Table of Contents

Audiences' Involvement to the Dramatic Performance : An Evaluation of Badal Sircar's Procession (Michhil) in the light of his 'Third Theatre' -Soumitra Chakraborty 5

“Re-“visioning” Intertextualities in R. K. Narayan's Novels: Comparative- Cultural Critique - Anand Balwant Patil 9

Defining Manhood: A Study of Ramamoorthi's Hey Parashuram - A. Sujatha 22

'Universalism and Indigeneity' -David Ayers 27

Tellers, Listeners and Communities : Bharati's Suraj Ka Satwa Ghora - Supriya Agarwal 32

- Lata Mishra 38

Schriftsteller Aus Der Marge: German Poets of The Two World Wars – Pinaki Roy 47

Locating Identity within Mizo Folk Narratives - Margaret L. Pachuau 60

Apocalypse and After: Fictional Representations

- Rajesh Kumar 67

Patriarchal Oppression in Chandrasekhar Kambar's Jokumaraswami - S.Kumaran 73

Reordering the Self in Kazuo Ishiguro's A Pale View of Hills - C. Lalrinfeli 78

Voices in the Mirror: An Authentic Document of Black Consciousness - Vandana Pathak 83

In Search of Universal Peace in Ratan Thiyam's My Earth, My Love - A.J. Sebastian sdb 90

Death of the Author in Italo Calvino's If on a Winter's Night a Traveller - Sambit Panigrahi 96

In Conflict with the Self: A Study of Ruby Slipperjack's Novel, Weesquachak and the Lost Ones - Naresh K. Vats 104

Identical Community and Communicative Identity in the Racial Map: O'Neill's Thirst in Perspective -Ankur Konar 112

A Short Study of the Select Works of John Henry Newman with Reference to the Victorian Conflict

- R. K. Guangdiat Nicholas 120

Breaking The Fictional Stereotypes of Growing Up: British Children”S Literature Today - Nandita Mohapatra 126

Religious Fundamentalism and Secularism: A Postmodern critique of Orhan Pamuk's SNOW - S.Ambika & M.P.Sarojini 131

Themes of Oppression, Suppression and Self-Determination in Anita Desai's Fire on The Mountain

The Zhadipatti Theatre of Vidharbha: An Unheard Melody - Durgesh Ravande 136

Use of Tiger as A Symbol in He Who Rides A Tiger - Debasis Chattopadhyay 140

The Horror and the Glory: A Black Artist's Emotional Experiment to Break the Ice - Bhumika Sharma 144

Mother Stereotype in Mary Gordon's Pearl -Rachel M. Sylus 150

Cultural Difference and Multicultural Society: A Critique of Mistry's Squatter - S. Christina Rebecca 154

The Women Characters in Scott F. Fitzgerald's Fictions: His Autobiographical Commentary -Anubha Ray 160

Assessing Feminine Endurance in Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre - Kaisa Rosalind 167

The Forbidden Space in Mahesh Dattani's Plays Tara, Thirty Days in September, On a Muggy Night in Mumbai and Final Solutions: A Study. - Abhinandan Malas 173

Gemeinschaft: Kamala Das's Quest for Love -D. C. Chambial 180

Voices in the Mirror: An Authentic Document of Black Consciousness Rushdie to Adiga: The Edifice of The Indian Narrative

- G.A. Ghanshyam Iyengar 186

Mahakavi Subramania Bharati and Pondicherry - P. Raja 192

Interview: An Interview with Mamta Kalia -Tanu Gupta 199

Short Story: An incident 2010:'A' for an 'A', GOD's Own Country - Rosaline Jamir 203

Book Review: Pinaki Roy: The Scarlet Critique - Jaydip Sarkar 205

Jayanti M. Dalal: Spatial Echoes - Jayshree Palit 206

PV Laxmi Prasad: The Absolute 59

Rajkamal Shiromani: Poems 66, 89

Medha Sachdev: Teej 95

Sony Dalia: Horizon, Force of Life 125, 130

Syed Ameerudin: Poems 208, 209

Albert Russo: Embellished Youth, A Life Story 210, 211

Dibyajyoti Sarma: I'm An Idiot Poet, Moon 212

Anjuli Jain: Sad But True, Current or Obsolete 213, 214

Poetry:

Our Esteemed Contributors 215

Badal Sircar (15 July 1925-13 May 2011)

It is with profound grief that Labyrinth mourns the sad demise of noted dramatist, Badal Sircar, legendary Bengali playwright, actor and director at his north Kolkata residence. He gave Indian theatre a boost with plays like Pagla Ghoda and Ebang Indrajit. He is well known for his Third Theatre and firmly believed that the theatre needed to be taken out of auditorium. The street, public spaces and parks were his stage. He broke down the walls that existed in theatre and involved audience with actors. Sircar was awarded the Padma Shri in 1972, Sangeet Natak Akademi Award in 1968 and the Sangeet Natak Akademi Fellowship- Ratna Sadsya, the highest honour in the performing arts by Govt. of India, in 1997. He was offered the Padma Bhushan by the Government of India in 2010, which he declined, stating that he is already a Sahitya Akademi Fellow, which is the biggest recognition for a writer.

Audiences' Involvement to the Dramatic Performance: An Evaluation of Badal Sircar's Procession (Michhil) in the light of his 'Third Theatre'

- Soumitra Chakraborty

Abstract: The role of audience in the process of dramatic performance is very important. Badal Sircar, the great experimental dramatist as well as theatre-director of India has conceived a theatrical 'form', which establishes a living communication between the actors and audience and ensures audiences' involvement to the dramatic performance. His concept of theatre, which he himself named 'third theatre', rejects proscenium theatre as an arena of enacting plays and stages his self composed dramas in open space. The performers are seen to ask questions to the audience, keeping eye-to-eye contact with them in course of acting, sometimes performers are seen to sit on the ground with the audience during acting and sometimes performers appear at the acting arena from amongst the audience. But the climax of the involvement of the audience in the process of performance comes, when towards the end

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A Tribute to ...

“Re-“visioning” Intertextualities in R. K. Narayan's Novels: Comparative-Cultural Critique- Anand Balwant Patil

Abstract: The concepts of revisiting, redoing, rethinking, re-imagining, re-visioning, rereading, reinterpreting, rewriting etc. imply improvisations or new dimensions added to the earlier knowledge. The wavering loyalties of the colonized reader are not yet theorized in India (see Nancy Hogley). So reading A Passage to India or The English Teacher in the light of post-colonial or cultural theories will certainly not only deconstruct but discard hegemonic intra colonial judgments of Indian comprador class of imitators of Anglo-American New Critics. R.K. Narayan is the cultural product of Anglo-American “regional modernism”, British colonialism and indigenous elitism. Reading of Edward Said's Culture and Imperialism or Homi K. Bhabha's Nation and Narration will lead us to new comparative perspectives on RKN's fiction. It is not an accident that similar Brahminical “innate nativism” (see Chomsky) can be traced in The English Teacher and “distand Diaspora-immigrant nativism” in Vidyaprasad Surajprasad Naipaul's The House for Mr Biswas Not only poetics but also international cultural politics of recognition has influenced both the selection of The Guide. To be brief, rereading of RKN's fiction with rich Interdisciplinarity and multiple approaches will certainly produce new knowledge. Does Narayan really “write back to the empire”? Why? W. B. Yeats wrote, ““What Next” asked Plato's Ghost?” The Seminars and Conferences are meant to debate such questions.

Keywords: Revisit- meant to look at the same object after some period with new perspectives and historical contexts. Intertextuality- a new concept used to analyze structures of the text at the microscopic level. The other terms such as interculturalism, internationalism, etc are used to undermine the out-dated concepts such as influence, imitation, originality, autonomy, authenticity etc. Comparative cultural study- is the American concept, but comparative culture criticism is the British one. It reveals the Janus face of Indian fiction.” Family Romance” is the Freudian concept in psychology. It is a metaphor of “love and hate” relationship of writers writing in the same language. Castealization: I have coined this term after theory of “racialization”. It helps us to theorize “self and other” in literature o the basis of caste-varna system..

Time for a pause, right there, I'm beginning to do exactly what I've always criticized the Naipauls for doing: drawing grand, sweeping conclusions from the flimsiest of anecdotal evidence. After all, one cannot be unaware that in trying to paint even an impressionistic portrait of contemporary Indian society and culture, one is recalling a concept to undefinable that T.S. Eliot was curious enough to call his book on the subject: Notes Toward the Definition of Culture and George Steiner, two and half decades later, could do no better

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Defining Manhood: A Study of Ramamoorthi's Hey Parashuram

- A. Sujatha

Abstract: Often, we ponder over issues like what makes a man or a woman. But we have never come up with answers that offer us a total sense of satisfaction. Ramamoorthi makes a great attempt through this play in redefining manhood. Often, most writers are obsessed with the idea of redefining womanhood and get carried away by the concept of the new liberated woman. But, Ramamoorthi's case is different. He goes a step ahead. He clearly illustrates that man is incomplete without the feminine in him through the myth of Parashuram.

Keywords: Yin, yang, womanhood, feminine, patriarchal, mythopoeic

Manhood refers to the state of being a man. Generally, this is associated with valour, rational thinking, and determination. Womanhood is generally defined as the state of being a woman and this in turn is associated with docility, obsequiousness, empathy, and infinite patience. This brings us to the concept of female, feminine, and feminist. While the word female is related to biological aspects, feminine concerns itself more with sociological and feminist with political aspects. The focus of this paper is to discuss the feminine phase that not only goes towards making a woman but also a true man. Hey Parashuram by Parashuram Ramamoorthi is a recreation of the Parashuram myth interspersed with episodes from The Mahabharata.The play is divided into twelve scenes and Ramamoorthi employs dramatic techniques like the use of the vidhushaka (comedian) and musicians. The puranic story is narrated by the vidhushaka, while Parashuram narrates the mythopoeic version. According to the Puranas, Parashuram is extolled as an ideal son, a suputra, who, at his father's bidding, cuts off his mother's head. But here, although the incidents are the same, the reasons attributed to the characters' actions are different. When Jamadagni asks Parashuram to sever Renuka's head, he is depicted more as an authoritative patriarch for whom the woman is no more than a maid who takes care of the household and the children.

Parashuram: Father, I will definitely obey you. Is this what you want me to do?

Jamadagni: Yes. Kill her.Parashuram: I shall. But tell me why.Jamadagni: She betrayed her god.Parashuram: She does not even know that word betrayal, father.Jamadagni: She betrayed me.Parashuram: Father, please don't accuse her like that.

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Universalism and Indigeneity

- David Ayers

Abstract: This paper gives brief consideration to the relationship between the indigenous and the universal in a series of texts. It may seem surprising that the indigenous in this phrasing is opposed to the universal. The governing assumption here is that imperial powers are the bearers of a kind of universality. While the imperial power in one aspect embodies a particular interest, and can be construed then as no more than the assertion of one particular interest over another, in another aspect imperialism creates a quasi-universality, in its tendency to overcome cultural difference, and in doing so creates the ground for the emergence of universalism as such. To conceive of the imperial or dominant state in this way has a Hegelian cast, while the use of the term 'universalism' coincides with the thinking of Alain Badiou. In the light of this general framework, this paper considers aspects of the role of indigenous languages in dominant-language texts, viewing the dominant language as quasi-universal, and examining the particularising role of indigeneity as the dialectical product of the universalising process of domination, specifically in order to ask whether the indigenous, rather than resisting the dominant universal, aspires to it, belongs to it, even authenticates it.

Keywords: indigenous/dominant interface, translation, transcreation, assimilation

In the context of the Augustan Roman Empire, Aramaic must be considered an indigenous language. The show-through of Aramaic into Greek in the books of the New Testament, its subsequent presentation in the Latinized Bible and thence into most or all world languages, is one of the most notable examples of the interface between a colonial and indigenous language. I'll bypass the discussion about whether the whole of NT Greek is inflected by Aramaic (the leading scholar making this claim is C. F. Burney; I should state that I am in no way qualified to assess this claim). More simply I will mention those Aramaic words which are carried through, transliterated in Greek characters, and have subsequently passed into many languages: 'amen', 'alleluia', 'Armageddon', Satan' are examples of these single Aramaic words which occur in NT and have passed into wide usage. Some examples of the invocation of Aramaic create textual effects which begin to show the range of means available at the indigenous/dominant interface. Here are three. (i) While the word 'rabbi' appears several times in NT, John 20:16 thematizes its use. The risen Jesus approaches Mary Magdalene, who does not recognise him mainly we suppose because she can have no

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Tellers, Listeners and Communities : Bharati's Suraj Ka Satwa Ghora

- Supriya Agarwal

Abstract: Story telling creates a cultural phenomenon and expresses a range of emotions exploring the implications of rhetoric and cross-cultural communication. The novel “Suraj Ka Satwa Ghora” of Dharamvir Bharati consists of five stories which define love and through a moral give a glimpse into the life of the middle class, emphasising the explicit and the implicit elements of the human psyche. The novel falls in the category of post-modernist writing and the paper explores how the power of storytelling is a recuperation of memory, collective identity formation and an assertion of an oral tradition in literature.

Keywords: oratory,listener,mythology,symbols,fortitude,integrity.

Story telling is as old as human life for it was always a means of communicating the human desire to tell and to be heard. It has been a tool to effect changes, to underline the lessons of experience and to explain the various process associated with existence. Oratory is a form of public address whether it is to a small group within a community or to a larger one where it is used to effect social change. The physical presence of the "Teller" and the "Listener" thus becomes important and affirms many aspects of life which reflect community values and discipline. Creating a cultural space it gives impetus to the power of imagination, building the expectation and anticipation of the listener, working out a whole range of emotions. In Suraj Ka Satwa Ghora the protagonist tells about his past experiences and through memory relates the tales as were told to them orally by a narrator Manik Mulla. The stories told are not simply narrated in time but also located in space and within the short space of a short narrative several spaces are traversed. W.J Ong in his work Orality and Literacy comments that "Semiotics and folklore in every language and ethnic group explore the implications for rhetoric and composition, interpersonal communication, cross cultural communication, postcolonial studies, rural community development and popular culture" (22). Infact when we hear a story, we feel its power and uniqueness. It is, like perceiving a new object that stimulates creativity. It causes us to gape and suspend analytic thought and sets aside the inclination to slice and criticise. Instead, the mind is prompted to search earlier examples and parallels and simultaneously prompts us for new

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Themes of Oppression, Suppression and Self-Determination in Anita Desai's Fire on The Mountain- Lata Mishra

Abstract: Anita Desai is firmly established as the pre-eminent Indian novelist of her generation. A study of women's experiences in the novels by Anita Desai show that her women are given narrative voices and this has helped to create for them women's spaces in which to speak their experiences. She projects a tragic vision in her novels by placing her female protagonists in hostile situations. This research paper attempts to explore the Indian women's experiences in Anita Desai's, Fire on the Mountain.

Keywords: Oppression, Suppression, Self-Determination, alienation, domination, patriarchy, identity.

In a wider sense Fire on the Mountain is a novel depicting futility of human existence. It “displays skillful dramatisation of experiences of certain women embroiled by the cross way of life” (Choudhury: 77). Here, Desai talks of estrangement and a sense of loneliness in solitude. The writer explores the emotional world of Nanda Kaul, the wife of Ex-Vice Chancellor of Punjab University. She focuses on the institution of marriage. Women usually deal with two major areas in their life, that is the familial and the social one. This paper examines how their spatial existence and movement are restrained by the patriarchal ideologies enforced by men. When a woman is caught in the institution of marriage she has no other way left out but to droop in misery. Distrust in marital relationship is apparent in the novel. It is communication conflict rather than communication gap that makes any attempt to redefine her self-difficult. This leads to alienation. The paper also studies the interaction between oppression, suppression and self-determination experienced by women in both the domains. Our Indian society is still governed by traditional values where women find it difficult to escape from their gendered roles as mother, daughter and wife. Here, in the novel, we see women's marginalization through the use of third person narration, the female characters' accounts of their past memories and the use of narrative voices of the female characters. It is seen that though attempts have been made by women to escape from the patriarchal society, they cannot achieve total independence and liberation. Women in order to make themselves socially acceptable and to connect themselves to the community so as to avoid being secluded and estranged, usually change their selves. Anita Desai has made her women characters speak by giving them voices

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Schriftsteller Aus Der Marge: German Poets of The Two World Wars

- Pinaki Roy

Abstract: A prejudice becomes apparent as soon as one utters the term 'war poetry' – a literary sub-genre that has had been attracting

stconsiderable research even in the 21 century. The term is applied to indicate particularly the combat verses written by English and American soldier-poets. It is a systematic marginalisation of the quality verses produced by powerful German writers of the two World Wars. They have had been as patriotic and courageous as the writers form England and the United States of America, but their visions, messages, and enjoyments have always been overlooked by the victorious Allied armies and intellectuals associated with them. The German writers are only seen as being in league with the perpetrators of violence and the Holocaust. Nothing is further from truth. “Schriftsteller aus der Marge: German Poets of the Two World Wars” proposes to very briefly reread the major German poets and poetry of the two World Wars and point out the diverse elements underlying them – not just the tones of despair and disillusionment the post-Second World War literary critics usually try to detect in them. The essay takes an unbiased view of the contributions of quality writers of a powerful nation, which is culturally as developed as, if not more, England and the United States of America.

Keywords: Germany, War poetry, First World War, Second World War, Combat verse, German soldier-poets, Disillusionment, Patriotism, Conflict, Suffering, Research.

Reviewing the Great War reminiscences of especially the European soldiers, Robin Higham makes three pertinent comments. First, he points out that many accounts of the war are “misleading in that they give the impression […] that the memoirist, the participants, the heroes, spent all their time in the front lines in dreadful conditions, a myth perpetuated by the illustrations chosen or mislabelled” (Researching xiii), whereas in reality a soldier would have to spend an average of ninety days on the frontline. Second, a considerable number of soldiers, nurses, and volunteers often found safe refuge in foreign countries (ibid. xiv). And, finally, that the World War writings in Europe were published in waves. In the initial days of the First World War, there were numerous patriotic and anti-war publications, which receded as the belligerence progressed. During the Second World War, frontline soldiers once again began to produce writings, based mostly on the pattern of the First World War

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Locating Identity within Mizo Folk Narratives

- Margaret L.Pachuau

Abstract: This article shall explore how identity has been inherently central to Mizo folk narratives and that most narratives have been located within this aspect. It shall examine select folklore narratives that have been rendered in the original Mizo.While denoting this, it shall also determine the continuing significance of folk narratives in the society. It shall in the process examine both folk and cultural dynamics that have emerged within post colonial Christian parameters and reflect upon how folk narrative still remains a significant marker in terms of locating identity within the Mizo perspective.

Keywords: Folklore, hybridity, myth, colonial dynamics

The article attempts to portray the significance of identity as located intrinsically within the parameters of the history of Mizo folkloristics. In order to render justice to the topic, it shall examine the fact that most of the folklore within the Mizo arena has been located within the backdrop of nature, the animal world order and the world of spirits and the supernatural. The pre colonial era,(prior to 1947) especially saw the emergence of Mizo folklore in terms of the creation of man ,the creation of the universe and how various forms of natural and human life came into being. Such narratives which were especially related to the concept of identity are remarkably different from the narratives in the post missionary era, where Christianity has occupied a centrality and has thus, relocated beliefs and ethos that had once been associated with Mizo identity. It also seeks to advocate that the tribal dynamics have experienced a vast paradigm shift within the domains of a pre and post colonial perspective.This itself is unique in terms of the formation of identity because the culture itself is still predominantly tribal but it has continued to hold on to an inherently Westernised concept of identity.Thus, the concept of hybridity comes into sharp alignment in this perspective. It will attempt to denote the inherent difference in sensibility that existed in terms of the pre and post colonial elements. It will also assert that due to the advent of Christianity and the post colonial dynamics, especially after 1889, there has been an inherent loss of the status of myths within the Mizo community. Colonisation has brought with it a changing facet to the perspective of identity and the defining parameters of identity in the decades that follow after the advent of Christianity especially have been honed towards a redefinition of the Mizo identity.It has become a society where there has been an increasing focus upon the nuances of religion and subsequently, in the process there has been the consistent negation of the myths, folk and cultural lores.The

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Apocalypse And After: Fictional Representations

- Rajesh Kumar

Abstract: Post-apocalyptic fiction presents different models after civilization tries to rebuild itself from ground zero. There are chiefly two protos – a savage after world or an idyllic Utopia through the rudiments of technologies and cultural vestiges. The memory of mass destruction of human population is manifest in the various legends, folklore and myths throughout the world. The widespread presence of these stories also in tribal cultures proves that such an event must have taken place in pre-history. There are also geological evidences unearthed by scientists to establish the veracity of the event. The present Post-apocalyptic fiction draws from these sources and examines the spatial and temporal propensities of man, nature and technology in the future world vis-à-vis one another. Authors have taken up these relationships in their fictional accounts and projected the possibilities of life after the cataclysmic happening.

Keywords: Post-apocalyptic, nature, technology, anthropocentric, neoteric context.

Introduction: Post-apocalyptic fiction is narrative literature by way of imagined traversing of the geological and biological apocope in anthropocentric terms. That the world has existed in the past and will continue beyond human beings in the future is an anxiety prompting authors and dark prophets to annunciate that the human habitat will be destroyed by amoral technological transgression. The agent of destruction will be either a naive or a vindictive Nature. Naive, because the major geological conversions do not postulate human approbation; vindictive, with the assumption that callous civilizational activities will have precipitated the swell of destruction, leading to a restructuring of new communities in terms of art, socialization and science with an initial but infixed emblem of harmony as the survivors will most probably be the cultured leftovers of a ravaged world:

Although writers of these texts also examined the present to determine whether or not current afflictions were fulfilments of past apocalyptic prophecies, they generally concentrated on the future – the overthrow of evil, the coming of a messianic figure, and the establishment of the Kingdom of God and of eternal peace and righteousness. (Encyclopaedia of Literature, 60)

Argument: The auguries of the imagined doom are discernible - the Chernobyl nuclear mishap, the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004, the Sendai meltdown, the hair-raising videos of the 2011 tsunami gobbling up houses and ships and automobiles, and the series of earthquakes

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Patriarchal Oppression in Chandrasekhar Kambar's Jokumaraswami

- S.Kumaran

Abstract: This paper explores Jokumaraswami to identify various manifestations of patriarchy and its impact on the lives of women. In this play, Kambar, an outstanding playwright, poet, folklorist, film director in Kannada language makes the women characters expose and oppose patriarchal oppression. In Jokumaraswami, Gowda is the product of the patriarchal society which sustains conceptual framework that maintains structures of domination. He regards women and nature as irrational beings that are present to be dominated and exploited for the needs of man. Patriarchal society sustains false notions about men and keeps them blind to their real side. By the wisdom of ages, Shari and Ningi in Jokumaraswami examine the weakness and hypocrisy of Gowda and stand testimony to the fact that women are wiser than men. Moreover, they scrutinize the patriarchal systems of domination that oppress women and reveal the false ideologies of patriarchy. Further, these women have strong concern for nature and claim its intrinsic value and inherent worth. By showing the representation of patriarchy in religious practices and the fashioning of gods, Kambar points out its pit-falls and calls for a new religion that acknowledges the contribution of women and by exposing the false centrality of man, Kambar discredits the illusion of superiority. Further, he shows the shortcomings of conceptual structures and places women at the centre of discussion. Thus, this paper tries to fulfill its purpose of feminist study that insists on the need for revolution in the 'social, sexual and economic structures' that exploit women.

Keywords: Patriarchy, Dualism, Feminism, Society, Religion

This paper examines Jokumaraswami which offers numerous insights into the feminist issues that demand immediate redressal. In this play, Kambar, an outstanding playwright, poet, folklorist, film director in Kannada language makes the women characters expose and oppose patriarchal oppression. He has high regard for women and offers them a valuable position in this play.

Chandrasekhar Kambar is an outstanding playwright, poet, folklorist, film director in Kannada language. He has received many prestigious awards including Padma Shri by Government of India, Sahitya Academy Award, Kabir Samman, Kalidas Samman and Pampa award. He was a major figure in the movement of 1960s that tried to correlate the folk and modern. “His 'Jokumaraswami' had electrified the theater with its folk structure. The feudal master, the servant who is the strong male, the women who turn between the two (symbolic of earth) … all these had

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Reordering the Self in Kazuo Ishiguro's A Pale View of Hills

- C. Lalrinfeli

Abstract: The article is an attempt to denote the aspect that memory shapes the present existence. It takes interest in how the chief protagonist in Kazuo Ishiguro's first novel, A Pale View of Hills, makes an attempt to reorder her self in terms of establishing a permanent and coherent

identity by narrating the past events. Daniel L.Schacter, deduces: “Extensively rehearsed and elaborated memories come to form the core of our life stories - narratives of self that help us define and understand our identity and our place in the world” (Schacter 299). These elements have been predominant markers that remain central to the primary texts by Kazuo Ishiguro. In the novel, the chief protagonist, Etsuko uses her memory to overcome loss and reorder her self. Narration is the only source for Etsuko as she attempts to order her self. However the past cannot be changed and it is only through her narration that she orders her life as it is and by which subsequently she gains an ordered existence.

Keywords: Memory, Narrative, Identity.

Kazuo Ishiguro's first novel, A Pale View of Hills (1982) has depicted the life of a Japanese woman who struggles to come to terms with her own self and tries to figure herself anew through her interpretation by going back to the past. Subsequently, in the novels of Kazuo Ishiguro, the characters seek to overcome loss by making sense of the past through acts of remembrances. Paul Connerton, in his book How Societies Remember (1989), notes that experience shapes the present. According to him an individual's identity is constructed through past events and the remembering of those past events (Connerton 3). Subsequently, Kazuo Ishiguro's treatment of memory is in tune with this. The characters reorder their past in order to come to terms with themselves and to establish a coherent identity. Etsuko in Ishiguro's first novel, A Pale View of Hills, uses her memory and reorders her past in order to overcome a loss and her memory is subsequently shaped in order to come to terms with her own self and to establish a coherent identity. Etsuko reorders her past in an attempt to make sense of the trauma of the present. The novel opens with Etsuko, a middle aged Japanese woman and the first person narrator, receiving her second daughter Niki at her country house in Southern England. Forgetting is used as an essential symbol of memory. Etsuko does not want to be reminded of the past. She notes, “I – perhaps out of some selfish desire not to be reminded of the past…” (Ishiguro 9). The reason for this, is that her elder daughter has committed suicide by hanging herself in her rented room in Manchester.

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Voices in the Mirror: An Authentic

Document of Black Consciousness

- Vandana Pathak

Abstract: Black American Autobiographies expose the oppressive condition of the Blacks and the repressive tactics adopted by the whites against them. The protest of the Black Americans against marginalization, discrimination, exploitation, slavery, violence and torture, etc. is reflected in the Slave narratives and Black American autobiographies. Voices in the Mirror (1990) is the autobiography of Gordon Parks. An analysis of Park's autobiography shows a continuum of motifs of the Slave narratives and 18

thand 19 century Black American autobiographies. This paper is a humble attempt to substantiate how his autobiography is an authentic document of Black consciousness.

Keywords: Slave Narratives, Black American Autobiographies, Discrimination, Protest, Black Consciousness, Activism.

IBlack American writers were far removed from the fringes of life and literacy. Naturally, they had to fight 'against all odds' and overcome all possible sorts of obstacles to evolve as a person, as an individual, and for self-expression. These Black American writers chose a wide variety of genres, forms, and themes to document and record their struggle. Slave narrative or autobiography was a mode of expression widely accepted. Autobiography, as such, was a favorite genre of Americans. Black American autobiographies expose the oppressive condition of the Blacks and the repressive tactics adopted by the whites against them. Even though an autobiography is necessarily the story of an individual, the fact is that the racist structures have made it necessary for the Black American autobiographer to act as the voice of the community or to speak for the collective. Black American autobiographies are the seedlings of Black consciousness. The slave narratives deal with the experiences, thoughts, and feelings of human beings held in chattel slavery and reveal the impact of slavery on Black men, women and children, individually and collectively. The main objective was to awaken the conscience of the nation. Sterling Brown calls these early autobiographies as “literary weapons” (Brown, 27). The Black American autobiographer depicted the realities of Black life in America. The movement of Black American literature traced and kept a track of all social and political crises in the life of Negros in America.

IIVoices in the Mirror (1990) is the autobiography of Gordon Parks. It traces his journey from teenage and from Minnesota and Washington, D.C., to the glamour of Paris and the ghettos of Rio and Harlem. He worked as a

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In Search of Universal Peace in Ratan Thiyam's My Earth, My Love

- A.J. Sebastian sdb

Abstract: My Earth, My Love revolves around myth and history, depicted in time past and present, as the dramatist dwells on Manipur's horrendous past. The seven mythical celestial nymphs weave a cloth at the loom to be offered to God, the Almighty, as their love offering to ward off warfare and destruction. The seven sisters represent human longing for peace and brotherhood. As they have premonitions of a bleak future, Puwari, the personification of history, recounts the prophesies on Nostradamus about Hitler's atrocities and the bombing of Hiroshima. The eldest nymph gathers information from her six sisters about pain and destruction in different parts of the world.

Keywords: Almighty; Maibis (priestesses); Puwari; revolution; genocide; Ground Zero; extermination; harmony.

Through My Earth, My Love, hinged on the wheel of time, Manipuri dramatist Ratan Thiyam, makes an appeal for peace and harmony in the world. Mixing the past and the present with myth and history, he unearths a new form in dramatic presentation. The play revolves around the horrendous past of warfare and destruction such as: devastation of Manipur by Burmese army; killing during the World War II; Russian revolution and the mass killings; Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour; bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki; genocide during Khmer Rouge regime in Kampuchea. The play is presented with a mythological background of seven sisters, the celestial nymphs, busy at the loom weaving a cloth which is the traditional symbol of love, peace and honour. They are to offer it to the Almighty, with a prayer to stop all warfare and destruction, ushering in an era of peace and brotherhood. The dramatist has personified history in the form of Puwari an old man. There are nymphs that fly around like birds and incarnated human beings. They recount the past bloodshed, flying around the world through the pages of history. The play climaxes as the nymphs offer the cloth they have woven to the Almighty. They become the peace loving citizens of the world.The prologue begins with a prayer song sung with the accompaniment of pena (traditional Manipuri bow and string instrument), invoking Divine blessings and forgiveness.

O Lord | Lord of the Lords

Death of the Author in Italo Calvino's If on a Winter's Night a Traveller

- Sambit Panigrahi

Abstract: In the realm of Postmodern thought, there is a marked shift from the pre-existing dominance of the author to the all- pervasive ubiquity of the text. The text is no more seen as an entity that is the sole creation of the author-god, the uncontested creative genius. It is, on the contrary, a construct in language. The author remains no more than a “shaman” (as Roland Barthes would have it), a mediator through which the infinite play of language precipitates into the text. In this altered premise of thought, the author's position as the sole architect of the work is thoroughly destabilized and he is considered to be no more as a dictatorial and authoritative presence rendering meaning to the text through his act of writing, rather as a mere effect of language, easily mixable in its labyrinthine network.

Keywords: Shaman, Death of the Author, Linguistic turn, Impersonality of the author, Intertextuality.

Italo Calvino's If on a Winter's Night Traveller is an attack on the author's position as the creator of the text. Denouncing the authorial all-pervasiveness in a text, the novel affirms that writing is an impersonal act whose scope extends beyond the author's dominion. The diminishing magnitude of the author is explicitly noticeable in the very first chapter through the reader's inability to trace the “unmistakable tone of the author” and his concomitant conviction that the book is “readable . . . independently of what . . . [is] expected of the author” (Calvino 9). The depersonalization of the author becomes even more evident in the chapter “If on a Winter's Night a Traveler” where a decisively created disarray between the identities of the author, the reader and the character of the novel (the traveler in the train) perplexes us and we are not able to conceptualise them as discrete individual presences. These three distinct personalities dramatically merge into a single person (the traveler) with their separate persona or the “I [s]” [Calvino 15] thoroughly fragmented and getting mixed up confusedly amongst each other. Adding to the ripping apart of the author's individuality to an array of multiple fractions, the narrator in “Chapter five” describes that the “author has become plural” so that “no body can be delegated to represent anybody” (Calvino 96). Such disintegration of the authorial presence and its synchronic blurring of the author/reader/text barricades are resonant of the Roland Barthes concept of the “death of the author.” No

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In Conflict with the Self: A Study of Ruby Slipperjack's Novel, Weesquachak and the Lost Ones

- Naresh K. Vats

Abstract: Written by Ruby Slipperjack Ferral, an Ojibway writer and educator, Weesquachak And The Lost Ones tells the story of a nineteen years old girl who feels trapped in her life, her loneliness and her struggle to realize her Self. The experiences are natural and autobiographical. In fact, Ruby is palpably present in her works. In Weesquachak And The Lost Ones she becomes Janine (full of hopes and uncertainties, ready to run into city life that seems to promise her liberation and good life, yet unable to cut herself off the roots), in Honour The Sun 'the Owl' (a young girl growing up in an isolated Annishnawbe community in North western Ontario), and in Silent Words Danny Lynx ( a boy on a long journey moving through various Native communities). This way Ms Slipperjack assumes the role of that native trickster character 'Whee-skay-chak' who is supposed to have the power of transformation. The article discusses inner conflict and crisis that arises from one's environment. The crisis become worse when we start liking the ways of living that are other than our own. Exactly this happens to Charlie making her otherwise simple choices extremely difficult – and the collateral damage is emotional isolation.

Keywords: Loneliness, Inner-conflict, Crisis, Culture, Tradition, Self, Maturation

Loneliness is a conduct that is highly communicable in nature. Lonely people come in all shapes and sizes; even age has little to do with it. Erich Fromm sees freedom as the basic human condition that throws up a psychological problem. According to his theory of psychoanalyses humans have gained freedom through their relative mastery of nature; however, the price of this freedom is a pervasive sense of separation and loneliness. To be human, according to Dr. Fromm, is to be lonely because we are separated from other people and from nature. And we have basic temptation to try to escape these feelings of loneliness, not by creating a society that might better fulfill our needs, but by creating new forms of dependency and domination. Fromm posited three mechanisms which he saw people try as ways to escape the demands of freedom – automaton conformity, authoritarianism, and destructiveness. By 'automaton conformity' Fromm means 'changing our ideal self into what we perceive to be the preferred personality type in our society or social reference group, it leads to losing our true self. The person who uses this escape mechanism can be described as 'social chameleon' who adopts the prevailing personality pattern as a kind of protective layer to avoid

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Identical Community and Communicative Identity in the Racial Map: O'Neill's Thirst in Perspective

- Ankur Konar

Abstract: O'Neill's one of the earliest dramas - Thirst (1913) deals with the typical attributes of human behavioural pattern when death threats man on the face of ontological degeneration and degradation. My article, by focusing on the three characters of the drama – the Gentleman, the Dancer and the Sailor who are put at the crisis point of existential ladder, will concentrate on how the play vividly dramatizes the idiosyncrasy of appearance on the set of madness and the resultant reflection of the display of barbarism at the face of existential decadence.

Keywords: Race, Black/White, Identity, Existence, Madness, Psychology, Relationships, Communication

Thirst (1913), one of the earliest dramas by the eminent American dramatist Eugene Gladstone O'Neill (1888 - 1953), deals with the typical attributes of human behaviour in slump when death threats man on the face of ontological degeneration and degradation. The play vividly dramatizes the idiosyncrasy of appearance on the set of madness and the ultimate maverick display of barbarism at the face of existential decadence. Three characters – the Gentleman, the Dancer and the Sailor – are put at the crisis point of existential ladder when Nature, to use Tennysonian phrase, is 'red in tooth and claw.' When “three sorry remnants of humanity (are) dying of thirst” (Clark 50), after the titanic

1disaster, there is no wind to accelerate the direction of the raft; nor is there any immediate hope of rescue. These three maritime characters are struggling for survival against the hostility of the terrible natural forces – a vast companionless sea and the cruel extremity of heat in a topical climate; isolation, fragmentation and alienation become the key words at such geological and identical crisis. Both the topical sea and the situational heat are expressionistic modes of total apocalyptic subjugation that brings the sense of total anarchical fall down – both

2physically and emotionally. In fact, Thirst too like O'Neill's other dramas is about “tortured souls”: “O'Neill's, however, is a drama of personalities, of tortured souls.” (Sen 119) Destiny mocks these three 'riders to the sea' with an element of material chaos – the “sun glares down” like “a great angry eye of God” – the sky is 'blind' - there is water all around, still they are dying of thirst - “if we only had some water!”, reminding us

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A Short Study of the Select Worksof John Henry Newman with Reference to the Victorian Conflict

- R. K. Guangdiat Nicholas

Abstract: In this article, I have attempted to view some select works of John Henry Newman with reference to the Victorian Conflict. The works are studied in the light of the Victorians' experiences of religious doubts, materialism, loss of faith, liberalism, agnosticism and utilitarianism. I have endeavoured to show the different kinds of conflicts encountered in each work; how John Henry Newman confronted these conflicts, and the solutions he decidedly proposes.

Keywords: Conflict, belief, religion, truth, Christianity.

John Henry Newman as a star of a unique calibre illuminated the intellectual and spiritual environment of his age. He carved himself a niche as an intellectual giant and a champion of faith, and stood among the great men of thought and spirit. He was a prolific and versatile writer and embraced various genres in his literary works. Therefore, it is not easy to insert him into any class of writers. He combined idealism, sensitivity, urgency, urbanity, delicacy and wit in his writings (Wright 7). There is the genius of a writer in him, whose thoughts defined and illuminated problems, which beset even our own times. He “wrote rather for posterity than for his contemporaries” (Cameron 7). Newman possessed a great literary power, manifested in a style of such singular grace and charm. A poet and an artist always, he would have been a powerful literary figure if he had cared to devote himself to literature (Hutton 10). The following discussion on his novels, prose pieces and poems is an attempt to discover and analyse those elements that indicated the Victorian Conflict. They are studied in the light of the Victorians' experiences of religious doubt, materialism, and loss of faith, liberalism and utilitarianism. a. Loss and GainThe novel was a reply to another novel From Oxford to Rome by Miss Harris, which was having a great success in England (Dessain 94). The little novel was written in retrospect shortly after his conversion to Roman Catholicism, and is considered essentially as his own story, and a more readable revelation of his struggles to overcome prejudices and to grasp the truth. The novel is full of the human interest of everyday kind and reflects Newman's life with all its struggles (Moody 145). The book includes arguments about faith, conversion and the Church, which are

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Breaking the Fictional Stereotypes of Growing Up: British Children’s Literature Today

- Nandita Mohapatra

Abstract: Harvey Darton's definition of children's books as "works produced ostensibly to give children spontaneous pleasure and not merely to teach them" no longer holds good in contemporary children's literature today since the emphasis in contemporary children's literature has shifted from merely giving pleasure to offering children insights into the complexities of life. Till the 1970's, Britain's writers of children's fiction have been creating comfort zones for their readers by basing their books on pure fantasy. The paper seeks to establish how the new children's narrative is cognate in form and style with the modern psychological novel with its complex techniques and its emphasis on the inner workings of the mind and the character's search for his/her identity. This has become the preferred form of children's narrative today.

Keywords: fantasy, escapism, colonize

If we were to explore children's literature in Britain after the 1990s, then Harvey Darton's definition of children's books as “works produced ostensibly to give children pleasure, and not merely to teach them” would no longer hold good since the emphasis in contemporary children's literature has shifted from merely giving pleasure to offering children insights into the complexities of life. Since the Middle Ages, the conception of childhood was based on certain specific assumptions by the adults – that children are weak and vulnerable and therefore need protection; that they are pure and innocent and thus need to be sheltered from the corrupting influences of the adult world. These attitudes led to a need to isolate children from adult society and provide them with a literature defined by what adults feel should be left out rather than what should be included.The history of children's literature expresses the vast difference in the ideas of childhood of different cultures and times. The early texts were

thpurely didactic. Aesop's Tales by Caxton had been used since the 15 century with its animal stories and morals for the education of children. Locke and Newbery recommended the study of these tales “which being stories apt to delight and entertain a child, may yet afford useful reflections to a grown man” (Darton 17). Influenced by Locke and Rousseau, many writers produced books with the central characters as

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Religious Fundamentalism and Secularism: A Postmodern critique of Orhan Pamuk's SNOW

- S.Ambika & M.P.Sarojini

Abstract: Postmodernism is of great interest to a wide range of people because it directs out attention to the changes, the major transformations taking place in contemporary society and culture. Pamuk's works are said to be a grab-bag of postmodernism. He handles the task of adapting postmodernist literary strategies to his non-western subjects. This paper is an analysis on Orhan Pamuk's seventh novel Snow from a postmodern perspective. This work is also concerned with cultural ethics.

Keywords: Postmodern, Secularism, fundamentalism, conflict, Islam, westernism, headscarf, suicided girls, Istanbul, ambivalence.

Postmodernism has originated out of modernity which has been wielding supreme with such an all-encompassing and totalizing 'meta-narrative' of universality, perenniality and certainty – the unbridled power of reason. Postmodernism is of great interest to a wide range of people because it directs out attention to the changes, the major transformations taking place in contemporary society and culture. It is a celebration of 'plurality' as different from the all-embracing 'uniformity' of modernity – plurality in thinking and expression, culture and religion, truth and morality. Ferit Orhan Pamuk is a Turkish novelist. Pamuk's works are said to be a grab-bag of postmodernism. He handles the task of adapting postmodernist literary strategies to his non-western subjects. This paper is an analysis of Orhan Pamuk's seventh novel Snow from a postmodern perspective. Snow is a postmodern literature in which the narrator tells a story from an omniscient point of view. The story is told in the third person from the protagonist's point of view. An omniscient narrator sometimes shows his presence known to the readers. He is a friend of Ka, the central character. He tells a story based on Ka's journals and correspondences. This novel explores the conflict between Islamism and Westernism in Modern Turkey. The story begins with the traveler (Kerim Alakusoglu) Ka's journey to Kars. He travels to Kars after many years to investigate the recent suicides of a number of young women, forbidden to wear headscarves in school, and to know about municipal elections. He narrates his experience in Kars and also brings out the histories of Kars. Ka gets caught up in the muddle of Islamist, headscarf advocates, secularists and number of people who die and kill in the name of highly contradictory ideals. The omniscient narrator identifies himself as a novelist named Orhan and plays a larger role in the story in the later

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The Zhadipatti Theatre of Vidharbha: An Unheard Melody

- Durgesh Ravande

Abstract: The researcher of the present paper intends to focus on a theatrical movement, initiated by certain indigenous tribal communities in the remote jungles of the districts like Gadchiroli, Chandrapur, Bhandara and Nagpur in Vidharbha region of Maharashtra. The earlier plays were limited to the indomitable faith of the tribes in gods,goddesses,and local deities. The theatre has been dealing with the realistic issues like political and cultural oppression of the tribals,growing corruption in government schemes, terrific poverty, and sustaining inclination of adivasi youth towards Naxalite Movement. 'Consider us human beings and not beasts' this is what The Zhadipatti Theatre urges.

Keywords: Zhadipatti, indigeneous, stage, performance, hideouts.

The term tribe is applicable to an ethnic group of people who have distinct social,economic,and cultural traditions and practices. The tribal communities like the Gonds,the Santhals,the Mundas and the Great Andamanese have been inhabited in India for centuries. The present research paper is an attempt to introduce an indigenous theatre in the dense jungles of Vidharbha of Maharashtra state. The theatre is about to complete one hundred and fifty years of its formation but yet it is an unheard melody for the outside world. The researchers like Dr.Ajay Joshi are doing their level best to let this glorious theatrical tradition be known to the budding theatre talent in our country. But it will take time to account the actual impression. The first performance on Zhadipatti's rostrum was staged around 1870-80. But the first top to bottom Zhadipatti performance took place in the year 1960 with the staging of Khedychi Mansa (Village People). Since then this theatre has been captivating the minds of the tribes in this region and striving for social integration among the different social segements. The highly claimed postcolonial perspective of finding voice by reclaiming own's past is indisputably applicable to this theatrum mundi. The villages where the theatrical performances under the banner of Zhadipatti take place, are located about 200km from Nagpur, one of the metro cities in Maharashtra. The distance between these villages and Naxalite hideouts is absolutely modest. These villages are comprised in the districts like Chandrapur,Nagpur,Bhandara,Gondia,and Gadchiroli. The natives in the region are either illiterate or less-educated. They are superstitious and unaware of the rapidly changing World.

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Use of Tiger as a Symbol in He Who Rides A Tiger

- Debasis Chattopadhyay

Abstract: Corbett has described tiger as the symbol of “large hearted gentleman”. Long before him British poet Blake contrasted tiger with sheep. In the present article I have made a study of three Indian English novels where tiger is a symbol. Tiger stands here for ferocity, ambition and almost an impossible conveyance. Neither Bharati Mukherjee, an NRI author, nor Arvind Adiga, a Carnatic author, could descend from it but Bhabani Bhattacharya made his protagonist, an honest man, descend and enter into wilderness.

Keywords: autobiographical, democracy, cheat, non-pareil, unsettled sensibility, adolescent feminity.

English poet William Blake (1757-1827) in his Songs of Experience (1794) has used Tiger as a symbol and composed a poem with tiger rubric. It is a symbol of ferocity, it is God's Wrath. Man's own burning passion shut up within his natural body is the Tiger(1) N.Ram, the editor of “Frontline” has brought out Riding the Nuclear Tiger (1999) comparing nuclear weapons to Tiger's similar ability to kill.Bharati Mukherjee has written an autobiographical novel Tiger's Daughter (1972). Tara is the daughter of Bengal Tiger. Her tiger symbol is biological inheritance of Tara, the protagonist, who acquires a second self in America and on return to original self in Calcutta, fails to accommodate and live smoothly. There is loneliness in her life. It is an important milestone in Diaspora literature by Indian authors in English. There duality of self seems in soluble.In 2008, appeared the fiction The White Tiger by Arvind Adiga of Karnataka; in it Balaram, the hero is the tiger not white by color but by virtue of rarity. It is the epithet qualifying the brilliance of Balaram, in the crowds of thugs and idiots(2). An outsider to the village, the Inspector, asks Balaram 'what is the rarest of animals', Balarm's response is 'The White Tiger'. The Inspector agrees that is Balaram, The White Tiger.In course of flow of time, in the novel, he visits National zoo where, at the sight of real quadmped white tiger, he faints, and does something to communicate it to grandma through Daram's pen(Adiga, 35). Balaram, the driver, murdered his boss and as the country was democratic it went well with him. “Who can not be caught in India”(Adiga, 278). “ I will never say I made a mistake that night in Delhi when I slit my master's throat”(Adiga, 320). The subtext of rise as Bangalore-based entrepreneur, attracting attention of foreign lands follows next as grist for P.M of China.The novel is written in the first person, narrator of The White Tiger.

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The Horror and the Glory: A Black Artist's Emotional Experiment to Break the Ice

- Bhumika Sharma

Abstract: The present paper is an attempt to understand the unique nature of the African American authorship with special reference to the autobiography of the African American literary stalwart Richard Wright. The two volumes of his autobiography, Black Boy (1945) and American Hunger (1977), compiled under the title The Horror and the Glory is a wonderful expression of the experiential aesthetics of a black man who tries to break his shell. It evinces how the voice of a social and emotional outcast traverses the set literary paradigms in search of a dignified identity. It not only breaks free his literary articulation from the western aesthetics but also assimilates it with the other marginalized voices of the world.

Keywords: Black aesthetics, marginalized group, sensibilities, experiential aesthetics, comparative paradigm, marginalized voices

African American writing is generally treated as a sub stream of a vast entity of Euro-American literature. In spite of many differences, the general characteristics of American writing have always been considered essential to understand wider implications of black writing. As the eminent black critic Roger Rosenblatt states, “Themes which have been ascribed as characteristically American… are the themes of black fiction as well. Stock American literary figures such as the confidence man and Yankee peddler show up in black fiction too, as do celebrations of the outlaw, the outcaste, and the versions of the standard American success story.” (“Introduction”, Black Fiction, 4) But, in the course of time the dictum is revised by the African American authors to search the uniqueness of their cultural experience. The Black Arts Movement of 1960s was a sharp deviation from the earlier integrationist approach. Its major expression was an aggressive advertisement of the 'Black Aesthetics' that celebrated the blackness. Larry Neal, one of its expounders, interpreting its fundamental proposition stated, “The Black Arts Movement proposes a radical reordering of the western cultural aesthetic. It proposes a separate symbolism, mythology, critique, and iconology.” (The Black Aesthetic, 257) It gives novel directions to reconsider the whole range of African American authorship in the light of their different socio cultural experience.

In this context the black authorship and its critique become the matter of discussion. Being a minority discourse the black autobiographies are

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Mother Stereotype in Mary Gordon's Pearl

- Raichel M. Sylus

Abstract: Stereotypes of women abound in literature. The mother stereotype is the most important of all other stereotypes. Mary Gordon, an Irish American writer has depicted a mother named Maria in her novel Pearl. The mother who did not mother her daughter properly and the retaliation showed by the daughter towards her mother is dealt in the light of the “mother” stereotype based on Mary Anne Ferguson's “Images of Women in Literature”. Various other interpretations are also dealt with, in the light of the concept of a mother.

Keywords: self-affirmation, mothering

The stereotypes of women's roles in all literatures are not the same as one thinks them to be. A woman can be a creator or a destroyer. She can be the beginning or the end and bond or free. Everything depends on the role that she is accustomed to and the way she accumulates herself into the world she is brought up. A woman is generally depicted as docile, self sacrificing, an embodiment of patience and truth, trusting, loving, caring and care giving. When these are strictly adhered to, she falls into the traditional stereotype. If she deviates from any of these virtues, she is branded as one who is against the tradtional set up. The American writer Mary Gordon has portrayed a fifty-year old single mother who is at the verge of losing her daughter Pearl. While discussing the role of mother in an essay on “Images of Women in Patriarchy: The Masculist-Defined Woman” Sheila Ruth mentions that “In the language of the women's movement, the mothering role is mystified, covered over with a whole set of myths, fantasies, and images that hide many relities of the role and the person who lives it” (Issues in Feminism: An Introduction to Women's Studies, 86). Therefore it is pertinent to focus on the mother and the motherly role played by women. A woman as a mother holds a special place wherein rests a cloistered space more sophisticated and comfortable mother-daughter relationship. Though she is castrated and perceived to be betrayed or abandoned, she comes back with more loyalty to foster her children – here lies the greatness of a mother. Mothers are the favourites of many. Mary Anne Ferguson, in Images of Women in Literature talks of several stereotypes of women. One among them is the mother stereotype. “The role of mother” she says is “ambiguous”. She adds that “myths about woman's dual nature are attempts to explain primordial reactions to her double role as the giver of life and death, of pleasure and pain.” (6,7) Literature gives various

150

Cultural Difference and Multicultural Society: A Critique of Mistry's Squatter

- S. Christina Rebecca

Abstract: “Squatter” narrates the tale of sarosh, a parsi in Canada. it is a allegorical tale told by Mistry to describe the woes of an immigrant in a multicultural society. This paper attempts to interrogate the difficulty of cultural retention in multicultural society and the impact of hanging on to it in the present situation. Further, this paper analysis how Mistry through the short stort “Squatter” points out that ethnic and cultural difference should be looked upon as a gift rather than a burden. It should be not be an encumbrances rather liberating

Keywords: migration, metonymic of otherness, postcolonial counter discursive, ex-centric, Assimilation immigrant experience, awareness of difference, cultural difference.

Mistry's Tales From Firozsha Baag, is a collection of short stories electrified the literary scene in 1987. Such A Long Journey published in 1991 went on to win Governor General's Award for Fiction, Commonwealth Writers Prize, and W.H.Smith Prize and was also short listed for the Booker Prize. A Fine Balance (1995) won Governor General's Award, Giller Prize, Royal Society for Literature's Winifred Holtby Prize and Los Angeles Times Award for Fiction. A Fine Balance was also shortlisted for the Booker Prize for Fiction, but never made it to the prize. Mistry became very popular when his book A Fine Balance was chosen to feature as the book of the month on the Oprah Winfrey Show. His latest book is Family Matters (2002) short listed for Booker Prize for Fiction and he won Kriyama Prize jointly with Pascal Khoo Thwe. Mistry draws his inspiration both from sharply recalled childhood experiences and from the upheavals of migrations. The relationship between fiction and autobiography is hard to determineFirozsha Baag is a fictional Parsi enclave in metropolitan Bombay. The stories differ from one another, but they are interwoven by the common settings that evoke a Parsi world – the customs, traditions, food habits and erotic details of a community that likes to remain confined. Some characters such as Kersi and Rustomji make their appearance in more than one story; for instance Kersi figures in “One Sunday” and “Swimming Lesson,” while Rustomji figures in “Auspicious Occasion,” “Squatter” and “The Paying Guests.” There are other characters like Najamai (seen in “Condolence Visit” and “One Sunday”) and Jehangir (seen in “The Collector” and “Exercisers”) that appear in different roles in different stories. As a result, the readers have the experience of

154

The Women Characters in Scott F. Fitzgerald's Fictions: His Autobiographical Commentary

- Anubha Ray

Abstract: 1920 saw the emergence of American social novel with galaxies of writers who brought forth the flowering of second American renaissance. Among the new breed of writers who defined the modern America was F. Scott Fitzgerald. That year 'This side of Paradise', the first novel of Scott broke into the American literary tera firma and was an instant rage for its commentary on the youth of that period. With this the unforgettable Flapper heroine was also born who became the symbol of changing female consciousness of his time. Fitzgerald as a social historian depicted the revolution of the female characters drawn mostly from his experience of the women who he knew and lived with, especially his wife Zelda Syre or Genevra King, the love of his young life. The experience with them became the inspiration for basing most of the female characters of his short stories and novels. Scott's interest for their beauty and personality led him to model many of his female characters.

Keywords: Fictional women, Flapper Heroine, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ginevra King, Zelda Syre

F. Scott Fitzgerald lived and wrote in an age of great social change. The issues and conflicts that dominated the minds of the author also dominated the minds of his fictional characters. As a sharp-eyed observer, he recorded the changes, the new manners and morals which were revealed to him through living characters. What he learned from his exposure to real women influenced his development of female characters in his fiction. So much has been written about Fitzgerald's penchant for basing his literary characters on the people, especially the lively and ambitious women he knew and lived with. In short, he had 'a sense of living history'. His interest in women was complemented by his interest in women.Fitzgerald regarded with care the changing values, life-styles, and aspirations of the women of his generation, the slowly shifting status of women during the First and Second World War. Not only has he chronicled his observations in his fiction, but also dealt with many themes that are based on the experiences of his life. Many of the experiences he talks about were with women in his life. People like his mother, Ginevra King, the most serious crush of his adolescent years, Zelda Sayre, his beautiful and unconventional wife, Sheilah Graham, his mistress towards the end of his life had major impact on Fitzgerald's life.

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Assessing Feminine Endurance in Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre

- Kaisa Rosalind

Abstract: This paper presents the endurance of the woman in Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre. With a frail exterior, women actually have the will of steel as seen in the novels of Charlotte Bronte, particularly Jane Eyre. The protagonist, Jane Eyre, endures much to achieve her goal. The more she loves, the more she endures; the more she endures, the more she loves. Charlotte Bronte lived in the Victorian Society that treated woman as mere objects. She dared to challenge the conventions of her time. Feminine endurance in her seems so powerful because they are lessons she has learned from her own life. An in-depth study of Jane Eyre pictures the inner life of a woman's spirit and makes a clear distinction between “Feminine” and “Feminism”. The true characteristics of the woman such as grace, determination, perseverance and love are seen in Charlotte Bronte. In her life maltreatment and discrimination abound. Two paths lay before the woman steeped in this mire of persecution, and neglect. One is the path turning to God. Religious feelings learned from her family, come like a balm to her painful life. Charlotte Bronte's works are at times termed deeply religious. To escape persecutions she had nowhere to turn but to God. And the other path was the path of endurance. She did not allow her agony to overcome her. Endurance was the means to the final crown of glory.

Keywords: Consciousness, Endurance, Feminine, Patience, Perseverance, Determination, Forbearance, Poignant, Fortitude

In a society that was toeing the line of the husband or the father, where the name of the mother and the women in the family did not matter, we have Charlotte Bronte as a woman who did not need spokes-person, because her plays reveal that she was a trail blazer as a shining star and the first woman of her kind in the field of literature. The general picture frequently depicted about the woman in most literature is of vulnerability and weakness. She is susceptible to the temptations around. If there is any pain or misfortune in the family or in society, the cause is often attributed to her. It is this negative aspect that is magnified and one often tends to ignore and forget the magnitude within and the tremendous positive force that she propels. East, West, North or South, there is very little difference. “The amazing ability she puts in, and the strength and power of feminine endurance - no matter how she feels” (“How to become” www.aplacecalledananda.org) is something the world blissfully is unaware of. It is this “force within” the woman that is often focused in the novels of Charlotte Bronte, particularly Jane Eyre. Charlotte Bronte gave a female voice to fiction, generating a new focus on the woman as the “central shaping consciousness” (Nestor 25) of the

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The Forbidden Space in Mahesh Dattani's Plays Tara, Thirty Days in September, On a Muggy Night in Mumbai and Final Solutions: A Study

- Abhinandan Malas

Abstract: In the plays of Mahesh Dattani we see the representation of the marginalized classes of society and the space they occupy in society. This space is forbidden by society and is often ignored by the latter. My paper “The Forbidden Space in Mahesh Dattani's Plays Tara, Thirty Days in September, On a Muggy Night in Mumbai and Final Solutions: A Study” focuses on this forbidden space and intends to show how this forbidden imaginary space stands out to be more real than the socially recognized space of the mainstream society.

Keywords: subjugation, humiliation, patriarchy, homosexuality, cultural psyche.

Mahesh Dattani has emerged as a major voice in modern Indian English drama. In his plays Dattani explores those spaces of Indian society that are generally ignored or overlooked by the latter. The issues relating to the problems of women, children, religious minorities, homosexuals, eunuchs and other oppressed classes form the major themes of his plays. While presenting these classes Dattani draws a demarcation line between the real space and the imaginary or the psychological space. The real space includes the real world. In this real space the oppressed classes hardly find any scope to accommodate themselves within the main-stream of society. On the other hand we see that the imaginary space denotes the domain where the oppressed classes do actually belong. This imaginary space reflects the actual world of these discriminated classes and shows what their existence is or should have been like. In his plays Dattani presents the real world and the imaginary world simultaneously to bring out the contrast between the two and certain issues and problems which evolve from this contrast and are related to modern Indian society. In doing so Dattani uses his theatrical space with subtlety to provide these spaces with symbolic significance. But the imaginary space, that truly represents the discourse of the oppressed classes of society, is forbidden by society itself. In this paper I focus on this forbidden space. I also intend to show how this forbidden imaginary space stands out to be more real than the socially recognized space of the mainstream society which has been portrayed by Dattani through proper division of the theatrical space. But, it is not that the forbidden space is always presented through imagination. It is also presented by the space occupied by individuals of these classes who demarcate their own boundaries through their words, impressions, concepts and attitude

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Gemeinschaft: Kamala Das's Quest for Love

- D. C. Chambial

Abstract: Kamala Das, who is well-nigh labelled as a confessional poet in Indian English poetry, has, throughout her poetic career, striven for gemeinschaft in love. The word “gemeinschaft” comes from German language which, according to Webster New World Dictionary, means “a social relationship between individuals which is based on common feeling, kinship, or membership in a community.” She, in her poetry, has number of times reiterated this quest of her life. This paper aims to study her poetry, especially the poems in her book, The Descendants (1967), for her quest for equitable love.

Keywords: love, psychic turmoil, feminine sensibility

In her poem 'The Suicide', the persona “converses with the sea and is momentarily taken in by a desire for death by merging with the sea. … The body's expressions are linked up with the poet's exploration of love and lust,” holds Kiran Sharma (84). The Protagonist, in Das, expresses her deep agony for love. She cries:

I want to be simple | I want to be loved | And |If love is not be had, | I want to be dead … (8)

Her anguish for love is quite apparent in these lines. She wants to be loved intensely. She has an open heart for love; love for the man, love for the humanity. Here, it is not restricted to any one person. Her wail is not that she wants to love, but she craves the love of the world. She feels hungry for love; she feels starved of it. In this act, she doesn't want any fanfare, but simplicity; the simplicity of an ordinary common person. The very first line: “I want to be simple” smacks of her rusticity. In the last two lines, she puts a condition that if she cannot get the kind of love, yearned for, she would, rather, prefer “to be dead” to avoid the ignominy of unrequited love. The same anguish later emerges, when she wails: “In him I swim / all broken with longing. / In his robust blood I float / drying off my tears” (9-10). In these lines she alludes to a man who offers her wine, but she considers it only water. Nonetheless, in his company, she is lost in her imagination of true love that is shattered. Her unshed tears, she tries to dry. She does not let her psychic torment be revealed by shedding tears. She remains all quiet and sedate. She also discloses that to keep her man to her was difficult and he “required drinks” for that. She avers: “To make him love.” To seek his love she had to serve him drinks, as if, drink was more important than love that she longed for. She further adds: “But, when he did love, / believe me, / all I could do was sob like a fool” (10). These lines emphasize the crux of her suffering in love: in his

Rushdie to Adiga: The Edifice of The Indian Narrative

- G.A. Ghanshyam Iyengar

Abstract: The present paper traces the excellence achieved by the Indian Booker prize-winning novelists and their novels, which have generated the image of Indian English Fiction as the hot new cakes of world literary scenario. The novelty of expression and representation inherent in the works will be taken up for analysis in the paper as the required merit of achievement on a global scale as well as their influence on the whole gamut of Indian and world literature.

Keywords: Diaspora, Narrative, Meta-narrative, Flashback, Stream of Consciousness, Metaphor, Imagery, Indianization.

Introduction: Indian English fiction owes its grandeur to the literary experiments and innovations of its stalwarts like the path breaking genius of Salman Rushdie, the panache of regional flavour in Arundhati Roy, diasporic consciousness in Kiran Desai and social critique in Arvind Adiga. The experiments in language, theme and technique have engendered their art as exquisite pieces of literature that has prompted the whole world to stand up and take notice. In the present paper the novels of the four Booker Prize winners will be studied focusing on the narrative skills and expertise in the select novels: The Midnight's Children (MC), The God of Small Things (GST), The Inheritance of Loss (IL) and TheW hite Tiger (WT), respectively.In the year 1981 was published a novel that has continued to win laurels even after two decades. Salman Rushdie's groundbreaking novel The Midnight's Children was a pioneer of sorts in the history of Indian English Fiction. It heralded a new beginning for the genre that had seen the likes of such literary geniuses as the celebrated trio of Indian English Fiction amongst a plethora of so many others. His novel proved to be the beginning of a new era with its unabashed expressions, use of language, extravaganza and multitude. A saga of a country's journey from inception to partition and freedom, it juxtaposed the realms of personal with public, history with fiction, realism with magic; a trend that influenced the coming generation of writers and is visibly reflected in their art. The contemporary structure of Indian English Fiction; its edifice rests assuredly on the capable shoulders of its new generation of writers who have followed in the footsteps of Rushdie. In 1997, Arundhati Roy bagged yet another Booker prize for an Indian, with her novel that centred on the representation of the patriarchal Indian society, the class structure and gender discrimination. Drawing up a regional picture of rural Indian society in South India, Roy reveals glimpses from

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Mahakavi Subramania Bharati and Pondicherry

- P. Raja

It happened on a day in the last century. The guards in a zoo were on full alert. All the visitors to the zoo were held back from a cage wherein a newly trapped hungry lion stalked. Suddenly and unexpectedly, a short and lean man emerged from the crowd and dashed towards the cage; he quickly clasped its rails and thrust his head between them. Stunned, the ferocious beast glared at the intruder, then let out a thunderous roar as it charged at him. But unperturbed the man remained: standing, he stared into the eyes of the beast as though to burn holes through them. A moment of silence followed. The tense stillness was then shattered when he, without warning, burst into song. By the time he finished singing, all to the amazement of the spectators, the lion behaved like a cat. “You may be king of the forest,” said the man, “but remember, I am king of the poets.” Thus goes a true chronicle recorded in the visitors' notebook at Trivandrum Zoo, Kerala, in South India.The lion-tamer was Subramania Bharati, widely acclaimed throughout the subcontinent as the poet who pioneered a new epoch of prosody at the turn of the century. His songs were at once soothing and provocative, capable, admirers claim, both of taming the wildest animal and arousing a phlegmatic populace to fight against social injustices propagated by British colonizers. Holding aloft the banner of an independent India, he sang of a utopia wherein men and women were equal and all traces of casteism eradicated. It was a religion of love that integrated the lowliest with the most exalted, the poorest with the richest. Enshrined now in the galaxy of poet-patriots, Bharati continues to elicit adoration from his countrymen.Subramania was born on Dec, 11, 1882, in the South Indian principality of Ettayapuram (now a part of Tamilnadu), a region known for its artistic and cultural achievements. Young Subramania's love for poetry and music was nurtured by his grandfather, with whom the young boy spent endless hours, especially after his mother died. At the tender age of 11, he earned the coveted title “Bharati,” conferred upon him by the learned courtiers of Ettayapuram for his poetic flair and clever repartee. Bharati means “Saraswati” – the Hindu goddess of knowledge and wisdom. Indeed, it seems to many as though the child prodigy were tutored by the deity Herself. When he was 15, his father married him off to a child wife by the name of Chellamma, eight years his junior. The next year, his father died a pauper as his textile mill folded. The orphan Bharati was left in the custody of an aunt in Benares (now Varanasi), where he stayed for

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· Soumitra Chakraborty is Assistant Professor in English at Dept. of Humanities, Mallabhum Institute of Technology, Bishnupur, West Bengal. An Interview with Bratati Bandopadhyay, published in April-2011 Issue (Vol.2 No.2)of Labyrinth is credited to him.

· Anand Patil teaches comparative literature and literary theory at the PG and Research Centre affiliated to the University of Pune. His book publications include Western Influence on Marathi Drama (1993), The Whirligig of Taste: Essays in Comparative Literature (1999), Perspectives and Progression: Essays in Comparative Literature (2005), Uddhav Shelke: Maskers of Indian Literature (2002) and Literary into Comparative Culture Criticism (2011).

· A Sujatha is Professor at Dept. of English, King College of Technology, Nallur, Namakkal, Tamil Nadu.

· David Ayers is the Professor of Modernism and Critical Theory at School of English, University of Kent, England. He also chairs European Network for Avant-Garde and Modernist Studies (EAM), International Relations Chair, Modernist Studies Association (MSA).

· Supriya Agarwal is Head, Dept. of English, Central University of Rajasthan, Ajmer, Rajasthan.

· Bhagabat Nayak is the Head of Department of English, Kujang College, Kujang, Jagatsinghpur, Odisha.

· Pinaki Roy is an Assistant Professor at the Post and Undergraduate Dept. of English at Malda College, Malda, WB. His The Manichean Investigators: A Postcolonial and Cultural Reading of the Sherlock Holmes and Byomkesh Bakshi Stories and The Scarlet Critique: A Critical Anthology of War Poetry were released in 2008 and 2010 in international editions.

· Margaret L. Pachuau teaches at the Department of English, Mizoram University, Mizoram. She specialises in translation and culture studies and has also published with KATHA , amongst others.

· Rajesh Kumar is Reader at the University Dept of English, Vinoba Bhave University, Hazaribag, Jharkhand and Director, Communicative English Cell of the university. He edits his university research journal for English literature and language, TLV.

· C. Lalrinfeli is Ph.D. Research Scholar at Department of English, Mizoram University, Mizoram.

· Sambit Panigrahi is lecturer in Ravenshaw University, Cuttack, Odisha. He specializes in Postmodern Literature and Environmental Literature.

· Naresh K. Vats, Assistant Professor in University School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Guru Gobind Singh University, New Delhi.

· Ankur Konar a Gold Medalist (Eng. Literature) of Burdwan University, presently teaches in Burdwan Raj College, Burdwan, WB. He has a critical book entitled On Drama In Dattani (2010) to his credit.

· R. K. Guangdiat Nicholas is research scholar at Department of English, Nagaland University, Kohima, Nagaland.

· Nandita Mohapatra is a Reader-in-English presently posted in Dhenkanal Women's College, Dhenkanal, Odisha.

· S. Ambika is Assistant Professor of English at S.T. Hindu College, Nagercoil, Tamil Nadu.

Our Contributors

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· M.P. Sarojini is Assistant Professor of English at Arignar Anna College, Aralvoimozhi, Kanniyakumari, Tamil Nadu.

· Durgesh Bhausaheb Ravande is an Assistant Professor in the Department of English of KKM College, Manwath, Dist. Parbhani. Presently, he is a Research Fellow at Swami Ramanand Teerth Marathawada University, Nanded, Maharashtra.

· Debasis Chattopadhyay is a research scholar in Guru Ghasidas Viswavidhyalaya, Central University, Bilaspur, Chhattisgarh.

· Bhumika Sharma is Assistant Professor at Dept. of English, International College For Girls, The IIS University, Jaipur, Rajasthan.

· Raichel M. Sylus is Assistant Professor of English at Avinashilingam University for Women, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu. She is currently pursuing my Ph. D in American Literature.

· S. Christina Rebecca is Assistant Professor in English at Avinashilingam Deemed University for women, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu.

· Anubha Ray is Associate Professor at Dept. of English, Centurion University of Technology and Management, Odisha.

· Kaisa Rosalind is research scholar at Department of English, Nagaland University, Kohima, Nagaland.

· Abhinandan Malas, is Substitute Lecturer (UGC, XI Plan) at Department of English at Ramananda College, Bishnupur, Bankura, WB.

· DC Chambial, is an acclaimed poet, critic and editor of Poetcrit from Maranda, HP.

· G.A. Ghanshyam heads Dept. of English, Govt. M. L. Shukla College, Seepat, Bilaspur, Chattishgarh.

· Gupta is Asst. Professor at Department of English, M.M. University, Mullana- Ambala, Haryana.

· Jaydip Sarkar is Head of the Department of English, University B.T. and Evening College, Coochbehar, WB.

· Jayashree Palit is an Associate Professor of English in Maniben Nanavati Women's College, Mumbai.

· Rosaline Jamir is a Professor at Department of English, Assam University, Silchar, Assam.

· Anjuli Jain Associate Professor at Dept. of Humanities in MANIT- Bhopal, MP.

· Medha Sachdev is Assistant Professor in English in Tika Ram Kanya Mahavidyalaya, Aligarh, UP.

· Syed Ameeruddin one of the distinguished poets today, is the Founder-President, International Poets Academy,Chennai, India. He is one of the contributors to the Routledge Encyclopedia of Commonwealth Literature, London. He was the Prof. & Head, Dept. of English, New College, University of Madras.

· Dibyajyoti Sarma works as Senior Copy Editor, Times of India-Pune. He has published a volume of poetry, 'Glimpses of a Personal History' from Writer's Workshop, Kolkata.

Tanu

The other esteemed contributors are at the Editorial Board of Labyrinth.

216 Labyrinth | Vol.2 No.3 (July 2011)