that, with
its own individual vision and voice, Indian English Literature will grow in other literatures of
contemporary India from strength to greater strength and help to make us a new nation and a new people, a
modern nation and a progressive people, wedded to the tasks of national reconstruction and international
harmony.
Fiction, being the most powerful form of literary expression today, has acquired a prestigious
position in Indian English Literature. It is generally agreed that the novel is the most suitable literary form
for the exploration of experiences and ideas in the context of our time, and Indian English fiction occupies
its proper place in the field of literature. There are critics and commentators in England and America who
appreciate Indian English Novels.” The situation of woman is that she- a free and autonomous being like
all creatures - nevertheless finds herself living in a world where men compel her to assume the status of the
other” - Simone De Beauvoir.
Feminism, as a philosophy of life, seeks to discover and change the subtler and deep seated causes
of women's oppression. These are to be found, for example, in the legal system, such as unequal labour,
marriage, and divorce laws. More pervasive are the widespread attitudes about women's proper or natural
duties and the proper or natural relations between the sexes. Feminism is a raising of the consciousness of
an entire culture. Even the pronoun structure of the English language suggests that women are different
that they are 'other', not fitting the paradigm of 'man'. Feminism as a philosophy of reform envisages
profound changes in traditional social structures such as the family, in the economic role and power of
women, and finally in fundamental attitudes and personal relationships, leading to a just social order.
Feminism is an intellectual and social movement that advocates for women's rights eradicating the
gender discrimination prevailing in the society. It focuses on women's woes and suffering all over the
world, and their struggle for individuality. Feminism evolved as a literary form when educated women
started questioning the inadequate representation they were given in literary texts, and attempted to study
and solve various issues from a feminist perspective.
ManjuKapur, who has contributed a lot to the Indian Literature in English, is a writer of
International repute. With six critically acclaimed novels to her credit, Difficult Daughters, A Married
BREAKING THE BARRIERS: A STUDY OF EMERGING NEW WOMAN IN MANJUKAPUR'S DIFFICULT DAUGHTERS 329
Woman, Home, The Immigrant, Custody and Brothers. She has emerged as a significant and eminent
novelist on the contemporary literary scene. She has awarded the Prestigious Commonwealth Writers
Prize in 1999 for her debut novel, Difficult Daughters. A married Woman and Home were both shortlisted
for the Hutch Crossword Prize for fiction, and The Immigrant was shortlisted for the DSC Prize for South
Asian Literature. Besides novels, she also has written a number of short stories “Chocolate” is a widely
read story.
Through her fiction Kapur artistically projects the feminist concerns. Her works provide centrality
to woman in every aspect stylistically, thematically and structurally. She revises the feminist issues in a
feminist narrative technique which helps her to convey her message to the readers more convincingly and
authentically. Both the texture and the structure of the works are suffused with feminine sensibility. The
depiction of the theme, the portrayal of the characters and the skill of the narrative technique that becomes
a feminine discourse, is an attempt on the part of the writer to explore the victimization of women and their
urge to be free from the sexist bias in the patriarchal Indian Society.
Many Indian English women writers portray the independent women who is not in conflict with the
male, but accepts responsibility for herself. The term such as stress, feelings of isolation, alienation,
identity and psychology has its adverse effect in one's life which creates problem in long run. Assimilation
from social and psychological view point ManjuKapur is one of the best known celebrated post-
independence writers exploring sociological and psychological sensitive issues. Thus conflicting internal
and external experiences, pressures and expectation produce anxiety. Manju Kapur's Difficult Daughters
and The Immigrant, elaborating the protagonist's journey in search of her identity, exposing the gendered
spaces and hierarchies of power to a stage where liberation, autonomy is gained at the cost of isolation.
Difficult Daughtersis a story of women's life caught up in the complex desire web of social positions,
personal desire and quest for education.
Manju Kapur registers her concerns for Indian women and dwells on various feministic issues in
this novel like female education and their empowerment, financial independence and eradication of child
marriage. Kapur's marriage is loud and clear that “society would be better off if its females were effective
and capable”.The women in the novels of ManjuKapur seem to be the personification of “New Women”
who have been carrying the border of inhibition since ages and want to be free now. Manju Kapur also
deals with the roles of woman as a daughter, a wife and a mother. She is a trend setter and she brought the
woman protagonist from the clutches of suffering woman to daring and amazing woman. She has given
woman as a new image of boldness. ManjuKapur's heroines negotiate for their independence and a
respectable place in society. The heroine is mentally advanced in the real sense of the word, whether she is
Virmati in Difficult Daughters, Astha in A Married Woman, Nisha in Home, Nina in The Immigrant or
Shagun in Custody. The female protagonists are the new women who hail from the middle class but
challenge the existing socio-cultural patriarchal system. In the social milieu, they are educated, modern,
intelligent, bold and assertive. Even though they try to transcend and social hierarchy by demolishing it.,
they often undergo serious psychological traumas in the absence of an alternative, planned feminist
ideology that may give them freedom, security and peace of mind.
Manju Kapur clearly shows the hitches of women who carry the burden of being female as well as
the added responsibility of being mothers to members of their own sex. In the traditional and social milieu
of the novel where mothers and daughters exist, marriage is regarded an ultimate goal and destiny from
which these women cannot escape. Her female protagonists are mostly educated, aspiring individuals
caged within the confines of a conservative society. Their education leads them to independent thinking
and makes them intolerant to family and society. They endure a conflict between the passions of the flesh
and the yearning to be a part of the political and intellectual movements of the day.
This paper evaluates the journey of Virmati, the female protagonist in ManjuKapur's Difficult

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Daughters. She presents the Indian Women of 1940's. It not only deals with the Independence aspired to
and obtained by a nation but also to the independence yearned after by a woman and member of that same
nation. The search for control over one's destiny is the key theme of this novel.Difficult Daughter is a story
of three generations of women: Ida, the narrator who is a divorcee. Virmati, her mother, who marries an
already married professor for love, Kasturi, her grandmother, who come to terms with a difficult daughter,
Virmati. This novel deals with the yearning struggle of women to establish an identity. It is about a woman
who is shredded by conflictual forces and torn apart by oppositional structures in life. The protagonist is
caught between the dilemma of family duty, and inner freedom struggle, the desire for education and illicit
love. Virmati, a young woman born in Amritsar into an austere and high-minded household, falls in love
with a neighbour, the professor a man who is already married. This is a story of sorrow, love and
compromise. The novel mainly deals with Virmati's love affair with professor and emerging her as a “New
Woman”. Virmati is the eldest daughter of Kasturi and Suraj Prakash. Kasturi has eleven children. One
after another she gives birth to children and thus the whole burden of household work increases over
Virmati, being the eldest daughter. All of them living together to share success and happiness, failures and
frustration.
Virmati was forced to look after all her brothers and sisters and she assisted her mother in the
nourishment of all of them. During the pregnancies of her mother, Virmati was always busy in engaging the
house-hold affairs and managing the things as far as possible for her. ManjuKapur writes about her duties
in the following words:
Ever since Virmati could remember she had been looking after children. It wasn't only baby
Parvati to whom she was indispensable, to her younger siblings she was second mother as
well. … she slapped them briskly. Usually once was enough, sometimes she tried to be
gentle, but it was weary work and she was almost always tired and harassed (DD 6)
It seems that Virmati was forced to tackle the responsibilities in her very early age. She was bound
to assist her mother in her every pregnancy. On the other hand, the condition of Kasturi was also bot better.
She had to pass through pain and agony in her every pregnancy. She has to hear her Sister-in-law Lajwanti's
comments every time when she becomes pregnant. Virmati had to watch these things like a silent spectator.
When Virmati was only seventeen, she was sent to Dalhousie with her mother to look after her.
Virmati was also trained in order to learn cooking and house- keeping which she had to do after her
marriage. It is the fate of each and every Indian girl and the novelist seems to be aware with the reality.
Virmati has some different notions in her life. She does not appear to be of compromising nature. She likes
to be always involved in tussle with Lajwanti. Even small incidents disturb her too much. Her study in
Amritsar also puts her in conflicting situation. Due to her busy routine she does not do well in her studies
and fails.
At this age, Virmati turns into beautiful girl with some different notions. Her physical charm is
beautifully narrated by the author as follows: “Virmati was over seventeen by this time. She had a long,
fine face with large, widely spaced eyes, eyes with a dazed and distant look. Her nose was thin and straight,
her colour pale as the inside of a banana stalk. Her lips were full and a natural red, her chin small and
rounded. She was short-sighted, and did not notice when people looked admiringly at her”. (DD 22)
Kasturi is also aware of the transformational attitude of Virmati. She realizes the inevitable
changes in her growing daughter. But she is in dilemma whether to free her daughter or to check her in
advance. She does not allow Virmati to enter in the realm of education with such freedom. But at the same
time, she does not want to put the burdens of traditions and conventions on her daughter.
Virmati's companionship with Shakuntala provides her an opportunity to live deep into the nectar
of freedom which she realizes outside the houses. For Virmati, education means the realization of freedom
and new outlook and attitude. Virmati and Shakuntala always involve in discussion on the issue of

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education and freedom. Virmati thought that she will be no more in Amritsar because there is no real
freedom in that place for her.
The Professor finds the perfect companionship in Virmati. He was ready to grabbed the occasion
with smartness. The glimpse of Virmati gives the professor a real pleasure and emotional fulfilment. In a
typical traditional and culture oriented society in India, it is not possible to thought about such kind of
relationship between a teacher and a student. And Virmati began to found a rare kind of pleasure and
happiness in the company of the professor. Virmati falls in love with Harish, a professor who is already
married. He sublets in a portion of Virmati's house. Living in Amritsar, provides Virmati an opportunity to
enter in the new realm of freedom of which she was deprived for a longer period. Here, the author seems to
narrate a story of a girl whose journey is quite symbolic due to her transformation from “innocence to
experience”. In Amritsar, Virmati's dresses, her outlook, her appearance and her style - everything changes
in a stroke.
The professor develops an intimate relationship with Virmati. Virmati's parents decide to marry her
to an engineer, Inderjeet, but due to the death in his family, their marriage is postponed for two years.
During this period Virmati passed her FA Exam and denies for marriage. Professor insists Virmati on being
firm. Now she became mentally disturbed and went to Tatashika and drowned herself. She is saved by the
servants of her grand-father. Every one inquires the reason but finally Virmati declares her decision that
she does not like that boy and she wanted to move for her further study. So that marriage is settled with
Indumati, the second daughter of the family.
Virmati decides to go to Lahore for her further learning. All the family members are against her
decision but they would do nothing before the will power of Virmati. She does not change her decision to
study at Lahore. In Lahore, she finds the company of Shakuntala who always inspires her to be free and
vibrant in her outlook and manner. Professor's course of meeting to her has yet not stopped and during this
period she becomes pregnant. She becomes restless and the professor also. Virmati is also the victim of the
double standard society. If a man remains unmarried for a longer period, it is not noticed at all. On the other
hand, if a girl remains unmarried for a longer period, it is the subject of discussion and rumours to all.
Wherever she goes, she has to face many questions all the time. So all for that she is in a position to marry
him or to abort the pranks of him. She decides and with the help of her roommate Swarnlata, Virmati gets
abortion. After completing her B.T., she returns to Amritsar and is offered the post of Principal in a college
at Sultanpur. She joins it but she is dismissed by Lalaji, the manager of the college for her meeting the
professor often. So she decides to go to Nariniketan.
And at the same time, she wants to marry the professor, so she forced him to marry him after
fiveyears of their love. Virmati's marriage with the professor gives her a lot of satisfaction and she also
suffers from a sense of guilt of her family. During her conjugal life Virmati feels that it would have been
better if she had not married with Harish.After some times she gives birth to a daughter Ida, the narrator of
this novel. Virmati's life in Lahore is full of mental agony and dissatisfaction. To lead life as a second wife
is not easy for any woman in typical Indian Society. That happens to Virmati. She is always in search of her
own identity and recognition. After three or four years of her marriage with Harish, she does not feel such
comfort. She lacks her own real right as a wife. But now, she would like to get right in the house of her
husband. When she came back to Moti cottage, she does whatever she likes.
We find that Virmati, is a character of the victim of the age of transformation. The setting of the
novel is in the forties when India was struggling for freedom. It was not easy for any woman to come out of
their houses and take such decisions. But she is enough bold to do so. Like Virmati, Ida, is also the victim of
time and space. She suffers from the same stroke as her own mother suffered.
Difficult Daughters, portrays the pathetic condition of women in the male- dominated society. The
suffering of women is very common in Indian Society.They do not have equal status and rights even after a

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number of years of independence. This novel picturizes the Women of three generations who suffered a lot
and their problems get complicated more and more. Certainly, this novel throws light on the empowerment
of women in male-dominated society in different social perspectives. Even though a woman is educated,
her education fails to giving any improvement in her condition. But they have a confidence and get
independence from their struggle. They know how to manage the duties in home and workplace and
everywhere. Through this novel the writer instructs all women to have courage to lead their life in their
own way to attain their great achievement.

Works Citied
Kapur, Manju. Difficult Daughters. Goydon: CPI Book Margue, 2010. Print.
Prasath, Amarnath, ed., New Lights on Indian Women Novelists in English. New Delhi: Sarup & Sons,
2008.Print.
Singh, K.K.A Critical Companion to Manju Kapur's Novels. Aadi Publications: Jaipur, 2015. Print.

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94
PORTRAYAL OF GENDER DISCRIMINATION IN BAMA'S KARUKKU AND
SANGATI

K. Chitradevi, Assistant Professor, A.K.D. Dharma Raja Women's College, Rajapalayam

Abstract:
India is known for her spiritual wisdom, cultural heritage, religious pluralism and humanistic
philosophy. Despite its glorious spiritual and cultural heritage, Indian society has been a caste-oriented
society for several centuries. The low cast people known as dalits suffer a lot due to ill-treatment,
humiliation and exploitation.

Keywords: Gender, dailt, identity, domination.

Writers are categorized in the name of their places like British writers, American writers,
Australian writers and Indian writers, but the only category which represents caste is “Dalit Literature”.
Why should they are called so? It is reflected in Bama's painful words: “In this society, if you are born in a
low cast, you are forced to live a life of humiliation and degradation until your death.Even after death, cast
difference does not disappear. Wherever you look, however much you study, whatever you take up, caste
discrimination stalks us in every nook and corner and drives us into a frenzy”. (Karukku 23).
Caste system has inflicted excruciating pain on dalits for centuries. Especially Dalit women are
suppressed and harassed by men. As literature serves us one of the mediums to portray the social evils
happening in the society, the voice of Dalit women turns its face in their writing. “Women must write
herself………. Writing is precisely the very possibility of change, the space that can serve as the
springboard for subversive thought, the precursory movement of a transformation of social and cultural
structure”(Cixous 879).Undoubtedly, it is through their writings that the dalits articulate their anger,
aspirations and anguish.
Dalit Literature is a literature of protest, pain and agony. Nearly two decades later, Tamil Dalit
writing marked its identity in the literary map of Tamil Nadu by self-styled Dalit writers such as
Idayavendan, Abhimani, Unjairajan, Vedivelli, Marku, Bama and others.
Bama, a renowned Dalit writer in Tamil Literature has been recognized as the voice of the voiceless
and a source of inspiration to the poor, downt`rodden and oppressed sections of people. Bama is the pen-
name of Faustina Mary Fatima Rani. She is a Tamil Dalit woman hailing from the Roman Catholic Paraya
the worst affected and the most suppressed community in Indian society. She has published
“Karukku”(1992), an autobiography; “Sangati”(1994), a novel; “Kisumbukkaran”(1996), a collection of
short stories and “Vanmam” (Vendetta)(2008).
Written in Tamil and published in the year 1992, “Karukku” has won worldwide honor, after
Lakshmi Holmstrom's translation of the novel in to English in the year 2000. Bama herself declares in one
of her interviews: “I began writing the autobiography “Karukku” to stop myself from dying” (The
complete transcript of this interview is available on the web)
The novel “Karukku” traces the cultural, social and familial life of Dalits. It stands for every Dalit
woman's history. By this novel, Bama brings the history of her community in the lime light of Tamil
Literature.The word “Karukku” in Tamil refers Palmyra leaves, with their serrated edges on both sides,
which are like double-edged swords. The term “Karukku” can also refer to an embryo or seed that signifies
PORTRAYAL OF GENDER DISCRIMINATION IN BAMA'S KARUKKU AND SANGATI 334
freshness and newness. It is the first autobiography of its kind to appear in Tamil in Dalit Literature. In this
novel, Bama neglects the standard rules of an autobiography and hence this novel can also be termed as a
community's history: or a cultural biography of a community. In addition, “Karukku”can be viewed as a
powerful, feminist narrative. Bama herself remarks about this in her interview for outlook, after winning
the crossword Award for Karukku. “The story told in “Karukku”was not my story alone. It was the
depiction of a collective trauma of my community whose length cannot be measured in time. I just tried to
freeze it forever in one book so that there will be something physical to remind people of the atrocities
committed on a section of the society for ages”
Many incidents lead Bama to protest against cast oppression. In her autobiographical narrative, she
narrates how during her school and college days the lower cast students were regularly being harassed by
the upper caste teachers without any reason. Bama never expected such ill-treatments in the church-run
schools and colleges. Cast discrimination prevails there too though Christianity preaches equality.
One day Bama and other children were playing the game of running up the coconut palm and
touching its tip. Unfortunately when Bama climbed up and touched the tip a green coconut fell down. The
children out of fear left it there and ran away. Next morning at the school assembly the head master who
belonged to the Chaaliyar caste called out Bama's name and chided her. “You have shown as your true
nature as a Paraya”. He further added “You climbed the coconut tree yesterday after everybody else had
gone home, and you stole a coconut. We cannot allow you inside the school. Stand outside (Karukku
16).She had been shamed, insulted and humiliated in front of all the children.The humiliating experience
that Bama had while travelling in buses caused a lot of pain and agony to her. Upper caste women would
never sit along with the Cheri women or low caste women even in buses. They would either move to other
seats or stand in the bus all the way. Bama's experience with a Naicker woman in this regard has become an
unforgettable one. She recounts sadly: “How is it that people consider us to gross even to sit next to when
travelling? They look at us with the same look they would cast on someone suffering from a repulsive
disease. Wherever we go we suffer blows. And pain “Karukku” (24).
Bama too had a lot of work experience in the fields when she accompanied her grandmother to the
fields. They had to wake up early in the morning in order to go to the Naickers' fields to pull up the
groundnut crop and to clean and separate the pod. Though they had to do a lot of work from morning till
evening they were given a meager amount of salary for their work. Though they did the same work, men
received one wage, women another. They always paid men more. Bama could never understand why even
in work women were discriminated.
While Bama was undergoing training to become a nun, a sister told them in a scripture class that
Harijan women would not be accepted as prospective nuns and that there was even a separate order for
them somewhere. She was thunder struck to know that there was no place that was free of caste
discrimination. In the convent school where she was asked to serve, Bama observed that people did not
consider low-caste people as human beings at all. She sadly narrates: “According to their notions, low-
caste people are all degraded in every way. They think we have no moral discipline nor cleanliness nor
culture. They think that this can never be changed. To aid us is like aiding cobras” (Karukku 23).
Dalit Christian women suffer from an identity crisis apart from being discriminated for their low
social order.In “Sangati” Bama shows the marginalization as whole community. She is obviously
impressed by the way her community women face all the problems. The women are doubly oppressed by
high-caste people as well as their husbands.
In “Sangati”, the novelist by portraying the character, Mariamma and her sufferings, presents how
poordalit women are exploited by the upper caste landlords. One day, after collecting firewood, on her
way, Mariamma leans her firewood bundle against a Banyan tree, and relaxes for a moment. Then she goes
to quench her thirst at an irrigation pump-set in KumarasamiAyya's field.

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There KumarasamiAyya seizes her hand and pulls her inside the pump room to satisfy his lust.
Fortunately she escapes, from the lustful landlord. But KumarasamyAyya fear that his reputation might be
ruined, he complains to the village Headman that Marriamma and Manikkam misbehaved in his field.
Unfortunately they were not given even at least a chance to prove that they were not guilty. She was find
two hundred rupees. They were not given equal rights in decision making both inside and outside of their
home. This shows that how patriarchy works in the case of dalit women.
From the time of marriage Mariamma received blows and kicks every day from her husband.
Thaayi who lived in the west street too received blows and kicks from her husband. She was a fair
complexioned women from the Dalit community. Her husband used to drag and beat her in the street with a
stick. These two incidents were the proof for the submissive nature of women. Women become slaves to
their husbands from the very moment they married. “It's as if you become slave from the very day you are
married. That's why all the men scold their wives and keep them under control.(Sangati 43).
This novel also discusses the blatant gender discrimination shown by parents towards their
daughters in the familial institution. When a girl is born in a household, it is considered that she is a debt, a
liability. On the contrary, a boy child is believed to be an asset, who would earn and take care of his parents
later on. Thus any expenditure for a boy does not seem much, but when it comes to girls, there is always the
thought at the back of their mind that they have to pay a huge sum of money as dowry for the girl. They are
considered as a burden, to be married off at great expense as many parents start saving money for their
daughters marriage from the time she is born. “If a boy baby cries, he is instantly picked up and given milk.
It is not with the girls….. My patti too not was no exception in all this. She cared for grandsons much more
than she cared for us if she brought anything home when she returned from work, it was always grandsons
she called first”(Sangati7).
Untouchable men and women encounter variety of problems due to the existing social order. They
are completely ignored and pushed back to the outskirts from the mainstream of the society. In spite of their
sufferings they rejoice themselves through their songs and dance. The author has contributed enormously
in representing the Dalit women in their own world, analyzing its changes and projecting their perspectives
in various forms. Thus, Bama's novels reflect the condition of subalterns through the suffering of its
women characters and incidents. It also shows their endless struggle to attain their own identity in the
society.

Work Cited
Ambedkar, B.R.BabasahebAmbedkar: Writings and Speeches, Government of Maharashtra,1989. Print.
Bama, Karukku. Chennai: Macmillan India Limited, 2000. Print.
---.Sangati. Trans.LakshmiHolmstrom. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.2005.Print.
Cixous, Helen. “The Laugh of the Medusa”.Trans.Keith Cohen and Paula Cohen, Sign: Journal of Women
in Culture and Society.1976. Print.
Trivedi, Darshana. “Literature of Their Own: Dalit Literary Theory in Indian Context.” Dalit Literature:A
Critical Exploration. Ed. Amar Nath Prasad &M.B.Gailan.Print.

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95
QUEST FOR IDENTITY AND ROOTLESSNESS IN ARUN JOSHI'S
THE FOREIGNER

P. Rajkumar, Assistant Professor, Nazia College of Arts and Science, Kariapatti

Abstract:
Today with the increase in transnational migration, the notion of 'identity', 'home' and
'belongingness' has undergone a tremendous change. Many immigrants assimilate to the host society and
that their linkages to their homeland deteriorate gradually, a few immigrants maintain strong ties with
their country of origin. The protagonist of Arun Joshi's The Foreigner is detached and lacks the sense of
belonging to anybody and anyplace. This article analyses the protagonist's rootlessness and his search for
an anchor in a parentless world.

Keywords: Diaspora, migration, rootlessness, identity, culture.

Arun Joshi (1939 - 1993) was an Indian writer. He is known for his novels The Strange Case of Billy
Biswas and The Apprentice. He personally has diasporic experience that enables him to portray the trials,
tribulations and conflict of cultural transplant in an authentic and skillful manner. His debut novel The
Foreigner was published in 1968. The Foreigner revolves around the individual character of Sindi Oberoi
and his quest for identity. Sindi is born of an English mother and an Indian father. He is brought up by his
uncle in Kenya. He is educated in Africa, London and America. He is denied of parental love, family
affection and cultural roots. Sindi's life is a saga of rootlessness, geographical as well as emotional. He
feels an alien everywhere and does not 'belong' to any place.
Birds also migrate from one place to another for survival and better living conditions; likewise,
humans mostly migrate in search of better prospects. Cultural clash is an essential phenomenon of
disaspora. Migrating people encounter certain advantages and disadvantages. When immigrants move to
another country, they often lose their property, kinship, and culture of their home country. Usually,
migration may result in a change or improvement of livelihood, behavior, culture and the environment.
But, it may not be so always. In Arun Joshi's The Foreigner the protagonist Sindi Oberoi migrates to many
countries. He not has one particular culture. He is not truly accepted by native people. Sindi Oberoi faces
many disadvantages due to migration.
Migration of Sindi Oberoi is unavoidable, after his parents death in an air crash in India he has no
other way but to move to Kenya with his new guardian, his uncle. His migration is unavoidable. Then he
moves to Africa, London and America for education after than he comes back to India. Such displaced
persons like Sindi Oberoi find themselves in a cultural dilemma while having to adapt to the new
environment
Bhabha in his introduction to The Location and Culture explores the “unhomeliness of migrancy.”
Bhabha highlights the psychic dimension of diaspora and he describes that living in the unhomely world is
to find its ambivalences. To be unhomely is a state of diasporic consciousness. Sindi Oberi is forced to lead
the life of foreigner. He was not an African because neither of his parents belonged to Africa. He was not an
Englishman because his father was an Indian. To America he was not in any way attached. And he had not
seen India till he was twenty six. Even then his coming to India was not by deliberate choice. Thus he was
one who did not have roots anywhere in the world. He feels an alien everywhere and does not 'belong' to
QUEST FOR IDENTITY AND ROOTLESSNESS IN ARUN JOSHI'S THE FOREIGNER 337
any place. Bhabha's concept of unhomliness of migrancy is evident in Sindi Oberoi's life.
Martin Baumann states that the idea of “diaspora” has been celebrated as expressing notions of
hybridity, heterogeneity, identity fragmentation and (re)construction, double consciousness, fractures of
memory, ambivalence, roots and routes, discrepant cosmopolitanism, multi-locationality and so
forth.Sindi Oberoi's mixed parental blood and upbringing in an alien country instills in him a sense of
rootlessness. Devoid of culture and spiritual anchorage and being brought up in a loveless world, he
harbours in him a deep sense of insecurity and unreality. Against this culture background Sindi Oberoi
cultivates a sense of detachment to overpower the sad experiences of life. He is afraid of all familial ties.
All these things made him the nowhere man. He finds himself as good as a foreigner in India as in America.
The protagonist of Arun Joshi feels helpless, isolated and dispossessed. Cultural dislocation has
tremendous impact on his psyche. His detachment transcends barriers of geography, nationality and
culture. As a result he finds himself as a rootless individual. He feels as a foreigner everywhere.

Works Cited
Joshi, Arun. The Foreigner. Orient Paperbacks, 2010. Print.
Nayar, K. Pramod. Literary Theory Today. New Delhi: Asia Book Club, 2001. Print.

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96
THE PLACEMENT OF AGONIZED CULTURE ON SUBALTERNS IN
JAYAKANTHAN'S ORU MANITHAN ORU VEEDU ORU ULAGAM
[A MAN A HOME A WORLD]

I. Goerge Mary, Guest Lecturer in English, Govt. Arts College, Ariyalur

Abstract:
A Nations Culture resides in the hearts and in the soul of its people-Mahatma Gandhi culture is a
complex term which has numerous definitions. Because it is followed by different people from different
culture. Culture is a set of belief about religion, cooking, clothes, music and so on. India is the country of
mixture of several cultures in the name of religion and language. According to Hindu text, purity and
pollution are the two things that describe the hierarchal social order, where the upper caste people are
described as purity, the lower caste people are described as polluted ones. Caste and class are the two most
significant dimensions of social stratification.Jayakanthan is a prolific contemporary Tamil writer. He
inspired numerous people through his dynamic writing. He is the master of the art of raw and realistic
writing. His writings are very popular in the mists of the people, and it arouses discussion and debate and
often controversy too. He is a creative Tamil writer who produced provoked novels which brought him
name and fame. The novels such as ' Sila Nerangalil Sila Manithargal ', 'Oru Manithan Oru Veedu Oru
Ulagam', 'Jaya Jaya Shankara', 'Oru Nadigai Naadagam Parkkiral won the Shahitya Academy Award.
And his two novels 'Unnai pol Oruvan', and'Yarukkaga Aluthan' has won the National Awards. His novels
and short stories made as films and met with great success.

Keywords: Subaltern, cultrure, home, agonie.

Dr.K.S. Subramanian translated this novel Oru Manithan Oru Veedu Oru Ulagam into English
without changing the social and developmental and literary theme. Translation is the best instrument
because it is the best method for transforming our knowledge and ideas towards the universal application.
This novel portrays the beautiful Tamil village life which locks the life of sophistication, the sense of
integration, self esteem and social temperament. His novels are based on realistic touch. Jayakanthan has
the capacity of handling the high flown language as well as low-class dialect beautifully. Aim of this paper
is to analyze the critical situation that is faced by the subalterns and the cruel culture placed on them by the
upper class society.Jayakanthan characters are mostly from the lower strata of society. They always stand
apart from the society, because of their economic status. Jayakanthan reshaped his life through the novel
Oru Manithan Oru Veedu Oru Ulagam. He displayed his childhood experiences through the villagers and
their life style. Though India is a secular country, casteism has not been eradicated completely, particularly
in Tamil Nadu. Casteism is deep rooted in the hearts of the people. In this novel the post master and the
school teacher are always kept in high esteem. The culture placed for higher class is entirely different from
the lower class. In this case people like Maniyar in the village that indulge in secret pleasure, expects more
honor in their life.It is known to everyone that a widow is not given any importance in the Indian society.
They are completely avoided in attending of festivals and ceremonies. Their presence in the public places
will be considered as a bad omen. Akkamma is a character introduced by Jayakanthan is a widow. She got
married and became widow in the same year at the age of fifteen. From that day onwards, she never set foot
in any public function. Different sections of people living with their individual self identity such as upper-
THE PLACEMENT OF AGONIZED CULTURE ON SUBALTERNS IN JAYAKANTHAN'S ORU MANITHAN ORU VEEDU ORU ULAGAM .... 339
class people, lower class people and pariyari. Henry was a new person to the village of kirishnarayapuram.
His wife is in the state of confusion whether Henry belongs to paraiah. She wished to sprinkle the water
after the Henry's moving. That was the traditional and horrible culture was maintained among the people
over the years. There was another man named as Palani in that village. Every morning he could visit the
houses with his shaving kit, crouch with the thinnai and do the shaving jobs. After his moving, the thinnai
would be washed with water or cow dung. He was believed to be a polluter in the minds of upper people.
Man cannot lead a lonely life in this world. He should collaborate with other fellowmen. Culture
and casteism are the major hindrance for man to lead a peaceful life with other fellowmen in this beautiful
world. Man is not an animal to lead a savage life. His feelings and emotions should be shared with his
fellowmen. The love which he received from the almighty should be shared with all the human beings
without any hesitation and hindrance. “Even the rich are hunger for love,For being cared for,For being
wanted,For having someone to call.” -Mother Teresa
Yes, it is a pretty quotation of Mother Teresa. Earth is a beautiful gift of God, in that man is a
precious treasure of God. It his duty to make it glorious by showing the great sense of sympathy and love
wherever he wanders with his fellow beings like JanakiRaman.

Works Cited
Jayakanthan, 'Oru Manithan Oru Veedu Oru Ulagam'New Century Book House Pvt.Ltd. 1987.Print.
Kailasapathy.K.Tamil Naval Ilakkiam. Chennai: New Century Book House Pvt. Ltd., 1987. Print.

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97
POST COLONIAL NARRATIVE IN AUSTRALIAN CHILDREN'S BOOK SEVEN
LITTLE AUSTRALIANS

R. Janani, Assistant Professor in English, DRBCCC's Hindu College, Pattabiram

Abstract:
The post-colonial writing generally tries to create an identity for themselves through their
writings. In the current scenario it further discusses about the problems and the consequences faced by the
subjugated people. In extending post colonialism the people subjected to colonial experience are in the
state of precariousness with their transgressions in culture, language, food and behaviour. The paper
would focus on Ethel Turner's Seven Little Australians as the evidence for the assertion of Australian
identity from the beginning lines. Unlike the British children who were the perfect models of Victorian
literary conventions the Australian kids are presented without glorification. The children represented in
the story display a distinct and rebellious independence as the colonies moved during 1890's to the new
world of federation. After the migration the children exhibit their independence in their new found land
and this freedom leads to the death of 'Judy', the protagonist of the story.

Key words: Subjugated, Independence, Precariousness, Rebellious, Children's literature.

The post colonial experience in all cultures represents the problem of identity in their writings. The
Australian Literature with its literature on aborigines represents their traditional cultures, story, song and
legend. The writings are however not in recorded written language and the crisis encountered by the
Australian aboriginal people is their lack of a common written language that resulted in the diverse
medium of unrecorded history.
The aboriginal literatures in oral form are however not sanctified, but they are referred in European
standards as the sign of uncultured behaviour. In the current scenario, post colonial writings have given a
new scope for the development in written literatures of Australia. What was once seen as an act of
uncultured behaviour, after decolonization is mentioned in par with the European standards. After
decolonization, the external freedom was attained by the colonised. As stated by Bill Ashcroft, Gareth
Griffiths and Helen Tiffin in the book on Key concepts in post-colonial studies refer decolonization as:
“Decolonization is the process of revealing and dismantling colonialist power in all its forms. This
includes dismantling the hidden aspects of those institutional and cultural forces that had maintained the
colonialist power and that remain even after political independence is achieved.” (63)This political
freedom is only external, whereas the people subjected towards the colonial experience are caught up in
the state of precariousness.
The feeling of insecurity is due to their experience of transgressions in culture, language, food and
behaviour. The experience of subjugation is also responsible for the adverse results of rebelliousness. The
paper would focus on Ethel Turner's Seven Little Australians, the first book in Australia on children's
Literature. The writer herself was a migrant from England to Australia. The book also comprises of the
semi-autobiographical experiences of Ethel Turner. It is about the 1880's Australia dealing with the life of
Woolcot's family and the seven mischievous children.
The post colonial experience of Australians is represented in the story through Woolcot's family.
The children presented in the story are not perfect, but their rebellious character is the result of their
POST COLONIAL NARRATIVE IN AUSTRALIAN CHILDREN'S BOOK SEVEN LITTLE AUSTRALIANS 341
independence. The colonies moved during 1890's to the new world of federation and the experience in the
new land also results in the death of the central character 'Judy'. The text as the reflection of post colonial
experience discusses the major themes like Australian identity, childhood, rebellion, independence and
family. All the seven kids are referred in the story as the family of 'misrule'. They are not bound to either the
familial restrictions or to the society. The new land and the new place gave them abundant freedom to live
as they liked. The father of the seven children, Captain Woolcot is a strict disciplinarian but the kids were
not ready to live a bounded life. 'Judy' the protagonist of the story was therefore forced to be sent to
boarding school. She could not restrict herself in boarding school, therefore she becomes a truant. She
leaves the school and stays at Woolcot's house unnoticed by the family members.
The other kids Meg, Pip, Bunty, Nell, Baby and General were also trouble some kids to Captain
Woolcot. The representation of children and the family in the novel bring forth the Australian identity. The
novel has deconstructed the notion of glorifying ideal children as presented in the European Literature. It
presents the children as their own self involving in all mischievous activities and these kids are the
representation of the Australian children. They don't wish to be glorified or to be presented as models, but
they are the voices of the unnoticed kids. The voices of these kids as represented in the story are also the
reflection of subjugated females. In post colonial writing there is always the voice of the subjugated
(female) longing to get its assertion. The Postcolonial Literary Studies edited by Neil Lazarus states about
representation of female in the article by Deepika Bahri on 'Feminism in/ and postcolonialism as
“Representation”, “Third-World Woman,”“essentialism,” and “identity” are key conceptual constructs for
many of the debates and discussions arising from feminist perspectives with in postcolonial literary
studies.” (203). The text also serves to voice for the female (mother) and the protagonist (Judy), who
suffers throughout longing for their individualism and existence.
In writing post colonial experiences the writers either discuss about their bitter experiences or their
unnoticed history, but Turner's novel associates the post colonial experiences without exaggeration. The
female characters from kids to their mother Esther symbolically represent how a woman was denied of her
individuality in all respects. They were seen only as objects by the men and Esther being mother of one kid
was however made to be the mother of other six children at home. Either her opinion or her ambitions were
least bothered by her husband or her family. She was only twenty but her responsibilities were more and
those responsibilities were highly imposed on her age. In many situations she was unaware to handle the
crisis of taking care of kids from new born to sixteen year girl 'Meg'. Finally for all the mischief of the kids
she was accused by her husband. Her pathetic situation is referred as: “A sob rose in her throat, two tears
welled up in her eyes and fell down her smooth, lovely cheeks. “Seven of you and I'm only twenty!” she
said pitifully. “Oh! It's too bad- oh dear! It is too bad.” (31)
The kids were restricted from being their own self, to please their father and to take them to
pantomime they involve in many activities which further resulted in their downfall. Each of the kid tried
their own ways and means by offering help to their father. 'Judy' the most mischievous among the other
children ended up in boarding school for her careless attitude with the 'General' (infant). At boarding
school she couldn't restrict herself as she had to be away from the family and her siblings. She did not
believe that she would be sent to the school, but she imagined it was said by her father only to frighten her.
She felt “He was only saying it to frighten her, she kept saying herself, and she would show him she was not
a chickenhearted baby.”(45).
However, all her thoughts failed and her father being reluctant was not ready to change his verdict.
The siblings showed their deep love and concern for her by giving her the best things for her to rejoice in
the boarding school. For instance, her brother Bunty gifted her pickle bottle containing an enormous green
frog. As he mentions:“You can have it to keep for your own, Judy,” he said, in a tone of almost reckless
sadness. It'll, keep you amused, perhaps, at school.” Self-sacrifice could go no further, for this frog was the

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darling of Bunty's heart.”(48)
The condition that was imposed on them did not restrain them from their love for each other. The
story reflects the child psychology in all respects. The kids though fought with each other felt very bad
when 'Judy' left to boarding school and similarly she also could not stay in the school. Therefore, unnoticed
by the family members she hides herself in the store room. When the kids notice her staying in the room
they did not complain to their father, instead they solaced her. Meg was in fact so caring to her like a mother
in safe guarding 'Judy'. The children at home made the stay very comfortable for 'Judy' in the loft. The
children paid their visit at all hours creeping in one after another unnoticed by their father. However
everything went futile when their strict father found her at last.
The psychological trauma underwent by the little girl 'Judy', long journey by walk and fear for her
father finally made her a sick child. To restore her health she was sent with the other kids and the mother to
Yarrahappini (New South Wales) in Australia. The longing for ones 'home' as experienced by 'Judy' in the
story reflects the post colonial experiences of every individual. The freedom she wished was not enjoyed
by her in this world but in her journey to Krangi-Bahtoo, where the kids went on a picnic lead to her death.
As a girl she was not responsible, but when it came to the life of her small brother she went for his rescue.
“There was a tree falling, one of the great gaunt, naked things that had been ring barked long ago. All day it
had swayed to and fro rotten through and through; now there came up across the plain a puff of wind, and
down it went before it. One wild ringing cry Judy gave, then she leaped across the ground, her arms
outstretched to the little lad running with laughing eyes and lips straight to death.”(161)
'Judy' serves as a battalion in saving the life of her small brother. In spite of the care by her brother
'Pip' and her sister 'Meg', she couldn't be rescued. “The light flickered in her eyes. She kissed him with pale
lips once, twice; she gave him both her hands and her last smile” (169). The novel can thus be understood in
the perspective of child's psychology, which deserves love rather than tyranny. The novel also ends up in
reforming the mind of father 'Captain' who intended to bring a change in his daughter, but finally realizes
that it is he who has to be reformed. The text in many ways serves to be a post colonial experience of
longing for liberty and freedom through the characters 'Seven Little Australians'.

Works Cited
Ashcroft, Bill, Griffiths, Gareth, & Tiffin Helen, Key Concepts in Post-colonial Studies, London:
Routledge. 2004. Print.
Lazarus, Neil, ed. Postcolonial Literary Studies, New Delhi: Cambridge UP, 2004. Print.
Turner, Ethel, Seven Little Australians, London: Ward Lock, 1894. Print.

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98
ENVIRONMENTAL TOXICOLOGY IN INDRA SINHA'S ANIMAL'S PEOPLE

P. Sudha., M.Phil., V.V. Vanniapermal College for Women, Virudhunagar

Abstract:
The objective of the paper “Environment Toxicology in Indra Sinha's Animal's People” is to focus
on how the khaufpur city was destroyed by methyl isocynate over the night, and the causes and effects of
methyl isocynate over the twenty five years. The novel Animal's People revolves around the narrator who
himself call him as an Animal. The Animal is a victim of toxic explosion in Bhopal, who differentiate
himself from humans due to the causes and the effects of the toxic chemicals. The novel also describes how
water, land and air, the essential elements of life were affected by this chemical methyl isocynate in
khaufpur city.

Keywords: Environment, Toxic, Bhopal, Animal, Methyl isocynate.

Environmental Toxicology in Indra Sinha's Animal's People A multidisciplinary field of science

that is concerned with Ecosystem, Population, Toxicology, Ecology, Pharmacology, Environment
Science, Chemo-dynamics is known as Environmental Toxicology. Rachel Carson, the mother of
Environmental Toxicology is thefirst to explore the field of Environmental Toxicology in English
literature by her work SilentSpring in 1962. Her book is based on the effects of DDT in the ecosystem
which is based on the series of extensive environment reports of Lucille Farrier Stickel in 1946 (Garrard 2).
The living and the non-living organisms of the world can be exposed to various kinds of Toxicants in their
life cycle by nature or artificial, but the effects of the toxicants may vary eventually. Some of the toxicants
are high sensitive thus the effects and damage can be visualised in a short period of time and some toxicants
are slow sensitive which causes their effect after a due course of time, where generally the toxicants can be
classified as Pollutants, Insecticides, Pesticides and Fertilizers. To make a research process and survey of
the effects, causes and the consequences of the toxicants in the environment is the primary objective of the
environmentalists. The environmentalist provides the Eco-critic literary works to make awareness and
provide proper education about the nature to the humans.
Indra Sinha's Animal's People is one of the important notable eco-critical works in the
Environmental Toxicology genre of the 21 st century which describes about a huge industrial explosion of
the toxic chemical which happened in the 20 th century in Bhopal, India. Indra Sinha was born in 1950, in
Colaba, Mumbai, Maharastra, India. His father was an Indian naval officer and her mother was an English
writer Irene Elizabeth Phare, who writes under the name of Rani Sinha. The translator works of Sinha were
The Love Teachings of Kamasutra/Vatsyayana in 1980, Tantra: The Search for Ecstasy in 1993 and Tantra:
The Cult of Ecstasy in 2000. Sinha also publishes Cybergypsies in 1999, The Death of Mr.Love in 2002
and Animal's People in 2007. The book Animal's people was shortlisted for the 2007 “Man Booker Prize”
and “Common Wealth Writers Prise” for Best Book of Eurasia Region in 2008 and “International IMPAC
Dublin Literary award” in 2009. Rajeswari Sundar Rajan praises his writing style as, “But the point to note
is that publicity for the cause can be generated only by those who have access to the written word. And even
then,as we know only too well, the word that goes out and engages readers is selective”(Rajan 94).
The aim of the paper “Environmental Toxicology in Indra Sinha's Animal's People” is to make
awareness to the humans how the ecosystem of the living and the non- living has been fallen prey to the
ENVIRONMENTAL TOXICOLOGY IN INDRA SINHA'S ANIMAL'S PEOPLE 344
Toxicants. As a result of explosion to the toxicants the life cycle of the living and the non-living organisms
are destroyed to form mutants. In the living species the toxicants are stored in the form of fatty acids by the
bioaccumulation process in the food web which causes a trophic cascade and bio-magnification in their
genes of generations. The novel Animal's People was based on a true incident which happened on 2 nd
December, 1984 in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India. The leakage of Methyl Isocynate gas with other
chemicals in the pesticide producing plant, The Union Carbide India Limited at Bhopal was one of the
most important industrial accidents which took place in India. Somewhere a bad thing happens, tears like
rain in the wind, and look, here you come, drawn by the smell of blood. You have turned us Khaufpuris into
storytellers, but always of the same story. Ous raat, cette nuit, that night, always that fucking night (5). The
toxic effect of the pesticides methylisocynate and other chemicals affects both the living, non-living and
the environment of the city Bhopal over the night. The huge mass of poisonous gas was leaked in the
atmosphere of the city. The toxic effect, cause and its consequence in the human beings due to the
explosion of the toxic gases were as follows:
Animal the main character of this novel was born a few days before the incident. He was
also a victim of this toxic explosion and also losses his family on that day. Animal was a
nineteen years old boy who refuses himself to call him as a human due to his mutated body
structure the aftereffect of methyl isocynate. Animal used to walk on four like animal due to
the twist of his spine. “when the smelting in my spine stopped the bones had twisted like a
hairpin, the highest part of me was my arse” (15).
Pandit Somraj a famous singer referred as the Voice of Khaufpur was also a victim of the toxic gas.
Somraj lost his beloved wife and baby son. He also lost his ability to sing since the toxic gas caused a severe
damage to his lungs. He had coughing fits even when he tries to speak coherently itself. “From that night he
would listen to other peoples record, but never his own” (33). Ma Franci, a French nun came to India forty
years ago, who was well-versed in many languages was also a victim of this incident. Since the orphanage
run by her was very close tothe Kampani, the loss was very high. Many orphans and the nuns who serviced
there were died while the others who were alive were also prey for this explosion. Ma Franci was mentally
affected lot and she also had some madness. After the disaster she forgot many languages and even loss to
keep track in her native language French. Aliya, granddaughter of the couple Huriya and Hanif Ali had
throat infection due to the inhale of the toxic gas. Even after having a heavy treatment for long years she
had no positive result and Aliya was dead at last. Likewise in the living beings the toxic gas affect
physically, mentally and also genetically. Due to the explosive exothermic reaction of the toxic chemicals
form Union Carbide pesticide plant the new born babies were also affect genetically. Today even after
twenty five years of the explosion many peoples have abnormal skins, breathing problems, gastro
intestinal cancer. “Many women of Bhopal suffered from miss carriages, menstrual problems and even the
breast milk which used to feed the new born became poison” (Dr.S.Prabahar 26).
The toxicity of the methyl isocynate and the other chemicals also affects the wildlife and the
environment over the region of Bhopal. The huge mass of poisonous gas forms a fog and moves through all
over the place and causes breathing problem and makes environment as a non-survival area by producing
toxic acid rain over the region. The toxicity which mixed in the water makes them poison. The plants and
animals died due to the poisonous drinking water and some without fresh water. The land of this region
Bhopal became a barren land. Where the land became not suitable for agriculture and the environment of
this city was degraded to it origin. “no bird song. No hoppers in the grass. No bee hum. Insects can't
survive…” (29).
Indra Sinha's Animal's People is to hope to the affected peoples and the mother- nature that the
Justice which denied now can be made to the others in the future. The prey ofinnocent people and the
environment due to these types of environmental toxicity can be made eradicated and minimized in the

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future by providing proper rules and guidelines for the implementation of the toxicant manufacturing
companies.

Works Cited
Garrard, Greg. Ecocriticism. New York: Routledge, 2004. Print.
Prabahar, S. “Skeltons of Bhopal: a Reality Fiction”. Cuckoo 2.1 (Jan 2011): 26-28.Print.
Rajan, Rajeswari Sunder. Rev. of Animal's People. Wasafiri.24.2 58 (Jun 2009):94-95.Print.
Sinha, Indra. Animal's People. New York: Simon Schuster, 2007. Print.

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99
MYTHOLOGICAL BACKGROUND OF MAGICAL REALISM IN JORGE LUIS
BORGES' THE IMMORTAL AND THE TWO KINGS AND THE TWO LABYRINTHS

S. Ilakkiya Rani, Research Scholar, Thiagarajar College, Madurai

Abstract:
Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986) is an Argentine short story writer, essayist, poet and translator. He
opened up the way for the Magical Realism boom in South America. Magical Realism is a narrative art
that presents extraordinary occurrences as ordinary parts of everyday reality and this technique was
originated in many of the postcolonial countries that were battling against the influences of their colonial
rulers. Myths play a prominent role in the magical realism stories. Jorge Luis Borges'“The Immortal”
portrays the imaginary place 'The City of Immortal' as an ordinary place. The myths of Thebes river and
the land of the Troglodytes are employed in this story with the magical realism technique. Water deities are
common in mythology. The Thebes is a secret river that purifies the blood of men and gives immortality for
them. The Troglodytes are the immortals. In “The Two Kings and the Two Labyrinths”, the labyrinthine
mysteries of Babylonia are brought out with the magical realism mode of narration. The labyrinthine
structure reflects the absurd life of human beings. Thus, this paper aims at providing the mythological
backgrounds and their mysteries with the magical realism mode of narration in Jorge Luis Borges'“The
Immortal” and “The Two Kings and the Two Labyrinths”.

Key Words: Magical Realism, Myths, Labyrinth, Absurdity and Mysteries.

Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986) is an Argentinian short story writer, essayist, poet and translator.
He opened up the way for the Magical Realism boom in South America. His writings are best known for his
meta-fictional narratives. Magical Realism is a narrative art that presents extraordinary occurrences as
ordinary parts of everyday reality and this technique was originated in many of the postcolonial countries
that were battling against the influences of their colonial rulers. This technique is associated with the
geographical regions of that story.
The arousal of magical realism stories are called as 'new novels' because the attitude of
The writers sought to deviate from the previous literary tradition. It is often considered to be a postmodern
in technique. Myths play a prominent role in the magical realism stories. Jorge Luis Borges employs
mythological background and the mysteries behind it with the magical realism mode of narration in “The
Immortal” and “The Two Kings and the Two Labyrinths”. The critic Eric Fromm says that myth is “a
message from ourselves to ourselves, a secret language which enables us to treat inner as if outer event” as
quoted by Wilbur Scott in his essay “The Archetypal Approach: Literature in the Light of Myth” in his Five
Approaches of Literary Criticism(249). Extraordinariness in magical realism is rarely presented in the
form of a dream or a psychological experience to take the magic out of a recognisable material reality.
Latin Americans write magical realism from their own contexts and experiences. The plot structure
consists of unrelated stories that are brought together to provide a complete story. Jorge Luis Borges'“The
Immortal” and “The Two Kings and the Two Labyrinths” contain various kinds of myth with the
labyrinthine mysteries as a prominent theme and structure.
Jorge Luis Borges'“The Immortal” portrays the imaginary place 'The City of Immortals'
as an ordinary place. The myths of Thebes river and the land of the Troglodytes are employed
MYTHOLOGICAL BACKGROUND OF MAGICAL REALISM IN JORGE LUIS BORGES' THE IMMORTAL AND THE TWO KINGS .... 347
in this story with the magical realism technique. Water deities are common in mythology. The Thebes is a
secret river that purifies the blood of men and gives immortality for them. The Troglodytes are the
immortals. He compares one mythological character to another. He remembers of Argos on seeing
Troglodytes' lowly birth and condition. Odysseus' dog Argos remembers his master even after twenty
years and the dog identifies that his master is disguised as a beggar. So, he calls Troglodytes as Argos. He
says that Argos and he are living in separate universes. This story is constructed with various myths. He
imagines himself as a small, battered sphinx that is carved from lava when he is lying on the sand.
His imaginations are unimaginable. He creates a world without memory and time in his
mind. He produces a language that has no nouns, a language of impersonal verbs and indeclinable
adjectives with his unique imagination. Flavius entrusts him with two hundred soldiers for the venture. The
narrator recruits a number of mercenaries who claim that they know the roads and these mercenaries are
the first to travel to the desert. The narrator comes across various mysterious characters in the process of
finding the City of Immortals namely the ardent desert, the lands of Troglodytes, the land of Garamantas,
the land of Augies, deserts of black sand and a peak with Satyrs. Jorge Luis Borges describes nature with
some magical effects. The Thebes river is a natural element, but it is employed as a dark blood that is
welling out of his breast. The Moon has the colour of the infinite sand. Misery and the anxiety hide the
ordinary reality from him. He explains the oxymoron reality of human life with the image of nature. The
Thebes river gives immortality for human beings and he imagines that there must be a river which takes
away the life of human beings. The City of Immortals is a kind of plaza. A courtyard is surrounded by a
single heterogeneous building which has irregular angles and varying heights. Many cupolas and columns
are present in this building. As Jorge Luis Borges uses mathematical terms for the descriptions, sometimes,
he seems to be a perfect mathematician. This incredible monument is known for its antiquity of
construction. It looks mysterious that the narrator feels that this building is constructed even before the
existence of humankind. The narrator wanders around the staircase and floors of this labyrinthine palace.
The labyrinthine structure reflects the absurd human existence. The narrator says that God made this
heterogeneous palace and he doubts whether God has died or gone mad. “The Immortal” brings out the
narrator's constant fear of labyrinthine structure of the City of the Immortals. He fears that he will be once
again surrounded by the City of the Immortals. He remembers nothing else. The loss of memory in this
situation is considered to be willful and he forgets the archetypal origin of humanity. The narrator cannot
recall the stages by which he returns on the dusty path. He feels exhausted in thinking of this palace and the
difficult paths from where he has returned.
“The Two Kings and the Two Labyrinths” describes the labyrinth building of Babylonia
and the mythological background around it. A Babylonian king orders his subject to build a labyrinth that
the most prudent man cannot venture into it. The king is so proud, but the interesting fact is that the Arab
king gets out of it. Arab king takes revenge on Babylonian king by leading him to the desert. The
labyrinthine structure in Jorge Luis Borges'“The Immortal” and “The Two Kings and the Two Labyrinths”
represents the absurd human existence. The labyrinth is an intransitive space where the actions do not have
any impact and sense. In these stories, the characters cannot understand the mysterious behind it. As the
people exist within the labyrinth, the labyrinth also exists inside the people. The characters feel obsessed
with this structure. These stories can be considered to be labyrinthine texts. These stories have intricate
passages whichlead to a mysterious centre. All paths are possible and each path has the possibility of
diverging to other path leading to improbable passages. Jorge Luis Borges'“The Immortal” and “The Two
Kings and the Two Labyrinths” identify the reality of humankind to the maximum extent with the help of
myths and magical realism. He believes in the past which is the main reason for the present and future.

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Works Cited
Borges, Jorge Luis. The Garden of Forking Paths. Trans. Donald A. Yates, Andrew Hurleyand James E.
Irby. UK: Penguin Random House, 1962. Print.
---. Collected Fictions. Trans. Andrew Hurley. USA: Penguin Books, 1998. Print.
Bowers, Maggie. Magic(al) Realism. New York: Routledge, 2004. Print.
Scott, Wilbur. Five Approaches of Literary Criticism. New York: Collier MacmillanPublishers, 1962.
Print.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jorge_Luis_Borges

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100
A SUBALTERN STUDY ON MAYA ANGELOU'S SELECT POEMS

V. Dhanalakshmi, M.Phil. Scholar, Thiagarajar College, Madurai

Abstract:
Maya Angelou is one of the significant writers in contemporary African Literature. She raisedher
voice against white people. She is known for her famous novel, “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings”
(1970). Most of her writings concentrate on Racism, Marginalisation and Feminism. This paper deals with
her poems “When I Think About Myself”, and “Still I Rise” expresses the concept of racism. In the poem,
“When I Think About Myself”, she raised the voice of her own people and tells about the cruelty of white
people against coloured people. In the poem, “Still I Rise” also deals with the concept of marginalization.
Coloured people are suppressed by white people even though they are suppressed, Maya Angelou still
trying to create their own position and makes white people to treat her people with equality. She is an
embodiment of self confident. Through her poetry she liberates the mind of her people and wants her
people to berebellious and fight for their rights.

Keywords: Racism, Marginalisation, Cruelty, Equality, Rebellious.

To describe “history told from below” the term subaltern was coined by Antonio Gramsci
in his work Cultural Hegemony. Subaltern theory reflects the voice of unprivileged group which
is denied to express their voice and excluded from a society's established institutions. The term
“Subaltern” is used in the fields of history, anthropology, sociology, human geography, literary criticism,
musicology and art history. Some of the important literary theorists are Gayathri Chakravarthy Spivak and
Ranajit Guha. The theory takes the perspective of 'other' as the one, who has had voice because of race,
class, gender. The purpose of this paper is to bring out how Maya Angelou brings out the voice of coloured
Subaltern in her poems, “Still I Rise” and “When I think About Myself”. Racism is the act of prejudice over
'other' people based on their colour.
Maya Angelou's poems “When I think About Myself” deals with racism. The person who is
suffered because of racism raised their voice against the racist to give their stand against racism.
This is called coloured subaltern theory. Maya Angelou was an American poet, singer, memoirist,
and civil rights, activist, she has published seven autobiographies, three books of essays, several books of
poetry, and is credited with a list of plays, movies, and television shows spanning over 50 years. Though all
her writings are well known among others, her best known work is “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings”.
Nevertheless, her poem “When I Think About Myself” and “Still I Rise” is taken for the study of
'subalternity'. In these poems, she expressed her voice against white people's oppression as an act of
insurgency. In the poem, “When I Think About Myself”, the speaker is sixty year old woman, who tells us
that her life is filled with lack of emotion, fun, energy & amp; excitement, by using metaphors of dance and
song. The poem begins with the title of “When I Think About Myself”, she tells us that her life is compared
with a great job, and tells us that her life is a dance, which must be filled with fun, excitement and energy.
But, she says her dance is like a walk, with lack of fun, excitement and enthusiasm. Also compares her life
with a song without any emotion, rhythm, and music. In the next stanza, she used the phrase, “these folk's
world”, means that this world belongs to white people. The child who belongs to her master, calls her as a
girl by her name even, does not value her age. As she is not in a position to question about her behaviour,
A SUBALTERN STUDY ON MAYA ANGELOU'S SELECT POEMS 350
she answers her call by saying 'Yes, Madam”. Because she cannot do anything, she does this for the sake of
her job. The best lines, which express her voice against hegemonic society is,
Sixty years in these folk's world
The child I works for call me girl
I say “Yes, ma'am for working's sake
Too proud to bend
Too proud to break” (WITAM 8-12).
Their fruitful labour has been enjoyed by white people, as eating their fruits they grow, but they are
only allowed to eat its waste. The speaker expresses the unfairness and sadness she feels about the
situation.
The poet expresses the speaker as a person who is proud of her identity and does not fail in
expressing her voice against the hegemonic structure of white people. Even though they are poor, she does
not want her people to bend down before their masters. Through this poem, she wants other people to know
that the black people can be made to work as a slave but their dignity cannot be erased from them. In her
final stanza, she made a point of their hope for freedom. This poem utters the words of Maya Angelou
through the sixty year old black lady.
Another poem takes for study is “Still I Rise”; the poem is addressed to the speaker with the tone of
anger and confidence throughout her poem. She questions about the unfair portrayalof her ancestors in the
history and she says, she will rise against their act of cruelty. She also says, she will rise against the male
oppressors, who do not want her to succeed in her life. She also questions them about their miserable
condition on seeing her happy. Her strength and determination is declared through this poem.
Even though, her oppressors try something to stop her progression, she says, she will still rise
above the racism, pain, and sexism. She utters, she will eradicate the unjust history of her ancestors. She is
the voice of her race. She says their race as a group is more powerful than their oppressors and also says,
they cannot stop them from moving forward in their lives. The poem ends with the mark of affirmation that,
she will continue to rise above history, hate and bigotry as her ancestors dreamed.
You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise. (SIR 21-24).
Throughout, the poem she asserted that she will rise against her oppressors and also feels that she
will change her position from 'other' to 'self'. It can be anybody, who are rejected in the name of established
social institutions as minority, are known as subalterns. Black African American people are marginalized
and considered to be coloured subalterns. As a woman, who is doubly marginalized raised her voice as an
act of insurgency against the socially constructed superiority of white people. Discrimination of one race
over other based on their colour is also an idea of socially constructed structure; it can be deconstructed
only by means of insurgency against hegemonic structure. Maya Angelou's poem or writings expresses the
act of insurgency and creates revolutionary voice among its people authoritative structure.

Works Cited
Gayatri_Chakravorty_Spivak, A_Critique_of_Postcolonialism Reason, Harvard University Press,2003.
Print.
Guha, Ranajit. Subaltern Studies V. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1987. Print.
https://www.poeticous. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46446
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46446/still-i-rises

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101
MALALA: A CRUSADER OF WOMEN'S EDUCATION WITH REFERENCE TO
I AM MALALA

A. Pavithra, M.Phil., Thiagarajar College, Madurai

Abstract:
Malala, an young Pakistani girl records her personal experience in her well reputed Memoir I Am
Malala. She has excessive thirst for education which makes her to stand as a role model for every girl all
over the world. This paper attempts to explore the hardships of Malala'a life as a girl and how she breaks
down all the shackles to become a successful women and education activist. The novel is analysed in
different dimensions including the culture of Pakistan, ethnicity and class. Malala takes education as her
powerful weapon to change the world and thus she proves to be a phenomenal woman. This paper also
views on women empowerment and education rights. As a feminist activist Malala supports for Women's
education throughout the novel.

Keywords: Women Empowerment, emancipation, education and egalitarianism.

Education is the most powerful tool for a woman to empower and equip herself. Education,
especially for woman is the most necessary part of her life as it makes her to stand as a symbol of
independence. She can carry herself with pride when she no longer depends on men. When education is
denied to her, men hold his head high as he plays the role of bread winner in the family. In turn, woman
becomes the caged bird and involves herself in domestic activities. If a woman is educated and if she earns
better than man she becomes the powerful figure in the family. Man cannot allow himself to see woman as
dominant figure in the family. There is a famous African proverb saying “If you educate a man you educate
an individual, but if you educate a woman you educate a nation”. It proves to be true with the story of an
young Pakistani girl Mala who is seen as an epitome of determination, stubborn courage, wise and
moreover an inspiration to women all over the world.
The Memoir I Am Malala recounts the life of Malala Yousafzai, the education activist from Swat
Valley, Pakistan. In October 2012, Malala was shot in head by Taliban named Maulana Fazlullah when she
returned from school on a bus. She miraculously survived and continues her campaign for education. In the
preface Mala distinguishes between education system in Pakistan and education system in England. She
feels very hard to survive to England's teaching methodology. As she is very much interested in studies, she
decorates her hands with henna by chemical formula and calculations instead of floral patterns. She
strongly believes that pen, paper and teacher are the most valuable source that a girl has to with hold to
stand apart in the Pakistani world. According to Malala, school is the heavenly place where she and her
friends share their knowledge. They focus solely on receiving an education.
Francis Bacon begins his essay Of Studies by saying,” Reading maketh a full man, confidence a
ready man and writing an exact man. Reading adds perfection to a man's personality”. The aim of reading
is not only to gain knowledge but also to apply them in practical life. Mala is a voracious reader and she
always deserves as a smart girl in her class. In the prologue she says “Back home I was considered a
bookish girl because I had to read eight or nine books. But when I had come to UK I met girls who had read
hundreds of books. Now I realise I've read hardly anything at all I want to read all those hundreds of
books”.(IAM: XIII). She makes an attempt to shine as a top ranker though she has strong competitors. She
MALALA: A CRUSADER OF WOMEN'S EDUCATION WITH REFERENCE TO I AM MALALA 352
spends most of her hours in studying because she finds it difficult to get along with UK syllabus. She loves
to read novels of Jane Austen. She is an active participant in English plays. Her education makes her to
think and act at right time. She recognises the value of education through constant reading.
Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own vividly portrays the unequal treatment given to women
seeking education. Woolf notes that many of the women writers produced great literary works under their
pen names. When a BBC radio correspondent searched for a female teacher or girl to write a diary about
life under Talibans Malala said,” Why not me? I wanted people to know what was happening. Education is
our right, I said.”(IAM:129). Malala records the incidents under her pen name Gul Maki, which means
'Cornflower'. Edward George Bulwer Lytton is an English novelist claims, “A pen is mightier than the
sword”. In the memoir I Am Malala, the writings of Malala holds more power and value than machine gun
and helicopters used by the Talibans. Many people admire Malala's writings and some of her extracts
appear in newspaper and magazines. But none of them realised it is Malala's masterpieces. Her passion for
women's rights continues to spread throughout the world.
Through her writings she argues for universal education. Malala strongly believes that no one can
stop her education. She acknowledges that one can realise the importance of education when their pens are
taken away. The lack of education is the root cause of problem faced by Pakistani women. She had lot of
interviews where she stressed the importance of education especially on women's education. She tells,
“They cannot stop me. I will get my education if it's at home, school or somewhere else. This is our request
to the world - to save our schools, save our Pakistan, save our Swat.” (IAM:157) .She becomes the preacher
of education. She talks to her parents and children about the significance of learning to read and write. In
the Sindh assembly Malala with her brave voice said, “We must all work together for the rights of girls”.
She was applauded by all the members of assembly. The main purpose of feminist activism is to empower
women and to make positive changes in the society. They eliminate inequalities that produce oppression,
with a focus on gender and sexuality. Feminist activism is briefly a struggle for equality. Malala became an
activist when she was young. She always admires Benazir Bhutto, the first female primeminister of
Pakistan in 1988. She is well talented and charismatic politican whom Malala takes as her role model.
Benazir uses her influence to fight for women's rights and the student organisations became more active
during her period. She was assassinated by one of the Talibans. Malala is heart broken when Benazir dies.
Malala replaces Benazir as a young charismatic leader of education and empowerment.
The role of extremists in the memoir is to be discussed briefly because they are the one who show
political and religious power by using violent or extreme methods. In the novel the Talibans are considered
as extremists. They did not allow women to get proper education because they feel if a women is educated
she would become westernised. Malala says, “Education is education. We should learn everything and
then choose which path to follow. Education is neither Eastern nor Western, it is human”.(IAM:136). The
Talibans insisted every women to wear purdah and refrain them from attending schools. Malala never
covers her face. Death is the common punishment if anybody tries to break the law. Malala even compares
them to vamparies. They slink through the night and arrive unexpectedly.
This simile brings out the sufferings of Swat people and it is a warning that the Taliban may kill
people even during nights. Malala firmly believes that no one can control a woman and make her slave. She
has every right to carry herself with dignity. She raised her voice against Talibans. She went to school to
gain knowledge. Malala even claims,” The extremists are afraid of books and pens, the power of education
frightens them. They are afraid of women”. Malala never tries to take revenge on the Talibans rather she
comes forth to educate the sons and daughters of Talibans. She speaks out for the welfare of every women.
Throughout the novel Malala is seen as a crusader of education. As a teenager Malala becomes the greatest
celebrity in Pakistan. Though Talibans shot her on head she recovers and continues her awareness on
women's rights and education. She believes with education women can shape herself and walk with her

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MALALA: A CRUSADER OF WOMEN'S EDUCATION WITH REFERENCE TO I AM MALALA 353
head held high. In the epilogue Malala proudly quotes, ”I don't want to be thought of as 'the girl who was
shot by the Taliban' but 'the girl who fought for education'. This is the cause to which I want to devote my
llife”( IAM: 261). As a reader of the novel I hope all the children's rights activist will work hard to provide a
safe space for children so that they can learn and flourish.

Works Cited
AbrahamM.H. and Geoffery Galt Harpham. A Glossary of Literary Terms. Delhi: Cengage Learning,
2015.Print.
Barry, Peter. Beginning Theory An Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory: New Delhi: Viva Books,
2015.Print.
Yousafzai, Malala I Am Malala, The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban.
London: Weidenfeld&amp;Nicolson, 2014.Print.
https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/a-room-of-ones-own-by-virginia-woolf
https://englishsummary.com/studies-francis-bacon-summary/

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102
GROWING UP GAY: A STUDY ON SHYAM SELVADURAI'S SWIMMING IN
THE MONSOON SEA

N. Barani, Research Scholar, Thiagarajar College, Madurai

Abstract:
Shyam Selvadurai's Swimming in the Monsoon Sea portrays the personal and sexual advertency of
fourteen-year- old Amrith. His life is depicted during the season of monsoon in Srilanka, 1980. As he is in
his pre-sexual stage, his nonconforming gender behaviour creates buzzing among others and his gender
inappropriateness seems to be 'different' to others during the rehearsal of the play, Othello. His anxiety
towards his cousin, Niresh and his act of hyper vigilance expresses his anger towards his sister mala,
makes him realise the loss of his first love and also makes him identify his sexual identity. There are two
types of shame prevailing in the society, that is, healthy shame and toxic shame. The purpose of healthy
shame is to maintain survival bond within the society, whereas, toxic shame leads to 'self shaming' of
oneself. This paper aims at discussing the toxic shames faced by Amrith as a growing up gay, which results
in the low self-esteem during his adulthood.

Keywords: Toxic shame, Nonconforming gender behaviour, Anxiety, Hyper vigilance, Sexual identity.

Gender studies is an interdisciplinary study devoted to gender issues. It discusses the issues related
to differences determined by one's gender. Queer theory is also a part of gender studies which includes the
problems or issues faced by queer people. Queer is an umbrella term, which includes Lesbian, Gay,
Bisexual, Transgender, Intersex and Asexual in their community. Each term can be subjected to deal as a
separate studies. Gay studies is one among them and it deals with the problems, behaviour and trauma
faced by homosexual males called as gays. As the other human beings, they are also acting naturally
according to the behaviour of their sexuality. But other people find it odd and make them feel shamed by
bullying them, which leads to the self destruction of oneself. All types of bullying like verbal, physical, etc.
has happened only during their childhood and teenage in their schooling. So, this paper aims at depicting
gay people's life and how awful it is during their growth in teen age. This is done by analysing the novel,
Swimming in the Monsoon Sea by Sri Lankan Canadian writer Shyam Selvadurai. Shyam Selvadurai is a
novelist, essayist, educator and currently working as a professor of creative writing in York University,
Canada. He has written four novels namely Funny Boy, Cinnamon Gardens, Swimming in the Monsoon
Sea and Hungry Ghosts and edited two anthologies that are Story Wallah: A Celebration of South Asian
Fiction and Many Roads Through Paradise. As he is a gay, he too had bad stories of growing up gay. All his
sufferings have been brought out in his works. Everyone's childhood experiences help in creating great
impacts on development of self-esteem of oneself. But growing up in a hostile and homophobic society,
gays become anxious of their body, behaviour and their identity. They become the victims of bullying in
schools and other social places. If they report about their bullying to their parents, teachers or elders,
nobody will question the bully on their behalf rather they blame the victim for their natural sexual
behaviour. People fail to understand their behaviour is 'normal'. There are some people who are audacious
to the extent of saying, “Well he is a gay- he is going to get used to it”. (SJ. 90). This may be because of their
ignorance about “What being LGBT means”. (SJ. 91). They obviously feel shame for their identity during
their childhood, which leads to a low self esteem when they grow up as adults.
GROWING UP GAY: A STUDY ON SHYAM SELVADURAI'S SWIMMING IN THE MONSOON SEA 355
Growing up a gay is not an easy task. This paper tries to substantiate this idea with a fourteen- year
old gay, Amrith, is the protagonist of the novel Swimming in the Monsoon Sea by Shyam Selvadurai. His
life is depicted during the season of monsoon in Sri Lanka, 1980. Amrith frets about his unplanned summer
vacation. But all his worries go upside down with the arrival of his cousin Niresh from Canada. After that
Amrith's ordered life is agitated with the conflicting thoughts, he falls in love with him. Then he starts
hating his sisters and family members especially mala, whom he thinks, separates Niresh from him.
Shakespeare's Othello is the backdrop of this novel, in the tragic play Othello, Othello's tragic flaw is his
disastrous jealousy whereas in the novel Amrith's jealousy over others and his feeling of possession of
Niresh makes him to lose innocent love of his family members. As Amrith is in his presexual stage, he is not
in a position to understand his sexuality and he does not even understand his attraction towards Niresh.
Every gay undergoes these kinds and they do not understand their difference; unless it is pointed out by
someone. Likewise, Amrith does not find his attraction towards Niresh as; different; unless someone like
Suraj comes and points it out; as the novel portrays: Amrith did not look at Niresh as he stood in front of
him. His hands were shaking ever so slightly as he began to untie the mess his cousin had made. When he
moved the sarong from side to side, before bringing the ends together, he got a glimpse of Niresh's white
underpants, the swirl of dark hairs above the waistband. Once Amrith was done, Niresh looked in the
mirror at the neatly tied sarong. 'Wow!'Amrith, too, looked at his cousin in the mirror. When he had stood
close to him, there had been a nice smell to Niresh, of well-matured leather. (SMS. 102).
Amrith as a growing up gay is also a victim of bullying. “Bullying may be verbal harassment or
threat, physical assault or coercion” (wiki). It is because of the imbalance of social or physical power. As
gays, they are not equally treated in the society. They have social power imbalance imbalance.
Homosexuals have been marginalised because they are minority in sexual orientation. As they do not
allure toward their opposite sex but toward their same sex, they seem to be 'different' to the so called normal
heterosexual people. But they behave normally according to their sexual orientation. It is their natural non-
conforming gender behaviour. Their behavior is considered to be gender inappropriateness according to
their sexual orientation. They are shamed by others for being them. There are two types of shame
prevailing in the society, that is, healthy shame and toxic shame. The purpose of healthy shame is to
maintain survival bond within the society, whereas, toxic shame leads to self shaming of oneself. Gays are
victims of bullying and are shamed by their friends, relatives, neighbours and by all people who are known
and unknown to them.
Amrith is bullied verbally by Suraj for his non-conforming gender behaviour. These types of verbal
abuse are also a toxic shame. As he is in his presexual stage, he is not in a position to understand his
sexuality. Even though he obscurely understands about their bullying, when he grows into an adult, these
toxic shames lead to self shaming of themselves; “'Ah, Michael Cassio, waiting for your darling Iago to
pick you up?' Amrith looked at him, too miserable to say anything.Suraj Snickered, 'Act 3, Scene 3, De
Alwis. You'll see yourself in there,no doubt.'” (SMS. 173).
Anxiety and hyper vigilance are other problems faced by gays while they are growing up. As they
are gay, they lose their survival bond with their loved ones. In the case of Amrith, if any gay is in his
presexual stage and does not able to understand his sexuality, they do not reveal their attraction towards the
same sex overtly. They try to protect their loved ones as their highly valued possession and they are always
anxious about saving their relationship from others and do not want to share their loved possessions.
Nevertheless, they are anxious about losing them. They also become hyper vigilant to save their
relationship. They also become anxious because they are made to believe that they are 'wrong' from their
childhood days and this makes them to have a low- self esteem. Due to this conditional factor, they cannot
build up their confidence even from their childhood. All these aspects of bullying and toxic shaming leads
to self shaming, mental health problems and low-self esteem. Growing up a gay, makes them feel they are

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GROWING UP GAY: A STUDY ON SHYAM SELVADURAI'S SWIMMING IN THE MONSOON SEA 356
minor sexual orientations in the society established structure of sexuality. This make them feel insecure,
less of priority and awful about their own sexual identity.

Works Cited
Selvadurai, Shyam. Swimming in the Monsoon Sea. Penguin Random House India Pvt. Ltd., 2005. Print.
Todd, Matthew. Straight Jacket. London: Penguin Random House, 2016. Print.
https://eige.europa.eu/rdc/thesaurus/terms/1184
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullying

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103
GENDER AND LITERATURE IN VIRGINIA WOOLF'S A ROOM OF ONE'S OWN

Swetha Kannan, Teaching Assistant, Davangere University, Karnataka

Abstract:
Gender played a very important role in literature. Gender issues started to get its limelight only
after getting exposed by the literature. Literature not only speaks about the physical violence women went
through but also speaks about the mental violence that was suffered by women. Women were not given the
freedom of reading and expressing their thoughts through writings in the initial stages and we cannot say
now they are free to write but the proportion of women's writing is comparatively increasing. A Room of
One's Own is an essay by Virginia
Woolf which gives an account of women suffering mentally, physically, intellectually and
financially and to what extent they were exploited socially. She even argues that women should have money
and a room of her own to come out with good literary works. This paper will discuss why women need
money and her own room to produce good works and will also cover the areas which explain why women
could not raise their voices through literary works for a long period of time with the context to the work A
Room of One's Own.

Key words: Gender, literature, Money, own room, sufferings, violence, exploitation.

Virginia Woolf was born as Adeline Virginia Stephen into a privileged English family on 25
January 1882. Her parents, Sir Leslie Stephen, an editor and a critic, and Julia Prinsep Stephen, a
photographer, were quite freethinking people, who educated her in their own literate and well-connected
house. Since both her parents had been previously married, she grew up with several half-siblings. Virginia
Woolf was an English author and novelist who wrote modernist classics. Not only is she known as a
pioneer of modernism, but is also known as the greatest modernist literary personality of the twentieth
century. She pioneered feminist texts as well. She is known for works like 'To the Lighthouse', 'Mrs.
Dalloway' and 'Orlando' and an essay 'A Room of Ones Own.' Being an important figure of the Victorian
Literary Society, as well as an influential figure of the Bloomsbury group of intellectuals, she was also an
innovator of English literature with her experimental language. Her works are considered unique as they
go deep into the psychology of a character, and show the way of their thinking. She published novels and
essays as a public intellectual, and received both critical and popular success. She used to self-publish most
of her works through the Hogarth Press which she had co-founded. Throughout her life, she suffered from
mental illnesses, probably including bipolar disorder, and she took her own life in 1941. She was 59. Her
posthumous reputation suffered after the Second World War, but it was re-established with the growth of
feminist criticism during the 1970s. Woolf's novels can be described as highly experimental: a narrative,
frequently uneventful, and commonplace, is seen to be refracted, or dissolved, in the receptive
consciousness of the character.
When we look into the topic deeply there arises a question that why the contribution of women in
the field of literature is considerably less. Women in their initial stages of writing had faced a lots of
problems which led them quit their work. According to Virginia Woolf the main reason why women could
not write is because of their poverty and lack of freedom. Men unlike women had the right to write on the
topics he desired. We can notice that the works that are written by men on women is more than that of the
works that are written by women on women. Men have their own room and enough money which gives
GENDER AND LITERATURE IN VIRGINIA WOOLF'S A ROOM OF ONE'S OWN 358
them the freedom to write but women who have their own room is very less and their economic status is
also poor which made them stay away from these works. A Room of One's Own is considered to be a partial
memoir of Virginia Woolf. The narrator asks her to call Mary Seton or Mary Beton anything of our choice
because here she does not want to reveal her identity. Here she is asked to give a speech on Women and
Fiction in a university of Oxbridge. Men came out to write about women but women themselves were
never given a chance to write about them. Women never stepped forward to write a fiction because most of
them denied their education, if they were educated they never had their own room where they can think and
proceed with their writings and the main factor that decides if a women can even think about writing fiction
was her financial status.
“All I could do was to offer you an opinion upon one minor point-a woman must have money and a
room of her own if she is to write fiction; and that, as you will see, leaves the great problem of the true
nature of woman and the true nature of fiction unsolved.” Women unlike men were not independent when
it came in the matter of money. Men were independent financially and wrote fictions on their desired topics
but women were never that independent especially when it came to the financial independence and that
made them step back from writing fictions.
Virginia Woolf is very much sure about that the two factors that decides a women's writing is a
room of her own and a handsome amount of money. She even argues that money as the primary element
that prevents women from having their own room. Money is the major factor that decides the power and the
human position in the society and women who do not possess money becomes powerless and dependent in
the society. The intelligence and the creativity of women did not come to the lime light because they did not
have money and power. Without money, the narrator implies, women will remain in second place to their
creative male counterparts. The financial discrepancy between men and women at the time of Woolf's
writing perpetuated the myth that women were less successful writers. “Intellectual freedom depends upon
material things. Poetry depends upon intellectual freedom. And women have always been poor, not for two
hundred years merely, but from the beginning of time . . .”
Through these famous lines the narrator is trying to highlight the fact that a women's intellectual
freedom is always dependent on the material things she possess. If a women do not have money to own a
room and the basic materials she needs; she can never think something beyond that. Women in a family are
never free and are never undisturbed. She gets disturbed for one or the other reasons and this is why women
feels deviated from her work and most of her works stay incomplete. The narrator even says that women
can write fictions but not poetry because poetry should carry the same emotion throughout the poem
whereas fiction can be written after several breaks. The narrator says women are not given the chance to
expose their intellectual freedom, they cannot write a poem at a stretch without getting interrupted and that
is why poetries written by women are so few.
So long as you write what you wish to write, that is all that matters; and whether it matters
for ages or only for hours, nobody can say. But to sacrifice a hair of the head of your vision,
a shade of its colour, in deference to some Headmaster with a silver pot in his hand or to
some professor with a measuring-rod up his sleeve, is the most abject treachery, and the
sacrifice of wealth and chastity which used to be said to be the greatest of human disasters, a
mere flea-bite in comparison.
In the end she asks women to write on whatever they desire no matter how long it takes. She says
some works can take ages and others might take only few hours and she asks them to write their works and
fill their ideas in them. There will be a comparison between the works of men and women but she asks them
to ignore it.

Works Cited
Woolf, Virginia. A Room of One's Own. London: Penguin Books, 1945. Print.

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104
FOOD AND IDENTITY IN CHITRA BANERJEE DIVAKARUNI'S
THE MISTRESS OF SPICES

Dr. A. Subashini, Assistant Professor, Kamaraj College, Thoothukudi

Abstract:
The magical power of the spices in Indian food gives tasty flavor and has medicinal quality to
protect our body from disease. The spices tell us about the Indian food culture which is highly aromatic.
Every spice has its own identity, like the same way the immigrants are projected in Chitra Banerjee
Divakaruni's novel The Mistress of Spices. This novel is about the cultural identity, interracial tensions,
social emptiness, diasporic community, and the mindset of the immigrant Indians. In her novel she shares
about the importance of our Indian spices through different characters. This paper is about the ancient
ayurvedic food culture in India and it is an attempt to explore how Divakaruni speaks about the food and
culture through the experiences of American immigrants and how far she uses spices as a metaphor to
elaborate the culture and identity.

Key words: Food, spices, culture, identity, diaspora.

Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni's novel The Mistress of Spices is about the magical realism, Hindu
myths and the richness of the Indian Culture. The entire novel is based on the premise that the spices we use
every day possess magical powers, which yield themselves in the hands of a trained mistress of spices.
India is the only multi-cultural nation. India is basically built up by its custom and culture. Indian society is
portrayed in many ways - traditional, ethnic, cultural and religious.
Food is another way of expressing one's culture. Food also defines one's culture and identity. Food
is a social process of expressing one's identity. Divakaruni brings out the rich heritage and culture through
spices which have the power of healing diseases in the body and also in soul. Spices are personified in the
novel The Mistress of Spices. Spices have their own identity, in the same way, the immigrants are
portrayed. Food and Identity are stable. Spices are shown substantially with the protagonist. Indian spices
are represented as a magical being which belongs to India, the multi-cultural nation. Identity is one of the
most common themes in Literature. Immigrants (Indian born) leave their own place and take up a new
residence (America) with their own culture in another country for their new survival. In an Interview
published in 'The Sunday Statesman' on February 2, 2003, Divakaruni confessed: “I have to live with a
hybrid identity. In many ways, I'man Indian but living in America for nineteen years hastaught me many
things. It helped me to look at both theCultures more clearly. It has taught me to observe thequestions,
explore and evaluate.”
Spices are used not only for flavoring but also for the medicinal purpose; some spices have the
quality of purifying the soul. In The Mistress of Spices, Divakaruni chapterised each chapter with a spice
name with its own identity- Turmeric, Cinnamon, Fenugreek, Asafoetida, Fennel, Ginger, Peppercorn,
Kalo Jire, Neem, Red Chilli, Makaradwaj, Lotus Root, and Sesame and the other two chapters are named
Tilo and Maya, the two different identities. The narrator-cum-protagonist's initial identity is that of a small
girl, Nayan Tara. She is not beautiful and colored like mud. The parents are crestfallen to see another girl
child who has brought the family only a dowry debt. Divakaruni gives three meanings to the name Nayan
Tara. Although she is insignificant like the flower that grows by the dusty road, she becomes the star of the
FOOD AND IDENTITY IN CHITRA BANERJEE DIVAKARUNI'S THE MISTRESS OF SPICES 360
eye of her family through her star-seer ability. “I, Nayan Tara, the name which also means Star- seer” (TMS
8). The emptiness she experiences forces her to send a calling thought to pirates and stretches her desire far
across the ocean calling the pirates. The protagonist's first and foremost identity is shallow and hollow
ends up and she forges a new identity, the pirate queen with the name Bhagyavathi. The second identity
which is forced into her never gives her the satisfaction she desires. Becoming the pirate's queen for three
long years, she chases victory and a true identity as a queen but she is deprived of it. Emptiness encroaches
into her heart and she starts chasing death to end her unreal life. Bhagyavathi is saved, from the typhoon she
called for, by the sea serpents. Learning from them about the spice island, Samudra Puri. She chooses the
spices and moves towards her destiny to become a mistress of spices.
In the spice island along with the other novices, she learns the secret of the spices and undergoes the
ceremony of purification and gives a new name, a new body, a new place of their choice to extend service
as a healer. The new identity is Tilo. Tilo, the protagonist runs a store in Oakland, California. She
introduced all the spices and in return, the spices spoke to her. The second chapter deals with the spice -
Turmeric. “I am Turmeric who rose out of the ocean of milk when the devas and asuras churned for the
treasures of the universe. I am turmeric who came after the poison and before the nectar and thus lie in
between” (TMS 13).
Turmeric is a silky yellow powder used to glow the chin, cheek, and forehead. It is mixed with
water and sprinkled over coconut at the time of festivals. It is also rubbed in the borders of sarees at the time
of the wedding. It will remove wrinkles and fat. Turmeric is also a hope for rebirth. It also acts as a
preserver and gives color to the food. A group of people lives the contradictions of the immigrant
experience, Ahuja's wife is selfless and her marriage emerges a self-assertive individual. The abusive
marriage and strict orthodox brought up shackle her like a cocoon which she eventually breaks and
emerges as a liberated self. Lalita is her real name, but after marriage, she is known only as Ahuja's wife.
Marriage according to her traditional family is her destiny and they send her to America with hope. Tilo
comforts her with spice remedy and instills in her dignity and individuality. Lalita learns to survive amidst
the miseries. In spite of her patriarchal upbringing, Lalita seems to be strong enough to fight her way out of
a domineering husband and her quest for self-ends with a happy note. She matures into a self-willed
woman.
Divakaruni next uses the spice Cinnamon, a hollow dark bone. It is used for digestive problem,
diabetes, and it is a medicine for bronchitis. Tilo uses Cinnamon to solve the problem of Jagjit, a ten year
old Punjabi boy, is a victim of racism. Jagjit hasn't learnt the foreign language, English. He learned his first
English word “IDIOT. IDIOT. IDIOT” (TMS 38). His ethnic identity and outfit are mock of the day in
school. The second English word he learned is “Asshole” (TMS 38). He is the victim of racism in school
days by boys of his age. Tilo places a piece of cinnamon bark on his turban, and then he learns to use power
and not to be used by it. The impact of American Culture on him is threatening yet the reality of it hits one's
face. The impact of racism makes people of another ethnicity develop ties. To fight their common enemy,
racism, and brown skinned people like Jagjit need to be treated as an equal.
Asafoetida an anti-aging and anti-inflammatory spice which is also used as a hair- conditioner. In
Indian culture, it is used as a medicine for indigestion of children. Tilo uses the spice Asafoetida to solve the
problem of Geeta's grandfather in his family. He is the regular customer of Tilo's spice shop. He shares
everything with her. As a novice, she decides to solve it with the help of asafoetida. Tilo and Geeta share a
common desire for forbidden love. The conflict between the first and the second generation emigrants is
evident in Geeta's family, who are Bengali Brahmins. Geeta's parents brought her up with all the freedom
America offers. “Geeta we'll find a nice Indian boy from here who don't believe in dowry” (TMS 87). The
cultural shock is evident and is also the void between the generations. Geeta, a modern girl, thinks her
originality is American.

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The image of a traditional woman, the Sita, Savitri type
was at once easy and popular … In India, with its
strong bent for tradition, the woman was expected mainly
to live for others than for herself because others
controlled and molded the social structure. Even
woman in life and literature herself voluntarily
surrendered to the ideal of self-sacrifice … The modern
woman, in life, has been trying to throw off the burden
of inhibitions she has carried for ages. (IWIA 29)
Geeta blames her grandfather for the mishap. Geeta can't muster up the courage to start living
together with Juan. He undergoes psychic and physical torment to succeed in his attempt. Geeta reunites
with her family and a hopeful note for the lovers union is also evident.
Peppercorn has the quality to digest food and improves health. Its duty is to burn fat in the human
body. Even Vascodagama invades India for peppercorn. The Ayurvedic medicine of peppercorn is to heal
throat pain. Aided by her telepathic powers, she diagnoses her multi-ethnic and multi-generational
customers' physical and psychic ailments and also attempts to cure them with her magical spices. Raven is
tantalized between two cultural identities neither befitting him. A man comes to convey Raven's dying
grandfather who wishes to meet him. Raven happens to get the glimpse of his true heritage, his cultural
identity. His grandfather offers him a bird, which symbolizes the essence of his ethnicity. He searches for
his own identity so he seeks the help of Tilo and asked her to come with him to help him to find “The earthly
paradise” (TMS 199). She even gives herself to Raven and appeases her own desires as well and returns to
take up her punishment. By then, the spices have abandoned her completely. The underlying allegory in
the novel is the spice that adds richness to the narrative. The spices stand for Tilo's aboriginal culture. The
strictures of a mistress metaphorically mean the cultural ties that bind an immigrant. When Tilo breaks the
rules and mingles herself with Raven who represents the New World America, her cultural heritage leaves
her and the emigrant is assimilated into American culture. The novel ends with Tilo finding a new life and
new name to give new meaning to her existence. She gives herself the name Maya, the assimilated self of
Tilo. The name has a number of connotations like an illusion, spell, and enchantment. This name suits her
in this new world order where she has only herself to hold her up and show the right path.
Different cultures normally appear to segregate domains whereas in emigrant sensibility the
impulse to transgress boundaries and to mingle cultures is inevitable. While the first generation emigrants
acculturate, the second generations who are born and brought up in the mainstream culture easily
assimilate. The novel traces all these transitions of name, character, and personality with great subtlety.
Divakaruni's characters reflect the predicament of being caught between two conflicting cultures the
Indian and the American, two different approaches to life, the internal and the external. Divakaruni shows
the life of Indian's and their culture through the immigrants.

Works Cited
Divakaruni, Chitra Banerjee. Interview. The Sunday Statesman. 2 Feb. 2003.
Divakaruni, Chitra Banerjee. The Mistress of Spices. Great Britain: A Black Swan Book, 2005.Print.
Meena Shirwadkar. Image of Woman in the Indo-Anglian Novel .New Delhi: Sterling. 1979, 153-
154.Print.

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105
EXPEDITION FOR SELF DISCOVERY OF WOMEN IN MANJU KAPUR'S
DIFFICULT DAUGHTERS: AN ACUTE STUDY

S. Pravinkumar, Assistant Professor, GVN College, Kovilpatti

Abstract:
For the past three decades, the insight and image of women in the hand of Indian diasporic women
novelist has undergone or attained several changes as well. Most of their female characters spend their
lives in quest for identity within and outside the social set. They optimistic themselves by self - dependency
through education and they want to assert their individuality. Their female characters want to be free and
independent in the male dominated society. In this sense ManjuKapur's novel Difficult Daughters, procure
a pronounced new meaning when we read from the perspective of women who are under the male-centric
pressure. This paper examines the journey of women and in particular Virmati, a young woman who
cracked between family duty, preference of education and unlawful love affair.

Keywords: Self- identity, Quandary, Inner Journey, Tragic Flight.

In very recent time Indian Women novelist, frame global interest on Indian English novel over the
world. They are all differentiating themselves with the quality of being different on themes and styles.
Their female protagonists attempt to come out from their own way of traditional practice and ethics and re-
defined their own personalities as their own. Modern Indian Women novelists wish to avoid the
conventional depiction of women and reproduced the modern image of individual and stiff-necked
women. They lift their opinion against male voiced society. Most of the writings of ManjuKapur, mirrors
the struggling lives of women under the tyrannical mechanism of a closed society.
ManjuKapur's first novel Difficult Daughters, is the story about Punjabi middle class family of
Pre-Independence period, housing three generations of women named, Kasturi the mother of Virmati, the
first and chief protagonist of the novel who have the courage to do something to live a self-designed life.
The Daughter of Virmati, Ida the narrator of the novel who not ever wants to be like her mother at any
circumstances. In olden days women were not permitted to go for higher studies. However Virmati
rebelled against her family and got the rights to study further. Moreover she declined and refused to wed
the man whom she was already engaged too. For the reason that she fell in love and endearment with the
married professor Harish. Very soon, because of the family pressure, she makes great efforts for marriage
with him and she got legitimacy to her relationship. After the marriage with the professor she felt herself as
complete women.
The tale starts with Ida, a young girl going on an arduous search to understand her mother, who was
the first of the eleven children of Suraj Prakaash and Kasturi. Always, Virmati take care of her brothers and
sisters and she heads over them. As a young girl she is in- charge of the entire household and led the life
pressure. Very soon her family has shifted to brand new house where her aunt has directed to obtain one
specified portion for her family too. One portion of the house is rented out to the family of Harish,
Professor of English and a former member of a group of an Oxford University.
Our Indian Society constantly try to convey that Women are always dependable on men at many
aspects as it clearly painted in this novel through Kapur's female characters like Kasturi (Virmati's
Mother), Ganga (Professor Harish's Spouse), Kishori Devi (Professor's mother) and Virmati (the
EXPEDITION FOR SELF DISCOVERY OF WOMEN IN MANJU KAPUR'S DIFFICULT DAUGHTERS: AN ACUTE STUDY 363
protagonist of the novel). Being a widow women Professor Harish's mother Kishori Devi, risked herself to
give the finest education to her son in England but in return she got nothing than domination. After her son
got second marriage to Virmati in the presence of his first wife Ganga, she blames the second not the
first.But as a respectable mother she might scold her son for the injustice done to Ganga but she finds fault
with Virmati. Actual fact as being old and poor health Kishori Devi was entirely in control of her son so she
can't talk against him. After some quarrel she acceptedVirmati as her daughter-in-law and comfort Ganga
to accept her fate. 'We have to accept- this is our lot in life!'(DD 211)
At first Virmatiattemptsrigid to put away her association with the Professor Harishbesides
shefocused on her study because she has no mind to go against her father and as well as family's will. But
she is very mindful about the Professor's love towards him. As an effective academician and fan of culture
he forcefully fascinates Virmati towards himself. However in our Indian tradition these kinds of unlawful
and illegitimate relationships are strictly proscribed.
When, Virmati's rapport with Professor Harish carried all sorts of instabilities and confusion in her
life. For the reason of illegal intimacy with professor she undergoes with an abortion in advance to
marriage. After Virmati's marriage with Harish, she never allowed to enjoy the freedom and household
tasks of the home but only bed. The domination of her husband's first wife Ganga makes Virmati twitchy
and it makes herself feel inadequate kind of woman.Absence of love and continuous mortification and
tortures from both side of the families worsted her pain a lot and other side her grandfather and father had
expired without pardoning her and it made her annoyed and wrathful.
This novel mainly is about three things love, education and marriage. By the case of Ganga and
Harish, as a reader we may come thru the idea, marriage without proper education is not so positive.As the
professor after the marriage with the unlettered girl Ganga he struggled hard to educate but wretchedly he
failed. Ganga is sighted as a one more victim of the customary social group. When Ganga got married to
Professor Harish, she was only three. So she not ever had the chance to attend a school. But she thoroughly
up skilled in all sorts of household works. She endeavor herself to gain the mind of all her family members.
Even though Ganga as a fine home-maker, she cannot be a good intellectual partner to her man.
Even Harish made an effort to educate her wife Ganga, because of her literary ignorance and lack of mental
connection with her man, so he constructs unlawful love with a lettered woman Virmati. For Ganga, her
husband's unauthorized marriage with another woman gives a pain and mental torture but she is not
prepared to give up her husband at any case. Very often there was a clash between Ganga and Virmati.
Ganga never permitted Virmati to do any household action. Her animosity for Virmati is very natural,
because our Indian ethnical society has their owncustomary values and practice. No women would like to
share her husband with another one. And moreover she dislikesVirmati's further learning, she supposed,
“She could not read, and Virmati was to do an M.A.! If that much attention had been given to her, she would
not be in a position she was in today.” (DD250)
In the way this novel explores the troubles, skirmishes and the pathetic conditions of women
through lives of three generation women. It also elucidate the effects of westernized culture on Indian
mind set which worse the problem of married life.Virmati's easy and sudden surrender with the love of
professor was nothing but the channel of suppressed and caused emotion which she presume from her
family. Her bond with Harish made her problematic daughter from the vision of her mother and a problem
to her sisters mainly, Indumati, who married Inderjeet instead of Virmati.
Throughout the novel Difficult Daughters Kapur posturizes her female characters as continuously
in journey for self-discovery. Case in point, Swarnlata and Shakuntala symbolize the new women who
tried hard to keep their place in the modern society and they wants to live their life with their own terms.
The existence of Virmati is filled up with depression which existed due to her father's death.Her new life is
determined by the expedition of self- discovery through the family duties, educational preference and

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unlawful love affair.

Works Cited
Kapur, Manju. Difficult Daughters. London: Faber and Faber, 1998. Print.
Sharma, Smita. “Thematic study of Manju Kapur's Difficult Daughters” Research Journal of Humanities
and Social Sciences.Vol. 6.Issue. 2. (2015): 85 - 87. Print.
Singh, Amar. “ManjuKapur'sDifficult Daughters: Depiction of Women's World”, Novels of Manju Kapur -
A Critical Study.Ed. Farzana s. Ali. Nagpur: DATTSONS, 1998: 62 - 79. Print.

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106
LANGUAGE AND CULTURAL HYBRIDIZATION IN NADINE GORDIMER'S
THE PICKUP

R. Vanmathi, Assistant Professor, Seethalakshmi Ramaswami College, Trichirappalli

Abstract:
This Paper tends to analyze how the Language and Culture are hybridized inNadine Gordimer's
The Pickup. The study seeks to find out how the language of the protagonists in the novel change when they
get married across cultures and face new traditions and beliefs. Bakthin theory, which is developed by
Homi Bhabha and other hybridity theorists such as Stuart Hall, Nederveen Pieterse, and Marwan Kraidy,
can be a relevant tool for analysis of the characters' identities. Theorist Homi K.Bhabha challenges that
those who cross cultures live in an “in-between space” in which they alternate between their native culture
and the host culture. However, results show that fictional characters present cases, which have not been
explored by hybridity theorists. In addition, it is stressed that various factors of a cultural, religious,
personal, and social nature affect the protagonists in the novels to either develop a hybrid identity or
maintain their native way of life. It is also found that cross-cultural marriage and hybridity are correlated.
The former can be both a manifestation of hybridity, where the protagonists' cross-cultural marriage is
seen as an affirmation of their hybrid experience.

Key words: Cross-cultural marriage, Hybrid identities, Cultural hybridity, Linguistic hybridity.

The Post Colonial Movement has had a great impact on the women of varied culture. The
determined, independent and strong- willed peace of mind of the women characters portrayed in the Post
Colonial literature. Several important women writers played so big role in the development of the African
novel in the nineteen and twenties. The most noticeable writer is Nadine Gordimer. Nadine Gordimer
(1923- ), writer of the novel The Pickup , who won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1991, is a White South
African novelist and short story writer . She was born at Springs, a small mining town near Johannesburg.
Her parents were European migrants. Her mother was British and her father was a Lithuanian Jew. She is,
therefore, not strange with the notions of hybridity, migration and diaspora. Gordimer has mainly focused
the political situation in her native land; Her main theme of the novels is apartheid. Even in the toughest
periods of censorship, Gordimer never stepped down and always continued addressing the issue of African
identity. Her writing had been a sort of intervention in the prevailing discourse of apartheid.
Literature is an interpretation of society. A poet or writer in composing his /her literary work is very
often inspired and influenced by some of his or her own experiences and social surroundings. The situation
th
in which Nadine Gordimer wrote her 13 novel, The Pickup (2001), is hugely different from the time she
was writing her pre-Apartheid novels and short stories. Apartheid was officially gone; she was at the age of
about seventy seven and was writing at the very beginning of the third millennium; Gordimer's fiction
dealt mostly with the African situation, including apartheid. Most of her critics and her readers were
concerned about the theme of her future work, for she had lost one of her favorite ones-apartheid.
However, she surprised all of them by turning to a more universal issue, that of migration and exile. In fact,
Gordimer is a writer who understands her era and its needs amazingly. She knows that migration and exile
are becoming the world's destiny and she intensely feels the need to address such global issues. Perhaps,
that is the reason she does not name the country her central characters (in The Pickup) migrate to-to show
LANGUAGE AND CULTURAL HYBRIDIZATION IN NADINE GORDIMER'S THE PICKUP 366
the ubiquity and universality of migrant experience.
The Pickup is the story portrays a twenty-nine-year-old South African girl named Julie, daughter of
Nigel Ackroyd Summers. He is “an investment banker” (Gordimer, The Pickup, 41)-”catching the garage
mechanic [Abdu] in the net”(11). Abdu, whose real name is Ibrahim ibn Musa. He is an illegal immigrant
who works in a garage in South Africa. Gordimer's grand imagination takes Julie out of a rich family in
South Africa to a village in Abdu's native land, a place which is “buried in desert” of an unknown Arab
country (122).
The Pickup is “a novel about migration in a contemporary globalized world” (Ibid, 70). Mainly,
this research attempts to show the marginal position of both characters, Abdu- Ibrahim and Julie. It will
examine the Bhabhaian ideas of negotiated identity and hybridity and will account for the concept of
cultural difference.
We live in language and we use language for living. Sometimes, some people have to live in more
than one language (the exiles and migrants, for instance). They regularly learn to (and have to) find a way
to discuss between their double lives. Thus hybridity emerges. Now, we shall explain more the language
hybridization. Pidgin language is one explicit example of the linguistic hybridity. The “English-Arabic
pidgin” Julie uses manifests this hybridization. Furthermore, Gordimer's random speech of Abdu's
vernacular language (Arabic) in the text of the novel comes to put stress on the hybridity at issue, and more
than that, it underscores the concept of cultural difference.
Language has an important role in building and also in hindering successful communication
between cross-cultural couples. Abdu's insufficient English sometimes “brings” misunderstanding
between him and Julie: “Sometimes the limitations of his use of her language bring misunderstanding
although she thinks she lovingly has taught herself to interpret him instinctively” (62).
Abdu's poor English makes him unable to flatter Julie, because he does not know how to express
tender things in her language (p. 93). However, he insists on using the language and is determined to master
it. When Julie corrects his sentence: “Time my uncle gave a new one my mother can be safe in, anyway”
(207) by telling him to use ““Would be, not can” (207), he complains that Julie helps everyone to improve
their English except him, to whom it was important. He wants to learn English and become fluent in the
language as it is important for him in his quest to enter a Western country: “We must talk English. I need to
speak English with you if I am going to get a decent job anywhere. I can be able to study some more there.
Only with English” (152). In addition, he refuses to communicate with his wife using his own language,
and insists on using English only (151).
Abdu's denial to communicate with Julie in his native language and his longing to improve his
English reflect his alienation from his native culture and his wish to embrace a Western culture. This asserts
Bhabha's notion of “looking for the join” and Pieterse's notion of “assimilationist hybridity,” where Abdu
tries his best to enter the “center” through mastering English, the language of the “center” or the West. The
writer also reveals the “selection of certain words which remain untranslated in the text” (Ibid). These are
among the many ways of injecting cultural singularity into the style of writing. Indeed, Gordimer pursues
this very goal when she incorporates within the novel a group of words such as “Idikazana lomlungu, le!”
(Gordimer, The Pickup, 3), or “Aoodhu Billah” ( 158), “Allah yahfazak” (259), and so on. The reader is not
even provided with any sort of translation notes. Now that so much attention has focused upon the concept
of hybridity in general, it might seem appropriate to discuss the issue of language hybridization. This
concept is actually associated with the name of Bakhtin. The idea behind the Bakhtinian hybridity is to
interrupt any claim to cultural purity and totalitarian thinking and help make way for cultural difference.
Migrants such as Abdu-Ibrahim and Julie have to find their way in-between. Their marginal
position empowers them to liberate themselves from the binary of 'here/there' or 'inside/outside'. Hybridity
will serve as a 'strategy of survival', where one can be 'outside of the inside', while remaining 'a part in the

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whole'. Hence, hybridity steps beyond the dialectic of belonging/not belonging. However, it is suggested
“the essence of the global predicament is to be found in 'the problem of minorities'” (xviii). For Bhabha, the
minorities (im/migrants, refugees and the like) should place themselves “at the intersections (and in the
interstices)” of the dominant (national) narratives in order to stress the “cultural re-visioning” (xx). The
imagined migrant position (that of Abdu-Ibrahim or Julie) inscribes a sort of agency and resistance over
“our myths of belonging”. However we might find Abdu's desire for a dreamland, his is an articulated
agency and a 'right to narrate':
You are part of a dialogue that may not, at first, be heard or heralded-you may be ignored-
but your personhood cannot be denied. In another's country that is also your own, your
person divides, and in following the forked path you encounter yourself in a double
movement . . . once as a stranger, then as friend. (xxv)
The above passage is used to describe Julie's position in migration. One of the stereotypes Gordimer erases
the submissive role of women. Her novel shows an example of female agency. Julie, as a migrant, takes an
active role in a foreign land by teaching the children. The moment she arrived in Abdu's country, she felt as
an outsider; however, at the end of the novel, she stays there and does not accompany her husband to the
US. Therefore, as Bhabha says, she was once a stranger, then a friend.
The Pickup is the novel divided into two parts. In the first part, we focus Abdu, an illegal migrant in
a South African city. Julie who picks him up is a native there. In the second part, the couple fly to Abdu's
(now, Ibrahim's) country, and this time Julie feels as a stranger there. The story has a reverse structure. In
the first part, Abdu is an outsider and, in the second part, Julie. Abdu craves for Julie's life and vice versa.
However, they both try to dispense with their past and look forward to starting over. Generally, this is a
stimulus to migrate.
The second point is that to live with such a multiple sense of self is to believe in hybridity. In other
words, negotiated identities are hybrid. Gordimer's The Pickup is a typical work of art in the age of hybrid
identities. It carefully pictures the migrant identity at the very beginning of the third millennium.
In general, hybridity emerges when the location of culture is in-between. It defies the either/or
belief of the colonial discourse. In this sense, third space, as a liminal place of meaning, becomes a site of
negotiation of the foreign and the local, granting sovereignty to neither of them. I believe, this is where
Abdu-Ibrahim and Julie (and, in a sense, all the migrants) halt. The following extracts are taken from the
novel to illustrate how much both of them desire to enter a liminal zone:
He steps from his only identity, here, into a disguise, the nobody Abdu” (Gordimer, The Pickup,
31); “they double the disappearance of his identity, they disappear together” (I 34); “He
doesn't offer an identity” (44); “Disappear. Like I say. Either way. He disappears into
another city, another identity” (91); “He is here, and he is not here [...] It is a state of
suspension from the pressures of necessity. In its very precariousness the state is pure and
free (37).
The word 'disappear' is repeated many times. This is the result of any essentialist perception of identity,
which is tied tightly to the matters of race, colour and nation. The Pickup is the story, with its reverse
structure, depicts two characters who desire to leave their places of origin. Abdu is thrilled at the idea of
abandoning his country and going anywhere, they will let him in, anywhere.
Conclusion
This article proposed to explore two aspects of hybridity: the complex representation of
Gordimer's protagonists' hybrid cultural identities, and the different forms of linguistic hybridity that are
present in the novel. Both aspects of hybridity, the cultural and linguistic, converge and coincide in the
novel. First, we have seen that in polyphony, text interference occurs and two hybrid voices emerge in the
same segment of text. Similarly, in cultural hybridity, identity interference occurs and the protagonists

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LANGUAGE AND CULTURAL HYBRIDIZATION IN NADINE GORDIMER'S THE PICKUP 368
develop two different identities that co-exist and, at other times, struggle together. In addition, multi-
languagedness or heteroglossia exists in the novel, where we have seen that the boundary between
languages can be crossed. Likewise, the protagonists have proven that cultural boundaries can be crossed.

Works Cited
Byrne, E. Homi K. Bhabha. Hampshire and New York: Palgrave, 2009.Print.
Chambers, I. Migrancy, Culture, Identity. London: Routledge, 1994. Print.
Dannenberg, H. P. “Nadine Gordimer's The Pickup and the Desert Romance Tradition in Post/Colonial
Anglophone Fiction.”Current Writing 20. 1(2008): 69-88.Print.
Gordimer, N. The Conservationist. London: Jonathan Cape, 1974.
---. The Pickup. New York: Penguin, 2001. Print.
Hall, S. and Paul D. G. eds. Questions of Cultural Identity. London: Sage, 1996. Print.
Hardt, M. and Antonio N. Empire. Massachusetts: Harvard UP, 2000.Print.
Head, D. Nadine Gordimer. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1994. Print.
Ikas, K. and Gerhard W,eds. Communicating in the Third Space. London and New York: Routledge, 2009.
Print.
McLeod, J.Beginning Postcolonialism. Manchester: Manchester UP, 2000.Print.
Newman, J. Nadine Gordimer. London and New York: Routledge, 1988. Print.
Rutherford, J. ed.) (1990). Identity: Community, Culture, Identity. London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1990.
Print.

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107
CLASH OF CULTURES: PLIGHT OF THE PROTAGONIST IN THRITY UMRIGAR'S
IF TODAY BE SWEET

S. Mary Sophia Rani, Research Scholar, Yogi Vemana University, Kadapa

Abstract:
The galaxy of women writers of Indian diaspora set a new ground of feminist fiction constructing
the experiences of Indian immigrant women in the background of multi culturalism. They have been
triumphant in defining a different cultural identity of their own. They explored the issues of female psyche,
alienation, isolation, quest for identity, freedom, belongingness, motherhood, imbalance in familial
relationship, displacement, rootlessness and cultural clash. Through their writings they presented how
India and the Indian ways figures in the diasporic writing from different parts of the world and how it takes
shape in the literary imagination of the immigrant. Thrity Umrigar is one of the major Indo-American
novelist, a critic, and an award winning journalist, who constructs a broad canvass of female centric
experience in her novels. She achieved enviable position within a comparatively short creative span. The
present paper analyses the sufferings of woman protagonist in alien land in Umrigar's thrird novel 'If
Today Be Sweet' (2007). Tehmina Sethna a recent Parsi widow, who is in dilemma choosing whether to live
in America or in India. She belongs to Parsi community and lives in Mumbai with her husband Rustom.
After the sudden death of her husband she moved to United States where her only son has settled with his
American wife and son. In America which is alien land to Tehmina, she tries her best to adopt to the foreign
culture.

Keywords: Diaspora, cultural identity, alienation, immigrant, homelessness.

Indian English fiction is a valuable contribution that has enriched the heritage of Indian ways of
storytelling that signifies compassionate world view. In the contemporary changing conditions, women
writers widened the boundaries of feminist fiction and focused on more logical dynamic issues including
women's quest for identity, reassertion of their self, confession of personal affair beyond traditional guilt
and shame and barriers of traditional moralities. Women writers of Indian Diaspora constructed a glorious
edifice of women experience representing the crisis of their subsistence, sharing the burden of two
cultures- inherited and adopted. One of such major novelists of Indian Diaspora is Thrity Umrigar. She is a
prolific and award winning writer, who has nine novels and a memoir to her credit. As an emigrant writer in
US she captured powerfully and highly individualistic women characters who voiced their concerns
against a variety of issues concerning women as well as the Indian immigrant women experiences. She
journeys through the different phases such as the phases of transculturation, immigration and expatriation.
Umrigar focuses upon sensitive women protagonists and depicts their psychological crisis, identity and
cultural conflict. Luis Alberto Urrea, author of The Humming Bird's Daughter states about Umrigar;
“Thrity Umrigar has an uncanny ability to look deeply into the Human heart and find the absolute truth of
our lives” (Luis Alberto)
The present paper is an endeavor study of the cultural conflict of immigrant experience of Umrigar's
protagonist in the novel If Today be Sweet. The novel symbolically represents the struggles and inner
confusion faced by people who moved socially, geographically and culturally from their homeland and are
trying to come to terms with a new existence in an alien land.
CLASH OF CULTURES: PLIGHT OF THE PROTAGONIST IN THRITY UMRIGAR'S IF TODAY BE SWEET 370
Tehmina, a middle aged Indian Parsi woman, who lost her husband, is in dilemma whether to live in
India or in USA where her only son settled. Decision making is Himalayan task to Tehmina, who is
straddling between two worlds. She caught between two conflicting cultures- the Indian and the American,
two different approaches to life- the internal and the external. With the loss of her husband Rustom, now
she is like a bird with broken wings. She is trying to fit in the new country. Going back to India living with
familiar surroundings, culture, friends and memories of her husband would give pleasure and settling in
USA would have a chance of living with her grandson. The difficult days she had followed after her
husband's death. She is unsure of what to do with her life in USA. Her son Sorab and daughter-in-law Susan
are busy with their work and grandson comes to home once a week. She experienced terrible loneliness and
isolated life. In the words of Tehmina: “this is not a decision that I expected to make at my age.It was hard
enough that my only child left us when he was twenty-one. I didn't think that someday I would also haveto
follow him to a new country” (If Today be Sweet-33).
The life that she had spent in India with her beloved husband in their apartment, busy with ringing
doorbells, unexpected visitors and relatives, raised voices of vendors, servants, butchers all made her day
busy and breathless. She visits orphanages to serve them, which give pleasure to her. But now she has to
leave everything behind for unexpected new life and new culture in an adopted land.”In Bombay I am a
person- a person whose life has meaningWhose life follows a path” (If Today be Sweet-32).
She is torn by her loss and by the cultural divide between her home in Bombay and what she
perceives to be an utterly materialistic and superficial outlook in the States. Tehmina wonders about the
Americans mode of living, customs and habits. Though they are individualistic optimistic and dynamic but
they are spending more money on hospitals and therapists, because of their nuclear families and single
parent families, absence of grandparents and other family members. Whereas in India, children grown up
in the healthy and supportive environment within the arms of other family members. The extended
families help keep the kids in the family healthier. So there is no need to spend money on therapists and
counselors to listen their grief.
“even my own son keeps telling me to take that capsule-what is it
called?-Prosaic or something. That's because your periods of mourning
don't last as long as they need to. Why talk to a therapist who you
have to pay to listen to you when you can talk to a grandparent or an
aunt or uncle? Sort of like visiting a prostitute, isn't it, having to pay
someone to listen to you”(If Today be Sweet-8)
Thrity Umrigar has woven the universal elements: community isolation, cultural difference, love
loss, family and grief. Through the character of Tehmina, Umrigar exemplifies the trauma of being
between two worlds. In Bombay, Tehmina spent painless, unworried life when Rustom had been alive.
Now in America she is spending an isolated life, no one is there to talk. Her son Sorab and daughter-in-law
Susan work hard all the day. She is lonely at home, no neighborhood and sidewalks. Even her son also
struck in this timorous, clean, air- conditioned and antiseptic world. He is in a shell like a snail. The
antiseptic world that they are spending is not only free from bacteria and germs; it is also free from human
torment, grief and passion. She is tired of spending restrained life like a guest in her son's home. “And how
did he (Sorab) expect his sity-six-years-old mother to lie in that world?” (If Today be Sweet-78)
The significant themes that Umrigar have highlighted are the cross cultural crisis, psychological
problems, identity, immigrant's trauma, anxiety and the suffering due to cultural clash. Tehmina found
herself completely stranger in the alien land. She is totally confused and lost. She shunts between Mumbai
and Cleveland, straddling Indian and American cultures. She caught between two continents. Umrigar has
explored the inner dimensions of the protagonist and depicted the psyche of Tehmina. The words of Sorab
about her mother; “I don't want her to feel like she is a guest in our home. I want her to believe this is her

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home” (If Today be Sweet-60)
The incident, when they arranged a buffet at their home, that filled Tehmina' heart with grief. She
spent all day in the kitchen. Because of the tiredness her hands shook and the few morsels fell down from
her plate. In the disapproval manner immediately Susan brought a portable vacuum cleaner and
vacuuming around Tehmina's feet. She doesn't know where to keep her feet, whether to sit or stand, and
how to respond to that situation. An American Susan always fought for clean house and bathroom. She
argues with Sorab about his mother's visiting farmers market instead of vacuuming the house and cleaning
the bathrooms. Only one thing that Tehmina loved in America is visiting the Farmers market. It resembles
the market in Bombay. The smell of rotten fruits vegetables, fresh fish, the shouts of vendors, noisy
customers, and crowded streets with dirty, stagnant water on the floors- all made her feel human. It was
contrast to the clean and air- conditioned supermarkets. Even the sizes of bananas apples and peaches were
bigger than that she had ever seen in Bombay. “To bite into an American apple or an orange was to
tastedisappointment. Nothing burst with flavor, nothing tasted assweet as tangy the way fruits did in
Bombay. Even the roses of America had no perfume to them, a fact that Tehmina still coundn't quite
accept” (If Today be Sweet-35).
Tehmina is trying to fit into a new world and a new family. She found herself in a cultural dilemma
and ultimately she faces loneliness, despair, alienation and many times resulting to psychological
imbalances. She became the victim of psychological and cultural alienation. Tehmina is such a sweet
person who filled happiness around her. Having a brief sojourn in America she begins to see the world in a
new light. An accidental involvement with the two boys in the neighborhood of her son's residence and
emotionally developed a bond with that neglected children. With the act of rescuing the two boys, gives a
sense of refinement towards the decision. The fence that she is sitting at the time of rescue is literally a
fence between the two cultures and the two worlds. Her deciding moment comes as she is climbing a fence,
trying to decide on which side to jump down.
Umrigar skillfully interweaves forbearance, universal racialism and marginalization to reveal
uncertain and complexity in human relationships in a multi-ethic and multi- racial society. Though
Umrigar's fictional world presents a pathetic picture of the various experiences of immigrant women, their
struggle, trauma, psychological and cultural conflicts. And also she sketches her protagonists more
complex being intelligent, courageous, brilliant and self discovery. They revolt against the repressive
forces of the society and finally their positive effort towards their own betterment. At the end of the novel
Tehmina decided where she should live her rest of life. She wants to stay with her own terms. The new
homeland taught her how to stand towards problems. She wants to reside in her own home- the home where
she could have independence, dignity self identity and respect. Rustom asserts; “She is the architect of her
own life. An hour from now, she willapproach my-our-her son and tell him her decision. He will surprised,
shocked even, but he will accept it. And soon, he will be proud of her, proud of her independence, of her
determination, of her sheer instinctfor survival”(If Toady be Sweet- 3)
Thus, Umrigar's women protagonists share a strong bonding with natural, cultural identity and it
seriously affects her process of assimilation in alien culture and also the equality of personal and
professional relationship. Though the Indian immigrants have shown greater sense of adjustment,
adoptability and accessibility they even suffer from a sense of homelessness. Umrigar constructed a
specific world of feminine consciousness in the background of the idea of cultural displacement. She
focuses on the psychic stress of female protagonists. She takes up the issues like the quest for identity,
crisis of existence in immigration, awareness of national identity and socio-religious concerns. Umrigar
states about her migration; “And being an immigrant in America, always having this outsider insider thing
going on, is such great training for being a writer.Because that's what writer are outsiders want to get the
inside and insiders longing to burst out”(bookslut.com)

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Work cited
Basu, Chitralekha. “Women of Bombay,”Rev. of The Space Between Us. The Times Literary Supplement
5375(Apr 7 2006):22.
Umrigar, Thrity N. If Today Be Sweet. Harper Collins, 2007.
www.harpercollinsspeakersbureau.com/speaker/Thrity-Umrigar
www.bookslut.com/features/2012_01_018505.php

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108
DIASPORAS AND CONFLICTS - ADMIRING THE NEXUS

K. Gunavathi, Academic Consultant, Dept. of English S.V. Universiy, Tirupathi

Abstract:
A lot of literature has been published for the duration of the past two decades prominence the role
played by some diasporas in the conflicts raging in their home countries, and on the links between
diasporas and 'international terrorism'. Diasporas' securitization is also partly due to a slight
understanding of who these diaspora communities are, and of how they mobilize. Concentration is focused
on diasporas from developing countries, while diasporas from developed Western counties are rarely
regarded as being difficult or destabilizing, or as carrying the same level of threat as those originating
from non-Western societies, even though they also engage in homeland-oriented political action. Further,
these narratives often focus upon relatively small elements within diaspora communities, which are
sometimes taken to characterize a substantially broader spectrum of opinion. Narratives on the most
visible, organized and mobilized sections of diaspora groups thus tend to obscure more discrete diaspora
groups and put in the shade diverse types of mobilization.

Keywords: Diasporas, conflicts, securitization, methodological nationalism.

Acknowledging the complexity of the diaspora-conflict nexus

Originally referring to the dispersion of Jewish people, the word 'diaspora' has gained considerable
currency to the point that '[i]n everyday language, the term is now applied to all forms of resettlement and
dispersal of a people' Aside from these formal and historical variations, all diasporas also present a high
degree of internal complexity. Beyond the differences between diasporas, the plurality existing among
each of them has also to be acknowledged. Indeed, it is obvious that no diaspora is homogeneous, to the
point that it appears often misleading to designate them as 'a' group. The cases of disjointed communities
along sectarian or ethnic lines provide a strong illustration of this complexity (e.g. Rwandan diaspora
divided between Hutus and Tutsis, etc.). The multiple generational layers that gradually composed
diaspora groups have also to be taken into account, all the more since these successive waves might have
been generated by different causes. Moreover, the spatial and temporal contexts play a key part in the
construction of diasporic communities. The moment of the colonization as well as the configurations of the
host societies both encourage some differences in the experiences of diasporic groups even if they
originate from the same homeland (e.g. Humphrey (1998Humphrey, Michael. 1998. Islam,
Multiculturalism, and Transnationalism from the Lebanese Diaspora. London: IB Tauris. [Google
Scholar], 136) suggests that sectarian boundaries among the Lebanese diaspora of the 1980s appear more
salient in Australia than in South America). Also, the main reason given for migration might 'hide' other
factors, for instance 'conflict' veiling religious or ethnic factors, which may be as, or even more important,
for these groups. Finally, diasporas are not created automatically, their constitution is dependent upon
specific events or processes. The case of the Ottoman diaspora groups 'becoming' Palestinians, Lebanese
or Syrians following the dismantlement of the Ottoman Empire and the conflicts that followed provides a
clear illustration of this complex interdependency between diaspora and political processes.
Because of the complex nature of diasporas, their meaning of yield serious difficulties.
These complications further increase when one wants to study the links between diasporas
DIASPORAS AND CONFLICTS - ADMIRING THE NEXUS 374
and conflicts. As diasporic groups are multiple and internally heterogeneous, conflicts are
similarly difficult processes that can be formed according to their types, stages or
dimensions. The interrelations between conflict configurations and the formation or
mobilization of diasporas are therefore multifaceted. The commonplace idea of conflict as
the cause of diaspora formation and a shared tradition (at least in terms of transmitted
memory) among a specific diasporic group does certainly not capture the plural realities of
diaspora experiences. Among the concepts crafted to understand the links between
diasporic groups and conflict, the classic idea of 'victim diaspora' emerges in the first
efforts to popularize diaspora studies. This notion does not make justice to the multiplicity
of linkages between migration and violent behavior. It excludes for instance the possibility
that those who have fled their country and established abroad might not be only 'victims'
but also count among them perpetrators of violence as the example of Hutus war criminals
leaving Rwanda after the genocide illustrates. Besides, the idea of 'victim diaspora'
hypothetically also includes victims of non conflict-related events such as natural disasters.
In the last 30 years or so, two main concepts determined to capture the links between diaspora and
conflict have emerged. The first notion, coined 'ethno-national diasporas' by Sheffer, remains very broad.
According to him, 'modern ethno-national diasporas are social and political entities that arise from
relocation (which may be voluntary or imposed and usually from an ethno-national state or homeland) to
one or more host countries'. Based on this definition, Sheffer argues that all diasporas have a probable for
conflict. 'Diasporas often create trans-state networks that allow and encourage exchanges of significant
resources, such as money, manpower, political support and cultural influence, with their homelands as well
as with other parts of the same diaspora. Located at the nexus between migration and peace and conflict
studies, the concepts of ethno-national and conflict-generated diasporas try to account for both conditions
in countries of origin, and context in countries of settlement. However very few empirical studies building
on these concepts propose to explanation for both perspectives, and diaspora groups are often studied
either from the point of view of integration in the countries of settlement, or from the perspective of the
conflicts raging in their countries of origin (and then consider them as either peace wreckers or peace
makers). Meanwhile, diasporas have become the focus of security and securitization studies, in the wake
of Jihadi attacks in Western countries. Security discourses voiced by politicians, media and commentators
alike have paid particular concentration to the so-called 'Muslim Diaspora', assumed to carry a high
potential for participation in violent actions. According to these discourses, the 'Umma' replaces the
homeland as a trigger for participation in conflicts. One of the paradoxes that these recent studies have
highlighted is that diaspora members involved in conflicts are not always coming from war-torn areas, and
that the conflicts they engage in are not necessarily occurring in their own countries of origin.
This calls to attention the fact that all of the definitions listed above assign static and conflict-
related identities to diaspora groups, when the reality of their relations to conflict is much more complex.
There is an urgent need to steer away from these definitions that focus on the group itself and to look at the
configurations in which they might become involved in conflicts, and to pay more attention at how
conflicts might shape them, regardless of where they come from.
Approaching the diaspora-conflict nexus beyond reductionism
Because its definitions tend to focus primarily on group identities, the concepts of ethno-national
diasporas, or of conflict-generated diasporas raise ethical, methodological as well as analytical questions.
First, like for all diaspora groups, the importance put on ethno-national identities entails ethical concerns.
The choice of insisting on ascriptive identities tends to overlook the internal diversity and plurality among
diaspora groups and highlights the reference to an 'original' or pure identity or culture that people could not
getaway. Moreover, the concepts of ethno-national or conflict-generated diasporas are specifically

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problematic as they suppose to define populations on the basis of the conflict they have fled. This suggests
that they are (potential) conflict actors, and draws additional distrust on them, overlooking the fact that in
many instances, they might just have fled a conflict fought by others as well as the fact that the migration of
all the members of a given diaspora labelled as 'conflict-generated' might not have been triggered by the
conflict. Indeed, successive migration waves can be generated by a great variety of causes, as show the
examples of the Lebanese or Armenian diasporas. The supremacy of security discourses regarding
diasporas in general and conflict-generated migration in particular tends to posit that their very existence
generates a threat to the stability of their hostlands. Considering diaspora under the 'security threat' prism
criminalizes entire groups, on the single basis that they belong to a given communal/religious/national
background. These trends also echo the contemporary controversies on a supposed double adherence of
people or groups originating in another country. This vision endorses what could be called a hierarchy of
identities, whereby people belonging to what have been identified as risk groups are being ordered to
'choose' and/or 'reassert' their loyalty to their hostland . Beside their chauvinistic overtones, these
discussions ignore the fact that not only everybody carries plural identities but also that these multiple
facets operate more as an evolutive, unified arrangement than in a predefined hierarchical order.
Disentangling the diaspora-conflict nexus
In order to avoid these various hurdles, we suggest to move away from definitions depicting
diasporas as generated and/or defined by conflict, trauma or ethno-national identities, and to recognize the
relations between diasporas and conflicts as configurations in which actors such as diasporas themselves,
institutions or individuals in countries of origin or in countries of settlement, as well as transnational actors
can all play a important role. In addition, multiple factors can prompt a conflict-related mobilization
among diasporas, such as the politics of memory in the countries of origin and/or of migration, events or
experiences in the countries of origin, in the countries of residence, or elsewhere, and so on. Mobilization
can also be triggered by discourses pertaining to the diasporas' situation in the countries of habitation, but
also by discourses of solidarity and responsibility relative to communities in the countries of origin or
somewhere else, which can themselves build on general cultural or religious elements, or on ideologies,
etc. And, needless to say, all of this may not affect all members of diaspora communities in the same way, at
the same time, and for the same length of time.
This approach entails to fully embrace the complexity of diaspora politics, such as the fact that
conflicts can structure diasporas which themselves might not be conflict-generated, that some and indeed,
many - populations originating from conflict-countries do not display any interest in, or relation to, those
conflicts, or that conflicts might shape diasporas long after they have migrate. Indeed, as captured by
Demmers with the concept of 'diasporic turn', exact events or developments happening in countries of
origin can trigger diasporas' recognition and mobilization, sometimes generations after relocation has
taken place. In other words, unpacking the conflict-diaspora nexus demands to question many
assumptions of long-distance nationalism that often remain implicit, and to recognize that diasporas'
mobilization is neither automatic nor necessarily triggered by events in the countries of origin or of
residence.
The intensifying time space of diasporas politics
Obviously, this list of configurations could be added expanded and refined to account for empirical
nuances. Nevertheless, it shows how useful it is to move away from perspectives that focus mostly on how
diasporas can be 'conflict-generated' and focus instead on the multiple ways diasporas and conflicts can be
co-constructed. In addition, envisaging the diaspora-conflict nexus as a series of configurations allows us
to study more precisely the role that time and space play both in diasporic identities and in conflict
continuation, and vice versa. In particular, the above-listed configurations show how the space of conflict
can expand through diaspora practices, but also how conflicts incite diasporas to invest new mobilization

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spheres: through the process of conflict hauling for instance, 'home' conflicts can expand to the territories
that diaspora groups inhabit, notably through their practices of territorial segregation. Their expansion
could also result from the fact that conflicts can become 'transnationalized', while diaspora groups invest
new forms of mobilization. In addition, both diasporas and conflicts 'glocalize' each other, as they are
concurrently grounded in a specific location, while building (on) transnational linkages. Crucially, this
means that some diaspora groups perform their transnational nature through a direct reference or
involvement in one or several conflicts. This allows diasporic identities to be reactivated through an
involvement 'over there'; in other words, it is a elementary mechanism of identity reproduction and
preservation for many diaspora communities. Similarly, the diaspora-conflict nexus affects time. Practices
inside diaspora communities can expand conflicts in time, in particular by perpetuating its memory as well
as through diasporas' practices of endogamy and other mechanisms of community reproduction, which
prolong the effects of conflicts sometimes long after they have ended in countries of origin. Conversely
references to protracted conflicts allow the preservation of diaspora identities in spite of the passing of
time. What this entails is that diasporas can be seen as spaces where conflict can be both expanded and
distorted at the same time spatially and temporally. While conflicts can be considered as structuring and
mobilizing resources for diasporas, diasporas can conversely constitute reproduction, expansion, and
mobilization resources for conflicts. In short, diasporas and conflicts can literally co-construct each other.
Avenues for future research
In practical terms, unpacking the diaspora-conflict nexus, and studying the above-mentioned
configurations while avoiding essentialism, methodological nationalism and teleological fallacy is
demanding. It concretely entails to examine at least four sets of issues: actors, discourses, time and space.
First, which actors activate the link between diasporas and conflicts? Actors located in countries of
origin, in countries of residence, or among diaspora groups themselves, are obvious targets for analysis. It
is however important to also account for transnational actors and organizations such as Churches,
transnational and local cultural organizations, transnational political groups, international media like for
instance international TV channels, international businesses, and so on. These actors, which play an
influential role in the horizontal mobilization of diaspora groups, are also crucial for bypassing the
methodological nationalism that still dominates diaspora studies, by allowing us to take the transnational
nature of some diaspora mobilizations dangerously. Such approach also sheds light on non-violent
mobilizations, and small-scale local actors which are often disregarded in analyses focusing on the most
visible diaspora actors.
Second, on which discursive articulations is the link between diasporas and conflicts built and
strengthened? How are diaspora identities assigned, how are discourses on diaspora produced, on what
kind of memories is the link with the home (or another) conflict built? For instance, do diasporas
characteristically refer to ethno-national linkages to trigger mobilization, or are these nationalist tropes
sometimes superseded by others, for example referring to human rights, to humanitarian relief, and so on?
This notably entails to analyze the types of discourses that diasporas' involvement in conflicts gives birth
to, or is the result of, and to pay attention to discourses in which the term diaspora is used in relation to
conflict, and for what purposes. Involvement in conflict can function as a way to claim a political status, to
affirm oneself as a political actor, and likewise the great popularity of the concept of diaspora among
migrant groups suggests that it operates as a way to position oneself as a relevant political actor. Studying
how countries of origin, as well as countries of resolution, represent and talk about the link between
diasporas and conflicts, and often end up assigning them primary and fixed identities, and securitizing
them, is also crucial for demanding stereotypes and essentialism.
Third, what specific temporalities or events activate this link? At the practical level, this entails the
study, (56) for instance, of contentious events or time junctures at which the articulation between conflicts

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and diaspora groups is effected. These events can happen in various settings like the country of origin, the
country of settlement, but also at the global level, as the impact of 9/11, of the war in Syria, or of the
situation in Palestine, show. Finally, in what kind of spaces is the link between diasporas and conflicts
activated? Particular attention should be paid to configurations in countries of settlement, including at the
micro level (e.g. neighbourhood, communal spaces, everyday spaces of group socialization, etc.), to
institutions within the country of origin, but also to transnational forums (e.g. cyberspace, international
meetings of civil society organizations, etc.) which might appeal to diasporas. Internet in particular has
been identified as one of the main locations where conflicts and diasporas meet. The cyberspace facilitates
fund raising, but also propaganda activities, and mobilization beyond the strict diasporas' limitations.
Some diasporas' mobilizations exist mostly at the digital level and Internet has been shown to not only
change diasporas' discourses, but also to help them overcome the issue of demonstration and
accountability. In parallel, it has also created cleavages between different sections of the diasporas,
between those settled in the neighboring countries and those settled further away, and between those with
different enlightening levels, with more or less easy access to new technologies, as well as between
generations. Paying attention to issues of scale, and of spheres of appointment, also means keeping in mind
the differences that might arise between the mobilization and taking part of 'contiguous' and 'distant'
diasporas Thus, peering more closely at the contentious spaces where diasporas are created, or which
diasporas create, is a helpful way to comprehend if, when and how ethno-national identities are performed
in the transnational arena.

Work Cited:
Demmers, Jolle. “New Wars and Diasporas: Suggestions for Research and Policy.” Journal of Peace,
Conflict and Development11. 2007: 126.Print

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109
CHIMMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE'S HALT OF A YELLOW SUN: A THEMATIC STUDY

K. Rajkumar, Assistant Professor, Sri. S. Ramasamy Naidu Memorial College, Sattur

Abstract:
Theme is regarded as the main idea of a story that contains the novelist's most important perception
of some aspects of existence in his/her immediate environment. All literary works have different themes
through which writers achieve their aims. Chimmanda Ngozi Adichie is a Nigerian who writes novels,
short stories, and non-fiction. Purple Hibiscus and Halt of the Yellow Sun are her two important novels in
Nigerian literature. Adichie's Halt of Yellow Sun revolves around Odenigbo, Ugwe, Olanna, Kainene and
Richard. It focuses the impact of the Biafra War on these characters along with many themes. She
advocates the theme of war, peace, love, man's inhumanity, trust, and friendship. This paper explores
Chimmanda Ngozi Adichie how she has used themes successfully in Halt of a Yellow Sun in order to
achieve her aims in the field of Nigerian literature.

Key Words: War, love, inhumanity, trust, friendship.

Chimmanda Ngozi Adichie is the author of the novels Purple Hibiscus and Half of a Yellow Sun.
Her first novel Purple Hibiscus was published in 2003. It is set in the political turmoil of 1990s Nigeria. Its
narrative told from the perspective of 15-year-old Kamibili Achike. It focuses on the strained relationship
between Kambili and her dominant father. Her second novel Half of a Yellow Sun is more engaged with
outside political world. It is centred on Nigeria's Colonial past and the Biafran war. She has also written
play, short stories and poems.
Adichie's Half of a Yellow Sun is written in third person narrative with 37 chapters. It set before and
during the Biafran war. It is told from the perspectives of three different characters: Uqwu, a teenage boy,
Odenigbo a mathematician who lectures at the local university, Olanna, Odenigbo's wife, a rich and young
educated woman and Richard, a white Englishman, who falls in love with Olanna's twin sister, Kainene
who receives a grant to write a novel about Nigeria.
Adichie splits her novel Half of a Yellow Sun into four sections with the interposing of the early
sixties and late sixties poses a challenge of maintain the story line and keeping tabs on the characters and
also ensuring consistency of characters interplay and movements. The disrupted time pertains characters
flow and illogical cohesion of certain ideas that pertain to the interplay of characters movements make the
novel falter. This flaw most manifest in Olanna's trip to Kano.
The thematic of war opens up into the theme of humanity where people can see characters
struggling with issues of love, class, race, profession and family, among others. Half of a Yellow Sun shows
the economic, ethnic, cultural and religious tensions among the various people of Nigeria. It also draws out
the emotional and psychological consequences of the conflict to construct a multidimensional version of
the Nigerian Civil War. It discusses the complete separation between question of classed people and the
history of violence. Nigerian-Biafran War (1967-1970) is the cause for the separation.
Adichie explores some thematic concerns in Half of a Yellow Sun through which the harrowing
experiences of the Nigerian-Biafran War. She exposes the themes of war, human brutality, betrayal of love,
trust, friendship and country and also child soldering. She also depicts the issues of killing and eviscerating
of pregnant woman, rape of young girls and other atrocities. Adichie also portrays the theme of abundance
CHIMMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE'S HALT OF A YELLOW SUN: A THEMATIC STUDY 379
and sumptuousness, that it is when people lived comfortably and have enough to eat and the period when
there is nothing to eat as a result of the war.
Half of a Yellow Sun shows the theme of infidelity and betrayal which revolves around Odenigbo,
Olanna's lover, Richard, Kainene's lover and British writer. Odenigbo shared her bed with Amala, the
village girl. The following words illustrate the scenario:
It's you and not your mother. It happened because you let it happen. You must take
responsibility. I am not philandering man, and you know that. This would not have
happened if my mother didn't have a hand! Master should have lowered his voice; he
should know very well that a beggar did not about. Did your mother pull out your penis and
insert it into Amala as well? Olanna asked. (240-41)
Though Olanna has love for Odenigbo, he betrayed her in her absence. As a result of Odenigbo's
action, Olanna went ahead and slept with her sister's lover Richard. This scenario is described by the
following lines:
They sat side by side, their backs resting on the sofa seat. Richard said, in a mumble, 'I
should leave,' or something that sounded like it. But she knew he would not leave and that
when she stretched out on the bristly carpet he would lie next to her. She kissed his lips. He
pulled her forcefully close, and then, just as quickly, he let go and moved his face away. She
could hear his rapid breathing. She unbuckled his trousers and moved back to pull them
down and laughed because they got stuck at his shoes. She took her dress off. He was on top
of her and the carpet pricked her naked back and she felt his mouth limply enclose her
nipple. It was nothing like Idenigbo's bites and sucks, nothing like those shocks of pleasure.
Richard did not run his toungue over her in the flicking way that made her forget
everything; rather, when he kissed her belly, she was aware that he was kissing her belly.
(234)
Adichie explores the theme of infidelity and betrayal through the action of the major characters in
her Half of a Yellow Sun. In the novel, Odenigbo betrayed Olanna and as a result of Odenigbo's action,
Olanna slept with her sister's lover Richard. Here one can declare that infidelity and betrayal mostly
revolved around Odenigbo.
Half of a Yellow Sun depicts the theme of forgiveness. This could be traced as well between
Kainene and Olanna, Kainene and Richard, and Olanna and Odenigbo. After betrayal of her twin sister,
Kainene at the end forgives her. Olanna also overlooked the hurt in Odenigbo sleeping with Amala.
Kainene on her own forgives Richard for sleeping with Olanna.
Adichie portrays the theme of love in her Half of a Yellow Sun. Odenigbo is in love with Olanna. It
is this love that made them to forgive each other when Odenigbo betrayed Olanna and when Richard
betrayed Kainene. Odenigbo is in love with Olanna while Richard is in love with Kainene.
There is the theme of identification is discussed in Half of a Yellow Sun. Adichie used language as a
means of communication and identification in the novel. The Igbo characters in the novel used Igbo
language to communicate with members of their own tribe. This is evident when Richard was going to
Nsukka University where he found that checkpoints had been placed everywhere, tyres and nail studded
boards were placed across the road, men and women in Khaki shirts without expression with disciplined
are standing by. The first two points are easy for him to pass, but near Enugu the civil defenders blocked the
road and asked him to turn back. One of the defenders says: “Are you sure you are not an agent of the
Nigerian movement? It is you white people who allowed Gowon to kill innocent women and children”
(181). But when Richard replies “Abu m Onye Biafra” (181), the men laughed and asked him “Where did
you learn to speak our language?” (181). Richard says that he learnt it from his wife. Adichie brilliantly
used language for identification as well as communication

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Adichie portrays the domestic life of the central couple in Half of a Yellow Sun. It is striking that
these figures are so often male. They are either the predominantly female foreign domestic workers stand
outside the nation and thus outside constructions of the human itself not the female workers within. It has
analysed as the creation of value out of the gendered body in a transition from domestic to domestic.
Subaltern issues are also handled by Adichie in her Half of a Yellow Sun. Subaltern figures in the
novel are no longer classed as labourer or member of any collectively instead marked out as individually
exceptional often through transformative generosity on the part of the privileged. Triton and Ugwe are
both identified in some form or another as fast learners and explicitly, in normal house boy and both
transformed themselves into above all by imitation of their masters rather than by pursing any collective
organization outside. The novel attempts to suggest the classlessness of human fallibility.
Adichie explores themes in her Half of a Yellow Sun that help the reader to understand the negative
effects of war, which also reflect in the lives of the five characters in the novel.

Works Cited
Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi. Half of a Yellow Sun. New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 2007. Print.
De Souza, Eunice. “Writing Africa.” Rev. of Half of a Yellow Sun. The Book Review 31.9, (Sep. 2006) 32.
Print.
Erwin, Lee. “Domesticating the Subaltern in the Global Novel in English.”The Journal of Commonwealth
Literature. 47.3 (Sep. 2006): 339. Print.

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110
ROHINTON MISTRY'S CONTRIBUTION TO DIASPORA IN HIS NOVEL

P. Sulochana, Assistant professor and HOD, PKN Arts and Science College, Tirumangalam

Abstract:
Interestingly the terms Diaspora, Exile, alienation are synonymous and possess an ambiguous
status of being both a refugee and an ambassador. The two roles being different. The diasporic writers
attempt at doing justice to both. As refugee, he seeks security and protection and as an ambassador
projects his own culture and helps enhance its comprehensibility. Migration takes place due to various
reasons and in the Indian context the migratory movements were governed by historical, political,
economic reasons including higher education, better prospects and marriage. The original meaning was
cut off from the present meaning when the Old Testament was translated into Greek. Rohinton Mistry's first
novel ,Such a Long Journey seems to take a departure from Tales from Firozsha Baag in its historic
aspects of the Parsi predicaments and in its use of the broader political turmoil of India in 1971 as a
context for a story about a Parsi family.

Keywords: Diaspora, alienation, migration, exploration.

Rohinton Mistry in his fiction delineated the spiritual exploration of Parsis, which is a small, yet
united, religious community in India. The Largest Parsi community resides in Bombay. There are Parsis in
Karachi and Bangalore also. The population of the Parsi community is diminishing due to its
unwillingness to accept conversions to the faith. The Parsis also maintain the importance of their purity in
the face of high death rates and low birth rates. In the past, Parsis had been in India for a thousand years and
they counted themselves as Indians. On the other hand, there were also who suffered for the Indian
postcolonial reality and took refuge in a glorification of the Parsi achievements of the past as well as to an
uncritical nostalgia of ever thing British. This process of 'Cultural inversions' becomes evident in
Dinshawji complaint about the change of street names in Such a Long Journey.
The novel also pays close attention to religious which plays an important role in shaping the Parsi
identity. Mistry describes the Parsis as an ethno-religious minority. As Mistry's discourse does revolve
around the Parsi identity, the relevance of the Zoroastrian faith deserves mention not only as a major
influence on many world religious but also as a shaping factor for the characters of the Such a Long
Journey. The novel explores implication of loss on a literal as well as on a metaphorical level. The cope of
loss probed in Such a Long Journey encompasses the loss of material possessions as well as the loss of
people by death or estrangement. Gustad Novel is faced with his family's impoverishment in the course of
his father's bankruptcy. However he also has to cope with the death of his friends Jimmy, Dinshawji and
Techmul. Moreover loss of Gustad also entails a feeling of alienation and dissatisfaction possession
against the present. The semantics of loss imply a dispossession against the subjects will the result of which
can be poverty, isolation, confusion, disillusionment, disenchantment. It is clear through the following
detail the causes and effects of loss making its impact on the protagonist of Such a Long Journey.
The bankruptcy sees Gustad's family at the receiving end of fate's whims. Such a Long Journey
illustrates how the vagaries of life can invert position of control. The broken of the bowl as well as the
bankruptcy signifies a boy's first encounter with destruction into adulthood. The situations of the reality
into an ideal childhood world lead to disenchantment. The breaking of the bowl is indicative of the working
CHIMMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE'S HALT OF A YELLOW SUN: A THEMATIC STUDY 382
of destructive forces on human for example his father's business that is reduced to “the shambles of what
had been the finest book store in the country”. Such a Long Journey is a narrative about the importance of
memory. Matheran becomes a place where an individual or a collective history is subject to discontinuity
and fragmentation for Gustad. When Gustad visits Jimmy in Delhi, he recalls his father's bankruptcy, he
remembers that broken bowl of Matheran. Gustad draws analogies between the two events in such a way
that the memory of childhood experience of bankruptcy, in turn, comes to haunt Gustad when he visits
Jimmy in New Delhi and meets a certain Mr.Kashyap who had metal elects on his heels, and his steps rang
out on the bankruptcy bailiff, “The cleats on his shoes were clattering brazenly on the stone floor. “The
effect of his remembrance is “a feeling of profound loss and desolation of emptiness.” Matheran, the
bankruptcy and the visit to Delhi have some thing in common in that they have not been overcome by
Gustad. They all are unpleasant incidents haunting the past and present idylls of Gustad's life with the
threat of disintegration. The Bankruptcy and Matheran represent poverty and disenchantment for Gustad
Noble and as such are responsible for the loss of the innocence of a happy childhood.
In a nutshell it has been quite proved that the theme loss of meaning totally related to the Such a
Long Journey In whole life of Gustad proves himself best by various aspects in the form of good father, a
good friend and a good husband. He always searches out his real identity. He lost his friends Dinshawji,
Bilimoria, Malcolm and Tehmul. They played an important role in his life. He also lost good life in his
previous days due to bankruptcy and life becomes struggle at last. He also lost good life in his previous
days due to bankruptcy and life becomes struggle at last. Gustad wants Sohrab to attend IIT because he has
dreamt of such a career himself. But with the refusal of Sohrab, he lost his dream and feels betrayed,
because he himself is deprived of a source of meaning.
Gustad kept his eyes closed. His voice was soft and steady and his eyes closed and started a second
cycle of prayer. Tears began to fall from his closed eyes. He started another cycle and yet he could not top
tears. Mistry gives here a pathetic scene in the form of Tehmul's death. It also shows Gustad's pathos for
Tehmul because he was also his friend and one by one he lost his friends and at last Tehmul also. There are
also some Parsis interesting consideration which finds expression in Such a Long Journey such as Parsi
families never keep cats. They consider them bad luck because cats hate water, they never take a bath. They
do not kill spiders. They only eat the female chicken, never a cook. Parsi uses the word, “Sahab Ji”for the
daily greetings. They do not delay the funeral beyond twenty four hours from the time of death, which was
unbearable within the Zoroastrian rites, besides this Mistry also points the picture of superstition beliefs of
the Persian community.

Works Cited
Dodiya, Jaydip Singh. The Fiction of Rohinton Mistry.New Delhi: Prestige Books, 1998.Print.
Hashmi Alamgir. The Year that was: Pakistan1988 Kunapipi, 12: 1 Hancock, Geoff. An Interview with
Rohinton Mistry, Canadian FictionMagazine, Vol.65, 1989. Print.
Dodiya, J. K., ed. The Fiction of Rohinton Mistry., NewDelhi Prestige Books, 1998.

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111
INCOMPLETENESS OF PADMINI IN GIRISH KARNAD'S HAYAVADANA

Mrs. L. Rani, Assistant Professor of English, S.R.N.M. College, Sattur

Abstract:
Drama is the oldest literary art which is meant for staged and action. Many Indian English dramas
are found to be explored on the base of ancient stories. Girish Karnad reshapes the theme, content and
thoughts of ancient myth for readers and spectators of contemporary literature. He adapts the themes,
structure, style and narrative techniques of these native traditions to make his theatre more engaging. His
plays put forward a different problem, the identification of a human being in this world of strange
relationship. Hayavadana deals with the theme of incompleteness with dive, human and animal figures.
Ganesha has the elephant head and the human body. The transposition of head does not give Devadatta,
Kapila and Padmini completeness. A thematic analysis of Karnad's plays based on Myths and folktales
reveals the fact that Karnad very convincingly gives voice to the ambiguous concerns of the postcolonial
age. Thus, the conflicting themes like the existential questions and conflicts of modern man,
incompleteness, alienation and son on manifest through different characters and situation of his plays.
Existential alienation, incompleteness engages in Hayavadana.

Key words: Incompleteness, transposition, alienation, conflict.

Girish Karnad is undoubtedly the most important dramatist of the contemporary Kannada stage.
He delves deeps into the traditional myths to spell out modern man's anguish and dilemmas that are created
in his mind. In Hayavadana he is seized with the theme of incompleteness and depicts the protagonist
Padmini's yearning for completeness, and for perfection. In Hayavadana Karnad has presented the theme
of incompleteness at three levels- Divine, Human and Animal. The play concentrates on “the theme of
incompleteness” and the superiority of mind on a body. Karnad has the genius and the power to transform
any situation into an aesthetic experience. He has rendered the story of the completeness of Hayavadana in
a lighter tone but the pathos of it is touching. The superiority of the primitive force in a horse rather than in
the intellect is implied through this.
When the play Hayavadana begins, a mask of Ganesha ids brought on the stage and the Bhagavata
sings verses in praise of “Vakratunda-Mahakaya” with the crooked face and distorted body, who is the
Lord and Master of success and perfection. The play starts with the worship and the choice of elephant-
headed God is significant because Lord Ganesha with human body and animal head aptly suggests the
central theme of incompleteness of being.
Hayavadana is a man with the head of a horse: “Haya” horse and “Vadana” means face.
Hayavadana is a horse faced man. He is the son of princess of Karnataka, a very beautiful girl, who fell in
love with a white stallion. She was married off to the horse and lived with him for fifteen years. One fine
morning, the horse turned into a beautiful celestial being and revealed that he was a Gandharva cursed by
the God Kubera to be born a horse for some act of misbehavior. After fifteen years of human love, he had
become his original self again. Released from his curse, he asked the princess to accompany him to his
Heavenly abode. But she wanted him to become a horse again. So he cursed her to be a horse herself. She
became a mare and galloped away without thinking in the least of Hayavandana, the product of her
marriage with the white stallion. So Hayavadana is in search of identity and completeness of his physical
INCOMPLETENESS OF PADMINI IN GIRISH KARNAD'S HAYAVADANA 384
body.
The story within- the-story starts when the Bhagavata proceeds to tell us the story of the two friends
having “One mind, one heart namely Devadatta and Kapila. They live in Dharmapura. Devadatta is
comely in appearance, fair in colour and unrivalled in intelligence, the only son of the Revered Brahmin
Vidyasagar. Kapila is the only son of the iron-smith Lohita. His complexion is dark. He possesses very
good physical skills. The Bhagavata says: “The world wonders at their friendship. The world sees these
two young men wandering down the streets of Dharmapura, hand in hand, and remembers Lava and kusha,
Rama and Lakshmana, Krishna and Balarama”. Padmini is the daughter of a leading merchant in
Dharmapura. Karnad describes the beauty of Padmini through Devadatta who falls in love with her. “Her
beauty is a magic lake. Her arms are the lotus creepers. Her breats are golden urns” (Hayavadana 13).
Padmini is portrayed with all the feminine qualities which remind one of the “Sita of Ramayana”, an
embodiment of domesticity. Kapila description of padmini at first sight is “She is Yakshni, Shakuntala,
Indumati- all rolled into one's strengthens the idea of feminine. Bhagavata further assures the argument by
telling that they are “Rama-Sita-Lakshmana”. (Hayavadana)19.
Devadatta is 'the mind, and Kapila 'the body'. Devadatta falls in love fifteen times in a period of two
years. Yet he fails to get married to any one of the girls. Even his sixteenth love seems to be a fiasco. Unlike
Devadatta, Kapila does not fall in love. Devadatta falls in love with Padmini. Kapila does not feel it
difficult to arrange the marriage of Devadatta and Padmini. Devadatta's body doesnot respond as
adequately as his mind readily loves and Kapila's mind is not nimble enough to feel the sensations of his
body. Thus both suffer from self-alienation.
The incompleteness of human desire is symbolized by Padmini. As the ideal of all womanly
attributes she is the lotus itself. Rooted to the earth and with the flower turned skyward, she symbolizes the
fundamental nature of the human body. It is torn between the downward earth and the upward heavens
itself being impressionable. Thanks to the incompleteness in nature, even when the eyes see, a lot of things
cannot but be taken on trust.
The common Indian view is an ascetic one-body is to be subjugated to the mind. But woman who
represents the creative principle and earth is drawn to the beauty and power of the body. And so is Padmini
in the play she needs a man of steel like Kapila and naturally feels strongly attracted towards him from the
very beginning. Devadatta cannot satisfy her body's need the way Kapila can. This is evident from the very
first meeting of Kapila and Padmini when this blacksmith, friend of the Bhrahmin intellectual, Devadatta,
visits Padmini's house to plead the case of Devadatta. Appreciation of her beauty by the poet Devedatta,
cannot satisfy her bodily hunger after their marriage.
One day Devadatta, Padmini and Kapila plan a short visit to Ujjain by cart Padmini admires the
way Kapila drives and compares it Devadatta's driving. Devadtta is a man of the body. Kapila is more
attractive than Devadatta because as representative of the animal energy in the human. He has the greater
vitality and potential than Devadatta. Padmini describes the charm of Kapila's body when the latter climbs
the tree to bring her the fortunate lady's flower.
Devadatta and Kapila, the two intimate friends, face an existential crisis when Padmini falls in love
with Kapila. Devadatta feels alienated and estranged both from Kapila and Padmini. When they decided to
go to Rudra temple, but Devadatta refuses to accompany her due to disgust and asks Kapila to escort her.
He says “Good-byeKapila, Good-bye Padmini, may the Lord Rudra bless you. You are two pieces of my
heart-live happily together. I shall find my happiness in that”. (Hayavadana 28). This remark clearly
indicates that Devadatta is deeply hurt by Padmini's attraction towards Kapila.
Kapila and Padmini go to the temple of Rudra. Then Devadatta goes to the temple of Kali. He
addresses her with high sounding words and begs her forgiveness for not fulfilling his promise made to her
earlier; He hacks off his head with a sword kept there. When Kapila and Padmini return, they don't find

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Devadatta there. Kapila goes in search of him. He goes to the temple of Kali. The sight of the dead body of
his friend shocks Kapila and he follows suit: “No, Devadatta, I can't live without you. I can't breathe
without you. Devadatta, my brother, my father, my friend……” (30). Now he thinks that if he goes back
with the news that Devadatta is dead, Padmini and other people will think that he has killed Devadatta. So
he also hacks off his head with a sword. That both Devadatta and Kapila were telling lies is made clear by
Kali in the temple.
Devadatta and Kapila cut their heads at kali temple. Left alone, the pregnant Padmini dares the dark
evening in the forest and to her horror stumbles over the bodies: “How selfish you are-how
unkind!”(Hayavadana 31). She wails and inorder to escape from blame decides to offer her head too. But
the goddess Kali's terrible voice is hear which freezes Padmini. Padmini requests Kali to give life to
Devadatta and Kapila. Kali asks her to put the heads on their bodies and press the sword on their necks and
they will be alive again. Padmini makes a blunder in her eagerness. She puts the heads on the wrong bodies
and presses the sword. The head of Devadatta and the body of the Kapila and the head of the Kapila and the
body of Devadatta. Though the goddess appreciates Padmini's action “My dear daughter, there should be a
limit even to honesty” (Hayavadana 33). Kapila's body weighs a ton on Devadatta's mind and Devadatta's
head feels heavy on Kapila's body.
Later when they come back to life they feel the difference. She confesses, “Imixed up your heads- I
mixed them up” (Hayavadana 34). Goddess Kali's power proves to be very weak since the transposition of
their heads fails to liberate Devadatta and Kapila from alienation. Padmini's juxtaposition of Kapila's
strong body and Devadatta's brilliant head miserably fails to achieve unification because their heads carry.
Apollonian ego in themselves. For the same reason, Devadatta and Kapila become their old selves again.
The extraordinary situation helps Padmini to break out of the moral codes inflicted by society. She
wants that her companion in life should be an ideal man-both in brain and brown. She wants Devadatta's
mind and Kapila's body while the society forces her to seek these qualities in one man. But since such a
perfect man does not exist, she creates such a man by transposing the heads. Thus for a short while she
succeeds in having both brain and brown, the spirit and flesh: “Fabulous body-Fabulous brain-Fabulous
Devadatta” (Hayavadana 43).
In the beginning though Kapila says, “Now we are blood relations! Bodyrelations,” soon he claims
Padmini as his wife. In the play, identity and impersonation have been played up leading to conflicts
between the mind and the body. When Kapila and Devadatta heads transposed, the identity crisis further
deepens and the influence of the bodies on the minds is immense. This bring to the fore a conflict that we
face in our lives, if the mind independent on the body or viceversa. The conflict between the head and the
body, is well expressed in Devadatta's (who's head is Devadatta's but body is Kapila's) words, “I'd always
thought one had to use ones brain while wrestling or fencing or swimming. But this body doesn't wait for
thoughts, it acts”. But the irony has been brought out very well by Karnad. As we in today's times, often
choose body over mind, Padmini too does the same. This reflects the changing preferences in our lives. In
India's cultural and socio context, mind is given more emphasis over matter and is illustrated through
Devadatta's remark in the play which says, “According to the Shastra-the head is the sign of man”. The
domination of intellect (head) over emotions is the centre of the concentration in the play and this gains due
attention from the audience too.
Devadatta and Padmini go back to the city where Devadatta enjoys the benefits of Kapila's well-
trained body for about a year. He succeeds in exploiting Kapila's body to his and Padmini's satisfaction.
Human desire for completeness represented by Padmini ends in a fiasco as the transposition of heads
gradually proves that it is the mind that rules. After the transposition of heads by Padmini at the Kali
temple, complications arise. Initially Devadatta-actually head of Devadatta on Kapila's body-behaves
differently from what he was before. Devadatta's head on Kapila's body and viceversa solves her problem

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only temporarily. Devadatta's head-Kapila's body combine slowly reverts to the nature of Devadatta. And
so the other combines of Kapila's head and Devadatta's body. But there is a difference. Devadatta stops
writing poetry while Kapila is haunted by the memories in Devadatta's body. Padmini who, after the
exchange of heads, feels that she has the capacity for complete experience. Her situation is beautifully
summed by the images the river and the scarecrows in the chroic songs.
Girish Karnad had significantly introduced the two dolls in this play. They discuss certain very
important points which add to the total impression of the story. It is they who notice the slow process of
change in Devadatta's body. Padmini forces her husband to go to Ujjain. When he has gone away she
prepares to go the forest where Kapila resides with her child in her arms she reaches the spot where she is to
meet him. Kapila, like Devadatta, has also returned to his original self-tough and muscular. She sits by his
side and says, “Your son looks exactly like you,” Padmini has never forgotten Kapila's body. Kapila asks
her why she has come to him when he has “won this long and weary battle” and has “succeeded in
uprooting these memories”.
Practicing deceit on her husband, she sends Devadatta to the Ujjain fair to fetch new dolls for the
child and herself walks into the embrace of Kapila. She takes the child with her and claims it to be the child
of both Devadatta and Kapila. Padmini's visit disturbs Kapila. He had buried all those faceless memories
but Padmini has dug them up. He finds himself in a tough situation and asks Padmini: “Why should one
tolerate this made dance of incompleteness” (Hayavadana 57).
Immediately after he sees Padmini, Kapila says to himself, “What she need isa man of steel”.That
he is a blacksmith should make it easy for us to discern what Kapila feels about Padmini but the quickly
subjugates his feelings to his more representative role; that of a loyal friend who is almost like a dasa to
Devadatta. Later on when Devadatta decided against going to the picnic, Kapila's individual feelings
surface, only to be submerged in the role that he has accepted to play.
The focus of the play however is on padmini, the woman who is faced with this impossible
situation. Here Karnad takes a lead from the original story and develops it further. Padmini's predicament
is the predicament of a modern, emancipated woman in our society who is born between two polarities, a
woman who loves her husband as well as someone else for two different aspects of their personalities.
Padmini is fascinated by both Devadatta and Kapila and this creates the problem. The two men cannot
accept each other when it comes to sharing a woman and all the three destroy themselves in the process.
When Devadatta reaches the forest, Kapila asks Devadatta, “Couldn't we all three live together-like
thePandavas and Draupadi?”Devadatta responds that it is not possible and he further says “No grounds for
friendship now. No question of mercy. We must fight like lionsand kill like cobras” (Hayavadana 61).The
process of killing themselves is stylized like a dance reminds the mad dance of incompleteness.When
Padmini visualizes Kapila arriving during their trip to forest she loses her sense of propriet. And herself
divides. The Bhagavata simultaneously chants: “And the head is binding good-bye to the heart.”She
relegates Devadatta to the background and gets preoccupied with Kapila. “And what an ethereal shape.”
The play ends with Devadatta and Kapila fighting with each other when both are dead, Padmini
decides to perform Sati. For her existence, her identity is deeply entangled with any of the two. Ironically,
she either loses both or acquires association with the two leading to an onset of neurosis. She retorts to the
Goddess Kali. None of them attains completeness. Kirtinath Kurtkoti writes: “Neither the death of the
lovers nor the subsequent sattee of Padmini is presented as tragic; the deaths serve only to emphasize the
logic behind the absurdity of situation” (Pandey 115).
Padmini asks the Bhagavata to make a large funeral pyre because they are three. Before sacrificing
herself, Padmini makes it clear that she cannot hole to get perfection even in her next life. But this end is not
tragic. The deaths serve the absurdity of the situation. What Karnad wants to convey is that the world is of
incomplete individuals, indifferent dolls that speak. The world is indifferent to the desires and frustrations,

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joy and sorrows of human beings.
Soon after Padmini commits Sati the question remains unanswered that who is her real husband for
whom she does it. The problem is not solved but disposed of through death of the three. What the play
underlines is that one way completeness is possible but not a perfect combination. The central refrain of the
play is expressed by the female chorus: “A head for each breast, a pupil for each eye. A side for each arm”
(Hayavadana 64). She asks why cannot a human being be a many petalled, many flowered lantana. But
padmini and Devadatta's choice of death affects the child's growth adversely.”Children of his age should
be outtalking a dictionary, but this one doesn't speak a world. Doesn't laugh, doesn't cry, doesn't even
smile….. There's obviously something wrong with him” (Hayavadana 66).
The play depicts the realm of incomplete individuals, magnanimous gods of vocal dolls and mute
children, a world apathetic to the longings and frustrations, ecstasies and miseries of human beings. In this
play Karnad brings back poetry, music. A sense of gaiety and celebration traditionally associated with a
theatrical event. U.R.Anantha Murthy in his “A Note on Karnad's Hayavadana” has this to say about the
theme: “they Play exposes the audience to a significant theme like 'incompleteness in a comic mode”. A
few paragraphs later he says, “The play tries to create an illusion in us that the head determines the being of
man” (Hayavadana 103).
Karnad in almost all his plays make use of ancient myths, legends, stories and traditions to interpret
this age-old human situation with reference to contemporary experience. He leads the reader deep into
traditional mythology to reveal the conflict that tears man's mind.
The play reveals the essential ambiguity of human personality which is apparently shaped or
shattered by the human environment. Fundamentally incomplete and imperfect, the human beings search
and strive for attaining the unattainable ideal of completeness and perfection. Padmini, for instance ruins
herself and all her relations. Even the child that she leaves under the Bhagavata's care is not normal because
of her own compulsions. Hayavadana, for instance does not bring destruction to himself as Padmini does
but suffers the drastic consequences of his search for completeness by going down the ladder of existence
from man to horse.
A close examination of Karnad's presentation of supernatural beings, especially that of Kali in
Hayavadana, points to the playwright's atheistic leanings and suggests that they cannot help human beings
unless the latter help themselves by accepting the psychological limitations imposed by nature. Karnad's
Hayavadana stresses the idea that instead of longing for perfection/completeness the modern mind should
invent new ways to lead a happy life by accepting the existence of irreconcilable differences.

Works Cited
Annapoorni, S. “Hayavadana: Desiring Dualities.”Some Perspectives in IndianWriting in English.
Chennai: The Dept. of English, SDNBV College for Women. 2005. Print.
Berde, R. T. “Girish Karnad: A Decolonizer of Contemporary Indian English Drama.”Critical Essays on
the Plays of Girish Karnad.New Delhi: Creative Publications, 2009. Print.
Dhanavel, P. The Indian Imagination of Girish Karnad: Essays on Hayadana. New Delhi: Prestige Books,
2000. Print.
Kumar, K. S. Anish “A Passion for Perfection: A Study of Girish Karnad's ayavadana.”Explorations in
Indian English Drama.T.Sai Chandra Mouli and M. Sarat Babu. New Delhi: Authorspress, 2009.
Print.
Pandey, Punam. The Plays of Girish Karnad: A Study in ExistentialismNew Delhi: Sarup Book Publishers,
2010. Print.

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112
HYBRID IDENTITY AND MULTICULTURALISM IN BHARATI MUKHERJEE'S
JASMINE

S. Gangalakshmi, Assitant Professor, SRNM College, Sattur

Abstract:
In the postmodern world, where identities are both reduced and multiplied ironically, concepts
such as globalization and multiculturalism have emerged to define the new world order. Eliot sees culture
as the way of life, as one which affects us and in affected, in turn by our activities. He believes that culture is
ideally a whole way of life, lived commonly and variously by a whole. The term multiculturalism has a
range of meanings within the contexts of sociology, of political philosophy, and of colloquial use. The
Indian-born, Bengali origin, American Novelist Bharati Mukherjee's novel Jasmine is the story of a young
Indian woman who experiences cultural conflict both in and out of her own culture. This novel depicts
Jasmine's journey of transformation from a passive, traditional girl at the mercy of fate in a village in India
to an active, modern, and most importantly cross-cultural woman in America. An adolescent Hindu widow
who uproots herself from the familiar, and travels from Hasnapur, India, to America, in search of a new life
and identity.

Key Words: Globalization, multiculturalism, transformation, hybrid, conflict, identity.

This paper aims at studying Bharti Mukherjee's novel Jasmine so as to highlight the author's
treatment of the eastern and the western culture in the novel, to study about women novelists of South
Asian Diaspora. The paper will also highlight the culture, religion and society of the homeland of different
characters in the novel and the culture, religion and society of the host land of the different characters in the
novels under study viz., USA. The focus will be on the issues of Diaspora and settlement as faced by
different characters in different countries where they migrate viz., USA. The journey of Jasmine, as
presented in the novel, does touch the readers making them feel her and feel for her. Yet, the other themes
that the journey of the central character involves and reflects cannot be ignored. The journey of Jasmine
appears to have a direct association to with the subject of immigration, and in the process, offers an insight
into the issue of multiculturalism. Before we attempt a critical analysis of immigration, multiculturalism
and some other issues in Jasmine, let us have an overview of the story of the novel itself.
Mukherjee was born in an upper-middle class Hindu Brahmin family in Calcutta, India. The
second of three daughters of SudhirLal,a chemist, and Bina (Banerjee) Mukherjee. Mukherjee and her
sisters were always given ample academic opportunities, and thus have all pursued academic endeavours
in their careers and have had the opportunity to receive excellent schooling. In 1947, her father was given a
job in England and he brought his family to live there until 1951, which gave her an opportunity to develop
and perfect her English language skills.
In 1968, Mukherjee immigrated to Canada with her husband and became a naturalized citizen in
1972. Her fourteen years in Canada were some of the hardest of her life, as she found herself discriminated
against and treated, as she says, as a member of the 'visible minority.' She has spoken in many interviews of
her difficult life in Canada, a country that she sees as hostile to its immigrants and one that opposes the
concept of cultural assimilation. In future she tries to express her sufferings and experiences in her novels
especially in Jasmine. Although those years were challenging, Mukherjee was able to write her first two
HYBRID IDENTITY AND MULTICULTURALISM IN BHARATI MUKHERJEE'S JASMINE 389
novels, The Tiger's Daughter (1971) and Wife (1975), while working up to professorial status at McGill
University in Montreal. During those years, she has also collected many of the sentiments found in her first
collection of short stories, Darkness (1985), a collection that in many sections reflects her mood of cultural
separation while living in Canada. Finally fed up with Canada, Mukherjee and her family moved to the
United States in 1980, where she was sworn in as a permanent US resident. Continuing to write, in 1986
she was awarded a National Endowment for the Arts grant. Because of the distinctly different experiences
she has had throughout life, she has been described as a writer who has lived through several phases of life,
first as a colonial, then National subject in India. She then led a life of exile as a post-colonial Indian in
Canada. Finally, she shifted into a celebratory mode as an immigrant, then citizen, in the United States. She
now fuses her several lives and backgrounds together with the intention of creating a 'new immigrant'
literature.
Indian woman is more conscious about the moral values and ethics of human life as Indian culture
is the most orthodox on the ground of morality and feminine world. Indian woman immigrant is different
than other racial woman. Foremost woman is mild and delicate when she struggles with such diplomatic
and delicate issues that time she has to face many problems.
The study of important novels written by the women writers aptly testifies the cross cultural
relations. When Jasmine is suddenly widowed at seventeen, she seems faced to a life of quiet isolation in
the small Indian village where she was born. But the force of Jasmine's desires propels her explosively into
a larger, more dangerous and ultimately more life giving world. In just a few years, Jasmine becomes Jane
Ripplemeyer, happily pregnant by a middle aged Iowa banker and the adoptive mother of Vietnamese
refugee. The attraction towards Indian culture is an important phenomenon. However, they feel
completely uprooted in the foreign land. The social and cultural alienation has been made an important
three way contribution. On one side, the immigrants feel isolated in the foreign land. However, they get
adjusted with the system but many a times they are insulted and feeling of malice and hatred also can be
witnessed in their body language as well as soft skills. A very close, effective and brilliant expression has
been made by the author.
Mukherjee has tried to depict immigrants' life in a sensible way. Jasmine's cumulative moral
consciousness of self-identity has given strength to tackle with intricacy of cultural plurality. She
speculates through the series of adventures from a state of Punjab to California via Florida, New York and
Iowa. She finds herself in the changing scenario of different cultural surroundings preserves her identity as
Indian woman who confiscates the strength of will for the reaffirmation of her life circumstances. Her life
revolves around the self will to live life amide the luxurious of American culture.
BharatiMukherji's novel Jasmine deals with intense gender portrayal in diasporic situation.
Jasmine is a story of a naïve young Punjabi girl who could have lived like many Punjabi women “content”
and “happy” with common lifestyle, she could have also lived a subdued life of suffering and widowhood
after her husband's death, on the contrary Jasmine always desired for challenges she had dreams to
emigrate to America, the dreams which were instilled by her husband Prakash. After Prakash's death
Jasmine migrates illegally to America in order to fulfil her deceased husband's dreams. In America, first
she becomes victim of rape but she gets even by killing him as goddess 'kali'. The trauma of violence and
displacement transforms her totally and changes her identity from a docile Indian girl Jasmine into Jane
Ripple Mayer, a paradoxical identity in the American world. Her portrayal is one of self-assertion and
transformation in a complex alien world from Jasmine to Jase. Bharati Mukherjee's other writings, Wife.
Dimple, the protagonist of the Wife, on the other hand, is another transformed woman who changes her
identity from the dutiful Indian house wife to a killer of her husband - a negative transformation. Migration
casts a cruel shadow upon her character and finally her expectations fall short. The racist views towards the
third world aggravates her situation when she tries to imitate the western culture and she fails in her

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attempts and ultimately ends up being a 'nowhere woman. 'Bharati Mukherjee's 'Darkness'portrays
pragmatic problems of racial discrimination, homeless, loss of identity, cultural differences, including
language issues of Indian immigrant life. The collection of twelve short stories exhibit a clear picture
concerning the Indian immigrant shave in all shades of struggling to adjusting to life in Canada and the
United States.
In Jasmine, though living in village Jyoti is cultural and ambitious girl. Jyoti has been changed by
her husband. He has changed her attitude, mind, ideology, principles, looks towards life etc. and has
created positive healthy approach to become new city woman. Her marriage with Prakash is a renaissance
in her life. Prakash is modern and against orthodox Indian traditions. The marriage with Jyoti, is a kind of
revolution. This marriage was without dowry and registered marriage. Prakash has illuminated her life.
Since her birth Jasmine was modern and rebellious, strong. She could face the odd life situations i.e.
diaspora. All the incident and incarnation of her character is the changed form of her personality. The
central theme of the novel is cosmopolitanism. The author has subsumed the global life and new way of
adaptation in her creative writings.
Bharati Mukherjee has depicted her transition as a positive and optimistic journey. It clearly
reveals that the author herself is quite sympathetic to her protagonist in the novel and wants her not to be a
victim of the rigidity of the Indian culture. Jasmine tries to and does create a new world of hers that consists
of new ideas and values. To be specific, she is always upbeat to establish a new cultural identity through
constant incorporation of new skills, desires, and habits. It is true that there have been changes in her
attitude. At the same time, the change in her relationships with the men is also remarkable. Again, though
Jasmine has tried a lot to change her cultural identity from one to the other, she has definitely faced
problems.
Jasmine's personality is cosmopolitan. Her global power of mentality ad optimistic assimilation
leads to different type of nostalgia on her part. Although at some weak moment she becomes sentimental
for homeland but again she makes herself consolidate with the desire and dream of new life and identity.
She transforms herself, and decides to never mourn over her birthplace, homeland. The study of Bharati
Mukherjee's novels in the context of cross-cultural relations is a most challenging task. In the post-
Independence period, the Commonwealth literature in India has been developed in various perspectives.
The world of women writing has experienced the new waves of thinking and innovative morphology of the
women writing. Mukherjee has written the women centric novel of diasporic consciousness. The women
characters are caught in the dilemma of the Eastern and the Western ethics. Mukherjee's novels have
depicted the feelings of immigrants' effectively. They have also developed the cross-cultural relations on
the spectrum of family, social and cultural life also. Bharati Mukherjee, brilliantly expressed the theme of
Hybrid Identity and Multiculturalism in her novel Jasmine.

Work Cited
Mukherjee, Bharati. Jasmine. Penguin Books. 1990.Print.
http://rjhssonline.com/HTMLPaper.aspx?Journal=Research%20Journal%20of%20Humanities%20and
%20Social%20Sciences;PID=2018-9-4-10
http://www.ijssh.org/vol6/620-C021.pdf
https://www.postcolonial.org/index.php/pct/article/view/420/827
http://www.ijlll.org/vol1/15-X00018.pdf

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113
TRANSCENDING THE BORDERS OF THE REAL AND THE UNREAL IN BEN
OKRI'S THE FAMISHED ROAD

R. Aparna, Assistant Professor, Seethalakshmi Ramaswami College, Trichy

Abstract:
Ben Okri is a Nigerian novelist, poet and a short story writer living in London sees his far off
homeland and places his works there. He possesses the creative talent of Achebe and the artistic ability of
Soyinka. He echoes the Nigerian spirit in his works. The postcolonial Nigeria with its cold war, corrupt
politicians, regional and ethical clashes is truly depicted and he has delineated the hidden realities of the
Nigerian soil in his works. He is placed with Garcia Marquez Isabel Allende and Salman Rushdie in the
literary arena.Literature represents reality. Reality is defined as something existing, verifiable, and non
imaginative and in myriad ways by the writers and it is shown through naturalism, mimetic and marvellous
modes, magic realism, expressionism, surrealism, absurdism, fabulation and fantasy. Avant-garde writers
of the modern days use unreal ways for realistic representation. Ben Okri creates unreal world and both
his unreal and real compete with the actual world of the readers where Okri's worlds become readers'
world as they enter into the text. His unreal reinforces the real. He exploits the unreal ways and his The
Famished Roadtrilogy exemplifies his artistic mingling of the myth, magic and real of Nigeria where the
myth, magic and the political, social pictures transcend their borders of the unreal and the real
respectively.

Keywords: Reality, unreal, fantasy, world, myth, magic, transcend, borders.

African literature, Canadian literature, Carribean literature, Australian literature, Malaysian

literature, Singaporean literature, Indian writing in English, Srilankan literature come under the umbrella
term New literatures. They are called new literature because they differed from the British literature which
served as models for their writings in English. While British literature entertained and showed off the
writers' creativity by widening the horizon of knowledge of the readers, New literature created an
awareness about the sufferings of the people in the colonial environment, for example marginalisation,
alienated identity, were the elements of the literary works. The dismay of the people in the post colonial
environment is expressed and the writings held a mirror to the contemporary times and they also instilled
patriotic fervour, nationalistic spirit and revolutionary ideas in the readers.
South African Literature comprises the works of East African and West African writers. They
painted the pictures of the native and their sufferings throwing light on Apartheid, which had turned the
country upside down in those times. Not only the natives but also the settlers in the South Africa
contributed to South African literature whose outlook differed from the native writings. East African
literature developed in a course of time and their works showed the anger of the natives against the British
territory expansion. They portrayed the way the British confiscated the lands of the natives which made the
natives alien in their native soil. Writers like Ngugi Wa Thiango showed his anger in the writings and
spread it to his people by writing in Gikiyu and spread the same throughout the universe by his English
writings.
West African literature is young and there were no writings in their indigenous languages as writing
is not known which developed only with British invasion but it expanded greatly inviting scholars for the
TRANSCENDING THE BORDERS OF THE REAL AND THE UNREAL IN BEN OKRI'S THE FAMISHED ROAD 392
research. West Africans are greatly endowed with creative genius and artistic talent imbibed from their
culture and tradition. Universities were set up early in Lagos and in some parts of Nigeria imparting
English language. In the beginning, many writings were published in dailies, periodicals and magazines
inculcating nationalism and patriotic fervour; giving a clarion call for the revolt against Britishers in the
independence movement. People from the universities began publishing journals and their articles served
as eye openers for the natives to join the revolt against British.
Amos Tutuola published his Palmwine Drinkard following the British tradition of fiction writing.
He has brought in Nigerian fables, magic and myth making it Nigerian folktale in English among the
public. Following Amos Tutuola, Chinua Achebe published his first novel Things Fall Apart, a regular
English novel, the sale of which crossed The Bible in London and made the world readers turn to Nigeria.
Many Nigerians became writers delineating the Nigerian milieu. Like Achebe, they employed tradition in
their works creating a unique place for Nigerians in the world literatures in English. To portray realism they
treaded into unreal fields.
Ben Okri a poet, short story writer and novelist was born during the euphoria of Nigerian
independence in the year. Which had turned immediately into a state of despondency in the postcolonial
period filled with skirmishes, regional clash, anarchic situations, political power play, ethnic differences
resulting in cold war. He grew up amidst the unrest trying to safeguard his Igbo mother, Grace Okri when
there was a mass massacre of Igbos in many parts of the country. He lost his friend in a riot. The loss of his
friends, neighbours and relatives left an indelible mark in young Okri making him an endless miner into the
human spirit.
For pursuing his studies Silver Okri with his family had moved to London where Okri underwent
racial discrimination as a young boy of a primary school. Then Okris came back to Lagos where Okri
understood the position of beggars, destitutes, orphans, thieves and ghetto dwellers by their acquaintances
with his lawyer father. Okri enjoyed scholarship and went to London for his undergraduate education.
Suddently the Nigerian government stopped the scholarship Okri was thrown to the streets and he pacified
his hunger by pondering over the books and living with Milton, Dickens and Shakespeare. Okri's language,
embedded creativity, latent anger witnessing the postcolonial Nigeria excavated the writer in him and he
began as a journalistic writer.
Literature is appreciated for its realistic representation which is metaphorical. Reality is subjective.
In the olden days, magic and myth were considered real whereas space travel and scientific inventions
were looked upon as imaginary. At present, space travel, science and technology have become real but
myth and magic have become fictitious. Real can be described as something existing, empirical, truthful,
factual and unreal is non-existing, non-verifiable, fictitious, ghostly and supernatural. In the ancient
works, the writers drove home the concept of god to an individual. But after industrialization, the way of
the world compelled the writers to impart values, morals and ethics of life. People became mechanised
forgetting love and the respect to be shown towards the fellow human being. Art tried to bring about
changes. Writers adopted many methods to teach life by imitating the life of the people of the times.
Writers resorted to reality through naturalism, mimesis, romanticism, expressionism, absurdism
and in myriad ways as the definition of reality changed from ages to ages, place to place and from person to
person. Some writers dwelt deep on thepsychology. Naturalism and Mimesis can be called copies of
realism; while psycho-analysis, expressionism considered the workings of psyche as reality and all others
as existing only in the surface levels.
Ben Okri resorted to fantastic mode of writing. His works Flowers and Shadows, Landscapes
Within brought out in his earlier periods can be categorised as real pieces as he picturised the Nigeria of the
times without any amalgamation. Then Okri published his Booker award winning novel The Famished
Road. Following it, he has brought out Songs Enchantment and Infinite Riches the other two novels of the

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trilogy. He has employed fantasy as a technique in his trilogy bringing him universal acclaim and Achebe
has praised Okri in an interview, saying that the torch of Nigerian writing is passed on from one generation
to the other in the hands of Ben Okri and he was placed with Garcia Marquez, Isabell Allende and Salman
Rushdie in the literary arena. An avant-garde writer he is, showed the true colour of Nigeria by inclining to
fantasy. It camouflages the reality to present the unbearable reality which at the end questions reality. He
handles fantasy in a unique way that the novel emerges as a compendium meant for serious reading without
digressing itself as a fairy tale inspite of gliding from fact and fiction.
Through reality Okri does more than projecting the real happenings and with unreal he does not
confine himself to supernatural and spirit worlds but he penetrates, transgresses and transcends the both in
his delineation which projects different images in words. For instance his real wakes up the readers to the
grim realities of life and at the same time his unreal takes us into the spirit world enabling the readers to
experience the anarchic world of today and the disgusting, illegal situations prevailing in the postcolonial
setup. He begins the novel as, “In the beginning there was a river. The river became a road and the road
branched out to the whole world. And because the road was once a river it was always hungry (3, The
Famished road)”.
Okri's The Famished Road is called as an abiku narrative. The term abiku is borrowed from myth
which means a child which is born to die. In the words of Maurice O' Connor an abiku is, “It refers to the
phenomenon of a child who is caught up in an unending cycle of births, deaths and rebirths, the term being
literally translated as 'one who is born, dies'”(69).
Okri has employed an abiku protagonist for his trilogy. Azaro, the abiku of Okri, named after
Lazarus of The Bible is a boy with dual identity. He belongs both to the ethereal and the other world.
Abiku is not new to Nigerian writers as Soyinka has written a poem on Abiku and in his Dance of the Forest
his hero turns out to be a half-child or an Abiku and Armah's The Beautyful Ones are Not Yet Born uses the
same motif. But Okri differed in the manipulation of abiku, bringing out reality.
During his turn to be born in this world he makes a pact with his fellow spirit companions that he
would make use of the first opportunity to inhabit the spirit world by retiring from the human world.
When Azaro did not keep it up the spirit companions surrounded him, befriended him, disturbed him
sometimes took him away from his physical sphere. In one such acquaintances, Azaro was kept for a long
time in the spirit world and back in the earth, he was surprised to see him in the coffin. He says, “When I
woke up I found myself in a coffin. My parents had given me up for dead. (9, The Famished road)”.
Azaro, presuming the sufferings caused by his death to his parents became indecisive but later he tried to
convince his spirit companions who caused greater sufferings to Azaro to take him away expecting Azaro's
self retirement from the world of sufferings.
Okri through his wanderer into the both realms neither, glorifies the spirit world nor condemns the
real world. His narrative takes the reader with the protagonist, identifies the reader with the protagonist and
creates an awareness in the readers' about the world in which they live. He is a writer par excellence who
makes the protagonist wander in the visible entities and shifts him to an unseen realm.
His other characters like Madam Koto, friend Ade, Photographer, the old man are both mythical
and real. Madam Koto is described as an ordinary human beings in some pages and suddenly she
possesses super human powers and establishes contacts with spirit beings. His friend Ade is described as a
boy similar to Azaro. The Photographer tries to share the secret correspondences and illegal dealings of the
politicians. He is depicted as a different character who suffers because of the politicians, their thugs and
policeman. He fails to project the true colour of the politicians and aftermath he is arrested by policemen.
The old man who is blind who could see and foretell and he is surrounded by unearthly creatures. Father,
mother, politicians, thugs are portrayed as real beings.
Okri sets his novel in the city of Lagoes and his landscapes like forest, market-place, bar and ghetto

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are truthful and he laments over the losing glory, calls the Nigerians to regenerate. Madam Koto owns a
bars which is visited by unseen spirits and human beings. The description shifts frequently from the bar to
a natural setting and to an unnatural setting. Animals with special characteristics like talking white
peacock, green eyed cat symbolising the king of the spirit world, black dog are shown as vegetating the real
world elevating it into a place of unearthly beings. This power packed performance of the worlds and his
words are the counterparts making a dialectic between the real and the unreal in the novel. He considers
that, “First, Okri declared words can describe - but they can also misdescribe - reality. When employed to
misdescribe, they can prove treacherous, even fatal. Lastly, words can go only so far in the evocation of the
world. (Fraser, 1)” Not only is the description but also the narrative fantastic making the novel a total
realm of fantasy.
The other world of Okri does more than creating an ennui atmosphere relieving the monotony of
the factual account and entertaining the readers with its god's plenty. The unreal actually motivates the
readers to yearn for the similar realm, peaceful atmosphere in the contemporary living place which has
been losing its colour and identity from the colonial period. Hybridity, fantasy mingling of eral and unreal
focus on current disillusioned state making The Famished Road a magically real text. Like Marquez's One
Hundred Years of Solitude he brings to the lime light the hidden realities. He has packed the unlawful state
of Nigeria in the pages of the novel where the unreal, magic and myth reduce the grotesqueness, pain and
angst in the writer.
The focus on the ghetto dwellers, daily labourers and poor sufferers are heightened with the
depiction of poverty stricken mother hawking all day out and the father working the whole day in the
market for a mean wages which never helps them to meet their demands. Self-centred political party
leaders and their thugs are painted as power mongerers and money hoarders. His focus on the real through
unreal is unique and with these he goes beyond the both realms sensitizing the readers to the Nigeria of his
times. The tone of subversion is all pervading. The spirit world, the supernatural world and the Nigerian
world are synthesized hiding the dichotomy lies beneath which is subtly managed by the fantastic
narrative. His The Famished Road is truly a political satire.

Works Cited
Oka Moh, Felicia. Ben OkriAn Introduction to His Early Fiction. Nigeria:Fourth Dimension Publishers,
2002. Print.
Okri, Ben. The Famished Road.London: Vintage Books, 2003. Print.
Mendlesonh, Farah. Rhetorics of Fantasy. Connecticut:Wesleyan UP, 2008.Print.
Fraser, Robert. Ben Okri Towards the Invisible City.United Kingdom:NorthcoteHouse Publishers Ltd.,
2002. Print.

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114
THE PEN THAT SHEDS BLOOD: A POINT OF NO RETURN

V. Balasingh, Research Scholar, IIT Roorkee, Saharapur Campus, Uttar Pradesh

Abstract:
This paper is on revisiting the annals to reconstitute the suppressed, ignored and forgotten black
diasporic history analyzing Some One Knows My Name by Lawrence Hill, an African Canadian Novelist,
who distinguishes being a black in Canada that was a promised land of heaven for those who took side of
the British in American Revolutionary War.

Keywords: Diaspora, African-Canadian, landscape, revolution.

Lawrence Hill, born in 1957, is a son of a black father and white mother in the United States from
where later his parents moved to Canada. He is an African Canadian novelist, essayist, a speech writer, and
journalist and has authored many books among which famous are Some Great Thing (1992), Any Known
Blood (1997) The Book of Negroes (2007) which was published as Some One Knows My Name in United
States. The special point here to be noted is that he wanted to publish his work Some One Knows My Name
in 2007 which is historically very remarkable in the course of transatlantic slave trade as the British
th
government commemorated the 200 anniversary of abolition of slave trade having been abolishing the
millions of Africans for more than many centuries.
Lawrence Hill's Some one Knows My Name is a historical fiction. In his interview he has clearly
expressed his intention of his writing this novel that is to project history honestly. Quest for identity,
belonging and for home is his central themes of his writing. Lawrence Hill has been forced to change the
novel's title The Book of Negroes to Some One Knows My Name in the United States by his publisher. Hill
explains in his interview about the title change urged by his editor in United States were two reasons:
The first is that the publisher, W.W. Norton & Company, felt that The Book of Negroes
sounded to their ears like a work of non-fiction and felt they would have trouble selling it as
a work of fiction. The second reason was that they thought the word “Negroes” would be so
inflammatory to American readers that they wouldn't give the book a chance, even to
discover that the title had a historical resonance and authenticity stemming from a British
military ledger kept during the American Revolutionary War. (Sagawa)
The title Book of Negroes refers the British military ledger that documents the names of the black
refuges who have migrated to Nova Scotia, Britain and Germany during and after the end of American
revolutionary war. That ledger documents the names, ages, places of origin of black refuges who has took
the side of the British.
Therefore, this research paper will outline the suppressed, ignored or even forgotten black
diasporic history of the black in Canada which is “a discourse and grammar for blackness in Canada that
can be located at the interstices of various histories of migration” (Darias, 78). Aminata, protagonist of
Some One knows My Name embodies the black victims of slave trade. As a narrator of the novel she
describes her journey as an eleven-year-old child, abducted from Bayo, one of the villages in West Africa
where she belongs to. Captivated slaves from many villages are kept in coffle and made walk in thousands
of miles crossing borders on point of no return. The journey of no return at a point of time starts from Africa
to South Carolina plantation, New York, Nova Scotia, Sierra Leone and finally ends in London where she
THE PEN THAT SHEDS BLOOD: A POINT OF NO RETURN 396
emerges as a social activist in abolishing slave trade. Hill reconfigures the history of the black also enables
his readers to rethink the specters of Atlantic by scrutinizing its dark past. In doing so, it sheds light on what
Walcott believes in writing the Canadian blackness that “something important does happen here” (27).
This emphasis on Canadian blackness digs up a silenced and suppressed black history. The digging up of
the past brings the truth into light as Nehl explains:
Those black refugees who migrated to Nova Scotia, hoping to start a new life as free
women and men, soon became bitterly disillusioned: Upon arriving in Canada, they were
forced to realize that only a few of them “received the promised land grants, and the plots
turned out to be substantially smaller than the parcels awarded to white Loyalists.
Moreover, in the British colony, they were not allowed to vote, faced racial segregation and
were exposed to anti-black violence. For instance, in July 1784, a mob of white disbanded
soldiers attacked the black community of Birchtown, destroying several houses. In other
words, for black women and men who had escaped American slavery, Nova Scotia was
anything but a promised land. The fact that there was “a small number of slaves in the
province served yet one more painful reminder that for His Majesty's government, their
liberation had been but a means to a military end, not a moral goal in itself. (143)
Hill entitles and comforts the view of the history of the slavery inSome One Knows My Name that
partakes contemporary consultation on African diaspora. Hills explores the meaning of home coming and
agonies of black women who have been kidnapped like Aminata who is sold into slavery in America and
reduced in to worse than inanimate thing.
In London in 1802, having been separated from her lovable parents Aminata has a forced
deportation from Africa. Her reminiscence of her childhood days before enslavement contrives her home
land as a location of firmness and consolation and she says, “in those days, I felt free and happy, and the
very idea of safety never intruded on my thoughts” (11). Hill deliberately subsumes several segments into
his text Some One Knows My Name.
Hill's Some One Knows My Name infiltrates into a productive argument with current debate on the
African diaspora pirouetting throughout the concerns of home, displacement, homecoming of all the
diasporic elements. Hill explores the questions what is home coming? Is it possible to return after having
left? Can one get back to home land after forced enslavement? examining the complicated relationship
between genesis and direction leading the reader's attention into cruel journey of Aminata who wants to
return to her ancestor's land.
While the writers like Toni Morrison and Hartman explores the real face of slavery, Hill travels
further in the historical canon to bring out the truth in the transatlantic slave trade that
George Elliott Clarke argues that because African-Canadian history is ignored in Canada,
African-Canadian writers act as historians to address gaps in the historical record. By
addressing a number of such gaps, including the Canadian history of slavery, the slave
experience generally, and the female slave experience in particular, Hill, like Toni
Morrison, explores how fiction can be a source of truth. Through the voice of Aminata
Diallo, the history of slavery is rememoried and rewoven into the fabric of the Canadian
historical record, and Hill's novel is thus part of a larger tradition that includes Afua
Cooper's The Hanging of Angélique: The Untold Story of Canadian Slavery and the
Burning of Old Montréal. Hill uses a number of discursive strategies to invest his
protagonist with agency, and the story of Aminata addresses some of the strategic silences
that were characteristic of the traditional slave narrative genre. With this novel, then, Hill
undermines Canadian exceptionalism when it comes to slavery and asserts Canada's
position in the historical and cultural space of what Paul Gilroy calls the Black Atlantic.

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THE PEN THAT SHEDS BLOOD: A POINT OF NO RETURN 397
(Duff, Christine)
Hill puts forth in opposition to disinfected manifestation of Canada's history that ignores its role in
the history of slavery through the pivot of Aminata's encounter of disillusionment, dissociation and anti-
black inhuman attack the black faced in Nova Scotia. Obviously, Lawrence Hill not only does want to
narrate the story that explains cruelty of slavery but also to make his readers aware about the darkest pages
of the modern western history. Writing fiction demands real life experiences. Hill, without effort
amalgamates historical and fictional slave narratives both of which engross a symbiotic sway. To fulfil a
scope of authenticity in representations, Hill employs the sub structural recital of slavery which replaces
chronicle and transfigures the features of slave narrative structure. He discloses, “my responsibility to
history is to project it honestly, meaning to project it in a way that's faithful to my intellectual
understanding of the time, places and conditions in which African people were living” (Sagawa 316). Hill
defines his assignment to reshape history by applying fiction that sheds not the words but the blood of
forced migrants as fairly as possible.

Works Cited
Hill, Lawrence. Some One Knows My Name. New York: Norton,2008. Print
Sagawa, Jessie. “Projecting History Honestly: An Interview with Lawrence Hill.” Studies in Canadian
Literature/Études enlittératurecanadienne 33.1 (2008).Print

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115
SOCIAL INEQUALITIES IN R. K. NARAYAN'S SWAMI AND FRIENDS

Ms. M. Vijayavalli, Assistant Professor, Vidhya Sagar Women's College, Chengalpat

Abstract:
Social inequality is the existence of unequal opportunities and rewards for different social
positions or statuses within a group or society. Its inequalities, problems and privations have produced
some of the best writing in Indo-Anglian fiction. This article uses the term “social inequalities” to discuss
the workings of time in R.K. Narayan's Swami and Friends. Narayan typically portrays the peculiarities of
human relationships and the ironies of Indian daily life, in which modern urban existence clashes with
ancient tradition. The novel depicts a series of juvenile incidents and experiences of Swami while growing
up in the fictional town of Malgudi. Swami and Friends is the story of a 10 year old boy, growing up during
this particular time, his innocence, wonder, mischief and growing pains. He is a student at Albert Mission
School, a school established by the British which gives importance to Christianity, English literature and
education. His life is dramatically changed when Rajam - a symbol of colonial super power, joins the
school and he and Rajam become friends. Like most Indian writers, Narayan's writing too revolves around
the nuances of the Indian family and society. This paper attempts to discuss issues like social inequality
through the narrative of Swami and friends.

Keywords: Social inequalities, irony, culture and tradition, childhood, Malgudi.

Man is fundamentally a social animal and the mutual dealings afford to his survival. In order to
achieve social harmony and peace in life, it is absolutely essential to pay attention to human relationship.
At any time the Indian Social scenery has an infinite idea to offer, it is inequalities, troubles, difficulties,
neediness and deprivation have acquired some of the sensible writing in Indo-Anglican innovative fables
and fictions. In twentieth century, there were numerous unstable situations in the society of India. It was
parted into castes and sub castes. Narayan constantly shows the social values, norms and more which have
been in existence and still continue to play a major role in shaping the lives of Hindu people. Anyone who
posed to be a Sadhu or Sanyasi instantly honoured by the public. Amidst the Sadhus there were few
wicked first water. The positions of the Hindu women were unfavourable during those days. There were
child marriage and other unequal marriages. In fact, the society doesn't make man but man makes the
society and it is the man who has yielded such evils in the society.
R.K. Narayan is a writer of social novels. He has a vision on South Indians who are basically
traditional Hindu society which he virtualized in most of his novels and stories with the lower middle class
common man as his base. In each and every Narayan's novels, the common man's habitual life is distressed
or troubled by the arrival of outsider into the fictional place, Malgudi. R.K.Narayan presents the skill of
great narrator and his strength as an artist was in his sound management of narrative. He is a scrupulous
artist and socio economic anxiety is his major concern. He has aesthetic approach inspite of his social
preferences which is crystal clear in his novel Swami and Friends.
The novel attempts to identify some of the cross cultural stresses and problems that students and
young householders face living in colonial Malgudi and to examine the ways of education, children were
getting in the Missionary Schools. Swami is able to assume the role of guru in relation to his grandmother
because his connection with the world of the English Mission School has imparted to him a type of
SOCIAL INEQUALITIES IN R. K. NARAYAN'S SWAMI AND FRIENDS 399
nontraditional knowledge that owing to historical and cultural factors has been denied to his grandmother.
Swami's varied experiences with his friends at Albert Mission School have been rendered realistically. His
world comprises Somu, Samuel, Mani, and Sankar.
The various cultures seek to define cultural constructs and legitimate a specific view of reality.
Teacher and others interested in education must come to understand how the dominant culture functions at
all levels of schooling to disconfirm the cultural experiences of innocent children. One of the most
important and perhaps the most painful incident from Swami's point of view is his clash with the scripture
teacher Ebenezar. Ebenezar is presented as a type of fire-eating proselyte. He is unrealistic as a character
and has the aggressively anti Hindu attitude. Ebenezar makes no bones about expressing his strong
aversion to Hinduism: tears rolled down Ebenezar's cheeks when he pictured Jesus before him. Next
moment his face become purple with anger carries his prejudices against the Hindu religion in the class-
room and uses derogatory terms for the Hindu-gods:
“Oh wretched idiots! the teacher said, clinching his fist, 'Why do you worship dirty, lifeless,
wooden idols and stone images? Can they talk? No. Can they see? No. Why? Because they have no life.
What did your Gods do when Mohammed of Gazani smashed them to pieces, trod upon them, and
constructed out the steps for his history?” (Swami and Friends, 5)
Swami attempts to neutralize his teacher's indictment by telling him that Christ wouldn't have been
crucified if he had not been unrighteous and that he should in any case have consumed meat and alcohol.
Being a Hindu and a Brahmin, Swami finds it literally impossible to conceptualize a God who “eats flesh
and fish and drinks wine... It was inconceivable to him that a God should be a non-vegetarian.” (Swami and
Friends, 4)
It confuses children; their mind is not mature enough to understand the complexities of the world
and life. Through Swami and Friends, Narayan clearly demonstrates how in the orthodox society of
Malgudi which is mainly inhabited by middle class people, tradition holds its way over the individual
consciousness through the institutions of education, family and religion. Such inspiring things stir in them
a desire to break the bonds of habitual living and new changes whip up their passion to embrace the life of
complete freedom. Swami faces problems from school to school.
Narayan's success as a writer emerges from his portrayal of a unique culture and at the same time a
subtle criticism of the alien political power. In spite of Indian culture and values of life and the fast
changing new European mode of life, yet the woman plays a secondary role to the man. Swami's mother,
who appears only for a few times in the novel is shown as a homely, unlettered housewife with the only
purpose in life to bring up her children and to sub serve piously the interests of all the family members.
Beyond this, she has no other important role to play in family. The second female character in the novel is
Swami's grandmother. She is an aged, illiterate, kind-hearted, helpless and non-descript archetypal
grandmother. Nobody seems to bother about her when she is sick of stomach-ache. There seems to exist
no communication bond between her daughter-in-law and her son. Like a traditional grandmother in a
family, she is of use only to her grandchild, Swami during his leisure time. Swami feels easier and is more
communicative in his granny's company than in his mother's. Both the granny and mother are tradition
bound. They belong to the same class and confine themselves to the four walls of the house. Both of them
are satisfied with their roe of homely, submissive, servile household lady. They represent the age-old
traditional woman of the Indian middle-class family.
Narayan's characters are living creatures. They think and feel like common people. We come
across such characters every day in our life. Time cannot wither them nor can custom stale their variety.
They have universal appeal. It is in this sense that R. K. Narayan gives them universal touch with his
immense power of imagination and understanding of human nature. His art is a curious blend of Western
methods and Eastern notion. The Indianness of Narayan is seen in various ways of life.

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Malgudi's new police superintendent's son Rajam was a new comer. He dressed very well. He was
the only boy in the class who wore socks and shoes, fir cap and tie and a wonderful coat and snickers. He
spoke very good English, exactly like a European that few in the school could make out what he said.
When Rajam enters in the school other students get impressed with him. They sometimes envy Rajam and
sometimes befriend him. This shows how normal order of Malgudi residents changes. The normal order
is disturbed only temporally and by the end we see the usual order established once again and life is going
on as usual for all practical purposes. Rajam brought up in a different atmosphere than that of his fellow
classmates. Rajam wanted to be better than the rest, to be successful to impress and to lead. Rajam was the
symbol of that 'class of people' the British colonizer bred, who invariably became alien and even
contemptuous to their very own culture. Through this we can identify some of the cross-cultural stresses
and problems that students and young householders face living in colonial Malgudi. Swami's life changes
when Rajam enters in his life. Swami and Rajam confound a cricket team together naming it M.C.C.
(Malgudi Cricket Club). Swami misses several practices due to heavy homework load and Rajam threatens
him to never speak to him again if he missed their match with the other team. But Swami misses that match
too and ruins his friendship with Rajam.
The novel, first intended for a very young audience, later expanded into a universal one, for its
simple narrative and depiction of colonial India. The ending of the novel is very dark in many ways. Swami
was dismissed from the Board High School. Now that he had nowhere to go, he remembered his home, a
place which contained his father, a stern, stubborn father and that tyrant of headmaster that forced him to
leave Malgudi. Swami, despite his deep desire to realize his personal ambitions cannot afford to live in
isolation for long. His disregard of tradition, cultural values and educational institutions is temporary.
Having failed in his mission, he returns to the old way of life with better understanding. We teach children
that love, faith and friendship are the most important things in life but when the time comes to apply them
in reality, priorities change. There is a vast spectrum of life that finds expression in his novel. He is superb
in delineation of characters. Every character is realistic and convincing. They are made of flesh and blood
right from his first to the last in the novel, Swami and Friends. To conclude, assessment of Narayan's
vision art and genius, let us quote the words of Poul and Verghese: “Narayan as a novelist is also a
commentator on the broad tendencies of a society, age and vision of life. He follows the tradition of story
telling as it existed is ancient India, but adopts his format and style from the West.” There is no better yard-
stick to measure the culture of a nation than list literature which is an expression of society. The novelist in
modern India whether in English or in regional languages is so much a part of scorn and his own cultural
pattern and reflects her image. The life portrayal in the novel is accurate in its description of the social
inequalities - the uprising, the reverence the natives had for their conqueror, together with varied elements
that have become one, such as cricket and education.

Work Cited
Narayan, R.K. Swami and Friends.Mysore: Indian Thought Publication, 1971. Print.
Narayan R.K. Swami and Friends. East Lansing: The Michigan State College Press, 1954. Print. 30 Jan
2019 <http://www.stud.uni-goettingen.de/~s098642/narayan.htm>
Verghese C. Paul, Problems of Indian Novelist in English, (The Banasthali Patrika1969), p.7. 2Feb2019
<http://shodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in/bitstream/10603/49520/6/06_chapter-2.pdf>
<http://shodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in/bitstream/10603/111118/7/chapter%206.pdf>
---. My Days.Mysore: Indian Thought Publication, 1979. Print.
T B Macaulay's Minute on Education, which he submitted to the Parliament, on the 2nd of February 1835.
<http://www.english.ucsb.edu/faculty/rraley/research/english/macaulay.html>

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116
SURVIVAL OF MAYA ANGELOU IN THE HEART OF A WOMAN

G. Godwin, Ph.D Research Scholar, A.V.V.M Sri Pushpam College, Poondi, Thanjavur

Abstract:
The history of African-American autobiography is long and full. In America in the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries, thousands of former slaves set down the history of their escape from bondage of
discrimination into freedom in writing which came to be called “slave narratives” and to be identified as
an independent literary genre. However, the genre was further expanded by the addition of over 2,000 oral
narratives. The horrors of slavery overshadow even their early memories of their beautiful African
homeland and gracious tribal life. Autobiography holds a deep fascination for people of all races, sexes
and ages. The success of this genre is attributed to curiosity about each other's lives. The Heart of a
Woman, the fourth in the autobiographical series gives an account of Maya Angelou's son and his youth,
though every now and then, it goes back to her childhood. Though the main focus is on the personal life,
this work is political too, as it is set against the political upsurge, racial discrimination and struggles to
survive of African-Americans between 1957 and 1962. Angelou herself is involved in rising Civil Rights
Movement and the African liberation struggle. On the personal level, Angelou and her son face a condition
of displacement both familial and geographical. One of the most important theme of this volume is
motherhood, as Angelou continues to raise her teenage son. This book ends with Angelou's son leaving for
college. Angelou hopefully looking forward to newfound independence and freedom.

Keywords: Discrimination, Displacement, Struggles, Survival.

Survival in the United States of America is a not gratified one for African-Americans for many
decades. Slavery has been by far, the most awful part of the American culture. It has been a disgraceful and
remarkable practice that had its consequences in the very fabric of American culture. It deprived the
African American people of their past, their roots and their rich tradition. As a result of slavery, the African
Americans were forced to dwell in positions as second class citizens and often disadvantaged of their
fundamental rights.
The later 20th century became more difficult part in the history of African-Americans for survival in
their own well developed country. They have found some new ways to lead their protests towards the
dominated. The year 1960 has played an important role in their history, because, in these decades many
leaders have come and started to protest for their rights. They have found new methods like the usages of
music, dance, songs, poems, writing articles and some new ideas to raise their voice for themselves. Martin
Luther King Jr, James Baldwin, Malcolm X are the most important leaders in these years.
Maya Angelou identifies with slavery and verifies its power in her life and works, her concept of
truth and black womanhood s transformed by its contemporary content. The specific truth that Angelou
tells is the truth about the lives of black women and their survival in America. Maya Angelou is an ordinary
woman with simple objectives in life; she faced many downfalls, passed through trying circumstances,
reached numerous dead ends in life; yet she turned into an amazing woman. Her life story becomes
important not only for the black world, but for all men and women both for its motivating and instructional
values.
The Heart of a Woman, the fourth autobiographical instalment which gives an account of her son's
SURVIVAL OF MAYA ANGELOU IN THE HEART OF A WOMAN 402
youth, though every now and then, it goes back to her childhood. One of the most important themes of this
volume is motherhood, as she continues to educate her teenage son. This work begins in Harlem in 1957
where Angelou joins the Harlem Writers Guild. It traces her growing consciousness as a woman, and also
the change in the delineations of Black people's struggle, which has now turn out to be an international
issue. In this volume, Angelou continues her account of her son's youth and, in the process repeatedly
return to the story of her childhood. The references to her childhood serve partly to create a textual link for
readers who might be unacquainted with the earlier volumes and partly to emphasize the suggestive
similarities between her childhood and her son's burden too.
Angelou places the focus upon herself and uses the autobiographical form to determine how the
Civil Rights Movement influenced her. In a brief flashback in the second chapter, she reminds us of the
displacement that characterized her youth and links this part of her past with her son's present attitude.
When Guy is fourteen, Angelou decides to move to New York for make their livelihoods best. She does not
bring Gut to the East until she has found a place for them to live, and when he arrives after a one-month of
separation, he initially struggles her attempts to make a new home for themselves:
The air between us [Angelou and Guy] was burdened with his aloof of scorn. I understood him too
well. When I was three my parents divorced in Long Beach, California, and sent me and my four-year old
brother, unescorted, to our paternal grandmother, we wore wrist tags which informed anyone concerned
that we were Marguerite and Bailey Johnson, en route to Mrs. Annie Henderson in Stamps, Arkansas.
Except for disastrous and mercifully brief encounters with each of them when I was seven, we didn't see
our parents again until I was thirteen. (HW 45)
The New York City has taught a lot of lessons to Angelou and her son Guy too. She already knows
well about the difficulties of surviving in these metropolitan cities. There she begins to work as the
Northern coordinator of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and assigns most of her
time to raising funds, improving membership and organising volunteer labour, both in the workplace and
in the neighbourhoods. Throughout this volume, she expands her own narrative by including sketches
about well-known entertainers and political figures. Dr. Martin Luther King's arrival at her SCLC office
and pays his attention during her tenure is a wonderful incident in this volume.
Angelou and Guy have arrived the New York City in the year 1959, this period is difficult for the
young boy Guy, because Angelou is forced to protect him from a gang leader. In one hand this incident
makes them to feel the survival is too difficult even in the well-developed city too. But, on the other hand
she meets many important African-American artists and writers, including James Baldwin, who would
become her advisor. She grows into a published writer for the first time.
It is highlighted by the fact that when Guy gets in trouble with the gang Angelou is in Chicago on a
singing engagement. John Killens, who is watching over him while she is away, phones from Brooklyn to
inform her that “Maya?” John Killens' voice was a spike, pinning me in place. “There's been some trouble”
(92). Maya worried a lot about her son Guy, when she comes to know about the dangerous gang, it shows
her love towards her son Guy.
“The boys are a gang called the Savages. They killed a boy last month, and as he lay in the funeral home, the
Savages went in and stabbed the body thirty five times.” (p.no: 96)
These tragic incidents make Angelou to become more politicized and develops a new logic of
Black identity. She sees herself as a social and cultural historian of her time, and of the civil rights and
Black literary movement of the late 1950s and early 1960s. She becomes more attracted to the causes of
Black revolutionaries in the US and in Africa, to the point of entering into a relationship with significant
militant, and becomes more devoted to activism. Angelou's contributions to civil rights as a fundraiser and
SCLC organizer were successful and eminently effective to survive.
But, unfortunately, in chapter Eleven, Maya narrates a tragic incident, a freedom fighter and a good

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SURVIVAL OF MAYA ANGELOU IN THE HEART OF A WOMAN 403
supporter for African Americans, named as Lumumba was killed, this shown us the racism was at the peak
condition. CAWAH has taken a vital role in protesting against the White domination.“We are members of
CAWAH. Cultural Association for Women of African Heritage. We have learned that our brother,
Lumumba, has been killed in the Congo.” (p. no: 186)
In the meantime, Maya searched many places to get a fine job, finally, she got a job as a journalist &
reporter in Arab Observer magazine a Cairo-based news journal with an international scope by the help of
her friend David. She believed that her job may helpful to her personal life and for to support for the
protesting. Her son Guy was also finds a part-time job, “Guy had found a part-time job in a bakery nearby,
and dawns found him showering and dressing,…” (p.no: 78)
Motherhood is also a theme throughout Angelou's autobiographies, it becomes more difficult in
The Heart of a Woman. Although Guy struggles with developmentally appropriate process of adolescent
separation from his mother, they remain close. Many years of experience as a mother, and her success as a
writer, actress and political activist enable Angelou to behave more competently and with more maturity,
professionally and as a mother. Her self-possession becomes a major part of her personality. Her past
conflict between her professional and personal lives are resolved, and she fulfils her promise to Guy she
made to him at the end of her previous autobiography that they would never be separated again. Angelou
resolves this conflict by subordinating her needs to Guy.
Guy experiences racial discrimination from the staff of the white school he is attending. He is
accused of using foul language in front of some girls on the school bus. When Angelou questions him, she
learns that Guy rather tactlessly told them where babies came from. That created problem for him in the
school. Maya who visits the school to discuss the problem, is once again confronted with racist attitude; the
staff member told that “we do not allow Negro boys to use foul language in front of our girls” (p.no 19). The
teacher's attitude was a negative impact on Guy.
Maya Angelou is thrown back and forth throughout her life for her survival and it also represents self,
family and community displacement too. Maya Angelou calls displacement the most important loss in her
childhood, because she is separated from her mother and father at the age of three and never fully regains a
sense of security and belonging. In the final chapters of this volume, Guy become more intelligent, well
spoken, polite, ambitious and devoted to the same cause his mother worked so hard for in order to eradicate
racism worldwide and to survive with others equally.
In this work, Angelou describes her meeting with Vuzmusi Make, an African diplomat, his impact
on her finally their marriage. Make is able to awaken in African Americans an awareness of the self-
declamatory role they had to take. He makes Maya Angelou realise that African Americans are like whites,
but due to their backgrounds they react differently. When the whites refuse to treat African Americans as
humans, it results in racism. Make speaks of African Americans, who were only a tenth of the United States
population, standing up and fighting for their rights. Their marriage dissolves after some months, despite
Angelou's efforts to contribute to their financial assets by working as editor of the Arab Observer. He tells
her that the spirit of Africa lives most in the coloured Americans. In Maya, Make found:
The flesh of his youthful dream. [She] would bring to him the vitality of jaaz and the endurance of a
people who had survived three hundred and fifty years of slavery. With [her] in his bed he would challenge
the loneliness of exile. With [her] courage added to his own, he would succeed in bringing the ignominious
white rule in South Africa to an end. (p.no: 123)
This African American ends with Angelou's son Guy leaving for college, both Angelou and Guy
positively expecting for freedom and independence in their nation. Here Angelou presents herself as a
matured individual. She is no longer a threatened Southern child, no longer a deluded woman or a fledgling
dancer, she is in the position to offer direction to black women and men to survive the country
optimistically. This autobiography makes many differences to her from the male narrators.

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Works Cited
Angelou, Maya. The Heart of a Woman. New York: Random House, 1981.Print.
Draper, James P. Contemporary Literary Criticism. Washington, D.C: Gale Research Inc, 1993. Print
Lupton, Mary Jane. Maya Angelou: A Critical Companion. Westport's Connecticut: Greenwood Press,
1988. Print
McPherson, Dolly A. Order out of Chaos: The Autobiographical works of Maya Angelou. New York: Peter
Lang, 1990. Print.

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117
REFUGEE, RESETTLEMENT AND REMINISCENCES: A STUDY ON THE
ETHNOGRAPHIC MEMOIR OF NUJEEN MUSTAFA WITH CHRISTINA LAMB IN
NUJEEN: ONE GIRL'S INCREDIBLE JOURNEY FROM WAR- TORN SYRIA IN A
WHEELCHAIR

S. Jeyasiba Ponmani, II-MA, PSGR Krishnammal College for Women, Coimbatore

Dr. M. Angeline, Asst. Prof., PSGR Krishnammal College for Women, Coimbatore

Abstract:
Literature sometimes is the idiosyncratic outlook of a string of events depicted by the author.
Representation of a rational or philosophical point of view or a mere fabrication of the imagination,
literature creates a path for the noble pursuit of life and humanity through the insight of another person.
Thus literature facilitates the knack to objectively look at the bigger picture and comprehend different
perspectives. Syria as seen through the ethnographic memoir of Nujeen Mustafa has become an example of
the civilisation being betrayed by humanity and also one could view the resilience of the people. Is this
condition not the prophecy of an apocalypse? The aim of this paper is to study the ethnographic memoir of
Christina Lamb with Nujeen Mustafa in Nujeen: One Girl's Incredible Journey from War- Torn Syria in a
Wheelchair by applying the Kinetic Model of Refugee Theory by Egon F. Kunz to understand the exile and
st
resettlement pattern of the people caught up in what has become one of the greatest tragedies of the 21
century where it seems the only victor is death.

Key Words: Syria, Refugees. Ethnographic Memoir, Home, Protest, Rebellion, Refugee, Resettlement,
Reminiscences.

Literature like many art forms nest in expressionism. Shaping itself through various mediums like
poetry, prose, fiction, biography, memoir, journal and travelogue, literature since times immemorial has
always been about taking a thought and converting it into a tangible object that can be interpreted by others.
Literature sometimes is the idiosyncratic outlook of a string of events depicted by the author.
Representation of a rational or philosophical point of view or a mere fabrication of the imagination,
literature creates a path for the noble pursuit of life and humanity through the insight of another person.
Thus literature facilitates the knack to objectively look at the bigger picture and comprehend different
perspectives.
'Third World' is often used to describe the developing countries of Africa, Asia, Latin America and
Oceania. Syria is one of the Third World countries. The Third World writing reveals several thematic and
stylistic alterations like a shift from realism to magic realism, from colonial subjection to postcolonial
freedom, from homogeneous and centralised cultures to decentered multicultural societies, a transition
from the order of law to disorder, guerrilla warfare, a conversion from nationalism to terrorism both within
the nation, state and cross border terrorism. The Third World writing exists at the interface of different
literary and cultural traditions that are hybrid and transcultural. These writings are concerned with several
themes criss-crossing with one another like history, language, oral and scribal traditions, nation and
nationalism, gender, class- caste politics, migration and cultural hybridity. The paramount elements of the
social or the political protest writing are power and control, oppression, rebellion, power and ethnicity,
gender politics, power of nations and the power of organized religion. Stringent social structure,
REFUGEE, RESETTLEMENT AND REMINISCENCES: A STUDY ON THE ETHNOGRAPHIC MEMOIR OF NUJEEN MUSTAFA WITH .... 406
domination through fear and violence, ritual execution, categorisation, power hierarchy structure, corrupt
totalitarian regime, attempt to escape, disobeying rules, societal segregation of different religious groups
and the discrimination faced by them, negative reaction to female sexuality, challenging societal
expectations, seeing a balanced argument from a range of women and men, extremist views and narrator as
an emergent writer are a few major ideas that govern the protest writings and thus the setting contextualises
the novel, uses real life events to shape the novel and suggests the new government has created a regime
and setting at mercy from different countries, the power of these places affects the general mood of the
work of art.
A refugee is a dislocated individual who has been forced to cross national boundaries and who
cannot return home safely. Such a person may be called an asylum seeker until granted refugee status by
the contracting state or the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) if they formally
make a claim for asylum. The global community is currently in the midst of a refugee crisis unlike anything
seen since World War II. The Syrian Civil War has displaced millions, forcing nearly five million civilians
to flee the war-torn country and leaving millions more adrift within its border. The refugee experience is a
well-documented and often heartbreaking one. Given the ongoing crisis and the prevalence of refugees as
a part of an ongoing national conversation, the need for more compassion and empathy than ever can be
understood through the refugee writings which are the heart-touching records of the refugee experience
which accurately offers more insight and understanding.
An ethnographic memoir is a nonfiction text that usually has a first person or personal narrative and
recounts the past experience of the individual who is a representative of a particular socio-cultural group.
Syria is a country in Western Asia with Lebanon, Turkey, Iraq, Jordan and Israel as its neighbours.
The capital of Syria is Damascus. The religious groups include Islam, Christianity and Druze. The Sunni
Muslims form the majority in Syria and the Shia are the minority in Muslim sect. Syria has been involved
in the civil war since 2011 with the rising of the Arab Spring Movement. The civil war is between President
Bashar-al-Assad, his Syrian Army and the Free Army which consist of various groups of people who are in
opposition with the rule of Bashar-al-Assad. They are mostly called the rebel group. It should be noted that
there were many foreign interventions also in the civil war.
The flight and the settlement patterns of most of the refugees according to Egon F. Kunz as
discussed in his kinetic model of refugee theory shows two types of displacement. Anticipatory refugees
anticipate danger prior and thus follow an orderly departure even before the crisis arises. Acute refugee
movements are the reaction to an inordinate pressure where people are forced to flee their homeland on an
acute span of notice. In 1981, Kunz expanded his refugee theory to include three other ideas. The majority-
identified refugees are usually the rebels who have opposed any social or political events in their home
country. Event related refugees are those who get displaced because of the discrimination directed against
the particular group to which they belong. Those who flee their home country because of personal reasons
are the self-alienated refugees. The treatment of the host country to the refugee applications varies based
on the categories to which they belong. Applying this kinetic model of refugee theory Nujeen Mustafa falls
under acute refugee category. This division directly reflects on their take on leaving their homes and
seeking asylum elsewhere.
The inspiring true story of the significant young hero, Nujeen Mustafa, a sixteen year old, born
with cerebral palsy and her irking journey from the war torn Syria to Germany in a wheelchair, as narrated
in the ethnographic memoir Nujeen: One Girl's Incredible Journey from War- Torn Syria in a Wheelchair
is an unanticipated yarn of fortitude, grit and hope that adds another lens to the view of the greatest
humanitarian issues of our time, the Syrian refugee crisis. Nujeen embarked on this arduous trek to safety
and new life. The gruelling sixteen month odyssey by foot, boat and bus took her across Turkey and the
Mediterranean to Greece, through Macedonia to Serbia and Hungary and finally to Germany. Nujeen's

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extraordinary optimism never flickered amidst the spiteful journey of miles; this book is a powerful and
groundbreaking memoir that gives distinctive voice to the Syrian refugee crisis.
Living in Aleppo within the walls of her house because of her cerebral palsy which made Nujeen
Mustafa to be bound to wheel chair, her optimistic take on life has never been crippled. Even while the
conditions inside Syria started getting worse and being particularly very sure that her escape from Syria in
wheelchair is a difficult one, Nujeen Mustafa never allowed her optimism to flicker. “My favourite saying
is 'Laugh as long as you breathe, love as long as you live,' and I don't see why anyone would want to wallow
in misery when there is such a beautiful world out there. It's is one of my Nujeen principles. Another one is I
don't believe anyone is born evil, even Assad” (Mustafa 31).
Sitting in the balcony of her room which was her only way to be connected to the outside world,
Nujeen witnessed the uprising of the civil war in Syria. Talking about her trek to new life which covered
3593 miles and cost around 5045 Euros for Nujeen Mustafa and her sister Nasrine who accompanied her
on this inevitable journey, Nujeen Mustafa becomes the voice of plight of people after they leave their
homeland. The description of Nujeen Mustafa during their passing from Slovenia to Austria during 20th to
st
21 September 2015 gives a real account of the predicament of the refugees. Her account of the refugee
camp in Slovenia, the numbering of the refugees is compared by her with the numbering of the Jews by the
Nazis.
The sense of deceiving that a refugee feels after fleeing the homeland was experienced by Nujeen
Mustafa. She in order to explain her inner thoughts compares it to the movie The Sound of Music. Almost
near to Germany, the green meadows that passed through them made Nujeen Mustafa think of The Sound
of Music and Maria skipping across them in her governess pinafores. Nujeen imagined Maria as she was in
the film and felt annoyed because she had read the book The Story of the Trapp Family Singers, the book of
the real Maria von Trapp and contemplates on how the movie ruined it:
By the way, I know the names of all the real children in The Sound of Music the oldest was a
boy called Rupert, not a girl called Liesl and there were ten of them and not seven. Also
Captain von Trapp wasn't stern like in the movie, and he played the violin not the guitar, and
he played the violin not the guitar. It's like Syria and Assad, the way we are always being
deceived by people at the top. (Mustafa 211)
The crossing from Behram to Lesbos on Wednesday, 2nd September 2015 which Nujeen calls as the
route of death, the crossing of this Turkish border was made in a dingy across Mediterranean sea was a
dangerous one as being in the wheel chair a small tear in the fabric of the dingy because of the wheelchair
catching would have capsized or a large wave could turn the boat over at any moment. A large wave have
turned the boat over of a Syrian family who made the crossing on the very same day as Nujeen and her
sister Nasrine which included the family of Abdullah Kurdi, a barber and his wife Rehanna and their two
little boys, five year old Ghalib and three year old Aylan. Everyone died of drowning except Abdullah
Kurdi. Aylan Kurdi, a small boy washed away on the shores of Mediterranean Sea, dead, made the
headlines on newspaper a few years back, and Nujeen tells the story of that lifeless body, Aylan Kurdi who
never got to know what life was but he had a story, the story of how he died, “He's an innocent boy, he's in
heaven and happy now” (Mustafa 148).
The journey of 3563 miles which began on 27th July 2012 for Nujeen Mustafa and her sister Nasrine
nd
came to a victorious end on 22 September 2015 when they finally reached Germany. Nujeen was reunited
with her brother Bland who was already settled in Germany. Then on 15th October 2015 Nujeen reached
Wesseling by minibus where she settled in her new home with her sister and brother. Although in her new
home, Nujeen also talks about the feeling of foreigners in the foreign land. She talks about the alienation
that hit her out of nowhere as the new land promised new life like her name.
Nobody leaves their home without a reason. Sometimes I wake in the middle of the night

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with nightmares about the bombing and reach for my mum and she is not there and I feel
sad. But after two or three minutes I think Nujeen, you are still alive and far from bombing,
everything is OK. Here in Germany, I feel safe. You can go for a walk and don't expect to be
dead by morning. There's no bombing, no tanks, no army, no Daesh on the street. (Mustafa
231)
Nujeen had accepted her displacement and her optimism proved her eagerness for new life like
many other refugees who dreamed of a proper home and a peaceful life. “Since leaving Aleppo, we had
travelled more than 3,500 miles across nine countries from war to peace-a-journey to new life, like my
name” (Mustafa 215).
Nujeen Mustafa is happy that she is finally able to attend school and lead a normal life. Although
she misses her parents who are in Gaziantep and cannot travel to Germany as they are old, her everyday
routine of new life keeps her busy. Yet Nujeen sometimes misses the familiarity and everything turns blue.
“I miss flatbread and still find it odd that everyone eats with a knife and fork instead of their hands. I miss
the familiarity of Syria here I'm not familiar with anything and always worry that some of my behaviour
might give the wrong impression even though it is normal in my country” (Mustafa 234).
Although as the refugees they found a new home, Nujeen Mustafa's experience shows how they are
not always welcomed with open heart by the citizens of the host country. Nujeen talks about one major
incident where for the first time she experienced the indifference in Germany. Her voice represents the
plight of many refugees who try to blend with their new home crowd. Their first home in Germany before
moving to a permanent settlement was the ground floor of a house. The only black cloud over the new
home was that the people in the upstairs did not like them. They are a middle aged German couple with a
grown up son and as soon as Nujeen moved in with her two sisters Nasrine and Nahda along with her
children the German couple complained to Social Services asking them why they have refugees
downstairs. Once Nahda's children were playing and the woman came out screaming and called the police.
Nujeen also makes a point that not everyone are like that and gives some instance of people being
friendly to them. She tells Germans were very friendly and welcoming almost like they want to make up for
the Second World War. She tells how on one particular outing to by bus to the nearby town of Bruḧ l were
there is a big yellow palace with ornamental gardens with so many fountains and lake, while they walked
around the lake, people smiled and even the ducks seemed to welcome us. She recalls a rejoicing moment
when during Christmas two people knocked at their door and handed out gifts. On return from a doctors'
appointment Nujeen and Nasrine met one of their neighbours down the street who handed Nujeen a bag
full of chocolates. Nujeen started liking her new home and showed great attachment to her new country
Germany.
“Less than two weeks after we moved into the house, Shiar came over and we watched football on his
laptop just as we used to. The match was France Vs Germany in Paris and we supported Germany as our
new country against our old occupier, but unfortunately they lost 2-0” (Mustafa 236-237).
The change of new place and acquiring a new home had also impacted the way Nujeen looked at
independence. Nujeen was enrolled in the school for differently able children, LVR- Christophorusschule,
and it was her first step towards being independent. The main motto of the school is to train them to be
independent as possible. There is no such opportunity for this in Syria and is glad that Germany had such
facility which allowed her to go out to move with people while in Syria she never confronted her disability
to anyone as she neither did go out of move with people. The teachers here teach Nujeen to be realistic and
accept who she was and get on with it. They encourage her to do her works by herself and embrace her
flaws:
Nasrine came to my school one day and she pointed out that some of my classmates are
much more disabled than me yet much more independent. They can move around on their

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own … though Nasrine still get up early to get me ready in the mornings. I still dream that
one day Nasrine will get married and have kids, and I go to college and she help me with
physics. (Mustafa 245-246)
In nostalgic reminiscences, Nujeen indeed misses her life in Syria, her room in the fifth floor in
Aleppo watching TV and her house filled with memories of her family together. She feels like an old
Nujeen is being erased and a new one is generated. “I miss my country, even the house with cats and dogs,
and I miss the way the doors of our homes are always open. I miss the sound of the azaan the call for prayer
that used to rise up to our balcony. I heard that some refugees have even put an app with the call on their
phone. I feel guilty having left my homeland” (Mustafa 267).
Although the recalling of the past brings a guilty feeling to Nujeen, when she recalls the terror
along with the happy memories, she is washed away of her guilt and is happy with her new home and new
life. The sense of longing for the homeland is completely driven away when Nujeen recalls the trauma that
prevails in her once home country Syria. Although she misses her homeland yet it is obvious only during
her time of reminiscence and that does not affect her new life or the daily routine. Thus Nujeen amidst
missing her memories strongly asserts that she does not miss Syria, her once homeland.
I don't miss Syria when I think how difficult my life was. When I remember how scared I
was, how much danger we were in, I think Thank God we are here. Only God knows when
this whole thing will be over, and the Syria we knew will never exist again. I long for the
day when death will become abnormal again for me. (Mustafa 267)
A true insight into the refugee crisis, Nujeen shows the fading of humanity as she strongly asserts the
position of refugees in any country. “And now you have read my story I hope you see I am not just a
number- none of us are.” (Mustafa 268)
Nujeen Mustafa has indeed optimistically accepted her displacement and is happy because she gets
to enjoy a normal life of having proper food to eat, a roof above her, peaceful sleep, proper education,
social life and home. Thus Nujeen becomes the voice of many refugees who wait with hope while crossing
borders to attain a peaceful life. In the end all of us are in search of home.
Syria as seen through the ethnographic memoirs have become the example of the civilization being
betrayed by humanity and also one could view the resilience of the people caught up in what has become
one of the greatest tragedies of the 21st century where it seems the only victor is the death. Is this condition
not the prophecy of an apocalypse? The Memoirs are also an explicit narrative of the psychological
makeup of the ordinary people who are forced into horror and that makes one wonder how a country can
ever recover. Syria has become the host of death and the refugees on an exasperated search for home. It is
just a hard reality that hits everyone as the memoir screams with bombs and cries of the stranded and the
strangled that at the end we all have become refugees to humanity and are in constant search of home.

Works Cited
Kunz, Egon F. “Exile and Resettlement: Refugee Theory.”The International Migration Revie.15. 1/2
(1981): 42-51.Print.
Nujeen, Mustafa and Christina Lamb. Nujeen: One Girl's Incredible Journey from War- Torn Syria in a
Wheelchair. Great Britain: William Collins, 2016.Print.

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118
EXPLORATION OF MAGICAL ELEMENTS IN THE NIGHT CIRCUS BY ERIN
MORGENSTERN

S. Mrinalini, II MA, PSGR Krishnammal College for Women, Peelamedu, Coimbatore

Abstract:
Magical elements account to the underlying meaning and their comprehension according to the
relevance of the present scenario. Single understanding of the unreal world would bring forth the sense of
what magical realism novels are meant for. This would stand incomplete without the intervention of human
brain to comprehend the flip side of seemingly superficial things. This has happened with all the novels
where the elements of magic amount not only to an interesting genre of literature but also to real world and
affairs. The Night Circus is a novel of one such genre. The novel has so many magical acts and incidents
proving the writer's skill in her veryfirst novel, making it a great example for the genre of magical realism.

Keywords: Magical elements, Unreal world, Superficial, Magical realism.

Magical Realism is an art form in which fantastical elements are related as if the events are
common. The magical realists emphasise the fantastic quality of imaginary events. In the world of Magical
realism the narrator speaks of the surreal naturally that it becomes real. There are multiple stylistic traits of
Magical Realism and the key, however, is rejection of subjectivity and defamiliarisation. In fantasy novels,
the created world must have some logic whereas in magical realism, it is not subject to natural or physical
laws.
Erin Morgenstern was raised in Marshfield, Massachusetts and studied theatre and studio art at
Smith College in North Hampton, Massachusetts, graduating in 2000. In addition to writing, she paints,
mostly in acrylics, including the Phantomwise tarot deck. She signed with Inkwell Management in May
2010 after being rejected by thirty literary agents, and sold her debut novel to Doubleday in September
2010. The Night Circus was published in September 2011. She has participated in National novel writing
month since 2003 and first wrote about what would become The Night Circus in November 2005. She was
a candidate for the 2011 Guardian First Book award. The Night Circus won the Alex award from the
American Library Association in 2012. The novel spent seven weeks on the New York bestseller list,
reaching number two on the hardcover fiction list.The book was extremely promoted, often with mention
of Harry Potter or Twilight and also to Neil Gainman's Something Wicked This Way Comes and Jonathan
Strange and Mr Norrell.
The novel is narrated from the point of view of an omniscient, third person narrator. The narrator is
all knowing and can be in many places at once. It is interesting to know that the narrator knows more about
certain characters than the other characters do. The background of The Night Circus is the world as a
whole. The action keeps moving from one place to another according to the likes and dislikes of the owner.
It is set in the late 19th and early 20th century.
The novel has no distinct starting style of its own. The 'Cirque do Reves' is more than a scene of
entertainment. This is the story of two young students of magic who are used by their respective masters. In
this game they are never supposed to escape. Prospero and Alexander, friends and rivals simultaneously,
had made it a practice of setting their respective students against each other. Their current victims are
Prospero's daughter Celia Bowen and Marco Alisdair, an orphan. These two children are thrown into the
EXPLORATION OF MAGICAL ELEMENTS IN THE NIGHT CIRCUS BY ERIN MORGENSTERN 411
ring, bets are placed on them and instructions start pouring in about the mysterious arts. They are not aware
of their opponents and rules of the games are unknown. Both these children possess fantastic abilities, grit
and determination. Slowly these two characters begin to know each other and get attracted. Much to the
dismay and exasperation of the two masters, the game changes from a battlefield to that of a scene of love.
Marco's and Celia's liking for each other becomes dangerous to all the people who are involved. When
Isobel, helper of Marco, discovers that he is in love with Celia, starts working against it. Dangerous and
foulness take hold.
Celia expresses her willingness and wish to kill herself to make him the victor. This is both out of
her love for him and the exhaustion by the competition in equal measure. However, Marco plans to be
inside a cauldron in the circus. This act is supposed to end his life and there by the competition. In the final
scene, before Marco can jump into the cauldron Celia reaches out and pulls him out. After pulling him out
using the tricks taught by her father, she deatomises both herself and Marco making them appear ghost -
like. They are in a world between the present and the afterlife. They enjoy each other's eternal love and live
happily ever after.
In the novel The Night Circus, the earth that is involved by the protagonists should not be confused
with ordinary magic whereby the magician pulls out rabbits out of his hat, bundles of clothes from his
mouth et cetera. These illusionists are in a world of their own. They are capable of influencing the
environment if they wish to. Thus, the power of the mind is a cut above the world. Ever since the start of the
novel the reader is taken into a different world with their ability and readiness to perform illusions that can
be taken for real and this is the precise reason why this novel is in the journal of magical realism.
The acts of the characters in the novel are discussed here, which takes one into magical realism.
“The Circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it, no paper notices on downtown posts
and billboards, no mention on advertisements in local newspapers. it is simply there, when yesterday it was
not” (1).This is how the book starts. The circus appears at night and disappears at the daytime and this is
where the story revolves. People do not wonder why and how the circus appears and disappears suddenly
rather they wait in queue to get the tickets for the circus no matter how expensive the tickets are.
“After a moment, the watch begins to rotate slowly, turning in circles on the surface of the table,
trailing its chain behind in a spiral. Then the watch lifts from the table, floating into the air and hovering as
though it were suspended in water” (16).Young Celia is asked to perform this act by her father to prove his
Rival Mr. AH that his daughter is capable of excelling in the art of magic. “With her other hand she removes
the dagger, the blooded playing card fluttering down. the droplets of blood begin rolling backward, seeping
into the gash in her palm which then shrinks and disappears until there is no more than a sharp red line on
her skin, and then nothing” (268).
Celia and Marco have a conversation where Mark questions her type of illusion she can perform.
She says that she is more of breaking things and setting them right again. She says she performs her magic
much better with objects or living things which she is familiar with and then she performs this act where
two cards cut through her skin and come out, the blood drips from the card but within a few seconds only a
red line is visible on her skin. She says that her father used to slit her fingertips one by one and she would
heal it all at once.
“He spends majority of the evening in the company of Celia Bowen, whose elaborate gowns
changes its colour, shifting through a rainbow of hues to complement whomever she is closest to
with”(287).Many get together when the Halloween party takes place and many young magicians perform
small magical acts. In this, Celia wears a gown with changes its colour when she nears someone. When she
goes near Marco her dress changes from a deep plum and sparkling gold to a moss green.
These two illusionists have the talent of changing the environment around them. for example,
when Celia and Marco embrace each other in the corner of the street in a rainy night, slowly the

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environment changes into a forest, a big forest with bright sky and huge trees and the wall on which they
were leaning onto becomes the trunk of a tree. these are visible only to the eyes of Celia and Marco, but for
every other passerby, they can only see two lovers at the corner of the street. The novel has so many
magical acts and incidents proving the writer's skill in her veryfirst novel and this book very much comes
under the magical realism genre.
The novel has magic from the start to the end and the characters accept magic as their lifestyle
which is why this book certainly comes under a magical realism genre. The story happens in the 19th
century in the Victorian London and revolves around the circus called 'Le Cirque de Reves' which means
the Circus of Dreams. It is a mysterious circus that opens only at night. There are numerous number of
magical elements found in this novel; the fortune teller reading the uncertain future, an illusionist turning
her jacket into a raven, Marco changing the environment of a street into a forest, Celia's dress changing the
colour of her dress whenever she nears a person and the like. Erin Morgenstern has brought in the genre of
magical realism with surprising magical elements, the undying love of two young musicians and also
history of the Victorian period with a modern twist.
Magical elements account to the underlying meaning and their comprehension according to the
relevance of the present scenario. Single understanding of the unreal world would bring forth the sense of
what magical realism novels are meant for. This would stand incomplete without the intervention of
human brain to comprehend the flip side of seemingly superficial things. Of course this has happened with
all the novels where the elements of magic amount not only to an interesting genre of literature but also to
real world and affairs.
Thus the study of magical realism in the above novel signifies the relevance of the novels to the
present age. It is not an escapist venture but rather an opportunity to see the fantastic in every day. Through
magical realism, the writer conveys a reality that incorporates magic, superstition and religion, history,
personal and social well being which unquestionably get infused into the world.

Works Cited
Morgenstern, Erin. The Night Circus. New York: Doubleday, 2011. Print.

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119
SOCIAL DISCOURSE THROUGH RITUALS IN WOLE SOYINKA'S KONGI'S
HARVEST

V. Parvathi Meena, Asst. Professor, Seethalakshmi Ramaswami College, Tiruchirappalli

Social discourse is used as a tool of social interaction. It carries meanings, ideas and values to the
society. It focuses on social issues that are results of social experiences. Any communication concerning
the plagues of the modern society can be a social discourse. Social discourses often regard the dangers a
society faces and gives concrete solutions to the problems. Writers often use social discourse in their works
to talk about the problems of the society. They use a variety of tools to convey their expectations of a
society. Ritual is one such tool which help the writers in communicating with the society.
Soyinka is an expert in using rituals as a discourse. All his works have an element of rituals in them.
Rituals can be either social or religious. Kongi's Harvest is filled with social rituals. Soyinka
communicates with the society by portraying the social rituals of the Nigerian society in Kongi's Harvest.
An imaginary country called the Republic of Isma is chosen as the setting of Kongi's Harvest. Isma
may have been derives from the suffix 'isms' and by inference Isma is a country of 'isms'. The play is
divided into four parts and revolves around three groups of characters. A) The ruling king at the beginning
of the play, Oba Danlola and his royal reverie. B) Kongi, the usurper, his Secretary and FRA C) Daodu and
Segi. The play centres around a harvest ritual the New Yam festival, wherethe Oba, the spiritual head, is
presented with the new yam symbolizing the agricultural stability of the country.
Oba Danlola, who was considered as the spiritual head of the people had the royal privilege of
eating the first of the new yam on the harvest festival day. Kongi, the usurper snatched power from the
traditional ruler, Oba Danlola. Kongi decides to be the spiritual head and there by demands the oba to
present the new yam to him as a symbol of total submission. The harvest festival is been used as a tool by
each of the three groups of characters to fulfill their plans. Oba Danlola attempts to retain his headship,
Kongi wants to attain headship and Daodu and Segi to bring forth democracy.
Oba Danlola with his cowardice, self-centered and pleasure seeking attitude has paved way to an
anarchist like Kongi. Kongi's attitude towards the people clearly shows that he has no idea of doing any
good to them. Daodu and Segi who aspire to bring forth, democracy are a ray of hope to the people, but fail
in their attempt. In the ensuing scramble no one is left but Kongi with the severed head presented to him
symbolizing that reign of terror in the country would continue.
The play opens with a short scene called “Hemlock” the prologue. The scene depicts the
traditional ruler enjoying his royal luxury and has forgotten his spiritual responsibilities towards his
people. Ola Danlola symbolizes the devastation and degeneration of the culture.
Oba Danlola, who is aware of his divine position in the society, knows how to play on the emotions
of an ordinary man. Soyinka satirizes the Oba for his buffoonery and gullibility, who fails to understand the
emotions of the people. Oba Danlola is old and half mad and does not display behaviour appropriate to his
age. The words of the superintendent at the detention camp talks about the behaviour of the Oba thus,
“Kabiyesi, be your age… an elder is an elder” (Kongi's Harvest, p.62). This shows that the general public
donot hold the Oba in a respectable position.
Soyinka satirizes Oba Danlola's understanding of politics and freedom to make people understand
that the Oba does not have any sense of responsibility towards the people and the country. Freedom seems
to be a burden to the Oba. He remarks, “Oh, what home coming this is! I obtained much better service in the
SOCIAL DISCOURSE THROUGH RITUALS IN WOLE SOYINKA'S KONGI'S HARVEST 414
detention camp!(p.100). His release from the detention camp does not give him a sense of happiness. He
understands the state and provisions of a royal prisoner and is more than happy to be in prison, given the
normal comforts. He could not understand why he was deprived of kingship and is also blind to the
mechanisms of politics and diplomacy and to the process by which the king would be accepted as the
spiritual lead of the community. The Oba could have saved the five people, waiting for execution in
Kongi's jail and thereby be becoming a life giving spirit. But he has more time for cheap sensuous act rather
than for serious business. The Oba, instead of appreciating the efforts of Daodu, scolds him in a very harsh
manner. His language is often filled with marks of sensuality. His obsession with the sexual act prohibits
him from doing any good to the people, further paving way for a repressive dictator like Kongi.
Deterioration in the moral order of the society is explicitly shown through the five political
prisoners who have been sentenced to death. Harvest is a time of cleansing and spiritually rejuvenating the
society. The crux of the festival is separated from the self and the Oba is found lost in the spiritual void.
Lacking in spirit and will to spiritually rejuvenate himself, the king is leading his community towards total
destruction.
Kongi, the present dictator of Isma has usurped power from the king. Kongi behaves like an
incarnation of the spirit of Oba Danlola, but slightly in a different political setup and specially, with the
intellect of knowing to make fraudulent decisions. He is politically more powerful than the Oba and
exhibits more power on the lives of the people than the Oba. Just like the elder's council held by the Oba,
Kongi has the RAF and its only work is to entertain the debased, ordinary and cheap sentiments of its
master. Kongi, separates himself from the people and leads a life of aloofness like the Oba who lived in the
palace totally isolated from his people. But inspite of his “non-mingling” and “non-helping” attitude
towards his people, he wants to be called as “the spirit of harvest… the justice of the earth… the spirit of
planting… the spirit of inevitable”, and all these phrases, symbolize his megalomaniac attitude.
Kongi, uses all the resources of his country to boost his ego. His secretary wants him to be projected
as “a benevolent father of the nation” who has implemented the five year development plan. The secretary
who tries to boost the ego of Kongi, confers metaphorical titles on him for his various profiles. “A leader's
temptation… Agony on the mountains… the loneliness of the poor… who knows how many other titles
will accompany such pictures around the world.”(p. 93). The secretary caters to Kongi's ego further by
suggesting that the day of the harvest festival will mark the beginning of a new era and tells Kongi that after
many years in the future, only that harvest festival would be worth remembering. Kongi aspires to become
the spiritual head of his people, crossing all moral and spiritual borders of the harvest festival and in this
transgression of borders of the traditional wisdom, Soyinka sees the birth of violence and bloodshed in the
society and the community. Kongi detains and tortures those who voice against him. When a political
prisoner escapes from the prison, he orders to catch him alive or dead. This attitude of Kongi shows his
repressive nature. Power has corrupted and debilitated Kongi. The harvest ritual, around which the play
travels, reduces Kongi to the position of a weed, a weed that outgrows the healthy crop, only to destroy it.
This shows that his claims to be the messenger of god and the spirit of harvest fail.
Doadu possesses the qualities of a true leader and Soyinka presents him as a counterforce. Doadu
sets a contrast to the Oba and Kongi. He uses his farm house to provide work and shelter to the needy and to
the poor, unlike the Oba and Kongi who use it for dancing and diabolic meditation. Doadu is a successful
farmer, who grows prize winning yams. He has true followers among the people who are not paid
hooligans. In short, he stands out among the three leades, who really is the apt person for meriting praises
like “Spirit of Harvest”, “democratic Prince”, unlike the Oba and Kongi, who stand for luxury and personal
gain, causing death and devastation in the lives of the people.
In Daodu, peaceful and dynamic elements intermingle at once, making him the people's hero. His
social work reveals his peaceful element, while his dynamism is revealed through many episodes

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throughout the play, where he opposes the Oba and tries to throw Kongi out of power. It is understood that
he had plotted to eliminate Kongi and save the five men awaiting execution. Daodu can effortlessly remove
hurdles from his way that can cause his obstruction.
Daodu finds a confederate in Segi and confides his emotions in her. He tells that he is full of hatred
and decides to preach hatred into the hearts of the people, which would help him in overthrowing Kongi.
Daodu shows courage in the face like a predatory enemy and mobilizes a campaign against Kongi and
becomes an agent “of restorative justice”. Kongi and the Oba lack political vision and do not have any will
to create a better society, on contrast Daodu is interested in bringing back harmony into the country. Kongi
wastes the wealth of the country to becomes the “ Spirit of Harvest” lac king the thought about the spirit of
cultivation, while the Oba compromising with Kongi, barters the state but Daodu by his humanistic
approach brings forth the spirit of harvest. Sei, who is described as “Kongi's mysterious woman” by the
writer, finds a man who can defeat in Kongi. Segi's mystery lies in her past relationship with Kongi with
whom, she lived till he became the dictator of Isma. But when Segi understands that Kongi has imprisoned
her father and had tried to kill him, and when she understands that he has become a dictator, she joins hands
with Daodu in whom she finds a potential democratic leader.
The play proceeds to the day of the harvest festival and the public place which is the ritual platform.
In this ritual space the protagonist re-enacts the adventure of the hero-gods who challenged the cosmic
forces to purify the community. The plan to kill Kongi by Daodu is a microcosmic representation of the
heroic battle of the gods. Daodu is the ritual protagonist and true to the ritual background, the scene uses
songs, dance and offering and the whole community participates in the event to receive the spiritual
benefits as explained by Soyinka in Myth, Literature and the African World.
Even though Segi and Daodu fail to eliminate Kongi on the festival day, they cannot be perceived
as figures of defeat. Daodu though did not eliminate the rule of Kongi, was able to bring an awareness
about the anti-people policies of Kongi. Daodu preaches violence to people as a means to eradicate the
dictator. After the harvest day ritual, when many people including the Oba leave Isma, Daodu and Segi
refuse to leave the country and the people, assuring their faith in democracy.
Soyinka, using the ritual of harvest communicates that the moral well being of a community
depends on the spiritual strength of man. The spiritual strength is always sought after and has to be earned
systematically and regularly. Therefore on the one hand the rituals demand a spiritual introspection of the
self and on the other creates a dynamic political will which is inevitable to keep the community alive. Thus
Soyinka combines the ritual pattern of his culture with the political situation and uses it as a discourse to
communicate the plagues of the society and mode of its reparation.

Works cited
David, T.Mary. Wole Soyinka: A Quest for Renewal. B.I. Publications, 1995
Obafemi, Olufemi. Contemporary Nigerian Theatre: Cultural Heritage and Social Vision. Joe-Noye
Press. 1996
Soyinka, Wole. Collected Plays 2. Oxford UP, 1974
---. Myth, Literature and the African World. Cambridge UP, 2005.

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120
SEXUAL DIFFERENCE IN REVOLUTIONS OF THE WORLD OF LUCE IRIGARRY

I. Parsanapitchaimegruba, Assistant Professor, English, Annai Fathima College of Arts and

Science, Alampatti, Thirumangalam

Abstract:
This paper presents a detail description of sexual difference and the role of contemporary French
Feminism and how it makes a trends and reaches out to disciplines dealing with the continel philosophy of
the study originated among English-Speaking philosophers. Irigarary's works also encouraged the
emancipation of individual slaves. Irigarary speaks against the egalitarian project of feminism to the
Anglo- American school of women thinkers. The Ethics, Luce Irigarary undertakes a searching inquiry
into what may be the philosophical problems of the age. The term phallocentrism in a critique of Freud and
the account of Sexual Difference. The image of masculine morphology and women exist in 'second sex' and
Intersubjectirity it is necessary that the aspect of Irigaray's works.

Keywords: Feminism, Emancicipation, Individual Sex, Intersubjectivity.

'Feminism' is a diverse collection of collection theories, political movements, and moral

philosophies, largely motivated by or concerned with the experiences of women. Most feminists are
concerned and argue that gendered and sexed identities, such as “man” and woman”, are socially
constructed. At a time when women were fighting for their suffrage it was the British writer Virginia woolf
who sought their emancipation through her pamphlets “A Room of One's Own”.
Feminist criticism too has the major objects of the theory and exposing the mechanism of
patriarchy, the socio-cultural mind-set and exploring ways to promote a mind shift. Feminist criticism uses
the ideas of Lacan's psychoanalysis and Derridean Deconstruction. British Feminist criticism is more
influenced by socialism, Cultural materialism and Marxism. American Feminist criticism is partly
inclined towards post structuralism, American deconstruction but tries to retain some of the traditional
critical concepts like theme, motif, characterization etc. The feminist viewpoint was ignored. Showalter
refers to Carolyn Helbrun and CataharineStimpson who “identified two poles of feminist criticism. The
first of these modes righteous, angry and admonitory, was compared the Old Testament, “looking for the
sins and errors of the past”.
Luce Irigaray's significant work of the 1970s has influenced feminist interrogations of traditional
Psychoanalysis during the last decade or so. In her “Speculum of the other woman” (1985) and in this sex
which is not me. She has attempted to comprehend the feminine free of the specular and defining of the
male. In avoiding essentials theory, with its abstract pursuit of, which she has emphasized the female need
to discover a sexuality that does not merely serve the male? It was this insistence plus the almost Poetic
Circling of her subjects in speculum that led to her expulsion from her post in the Department of
Psychoanalysis at Vincennes and a subsequent exile from that academic establishment. The charge that she
introduced polities into the practice of psychoanalysis, however, was itself politically motivated. Her main
objection to Freud's influence was that his 'scientific' procedures merely masked Phallocentric Prejudices.
As a result, the presence of the mother with psychoanalysis is largely effaced and female sexuality
relegated to the perverse or hysterical.
In her essay “Sexual Difference” Irigaray addresses the problem of sexual difference in terms
SEXUAL DIFFERENCE IN REVOLUTIONS OF THE WORLD OF LUCE IRIGARRY 417
recognizably borrowed from the same phenomenological appears tradition as the work of Simon de
Beauvoir. She begins her essay by reiterating the central concept of 'The Second Sex', that even when
apparently universal or neutral, the subject has, infact, always been writing in Masculine form. Irigaray's
essay, like that Helen of cixous, calls for a radical rethinking of the subject not simply in relation to
discourse, society and culture, but to the very cosmos itself and to the fundamental Kantian categories of
space and time. Irigaray argues that in the classic Kantian duality the external realm is conceived in terms
of space and the internal in these of time. To be free is to organize external space and to be master of internal
temporality. Accordingly, Irigaray suggests that sexual difference has also been set up in relation to these
co-ordinate of time and space, so that man subjugatos external space (woman) and is master of interiority
conceived of as time. In many ways this is a restatement of de Beanvoir's opposition between immanence
and transcendence, but irigaray calls for an entirely more radical rethinking of the Kantian categories.
At the outset of the essay, Irigaray considers “Sexual difference” as one of the important questions
of our age. Quoting Heideggar's statement that each age is preoccupied with one thing, and one alone, she
says that sexual a difference is probably the major issue of our time and that could be our salvation on an
intellectual level. She is of the view that for the work of sexual difference to take place, a revolution in
thought and ethics is needed. A complete re-interpretation of the whole relationship between the subject
and discourse, the subject and the world, the subject and the universe, the micro cosmic and the macro
cosmic is the need of the hour. The subject, she points out has always been written in the masculine form, as
man which is a sexed, and not a neutral noun. The concept of the 'subject' has moved crucial to literary
theory after post-structuralism. It also acts as focal point for the various critiques of earlier humanist
ideologies. Post-structuralists use the term 'subject' rather than 'self or 'individual'. The term plays
ambiguously between on the hand, subject as in the opposition subject/object, or subject as in grammar;
and on the other hand, subject as in subject of the state, or subject to the law that is the subject is both central
and at the same time decentred.
Irigaray further observes that man has been the subject of discourse in all the fields, for example, in
the field of theory, moraliture and politics. Even the gender of God the guardian of every subject is always
Paternal and Masculine in the West. Women are restricted to such minor art-forms such as cooking,
knitting, sewing, and embroidery. In some exceptional cases their field includes poetry, painting and
music. Women, at all levels, occupy the secondary position. They play a subordinate role in the patriarchal
social setup. In this androcentric world they are subjugated and infact subjected to exploitation and
negligence at all levels of human society. Presently Irigaray is able to witness a certain reversal of values;
manual labour and art are both being revalorized. But the relationship of these arts to sexual difference is at
times related to class struggle. To live and think through this difference, observes irigaray, feminist critic's
must reconsider the whole question of space and time.
Irigaray now tries to arrive at the constitution of an ethics of sexual difference for which she refers
to Descartes idea of the passions vendor. Which in French, means admiration, Wonder is a passion which is
not opposed to or in conflict with anything and exists always as though for the first time. A woman, like
Irigaray, can never take the place of a man and never will a man take her place. One will never exactly fill
the place of the other the one is irreducible to the other. Irigaray calls it that which differs sexually from
man. “This feeling of wonder, surprise and astonishment in the face of the unknowable ought to be returned
to its proper place: the realm of sexual difference”. The passions of man as sometimes, perhaps woman,
have either been repressed shifted and subdued or else reserved for God. The sense of wonder is never
found in the gap between man and woman. This space is filled not with wonder but with attraction, greed,
possession, consummation etc. For wonder cannot seize, possess or subdue such an object. Wonder may
allow them to retain their autonom based on their difference. It may also give them a space of freedom or
attractiuon, separation of alliance. This would happen at their first encounter. Consumation is only

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dilusion. One sex is never entirely consummated or consumed by another for there is always a residue.
An ethics of secual difference addresses thinke as plato, and other philosophers. No one
philosopher can be indentified as influencing Irigaray who's thinks while maintaining a critical distance
like wise her method of mimesis resembles derridian deconstructions. She argess a concept of Heidegger
that every age has a beliefs and reforms. Irigaray wants to analysis the theme that western culture as a self
evident. The most critical tool of mimersis is used by Irigaray. She wants to project women have
stereotypical views of their own.
The new form of subjectivity comes into being the death of the modern, transcendental subject.
According to luce mimesis will it be possible to attacks a paradigm shift. Phallocentrism is s term used y
the Freudian psychoanalyst Jones to focus the Femal sexual identity, and the lack of the phallus, a sense in
other terms. In terms, It preserved the reproduction of culture in the image of masculine morphology which
the identification of symbolic outlook of masculinity.
Thus irigaray concludes the essay with a plea for the recognition of the importance of wonder in the
relations between the aexes for a recognition of the final impossibility of consummation: one sex is never
entirely consumed by the other. The attitude of wonder allows respect for difference works against the
desire to posses or subjugate.

Works Citied
Alison Stone: Luce Irigaray and the Philosophy of Sexual Difference: Cambridge University Press, 2006.
Halpern, F.Diane, Sex Differences: Selected full-text books and articles, Fairleign Dickinson University,
2004.
Carolyn Burke and Gillian C.Gill.An Ethics of Sexual Difference, Cornell UP, 2004.

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121
THE CONFLICTING VALUES OF EAST AND WEST IN BHABANI
BHATTACHARYA'S A DREAM IN HAWAII

K. Latha, Assistant Professor of English, SRNM College, Sattur

Abstract:
Bhabani Bhattacharya is one of the most eminent Indo-Anglian writers. In his six novels- So Many
Hungers!, Music for Mohini, He who Rides a Tiger, A Goddess Named Gold, Shadow From Ladakh, A
Dream in Hawaii -Bhattacharya has treated culture with different dimensions. A Dream in Hawaii sets at
Hawaii in America. Hawaii is an Island, which belongs to America. The subject of the novel is about Guru
and his ideas. It is Bhattacharya's only novel written in America. It is the story of three characters- Swami
Yogananda, Dr.Vincant Swift and Devjani. In A Dream in Hawaii Bhattacharya has focused on
encountered between two divergent cultural values. He depicts the influence of Western wise of living on
the Eastern. A Dream in Hawaii revolves around the character of Yogananda who preaches the
spiritualism of the East yet he realizes fully the Western value systems. He has considered science and
technology has progress and prosperity of the world. At the same time he stresses that material progress
cannot make a man perfect without the help of spirituality. Through Yogananda, Bhattacharya conveys his
message to the world that a scientist, who has no faith in moral values, can be a great danger to mankind.
Hence, he stresses the Western people to follow the Vedantic decipline.

Key Words: Eastern and Western values, Spiritualism, Culture.

Bhattacharya's A Dream in Hawaii goes for amendment of Western culture and society by eastern
logic. It manages long for human poise and self-discharge. Bhattacharya was an observer to the ailment of
the general public neck-somewhere down in impropriety, realism and arousing delights. The modern man
is attempting to free himself from this disease. Indian culture is likewise experiencing similar wrongs
however not as much as the American. Bhattacharya appears to call attention to that neither strict
parsimony nor rank realism will convey the merchandise. Yogananda neglects to stifle his physical
impulses following quite a while of plainness and returns to India toward the finish of the novel with a
feeling of disappointment. Though Gregson, speaking to western realism, also understands the
purposelessness of his lifestyle. Each has to gain from the other.
A Dream in Hawaii is a novel with numerous aspects and layers of importance. Superficially there
is the East-West experience; at a more profound dimension it is an examination of culture. Especially of
America, from a particular Indian perspective; it is likewise a paper on the sickness of modern society, both
eastern and western: in the meantime it exhibits man's scan for oneself, or then again, his undertaking to
dispose of the covers. It is possibly much more.
Jasbir Jain thinks about that the topic of the novel is from numerous points of view “a continuation
of the theme of Shadow from Ladakh. She opines; “On the surface it appears to be a novel about two
cultural traditions, but in reality it is about the conflicting needs of man. Neloy Mookerji is unable to
submerge his identity completely into that of Swami Yogananda; and just as Satyajit realises he is not a
Gandhi, Neeloy too realises that he is not a Swami” (2) Bhattacharya makes a burrow at the fraudulent and
fake holy people. In the meantime he recommends moral and otherworldly intends to tackle the emergency
in the American culture, image of Westernism, through Eastern profound idea and reasoning.
THE CONFLICTING VALUES OF EAST AND WEST IN BHABANI BHATTACHARYA'S A DREAM IN HAWAII 420
A Dream in Hawaii for the most part manages the mission for completion of life and human
personality. It clearly extends the issues of American wiped out society, eagerness for influence, riches and
fixation on sex. Sexual tolerance of the West spoken to by Gregson is compared by the self-denial and
concealment of sexual sense by Swami Yogananda. Both, in any case, neglect to accomplish human joy. As
Goyal remarks “Almost half of the chapters are concerned with the depiction of the surfeit of sex as a
symptom of the sick society, while the other half explore the true nature of spiritualism and salvation,
which, the author believes, are not reached through self-denial but only through self-fulfillment.” (3)
Bhattacharya recommends a humanistic way to deal with these issues. He generally affirms life of
fulfillment instead of forbearance which in its extraordinary structure will in general be cruel and hostile to
life.
Dream in Hawaii manages two sorts of individuals. Neeloy mukherji who transforms into Swami
Yogananda, and Stella Gregson don't acknowledge sex as a feature of human life for satisfaction. They
look for satisfaction of life on simply profound methods and speak to Eastern mysticism. Walt Gregson,
Jennifer, Mamoni, Frieda, Sylviakoo and Dr. Vincent Swift look for bliss and fulfillment through sex alone
with no hindrances, going down to the dimension of sheer animality, and speak to western realism. The two
sorts of individuals neglect to accomplish importance in their life by their very own methods of insight.
Every one of the characters in the novel appears to scan for those “basic human values which could serve as
objective correlatives of this human identity” ( 5 )
The story of Dream in Hawaii lights on Professor Neeloy Mukherji shows Indian logic at Varanasi
University. He is a for in “projecting the ancient Vedanta into our modern experience” (82) With
otherworldly enthusiasm, he transforms into Swami Yogananda, and ends up famous in India. An
American woman Stella Gregson turns into his devotee and takes him to Hawaii to help the debilitated
American culture through him. There Yogananda stands up to Walt Gregson saturated with western
materialistic theory. Yogananda helps the general population of America to conquer their sexual fixation
through the profound rationality. Be that as it may, his very own inability to dispose of sexual emotions
conveys regret to Yogananda, and he comes back to India. Through the story Bhattacharya proposes a real
existence of satisfaction which reacts to the human needs -both physical and profound.
In Dream in Hawaii, Dr. Neloy Mukherji is affected by Swamy Vivekananda. He realizes that
Swami Vivekananda's main goal is to fabricate human seeing as opposed to scattering learning. He used to
welcome priests from closest Vivekananda's ashram to bestow additional information to his understudies.
When a Yogi calls attention to that “There is a Yogi deep within Neeloy” (84). But Mukherjee, is wary
about it. Regardless he takes a gander at his understudy Devjani with desire. Devjani, be that as it may,
does not react to his considerations. She needs to escape from the truth of sex and fill the void with
profound life. She turns into an understudy of Dr. Neeloy Mukherjee. In the wake of hearing addresses on
Swami Vivekananda she comes to realize that there is a profound yearning in her for otherworldly life.
The partners and understudies of Neeloy Mukherjee hail him for his reserve of information and
consider him to be Philosophy in bodily form. A portion of his understudies look for direction and bearing
from him for their lives. They see a master in him and propel him to disavow the world and turn into a Yogi,
saying that “A star cannot be a firefly!” (89). Despite the fact that Mukherjee realizes that he is just a firefly
and can't turn into a star, he feels constrained to be a master. He concedes, “Students as well as colleagues
have laid down my future course of life. I have no choice left” (89). In this way Neeloy Mukherjee
transforms into Swami Yogananda to serve humanity, he goes to the Himalayas, and leads ashram life at
Rishikesh. He begins new exercises for Sadhana - compassionate work which is a piece of ashram life. He
demonstrates more enthusiasm for serving humanity than traveling to another country like different
masters. Swami Yogananda becomes popular in India.
The gathering between Stella Gregson, an American woman, and Swamy Yogananda marks a

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defining moment in their lives. Tired of sexual leniency of American culture, Stella betrays her significant
other and visits Rishikesh to end up a supporter of Swamy Yogananda. She speaks to stifled ethical quality
and nobility of humanity in American culture. Her gathering with Yogananda transforms her and mentality.
She sees in Yogananda a hero “who will lead today's Americans from darkness into light” (15). So she takes
him toward the East-West social focus at Hawaii to use his administrations for the diverted American
youth.
Amusingly enough, Yogananda is as yet torn in strife. At the point when Devjani originates from
Harvard to get dikhsa from him, he smothers his inclination for her with incredible trouble. He knows
about his impediments to be an ideal Yogi. However Yogananda's main goal at Kennedy theater goes
effectively. He can put forth harmony and reassurance to Jennifer, a companion of Stella, who was tired of
her disolute past. Yogananda comprehends that Americans put stock in free love, and modesty has no
importance to the extent genuine life is worried in the West. Henry and Frieda, a couple from Los Angeles,
please excursion to Hawaii and meet Yogananda. Frieda informs Yogananda concerning American culture.
Frieda had a sexual involvement with a master at Los Angeles. On the counsel of her significant other,
Frieda attempts to entice Swami Yogananda too in his room. However, Yogananda does not yeild to her.
Dr. Vincent Swift, President of Hawaii Academy disparages Yogananda's main goal with the end
goal of misusing it for his childish advantages. He is materialistic and feels that he is alongside Swami
Yogananda in status. He needs to shape the Yogananda Mission into 'World Centre for Yogic Disciplines'.
In addition to Yoga he needs to open new parts of Astrology, Exorcism and Religion at the inside. His
primary concern is to make a major business out of World Center of Yogic Discipline like other profound
foundations. He says, “I don't have to tell you, Jen, that Big Business with its profit orientation can be
honest; decent, serving vital human needs.” (112). Dr. Quick's thought in making three-fourths of World
Center for Yogic orders into trade has turned into a reality. The organization before long becomes well
known in view of Swami Yogananda's theory of 'forbearance'. Part of endowments pour in from the
youthful. “The young donors did not make their gifts out of abundance. Their gesture meant self-denial. It
meant an urge to see the World Centre founded”(182). Anyway Yogananda does not favor of Dr. Quick's
plan of goal-oriented extension. He chooses to stop the middle deserting a note.
Swami Yogananda in Dream in Hawaii needs to mend the wiped out American culture and
reestablish human poise through profound methods with sound frame of mind. He immovably chooses to
free the Americans from Walt's rationality of freed lady which brought down the human qualities in the
public eye. The liberated woman has picked another oppression to supplant the old and disposed of.
Understudies of Walt are pulled in by Yogananda's messages. The American youth swing to Vedantic logic
of Yogananda. Walt reprimands that Yogananda's central goal has one reason, that is: To return the clock of
social development here in America. To delete the revolutionary content in youth's attitude in the most vital
area of behaviour.
The emergency, as per Walt is past the 'restricted scope of experience' of an Eastern holy person. In
any case, the American youth then again understand that “We have been rotten with what's called
permissive. It has the same meaning as primitive. Back to the stone age” (125). They discover their
motivation, conviction and expectation in the message of Yogananda. Walt's reasoning of tolerance has
been broken. He chooses to deliver retribution on Swami Yogananda by uncovering him as a phony holy
person as he speculates that Yogananda is pulled in to Devjani. He sends Sylvia Koo, in the sari of Devjani
to Yogananda's space to stir in him the stifled affections for Devjani. Awakening from his fantasy,
Yogananda is stunned to discover Sylivia Koo in his bed room attempting to entice him. He quickly
escapes from her. The occurrence, nonetheless, uncovered Yogananda's mystery yearning for Devjani.
Later he admits his lethargic love to Devjani, for Yogananda feels that he has flopped as a yogi. With
second thoughts, he books a ticket by JAL trip to Calcutta.

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Walt Gregson, be that as it may, does not brag over the occurrence. A sudden sentiment of regret
surpasses him. There is change in the entire frame of mind of Walt. He has lost his longing for sex. Walt is
stirred to another aspect of truth from Yogananda. Walt concedes that the American culture including
himself needs Yogananda's main goal as opposed to his. He is sad that Yogananda is leaving for India. He
races to the air terminal just to find that Yogananda has effectively left.
A Dream in Hawaii recommends that the Eastern theory adjusted by humanism can fill in as a
panacea to the wrongs of Western realism. Bhattacharya stresses that the Eastern reasoning should offer
leeway for the characteristic human driving forces without demanding an austere discipline.

Works Cited
Bhattacharya, Bhabani. A Dream in Hawaii.Delhi: Macmillan, 1978. Print.
Bhagwat S. Goyal, “The Senses and the Sublime; Bhabani Bhattacharya's A Dream in Hawaii.”
Perspectives on Bhabani Bhattacharya. Ed.Ramesh K. Srivastava.Ghaziabad:Vimal Prakashan,
1982. Print.
Cromwell Crawford, 'Bhabani Bhattacharya: A Mediating man.” Perspectives on Bhabani Bhattacharya.
Ed.Ramesh K. Srivastava.Ghaziabad: Vimal Prakashan, 1982Print.
Dorothy Blair Shimer, “Gandhian influences on the writings of Bhabani Bhattacharya, in Perspectives on
Bhabani Bhattacharya 25. Ed.Ramesh K. Srivastava.Ghaziabad: Vimal Prakashan, 1982Print.
Jasbir, Jain. “The human Dimensions of Statis and Growth”, in Perspectives on Bhabani Bhattacharya ed.
by Ramesh K. Srivastava. Ghaziabad:Vimal Prakashan, 1982. 63-64. Print.
S. Krishna, Sarma & V. Rangam. “What is in a Dream.” The Literary Endeavour. 1.3( ) 85-96. Print.

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122
HUMAN RELATIONSHIPS IN RUSKIN BOND'S LOVE IS A SAD SONG AND
A GIRL FROM COPENHAGEN

Mrs. V. Murugalakshmi, Assistant Professor in English, Sri SRNM College, Sattur

Abstract:
Human relations are as old as human life itself. Man has always felt an emotional bond for the
people he is associated with. The familial, social, professional relationships are formed; scrutinized and
analyzed; sometimes, broken too. Human relations come to man as naturally as breathing. However, with
the changing times, the natural relations also undergo changes. Among Indian writers in English, Ruskin
Bond emerges as an exceptional explorer of these human relationships in all their complexities and
diversities. Ruskin Bond is an ardent worshipper of nature and he tries to establish that human
relationships are considerably influenced by the world of nature. By choosing his characters from hilly
areas around Dehradun, Bond conveys his belief that people living in the lap of nature are simple, innocent
and free from ill-will. In a long short story like “Love is a Sad Song”, the narrator presents various
contours of his love-affair with Sushila, a sixteen-year old girl. The story skillfully captures the intricacies
and dilemmas of such relationships where the lover falls in love with a girl half his age. Another story in
which the narrator describes his transient love affair with a Danish girl is “A Girl from Copenhagen”.
Phuong, an acquaintance in London, leaves Ulla, a sixteen-year-old Danish girl, with the narrator.
Whereas the narrator in the earlier stories is idealistic and traditional, the narrator, here, is highly
practical and down-to-earth. Ruskin Bond, through these stories, is perhaps trying to show that
inter­personal relationships are based on mutual understanding between the partners and their
success depends on how the partners recognize each other's individuality.

Keywords: Relationship, emotion, dilemma, love.

The world of science and technology has brought about complexity in the inter-personal
relationships. Nevertheless, there are some emotions, which remain undiluted. Man's relationship with
man is founded on certain sterling qualities like love, trust, respect for one another, and empathy. Ruskin
Bond in his fictional world tries to focus on these core emotions in respect to human relationships, but he
has added one more dimension to it - man's relationship with man in the context of the world of nature. This
provides him with a chance to put these relations under scrutiny and he comes out with some refreshing
insights in this significant dimension of human life.
The interesting and significant aspect of human life appears to be fresh and open to exploration
even today. It evokes reactions and questions in every sensitive human mind and propels the creative writer
to try and fathom the hitherto unexplored shades of these multi-layered and multifarious relationships.
Among Indian writers in English, Ruskin Bond emerges as an exceptional explorer of these human
relationships in all their complexities and diversities. Moreover, he has, in his typically distinct style,
attempted to define and explain the inter-personal relationships in connection with the world of nature.
A winner of the prestigious Sahitya Academy Award, Ruskin Bond is an ardent worshipper of
nature and he tries to establish that human relationships are considerably influenced by the world of nature.
By choosing his characters from hilly areas around Dehradun, Bond conveys his belief that people living in
the lap of nature are simple, innocent and free from ill-will. They are far from the feelings of jealousy,
HUMAN RELATIONSHIPS IN RUSKIN BOND'S LOVE IS A SAD SONG AND A GIRL FROM COPENHAGEN 424
crookedness, and conspiracy. Nature affects man's thought and actions considerably and it bestows
superior qualities upon human beings.
In his fiction, sometimes, Bond looks at the world from the point of view of a child trying to
decipher the looming world at large. At other times, he endeavours to unlock the human world by making
his protagonists try to delve deep and understand the secrets lodged in the deep, dark recesses of their souls.
His protagonists, who are generally presented in the first person singular number, pass through the
disparate experiences in their journey of life. They feel the pangs of love and blazing lust; they experience
sympathy and compassion for those who are in distress; sometimes, they feel jealous of the other men's
progress.
In a long short story like “Love is a Sad Song”, the narrator presents various contours of his love-
affair with Sushila, a sixteen-year old girl. The story skillfully captures the intricacies and dilemmas of
such relationships where the lover falls in love with a girl half his age. The narrator develops a kind of
liking for Sushila and Sunil - two teenagers who have come to spend their holidays with their uncle Dinesh,
the narrator's friend. The children are very fond of him in spite of the big difference in age and enjoy
company. Slowly, the narrator falls in love with the dark, slender girl a wants to marry her. But a
complication arises when Sushila's parents refit to marry her to a man almost double her age. The narrator
feels mad for 1 girl but with the passage of time, he too, comes to realize the meaning relationships. The
love affair, the fickle nature of Sushila, her ultimo marriage with Dayal in a sequel entitled “Time Stops at
Shamli” indicate clearly how relationships grow mature and suggesting zigzag patterns of love, disbelief,
and guilt etc.,
Similarly, the narrator reminisces about a girl who came into his life for a few blissful weeks and
then went out for the remainder of his life. The narrator starts feeling attracted towards Kamala, a young
girl of seventeen, and is thoroughly pre-occupied with thoughts. The girl, however, is married off to a
widower of forty and the narrator finds himself helpless to do anything. Though he toys with the idea of
eloping with her, yet that idea too, does not bring him any comfort. He even comes to realize that he had
never loved her passionately and that Kamla also, was immature, thus, unable to understand the passion of
deep love:
Had I loved more passionately, more fiercely, I might have felt compelled to elope
with Kamla, regardless of the consequence. But it never became an intense relationship.
We had so few moments together. … She seemed to enjoy everymoment of this secret
affair. I fretted and longed for something morepermanent. Her responses, so sweet and
generous, only made mylonging greater. But she seemed content with the immediate
momentand what it offered. (222)
In this way, the narrator and Kamla part with each other gracefully and vow to remember each other
through the passage of time. Kamla asks for some plants the narrator owns and promises to grow
them in her husband's house thus retaining his memory.Another story in which the narrator describes his
transient love affair with a Danish girl is “A Girl from Copenhagen”. Phuong, an acquaintance in London,
leaves Ulla, a sixteen-year-old Danish girl, with the narrator. Ulla has come over to England for a small
holiday of two days and after that, she would return to Copenhagen.
The narrator, initially puzzled, grows a liking for the girl and their brief stay in London becomes a
memorable experience for both. The narrator is simply fascinated by her cordiality of nature and frankness
of behaviour. They even make love to each other; enjoy each other's company and finally part with each
other after Ulla's brief, two-day holiday in London is over. However, it seems to the narrator as if this brief
relationship is complete in itself and he has reached a stage of consummation: “We made no
promises of writing, or of meeting again. Somehowour relationship seemed complete and whole, as
though it had beendestined to blossom for those two days. A courting and a marriage anda living together

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HUMAN RELATIONSHIPS IN RUSKIN BOND'S LOVE IS A SAD SONG AND A GIRL FROM COPENHAGEN 425
had been compressed, perfectly, into one summernight...” (502).
Here, it should be noted that the narrator in the present story, is able to derive consummation and
bliss from his short love-affair with Ulla as against the narrator's half-baked infatuation in “ Love is a
Sad Song” or “ A Love of Long Ago'. Whereas the narrator in the earlier stories is idealistic and traditional,
the narrator, here, is highly practical and down-to-earth. Ruskin Bond, through these stories, is perhaps
trying to show that inter­ personal relationships are based on mutual understanding between the
partners and their success depends on how the partners recognize each other's individuality. A better
understanding between the partners may shower pleasure and happiness upon the partners irrespective of
the length of the relationship.
All these love-stories present only one shade of human relations i.e. the love-relationship between a
man and a woman. But the wide range of human relations is presented not only through these lust-ridden
stories. The tender love-relations sprouting between a child and an adolescent; also between a child and an
adult; form another significant aspect of Bond's fictional world.
Thus, Ruskin Bond - in his novels, novellas and short stories - weaves a complex pattern of human
relationships in all their colours and contours. The web of human relationships is intricate and, sometimes,
incomprehensible as many a time, it is difficult to fully understand the motives and their translation into
action. Still Ruskin Bond's insights into human nature, its psychological necessity to branch out and cohere
with others, sometimes out of selfish interest, sometimes selflessly; sometimes, out of love and
compassion; on other times, due to some deep-seated psychological need, truly reveals his complete grasp
of human nature.

Works Cited
Naikar, B.S. “The Paradox of Love in Love is a Sad Song.”The Creative Contours of Ruskin Bond. Ed.
Prabhat K.Singh. New Delhi: Pencraft Publications, 1995: 97. Print.
K.Singh, Prabhat, “General Introduction.”The Creative Contours of Ruskin Bond. New Delhi: Pencraft
Publications,1995: 4. Print.

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123
STRUCTURAL UNBUNDLING OF FAMILY IN METROPOLITAN INDIAN SOCIETY
IN UPAMANYU CHATTERJEE'S THE LAST BURDEN

Ms. A. Aruna Devi, Assistant Professor of English, Sri. SRNM College, Sattur

Abstract:
Family is the basic and universal social structure of human society. It fulfils needs and performs
functions, which are indispensable for the continuity, integration and change in the social system. The
importance of the family in making and molding an individual on the one hand, and influencing social
groups and patterns on the other, has been recognized by social scientists. The forms and functions of
family have undergone adaptive changes in the technological and economic superstructure of present
society. The present study focuses on individual level changes affected by the modifications that are taking
place in the family under rapid on-going socio-cultural changes in contemporary Indian society.

Keywords: Metropolitan, family, relationship, marriage.

Upamanyu Chatterjee is one of those novelists whose imagination is sensitively involved with the
darker sides of life. Indian conditions of human life are so despicable, so full of miseries and maladies, so
full of absurdities and purposelessness that any sensitive creative writer would depict these aspects of life
in his creative writings. Upamanyu Chatterjee has depicted the absurdity of life, the miseries and disease of
life in his novels very poignantly and vividly. The Last Burden is a moderate and mournful novel. In this
novel the life of a contemporary Indian family is described.
The novel The Last Burden shows that the relationship between the family
Member is full of burdens and intolerable obligations. Chatterjee describes old
people become burden that is the painful reality of the novel. Upamanyu Chatterjee's second novel, The
Last Burden depicts the burden of family ties, the burden of relationship between husband and wife,
between the mother and the two sons, between the father and the sons, between the elder son and his wife
and finally between individual human beings and the larger social system. There is a burden of love and
affection in the relationship between husband and wife, Shyamanand and Urmila. They have been married
for about forty years yet they could not establish a meaningful relationship between them. They have
always been indulging in squabbling, bickering and accusations. The novelist suggests the ugly side of the
relationship when he narrates that Shyamanand was courting Urmila but he could not make up his mind to
marry her. Urmila had to undergo two abortions before her marriage. Even when Jamun was conceived,
Shyamanand, infact, mistook his wife for Shirleen Raizada, a colleague in his office.
Infact we notice that the burden of relationship in Shyamanand and Urmila is typically found
everywhere in India social system. “They are actuated partly by the itch to woo their brood away from each
other while straining to demonstrate to it, in a thousand oblique ways, the general beastliness of the
spouse” (263).Upamanyu Chatterjee shows the incongruity between the two generations parents and son.
The Last Burden is a mournful novel. In this novel he narrates about a contemporary Indian family. The
central character is Jamun, a bachelor, the son of Urmila and Shyamanand. His elder brother is Burfi who is
married to a Christian Joyce. Burfi has two children Pista and Doom aged ten and four respectively.
The Last Burden is a novel about the burden of familial relationships. The novel raises several
questions: Should parents interfere in their children lives? Should children ignore their parents in their old
STRUCTURAL UNBUNDLING OF FAMILY IN METROPOLITAN INDIAN SOCIETY IN UPAMANYU CHATTERJEE'S THE LAST .... 427
age? Do parents have no right over their children time? Does the husband wife relationship grow stable in
old age? In The Last Burden, the story begins with the illness of Jamun's mother. Jamun stays away from
his family, his parents. Jamun is preparing to go home after hearing that his mother had a heart attack.
Upamanyu Chatterjee's descriptions of Urmila's illness in the beginning of the novel are nauseating to the
reader. The novelist's whole attempt is to portray the pain and suffering of human being in this world,
where they suffer and the world remains busy in these affairs. The list of diseases with which Urmila
suffers begins with speculations of a cancer and goes on to heart attack.
Ma might have rectal cancer. It sounds dreadful and is very likely much worse. Haldia said
this evening that a lump in the rectum at her age is 75 per cent cancer. He wants to operate.
His eyes shone at the money he'd pick up. Baba predictably has already suggested that we
should divide the bill by five. He telephoned Channa, who of course is rushing here with
opinions.Plus, Jamun's mother also has had to combat her hypertension, her piles, corns,
arthritis, heart, marriage, her mind. (4)
The novel is full of the black humour that surrounds the sickness of Urmila, Shyamanand's
insufficient and sickly response to his wives illness, the helplessness and wags response of two sons - all
these indicate the meaninglessness and helplessness of human being' life. Urmila suffers long sickness and
then dies but the people who are closed to her like her husband Shyamanand and two sons. Jamun and Burfi
respond to the death of this lady in such a manner that it becomes clear to the readers that the human life
does not have any grand purpose. They come and go from this world where the pettiness of human life is
more important than the death of a human being. Urmila's death is described by the novelist with such
triviality:
In the last hours, the patient suffered a succession of explosions in her skull, a run of tiny
strokes. Her body's altogether mouldered, you know. Are you meaning to park the body at
home for long? Because her innards have putrefied, and relatives are likely to turn
distraught over a corpse, and hug and clutch it, and hamper its being toted off to the
crematorium; these hysterics crack up if, after a few hours, the cadaver they're half
worshipping exudes the wispiest pong are any such inflammable near and dear ones
waiting at home?(238-39)
The novel focuses on the family's time together dealing with Urmila's illness with Jamun memories
of the past. Chatterjee presents a funny vivid portrait of the some burden of the family ties. It is full of
restraint and sensitivity. Upamanyu Chatterjee exterminates the exceptional point of view with the help of
nostalgic character Jamun. He wants to deconstruct the eternal conception of human being. The loneliness
and eagerness crashed the journey of small family perceptional communication which demonstrates to the
life style of all human being. The burden of parents seems to be universal phenomena irrespective of
country or culture. The senselessness, the absurdity, and meaninglessness of life cannot find better
expression, than what the novelist has given here. The disease and death constitutes the life in its essence.
The two sons, Jamun and Burfi, the father Shyamanand, and the mother Urmila all represent a life that is
full of miseries and pain.
Upamanyu Chatterjee has ruthlessly examined the human relations in this novel. The creativity of
the novel actually comes from the fact that human beings are exposed in their relationship with others. He
has portrayed the characters as selfish, despairing, cynical, lacking warmth, violent, divided and tragic.
These terms define the relationship between husband and wife, parents and children. The whole novel is
developed around the narration of the cynical relationships that exists between Shyamanand and Urmila,
Jamun and Kasturi, Jamun and Burfi, Burfi and Joyce etc.In this novel besides the burden of family
relationships, the novelist also explores the impact of money on family relationships. All the characters in
this novel seem to be preoccupied with the money and not concern with the pain and sufferings of their own

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blood relation. Burfi and Shyamanand, they are more concern with money matters then with the suffering
and pain of Urmila. Burfi ironically comments on Shyamanand's habit of holding money. Now Urmila's
illness is forcing Shyamanand to spend money, Burfi comment's, 'Baba's first love, his money, will now be
gobbled up by this hocuspocus to extricate his first hate, his wife' (63). Jamun and Burfi discussed the
money matters and expenditure of Urmila's illness to the level of irreverence:
My attitude to money isn't the issue, you buggerthe question is, what's Baba doing with his
cash? Both of us, at different times, have hissed at him, with varying intensities of rage, that
we won't miss his money. Maybe we won't reallyeven though a windfall of money is one of
this world's appealing thingsbecause somehow we've made it, even you, you fuckpoteven
though you angled for really weird deal with Baba, haha. You remember? You can't forget!
He was so nonplussed when you proposed. “You make over your money to me, and I'll
remain with and foster you and Ma for the remainder of your lives, but I'll need to be
financially independent'some compact for a joker in his twenties! (66)
Lack of communication and lack of warmth in relationship is the chief cause of miseries in the life
of Shyamanand and Urmila. Their relationship is limited to the everyday affairs of life. It is very drab, even
to the extent of being ugly. Urmila and Shyamanand are not exceptional to this kind of human relationship.
Most of the people in this world are suffering because of the lack of warmth and love for each other. Jamun
describes the relationship between Shyamanand and Urmila thus:
Kasturi, my parents don't exactly bicker and wranglethey don't chat to each other at all, not
like other people, like you and I natterof the day, of how horrid the bus conductor was, and
how you had to slit from your tutorial because the rain was pummelling the windows and
the tutor was so unsexy my parents in contrast are sort of webbed in a glacial, spleenful
hush. They swap just a handful of phrases per day. “Dinner is ready... Have you signed the
cheque for the electricity? ... This tea is cold.” Beyond these expressions squats the silence.
(162)
Jamun clarifies that this lack of warmth in human relationship is not limited to Urmila and Shyamanand
alone. This is true of most of the people. “Unhurriedly, as though the years
needlingly tug at a veil, Jamun fathoms that his parents share several ugly attributes of their
marriage with millions of others” (162).The communication between two people is the core of sustaining
relationship. In the modernery life people have stopped communicative with each other and that is the
cause of all failures of relationships between Shyamanand and Urmila know good will be exists because
they did not want to talk with each other.
Please don't bother me, Jamun, with this drivel. All that I implore of your mother is that she
not speaks to me, on any matter. Is that too much to hope for? I want to sidestep all discord,
friction. I' m sorry, but your mother frets me dreadfully. Her droopy, doleful face , her
washed out voice a martyr hanging on despite indescribable torment the monotony of her
world, all tea, food and TV her entire disposition, her stodgy questions that drag out the day
Should she cook curry or fry the fish? Would you like chillies in the dal? fatuous questions
because nothing in our house improves, ever everything about your mother galls me. (182-
83)
Shyamanand and Urmila both suffer from various diseases. The whole novel is in fact a record of
the disease that Shyamanand and Urmila are suffering from. It seems that the author is obsessed with the
narratives of disease and death. Often they see a situation when one is imploring death. Urmila is now fed
up with the death narratives of Shyamanand. She is already full of disgust with the kind of the treatment
that she received from Shyamanand. Infact now she says that it is better if Shyamanand actually dies:
The unexpectedness of her husband's incivility bruises Urmila the most. She does slew

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away, instinctively, to withstand Shyamanand's harshness; it registers with her that even in
this, his extremity, his wits've found the time both to detest her and designedly to express
his loathing. The ridiculous disparity between what she panted upstairs to expert and what
she actually received pricks her to tears. She retorts almost ravingly, unwittingly, in a kind
of self defence. Then why don't you die, instead of just bleating about it! Your death'd at
least release our lives'She , appalled. (214)
Death is not as easy as Urmila would like it to be Shyamanand often feels that it is better to die
but death would not come easy:
I want to die!' He's pounded his impotent left arm and, with the snarling, warped features of
a hysteric, screeched out his powerlessness. 'Please, please let me...die.''He's then
blubbered something like that; very few would've understood him entirely, for his lips are
still too buckled, and his steerage of his tongue too babyish, for him to enunciate lucidly;
besides, the turmoil of the storm has smothered all other sound. (212)
The last times of before Urmila's death are describe by the novelist with such bitterness of life that it
becomes difficult to leave that the novelist could narrate the death and disease with such
precision, the descriptions of Urmila's final hours are with such details that the readers feel exhausted
reading the detailed descriptions about disease and misery. Even though there is a feeling of nausea in the
description of death and disease, but this is the reality of life, this is the existential condition, from which no
one can escape. Here it is necessary to quote at length the condition of Urmila before death.
It would be quite appropriate to say about the existing emotional structure of this family that it is
like an arena where everyone fights everyone. The ambience of the whole family is that of doubt, distrust
and hatred. India is a country where family is given the main concern. It is not a bad thing, but most of the
people do not get the accurate meaning of the word family and the responsibilities that come with it. If one
looks closely enough, one will find one Burfi in almost every house, making akin choices and decisions
with a Jamun by his side. The Last Burden gives a deep penetration into middle class Indian family life and
moderately explains why the majority of people abandon the traditional joint family structure in favour of a
nuclear one. Thus, all the ins and outs that reside in this world are given a free rein in this novel.

Works Cited
Chatterjee, Upamanyu. The Last Burden. New Delhi: Viking. Penguin Books. 1993. Print.
Ghosh, Sagarika. “Testimony to Change”.The Times of India. August 28.1993. Print.
English August: A Director's Introduction.The Complete Reviews:English August Upamanyu Chatterjee.
Biography, Rank.org.pg.4209: html.
Goodreads.com. Web. June 12, 2016. <http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/545616

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124
THE DEGRADATION OF NATURE: AN ECOCRITICAL STUDY OF
AMITAV GHOSH'S SEA OF POPPIES

N. Karpagavalli, Asst. Professor, Rani Anna Government College for Women, Tirunelveli

Abstract:
The birth of ecocriticism as a reaction to the global environmental crisis has given the platform to
rethink about human and nature relationship in literature. In Romantic poetry Earth is finally given a place
in Literature. Earth functions not merely a setting for literary work, but also an important character in
literary works. Ecocriticism fundamentally believes that human culture and their physical world are
connected. Greg Garrard simply mentions that the widest way to describe ecocriticism is the way it studies
the relationship of the human and the non-human, throughout human's cultural history and entailing
critical analysis in the term 'human' itself.

Keywords: Nature, eco-criticism, degredation, environment.

We'll live together or we'll die alone In our world poisoned by exploitation. Those who have
taken, now they must give And end the vanity of Nations We've but one Earth on which to
live. The international ideal unities the human race.(Revolution Rock 156)
It is a well known fact that the twenty first century man has denied and neglected the ecological
aspects of nature created by God, one who visualizes everything in terms of capitalism and consumerism in
a way to generate economy and power not aware of the drastic consequences that we encounter today. To
show his supremacy man did all types of odds and created a great imbalance in the life of all living beings in
the universe that ended in a great havoc in the whole cosmos.
The barbaric act of man creates a mess in the order of the universe. So to create a great awareness
among the masses against the capitalistic forces and to preserve the biosphere 'ecocriticism' as a term has
come with a healing approach. It tries to make a bond in between man and natural world.
Ecocriticism being a new term in literary science tries to find out the relationship between literature
and environment. Ecology is the science to study the interrelationship of living organisms to one another
and with the physical surroundings. It studies how human interrelates with the home i.e the earth, with its
treasurable resources like water, land, mineral resources. The term Ecocriticism gained momentum and
the term is used in order to understand the ecological problems throughout the world, which was first
coined by William Rueckert in 1978 in his essay Literature and Ecology, An Experiment in Ecocriticism to
highlight the relationship between ecology and Literature.
Sea of Poppies 2008 is the first volume in Amitav Ghosh's Ibis trilogy. It portrays the historical
incidents that took place in India during the nineteenth century. Ghosh picturizes how human beings for
their livelihood are forced to migrate from their own country as slaves to work in plantations for an
unsecured future. The migration and displacement almost kills their identity and tries all their best to make
them fit and adopt the Ibis as new cultural community.
Sea of Poppies is a historical novel that opens in 1838 on the eve of the opium wars. The narration
begins with the arrival of a former slave ship Ibis at Ganga Sagar island. “Discontinued as a black birder
with the abolition of slave trade the schooner is refitted to transport grimityas or indentured coolies from
Calcutta to the sugar estates in the British Colony of Mauritius. The novel unfolds with the events that
THE DEGRADATION OF NATURE: AN ECOCRITICAL STUDY OF AMITAV GHOSH'S SEA OF POPPIES 431
bring together these ship-siblings (356) with no difference of caste, colour, religion, language or creed as
they move towards a similar fate.
The novel takes the nineteenth century opium cultivation as the setting. The diversity of the
characters portray the colonization of the British in India. It is divided into 3 Parts 'Land''River' and Sea
showing the natural elements being the setting of the novel. It pictures the human's cruel treatment to
nature, as though man is superior to the non human nature. Ghosh help the readers to understand how
nature is being exploited for the economical greed of the British Government's opium trade with china.
The British Colonization marked the exploitation of India's land natural resources and people. The
arrival of the colonial settlers in India has brought changes not only to the society but also to the fertility of
the soil. The monoculture of poppy cultivation has totally transformed India's natural resources and the
society to the worst condition. In the dialogue of history of colonization, Ghosh portrays the relationship
between human and nature in the novel. Being trapped in the clutches of colonial exploitation and the
exploitation of nature, the indigenous sons of the soil are forced to migrate to foreign islands with lots of
hope for a new future and this was the great injustice done by the British to the nature of India.
In Sea of Poppies people of different race and social class come together to the board of the ship for
different reasons. Through the journey on the Ibis, Ghosh's characters are able to find their work and
recreate their history in the context of migration. Gangopadhyay highlights two events of history in the
novel. The Opium trade and the transport of Indian immigrants to the British plantations in Mauritius.
Ghosh uses the theme of journey to talk about the theme of colonial history in most of his works.
In Sea of Poppies Ghosh has analysed the effect of colonization on the lives of people of Calcutta
and also how nature has been degraded to the maximum by the British colonizers. In the village of
Ghazipur the people are farmers and they do poppy cultivation in their lands. In the novel Deeti is
described as a native woman of Ghazipur. Her love for nature makes her to have an environmental
consciousness that gives her the ability to note the difference that happens in the physical surrounding
when East India Company forces India to cultivate opium in our soil.
In every day life Deeti and her family go to the River Ganges to bathe. Her everyday need is satisfied by the
mother Ganges she says: “After massaging poppy-seed oil in to kabutris hair and her own. Deeti draped her
spare sari over her shoulder and led her daughter towards the water, across the field” (SOP87).
Deeti is always grateful to the nature that provides her food and water in need. Nature has become
an inseparable part of her spiritual light, that gives an insight of her future. In the novel nature shows her
signs and the visions of Ibis that will change her life forever. In the sacred waters Deeti has the vision. “The
image of the Ibis had been transported upstream, like and electric current the moment the vessel made
contact with the sacred waters. This would mean that it happened in the second week of March 1838, for
that was when the Ibis dropped anchor off Ganga Sagar Island” (SOP 10).
The novel portrays the monopoly of the British establishment over the natives monopolizing
opium production in India. To reach the fulfilment of huge profit, the British forces the natives to cultivate
poppy as a major crop in their fields. The monoculture of poppy plantation has changed the lives of the
natives and the soil too started to loose its fertility gradually. Thus everywhere poppy seems to be a
dominant crop and the gradual degrade of the soil ends in great exploitation. The poppies took the fertility
of the land and ends in a total change in the landscape from Benaresto Deeti's village in the Northern Bihar.
Deeti says:“The Ganga seemed to be flowing between twin glaciers, both its banks being blanketed by
thick drifts of while petalled flowers It was as if the snow of the Himalays have descended its spring time
profusion of color” (SOP 3).
The monoculture of poppy results in great damage to the soil. Since there is no way for crop
rotation, the soil looses its nutrient and there is a great imbalance in the eco system. Not only the soil but
also the animals, birds and insects in the physical environment are put in a great adverse condition. The

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smell of the poppy sap acts as a trap for the insects to attract and finally kills them.
The Ghazipur Opium factory was established in India by the East India company. It is the biggest
and oldest factory in the country. Ghosh gives a brief account of the negative aspects of Colonization in
India. Reading the pages of the novel one would be terrified and filled with tears for the working condition
of the natives in the factory. It is almost like a “hell of lethargy”. The waste of the factory causes great
pollution in the city. The polluted air affects all the living beings in the city. The smell of the opium mixed
with human sweat within the confined compartment is a living death for the labourers everyday. One has to
crave for fresh air to breath. Inaddition to this the labourers are cruelly tortured by the officers and we can
read it through the eyes of Deeti:
Ground up for storage these remains produced a fine dust that hung in the air like a fog of
snuff. Rare was the passer by who could brave this must without exploding into a
paroxysm of sneezes and sniffles……. The coolies pounding the trash were no more
affected by the dust then were their young English oversees. (SOP 89)
In the Sea of Poppies not only human beings but also the living beings in and around the
surroundings of the opium factory get affected by it. The butterflies too “flapped their wings in oddly
erratic patterns as though they could not remember how to fly” (SOP 28).
In the novel it is also shown that the waste of the opium factory is connected to the Ganga river. The
broken earthen ware pots that are used to store raw opium are found scaffered around the river and it
contaminates the river. The life of the aquatic animals are put in great danger. After consuming the
contaminated water there is a total change of behaviour in the monkeys. “They never chatter or stolen
things or food but came down to eat the remains of the opium effluents and would climb back in to the
branches to resume their scrutiny of the Ganga and its currents (SOP 91).
There are instances in the novel to show how fishermen use opium to catch fish. The contamination
in the river makes the fish to be caught easily.
This stretch of river bank . . . shored up with thousands of broken earthenware gharas - The
round bottomed vessels in which raw opium was brought to the factory. The belief was
widespread that fish were more easily caught after they had nibbled at the shards and as a
result the bank was always crowded with fisher men (SOP 92).
In the novel Paulette is referred as a Child of Nature by her father a French Botanist. Ghosh has
justified the name given to her was an Epiphylic orchid discovered by her father and named it. Dendrbuim
Pauletii. She never worshipped God but only Nature. Her father was her teacher and Nature was her book.
Her father says:
… a child of Nature that is what she is, my daughter paulette. She had no teacher other than
myself … the trees have been her scripture and earth her revelation. I have raised her to
revel in the state of liberty that is Nature itself. If she remains here in the colonies ……
where Europe hides its shame and its greed, all that awaits her is degradation. The whites of
this town will tear herapart like vultures and foxes, fighting over a corpse. (SOP 136)
From the beginning to the end of the novel, one can see how the genuine natural landscape gets
transformed, after the arrival of the British to India through Deeti. She as a farmer struggles and resists the
growing of poppy as the greenery of the soil gets lost. She wishes for the green vegetables and grains in the
middle of the poppy plants. One can witness the change through Deeti's anguish.
The landscape on the river's shores had changed a great deal since Deeti's childhood and
looking around now, it seemed to her that the karamnasas influence had spilled over its
banks, spreading its blight far beyond the lands that drew upon its waters. The opium
harvest having been recently completed ….. Except for the foliage of a few mango and jack
fruit tree, nowhere was anything green to relieve the eye…… she would have been asking

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herself what she would eat in the months ahead, where the vegetables? The grains? (SOP
188)
The power of nature is always soothing to the mind of Deeti, because nature plays an inseparable
part in her life. It shows her visions of her future, it gives her insight for all the incidents, and she has to
overcome in her life. Her marriage with Kalua in the ship is symbolic as it is performed with two garlands
made of wild flowers. Nature is the only true companion for all the labourers who gets turned into out caste
from the society because of their journey in the (Kalapani) black waters. They always seek peace joy hope
only in the lap of nature because 'she' is never partial to her children.
To conclude the arrival of the British imposed monoculture of poppy cultivation in the Indian soil
affects the life of the natives and the soil. The diversity of the crops is lost due to repeated opium cultivation
and whoever resists were forced to cultivate opium and it results in hunger debt starvation, poverty,
migration and the degradation of the environment. Ghosh beautifully pictures how the mono culture of
opium endangers all the living beings in the physical environment and that finally ends up in the
exploitation of nature and imbalance of the ecology.

Works Cited
Britton, Amy Revolution Rock. The Albums which Defined Two Ages, Author House publishers 2011.
Ghosh, Amitav Sea of Poppies. New York: Farrar Straus and Giraoux, 2008. Print.
Glotfelty, Cheryll, Introduction to The Eco Criticism Reader. Ed. Cheryll Glotfelty and Harold Fromm.
Athens, GA: The University of Georgia Press, 1996 Print.
Garrard, Greg. Ecocriticism. Newyork: Routledge, 2004. Print.
Gangopadhyay, Rudram “Finding one self On Board the Ibis in Amitav Ghosh's Sea of Poppies”WSQ:
Women's studies Quarterly.45. 1 & 2 (2017): 55-64.Print.

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125
POLITICS OF IDENTITY ON HA JIN'S THE WAR TRASH

S. Sabitha, Ph.D Research Scholer, Lekshmipuram College of Arts and Science, Neyyoor

Abstract:
This article focuses on the study of politics of Identity in Ha Jin's novel The War Trash. Ha Jin's
novel provides us with a platform to rethink modern literature in the global context. His novels not only
subvert the national frame work of literary studies but also challenge the assumption that a literary text
exists in stable or consistently identifiable form. Social and Political issues like multiculturalism, Cultural
interaction, riots, immigration, identity crisis, deprivation and discrimination are the common themes
found in Jin's novels. Jin's characters mainly suffer because of alienation and identity crisis, Identity crisis
has been one of the major problems confronting mankind in every society. War Trash has a range of varied
and striking characters as well as a plenty of actions. It also sheds light on a neglected part of a relatively
neglected war. Jin beautifully portraits how the Chinese soldiers suffer inside the prison camp. Each and
every soldier suffers because of their identity crisis. They want their own identity in their life. Rooted in
Social realism, cultural authenticity and historical accuracy, Ha Jin in this novel describes the lives of
soldiers against the larger political backdrop of China.

Keyword: Alienation, Social realism, Identity Crisis, Oppression, Immigrant Experiences.

Chinese American literature is the body of literature produced in the United States by the Writers of
Chinese descent. Ha Jin is a Chinese American poet and novelist, Who writes an effective exile. In exile he
writes from the four corners of China, singing songs of lament, and Chinese tradition. Jin is associated with
the misty poet movement. The misty poets are a group of Chinese who reacted against the restrictions
placed on the arts during the Cultural Revolution. Certain socio-political issues like multiculturalism,
cultural interaction, riots, immigration, identity, crisis, deprivation and discrimination are commonly
found in Ha Jin's novel. Ha Jin uses a different set of language to depict the inner crisis in the lives of the
characters with a focus extensively on helplessness, agony, struggle and submission. Jin's writing is
effective and precise his narrative bringing to life horrific battles, constant privation, of the worst sort and
abusive behavior by the Nationalists mainland Chinese officers and even the Americans.
The story of UN prison camp deals with cold war politics of left and right are transcended by
politics of humanity. Ha Jin's novel seek to underscore the universality of the Post-ideological human
subject of liberalism that has always constrained by categories of race, nation and gender categories. In the
cold war era, universal subject is re-imagined and re-configured through a politics of humanitarianism.
The War Trash is a hypnotic novel that deals withChinese soldiers who were taken prisoners by
U.N. force mainly America during the Korean War. Yu Yuan the protagonist sits in an over crowd prison
compound on Kaja Island, a small island off the Southern coast of Korea. Yu and his fellow prisoners,
soldiers of the Chinese people's volunteer army, have been captured by UN forces during the KoreanWar.
While Yu is determined to return home to China to take care of his aging mother and marry his sweetheart.
The prisoners get intermittently brutal treatment from their American guards; Yu Yuan is a quiet and
intellectual who learned from an English missionary in his home village. His skills served him well in
prison as a valued interpreter for the Chinese political leaders and their American captors. He spent time in
the Nationalist Military academy before Mao's rise to power in 1949.
POLITICS OF IDENTITY ON HA JIN'S THE WAR TRASH 435
th
Yu is a low-ranking officer and is deployed to Korea with the 180 division. His unit crosses into
South Korea and fight against the forces of United Nations. He was brutally beaten up by the American
soldiers. Yu is hurt and captured and finally admitted in a military hospital as a prisoner of War.
The new arrival came up to me and patted my forehead. I opened my eyes fully and was
amazed to see a female face. She was in her late twenties, slender with gaunt features, and
the insignia on her cap indicated the rank of major. Her auburn hair, short but neat, stuck
out from beneath the brim of her cap. Her clear Hazel eyes gazed at me kindly as a smile
displayed her uneven teeth. To my astonishment, she said in excellent Mandarin, “I'm Dr.
Greene. But she spoke so spontaneously that I wondered if I had heard her right.(64)
He is impressed and surprised by the gentility of the hospital staff and the humane way in which he, is
treated. The communist prisoners fall into two main camps. One group is loyal to the communist and the
othergroup iswants to defeat and live in freedom in the West. These are the Pro-nationalists.
Yuam hides his own identity and he assumes a false identity so that he is taken to the Island of Huh-
ae-Do, Where he is housed in the pro-nationalist section. He doesn't care about the politics of the situation
but wants to return to his mainland. He is kidnapped by the pro-nationalists who tattoo “FUCK
COMMUNISM” across his foreheads in English.
Below my novel stretches a long tattoo that says 'fuck…..u….s…..' The skin above those
dots has shriveled as though scarred by burns. Like a talisman, the tattoo has protected me I
china for almost five decades before coming to the states, I wondered whether I should have
it removed. I decided not to, not because I cherished it or was narrow about she surgery, but
because if I had done that, word might have spread and the authorities, suspecting I
wouldn't return, might have revoked my past (204)
The prisoners are brutally treated by the UN soldiers after a lot of sufferings. The prisoners are
moved to a better organized camp system on Cheju Island. There the facilities are better, cleaner and
generally more sanitary, the methods for controlling the prisoners are also better and more effective. Small
group of Chinese officers are sent to Korea to re-register. Conisar Pei Pretend Yu to be ChalgMilg and asks
him to go Korea in his place. However, the subterfuge is discovered and Yu, masquerading as Ming claims
to be angry with the communists and sends him to the nationalist camp at. Koje Island there he is treated
with suspicion all over again.
Yu is again required to pick a side, he has spent countless methods with the communist which will
forever damage his reputation in Taiwan. He learns rumor that emigratly to neutral country is possible as he
enters the registration tent, he sees an old friend who is acting as a communist informs Yu that in the two
ears of ho absence, his fiancé has deserted him in shame. He brought disgrace to the family name by
allowing himself as a party member to have been imprisoned. His mother has passed away, He sees as
disloyal and is unable to use his college education, He settles into a quiet and lonely existence as a teacher.
Finally, he changes his mind and marries a chemistry teacher and become father of a child. His
child attends a prestigious college. He visits his son in America and at last finds fine to write the memory.
He dedicates it to his American grand children. As a portrait of life in the camps and a study in the
corruption and hypocrisy of modern Chinese political culture war trash is unfailingly powerful novel.
Jin's writing style is noted for its clarity, strait for wardens and simplicity and for its accurate
depiction of compact emotion. Yu Yan dispassionately describes both the brutality and humanity in the
camp as well as his own role in making pragmatic decisions towards achieving his goal of retouring to his
family. His close attention to the minute details of everyday life has been frequently compared to the
attention of the nineteenth century novelists Charles Dickens and andHonoree De Balzac. Jin's words also
show the strong stylistic and thematic influences of Russian writers Isacc Babel and Leo Tolstoy. All of
Jin's fictional writings are about China are political because he considers Chinese society to be one that is

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managed by the Chinese government. War Trash is not a clearly post-election and the massage is not a new
one. It is neverthelessworthwhile and mesmerizing in its spare, elegant story-telling prose. The book's
strong anti-war, humanitarian message rebateshorror and suffering of War.

Works Cited
Jin, Ha.War Trash. New York: Vintage International, 2004. Print.
Banks, Tussel. “View from the pvison cam.” Rev. of War Trash, by Ha Jin. New York Times 10 October
2004. Web.

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126
MAGICAL REALISM IN GIRISH KARNAD'S NAGA-MANDALA

R. Priyadarshini, M.Phil Scholar, V. O. Chidambaram College, Thoothukudi

Abstract:
This abstract explores the magical elements employed in Girish Karnad's drama Naga-Mandala.
Magical realism is a genre which weaves the unrealistic magical elements into the plot which is set in the
realistic environment of our everyday life. The genre brings together a feast of realistic fiction added with
the elements of fantasy. The drama Naga-Mandala was originally written in Kannada and later it was
translated into English by the author himself. The drama employs the plot drawn from two Kannada tales,
employing magical elements of talking flames, shape-shifting Cobra and magical roots and the
incarnation of inanimate objects into human beings.Naga-Mandala is set in the present world that the
employment of all these magical elements seem unreal and novel.

Key words: Magic, reality, myth and incarnation.

Magical realism has always played a huge role in the mythical legends and folklores of a society.
The concept of magical realism is said to have become popular during the post modern period. The
reception of the genre was much appreciated and enjoyed by the public that it didn't constrict or confine
itself within the children's bedtime stories. The charm of the magical realism didn't fail to reach the hearts
of the grown-ups either. “Mythic and magical traditions, Alexis argued, far from being alienated from the
people, or mere mystifications, were the distinctive feature of their local and national cultures, and were
the collective forms by which they gave expression to their identity and articulated their difference from
the dominant colonial and racial oppressors.”
Magicalrealism goes hand in hand with mythology. The genre is nothing new to a country like India
which has its own folklores featuring mythical legends and fables, fostering many cultures. Thegenre is
conceived from mixing the reality with that of unrealistic elements. Though the writings of this genre may
have varied elements, more often than not, they tend to lean towards some of the familiar characteristics
and employ them in its wake.Girish Karnad is an Indian writer and an actor. He is also a Kannada
playwright. He is also a translator. HisdramaNaga-Mandalawas originally written in Kannada and then it
was translated into English by himself. He dedicates the drama to Professor A.K. Ramanujan. He
confesses in the preface that the drama is based on two tales he heard from Professor A. K. Ramanujan
several years ago.
Naga-Mandala is adorned with many unrealistic magical elements in support of the mythical
folklore. The drama begins in the inner sanctum of a ruined temple. A man has taken aboard in the temple
when he hears female voices and giggles entering the temple,but to his surprise it was not any woman
coming to the temple in the middle of the night rather he witnesses several flames talking in female voices.
He hides behind a pillar and eavesdrops on them. The first bout of magical realism is found here in the
unrealistic account of the flames gathering in a temple for a meeting among them. It doesnot stop there. The
drama distinguishes the flames by gender.
While the man is eavesdropping on the flames, one flame recounts the chaos that has ensued in her
master's house. The flame brings along a young woman draped in a beautiful sari, introducing her as a story
and her sari is a song. It seems that the mistress of the house had known a story and a song for a long time,
MAGICAL REALISM IN GIRISH KARNAD'S NAGA-MANDALA 438
(the story and the song in question is supposedly the woman in the sari) but she didn't depart them to
anyone. Again the incarnation of the story as a woman does not give any leeway to being it real. Though the
mistress could see the woman with her own eyes, she is not privy to the birth of her and who she is or better
yet what it is in reality.
On top of that the man who has found refuge in the temple is introduced to be a story teller and since
he has made his audience sleep while he reciting stories, the abused mass of sleep has turned against him
and cursed him with death if he does not stay awake one full night in the month. Personifying and
addressing Sleep as a person and its need for revenge borders on unreality making it magical. Another
important characteristic of this genre is the time period. The drama is set in the contemporary. It is neither
set in the past or the future. Though the drama is set in the present where the talking flames, the incarnation
of the story and the song as a young woman, the magical roots and the shape-shifting of the Cobra do not
exist and the thoughts of them alone borders on imaginary and unrealistic.
Magical realism seems to be the by-product of the myths which the society passes along to its next
generation. The employment of myths in this genre is far and wide. Snakes are a huge part of Indian
mythology. They are often believed to take the shape of the humans, incarnate themselves into human
beings in order to achieve something. Though the myths have long been picturing snakes turning
themselves into human beings to avenge themselves and their loved ones, Girish Karnad employs the
shape-shifting of the King Cobra as a human because of its consumption of some magical portion.
Rani is the heroine of the story. She is married to a rich man named, Appanna. She moves in with
her husband to his village where he locks her in the house and visits her at lunch time only, spending his day
in with his concubine. When Kurudavva, a blind woman and a friend of Appanna's deceased mother, she
finds the new bride locked inside the house, she talks to her through the window and tries to help improve
her marriage. She presents two roots to Rani saying that if she feeds this to her husband, he will be a slave to
her and their marital life soon will blossom.
Again Girish Karnad employs another element of magical realism. Themagical roots. They are
similar to the magical portion employed in Shakespeare'sAs You Like It. At first Rani grinds the small root
into a paste and mixes it in Milk and feeds Appanna buthe faints after drinking the portion. When he comes
awake, there is no sign of wedded bliss on his face, only the usual distaste for her.Neverthelss, Rani grinds
the larger root and adds it into the curry next day but the sudden explosion from the curry leaves her
bewildered and the frightening blood red colour of the curry has her pouring it into ant-hill nearby.
A King Cobra emerges out of the ant-hill and follows her at a distance. It keeps a close eye on the
house. Once Appanna locks the front door and leaves, the Cobra enters the house through the bathroom
drain and incarnates itself into the shape of Appanna. He is called Naga throughout the drama. The Cobra is
compelled to take the shape of her husband because he is spellbound and has fallen in love with her after
drinking the magical portion.Naga visits her at night and Appannavisits her at lunch. Naga is her tender
lover whereas Appanna is distant and cold towards her. Rani Couldnot decipher her husband's tender and
cold attitude towards her. Nor she doubts her husband as two different people.Appanna brings a dog and
leashes it at the front door.The dog stands on guard upon seeing the intruder, Naga in his original King
Cobra attire. The two fight and the death of the dog ensures the entry for Naga. He slithers his way to the
drain and enters the bedroom where he sees Rani dozing off. Upon seeing her tender husband, she reacts to
the blood on his cheek and questions about the wound. When she catches his reflection in the mirror, she
sees a snake and screams. She attributes his blood being cold due to the weather. Girish Karnad employs
the cold-blooded Cobra as the incarnation of Appanna in the drama. He distinguishes Appanna and Naga
by their attitude and their biological difference regardless of their identical physical features. The Cobra
taking the shape of a man and falling in love with the woman after drinking the portion which is supposedly
magical and spellbound has us questioning and pondering to differentiate between the reality which is

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wound tightly between the unusual and unbelievable elements of magical realism. Girish Karnad surprises
us further when the real life Cobra in the shape of a human impregnates Rani. When Appanna finds out
about the pregnancy, he summons her before the village court and vows that it is not his baby and that he
never touched his wife. The village court summons her and she is given an ultimatum that she will meet her
death in the hands of the Cobra if she is to lie her way out. Before she proceeds through the ordeal she
remembers the words of her tender husband Naga who is supposedly Appanna. “NAGA: Say anything.
But you must speak the truth” (33).
Rani takes the Cobra in her hands and faces the village court. She says that she has ever only
touched two men, namely her husband and the Cobra. “RANI: And this Cobra” (38). The Cobra slides up
her shoulders and wraps its body around her and upon seeing this sight, the village people starts shouting
their cries calling her a divine being and a Goddess in reincarnation. She and Appanna are seated in a
Palanquin.. She claims that a woman has come and taken her son with her. She claims the woman to be a
temptress coming from beyond. All the festivities had led Appanna to respect his wife Rani and see her as a
Goddess. They live a happy life with their little son now.
Meanwhile Naga is unhappy without seeing Rani. So he enters their house through the drain and
climbs into the long tresses of Rani and curls himself around her locks pretending to mate with her locks.
Now that Appanna is around Rani, Naga is in his real Cobra self. When Appanna combs her hair, he flings
the dead Cobra from her hair. The magical elements don't just stop there. The storyteller claims that the
ending of the story doesn't sound enticing. So the flames ask him to give a new ending to the story. The new
ending finds Rani helping the Cobra hide in her tresses while Appanna has gone to find a stick to hit the
Cobra. Whether Rani has found out about Naga remains a secret till the end. But her talking to the Cobra as
if it is a human beingjustifies the magical realism employed within the drama.

Works Cited
nd
Ashcroft, Bill. Gareth Griffiths and Helen Tiffin. Post-colonial Studies. 2 ed. New York: Taylor & Francis
Group, 2007. Print.
Karnad, Girish. Naga-mandala.New Delhi: Oxford UP. 1990. Print.

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127
UNTANGLED SOUL THROUGH ORIGAMI IN KEN LIU'S THE PAPER
MENAGERIE

Karthika. B, M.Phil scholar, V.O.C. College, Thoothukudi

Abstract:
The people interest on fantasy, magic, illusion, reminisce are still at the peak of craze. The peak of
craze makes the people to analyze the depth of its origin. Once the depth of fantasy or magic is understood,
it gives new shape to life. The life which is lead with set of rules with love will always leads to peace.
Exposing love also needs some tools to make the love more truthful. Author expressed his tool of love
through origami. This paper focuses on the relationship between son and mother which gets distance due
to son's adolescences. The love, care goes fade when the children grew up but the good soul for children
remains with purity. This paper is written in the view of mother's love towards the son.

Key words: Love, ignorance, sorrow, regret, memories.

Ken Liu well famous Chinese American writer who has written notable works. His popular works
are The Grace of Kings, The Three- Body Problem, Byzantie Empathy. All his works were very popular for
its unique themes. This uniqueness gave his awards named Hugo Award, Locus Award, Fantab's Award,
World Fantasy Award. Liu was born on 1976 in Lanzhou at China. His degree was in English literature and
computer science at Harvard College. In 2002 Ken Liu started his writing fiction and translation which
gave him a great triumph which lead him to a famous short story writer. Ken Liu's family was emigrated
from California and Stonington. Later they settled in the Waterford when Liu was eleven. So, mild touch of
migration and the struggle for adopting the present situation is exposed in the every penned work. The
thread line of exposing his inner feelings in the work made him so popular. On the other side the short
stories gave him out most popularity in the field of writing. He has other short stories such as The Man Who
Ended History: A Documentary, All the Flavors, The Bookmaking Habits of Select Species, The Litigation
Master and the Monkey King, Mono no Aware, The Waves.
The Paper Menagerie is fantasy short story which was published in the year 2011 in the The
Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. The story became the first work of fiction to win Nebula, the
Hugo and the World Fantasy Award. This short story was considered as best collection of short stories by
Ken Liu, which has also won Locus Award. The short story unfolds major problem of parents in the fast
development world. The story has major themes such as diasporic agony, human civilization, revolution in
China and the pathetic situation of the children in the early 1966. The unnamed mother character of Jack is
focused here as the main protagonist. There only few characters, who were molded with their own native
language and style. The story set is in America where Jack's mother greatly struggle to mingle with natives
of America.
The story starts with the sad note of mothers feeling on adopting the cultural and language. Her
deviation of making origami helps to move out of stress. Origami plays the role of fantasy which makes the
readers to stand in magical realism where else it also conveys the wounded soul's past life. The family
consists of minimal typical character were their life goes in the routine habits. Jacks sees his parents get
partly with the argument with in them. Jack's mom diverts him from noticing her sorrow and pain. She
gives him animals made out of paper, when she blew up the paper animals it jumps up and roll over. Jack's
UNTANGLED SOUL THROUGH ORIGAMI IN KEN LIU'S THE PAPER MENAGERIE 441
childhood and mothers feel of her struggle is eradicated with Jacks interaction with paper animals. His
childhood life went with love on paper animals, it goes on follows him crazily. He had his own best
companion named Laohu, made out of paper that had the similar characteristics as dog. They both were
best friends, companions and patners not only for themselves also for his mother. Their friendship was the
stress buster and happiness for Jack's mother. But the happiness of Jack and his mother does not stay long
for ages. The happiness began fade when Jack was feeling shame his mother's native language and
drawback of adopting American environment In school he faces trouble due to his mother's Chinese
language. Some of friends used to imitate his mother's native language. Jack who was suppressed with his
mother's behavior started to move away from his mother and her paper menageries. He failed to shower his
innocent love on his crushed paper friends, so they became useless for him. More over his companionship
and game partners were changed.
Adolescence became their barrier for mother who loved his son more than anything else. Jacks love
for his mother completely changed into wrath for being lack of adaptable in herself. Once, the incident with
his friend who bought Obi-wan changed his entire feeling for paper animals. He found Obi-Wan a toy from
his as super most cpmpanion than his paper menagerie. His love for Obi-Wan was increasing
simultaneously the love for his mother and her paper animals decreased. Then Obi-Wan was replaced with
other star warrior toys. Jack found his mother and her paper animals as peak of stupidity. But the mother's
loved him more than before. The adolescence of the child makes the child to grew up with creativity self
knowledge. Their thoughts, and interests change or it get improved with wide knowledge. Simultaneously
the child began to see his mother as worm inside the cocoon. As they grew up they began to degrade the
love caring and affection. When a person is stressed extremely towards love they suppress themselves or
the change themselves for their loved ones to gain attention. On doing so psychologically they get
suppressed or the face a criteria which make them feel the negative aspect of life altogether as they put
themselves in a point, which totally change them and lead a new life which totally liked by themselves.
The unnamed mother character gets continually suppressed by her husband for struggle for
adopting the American circumstance; she finds her peace and joy with her paper animals and her son. She
uses her paper animals to divert herself from the pressure she faces for her identity. Her paper menagerie
becomes her tool to express. Jack's mother finds great difficulty in adopting the new circumstance and
American neighborhood. Here she expresses her disporic pain and she longs for her life back with
happiness. She is forced to speak English and to ignore her native language.
She tried to speak, stopped, and tried again, and stopped again.
“You have to,” Dad said. “Í've been too easy on you. Jack needs to fit in.”
Mom looked at him. “If I say 'love', I feel here”. She pointed to her lips. “If I say 'ai', I feel
here”. She put her hand over her heart.
Dad shook his head. “You are in America.”(Liu 33)
Jacks mother find a Chinese language, her native language to express her own feel rather than English. As
the days pass Jack's mother grew older, the hate on her for her language and identity too grew older but
stronger.
The loneliness began to affect her, it made her sick and made her to meet her end. Jack who was
once in affection with his mother, started missing his mother's love and care. He began to recollect his
memories with his mother. He searched her collection of living paper animal which would give his
mother's memory and love back. Laohu was frightened, he was frighted of Jacks terrible treatment that was
made on him in the past. Laohu was too old and cracked got crushed. Laohu was very loveable with Jack in
his childhood, now it was like horror moment which is back again. Laohu's fear wrecked Jack. He began to
regret his mistake which cannot be corrected
Jean Piaget in his Theory of cognitive development, he talks about the child's development through

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UNTANGLED SOUL THROUGH ORIGAMI IN KEN LIU'S THE PAPER MENAGERIE 442
stages of growth. He talks about child growth in particular age of 6 or 7 years. He says that the child sees the
situation that it faces in its daily life with its own premature mind. It shows about the growth of the child's
mind in the particular situation. Jack who faces such situation grows up with same maturity till his
adolescences, later his adolescences brings gap which makes him to fail to turn towards his mother's
loneliness, thus the hate on his mother grew strong which makes him to leave his mother unnoticed in her
dead bed. When he wants her love and care he is left as orphan. Once when he comes to knew about his
mother background for not learning English, he feels shame on himself, when he tries to apologies his
mistakes he fails. Jack fined his mothers soul contacts him to say something which could rebuild their
affection and love. She keeps her secrets unfold in the paper animals which she has done. She exposes her
pain and agony written in the paper which she would make into animals later. Her sadness, love, pathetic
life between death and survival is clearly portrayed in Chinese. Unfortunately Jack who is in the very
closely tied with English fails to learn Chinese which was completely hated by him.
Jack's mother writes her biography in the paper animals, that she was born in poor peasant's family
in Sigulu. Were the whole village met with Cultural Revolution in 1966, made their life too pathetic which
left in famineIn those six years she found her inhumanity emerges along with slavery. The house she works
was greatly against to English people and their rule. Some kind hearted women showed a way a new life.
As the result she married Jacks father who made her as slave even after marriage.
Adolescence in the child hood likes to explore the world which is beyond are their thoughts. On
exploring, the child gets into the new world, meanwhile the child ignores the love, affection and care from
their parents such ignorance ruins the life of the parents later it is lead to psychological depression and
other problems. Every soul has its own memorable past, both the past and present should be lead with
happiness. The child ignorance on parents makes the older generation to lead their life in with pain.
However a life may go but the ignorance of love and care will only lead to fall.

Works Cited
Liu, Ken. The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2016. Print
https://www.mentalhelp.net/articles/ an-overview-of-adolescent-development
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/cognitive_development
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Liu

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128
FANTASY: FABRICATION OF 'UNREALITIES' AND 'REALITIES' THROUGH
IMAGINATION

K. Nithya, M. Phil Scholar, V. O. Chidambaram College, Tuticorin

Abstract:
Typically, we all have some kind of fascination over the genre, Fantasy. It is because, in this genre
only, we can enjoy the impractical elements of our life and, through which we can escape from the boring
real world as well as can endure some sort of pleasure from the world of imagination. Our quest for the
ideal world is usually satisfied through it. Furthermore, it evaporates our stress and makes us relief.
Besides, it teaches moral values; and most of the time, it presents a moral or ideal message to the readers at
the end. These are the fundamental reasons behind our fascination over this enchanting genre.Here, the
paper deals with J. K. Rowling's The Tales of Beedle the Bard, a collection of five Fantasy short stories.
And it uncovers how the impractical factors of the stories are presented as practical factors and argues
whether those are partially possible to the real life of our contemporary society or just the tools to ease our
stress in this problematic world. Moreover, it examines how far the stories teach morals to the real life,
though they are loaded with full of supernatural elements. In this way, it traces the fabrication of
'unrealities' and 'realities' through the five imaginative stories of Rowling.

Keywords: Unreality, Reality, Moral, Imagination and Desire.

The five fantasy stories of The Tales of Beedle the Bard set in various impractical scenarios with
different types of supernatural elements and some natural factors. The stories are “The Wizard and the
Hopping Pot”, “The Fountain of Fair Fortune”, “The Warlock's Hairy Heart”, “Babbitty Rabbitty and Her
Cackling Stump” and, “The Tale of the Three Brothers”. Nearly all the names of story give the supernatural
effect except the last one.
Even in the names of story, there are fabrications of unrealities and realities; the pot is the real thing
but hopping pot is supernatural, fountain is a normal thing whereas fountain with fair fortune is
imaginative one, heart is a natural one but there is no hairy heart in the universe, so that is unnatural and,
stump is an inanimate thing to which cackling is not at all possible. Therefore, the combination of realities
and unrealities presents the fantasy.
The first story “The Wizard and the Hopping Pot” revolves around two different types of wizards
where one is father who is the person with helping tendency and generosity; but another one is his son who
is the person with materialistic mind and meanness. The father wizard always helps to cure the crisis of his
villagers without expecting anything from them by the help of his magical pot. After his death, when his
villagers come and ask help from his son to amend their crisis, the son just cares about his own self and
slams the door on their faces; because without any offering, he does not aspire to help them unlike his
father. But for his every materialistic act towards their villagers' crisis, the father's pot reacts by bearing all
crises of the villagers in its body such as 'warts' for the peasant woman's warts afflicted granddaughter,
'hunger and bray of donkey' for an old man's starving family due to his stolen donkey and, 'tears and wail of
baby' for an young woman's grievously ill-baby. By keeping 'plague hopping pot', the embodiment of
villagers' crises following him, he is not able to sleep and eat peacefully. So that, he cures all of their crises
voluntarily to get back his peace.
FANTASY: FABRICATION OF 'UNREALITIES' AND 'REALITIES' THROUGH IMAGINATION 444
In this first story, the father wizard and his generosity towards his villagers are not the practical
factors of our real society where everyone expects to pay back for their acts. It is only possible in
imagination though the story sets in an actual world. It is just to motivate and provoke the helping tendency
in the real world. No practical character amends all the crises of his or her neighbours without any self-
benefit though has the magical powers. And the son wizard and his materialistic character reflect our real
contemporary society's mindset. It is the real scenario where no magical hopping pot bears our crises and
cures as well. Furthermore, the moral of the story is that, “You have not lived today until you have done
something for someone who can never repay you” (Bunyan). It is good to read and hear this moral. But it is
not always practicable in reality. One can enjoy morals like this in the fantasy only and cannot apply in the
true life where money and materials means a lot. So, the story is to enjoy the things through imagination
that we cannot expect and do in our true life.
The second story “The Fountain of Fair Fortune” focuses on the center the 'fountain of fair fortune'
to which many characters try to go in order to take bath in it with the purpose of removing their
unfortunates and, getting eternal fortune in which three witches and a knight also trying their best; they are
Asha for her sick of Malady, Altheda for her robbed power and riches, Amata for her broken heart due to the
love upon on an evil man and, Sir Luckless for his luckless life after all the wars. But only one person can
go and take bath in it. However, the three women share their problems and plan to go into the fountain
jointly to rectify all their worries where they accompany with the Knight accidently. And with unity, they
cross their barriers and get removed from their problems.
In this story, all the four major characters suffer in the real problems of world. To make well all of
their issues, they seek supernatural remedies and succeed in their journey because of their unity. If it is real,
then there will be no problem among human race. Problems are natural in the actual where the people
should face and overcome those things; because, there is no fortune fountain. It is just an imagination
world where one can change their life through supernatural acts. It is just an unreality through which two
morals are presented. The first one is that 'unity is strength'. It is little possible in the competitive current
society. And the second moral is that, “No one has ever become poor by giving” (Frank). This moral is an
irony to the covetous society where no unfamiliar characters give their only one chance for others. It is the
bitter reality; to escape from this, the fantasy stories help us. But the unreal fantasy and realities are totally
differed from one another where one can enjoy the imagination but cannot live like that.
The third story “The Warlock's Hairy Heart” centers on a strange Warlock who denies all the
natural affairs of the world such as love, marriage, togetherness and all the human feelings by believing
that they are weakness. So to safeguard him from all the weakness, he removes his own heart and locks it in
a dark box for years. But while aging, he wants to end his solitary life by marrying a witch. Without heart
and any deep feeling, he moves with his fiancé. But finally he replaces his heart in its place and falls in love
with his ladylove. Unfortunately, in deep love, when he tries to exchange his heart with hers through his
magic, he fails to replace his own in her chest where his lover dies pathetically. But, magic cannot recover a
dead one. So, he also dies with all disappointments.
The last but one story “Babbitty Rabbitty and Her Cackling Stump” is about a foolish King. The
king desires to become an only one superior wizard and so orders to kill all other wizards and witches. To
fulfill his desire, he searches a great master wizard as well where a crook charlatan comes sans magical
power just to get the riches from the King. Continuously he deceives his King with small tricks. When the
king reveals it, charlatan puts the offense upon an innocent witch Babbitty who is working as a
washerwoman to escape from the order of King. Suddenly, she transforms into a tree and cackles in order to
mock at the foolishness of the King and makes him to understand it. Finally, she orders him to protect the
wizards and witches to escape from her curse. Moreover, she commends him to erect a golden statue for her
upon the cackling stump to commemorate this incident.

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In actuality, a normal woman cannot get victory over a king and get a golden statue in her own
figure. But, in fantasy one can do anything that, “I believe fantasy and dreaming can be made a reality. You
don't have to be rich. You don't have to be a VIP” (Zoe). The moral is that, 'You reap what you sow'. The
king has done bad things to his people; so to indicate his foolishness, loss and stupidity, he himself erected a
statue of a normal woman. The moral is the good message and applicable to our actual world though the
story is fantasy.
The last one “The Tale of the Three Brothers” depicts the story of three wizard brothers who come
to cross deadly river; they cross it by their magic. But Death interrupts them and congratulates them
cunningly by giving three gifts namely powerful wand for first one, philosopher stone for second one and
its own Cloak of Invisibility for third one under their wishes. But the first two brothers die by the chase of
Death. In reality, no one can escape from death. But, this story presents the moral 'Don't assume that fate is
final'. It is contrary to the reality; because death is an unavoidable factor.
In the way, through fantasy stories, we people imagine the desired things and scenarios as realities
that we cannot assume in real world with all realities. It is just to satisfy the longing soul that situated inside
us. It is to ease our craving heart which often desires to fly into a dreamy world where one can do anything
as by their wishes apart from the problematic world where all the issues suppress them to suffocate in the
process of searching solutions. Therefore the truth is that, “Fantasy mirrors desires. Imagination reshapes
it” (Cooley). But, there is no purely imagination; there is realty as well. So that the moral messages of
fantasy acquaint with real situations of actual world partially and completely at times. Thus, the fantasy is
fabrication of unrealities into realities through imagination.

Works Cited
Bunyan, John. “Helping Others Quotes”. Goodreads. N. p., 2019. Web. 6 Feb. 2019.
Cooley, Mason. “Fantasy Quotes”. Brainy Quote. N. p., 2019. Web. 2 Feb. 2019.
Frank, Anne. “Helping Others Quotes”. Goodreads. N. p., 2019. Web. 6 Feb. 2019.
Rowling, J. K. “Fantasy Quotes”. Brainy Quote. N. p., 2019. Web. 2 Feb. 2019.
---, The Tales of Beedle the Bard. Great Britain: Bloomsbury, 2008. Print.
Zoe, Rachel. “Fantasy Quotes”. Brainy Quote. N. p., 2019. Web. 2 Feb. 2019.

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129
THE SUFFERING OF SUBCULTURAL FORMATION: AN INVESTIGATION INTO
ROHINTON MISTRY'S NOVELS

Kiranmayee. A, Research Scholar, English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad

Abstract:
To speak of culture is to articulate a reflection on a system of life. The above statement has broad
scope under varied conditions. Matthew Arnold, in his essay "Culture and Anarchy" says that "[Culture]
seeks to do away with classes; to make the best that has been thought and known in the world current
everywhere; to make all men live in an atmosphere of sweetness and light [...]". The views of Arnold are
true if the mainstream culture is not affected by forceful persecution or other factors. Also the spatial
displacement of people makes them suffer effects of the sub-culture which stands poles apart from the
mainstream culture in any particular place. My paper begins in this particular aspect of the suffering in the
sub-cultural formation of Parsis who migrated from Iran to India.The paper undertakes an attempt to
analyze this aspect in the novels of Rohinton Mistry, an Indian born Canadian novelist. Mistry says, 'I must
write about what I best know about. In a way, I automatically speak for my tribe'. (Geoff Hancock: 145) I
have chosen for my argument a couple of epoch making novels by Mistry, Such a Long Journey and A Fine
Balance in which Mistry paints the panorama of the sub-culture formation of Parsis in his work. The paper
examines how Mistry depicted his views of culture through characters in both the novels. It also tries to
evaluate the sense of being lost in an alien place, homelessness and exile which forms the locus of my
paper. The paper also looks at the postcolonial metaphor, 'Journey' in this context of sub cultural
formation with a special reference to both the novels. More importantly: what kind of significance does the
diaspora of the Parsi community have on contemporary neocolonial and neoliberal capitalistic parts of
the world. This paper answers the questions through the intermingling of postcolonial theory and theories
of praxis. The paper also makes an attempt to unveil the constructedness of the sub cultural formation and
postcolonial 'journey' and its implications for the theory of post-colonialism in Mistry's works.

Keywords: Culture, Parsees, Diaspora, trauma.

Rohinton Mistry, a South Indian born Canadian novelist, through his potent voice in fiction makes
a part of Indian diaspora. Mistry belongs to the class of writers who shift their base to some alien place and
often exists' ties towards the motherland in his works. His fiction gives ample proof of diasporic elements
like the dual identity, nostalgia, exile of which, his motherland, India appears as an integral part revealing
Mistry's segregation of India. Memory plays an important role in the diasporic works and likewise,
Mistry's works reflects his preservation of his Indian life. In an interview with Veena Gokhale, he tells her
how he has kept the memory of India and vivid enough to work in the minute details that his novels contain
in abundance:
In general, I don't think there is much one can do to keep memory alive- memory lives and
dies on its own. Memory is a strange thing: when assumed to be dead, it can surprise one by
returning to life. I am speaking of course, not of memory that is concerned with things like
street, names, film songs etc. These things can be found in maps and books. I refer to those
moments which, at the time of actual occurrence, may have seemed banal, but which, given
the gift of remembrance, become moments of revelation. My novels as not 'researched' in
THE SUFFERING OF SUBCULTURAL FORMATION: AN INVESTIGATION INTO ROHINTON MISTRY'S NOVELS 447
the formal sense of the word. Newspapers, Magazines, Chats with visitors from India, chats
with people on my infrequent visits to India-these are the things I rely on. Having said that, I
will add that all these would be worthless without the two main ingredients: memory and
imagination. (3)
Mistry's attempts to bridge the gaps between the two lands (place of birth and place of present life,
Bombay and Canada respectively) are evident of the writer's memory, sense of loss that allow to exist the
writer at the periphery of the two cultures and in the process of reclaiming his own past. Mistry's
displacement in this context is materialized in his short stories entitled The Tales From Firozsha Bagg as
Mistry speaks through the voice of the protagonist saying that, “I am guilty of the sin of hubris for seeking
emigration out of the land of my birth, and paying the price is burnt out eyes: I Tiresias, blind and throbbing
between two lives, the one in Bombay and the one to come in Toronto.” (180)This guilty conscious and his
urge to rethink of his past through his works is a constant ingredients of his works. Commenting on this
particular aspect, Pratibha Nagpal is of opinion that,
The desire to recreate the past makes the diasporic writer engage himself in the process of
self-realization and self-preservation through the aesthetic The artist s desire to preserve
his individuality makes him attempt to homogenize his ethnic identity and he often
oscillates between literature of protest and literature, which recreates the past. Caught in a
strange dilemma the diasporic writer often moves ahead while looking over his shoulder all
the time and this dichotomy is reflected in his works. (45)
Rohinton Mistry belongs to the group of expatriate writers which also constitutes Farrukh Dhondy,
Firdaus Kanga, Ardashir Vakil and Boman Desai. These writers shape their works with a central focus on
their community, the Parsees. In India, Parsis are a miniscule community who migrated from Iran to India
to avoid religious persecution. This Parsi community takes its lineage from Zoroastrianism As Nargolwala
puts it, “Zoroastrianism does not contain the ingredients which are ordinarily supposed to form part of
religion viz., dogmatism, compulsions from without, blind faith, the fear of punishment and the
expectation of future reward as the impelling forces in our daily life” (51).
So they do not form a religious group or a communal fragment. Moreover thus, the so called
communal fragment of Zoroastrianism attains its nomenclature, 'Parsee' only after their migration in India.
As Bharucha puts it, “In India, they came to be known as Parsis, “Pars” being the name of a province in
Iran.” (252) Thus they migrated Parsis mostly settled in the western parts of the country. These people had
to confront an identity crisis as in the words of Barucha, “In India, they were not allowed to inter-marry
with the local population and they had to give up their “language, costumes and customs”“ (252). Though
the Parsis suffered from the segregation, enjoyed they independence in peaks during the British rule. In
this context V.L.V.N Narendra Kumar opines that “Among the Indian minorities, the Parsees were the most
westernized who consciously and deliberately imitated the British, the colonizer.”(13) But this imitation of
British which is though conscious / unconscious did not bring any comfort but swept the Parsis into doom
to suffer from the marginalization from the double ends: one being to suffer from the sub cultural formation
(the state of not coping up with the main culture of India) and the other being the westernized subjugation.
In the words of V.L.V.N Narendra Kumar, “It is truly ironic that the process of westernization brought
about 'double alienation'. Though they were adequately westernized, the British never treated the Parsees
as their equal. At the same time, the Parsees were alienated from the mainstream of Indian life since their
identification with the British was total.” (13)
The Parsis, in spite of their westernized ideologies, maintained a safe distance without throwing
them into the happenings of the nation. They also received instructions from their heads of the community
during 1930s to stay away from the turbulent politics that exist in India during the freedom struggle. But
leaders like Dadabhai Naurozi stood ahead and joined in the freedom struggle. Paradoxically many Parsis

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felt that the blessings of independence to India will be definitely a fatal blow to their community. The
situation changes after independence and from the year 1980 a new phase appears with respect to Parsis
where many of the Parsi writers broke their silence into words. Another notable aspect is that the Parsis
migrate to England and Canada tracing their ancestral effects of the westernization, “Both westernization
and expatriation are aspects of dislocation, the purpose of both being economic gains and material
prosperity.”( Narendra Kumar 14-15) Now I move on to discuss about the Parsi writing with a special
reference to the novels of Mistry.
Rohinton Mistry, as belongs to the Parsi culture from his birth reflects a sense of deep rootedness
towards his culture though the argument of Daruvala he got migrated to Canada in a very small age. His
sensitivity of expression in this regard is evident in his works right from his first novel Such a Long
Journey and also in A Fine Balance. It is apt here to remark that Mistry maintains an equilibrium between
the representation of his sub cultural formation and the strong bonds of his motherland. It is also a justified
reason why Mistry had to write about his tribe taking in support the statement of Daruwalla, where he says,
“If you are writing fiction you will write about your people, your milieu. Shashi Deshpande will write of
Konkan, Allan Sealy of Christians, Anantha Murthy about his own particular Brahmin community. Each
one burrows into his own cultural ghetto” (84).
With the support of the above statement of Daruwalla, it could be asserted that, Mistry deals with
the Parsi milieu as he being the descendent of Parsi community. Mistry in spite of his suffering of cultural
crisis, had also dealt with the internal forceful religious persecutions inside the country. This is depicted in
Such a Long Journey when Malcom tells Gustad the greatness of his religion and to convert into
Christianity, Mistry speaks through the character of Gustad by highlighting his religious heritage. “That
may be … but our prophet Zarathustra lived more than fifteen hundred years before your Son of God was
even born; a thousand years before the Buddha; two hundred years before Moses. And do you know how
much Zoroastrianism influenced Judaism, Christianity and Islam?” (SLJ 24).
Parsee writings are not just culture centered but they lay emphasis on other aspects. As Keki N.
Daruwalla puts it, “There are three facets to the Parsi novel as sociological tract, as a memory bank and as a
look back on the city or the country one has left behind.” (84) Mistry's writing, in many ways can be put
into the third facet though it has the hint of the memory bank. Mistry's looking back into the city,
(Bombay) takes a crucial part in his fiction as it appears in his both the novels of my study, Such A long
Journey and A Fine Balance. Mistry's life becomes saturated with an outsider impact in two ways, the one
being his culture and other Diasporic.
Though Mistry was born in Bombay in India (which he feels as motherland), he finds the uprooting
of the Parsi Culture and migrations of Parsis from Iran to India (outsider in culture). Mistry's migration to
Canada again makes him feel the sense of loss and exile (outsider through Diaspora). Thus there is a kind of
balance in his life. So, he wanted to speak about his tribe and crave for their development through his
writings. In an interview with Geoff Hancock, Mistry says, “I must write about what I know best, in that
ways, I automatically speak for my tribe” (145). These aspects form a crucial role in both the novels, Such a
Long Journey and A Fine Balance.
Both the novels form a political sequel as Mistry in Such a Long Journey tries to fictionalize the
corrupt office years of Indira Gandhi which includes two major wars (Indo- China) and (Indo-Pak war) till
the Emergency. In A Fine Balance Mistry gives a political view during the Emergency 1975-77 till
assassination of Indira Gandhi (1982) followed by Hindu-Sikh riots. The common aspect in both the
novels is the invention of Parsi culture, introduction of Parsi characters whose life gets entangled with the
existing corrupt government. “Mistry as a writer enjoys an exceptional start with these works in fiction.
His meteoric career cannot then be credited altogether to the exotic nature of the Parsis. Instead, he turns
their lives into metaphors that stand for the human experience: the fears, the joys, the ambitions and

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failures, the terror and the conflicts, finally the sense of balance that once attained”.( Robert. L Ross 243)
The novels Such a Long Journey and A Fine Balance are set during 1971 and 1975 respectively
with special reference to Parsi culture. In the first novel Such a Long Journey, the Parsi community is
fictionalized has comfortable in the Indian ethos and are also financially developed especially after the
Indo-Pak war which resulted in the liberation of Bangladesh. The novel deals with the real life political
scam Rupee 60 lakh during 1971. Mistry fictionalized this incident with a Parsi character named Sohrab
Nagarwala, a Parsi clerk in State Bank of India. Nagarwala claims that he had withdrawn this large sum of
money through the telephonic order Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. This incident lays at the centre on
which Mistry had housed his fiction. The main Parsi character protagonist, Gustad Noble is entangled into
this political scam of disappearance of huge money from a government owned bank.
In the second novel, A Fine Balance, the action takes place between four major characters Dina
Dalal, Ishvar Darji, Om Prakash Darji and Maneck Kohlah. All the four members come from different
backgrounds to live under the same roof in Dina's cramped flat waving out their suspicions and religious
lines. But during The Emergency, the characters are put on toil and disaster. Mistry has again dealt with the
same element that he used in his first novel, Such a long Journey, i.e drawing the Parsi characters into the
politics of the nation. In A Fine Balance, Dina Dalal and Manec Kohlah are Parsi characters. Like Gustad,
Dina and Maneck are also drawn into the web of the Emergency, battering their lives. Dina looses her most
valuable possession, her independence and is to made to live as a unpaid servant in her brother's home,
Maneck looses his close friend, his chess mate Avinash who is found dead after a severe police brutality.
Maneck also gets shocked to see the painful condition of his friends Ishvar and Om, so ends himself on
railway track. Ishvar and Om, though are not Parsis are the utmost suffers of the emergency. Ishvar legs are
amputated and has to live with stumps in the place of legs. Om, the skinny muscular nephew of Ishvar is
castrated and turned gigantic. Both of them turned into beggars in spite of their wonderful tailoring skills
and had to depend on charities of the people. Another Major aspect in both the novels is that Mistry had
contrasted the comfortable life of Parsis with their fragmented lives, once upon their glorious past, battered
present and in secured future.
Journey as a postcolonial metaphor: a fragment in the sub-cultural formation:
The term 'Journey' is a term which has a broader scope for its interpretation. In this paper, the term
is studied in the light of metaphorical perspective associated with Parsi culture and its sub cultural
formation. The term 'Journey' is the shift of people from one place to another with varied reasons, but this
physical shift of people leaves some emotional conflicts in the people, however the reason of the journey is
justified. To be more authentic 'journey is the search for a place, quest for identity, and a longingness for
permanent 'centre' which is always elsewhere. In this paper I stick on to analyze the journey of Parsis and
their sub- cultural formation in the two novels Such a Long Journey and A Fine Balance.
Rohinton Mistry's novels stand remarkable in two major aspects. The former one being Mistry's
attention to bridge the gaps by reflecting Parsi culture and Bombay and latter one being the postcolonial
metaphor 'journey', which is often seem in the third world post colonial fiction and there by Rohinton
Mistry is no where an exception. It is due to his long journey from his motherland Mistry had titled his first
novel “Such a Long Journey”. Also the journey can be interpreted in another way with the migration of
Parsis from Iran to India. The three epigraphs in the novel exemplifies this particular notion. As Vinay
kripal puts it, “The journey/ quest motif is a recurrent one in third world immigrant fiction, wherein the
journey metaphorically entails the transition from one state of inner experience to another.” (71) So,
Mistry to encapsulate this metaphor, brings three epigraphs to describe the journey of the Parsees.
He assembled the aged priests and put questions to them concerning the kings who had once
possessed the world. 'How did they,' he inquired, 'hold the world in the beginning, and why is it that it has
been left to us in such a sorry state? And how was it that they were able to live free of care during the days of

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their heroic labours?'
Firdausi, shah-Nama
A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey…
T.S.Eliot, 'Journey of the Magi'
And when old words die out on the tongue, new
melodies break forth from the heart; and where the
old tracks are lost, new country is revealed with its wonders.
- Rabindranath Tagore, Gitanjali
The first epigraph hints both the glory of the Iran empire and the degraded condition of the Parsis.
Eliot's, Journey of Magi set the tone for the second epigraph. This gives impressions at the Zoroastrian
religion and the Magi is the Zoroastrian priest who attended the birth of Jesus Christ.
Coming to the novels, in Such a Long Journey, this metaphor appears in two characters, Gustad and
the pavement artist. The journey uphill for Dinshawji's funeral, followed by Gustad's train journey to Delhi
to see the ailing Major Bilimoria the two long journeys portrayed by Mistry. Gustad's journey towards the
end of the novel brings a kind of realization in his life. Seated in the train Gustad wonders: would this
journey be worth it? Was any journey ever worth it” (SLJ: 260). It is not the physical journey of Gustad that
is interesting in the novel but the inward journey of Gustad which brings to live in reality, from
hopelessness to hope, from physical to spiritual.
The pavement artist is another chapter reflecting the metaphorical sense of the journeying, the
pavement artist do not possess a home or a permanence in his art. He paints the compound surrounding the
Khodabad building with the pictures of gods and goddesses, turning the stinking wall into a holy place. But
the Emergency period brings the destruction of the wall. When Gustad asks him where he was going the
Painter says, “Where does not matter. Sir.''In a world where roadside latrines becomes temples and strain,
temple and strains become dust and ruin does it matter where? SLJ 338 ).
In A Fine Balance also the journey occurs in all the four major characters. Dina Dalal, the Parsi
widow throughout her life feels insecure, working hard to make a living in spite of her prodigal brothers'
invitation to come back to their home. Dina Dalal however for the time being succeed maintain her
independence but towards the end, Emergency makes her to take journey to back to her brothers' home.
The characters Ishvar and Omprakash also made a long journey to 'the city by the sea (Bombay)' from their
village to make a better living. But the city and their inherited poverty suffers them a lot by shifting
different places for shelter (from the slums, to the pavement to the irrigation project to Dina Dalal's home
and finally end up on street). Both the characters Ishvar and Om in spite of their degraded places of living
had always adjusted to their surroundings. Maneck, the Parsi student also took a long journey from the
mountains (Himachal Pradesh) to Bombay for his education. After the completion of his education he
again migrated to Gulf for his job. When he comes back to India the battered lives of Dina Dalal and Ishvar
and Om makes him feel psychologically disturbed which ends up in his suicide. Maneck in spite of the
other three characters balanced in maintaining the life creates an imbalance by his death. As Vasant Rao
Valmiki very often reciting the Yeats philosophy says that, “You have to maintain a balance between hope
and despair in the end it is the question of balance”. (Mistry: 231)
To sum up, in both the novels, Mistry had given a kind of message to the readers. In Such a Long
Journey, if he is referring to the journey in the context of attaining spirituality and lack of permanence. In A
Fine Balance, Mistry through the novel has reflected the notion of coping to the surroundings not only in
the case of the Parsis but to all human race.
Conclusion:

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Thus, on the whole, life is a continuous journey, for a search for something, which is of course,
variable. The Journey of every individual starts from the mother's womb. This is the man's first journey and
the journeys take place throughout our life till our death. Every journey leves behind some pain but the pain
will be replaced by a new experience. Even the newly born baby starts crying when it comes out from the
mother's womb, but the baby forgets the pain and learns to accustom to the surroundings and within no time
it starts smiling. Likewise, though man's life is a constant shift to a place, whose circumference is
everywhere and the centre is nowhere. The underlying concept is one has to try to cope up with the things
around to lead a happy life. This is what Rohinton Mistry tries to depict through his novels, though in an
unique narrative style.

Works Cited
Mistry, Rohinton. Tales From Ferozsha Bagg. London: Faber and Faber, 2006.Print.
---.Such a Long Journey. London: Faber and Faber, 1991Print.
---.A Fine Balance. London: Faber and Faber, 1996. Print.
Bharucha, Nilufer E. Rohinton Mistry: Ethnic Enclosures and Transcultural Spaces. Ed. Jasbir Jain,
Delhi: Rawat Publications, 2003.Print.
Bharucha, Nilufer E. “Why All this Parsiness: An Assertion of Ethno-Religious Identity in
Recent Novels Written by Parsis.”Mapping Cultural Spaces: Postcolonial Indian Literature in English.
Ed. Nilufer E. Bharucha and Vrinda Nabar. New Delhi: Vision Publishers, 1998.Print.
Bharucha, Nilufer E. “Reflections in Broken Mirrors: Diverse Diasporas in Recent Parsi
Fiction.”Wasafiri, Vol.10, Issue:21( 1995).Print.
Geoff, Hancock. “An Interview with Rohinton Mistry.”Canadian Fiction Magazine 65, 1989.
Kapadia, Novy, Jaydipsinh odiya and R.K. Dhawan. Parsi Fiction. New Delhi: Prestige Books,
2001.Print.
Kirpal, Vinay. The World Novel of Expatriation: A Study of Empire Fiction by Indian, West Indian and
Caribbean Writers. New Delhi: Sterling Publishers, 1982.Print.
Kumar, Narendra V.L.V.N. Parsee Novel. New Delhi: Prestige Books, 2002.Print.
Nagpalis, Pratibha. “Over the Bridge, Wistfully: On Rohinton Mistry's A Fine Balance.”New Quest.April-
June, 2004.Print.
Ross, Robert L. “Seeking and Maintaining Balance: Rohinton Mistry's Fiction.”World Literature Today.
Vol.73, No.2. On Contemporary Canadian Literature(s), Spring 1999.Print
Veena, Gokhale. 'How Memory Lives and Dies.'The Sunday Review, The Times of India. October
27,1996.Print.

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130
A STUDY OF MAGICAL REALISM IN KIRAN DESAI'S HULLABALOO IN
THE GUAVA ORCHARD

D. Raechalglory, Assistant Professor, Sri. S.R.N.M. College, Sattur

Abstract:
Kiran Desai is one of the most popular women writers in modern English literature. She is the
daughter of a distinguished novelist Anita Desai. She explores the technique of magical realism in her
debut novel Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard. The term 'magic realism' means the mixture of realistic and
fantastic elements. In magic realism the realistic details and mysterious knowledge are knotted in the plot.
Magic realism also comes up with fairy tales and myths. Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard reflects the
world culture and represents India as a home of many religions, cultures, community, language and casts.
It even tilts towards the religious quest where the protagonist escapes from the materialistic world and
moves towards the life of salvation. It is about Sampath Chawla, a clumsy protagonist. Being disgusted
with the worldly life, he runs away from home to take refuge in the guava orchard, at the top of the guava
tree. There he is mistake to be as Baba. This is the event that follows a series of amusing, highly imaginative
and full of fantasy.

Keywords: Magical realism, religion, culture and fantasy.

Kiran Desai, the daughter of a distinguished novelist Anita Desai, who represents the voice of
younger generation of Indian English writers that explores the technique of magic realism in her debut
novel Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard. The story has been beautifully woven by Kiran Desai. It even
tilts towards the religious quest where the protagonist escapes from the materialistic world and moves
towards the life of salvation. Like that of Lord Buddha who leaves the world in quest of enlightenment. Its
themes can be compared with R.K. Narayan's The Guide, where the protagonist Raju takes a voluntary
retirement from the mundane world and leads life of monk in an isolated place far from the village near a
temple, and the village people misunderstand him as a learned and miracle man. This novel Hullabaloo in
the Guava Orchard is about a clumsy protagonist Sampath Chawla. Being disgusted with the worldly life,
he runs away from home to take refuge in the guava orchard, at the top of the guava tree. There he is
mistaken to be as Baba. This is the event that follows a series of amusing, highly imaginative and full of
fantasy.
The term magic realism is derived from “Magischer Realismus” which is a phrase used by Franz
Roh to describe the quasi-surrealistic work of a group of German painters in the 1920s. Later this term has
come in use to describe the mixture of realistic and fantastic elements. In magic realism the realistic details
and mysterious knowledge are knotted in the plot. Magic realism also comes up with fairy tales and myths.
Salman Rushdie is well known for magic realism. The literary terminology that has been reflected in the
novel Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard is 'Bildungsroman'. It is a terminology in which the protagonist
recounts the development of oneself from childhood to maturity to the point where the protagonist
recognizes his place in the existing world. Such is the case with the protagonist of Hullabaloo in the Guava
Orchard(19998)in which Sampath Chawla, was a very plain minded but highly imaginative clerk in a post-
office, who seems to be an absolute misfit in the competitive world.
The present age extremely known as the age of technology, network, and globalization in which
A STUDY OF MAGICAL REALISM IN KIRAN DESAI'S HULLABALOO IN THE GUAVA ORCHARD 453
writers are writing about varied themes like fame, gorgeousness, and strength of India. Kiran Desai
shocked the reader by the reality being presented in the novel. It is realistic in nature which has very
interesting life story, also explored the realities of mother India. The story revolves around the protagonist
Sampath, a young boy, born with brown birthmark on his cheek. He is deliberately running away from his
responsibilities of grown-up life. One of the main focuses is given on deeply rooted superstition and
laziness in the people of Indian society. Only Sampath is responsible for all causes and troubles in his
family.
Kulfi, the wife of Mr. Chawla and the mother of Sampath plays a very significant role in the novel.
Her representation in the novel is nothing but enormous image of craving for food but nothing more.
Chawla is the forty year old father of Sampath. He is head of the family holding a degree and working in the
Reserve Bank of Shahkot as a head clerk. He becomes very upset in his life due to nonsensical activities of
his son. His frustration rise when his son loses his job at the post office after performing his unexpected
behavior in the wedding of his boss's daughter. After that, he runs away from his responsibilities as well as
home and takes shelter in the branches of guava tree. His unexpected behavior shows his madness and
foolishness. His family and other people think he is a mad person. However, his experience in the post
office where he spent more time in reading mails of the people helps him to know the secrets of the people.
This guides him to tell their destiny. Immediately he becomes renowned as a holy man and is known as
Monkey Baba all over town.
Kiran Desai realistically depicts the charcters search for identity. Sampath is shown as an image of
failure and frustration. His si not satisfieed with hia job and ordinary lifestyle. Therefore, he decides to
create a new world with new identity so he migrates to the Guava Orchard and becomes famous as a holy
man. All these things expose the tendency of the modern young people who do not want any efforts in their
life. They only like to see dreams and think of fame and name, to get it by hook or crook which is another
focus of the novel. His father Mr. Chawla also predicates a new life with the help of Sampath's progress.
The Chawla family takes interest in selling things in Orchard. Therfore, they start earning money by selling
flowers, garlands and coconuts in the orchard. They also arranged tea stall there for the visitors. Thus he
aims to make a new identity by earning money in new business. Each one in the novel desies to create a new
identity. The Guava orchard becomes a multicultural place for people of different places, caste and
community. They come there to know their fortunes and misfortunes. They gather very happily and live
together. The Guava Orchard becomes the latest stop along the spiritual tourism trail with alcoholic
monkeys loitering at the place, Sampath Chawla is now known as Monkey Baba. A journalist determines to
expose Sampath as a fraud and an unholy trio of hypochondriac district medical officers, army general and
university Professor, all determine to solve the monkey problem, and three is a real hullabaloo.
At the outset the novel seems simple, but on closer observation is a place for humanity. It depicts
the eternal struggle for personal space, the human tendency to make profits out of any situation and the
eternal pursuit of happiness by all in their own different ways. Thus Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard
deals with the theme of fake sage hood in which there is an employment of the device called 'magic
realism'.

Works Cited
Desai, Kiran. Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard. London: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1998. Print.
Condon, Matt. Review of Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard, in The Sun Herald. Sydney, Australia,
September 5, 1999:31. Print.
Anandan, Prathima. Review of Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard in Contemporary South Asia, Vol.8,
No.3, November 1999: 386-87. Print.

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131
MAGICAL REALISM, MYTH, CULTURE: A THEMATIC STUDY OF CHITRA
BANERJEE DIVAKARUNI'S THE PALACE OF ILLUSION

S Sankareswari, Assistant Professor, SRNM College, Sattur

Abstract:
This paper highlights the main themes of magical realism, myth and culture in Chitra Banerjee
Divakaruni's novel The Palace of Illusion. The magical element in her novel prove that they portent reality
and it has link with psychology also. Divakaruni resurrects the long forgotten Indian myth, belief,
tradition, culture and dreams which are so essential for existence. She attempts to recreate the Indian epic
'Mahabharatha' from the perspective of a strong woman 'Panchaali'. In epics, the central positions are
reserved for men with wars, weapons, strategy, court manoeuvres and their pride. But Chitra Banerjee
Divakaruni reconstructs it and has used woman characters as a central figure. The story of the The Palace
of Illusions begins with the birth of Panchaali and ends with her death, unlike the most of the epics, which
focuses on its male heroes. She is the storyteller of everything, what she has seen, heard, and interpreted,
sometimes on a literal level, but sometimes through dream visions, which is also a part of mythic tradition.

Keywords: Magical, realism, identity, fantasy, culture.

When speaking of “magical” or “mystical” realism, Divakaruni's three volumes written for
“children” (or rather for readers of all ages), The Brotherhood of the Conch (2003, 2005 and 2009b), are
certainly to be considered, together with her two influential novels, The Mistress of Spices (1997) and The
Palace of Illusions (2008b). Nevertheless, one can easily posit that in her stories and novels, everything
(the “magical” included) is “real,” convincing and natural.
In today's world ruled by self-absorbed individuals, with egotistic preoccupations that foster
divisions, conflicts and separations, Divakaruni's depiction of deep, albeit often unseen connections, with
interdependence and necessary reliance upon the most honourable features in ourselves, is not just
refreshing but a powerful reminder of a potential that humanity needs to uncover at the earliest to avoid
more crises and catastrophes. In this sense, Divakaruni's prose writings, especially some of the more recent
ones, carry profound ethical values and the promise of a world that we could all build together, with
literature as an efficient and convincing tool for collective transformation based on mutual understanding
and love as a binding force that may perform miracles.
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni's literature brings about a fine synthesis, a new version of how in the
past decades, the (often stereotypical) representations of East (in Western culture) have been transformed
and adapted to the needs of rapidly changing circumstances, both in literature and in everyday life. 'The
Palace of Illusions'is a retelling myth writen by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni. Her rewriting of
'Mahabharatha' takes readers back from today's life to the third age, but actually speaks about the
contemporary quest for truth and understanding life.Sanzgiri states that“The Palace of Illusions is a
creative, illuminating feminist work that compels us to reexamine the original text. . . a healing, aesthetic
experience.”
In most of Divakaruni's plays women have particular place to role and play. The The Palace of
Illusions is a quite example for this. Her admirable attempt to recreate the Indian epic 'Mahabharatha' from
the perspective of a strong woman 'Panchaali' is Chitra Banerjee's best work yet. In actual epic,
MAGICAL REALISM, MYTH, CULTURE: A THEMATIC STUDY OF CHITRA BANERJEE DIVAKARUNI'S THE PALACE OF ILLUSION 455
'Mahabharatha', Panchaali was never at the centre of the story. Like most of the epics, the central positions
are reserved for men with wars, weapons, strategy, court manoeuvres and their pride. So, Divakaruni was
left unsatisfied with the portrayals of women especially Draupadi(Panchaali), King Drupad's daughter,
who has the unique distinction being marriedto five men at the same time the five Pandava brothers, the
greatest hero of their time. Panchaali who, some might argue, by her determined actions helps to bring the
destruction of the third age of men. Not even that, popular perceptions states that she was 'kritiya', an ill
fated woman, a dark stain in the history of Bharat and that is why still now no girl child is named after her.
In some way, the women in the epic remained shadowy figures, their thoughts and motives mysterious,
their emotions portrayed only when they affected the lives of the male heroes, their roles ultimately
obedient to their fathers or husbands, brothers or sons.
So, Divakaruni places Panchaali, a woman in the forefront of the action. She uncovers the story
that lay invisible between the lines of the men's expectation. This is giving her the humanity, allowing her
to tell the story. It makes her the hero of the myth because she is interpreting the world through her eyes.
The story of the The Palace of Illusions begins with the birth of Panchaali and ends with her death, unlike
the most of the epics which focuses on its male heroes. She is the teller of everything, and everything in
this novel is what she has seen, heard, and interpreted, sometimes on a literal level, but sometimes through
dream visions, which is also a part of mythic tradition.
The energies Divakaruni deploys and examines through her characters are quite often still not
perceived in their fullness, especially by those who may not have been exposed to-or have not reflected
upon-the dimensions she continues to tackle in her writings. They may not have experienced, or tried to
understand, the paradigms she works with, at the level she has done so far. Her literature may certainly be
appreciated by a large readership from extremely various walks of life and cultural backgrounds;
experience also shows that some of the finest ideas articulated in this prose remain hidden or at least
foreign even to (more sensitive Western) students of literature.
More specifically, while the Mahābhārata remains for the Westerners a complicated mythical story,
Divakaruni's five hundred pages of The Palace of Illusions make the old myth more understandable at a
rather unexpected level, with Panchaali's quest for the meaning of life that addresses our own doubts, fears,
and hopes of renewal and love in a world at the end of an old cycle and at the beginning of a new era.
In the end, Panchaali as seen by Divakaruni manages to understand the issue: being different from
men (as Panchaali finally becomes a true subject in the novel), she accepted many ordeals that proved her
loyalty to her husbands and to the system that decided the course of her life. On the battlefield of
Kurukshetra, she sees what she needs to learn, a true ethical notion that “the desire for vengeance” should
not be “stronger than the longing to be loved” (2008b, 194).
Later, as she follows her husbands on their way to death, in the Himalayas, even this longing
subsides as the major breakthrough occurs at her passing. With the help of Krishna, who manifests himself
at her side, she finally opens herself to the true nature of love, totally different from the nostalgia she had
experienced in the past (2008b, 356). She realizes that the same love pushed her into existence when it was
her turn during her childhood to step out of the fire and into the earthly existence (2008b, 357). She finally
sees that from a vast, cosmic perspective, her fate was that of “the instrument” (2008b, 357) beyond which
there were other doers, other forces at work. So she is not to be blamed for the fact she forgot the origins of
her being and that she caused pain and devastation (2008b, 358). When she slips into the space beyond
earthly existence, “something breaks,” with “a chain that was tied to the woman-shape crumpled on the
snow below.” She is “buoyant and expansive and uncontainable”-and she sees who she is “beyond name
and gender and the imprisoning patterns of ego”-and yet “for the first time, I am truly Panchaali” (2008b,
360).
This is how Divakaruni's literature helps us to fathom the nature of human existence, assisting us to

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overcome the fear of death, together with all the fears that have been generated by the latter. When teaching
The Palace of Illusions or The Mistress of Spices in a graduate critical theory seminar, one should be
reminded that the worldview such as grounded in Hinduist tradition will continue to be a difficult riddle to
the large majority of Western students.
In conclusion, we see that Divakaruni's literature often insists on our capability to uncover what is
best in our hearts. This is particularly brought forth in The Palace of Illusions, while it has already been
suggested in The Mistress of Spices and in The Brotherhood of the Conch trilogy. The characters in these
novels are placed in social settings where the “supernatural” is a commonplace and a regular companion to
the daily events, although the humans who hold power continue in their endeavors to bend these powers so
as to use them for their personal gain.

Works Cited
Divakaruni, Chitra Banerjee. The Palace of Illusions. New York: Doubleday, 2008. Print.
Divakaruni, Chitra Banerjee. 1991. Black Candle: Poems about Women from India, Pakistan,
and Bangladesh. Corvallis, Or: Calyx Books, 2000.Print.
Ann Bower, Maggie. Magic(al) Realism Published in 2004 Routedge and Tayor group, London
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni's personal site. Accessed June 20, 2010. http://www.chitradivakaruni.com/.
Interview with Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, on BookBrowse, 2008. Accessed June 20, 2010.
http://www.bookbrowse.com/author_interviews/full/index.cfm?author_number=338.

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132
THE RACIAL DISCRIMINATION TOWARDS THE HAZARAS IN KHALED
HOSSEINI'S THE KITE RUNNER

R. Gurulatha, M. Phil, Research Scholar, Sri SRNM College, Sattur

Abstract:
Afghanistan has a rich legacy and a proud history. This country is a conglomeration of numerous
cultures and ethnicities. Afghanistan's largest and the majority ethnic group is the Pashtuns. And it's
followed by minority ethnic groups Tajik, Hazara, Uzbek, Aimak, Turkmen, Baloch and some other groups.
Pashtuns identify themselves as superior to the Hazaras and suppress them violently. The discrimination
against minority ethnic group the Hazaras is mistreated by the Pashtuns. The Hazaras are considered as
outsiders of their own country. This paper tries to project the racial discrimination towards the Hazaras in
Khaled Hosseini's novel The Kite Runner. Khaled Hosseini is the Afghan-American writer. In 2003,
Hosseini published his first novel The Kite Runner, the story of two Afghan boys. Amir is the Pashtun boy in
the novel. Hassan is the Hazara boy. In the novel, Amir and Hassan are represented as the two opposite
pillars of the society. Racial discrimination is the ultimate theme in the novel.

Keywords: Racial discrimination, ethnicity, Pashtun, Hazara.

Racial discrimination towards the Hazara is deeply expressed by Afghan-born American writer
Khaled Hosseini in his first novel The Kite Runner. Racial discrimination is one of the nastiest communal
harms that still exist. Racial discrimination frequently takes place in developing countries that have
multiplicity in terms of social, ethnic, cultural and religious backgrounds. This paper focuses that ethnic
and racial conflict. Those conflicts devastate the peace and harmony of a nation and it's the cause of ordeals
to the innocent citizens who have been subjected to violence and discrimination for the major part of the
history of Afghanistan.
Afghanistan has a rich legacy and a proud history. This country is a conglomeration of numerous
cultures and ethnicities. Afghanistan is one of the developing countries which suffer from war and conflict
during its modern history. Afghanistan's largest and the majority ethnic group is the Pashtuns. And it's
followed by minority ethnic groups Tajik, Hazara, Uzbek, Aimak, Turkmen, Baloch, and some other
groups.
The Hazaras are the only Shia Muslims in a country of Sunnis Muslims. And they have historically
been subjected to slaughters, most recently by the Pashtun-controlled Taliban. The Hazaras are an ethnic
group native to the region of Hazarajat in central Afghanistan. The name “Hazara” derives from the Persian
word for “thousand”. It may be the translation of the Mongol word Ming (or Mingan), a military unit of
1,000 soldiers at the time of Genghis Khan. The Hazaras are said to be descendants of Genghis Khan, the
founder of the Mongol empire, and the Mongol soldiers who swept through the region in the 13th century.
... While the Hazaras are primarily Shia Muslims, most Afghans follow the Sunni branch of Islam.
(Schurmann 7)
The Hazaras are considered as outsiders of their own country. They were mistreated by the other
ethnicities. Their homes and mosques were bombed, the Hazara women raped, wherever they are, the
Taliban will shoot them instantly. The less powerful race known as the 'Hazara' minority. They have no
rights to get education. They are used as servants for Pashtuns, cooking, cleaning and serving the Pashtuns.
THE RACIAL DISCRIMINATION TOWARDS THE HAZARAS IN KHALED HOSSEINI'S THE KITE RUNNER 458
Their appearance is different from others with flattened noses and unfair eyes. Their economical status is
very low.
Pashtuns identify themselves as superior to the Hazaras and suppress them violently. The
discrimination against minority ethnic group the Hazaras mistreated by the Pashtuns. The largest and
politically more powerful race is the Pashtuns. They have rights to education and work in higher salaried
jobs. Their physical appearance is lighter skin, hair and eye colour. The Pashtuns have servants and they
live a better quality of life.
In the novel the Kite Runner also talks about the Hazara's suppression. Pashtuns and Hazaras differ
in terms of religious beliefs, cultural practices, social status, and physical appearances. Pashtun as the
majority race and ethnic in Afghanistan is Sunni Muslim while Hazara is Shi'a. The Hazaras are also
witnesses as the weakest and poorest race in Afghanistan, so that they are easily subjected to be killed,
offended, and tortured by Pashtuns.One of their justifications was that Afghanistan was ruled by Pashtuns
since the establishment of the Durrani Empire in 1747 (Barfield 263). Moreover, racial discrimination in
The Kite Runner causes some bad impacts to the individuals and the society.
The Kite Runner novel exemplifies the story of a young Afghan boy named Amir and his wealthy
father who are from the Pashtun ethnic group of Afghanistan and live with their servant Ali and his son
Hassan, who are from the Hazara ethnic group. Amir and Hassan are two close friends from two different
ethnic groups. Hassan is a half brother of Amir and his biological parents are Amir's father, Baba and his
mother, wife of Ali. Baba as a Pashtun he couldn't acknowledge that Hassan is his own son. Because of this
immoral sexual relationship was an unforgivable sin in Pashtun Afghan society. Hassan was abandon by
Baba for protect his own upper class reputation. But Ali couldn't help this abandon. Unfortunately, Ali is a
Hazara at the bottom of the society to save Hassan's life.
Amir and his friends called Hassan as a “flat-nosed” because of Ali and Hassan's physical
appearance. They were look like little Chinese people. In Amir's school textbooks just mentioned about
Hazaras. And he refers his mothers history book that written by Khorami. That history book entire chapter
talks about oppressions and racial discrimination towards the Hazaras. Amir says that,
An entire chapter dedicated to Hassan's people! In it, I read that my people, the
Pashtuns, had persecuted and oppressed the Hazaras. It said the Hazaras had tried to rise against the
Pashtuns in the nineteenth century, but the Pashtuns had “quelled them with unspeakable violence.” The
book said that my people had killed the Hazaras, driven them from their lands, burned their homes,
and sold their women.......... I did know, like that people called Hazaras mice-eating, flat-nosed, load-
carrying donkeys. I had heard some of the kids in the neighbourhood yell those names to Hassan (Hosseini
8-9).
Hassan is raped by his Pashtun friend Assef. Amir does not react against it. He gets so worried
about doing something about that he ends up behaves in the strangest manner. His guilt at his in action
makes him frame Hassan for the crime of theft. Reaction of Hassan at his indifference in action gives the
hints at the racial mechanics that is at work in the society very clearly. After the incident, he does not show
any hatred openly and behaves in a normal way. His reaction was in harmony with the status and the
freedom country. “Afghanistan is the land of Pashtuns. It always has been, always will be. We are the true
Afghans, the pure Afghans, not this Flat-Nose here. His people pollute our homeland, our watan. They
dirty our blood.” He made a sweeping, grandiose gesture with his hands. “Afghanistan for Pashtuns, I say.
That's my vision”(Hosseini 38).
Hazara's are subjected to cruelty and mockery in the novel The Kite Runner. The rape of Hassan
shows how contradicts the view that Pashtuns have about Hazaras through his loyalty to Amir. And it
mostly explains the inhumanity of one particular Pashtun, Assef. In The Kite Runner, not only the reason
of some bad impacts to Hassan's psychological health but also causes a plan to commit the genocide,

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slavery, and oppression toward the Hazaras.
Race limits many things in the lives of each character, for example the rape of Hassan by Assef.
Assef believes like many Pashtuns that Hazaras have no rights as they are lower than them; this leads Assef
to the conclusion that he has the rights to abuse Hassan. Another time when the class division is marked is
when the truth about Hassan and Amir being brothers comes to light. It shows that throughout their lives
the two brothers lived side by side, Amir in luxury and Hassan in poverty, the only hurdle being their racial
background. The Hazaras are discriminated, abused, violated and killed by many Pashtuns. The Pashtuns
may be stronger in the sense that there are more of them physically but the idea of them being morally
wrong.
In the novel the Kite Runner, Hosseini clearly points out the racial discrimination. The following
incidents are the evidence of racial discrimination. The Rape of Hassan in eleventh chapter by Assef. The
massacre of Hazaras in Mazar-i-Sharif and Hazarajat by the Talibs. And the stoning of Hazara. Racial
discrimination clearly shows the shooting of Hassan and Farzana by the Taliban. Another incident is
capturing, torture, abuse and rape of Sohrab by Assef and the Taliban.
The racial discrimination is harmful to the people and the society. Not only in Afghanistan but all
over the country people face racial discrimination. The Afghan people are the victim of racism.
Afghanistan's Independent Human Rights Commission says that racial discrimination is the biggest threat
towards the people. This harmful discrimination still practiced in Afghanistan.

Works Cited
Hosseini, Khaled. The Kite Runner. New York: Bloomsbury, 2013. Print.
Schurmann, Franz (1962). The Mongols of Afghanistan: An Ethnography of the Moghols and Related
Peoples of Afghanistan. The Hague, Netherlands: Mouton. p. 17. OCLC 401634.
T.J. Barfield, Problems in Establishing Legitimacy in Afghanistan, Iranian Studies. 37(2)(2004).
Noor, Ronny. “Review of the Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini”. N.p. Web. 05 June 2004.
<https://dejantodorovic.wordpress.com/2011/04/10/critical-article- summaries/>.

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133
WRITING NARRATIVES OF TRAVEL THROUGH CHRONICLES: A STUDY OF
WILLIAM DALRYMPLE'S CITY OF DJINN AND NINE LIVES

Biju Itukkapparakkal, Assistant Professor, CHRIST (Deemed to be University), Bangalore

Abstract:
The paper looks at works of WilliamDalrymple City of Djinns: A Year in Delhi and Nine Lives: In
Search of the Sacred in Modern India. These worksare primarily selected for the study as theyhave
chronicles of individualsin the conventional idea of narratives on space. The select texts are used to talk
about the current practices of writing travel narratives. The consequences of chronicle as travel narratives
are in detail negotiated using the spaciality study and effects of it. The idea of Travel writing as narratives
documenting space and people, connect with spacial and sociological concerns at a broader level. This is
primarily enabled by the manner of study as it always becomes a narrative of a society/ a community/ or a
tribe. The idea of individual perspective on the space gets minimal focus in the conventional travel
narrative. This method of being neutral to the space (if not to the narratives) gives the narrative the
potential to inform the reader, who is a non-native, the possibilities of the space. This paper tries to
negotiate the genre as the trend paves way to the practice of selecting chronicles for forming opinions and
perspectives. The paper tries to analyse this practice by using the theories on spaciality.

Keywords: Travel Narratives, Chronicles, Exotic stories and Problematization of Spaciality- Narratives
and theorizing- Orality and fictionalizing of space.

Sigmund Freud speculated that, “A great part of the pleasure of Travel lies in the fulfilment of these
early wishes to escape the family and especially the father”. This opens up a possibility that travel may be
viewed as a rebellious or even a subversive act, part of the process of self-actualization. I travel to define
and assert my existential identity. I travel therefore I am.The Travel narratives of William Dalrymple is
quite popular among Indian and foreign travel narratives. The two works taken up for study City Of Djinns
and the Nine Lives are among the most popular works of Dalrymple. Both works are about Indian present
and past at the same time. These works do share some common perspectives on the spacial reality they are
dealing with. Both takes stories of individuals in a dear fashion to the focal point. These stories actually are
decisive in the opinion formation of the reader. There is always the rare and exotic in the narrative working
so intensely, attracting the reader towards these books.
City Of Djinns marks the beginning of Dalrymple's fascination with Mughal History. Part of the
book could be closer to the narrative style of memoir. The authors' interest in archaeological riches of the
city is evident in the manner details are explored and researched. This has actually prepared the author for
the next two amazing books based on the Mughal history, White Mughals and The Last Mughal.
Dalrymple had visited India while he was seventeen and the response he had during his visit is
worth notice “It was so totally unlike anything I had seen before. Delhi, it seemed at first, was full of riches
and horror, it was a labyrinth, a city of palaces, an open gutter...Moreover - I soon discovered - possessed a
bottomless seam of stories, tales receding far beyond history, deep into the cavernous chambers of myth
and legend,”
The popular author of In Xanadu, explores Delhi with a curiosity, all the contours of it and in all
possible ways. Under the spell of its beauty, Dalrymple picks up characters like Mrs Puri, the Landlady and
WRITING NARRATIVES OF TRAVEL THROUGH CHRONICLES: A STUDY OF WILLIAM DALRYMPLE'S CITY OF DJINN .... 461
cab driver Balvinder, man smoking hookah, an old cobbler, quawwali singers and a eunuch etc. All these
characters are from his interesting daily life anecdotes during the one year stay spent to complete City of
Djinns. One could easily claim that there is an essential western gaze on Indian space and traditions
working strongly in the choice of people and places the author makes. The narrative is so interesting and
portrayal of the characters done fully to the satisfaction of the readers.
In Dalrymple's writing there are different stakeholders of the narrative, they are the historical
characters, the winners and losers of the bloody battles, the ordinary Indians, the neglected and forgotten,
the Britishers, the Indians, and the neglected Anglo-Indians. The book has areas devoted in the narratives
for all these stakeholders to accommodate all their tales.
The travel one finds in City of Djinns is a travel down the memory lane. It is a journey through the
colonial era to the luxurious Mughal period of Shah Jahan to Ibn Battuta the Moroccan Traveller. The
writing, generally non-critical in nature, finds a strain of criticism when it comes to the neglect by the
Indian authorities of the important archaeological sites.
The Nine Lives: In search of the Sacred in Modern India, is an amazing book talking about India
through the chronicles of nine lives chosen by the author. Like Wendi Doniger comments: “Dalrymple
vividly evokes the lives of these men and women, with the sharp eye and good writing that we have come to
expect of his extraordinary travel books about India. A glorious mixture of journalism, anthropology,
history, and history of religions, written in prose worthy of a good novel, not since Kipling has anyone
evoked village India so movingly. Dalrymple can conjure up a lush or parched landscape with a single
sentence.”
The author explores the world of mystic extremes in this book. The characters are all strong
proponents of this extreme standpoints in life. They are all at once away from life and at the same time very
much in it also. The mundane suffocating routines are no more a problem for most of them. To some this
escape is temporary and to some other it is permanent. But regardless of the nature of existence they are all
in a state of ecstasy. The interest in exotic and rare works extensively in this book also. Perhaps this is the
book that exploits the idea of rare and the exotic the most than any other book by Dalrymple. That could be
one of the reasons for the unprecedented popularity of the book.
In Nun's tale, the character Prasannamati Mataji is a Jain nun, from Sravanabelgola, preparing for
her ritual death. Young and happy, the nun becomes an object of wonder and exists like an enigma in a
world full of selfishness and greed. “The soul's journey takes place in a universe conceived in a way that is
different from any other faith. For Jains, the universe is shaped like a gigantic cosmic human body. Above
the body is a canopy containing the liberated and perfected souls- siddhas- who like the Tirthankaras, have
escaped the cycle of rebirths. At the top of the body, level with the chest, is the celestial upper world, the
blissful home of the gods.”
The Dancer of Kannur, Haridas the Dalit from Kerala who is an untouchable and the temporary
social mobility that he attains, for three months, the period of time he becomes the Theyyam is leaving the
reader with the puzzle of the social order and the traditions and practices of the land.
Ranibai from Belgaum, Karnataka, talking about the Goddess Yellamma and the practice of
Devadasi where young girls are dedicated to the Goddess Yellamma, bewilders the reader with the extent
of insanity prevalent in many practices still existing.“It happened like this, the night we arrived with my
sister, they killed a chicken and we had a great feast with rotis and rice- all the luxuries even the rich could
dream of. Then my mother went home to our village, and I went to sleep with my aunt. I was asleep when the
man came, around nine, it was all planned.”
Manisha Ma Bhairavi, a mystic who worships the demonic goddess Tara, may have epilepsy. She
has fled her violent husband and even deserted her children to find refuge among sadhus, wandering holy
men, in a Bengali cremation ground. “People who do not know what we do are afraid of Tantra, she said.

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They hear stories about us abducting girl- children and killing them. Sometimes gundas come to the
graveyard and insult us, or knock about the Sadhus when they see them in the bazaars, many times I have
been called a witch.”
The Singing Bauls of Bengal, Kanai Das and Debdas Baul: The Epic of Pabuji and the hereditary
singers of a great Rajasthani medieval poem. The line of exotic performers, saints and sadhus go on. There
comes the amazing story of the Sufi singer and performer. Islamic mystic called the Red Fairy, (Story of
Lal Peri) she is huge, dark-skinned and wields a club as she dances occupies a shrine in the lawless
province of Sindh, telling the tale of the ongoing conflict between the orthodox Islam with the more secular
Sufism.
The chronicles narrated in the book portray the lives of individuals, mostly females seen from an
interesting angle. It enables the reader to see these lives from a distance empowering them to have a
perspective on these lives and similar numerous lives available around. Each story is packed with so much
of knowledge carefully packaged along with it. The question of spirituality is not addressed in the text with
an inner understanding and perhaps that short coming is the strength of the book too.
The mix of bitter personal narrative with the narratives of penance, renunciation and ecstasy make
the book a completely exotic realm, especially palatable to the foreign readers as it would enable them to
create perspectives on the spaciality and the spirituality of the land.“Travel writing involves border
crossings both literal and figurative. Travel writing borrows freely from the memoir, journalism, letters,
guidebooks, confessional narrative, and, most important fiction.” Both the travel narratives chosen are
bordering in its craft with other disciplines and genres.
With all the border crossings and “firangi” interventions as William Dalrymple puts it, the
narratives he unearths are fascinating and sometimes painfully moving, and he surrounds them with
generous knowledge. This is the India we seldom see, populated by obscure people whose lives are made
vivid by their eloquent troubles and reckless piety. The traditional genre working with spacial
understanding in a minimalistic sense is been overtaken in these two books by a new style. The genre of
Travel writing has acquired a new curve through these writings.

Works Cited
Dalrymple, William. Nine Lives: In Search of Sacred in Modern India. London. Bloomsbury. 2009. Print.
Dalrymple, William. City of Djinns: A Year in Delhi. Flamingo, 1994
Dorgelo, Rebecca. “Travelling into History: The Travel Writing and Narrative History of William
Dalrymple.” Diss. U of Tasmania 2011. Web. 24 Dec 2014.
Interview with Annand Raj OK, Features Editor, Friday Magazine Published: 00:00 March 1, 2013 Friday.
Web. 10 Nov 2014.
“Home Truths on Abroad.”The Guardian 19 Sept. 2009. n. pag. Web. 10 Nov 2014
MacLean, Rory. Rev. of Nine Lives by William Dalrymple. The guardian.com. 16 Dec. 2009. Web. 10 Nov
2014

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134
CHETAN BHAGAT'S ONE NIGHT @ THE CALL CENTRE AS A REVERIE

Ms. S. Maheswari, Assistant Professor, Sri S. Ramasamy Naidu Memorial College, Sattur

Abstract:
Literature is an influence of society and writers are responsible for reflecting the temperament of
their world. It can be understood in its social context with fantasy. This paper explores the struggles of the
characters and how they pass through such hardships to get success by fantasy. Bhagat's One Night @ the
Call Centre is ambitious in its mix of reverie and realism. The element of suspense begins at this point and
gets heightened. Bhagat portrays such issues in his writings that are very close to modern generation. He
comments on the problems of Indian youth and so on. Thus the paper has the modest aim with the fantasy of
hope, hardship and success between their character elucidations by Chetan Bhagat in very fervent modus.
Therefore he is considered as a torch bearer for an unafraid young generation.

Keywords: Fantasy, Hardship, Success and Modern Generation.

Reverie is a form of literary genre in which a plot can be remembered in all the things as a day
dream. In Indian literature, reverie is measured as a state of pleasant dreamy thought. According to Chetan
Bhagat reverie is considered as a magical fantasy. He proves that the magical power and the magical
objects become the subject through his characters. One night at Call center (2005) is written by Chetan
Bhagat who is one of the most famous novelists in modern era.The young audience admires him for
relatable storylines and life-like characters of his novels. Chatan Bhagat expresses his view point through
his writings for young generation and also highlights the issues, desires, hope and ambitions of youths.
Through his writings and themes Chetan Bhagat has been referred to as the role model of young
generation.
This novel serves to fuel our imaginations, and satisfy our longings for adventure. Thus fantasy
directly relates to our deepest desires and dreams which are important for increasing power of imagination
in growing minds, especially in the minds of teenagers. In One Night @ the Call Centre, ChetanBhagat
takes up the issues of the six employees Shyam, Vroom, Esha, Rathika, Priyanka and Military uncle in the
call centre and also their desires and goals faced by them with great risk. The novel has a preface, in which a
writer meets a beautiful girl on a train trip from Kanpur to Delhi. She wishes to tell him a story only on the
condition that he should write it as his next work. He yields to her bait as she hints about a phone call from
God. “It was the night… One night. Call Centre. Call from God”. (9)
One Night at Call center is the novel based on the life of the people of middle class family in India
and their problems. IT is a story of emotions which shows pity, love, sorrow and ambitions. It denotes to the
many aspects of human life. It deals with the expectations of people and the frustration after not fulfilling
them. The story of One night @ the call center moves around six people. Three are male characters and the
three are female characters. All of them are working in a same group in a call center 'Connexion'. They all
are different from each other but they have one similarity in them that all of them are fed up with their lives
and their lives are very messy.
This novel is about a night at the call center which changes the lives of all the people, not lives
actually it changes their way of thinking. It changes their way to deal with the problems of their lives.
Shyam Mehra, is the narrator of the story and is the main character of the story. He is very much confused in
CHETAN BHAGAT'S ONE NIGHT @ THE CALL CENTRE AS A REVERIE 464
his life. He is a very simple boy. He loves Priyanka who has got engaged with Ganesh an NRI boy. He is sad
because of it and the second thing is that he thinks that his boss has cheated him and Varun.
Varun (Vroom) is Shyam's friend and does not want to do the job but he wants to keep up his
standard up so he has to work there. Priyanka's mother wants her to marry Ganesh next month but she does
not want. She still feels something for Shyam. Later on Shyam tells her about the baldness of Ganesh who
hid this from her. Eshasingh or Eliza is an ambitious girl who wants to become a model. She runs away
from house and join in the call center in order to fulfill her dreams. She does many compromises. But she is
bluffed by a man who said her that she is not suitable for being a model. Her life represents the ambitious
middle class youth who are running after blind race of materialism.
Radhika's call name is Regima Jones. She is married. She is not happy with her mother in law. She
loves her husband a lot but when she comes to know that on a radio program he selects some other girl over
her. She gets very upset. Military uncle is the oldest person in the call center but he is living a lonely life.
His heart cries for his grandson but he gets more upset when his grandson asks him to stop mailing him.
In this way, everyone in the call centre is fed up with his/her own life but one day at night everyone
receives a call from God. God motivates everyone and tells the way to handle their problems. He tells them
not to get frustrated by problems. He suggests them to face the problems and to do with 100% of efforts.
After receiving the call from God the life of everyone is changed. Everyone starts facing the problem with
full of courage and comes out with the best solution. Shyam finally gets his love. Priyanka also refuses to
get marry to Ganesha who hid his baldheadedness. Esha starts working for NGOs. Military Uncle also gets
his family back at the end.
In this way the story of one night @ the call center is based on facts and narrative. The characters
are taken from the real life. They represent the problems of middle class Indian youths. The story denotes
the six different problems of six different people. Priyanka represents the girl in India who has to follow the
decision of parents at the matter of marriage. God gives the solution to it and tells her to believe in herself.
Military uncle also represents the old people who are ditched by the family and it is a common and a serious
problem in society. At the end he also gets his family back. The conversation with God motivates the group
to such a scope that they get ready to face their problems with utmost fortitude and motivation. They sit
together and chalk out plans to get rid of the problems in their lives. Thus the story of the novel is modest
but the call from God makes it as a reverie. God motivates them to live a life without any stress by keeping
aside all the psychological stresses and frustrations.

Works Cited
Bhagat, Chetan. One Night @ the Call Center. New Delhi: Rupa & Co., 2005. Print.
http://gyandaata.com/notes/english-literature/summary-of-one-night-at-call-centre/

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135
THEME OF SELF-IDENTITY AND IMMIGRATION IN
BHARATHI MUKHERJEE'S JASMINE

R. Mahalakshmi, Assistant Professor of English, Sri.S.R.N.M College, Sattur

Abstract:
Mukherjee is a diasporic writer and her main focus is to bring out the conflict and the suffering of
the women who have settled abroad. Her novels are women centered, though she uses a large number of
male characters in order to portray the world of her female protagonist. Mukherjee's women characters
are people from the periphery of society who chose to spend their lives in an alien country.

Keywords: Immigratin, Self-identity, diaspora, exile.

Mukherjee's Jasmine explores the socio-political issues that determine the position on American
identity through the migration narrative of its title character. Several wellknown scholars find out what
they interpret American adult life. These past biographical events inform the action set inIowa. Her
odyssey encompasses five distinct settings, two murders, at least one rape, a maiming, a suicide, and three
love affairs. Throughout the course of the novel, the title character's identity, along with her name, changes
and changes again: from Jyoti to Jasmine to Jazzy to Jassy to Jase to Jane. In chronological order, Jasmine
moves from Hasnpur, Punjab, to Fowlers Key, Florida (near Tampa), to Flushing, New York, to Manhattan,
to Baden, Iowa, and finally is off to California as the novel ends. Jasmine is an account of adaptation and
not a defeat. It is the story of a Punjabi rural girl, Jyothi.
Prakash, an energetic and enthusiastic young man entering Jyothi‟ s life as her husband. When
Prakash prepares to go to America, she says, “I‟ll go with you and if you leave me, I will jump into a well”.
A woman has to accept, the path of her husband, Renamed as Jasmine, joyously sharing the ambition of her
husband, she looks forward going to America, a land of opportunities even this dream gets shattered by the
murder of Prakash on the eve of his departure. She decides to go America and fulfill Prakash‟s mission and
perform “Sati”. Having learned to “Walk and Talk” like an American, she grabs every opportunity to
become American. Jasmine becomes Jase. At the end she kills Sukhawinder, the Khalsa lion who killed
Prakash. After that she goes to Iowa assuming a new name “Jase”.
The manifold facets or roles played by Jasmine as Jase and Jane assault the power in woman. This
power can be equal to Sakthi which is command over quality that destroys and fights against all evils.
Jasmine has broken away from the shackles of caste, gender and family. She has learnt to live not for her
husband or for her children but herself. Jasmine is a survivor, a fighter and an adaptor. She figures against
Unfavorable circumstances, comes out a winner and carves out a new life in an alien country. In Jasmine is
based on Muckherjee‟s short story by the same name.
Jasmine moves from maidenhood to marriage, to rape, to caregiver. The young age girl Jyoti
becomes Jasmine and when her young husband dies due to a terrorist bombast she decides to go America
with his clothes, to make a final offering at alter of his dreams. Landing in America as an illegal immigrant
she becomes rape and her Indians rebels against this violation she murders the first jasmine moves from
one family to another, builds other relationships, acquires the names, finds a shared bond with a
Vietnamese refugee and finally leaves, she loves-choosing between Indian duty and the Western pursuit of
happiness.
THEME OF SELF-IDENTITY AND IMMIGRATION IN BHARATHI MUKHERJEE'S JASMINE 466
Jasmine undergoes her next transformation from a dutiful traditional Indian wife Jasmine to Jase
when she meets the intellectual Taylor and then moves on to become Bud's Jane. It seems likely that as
Jasmine leaves for California with Taylor and Duff, her identity continues to transform. The author depicts
this transformation and transition as a positive and an optimistic journey. Jasmine creates a new world
consisting of new ideas and values, constantly unmasking her past to establish a new cultural identity by
incorporating new desires, skills, and habits. This transition is defined not only in the changes in her
attitude, but more significantly in her relationship with men.
This novel is the celebration of the American freedom to develop an individual identity, a freedom
categorized by both pain and excitement. Most of her writings created an Indian microcosm in US; an
Indian environment in a foreign land which is vibrant with Indian food, languages, dress, traditions and
customs. One could say that her works reflect the women‟ s plight in the transition. Mukherjee is not
interested in dismantling the term “American” by engaging specifically with the demands Jasmine makes
on mainstream perceptions of immigrant and American identities. While Mukherjee perhaps does not
dismantle the term by stripping American identity of its power and privilege, she does challenge
exclusivity and abuses.
Rather than reading Jasmine's character solely as representative of a “third world” woman in the
West, it is better to see her as a protagonist whose narrative involves translating a postcolonial Indian
female subject-position into the context of immigrant America. As such, she exhibits the potential to
change what it means to be “American,” and the identity she negotiates is as much a political stance
towards ethnic American identification as it is a commentary on the world both Jasmine and her author left
behind. Moreover, it is apparent that this novel cannot be interpreted without making use of the many
examples of personal prose written by Mukherjee in which she explores issues of history, identity, culture,
gender, and immigration, particularly in regard to her work as a writer.
Mukherjee's non-fiction reveals many of the attitudes towards Indian and North American cultures
that shape Jasmine's development as a postcolonial, immigrant heroine. Jasmine's narrative is set against
the violent historical backdrop of post-Independence, post-partition India: her family comes to settle in
their village after the events of 1947 make them outsiders in their ancestral city of Lahore. Although
Mukherjee herself is from Bengal, one of the two Indian states actually partitioned, she does not address
the split of Bengal in Jasmine. Instead, she displaces this trauma onto Jasmine's Punjabi family. Indeed
recent scholarship about Partition highlights 1947 as a traumatic moment in India's history.
In the opening pages of The Other Side of Silence: Voices from the Partition of India, Urvashi
Batavia notes that an estimated one million people died from violence, malnutrition, and disease; twelve
million people were displaced; acts of “sexual savagery” were committed against approximately 75,000.
Women thought to have been kidnapped and raped; and thousands of families were divided, losing their
loved ones as well as all of their land and possessions. In her collection of interviews with survivors of
Partition, Batavia records the human tragedy of an experience widely perceived as a mostly geo-political
event. In a more recent study of Partition's effects on Indian cinema, Bashkir Starker also utilizes theories
of memory and Trauma to construct “a hermeneutic of mourning” that is particularly relevant in regard to
the postcolonial experience.
For Jasmine's family, an acute sense of loss and displacement defines the post-partition, Post-
colonial condition. They were forced violently from their comfortable, upper-middle class lifestyle in
Lahore where they had previously owned land and shops, lived in a sprawling home, and were respected
for their family name and forced into a village of flaky mud huts Jasmine narrates how this loss of home,
homeland, and status plagues her family: Marajo, my mother, couldn't forget the Partition Riots. Muslim
sacked Our house, Neighbors' servants tugged off earrings and bangle defiled Grottoes sobered my
grandfather's horse. Life shouldn't have turned out. That way! I've never been to Lahore, but the loss

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survives in the instant Replay of my family story: forever Lahore smokes, forever my parents Flee.
The trauma of this departure force Jasmine's parents into an exile that makes her mother distrustful
and pessimistic, and that her father in particular never comes to accept. Jasmine describes his perpetual
attachment to Lahore in the karats he continued to wear, the Pakistani radio broadcasts he listened to, and
his disgust for anything not related to Lahore including the mangoes, women, music, and Punjabi dialect of
the Indian side of the partition. In the next generation, this trauma replays itself more and more violently
each time throughout Jasmine's life in India. However, she continues, “Lacking a country, avoiding all the
messiness of rebirth as an Immigrant eventually harms even the finest sensibility”
Although her words have given their context in a review aimed at a new direction for minority
American literatures lack the empathy we might expect in a discussion of trauma, they resound in
interesting ways with Cathy Carat‟ s work in this area. She writes that “the traumatic event is not
assimilated or experienced fully at the time, but only in its repeated possession of the one who experiences
it. To be traumatized is precisely to be possessed by an image or event”. Furthermore, she writes that the
traumatized “become themselves the symptom of a history that they cannot entirely possess”. Haunted by
his imagined, Jasmine‟s father clearly exhibits the symptoms of exile-as-trauma, then Mukherjee argues
that by embracing “duality” we might “learn how to be two things simultaneously; to be the dispossessed
as well as the dispossessor,” thereby working through this exile-as-trauma.
Results and Discussions Jasmine's words at the end of the description of her father illustrate this
attitude towards such dispossession: “He will never see Lahore again and I never have. Only a fool would
let it rule his life”. In her willingness to sever any imaginative attachment to her father‟ s homeland,
jasmine avoids what Mukherjee describes as the “mordant bite” of exile and instead embraces the messy
potential for rebirth as an immigrant when she arrives in the U.S. She refuses to believe the astrologer‟s
argument that one is helpless against fate. Jasmine, which at that time is still known as Jota, trips and falls
as she runs away, is cutting her forehead when it hits the floor and her sister‟s shriek when they see her:
“Now your face is scarred for life! How will the family ever find you a Husband?”. “To Jasmine, however,
this scar is a “third eye”; rather than submit to the will of fate, she prefers to define her own life. She
interprets and resists the implications of the astrologer's pronouncement, refusing to believe that she “was
nothing, a speck in the solar system…helpless, doomed”. Although Mukherjee does not return to this
narrative thread for following upcoming paragraphs, she foregrounds Jasmine's new life in Iowa as the
novel's central plot, weaving in the stories of her upbringing, brief marriage, and migration to America, the
flashbacks determine how we come to understand “Jane,” Iowa's version of the girl from Hanaper.
In narrating her birth, Jasmine continues to reveal the burden associated with daughters in her
community: If I had been a boy, my birth in a bountiful year would have marked me as lucky, a child with a
special destiny to fulfill. But daughters were curses. A daughter had to be married off before she could enter
heaven, and Dowries beggared families for generations. Gods with infinite memories visited girl children
on women who needed to be punished for sins Committed in other incarnation. My mother's past must
have been heavy with wrongs. I was the fifth Daughter, the seventh of nine children. When the midwife
carried me out, my sisters tell me, I had a ruby red Choker of a bruise around my throat and sapphire
fingerprints on my collarbone.
A daughter's birth is never celebrated or related to the luck of bounty, instead, from the Moment she
enters the world, the question of her dowry preoccupies her parents. Mothers who have daughters are
doubly cursed: not only were they once unwelcome daughters themselves, but they are also paying for sins
from previous lives with each girl child. These attitudes characterize the society into which Jasmine is
born, and these beliefs determine how she comes to see herself. From the moment she is born, Jasmine is
marked by a will to survive that challenges expectations and possibly fate and foreshadows the events that
drive her narrative. While Mukherjee's representation of Jasmine's early life might seem to suggest that

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Jasmine's India is stunted by its blind commitment to tradition, which justifiably bothers critics, it is better
to see these moments within the critical context of the massive trauma of Partition.
Mukherjee is not criticizing her homeland, but exploring the social and cultural impact of this
moment on families like Jasmine's, particularly as it pertains to attitudes towards women. In Jasmine,
Mukherjee authors a character defined by her exceptionality and defiance of expectations. While she
performs domestic female tasks like boiling milk and haggling prices down at the market with notable
skill, she also excels at school. She displays enough promise to be allowed six years of schooling - “three
years longer than her sisters,” who were married off by a cousin who taught them that men prefer village
girls with “no minds of their own”. Her mother complains that God is “cruel to waste brains on a girl,” but
Jasmine's intellectual potential earns admiration from the village teacher, who lobbies for her to be allowed
to continue her education and pursue a career.
Jasmine's willingness and ability to go against her grandmother's wishes complicate perceptions of
culture and gender roles in Jasmine as stable or fixed. In these scenes, Mukherjee deals with what she more
explicitly addresses in several of her non-fiction works. Although her upbringing was quite different from
her protagonist's, Mukherjee was born into a wealthy, upper-caste, Hindu family in India's Bengal
province, she consistently grapples with similar issues of flexibility, both cultural and political, in
determining her own identity. In “Beyond Multiculturalism: Surviving the Nineties,” Mukherjee writes:
When I was growing up in Calcutta in the fifties, I heard no talk of “Identity crisis” communal or
individual, the concept itself - of a Person not knowing who she or he was - was unimaginable in a
hierarchical, classification-obsessed society. One's identity was absolutely fixed, derived from religion,
caste, patrimony, and mother tongue. An Indian's last name was designed to announce his or her
forefather's caste and place of origin.
Although Mukherjee's upbringing and experiences contrast with Jasmine's in many ways, it is
worth noting how her attitude towards Independence makes its way into the novel. Mukherjee, having
been born into a comfortably colonized socio-economic situation, is expected and ultimately unable to
adapt to a previous, imagined, and idealized pre-colonial India. Jasmine, who is born into a socio-
economic position rendered quite uncomfortable by Independence (and particularly by the consequences
of Partition), is raised in the shadow of this undivided and colonial India: The issue is not that such
stereotypical Jyoti's are nowhere to be found, but That the exaggerated stereotyping begins by constructing
but not holding On to a farcical image of oppressed Indian womanhood an image which Might have a
special appeal for western liberal feminism, which looks for Exactly such images of oppressed sisters in
need of rescue.
As the protagonists perceive both their race and sexuality through new and different lenses
throughout the course of the text, they come to realize that the notion of a singular identity is a fallacy and
the reality of the diasporic experience is the indeterminate multiplicity. This multiplicity becomes a
significant plight of the characters, for as their different consciousnesses contradict each other, the
characters are left uncertain as to the nature of their identities, not knowing where they fit in the
Mukherjee's characters with different socio-cultural experiences relate to a process involving complex
negotiation and exchange. Mukherjee always has a concern that the new identity should not suffer from
marginalization and suppression from any society. To avoid such circumstances she portrays her
characters with qualities like individualism, independence, courage and decisiveness. Duality and conflict
is not merely a feature of immigrant life in American. Mukherjee's women are bought up in a culture which
ingrains them into such mindset even from childhood. Breaking of linguistic and cultural barrier begins
early, due to the British colonization.

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Works Cited
Shashi, Deshpande. That long silence. New Delhi: Penguin, 1989.Print.
Agarwal, Anju Bala. Post Independence Indian Writing in English. New Delhi: Author's Press,2010.Print.
Gangadharan, Geetha. The Fiction of Shashi Deshpande. Ed.R.S.Pathak. New Delhi: Creative,1998.Print.
Nabar, Vrinda. Caste as Women. New Delhi: Penguin, 1995.Print.
Reddy, Y. S.Sunita. A Feminist Perspective on the Novels of Shashi Deshpande.New Delhi: Prestige,
2001.Print.
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136
IDENTIFY CRISIS IN SHASI DESPANDES THAT LONG SILENCE

P. Anbuselvi, Assitant Professor, Annai Fatima College Arts and Science, Tirumangalam

Abstract:
The present paper investigates the growth of empowering women in Shasi Despande's That Long
Silence. The novel depicts Jaya, the protagonist's transformation from young girl to married woman. She
faces many consequences through marriage, her losses her identity, changes into stereotyped woman,
encounters frustration, disappointment of woman that they experience in social and cultural oppression in
the male dominated society and taboo is the main theme for for women's sufferings. Her grandmother and
mother always advise her to be obedient, as a girl child and they said that not a talk against her life-
partner. The novelist Shashi Despande narrated her work That Long Silence in an effective way

Keywords: Taboo, gender issues, loss of identity, cultural oppression, social in equality.

Shahsi Despande, a pre-eminent and an up-coming Indo-anglian writer. And she focuses on
feminine suffering in Indian society where the literary taboo is grown out of the anxieties of woman's life.
The very basis of feminism is social reforming. The fundamental rights are denied to women., Men give
conduct certificate regarding women's behaviour. It is pity that women are judged by men. This leads to
many gender issues. Men have all the rights, they have the freedom to enjoy all things but women have
certain restrictions. The conventional notions of male-dominated society about women are so rude,
intolerable, suppressive, oppressive and depressive that women have to raise their voice against them. As a
result the advocacy of women's rights on the ground of the equality of the sexes under the name feminism
took place in the 70s'.
The concept of new-women will have to be fulfilled itself only by bringing about a racial change in
public attitude towards man-woman relationships. Women are shadow figures. Throughout their life, they
become dependent on men -first half of life under her father, the next half under her husband and her last
life with her son. For women marriage is slavery and husband is master. This notion must be got rid of and
provide the equality for women in their family as well as in social life. Feminism has emerged in support of
the norms that women should have the same rights and opportunities. Feminism means both the awareness
of women's position in society as one of disadvantage or inequality compared with that of men and also a
desire to remove those disadvantages
Feminism is often defined as a struggle against all forms of patriarchal oppression. Place of women
in the tradition-bond, male-dominated Indian society had been very deplorable condition. Leaders like
Rajaram MohanRai, Mahatma Gandi, Bharathiyar, fought for women's education. Shashi Deshpande in
her novel That Long Slience portrays that status of women at present in Indian society. The title projects
the silence of protagonist Jaya who wishes to break her silence and search her own self identity, her role as
wife, mother etc.She is not a traditional village girl, but she is a modern educated girl.
In the novel That Long Silence, Mrs.Deshande depicts the anxiety prevalentin middle class
family. Mohan who marries Jaya is aselfish-man He is in need of name and fame as well as prestige and
security. He indulges in some mal-practice and loses his job. Jaya is haunted by the memories of the past-
her earlier life and her marriage with Mohan. The hopelessness and disappointments in her seventeen years
old marital status and her personal failures begin to torture her. The novelist depicts her female protagonist
IDENTIFY CRISIS IN SHASI DESPANDES THAT LONG SILENCE 471
Jaya who is trying to break a long silence and struggles hard to achieve self-realization. Through Jaya the
author svmbolically talks about other women, those who are unhappy and never brake their silence. After
her marriage Jaya's mother and grandmother advise her to obey her husband. Like Jaya, most of the girls
are living their life in the same situation. She is compared to Sita and she cannot be a Sita. Even in
mythological story Ramayana there is no equal gender issues. Indian Constitution Talks about
fundamental rights-rights to equality but it's not functional in reality, only in written statement. The women
are warrior who wage war against their problems in their own life. After the marriage they remove their
fathers' initials from their names because they belong to their husbands' family. Women alone shift their
homes after marriage. The novels presents a scathing aspect of Indian social institutions like marriage or
family. During pregnancy womn has lot of troubles in her so body that she needs rest. Jaya advises Mohan
that he should do the cooking. But Mohan refuses to help her because he thinks that cooking is not a man's
business which shows that society is dominated by men. The condition remains unchanged and women
are still suffering a lot and women take responsibility of cooking, washing, cleaning etc.
Jaya's name is changed to Suhasini by her husband on their wedding day. She is very much
confused and is in search of her identity. The pseudonym under which she utilize as a writer futher
complicates the issue. Jaya rejects the name Suhasini given by her husband and it is significant as
manifestation of her protest against such customs. Inspired by the feminist movement in the western
countries, some Indian women, in their thurst for freedom, make a total switch over to the other side,
forgetting their culture. Shashi Desphande's protagonists find freedom not in the western meaning but in
conformity with Indian society they live in without shifting away from one's culture.
Jaya looks for happiness and self-fulfillment within the family. She asks for her individuality to be
valued equally along with that of man. But, Jaya has confidence of her individuality and is hopeful of a
change in Mohan's attitude, moves beyond the cultural stereotypes with the conviction that life has always
to be made possible. Such an optimistic ending of the novel shows that men and women are equal, can live
a dignified life.

Works cited
Deshpanded, Shashi.That Long Silence. New Delhi: Penguin, 1989. Print. Print.
Singh, Sushila. “Recent Trends in Feminist Thought; A tour de Horizon.” Indian Women Novelists.Set I,
Vol. I. Ed. R.K.DhawanNew Delhi: Prestige, 1991.Print.

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137
UNBELIEVABLE, BUT MAKE US TO BELIEVE: A FANTASY IN THE NOVEL
ONE NIGHT @ THE CALL CENTRE

K. Bharathilakshmi, M.A., DFAD., M.Phil, VHNSN College, Virudhunagar

P. Nithiya, M.A., B. Ed, MSP Nadar College of Education, Virudhunagar

Abstract:
Literature has power and responsibility both to represent the actual portrait of the people and the
society in which it is produced. Elements of the supernatural and the fantasy were a part of literature from
its beginning. Fantasy is distinguished from science fiction by the plausibility of the narrative elements.
Many fantasy authors use real-world folklore and mythology as inspiration; and although another
defining characteristic of the fantasy genre is the inclusion of supernatural elements, such as magic, this
does not have to be the case. In Literature, there are so many writers depict the clear picture of the social
situation and adding their own creative analysis to their work to enhance the reader. The current paper is
about the fantasy writing in the Indian Literature. Here I have chosen recent most popular writer Chetan
Bhagat's One Night @ the Call Centre novel for my paper. This is second novel of Chetan Bhagat. The
novel was a huge commercial success in the Country as it is the saga of Indian empowerment in globalized
world. The author is realistic in depicting the problems of modern youth and how they successfully
overcame it. The story begins with the normal atmospheric situation but at last the author creates a fantasy
character like God and made us to believe.

Keywords: Fantacy, Mythology, supernatural elements.

The ultimate function of literature is to entertain and instruct. Literature has power and
responsibility both to represent the actual portrait of the people and the society in which it is produced.
Elements of the supernatural and the fantastic were a part of literature from its beginning. Many fantasy
authors use real-world folklore and mythology as inspiration; and although another defining characteristic
of the fantasy genre is the inclusion of supernatural elements, such as magic, this does not have to be the
case. Fantasy has often been compared to science fiction and horror because they are the major categories
of speculative fiction. Fantasy is distinguished from science fiction by the plausibility of the narrative
elements. Authors have to rely on the readers' suspension of disbelief, an acceptance of the unbelievable or
impossible for the sake of enjoyment, in order to write effective fantasies.
In Literature, there are so many writers depict the clear picture of the social situation and adding
their own creative analysis to their work to enhance the reader. The current paper is about the fantasy
writing in the Indian Literature. Here I have chosen recent most popular writer ChetanBhagat'sOne Night
@ the Call Centre novel for my paper. The author is realistic in depicting the problems of modern youth
and how they successfully overcame it. The story begins with the normal atmospheric situation but at last
the author creates a fantasy character like God and made us to believe. Bhagat raises valid issues and
concern, but doesn't take them in the least seriously, offering neither reasonable description of the issues,
nor any sensible way of dealing with them. This is second novel of ChetanBhagat. The novel's fantasy
setting is in a Call Center and the story moves at the situation of the employees worked in a night-shift.
The author has earned a lot of popularity at the very young age, through his creative fictional
writings in the contemporary Indian English Literature. He is the bestselling and the most widely read
UNBELIEVABLE, BUT MAKE US TO BELIEVE: A FANTASY IN THE NOVEL ONE NIGHT @ THE CALL CENTRE 473
Indian writer in the present time. Now he is considered as the youth icon. Contemporary Indian society and
its current issues and problems, has been one of the chief thematic concerns of ChetanBhagat's fictional
wok. Most of his fictions are adopted for various Bollywood movies. The present novel One Night@ the
Call Center is the second novel of ChetanBhagat which was first published in 2005. The novel was a huge
commercial success in the Country as it is the saga of Indian empowerment in globalized world.
The book is designed into three sections: (i) Prologue (ii) Chapters 1-38 and (iii) Epilogue. In the
prologue, the writer frames the story by recounting his own nocturnal train journey from Kanpur to Delhi.
In train the author met one girl and talk about his previous book and she ask him to write a book on the basis
of her story telling. However, she has pre-condition before she gives her story idea. The writer has to
promise that he will convert her story into a novel. He is reluctant to make a blind commitment but she is
adamant. He then asks her for glimpses. All he gets is- six people- at call center- one night-call from God.
Bhagat is hooked, tempted by the phone call. This is how the main story begins. Claimed to be based on a
true story, the writer opts for a person named ShyamMehra (alias Sam Marcy) as the protagonist who is one
among the six call center agents. He is the narrator of the story. From here, the author gives the hint about
st
the story having the fantasy. In the 21 century the fantasy ideas are unbelievable but here the authors
beautifully handle the narration of story with contemporary major issues and its concerns and made the
readers to accept.
After the prologue the main story begins where shyam is introduced in a fashion of storytelling. All
ChetanBhagat's books have one common narrative style with one of the main protagonists narrating the
whole story. This novel also begins with the nightmare of the protagonist that he sinking in the ocean, a
perfect exposition for a fantasy novel. Before the normal chapter begins the author also gives the extract
from chapter-29, where the author wants the reader's curiosity to know about what happened to the
characters. The fantasy novel is not much alike by other novels. As per the formation of fantasy novel,
Bhagat gives the details and description of the situation.
After the introduction of the protagonist the author moves to the other characters who are all work
along with him. His colleagues are Priyanka, Vroom, Esha, Radhika and Military Uncle. Each one of them
have a problems like an unfaithful husband, a scheming boss, apathetic grandchildren and a forced
engagement. They all are different from each other but they have a similarity in them that they all fed up
with their lives and their lives are very messy. This story is all about the normal lives of people and this
novel having a idea of fantasy, which changes the lives of the people, not lives but actually changes their
way of thinking.
The protagonist Shyam is a very simple boy. He is very much confused in Life. He loves Priyanka
who has got engaged with NRI boy, but she does not want. She still feels something for Shyam. This is the
first thing and his boss cheated him and his friend Vroom. Vroom is a friend of Shyam and he does not want
to do the job but he want to keep up his standard so he has to work in the call center. The next character is
Eshasingh or Eliza is an ambitious girl who wants to become a model. She runs away from house and join
call center in order to fulfill her dreams .She does many compromises. But she is bluffed by a man who said
her that she is not suitable for being a model. The next one is Radhika. She is married. She is not happy with
her mother in law. She loves her husband a lot but when she comes to know that on a radio program he
selects another girl over her. She gets very upset. The last person is Military Uncle. His name was not
mentioned throughout the novel. He is the oldest person in call center but he is living a lonely life. His heart
cries for his grandson but he gets more upset when his grandson asks him to stop mailing him.
In this way everyone in the call centre is fed up with his life. In a book the author clearly describes
the situation and the background conditions of the each character. These characters all represent the
problem of middle class Indians. The environment of corporate setting is enlivened through -a character
Mr. VyomeshBakshi. He is the representation of a corporate boss. He is a typical boss. Employees are

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exploited by their bosses. Boss generally bypasses the works to the juniors and takes the credit of the work
done by them. Bakshi bypasses the work to his juniors in the name of giving exposure to them. When
Bakshi steals the credit of the project and manual which are prepared by Vroom and Shyam after six
months of work, Shyam is unable to clarify it to Bakshi because of the fear of losing his job. Even after
realizing audacity of the manager, the employees cannot blame anything because if they criticize, they will
be fired.
In One Night at the Call Center, all the six characters lead dolorous lives. Each character carries a
particular problem that can be related to common youth of India. Out of the six persons, Shyam, Varun,
Esha and Radhika are victims of pathetic financial condition of India. When Vroom and Shyam comes to
know that Bakshi has stolen the credit of the manual and website they have made after six months of work,
unlike Vroom's aggressive response, Shyam'sresponse was that of a total loser. His love-life is also
evidently complicated. He struggles with the job only to be the team leader so that he can plan to marry
Priyanka. VarunMalhotra (Vroom), another confused character, is journalist but works in call center as
there is no scope of earning in his desired field. He has soft corner for Esha. He reduces his stress by driving
bikes rashly. But his world is also full of despondency. His family life is disturbed. His father is a
businessman but left him and his mother. Then Priyanka is a modern girl but prefers to wear Indian dresses.
She agrees to marry NRI man because her mother becomes happy. But still she confused herself in
marrying him. Radhika, representing the struggle of middle class married-women, works at Connexions to
balance the economy of house and also does household works the whole day. She lives in a joint family
which is extremely traditional but Radhika does all this for her love. At last she was cheated by that same
love. As a result she becomes weak psychologically and physically. Esha Singh is the face of urban
fashionable girls who desire to become model or actress in film industries. She wants to become model but
her parents don't like her to do modeling. She moves to Delhi from Chandigarh against her parents' wishes.
The call center job helps her to earn a regular income. Military Uncle is a retired army man who lives
without his family. He is the oldest man in the novel. He works at Connenction because his pension might
be meager. He loves his grandson very much but once he was warned by his son not to mail his grandson
through his mail address.
All of them are in a complicated Situation. No one has a proper solution for their problems.
Everyone showed their hatred through different attitude, but none of them think about how to overcome
from their problems and how to tackle the situation. The novel covers the time span of only one night. The
whole novel covers the time span of nearly twelve hours. The novelist has to apply certain techniques to
make the twelve our story the representation of contemporary world. So he adopts the stream of
consciousness technique to elucidate the characters relation with each other. At last they all decided to
went out to relax their temper. Somehow they caught up in accident and they all screamed very much. At
the time everyone's mobile gone out but Shyam has received the call from God. He asked each one's
problem and gives them strength. God moves them to the extent that they get ready to face their problems
with utmost determination and motivation.
The element of god is the peak of interest. This novel is filled with a lot of drama with unpleasant
things happening to all the leading characters. The story moves like the problems of employee but have a
sudden twist that they receive a call from God. In the existing world, people are occupied with hectic
schedules. They have no time to think of what they are doing and what they actually want-and this is root of
all their woes. Without recognizing the cause of their gloomy, they continue with their engaged workouts.
This is explicitly replicated in the novel. But the charm of the novel is 'the solution' by the advent of God.
He is the center of interest. Now everyone clear from their mind. But the call from God presented as
strange. As whole the author wants to explicit the problems of the call center employees and how they
suffer and what makes them stronger. All these settings make this as a Fantasy novel.

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Woks Cited
Bhagat, Chetan. One Night @ the Call Center.New Delhi:Rupa Publication India. 2012.Print.

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138
DIASPORIC ASPECTS IN NAIPAUL'S A BEND IN THE RIVER

C. Sankar Goud & G.Gulam Tariq, Yogi Vemana Univesity, Kadapa

Abstract:
Indian English Literature has been emerging as a powerful form of literature among the New
Literature; it represents the original and creative writings in English by Indians. Particularly the genre of
Indian fiction, emerged as a new literary phenomenon and added to the world of literary works. The novel
is being molded by the writers who are trying to give it a form, substance and expression that are truly
Indian and also bear a mark of universality.The term diaspora emerged in 1990. It is as old as post colonial
theory. In the area of post colonial literature, different ethnic groups, based on their different cultural
heritage have their own cultural ethnic, historical perspectives. Hence the condition of the dislocated and
dispossessed is emotional and complicated because they can't find a home of their own. Sir Vidiadhar
Surajprasad Naipaul is one of the eminent and a great Caribbean novelist in English. The aim of this
research paper is to analyze the presence of the concepts of the racial problems, identity crisis, Cultural
clashes, and Political issues in his novel “A Bend in the River” (1967). Naipaul's A Bend in the River talks
of Africa in four parts: The Second Rebellion; The New Domain; The Big Man and Battle. The main
protagonist of this novel is Salim who belongs to the Indian Muslim community and settled in east coast of
central Africa. A Bend in the River is a famous place in Africa which is ruled by colonials. The people of
Africa have been suffering enormously and were facing oppression, humiliation, alienation under the rule
of colonials. After the Britishers left from their country they got freedom. Moreover the paper intended to
explore how the people faced racial problems and political issues between Indian community and
indigenous people.

Key words: Diaspora, Identity Crisis, Political Issues, Cultural Clashes, Racial Problems.

Racial Crisis:
A Bend in the River is a story of Salim a young man from an Indian family of traders. His ancestors
are belongs to the coast of Central Africa. Salim and other settlers consider that Africa as their home but the
indigenous people consider they do not belong to Africa. Salim says,“The coast was not truly African. It
was an Arab, Indian, Portugues place and we who lived there were really people of Indian origin. True
Africa was at our back” (ABR 12).
Salim left the African coast and his family moves to the interior Africa. He confesses that he doesn't
belong to the Africa and he realizes that it is not secure and stable place even though he has achieved
commercial success. When Salim arrives at bend of the river half of the place is destroyed. He feels isolated
and deserted land. The novel tells about the study of Salim growing with disappointment. Salim wants start
new life but he fails in every attempt and he continues to search something new but he faces the difficulties
in every step.“The hyacinths of the river floating on during the days of rebellion they had spoken of blood,
on heavy afternoons of heart and glitter they had spoken of experience without savour”(ABR 183).
Naipaul develops a satire on every one about their race, color, nationality or ethnic group. In “A
Bend in the River” he represents the ridiculous incidents among the people and no one is exempted,
everyone is taunted by him. When Salim arrives in the town at the bend he meets a few people mostly Asian
or Indian. Where ever he meets Indian couple, they are described in an unpleasant representation. “Their
DIASPORIC ASPECTS IN NAIPAUL'S A BEND IN THE RIVER 477
food was too liquid and peppery for me and I did not like the way the man ate. He bent his head low over his
food, keeping his nose an inch or two from his plate he ate noisily, slapping his lips together. While he ate
like this, his wife fanned him, never his eyes off his plate, funning with her right hand, resting her chin on
the palm of her left hand” (ABR 28).
At the initial stage Salim diminished Mahesh, he could become nothing but Mahesh introduced
new schemes fortunately those got good success at that moment Salim was astonished about his successful
schemes in business. With that effect Salim gave all his responsibilities to Mahesh to look after his business
in the town. Unfortunately Africa was being radicalized by the Bigman including the town. After a few
days a Bigman native leader who maintained one warrior group. With the help of the group he grabbed all
the power into his hands and moreover he wanted to change Africa as a independent country as like as
European country. But his attitude and activities was not liked by black Africans who became opposite to
him, they punished and killed. In the mean while he killed father Husman, who was a symbol of old African
art and religion.
Identity Crisis:
Identity crisis plays main role in this novel which is represents diaspora, displacement and the
psychological problems. It is the story of an Arab African man Salim. In fact he belongs to Indian
community and his family settles in east coast of Africa for innumerable generations. It is ruled by the
colonials and they fight with colonial to secure their identities. Salim thinks that there is no future for him
because always unrest follows in that place.“Man has left his roots in the garden of Eden in one self pitying
moments we know that we could never have stayed long or grown far in that innocent challenges place”
(ABR 382).
Consequently he wants to move to east coast at a bend in the river which is located at middle of the
country, it is famous for trade. There he buys one shop which is offered by his relative Nazaruddin. “All
over the world money is in flight. People have scraped the world clean, as clear as an African can scrape his
yard, and now they want to run from the dreadful places where they have made their money and find some
nice safe country” (ABR 234). After a few days the indigenous people got freedom from colonials. Later
on the town lost its beauty everything was destroyed and ruined due to the disputes among the people.
Unfortunately he fell in to difficult condition, his shop was sold to a women and she shifts that shop to a
forbidden region.“Home was something in my head. It was something I had lost”(ABR 114). Salim has an
illegal affair with an officer's wife named Yette. After a few days they quarrel leed with each other and
salim beats his beloved viciously then he immediately leaves from that place and goes to England. “It was
something shrunken, mean and forbidding” (238).
After a few days he came from England and heard a shocking news that his property had been
occupied by the government. This incident was really shocking to him. Salim started a gold and ivory
business to earn more money. It was an illegal business so he was caught and imprisoned and later on he got
bailed out by one of his friend. His friend advised him to leave this place immediately and salim escaped in
a ship and the ship was attacked by the militants and all were killed except Salim. Then Salim migrated to
another place to secure his identity.
Political Crisis:
Political crisis plays a main role in A Bend in the River. Before Africans got independence they
faced many difficulties from European. After they got independence they hoped better for their country but
they faced many struggles to establish their own country, regularly they used to depend on the colonizer to
develop their nation. Mobutu was the first leader of the newly independent country who was ruled Congo
but he did not control the rebellions and so he lost his power.
The Bigman became the President of Africa, who is even worse than the colonizer and he is ruled
with the help of military power. The Bigman established a new domain for the people of Africa, the main

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motto is to develop the country as like as Europe but actual intention is to deceive the people with his
fraudulent words. They were attracted towards Bigman and fascinated towards European culture and style.
“He was creating modern Africa. He was creating a miracle that would astound the rest of the world. He
was bypassing real Africa the difficult Africa of bush and villages and creating something that would
match anything that existed in other countries.”
The Bigman promised the Africans that their children would be tsaught by the European teachers.
When European heard the news, they felt it was really ridiculous and they thought he was the cheater of
Africa. Bigman gave a few jobs to Africans to create confidence in the people, for those who studied under
the domain. Ferdinand was the student of domain who got a government job and he played important role
in this novel. When he was a boy, he learnt English through Salim.
Bigman appointed Reymond as his representative; Salim had an illicit contact with Reymonds wife
to get into the power. Bigman masks spread all over the country and he always gave the false promises for
the new generations of Africa. After he got independence Bigman had nationalized everything in Africa it
means non indigenous people they do not have any right on their property and so confiscated by the
Government. Arabs and Indians became helpless and powerless due to the nationalization and they simply
became weak economically. However non natives strongly determined that they wanted to get into the
power for protecting their identity. With the effect of nationalization, disputes arised between natives and
non natives. This atmosphere was created by Bigman for getting power. Another Indian family also lived in
Africa and they were Mahesh's and Shobha they got love marriage. Mahesh ancestors and Salim ancestors
were relatives in those days then they both strongly determined to acquire power through earning money.
In order to earn money Mahesh established one shop named Big Burger in European style and Salim also
started illegal ivory business but they did not prosper.
Cultural Crisis:
Cultural crisis also plays a main role in this novel. Africa has been one of the most exploited
continents in the world. It has faced more problems and pains from other nations. There is slavery system in
Africa. Indians and Arabs made the slavery business in those days. Arabs also used Africans as their family
slaves. Africans have faced more humiliation, violence and they have been socially degraded by the
colonials due to their non education and financial conditions. Salim's ancestors also have done the slave
business and they used to export them to Europe. Another cultural aspect is New Domain, it is started by the
president Bigman. Africans got the freedom from the colonials and they would not forget colonial culture
and they are fascinated towards their life style and language. Bigman gave the false promises and
ultimately he cheated Africans.
In this novel, women were not depicted as equal to men best were oppressed by men. It also reflect
their culture in those days. For instance, Zabeth is the one of the merchandise of the village, she gives birth
to a boy but her husband do not belong to her tribe. It is against of their customs and traditions. Society does
not accept it. With this reason she faces humiliation in the society. Another character is Shobha she is a
beautiful woman but she suffers from neurosis and she sits locked in her home for years. Another character
is Yette whom is also not portrayed properly, she has an illegal affair with Salim but later on he beats her
viciously due to another illegal affair with someone. Ultimately men do not give importance to the women
in this novel.
In those days, the African people they would like adopt other cultures. Africa, India, America all
these countries have developed socially, economically, ideologically are depicted as corrupt people.“They
wore gold as much as possible gold rimmed glasses, gold rings, gold pens and pencils sets gold watches
with solid wristlets. Among ourselves we scoffed at the vulgarity and pathos of that African lust for
gold.”(ABR 119). The military men and police men are fond of gold, it reflects their culture but satirically
those people are considered as corrupt officers.

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Conclusion:
A Bend in the River explores different themes such as Identity crisis, Political issues, Racial
problems and Cultural crisis. It explores the problems between Indigenous and non natives for getting
freedom. In this novel main protagonist is Salim who struggles enormously to secure his identity but where
ever he goes unfavorable conditions follows him. Another character The Bigman who is the President of
the African country creates political crisis among the people for getting his benefits. It also talks about
slavery how the Africans have humiliated by colonials and other communities. The theme of slavery has
also been discussed in the novel where the natives were humiliated by the colonials and other
communities. These we find that diasporic eelement is well explored by the author in this novel through
different characters and situation.

Works Cited:
Analyzing the post colonial studies situations in Naipaul's A Bend in the River by Afrinul Haque Khan
Naipaul, Vidiadhar Surajprasad. A Bend in the River. Pan Macmillan, 2002.Print.
Nostalgia and changing identities in V.S.Naipaul's A Bend in the River by Dr. Aparna Banaik.
Reading the post colonial in the center V.S.Naipaul's A Bend in the River by Masood Raja.
Struggles for power: A Bend in the River by Israt Alam.

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139
CULTURAL HYBRIDIZATION IN SALMAN RUSHDIE'S MIDNIGHT'S CHILDREN

S. Subha, Assistant Professor of English, V.H.N.S. N College, Virudhunagar

Abstract:
Cultural hybridization is an offshoot of post colonialism, as postcolonial societies cannot boast of
a pure culture. Rather, the culture of every colonized nation has been tainted by western influence and
cultural intervention. The literary output of postcolonial nations reflects this cultural hybridization. This
paper seeks to examine this aspect with special reference to Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children.
Sir Ahmad Salman Rushdie is a British Indian novelist and essayist. His novel, Midnight's Children
(1981), catapulted him to literary notability. This work won the 1981 Booker Prize and, in 1993 and 2008,
was awarded the Best of the Bookers as the best novel to have received the prize during its first 25 and 40
years. Midnight's Children follows the life of a child, born at the stroke of midnight as India gained its
independence, who is endowed with special powers and a connection to other children born at the dawn of
a new and tumultuous age in the history of the Indian sub-continent and the birth of the modern nation of
India. The character of Saleem Sinai has been compared to Rushdie. However, the author has refuted the
idea of having written any of his characters as autobiographical, stating, “People assume that because
certain things in the character are drawn from your own experience, it just becomes you. In that sense, I've
never felt that I've written an autobiographical character” (Meer 122). He combines magical realism with
historical fiction; and his work is concerned with the many connections, disruptions.

The novel employs different levels of hybridization, each depending on each other to exist and work
within the text, through which the novel illustrates India's emerging postcoloniality. The ability of the
narrator, Saleem Sinai, to wordlessly communicate with the other Indian children born on the same day, the
date of Indian independence, August 15, 1947, demonstrates how magical realism gives Indians the
opportunity to communicate the thoughts, desires, and dreams of a nation.
Magic realists incorporate many techniques that have been linked to post-colonialism, with
hybridity being a primary feature. Specifically, magic realism is illustrated in the
inharmonious arenas of such opposites as urban and rural and Western and indigenous. The
plots of magic realist works involve issues of borders, mixing, and change. Authors
establish these plots to reveal a crucial purpose of magic realism: a more deep and true
reality than conventional realist techniques would illustrate. (Christysavvy para 17 )
The novel employs the formal technique of magical realism, a hybrid of realism and the
supernatural, through myth and historical events, and Rushdie simultaneously represents ordinary events
alongside fantastic elements.
The novel's social and cultural hybridization, illustrated through the multitude ofdiffering
characters, also allows historical hybridization to occur, through which thecharacters may explain more
accurate versions of their own colonial and postcolonial history, as opposed to the rigid one-sided version
history from their British colonialists. The novel's creation of new and seemingly more accurate versions
of Indian colonial and post-colonial history stems from the text's explicit references to historical events.
These new historical depictions depend upon the cultural and social hybridity of the novel's
character diversity. Bhabha's term “Entstellung,” which is the “process of displacement,
distortion, dislocation, [and] repetition,” occurs now from the Indian characters who
CULTURAL HYBRIDIZATION IN SALMAN RUSHDIE'S MIDNIGHT'S CHILDREN 481
attempt to displace and distort British colonial versions of history, and ultimately allows
the postcolonial citizen to write his or her own history, as the novel explicitly does.(Bounse
6)
Saleem Sinai's narrative position in the novel makes him central to the questions of hybridity. He
self-consciously calls attention to the process of narrating his story often explains and attempts to justify
theatrical and literary devices used in the telling of his story. Saleem's authorship and creation of his life
narrative become inextricably linked to India's creation due to the significance of his birth date, the date of
Indian independence, August 15, 1947. Saleem melds Indian and his familial history and connects both
histories to his own present moment. The simultaneous authorship of his own and India's history serves as
a means to articulate and assert his own power and history, as a post-colonial citizen, and his nation's power
and history, as a post-colonial nation, instead of remaining under British imperial versions of history.
Saleem's position as author, writer, and creator of his familial history brings up the idea that history may be
created, just as a family history may be embellished and exaggerated. Saleem appears as a symbol for
India; his birth and his ability to communicate with his fellow “midnight children” associate him with a
mother-earth figure, like Mother India.While Saleem communicates, primarily to Padma, his listener, he
simultaneously tries to express himself to the Western world, his former colonial rulers. Padma questions
his narrative and forces Saleem to explain himself thoroughly, but Saleem requires Padma to inherently
believe in his narration, no matter how ridiculous his story may appear. Saleem's magical powers of
telepathy, given to him due to his significant birth date, allows him to communicate with all of India's
midnight's children. He maintains this connection between the midnight's children, and becomes able to
communicate with the diverse number of Indian citizens. Saleem becomes associated with two of the
midnight's children in particular, Shiva, who, as a war-hero, becomes Saleem's rival, and Parvati-the-
witch, a sorceress who eventually becomes Saleem's wife. Shiva and Parvati are both Hindus, while
Saleem is Muslim, and their relationships demonstrate the mixing of religious and cultural mythologies
present within India. Thus, Saleem's character in the novel serves as an allegory for India, through
Saleem's creation of his identity and life narrative, his attempts to explain his narrative, his ability to
communicate with other Indian postcolonial citizens, and his association with other religious mythologies
and traditions. Midnight's Children's inherently connected levels of hybridity work together to form a new
picture of India, as the nation becomes a postcolonial land. Through the formal framework of magical
realism, the novel allows its multitude of characters, belonging to different cultural backgrounds, to
evaluate and formulate their own versions of Indian history, thus subverting British colonial versions of
history.
Magical realism becomes necessary to communicate the postcoloniality of India, and within its
framework, the novel explores and presents a postcolonial history of its own. The cultural and social
hybridity, along with the historical hybridity present within the novel allows the text to illustrate the major
themes of the novel and postcoloniality itself: the creation and telling of history, identity, and narratives.
The novel effectively and clearly depicts the problems of postcoloniality, and through the use of hybridity,
Midnight's Children seeks to show if these problems remain may be solved, and if possible, seeks to solve
them.
Bombay's history, expressed through Saleem's narration, explains the process of Indian
colonization by the various European powers, such as the Portuguese and the British, along with Bombay's
central role in the Indian independence movement, to achieve independence from Great Britain. Using
Bombay as the novel's setting, with its religious diversity, social caste differences, and multiplicity, allows
the novel to illustrate the struggles of forming a postcolonial
identity, due to the various type and number of people present in the city. The city itself is a hybrid, of
Muslim, Sikh, Hindu, and Christian; of young and old; of the past and the present moment; within this

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context, the novel becomes able to express new versions of Indian history and accurately illustrate Indian
postcolonial citizens. Saleem begins his narration as follows:
I was born in the city of Bombay…once upon a time. No, that won't do, there's
no getting away from the date: I was born in Doctor Narlikar's Nursing Home on
August 15, 1947. And the time? The time matters, too. Well then: at night. No,
it's important to be more…On the stroke of midnight, as a matter a fact. Oh, spell
it out, spell it out: at the precise instant of India's arrival at independence, I
tumbled forth into the world. (Midnight 1)
Saleem describes the moment of independence, and this historical event takes on new meaning as
he attempts to discover the true point of his own and his nation's origins. Inherently connected to this
discovery and creation of history is the identity of the nation and the self. Saleem remains confused by his
own identity, and within this passage, he describes how he has been called many different names, including
“Snotnose, Stainface, Baldy, Sniffer, Buddha and even Piece-of-the-Moon” (Midnight 1). The difficulties
in determining one's identity remains central to the novel and remain connected to determining a nation's
identity. The problematic nature of creating an Indian national identity becomes clear within the novel,
through the multitude of cultures, religions, and peoples. Yet Saleem embraces his various names,
realizing that one of the inherent problems of a postcolonial society is the impossibility of finding and
embodying one true authentic identity.
Saleem's avoidance and deferral of time, along with his use of ellipses, demonstrates the problem
of determining a nation and a postcolonial citizen's point of origin. Does this point of origin begin at the
point of independence from the colonial powers, in India's case, August 15, 1947, when they gained
independence from Great Britain.Yet, the colonized Indian citizen lacked any privilege in determining his
or her own national point of origin. However, although Saleem demonstrates the difficulties in assigning a
particular point of origin, within the novel's introduction, he claims Bombay as his story's setting and his
own place of origin, his birthplace. Saleem matter-of-factly states his place of origin as Bombay, appearing
comfortable with assigning this locality as his origin point. However, he remains reluctant to assign his
own point of origin. The novel intimately describes the times and places of its characters, yet often, its
characters remain uncomfortable with these categorizations. Through this novel, Rushdie illustrates the
extreme difficulty in determining one's national, and in Saleem's case, individual point of origin.
The novel describes the origins of Bombay and illustrates the city's evolutions and changes, from
the indigenous people settling the city to colonial powers asserting their control over it. Saleem describes
the first settlers of the city:
The fishermen were here first….at the dawn of time, when Bombay was a dumbbell-
shaped island tapering, at the center, to a narrow shining strand beyond
which could be seen the finest and largest natural harbour in Asia, when Mazagaon and
Worli, Matunga and Mahim, Salsette and Colaba were islands, tooin short, before
reclamation, before tetrapods and sunken piles turned the Seven Isles into a long peninsula
like an outstretched, grasping hand, reaching
Westward into the Arabian Sea. (Midnight 101)
The narrator describes how the early fishermen settlers of Bombay arrived “the dawn of
time,” (Midnight 101) during which the “primeval world” (Midnight 101).Of the region lacked the
“clocktowers” (Midnight 101). And the focus on regimented time-keeping that the colonialists focused
upon. The narrator continues and describes the natural environment of Bombay, the “dumbbell-shaped
island tapering, at the center, to a narrow shining strand”…and the “largest natural harbour in Asia.”
(Midnight 101). The narrator names the regions and island making up Bombay, “Mazagaon, Worli,
Matunga, Mahim, Salsette, and Colaba,” (Midnight 101). and references the natural crops of the region,

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coconuts and rice. These descriptions of early Bombay, as primeval and natural, links early Indian
settlement to the primitive, similar to visions by colonizers viewing lands they sought to colonize. Yet,
through these primitive images of early Bombay, the novel demonstrates the difficulty in assigning a point
of origin for a city, a nation, or a people. Although Saleem appears to be describing the native and
indigenous Indian people, he instead shows how India remained a conquered land throughout its history,
with the Kolis arriving first on Bombay's shores, followed by the Portuguese and the British. However,
although the novel describes the colonizers who invaded Bombay, Saleem does not describe the
indigenous people living on the islands of Bombay. Through this omission, Saleem illustrates the problem
of attempting to find a true beginning point of Indian civilization, or any civilization. Without the
description of an indigenous people living in early Bombay, no indigenous group even exists. Through this
lack of an indigenous group, the Bombay's land itself, its harbor and islands, become the citizens affected
by the colonization process. Yet, the tone of this passage remains, not angry for the colonizers overtaking
the natural land, but ambivalent, unconcerned, and even slightly positive. The novel shows how the idea of
authenticity remains flawed and impossible to define, because no authentic culture can exist due to the
continuous contact and influence between various cultural groups; these various cultural groups interact,
creating cultural changes between them, thus eliminating any possibility for any true authentic culture to
exist.
Saleem continues to describe the colonization of Bombay, and demonstrates how power shifted
from the early settlers to the later colonizers. The Portuguese and British illustrated their power by shifting
the city's association with the “benign residing influence of the goddess Mumbadevi, whose name-
Mumbadevi, Mumbabai, Mumbai- may well have become the city's” (Midnight 101). Instead, “the
Portuguese named the place Bom Bhai for its harbour, and not for the goddess of the pomfret folk”
(Midnight 102). The renaming and naming of places remains a significant aspect of colonial rule, as the
colonizers attempt to assert their control over their colonized lands. Renaming the city, from Mumbai to
the Portuguese Bom Bhai and later to the British Bombay, shows the power shifts within the city and
nation. Although the city was later renamed to Mumbai in 1996, the city remained Bombay until that date.
The narrator describes the final change in power to the Indians from the British as a change
occurring in the dominion of Bombay: “In August 1947, the British, having ended the dominion of fishing-
nets, coconuts, rice and Mumbadevi, were about to depart themselves; no dominion is everlasting”
(Midnight 103). The novel describes this change, India as a
colonized land to an independent nation, as a change occurring within Bombay. Bombay remains central in
the movement to create an independent India, and Saleem, the novel's narrator, demonstrates Bombay's
importance in this struggle through various historical references.
The novel's character diversity, both in social rank and religious beliefs, reflects the diversity
present within Bombay's own massive population. In 1951, approximately 3 million people lived in
Bombay, and in 1981, approximately 8.2 million people lived within the city. The novel describes an
immense number of people living within the city, even in 1951, along with the diversity of the population,
in terms of religious and social backgrounds.
Saleem comes from a middle-class Muslim family, while his ayah, or nanny, Mary Pereira, is a
Christian convert who works for Saleem's family. Shiva, a character born like Saleem, as one of the
midnight's children on the night of Indian independence, is a Hindu who was raised in extreme poverty.
The religious and social diversity of the characters echoes the diversity in Bombay itself, because the
mixing and melding of various cultures and traditions within Bombay represents social hybridization. The
novel illustrates the difficulties in creating one central historical narrative for a nation and people by
providing so many various and multiple perspectives within the text. Midnight's Children seeks to
combine India's narrative, imbued with various people and ideas, into Saleem's personal narrative, and one

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of the ways the novel attempts to do this is by placing Saleem into Bombay, allowing him to interact with
and meet various and diverse people.
As the narrator, Saleem realizes the importance of language to express his own history and
narrative. He describes how the versions of the goddess Mumbadevi's name, like “Mumbadevi,
Mumbabai, Mumbai...may well have become the city's,” but the Portuguese renamed the city to “Bom
Bhai” (Midnight 100). Saleem focuses on this renaming and naming process to illustrate aspects of Indian
history, while simultaneously demonstrating the importance of etymology and language. Bombay remains
connected to storytelling and theatricality through the Indian film industry, also known as Bollywood. The
elaborate and lengthy films use music, myth, and narrative to express romance and tragedy, and Saleem
uses these elements in his narration of his own story.
The melding of theatricality and realism, evident in Bollywood films, comes together in The
literary technique of magical realism. Magical realism, with its combination of mythology, realism, and
history, becomes the means through which Saleem tells his story, and this technique remains the most
effective way for Saleem to express his narrative and his position as a postcolonial Indian citizen and the
position of India as a postcolonial nation. The novel's major themes, connecting the creation and telling of
history, identity, and stories, arises through the structural hybridity of magical realism. Without magical
realism, it would remain incredibly difficult to connect these three themes, along with the novel's
discussions of the problems of postcoloniality, together.
Saleem continuously connects himself to Bombay, seeking to hold on to some inherent idea of
Bombay, which becomes removed from him when he becomes associated with other regions. Although
Saleem's family history stems from Kashmir, a mountainous region in the Indian subcontinent, he remains
disconnected from Kashmir: “in our house, we were infected with the alienness of Kashmiri blood”
(Midnight 101).
When Saleem's family moves to Karachi, Pakistan, Saleem describes how he “never forgave
Karachi for not being Bombay,” (Midnight 352) and how he sought the “highly-spiced nonconformity of
Bombay” (Midnight 353). In Karachi, as his family wanted to become new people because, “in the land of
the pure, purity became our ideal” (Midnight 355). Yet Saleem resists and remains “forever tainted with
Bombayness” (Midnight 355). He associates this Bombayness with nonconformity, believing that the
essence of Bombay remains in the city's unwillingness to become an undifferentiated mass of people, but
instead, combining various cultural groups and peoples together into one area, allowing their interactions
to become centralized in Saleem's narrative. However, the fact remains that all cities, no matter their
location, combine various peoples together into an urban location. This authenticity which S a l e e m
craves to deem as Bombayness, the diversity and multiplicity of the city, consists of the same qualities
which make up all cities. Yet Saleem clings to this idea that all Bombay citizens share this Bombayness; he
seeks to find an authentic identity of location, but, as demonstrated through the discussions of Bombay's
origins earlier, any authentic identity appears almost impossible to recognize. However, Saleem ties this
idea of an authentic Bombay identity, Bombayness, to the city's mythology and theatricality. The myth of
Bombayness, this myth of an innate social and cultural identity, combines with the city's religious and
cultural mythology, allowing the novel to explore the problems of believing in and searching for a true
authentic identity. Through Saleem's constant desire to remain a part of the city, he uses these elements of
Bombay, mythology, history, and cultural mixing, to tell his own narrative, through magical realism, which
combines the elements of Bombay into a literary technique, necessary for the story which Saleem seeks to
tell, with the city as its background and setting.
Thus Rushdie has orientalized the traditional cultures of India, and a tension is born which remains
throughout the story. The author explains that Saleem embodies all the cultural traditions of Indian society,
fully accepting them as part of who he is, individually and collectively. Like the states differed with their

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own cultural identity and language, the identity of the hero consists of too many different faces or cultural
and religious clashes.

Works Cited:
Bounse, Sarah Habib. “Hybridity and Postcoloniality: Formal, Social, and Historical Innovations in
Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children.” University of Tennessee Honors Thesis Projects. 2009.
Web. 11 Feb. 2016.
Bhaba, Homi. The Location of Culture. London: Routledge, 1994. Print
Christysavvy. “Magic Realism as a Postcolonial Device in Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children.” pdf.
Sep. 25, 2013. Web. 11 Feb. 2016.
Meer, Ameena. “Salman Rushdie.” Conversations with Salman Rushdie. Ed. Michael R. Reder. Jackson:
Univ. Press of Mississippi, 2000. Print.
Pandian, I,D. Salman Rushdie: Life and Works. Kanpur: Bhasker Publication, 2009. Print
Rushdie, Salman. Midnight's Children. London: Picador, 1981. Print

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140
DORIS LESSING'S THE GRASS IS SINGING: A PSYCHOANALYTICAL STUDY

M. Murugesan, M.A., M.Phil, Asst. Prof. & Ph.D. Scholar, M K University, Madurai
A. K. Muthusamy, PhD, Asssociate Professor of English, VHNSN College (A), Virudhunagar

Abstract:
The Grass is Singing is Doris Lessing's debut novel which unfolds the protagonist Mary Turner's
separation from her parents, mental process, woman's identity, her unsuccessful marriage with Dick
Turner, the relationship with a block houseboy, Moses and her own death. Mary's repressed childhood
experience leads her to have several psychological problems. This paper makes an attempt to critically
analyse Lessing's The Grass is Singing in terms of Psychoanalytical study. This paper examines the inner
conflicts and external turmoil experienced by Mary Turner.

Key Words: Psychoanalytical, Traumatic, Conflict, Problem.

Literature and psychological studies are the two main branches of a tree, Humanism that depicts
the study of human beings and human behavioural. These two lead the integral part of human lives. The
purpose of psychological study in literature is unveils the human behaviour towards the other and the other
things. Literary works explores the study of the human life and human beings. Psychoanalytical study
depicts the human psychological development and conditions, characters and their mental process. In the
literature, psychological study mostly concerns theme of human of the text. According to Carl Jung, a
literary work benefits from the psychological study in terms of explaining the characters, expressing their
moods and unveils the psychological dimensions of human reality. Both psychologies and literature
focuses on the fantasies, emotions, feelings, human souls, developments of mind and behaviours of one.
During the evolution of psychological studies in literature, the German Psychologist, Sigmund
Freud (1856-1939) stands first with his idea in the row. He opened the way of psychoanalytical study in the
literature, the theory and the practice of Sigmund Freud affords the foundation for psychoanalytical
criticism in literature. He rests the foundation for a model of our minds work. He divides the human mind
into three parts as conscious, unconscious and subconscious and he assumes these three plays a large part
in the act, think, and feel.
Freud also deals with emotional and psychological disorders. He has his client patient - analyst
setting about their early childhood experience. He is followed by a Switzerland Psychologist Carl Jung,
German Child Psychologist Erik Erikson, Alfred Adler and the most controversial Freudian French
psychologist Jacques Lacan and the Neo-Freudians, the eminent personalities of Object Relation theory
such as, Melaine Klein, Erikson, John Newman, John Bowlby, John Homey, and Ainsworth.
Object Relation theory considers patients attachment to the parents or primary caregivers as a
reflection of the underlying object relation patterns that are interwoven with structure of self. The term
'Object Relation' is termed by Scottish Psychoanalyst, William Ronald Dodds Fairbarin. After Fairbarin,
an Australia - British psychoanalyst Melaine Klein, is commonly identified by the term 'Objects Relation
Theory'. The objects relation theory is the process of the development of the mind as one grows in relation
to others and in the environment. It is a psychoanalytic principle that emphasizes the role of the object in
human/someone's psychological process, by the result of another person or the element of others, most
notably the parents or the primary caregivers.
DORIS LESSING'S THE GRASS IS SINGING: A PSYCHOANALYTICAL STUDY 487
The Object Relation Theory is an intra-psychic activity based upon internalization of functional
aspects of the experiences of the other and their mental relationship with one another. According to Freud,
'object' as the aim of a drive in the process of human satisfactions, and an external psyche is the most
variable aspects to drive the activity. It can be the source of pleasure, pain, activity, fear, happy, wish and
fantasy formation. Object for the human psychic development can be cleaves in two, as Primary Object
and an External Object. The Primary Object is habitually attributed to be the primary care givers or parents.
In Primary Object, the role of mother in a psychic development is revocable, but the father is
unalternatable. The External Object can be an event or series of events, society, cultural institution, the
force of nature and some other external sources. These external objects may be sensitive, affective,
perceptual, imagistic or conceptual. All objects play an ignorable role in personality formation in
relationships, communication and image building between people. In the literature, an object is deemed as
good and bad, loved and hated, analytic and narcissistic, coveted and attained, lost and recovered, negated,
dissociated and external and internal pleasure. On learning over the novels of Doris Lessing, one can
assume the subject of with women's psychology, personal transformation, madness, dream, prophecy,
ideology from Marxism to Sufism, radical psychiatry, the philosophy ragging, violence of colonialism,
domestic relationship and the complex relationship of men and women. Especially, her first signature
novel, The Grass is Singing (1950), is filled with the elements of object relation principles through the
integral character from the white society, Mary turner, Wife of African farmer Dick Turner. Doris Lessing
is one of the renowned Nobel Prize-Winning British novelists. She starts her carrier with her debuted novel
The Grass is Singing (1950). Her Fiction, Non-Fictional, Prose, Poetry, Plays and Short Stories deal with
the contemporary issues. Lessing's other eminent novels are The Golden Notebook (1962), The Summer
Before the Night (1973), The Good Terrorist (1984), Love Again (1996)….etc.
In the novel The Grass is Singing, commences with the article from the local newspaper, that Mary
Turner has been murdered by her African houseboy, Moses. The novel set in 1940 at Southern Rhodesia.
Then the remaining pages of the novel, describes the Bildungsroman of Mary Turner and her relationship
with the African people, particularly with her husband Dick Turner and the houseboy, Moses. It unveils
kindness of the woman, Mary and encounter of the reason of this murder. The local newspaper did not say
much, but the news gets sensational among the natives and whites. During the childhood days, Mary as a
young girl, Mary grew up in the farm in Southern Rhodesia and hates it. As well as she hates her inattentive
and aggressive parents. She hates the way that her father taking liquor and behaved, even she hates her
mother for her shrill voice and her intolerance being. Her mother is 'a passive and helpless woman
dominated by the overwhelming masculine patterns, nonetheless, the complying victim of poverty' (The
Grass is Singing, 33). After she sent for schooling in a dusty village, she enjoys her loneliness that she
experience from the separation of her parents and spending the school days in a village boarding school.
After the separateness from the parents, she visits the home occasionally. Meanwhile, she spent her
holidays in club house. As a young girl, she feels uncomfortable with her parents, because they failed to do
with her expectations.
After the completion of her education, she employed as a Secretarial Worker. She enjoyed her
adulthood in the club house. She did not want to visit her parents and speak. After some years, her parents
are dead but her parents' death won't affect her daily life at the club house. She enjoys her twenties and
thirties as not married. She has some boyfriends, goes for movies and playing games with them. Mary sees
nothing wrong in her attitude, behavior and life until she overhears friends laughing and gossip about her.
She is not fifteen any longer. Someone should tell her about her clothes?
How old is she?
Must be over thirty, she was working long before I was that was over twelve years ago
Why doesn't she marry? (The Grass is Singing, 46).

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Mary Turner feels uncomfortable with the external objects. So she urges to marry someone. She neglects
the influence of the primary caregivers because she feels it as the bad breast. According Wikipedia, object
relation theory is the process of developing psyche in relation to other in the environment during
childhood. The breast that feeds the hungry infant is the good breast, while in a hungry, infant is not able to
finds no breast in relation to the bad breast.
As an adult, she experienced the neglection or abused in infancy would expect the same similar
behaviour from the others, who remind them of the neglectful and abusive parent from the past. After, her
marriage with the African farmer Dick Turner. none too happy. Mary felt comfortable living in the city. But
in Dick's rural form, she doesn't feel all that comfortable. The rural Dick's farm and his poor status remind
her early childhood days with her parents. Mary always spends his whole day in Sofa. But she has a hope,
Indeed, she was hardly awake at all, moving about what she did in a dream of hope, a hop
that grew so strong as the wake passed that she would wake in the morning with a sensation
of release and excitements, as if something wonderful was going to happen that every day.
(The Grass is Singing, 126)
In farm, she wants to show her white authoritative towards the workers of the farm and the
houseboy. This act of Mary results the tension and lack of interest in having sex with Dick. So, Dick spends
his whole days at farm to enrich their life. He engaged himself with the bee farming, owning pigs, turkeys
and rabbits. He decides to open a Kaffir store for native black but Mary's repulsed the native bring it
extremely unsuccessful one because 'she had never come into contact with native before' (The Grass is
Singing, 58).
Mary psychological health worsens. When her husband was affected by malaria, she has a dream.
In her dream, she was a child again, playing in the small dusty garden in front of small wood and a metal
house with her friend. Finally, she dreams that her husband is dead.
She wants to maintain her white authority even further. But her relationship with the black
houseboy Moses is highly equivocal. Her attitude towards him grows more and more ambivalent, 'One of
the strong and irrational fear, a deep uneasiness, and even though she did not know, would have died rather
than acknowledge of one dark attraction' (The Grass is Singing, 154). She responses to his physical touch
such as 'clothing'. The relationship with Moses is unveils by the English man Tony Marston. So she fired
out the Moses from his job. These mixed perspective cause confusions and bewilderments for both of
them. Finally Moses kills her.
Lessing's The Grass is Singing is unflinchingly written novel. She explores Mary's state of mood
and the mental process, the landscapes and weathers of southern Rhodesia. Mary is an incredible creation
to Lessing, a woman, who turns from victim to venomous, from independent to weak, from sane to crazy
and from racist to tolerant. Through, Mary turner reveals the internal representation of one's relationships
and way of shaping themselves, thought, feeling and attitude towards the other affect one's approach to the
new relationship.

Work Cited
Bacal H.A., and Newman K.M. Theories of the Object Relation: Bridges to Self - Psychology. New York:
Columbia University Press. 1990. Print.
Bloom, Harold. Doris Lessing. USA: Chelsea House Publication, 2003. Print.
Lessing, Doris. The Grass is Singing. London: Harper Collins Publication, 1994. Print.
Pratt, Annis, and L.S Dembo. Doris Lessing: Critical Studies. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
1974. Print.
Sega, Lorna. Contemporary Writers: Doris Lessing. London: Methuen Press, 1983. Print.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Object_relations_theory.Web.

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DORIS LESSING'S THE GRASS IS SINGING: A PSYCHOANALYTICAL STUDY 489
Miles, Jon. 'Object Relation Theory'. 5 Jan. 2019. Web.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/314045956_Object_Relations_Theory.
Fritscher, Lisa. 'Object Relations Theory and the Mom Factor'. 27 Dec. 2018. Web
https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-object-relations-theory-2671995

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141
SEARCH FOR IDENTITY IN NAFISA HAJI'S THE WRITING NN MY FOREHEAD

B. Sinthiya, Asst Prof. St.Antony's College of Arts and Sciences for Women, Dindigul

Abstarct:
The Writing on My Forehead by Nafisa Haji is about a young woman named Saira Qadera willful,
intelligent one from her childhood. Shebreaks her family's traditions for her desire for independence. She
is a free-spirited and rebellious Muslim-American of Indo-Pakistani descent. She rejects the notions of her
family and her duties to become a journalist, in order to make the world her home. Being a diaspora she
faces some problems related to assimilation towards the mainstream society. Five years after her career
takes off, the fall of the Twin Towers in New York and the death of her sister Ameena bring her back home
and forces Saira to reevaluate her role in her family. A trip to Karachi and London allows Saira to learn the
truths about her maternal and paternal grandfathers, both of them struggled with conflicts between their
duty to family and their own desires. As Saira Qader finds out the hope, pain, joy, and passion that defined
their lives, she begins to face the situation that she never wanted to admit-that choice is not always our
own, and that faith is not just an intellectual preference.

Nafisa Haji, a Pakistani American who is called as “a talented new writer of sense and a distinct
sensibility” by 'The San Francisco Chronicle' lives in Novato. She was a first-grade teacher at Olive
Elementary School in Novato. Haji has spent a lifetime in knitting her heritages together. Haji has written
two novels: The Writing on My Forehead and The Sweetness of Tears. Her books analyze the conflict that
women of Indo-Pakistani descent undergo when they try to blend traditional Islamic culture with the pull
of American-style independence.
The novel chosen for the study is The Writing on My Forehead, a finalist for the Northern
California Independent Booksellers Association Book of the Year Award. It analyzes her interpretation of
self as not just a free-spirited American, but a member of a family and a cultural tradition, with the need of
both.
Diasporic literature examines the identities formed in multiple places, languages, religions and
cultures of 'homeland' and 'hostland'. Diaspora creates a conflict between cultures, languages, thoughts
and people which produces what Homi Bhabha theorized as 'hybridity'.
Search for Identity is a repeated theme in all diasporic writings that speak of crossing the borders.
The reasons for an immigrant to undergo migration are economical, social or otherwise. The obvious
consequence, as a result, that he has been facing is the problem associated with his search for identity.
There emerges the division between traditionally separated concepts such as 'insider' and 'outsider', 'centre'
and 'periphery', 'home' and 'foreign land', positing that the immigrant experience is in itself a multiple,
naturally complex, and not easily characterized or documented experience. The immigrants achieve new
identity with their own abilities. They are very skillful to balance their relations with the adopted country.
Their displacement in the new soil is successful. Like expatriates they have problems but they face them
and try to overcome them. Their in-between position becomes a meaningful and supportive factor of their
life. Though their path is not straight, they go ahead with risks to turn as negotiations of both culture and
worlds. The protagonist Saira Qader in the chosen novel The Writing on My Forehead is marginalized and
alienated by the mainstream society and she struggles to find her own identity.
Saira lives in Los Angeles with her parents. Saira is a highly spirited young girl of Indo-Pakistani
SEARCH FOR IDENTITY IN NAFISA HAJI'S THE WRITING NN MY FOREHEAD 491
descent who always wants to find out the truth. On her visit to Karachi Saira learns from her grandmother
whom she calls Big Nanima, about the partition of India and Pakistan, how the Muslims suffered as they
were sent to Pakistan and how they felt as a Diaspora who is new to an alien land. Her Big Nanima tells her
how they suffered to fit in a foreign land:
The chaos of leaving and the tears of leave-taking blurred in our minds, like the scenery that
whizzed by from the train on our journey…. Each mile took us farther from home and
paradoxically closer to it, too…And equally impossible not to be collectively exhilarated:
to arrive at our destination and to consciously forget the horrors of our travels, to pretend
that the new borders that were constructed were not newly imposed. As if their very
artificiality could be ignored in the fury of a nationalism that was as fervent as it was new
(TWOMF 68-69).
Saira also finds out that her Big Nanima has gone to England to study English literature after a long
struggle as her parents did not want her to go far. She also tells Saira of how to grab opportunities in the
foreign land. She explains in such a way that her words kindled spirit in Saira who is very curious in finding
her own identity: “It was an easy thing to do a natural outcome, really, of living in a newborn country.
Opportunities seemed to be abundantly swimming in an ocean of hope. All one had to do was catch them”
(TWOMF 70).
From Karachi, Saira goes to her paternal uncle's home in London. Her cousins Mohsin and
Mehnaz come to pick her up from the airport. Mehnaz has fully adapted the American culture whereas
Mohsin wants to find out the truth of his past as her uncle says: “One is obsessed with ancient history,
taunting me with irrelevancies of the past the other bent on flouting the obligations of her culture and
heritage with no regard for her own future” (TWOMF 141-142). Mohsin has similar characteristics like
that of Saira. In his attempt to find out the past, he finds some details about her grandfather. He in turn
makes Saira learn about her paternal grandfather who sacrificed her life in India's freedom struggle.
Mohsin always has a camera in his hands and he takes snaps of everything that grabs his attention. When
Saira asks him why he takes pictures he answers 'To Bear Witness'. Saira writes a caption for the picture of
a neglected old lady. Mohsin gets fascinated by Saira's writing skill.
Saira comes to her home after her trip to Karachi and London. Her mother Shabana hates her father
for having followed the Western style and used his wife as a victim for his whims and fancies. Saira finds
the truth about her grandfather from her Razia Nani on her trip to Pakistan to attend her cousin Zehra's
wedding. She also learns from her aunt that her grandfather has married a white woman and deserted her
grandmother. She now understands why her mother hates her grandfather and has told her and her sister
Ameena that their grandfather is dead.
Saira goes to the high school. She decides to be the ideal college applicant. She signs up for every
extracurricular activity she could. Saira's drama teacher announces the tryouts for the spring production of
Grease. She is given the role of Rizzo, the anti-virgin. She manages to do the rehearsals without the
knowledge of her parents as they will not accept her acting in such a role and tells them that she is just a
stage manager of the play. Her spirit to find an identity for herself is seen in her words. She says,
Those days of preparation, practice, rehearsals those were the high points of my life so far.
Any fears I may have had about these two worlds colliding the world at home, Mummy's
world, with the world at school, which was my own were completely submerged in a
heightened kind of awareness of myself at something more than what I had been before
(TWOMF 166).
Subrata Kumar Das in his essay 'Contra-Acculturation from/at Margin: A Study of Jhumpa Lahiri's
The Namesake' says,
The ethnic people's culture is 'minority' culture in host country's hegemonic culture and

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other societal ethos. Thus, whenever they try to negotiate the host people, they have to face
lots of adverse situations; racial bias, verbal abuse, inferiority complex for belonging to
lower strata and other host cultural ethos. Sometimes they attempt to assimilate with the
host cultural ethos; at other they take 'refuge' in their 'ethnic' cultural practices. (124)
Saira leaves behind her own culture and starts adopting the American culture. She undergoes
assimilation which is found in her thoughts: “It's about America and Individualism and the Struggle
against Authority and Freedom, to be your own person!” (TWOMF 169).
After her first year away from home, Saira returns home. Her mother wants to fix a match for Saira.
She wants to take her to Karachi. Saira gets a phone call from Mohsin asking her to meet him. Saira meets
Mohsin and he gives a Magazine to her saying, the picture of Magda, the old woman is published along
with Saira's words about the picture. Saira is very surprised by this. Mohsin asks her to do bachelors in
journalism at Berkeley. Mohsin's words inspire Saira the most. Saira goes to Pakistan and meets her Big
Nanima. When Saira wants to become a journalist and live a westernized life, her Big Nanima explains the
difference between the cultures of Pakistan and America. She advises her not to be so quick to throw away
all of the old to embrace the new and asks her to make room for both the culture. Saira's Big Nanima gives
her a party at Gymkhana, a restaurant where aristocrats are seen in large number. There Saira has an
opportunity to meet Majid Khan who is a journalist besides being a novelist. She becomes friends with
Majid Khan.
Saira goes to Berkeley for doing her Bachelor's Degree in Journalism. She wants to move out and
achieve her goal. She lives a Westernized life. She drinks alcohol, goes on dating and has illicit affair and
gets pregnant with a girl child by Majid Khan who was introduced to her by her Big Nanima. Later she
gives the child to her sister Ameena as Ameena cannot bear a child. She wants to be a spinster; always
independent like her Big Nanima.Saira goes on a trip around different parts of the world with Mohsin for
bearing witness with his camera and her words describing the cruelty of humanity's indifference. She says,
“For years, I have traveled the world, uncovering the details overlooked by others, avoiding the details of
my own past” (TWOMF 15). Thus Saira makes her dream of becoming a journalist real. She finds an
identity for herself.
Saira returns home after a long time having achieved her goal to be a journalist. Impact of American
culture is found in Saira as she asks her sister Ameena, “You wear hijab?”. She is fully immersed in the
Western culture, so that she is very surprised to see her sister wearing a hijab, which is the identity of their
culture and religion.
Diaspora theory lays a great deal of stress on the collapse of cultural identities in the context of
cultural hybridity and Saira who represents this through her behaviors, upsets her mother. Her mother does
not approve her role as Rizzo in a play. She also upsets her mother when she moves out of the house to
become a journalist. She thinks that Saira breaks the rules of her own culture. The same behavior is found
in Mehnaz, Saira's cousin as she wears clothes in the Western style and goes out of the home to spend time
with her boyfriend during the night, which upsets her father and her mother. Saira's mother and her father
and her paternal uncle are first generation immigrants, they are worried about their children as they follow
the Western culture and leave behind their own culture. They want their children to follow their culture
instead of the Western culture as they want to preserve their cultural and religious identity. Iqbal
Ramoowalia, a Canadian diasporic writer says,
Diasporic literature reflects challenges, aspirations, and anxieties of a person who
migrates to a new land. The first generation of all immigrants always suffers from a broad
sense of nostalgia, and the first generation immigrants tend to cling strenuously together in
order to preserve their cultural, religious and linguistic identity. Preserving their identity is
one of their chief concerns. (qtd. in Anand:165)

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Saira goes to Karachi with her father after the death of her mother. She finds in television, the
attack on the Twin towers. She worries about her sister Ameena at once she saw the news. Saira's aunt's son
says Saira that the Americans are dropping bombs in Afghanistan and he also says that Saira cannot go to
her own home too as the Americans will take revenge on the Muslims. He asks her to wait and watch what
the Americans will do to the Muslims. Her uncle also asks Saira to wait and see how the Americans will
punish them and how they bomb the Muslims everywhere. These things show how the Muslims are treated
all over the world in the aftermath of the Twin Towers attack on September 11, 2001 and also tells us the
plight of the protagonist Saira as a Muslim. Here it is found how the Muslims suffer because of the people
who belong to their own religion and the whole notion towards their religion is changed and the people
belong to that religion are marked as 'murderers' and they become the victims of vengeance.
Saira's heart breaks when she gets a phone call from her sister Ameena's husband Shuja that she was
shot by an American. There were only the words and phrases of Shuja reverberated in her mind, the words
such as backlash, hate crime, gunshot, surgery, coma, a prognosis that was not good. The words show how
Ameena became a victim due to her hijab. Ameena felt very happy in wearing the hijab as she thought that
would be her identity as a Muslim. It also tells how the Muslims are oppressed and marginalized by the
mainstream society only because of their non-American identity. The subalterns suffer from the loss of
identity in the mainstream society. Saira finds from Shuja that Ameena is dead. She feels very sorry for
Sakina.
Sakina feels very lonely and depressed after Ameena's death. Saira, the biological mother of Sakina
wanted to escape from the bonds of mother-daughter relationships. But she is forced to take up that very
same role of a mother she was escaping from, after the death of Ameena. She thinks how see has come to
this place instead of travelling around the world and bearing witness along with Mohsin. Saira's hope to
move on is expressed in her words when she answers the question of Sakina. She says,
I think they mean that there are many things that we can't understand. The past. The bad
things that have happened. Like what happened to Mommy. And we become afraid. Of
what might happen in the future. It's okay to be afraid. But we have to keep hoping and
believing……….To keep hoping. And trying our best to be good and do good. Even when
we're afraid. (TWOMF 305 306)
Saira has 'double- consciousness' in the beginning later she lets go of that in the due course of
finding who she is. She becomes a journalist by the suggestion of her cousin and goes around the world
with him to bear witness. Her process of finding an identity for herself starts from finding out her own
ancestral history. Though she is alienated in the foreign land because of her Muslim identity, she tries to
cope with that situation and achieve her own identity and find a new hope and future in the alien land.

Works Cited:
Anand T.S. “Quest for Identity in Iqbal Ramoowalia's The Death of a Passport”. English Literature:
Voices of Indian Diaspora, edited by Malti Agarwal. Atlantic Publishers & Distributors, 2009.
Das, Subrata Kumar. “Contra-Acculturation from/at Margin: A Study of Jhumpa Lahiri's The Namesake”.
Perspectives on New Literatures: Postcolonial Responses. edited by R.Janatha Kumari and Chitra
Thrivikraman Nair. Atlantic Publishers and Distributors, 2015.
Haji, Nafisa. The Writing on My Forehead. HarperCollins Publishers, 2009.

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142
THE QUESTION OF BIONOMICS IN ANITA DESAI'S
WHERE SHALL WE GO THIS SUMMER ?

V. Jeya Shibi, Asst. Prof. of English, Sri Vidhya College of Arts & Science, Virudhunagar

Desai is a famous Anglo- Indian writer who expresses her 'self' through her writings. She portrays
tension, fear, longing and love of the womanhood in her novels. Many of her characters are neurotic people
who tries to clench with the restraints and expectations forced on them by family and society. Through her
writings Desai expresses the importance of women's rights, identity and equality. In her novels she
emphasis her character's quest for identity and their inadaptability to their surroundings. They withdraw
themselves form the world of action and involvement.
Where Shall We Go This Summer? is the fourth novel of Anita Desai. Her female protagonist Sita is
highly sensitive, never acquaints with her husband and lives a solitary life. This novel highlights the
women's psychology with the images of nature. The protagonist undergoes two journeys in this novel.
First, she tries immediate escape from the surroundings and the next one is to the future. Desai has used
stream of conscious techniques by which the structure of the novel is balanced.
Sita is a highly emotional woman in her forties, who does not want to deliver her fifth child. As she
is unable to live in the strife-torn present she identifies herself with the past; her childhood days in Manori
Island. She gets much obsessed with her past. So that, she leaves her husband, house, two children and the
ridicule life of Bombay to Manori island in her advanced stage of pregnancy against her husband's will.
Raman, her husband feels that, “She had escaped from duties and responsibilities, from order and routine,
from life and the city, to the unliveable island. She had refused to give birth to a child in a world not fit to
receive the cbild. She had the imagination of offer it an alternative - a life bewitched”(WSWGTS139).
Raman is a businessman who runs a factory. Because of Sita's maladjustment he leaves his family
and lives with Sita separately in a flat. He lacks feeling for Sita which makes her insane. Seetha always
seethes with anger and discontent which makes Raman to feel she is hard to please. Sita goes to the Island
after twenty years because of her disenchantment with life. Though she knows the impossibility of her
wish, she resides in her father land to fulfil her desire of keeping her baby unborn. Her vision to fulfil in the
island is given in the early part of the novel: “Her father had made it an island of magic one, worked
miracles of kind. His legend was still here in this house … and he might work another miracle
posthumously. She had come on pilgrimage to beg for the miracle of keeping her baby
unborn”(WSWGTS30).
She is unable to reconcile herself with the persistent violence that happens in Bombay. She sees the
island as a land of protection. She hopes that the sea will wash the frenzy out of her, tides will lull her
children, the groves of trees will shade them and the magical spell in the island will hold her unborn baby
safe inside her womb and protect them. She takes only Karan and Menaka with her to the island. She waits
for the magic that will never happen. The children get annoyed with the primitive life and they call their
father to take them with him.
Sita wants to keep the baby inside her womb for the existential purpose as there is no peace in the
outside world. The whole psychological problem of Sita arises from the unfulfilled wishes of her. Her
dream of getting love form her father and husband ends in nightmare. She wants her husband to treat her so
gentle and to support her emotionally which he cannot do. She becomes hypersensitive and introvert. To
escape from this, she takes smoking. She cannot even tolerate her children playing with trifles and the
THE QUESTION OF BIONOMICS IN ANITA DESAI'S WHERE SHALL WE GO THIS SUMMER ? 495
servants talk in the kitchen because she thinks they are quarrelling.
In her childhood, Sita grows up with the mystery of her mother's absence, who runs to Benares. Her
father has an unusual love for her elder sister Rekha and fully obsessed with her singing talent. This makes
Sita to feel worthless and exudes down her psyche as a bad human experience. Her brother is a self- centred
and escapes away from the island. So most of her childhood days are spend in isolation. Her frustrations
and her rejection of life results from the rejection by her father in her childhood. And her character traits
become unpalatable to others. This exists even after her marriage which leads to loss of identity, lack of
self-confidence, insecure love life and inability to comfort her children with love and security.
Sita gets completely alienated form the world around her and starts living in the world of illusion
which brings forth a serious psychological confusion. Sita wishes to relive herself from this insensitive
world and to withdraw her wounded soul into a protective shell - Manori island.
The personality clash between Sita and Raman is clearly visible through the eagle-crow fight. The
wounded eagle symbolises Sita and the crows that attack the helpless eagle symbolises Raman. Sita's
desperate effort to save the eagle from the attack of crows shows her fight against masculine values. Sita
revolts against this violence which Raman accepts naturally. The sight of a young Muslim woman in the
lap of an old man intense the psychological pressure of Sita which brings her a desire to have that husband -
wife intimacy and she finds the lack of it in her life.
She feels as she is betrayed by her children who turns to their father. She loves Raman when she
sees him for the first time after her escapade. But she becomes unhappy when she finds that he has come to
take Menaka and not to take her. She feels so weak. She wishes to lay her head down and to ask him to take
after her as her father is dead. “He raised his hand and stroked Karan's hair with a gentleness. She herself
ached to attract and she stared at him, bored into him with her eyes, wanting and not being given what she
wanted”(WSWGTS132).After spending a few months in Manori island she begins to realise that her
efforts to run away from her family is a mere fantasy which ends in failure. At the height of her frustrations
she feels the island is no more hospitable.
Sita learns to cultivate the art of survival in the destined life and triumphs over her illusion. She
chooses to live according to the values and standards set by Raman than a life governed by her own
instincts. Her existentialist exploration of the self ends in a positive understanding of life. Sita thinks
Manori island as an illusionary symbol to escape from the reality of life. But it stands as a place of spiritual
peace and self-realization. Through the character Sita, Desai expresses the philosophy of acceptance of life
and the bitter truth of life. She prepares to struggle to survive not by escaping from the reality but by
confronting to it.

Works Cited
Desai, Anita.Where Shall We Go This Summer?, New Delhi: Orient Paperback.1975 print.
Maini, darshan Singh. “The Achievement of Anita Desai”, Ed. K.K. Sharma. Indo- English Literature: A
Collection of Critical Essays. Ghaziabad: Vimal Prakasan, 1984 print.Prasad, Madhusudan, Anita
Desai: The Novelist. Allahabad: New Horizon, 1981 print.

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143
MAGIC REALISM AS A MEANS OF FEMALE VOICE IN GITHA HARIHARAN'S
WHEN DREAMS TRAVEL

Deepshikha K., Research Scholar, Fatima College for women, Madurai, Tamil Nadu

Abstract:
When Dreams Travel by Githa Hariharan is a retelling of the classical fantasy Arabian Nights
entrenched in gender prejudices. In when Dreams Travel, Hariharan deconstructs the original myth by
revising its misogynic discourse and redefining the characters. The author has employed 'Magic
realism'as a narrative technique to unfold the repressed female psyche. The novel centres around three
female protagonists and their stories with balanced proportions of both reality and magic. This article will
show how When Dreams Travel has manipulated magic realism to trace the suppressed feminine reality in
myths.

Keywords: Magic realism, dreams, myth, feminism, reality, magic.

When Dreams Travel (1999) by Githa Hariharan is a retelling of the classical fantasy Arabian
Nights entrenched in gender prejudices. In when Dreams Travel,Hariharan deconstructs the original myth
by revising its misogynic discourse and redefining the characters. The author has employed 'Magic
realism' as a narrative technique to unfold the repressed female psyche. The novel centres around three
female protagonists and their stories with balanced proportions of both reality and magic. Magic Realism
is where the reality is represented with the help of magic. Salman Rushdie opines, “the way in which magic
realism actually works is for the magic to be rooted in the real. It's both things. It's not just a fairytale
moment. It's the surrealism that arises out of the real.” Hence, 'magic realism' means coating certain
fragments of reality with magic in order to create a sense of perplexity where bare reality cannot be
exposed. Historically unquestionable established truths are generally expressed in magical realistic
narrative style. As When Dreams Travel is a revision of traditional notion of gender, it has exploited
'magical realism' technic with liberty.
When Dreams Travel is a fusion of balanced reality and magic. There are two-fold narratives in the
novel, one is the frame narrative dealing with the actual life of the characters and the other is metafictional
narrative consisting of stories told by the characters. Part 1 titled “Travellers” is a frame story which retells
the story of Arabian nights. In the story, there are two sultans named Shahryar and Shahzaman who are
brothers ruling Shahabad and Samarkand respectively. At a point of time, they discover that their wives
engage in illicit affairs with slaves and execute them. Consequently, Shahryar, the elder brother arrives
upon a sadistic idea that he will marry one girl for every single night and execute her in the morning to
avoid being a victim of female infidelity. He practices this custom for a while and his wazir helps him to
find a girl each night to marry. In order to put an end to his cruelty, Wazir's eldest daughter Shahrzad comes
up with a plan. The following night, she herself marries the sultan and tells him a story which interests him.
The story doesn't end till the morning so he spares her life for a day. The next night when the first story is
finished off, she immediately starts the second story. The sultan, curious about all her stories, lets her tell
him thousand and one stories for the same number of days and finally gives her pardon from execution. All
the while, Shahrzad's sister Dunyazad was with her and finally she marries Shahzaman. On contrary to the
original story of Arabian Nights, When Dreams Travel moves further after the Sultan forgiving Shahrzad.
MAGIC REALISM AS A MEANS OF FEMALE VOICE IN GITHA HARIHARAN'S WHEN DREAMS TRAVEL 497
She gives birth to her son Umar. Gradually, she attempts to gain power over the sultan and dies
mysteriously. Now, Dunyazad, already a widow, visits her grave and meets a slave girl named Dilshad.
They narrate the remaining part of the novel. Part two titled “Virgins, Martyrs and Others” consists of
seven pairs of short stories told by them. Thus, the novel ends. Throughout the novel, the inexpressible
realm of female world of reality has been captured by magic realism. There is a sub genre called 'magical
feminism' which is nothing but magical realism in feminist discourse. In When Dreams Travel also, the
author represents the obscure female subconscious through magic realism. Both frame narrative and sub
narrative of the novel have magical realism elements.
The titular dream symbol itself is self-explanatory to position the narrative into the magical realism
category. Dream is a blend of reality and imagination, consequently it's mostly been considered 'surreal'
which is nothing but magical. The dreams of Sharzad which travel freewheeling are magical. Not only
Sharzad who claims to have dreams and tell them as stories but also Dhanyazad and Dilzad dream and
narrate stories which are combination of magic and reality. The protagonist, Shahrzad delves deeper into
the magical nature of her dreams which is the source of her stories. When the sultan inquires about her
dreams she responds, “My dreams? They are nothing- just a rubbish pile of rough, uncut stones… Only
those locked up in hovels dungeons and palaces can see and hear these dreams. only those whose necks are
naked and at risk can understand them” (19-20). Dream is a powerful representation of an individual's
desire. According to Freud, dreams are one's repressed desires. Here, Shahrzad clearly describes that her
dreams (stories) are repressed realities. She says that her dreams can only be understood by the isolated or
repressed womankind. Her attempt to represent reality through imaginative and unbound dreams
constitutes magical realism.
In Part two of the novel, the metafictional stories narrated by Dunyazad and Dilshad abound with
magical realism. In general, both magical realism and metafictional modes of narration go hand in hand.
The seven pair of stories told by Dunyazad and Dilshad infuse the real world into the magical one. In the
frame story of part two, Dunyazad encounters a supernatural experience when she visits her sister's grave,
“She senses a shadowy figure come up to her and turn her around. She can feel a cautious, regular breath on
her face, then she is lifted off the floor and carried into a marble enclosure” (70). This experience of hers
hints at the lesbian relationship between Dilshad and herself that has been given a subtle treatment through
magical realism.
Indeed, magic realism helps to unravel the mystery surrounding reality. Luis Leal, a renowned
Mexican-American writer and literary critic in his book A Luis Leal Reader explains it as, “The magical
realist does not try to copy the surrounding reality or to wound it but to seize the mystery that breathes
behind things” (326). In one of Dunyazad's stories, her father Wazir in real life goes towards an oasis in
search of water and a supernatural voice guides him. The voice reminds him of sultan's cruelty to innocent
women as well as Wazir's part in it. In another story, Wazir meets Sultan's messenger who demands him to
bring his daughter to sultan. Wazir buries her in order to save her. Later he digs up the place and finds only a
goat. This magical narration is symbolic of the physical threats to women by men. One episode retells a
Hindu mythology according to which lord Shiva was given a feast out of sacrificing a devotee's own son. In
the novel, it's Wazir who undergoes the same situation as the devotee in the Shiva mythology.
Dilshad's own story is also a fusion of reality and magic which symbolises the same nature of women
and men in all aspects including felony. She is stranded in a forest and unable to get out. A mysterious man
forces her to marry him in return of showing her the way out but cheats on her instead. She cheats on a deer-
man in the forest by seducing him. She says, "the king seizes a virgin girl; the courtesan seduces a virgin
boy” (231). Dilshad's another story of Satyasama, a one-eyed monster woman in the real world represents
the world's indifference to an independent but nonconforming woman.
Magic realism evokes dubiousness or disillusionment with its obscure treatment of matters and so

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the readers' minds are perpetually switched between magical and real worlds. Dr. Christopher Warnes, a
professor in The University of Cambridge remarks in his article The Hermeneutics of Vagueness that “it
(magic realism) represents both fantastic and real without allowing either greater claim to truth” (3). When
Dreams Travel is filled with such dubious descriptions. Uncanny grotesque descriptions of the mundane
reality are presented in every page of the novel. For instance, in the very beginning itself, the introduction
of each character of flesh and blood in obscure and mysterious ways strikes the balance between magic and
reality. For instance, the strange description of Shahzaman's introduction goes on, “He holds a plaything in
his hand, an ancient, blood-dripping sword… Who knows what unfathomable, magic-tainted visions he
must sit through, what terrors of the night he must strike down before they unman him? This is
Shahzaman,” (1).
The magical part in 'magical realism' comes out of imagination. Literature, the imaginative worlds
of characters is captured through magical realism. Sharzad's dreams might not be the physical dreams that
she dreams while sleeping but they can be the products of her imagination. Thus, her voice which
represents the suppressed collective voice of women is aired better through the technique of magic realism.
Apart from the narrative style, there are certain images and elements those contextualises the text into the
realm of magic realism. Dreams, strange behaviours of characters, thrilling tone and the imageries of
mythical beings all these existing with reality make the narrative magical. Thus, When Dreams Travel has
manipulated magic realism to trace the suppressed feminine reality in myths. Also, it's noteworthy that
GithaHariharan's use of magic realism is unique as it brings reality into myth(magic) against the usual way
of bringing magic into the domain of reality.

Works Cited
Christopher Warnes. “The Hermeneutics of Vagueness.” Journal of Postcolonial Writing.41:1(2005):1-
13. Print.
Hariharan, Githa. When Dreams Travel. New Delhi: Penguin Books Ltd, 2008. Print.
Leal, Luis. A Luis Leal Reader. Ed. Ilan Stavans. Illinois:Northwestern UP, 2007. Print.

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144
THE PERCEPTION OF INDIANNESS IN TOPNOTCH IN THE NOVELS OF
R. K. NARAYAN

M. Ranjith, Asst. Prof., M K U Constituent College, Kappalur, Thirumangalam

Abstract:
One of the axioms of Narayan Criticism in his 'Indianness'. The Guide reveals the Indian way of
life and also the culture and tradition of India R.K. Narayan has used typical Indian characters ad Indian
atmosphere to portray Indian culture. The main characters of his novel are Raju, Rosie and Marco. R.K.
Narayan has given a true social picture of India through The Guide. The traits of Indian manners and
customs are also reflected in this novel. Hospitality of Indians is a well-known trait all over the world.
Narayan has given a clear picture of India at the time of narration without idealizing the country and he
has no also co condemned it. The poverty of India has been reflected with a personal touch of the author.
The villagers are shown as suffering from poverty and ignorance and their illiteracy has been reflected as
the root cause for all their sufferings. There are as gullible and kind hearted as any Indian village habitats.

In 1930's three major Indian English novelists, Mulk Raj Anand, R.K.Narayan and Raja Rao based
their novels on significant theme that the discovered such as emancipation from foreign rule, East West
relationship the communal problems and the plight of untouchables, the landless poor and the
economically exploited people. Mulk a Anand's major novels Untouchable (1935), Coolie (1936) and Two
Leaves and a Bud (1937) are all written as a crusade against social exploitation. R.K.Narayn also touched
the social evils like casteism, equality, injustice, gender-bias and superstitious themes and had added them
into the themes of Indian novels in English through his novel The Guide (1958) , The Financial
Expert(1951) and The English Teacher(1945). The Indian Sanskrit rhythm in the syntax of English has
been created by Raja Rao in almost all his novels Kanthapura (1938), TheSerent and Rope (1960)
exhibited the myths and legends of Hinduism as well.
R.K.Narayan was left behind to the care of grandmother, Ammani by his. As all Indian
grandmother's Narayan's grandmother was also a good narrator of bedtime stories. Her influence made
him to learn the art of story- telling as well as the classical tradition of India in a primary level. Narayan
himself portrays his grandmother's image and of how much talent she possessed at her old age, in his
autobiography My Days. It was she who taught him Tamil alphabets as well as classical songs. This early
education of Indian Classical myths and tradition helped him to store everything in his mind and later
helped him to add meaning to his life and work.
R.K.Narayan started writing from his childhood. He observed the life of the people around with
utter care. Later, he made use of those characters in his novels. Thus, his characters have an Indian flavour
and they are often draw from middle class and lower middle class society. Narayan had a passion for
journalism and he chases journalism as his career. He wrote for newspaper and magazines. In the fifties he
had been to America and naturally, nothing could inspire our author's Indian heart from abroad. He
remained an Indian throughout his life. He framed characters with Indian artistic approach or over sixty
years in Indian Writing in English.
The Guide has own the SahityaAkademi Award. He heard about an incident in which some
Brahmins prayed to God for rain in knee deep water for twelve days and then it rained. This became an
inspirational factor for him to develop the plot for his novel The Guide . He has portrayed typical Indian
THE PERCEPTION OF INDIANNESS IN TOPNOTCH IN THE NOVELS OF R. K. NARAYAN 500
character in this novels filled with Indian emotions and also symbol representing Indian tradition. The
Guide as novel covers many sins and many virtues of its characters. The main characters of this novel are
Raju and Marco. R.K.Narayan has given a true social picture of India through The Guide. The protagonist,
Raju goes to the Mangala Village on the Sarayuriver and he says in a temple on the river bank. There he
meets Velan, a simple villager and it was this meeting which was fated to involve him in endless trouble. It
is to Velan, at a later date, Raju narrates his past life as a successful tourist guide 'Railway Raju' and a rail
road station food vendor.
Once Raju, as a tourist, guide happened to meet a couple Marco and Raise. Marco concentrated more on
other materialistic affairs and gives less attention towards his beautiful wife Raise. Raju helped Marco in
his researches at the same time he helped Raise to realize her ambition of becoming a dancer. He becomes
very close to her. He was too much infatuated by Raise. He neglected his friend Gaffur's warning and even
his mother' advice. He turned a deaf ear even to the voice of his own soul. All my mental powers were now
turned to keep her within my reach, and keep her smiling all the time, neither of which was at all easy. I
would willingly have kept at her side all the time, as a sort of parasite. (104)
Rose with her dream of becoming a dancer forgot her husband and the sanctity of married life and
was lured towards Raju. She asked permission to her husband for becoming a dancer. In agitation, she told
Marco, about her intimacy with Raju and her husband abandoned her. She went and lived with Raju in his
hose bearing his other's influence.
Raju helped Raise in making her dreams come true . Raise became a professional dancer. Raju
played well the role of an impresario and became popular and rich. Raju was so possessive of Raise and this
possessive nature prevented him from showing the letter that come from a lawyer's firm in Madras asking
for Rosie's signature on an application for the release of a box of jewellery. Raju forged her signature and
mailed the document for which he was caught and sent to jail for two years.
After coming out of the jail he has been accepted as a saint by the rustics of Mangala. The villagers
approached Raju to undertake a fast to please the rain God and his made him to confess his past life to
Velan. Even after listening to the past life of Ra ju. Velan continued to acknowledge him as Swami; he took
Raju, confession as a mark of humility and godliness. Instead of consider in Raju as a traitor or fake, Velan,
believed that Raju is the hope to do some good to the villagers of Mangala. He persuaded Raju for a fast and
Raju finally agreed to fast. If by avoiding food I should help the tree bloom, and the grass grown, why not
to it thoroughly? (237-238) and that became his final decision. He slowly changed himself without his
Knowledge as a real sage.
Raju has no other way but to undergo the fast through unwillingly he gained strength to undergo the
fast for real and this strength made him a martyr. After twelve days Raju,s health was very weak. He played
and said to Velan, 'Velan it's raining in the hills. I can feel it coming up under my feet, up legs. He sagged
down' (247). Thus the fake Swami Raju's life was dedicated to the welfare of the poor villagers of the
Mangala as a divine martyr.
It is true that R.K. Narayan has proved that typical, Indian thoughts and feelings can be expressed
in foreign language without trying to imitate the native speakers of English. He gave his characters Indian
thoughts and feelings can be expressed in foreign language without trying to imitate the native speaker of
English. He gave his characters Indian thoughts and feelings and expressed it in his scenes and
backgrounds. Indian culture and tradition is rich and varied and it is not easy to summarise through few
situations or charters. But Narayan made it exuberant and all his characters share Indianness. A close
reading of the novel illustrates that Raju is not very bad person thoroughly.
We can see the sufferings of ale characters like Raju and Marco in the novel The Guide. Chandran
in the novel The Bachelor of Arts and Raman in the novel The Painter of Signs. All these male characters
suffer to achieve their destiny in the respective novels. In narrative technique we can feel the Indian

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Tradition and culture as an Indian Narayan wins the hearts of the readers through the use of simplified
language and made his novels to understand in an easy manner.
Narayan had started writing at a time when the Indian scenario was throbbing with high idealism,
freedom movement and revisionary cultural activities. Indian minds were full of Gandhi's teaching and
Nehru's dreams. The writers on their part were trying to establish some or the other cultural, social or
political statements. Great number of autobiographies', which were success stories of the individual
struggle for self-improvisation and enlightens had come out.
It is Hindu conviction that no right path in religion can be found without instruction, through
initiation, by a qualified guide. Therefore, when a man or woman has chosen a guru, he or she also follows
his direction without question, surrendering all his or her spiritual and moral freedom and judgement.
In other words, what triumph in Narayan's world are these timeless codes and norms that to all
appearances have been supplanted by modernity, but in reality have their capacity to reassert themselves in
the daily lives of their at first unaware protagonists. It is precisely these cultural and social modes that
Narayan spent considerable time in the writer and the basics of Indian cultural and social aspects that are to
be seen realistically in the society. Hence, R.K.Narayan is a regional realist; Malgudi is the figment of his
fictional imagination as inspired by his muse. It is created and developed as a suitable and exotic setting for
his novels and short stories. The cultural heritage weighing heavily on him, his province was the south
Indian class that we see fully expressed in his novels.

Works Cited
Naryan, R.K. Swamy and Friends.Mysore: Indian Thought Publication, 1977. Print.
---.The Guide.Chennai: Indian Thought Publications, 2005. Print

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145
EDITH WHARTON'S TREATMENT OF LOVE IN THE AGE OF INNOCENCE

J. Saravana Kumar, Assistant Professor, P.T.M.T.M College Kamuthi

A. K. Muthusamy, Ph D., Assc. Prof., VHNSN College (Autonomous), Viruduhunagar

Abstract:
Love is a recurrent theme in the novels of Edith Wharton. The treatment of love in her novel The Age
of Innocence is interesting and entertaining. Edith Wharton was an American novelist, short story writer,
playwright and designer. She drew upon her insider's knowledge of the upper class New York
“aristocracy” to realistically portray the lives and morals of the gilded age. She was the first woman to win
the Pulitzer Prize for Literature in 1921.

Keywords: Love, Marriage, Relationship, Society.

The Age of Innocence is generally regards as Edith Wharton's most successful work. The Age of
Innocence is primarily a love story employing the triangular situation which often recurs in Edith
Wharton's work. Newland Archer first sees Ellen Olenska on the night that his engagement to her cousin,
May Welland, is announced. Ellen has left her husband because of his infidelities and come back to
America to live. At first Newland is only fascinated with Ellen, but his fascination eventually ripens into a
mature love. He realizes that his feeling for May cannot grow. When Archer reveals his feeling for her,
Ellen reminds him that he is still engaged to May, and she is still married. She explains to Newland that he
must not sacrifice May's happiness; she argues that, from the moral standpoint, he must not break his
engagement to May.
The meeting between May Welland and Archer was also meant to display Archer's love for May
and his attachment. He couldn't pass on the news of their engagement because Ellen deliberately stayed
away from the ball-room. She was acutely conscious of her misfortune a blot on her reputation; “she (May)
knows as well as I do,” he reflected, “the real reason of her cousin's staying away; but I shall never let her
see by the least sign that I am conscious of there being a shadow of shade on poor Ellen Olenska's
reputation”(AI 21-22).
Archer to tell May that he no longer wants to marry her because he is now in love with her cousin
would be cruel and dishonourable, and Ellen cannot bring herself to be the cause of someone else's
suffering the way she has suffered. She impresses upon Archer how much he has helped her and changed
her way of thinking. She reminds him, “You hated happiness bought by disloyalty and cruelty and
indifference. That was that I'd never know before . . . and it's better than anything I've know.”(AI 172).
Wharton dwells on Ellen's marriage to a very rich “Polish nobleman of legendary fame . . . who was said to
have princely establishments in Paris, Nice and Florence , a yacht at Cowes, and many square miles of
shooting in Transylvania”(AI 52). Then came the shocking news that Ellen's marriage had ended in
disaster and she was herself returning home “to seek rest and oblivion among her kinsfolk”(AI 52). She
was nearly thirty. Ellen was now a completely changed woman. She was still beautiful and attractive and
there was about her “the mysterious authority of beauty, a sureness in the carriage of the head the
movement of the eyes”(AI 53). But many people were disappointed that “she was not more stylish - for
stylishness was what New York most valued”(AI 53).
In contrast to the miserable, unhappy marriage led by Ellen and her Polish husband leading to the
EDITH WHARTON'S TREATMENT OF LOVE IN THE AGE OF INNOCENCE 503
extent of demanding divorce, Wharton portrays the immensely joyful, enjoyable life of May and Archer.
Ellen's encomium on May shows her true admiration as well as May's happy relationship with Archer.
Ellen remarked, “May is a darling; I've seen no young girl in New York so handsome and so intelligent . .
.”(AI 55). Ellen's further remark on their relationship and Archer's passionate answers are meant by
Wharton to show openly Archer's sincere, ardent and profound love for his betrothed. Ellen asked Archer
whether he was very much in love with May, Archer replied with a touch deep emotion that he was in love
with May as much as a man could be. Ellen shot another question to know from Archer whether there was a
limit in love. Archer replied promptly if there was any limit in being love and if there was, he had not found
it. His love for May was boundless and immeasurably deep. Ellen asked in a sympathetic tone revealing
her amazement that their love was really and truly a romance. Archer's reply stunned her; it was a delightful
revelation. Archer said, “The most romantic of romances!”(AI 56). The answer forwarded by Archer is
genuinely reflective of Edith Wharton's view of love equating it with the delightful, ever fresh, ever
glowing, youthful and ever refreshing. Archer's words are spontaneous and truthfully, sincerely,
emotionally uttered. This type of passion, one may opine, unpremeditated, instantly overwhelming. But
Newland Archer's love showed cracks later when he was gradually drawn to Ellen. Archer's love-
protestations, the reader may feel are not hundred percent genuine and may suffer fluctuations, as later his
supportive role in the case of Ellen and his desire to marry Ellen are any indications.Ellen Olenska
displayed her incredulousness when she asked Newland Archer whether the proposed marriage between
him and May was an arranged one, Archer disabused her mind of such an opinion and declared that
Americans were not in favour of arranged marriages. Archer observed, “. . . in our country we don't allow
our marriages to be arranged for us”(AI 58). A different situation prevails in India. Most of the marriages
are arranged ones with parents taking a strong initiative and consulting horoscopes as a matter of course.
Other things like hefty dowry, caste of a particular gothira, religion, status in society educational
qualifications, job-positions - all play an 'eminent' role in 'fixing' a marriage in India. Couples who
disregard these specifications particularly 'caste' and inter-marry confront a number of obstacles,
obstructions, stiff oppositions and get murdered, sometimes. Indian society looks upon inter-caste and
inter-religions marriages as disgraceful affairs destroying the honour of the family and the caste and
clan.Here the reader can feel that it is Edith Wharton herself voices her deeply felt sorrow, regret, and also
her indignation through her character Archer Newland. In fact, it is the anguished female soul's piteous cry
and irritant, angry protest against her traditional society's rigid priggish, puritanical, oppressive, senseless
prescriptions. Here Archer compares May's undiscerning, guile condition to that of Kentucky cave-fish.
The much-cited instance of the Kentucky cave-fish “which had ceased to develop eyes because they had no
use for them”(AI 70). Archer asked a pertinent question whether the act of removing the bandage from
May's eyes would render any useful service to hers. He had his own doubts: “what if, when he had bidden
May Welland to open hers, they could look out blankly at blankness?”(AI 70).
May's aweful lack of original thinking, appalling, disgusting 'sameness' insane 'blind' faith in the
traditional ways and practices and beliefs outraged the rational Archer, and him to Ellen Olenska who
allured him with her originality of thinking, bold unconventionality, defiance and her candidness, while
May who tried to communicate her views indirectly through glances. She even dared to offend 'cousin'
Henry and 'cousin' Louisia. She was not openly grateful to them for inviting her to their reception which
was socially significant. But to Ellen it was a mere tea-party. Ellen was not particular about of the need to
apologize for her supposed indiscretions. Ellen accompanied the Duck to visit Mrs.Lemuel Struther who
was considered to be 'common' “by the aristocratic Society of New York”(AI 74).
Edith Wharton brings out the conflict between the society's strict, illiberal code and individual
passion in another instance concerning the issue of Ellen Olenska (Countess Olenska) who wished to sue
her husband Polish noble for divorce. Old Mr.Letterblair the accredited legal adviser of three generations

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of New York gentility explained the case clearly to Newland Archer the prospective son-in-law of the
Mingott clan through his marriage to May Welland. He wanted to consult Archer. They (the Minglott clan)
were opposed to the Countess's idea; but she was firm and resolute and insisted on a legal opinion. Archer
resented his role as advisor: “Theoretically, the idea of divorce was almost as distasteful to him as to his
mother”(AI 79). When Newland Archer went through the letters (given to him by Letterblair) he stumbled
upon a short letter written by Count Olenki to his wife Ellen Olenska. It would be highly damaging to the
Countess's reputation if he revealed the content to others. Wharton implies indirectly that this letter
indicated the Countess's illicit after. Edith Wharton weaves the rest of her story around the inevitable
interference, Archer who approached or opposed a problem intellectually or rationally and in the interest of
the society, Ellen Olenska (Countess Olenska) who found her divorce problem intractable with the new
development of Archer's interest in her and the growing mutual love between them. The young man but the
woman having criminal intentions. The innocent May was gradually drawn into the fresh complications
connecting her husband Newland Archer and the foreign lady and her cousin Ellen Olenska.Wharton now
writes of a great change in Archer. Archer who was critical of Ellen's adultery began to pity her
helplessness and had nothing but compassion for Ellen. He must save her from social ignomy and public
derision. The novelist refers to this change in Welland Archer: “A great wave of compassion had swept
away his indifference and impatience: she stood before him as an exposed and pitiful figure to be saved at
all costs from farther wounding herself in her mad plunge against fate”(AI 81). After a detailed interaction
with Ellen, Archer felt there might be truth in her husband's accusation of adultery against her. But Ellen
denied the charge. Events and incidents took place fast. There was information that her husband Count
Olenski wanted her Countess to return to him. It was aunt Medora who brought the news Aunt Medora
who was going to marry this time, a church man Dr.Carver. She had a “spiritual summons”, that ended
ironically (Wharton was quite sarcastic here) on her marrying Dr.Carver.May began to suspect that Archer
was not faithful to her. Archer's insistence on short engagement made her think that Archer wanted to
marry her at once to get away from some one that as May remarked he “cared for more”(AI 143) when
asked by Ellen why she insisted on the long engagement, Archer replied that May wanted to give him more
time to give her up to marry the woman if he wanted to. May, here, conducted herself in a magnanimous
and generous manner.
Edith Wharton once again rises to the occasion and displays not only her superb descriptive skill
and forte but also her consummate skill and narrative expertness in constructing the confrontation between
New York society with its firm, prescriptive attitude and individual passion- between a social group and
individual - lovers in this case. Newland Archer- the married man and Ellen Olenski, the alienated wife of
Count Olenski. Archer's marriage to May Welland, despite his sincere attachments to and affection for his
wife, was not intellectually satisfying. While dealing with Ellen's divorce case, Archer, ignoring his
marital obligations found himself passionately in love with Ellen. He felt that his marriage to May was a
shame one. Archer's tribute to Ellen is notable: “you gave me my first glimpse of a real life”(AI 205). In
contrast his sham marriage “was beyond human enduring- that's all”(AI 205). It is an agonizing description
of his distressful marital relationship which is profoundly disappointing and deeply wounding and hurtful
destroying his happiness and peace of mind. Ellen remarked that her marriage was equally painful and
traumatic. It may be pointed out that May was a loving, endearing, adoring, devoted wife; it was not, as
Archer savagely claimed, beyond enduring; on the contrary, Ellen's life with her husband was real hell and
truly unbearable. Wharton draws the attention of the reader to the falsity of Archer's grief or grievance. It is
also true that his love for Ellen is genuinely touching; it was not based on physical appearance. As Edith
Wharton expresses his love for Ellen in eloquent terms, “He had known the love that is fed on caresses and
feeds them; but this passion that was closer than his bones was not to be superficially satisfied”(AI 206). It
was spiritual as Wharton would suggest. Archer felt that his society, which was extremely traditionalist,

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conservative and conformist, tried in the name of preserving its values and convictions to bust and burst
this pure and intensely-felt mutual passion of Archer and Ellen. One may extra-marital passion that could
not be encouraged and supported. The novelist here creates a scene which is emotionally stirring as the two
lovers, Archer and Ellen decided to be together; Ellen promised that she would not go back to Europe and
her husband. But Edith Wharton suggests that their love will never be fulfilled as the Society will not let
them live as lovers. In fact the Mingott family would disapprove of and resist any of their plans to get
married. They wished for Ellen return to her husband to avoid any malicious gossip and dishonourable
scandal involving Ellen and Archer. Edith Wharton implies that New York society's prescriptions were
inflexible and rigidly demanding and uncompromising though, at times they were violated with impunity
by persons like Lefferts and Beaufort because of their power and social influence. The society would not
tolerate any attempt to disturb or disrupt marital ethics and the music and harmony of the family-life.

Work Cited:
Wharton, Edith.The Age of Innocence. London: Wordsworth Editions, 1999.

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146
A STUDY OF NECROLOGY IN NGUGI WA THIANGO'S WEEP NOT CHILD

Dr. N. Gnana Selvi, Asst. Prof. in English, Sri Meenakshi Govt. Arts College for Women (A),
Madurai

Abstract:
African Literature focuses on new themes, myths and techniques of narration. Africa, a country
with rich culture, mythology and traditions appears to be primitive with social imperfections. Ngugi Wa
Thiongo is one of the most prolific Kenyan writer of Africa. Weep Not Child (1964) focuses on the period at
the end of World War II and examines the causes of the Mau Mau Struggle. This novel depicts all Ngugi's
major themes - land, religion, leadership and the travails of people struggling against Colonialism. Weep
Not Child, deals with the Mau Mau uprising, and “the bewildering dispossession of the people from their
ancestral land. The novel reveals the negative aspects of Colonialism and Imperialism. The novel also
ponders to think that it was Jomo who would drive away the Whiteman. To him, Jomo stood for customs
and traditions purified by grace of learning and must travel. Njoroge comes to view Jomo as a messiah
who will win the struggle against the colonial powers. The novel integrates Gikuyu mythology and the
ideology of nationalism that serves as a catalyst for much of the novel's action.

Keywords: Necrology, colonialism, cultural independence, struggle.

African Literature adds a feather to the cap of Literature. It focuses on new themes, myths and
techniques of narration. Africa, a country with rich culture, mythology and traditions appears to be
primitive with social imperfections. Modern African novels present a new kind of fictional reality which
makes us refresh. Most of the African writers are greatly concerned with the realities of cultural identity,
individuality, legacy of colonialism. Ngugi Wa Thiongo is one of the most prolific writers of Africa. The
Kenyan novelist, playwright, poet, teacher, filmmaker, and critic, recipient of many honours including the
2001 Nomino International Prize for Literature is also the recipient of seven Honorary doctorates. Being
born in colonial land Kenya, Thiongo has gained lot of colonial experiences from his childhood days which
are reflected in his works.
Weep Not Child (1964) focuses on the period at the end of World War II and examines the causes of
the Mau Mau Struggle. This novel depicts all Ngugi's major themes land, religion, leadership and the
travails of people struggling against Colonialism. The Kenyan Capitalists are described as thieves,
robbers, hypocrites and criminals. Thiongo's life is full of struggle, trouble, piano, challenges, enthusiasm
and achievements. At present he lives in the U.S.A and teachers as a distinguished professor of English and
Comparative Literature in the University of California.
Weep Not Child is the most autobiographical of Ngugi's novels. It focuses on the period ot the end
of World War II and examines the causes of the Mau Mau struggle. Njorage is the protagonist, who is a
bright student, a self-centered youth with mission school education and messianic ambition. His hopes are
destroyed when his brothers' involvement in Mau Mau forces him out of school. His father Ngotho has
religious attachment to the kind of his ancestors taken from him by Mr. Howlands. Ngotho is the only
tenent farmer who works for the white settler Mr. Howlands. His son, Boro, who had faught the British in
the World War II, returns home embittered by various experiences, the death of his brother Mwangi in the
war and the loss of their ancestral land. He despises the passive attitude of the elders and resolves upon
A STUDY OF NECROLOGY IN NGUGI WA THIANGO'S WEEP NOT CHILD 507
action joining the Mau Mau guerrillas. Jacobo is a betrayer of people who is killed by Boro. Ngotho offers
himself to the authorities and confesses of the murder. He is tortured and dies. Howlands is killed by Boro
and finally he surrenders. The novel depicts all Ngugi's major themes-land, religion, leadership and the
travails of people struggling against colonialism. Being the first English Novel to be published by an
African, Weep Not Child, deals with the Mau Mau uprising, and “the bewildering dispossession of the
people from their ancestral land. The novel is divided into two parts and part one deals with the rising
revolutionary, anti-colonist turmoil in Kenya.
Njoroge, a young boy, is urged to attend school by his mother. He is the first one of his family able
to go to school. Njoroge's brother Kamau works as an apprentice to a carpenter. His father tends Mr.
Howlands crops. One day black workers call for strike to obtain higher wages. Ngotho is ambivalent about
participating in the strike, because he fears he will lose his job. Jocobo tries to put an end to the strike.
Ngotho attacks Jacobo, and the result is a riot where two people are killed. Ngobo loses her job and his
family is forced to move.
Jacobo and the White landowner Mr. Howland fight against the rising activities of the Mau Mau an
Organization striving for Kenyan economic, political and cultural independence. Ngoto is accused as the
leader of Mau Mau and the whole family is imprisioned though there doesn't seem to be a connection
between Njoroges family and the murder. It is eventually revealed that Njoroge's brothers are behind the
assassination, and that Boro, is the real leader of the Mau Mau.
The novel reveals the negative aspects of Colonialism and Imperialism. The novel also ponders to think
that it was Jomo who would drive away the Whiteman. To him, Jomo stood for customs and traditions
purified by grace of learning and must travel. Njoroge comes to view Jomo as a messiah who will win the
struggle against the colonial powers. The village is located near Kipanja, a larger town where many of the
villagers work. Kipanja is the home to many colourful characters, including a funny barber who tells
colorful stories about his experiences of fighting in World War II. Njoroge, enthusiastically accepts even
though he knows it will be a financial stretch for his family.
Njoroge initially has a hard time adjusting to life at school, but his old friend Mwihaki, helps him.
She is the daughter of JACOBO, a rich Gikuyu pyrethrum farmer and his family live on. Njoroge enjoys
learning eventually, how to read and speak English. He centimes to bond with Mwihaki, and also decides to
study the Bible. He sees parallels between the Gikuyu struggle and the oppression of the Israelites. Njoroge
is promoted to high school, and Mwihaki, whose grades are not as strong, attend a teaching college. At 19,
he is pulled out of school to be interrogated by the police. Jacobo has been murdered and they believe that
Ngotho is invoked. During the torture, Njoroge passed out.
After Ngotho's death, Njoroge is obliged to give up his education and to work in a dress shop. These
events emotionally destroy Njoroge, and he goes to a source of comfort. He has left Mwihaki. They admit
that they love each other, they cannot be together because they are obliged to support their families, both of
which are missing their father. Njoroge tries to kill himself, but Nyokabi stops him and brings him home.
The novel integrates Gikuyu mythology and the ideology of nationalism that serves as a catalyst for much
of the novel's action. The Papu attempts to depict the reminiscences of Thiango. Ngugi tends to utilize
literature as a powerful tool for revealing his Necrology and also for raising national awareness. It is
evident that the third world countries are still subjugated by colonizers in many ways the colonized yields
to curare and wants to expand capitalism.

Works Cited
Pellon, Theodore. “Ngugi Wa Thiong'o and the Politics of Language”. Humanist 53.no.2 (march-April
1993):15-20.Print.
Robson, Clifforel. Ngugi Wa Thiongo. London. Macmillan. 1979.Print.

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Thiong'o Wa Ngugi. Weep Not Child. Penguin Classics, 2012. Print.
Williams, Kristen. Weep Not Child: through the eyes of Post Colonialism. Owlcation. October 8, 2017.
Web. <https://owlcation.october8, 2017.Weep-Not-Child-Through-the-Eyes-of-Postcolonialism-
Theory.

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147
CLASS, GENDER AND CASTE DISCRIMINATION IN BAMA'S KARUKKU

P. Ilayaraja, Asst professor, Manonmaniam Sundaranar, University College, Puliangudi

Dr. R. Kabilar, Assc. Prof., VHNSN College, Virudhunagar

Abstract:
The origin of Dalit literature is in regional literatures in the late nineteenth century. Dalits have the
history of being subjected to every kind of humiliation and discrimination on the basis of their class gender,
caste in Bama in Dalit literature. But now with changing time, most of the Dalits are defying the social
constrictions fixed on them. They are demanding equality and justice that was denied to them so far. Many
Dalits are using the writing as a vehicle to express their protest against the prejudice of higher castes.
Bama is measured as the one among such Dalits who is fighting back discrimination with her pen. Bama
started her literary journey with her autobiography entitled Karukku. This book is referred as the first
Tamil Dalit woman's autobiography. In Karukku, Bama has presented a genuine depiction of social and
economic life style of Dalits: she wanted to let the people know about the pain as well as resistance of
Dalits, so that those who do not confront their circumstances will also be encouraged to fight against the
brutalities of caste discrimination. The present paper will try to analyse Bama's Karukku as testimony of
the agony and the consequent confrontation of Dalit women with the ravages of caste system.

Keywords: Gender, Class, Caste, Discrimination.

Bama has remarkably portrayed the sufferings of Dalit women, who are doubly marginalized as
being a Dalit and being a woman. In this paper we shall explore Bama's varied representations of Dalit
women in Karukku with a view to underline the interface between gender and caste significations in Dalit
fiction. Bama's intervention in Dalit literary discourse in the early 1990's made a significant contribution in
the arena of gender-caste intersections in the lives of Dalits. Her works foreground the twice cursed lives of
Dalit women, oppressed on account of their caste as well as gender, at home and outside, by upper caste
men and Dalit men, by the state machinery as well as the family. Bama's writing celebrates Dalit women's
subversive strategies to overcome their oppression is depicted in this paper.
Due to the ill treatment of Dalits by the Hindu society, many Dalits tried to seek refuge in other
religions like Buddhism, Islam, Sikhism and Christianity, but that step also got in vain for most of the cases
as plight of Dalits did not change.Dalit women's gender oppression and the need for Dalits to organize
themselves to empower themselves politically as well as avail of their constitutional rights are well
exposed by the author. Her novel underscores that Dalits cannot always avoid taking recourse to counter
orthodox biases and traditional forms of discrimination heaped on them continually over the years.
Karukku, which means the searing edges of a Palmyra leaves, is indeed a double edged sword
directed towards the reader which highlights the atrocities caused by the gender discrimination, caste and
class division. Karukku is the narration of painful memories, despair, disillusionment, dejection, the
pathetic conditions of the life, culture of people where women are subjected to sexual harassment and
physical assault. Incidents are narrated were again over narrated and reinterpreted each time to express an
Oppression of Dalits. Bama's rewriting of self is the rewriting of Dalit history. Bama explains how the male
perspective have been encountered and questioned by feminine perspective. Her works voice the
emergence of Dalit Literature. In the beginning of Karukku, she starts with a narration of beauty of her
CLASS, GENDER AND CASTE DISCRIMINATION IN BAMA'S KARUKKU 510
village and the village separation in the name based on caste in mountain peaks with different names as
'NariPaara', 'VannanPaara' and 'vattalavitthammpaara', in the same way lakes, fields, streets, fish, food,
works, temple are marginalized according to the castes are marked. Like the palmyra leaf (Karukku), it
sears the reader with its sharpness. Her style in writing was at its finest-fearing nothing, unabashedly
radical, shaped by the strength of personal experience. Karukku moves from the village to the convent,
transverses the marginal communities of the urban poor.
Resent women have an intelligent focus but for centuries they were deemed unworthy by
patriarchal societies. While there is a discussion on the gender issues it is a need to focus on the identity and
st
the politics on Dalit. In general the notion of the Indian dalit woman has to be understood in the 21
century's cultural politics. The dalit woman has to struggle along with her caste problem. The existence of a
dalit woman cannot be recognized among the upper class women. They face sexual harassment and some
caste dalits are following the devadesi tradition. Though these customs are ancient one till now it is in
practice in some place. As a leading dalit writer Bama uses Karruku as a weapon to cut the weeds of
untouchability. Inspite of their subjugation to cruel rule of their own men, upper-class men and the police
force these woman has a to struggle in this society. It is well focused in Karruku. Bama's Karruku registers
the sufferings of dalit women and their opposing society; it shows the trials and tribulations as an
individual woman in her society. Karruku doesn't fail to show how even the dress make a role in it. Bama
pictures how she was ill treated by her own classmates for poor dressing. For dressing sense only she had
the sense of becoming a nun. That much frustration was created by her peer in the classroom.
After entering into the convent Bama understands that the nuns do not know the poverty. It
frustrates her. It made her to leave the convent. So it makes her future uncertainty. Then she selects writing.
Through this she curves out the sufferings of women, a message of hope in Dalit community, the value of
equality, social justice and her own experiences. Her experiences forced her to engage in an activity to
dissolve the sufferings of Dalit women. He does not fail to point out the agonies of Christian Dalit. In base,
Christianity does not think about caste but in India the Christianity gives important to the caste. Karukku
exemplifies how Dalit ladies are refused to sing in choir of the churches. Dalits' dead bodies are refused to
bury in the place of upper class Christians. They are made to use different graveyard. In India, the parayars
convert themselves to escape from the tortures and ill treatments of superior Hindu but they learnt that they
cannot escape from the caste system. The government policy is also failed to recognize them as dalit. So
Indian dalit Christians suffer a lot. Karukku pictures Bama's fight for her self- recognise in the society.
Karukku came into the attention of national and international readers as well as writers, when
Bama won the Crossword Award for Karukku in the year 2001. This autobiography is a narrative of three-
fold subjugation of Dalit Christian women. Bama is the spokesperson of all the Dalit women, especially of
converted Christian who, in spite of conversion into Christianity suffered at three levels: as women, as
Dalit and as poor. By portraying her insults and agony, Bama gives an accurate picture of social as well as
historical India.
On the one hand, Karukku portrays the plight of Dalit women in general and Bama in Particular, as
Bama herself told the tale “The driving forces that shaped this book are many: cutting me like Karukku and
making me bleed; unjust social structures that plunged me into ignorance and left me trapped and
suffocating…” (Pxxii) On the other hand, there are so many other people from her community who wanted
to rise up the social ladder and are passionate to create a new society made up of justice, equality, fraternity
and love. “They who have been the oppressed, are now themselves like the double-edged Karukku,
challenging their oppressors.” (P-xxii) Thus, Bama's writing portrays the marginalization and subjugation
of Dalit women at social, political, economic and cultural level in India. At the same time her writing
celebrates Dalit women's life, resilience and creativity. Bama raises her voice, representing her
community, against the subjugation of women in every sphere of life, their resistance and call for action. It

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has conveyed a message to the society that not only 'Truth' is victorious but that only the 'Truth' is the
'Truth'.
As the lowest in the caste hierarchy, Dalits in Indian society have historically suffered caste-based
social exclusion from economic, civil, cultural, and political rights. Women from this community suffer
from not only discrimination based on their gender but also caste identity and consequent economic
deprivation. Dalit women constituted about 16.60 percent of India's female population in 2011. Dalit
women's problems encompass not only gender and economic deprivation but also discrimination
associated with religion, caste, and untouchability, which in turn results in the denial of their social,
economic, cultural, and political rights. They become vulnerable to sexual violence and exploitation due to
their gender and caste.
Karukku does not present the events that have taken place in the life of Bama in a chronological
order. The events in the life of Bama are grouped and depicted under different perspectives. The series of
incidents that took place in the life of Bama enabled her to discover herself as a woman, Dalit and
Christian. It was very hard for her to face politics and caste bias inside the convent. In a place of sanctity,
she could neither show her anger nor withdraw herself from the place. She was made to live a kind of
artificial life in the convent. They showed indifference not only towards the nuns but also towards the
school pupils. Wealthy pupils were left to study and Dalit students were asked to do all the menial
jobs. “…people of my community [Paraya] were looking after all the jobs like sweeping the
premises, swabbing and washing the classrooms and cleaning out the lavatories. And in the convent,
as well, they spoke very insultingly about low-caste people” (Karukku 25).Social discrimination is also a
major problem. Dalit people are considered 'untouchable'; higher caste people would not marry a Dalit,
invite them into their home or share food with them.Dalits are prevented from entering police stations in
27.6% of rural villages; Dalit and non-Dalit people cannot eat together in 70% of rural villages; 70% of
Dalit women are illiterate in rural India Bama asks her community to follow a few things to put an end to
the sufferings women.
She asks them to treat both boys and girl alike, showing no difference between them as they grow
into adults. Girls should be given more freedom and make them realize their strength. Then she is sure that,
there will come a day when men and women will live as one, with no difference between them; with equal
rights. Then injustices, violence and inequalities will come to an end, and she is sure that 'Women can make
and women can break' will come true and such a day will dawn soon.

Work Cited
Bama.Karukku.Chennai: Macmillan, 2000.Print.
Kumar, Ajay.“Karukk:Essentialism, Difference and the Politics of Dalit Identity.”Littcritt.2007:126-
134.Print.
Limbale, Sharankumar. Towards an Aesthetic of Dalit Literature: History, Controversies, and
Considerations. Hyderabad: Orient Longman, 2004.Print.
Omvedt, Gall.India Dalits and Democratic Revolution Dr Ambedkar and the Dalit Movement in
Colonial.NewDelhi: OUP, 1994. Print..
https://www.academia.edu/3410187/REFLECTIONS_OF_DALIT_FEMINST_VOICE_IN_BAMAS_
KARUKKU_AND_SANGATI

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148
SEARCH FOR STRENGTH AND INDEPENDENCE IN
ANITA NAIR'S LADIES COUPE

Mrs. B. Mahalakshmi, Asst. Prof. of English, Rajapalayam Rajus' College, Rajapalayam

Abstract:
Indian Writing in English has acquired a great significant in recent years not only in India but all
over the world. Fiction by women writers constitutes a major segment of the contemporary writing in
Indian English. It provides insights, a wealth of understanding, a reservoir of meanings and a basis of
discussion. The Indian women novelists expressed various exploitations experienced by women in all
sections of our society. They have started writing about Indian Women and their problems and
expectations. They have also portrayed conflicts and predicament against the existing systems and
background of contemporary India. Anita Nair is one of the finest writers in Indian Writing in English. The
novels of Anita Nair reveals how the women characters develop into measure individuals after a painful
course of repression, revolt and resolution. The novelist represents the changing image of women, moving
away from traditional portrayals of enduring, self-sacrificing women towards self-assured and ambitious
women. The women characters in the novel Ladies Coupe go through the grueling experience of domestic
oppression at the hands of their families. They suffer from a system of sex-role stereotyping and oppression
of women. All the characters have suffered at the hands of the repressive forces of society, revolted against
the oppressions and resolved to discover them and establish them in society.

Keywords: Search, independence, emergence, predicament.

Among the emerging writers like Anita Nair is the most promising and writer to reckon with. Anita
Nair is a fine writer, with a great sense of character, a vivid knowledge of South Indian culture, and has an
eye for describing details. She can move from tender compassion to sensuality, to raging hatred, and is a
compelling story-teller. Anita Nair refuses to be labeled as a feminist writer. She makes an attempt to show
the quality of strength in a woman. Anita Nair also adds that strength is not usually considered a womanly
thing. Her style ultimately differs from other feminist writers. In other words, she is a feminist with
difference. She traces the real position of women in the families as well as in the society. She has created
ripples in the society of male dominated by taking women as women in a serious manner. Her attempt to
exhibit the plight, fears, dilemmas, contradictions, and ambitions of her women characters is remarkable.
Her second novel Ladies Coupe deals with multiple lives and multiple voices. It unravels the
misinterpretations about the role of women in contemporary post-colonial feminist literature. The
question was about the vulnerable position of women and whether she could survive alone. The answer
that the novel provided was that there was certain strength deep inside that every individual has, and that
women must be courageous and claim their own lives and possibilities.
Ladies coupe traces the lives of six women from different social backgrounds as they travel in the
ladies compartment. It is about a train journey taken by the chief protagonist, Akila to search within herself
for strength, independence and answer to many questions that have haunted her spinsterhood. In the ladies
compartment she meets five other women, all are travellers. Janaki is a pampered wife and mother.
Margaret Shanti is married to a tyrant. Prabha devi dared to experiment and be different but reverts back to
her traditional Sati Savitri image. Sheela, a fourteen year old girl who could 'see' but what she could see is
SEARCH FOR STRENGTH AND INDEPENDENCE IN ANITA NAIR'S LADIES COUPE 513
never within the order of acceptance. Finally Marikolanthu, heterosexual, illiterate, is rejecting
motherhood only to concept it later. They are silent in their male-dominated homes but get a chance to
communicate in the special 'female space' of the ladies coupe.
The protagonist Akila in the novel Ladies coupe is a forty-five-year old spinster, daughter, sister,
aunt and the only provider of her family, after the death of her father. She is completely suppressed under
the burdens of the society and playing the role of a responsible bread winner. Though she is financially
independent, she continues to live and to govern her actions and decisions in the all-encompassing 'male-
gaze'. She was exploited by her brothers and sisters. She has spent her life and income for their betterment.
One day she realized that she was extracted by them. So, she, herself placed in a situation of unfamiliarity
and dislocation. She was always struggling to get her identity. She recollects what she always labeled. To
achieve her own identity, she escape from the normal monotonous life she moves on to see what has never
escapes been seen or where she has never gone before. Akila's journey begins with a sense of escape.
Woman feels like a caged animal in marriage. It disturbs growth as an individual. As her journey
progress, Akila meets her co-passengers, all women. All of them are similar to her and all of them are
victims of patriarchy. In the coupe the first person who narrate the trajectory of her wedded life was janaki.
She had got married when her eighteen and she had happily comfortable long (forty years) married life.
Her husband is caring and she had a son and a daughter-in-law. Her relationship with her husband Prabkhar
was like the friendship in need. Her husband Prabhakar has got her into a routine that makes her completely
dependent on him. His exactness and precision had irritated her but her life had gone on smoothly and they
had been the 'golden couple' the perfect parents and were now very gracious in laws. Marriage becomes a
trap for Janaki. Janaki's repression can be called one of sexual stereotyping. She was forced to live like
model wife and mother. She had remained in the same condition till she revolted, retaliated and refused to
be subordinate.
Then Sheela, fourteen years old who is under control of her grandmother. Sheela's grandmother
who taught her not to become one of these women who groomed themselves to please other. Nair created
this character as a modern women's voice and repel against all superstitious beliefs. A girl in the process of
being crushed by patriarchal hands. Not yet, but certainly on her way to that place where she would be
confined and captured.
Women are dominated and suppressed by male power which is portrayed in the life of Margaret
Shanthi who is a chemistry teacher married to Ebenezer Paulaj, the principal of the school she worked in.
Her life goes many physical, mental and spiritual crisis. Once she adored her husband but grows to hate
him later. Pompous person, Paulraj who successfully destroyed Maragret self-confidence by pulley her to
aborting her first pregnancy and then treating her as a house keeper and cook. Thus Margaret realized that
her husband was not the knight at arms that she expected him to be but on the other hand he was insensitive
self-obsessed despot who could not care for the welfare of his wife.
Margaret initially is the little girl who says yes to whatever he says and is out to please him always.
From an ambitious and brilliant student who wants to chart out a career on her own, she becomes a dutiful
wife to Ebenezer. He controls her completely. She is forced to do B.Ed. though wanted to do Ph.D. She has
to work wherever her husband works. A woman with a brilliant academic career and a warm and vibrant
personality, she is reduced to be silent. He hogs the limelight in their marriage, keeping her firmly in the
wings, hardly allowing her even supporting status. Margaret silences her aspirations in order to be what
Ebenezer wants her to be. Like the colonized, she seems convinced that it is for her own good.
And so, she begins to want only what he wanted. She cut her hair short, she stopped going to church
every Sunday, eating bhelpuri outside. He becomes more and more overbearing after he becomes the
principal of a school. He begins to nag her and find fault in her housekeeping and cooking. She is jolted out
of this submissive role when she has to go through an abortion of her first pregnancy due to Ebie's

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insistence. She realizes another side of her husband when after her abortion, a week later. Captured in the
image of woman as sexual object Margaret Shanti tatters. She begins to hate him. Though she feels stifled
in her marriage her family cannot accept the idea of a divorce. So she leads her life with Ebe.
Prabhadevi is another character drawn by Nair, brought up in the lap of luxury. She had the perfect
childhood. Her mother beamed with pride when Prabhadevi turned eighteen. She had everything that a girl
ought to needle work was always perfect. Soon this demur was married to a diamond merchant's son. After
marriage her life went on smoothly, happily peacefully. She was forced to marry Jagdeesh because he is the
only son and heir of a prosperous diamond merchant. Her trip to New York makes her crave to be like those
women .She changes and becomes aware of physical appeal. She spends her time in reading magazines and
going to parlour. She shocks her husband by suggesting him to use a condom.She does not want to become
pregnant just then. She becomes modern with a certain tilt of her walk, seducing her husband and also flirts
with Pramod. But when Pramod solicits her attention sexually, she has shocked and reverts back to her
original position of a devoted wife.
Marikolanthu is the last person in the coupe to narrate her story. Her story is the saddest of all as it
tells the oldest tale of all, woman as Sex object. She comes from a poor background and her mother works
as a cook at the chettiar household. As a child, she suffers from social and economic repression. She has
suffered rape and it mars her life completely with his brutal strength. Murugesan attacks her and she is left
helpless. She has to face physical brutality as well as mental torture when left to find for herself. Even
though her rapist is known he is not punished life-long. She also ends up a helper like her mother at the
chettiar household, after a brief stay at Vellore with two lady doctors. They had promised her nursing
training but after the rape episode they feel she has no compassion and she cannot become a nurse.
Marikolanthu looks after the mad chettiar Amma: later she is employed to look after Sujata Akka's
son. She adores the child and showers him with love but hates her own child, the boy Muthu who is born
after many attempts of abortion. He is the result of her rape by Murugesan. Sujata Akka sees her for
physical fulfillment in the afternoon and her husband seeks her at nights. After Sujata Akka realizes her
husband's escapades with her, she pushes her out of the chettiar household. She gets the responsibility of
looking after Muthu when her mother dies. Maliciously she mortgages him at one of Murugesan's (her
rapist's) loom for rupees five thousand which she uses for her operation at Kancheepuram. She gets odd
jobs and leads her life on in Kancheepuram. Marikolanthu suffers extreme repression social, familial and
financial.
The novel comprises narrative and an account of Akhila's life untilshe embarks upon that journey,
and afterwards. Nair has ideally presented the cinematic techniques in novel. The narrative flashback of
time and place, are encapsulating each passenger's essential experience as a woman incontemporary
Indian society. Nair vividly exposed how women were exploited in the different section of society. She
revealed how women were treated and what was their painful experience. At one point of time all
characters were realized their exploitation and they tried to escape from it.
At the periphery level the women characters in the novel has no identity. Their personalities have
been sought to be damaged and distorted and their very status as human beings are interiorized under the
overwhelming male domination. Each woman has been cocooned in her own silence and longs to be heard.
The women characters in the novel are oppressed by insisting on their moral, rational and epistemological
inferiority.

Work Cited
Nair, Anita. Ladies Coupe. New Delhi: Penguin Books. 2001. Print.

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149
RACIAL DISCRIMINATION IN MAYA ANGELOU'S “I KNOW WHY
THE CAGED SINGS” SINGS” AND “STILL I RISE.”

B.Kalaivani, Assistant Professor of English, Yadava College, Madurai

Abstract:
Racial discrimination is when a person us treated less favorably than another person in a similar
situation because of their race, color descent, national or ethnic origin or immigrant status. Maya Angelou
going to evaluate two poems called I know why the caged bird sings and still I rise. However each of the
poems has its own point of view, “I know why the caged bird sings” is rather in a more negative mood
because it is saying she wants to be free, the poem is both highly political and highly personal. The speaker
is implicitly responding to decades and even centuries of oppression and mistreatment. The African
American poet Maya Angelou (19282014), offers an interesting playful and defiant, comical and angry,
self-assured and bitter. Ultimately, however, the poem's tone, as the work's title suggests, is glorious.

Keywords: Racism, sexism, race, color descent, Oppression and mistreatment.

Maya Angelou, original name Marguerite Annie Johnson, (born April 4, 1928, St. Louis, Missouri,
U.S.died May 28, 2014, Winston-Salem, North Carolina), She graduated from mission high school. Her
six-volume autobiographical novel, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1970), was nominated for the
National book Award. Just Give Me a Cool Drink Fore I Die (1971) is her first volume of poetry, 'Still I
Rise' (1978) poem. She delivered her poem 'On the pulse of morning' at the inauguration of bill Clinton as
president of the united states of American in 1993. American poet, memoirist, and actress whose several
volumes of autobiography explore the themes of economic, racial, and sexual oppression
Maya Angelou, grows up as a Black Girl in Southern America and describes it as “painful”. She
never feels pretty, she hopes she'll wake up from a “black ugly dream” and reveal her true-self light-colored
with blue eyes. Even when she sees her mother for the first time, the first thing that strikes her is her beauty.
She thinks she is not as beautiful as her mother. She compares her mother to her brother, Bailey, and think
they are both beautiful but not her. She is hard to herself. She thinks it is why she gets rid of her kids: “l
knew immediately why she had sent me away.
I am going to evaluate two poems called” I know why the caged bird sings” By Maya Angelou and
still I rise. Both of these poems are about wanting to be free and what they went through their life, however
each of the poems has its own point of view, “I know why the caged bird sings” is rather in a more negative
mood because it is saying she wants to be free, The first poem shows how black people get treated badly
and being discriminated and then the white gets all the freedom. “still I rise” is more positive because she is
saying how free she is and how good her life is. “I know why the caged bird sings” By Maya Angelou.
The author, the protagonist, is a very interesting character that I'm going to present you. I'm going
to present you this woman who had many hardships in her lifetime, and had the courage to write it. During
her childhood, Maya Angelou suffers from her appearance, from her displacement which she qualifies as
“unnecessary insults”, and also by the fact that she doesn't feel loved.
In the poem Maya Angelou is talking about black people being attentive and have no say, She
inform on them by bird fascinated in a cage with no speech, The poem mentions Problems she faces
throughout her life, and says it's no different being free or not because she can't do anything. “Caged Bird”
RACIAL DISCRIMINATION IN MAYA ANGELOU'S “I KNOW WHY THE CAGED SINGS” SINGS” AND “STILL I RISE.” 516
is a poem about freedom. The free bird symbolizes a person from the white society, and the caged bird
symbolizes a person from the black society.
In the first stanza, the free bird is described. leaps”, “floats”, “dares”, “claim” are used to describe
the free bird, which indicates how courageous, powerful and arrogant it is. The second stanza starts with a
“But”, which immediately awakens negative feelings. The words used to describe the caged bird are
“stalks”, “clipped” and “tied”, the bird is not able to do what it wants. Also, in the second stanza,
unexpectedly the caged bird “opens his throat to sing”. This action is very ironic, as normally you sing
when you are happy, and we expect the free bird to do that, however, the song doesn't have a happy tune. It's
a desperate cry for freedom. There's a description of the cage that the bird is in, “bars of rage”. It shows
similarities to being in a prison. There are no descriptions of the caged birds own point of view, “of things
unknown but longed for still”. He can't see, he doesn't know. The free bird almost takes things for granted,
“dips his wing in the orange sun's rays”. Nevertheless, the caged bird can appreciate them. In the third
stanza, “trill”, “hill” and “still”, “heard” and “bird” do rhyme.
Rhyme tries to create a pattern, neatness. Perhaps like the cage that contains the bird that wants to
break free. The bird's Life is remorseful, maybe that's why there's a rhyme. Another pattern in the poem is
between the stanzas: free birds, caged bird, refrain about caged bird about caged bird. The refrain along
with the phrase “caged bird” repeated in the beginning of all the stanzas which are about the caged bird, are
for importance. It gives a feeling of how distressed. In the fourth stanza, the lines start to get Longer. This
may be linked to having more space to move, and therefore freedom- as it talks about the free bird. In the
3rd and 4th Lines, “lawn” and “own” are par rhymes, and “own” is like a faint echo of the sound. In the 5th
stanza, the Longer Lines may be linked with the possibility of the bird being free. The words used to
describe both the free and the caged bird almost sound the same, but they are different.
Perhaps it reflects the two birds that are different at the same time as the caged bird wants to be like
the free bird. In the last stanza the first couple of lines are saying how the black people wish for freedom and
people far away know that they are wishing to be free. In the last line she writes” for the cadged bird sings
for freedom” this is a catchy ending people the reader remembers that most, the audience get told that
several times so it is constantly being thrown at them The themes in this poem are freedom, unfairness,
slavery and isolation. It may be connected with gender, individuals, adults' preventive the youth, racial
inequality, someone in prison or social oppression. This is saying that if your black or white you should be
as free and as equal as each other and that everyone on earth should have the same rights and opportunities.
I am going to evaluate next poems called” still I rise” By Maya Angelou. She deals with the theme
of resistance to racial oppression. The I in the poem stand for all the suffering blacks. The poem contains
many images. The most powerful of which being the comparison of the Negroes to a vast black ocean,
welling and swelling with discontent and the urge to change the white dominated American society. Maya
Angelo is a Negroes. She tells the white about the indomitable courage and indescribable hopefulness of
the Negro race. The whites may write a histoy, defaming and underestimating the Negroes and telling lies
about them. The whites may trample upon the blacks. Still like dust the blacks will rise. Whites are upset by
blacks' over confidence or rudeness. The black is proud as if there are wells outpouring with petrol in his
living room.
The black right demand that he will not disappear away. He is as permanent as the sun and the
moon. His beliefs keep springing high tides rising again and again out of the sea. Whites expect to see
blacks broken, discouraged and emit imperfection. But blacks never become depressed. The black laughs
proudly a s if he has golden mines in his backyard. He will keep rising like air. The black has boundless
sexual physical strength. He dances as if he has diamonds instead of sexual organs. He rises out of his
disgraceful and painful past. He is like an unreduced ocean. His past was like a terrible, fear- ridden night.
His future is like a clear day. The poetess finally says that she is the dream and trusts the Negro slaves.

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Nothing can suppress her. She will always rise.
You may walk upon me
But still, like dust, I'll rise
The authoress presents herself as a sturdy of the downtrodden Negroes.The whites deny her
freedom and trample upon her as if she is a particle of dust. But she says that she cannot be destroyed. She is
like the dust which may be crushed but cannot be destroyed. The dust here recalls to our minds how god
created adam out of dust .dust, used for the creation of man cannot be destroyed. the dust has the potential
for further growth.… I walk like I've got oil wellsPumping in my living room.
The poetess presents herself as an indomitable champion of the downtrodden blacks. She says that,
despite the whites' ill-treatment of her, she is very cheerful. She has wells gushing with \petrol in her living
room. No amount of whites' ill-treatment will suppress her.
Just like moon and like suns,
With the certainly of tides
Just like hopes springing high
Still I'll rise
The poetess presents herself as an indomitable champion of the downtrodden blacks. She says that
she is like the unfading sun and moon and the never -to-be repressed tidal waves. The more she is ill-treated
by whites, the more rebellious she becomes. She always rises and never falls.
…I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin' in my own backyard .
The poetess presents herself as an indomitable champion of the downtrodden blacks. Despite the
whites' heartless ill-treatment of her, she is happy as if she has got gold mines in her own backyard
Angelou presents herself as a champion of the blacks. She describes herself as a vast ocean full of
'welling and swelling' waves. That is, her mind is bubbling with reflecting about the uplift of Negroes. She
is hopeful that the misery of the blacks will soon end. Their past was like a dark, fear-ridden night .their
future will be as bright as day-break.
The two poems that I have analyzed are both different topic but they have different view points
towards it, “I know why the caged bird sings” is more sad and depressing, whereas “Still I rise” encourage
and confident. The second poem is opposite to the first one because she is saying rise, rise, she is there is
nothing she can't do and she is a African American, This shows is feels free and unlike before they had no
freedom.

Works Cited:
Angelou, Maya. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. New: Random House.1969, Print
Chapman, Abraham. Blackvoice: AnAnthologyof Afro-American literature. Newyork: Mentor.1968 Print.

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150
SPACE AND TEMPORALITY IN AMRIT LAL VEGAD'S TRAVELOGUES ON
NARMADA: A STUDY

Himani, Research Scholar, M.D.U. Rohtak-Haryana

Abstract:
Amrit Lal Vegad's travelogues on Narmada present a view of sacred in which space and
temporality play a crucial role. The flux of Narmada carries within its turbulent waters a view of life which
has grown on its banks as a part of its texture. Within the physical space of the river, there exists a sacred
location, wherein myths and legends are born and vanish within its eternal flow. The sacrality of
Narmada's existence depends upon its communication with the human mass which grows on its banks. The
movement between the scared and the profane, the divine and the human gives Narmada an identity which
marks the existence of this river as a presence straddling both the spaces. The temporality of the river
which flows from the age of rishis to the modern industrial one does not carry within it a disjunction but
continuity, thus attesting its eternity within the present. Another dimension of the play of temporality
within Amrit Lal's travelogues on Narmada, wherein journey of Narmada from its source to its estuary in
Bharuch is traced, is etched a simultaneous journey of the writer through his own transformation wrought
by his peregrination in diverse cultures and climates. My paper would seek to trace this play of space and
temporality in Amrit Lal Vegad's travelogues on Narmada wherein the river becomes a representation of a
cultural change located on this space and time continuum.

Keywords: Travelogue, Sacred, Culture.

I
Travelogues represent a movement from one spatial location to another through time. This
collation of space and temporality is an important aspect of our understanding of travel literature as a
willing movement involving a clash between diverse cultural locations within a given time frame. The
unsettling fluidity of travel, not unlike a pendulum, passes between multiple spaces and multifarious time
scales, adding new dimensions to time-space equilibrium. The time here acts as invisible fourth
dimension, moving back and forth, whose relativity condenses or expands space. Without temporal
dimension, there can be no space and so space is, in a way, a product and effect of time which gives
produces meanings and existence:
Travel is at times shaped by the terrain and at others by the need of the hour. The notion of
space that in recent times is marked by 'atomic implosion' and by 'limitless expansion'
affects travel in myriad ways. So on one extreme there is a notion of space that denies the
possibility of travel and on the other extreme it becomes an inexhaustible activity. (Yadav,
2)

The relevance of an axis of time and space for travel writings is aggravated due to the fact that it is
temporality which is explored through a particular space and spatial dimension can be traversed and re-
traversed through time loops to locate meanings and cultural practices.
The temporary nature of movement in travelogues often entails an intensified conflict between two
cultural locations. This conflict involves an element of recognition and consequent surprise on discovery
SPACE AND TEMPORALITY IN AMRIT LAL VEGAD'S TRAVELOGUES ON NARMADA: A STUDY 519
of difference together with sameness in two contending cultural locations. The traveler's own acquired
traits within his own spatio-temporal location such as ethics, behaviour, clothing, food, physical
appearances and habits are judged and do the judging when the traveler makes a movement to another
geographical space. This cultural conflict passes through temporal dimensions in which the traveler's
present location in the time scale often moves backward and forward, bringing with it a sense of continuity
and disjunction. Russell is correct when he observes that travel literature questions enclosing of space, as it
“captures our changing perspectives of borders, boundaries, and other spatial concepts” (Russell 2). This
clash and resultant loosening of boundaries, makes way for creation of a new space through the traveler's
understanding of it. The time loop through which the traveler moves gives a sense of unity to the 'place'
which is seen as a timeless existence with changes mostly occurring at the surface. The image of the
'travelled place' thus is a conglomeration of past and present, as well as here and there. It represents a
constant clash between now and then as well as two cultural locations represented by the travelled place as
well as location of the traveler. Thus, every travel is “a spatio-temporal experience when the writer
observes a scheduling of a date/month/year or even season” (Yadav, J. 25)
Along with it, there is an added dimension to the journey which is as much physical as it is
psychological. The protagonist who is severed from his own cultural definitions and delimitations, often
finds the journey a metaphor of his own movement from one cultural location towards another which is
more comprehensive and has absorbed impressions and images of life. The exposure to another way of life
is often liberating which suspends for the moment the constricting space of life images which are part of
one's psyche and determine his/her world view. The conflict between the travelers' own understanding of
life and its demands through their conflict with another makes way for another state in which the traveler
cherishes the memories and experiences which soon become a part of his repertoire of values and
understanding. Travel, through revelation of disjunctions between spatial and temporal dimensions,
reveals connections between different governing issues on existential planes: “More than a trope, travel is
a metaphor, that […] became an ontological discourse central to the relation between Self and Other,
between different forms of alterity, between nationalisms, women, races and classes” (Grewal 4)
Colonial travel writing dealt heavily with interplay of power relations between the observer and the
observed. This disparity created creation of an 'other' who became alive through the superior glance of the
narrator: “Most travel writings […] whether part of an anthropological, sociological or literary project-are
concerned with the encounter with Otherness either directly or through signs. The Othering process may
take subtler avenues and work out through language, e.g. stereotyping, the use of clichés, metaphors. It
works through binary oppositions, whereby characteristics belonging to one's own culture are opposed to
those appearing to the 'other' culture, in such a way that one's own characteristics are idealized and those of
the other are denigrated” (Krishan 59). This framework of colonial travel writings fails to be useful in
understanding those travels in which the traveler is a native of country wherein the dichotomy between two
cultural planes is not heavily marked.
Though the encounter between two cultural planes is always a part of travel writings, the
indigenous travel writings use a different framework against those who step out from a materially, socially
and economically different cultural avenue. In case of native travelers, the conflict is mellow, not fierce as
the traveler claims the culture, though different from his own in the divide of rural-urban, language or
region. The nets of similarity are closer and tighter here with identifications based on nationalism or
religion. The absence of Othering is replaced here by identification and sense of pride takes place through
resemblances and parallels. Along with it, there is another impulse of nostalgia for past way of life in case
of religious travels wherein delinking of past from the present becomes a matter of concern or sorrow.
II
Amrit Lal Vegad, a well known name in travel writing, is a writer as well painter whose works have

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been translated from Gujarati and Hindi into English and several other languages. His travel writings often
feature Narmada and many of them are decked with sketches and collages made by him. His well known
books include Saundarya ki Nadi Narmada (Narmada: River of Beauty), Amritasya Narmada (Narmada:
River of Joy), Teere-Teere Narmada and Narmada Tum Kitni Sunder Ho. Narmada becomes alive in front
of us when we read Amrit's travelogues on Narmada. Narmada is India's fifth longest, most sacred river
after the Ganga, cleanest of all major rivers of India and the only river whose circumambulation is possible.
Though the prescribed period for this river pilgrimage is three years, three months and thirteen days but the
writer spent nearly three decades of his life in the circumambulation of the pious river and the more he gets
closer to the river, the more is he enchanted by its beauty and splendor.
Vegad's Narmada seeks to explore journey of the narrator on the banks of Narmada through space
and time continuum. The physical journey of the narrator moves in a zigzag manner without following a
linear path. His choice of routes is determined by his physical health as well as other strategic features such
as location of friends and his partners. For instance when Vegad was debating whether he would be able to
cover the remaining distance of his prikarma at the age of 69 in the opening chapter of Narmada: River of
Joy, he justifies his violation of conventional route by arguing to himself that he can “return home in an
emergency.” (Vegad, River of Joy 2). This traversing of physical space creates distinct images of the
stretch of land which is crossed in a particular times frame. The breaking of journey and its continuation
after a period brings with it a sense of disjunction as well as continuity. During the period of his absence
from Narmada the narrator passes through certain experiences which sometime color his attitude and
responses. After traversing Berman Ghat to Jhansighat, the narrator was assured by many of his friends that
in his next travelling they would surely accompany him. But when the time comes and the narrator asks
them, all of them refuse on one or pretexts, making the narrator comment bemusedly: “I must be the one
and only idle fellow in our city with no responsibilities” (Vegad, NRJ 20). The experience makes the
narrator aware about huge gap between aspirations and their realization as well as the nets of maya which
makes it difficult for people to come out of their routine existence.
At the same time, the narrator creates his journey on the banks of Narmada as his logos and his
absence from it is marked with a sense of longing and absence. He takes his absence from the journey as a
preparatory time for the 'real' vocation wherein he attunes himself physically, mentally and financially to
revert back to his essential self of traveler. Thus inversely journey represents the locale from which he
views the world and not the vice versa calling his sojourn in the world as his “tether” (NRB 119). This
inversion of hierarchy between the 'original' location and the 'place' of travel shifts balance of location
from primary to secondary and thus 'out of home' adopts and replaces the characteristics of home.
The advancing of age and growth in physical infirmities bring to him a different psychological
perspective. The narrator presents it through a conflict between his heart and his mind wherein his mind
attempts to remind him of his bodily frailty as a result of his advanced age: “You are very skinny. You even
suffer from a breathing problem. You puff and pant just going up the stairs. How will you be able to climb
up the Narmada's steep cliffs?” (NRJ 1). The self reflexivity here acts as a fourth dimension through which
the narrator observes things. This temporal dimension in the travelogue acts as a framework through which
people and nature are viewed. There is a palpable movement towards acceptance of death as well as life in
its totality as the narrator moves on the time scale of twenty two years and advances from middle age to old
age. There is a note of caution as the journey of the narrator progresses on the time scale. The physical
infirmities and a sense of mortality now govern his views with a sense of finality.
The sacrality of Narmada is part of common people's life circle and the faith is a living belief in the
usefulness of Narmada both as a part of the mythical life of people as well as their practical needs.
Narmada is celebrated more due to its connection with people's lives than its mythical origins. Her
importance in the lives of the people can be estimated by the views of Amrit when he says, “She is the river

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where holy recluses perform their austerities; she is the pilgrim's object of worship; she is the reservoir that
quenches the thirst of the fields; she is swimming pool for the youth; she is the village woman's meeting
place; she is the host for the various village fairs and who knows what else?” (50, NRJ).
The flow of Narmada from Amarkantaka to Bharuch carries with it a civilizational flow which
passes and cuts across many cultures. The sacred here is a part of people's understanding of river as a flow
of life as well as its connection with the ebb and flow of sorrows and happiness in their lives. The journey
is not avowedly religious and partakes of both the reverence and secular attitudes of travel: “Right from the
outset I decided that I was not going to write in the ancient style of a Narmada of a Narmada Purana or a
paean of glorification of Reva Mahatmaya. That would not be appropriate for contemporary times. I was
compelled to write the biography of the Narmada: the visible, down-to-earth Narmada. That was why I
adopted the methods that biographers generally use: meeting the subject of their biography many times;
conducting interviews; summarizing the conversation; travelling to relevant places; taking picturesin
short writing a factual biography based on all this material” (NRJ 182). The writer undertakes the journey
not for any religious mission but for his “commitment to beauty, to art and to literature” (NRJ 184). The
cultural purpose of his travel connects him more closely to modern travel writers than religious
pilgrimages. But at the same time, the presence of religious angle to the journey cannot be totally
overlooked. The religious motif provides the necessary force and the writer's journey takes place within
the travel framework of religious paraphernalia wherein he makes use of religious structure in the form of
dharamsalas, sadavart etc. during his journey.
Amrit Lal Vegad's travelogues on Narmada are distinctive in their multiple layering of sacred and
secular wherein sacred is seen as part of everyday life. Herein a religious parikarma is viewed from the
perspective of modern travel writing wherein the pious' desire to take a circuit of the Narmada is offset by
writer's desire to mind meaning in his own life. The superimposition of these two, often contrasting ways
of looking at thingsfrom a religious perspective as well as a modern, urban outlook embedded in writer's
place in academic, middle class perspectivemakes his observations more complex as well as
comprehensible. Further, his travelogues question the notion of travelled space as a unified one and pose
against it a dimension of fractured temporality to create new meanings. His travels which pass through
different time frames as well as his division of iteration into well-measured steps help in accentuating
temporal dimension in consonance with fracturing of space of 'parikarma' into independent entities.
Thirdly through the fluid nature of river on which the travel is located, the space of travel acquires traits of
liquefied changelessness. It gives travelogues on rivers a new dimension as compared to travels
undertaken on dry lands because of the flexibility which rivers provide. As rivers are in flux and are linear
in nature, the variation of places gets an organic unity due to the ever presence of river which acts as the
focus of life growing on its banks. The pilgrimage on the river-space, due to, it becomes a saga of
movement; and ever changing life on its banks reflects immanent reality which travelogues attempt to
capture through concrete images. This characteristic of river-space in Vegad's travelogues is symptomatic
of his understanding of spatio-temporal dimension which gives a unique flavor to his writings.

Works Cited:
1. Vegad, Amritlal. Narmada: River of Joy. Trans. Marietta Maddrell. Banyan Tree, 2014. The textual
references to this text are abbreviated as NRJ in the parenthesis with page numbers.
2. ---. Narmada: River of Beauty. Trans. Marietta Maddrell. Penguin Books, 2008. The textual
references to this text are abbreviated as NRB in the parenthesis with page numbers.
3. Yadav, Nikhilesh. “Travel Now and Then: An Introduction.” OASIS. 4.1 (2012): 1-4
4. Yadav, Jyoti. Moving in the Shadows of Past: Dalrymple's The City of Djinns. OASIS. 4.1 (2012): 23-
33.

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SPACE AND TEMPORALITY IN AMRIT LAL VEGAD'S TRAVELOGUES ON NARMADA: A STUDY 522
5. Russell, Alison. Crossing Boundaries: Postmodern Travel Literature. Hampshire: Palgrave, 2000.
6. Grewal, Inderpal. Home and Harem: Nation, Gender, Empire and the Cultures of Travel. London:
Leicester University Press, 1996.
7. Krishan, Shri and Manjeet Rathee. “Travelling Back in Time with Annie Flora Steel: A Tale of 1857 in
On the Face of the Waters.” OASIS. 4.1 (2012): 23-33.

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151
ENVIRONMENTALISM OF THE POOR: APPLYING THE THEORY OF
POSTCOLONIAL ECOCRITICISM ON INDIAN ENVIRONMENTAL MOVEMENTS

Sonika, Research Scholar, CDLU, Sirsa

Abstract:
Ecological marginalization entails the take-over of local natural resources by powerful private
and/or state interests, and the gradual or immediate disorganization of the ecosystem via withdrawals and
additions. The disruption of biological processes, loss of local people's resource base and the generation
of socio-economic disparity are the inevitable results of this process. As an emerging new field,
'postcolonial ecocriticism ' combines postcolonialism's critique of colonial regimes and the workings of
transnational capitalism with ecocriticism's attention to the land and environmental resources, which
have been the gist of such exploitation. This paper attempts to chart the different trajectories of
postcolonial studies and ecocriticism, and explore current convergences between these fields. Further, it
studies the relationship between neocolonialism and ecological decline through two major environmental
movements in postcolonial India: the Chipko Movement and the Narmada Bachao Andolan.

Keywords: postcolonial, ecocriticism, natural resources, neocolonial, environmental movements.

I
'For a colonized people the most essential value, because the most concrete, is first and
foremost the land: the land which will bring them bread and, above all, dignity' (Franz
Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, 9).
Cheryll Glotfelty's definition of ecocriticism as 'a study of the relationship between literature and
the physical environment' (Glotfelty and Fromm 1996: xviii) is widely accepted. While it was Alfred
Crosby, British environmental historian, who in his historical studies The Columbian Exchange (1973)
and Ecological Imperialism (1986) revealed the historical embeddedness of ecology in the European
imperial enterprise. He writes, 'the success of European Imperialism has a biological, and ecological
component' (Crosby 1986: 7). Since then, postcolonial studies has come to understand environmental
issues not only as central to the projects of European conquest and global domination, but also as inherent
in the ideologies of imperialism and racism on which those projects persistently depend (Huggan and
Tiffin 2010: 6). Graham Huggan and Helen Tiffin contend that, “ in assuming a natural prioritisation of
humans and human needs over those of other species on earth, we are both generating and repeating the
racist ideologies of imperialism on a planetary scale.” The following paper attempts to analyse through an
understanding of postcolonial environmental studies, the two major environmental movements in
postcolonial India: the Chipko Movement and the Narmada Bachao Andolan with the help of Ramchandra
Guha's The Unquiet Woods (1989) and Arundhati Roy's The Greater Common Good (1999), respectively.

II
The convergence of postcolonialism and ecocriticism is not only probable, but also an obvious
necessity. As Upamanyu Mukherjee (2006) puts it:Surely, any field purporting to theorise the global
conditions of colonialism and imperialism (let us call it postcolonial studies) cannot but consider the
complex interplay of environmental categories such as water, land, energy, habitat, migration with
ENVIRONMENTALISM OF THE POOR: APPLYING THE THEORY OF POSTCOLONIAL ECOCRITICISM ON INDIAN .... 524
political or cultural categories such as state, society, conflict, literature, theatre, visual arts. Equally, any
field purporting to attach interpretative importance to environment (let us call it eco/environmental
studies) must be able to trace the social, historical and material co-ordinates of categories such as forests,
rivers, bio-regions and species (144).The similarities between two fields are obvious, e.g. colonial genesis
and the commitment to social and environmental justice, but the two areas have often been in conflict.
Ecocriticism has been accused of prioritizing extra-human concerns over the interests of disadvantaged
human groups, while postcolonialism has been routinely anthropocentric. The process in which ecological
imperialism functioned was: Once invasion and settlement had been accomplished, the western views of
environment were reinforced on the colonies by deliberate import of European animals, plants and crops to
the colonies, instigating widespread ecosystem change. These European imports were regarded as
necessary and 'natural' substitutes for the local bush or wilderness. Not only this, the natural ways of
indigenous ecosystems were irretrievably undone as 'wild' lands were cleared for farming or opened up to
pastoralism. The colonists regarded the land they occupied as theirs by right.
One characteristically broad understanding of ecological imperialism is that of the Australian
ecofeminist Val Plumwood. Graham Huggan, citing Val Plumwood explains it like this:
“ . . . the western definition of humanity depended - and still depends - on the presence of the 'not-human':
the uncivilised, the animal and animalistic. European justification for invasion proceeded from this basis,
understanding non-Europeans lands and the people and animals that inhabited them as 'spaces', 'unused,
underused or empty.' The very ideology of colonization is thus one where anthropocentricism and
Eurocentricism are inseparable . . .” (5)
This philosophical basis, which once helped secure and sustain European imperial dominance is
now used to rationalize the exploitation of environment and animal 'others'. Animals and the environment
are often excluded from the privileged ranks of human, rendering them available for exploitation. One
thing seems certain: if the wrongs of colonialism are to be addressed, then the very category of the human,
in relation to animals and environment, must also be brought under scrutiny. After all, 'traditional western
constitutions of the human as the not-animal (and, by implication, the 'not-savage') have had major, and
often catastrophic, repercussions not just for animals themselves but for all those the West now considers
human but were formerly designated, represented and treated as animal. The persistence of such openly
discriminatory categorisations invites an endless repetition of the wrongs of the past. But the very idea of
granting or extending of rights to others of all kinds, may itself be regarded as in essence anthropocentric,
since it is only the dominant (human) group that is in the position to do so. The primary aim of postcolonial
ecocriticism is “to make exploitation and discrimination of all kinds, both human and nonhuman, visible in
the world; and, in so doing, to help make them obsolete” (Huggan and Tiffin 2010: 16).
It can be noted that the role of literature in bringing ecological issues to the forefront has not been
substantial. One obvious reason has been that literature, with its traditional emphasis on plot, character and
psychological states has focused primarily on individuals or group of humans. Even in genres such as
traditional pastoral the emphasis has generally been on the impact of the environment on the human rather
than the other way around. And where literature has dealt with the fates and even the psychologies of
animals it has been more often than not a staple of fiction for children rather than adult readers. Especially
western writers have regarded environment as a mere backdrop against which human lives are played out.
Also even when writers have given some attention to the natural (extra-human) environment, critics have
generally downplayed its significance in their own considerations of the work. Since the 1990s, however,
there has been evidence in both literature and literary criticism of the centralizing of ecological issues in
literary studies. After all, during the latter half of twentieth century apparently peripheral issues and
marginal literatures had come to assume an increasingly important place in both public and scholarly
reading practices. Elizabeth DeLoughrey and George Handley in their seminal work, Postcolonial

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Ecologies: Literature of Environment (2011) give numerous examples from the mid-twentieth century of
authors who were grappling with the relationship between landscape and colonization. For example,
Martin Carter in his poem 'Listening to the Land', Pablo Neruda in Canto General, Derek Walcott in 'Sea is
History.' DeLoughrey and Handley even read Chinua Achebe's well-known 1958 novel, Things Fall Apart
as an ecocritical text (5-7).
III
The Unquiet Woods (1989) by Indian historian Ramchandra Guha (though he prefers to call
himself 'a sociologist trying to write history' (x) is a classic account of the Chipko movement - a 1970s
peasant revolt against commercial forestry practices in the Northern Indian Himalayan region. Graham
Huggan and Helen Tiffin consider this revolt to be a paradigmatic example of 'Third World-based
resistance movements (1)' which Guha in his book Environmentalism: A Global History (2000) brackets
under the heading: the 'environmentalism of the poor' (98). Here, Guha contests the widespread belief that
environmentalism is a phenomenon peculiar to the rich nations of the North by providing five examples of
poor people's environmentalism from the Southern part of the world. These include: the Penan struggle in
the Malaysian state of Sarawak, the Narmada Bachao Andolan (Save the Narmada Movement) in central
India, the peasants struggle in Thailand, the Ogoni struggle in Nigeria, and Kenya's Green Belt Movement
(Guha 2000: 99-102). For Guha, the two most famous of all are, the Chipko Movement in India, and the
Chiko Movement in Brazil. Ramchandra Guha notes in the Preface to the First Edition of The Unquiet
Woods: The relationship between colonialism and ecological decline is one neglected by historians of
modern India, who have been rather more aware of the social and political consequences of British rule.
However, in Uttarakhand by far the most important consequence of colonial rule was the system of
commercial forestry it introduced (ix). The Chipko Movement started when on March 27, 1973, in a
remote Himalayan village, a group of peasants (women) stopped a group of loggers from felling a stand of
hornbeam trees. The trees stood on land owned by the state forest department, which had auctioned them to
a sports-goods company in distant Allahabad, on whose behalf the loggers had come. The peasants of
Mandal - the name of the village that adjoined the forest patch prevented felling by threatening to hug or
'stick' to (Chipko) the trees. The Mandal episode sparked a series of similar protests throughout the '70s, a
dozen or more episodes whereby hill peasants stopped contractors from felling trees for external markets.
These protests collectively constitute the Chipko movement, recognized as one of the most famous
environmental initiatives in India. Guha makes an important observation, the environmental degradation
often intensifies economic deprivation of the people and this explains the moral urgency of these
movements of protest. Commercial forestry, oil drilling, and large dams all damage the environment, but
they also, and to their victims more painfully, constitute a threat to rural livelihood: by depriving tribals of
fuel wood and small game, by destroying the crops of farmers, or by submerging wholesale the lands and
homes of villagers who have the misfortune to be placed in their path (Guha 2000: 105).
Guha's aim is to outline some of the ways in which state-planned industrialization in postcolonial
India, even while it claims to practice one version or other of sustainable development, has only succeeded
in 'pauperizing millions of people in the agrarian sector and diminishing the stock of plant, water and soil
resources at a terrifying rate' (196). This 'environmentalism of the poor' has contributed to a profound
rethinking of the idea of development itself. Guha is against the kind of development that panders to
global-corporate interests. The battle is, however, not so much against development itself as an
intrinsically harmful activity or process as against the flagrant social and environmental abuses that
continue to be perpetrated in its name. One of the central tasks of postcolonial ecocriticism as an emergent
field has been to contest, and to provide viable alternatives to western ideologies of development. These
contestations have mostly been in alignment with radical Third-Worldist critiques that tend to 'see
development as little more than a disguised form of neocolonialism, a vast technocratic apparatus designed

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primarily to serve the economic and political interests of the West' (Huggan and Tiffin 2010: 27). In other
words, development is a capitalist growth model that is both demonstrably unequal and carries a
potentially devastating environmental cost.
On 10 November 1995 Nigerian writer-activist Ken Saro-Wiwa was executed along with eight of
his Ogoni kinsmen for creating international awareness about the irreparable damage done to Ogoni
farmland and fishing waters by the Nigerian-based multinational oil company, SPDC (Shell Petroleum
Development Company), and the political oppression of his people, marginalized and exploited by a
tyrannical Nigerian state. It was a struggle against neocolonialism, the long and elaborate process by
which 'the multinational companies have come to replace the colonial power in Nigeria and indeed in the
third world as whole' (36). Nigeria is arguably no more in control of its own resources than it was during the
colonial period. Saro-Wiwa articulates the struggle of the Ogoni, notably in his 1992 book Genocide in
Nigeria: The OgoniTragedy and in his posthumously published prison diary, A Month and a Day (1995).
Similar in ideology to Saro-Wiwa is the Indian Writer Arundhati Roy, whose essay against the
Narmada Valley Development Project, 'The Greater Commom Good' (1999), has come to stand for
minority rights and the environmental struggle for land and water rights in India. Huggan and Tiffin like
many others may easily categorise her as 'another media-hungry Indo-Anglican cosmopolitan celebrity'
(45). But, do not deny accepting that her essay reflects 'on the ways in which a centralised state has not only
commandeered national assets and resources, but also sought through media channels to convey the fiction
of a carefully monitored national progress and to ally it to the greater (global) development cause' (45). For
Jawaharlal Nehru dams were 'the Temples of Modern India', but for Arundhati Roy they are 'a brazen
means of taking water, land and irrigation away from the poor and gifting it to the rich' (Roy 1999: 28). Roy
seems to uphold one of the axioms of postcolonial ecocriticism: “there is no social justice without
ecological justice” (Huggan and Tiffin 2010: 35).
A few facts given by Roy in her essay may be helpful here. India is the third largest dam-builder in
the world, having built over three thousand big dams in the sixty-odd years since independence. Of these
dams, several of the largest and best known belong to the state-administered Narmada Valley
Development Project, considered to be 'India's Greatest Planned Environmental Disaster' (Roy 1999: 44),
which spans over three states (Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra). This hugely ambitious project
despite mass protests is still considered a viable proposition, and conceives of building '3,200 dams that
will reconstitute the Narmada and her forty-one tributaries into a series of step reservoirs - an immense
staircase of amenable water' (33). Two of these dams, the giant Sardar Sarovar in Gujarat and the Narmada
Sagar in Madhya Pradesh, will hold 'more water than any other reservoir on the Indian subcontinent' (33).
The project aims to provide electricity and safe drinking water for millions while irrigating millions of
hectares of infertile farming land. From its inception, however, the project has been fraught with problems.
It will affect the lives of 25 million people who live in the valley, mostly Adivasis; who will be 'ousted from
their land, with irreparable damage being done to their daily lives, their economic self-sufficiency, and
their culture' (Huggan and Tiffin 2010: 46). The evidence suggests that the project may consume more
electricity than it produces and the astronomic cost of the project will push 'the country into an economic
bondage it may never overcome' (Roy 1999: 35). Roy suggests that this increasing privatization of energy
sources in India will lead to the disempowerment of the people and the selling off of energy stock to private
companies in a country where seventy percent of the population still lives in rural areas, amounts to a
'barbaric dispossession on a scale that has no parallel in history' (47).
Roy's text launches an attack on a 'quintessentially neocolonialist Iron Triangle politicians,
bureaucrats and corporations, often with International Aid banking - which has exploited the progressivist
ideologies of Third World economic development for its own immediate purposes' (Huggan and Tiffin
2010: 49). Roy's later essay entitled 'the ladies have feelings, so …', focuses in detail on the divisive impact

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of corporate globalization on a country like India 'where something akin to a civil war is being waged on its
citizens in the name of “development”' (Roy 2002: 169). In works of both the writers, Saro-Wiwa and
Arundhati Roy the state's allocation and management of natural resources can be seen as a postcolonial
version of 'ecological imperialism' (Crosby 1986: 196) in which it becomes clear that the forced march to
development and industrialization has had disastrous cultural, as well as ecological effects (Guha 2000:
196).
One striking feature of the 'environmentalism of the poor' has been the significant and sometimes
determining role played by women. In both the above-mentioned movements, women have effortlessly
assumed leadership roles, Medha Patkar and Arundhati Roy, for example. And also contributed more than
their fair share to making up the numbers in marches, demonstrations, strikes and fasts.
This paper concludes that to achieve complete human liberation, the very historical conditions
under which human societies have constructed themselves in hierarchical relation to other species, both
human and nonhuman needs to be challenged. The postcolonial environmentalists in India continuously
need to ask the uncomfortable questions: Development at what cost? Progress at what expense?

Works Cited
1. Crosby, Alfred. Ecological Imperialism:The Biological Expansion of Europe, 900-1900. Cambridge
University Press, 1986. Print.
2. DeLoughrey, Elizabeth and George Handley. Postcolonial Ecologies: Literature of the Environment.
Oxford University Press, 2011. Print.
3. Fanon, Franz. The Wretched of the Earth. Grove Press, 2007. Print.
4. Glotfelty, Cheryll and Harold Fromm. The Ecocriticism Reader: Landmarks in Literary Ecology.
University of Georgia Press, 1996. Print.
5. Guha, Ramchandra. Environmentalism: A Global History. Oxford University Press, 2000. Print.
6. ________. The Unquiet Woods: Ecological Change and Peasant Resistance in the Himalaya. Oxford
University Press, 1989. Print.
7. Huggan, Graham and Helen Tiffin. Postcolonial Ecocriticism: Literature, Animals, Environment.
Routledge, 2010. Print.
8. Roy, Arundhati. The Algebra of Infinite Justice. Penguin Books India, 2002. Print.
9. ________. The Greater Common Good. India Book Distributor Limited, 1999. Print.
10. Mukherjee, Upamanyu. Postcolonial Environments: Nature, Culture and the Contemporary Indian
Novel inEnglish. Palgrave Macmillan, 2010. Print.

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152
GEOCRITICAL REPRESENTATION OF SPACE, PLACE AND LANDSCAPE IN
SELECT WORKS OF V. S. NAIPAUL

K. S. Saradhambal, Assistant Professor and Head, Department of English, Sri Vasavi College,
Erode, Tamil Nadu

Abstract:
Geographically inflected literary studies, devoted to space and spatiality emerged to bring about
the relationship between man and the place of living. Literary geography enabled a relationship between
man, space and place. Mapping of space, place and literary geography expanded the theory and practice
of Geocriticism by using a wide variety of texts to explore different geographical locations and different
types of space in literature and the world. The representation of landscape in postcolonial narratives
analyse the transnational setting of space and place around the world. The aftermath of the colonialism
had brought about movement of people all around the world either forcefully or willingly. There was lot
that depended on the settler's relationship with the land all around the globe.
Physical and psychological land possession was the struggles of colonization and the migrants'
relationship with the alien places. Migrant's interaction with the landscape form the key site dealt in the
narrative works of V.S. Naipaul's that came from a migrant's colony. The selected works taken for this study
dealt mainly with three places, Trinidad, India and England. The three countries represented Naipaul's
association with place with partial alienness and partial connection to it. The present study attempts to
bring out the relationship between the writer and the places he represented in his literary works.

Keywords: Space, place, Landscape, Migration, Transnational.

The earth is in effect one world, in which empty, uninhabited spaces virtually do not exist. Just
as none of us is outside or beyond geography, none of us is completely free from the struggle
over geography. (Said 7)
Naipaul with his transnational connections created his own place through travelling and writing.
This space provided him with a broader imaginative and creative space. It also gave the writer, the migrant
to have more chance to choose possibilities from their multi-spatial background.Trinidad was examined as
migrant's relationship with the land and description of its landscape of settlers as defender of their own
piece of land. India the place of his origin, the land of his ancestors was explored by his journey to the
nation which remained an area of darkness since his childhood days. The landscapes shocked the writer
when he confronted with the stark reality of the place. England was seen by Naipaul as a post-colonial
musing about the landscape and about the change that dominated it.
The exile of the twenty-first century inevitably negotiates between spaces as between cultures.
Naipaul negotiates and finds a temporary place for himself between national spaces and writing was a very
potent way of performing such a negotiation. Tally reiterated this association as, “I have argued that it is
equally useful to focus on types of places, spatial practices, geographical modes of analysis, and literary
techniques that are not site specific but that are nonetheless integral to the field of geography and to our
understanding of the human experience of space and place” (25).
The post-colonial novels similarly associated reflection on the landscape with musing over the
plight of colonization. The narrative space devoted to landscape described what the new landscape looked
GEOCRITICAL REPRESENTATION OF SPACE, PLACE AND LANDSCAPE IN SELECT WORKS OF V. S. NAIPAUL 529
like to the settlers. The experience of their first sight of the land and their struggle to transform the land into
something farmable and toiling to build houses and other structures formed the main element of the literary
geography. The texts mainly concerned about landscape correlated with thought about the land. Naipaul
can see little scope of undoing the consequences of imperialism, the way it eroded meanings of possible
histories and cultures. Escaping the actual realities of slavery, Biswas and many other characters carry this
coloinized consciousness within them, the way Naipaul himself carries it within him, its complex
workings through this knowledge of the present modern spatial realities. To Helen Tiffin, A House for
Mr.Biswas (AHMB) was a significant text because of the gap between the lived world and the realm of the
Anglo-written was so prominent.
…in A House for Mr Biswas Naipaul had found a way to write his society and in doing so
rendered visible the dynamic operations of a persisting textual hegemony in colonial and post-
colonial areas. In figuring the operations of this destructive (but potentially liberating)
complex, Naipaul had presented… for the first time with a picture of 'my' place. (120)
The major force of his writings was of the Caribbean in which he was born and brought up. The first
link he had here was the Hindu-India, the India of his ancestors. Though he did not, understand much about
the Hindu rules and rituals of his grandmother's house, there was always something sacred that this life in
Caribbean exposed him to the very idea of India. As he grew up Naipaul observed the link between the
other space and the space that he inhabited. One was the colonial world of Trinidad and the other was the
old Hindu world, the East Indian space. In spite of Naipaul's rejection of this place he found later it was
experience of this place that evolved his writings. Caribbean roots, culture and experience of the spatiality
that define the thrust of some of his early novels particularly A House for Mr Biswas.
In A House for Mr Biswas the East Indian immigrants struggle to find a foot hold in the new place
involved their quest for order in the colonial ethos. In such a situation these immigrants were faced with the
dilemma of either escaping from the place or fighting against the spatial order of the place. This novel
particularly was developed deep into an individual's sufferings because of the displacement. Biswas'
struggle against the forces was a long one but was successful in his negotiation for space and finally
achieved his dream of owning a small piece of land, a house of his own.
Biswas stood as an example of the immigrants in the new place. Naipaul himself was born to an
Indian immigrant family who came from Uttar Pradesh in India to Trinidad in the 1880's. They came to
work in the sugarcane fields as indentured labourers. Their exposure to the new place which was
completely different from their native place formed the core of this novel. Naipaul's maternal grandfather
had bought many acres of cane land and rice land and built his Indian style house. They lived in Chaguanas
in Trinidad. As the writer has stated in Finding the Centre: “Chaguanas was in the heart of the sugar area
and the Indian area of Trinidad. It was where my mother's family was established. Contract labours were
far behind them; they were big landowners” (34).
A House for Mr.Biswas anchored Naipaul's capacity to capture the transition nature of the social
space and the transition of East Indian Space which forge through new spatial order. Lefebvre on writing of
space explained that the writers respond to the anxiety about the alternative condition of space in which
they live. Trinidad was an alternative space forNaipaul, the novel's negotiations of space of realism works
on national and transnational placement. His engagement with the transnational space aided to determine
the boundaries of the text, self and nation.
Naipaul explored the geographical borders brought about by globalisation and characterized the
space of transnational identities. Indian life lived in Trinidad, the Hindu Gods erected in front of their
house and prayers and rituals was performed in native culture in the present time and place. The East
Indian's distance from their Indian native location marked the geographical and civilizational difference.
The novel belonged to a single national tradition but inhabited the space of the transnational and made it a

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place of their representation. The impossible space was turned into familiar places. Maria Koundoura
rightly pointed out on her reflections of space and place, “We live in spaces and occupy places, placed
thoroughly by ordering principle of states, of narratives of our own knowledge of things and of our selves”
(131).
From his birth to his death Biswas mostly lived in a series of houses that either belonged to him.
Each of these houses was for him an attempt at solving problem and each one was a wrong answer in a
different way. From one unsuitable house to another, from Hanuman House to The Chase to Green Vale to
Shorthills and to Port of Spain. These residential places were mere walls and roofs to Biswas except the one
he owned at the end. After Biswas bought his house he felt now how terrible it would have been to have
lived “ without even attempting to lay claim to one's portion of the earth; to have lived and died as one had
been born, unnecessary and accommodated” (AHMB 13-14).
Naipaul began his journey to India in 1962, the place from which his grandfathers had been brought
to Trinidad as indentured labourers. The place of India in An Area of Darkness(AOD) was meaningful
despite the fact that he was many generations away from India as a native of West Indies and residence in
England. Indian space of the writer's mind came to fore when he visited and travelled throughout the
physical place of India. His interest to the Indian space came in many ways, by ancestry, the way of Indian
life followed by his forefather in Trinidad during his childhood days and many artefacts and rituals of India
that surrounded him in his early life. All these factors formed the basis to keep India alive in his mind.
Naipaul's journey to Indian space was undertaken as an exploration of this area of darkness in his mind
with that of the physical geography of place. Landscape of his mind in contact with the physical landscape
of the place confronted with stark reality.
This journey was undertaken with great expectations by the writer. To him India was everything
with its rich past and ancient civilization. India was mother land and mother culture for most of his Trinidad
Indians. The writer expected from India this largeness both geographically and of intellect. The physical
India was found as in tiny Trinidad. He carried the entire burden of his past to connect and validate to the
physical reality of India that was why as thought by Naipaul, An Area of Darkness remained a difficult
book for him to write. He found the experience of the geography of India too personal to be written into a
novel. His visit to India was entirely different from other places of his writings. Exploring the place was
more of exploring his own unanswered question of his origin.
An Area of Darkness was the first book on India written after his first visit to the nation. The author-
traveller made a convincing attempt to negotiate with space of India, the land of his forefathers. It was a
culture shock for him because of his sudden exposure to the foreign reality of the place. Inspite of the
ambivalent attitude of the narrator, the narrative showed a gradual development of a greater willingness to
negotiate with the complex spatial reality of India. The novel began with an anecdote of arrival to the place.
His arrival was registered as, “The physique of Europe had melted away first into that of Africa and then,
through semitic Arabia, into Aryan Asia” (AOD 16). Having arrived at Bombay, he travelled north to
Kashmir, East to Calcutta and South to Chennai and also had a pilgrimage to Amarnath in the Himalayas,
Srinagar and to Kashmir. He described places, people and incidents and created a deep insight into the
physical reality of the country.
His visit to Himalayas, the five-foot ice lingam of Amarnath reflected Naipaul's subdued love for
his ancestral place. It was his inner faith and reverence that pulled him to pay a visit to the ancient shire of
Amarnath. As a pilgrim to Amarnath, he experienced a special joy at the sight of Himalayan landscape.
The cave lies thirteen thousand feet up the eighteen-thousand -foot Amarnath Mountain, some
ninety miles north-east of Srinagar, and his made holy by the five-foot ice lingam, a symbol of
Shiva, which forms during the summer months. The lingam, it is believed waxes and wanes
with the moon and reaches its greatest height on the day of the August full moon: on this day

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the pilgrimage arrives (AOD 164).
The mystery of the place and his ingrained faith impelled him to visit the ancient shrine Amarnath,
“To me the true mystery of the cave lay in its situation…How had the cave been discovered? How had its
mystery been established? The land was bare; it offered no fuel or food” (AOD 164-65). Million had made
the journey but the land bear no signs of their passage and “each year in the cave the ice lingam formed. The
mystery was forever new” (AOD 166). The nature's beauty was bountiful in the Amaravati stream,
“sunlight white rock, water, bare bodies and brilliant garment. It was a scene of pastoral at thirteen
thousand feet” (AOD 180). Naipaul's description of the pilgrimage was intense and powerful. He was in
fact was awed by the unlikely association of the Hindus in the vast plains of India with a cave placed high in
the Himalayas.
On the return journey, Naipaul felt his unwillingness to depart from the place, “I would have
preferred to remain a little longer in the mountains…Later I thought. Later we would come back and spend
an entire summer among these mountains” (AOD 182). Inspite of the lack of living reality of the liminal
place, Naipaul felt his affiliation to the place stronger. The geography of the place had created a feeling of
awe to Naipaul as to millions of Indians. Himalayas served the purpose of his visit true to his own
experience of the physical reality of the place which was once a distant dream and also gave him some
resemblance of the India of his ancestors.
The visit to his ancestral house in the village of the Dubes turned out to be a moment of despair and
pent-up regret over the loss: “India had not worked its magic on me. It remained the land my childhood, an
area of darkness; . . . In a year I had not learned acceptance, I had learned my separateness from India, was
content to be a colonial, without a past, without ancestors” (AOD 252). The real episode of migrant
narrator's homecoming in which the past collapsed into the present, the imaginary penetrated in to the
physical. In his grandfather's house when his family photographs were shown to him he felt, “as old to me
and as forgotten as the images; and it was again disturbing to my sense of place and time to handle them”
(AOD 256). Naipaul's this encounter with his forgotten past erased the outsider and insider division and
ended in “fertility, and impatience, a gracious act of cruelty, self reproach and flight”(AOD 263). He was
not able to respond to the darkness of India, the unfamiliarity of the place.
Flight was what culminated after a year's stay in India by Naipaul. His distance from Indian space
was too large to be bridged. He fled from India. It was due to the otherness of the place and heterotopic
exposure of spatiality that made Naipaul to make a flight from this place. But he did not stop here, he made
a series of two other visits to the country and penned down another two novels which unravelled the
physicality of the Indian space and negotiated to strike a better understanding of the complex spatiality of
India.
English landscape was discovered as such by Naipaul in Enigma of Arrival (EOA) His experiences
centred on Wiltshire in the South of England, where he rented a cottage in a large estate. He observed rural
life around him, his neighbours and his landlord. He speculated on change and passing temporality and
decay of the physical place. The landscape of the agricultural England along with the glories of his past
landscape of Trinidad agricultural place was manured to fit to the expression of his situation in a place or
places. This work culminated the writer's reworking of his factual experiences to different places. The
narrator of the novel described him, “as an intruder, not from another village or country, but from another
hemisphere” (EOA 285). From Indian background and from the Caribbean in rural England, the spatial
interconnection of the writer formed the basis of this narrative on London.
Broadly based on Naipaul's 12-year period as resident of Teasel cottage in the grounds of Wilsford
Manor in Wiltshire, the novel draws for its backdrop on the landscape well-known for Stonehenge, ancient
monuments and chalk streams.It is a landscape that retains a peculiar appeal to the English sense of place.
This landscape had failed to fully scrutinize the triangulated imperial and personal histories underpinning

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Naipaul's relationship to India, Trinidad and England in constructing his sense of loss and longing to the
place in this novel, The Enigma of Arrival.
Naipaul revisited rural England through rural India and Trinidad, and considers how these routes
contributed to the roots of his own highly strained places as an immigrant in England.On several occasions
in The Enigma of Arrival,Naipaul asserts that his years spent inWiltshire afforded him a “second child-
hood of seeing and learning, [a] second life, so far away from [his] first” (EOA 87), where he was able to
indulge in a child-like process of discovery that reconnected him with a spontaneous delight in nature and
the countryside.
The narrator was very conscious of himself as an outsider from another world, observed the lives
and landscapes that surrounded him, the small country towns and rural roads of Wiltshire. He observed
Wiltshire from the perspective of his origin in Trinidad. His travel to Trinidad and India afterward
refreshed his inclination to the places. As he had commented in The overcrowded Baracoon: “I am able to
refresh myself by travel-to Trinidad to India- I fear that living here [in England] will eventually lead to my
own sterility” (16-17). Wherever Naipaul travelled, he drew on the ambivalent experiences of his early
years, and those experiences shaped his response to the new material.
Naipaul here reversed the tradition of British fiction of the metropolitan traveller travel through the
colonial world and report back to metropolitan audience. But in this novel instead of Trinidad seen from
Wiltshire, the rural England's landscape was seen from the Caribbean. The rural Wiltshire was constantly
compared to the Caribbean landscape. In Jack's garden, Jack's working in the garden was recalled by the
narrator of his father's work on a small ground in Trinidad. He compared both the landscape and was
delighted to note that the gladiolus flower flourishes both in England and in Trinidad and in his eyes the
snow found in this place took the shape of the sand on the Trinidad beach. At the same time, estate in
Wiltshire landscape was grand whereas, in Trinidad it was many small houses at the edges.
The narrator's analysis of the English landscape was unusual to the tradition of British fiction from
late nineteenth century to the present. Normally the British traveller journey to distant part of the world to
unravel the landscapes but in this novel a reversed role had taken place where the Caribbean narrator in
England examined himself in the context of English landscape. This nature of new reverse role in studying
the unknown landscape from the non-western perspective facilitated to the understanding of almost
entirely all the places that encompass the world in the form his literary landscape.
The novel thus serve to powerfully articulate an acceptance of the half-formed ruralspatiality that
collectively constructed Naipaul's postcolonial places of living, rooted in his relationship to rural England
and routed through rural India and Trinidad. For example, in regarding a dairy cow on the Wiltshire downs,
Naipaul recollected that the cows in Trinidad were from a different past, of peasant India, and Hindus kept
a cow amongst them for “its link with the immemorial past” (EOA 85). Rural England created the crucial
setting through which Naipaul reformed the vague remains of his rural landscape that link him to India and
Trinidad.
In an attempt to understand Naipaul's complex literary persona, this spatial analysis was made by
looking into his texts to trace the influences of India, England and Trinidad. The writer's association with
the transnational landscape made him resistant to any one particular place. The impact that these landscape
had produced, had created a lasting mark on his personality. In an interview with Rahul Singh he said,
“…… I was born in Trinidad, I have lived most of my life in England and India is the land of my ancestors.
That says it all. I am not English, not Indian, not Trinidadian. I am my own person” (5).This very
association of these places, the reason for his existence as a being, made him transcend boundaries of
places to map it in his literary space. It has paved him to give a brilliant world view of the all the places of
his visit. In its Nobel citation to Naipaul, Swedish Academy rightly remarked, “your books trace the
outline of an individual quest of unusual dimensions” (qtd.in Ray XVI). Naipaul had thus created the

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importance of inevitability of place in literature of modern days by scaling through different spaces of his
transnational connections.

Works Cited
Naipaul, V.S. A House for Mr Biswas.New York: Penguin, 1969. Print.
---. An Area of Darkness.New York: Vintage Books, 2002. Print.
---. Enigma of Arrival. London: Pan Macmillan Ltd., 2002. Print.
---. Finding the Centre.London: Penguin, 1985. Print.
---. The Overcrowded Barracoon, Harmondsworth: Penquin, 1967. p 16-17.
Koundoura Maria, Transnational Culture, Transnational Identity: The Politics and Ethics of Global
Culture Exchange, I.B. Tauris& Co. Ltd., New York, 2012.p. 131.
Kristeva, Julia.Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection, trans. Leon S .Roudiez, Columbia UP, New
York.1982.
Lefebvre Henri, The Production of Space, trans. Donald Nicholson Smith. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 199,
p. 33.
Ray K. Mohit. (ed.) V.S. Naipaul Critical Essays. New Delhi: Atlantic Publishers. 2005.
Said Edward.Culture and ImperialismNew York: Vintage, 1994. P.7
Schama Simon, Landscape and Memory, New York: Vintage, 1996. 10.
Singh Rahul. Interview with V.S. Naipaul, in The Times of India Feb. 19, 2002.p. 5.
Tiffin, Helen. 'Lie Bak and Think of England: Post colonial Literature and the Academy' in
HenaMaesJelinek, Kirst Holst Peterson and Anna Rutherford. Eds. A Shaping of Connections:
Commonwealth Literary Studies, Then and Now. Dangaroo Press, 1989.
White Landeg, V.S. Naipaul: A Critical Introduction, New York: Barnes and Nobel, 1975, p.88.

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153
AUTHORITARIAN CENSORSHIP: A PSYCHO-HISTORICAL STUDY BASED ON
BRECHT'S 'THE BURNING OF THE BOOKS'

Raisun Mathew, Assistant Professor, Department of English, RU College of Management &

Technology, Kochi, Kerala
Affiliated to Mahatma Gandhi University, Kottayam, Kerala, India

Abstract:
The concept of 'master race' propagated by Adolf Hitler was a mask to the actual inferior
characteristic possessed by him and his Nazi regime out of his fear for the loss of power. Censorship that
leads to the burning of books was a tool to repress opposing ideologies. The collective memory of Nazi
Germany from the past and the contemporary scenario of Europe about the race of Jews and the
authoritarian trait of Hitler together presented the worst condition to the existence of the Jewish
community under the dictatorship of Hitler. Use of Ideological and Repressive State Apparatuses
effectively against the opposing voices does not show his confidence in superior authoritarianism, but
bring forth the hidden fear of becoming cast as inferior in the near future by his enemy forces, especially
the Jews. Censorship during the Nazi regime can only be counted in terms of bigotry as they had no moral
stand to certify the other way. Authoritarian theories of personality by Theodor Adorno and Alfred Adler
lay psychological justification to the characteristics of the dictatorship enjoyed by the Nazi regime. Ideas
of Maurice Halbwachs on Collective memory and historical approach to chronological data of Jewish
exiles and massacres are stated to substantiate the idea of the paper.

Keywords: Gleichschaltung, Collective Memory, ISA, RSA, authoritarian trait.

'Burn me! 'He wrote with his blazing pen-

Haven't I always reported the truth?
Now here you are, treating me like a liar!
Burn me! (Brecht)
The foremost utterance from BertoltBrecht against the burning of books that were categorized as
the 'unlawful literature' by the Nazi ideology led by Adolf Hitler as part of the 'Gleichschaltung' process
that was held enthusiastically out of the utmost brutal dictatorship resonates the voice of many writers who
stood for truth to fly above the trumped-up believes of a dominant category. Nazi Germany of 1933 to 1945,
under the rule of the dictator Adolf Hitler had witnessed extreme savagery in the name of Supremacy of
race. Literature that is not a kind of German wasideologically cleansed to safeguard the policies of the
Nazi Party. Those against the wish of Hitler's ideology were selected for persecution without any
consideration. The list may include literature from Jewish, communist, socialist, pacifist and anarchist
authors. 'Gleichschaltung', a Nazi terminology is a process for 'Nazification' of Germany under Hitler on
every possible means of social communication including education, economy, and culture. The ideology of
Nazism is injected on to everyone through the process along with effective means to eviscerate the
opposing voices.
Bertolt Brecht being a poet, playwright, theatre director, social critic, was noted for his writings for
the truth that he voiced against the dominant power structures of the political system. His plays were
banned in Germany in the 1930s, and he went into exile in 1933. His books were openly burned in Berlin
AUTHORITARIAN CENSORSHIP: A PSYCHO-HISTORICAL STUDY BASED ON BRECHT'S 'THE BURNING OF THE BOOKS' 535
after which he moved to Demark, Finland and then to California. Being a communist, he was against the
rule of Hitler who focused on killing the Jews believing them to be the inferior race that pollutes the purity
of the superior Aryan race.
'The Burning of the Books', a tragicomic protest against censorship and ignorance reflects the
similar idea of Holocaust of the same period. Hitler was engaged in brutally killing the Jews termed to be
as the “final solution”. Beginning at the camp of Belzec, near Lubin, on March 17, 1942, the mass gassing
after the blind-eyed viciousness in the tightly packed concentration camps, a number of around six million
European Jews were massacred. Brecht ironically asks the authorities to burn him too in the bonfire
prepared to burn the selected books that have been against the authoritarian regime of Hitler. It started as
a campaign led by the German Student Union to ceremonially burn books in Nazi Germany and Austria. In
the poem, while the poet scrutinizes the huge cartload of excommunicated books brought to be burned, he
notices that his works have been excluded. This made him enraged with full of contemptuous wrath to write
fierce letters to the authorities in power. He does so because if his books are not burned with the selected
load of excommunicated books, the society might stamp him as a fraud and liar who cheated them all his
life by being ideologically on the same track with that of Hitler. He wants the authorities to take the rightful
decision of burning his books too which would make him the bearer of truth before the society. Through
ironical way of presentation, the poet subverts the act intended to destroy and suppress inconvenient facts
or truth into the very thing that verifies and validates the reality writers attempt to record in their works
(Issues that matter).In 1821, Heinrich Hein wrote his play Almansor, "Where books are burned, in the end,
people will also be burned” which have turned out to be a foreteller of Nazi Holocaust that was held
massively less than a decade after the burning of books in 1933.
Censorship, the core theme of Brecht's poem is defined by the Oxford Dictionaries as the
suppression or prohibition of any parts of books, films, news, etc. that are considered obscene, politically
unacceptable or a threat to security.It is to be noted that the definition counts three examples such as
obscenity, political unacceptability and threat to security. In a slightly different perspective, the idea of
censorship can be modified based on these three examples in the dictionary. Censorship can also be said as
a process done in a society that has not yet been progressed in their ideological and intellectual thinking.
Intolerance of a society to an idea, supposedly an external idea which is different from their perspectival
approach to the way of understanding can welcome the restrictions from authorities. There are challenged
and banned books in several countries due to various reasons. A few prominent reasons might arise due to
political, social, pornographic, religious, criminal or cultural intolerance of the society to the idea
expressed in the book. In the case of Nazi Germany, the burning of the books and the holocaust is out of
many reasons including cultural, religious, economic, racial and political fears.While searching for the
base cause of Hitler's grave against the Jews, it counts back to centuries and answers that it is not Hitler who
was against the race of Jews, but many. Anti-Semitism, defined to be the hostility to or prejudice against
Jews rolls back to the history where the notable instance express the rage against Jews. As per the
chronological data provided by 'The Jewish Agency for Israel', there are several instances in which the
community of Jews were humiliated and made exiles from different regions. To Manetho, a Greco-
Egyptian historian, it starts with expulsion from Egypt as lepers in around 3rd century BCE. The most
popular among the chronological data is the massacre of the Jews of the Rhineland during the first Crusade
during the 1096-99 AD, wave of massacres and conversions in Spain and Balearic Islands in 1391, the
Cossack's massacre in 1648, the expulsion and anti-Jewish pogroms against Russian Jews in 1885 etc. In
recent history, opposition to the creation of a Jewish homeland in the State of Israel has raised serious
consequences (“Anti-Semitism”).
In the case of Nazi Anti-Semitism, fear might have turned authoritarianism to be against the Jewish
community. Reflections of Nazi Anti-Semitism were seen in the streets of Nazi-ruled Germany where the

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law and the people supporting Hitler wanted the execution of Jews to be done. Intolerance in the form of
cultural Anti-Semitism of the past by viewing the race of Jews as inferior to that of the Aryan has caused a
memory of dividable cultural difference in them. Economic Anti-Semitism outrages from the fear of the
capability of Jews in overcoming the progress and dominance of the Aryan race. Religious Anti-Semitism
also is known as anti-Judaism is a continuation of the historically similar way of ideology. Racial Anti-
Semitism of Nazi rule is purely based on the ideology of superior-inferior categorization. This type of Anti-
Semitic attitude held by Hitler through his Nazi regime against the Jews was based on the collective
memory of his personal and social atmosphere. Historically, Jews were haunted by the ill-fate of Anti-
Semitism in various parts of Europe.
Maurice Halbwachs in his book 'On Collective Memory' definescollective memory as a shared
pool of memories, knowledge and information of a social group that is significantly associated with the
group's identity. A person or a group of people of a particular generation is the sum total of collective
memories of their past, shared and communicated by generations. Collective memory has in itself the
communicative memory that includes the social roles and the cultural memory that contains the
wholesome historical, mythical and traditional memories. The cultural memory of Nazi Germany was
shaped to be against the race of Jews due to historical, political, economic and cultural reasons that might
have been manipulated by power structures for their vested interests. Many a time, the collective memory
goes in a match with the ideology of the power structures; the government uses ideological state apparatus
and the repressive state apparatus to suppress the unwelcomed entry of a different ideology that they fear
would make a change to their noble existence. Conflicts and controversies arise when the collective
memory has to receive an unmatched ideological intruder. In the Nazi German model of censorship, as
referred in the poem by Brecht, the intrusion of opposite voices via literature writings by authors have
made a conflict of ideological beliefs. Here, Hitler's ideology of forming a superior class of Aryan
Germans by cleansing the Jewish community stands in one side of the ground against the voices that
oppose his ideology. The collective memory gained by the Nazi supporters from the past and the present
state of Germany when supported by the power structures uses the tools of Ideological State Apparatus for
its benefits as proposed by Louis Althusser in his 'Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses'. Forceful
repression using government machinery, law, police or Army is utilized by governments to suppress the
intrusion of such different ideologies against their model of ideology. The burning of the 'un-German'
material, which comprises opposing ideas and thoughts from various authors thus, has a connection to the
whole of history which shaped the collective memory of the Nazi Germans especially that of Hitler.
Theodor W. Adorno in his 'The Authoritarian Personality' states that individuals possessing
authoritarian characteristics in attitude are highly sensitive to totalitarian and anti-democratic ideas which
make them highly prejudicial. They seem to be more hostile to people of inferior status and are obedient to
people of high status. They uphold conventional and traditional values of their society with rigidity in
opinion and beliefs. Hitler, one of the cruellest dictators that the world has seen comes under the category
of authoritarian personality. He was rigid in his decision without the obstacles of emotional rambling. His
categorization of “us (superior)” and “them (inferior)” has created all the consequences in the fate of Jews.
The Authoritarian trait of Hitler, as in the theory by Adorno expresses fascistic characters. Ethnocentrism
was highly acclaimed by Adolf Hitler who always informed Germany that Aryans were the superior class
and the Jews to be inferior. Jesse Cleveland Owens, one of the greatest American athletes of all time writes
in his autobiographical sketch, 'My Greatest Olympic Prize'about his personal experience during the
Berlin Olympics, 1936. She writes:
It was the summer of 1936. The Olympic Games were being held in Berlin.Because Adolf
Hitler childishly insisted that his performers were members of a 'master race', nationalistic
feelings were at an all-time high (Owens)

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Ownes shattered Hitler's myth of Aryan Supremacy by becoming the most successful athlete of the
1936 Olympic Games. Ethnocentrism was the key tool that Hitler used to unite Germany according to his
ideology. His obsession for rank and status and to rule Germany as a dictator imbibing the notion of
superior vs. inferior race comes out of his fear for the loss of power and submission to a so believed inferior
race of Jews. Alfred Adler's personality theory informs us about the aggressiveness to perfectness in all
means which might have obsessed Hitler to make his cruel decisions. All are born with a sense of
inferiority. A child strives to become an adult for being perfect and eventually, he strives more and more for
attaining a perfect identity. Inferiority and aggressiveness to perfectness combine to a mixed state as a
person grows which in an authoritarian trait would be high. Authoritarian governments fear for being
suppressed at some point of time which makes them go into repressive actions against opposing
ideologies. Hitler comes under the ruling type personality of Adorno.
Burning of books as a tool of extreme modes of censorship arises out of intolerance which
indirectly points to the fears of being overthrown from power. In the poem, a group of authors including
Brecht had opposed the ideas of Hitler that made the burning of books as similar as the Nazi had done to the
Jewish holocaust. Back to the previous point of the three examples of censorship stated in the Oxford
Dictionaries, the threat to security can be reversed back to the authority that fear for their secure
positioning in power. Toni Morrison writes in her essay, 'Peril' about the fear of authorities on opposing
voices raised by authors.
Authoritarian regimes, dictators, despots are often, but not always, fools. But none is
foolish enough to give perspective, dissident writers' free range to publish their judgements
or follow their creative instincts. They know they do so at their own peril. (Morrison)
Thus, the terms 'superiority' and 'master race' by the Nazi regime led by Adolf Hitler is just a
political tool in which he gathered his supporters together against a previously led active hatred toward the
race of Jew. Censorship, holocaust and the burning of 'unlawful' books though are produced as a by-
product of an authoritarian regime; it actually is a constructed mask out of the fear for being presented
inferior in any circumstances led by the enemy category.

References
1. “A Brief Chronology of Anti-Semitism”, The Jewish Agency for Israel, The Jewish Agency. 2015,
http://www.jewishagency.org/jewish-history/content/36936. Accessed 06 March 2019.
2. Adler, Alfred. The Practice and Theory of Individual Psychology, Martino Publishing2011.
3. Adorno, Theodor W, et al. The Authoritarian Personality. New York: Harper, 1950.
4. Althusser, Louis. Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays. London: New Left Books, 1977.
5. Anitha, R. and James, Jimmy, editors. Issues That Matter. Macmillan Education, 2007.
6. “Anti-Semitism”, Keter Publishing House, Jerusalem, 1974.
7. Halbwachs, Maurice, and Lewis A. Coser. On Collective Memory, University of Chicago Press,
Chicago, 1992.
8. Morrison, Tony. “Peril”, Burn This Book. Harper Collins Publishers, 2009.
9. Owens, Jesse. and Neimark, Paul G. Jesse: A Spiritual Autobiography. Logos International, 1978.
10. “The Holocaust”, History, A&E Television Networks, 2009.
https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/the-holocaust. Accessed 06 March 2019.

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154
SEXUAL PERVERSION AND PHYSICAL DISABILITY IN FIRDAUS KANGA'S
WORKS

Sk. Shaheen, Research Scholar, Acharya Nagarjuna University, Guntur

Prof. K. Ratna Shiela Mani, Department of English, Acharya Nagarjuna University, Guntur, India

Abstract:
In postcolonial writings Disability Studies occupy a prominent place especially in social sciences
and humanities. It is observed that the most of the Indian writings in English are likely to reveal that the
physically challenged people rarely find a remarkable place in representation as they have been perceived
as being emblematic of the stigmatic stature they enjoy in the society, where they are portrayed as people to
be feared, pitied or sometimes extraordinarily revered. In the novel Trying to Grow, Brit, the protagonist is
deprived of his rights as a human being. This study intends to discuss how sexual orientation and physical
disability play a vital role in understanding the identity of a person, with special reference to the novel
Trying to Grow by Firdaus Kanga.

Keywords: disability, identity, deprived, rights of human being.

In postcolonial writings Disability Studies occupy a prominent place especially in social sciences,
and humanities. Disability can be defined as long-term physical, mental, intellectual or sensory
impairments which hinder the full and effective participation in the society on an equal basis with others.
An attempt is made to portray the actual plight of disability and how able-bodied people look on disabled
people as 'Other', as different from them and not as an individual.
Kanga was born in Bombay in 1960 in a westernized Parsi family. He was born with a disease
known as Osteogenesis Imperfecta (brittle bone). Because of this disease, he was forced to spend most of
his childhood in an apartment in Bombay. Being a disabled person, Kanga built around himself a universe
of literature populated by gay writers such as James Baldwin and E.M.Forster and female novelists such as
Iris Mudoch.
Kanga's first novel is Trying to Grow (1990) a semi-autobiographical novel which explored the life
of Darius Kotwal who suffered from Osteogenesis Imperfecta, a brittle bones disease. Trying to Grow
garnered international attention when it was published in a British edition by Bloomsbury. In 1991 Kanga
published a travelogue Heaven on Wheels, an account of his travels around England. In 1992 Kanga
narrated Pratibha Parmar's television docudrama on disability and homosexuality entitled Double the
Trouble, Twice the Fun. In 1992 he also wrote and staged a play called A Kind of Immigrant. Kanga
sketches the experience of thrice displacement; writer- as a Parsi, as a homo-sexual and as a physically
challenged person. This study intends to discuss how sexual orientation and physical disability play a vital
role in understanding the identity of a person, with special reference to the novel Trying to Grow by Firdaus
Kanga.
It is observed that the most of the Indian writings in English are likely to reveal that the physically
challenged people rarely find a remarkable place in representation as they have been perceived as being
emblematic of the stigmatic stature they enjoy in the society, where they are portrayed as people to be
feared, pitied or sometimes extraordinarily revered. Banik Somdev rightly commented about the
SEXUAL PERVERSION AND PHYSICAL DISABILITY IN FIRDAUS KANGA'S WORKS 539
representation of disability in literature: “Physical beauty is equated to goodness of the soul, while
disability to evil. The conflict between normality and deformity is presented as the archetypical conflict
between good and evil, where the evil crippled characters are hell - bent on destroying the good ones, and
eventually getting eliminated themselves. Such disabled and deformed stereotypes abound in literature”
(2016:199). Therefore, disability cannot be treated as a curse. However, third generation writers make the
physically challenged people the protagonist of their works; these works include Indra Sinha's Animal's
People and Firdaus Kanga's Trying to Grow.
Kanga in his debut novel Trying to Grow focused on the survival of a physically challenged man in
India. Besides, the author himself suffers from Osteogenesis Imperfecta, a brittle bone disease and
confined to the wheelchair. The novel deals with the struggle of the protagonist Brit, for identity and his
ultimate surrender, despite his consistent efforts to overcome the stigmatic notions of the society. His
relegation to the margins and the resultant feeling of alienation are sometimes further reinforced by the
well-ingrained codes of social behaviour of his respective communities.
The novel Trying to Grow revolves around the struggles faced by the protagonist Brit, a physically
challenged man. The doctor who treated Sera, Brit's mother, at the time of labour pain said: “I'm afraid I
have bad news for you, Sera. Your boy is born with bones brittle as glass. The ones in his legs are delicate as
test tubes; I doubt he'll ever walk. He'll probably be toothless, too; his teeth will break as soon as he bites
into anything hard” (TG: 24).
C.J. Drew in his book Mental Retardation-A Lifecycle Approach commented: “Children are the
perfect extension of a couple's love, caring and the emotional preparation for expectant parents is usually
shaped by glamorous image of the baby, a kind of ego ideal. The discrepancy between the perfect child of
their fantasy and the real child may cause negative attitudes and parenting stress. Often a range of
emotions, such as denial, guilt, blame, frustration, anger and despair, may sweep through the parents as
they are confronted by their children with disability. Loss of hope for the 'perfect child' may cause grief and
over time, the feeling may be heightened by loneliness, isolation, and exhaustion” (2008:88). But contrary
to this, Brit's mother Sera did not take the doctor's words to the heart. Instead she said to her husband:
“Sam, that was awful. He's our son, he's a boy like any other; only his body has problems. He'll cope with
them more easily than you think; they'll just be a way of life to him” (TG:25).
Wikler et al. commented: “The parents of children with disabilities may develop 'chronic sorrow'
characterized by periodic recurrence of sadness, guilt, shock and pain. They may be plagued by feelings of
pessimism; hostility, shame, denial, projection of blame, guilt, grief, withdrawal, rejection and
acceptance” (1981:88). Sera, Brit's mother who was trying to grapple with the reality despite knowing the
stigma attached to disability not only for having a disabled child around, but also for giving birth to one.
When Sam, Dolly and Brit go on a trip of Europe and Los Angeles, Brit's mother Sera felt it as a holiday for
her but when Brit returned from the trip with his broken leg Sera said that her holidays were over. This
shows that parents feel difficult and painful to look after their physically handicapped children. The
severity of the foreseen difficulties in having an invalid child at home seems to get intensified by Sera's
words: “The holidays are over, I suppose” (TG:63).
Children with disabilities are automatically given lower standards than those without disabilities
as it is believed that physically challenged people are unfit for anything. The narrator, Brit observes in the
novel: “All the people misunderstand that the disabled are unfit to do anything when the reality is that they
are unable to do only some things”. He said: “I was perfectly capable of doing all this myself. But you know
how it is, when you can't do some things people feel you can't do anything” (TG: 52). Brit resolves to show
the society that he is not different and tries smoking when he attains teenage which he finds a habit with the
people of his age. His craving for being treated like any other adolescent person is evident in the following
statement as well. He said: “How flimsy the little white stick felt in my fingers. I put it in my mouth and

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sucked like I imagined I would on Raquel Welch's nipple. Suddenly there was a gas chamber in my chest
and the taste of burnt chicken in my mouth. For the first time in my life I saw stars” (TG: 108). Even Brit's
act of appearing before the Principal of Campion School with a copy of Tales from Toyland with the
apparent intention of creating an impression in the mind of the principal that he is a voracious reader, can be
looked at as a part of his penchant for claiming equality with others.
Disabled people have longing for self-respect. They do not want the society to take pity on their
condition; nor do they want others to choose them for a prize considering their disability. Brit, the
protagonist of the novel expresses his displeasure when it was exposed in the school that he is lurking
around the deep-end of his class, waiting for someone to do worse than him. He claims that this is not true
and he questions why he should be given prizes. He explains his problem thus: “I won prizes all the time for
everything from moral science to general science. Once I even won a prize for nothing” (TG: 47). Father
Ferra considers the prize of Brit as a 'shining reward' for his strength of spirit, whereas Brit hates the prize
thinking that he does not deserve it. Brit felt that his school resolves to encourage him with prizes and
awards even when he does not deserve them, as expressive of the general attitude of the society towards the
disabled.
Parents of disabled persons developed feelings such as anxiety, guilt, insecurity, emotional
instability, self-pity and hopelessness. They dream about his/her child being 'perfect' in all respects. When
there is disability inspite of above-average intelligence, the disappointed parents become over-protective.
They are not prepared to accept the disabled as they are, and they seek all ways to get the condition cured.
For instance, in search of a cure for his disability, Brit's father takes him to Wagh Baba, a witch doctor, who
is believed to be a holy man having powers to cure disability, though the attempt ends in vain. Secondly, his
disability gradually makes him alienated. This was reinforced by the marginalized status of the disabled
within his Parsi community. Brit tries to address his predicament with composure and courage by
concealing his inner feelings by being humorous and normal; he faced the challenges with a smiling face.
Jaydipsinh Dodiya commented: “The protagonist's endeavour in the novel is to find an identity for
himself as he is buffeted between the ridicule of his neighbours on the one hand and over-protective love of
his parents on the other” (2006:26). Chandra rightly commented:
Brit's parents could not recognize their son's real aspirations. Instead of providing him the
desired moral strength to withstand the overwhelming presence of social prejudices, they
demean his abilities by showing a blind affection that expresses only hope and sympathy,
which according to Brit, will be of no use to achieve his identity. Thus Brit proves to others,
and more importantly to himself, that he is capable of rolling the scorned rock and yet be
happy, to the extent it is possible to be happy in this world full of hurts and heartbreaks
(1994:141).

But this does not mean that Brit was able to overcome the stigmatic conditions imposed on him,
rather he appeared to be thrown between inclusion and exclusion. Brit informs Sam, his father, that he does
not feel anything atypical though he suffers out of alienation and pretends to be happy. But Sam guesses
rightly that his son masks his weeping heart with a smiling face. Sam seems to be sure that Brit's words are
not true and tries to bring out from his son's mouth the fact that he suffers in many ways because of his
difference and asks as follows: “Or is it just your brave act? Smiling face, weeping heart. Y' know, like that
movie we saw last week about the circus clown, how he was always putting on his comic act while he was
really having a rotten time” (TG:36).
Sexuality is an important part of a human being. The Psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud wrote:
“Libido, or sexual energy, is the energy of all the life instincts that serve the purpose of the survival of the
individual and the human race, growth, development and creativity” (1992:56). In general, sexuality is still

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a taboo subject and disability is considered as an asexuality. A. Sen commented: “In India, disability is still
viewed in terms of a tragedy with a better dead than disabled approach; the idea being that it is not possible
for people with disability to be happy or enjoy a good quality of life. Cultural beliefs about disability play
an important role in determining the way in which the family perceives disability and the kind of measures
it takes for prevention, treatment, and rehabilitation”(1988:99). Tina, Jeroo's daughter, is permitted to be
alone with Brit owing to this societal assurance of a disabled person's perceived lack of potency. The
narrator, Brit said: “A society that trains its women to be suspicious of men in general seems to consider
disabled as less dangerous in terms of their sexual potency”(TG:40). Brit gets disheartened at the
revelation of Jeroo's idea about him as not at all masculine to be feared. Jeroo tells him, “You understand,
when I say men, I mean ____ men. Not someone like you, Brit” (TG:33).
On another occasion, the agony of Brit gets further aggravated when Amy, whom Brit starts loving
out of her close relationship with him, mentions that the real reason for her interest in him is not the
affection she has towards him but that his company serves as an escape for her from a feeling of insecurity
that is caused by Cyrus, her boyfriend. Amy said: “Oh, Brit, It was awful never being able to trust him; but
”
it's different with you, isn't it? I mean, I never ever have to worry (TG:225). It is found that most of the
disabled persons generally lack opportunities to share their experiences and gain support from friends and
even extended family members. This leads to frustration in them. It is mentioned through the narrator Brit,
who said: “Of course you don't. Is that why you wanted me, you insecure little bitch?”(TG: 225).
Tarshi (Talking about reproductive and sexual Health issues) was founded in 1996. In the paper
entitled “Sexuality and Disability in the Indian Context” reported: “People with disabilities can also be
sexual beings with sexual fantasies, feelings and aspirations like anyone else. They are unable to express
their sexuality fully because of their disability”(1997:2). In the novel Trying to Grow it becomes
completely unmanageable for Brit, to pretend to be unaffected by sex in his adolescent age. It is evidenced
that the pain that arises out of sex feelings overwhelms the stigmatic feelings that pester him in the name of
deformity as reflected through his whispers: “I wasn't male. Not to them. The magic mirrors of their minds
had invented a formula: osteo = sexlessness” (TG:33). Brit consoles himself as if he attains success in all
his attempts by way of convincing the society that he is undisturbed except in sex-related instances. He
admits that he is a sex maniac and so he finds it difficult to sleep during nights and goes to a level of cursing
his own parents and sister on seeing them sleeping undisturbed as if they do not possess a disabled child.
He said: “The nights were the worst. Sleeplessness drove my thoughts recklessly round the craziest bends.
And the flat was lifeless around me. No one to divert me with whispers: Dolly and Sera and Sam sleeping
like an insomniac's envy, as exhausted as their broken child” (TG:38).
In the novel Trying to Grow the protagonist is not only deprived of his rights as a human being but
also is deprived of marriage, which is often considered to be the only legitimate space within which
sexuality can be played out. Despite his marriage ability, Brit could not succeed in finding a life partner,
understandably due to his disability. Sam, Brit's father said: “Life is tough enough for him as it is; How on
earth do you think he can go out and compete with all those young men bursting with energy? He
remembered that it was difficult for him to get married for no girl will be ready to marry him” (TG: 94). Brit
does not delay to reply, “But I have girls; all my best friends are girls. There's Tina, and there's Ruby in the
flat below, and Indu and Usha who want my eyelashes” (TG: 37).
Inspite of, Brit's continuous efforts to prove his worth to the society that he is independent, he
sensed feelings of alienation. Brit's mother, Sera, believed that education will help Brit in his attempts to
emancipate himself from the shackles of alienation. But Brit remained alienated in his school. Eventually,
he resolves to delve into literary works in search of a solution for his feeling of alienation. He feels the
characters in his stories help him to escape the feeling of social isolation and brings him an identity. He
said: “I got something bigger from that story, I didn't feel alone anymore. How could I? I had just talked to

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fifty thousand people” (TG: 155). As the story progresses, stigmas attached to disability that Brit displays
in the early part of the novel gradually seem to disappear and the narrator is ready to face the unpleasant
reality of life, makes him surrender to the demands of the society around him. He resolves to stop pursuing
unrealistic dreams. In fact, he seems to have yielded to the oppressive social structure. The writer reveals
the deeprootedness of the stigmatic notions associated with disability in Indian society in a realistic
manner.
Conclusion
The novelist clearly mentioned in the novel Trying to Grow that the social stigmas attached to
disability affect a physically challenged person, inspite of his best efforts to face them boldly. Brit is
portrayed as an uncompromising crusader as he often tries to be different. However, his efforts are found to
be powerless to establish a different identity in the face of the all-consuming social stigmas and long-
drawn prejudices against the disabled. His resistance, therefore ends in desperation. As the novel's title
suggests, Brit tries to grow inspite of his disadvantages, but he ultimately fails in his mission.

Works cited:
Kanga, Firdaus. Trying to Grow (1990). New Delhi: Penguin.
Drew, C.J. Mental Retardation- A Lifecycle Approach (2008). Mostle College Publishing, Toronto.
Freud, Sigmund. Understanding Family Problems: A Psychological Approach (2002). John Wiley:
Chichester
Dodiya, Jaydipsinh. Parsi English Novel (2006). (ed.). New Delhi: Sarup and Sons Publishers.
Somdev, Banik. “Representation of Disabled Characters in Literature”, International Journal of English
Language, Literature and Translation Studies (2016).' Vol.3. Issue.2, (198 - 201)
Sen, A. Psychosocial Integration of the Handicapped. (1988). New Delhi: Mittal Publications.
Wikler L, Wasow M, Hatfielf E. “Chronic Sorrow Revisited: Attitudes of Parents and Professionals about
Adjustment to Mental Retardation”. American Journal of Ortho Psychiatry; (1981). Pg: 63-70.
TARSHI. 'Sexuality and Disability in the Indian Context' (2018). Working Paper. NGO based New Delhi.

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155
CULTURAL DISLOCATIONS AND LOSS OF IDENTITY IN BAPSI SIDHWA'S
AN AMERICAN BRAT

D. Velvizhi, Research Scholor, Department of English, VelsUniversity (VISTAS),

Pallavaram, Chennai- 117
Dr.B.Thavaseelan, Assistant Preofessor, Department of English, VelsUniversity
(VISTAS), Pallavaram, Chennai-117

Abstract:
This paper focuses on themes of cultural dislocations and loss ofidentity of the protagonist of
BapsiSidhwa's An American Brat(1993)and her quest for survival in a harsh alien society. An American
Brat depicts the dilemmas of a Parsee girl, Feroza, who goes to America for higher education and
enlightenment. She emerges as a timid and docile girl of Lahore. But as the plot progresses she emerges as
a modern girl with her American experience. The textual analysis of Sidhwa reveals the cultural
dislocation resulting into the plight of the men and women, and their struggle to find their identity in
colonized society.

Keywords: Cultural, Identity, Society, Experience, Dilemma, Diaspora.

In the modern globalized world diaspora is a displaced community from homeland. They are
emigrated ethnical group who leave their homeland for affluence and prosperity. They are always in
minority in the host country and often struggle to keep their ethnical identity. The basic concepts of
Diaspora are their strong love for their homeland and collective ethnical identity and group consciousness.
Diaspora is a dispersion of people from their original homeland. Expatriation, extradition, migration and
displacement are often used for them. Diaspora fiction depicts the struggle of the migrants to settle and
assimilate in the host land. They are always attached to the homelands. They always long for their native
land and remain attached to the traditions and customs of their homeland.
BapsiSidhwa was born and brought up in United India. In this age of globalisation, it is truly very
strenuous to categorise some writers; Sidhwa is one of them. She likes herself to be represented as a
Punjabi-Pakistani-Parsee woman. Her novels deal with both the pre-and postcolonial era of the Indian sub-
continent. What is most phenomenal about her fiction is her dual perspective which is based on both the
Pakistani and the Parsee perspective. She speaks both for the Pakistani's and the marginalised Parsee
community. She picks some significant incidents from her own life or from the lives of other people and
fleshes them out to create a larger reality of fiction.The fiction of Sidhwa depicts the hopes and aspirations
and struggles and displacement of the Diaspora. She focuses on the social problems of the migrants which
prompt them to leave their homeland. She knew that her community is facing physical and cultural
extinction and has tried to depict the cultural corrosion through her novels. She took up the challenge to
record their cultural dilemmas, hence their problems of assimilation and adaptability becomes important
in the novels of Sidhwa. She uses the images and symbols drawn from their cultural traditions and customs.
No wonder Sidhwa loads her novels with Parsee cultural norms, rituals and values. She has loaded her
plots with religious words and images and metaphors. She has made efforts to explore the Parsee psyche in
her novels. In her novels, Sidhwa portrays the fears which are haunting the Parsee community. These fears
are the product of cultural collision, displacement and marginalization. The Parsee community is suffering
CULTURAL DISLOCATIONS AND LOSS OF IDENTITY IN BAPSI SIDHWA'S AN AMERICAN BRAT 544
from sterility and the loss of ethnic stability.
Sidhwa has witnessed all the brutal scenes of violence after the India-Pakistan partition. She was a
Diaspora and moved from Pakistan to America and experienced the subjugation. Her An American Brat
reflects her personal experience of the partition of Indian subcontinent. Multiculturalism originates from
culture which means to develop and cultivate. Culture is one of the most important concepts in social
science. The study of society is incomplete without a proper understanding of the culture of that society. An
American Brat depicts the poignant experiences of a sixteen year old Feroza who visits America for higher
education. Her parents live in the orthodox society in Pakistan. They feel concerned about o the growth of
Feroza who is following and developing the rigid and orthodox mind set. Zareen and Cyrus Ginwalla are
shocked to see her conservative attitude. Her mother decides to send her to America for better learning and
to shun her growing fanatic attitude. The patriarchal social set up of Pakistan society deeply impacted the
behaviour of Feroza who grew into a narrow-minded and orthodox woman. Zareen is worried about her
orthodox outlook of life. She decides to send her to USA for a holiday. She is of the opinion that travelling
will broaden her outlook. Feroza will be in a position to get rid of her Puritanism. Zareen is really very
happy. She starts dreaming the land of rock stars and Hollywood glamour. The main focus of the novel is
the cultural challenges, fracture of identity of a Pakistani woman when she leaves her homeland.
Her parents live in the orthodox society in Pakistan. They feel concerned about o the growth of
Feroza who is following and developing the rigid and orthodox mind set. Zareen and Cyrus Ginwalla are
shocked to see her conservative attitude. Her mother decides to send her to America for better learning and
to shun her growing fanatic attitude. Sharing her shock, Zareen informs her husband,
She objected to my sleeveless saree-blouse! Really, this narrowminded attitude touted by General Zia is
infecting her, too... Can she wear frocks? No. Women mustn't show their legs, women shouldn't act like
that. Girls mustn't play hockey or sign or dance! (10)
The patriarchal social set up of Pakistan society deeply impacted the behavior of Feroza who grew
into a narrow-minded and orthodox woman. Zareen is worried about her orthodox outlook of life. She
decides to send her to USA for a holiday. She is of the opinion that travelling will broaden her outlook.
Feroza will be in a position to get rid of her puritanism. Zareen is really very happy. She starts dreaming the
land of rock stars and Hollywood glamour. The main focus of the novel is the cultural challenges, fracture
of identity of a Pakistani woman when she leaves her homeland. At the Kennedy airport Feroza feels the
thrill of freedom. She exults thus: “She knew no one, and no one knew her! It was a heady feeling to be
suddenly so free -for the moment, at least - of the thousand constraints that governed her life” (58). Feroza
is surprised to see the gaiety and glitter of the glass and steel tubes. Her experience with the passport officer
who asks her a series of questions shocks her. For the first time she realizes that she was in a country of
strangers. Indeed, the plot of the novel depicts a corrosion of Parsee and American culture which brings
poignant pain to Feroza. An American Brat reveals the mental, psychological, social and cultural conflicts
of Feroza in the novel. The plot of the novel describes the journey of Feroza and her quest for identity and
her encounter with the American culture. Feroza is a victim of patriarchal oppression of Pakistan society
and at the Kennedy airport she experiences strange cultural collision. She gets uprooted from her 'mother
culture'. She struggles to assimilate in the alien American culture.
KishwarNaheed speaks in her poems of the plight of a woman who suffers because of the cultural
collision in Pakistani society. Naheed is raising the woman question for the first time in Pakistan through
her heart rending poems. Naheed has depicted the plight of women and their sexual oppression as women
in Pakistan are subjected to all types of brutalities. Their existence is only in relation to men they donot
enjoy any independent status. Pakistani society is rigid and patriarchal giving special treatment to men and
giving its harsh treatment to women. Sidhwa has explored the inner tension of women who are victimized
by religion and patriarchy and their sufferings are justified in the name of cultural traditions and religion.

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The cultural clashes are imminent in Pakistan as gender discrimination is the core evil in the society. Men
in this society are given respect, dignity but women struggle to earn these qualities. Men are treated as
strong individuals but women are treated as bodies and the objectification of sex is very common.
The novel An American Brat is based on the theme of cultural collision. Her interests are vast and
she cannot be easily categorized as just a Parsee novelist. Her novels are remarkably different from one
another in both subject and treatment. There is a variety of themes in her fiction such as the cultural
dislocation, displacement and sexual oppression of women. Her fiction also deals with the theme of
marriage, women's problems and patterns of migration. Her treatment of such wide ranging themes is a
testimony to her growth as a powerful novelist who is a shrewd observer of human society and a keen teller
of stories. She is perhaps Pakistan's the finest English language novelist. There is a complex sprinkling of
themes in her novels which defy any simplistic interpretation.
Sidhwa depicts the cultural collision of Feroza in The American Brat who struggles to get
assimilated in the American culture. The novel is the story of a young woman who journeys through three
cultures, her own Parsee culture, Islamic culture and the western culture. Feroza's passage to America, her
education in life and her transformation into a mature young woman form the kernel of the novel.
American Brat is about various cultural conflicts or tensions, between husbands and wives, mothers and
daughters, young and old, conservative and progressive, East and West, India and Pakistan, Parsee and
Muslim. Sidhwa has produced a remarkable sketch of American society as seen and experienced by
modem immigrants. FerozaGinwalla is the main heroine of the novel. She is a sixteen year old girl
belonging to a small prosperous Parsee family of Lahore. She is following the conservative Islamic code,
she is deeply inflamed by the Islamic life-style and she does not accept her mother's dress of sleeveless
blouse and Saree. The novel deals with the change that Feroza undergoes in the west and how her
perspective onlife changes. The plot of the novel is focused on the expatriate experiences that bring drastic
changes in the outlook and mindset of the people. The novel also deals with the theme of inter-community
marriage. However, the plot doesnot present Feroza as a conventional girl but she has shown her resilience
to assimilate in American culture. Postcolonial fiction of Sidhwa addresses the globalization issue in terms
of the power relations, which flourish as a legacy of western imperialism. In this process, the most affected
are the women who suffer the rupture of placid postcolonial life. The women in the novels of Sidhwa
experience the process of alienation and assimilation. An American Brat is focused on the issue of the
hybrid identities of the women. Interestingly, the novel investigates the concept of the fixed identity,
indicating the role of gender discrimination and cultural corrosion.
In American Brat,Feroza's multiple identities become the main cause of her traumatic sufferings.
The novel gives an insight to American life and makes a comparison between the orthodox society of
Pakistan and liberal America life and culture. Feroza maintains a strained relationship with her new
environment, fluctuating between adulation and alienation. Feroza is dangerously caught between two
cultures. There is a conflict between licentious American versus conservative Parsee. The “extraordinary
sexual possibilities” Manek and Feroza “would avail themselves of” (116) threaten to inscribe a different
kind of sexual freedom.In “Rupture as Continuity: Migrant Identity and'Unsettled Perspective in
BapsiSidhwa'sAn American Brat,”Geoffrey Kain, observes that the novelfocuses on the sufferings and
dilemmas of a post-colonial migrant who feels unsettled till the end of the story:
An American Brat is a tale of continuity. From another perspective, Feroza is almost lost to extended
family, to her religion, to modes of traditional behaviour, to native place and culture as she is 'swallowed'
by the seductive giant of America. An American Brat is a tale of rupture. It is a very American Tale. (244)
Manek teaches Feroza the dignity of labour. The whole family as a unit work to run the house. Time
is very precious for all here. Husband and wife work together to run the house. It is very hard to survive in
America alone as the cost of living is very high. Feroza's story depicts the poignant experiences of a

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migrant who becomes a victim of cultural collision. The migrants leave their homeland to escape religious
persecution. But it is very hard for them to settle into the alien country. The migrants are confronted with
new challenges and issues. Postcolonial fiction of Sidhwa addresses the globalization issue in terms of the
power relations, which flourish as a legacy of western imperialism. In this process, the most affected are
the women who suffer the rupture of placid postcolonial life.
The women in the novels of Sidhwa experience the process of alienation and assimilation. She has
adopted two cultures and has become the victim of fractured identities. She does not hate Pakistan but she
loves American values and sexual liberty. However, being a newcomer, Feroza does feel a sense of
dislocation of not belonging, but it is more tolerable because it is shared by thousands of newcomers like
her. Feroza feels alienated in America, she suffers cultural dislocation. Sidhwa confirms the fact that the
two opposite poles tradition and modernity, because of their mutual opposition and antagonism, cannot
make the people live in peace. Her assimilation is false and results in alienation as the cultural interaction
fractures her identity.
To conclude, the post-colonial fiction of Sidhwa explores her concern for the subalterns, their
philosophy about exile and home, and their themes about homelessness, cultural dislocation and poignant
diasporic experiences. The socio-cultural perspective helps to explore the various cross-currents and
ethnic pluralities discussed in their post-colonial fiction. Sidhwaprobes the problems of the migrants who
suffer displacement, dispossession and marginalization.

References
1. Allen, Diane S. “Reading the Body Politic in BapsiSidhwa's Novels: The Crow Eaters, Ice-Candy
Man and An American Brat.” South Asian Popular Culture 8.1 (2010): 73--87. Print.
2. Bhatt, Indira. “Journey Towards Freedom: A Study of BapsiSidhwa'sAn American Brat.” Parsi
Fiction. New Delhi: Prestige Books, 2001. 93-99. Print.
3. Kain, Geoffrey. “Rupture as Continuity: Migrant Identity and 'Unsettled' Perspective in
BapsiSidhwa'sAn American Brat.” Asian American Literature in the International Context: Reading
on Fiction, Poetry and Performance. Eds. Rocio. G. Davis and Sami Ludwig. Berlin: LIT Verlag,
2002. 237-246. Print.
4. Paranjape, Makarand. The Novels of BapsiSidhwa. New Delhi: Prestige Books, 1996. Print.
5. Sidhwa, Bapsi. An American Brat. Penguin Books: New Delhi, 2004. Print.

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156
SARAH DANIELS'S PLAY MASTERPIECES: EMPOWERING OF WOMEN
THROUGH EDUCATION IN THE PATRIARCHAL SOCIETY

Mr. Samadhan Jadhav, Lecturer in English, Sanjay Ghodawat Institutes, Atigre, Kolhapur
Dr. Prabhanjan B. Mane, Associate Professor, Department of English, Shivaji University,
Kolhapur

Abstract:
In her play Masterpieces (1983), Sarah Daniels seems to be bringing empowerment not only
among her female characters but also women spectators in the established male defined structures of the
society. Moreover in this play, she attempts to educate the women against the prevalent issue of
pornography wherein women are treated as an object of pleasure rather than as human beings.
Throughout Masterpieces Daniels tries to bring to the notice of all women her famous dialogue
“pornography is the theory; and rape is the practice”. It is playwrights' honest and the most radical
approach to empower and educate women by exploring the negative attitudes of the men of society towards
women in the issues like pornography and violence. Daniels presents the actual issue of pornography and
men's inferior treatment to women throughout the play.
This paper deals with the Daniels's concern of giving strengths to women in their fight against the
inequality and male dominance in the society. It is her attempt to bring positive changes in the lives of
women community.

Key Words: Sarah Daniels, education, empowerment, pornography, patriarchal society.

Introduction
It is a well-known statement of Nelson Mandela about the education as the most important weapon
that brings the positive changes in the society. With the same objective, writers including playwrights,
novelists, poets, short story writers, essayists tried to educate and instruct the people including characters
and spectators throughout their literary works and career as social reformers.
Sarah Daniels (1957- ) is a twentieth century British woman playwright. She is radical in her
depiction of feminist issues in almost all her plays. She uses experimental dramatic techniques to teach,
educate and instruct women in the male dominated society. The playwright mostly deals with women's
problem, social and political subjects and women empowerment in her plays. The essence of all her plays
is to highlight the status of women in almost all fields of society and bring women empowerment in the
male-defined social structure of the society. There are many plays to her credit such as Ripen Our Darkness
(1981), Masterpieces (1983), The Devil's Gateway(1983), Neaptide(1984),Byrthrite(1987), The Gut Girls
(1988), Beside Herself (1990) and so on.
In her plays, Daniels deals with the feminist issues of the time and also criticizes male superiority
and the secondary status given to women in the patriarchal society of the contemporary time. Her sincere
attempt is to heighten the status of women and instruct, educate them by depicting the actual happenings in
the male-defined society. In almost all plays, she undoubtedly brings to front the superior status of the men
and economic, class oppression of women by men and other social institutions like marriage, law and
psychiatry.
SARAH DANIELS'S PLAY MASTERPIECES: EMPOWERING OF WOMEN THROUGH EDUCATION IN THE PATRIARCHAL SOCIETY 548
Daniels's Masterpieces (1983)
In the play Masterpieces, Daniels presents different incidents with diverse characters from the
society. Her effort is to make aware, in fact, to educate all women of the society including her female
characters and audience in the theatre. The play's main action is of court trial of her central character
Rowena who is the culprit and accused of murder of a man at tube station. In fact, the man was actually
trying to rape her, and his main purpose was to treat her not as a woman but only an object or commodity for
the sexual pleasure. By presenting the incident of murder of a man by her central character, Rowena, at tube
station in the evening, Daniels gives clear example of how women should defend themselves against the ill
deeds of men in the society. Daniels teaches all women and her other women characters that they should be
bold, courageous, aggressive and always be ready to defend themselves against the cruelty of men
especially in the matter of their sexual exploitation.
Moreover, while presenting sexual exploitation of women by the men, Daniels also shows the
biased and male-structured institutions of psychiatry, marriage and law. These institutions, according to
Daniels instead of defending the women are directly protecting men who all the time oppress and exploit
women only for their sexual pleasure. Especially, the dialogue between Psychiatrist and Rowena directly
indicates that Rowena should be accused for her murder of the man at tube station. Particularly, in the scene
nine there is a conversation between Psychiatrist and Rowena. In these dialogues, Psychiatrist being a
man, seems to be defending the act of a man at the tube station and on the other side, he is blaming and
accusing Rowena, who being a woman murdered an innocent man. But the fact itself is that the man
wanted to get sexual pleasure from Rowena and for that he also attacked and threatened her in this incident
in Daniels's play Masterpieces (1983):
PSYCHIATRIST.Enough of a turning point to make you try to kill a man?
ROWENA.Yes.
PSYCHIATRIST.Would it also be true that you became obsessed with
pornography material?
ROWENA.I became obsessed with the way women are viewed by men.…
….
PSYCHIATRIST.To do what? Murder an innocent man.
ROWENA roars with laughterMrs. Stone, you are becoming evasive.
ROWENA.Why? Because I'm wearing a skirt?
PSYCHIATRIST.And incongruent.(206-7)
Playwright Sarah Daniels in the above dialogues reveals the fact about the partial judgement of the institute
of psychiatry against a woman eventhough she is right as per the system and her supposedly act of self-
defence.
It is also important to note that Daniels has written this play to instruct women about their negative
images as depicted in the pornography books, videos and snuff films. The main intention behind writing of
this play itself is Daniels's dislike and anger against snuff films wherein women actresses are murdered and
mutilated by men only for their power and sexual pleasure. Daniels with the theme of pornography in this
play notifies all women and theatregoers that pornography is nothing but the portrayal of inferior and trival
stutus of women and the glorification of men. In such kind of materials women's body has been treated as
an object of sexual pleasure rather than woman as a human being. She also stresses that pornography is also
the area in which men act as more violent, dominant and women as submissive. Men, according to Daniels,
think that women are only made to obey and they can show their power and rights over them as per men's
convenience. There are many dialogues in the play on pornographic videos, magazines which itself show
Daniels's rage against such type of glorification of men over female body. In scene Eleven of play Clive,
the male character is about to watch a porn video and then his wife Jennifer enters. Here, Clive prefers to

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watch the video because he feels that this video will rejuvenate not only his interest but also Jennifer's as
well.
JENNIFER and CLIVE's living Room. CLIVE is about to watch a video. He puts it
in the recorder but doesn't get a chance to switch it on. Enter JENNIFER.
JENNIFER. Did you buy it?
CLIVE. No, my darling, I hired it …
CLIVE. People who are bored are usually extremely boring. Why don't you sit
down and watch this with me? It might rejuvenate your interest in other toys.
JENNIFER. The only movement to come out of the dying embers, darling, is the
bloody death rattle.
CLIVE. (Weary) Oh, go to hell. (211)
In the above dialogue, Daniels makes all women conscious and more aware about men's attitude towards
pornography as the means to revitalize interest of both men and women equally. She seems to be
suggesting to keenly observe women's sexual exploitation by men.
Apart from such numerous examples in the play, Daniels also shows men's interest in selling the
materials related to the pornography and men's satisfactionin this business at the beginning of the play.
Here Baron, Peddler and Consumer, the three pornographers are defending the commodification of the
women's body. Baron states that through this business we are quickly getting richer because in this
business profit margins are high (164). Moreover, the Peddler also continues to admire their business
andsays “….Hopefully, though, the majority of the population is liberated enough to wake up to the fact
that we sell marital aids which enrich people's -men and women's romantic lives, that we provide the
practical side to sex therapy”. (164). Glorification of pornography also finds in the dialogue by Clive, the
consumer:
Oh, I suppose it depends what you mean by pornography. Yes, I buy magazines, sometimes
videos. It's not something clear cut or mechanical, sex I mean....Everyone has fantasies,
don't they? And from time to time they need revising or stimulating, otherwise like
everything else it gets boring. It's simply a question of whatever turns you on. Let's face it,
alcohol and cigarettes can kill people, looking at pictures never hurt anyone. (164)
Through these above dialogues Daniels motivates women to take properly act against such type negative
images created by men in the snuff films and pornography materials. In fact she is trying to convince all
women to revolt against such type of misdeeds of men and stop their devaluation from men. This
misrepresentation of women in this play is rightly obesrved by Dimple Godiwalain her book Breaking the
Bounds: British Dramatists writing in the mainstream since c.1980 (2003):
….Baring male minds in a pro-censorship indictment of pornography, she reveals the
pervasive misrepresentation of women in the sign systems of western culture
(Masterpieces) as lesbian becomes a sign of woman's awareness of the invisible oppressive
text of patriarchy. (121)
Abdrea Dworkinalso makes it clear in the introduction to her seminal study on pornography, anti-
pornography and furthermore states:
The ways and means of pornography are the ways and means of male power. Masterpieces
is a radical feminist exploration of pornography as a source of 'male power' and an
examination of the possible effects it has on the lives of women. (123)
Apart from the above facts, Sarah Daniels also makes aware to all women about class as well as
economic oppression of women through the character of Hilary. Daniels shows Hilary as the victim of
class and economic oppression. Hilary, a working-class, single mother, whose oppression is examined
from both class and gender perspectives. In the scene four the dialogue between Rowena and Hilary bring

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SARAH DANIELS'S PLAY MASTERPIECES: EMPOWERING OF WOMEN THROUGH EDUCATION IN THE PATRIARCHAL SOCIETY 550
out the fact that Hilary, a single mother is in need of employment and money. Particularly Scene Ten is very
significant because it explains and examines the oppression of the Hilary. This scene has taken place at
work between Ron and Hilary. Ron being the supporter of class system offers Hilary coffee, coke etc., but
Hilary doesn't accept it and says thanks in return. Ron also wanted to give lift and drop her at home. On the
other side Ron is thinking to sleep with her for the sexual pleasure but in vein. Ron wanted to help her
because he was expecting something which is brought in focus in the scene Fifteen when Hilary had chat
with Rowena. Hilary declares that Ron was doing sexual harassment and oppression being a man who is
supposed to have the right to do so. Ron's behavior with Hilary itself is the true manifestation of male
attitude and approach towards a woman in which she is treated as the object of pleasure. Ron's attitude
reflects the patriarchal system of the society in which men show power and pleasure.
Here, Daniels shows how Hilary became the victim of Ron's sexual desire in patriarchal society.
With the character of Hilary, Daniels warns all women not to fall pray to the men's hypocricy and sexual
desire. Moreover, she also tries to explore men's opportunistic nature and their negative attutudes towards
women through the dialogues between Hilary and Ron.
With the monologues of three women porn models, Daniels shows how woman is treated as an
object of pleasure rather than a human being. In scene eight of the play, we could listen three monologues
from three different female porn models revealing their biter truths about male defined society and how
they are being treated by their male counterparts. In the first monologue woman says “Your value is your
body”, “I tell you, the animals get treated like they was royal corgies, you get treated like dirt”
(203).Furthermore, in the second monologue we come to know the female porn model in her early age has
been sexually assaulted by her male relatives but she couldn't tell anyone what has happened with her due
to the male superiority and woman's or girl's inferior status in male structured society (2013). The last
monologue is definitely an eye opener for all women because it reveals the fact about how woman's body
is considered as a commodity and how porn models are treated mercilessly by the men of society.
In depicting all these monologues, Daniels's main intention is to observe what is happening with
woman and urges all women to respond and react against such type troubles in their lifein order to bring
the positive changes in the society.
Daniels also uses 'joke telling technique' in order to show men's interest in telling misogynist jokes
and equally important are the recorded responses of men and women characters to these jokes.Particularly,
in scene one we come to know that three men Clive, Trevor and Ron seem to be telling as well as listening
to misogynist jokes on rape and women's obedience during rape. Moreover, Daniels also records the
responses of men and women characters to these jokes:
The men laugh, TREVOR not as heartily as the other two. ROWENA rather
hesitantly joins in. YVONNE doesn't even smile, while JENNIFER laughs
uproariously and rather disconcertingly so(166)
TREVOR. Oh. (He is rather abashed.) 'Help, I've been raped by an idiot.' 'How do you
know?' 'Because I had to tell him what to do.'
There is the same pattern of response.
JENNIFER laughs raucously. YVONNE remains silent but extremely
uncomfortable, wishing she could just walk out.(167)
With these responses, Daniels's main assertion is that men are enjoying misogynist jokes in their own way.
On the contrary, She also teaches that women should not laugh at their mockery in the matters of rape and
sexual exploitation. In fact, these jokes are purely made to denigrate all women living in the society.
Daniels catches the attention of all women towards men's act of pleasure.
It is very important to note that Sarah Daniels brings all women characters together in the scene
thirteen of the play. Jennifer, Rowena and Yvonne gather for a picnic in spring. Daniels dedicates this

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complete episode to these women characters. She gives important message to all women that in order fight
against the evils of male dominated society, all women must come together to support each other. It is
possible to defeat all men only with their unity and coming together. In order to live the life happily,
proudly and peacefully, all women should enjoy each other's company. According to Daniels, coming
together of women will bring more strength and confidence amongst them and she urges all women
support and help everyone so that they could successfully improve and change the negative attitudes of
men in the family as well as society.
The central character of Rowena is the mouthpiece of the playwright Sarah Daniels. Daniels
through the character of Rowena instructs and teaches all other women characters, readers and female
audience to become bold, courageous and hostile to the ill acts of men in the matters of rape, sexual
exploitation and oppression at all level. She also instructs all women no to behave like a character of
Jennifer who is mother of Rowena. Jennifer is shown as the submissive and tolerant even though she is
witnessing her own exploitation not only in the domestic matters but also in the matters of rape and sexual
assaults by husband and other men of the society. On the other hand, Daniels presents Rowena as the
perfect example of womanly virtues and suggests all other women to imitate Rowenain order to live
happily and proudly in the male dominated society. Particularly Daniels seems to be empowering the
disempowered women by the men in patriarchal society.
Conclusion:
After looking at the aforementioned details in the play, it is concluded that Sarah Daniels in
Masterpieces is teaching all women the right behavioral patterns in their denigration by men at all levels of
the society. She, in fact, motivates them to come out and take the radical and the most revolutionary actions
against the injustice, exploitation and oppression. Daniels here presents different situations and pictures of
women's lives to catch their attention towards their harassment both mental and physical in the domestic as
well as other spheres of the society. Daniels shows how women are treated only as things of pleasure rather
than as a human being.
Playwright in this play presents men's negative attitudes towards women so that all women could
know their actual difficulties in the patriarchal society. Knowing just problem is not only her aim, but on
the other side Daniels's quest is that women should take proper actions against the cruelty of men towards
women in the family and other fields of society. In fact, Sarah Daniels is educating all women with an
objective of their empowerment and extends the necessity of getting the equal status in the society.

Works cited:
1. Aston, Elain. Feminist Views on the English Stage Women Playwrights, 1990-2000. New York:
Cambridge University Press, 2003.
2. ____________, An Introduction to Feminism and Theatre. Singapore: Marcourt, 2001.
3. ___________, Feminist Theatre Practice: A Handbook. London: Routledge, 1999.
4. Daniels, Sarah. Plays: 1.London: Methuen, 1997.
5. Dworkin, Andrea. “Pornography: Men Possessing Women (1981)” and quoted in Elaine Aston's,
Introduction to Feminism and Theatre. London: Routledge, 1995.
6. Godiwala, Dimple. Breaking the Bounds: British Feminist Dramatists Writing in the Main Stream
since c. 1980. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 2003.

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