Nietzsche's Concept of Authentic Illumination: A Spotlight

Approaches Volume VI, Feburary, 2017 www.approaches.in 1

Nietzsche’s Concept of Authentic Illumination: A Spotlight

Amarendra KumarProfessor of English (Retd.)

R.N College, Hajipur

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) is an innovator of theautobiographical form of poetic, philosophic self-revelation in a wider anddeeper context of philosophical writings despite his predecessor Rousseau’snotable contribution in this genre of inner reflective consciousness of acompulsive confessional ardour, often inordinately overindulgent. Self-contemplation is of course as old as man in its multiple manifestations, withan ingrained interweaving of epic, dramatic and lyric veins, available inliterary forms much later. Undeniably, Rousseau is a powerful influence onthe shaping of the literary genre of autobiography with his monumentalwork that renders subjective experience and the spontaneity of the inner lifewith delicate nuances and goes a long way in transforming the Enlightenmentsensibility into the Romantic sensibility. In fact both Nietzsche and Rousseauhave a confessional temper and portray and analyse their states of mind,motives, feelings, fleeting impressions, reflections, etc. with a lyric impulse,in a way that exemplifies the kinship of existence and philosophy.

Nietzsche’s self- preoccupation in the narrative genre of proseautobiography refocuses on the inner life with a much larger scope to bringout the compulsive need for a release of the spirit from the cramping effects oftraditional orthodoxy, in search of a belief based on the wholeness of thebeing, overcoming the split of spirituality and sensuality, of feeling andthought, of will and action, undoing megalomaniac obsessions. But,contrarily, he himself wielded the magic of the extreme in his later life by hisdefiant anti-Christian posture and his consuming philosophical care tocultivate his garden in the radiance of his ascent to a higher plane of lifeabove the common herd with reflections and unwavering commitment tocreativity. Born and bred in an orthodox family, with a deep imprint of hisfamily culture in his early days, he became a professor of classical philologyand gradually distilled the essence of classical wisdom embodied in theconcept of eudaimonia, the psychic integration of contending forces withinand without. The Greek word ‘eudaimonia’ implies the highest human goodrealized in happiness or flourishing in virtue in action to which physicalwellbeing is a means of enhancement. But ambiguity marks the developmentof the idea in the ethical and philosophical conceptions of Aristotle, Socrates,Plato, Epicurus and the Stoics, with the conflicting claims of moral virtue,reason and pleasure as they were assimilated and disputed. Nietzscheemphasizes the vital need to achieve a harmonious balance of mind, spiritand body in the act of living. The rejection of his offer of marriage by the

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psychoanalyst and author Lou Andreas- Salome crushed him to a bleedingpulp and might have driven him to suicide. But by the unvanquished powerof his creative and reflective self he survived the shock and composed aphilosophical work Thus Spake Zarathustra, also wirtten as Thus SpokeZarathustra, (1883-5), a persona- based mythography.

In the great work Nietzsche, recreates the historical figure Zoroasteras Zarathustra, repelled by the former’s acceptance of the division of theuniversal life into good and evil, body and soul and light and darkness, thatinvolves a separation of the fundamental features noted above into clashingopposites despite their interfusiveness in an interwoven texture. On thecontrary, Nietzsche’s remodelled idol Zarathustra harmonizes them bysoftening the crude categories in an ideal order- good with evil, soul withbody, light with darkness, to highlight their assimilation in normal humanity.Not tending to extreme positions, this modification exhibits Nietzsche’s sharpreaction to the Christian faith that is rooted in the belief in the elimination ofthe physical bondage by self-denial or self-mortification whose livingembodiment is Christ’s crucifixion itself, apart from the repressive codeevolved later by his apostles.

In the mythical connotative context of Thus Spake Zarathustra ananimal fable culminates in a radiant transformation of creature into creator,nature into history, tribe into self. First the human soul is figured out as acamel that carries human and material luggage for which it is harnessed bythe prevailing order besides the working out of a destiny in which it is a mutevictim. This predicament of subordination emblemizes man’s slavish orunresisting surrender to the yoke of religious morality clamped on him,suggestive of the Christian faith contextually. But out in the desert the camelmysteriously grows a lion, resentful, with primordial strength, of the harshdiscipline inflicted on him, symbolic of man’s inner struggle to free himselffrom the excruciatingly painful shackles of the repressive cult. Surprisingly,in the last phase of the allegory, the beast is metamorphosed into a beamingchild who bodies forth man’s creative potentialites capable of winningfreedom from the rough tough yoke for free choice and action. Nietzsche’spoetic faculty thus invigorates and enriches his existential philosophy in asuggestive parabolic, Biblic vein to celebrate the triumph of creativeimagination and the will to defy the Pauline code or Lutheran dictates, notfound relevant to a sane human order.

Jean Paul Sartre’s glorification of existence over essence seems toowe much to the existential assertions of Nietzsche who advocated the life-affirming value of joy in here and now with individual freedom of choice andaction. The basic instinct of domination, common to both man and animal,earns a simple metaphorical name from him% the will to power, that has tobe sublimated to be creative, not to be destructive. Even in the Judaic-Christianlife-denying conception of eternal life at the cost of physical existence in self-extinction there is a will to power that he dismissed as totally negative.


However, the Nazis grossly violated his realm of reflections by misinterpretinghis phrases ‘master race’, ‘elite leadership’ and ‘subsurvient humanity’ andunleashed a reign of terror by mass extermination in a savage campaign ofracial violence. Of course he ridiculed democratic norms and said‘Shopkeepers, cows, women, English men and other democrats belongtogether.’ But plagued by bad health long and convulsed by the rage of hisradical ideas, he flaunts his egomaniacal claim to infallibility in his anothermajor autobiographical work Ecce Homo (1888), symptomatic of his oncominginsanity in a way. In Toward the Genealogy of Morals (1887), and The GayScience (1882-1886) he assumes a condemnatory tone to demonstrate therationalist bias of science that wrecked the foundations of traditional religiousmorality, ushering in an era of godlessness. But this sense of exposure to thethreat of a chaotic drift in a dark goalless world hardly affects his search forthe authentic values of sublimation and ideal perfection in the living worlditself, counteracting the ascetic morality of self-denial synonymous withChristianity. Even The Birth of Tragedy (1872) asserts the positive values oflife in the endeavour to overcome pessimism and tragic ruin by resistanceand struggle characterizing the Greek tragedy.

Among shaping influences on Nietzsche Schopenhauer’s gainspreeminence for its impact on his conception of higher human developmentin outstanding types of individual existence which attains a pinnacle inGoethe’s life and work, exemplifying totality or the wholeness of the being bya harmonious integration of forces within and without. Goethe’s trinity ofgreat human types, the philosopher, the artist and the saint, serves as asublime ideal to Nietzsche that in his allegory of three metamorphoses inThus Spake Zarathustra achieves a vivid particularity by a climactic affirmationof the creative potentiality of the child, different from the Christian view ofthe divinely innocent child deemed singularly suited to enter the Kingdom ofGod.

But since Nietzsche’s existential bent of mind sparkles with a fancyfor fashion designing in individual life he insists on the philosopher’s roleas a poet of life with a predilection for aesthetic or poetic transformation ofdull routine to be lively and inspiring. His peculiar dramatic moustache andpassion for dancing (once found dancing naked in his room by a keyholeview) demonstrates his temperamental vagaries. Of course the abyss of theexistential chaos seems to heighten his need to dance, even in frenzy, toovercome its torment and horror. But his obsessive philosophizing of lifewith the finesse of artistry or artistic care doesn’t cloud his clear perceptionsof the crude realities of the world. A conscious realist that way, he knows theartist’s lack of practical wisdom despite his choice of the higher specimens ofhumanity in his pursuit of the Ubermensch cult. His Dionysian ideas have asymbolic significance in figuring out Dionysus as a fertility god, destroyedand revived in an endless regenerative cycle. Later, in some of his letters, hissense of identity with historic figures manifests itself through his signatures


in their names, such as those of Caesar and Christ. Obviously resigned to thenegative aspects of their character and behaviour, he associates them withimmorality, injustice, lies, etc.

Nietzsche’s tendency to think in terms of contraries very oftenimparts to his existential philosophy the flavour of immediate introspectiveexperience unfolding an interplay of objective and intellectual approaches.He adores his models or idols but is also apt to knock them off their pedestalsby reconsiderations and mature value judgement. He elevated Wagner to anenviable position but didn’t hesitate in pulling him down for his views andopinions he couldn’t approve. His concept of Ubermensch has weaker echoesin Superman and Overman that perhaps do not convey the exact shade of hismeaning, susceptible as they are to various interpretations. The word‘Ubermensch’, derived from ‘Uberwindung’, implies ‘overcoming’, atriumphant sublimation and transformation that is an individual rather thancollective destiny. Shaw’s Superman combines intelligence and intellectuality,practical wisdom and a certain measure of whimsicality or cynicism invarying degrees with mirth, humour and wit, resolving moral and socialdilemmas. Nietzsche’s conception of adorable idols reflects a visionary,autobiographical mode of living and thinking in a manner that derives itssustenance from meditative solitude and scholarly detachment. In his view,there are no absolute facts, no omniscient reality but contendinginterpretations from various angles, in different perspectives, seen or judgedin the light of contending norms and paradigms, foreshadowing the laterdevelopments in this field, in the modern, modernist and postmodernisttheoretical propositions and creative and critical writings. To him, Plato’sPure Reason and the Christian Pure Faith are deceptive projections of thewill to impose unauthentic categories on a fluid, protean, contingent groundof existence, not illuminated by the Ultimate Truth as conceived.

In Section 125 of The Gay Science (1882) Nietzsche confronts themetaphysical abyss through the parable of a madman with a lighted lanternin hand, running and shouting in the market place that he is looking for God,pronounced and found dead by both poets and scientists in the nineteenthcentury. German poet Heinrich Heine hears the bell rung for a dying God,while Gerard de Nerval, in his sonnet sequence Le Christ aux Oliviers depictsChrist trying to jerk his apostles awake to tell them that the Divine Father hasabandoned the world. The poet’s epitaph in one of the sonnets is titled Dieuest mort! le ciel est vide (God is dead! The sky is empty…). On the other handEmily Dickinson finds God’s right hand ‘amputated’ in her dilemma aboutthe nightmare engendered by faithlessness. Darker and more disturbing isthe Jesuit priest poet Hopkins’ discovery in his sonnets of desolation in whichhe ironically stumbles upon the brute fact of a godless vacancy ‘Deusabsconditus’ (God not found). Hardy’s poem ‘God’s Funeral’ depicts ametaphysical nothingness in a godless universe. The madman’s horrifyingvertigo in The Gay Science is Nietzsche’s own comfortless ramble in the void


created by God’s death or murder, with no prospect of regeneration by anyfestival of atonement. But instead of being overwhelmed by bafflement anddespair he seeks the illumination of authentic sublime truth throughintrospective experience, philosophical contemplation and unfoldment ofthe drama of the self in the symbolic scripture of the written word. Loss offaith is a torment indeed, while faith without metaphysical anxiety is a rarevirtue possessed and enjoyed by true saints in their blessedness whateverand wherever they may be. Tranquillity of mind and spirit even in a life of thesenses amid worldly pursuits without a passionate attachment to thingscould be next to divine illumination, but common human beings can hardlyattain it wavering between faith and doubt. Nietzsche had less and less oftranquillity in the passage of time till he lost his sanity. However, his grimtragedy may be seen in a redeeming light in his belief and utterance thatsome people are born posthumously. It happened to him in a way in hisposthumous recognition as a great philosopher who philosophized his lifewith artistic care in an autobiographical mode of living and thinking by theundying power of the written word that he wielded like magic throughsuccesses and failures.


William Cooper for Today

Dr. Ashok Kumar SinhaProfessor of English(Retd.), Patna University, Patna

It often happens in literary history that the precursor of an importantacademic movement does not get the due focus of attention, and the thunderis usually stolen by those who have been ushered in by the forerunner. Theremay be found numerous instances of such literary “over-takings” in whichthe usher is soon pushed in the background, and those ushered in steal allthe limelight. The case of the English novelist William Cooper (1910-2002)may be cited as one of such ironically brilliant happenings.William Copper’s first novel Scenes form Provincial Life, published in 1950,exerted a considerable influence on many other novelists writing in nineteen-fifties.

Literary Critics like Malcolm Bradbury, observed about the novel:

“It began to exert on a number of writers younger than its author, (agreat influence)”...‘Seminal is not a word I am fond of,’ wrote one of them John Braine.‘Nevertheless I am forced to use it. This book was for me- – and Isuspect many others – a seminal influence’ (Scene from ProvincialLife, pp. (i), (ii))

These “many others” whom John Braine has in mind are the so-called AngryYoung Rebel English novelists like Kingsley Amis, John Wain, Alan Sillitoe,Colin Macinnes, Stan Barstow and even a playwright like John Osborne.

In fact, Malcolm Bradbury went on to hail William Cooper’s Scenefrom Provincial Life as having a lot to do with a stylistic turn that happenedabout the time the book came out, and a turn which affected the fortunes ofthe contemporary American or French fiction.

C.P. Snow went on to observe in his Essays and Studies that part of(Kingsley Amis’ Lucky Jim is owed in and entirely proper sense) to anintelligent study of Mr. William Cooper’s Scenes from Provincial Life.

It is a point worth noting that John Braine, Kingsley Amis, JohnWain and the “other younger” writers marched on to glory, and WilliamCooper’s voice soon got muffled away in the boom of the so called AngryYoung Men.

This research paper is an endeavour to claim for William Cooper therecognition he has perhaps not received. The scope of this paper actuallycompels me to keep my plea restricted to a proper study of only one novel ofWilliam Copper. And the novel that I choose for this study is You Want the


Right Frame of Reference published in 1971.But before one analyses this novel of William Cooper, it will be proper

to examine briefly the literary background in which Cooper made his presencefelt. In the nineteen fifties, emerged a group of English novelists popularlycalled the Angry Young Men, comprising Kingsley Amis, John Braine, JohnWain, Alan Sillitoe, Colin Macinnes, Stan Barstow and Stanley Middletonprotesting against a hollow welfare state and an intolerably cruel society.The bitter experiences during the Second World War and the agony at theexplosion of the first nuclear bomb made these rebels believe that all thestandards set for them by their elders were misleading and had to be rejected.

Similar to the attitudes and beliefs of these angry young rebels, andyet different from them all, William Cooper foreshadows the principaldemands of not only these Angry Young novelists but also of young dramatistslike John Osborne. William Cooper’s mildly rebellious Joe Lumn of Scene fromProvincial Life (1950) has been re-lived by Kingsley Amis’ Jim Dixon in LuckyJim (1953-54), Joe Lampton in John Braine’s Room at the Top (1957) and JimmyPorter in John Osborne’s Look Back in Anger (1957). But William Cooper’srichly resonant and sardonically angry tone emerges in a different manner.Right from the start, he is concerned with preserving balance of mind andsanity. While the other angry young English rebels are interested in layingbare what social reactions go against the health of human life, Cooper isconcerned with how these conflicts are resolved for human life to be lived.

So the world of William Cooper is a unique one of normalcy, sanity,probity and balance. And this is exactly what makes William Cooper relevantfor today’s distracted and unbalanced modern society.

Now let us examine closely Cooper’s novel You Want the Right ofReference (1971) to find out how far the novelist is relevant for us today. Inthis novel, Cooper good-humouredly yet critically examines and evaluatesthe notable phenomena in the field of Arts during the last few decades of thetwentieth century. The novel thus becomes a clear statement of the author’sphilosophy of life and sums up aptly what Cooper has actually done in allhis previous novels. In a subtle way, the novel stands up for William Cooperthe novelist in the confused and confusing image of the modern society.

Somewhat like W.B. Yeats’ The Second Coming, this novel comes as awarning for the modern society where even

the best lack all conviction, while the worstAre full of passionate intensity.

Clarissa makes this idea clear in the novel when she tells her adviser friendArthur:

I will state something I will not do… Preside over the dissolution ofthis country’s art. I will not stand by and watch the element of mind,


reason, rationality or whichever you like to call it, cut out of art…And people who mount an attack on mind or reason are promotingthe dissolution of culture.

(You Want the Right Frame of Reference, 158)

This assertion of mind, reason and rationality and the protest against the“dissolution of culture” takes us back again to W.B. Yeats’ vision of life inThe Second Coming:

The falcon cannot hear the falconer:Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold.

In You Want the Right Frame of Reference, an underlying battle goes onbetween the firm frame of reference and the right frame of reference. ArthurHolder whose father is a mere picture-framer, is the man with the firm referencewhich unfortunately does not happen to be the right one. His rich friendTimothy Barnesby-Smith belonging to the big family of the publishers, UnclesWill and Ned, is the lucky man who happens to possess the right frame ofreference. Arthur makes this fundamental cleavage clear when he confidesin Clarissa:

“I’ve been thinking about the importance of seeming right andsounding right … now, in the present … say what everybody else issaying, when they’ve saying it… The shows you’ve got the rightframe of reference”. (You Want the Right Frame of Reference P.159)

This putting together of “seeming right” and “sounding right” isdramatically important, and William Cooper does not “say what everybodyelse is saying, when they’re saying it”. And this makes all the differencebetween him and the others he has foreshadowed.

Against this central clash of the frames of reference of Arthur andTimothy, is placed yet another functionally important contrast betweenMonica Booke, the daughter of an ambassador and Clarissa Jones, aGathercole writer (probably of lower middle class). Both are desirous ofwriting novels and make their own assessments of the modern trends inArts. Monica goes in for Civil Service, marries Mr. Post and resigns from herservice. Clarissa becomes interested in politics and rises up to become theMinister of Culture.

Arthur and Timothy get selected for the Civil Service. But Timothyinvites Arthur to join him and he goes in for publishing instead quite readily.Timothy marries Venetia and Arthur goes in for Phyllis, a modest lady whospecializes in the voice.

Six months later, the great luck comes for Timothy and Arthur:


Actually the luck came in three successive strokes; the strokes whichbrought them their corner in the literary phenomena of the fifties, theRebel writers. Fittleworth, Godsell and Shebbeare. Names to conjurewith. (You Want the Right Frame of Reference, p.162)

And now comes a dramatically significant discussion in whichWilliam Cooper ironically chuckles at the “strokes” which have brought“them” their “corner in the literary phenomena of the fifties, the “Rebelwriters.” Timothy passionately advocates that Fittleworth is speaking forthe thousands of people who have come back from the war to find a phoney,hypocritical, established society they do not want to fit in. Clarissa confidentlytells Arthur:

The Rebel Writers, Not rebels at all. If you want my opinion, that’sit… what are they rebelling against?... the people who run societyalways have phoniness and hypocrisies, always have had. You can’trun society without some of them. (You Want the Right Frame of Reference, p.163)

Interestingly enough, this stand of Clarissa confirms what WilliamCooper has himself been trying to say in all his novels by distancing himselfaway from the so-called Angry Young Men.

Cooper’s ironic comments on the “dissolution of the modern culture”continue. The next innovation to be described with a critical tongue-in-the-cheek irony is that of the Thèâtre de la Nausèe, which is launched in Autumn,and with which also a rapidly rising Timothy has a tangible association, forhe has been delegated by Cedric Colpoys to rescue the play with substantialArts Commission funds. The description reticently comments on the innerhollowness of the modern innovation.

The play entitled The Piece of Wood has the following to offer:

In the acting area, beyond which was the towering brick wall thathad backed the old Royal Unicorn stage, there was an armchair anda table that looked like relics of wartime ‘utility’ furniture … On thetable was a piece of wood, presumably the piece of wood.The mimeographed sheet was dedicated to explaining in the tonewhich might be thought to combine the didactic with the doctrinairethe principles of La nausee. (You Want the Right Frame of Reference, p.165)

The controlled irony with which Cooper has exposed the innerhollowness of the Thèâtre de la Nausèe indicates his firm stand for a rationalapproach to modern life and makes him relevant for the present age in which


Reason seems to be threatened consistently by emptiness andmeaninglessness.

The next modern innovation that Cooper treats with his characteristicgood humour is that of the recent advancement in Modern Painting. At theLyle gallery, an exhibition entitled “Painting in the U.S.A. 1940-1965” isorganized under the auspices of the Arts Commission. Professor David Slitts,who assists Cedric Colpoys at the Arts Commission, addresses Clarissa,who is now the officially recognised spokesperson of the opposition in theParliament on the Arts:

The mainspring of the Modern Movement in all art is a discoverythat the greatest unexplored territory in the twentieth century is Self. ( You Want the Right Frame of Reference,p.p.166-167)

And Clarissa retorts, reflecting Cooper's point of view:

But would you say this sort of absorption in Self is enough to occupythe whole of art for a long period. ( You Want the Right Frame of Reference,p.p.166-167)

Yet another topic of modern interest and present day social relevanceis that of pornography in literature. The date for the trial of D.H. Lawrence’sLady Chatterley’s Lover has been fixed. Timothy still in his bid to hit theheadlines, turns out to be one of the heroes of the trial with his sensationalpiece of evidence that displays his evident concern for the freedom of letters.But Clarissa objects to this freedom:

It’s like shutting your eyes to the Original Sin in all human beings,shutting your eyes to the tendency of artists to fritter away their timeon trifling eroticism. (You Want the Right Frame of Reference,p.168)

This attack of Clarissa on the “trifling eroticism” is an apt commenton the current situation in which “animal faculties” seem to be mounting on“rational faculties” like the inverted broomstick that Jonathan Swift describesin his A Meditation upon a Broomstick.

And in the concluding portion of the novel, Cooper explores, in stillfurther detail, the morbid fascination for the violent and the sensational thatthe modern culture seems to be promoting and even strengthening. Timothystill has something exciting up his sleeves– a series of plays which he thinksare relevant to one of the major themes of today– the Destruction of the Society.These plays are scheduled for the New Year at the Royal Unicorn theatre.The star piece of the new Unicorn season entitled Warrington opens to portraythe public execution of Jonas Warrington, an English criminal. The body isweighted, with blood splashing in affront on the nearest members of theaudience:


However there was even greater brilliance to come, when the directorof the plays, after the piece had been playing to crowded houses forthree weeks, conceived a master stroke. For performing his climacticfunction, the hangman stripped naked. And blood ran over him.Two days later the theatre was closed. (You Want the Right Frame of Reference,p.175)

The closure of the theatre indicates that there are people still who cannotswallow so much of sensationalism in the name of Art.

But the mob still has the craze for such displays, and it later onangrily demands for the re-installation of the play. The mob is not preparedto listen to the voice of reason and control.

William Cooper thus becomes, relevant today because somewhatlike W.B. Yeats in The Second Coming he makes the readers conscious of astate of affairs in which:

The falcon cannot hear the falconerThing fall apart; the centre cannot hold;Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,The blood-dimmed tide is loosed…(The Second Coming, W.B. Yeats)

William Cooper is the voice of Reason for today. Arthur significantly observesto Clarissa:

Look at some of the funerals we’ve had to put up with… The anti-novel that made Jim’s reputation and ruined the firm. Where is itnow? (You Want the Right Frame of Reference,p.178)

This seems to be an appropriate summing up of the place of William Cooperin the present day literary scenario. Modern Art in various ramifications, hasonly given rise to numerous “funerals” people had to put up with.

So against these “funerals”, William Cooper stands firmly as thesolitary voice of Reason, Control and Sanity. He is not prepared to accept thesensationalism of modern times. Instead, he makes the people today chuckleat the numerous innovations of today. His self directed irony and tongue-in-the-cheek humour give rise to ripples of smiles which make the people todayfeel somewhat relaxed. Indeed, William Cooper is very relevant for us today.

Works Cited

Cooper, William. Scenes From provincial Life, London: Penguin Edition, 1961,Print.

Cooper, William. You Want the Right Frame of Reference, London: Macmillan,1971, Print.

Yeats, W.B., Collected Poems, New York: Scribner’s paperback Poetry, 1996.Print.


Postcolonial Literature in the Indian Subcontinent

Dr. Ram Bhagwan SinghProfessor of English (Retd.), Ranchi University, Ranchi.

To begin with some simple assumptions. Here postcolonial is a fullword and not a hyphenated one. Usually when we hear the word postcolonial,we often regard it as a combination of post and colonial i.e. after the colonialperiod. The hyphenated term denotes a historical period. But the termpostcolonial is intriguing. It doesn’t necessarily comprise literature in Englishafter the demise of colonialism. In fact, postcolonial literature suggests andshows certain symptoms rather than a literary theory. Though not strictlyliterature after the end of colonialism; it has much to do with the after-effect ofthe liberation from colonial rule. The ramifications of this liberation are wellreflected in the English literature of the once colonised countries of Britain.

We know Canada became free of colonial rule in 1867, Australia in1900, New Zealand in 1907, South Africa in 1909, India in 1947, Sri Lanka in1948, Ghana in 1957, Nigeria in 1960, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago in1962. In this light C.D. Narasimhaiah maintains that African Writing isperhaps the only one which can be called postcolonial because it was writtenafter the continent got free from colonial rule.

Anyway, the important point is what characterises the postcolonialliterature. In fact, such literature is the outcome and expansion of man’sconsciousness in the fast moving world. Marxism was already operating asin politics so in literature and thinking of the masses. Women’s lib movementwas a new movement, the latest being women’s empowerment. Other issueslike lesbianism, gayism, communalism, nationalism, casteism, subalternism,i.e. dalit literature, gender discrimination, political corruption and criminalismof politics etc. dominated the scene. This is not to say that such subject matterwas specific to Indian Literature in English. Such a trend was more or lesscommon with all the once colonised countries. However, it is not to suggestthat such trends originated from decolonisation. Much before decolonisationof India Mulk Raj Anand protested against racial discrimination andimperialism in Two Leaves and a Bud (1937) and Coolie (1936). Anand exhibitsthe spirit of the age, the impact of “the thirties movement in Europe whichbegan to see political, social and human causes as genuine impulses for thenovel and poetry. In India the All India Progressive Writers Conference heldin Lucknow in 1936 both instigated and motivated the writers to protestagainst colonialism. In Mulk Raj Anand’s novels the protest was againstracial discrimination, physical torture by beating the coolies, economic


exploitation by giving low wages, engaging child labour, sexual exploitationof which the sample is Reggie Hunt, even moral exploitation by corruptingthe mentality of the Indians people and introducing bribery intoadministration.

As regards R.K. Narayan who spent 42 years in British India, wefind him sitting on the fence. Among his over a dozen novels he hasintroduced the British characters in only two of his novels and that onlysparingly. He has touched them with vulvet gloved hands. It seems that he iswilling to wound but afraid to strike. However, in his own way he hascelebrated the Indian cultural traditions and glory of the past whichconstitutes one of the major characteristics of the postcolonial literature.Already H.L.V. Derozio (1809-31) sang the glory of India’s past in the poemMy Native Land. He felt sorry at the plight of Mother India in chains andexhorted his countrymen to retrieve the past glory of India. To quote,

My country, in the days of glory pastA beauteous halo circled round thy brow,And worshipped as a deity thou wastWhere is that glory, where that reverence now?

Kashi Prasad Ghose and Michael Madhusudan Dutt also wrotepoems of nationalistic fervour. A little known novelist K.K. Sinha, the fullname being Kali Kumar Sinha of Patna wrote two novels The Star of Sikri in1893 and Sanjogita in 1903, though historical novels, can be claimed andacclaimed as pioneer works of national self-assertion and self-determination.In Sanjogita he writes,

India was once great. Her ancient civilization was the glory ofmankind. But she is now changed; all the vestiges of her pristinegreatness seem to have been swept away. When Europe was sunk inthe dark barbarism, India was blessed with bright civilization.

Description of excess of colonial misrule can be seen in other worksof Commonwealth literature. Chinua Achebe, the Nigerian novelist in ThingsFall Apart is critical of the colonial rule which destroyed native language,native culture and tradition. He pooh-poohs the idea that the Africans werejust savages mired in ignorance, superstition and black magic. Another writerNgugi Wa Thiongi writes in Decolonising The Mind,

In the 18th and 19th centuries Europe stole art treasures from Africa todecorate their houses and museums, in the 20th century Europe isstealing the treasures of the mind to enrich their language andcultures. Africa needs back its economy, its politics, its culture, itslanguage and all its patriotic writers.


Another important aspect of postcolonial literature is what is calledsubalternism and the novels of Mulk Raj Anand are the best examples of it.His novels Untouchable, Coolie and The Road exemplify the subaltern classharrowing under the weight of colonial neglect and recalcitrant native socialstructure. Bakha and Bhikhu are victims of an orthodox society based oncaste and blue blood. They are looked upon as scums of the society, thepariah class, the Dalit people. This downtrodden, condemned class alsoincludes the aborigines whose cause has been well championed byMahasweta Devi in Bengali and Munshi Premchand in Hindi.

In our neighbouring Pakistan, too, the subalterns are there. ShaukatSiddiqi the Pakistani novelist has based his novel Khuda Ki Basti on thetheme of subalternism, how the low class people have to suffer in God’schosen land. The three main characters are – a garaj worker, a leper carrierand a pickpocket living in the slums of Lahore in 1950s. In spite of neonlights and smart shops there are beggars and child workers engaged inhazardous jobs while those with political nexus are minting money andexploiting the ordinary folk. The novel points out the overpowering evilsobstructing the reconstruction of a new nation. In the Epilogue a prominentcharacter in the novel Salman says,

What a society! On the National Day of Independence, our ministersand intelligentsia, well trained in foreign universities take out theirhandkerchiefs and shed tears for the poor like Nausa, Raja, Shamiand Annu. Perhaps it was destiny that made them what they havebecome – a murderer standing trial in a corrupt court; a leper whohas no more to do than wait for death to visit him; a rickshaw driverwho spits blood from his lungs at every turn; a promising young boy,now in the pay of the eunuchs, who amuse those who piouslycondemn them! . . . Allahu Akbar ! God is great ! Praise your Creator,and let him hear the shout from the minaret as we prostrate ourselvesbefore the Beneficent and the Merciful !

It is ironical that in a free Islamic country what is God’s chosen land there isso much poverty, exploitation, brutality, corruption and hypocrisy. The titleof the novel is based on an Urdu couplet

[kqnk dh cLrh esa [kqnk ds canksa is D;k xqtjh

[kqnk ij ;dhu gS] ysfdu [kqnk dh cLrh ij ughaA

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak has classified women, too, as subalterns.They have been as much neglected and subordinated as low class people inthe Indian subcontinent. For centuries women in India – wives, daughters,


sisters have been regarded as second to men as husbands, fathers and sonsand relegated to a secondary position. But postcolonial fiction is an eloquentexpression of their self- identity, equality and self-determination. Feminismhas made visible inroads into Indian womanhood and poets and novelistshave squarely advocated for gender equality and level position with men.We are all aware of the Indian English writers like Anita Desai, ShashiDeshpande, Arundhati Roy, Shobha De, Manju Kapoor and Kamala Daswho have opposed the traditional role and status of women and pleaded forfreedom, rights and respect for them. In Pakistan because of greater religiousinfringement woman’s position is rather worse than in India. I would like torefer to two books of Tehmina Durrani – My Feudal Lord and Blasphemy.

Woman, unfortunately, has been ‘the eternal colony of man’, moreso under Islam practised by some predatory religious leaders. TehminaDurrani’s Blasphemy published in 1998 exemplifies the lechery, brutality,moral depravity and corruption of a most powerful mullah Pir Sain. Thestory of the novel is inspired by a true story which is too shameful andshocking for words. Earlier Durrani worte her autobiography My Feudal Lordin 1991 proclaiming to the world the harrowing tale of her tortures sufferedat the hands of her husband, the formidable ‘Sher-e-Punjab’. Tehmina herselfa beautiful woman from a privileged Lahore family becomes the sixth wife ofGulam Mustafa Khar who tortures her physically, mentally, emotionally,and sexually not once but for thirteen long years. At long last her spiritrevolts and she frees herself from her husband’s excesses and social confines.

Tehmina Durrani’s autobiography is an expose of political hypocrisyand abject subjugation and beastly treatment of wife by the husband who isan archetype of patriarchy and sexual colonialism. He uses her for sexualgratification as well as political gains as she is made to accompany himduring his election campaign and endorse his image before the public as achampion of democracy. After winning the election Mustafa discards herand seduces her younger sister. The wife feels desperate and tries to commitsuicide but fails. Thereupon Mustafa strips her naked and kicks and beatsher with the gun butt until she falls broken and senseless. Totally disillusionedshe seeks a divorce and makes herself bold enough to expose her feudal lordwho symbolises other feudal-cum-political lords of the country. Herautobiography is a landmark in woman’s emancipation and self-determination. She stands out as woman’s lib personified.

In Blasphemy Tehmina Durrani turns to expose religious profligacyand hypocrisy of a mullah Pir Sain. She exposes heinous crimes againstwomen by a religious lord, the custodian of religion and religious rites. Whenthe very foundation is foul and corrupt, everything is doomed like salt losingits saltiness. Obviously Pir Sain is regarded by the public as the most pioussoul, the most reverential and the holiest of holy men. He is their angel onearth, a divine messenger as it were. Both men and women flock to him to


seek redressal from physical ailments, mental unrest and spiritual sorrow.Pir Sain with his black magic, talisman and blessings charms them andearns good reputation for himself. But the real mullah is a perfect debauchand has hundreds of women in his harem. His sexual exploits are a blot onhis religious showmanship. He goes on a sustained sex spree. He experimentswith different kinds of sexual adventure. To top it all, he has sex with daughternot just once or twice but for years and all against the protests of his wife. Thewife is totally helpless as he treats her worse than a slave, no more than a toyand tool to obey his command and satiate his lust. While exposing thenefarious practices of the so-called mullah Tehmina Durrani does in no waymalign Islam or Islamic way of life. Her motive is to cleanse Islam of corruptionand hypocrisy being practised by pseudo priests in the garb of holy men. It isthey who are acting against the dictates of God and practising blasphemy.

The Pakistani fiction in English reflects the social, political andcultural life of its people. Mohsin Hamid in his novel Moth Smoke (2000)focuses on the proliferation of drug culture among the youth. The very title ofthe book Moth Smoke symbolises the youth who like the moth take to smokingdrugs and perish themselves. A young man Dara Shikoh Shezad becomes adrug peddler when he is dismissed from his job. He takes to selling heroin,hash and charas. The main drug baron is Murad Badshah who has a numberof agents in the locality. Dara is one of them. The worst part is that adolescentsand school children are addicted to drugs. Suja, a school boy of 12 years isaddicted to it. Drinking wine is the fashion among young people thoughIslam doesn’t permit it. Mumtaz enjoys her favourite brand McDowellssmuggled from India and sold at five times the original price.

The side issue in the Moth Smoke is adultery. Dara commits adulterywith the wife of his bosom friend Aurangzeb. The lady Mumtaz enjoysdrinking, smoking and free sex with him. This is perhaps the order or fashionof the day as Mumtaz bursts out,

Affairs were the most popular form of entertainment around. And Iknow why. My affair with Dara was at first at least, the mostliberating experience I have ever had. I felt bad, of course. Selfish. ButI also felt good.

This is the face of the new woman in Pakistan as elsewhere.Mohsin Hamid’s most popular work is The Reluctant Fundamentalist

(2007) which was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2007. It created quitea sensation among the reading public with its thematic urgency andinnovative narration stream. It is a daring attempt to subtly bell the Americancat. The protagonist is Changez, a Pakistani national who had studied inNew Jersey and was a bright Princetonian. But after a stay for four and a halfyears he is disillusioned first at the prejudicial selection of American students


in preference to non-Americans. No doubt, he is all praise for the sophisticatedlife of ease and luxury but he is peeved to note America’s charge offundamentalism against his countrymen. He tells the unknown Americanthat the third world as a whole has been victim of the West fed fat on itsnatural resources and under policies. Changez smiles to see on TV thedestruction of the two twin towers of New York’s World Trade Centre onSeptember 11, 2001. He feels satisfied that someone had so visibly broughtAmerica to her knees. He is not indifferent to the sufferings of the people.Naturally he questions himself “so why did part of me desire to see Americaharmed?” The answer lies in the simmering discontent and spite against thebossing America seated on the highest pedestal of power, influence andrighteousness. This is because consequent upon the 9/11 incident the Muslimsparticularly with a beard became suspects and were subjected to thoroughchecks at the airports, railway stations and other public places. At the ManilaAirport Changez was made to strip down to his boxer shorts for the check.On arrival to New York he was separated from his official team andinterrogated vigorously at two destinations to utter dismay and humiliationof Changez.

There was another reason of his disenchantment with America. Hisbeloved Erica loved him but her sense of nationalism came in their waywhich separated her from Changez. She failed to love a Pakistani, a Muslim.She was, in fact, torn between her old love and the promising one. She tried toreconcile to her Pakistani lover but America overpowered her emotions. Apartfrom all this Changez accuses America of its centripetal foreign policy whichis designed to serve itself. He feels that aid and sanction are the two tools ofAmerica to control other nations. He says, “no country inflicts death so readilyupon the inhabitants of other countries, frightens so many people far away,as America.” Therefore, Changez is averse to America and loves his roots. Ifhe may be called a fundamentalist, he is a reluctant, unwilling rathercircumstantial fundamentalist.

The postcolonial literature is a current stream. It flows on and on.


Sri Aurobindo’s Case as an Indian Poet in English

Ashok Kumar JhaProfessor of English , B.R.A. Bihar University, Muzaffarpur, (Retd.)

Sri Aurobindo’s case as a poet and critic is curious. Although coming ofa country where English was not a native tongue, he came to use it as themedium for his poetry. In a sense he became the type of a creative writer inEnglish from a country for which English is not the only nor the most vitalmeans of communication. He was, thus, a forerunner of the Commonwealthwriter of today. Born of un-English stock, he used the language he grew to ashis medium in art. The fullness and efficacy of the medium of expression hecame to use finally for his poetry could perhaps be one of the reasons why hepreferred English to his use of an Indian language. This included Bengali,which he came to acquire better after his return from England.(He must havebeen aware of his initial handicap in this respect. Apart from a poet likeBishnu De a little later who had tried to master in Bengali what he couldabsorb out of the practice of poets in another language and tradition such asEnglish, it was in the poetry of Rabindranath Tagore that one came acrossvital urge to master the experience in what is the poet’s mother tongue andthen translate such an expression into English.)As the situation obtainedwhen Aurobindo was writing, English was the most dominant means ofcommunication in India in respect of Indians educated in the new way. It ledthem to understand not only Europe and its way of life, but served as ameans of further enquiry even unto their own past. As such English becamethe means of his creative writing and his criticism.

In the years of his education in England, he acquired a first handknowledge of English literature. He came to develop a deep interest in Greekand Latin literatures as well. His awareness of the European heritage inliterature and the arts in general led him on also to respond to thecontemporary literature of Europe.

Some other poets as Ezra Pound and T.S.Eliot, who too were notborn British, came to understand the obtaining milieu and chose theirindividual course of development in English poetry. Response to the claimsof a contemporary situation for poetry could not be the same in their case asin the case of a British poet because of their more self-conscious attitude tothe past. Search of some moorings and certain vital and sustaining beliefswhich might serve their art was true of each one of them. For Eliot a returnimplied going to London, royalist political beliefs, the Anglo-Catholic church.It led him on further to a live classicism as the motive factor in his pursuit ofvalues in art as against romanticism with its craze for perfectibility. For PoundLondon or Paris or going to Italy were merely part of a pursuit of centres of


value to draw better on his perceptions as he came to practise the craft ofpoetry. For Aurobindo it meant coming back to another cultural identitythan the one he had acquired. Hence the years of his education can only belooked at as a period of vital conditioning to an artistic medium for the man.It is significant that both Pound and Eliot grew out the Georgian influenceson their early poetry. Eliot breaks away from it with his discovery of Lafourguein 1908-9.He seems to reach out to Lafourgue through a variety of interestsand influences seen in the poems of his youth and apprenticeship.(Later onsuch a break gains in strength with his closeness to Pound in his emphasison a different scheme of values in poetry.)For Aurobindo there is not really abreaking away from older forms of poetry and poetic influences. A shift isoccasioned gradually with his growth into his own tradition. One discoverssuch a shift in his short poem Invitation written in 1908 in Alipore jail. Theyears 1908-9 are important as they are for a different reason in Eliot’s career,in Aurobindo’s development as a poet, as it is in these years that his Vedanticexperiences begin first to fructify.

Coming to India meant an obvious change. A change in culturalclimate also meant a shift in personality orientation. In England with all hiskeenness to acquire a literary perfection, he felt he was an outsider culturally.Deeper understanding of the society and politics there alienated him further,making him more self-conscious about his identity as an Indian. As he cameto India such self-consciousness asserted itself. He tried to acquire a first-hand acquaintance with the major tendencies, drifts and dichotomies thatled to the making of a pan-Indian tradition in cultural, religious and politicalterms. It is while he was still in quest of his moorings that he also turned tosocio-political situations in life in the present in India. He came to learnSanskrit and Bengali at Baroda as he worked there for sometime as an officialand a vice-principal of a college.

In politics an awareness of the present meant adopting a firmer andfranker attitude to national issues while interpreting the questions involved,in which he was often in advance of his time. It meant trying to understandother Indians such as B.G. Tilak and others in what they were doing. LikeTilak he came to endorse a sharper line of action against the exploitativecolonial British rule in India. But in spite of his love of India he stuck to theuse of English as his chief means of expression in prose.

In poetry he came to compose poems on themes having particularassociation with the Indian ethos, certain characters out of India’s past. Theycould be poets and writers or characters or symbols out of the world of Indianmyths or its history Even occasional poems such as Bankimchandra Chatterjiand Michael Madhusudan Datta show the drift. A turning to old myths asthe archetypal support to experience, which becomes his chief experience inSavitri, can be seen at work in poems such as Love and Death. This poem is


a curious blend of a course of happening out of a story in the Mahabharataand versification in a decadent and mellifluous manner of expression indiction and imagery in poetry he was familiar with while in England. Hehoped to transcend such a limitation using themes out of the Mahabharata. Hetried unconsciously perhaps to counterbalance the disadvantage of a use ofdiction and imagery of a limited mode and milieu in poetic expression bygoing to the mode of storytelling in Vyasa. One can feel influence of thesturdy and masculine temper of Vyasa in how the tale is told in other poemsas Urvasie, Chitrangada and The Tale of Nala .

At places one meets a fusion of his reflective cast of mind and feelingin a lyrical manner of expression as one meets in his short poems writtenbetween 1895-1905. Sometimes there is an amalgamation of these into one ina poem like The Rishi. This poem combines a meditative lyrical manner ofexpression in conversation in describing a sequence of happening.

In 1893, when Aurobindo came back to India ,he tried to acquire hisown tradition. But in spite of his great labour in trying to understand the pastin India, he stuck to using English as the medium of expression in his poetryand prose. Could he, it came to his mind, maintain a living connection withthe English language and literature placed as he was in provincial situationsin India?

The English language and literature, is practically the only windowhe Indian mind, with the narrow and meager and yet burdensomeeducation given to it possesses into the world of European thoughtand culture, but, at least as possessed at present ,it is pain-fullysmall and insufficient opening. English poetry for-all but a few of usstops short with Tennyson and Browning when it does not stopwith Byron and Shelley. A few have heard of some of the recent,fewer of some of the contemporary poets; their readers are hardlyenough to make a number .In this matter of culture this hugepeninsula once one of the greatest centres of civilization, has beenfor long the most provincial of provinces.

As a result trying to keep in touch with contemporaneous literatures, heturned to the continental literature in Europe, Such touch as in the intellectualremoteness of India I have been able to keep up with the times, has been withcontemporary continental rather than contemporary English literature.

His admiration for Mallarme is a proof of the gain he had turned to,“The French language was too clear and limited to express mystic truth, sohe tried to wrestle with it he refused to be satisfied with anything that was amerely intellectual rendering of his vision.” Aurobindo noted a difference inMallarme’s attitude to language and poetry. He wanted to come to a use of‘true and deep instead of a superficial and intellectual language.’ Like himin La Cygne in expressions such as ‘transparent des vols qui n’ont pos


fuls’, he tried to use the English language to a mystical end in his own lyricThe Bird of Fire. He commented later on his effort,” I can suppress the mentalindication band give the image only with the content suggested in thelanguage—but not expressed.”

Aurobindo’s understanding of what is implicit in expression takeshim to a further development of ideas in interpreting the Vedanta. LikeVivekanand and Tilak he stuck to participation rather than renunciation asthe conclusive significance of the Upanishadic thought expressed in TheGita and elsewhere. Aurobindo comes to view illusionism as per Samkara,as a departure in interpreting the main drift of the meaning coming from avision of truth in the Vedas. All the same he makes use of the concept of howperceptions pass off into nothing as ground of search for a real notion oftruth. This leads him to write like Samkara before him who wrote in Sanskrit,some of his best lyrics.

Such interactions and influences are important in his evolution as apoet in the earlier stages. It is significant that he does not acknowledge muchof an influence brought about by the celebrated change due to the practice ofEzra Pound and T.S.Eliot. Even such a potent poet as W.B. Yeats wasinfluenced by the bareness of expression as well as a capacity to express theprosaic which was the gain of a new variety in poetry pioneered by EzraPound. There are echoes of a poet like Eliot in the latter part of Savitri as V.K.Gokak pointed out. But it must be said they are incidental. In fact Aurobindo’sadmiration for Mallarme and Yeats among modern poets is an exception .Hethinks the critical manner in modern poetry may not be the best of a mannerof expression in poetry:

It is very carefully written and verified, often recherché in thoughtand expression; it lacks only two things, the inspired phrase andinevitable word and rhythm that keeps that keeps a poem for everalive…there seem to be an extraordinary number of poets writinglike this in English now…It is not the irregular verses or rhymes thatmatter, one can make perfection out of irregularity -it is that theywrite their poetry from the cultured striving mind ,not from theelemental soul power within.

He believed in new possibilities of expression in English:

It is a literature that has long done things but has neither exhaustedits great natural vigour nor fixed itself in any dominant tradition,but has rather constantly shown a free spirit of poetical adventureand a perfect readiness to depart from old moorings and set its sailto undiscovered countries…It seems therefore a predestinedinstrument for the new poetic language of the intuitive spirit.


In the poetry of Walt Whitman, W. B .Yeats and Rabindranath Tagore, Aurobindo saw the coming of a great age of poetry in English. His hope forthe kind of poetry that was to come might not be true of the vast bulk of poetrythat was to follow. Aurobindo seems to surpass much of it in his own poetry.Savitri is a magnum opus of the new kind. The great poetry of T.S. Eliot inAsh-Wednesday and Four Quartets, as far as a universal intention isconcerned, is an expression of what Aurobindo has in mind as somethingthat can be done in English beyond Whitman, Yeats and Tagore:

The intellectual idea was not yet enough, for it had found its owngreater truth in the spiritual idea and its finer cultural field in a moredelicate and complex and subtle psychic sight and experience. It isthis that has been prepared by recent and contemporary poets.Sri Aurobindo goes on to link such a desire for change inunderstanding and realization of an essential value un expressionto a deeper evolution in society and mind of the race itself: The expression of this profounder idea and experience is again notenough until the spiritual idea has passed into a complete spiritualrealization and not only affected individual intellect and psychicmind and imagination ,but entered into the general sense and feelingof the race and taken hold upon all thought and life to reinterpretand remould them in their image.

Sri Aurobindo’s preoccupation with the long poem reminds one ofthe preoccupations of almost the whole of the 19th century with such anideal. Even when Paul Valery and T.S. Eliot had shown their distrust of thelong poem in the conventional sense, and an inclination toward the criticalpoetry of the modern age in which felt thought, in fact, the very stuff of ourconsciousness could be the stuff of poetry. Like some of the 19th centurypoets, Aurobindo prized inspiration as the begetter of a higher order ofconsciousness that could come either by itself or with the help of Yoga, if thepoet were capable of such a growth in disciplining his self and its powers. Unlike Valery he showed a frank distrust of the intellect or mere reasonas the ground to come to such a high function of poetry. He believed if hecould draw on such a state of consciousness a poet could write an epic.Coming to feeling and realization at such a plane of being ,he launched onwriting his epic. It would be an error to suppose that Sri Aurobindo was not quite awareof the tradition and criticism of the long poem before him. Beginning with theGeorgians he still believed in the efficacy of a narrative poem. This came to beaugmented with his responses in reading Homer and Virgil. AlthoughAurobindo is conscious of Milton’s limitations as a poet, Milton continues toremain an ideal and a model for him.


Aurobindo’s belief in the long poem gains further in strength from hisstudy of the Indian epics in Sanskrit. His great admiration for Valmiki andVyasa had led him to the Vedic poets. Could not he communicate a visionsimilar to the Vedic poets in an epic? In the light of such beliefs, it wasplausible for him to think that in spite of his reckonable success in lyrics,sonnets and short poems, he always thought and indeed laboured over Savitriover decades to make it a success.

In Savitri, drawing on a Vedic legend and symbol, Aurobindo wentahead to use the theme of love and death in the Mahabharata in an allegoricalpoem of his own making. Like the mediaeval romance epics of Europe as inDante and Spenser he turned inward to structure the narrative along asubjective interpretation. He drew on his yogic consciousness to do so. Insubjecting legend and symbol in old myth to re-interpretation, he created apoem of vision. In fact some sort of a vision of is characteristic quality of hispoetry 1909 onwards. In Savitri the vision is the more remarkable as throughthe figure of a quester, Aurobindo expresses a whole range of expresses ofdegrees and values as constitute the reason, heart and spirit of man. Theylead yet to a re-integration of the self in love beyond bondage to death in time.Savitri’s ultimate triumph over the god of death is the result of a journeythrough a dark phase of the life of senses to power and light. It posits areaffirmation of values in life beyond confusing appetencies born of lesserattachments.

This reminds us of the protagonist’s ultimate climb to the higheststate in The Divine Comedy, “Into itself the eternal union received us both, aswater doth receive/A ray of light and still remains all one”. The quester inSavitri too passes through a series of states of her own mind as well as thoseof others objectively perceived before she gets to the mainstay of her search.This is unusual value of a sort she is able to get to, as in the case of Nachiketasin Katha Upanishad. She is able to retrieve what has passed out of life becauseof her single minded pursuit of truth. More obviously than in the Nachiketasmyth ,the power begotten out of a purposive pursuit of what is real accountsfor a magical transfer of life in the return of consciousness to the dead. Whereasin the Nachiketas myth the boy who has been given over to death, as well asthe one who faces in the myth about Savitri the seeking person is obviouslydifferent from the inert body lying prostrate without any sign of life beforeher. Apprehending the two together as one, ensues out of a deep perceptionof an underlying awareness of the truth in love, basic to Aurobindo’s visionof life. It comes through any schism due to death and doubt. The questerdispenses with shadows of otherness cast by the god of death as heapproaches what he thinks is the self of a person not quite sure of itself. Thepoet’s clarity of perception in this regard speaks of his eagerness tocommunicate certain quintessential implications in aspect of the tradition towhich the myth belongs.


There is a note of prophecy in Savitri that is reminiscent of Nietzsche’sThus Spake Zarthustra. However, unlike Nietzsche, Aurobindo’s central beliefsdevelop along an integrating view of life in terms of a tradition .His earlybelief in progress yields later to an integral view of man and society. It is notthat either Aurobindo or Nietzsche is without a perception of evil. Whereasit leads to a calamitous phase in Nietzsche’s thought before the supermancomes to evolve, such an awareness is incidental to the quester’s progressthrough different and possible realms of experiences for Savitri.

It is not in his desire to present a somewhat unfamiliar and esotericframework, as Savitri may appear to some, that Aurobindo can claim to be amodern poet. Perhaps more so than Nietzsche does Aurobindo depend onarchetypal and traditional beliefs to communicate the quester’s evolutionthrough different degrees and phases of experience. It is here that even certainattitudes which obtain from life today are included in what the quester passesthrough to reach her goal. Thus, different Cantos describe a variety ofexperiences of different degrees of consciousness and positive, negative oreven indifferent values. One can see them at work in Cantos iv ,v ,vi ,vii ,viii,ix ,x ,xi ,xii ,for example.

Aurobindo comes to epical expression of the kind in verse after alifetime of exploration in his own tradition and that of the west. His effort isreminiscent of T.S. Eliot in Four Quartets. The latter achieves a synthesis ofbeliefs of diverse kinds of beliefs in poetry. But the manner of expression inEliot’s poetry is more critical, more concentrated, more quintessential, whereasAurobindo believes in a full outpour of the experience. As a result whenexperience fails him, his poetry becomes rhetorical, defective incommunication, a mere tour de force in a dated poetical style. The sheerlength of his work and the unrelieved weight of its expression are forbiddingfor the common reader of poetry, not acquainted with the philosophical beliefshe draws upon. The poem written in the same genre does not have either alarge or stable number of readers as Tulsi’s epic in Hindi. But there is asteady later day preoccupation with an old myth put to a spiritualinterpretation in both the epics. And yet as it is a contemporary poem onecannot help thinking of a response to Four Quartets as one goes throughSavitri. Expression in Four Quartets too is not easy. But as Eliot’s developmentled to the Quartets, it helped readers of poetry to respond to this major poemby one of the most important poets of the century.

Both Eliot and Aurobindo make use of philosophical beliefs. If Eliotdoes it in the critical and precise manner of a modern poem, Aurobindo usesthe expansive design of an epic. He has the advantage of a more coherenttradition and religion at his back. While Eliot tried hard to attain a sense oftradition and religion through extreme intellectual effort, Nietzsche goes infor a highly individualist interpretation of a substitute for ethics and religion.Both of them go in for a comprehensive appeal to those who care for emotivebeliefs leading to religion. It comprehends the illuminating centre of aChristian faith in Eliot, whereas Nietzsche seems to invoke an older code of


an amoral vision from the past in man’s struggle with good and evil. ForNietzsche the exceptional man survives through his suffering.

To Eliot and Aurobindo it is the fulfillment of a quest of spirit thatgives back to the self of man a fuller grasp of contexts in living. It becomessuch an important preoccupation in both Savitri and Four Quartets. It is aquest based on the finite nature of human identity in time and place, itsfailings and cravings, to a freedom beyond these in terms of a will to seek andsurvive extinction in time:

Here between the hither and the farther shore While time is withdrawn, consider the future And the past with an equal mind

Aurobindo’s manner of expression appears to be more descriptivein comparison. But Savitri being a later day epic, details in expression assumea symbolical significance. He tries to gauge the triumph of human spirit witha kind of seriousness in utterance in a heightened tone reminiscent of theDantesque narrative, “A power released from circumscribing bonds. Itsheight pushed beyond death’s reach.”(Savitri. ii.p.706)Her extraordinary exercise of the will to freedom is set against bonds ofearlier living overshadowed by doubts and the threat of death through muchof the poem. Her struggle reveals the quest of a heroic spirit in so far as itrefers to future, there is an element of prophecy in it. Aurobindo’sinterpretation of aspects of an old legend as symbol out of a Vedic mythcontains yet in it an appeal for the contemporary audiences as based on theprimacy of will as the doer it comes to have a wide appeal.Therefore, far from being a poem of renunciation, the heroic quest for truth inthe poem leads to a return back to life on the part of the quester. In FourQuartets varieties of realizations are held forth in a kind of expression whichis the result of how Eliot has been able to cultivate the medium as the groundbetween a use of the symbol and language as discourse. In Savitri differentdegrees and classes of experience lead to a verbal structure of somemagnificence in which the ultimo ate is also the long- hoped for triumph overdeath and feelings of awe and fear associated with it in the consciousness ofa courageous individual.


Beyond Rules: A Study of Linguistic Liberty with Referenceto Virtual Space of Communication

Dr. Rajiv Ranjan DwivediAssistant Professor of English

University School of Humanities and Social SciencesGuru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University, Delhi

The title consists majorly of the key terms that build up the wholediscourse of the paper. The terms, ‘Beyond Rules’, ‘Linguistic Liberty’, ‘VirtualSpace’ and ‘Communication’ in the title are self-definitive to a great extent.The paper, thus, aims and attempts to study and examine the extent oflinguistic liberty at different levels taken by the users while communicatingon the virtual space. The paper also endeavours to look into the rationale oframpant linguistic liberty taken at such platforms of communication. Assuch, it becomes imperative now to bring out the issues associated with eachindividual term separately so that language and communication as takingplace today vis-à-vis virtual space of communication could be betterunderstood. The key terms of the title as mentioned above unfold themselvesin the following manner:

A. Virtual Space of Communication:Virtual space or platforms of communication is technically named as “socialnetworking sites”. The paper includes the study of communication on onlythree such platforms, namely Whatsapp, Facebook and Twitter. Other suchsites include Hike, Snapchat, Linkedin, Instagram etc. Communication onthese social networking sites, especially by Gen Y1 users of such platformsassumes an altogether different colour and flavor in terms of the use oflanguage cast in and with other signs that supplement or override languageat times.

B. Linguistic Liberty:Linguistic liberty is the liberty taken in the use of a language for the purposeof communication. Linguistic liberty is seen taking place at multiple levelssuch as:i) Lexis:Lexis refers to words. The use of word has undergone a tremendous changewith the advent of social networking sites. Lexical changes are perceptiblewith reference to:a) New words/Neologisms (Metrosexual, Crowdsourcing, Chilax,Brangelina, 404, Tweetcred, app, etc.)b) Old words with new meaning (Cloud, tablet, viral etc.)


c) Ambiguity due to shortening of words (UGC, BTW, RIP, JK, OH, AFAIR,ESP etc.)d) Deliberate choice of new meaning for an old word (guy/gal, actor/actress,etc.)e) Mix of letter and digits to form/create a word (Gr8, B4, G2G etc.)f) Wrong spelling of words (Ryt, ya, Lyk,vry etc.))ii) Syntax:Syntax is the structure of sentence in a language used for communication.Syntactical structures followed by the users on the social networking sitesalso do not conform to the need of the language in the formal sense of theterm. Syntax management in communication takes place at the followinglevels:a) Omission of auxiliary verbs. (U right, U dere, U nt replying, All wel etc.)b) Omission of Punctuation (U right, U there, Wat u doing etc.)c) Code-switching (I am fine. Aap kaise hain? etc.)d) Code-mixing (Let’s do some masti-wasti, Today’s generation be like Relativesjiyo or jinee do etc.)e) Use of non-linguistic signs/characters in the syntax (*, #, & etc.)2

iii) Other Linguistic/Grammatical Liberties:Apart from the liberties taken in context of lexis and syntax, communicationon virtual planes involves violation in other areas of grammar as well. Othermajor linguistic liberties exercised by the users while communicating onsuch space includes:a) Skipping the use of article (U dont kno name of president of india?, he is bestcandidate etc.)b) Violation of the structure of S+V+O (Yeah busy I m, for movie Y U not intrstdetc.)c) Precarious acronyms (KISS, LOL, ORLY etc.)

C. Beyond Rules:Beyond rules signifies the range of exercises done in addition to or more thanor apart from or outside of the rules of grammar of a language usually followedby the people while communicating. The earlier two key terms as specifiedand illustrated above testify to the fact that communication on socialnetworking sites is performed in an altogether different style. It’s a style orblend of styles that doesn’t require obeying the prescribed rules of a languageto achieve communication.

So, what emerges from the exploration and analysis thereof is thatcommunication on social networking sites is performed through newercommunicative patterns that largely fall into two categories:a) Linguistic andb) Non-linguisticAs far as linguistic category is concerned, bilingual operation is moreperceptible for communication. On all chosen virtual space of communication,namely Whatsapp, Facebook and Twitter, the erratic use of two languages—


English and Hindi, for instance, prevails upon the basic principles of alanguage. The erratic use naturally bypasses the grammar of a language,lending newer communicative styles determined by and disseminatedamongst the set user-group3.

Non-linguistic communicative patterns include the use of smileys,asterisks, emojis and emoticons4, hashtags etc. This kind of interactive styleis the exclusive percept of social networking sites where inter-personalcommunication no longer depends upon a language or languages alone.These signs function in two ways in the process of communication:a) They supplement and contribute to the linguistic signs.b) They replace the language itself in order to perform communication.

Thus, we see that the linguistic-non-linguistic integration resultsinto violating age-old defined rules of language giving way to a kind of“meta language” or third language as a medium of communication which isindependent of any specific language with its set principles to be observed.This integrative style of communication on social networking sites is “unitedby a generally colloquial tone and a readiness to deviate from StandardEnglish norms” (Crystal, 186).

Users of language on the social networking sites appear as if theywere endowed with extraordinary knack of language management. And,they do it even when joining an internationally profound concern/debate onthe social media like Twitter, let alone in their informal interpersonalcommunication. Economy of space granted with restriction of word-limit,however, is a possible reason adopted by the users in general and Y- Gen inparticular. But, in the opinion of a noted linguist, David Crystal, the idea of‘economy of space’ in the use of non-linguistic characters for communicationis not justifiable. He places a more justifiable observation on the use of non-linguistic characters which he calls ‘emotes’5. According to him, it is thespeed of typing a message that determines the choice of linguistic or non-linguistic characters in communication on virtual platforms:

Economy of typing is not the whole story, as is easily illustratedfrom the structure of emotes, which often use quite complexexpression, and from such examples as onna(‘on a’) and atta (‘at a’),which usually use an extra letter keystroke. On the other hand,anything which does speed up typing is going to beappreciated…(Crystal, 188).

One of the reasons for the widespread use of emojis, emoticons, smileys etc. isattributable to the inadequacy of textual language of words. These non-linguistic characters ‘diffuse the situation’, to use Crystal’s phrase, andthereby lends clarity to the communication performed. Else,


Written language has always been ambiguous, in its omission offacial expression, and in its ability to express all the intonationaland other prosodic features of speech… These features of Netspeak6

have evolved as a way of avoiding the ambiguities and misperceptionswhich come when written language is made to carry the burden ofspeech. (38-39).

Kate Burridge also reflects on the inadequacy of language in expressing one’sthoughts and feelings. She says:

I am sure you are painfully aware of the inadequacy of languagewhen it comes to expressing thoughts and feelings. This is one reasonwhy our speech is full of approximating phrases or hedges like‘kinda’, like’, ‘sorta’, ya know’, ‘I mean’. These expressions aren’tjust the stuff of teen-speak! (Burridge, 160).

In order to stress upon the limitations of language, Kate further quotes thelinguist, Fred Householder as follows ‘…nothing can be so clearly andcarefully expressed that it cannot be utterly misinterpreted’(160).

But, resorting to the innovative linguistic style of communication onthe virtual platforms could equally end up in a precarious way at times.Howsoever vibrant and interesting chats on the virtual platforms may be,there is always the ‘potential for chaos and offence’ (Dudeney, 130) with thenew and newer styles of communication on such platforms. For instance, theuse of acronyms as a linguistic smartness is not only unintelligible but alsoembarrassing and disturbing at times. The following example from ahypothetical whatsapp chat can be illustrated to understand the situation:

A: Thanx 4 ur msg yaar. Feeling relieved now. Gr8 uB: Hmmm. Actually the prob is his AFAIR.A: Still yaar.B: KISSA: KB: G2G.PAW. TTYL.A lot of anomalies can be pointed out in the example cited above.

This style of chatting has been seen prevailing upon the students’ habit ofusing it in the answer sheet of the examination which is a space of formalcommunication. B/W, ASAP etc. are seen frequently used for ‘between’ and‘as soon as possible’ respectively. Similarly, Acc.to and btw are written for‘According to’ and ‘by the way.’ The examples are in plenty, prevalent evenin formal space of communication illustrating the newer style of languagedeviating from Standard English usage. The appendix section of the papercomprises a sample each of Whatsapp, Facebook and Twitter wherecommunication happens with almost all deviations of language andinnovative integration of non-linguistic style being discussed here.


The use of newer communicative patterns on the virtual platforms,however, has received mixed reactions. Internet is largely held responsiblefor the sea change in the ways language is used today. The question whetherinternet is ‘Communication Corruptor or Language Liberator’ (Straw, 2005)has eventually brought up debate leaving dual understanding of the issue.The advocates of the language consider it a purely detrimental exercise as itbadly acts upon the proficiency of English especially for the non-nativelearners of the language. For them, it is a ‘communication corruptor’ practice.But there are those who critique the practice in a positive spirit. They opinethat communication on the virtual planes through a style independent ofany linguistic constraint and confinement is wondrous and appreciate thepractice as the ‘language liberator’. David Crystal stands by the latteradvocates. Also, according to Angus Stevenson, the editor of Oxford EnglishDictionary, “Social networking sites have created a real language of thenet.”(‘Retweet’ and ‘woot’, 2011). Interestingly, people observing or expectingothers to observe standard linguistic use while communicating on virtualplatforms are taken in a kind of negative or derogatory impression. Thoseusing chaste English as a language of communication refraining from internetslangs and non-linguistic characters as mentioned above are called‘eggheads’.Limitations:

The present paper has its own limitations in so far as it includesonly selective aspects of communication on the virtual platforms. It is alsolimited in so far as it studies only the select virtual platforms of communicationfrom amongst many as stated earlier. Also, the issue of linguistic liberty isconfined to the communication that take place mostly between youth and Xand Y Generation users. The other users keeping the linguistic formalitiesintact are not included in the study. The debate of larger negative and positiveimpacts of linguistic liberty has been excluded from the study. The [paperonly focuses on the ways users manage language and incorporate non-linguistic characters innovatively while communicating on the virtualplatforms.

To conclude, the virtual space of communication capitalizes on thelinguistic liberty juxtaposed against the new style of communication thattakes on creative lateral changes with respect to language and beyond. Newercommunicative patterns engage themselves with both linguistic and non-linguistic elements that change and altogether redefine the whole idea ofcommunication performed earlier through a purely linguistic medium.Lexical innovations, structural shifts from the principles of a language andthe integration and incorporation of non-linguistic characters on the virtualplatforms stand both interesting and challenging. The transition in linguisticapplication since the advent of internet has re-established the style ofinterpersonal communication across the globe.


Endnotes:

1. Generations of people are broadly divided into four categories as follows:* Veterans or seniors – born before 1945* Baby Boomers – born 1946 – 1964* Gen X – born 1965-1979* Gen Y – born after 1980 (http://interactivecommunicationcompany.blogspot.in/)Gen Z is a latest group considered tentatively for those born 2000 onwards.2. The use of characters is required to create password for the internet bankingservices and other online usages. Banks and other such organizationsnecessitate this procedure in order to ensure safety and privacy so that noone else can ever figure out the codes access the information for any fraudulentuse. Interestingly and ironically, we incorporate such usage in languagethese days to express or ourselves or to communicate while the fact is thatthese codes are meant for confining the communication to oneself or begettingconfusion and ambiguity thereby.3. Individual determination of linguistic choice is substantiated by theunderstanding that since language is a means of communication and ifcommunication is achieved through whatsoever ways of the use of language,mono/single or bilingual, with or without following the grammatical rulesof a language in particular, the debate for a stereotypical set formula of alanguage ceases to exist. This, however, is not sanctioned for formalcorrespondence whatsoever.4. An emoticon is a typographic display of a facial representation, used toconvey emotion in a text only medium. Like so: ;-) Unlike emoticons, emojiare actual pictures, of everything from a set of painted nails (=Ø…Ü) to aslightly whimsical ghost (=Ø{Ü). (https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/feb/06/difference-between-emoji-and-emoticons-explained)5. “(Emotes)…are combinations of keyboard characters designed to show anemotional facial expression…”(Crystal, 36).6. “Netspeak is a brand new electronic medium of communication, globaland interactive in character evidently related to English as a global language,with its own distinctive features in all of its varieties. Netspeak is consideredto a relatively largely unexplored area, the brand new medium ofcommunication which is closely related to the Internet, and dominant effectin everyday lives, and Netspeak is fast growing. David Crystal argues thatNetspeak is a radically new linguistic medium…According to David Crystal,the term Netspeak serves as an alternative to terms such as Netlish, Weblish,Internet language, cyberspeak…Netspeak is a third medium of both speechand writing, combine with the properties electronic texts display.(https://chihiro89.wordpress.com/2010/03/01/79/)


7. “Egghead is used as a noun and it is a semantic extension. Egghead isused for the one who is conservative even in the use of social networking,uses set graphics rather than a personal picture, writes correct Englishrather than using slangs and short forms. E.g. My lecturer is an eggheadeven on the internet (www.livinginternet.com).” (http://www.academia.edu/19045036/social_media_neologisms_in_English_languages_lexical_system)

APPENDIX

(Sample of communication performed at social networking sites, namelyFacebook, Whatsapp and Twitter)

A. Facebook:Madhumita Dash How sad it is ....some people never changes and u have toaccept them as they are even how much they hurt u .....dear laughing colours...Maninder Kaur =ØÞ=ØÞ=ØÞ=ØÞ=ØÞ=ØÞ=ØÞ=ØÞthat”s 101% true andfabulous ,but they can”t change their habit =ØÞ=ØÞRashmi Mani Some people they talk about others kids what they do butthey don’t worry Abt wat their kids are doing lol illiteratesJyotiSisodiyaWell said instead of interrupting I others life try to solve urproblems n become best =ØÞAnas Khan But they always interfare in others... and make double theirproplem=ØÞ=ØÞRoopaVenkiteswaranThis shud first go to my nosy idiotic butch mother inlaw then To relatives.....Mussana Khan Agreed...but no v vl still interrupted n other issues...so sad...Imran Khan Afridi Soo true...Riya Mishra Yep well saidManjunathJanardhanHalf ? I think full problems ;-)NiteshPatilActually I want to Share This Post But I Can’t !!!!!=ØÞ=ØÞPratima Gaurav Q tm kisi k relative nhi ho... =ØÞSweta Shree Vry well said =ØMÜPalakk Sharma Today’s gerenation be like Relatives jiyo or jinee do=ØÞ=ØÞ=ØÞ=ØÞ=ØÞ=ØÞ=ØÞMudasar Hameed Lets do some dhangalPriyanka Yadav RytDeepak Joshi Hehe yeahSamson Dsouza Really well said admin. True true very trueGovinda R Kulkarni Karanamxcelent really very true nc text

(Post by Laughing Colours at 9.45 p.m. on 03.02.2017)


B. Whatsapp:

=ØÞ=ØÞ=ØÞBoy :Were you there in the party kalraat??Girl :=Ø‘ÜBoy :yehkya !!!Girl : ha thi.————————————————————————— Boy: =ØÞDid you drink there?Girl: .Boy: Wats this now?Girl: 9 > % K ! @ .=ØÞ=ØÞ=ØÞ=ØÞ=ØÞ—————————————————————————He: kitnipeeyi?She: <Ø8ßHe: matlab?She: full—————————————————————————Girl: Tu party mai kiss kesaathgaya?Boy: a<ØLßGirl: kyamatlab?Boy : A kela—————————————————————————Girl ...kya tum daarupite hoBoy....<Ø9ßGirl....ab ye kyaBoy....0 K “—————————————————————————He: can I have drinks today?She :<ØUßHe: =Ø’ÞShe: pi ja=ØÞ=ØÞ=ØÞ————————————————————————He: Nobody comes to help me when I need them.=Ø—ÞShe: =Ø1ÜHe: Watt dis now?She: Main aaun?=ØÞ=ØÞ=ØÞ=ØÞ=ØÞ—————————————————————————(Message forwarded by a friend on Whatsapp on 27th January, 2017)


C. Twitter:Home > SPORTS > World T20: Amitabh Bachchan trolls Andrew Flintoff onTwitterWorld T20: Amitabh Bachchan trolls Andrew Flintoff on TwitterBy: ABP News Bureau | Last Updated: Monday, 28 March 2016 11:26 AMWorld T20: Amitabh Bachchan trolls Andrew Flintoff on TwitterAmitabh FlintoffNew Delhi: Megastar Amitabh Bachchan trolled former England cricketerAndrew Flintoff on Twitter after India eliminated Australia out of World T20to enter the semis. Flintoff made a sarcastic comment on Kohli but drew an even more chargedand surprising reaction from Bachchan. Followandrewflintoff—’ @flintoff11At this rate @imVkohli will be as good as @root66 one day ! Not sure who@englandcricket will meet in the final now !11:04 PM - 27 Mar 2016 1,234 1,234 Retweets 2,316 2,316 likes27 Marandrewflintoff—’ @flintoff11At this rate @imVkohli will be as good as @root66 one day ! Not sure who@englandcricket will meet in the final now ! Follow Amitabh Bachchan—’ @SrBachchan@flintoff11 @imVkohli @root66 @englandcricket Root who ?“ !< 8 G > !< & G G Root ko ..!!!11:38 PM - 27 Mar 201611,483 11,483 Retweets 17,612 17,612 likesWithin a span of two hours, Freddy returned to mock Bachchan by askingwho he was. Followandrewflintoff—’ @flintoff11Sorry who’s this ?=Ø“Þ https://twitter.com/srbachchan/status/714152008429805568 …1:39 AM - 28 Mar 20161,858 1,858 Retweets 2,693 2,693 likesThis tweet led to a tirade against him from Indians all over the world.28 Marandrewflintoff—’ @flintoff11Sorry who’s this ?=Ø“Þ https://twitter.com/srbachchan/status/714152008429805568 … FollowDºíé–! @beingdevil_


The 1 who is having 19M more followers than u here & more famous than uin England @flintoff11 @SrBachchan @imVkohli @root66 @englandcricket1:52 AM - 28 Mar 2016 79 79 Retweets 293 293 likes28 Mar Sir RavindraJadeja @SirJadejaBeta @flintoff11,“Rishtey Me To Wo TumhareBaapLagtey Hain, Naam Hai Shahenshaah”. ;)@SrBachchan #IndvsAus pic.twitter.com/r4dKZjV2YX Followpayalbhayana @payalbhayana@SirJadeja @flintoff11 @SrBachchanIskahaal Sharapova walaNaa Ho jaaye“who is Sachin”sheasked.Aajgayab Ho GayiKhud!3:04 AM - 28 Mar 201611 11 Retweets 158 158 likes28 Marandrewflintoff—’ @flintoff11Sorry who’s this ?=Ø“Þ https://twitter.com/srbachchan/status/714152008429805568 … Follow Khaleesi @HappyHigh01@flintoff11 Daddy!! @SrBachchan pic.twitter.com/iYjddRDt0R1:52 AM - 28 Mar 2016View image on Twitter107 107 Retweets 203 203 likes28 Marandrewflintoff—’ @flintoff11Sorry who’s this ?=Ø“Þ https://twitter.com/srbachchan/status/714152008429805568 … Follow $ A 0 > “ H $ @riturajkathait@flintoff11 bete followers kishankyadekh le pehletubaad me puchiyo who isthis..smjhaghochu..,Google it....1:53 AM - 28 Mar 2016 4 4 Retweets 44 44 likes28 Marandrewflintoff—’ @flintoff11Sorry who’s this ?=Ø“Þ https://twitter.com/srbachchan/status/714152008429805568 … FollowSamina Shaikh —’ @saminaUFshaikh@flintoff11 @SrBachchan @imVkohli @root66 @englandcricket well afterlosing a match to India dis is what happens! Memory loss bro =ØÞ=ØÞ1:59 AM - 28 Mar 2016


17 17 Retweets 81 81 likes28 Marandrewflintoff—’ @flintoff11Sorry who’s this ?=Ø“Þ https://twitter.com/srbachchan/status/714152008429805568 … Follow !shaan $axena @TRIVIDIishaan@flintoff11 amitabhbachan followers on twitter = 20mFlintoff + joe root = 2 + 3 = 5m4xmore fans than u and ur baby joe root.. =ØÞ=ØÞ= ØÞ=ØÞ =ØÞ= ØÞ= ØÞ=Ø Þ=ØÞ3:19 AM - 28 Mar 2016 1 1 Retweet 6 6 likes(http://www.abplive.in/sports/world-t20-amitabh-bachchan-trolls-andrew-flintoff-on-twitter-312550)28 Marandrewflintoff—’ @flintoff11Sorry who’s this ?=Ø“Þ https://twitter.com/srbachchan/status/714152008429805568 … FollowVivekRabara @VivekRabara@flintoff11 Know @YUVSTRONG12? Or forgot that too! @1sInto2s(http://www.abplive.in/sports/world-t20-amitabh-bachchan-trolls-andrew-flintoff-on-twitter-312550) Accessed on 05.02.2017 at 9.05 p.m.

Works Cited

1. Burridge, Kate. Blooming English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,2004. Print.

2. Crystal, David. Language and the Internet.Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 2001. Print.

3. Dudeney, Gavin. The Internet and the Language Classroom. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 2007. Print.

4. ‘Retweet’ and ‘woot’ make Oxford dictionary debut.2011. http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-14588727. Accessed on05.02.2017 at 8.45 p.m.

5. Straw, Rebecca. The Internet: Communication Corruptor or LanguageLiberator?2005.

http://www.jyi.org/issue/the-internet-communication-corruptor-or-language-liberator/Accessed on 05.02.2017 at 8.45 at 8.50 p.m.


Effect on Urbanization in Alan Brownjohn’s The Rabbit andA.D. Hope’s Standardization

Dr.Nagraj G.Holeyannavar.Assistant Professor of English

University of Horticultural Sciences, Bagalkot

Ecocritism has given a new impetus to the study of Nature and man’sexploitations towards nature. And to know about it with new perspective,approach has been laid down. The destructive element of human beingcausing many endangered species to go extinct and a day may come thathuman beings have to struggle to see real animal as it is presumed by AlanBrownjohn’s The Rabbit. Earth not only belongs to human beings, but it is forother living beings. Human beings have been constantly exploiting the earthand other livings beings for the sake of their food, shelter and livelihood.They will not assume that they are the destroyers of life on the Earth. Theypresume that they are the owners of the Earth. But, it is not so, because God isthe creator and the owner of the Earth. He has given equal rights to all livingbeings. Being intelligent, human beings have started exploiting other livingbeings. There is no place left for other living beings to live. Hence, humanbeings feel that they are being disturbed by other living beings. Therefore, it isimpossible to sustain as the ecological system has been distrusted by man.The day is likely to come man may see some of the species only in movies orpictures.

There is a difference of thought between the God made world andthe man made world. God made world is for everyone wherein every livingbeing takes its share and live happily. Whereas, the man made world is forhimself and it cannot be used for other living beings. From that nothing isgained, either food or shelter. The moral of the story is that men can constructa tree of a glass in two years. But, it is not possible to construct a living tree as,that tree has to grow naturally without any assistance. It takes long time togrow up.

The poem is a satire on the effect of urbanization, which has broughtup an end to other living species and some to extinct. A note has been givenby the poet in the poem by stating upon the condition which is likely to comeupon when all other living beings are going to extinct in the world as there isno space for them to live on the earth and the day may come when man haveto see the other living beings only through mere picture only.The poem begins with a group of persons. They are referred in the poem withthe word ‘We’. These persons plan up to see the rabbit when they got themessage about the only surviving rabbit in England. The question is beingasked to them by others, when they are about to go to see the rabbit. The


group replied that they are going to see the rabbit. The only rabbit, which issurviving in England and it has been sitting behind a barbed wire fenceunder the flood lights, neon lights and sodium lights, with nibbling the grass,from the only patch of grass which has grown near the hoardings, can beeasily counted out, which is left in England.

The lights like flood, neon and sodium show up that the condition ofman has improved, but rather his condition has turned up to Materialistattitude of by advertising the event instead of protecting the rabbit. The groupplans up to see the rabbit by travelling through different means of transportsystem such as escalator, underground, motorway and helicopter and thelast ten yards by foot.

This shows how man has improved with his technologicalknowledge, but he never used the technical knowledge for the betterment ofother living species, instead for his own betterment. And he has assumedhimself to be sole inheritor of the earth, but he does not know that the earth isfor other living beings also. The curiousness of the persons has brought themto see the rabbit after reaching to the certain point they saw the mountedcrowds, and policemen to control them. There were many advertisements inthe name of rabbit announced through the loud speakers and banners. Manypeople have come to see the rabbit from a long distance, yet they are longingto see a glance of the rabbit. But still, they have the confidence that they willsee the rabbit sitting and nibbling grass on the only patch of grass which isleft in England.

The use of parenthesis ‘In-But’ has the duality in its meaning. Firstly,all other living beings have come to extinct in the nature with man’s policy ofurbanization. Secondly, the rabbit has escaped from its position to a place,where it has burrowed a place for itself which called as warren. And laterevery one of them turned out to be angry, jostling, slanging and complaining.And all of them sit in the posture of Rodin’s Thinker.Every one of them tries to sympathise on each other’s condition. They aremainly because they were unable to see the rabbit. They console on eachother’s condition as nothing can be done of it, as it had burrowed a placeinside the earth. And at last, every one of them suggests that this should gohome that day as they are unable to do anything in locating the rabbit fromits hideout. The rabbit too, has become more intelligent than that of humanbeing because it takes a decision to skip from that place as it knew that manis likely to come even here in his hide out to search for it, as man never keepsquiet and tries out something or the other method in finding the rabbit out.

IIA.D.Hope’s poetry characterizes “a cosmopolitan, urbane

sophistication and a wide, even erudite, breadth of reference. Unlike thework of many of his contemporaries, his poems are rarely concerned withanything obviously Australian nor does Australian landscape or history

Approaches Volume VI, Feburary, 2017 www.approaches.in 39play much part in them. Rather, they frequently take as their starting pointsomething read in a book, or some out of the way fragment of scientific orsocial history…myth is an important eminent in hope’s poetry, testifying tothe enduring forms in human experience as well as to the richness of humanculture.”1

In Standardization, A.D.Hope comments on the standardization ofman’s condition in the age of machine turning him into a civilized handicap.It looks as if the modern age is ‘Darkly brooding’ where the journalist withall his skill fills up the pages in form of ‘Fatuous, Flatulent Sunday paperprose’ for to keep up the paper on the demand of ‘Marketable woes.’ It furtherlooks strange that the house built by man is not with bare hands, but with thehelp of machine which has replaced man, even the house is cleaned up withthe help of vacuum cleaners. The soup in tinned form has turned out to bepopular among the people.

The machine in modern age has turned out to be reborn with ‘Lessindustrial stars’ in the towns, whereas the towns are full of ‘Synthetic stone’,‘Films’, ‘Sleek motor Cars’, ‘Celluloid’ and ‘Rubber’ which are usedextensively as of these numbers remain unknown with their similarity. So,these activities show about the effect of modernization has standardized thethoughts of man. And it is the mother earth, which has never changed in herlife and even she never stops from her work, which is assigned to her. Andthere is no one to compete with her in manufacturing of things, as she is thesole producer and distributor of her products, which she produces of. Sheeven does not tire from her work .She works constantly, but never remembersabout the work she has done. It is the Nature of the man, which hasstandardized the needs by fulfilling his dreams with science and technology.And science and technology has injected his brain reminding him the guiltof the original sin, which he constantly repeats and repents of his constantaction. The beauty of the Nature stands in a motionless attitude with no oneseeing her in the long queue of an unknown place with many things standingin and around with her plastered happiness where other things remainunknown.

Work Cited

Benson, Eugene & Connolly, L. W. (eds.), Encyclopedia of Post- ColonialLiteratures in English, Oxon: Routledge, 2005. p. 697


Difficulties of Prepositions That Face Saudi Learners of English

Hassan Musa Mohammad Aldaw, PhD.Department of English, Faculty of Arts, University of Kordofan, Sudan

Department of English, University of Prince Sattam bin Abdulaziz, Collegeof Arts and Science, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Introduction:Prepositions are one of the main eight word classes in English, and

the most frequently used words in English. Fang (2000) stated that in eachten words there is a preposition. Compared to nouns, verbs, adjectives andadverbs, English prepositions are empty and closed in number. Shaw (1986:220) there are sixty words that can be used as prepositions in English.Nevertheless, the grammatical function of these words determines thestructure as well as semantic identity of the sentence in which they are used.Prepositions are complex and difficult to identify in non-native contexts.Second language learners of English are generally prone to the phenomenonof misusing prepositions. The polysemous nature of these words contributednegatively to the structure of the English sentence. Prepositions constituteone of the main sources of errors in English. This paper investigates thereasons behind errors in the usage of prepositions and attempts a pedagogicalfoundation to solve them.

Questions of the study:1- What common prepositions are prone to interlingual transfer?2- What prepositions are commonly confusing to the students?3- What prepositions are commonly added extra to the structure of the English sentence?4- What prepositions are commonly missed in the structure of the English sentence?Hypothesis of the study:

Interlingual transfer, confusion, addition and omission constitutethe main cause of the errors of ESL learners

The sample of the study:A total sample of 40 students (20 males and 20 females) from English

specialization responded to the questionnaire. They were the students ofsecond semester from college of arts and science, Prince Sattam bin AbdulazizUniversity, in academic year 2016/2017. All the subjects were Native ArabSaudi whose general English level was pre-intermediate. They completedtheir first English grammar course and working through the second course.The subscribed books for both courses are Azar Betty (1999).


Instrument:The questionnaire consisted of two sections, (see appendix 1). The first sectioncontained 12 items of fill-in the gaps type from a given list of prepositionswhich contained 12 prepositions. The second section was multiple-choicewhich also included 12 items. Students were asked to select one of threeoptions to fill the gap with the correct preposition or to leave it blank in caseno preposition is needed. The questionnaire items were chosen from PracticalEnglish Usage by Michael Swan (2006).

Validity and reliabilityThe questionnaire is reviewed by five assistant professors and one associateprofessor who are staff members at College of Arts and Science, Prince Sattambin Abdulaziz University, Wadi Aldawasir for boys and girls. Reviewersaccept the questionnaire, in accordance to that, some copies were distributed.A random sample of 10 males and 10 females was selected for reliability andshow if there is a significant statistical difference between males and females.Pearson ‘r’ was calculated on students’ performance on the prepositionsinvolving 20 questionnaires showed a co-relation (0.89) with the test (p .001)in the acceptable range. This result proves also that there is no significantdifference associated with gender.

ProceduresHaving been subject to validity and reliability, the questionnaire wasdistributed to the students of second semester, in the academic year 2016-2017 both males and females. Content and error analysis were applied to thequestionnaire to test the hypotheses of the study.

The methodology of the study:The conclusions were drawn according to the nature, type and frequency oferrors students had made. In order to reach the objectives of the study,qualitative analysis of errors is applied as methods of analysis. Prepositionalerrors of a total of 40 questionnaires given to the subjects were analyzed andareas of common errors were determined, classified and discussed in orderto determine the method for correction. In general, errors refer to eitherinterlingual transfer or insufficient knowledge of the English grammar. Erroranalysis showed the basic reasons for errors in the usage of repositions.

Literature reviewPrepositions either simple (consisting of a single word) or complex (consistingof more than one word), cause difficulty for English learners. This difficultycomes from their nature so it concerns both the teachers and researchers tomake methodological attempts to idealize the students input towards theperfection of students output.


Hamdallah and Tushyeh (1988) stated that ‘prepositions are function wordsthat link words, phrases, or clauses to other words in the sentence’.According to Todd (1995:57) “A preposition is a function word, such as at,by, far, from, to and with. Prepositions are always followed by a noun, anoun phrase or a pronoun” eg. He talked to John.Celce – Murcia and Freeman (1983:250) argue that prepositions of Englishhave constituted a source of difficulty for all non-native learners. Furthermore,Saint-Dizier (2006: xi) mentioned that a number of languages do not useprepositions. Fang, A. C. (2000) stated that statistically, in a corpus of onemillion English words, one in ten words is a preposition.Prepositions can also cause problems in translation (Lam, 2009, p. 2).Thesame prepositions can have different meanings in different languages whichmakes non-native speakers of English face difficulties when translating thepreposition into English.

As for Arab learners of English, the difficulties which are expectedto face the learners are the concern of researchers. Abbas (1985:26) mentionedthat researchers are aware that in the use of English prepositions, Arablearners will face difficulties dealing with English prepositions. Abbas statedthat Arabic and English prepositions share some common features but theyare essentially different in number and usage. Lakkis, and AbdolMalak(2000:26) states that, in English there are one hundred fifty prepositions,as for Arabic, Abbas (1985:51) mentioned, there are twenty prepositionsonly six of them (min, ila, ala, ba, la, fi) are common ones and active in use.

According to Koffi (2010: 297-299) part of the difficulty is that mostEnglish prepositions are monosyllabic or composed of very few syllables.Prepositions may have multiple meanings and the correct one can bedetermined according to the context. The number of prepositions in anylanguage is limited and that English prepositions are 60 to 70 in numberhigher than most other languages.

‘In my day-to-day teaching I find that choosing the correctpreposition is one of the most common areas of difficulty for ESLstudents.;http://esl.fis.edu/grammar/easy/preps.htm

In the Concise Dictionary of Linguistics, Mathews (1997) defines prepositionsas words or groups of words that typically come before NPs for grammaticalcontrast.Chodorow et al., (2007: 25). “Preposition usage is one of the most difficultaspects of English grammar to master.”According to Nicholls( 2003).

…the temptation faced by learners of English, and indeed all learnersof foreign languages, to resort, consciously or unconsciously, tofeatures of their mother tongue when speaking or writing a non-native language.


Lam (2009:3) criticized the traditional method of teaching prepositions whereexplicit grammar instruction are inducted with no further expansion thenstudents go ahead individually with the context learning prepositionsindividually within context.Preposition and adverbial particle:Learners sometimes are confused whether a word is a preposition or anadverb or a particle. Garcia-Vega (2011: 75-110) explains the difference thatthe preposition is closely tied to the noun or pronoun it modifies and theparticle is closely tied to its verb to form idiomatic expressions.

It was mentioned that in https://www.britishcouncil.org/voices-magazine/how-help-learners-english-understand-prepositions, there areCollocations, fixed expressions and idioms all relate to the combination ofwords that contain prepositions. One needs to be accurate about the use ofthe correct preposition because preposition usage cannot be guessed, so theexpression must be learned as a whole.

Taylor (1989: 113) stated that motivated explanation can help in thedifferentiation between prepositions. This can be applied on prepositionssuch as; over and above by referring to the differences in the image schemaand the metaphorical conceptual mapping. To map our teaching, Mueller(2011: 480-481) mentioned that the associative learning is necessary toaccount for the acquisition of irregular forms and rigidly fixedexpressions. Prepositions can be included in these forms. In addition to thatMueller (2011) explained that Frequency-based learning is based upon theidea that humans naturally process groups of words as a single unit.Children, utter phrases as single words, they say ‘gimme’ instead of give me.Data analysis and discussion:The following tables aim to reveal whether there are any significant statisticaldifferences between male and female students. The key factor to the analysisis the total number of errors in the first part of the test. In order to test thehypotheses, the errors are categorized into errors of transfer, confusion(substitution), addition or omission of prepositions.


Data analysis and Discussion:The questionnaire revealed the following points:From 480 items the total number of errors in the first part of the questionnairewhich included 12 items is 334, including 15 missing items. The second part(12) items were also 480; the total mumber of errors were 251 including 14missing items. Even for correct usage of preposition, it is clear that fluke hasplayed a great role in determining the students’ responses. The second partof the questionnaire which is based upon three multiple choices revealedbetter results than the first part which was based upon choices from a givenlist.The negative interfere of L1 causes ungrammaticality, students useexpressions such as in 1-a -b:1. a- I am not bad in tennis.* b- Is there anything good in TV tonight.*To discuss mother tongue negative transfer, examples 1.a-b show that InArabic ‘fii’ means in and ‘alaa’ means ‘on’ in English . This gives theaccurate explanation for the respondents’ choice of students filling the gapwith the preposition ‘in’ ‘fii’. The equivalent of the preposition ‘With’ inArabic ‘ind’, is replaced by at ‘ma’a’. In most cases the choices do notcorrespond to the correct use and leads to a negative transfer.


This strategy has two disadvantages; first language interference leads thelearners to produce ungrammatical versions of English language sentences.Second, it hinders students thinking in the target language and they arealways bound to the grammatical rules of their own language.Frequent mistakes in replacements of prepositions include the use of ‘in’,instead of ‘at’, ‘on’ , to instead of ‘into’, ‘at’ instead of ‘on’ , ‘for’ instead of‘from’, ‘at’ instead of ‘into’, ‘for’ and ‘over’ instead of ‘at’, and ‘between’ insteadof ‘among’. This means, at some linguistic level students have translated fromtheir mother tongue ‘Arabic’ and their native mental picture supportedequalized the conveyed forms from Arabic into English. Intra-languageapplies the rules of their mother tongue first and then applies them to thetarget language.The following examples (2.a-c) are the most frequent errors.2. a- I am not bad at tennis*.

b-The boss is very pleased for you*.c- Are you afraid from spiders?*

Sometimes an Arabic preposition can have more than one equivalent fromEnglish as in the case of the Arabic preposition of place ‘baina’ which canhave both of the meanings of ‘among’ and ‘between’. Examples (3.a-b) areevident3. a- His house is hidden between the trees*.

b- His house is hidden among the trees.Some English verbs are intransitive while in Arabic it is not so. When studentsexpress themselves in the target language, as in sentences (4. a-b) they leavethe required preposition too. Students leave a required preposition because itis equivalent in Arabic does not exist so; the source of error is the MT.Generally, when they apply this strategy to English language they hit thewrong target.4. a- I waited him there*.

b- I met him Wednesday*.c- We explained them the idea*.

Other errors appear because of the influence of a preposition which is notfound in English but it is found in Arabic. Examples (5.a-e) Students useprepositions before the expressions of time or place:5. a- Jack went there in last month*.

b- I go to home*.c- I am going to abroad*.d- Please let him wait for an hour*.e- They are standing on outside*.

Idiomatic expressions, patterns and fixed expressions are a source for commonerrors. When learners’ exposure is limited, input is also limited. As a resultprepositions are not used in the correct way, the examples (6.a-d) illustrate .


6. a- Not many people are interested on grammar*.b- Are you afraid from spiders?*c- This book is similar with that one.*d- My car ran out from petrol*.

Examples (7.a-b, 8.a-b, and 9.a-c) show that incorrect use of prepositionsmight be referred to lack of knowledge and confusion. Prepositions such as;(above and over), (beside and besides), (‘in’, on’ and at) and many othersusually can be a source of confusion to the learners because they aresubstituted by one another.7. a- The bird is over the tree.

b- The bird is above the tree*.8. a- My house is beside the river.

b- I live in a big house besides I have a car.9. a- I arrived at Jeddah.

b- I live in Jeddah.c- I travelled to Jeddah.

Other sources of confusion in preposition uses are the different collocations.Some verbs collocate with more than one preposition, depending on themeaning of the expression we need to convey. Students find difficulty in theselection of the correct preposition with the same verb to express differentmeanings. In (10.a-c) arrive at, arrive in and arrive one constitute a source oferrors, other examples are shown in (11.a t-b) filled from, filled with andfilled by, and (12.a -c) waiting to, waiting for waiting at.10. a- What time do you arrive at Cardiff?

b- He arrived in July.c- He arrived on time.

11. a- The bottle is filled from the Nile.b- The bottle is filled with water.c- The bottle is filled by Tom

12. a- I was waiting to see you.b- I was waiting for a long timec- I am waiting at the bus station

Pedagogical measuresIt is clear that Intra-language is the main cause behind errors of prepositions.This includes confusion, omission and addition of prepositions. Practitionersneed to bear in mind that these errors can be eliminated only if a quality of awell-planned teaching takes place. Prepositions, meanings and functionsare not predetermined but explored from within the sentence. Traditionalmethods of teaching deals with prepositions in isolation, they should becontextualized like the other content parts of speech. To improve students’knowledge and use of preposition, new techniques and activities should beapplied. Multiple contextualization or fixed collocations are the besttechniques to teach and practice prepositions. Prepositions are part of thecontext so they should always appear in contexts and not in isolation.


Teachers need to expose students to language and make students accustomedto the English context

ConclusionsThe present paper studied and identified the problems of simple prepositionswhich Saudi learners of English face and suggested the pedagogical(remedial) measures for teaching prepositions. Results have shown thattypical errors in some areas denote that some prepositions are moreproblematic than others. Cross linguistic evidence as Intra-language seemsto have much influence on students’ use of prepositions and cause incorrectcollocations.To reduce the level of difficulty teachers should increase the quantity (numberand variations in use) and quality (use different collocations, fixed usagesand idiomatic expressions that include prepositions) of the input to accustomlearners to the grammaticality and semanticity of preposition. Teachers alsoneed to relate their teaching to authentic input and focus on the words thatfrequently occur with preposition.

AppendixEnglish prepositions test for research purpose

Prepositions (Examples from – Practical English Usage.(InternationalStudent’s edition) by Michael Swan- Oxford press1. Fill in the blanks with an appropriate preposition given in the box.into from among with on forunder at Of over to in

1) I am not bad ____________ tennis.2) If you don’t listen ____________ people, they won’t listen to you.3) When I got ____________ my car, I found the radio had been stolen.4) Not many people are interested ____________ grammar.5) Lack of time prevented me ____________ writing.6) Can you help me look ____________ my keys?7) Is there anything good ____________ TV tonight?8) She was standing ____________ a crowd of children.9) I am angry ____________ her for lying to me.10) Are you afraid ____________ spiders?11) Look in the cupboard ____________ the sink.12) Can you see the helicopter ____________ the palace?2. Choose the correct preposition given in the parenthesis.1) If you believe ____________ me, I can do anything. (on, at, in)2) What time do you arrive ____________ Cardiff? ( in, on, at)3) I belong ____________ a local athletics club. (for, to, at)4) Nurses take care ____________ people in hospital. (for, of, at )5) He doesn’t want to be dependent ____________ his parents. (for, on, at)


6) A week after the accident, he died ____________ his injuries. (at, for,from)7) Excuse me! You haven’t paid ____________ your drink. (about, for, of)8) The boss is very pleased ____________ you. (at, with, for)9) You can’t see this film if you are ____________ 18. (in, at, under)10) She ran ____________ the room carrying a paper. (for, to, into)11) His house is hidden ____________ the trees. (in, between, among)12) The water came up ____________ our knees. (for, over, at)

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The Style of Lawrence Durrell in The Alexandria Quartet

Dr. Vijay Shankar PrasadAssociate Professor of English

University College of Basic Sciences and HumanitiesGuru Kashi University, Bathinda, Punjab

Creative writing, along with other things, is also the expression ofindividual personality. We should never forget the oft-quoted aphorism ofde Buffon, Le style est l’homme meme: ‘Style is the man himself’. This statementcontains more truth than anything one can say about the common factors ofthe prose of any particular period. The personal voice of a writer depends onvarious factors—his temperament, his intellectual or emotional attitude tohis subject, his imagination, his artistic ideals etc.Undoubtedly, one of the greatest stylists among the fiction writers of the 20th

century was Durrell whose style is the vital centre of his art. A critic writesabout his style:

He stands in the great tradition of baroque prose. In the seventeenthcentury, Sir Thomas Browne built sentences into lofty arches andmade words ring like sonorous bells. Robert Burton, in his Anatomyof Melancholy, used the same principal device as Durrell: richnessthrough accumulation, the marshalling of nouns and epithets intogreat catalogues among which the eye roves in antiquarian delight.The feverish, clarion-sounding prose of De Quincey is a directancestor to that of Justine (Steiner, 15).

Durrell is a versatile genius. First and foremost he is a poet. The first featureof his style is that he writes poetic prose. His prose is poetic more in its spiritthan in form. Here it seems necessary to clarify that there is a differencebetween ‘poetry’ and ‘verse’. ‘Poetry’ is concerned with spirit while ‘verse’ isconcerned with technical form.

Durrell’s prose style has overblown quality growing luxuriantly. Heis concerned more with colour and exuberance than sparseness and elegance.He gives an account of colourful and cosmopolitan life. He writes:

Notes for landscape tones... Long sequences of tempera. Light filteredthrough the essence of lemons. An air full of brick-dust—sweet-smelling brick-dust and odour of hot pavements slaked with water.Light clouds, earth-bound yet seldom bringing rain. Upon this squirtdust-green, chalk mauve and watered crimson lake (AQ, 18).


Durrell’s first important novel, The Black Book was published inFrance. English publishers had rejected it. Durrell has more reputation inFrance than that of England. The AQ’s popularity in France was due to itsGallic-style. This is a French way of saying something, used in anotherlanguage. Another reason was its aphorisms about love, art etc. He has givenmaxims also from languages other than English. Durrell’s aphorism is oneof the most important qualities of his style.

There is sexual variety and occasional violence also in the AQ.Durrell’s style is, here, something uncommon. In this variety of sexual concernsome critics have found the mark of decadence. The obscurities and covertnessof sensual lust are perceptible in abundance in the AQ because Durrell hasfirm belief that man can get access to truth of life only through the flesh. Here,he is near D. H. Lawrence who says:

My great religion is a belief in the blood, the flesh, as being wiser thanthe intellect. We can go wrong in our minds. But what our blood feelsand believes and says, is always true. (Lawrence, 500).

All this does not mean that Lawrence and Durrell are prurient.Durrell’s prose is rich but complex. A general reader cannot continue hisinterest in reading such a language full of exotic words and expression. Wemay cite an example of such a language:

At the fort we doubled back and entered the huddled slums whichlie behind Tatwig Street, our blond headlights picking out the ant-hill cafes and crowded squares with an unaccustomed radiance;from somewhere behind the immediate skyline of smashed andunlimbered houses came the piercing shrieks and ululations of aburial procession, whose professional mourners made the nighthideous with their plaints for the dead (AQ, 41-2).

The AQ is a love story, the ubiquitous romantic adventure done upin a somewhat flamboyant manner. Yet this love story is narrated in afragmented, involved, obscure manner. This is refracted through complexideas and experimental technique. A plethora of interpretive studies alreadypublished by scholar critics testify that the work is a subtle and it demandsintellectuality. It is certainly too formidable to be a pleasurable casual readingfor a general audience.

The AQ shows that people do not reach down to any plan of everydayreality. They have been described in a language which glitters with sensuousfantasy. The background and subject of the AQ delight its readers. Thefollowing lines show this in a better way: “….sit naked at the dressing-tableto light a cigarette—looking so young and pretty, with her slender arm raisedto show the cheap bracelet I had given her” (AQ, 50).


Durrell writes mosaic prose that, as we have seen earlier, falls within thetradition of Browne, Burton, De Quincey, Conrad, Joyce etc. He is fond ofwriting hard, brilliant and descriptive sketches. Steiner rightly writes in thiscontext:

Being equipped with a superb apparatus of sensual receptivity,Durrell is aware of the myriad movements of light, scent, and sound.He sees the world reflected in waters which are never still and ties tocapture the essence of a city from the kaleidoscope of changingseasons, colours and moods. So far as Alexandria goes, he hassucceeded magnificently. Durrell’s Alexandria (not, of course, theEgyptian harbor-city of our ordinary acquaintance) is one of the majormonuments of the architecture of imagination. It ranks in manifoldcoherence with the Paris of Proust and the Dublin of Joyce. (Steiner, 18)

Durrell wants to present the maximum sensuous enjoyment fromeach word. He places each word in its precise and luminous space. He haddiscovered his purely verbal talent, his fluency and the art of playing withwords. He had mastered this art long before the mastery over his subjectmatter or ideas. Skilled in the art, “touch by touch, Durrell builds his array ofsensuous, rare expressions into patterns of imagery and idea so subtle andconvoluted that the experience of reading becomes one of total sensualapprehension” (Steiner, 15).

There are several adjectives which have been used to denote Durrell’sprose style. They are: baroque, bohemian, eccentric, eclectic, erotic, exotic,flamboyant, florid, polyphonic, protean, rococo, tangential etc. Some of thegiven words are synonyms. We may examine all these adjectives in perspectiveof the passages of the AQ.

Steiner has rightly connected Durrell with the tradition of greatmasters of style. He has correctly compared one of Durrell’s conceits to thoseof the Metaphysical poets. Durrell tells us that the soul enters truth as manenters woman, in a possession at once sexual and spiritual. This conceit isthe very crux of the arguments of Durrell.

Durrell has used several pseudo-scientific terms to explain histechnique. But it appears that by using such terms he has created onlycomplexity. He calls his AQ, a ‘time-space soup-mix’. According to him therecipe of that novel is ‘three sides of space and one of time’. From an idea oftruth Durrell makes use of kindred narrative forms. Beja writes:

Especially in Justine and Balthazar, Darley reconstructs a number ofscenes out of his imagination, asking us, in effect to suspend disbelief;and we do, proceeding with him under the assumption that, asBalthazar puts it, “to imagine is not necessarily to invent”…. “At


every moment in time the possibilities are endless in theirmultiplicity”: out of this attitude toward reality arises “theintercalation of fact and fancy (Beja, 218).

Durrell moulds paragraphs in shape of letters, extract from diaries, and piecesof journalism. It has rightly been said that Durrell was a better prose writerwhen he was not trying to achieve ‘poetry’ than when he approached thenovel with a sense of holiness. His language is sensuous because he minglessense and sound in a verbal texture.

Durrell has captured Lawrence’s spontaneous response to peopleand places. Durrell has observed Lawrence’s vivid style, his organic structureand his symbolic scenes. Lawrence’s language, which does its work withsymbols and images, is sensuous to the extent of pornography. There arepassages in Lady Chatterley’s Lover, which have been called pornographic byseveral critics. This was the reason that it was not published in Englandeven thirty years after the death of Lawrence.

As Durrell deals with the subject of Lawrence (and even more thanthat) his language also becomes blamable. But whereas Lawrence’scharacters, engaged in sexual activities, are passionate and original andsometimes wild, Durrell’s characters are intellectual and artificial. The sex,which Lawrence tried to give supreme respect, is dying in Durrell’s world.Therefore the scenes of sexual activities are not so exciting as that ofLawrence’s. Here, it seems necessary to quote two passages from the AQ:

...his hands upon her great quivering breasts—as if to drink up themusic of these slowly falling words of love in one long wholenessdraught. Then he sought her mouth feverishly, as if he would suckthe very image of Clea from her breath....the perilous of one about todesecrate sacred place by some irresistible obscenity whose meaningflickered like lightning in the mind with a horrible beauty of its own.(Aphrodite permits every conjugation of the mind and sense in love).He loosened his clothing and pressed this great doll of flesh slowlydown upon the dirty bed, coaxing from her body with his powerfulhands the imagined response he might have coaxed perhaps fromanother and better-loved form (AQ, 326).

The language of the passage may be called erotic but it is neverpornographic. We know literature has certain depth and reality, whilepornography aims only at producing an erection. Pornography is intendedsimply to excite lust; literature may excite lust to some extent but this is itssecondary intention. This is with Durrell’s language of the scene. It mayexcite lust, but Durrell’s intention is not that in presenting naked body. Heintends to present the naked realism of sex.


Sometimes Durrell’s language becomes vulgar also: “From this point thesick, the insane started growing; and from here to the disgusted and dispiritedfaces of the long-married, tried to each other back to back, so to speak, likedogs unable to disengage after coupling (AQ, 152).”

Durrell’s realistic portrait may be seen in the following passage thelanguage of which may be labelled by a general reader as profane: “Then sheput her palms to the top of her head and let out a long pure wail like an Arabwoman—a sound abruptly shut off, confiscated by the night in that hot airlesslittle room. Then she began to urinate in little squirts all over the carpet. Icaught her and pushed her into the bathroom” (AQ, 312).Quoting an Arabic proverb Durrell has given an example of taboo word also:"The world is like a cucumber—today it’s in your hand, tomorrow up yourarse"(AQ, 98).There is a kind of pathos in describing some of his character’s plight. Hepresents a scene in a brothel:

I walked slowly among these extraordinary human blooms, reflectingthat a city like a human being collects its predisposition, appetitesand fears. It grows to maturity, utters its prophets, and declines intohebetude, old age or loneliness which is worse than either. Unawarethat their mother city was dying, the living still sat there in the openstreet, like caryatids supporting the darkness, the pains of futurityupon their very eyelids; sleeplessly watching, the immortality-hunters, throughout the whole fatidic length of time (AQ, 153).

The scene further presents an irony also. Darley sees on the walks of thebrothel the basic talisman of the country to drive out the evil but what hefinds inside is the horror of prostitution. Nothing can help them come outfrom their misery:

Everywhere on these brown flapping walls I saw the basic talismanof the country-imprint of a palm with outspread fingers, seekingtoward off the terrors which thronged the darkness outside the lightedtown. As I walked past then now they uttered, not human monetarycries, but the soft cooing propositions of doves, their quite voicesfilling the secret with a cloistral calm (AQ, 153).

Humour is an essential characteristic of a stylist. Durrell’s humour in the AQis remarkable. His humour is mild. It has been used properly. He writes:

Tuesday for the Moslem is the least favourable day for humanundertakings, for he believes that on Tuesday God created all theunpleasant things. It is the day chosen for the execution of thecriminals; no man dares marry on a Tuesday for the proverb says:


‘Married on Tuesday, hanged on Tuesday’. In the words of theProphet: ‘On Tuesday God created darkness absolute’ (AQ, 603).

At another place Durrell gives the description: “No sooner do youtell an Alexandrian a piece of bad news than the words come out of hismouth: ‘I knew. Something like this was bound to happen. It always does’.This, then, is what happened (AQ, 360).

Durrell was a ‘master’ of English language (He had taught Englishlanguage in school also). Language, terminology, grammar, syntax werealways in his mind while he was writing the AQ. We find analogy from suchanalogy from such linguistics. Language and terminology are present in thefollowing lines: “….loving is only a sort of skin-language, sex a terminologymerely” (AQ, 160). Again we see tense and mood:

We were three writers, I now saw, confided to a mythical city fromwhich we were to draw our nourishment, in which we were to confirmour gifts. Arnauti, Pursewarden, Darley—like Past, Present, Futuretense! And in my own life (the staunchless stream flowing from thewounded side of Time!) the three women who also arrangedthemselves as if to represent the moods of the great verb love: Melissa,Justine and Clea (AQ, 792).

The analysis of the verbal structure of the AQ shows that Durrelluses the whole range of English language with its variety and registers. Inthis novel he has given the English translation of several proverbs or phrasesfrom Arabic, Greek, and French etc.

Durrell’s language adequately performs the task of complexpsychological analysis. His ideas about art, love, sex, woman etc. have akind of aphoristic value. His sentences serve as maxims. Here, we may citesome of his expressions: “Anything pressed too far becomes a sin” (AQ, 39).“The most dangerous thing in the world is a love founded on pity” (AQ, 245).“If a girl does not like dancing and swimming she will never be able to makelove” (AQ, 661). “One makes love only to confirm one’s loneliness” (AQ,700). “A woman’s best love letters are always written to the man she isbetraying” (AQ, 700). “Sex is psychic and not a physical act” (AQ, 292). “Thepower of woman is such that a single kiss can paraphrase the reality ofman’s life and turn it…” (AQ, 368) “Only love can sustain one a little longer”(AQ, 95). “Lovers are never equally matched” (AQ, 193).

Adding ‘work-points’ to his novel is an added feature of Durrell’sstyle. His use of figures of speech, phrases, his play upon words haveenlivened his language as well as given intricacy.

Critics often talk of the grand style. Durrell also has been concernedwith this style. In other words, he writes grandly. F. R. Karl has said rightly:


Durrell conveys to us the adventure of the novel, gives us theexpectancy we should feel when we pick up a work of fiction. Hetransports us to a world he has created, or even virtuous, he fills inhis stylized world with people who experience various shades ofemotion, who suffer pain and anguish and joy; and this he doeswithout snobbish anti-intellectualism, although ultimately, his pointis that “attention” not reason will save (Karl, 61).

Durrell’s style has been a matter of severe criticism also. We find thathis language is so complex and words so clumsy that his style becomesclumsy. Phillips has rightly said: “His flamboyant language was seen bysome critics as excessive, and lack of subtlety” (Phillips, 104). CriticizingDurrell’s style Francis King says:

Mr. Durrell uses style in the manner of an aging woman using make-up. When he is discreet, the effect is enhancing; when he slaps on it,the effect is grotesque. Critics are always describing him as ‘stylish’and whether they are using the epithet in its new sense ofdistinguished and elegant or in its old one of showy and pretentious;they have found the ‘mot juste’” (King, 22-23).

It is correct to say that Durrell’s philosophical ideas, his visions, hisscientific expressions have such an individual imprint that it becomes difficultto understand. Such obscurity or ambiguity sometimes leads tomisunderstandings also. But despite all this we may say that manner, notmatter, is important. Matter one already has. One needs manner. In this respectDurrell is an innovator. He has the capacity to change even the taste of matterby his manner. Thus it may be concluded that Durrell’s prose style hasoriginality and it has a great share in making his novel the AQ a success. .........................

Abbreviation: AQ = Alexandria Quartet


Works Cited

Beja, Morris. Epiphany in Modern Novel, University of Washington Press,1971.

Durrell, Lawrence George. The Alexandria Quartet, London: Faber and Faber,1962.

Karl, F. R. A Reader’s Guide to Contemporary English Novel, London: Thomasand Hudson, 1972.

King, Francis. “Stylishness”. The Spectator, vol. 249, no. 8049, Oct. 16, 1982.Lawrence, D. H. Lawrence. Quoted by J. I. M. Stewart in Eight Modern

Writers. Oxford, At Clarendon Press, 1966.Phillips, Caryl. Ed. Extravagant Strangers, London: Faber and Faber, 1997.Steiner, George. “Lawrence Durrell: The Baroque Novel”. The World of

Lawrence Durrell. Ed. T. Harry Moore, Carbondale: Southern IllinoisUniversity Press, 1962.


Empiricism in the Eyes of Khushwant Singh

Brajesh PrasadDepartment of English, R.L.S.Y. College,

Bakhtiyarpur, Patna, Magadh University, Bodh Gaya

Khushwant Singh has had an extremely successful career as a writer.He was sent on diplomatic postings to Canada, England and France. Hecame in contact with a large number of people from all walks of life. He is theauthor of four volumes of short stories. Most of his stories are based on hisexperience. Empiricism, i.e. experience and knowledge, plays an importantrole in his stories. The present paper aims at analysing empirical elementsoccurred in his collected short stories.

I went round the hall looking at the boards. There were no numberson the boards. So I rejoined the inquiry queue. Without another grin Iannounced my discovery to the lady. That upset her. Sheared herself withseveral pieces of chalk and waded through humanity inscribes the numbersof the boards. Several queues had a quick game of ducks and drakes. I foundmyself at the tail end of mine,. (My Own My Native Land: 207)

Khushwant Singh is a lawyer, critic, columnist and prolific writer.He was offered a job in diplomatic service in the Ministry of External Affairs.This first took him to Canada. He also served in Paris with UNESCO. Thismade him to tackle different situations at different places. Empiricism isdominant in his stories and the above paragraph is one example of it.

Empiricism is a theory of knowledge. It is a Greek word whichemphasizes the role of experience. In other words, it holds that the origin ofall knowledge is sense experience. The term ‘Empiricism’ also refers to themethod of observations and experiments used in natural science. Empiricismmeans empirical practice and empirical means that which is based onexperience or ‘relying on observation and experiment, not on theory’ (OxfordDictionary: 1990). It also derives from a more specific classical Greek andRoman usage of empiric which refers to the physician whose skill derivesfrom practical experience as opposed to instruction in theory. Sensations,associations, reductionism, mechanism are the features of empiricism.

Empiricism is contrasted with rationalism, a theory that holds themind may apprehend some truths directly. Empiricism and rationalism aretwo major but opposing philosophies. In empiricism, experience is the sourceof knowledge whereas in rationalism, reason is the prime source ofknowledge. To perceive an object through senses is the aim of empiricismand understanding the knowledge is the aim of rationalism. Aristotle prefersempiricism whereas Plato rationalism. There were also some great empiricistslike Locke, Berkley, Hume and others. They had vision of subjective


perceptions limiting knowledge, the need for faith to believe anything beyondimmediate perception. For most empiricists, experience includes innerexperience – reflection upon the mind and its operations – as well as senseperception. All ideas are derived from experience. Therefore, knowledge ofthe physical world can be simply a generalization from particular instances.Most empiricists recognize the existence of independent experience.Empiricism has been the dominant but not the only tradition in Britishphilosophy. The same is with Indian philosophy also.

Francis Bacon (1561-1626) a British philosopher was the first moderndefender of an organized ‘empiricim’. According to him, an empiricist is likean ant that collects much of value but does not put into a coherent system. Heconsidered empirical method as a process of arguing from a collection ofinstances of a phenomenon to a general conclusion. He stressed theimportance of observing differences as well as similarities between sequencesof events. He has shown it in his Novum Organum.

Pierre Gassendi (1592-1655), a French philosopher, revivedempiricism. Like Bacon, Gassendi was dissatisfied with the philosophicalsystem of his day. He was inspired to a constructive philosophy by his studyof Epicurus. He insisted that our knowledge of the world comes only fromexperience. His empiricism influenced the English philosopher John Locke(1632-1704). He provided a sustained defense of the empiricist principle thatall our ideas came from experience. Before Locke, it was assumed that humanbeings were born with an innate knowledge of certain principles (right andwrong). There was some controversy between the rationalists and empiricistsregarding Locke’s philosophy because he allowed that the mind was capableof forming abstract general ideas.

George Berkeley (1655-1753), an Irish philosopher, argued that therewere no ‘abstract general ideas’ as Locke had allowed but that the ideas wehave are always particular. He concluded that the only substances in theworld were God and spirits like ourselves that generally thought to beunbelievable.

Immanuel Kant (1711-1776), a Scottish philosopher, is generallyconsidered as one of the most thorough going defenders of empiricism. He isa critic of abstract metaphysics of the early modern period. He agreed Berkeleythat we have no reason to believe in ‘material substance’ that existsindependently of our senses. All we actually experience, according to Hume,are fleeting impressions. We are not strictly aware of the self. Past experiencehas been a good guide to the future.

Empiricism is of the view that experience is the most important oreven the only source of knowledge or sound belief. Khushwant Singh hassound belief in the relation between a grandmother and a grandson. The roleof a grandmother is very important in any family. She is the source ofinspiration and a child starts listening stories from her. Khushwant Singh,too, has experience of living with his grandmother.


My grandmother and I were good friends. She used to wake me up in themorning and get me ready for school. After a breakfast of thick, stately chapattiwith a little butter and sugar spread on it, we went to school. She carriedseveral state chapattis with her for the village dogs. My grandmother alwayswent to cool with me because the schools was attached to the temple (20-30)

Khushwant Singh has experienced life in the rural area. There isaffinity, love among people and animals. When he went to city, he haddifferent experience. He used to go to an English school in a motorcar. Hisgrandmother no longer came to school with him. That was a turning point intheir friendship. She used to fed sparrows in the courtyard. When she died,thousands of sparrows sat scattered on the floor. There was no chirping. Hismother brought little crumbs of bread and threw it to them. The sparrowstook no notice of the bread. Here Khushwant Singh narrates the experienceabout the relationship between his grandmother and the sparrows. Thisexperience taught Khushwant Singh to love animals i.e. dogs and birds andparticularly sparrows in his early life.

Modern world is very speedy and ultimately insecure. The numberof vehicles is always increasing day by day. Accidents are very common.Khushwant Singh had the experience with his friend Peter Hansen:

I donned my socialist garments of the coarset handspun khaddar,mounted Hansen’s motorcycle pillion, and we shot out of Amritsar.Bullock-cart wheels had left deep ruts which ran criss-cross lideintersecting tram lines . . . . While Hansen’s eyes were glued to thedistant horizon as if straining to get a glimpse of the domes ofShangrila, we flew over a ditch at some 40 miles per hour. I wastossed in the air… My turban had flown off and my long hair spreadclumsily over my face. Hansen pulled up and looked concerned fora moment. (41)

This evidence shows the common happenings in day-to-day’s life.Without such experience, no one will be able to describe it in such minutedetails. Khushwant Singh has perceived this evidence through his senses,making a copy of the object in his mind.

Being a student as well as a diplomat, Khushwant Singh visitedmany countries. He came across different activities done by Indiansparticularly Sikhs abroad, so with confidence he has written:

There is nothing racial or hereditary about the professions the Sikhschoose. A farmer in the Punjab may become a moneylender inBombay, a carpenter in East Africa, a picker of fruit in California, ora lumber jack in Canada. If necessary, he can train a troupe of love-birds to pick our cards telling fortunes to matelotes in Marseilles – orjust look more oriental himself and read ladies’ hands at fun fairs. If


all that fails, he can exploit his fine physique and cash in on feats ofendurance. (74)

Most of the jokes are related to Sikhs i.e. sardarji jokes, as they arefounding to do any job anywhere in the world. So Khushwant Singh hasfrown an implied conclusion that the Sikhs do not bother the situation andnever feel guilty in doing any job even exploiting fine physique of them.Khushwant Singh is a man with clear conscience that has been developedthrough different experiences. He knows very well that it is not good to passjudgments on people that may be good or bad. It creates havoc in the life ofpeople. He asks to live with smile:

Although I smile most of the time, it is not through any feeling ofrighteousness but because I believe that to smile is better than toscowl or have a face without any expression at all. And I am verysufferable because not nobly do I not pass judgments on evil-doers, Ido not even pass them on those who readily do so. God’s ways, as Ihave already said, are infinite; who am I to say this man or that iswrong in saying or doing what he does? (104)

Khushwant Singh travelled abroad for different reasons. But mainlyhe went abroad as a student and a diplomat. He experienced much excitementat the embarkation of the Jal Hindia. There was an interesting crowd –Europeans, Pakistanis and Indians. He went up on the deck to see whatweans going on. Europeans did not look a pleasant crowd although some ofthe women in their midst were attractive:

As I turned to go back to my cabin, I caught sight of the blonde. Shewas looking down at something with a benign expression on herface. I passed by her and noticed the object of her attention. It was thelittle man in horn-rimmed glasses who, I had already decided, wasDr. Chakkan Lal. I was not wrong. I heard him repeat the name as hehanded a visiting card to the lady. You can keep this, he said,generously, as if he was offering a box of chocolates. ‘I am in thetourist class, but I will be coming over to see you surely’. (146)

Such type of event occurs many times at many places. While travellingby bus or train or at any places, many people, though not acquainted, try toestablish relation with a strange intention. With a stranger Dr. Chakkan Lalis the representative of such people. There are many Chakkan Lals in themodern society. Sometimes we call them ‘roadromio’ they even behavegenerously to have close relations with blonde.

Some people feel uneasy in the presence of Khushwant Singh. It ishis own experience. He narrates his experience:


I found myself at a table near the kitchen with South Indian coupleand a young barrister from Bombay. I noticed the look of dismay onthe face of my table-mates when they saw me; they had been put atthe bottom of the social ladder – for what else could I be but a pedlarwho had money and developed fancy notions! Turned on my specialhaw p haw accent of English to impress them. (146)

As British ruled over India for about one hundred and fifty years,they left behind some notions regarding India and Indians. Khushwant Singhdivides foreigners into three categories as per his experience with foreigners:

Most numerous (foreigners) are the haters who dislike both Indiaand the Indians. Next come the ‘half-haters’ who dislike Indians but like theIndian landscape and the conditions of living; big bunglows, servants, shaker,polo etc. They particularly dislike educated Indians who are empiricists inthe Collected Short Stories of Khushwant Singh.

Either babus (clerks) or, if Anglicized, wogs-wily oriental gentlemen.The third category consists of lovers who like everything about Indianand the Indians. They find Indian mysticism more satisfying thanChristianity. They learn Indian languages. They eat with their fingers;their women wear saris, put a red spot on their foreheads and sayNamaste with the palms of their hands joined together. This thirdcategory is very small. (162-63)

As a diplomat he has experienced how to wait in queue, how to fill up form,how to protest against officers etc:

I retired to a corner of the hall to fill in the form and then I was backat the tail end of my queue. Forty minutes later, I was again facingmy Customs Officer with my form of exemption duly filed.‘You cannot claim exemption. You came home for a fortnight inbetween’, he announced.‘But’ I protested, ‘that was not transfer of residence. I was sent onofficial duty. My wife and children stayed abroad.’ (2007)

Indian government offices and officers will give us similar experience.They tell ‘the rule is clear’. They never listen to you. If you insist, they will askto see the head or boss directly. If something is wrong in the form, they nevercorrect it but ask back; ‘who asked you to fill in the form in such a way?’ Ithappens only for the sake of money and Indians are known for it. ThusKhushwant Singh has experienced and recorded his opinion whatever weall have in common. Being a veteran journalist, Khushwant Singh has deepknowledge and experience of writing ‘tribute’ to popular leaders. It comesthrough his own experience and even he wrote about himself:


The headline would read “Sardar Khushwant Singh dead” and thenin somewhat smaller print:

We regret to announce the sudden death of Sardar Khushwant Singhat 6 p.m. last evening. He leaves behind a young widow, two infantchildren and a large number of friends and admirers to mourn hisloss. It will be recalled that the Sardar came to settle in Lahore somefive years ago from his home town, Delhi. Within these years he roseto a position of eminence in the Bar and in politics. His loss will bemourned generally throughout the Province. (1)

Drink is an inseparable part of Khushwant Singh’s writing as wellas his real life. It becomes mandatory feature in his writing. Almost all theshort stories have such evidences. In one interview when asked the secret ofhis long life, he answered:

The only secret is to acquire long-lived parents. My father died at 90holding a glass of Scotch and my mother at 94 had one last request:her voice was feeble but she said Whisky. The doctor said chalo giveit. She took it and then threw it up. (India Today: 1999:55)

Most of his stories have references to the experience of having drinks.It comes through his own experiences. The stories like “The Fawn” (92),“The Man with a Clear Conscience” (105), “India is a Strange Country”(167), “Mr Kanjoos and Great Miracle” (169), “The Morning after the NightBefore” (180), etc. are the illustrations of his experiences at different situations.Amit Chaudhir remarks in this connection:

Look at him again; the figure in the light-bulb, the whiskey drinkerwho retires at nine, the man who candidly admits to lusting afterwomen in his heart, which, however, belonged completely to his latewife; the quiet historian, the writer whose proudest boast in this. “Ialways meet my deadliness.” And the great secret of his success issimple. Underneath the Scotch-and-scholarship hide, behind themask of mentor or destroyer of reputations, there’s the person who,when someone writers to him, always writes back. (Random Stuff: 2004)

Khushwant Singh has a great experience of many things. Because ofhis varied experiences, he is many things to many people. It is well said thatexperience is the best teacher. It appears that his major work is based on hisexperience and on imagination. He states in his autobiography:


Writing is a solitary profession in which no one can help you exceptyourself. There is no such institution as the Guru-Chela, mentor-guide relationship in the writing world. A writer has to be his ownmentor-guide and ultimate judge, (p.385)

Khushwant Singh has realized that knowing authors does not help anyoneto become and author.

Works Cited

Jain, Madhu. “We’ve Had so Many Donkeys as PM”, India today, Vol. XXIVNo. 35, Sug 30, 1999.

Hussain, Shujaat. “You Need a Compelling Passion to Become a Writer”,The Quest, An Indian Literary Journal, Ranchi, Vol. 21 No. 1, June 2007.

Singh, Khushwant. The Collected Short Stories of Khushwant Singh, Ravi DayalPublisher & Permanent Black, New Delhi, 3rd imp, 2003. (All citationsin the paper are from this edition of the text, followed by page numbersin parentheses).

Singh, Khushwant. Truth, Love, and Little Malice: An Autobiography, PenguinBooks, New Delhi, 2003.

Zaidi, Nishat. “Fiction, History and Fictionalized History A PostcolonialReading of Khushwant Singh’s Delhi: A Novel”, The Journal of IndianWriting in English, Gupta G.B. (ed.), Gulberge, Vol. 34, No. 2.

Internet Resources:a. www.crimsonfeet.orgb. www.hindustantimes.orgc. www.indiaclub.comd. www.webspace.shi.edu


Literature and the Idea of AuthorshipKritika Sharma

Assistant Professor (Ad-hoc)Hindu College, University of Delhi

In his famous essay ‘What is an Author?,’ Foucault, quoting SamuelBeckett, writes, ‘“What does it matter who is speaking?,” someone said, “Whatdoes it matter who is speaking?” (Foucault 215). Foucault’s essay raises aquestion that is not new in any sense but is extremely important, especiallysince it is part of a larger discourse situated around the idea of authorship inliterature. Not long before this essay came out, another French theorist, RolandBarthes had famously announced the death of the author. In his essay ‘TheDeath of the Author’ Barthes defines a literary text as ‘a tissue of quotationsdrawn from the innumerable centres of culture’. (Barthes 187) He markedlyeliminates any mention of an ‘author’ in his definition of a literary text. WhatBarthes does in his essay is assert that a literary text is absolutely free of thepossibility of being unified or limited under any notion of the author’sintention. In fact, once the text enters public transmission, it becomes more orless a free-floating discourse. Almost in response to Barthes’s essay, Foucaultwrites his own ‘What is an Author?’. With a very telling ‘what’ in the titleinstead of the expected ‘who,’ Foucault displaces the idea of author orauthorship from any humanist reading. He goes on to dismiss the word‘author’ itself from consideration. Instead what we should be looking ataccording to him is what can be called ‘author-function’ (Foucault 220). Anauthor does not write or even produce a text as much as introduce a discourseinto circulation, a discourse which then takes a form of its own as it gathersmore participants. ‘Author’ therefore is a false category. What we have is a‘scriptor’ or writer who seemingly becomes one of the many voices takingpart in the discourse once it is disseminated.Foucault suggests in his essaywhat he sees as the logical conclusion of Barthes’s pronouncement of thedeath of the author. He claims to take into account what Barthes did not. Hesuggests that the gap or absence left after the death of the author can be filledby his category of ‘author-function’. Both Barthes and Foucault, therefore,emphasize the relative independence of the literary text from any sort ofsingle, unified, imposed-from-outside meaning.

The existence of a literary text as a free-floating discourse and themultiple semantic possibilities that gives to the interpretive task are subjectsthat are dealt with by the poststructuralists and deconstructionists whofollow. Most of them revel in the ‘nothing outside the text’ discourse andcomment on the polysemic potential of most literary works, free from theconsideration of the ‘author’ as a critical or ethical imperative.


However Barthes did not exactly leave the space vacated by theeliminated author empty. Instead he ended his essay with the assertion, notreally pursued in detail by him, that the death of the author coincides with‘the birth of the reader’(Barthes 188).Earlier in his essay, Barthes implies thatthat the death of the author also means the birth of the text. These are twopossibilities presented by the idea of the death of the author. While Foucaultfocuses more on the latter, the formation of a text as discourse, the former, thereplacement of author by reader is dealt with by other schools of criticism.One such school is that of Reader-Response criticism. Critics who arenormally considered part of this school of criticism have different points ofentry into the critical discourse surrounding a text. However, what is commonto them is the importance they place on the reader. Most of them do notdevalue the author, nor do they seem to pronounce the author as dead. Butthey too seem to agree with the premise that once a text enters public discourse,the reader becomes an important part of the discourse, more, if not equallyimportant when compared to the writer. The theories of Wolfgang Iser andHans Robert Jauss seem to imply that the relationship between the authorand the reader is rather like that of the composer and performer of a piece ofmusic(Richter 976).Both are mutually independent of each other butimportant in the establishment of a literary text as itself. Stanley Fish in arelatively more radical manner pronounces that it is interpretive communitiesthemselves that create a text. A text is not a text until it is subject to interpretationby an audience. He also asserts that a text is a completely malleable entityand totally at the mercy of its reader who can manipulate it into whateverform he wishes. (Fish 1023) The ‘author’ is separated from the interpretiveprocess. It is the reader who becomes the performer of the text. In tandemwith Foucault and Barthes these theories would suggest that the author ismerely a functionary with no other role than scripting a discourse. Once thediscourse is disseminated, it is also out of the control of any one meaning-giving entity.

The question of the role and importance of the author is certainly nota new one but it has been more charged in the last few decades of literarytheory. After the Renaissance and the humanist bend it gave to the arts, andthe Romantic age, the notion of the author has been attributed with a certain,almost divine sort of power. The famous Wordsworthian pronouncement ofliterature as a ‘spontaneous overflow’ of strong ‘emotion’ is perhaps thebest, and the most abiding, articulation of this idea of authorship. A literarytext as these humanist, essentialist theories (like Wordsworth’s) will tell usis an expression of a particular author’s mind – his thoughts and imagination.It is this expressive theory of authorship that has been challenged sinceatleast the modernist period.

However,the solutions given to Beckett’s question that started thisessay, by Barthes or Foucault or Iser have not been satisfying. They haveattached to them the abstractness that literary theory often finds itself


propagating. In today’s era especially, an author is often held to account forhis text. This does not imply that biographical readings of texts dictate itsmeaning, nor does it mean that the intentional fallacy is brought into play.Readers might not always read a text according to what they think the authorintended but they often interpret texts according to what they think the authormight have intended. In a way therefore, readers construct an author of thetext. They attribute to the author intentions that he might or might not havehad. What is of importance here is that even when we assume the author isnot dictating the discourse around his text and that interpretation isparamount, that interpretation often takes the author into consideration.

With the word ‘author’ are associated the ideas of authority,ownership, and control. By extension the categories of duty and responsibilityalso come into play. It these two classes that the modern author seems tostraddle. So even when Barthes’s or Foucault’s pronouncements free him ofany authority or control over his text, once it enters a more public discourse,the categories of duty and responsibility are often thrown up in that samediscourse. Especially when a literary text ends up having real-worldconsequences, it does not seem to be answerable only to itself. Neither is, asSean Burke puts it in his essay, the author in such cases ‘beyond ethicalrecall’. Making a case that in the discourse of authorship, ‘intention’ shouldbe separated from ‘responsibilty’ Burke argues that ‘knowledge of who isspeaking is essential to any reconstruction of why ethically troublesome orpernicious discourses come into being at certain junctures’(Burke 489).Heargues that ‘societies are not, in any case, likely to lose interest in who isspeaking’, which is why according to him ‘we feel justified in holding anauthor to account when real-world effects are clearly and demonstrablyintended by the work’ (Burke 488).Though his argument teeters dangerouslyinto the intentional fallacy, what burke is pointing out is that a literary workif it intends any real world consequences, (and what literary work does not?),can never be as free-floating a discourse as the post-structuralists ordeconstructionists would have us believe. Which is perhaps why in today’sera one hardly comes across a literary work whose author can be deemedsatisfyingly irrelevant. Modern publishing, because of competition,commercialrather than intellectual, lays great emphasis on publicity andmarketing not only of the text but its author as well. Social networking,blogging and other web based services do present us with the sort of publicspace amenable to the kind of literary discourse Benjamin envisaged in his‘The Author as Producer’, but it also gives a lot of exposure to the author, sothat even in this sort of discourse the author is anything but absent. Thisextends to the meaning and interpretation of a text as well. With moreproximity between the author and reader, more contact between the two, thetext is not free of the intentions or meaning or effects attributed to it by either.Literary awards, even the most coveted ones, are given to individual authors,not discourses. Salman Rushdie is issued a fatwa. Milan Kundera is


sentenced to exile when his novel The Joke comes out, while anonymouspamphlets and other anti-government discourses expressing similarsentiments are not acted upon only because they have no visible ‘authors’.

It is Mikhail Bakhtin who seems to present an adequate synthesis ofthese two strands of theory around the idea of authorship –one where theauthor is dead and one where he is ever present. Mikhail Bakhtin in hisbooks contends albeit in a slightly different context ‘the topic of the speakingperson has enormous importance in everyday life.’ (Bakhtin 578) Thespeaking subject is important not only until, but even after the text has beenspoken. What Bakhtin suggests is that an author invariably has intentionswhen authoring a text, whether deliberate or unconscious. But according toBakhtin’s own famous theory, it is not only the author’s voice that is presentin a text. Instead, as an instance. of heteroglossia the voice of the authorbecomes just one of many voices in the text. Writing specifically on the novelform, Bakhthin asserts that it is one form of literature that thrives because ofits dialogism and heteroglossia. A novel is not monologic, it does not havejust the one voice, or one (authorial) consciousness that controls meaning.Instead it is made up of a multiplicity of voices, making the text essentially acollection of many discourses, not unified by the imperative of just onemeaning. The author becomes a voice in his own text, and that voice is justone of many voices, thereby also abnegating control in certain ways, of theproduction of meaning.Thus, even after the text is published and open topublic interpretation and discourse, the author is deemed neither dead norirrelevant. He remains an essential part of his own text. Bakhtin uses thisthesis to study the novels of Dostoevsky, and celebrates the dialogicpossibilities of a text.

The question is how to reconcile the author who is one part amongmany of the text to the author who writes or orders all those parts. How anauthor does that is suggested by David Lodge in his essay on Milan Kundera’snovels. Elaborating on the ‘critical anxiety’ surrounding the question ofauthorship Lodge claims that it is ‘difficult to understand how an anonymousdiscourse (such as Foucault will have us make of a text) could ask of itselfwho controls it (a question Foucault poses).’ (Lodge 155)Taking the example of Milan Kundera speaking of his novel The Joke , Lodgewrites’

Since his books refer to the bad faith and injustices of the Communistregime in Czechoslovakia, must not this be what his fiction is about?That is precisely how The Joke has been received in the West. Kunderarecords, in the preface..‘When in 1980, during a television panel discussion someone calledThe Joke “a Major indictment of Stalinism,.” I was quick to interject,“Spare me your Stalinism, please. The Joke is a love story”.’This interjection itself is a statement of authorial intention, whichwe are not bound to accept. (Lodge 159)


Kundera’s remark might be somewhat facetious, but it does serve to showthat a text is neither free of the material, ideological, and cultural conditionsof its production, in Kundera’s case a politically charged country, nor is itwholly subject to its author’s intention. So how does a text keep alive theauthor’s intention, presumably reflected in his voice inside the text, andother voices which make multiple discourses possible? Lodge suggests thatan author does it through the very deliberate maneuver of appearing ‘as atrope in his own text’. (Lodge 161) This is somewhat similar to what Bakhtinhad suggested. The author makes his presence felt, among other things,through authorial interventions, or through creating a narrator or teller whoproceeds to speak in the author’s voice, or through as David Lodge puts itother ‘masks, disguises, obliquities and ambiguities’.(Lodge 161) Thus,through very self-conscious literary devices the author incorporates his ownvoice among others in his text. In The Book of Laughter and Forgetting forexample, one of the first person narrators identifies himself as Milan Kunderaand goes on to narrate events that the real Kundera experienced. Nowherehowever is the assertion that the other narrators are less reliable or unequalor more fictional than the one who assumes the author’s name.

Neither the text nor the author therefore seems to be as free of eachother as French poststructuralism would suggest. However, no more is theauthor the only one responsible for the form that the discourse around a texttakes. He is one voice among many and it is his awareness of this fact and thedeliberate inclusion of it in his texts that make any sort of dialogism possible.As Lodge puts it ‘it never allows the reader the luxury of identifying with asecure authorial position that is invulnerable to criticism and irony. But thatit is the work of a distinctive, gifted, self-conscious ‘author’ is never in doubt.’(Lodge 167)

Works Cited

Bakhtin, Mikhail. ‘The Dialogic Imagination’ (Excerpts). The Critical Tradition.Ed. David Richter. Boston: Bedford/St.Martin’s, 2007. Print

Barthes, Roland. “The Death of the Author”. Modern Literary Theory. Ed. PhilipRice and Patricia Waugh. London: Bloomsbury, 2011. Print.

Burke, Sean. “The Responsibilities of the Writer”. Literary Theory and Criticism.Ed. Patricia Waugh. Oxford: OUP, 2006. Print.

Fish, Stanley. “Who is Afraid of Wolfgang Iser?”. The Critical Tradition. Ed.David Richter. Boston: Bedford/St.Martin’s, 2007. Print

Foucault, Michel. “What is an Author?”. Modern Literary Theory. Ed. PhilipRice and Patricia Waugh. London: Bloomsbury, 2011. Print

Lodge, David. After Bakhtin. London: Routledge, 1990. PrintRichter, David. Ed. The Critical Tradition. Boston: Bedford/St.Martin’s, 2007.

Print.


Elaine Showalter’s Contribution to the Female ‘Reader’ andthe Female ‘Writer’: A Brief Study

Runoo RaviResearch Scholar

Deptt. Of English, Patna University, Patna.

Elaine Showalter is the founder of Feminist Criticism and the pioneerof Feminist writing in the United States. Her contribution in the female literarytradition is very significant since she highlighted the need for the activeparticipation of the female not only as a reader but also as a writer to read,resist and refute the marginalised and one-sided representation given to thefemale in the male dominated literary canons. While her predecessors MaryWollstonecraft, Virginia Woolf and Simone de Beauvoir put emphasis on therole of education, value of economic independence and limitations of socialconstruct respectively, Showalter put stress on the concept of the importanceof the female as reader and writer because according to her, only a femalecould best understand, feel, experience and expose the experience of anotherwoman, as a victim of shared sisterhood.

Showalter believed that although a lot of work was being done in thefield of Feminist writing, Feminism, as a strong and effective literary movementstill lacked a fully articulated theory as Feminist writings and Feministexperiences were not being given the importance/ relevance they deserved.She was concerned with the stereotypes of feminism that see feminist critiquesbeing “obsessed with phallus” and “obsessed with destroying male artists”,something that the male bastion continuously accused the female writers of.

Showalter was concerned with the depiction of madness and hysteriain literature: the treatment differed when the writer was a male seeped inpatriarchy in comparison to women’ writing and their portrayal of femalecharacters which always contained the Palimpsest that was deconstructedlater. Novels like Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights are best examples of thiswhich had to use this technique to present the female protagonist as thewriter’s alter-ego (Catherine in Wuthering Heights) or to leave an anonymous,voiceless Bertha (Jane Eyre) to be the representative of millions of such womenin later essays like Mad woman in the attic as well as novels like Wild SargassoSea.

Showalter’s writings were thus aimed to make a conscious effort toconvey the importance of mapping her discipline (feminist criticism) so thatit can firstly be effectively put in the substantive theory and secondly gathera knowledge base that will carve the plan for future feminist academic pursuit.She found that the proper importance can be generated by this systematicmethod.


In her seminal essay, ‘Feminist Criticism in the Wilderness’ [ 1981] ,she divides feminist criticism into :-

(1) The women as Reader or Feminist Critique(2) The women as writer or GynocriticsShe does so because while charting out the history of female writers

or rather the writings about females by males, she realised how the male hasalways been fore grounded and the females have been treated and presentedas secondary characters lending them no depth; rather a hysterical andscatter-brained approach.(1) Feminist Critique (The female as the Reader):

It was only through reading the texts that the incorrect image of thefemale as constructed and highlighted in literature could be understood andthe beliefs and stereotypes assigned to her could be accurately decoded. Thefemale had the power to change the perspective with which the text wasbeing perceived and read so far. The perceptive acumen of the female and herability to grasp and decode the hidden and unwritten messages in the texts,aimed primarily to devalue and stereotype the female was the key point topresent the female as a Critique. The Female Critique aimed to question thestereotypical representation, the historical glorification of the male; thesignificances of the sexual codes and binary opposition. It also needed tolook at the gaps created in the male created literary world and refused toaccept the canons of writing as dictated by the andocentric laws. Thecontinuous manipulation, misrepresentation and exploitation of the femalewere re-read; not just in texts but also in popular cultures and fiction. It waslike the Old Testament of the Bible looking for errors of the past.

Showalter believed that although women had gained access toeducation and reading materials, the biggest drawback was that the literaryworld was totally male – oriented. This meant that whatever text was beingread, did not provide a widening of knowledge of the feelings and experiencesof the women. On the contrary, it was just an interpretation of what the malethought about the women. The perspective of the women was missingaltogether. Furthermore, there was an obvious reluctance to either questionor resist the available text. Given the status of women in the society; thesexism and the stereotypical representation could be easily accepted as avery natural course of female victimisation. After all, history is always ‘his’story.

The problem raised by Showalter is that feminist critique tends to bemale oriented. This means that even when the feminist criticism in criticizingthe patriarchy, the focus is more on the male. Example of Hardy’s Mayor ofCasterbridge is given where despite the miseries suffered by the female in thenovel; the prime focus is on the male. There she suggests that in order toremove this obstacle, Gynocritics should be planned in such a way that ‘wedevelop new models based on the study of female experience rather thanadapt to the male models and theories.’


Showalter put the following issues under Feminist Critique:• Women as ‘reader’ were to be considered and accepted also as

‘consumer’ of literature by male.• Female reading had to change the prevalent idea and concept of a

text by going deep down even in the historical quest. Therepresentation of Marie Antoinette as a callous, stupid woman inthe description of the French Revolution [ “ if they do not havebread, give them cakes...” ] has not only been challenged as adeliberate male construct but also been revised.

• The stereotype and the ‘image’ of the female in the text have to befirmly critiqued.

• The ‘deliberate’ omissions and the misconceptions about the femaleare to be highlighted.

• The canons and ideals created by the male are not to be acceptedarbitrarily.

2. GYNOCRITICS (The female as the Writer) :Showalter based this theory on the principle that instead of clinging

to the parameters set up by the male literature, efforts should be made todevelop models of writings based on the experiences of the female instead ofadopting male theories. This meant that literary criticism was now based onthe perspective of the female. This reinforced the idea that only a womancould best understand, express and explain what the other women’s feelings.The man can, at the best, try to do so but may not be completely successful.The chief aim was not to try to fit ourselves to adjust ourselves according tothe ways set by the male traditions but to try to create and focus on the newlyemerging and more visible world of female literature and now tradition.

As Showalter herself writes “In contrast to an angry or loving fixationto male literature, the program of Gynocritics is to construct a femaleframework for the analysis of women’s literature, to develop new modelsbased on the study of female experience, rather than to adapt to male modelsand theories.” (Towards a Feminist Poetics, 1979)

Gynocritics does not desire to erase the difference between male andfemale literature. Its prime concern is to present the women as the producerof textual meaning. Gynocritics study women’s writing as a fundamentalaspect of female reality. Once the female is in control of not just reading, butalso writing and deciphering the text, she would naturally have greater powerwhich would lead to decline in her subordination and subsequent weightagein her discourse she delivers. Gynocritics begin at the point when the femaledeliberately frees herself from the linear absolutes of male culture and stopstrying to fit or adjust oneself between the lines of male culture. It totallyabdicates the idea of adopting and supporting male theories and aims to


construct a female frame work to analyse women literature which will developnew models based on the study of female experience.The main issues of Gynocritics were:

• To investigate and discuss themes, genres and structures ofliteratures by women.

• To study the psychodynamics of female creativity.

• To study the linguistic problem of the female since language is thechief tool to express thoughts, more so of the Third World women.

• To study the biography, background and important works ofparticular female writers.

• To study the growth of the female literary career of the individualor of the nation.

Showalter further studies feminist writings at four levels :-1) Biological differences2) Linguistic differences – Language shapes comprehension of

reality; especially for women in male constructed language3) Psychoanalytic difference4) Cultural differenceShe feels that women writers are evaluated as women first, their

merits/ capabilities as writers come later. Ideas of greatness, universalityand literariness have been constructed by male critics in the andocentrictradition in such a manner that women writers have been excluded and theirefforts obsessed and marginalised. The challenge for females is to reinventlanguage, to speak ‘not only against’ but also ‘outside’ the phallogocentricstructures. A female framework needs to be constructed for the analysis ofwomen’s literature; to focus on the newly visible world of female culture.

To prove her point about raising female literary standards by thecombination of Feminist Critique and Gynocritics, Showalter divides thehistory of women into three phases:

(1) The Feminine – (1840-1880) – The desire to become equal withthe intellectual capabilities of the male. This was the ADOPT Phase. Thisput pressure on writing – narrative tone and character – suppressing thenaturalness.The females were suffering from Inferiority complex. This wasthe ADAPT phase.

(2) The Feminist – (1880-1920) – The desire to use literature to correctthe ordeals of wronged womanhood now prevailed. This was the ADAPTphase. This focussed on protest against male standards and values andadvocated women’s rights and values

(3) The Female – (1920 – present times )This was the phase of selfdiscovery. Both imitation (- in feminine phase) and protest (- in feministphase) were discarded because both were actually forms of dependency onthe male. Now female experience was to be the source; the feminist analysis


of culture was extended to the form and technique of literature. This becamethe ADEPT phase. There is no fixed or characteristics sign for the FemalePhase – diversity of experience of female and crossing social and culturalboundaries cannot be captured in a single image.

By this transition; with the emergence of Feminist Critique [ moreparticipation ] and the evolution of Gynocritics [ more expression ] ; femaleparticipation and influence on the hitherto andocentric literature led to changein the fixed paradigms that naturally led to the combined effects on therelevance of female discourse and removal of subsequent femalesubordination –both written and felt. Culture thus becomes the importantdeterminant in Gynocritics; mainly Culture Studies because women’s cultureforms a collective experience within the cultural whole ; one that binds womenwriters to each other over time and space.

Imitation + protest and Cultural Perspective ( a more broader angle)is now used instead of and rocentric perspective like biological andpsychoanalytical theories that limited female studies to fixed structures like‘gender construct’ and hysterical ‘spurts’ respectively. Phase I [Adopt] andII [Adapt] were bound together in this perspective. Showalter made it clearthat simply revising and criticising female representation was not enough.One had to read as the ‘resisting reader’ and then had to enter the literarycanon as an ‘active participator’.

Gynocritics thus became both Self-contained as well as Experimental.It is this particular combination that made it a valuable tool in the hands ofthe later female writers, particularly of the Third World, and the Diaspora inparticular. The female was not restricted to passive readership and sheemerged as an expressive writer. Writings such as rudimentary travelogues,diary entries, letters and almanac entry which had been cruelly discardedtill then became important documents of female writings. A great push wasgiven to revival of regional literature since females expressed best in theirmother tongue.

Elaine Showalter had both sincerity and authority in her approach.Her inclination towards Gynocritics was initially viewed sceptically byestablished critics. It was felt that the exclusion of the male from therepresentations in female writings, as Showalter desired, would limit theliterary arena. This problem still persists because the concept of Gynocriticsbrought a great chink in the expressive authority of the male in female –centric issues. The treatment meted out by the male was considered prejudicedand based on hearsay compared to the actualization felt by the female. Quiteinterestingly, the emerging female writers did not show much enthusiasm inmale representations; they were more concerned with shattering theestablished stereotypes and the discriminating ideologies rather thanbothering with the opposite sex. Although Gynocritics does have its share oflimitations and consequent criticism, it also has validity and sustainability.Showalter waited patiently for the wisdom and truth of her cause to prevail.It finally did and still does.


Works Cited

Armstrong, Pat & Hugh Armstrong. Theorizing Women’s Work. Toronto.Garamond Press, 1990. Print.

Barry, Peter. Beginning Theory, New Delhi: Viva Books Pvt. Ltd, 2015. Print.Engels, Frederich. The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State, Alec

West [Trans]. Eleanor Burke Leacock [ ed.], New York: InternationalPublishers. 1972.

Jain, Jasbir [ed.]. Growing Up As A Woman Writer, New Delhi: Sahitya Academy,2007. Print.

ugcenglish.com/literary-theory/feminist-criticism-in-the-wilderness-elaine-showalter/895/ Web access 14.11.2016.


Mark Twain: Satirical Influence in English Literature

Aarti KumariResearch Scholar

University Department of English, Ranchi

Mark Twain is America’s best- loved writer. He is also famous allover the globe. One of his prime contributions is his illustration of growingup (including the distinct language) in a rural Southern American in thetime of slavery and the perpetuity of that institution. Added to this, he wasan American sub original as a raised up humorist and short story writerelucidating the many foibles of humanity. In other words, Mark Twain isprobably the most prolific of American authors.

This piece of writing would spin around the life of Mark Twain andhis genesis as a writer of satire. It is quite important to look into the events ofthe life of a writer as its resonance is quite unavoidable in his or her works. Beit Charles Dickens, D. H. Lawrence, Thomas Hardy, George Eliot, Jane Austenor Mark Twain.

Mark Twain’s least focused works are under the perusal of time. Heproves himself to be one of the most celebrated American writers especiallythrough his satirical pieces. He portrays himself as a potent satirist especiallyin his The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885), a work of outstanding artistry.The novel can be perused as a satire averse to all forms of Institutionalism. Inthis work, Twain denounces human nature. William Dean Howells in hisMy Mark Twain: Reminiscences and Criticisms writes “He had the Southwestern,the Lincolnian, the Elizabethan breadth of parlance”. (Howells, 4) In additionto this, the other approved satirical novels of this genre are Gulliver’s Travels(1726) by Jonathan Swift, Northanger Abbey (1817) by Jane Austen, Candide(1759) by Voltaire, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (1889) by MarkTwain. Twain likes bringing humorous smiles to his readers’ faces in differentways. If Mark twain humourously uses satire in the story From Life on theMississippi , he uses it ironically in The Celebrated Jumping Frog of CalaverasCountry.

If American author Ray Bradbury’s novel Fahrenheit 451 utilizesJuvenalian satire to critique several things, like the rise of televisionentertainment, growing and industry, and the censorship of Americanliterature and media , we find Mark Twain’s book Advice to Youth, utilizesHoratian satire through his description of the advice and coaching given toyoung men through comedy. He used satire to show the flaws of the peoplearound him.

Twain has been a dignified American writer- satirist, whoaccomplished planetary fame during his lifespan. Twain was born on


November 30th, 1835 in Florida, Missouri and died on April 21, 1910 only tobecome immortal with several works to his credits. Though, he never ranafter leaving a permanent imprint of his name, time worked upon his works,especially his satirical works. And, needless to say, it proved him to be one ofthe most famous American writers till date. Satire is in his instinct. MarkTwain’s intention is, however, to bring reformative changes in his society.And, obviously he gets tempted to choose satire as his one of the basic tools.

Mark Twain’s signature in literature is so powerful that the entiredecade of 1870s in America is referred to as The Gilded Age named after hisone of the famous works The Gilded Age (1873) - which prominently describedthe social, political corruption that has ravaged the American nation. This isone of the influences of Mark Twain’s satire on the modern -day society.Whenever the issue of deviation from normal moral decorum arises, MarkTwain no longer remains cool, calm and collected. He rather begins tosharpen his satiric sword to combat demons of social vices and follies.

Since his demise, his literary reputation has furthermore multiplied.The distinguished writers like Ernest Hemingway and William Faulknerproclaimed his works, especially The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885), amajor impact on 20th century American Fiction. Through The Adventures ofHuckleberry Finn the literary foundation acknowledged him as a formidablewriter America would ever display. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876),portrays a boy’s adventure and his inmost growth, presents the disputebetween appearance and reality and satirizes Southern respectability andpatrician assertion. Charles Dickens, the renowned novelist often usedpassages of satiric writings in his exploration of social affairs. Mark Twainalso does the same.

We are breathing into a post-modernist world. The world has becomeglobal village. The business dominance of the US cannot be traversed.Needless to say, American English has become a new lingua franca of theworld. The US BPOs have showed up in Indian metros and sub-urban India.Hence, it would be captivating to study the American dialects that MarkTwain has employed in his satires. It a is well acquainted fact that MarkTwain is the promoter of local dialects and he loves to make his charactersspeak in the language of their first aquisition, that is, vernacular. Digging abit, if not in particular, into the idioms may also assist one to explore theAmerican society and their colloquial languages. For the upcoming orpotential NRI of America may be more served by this contribution. After all,Mark Twain exists both in American literarture and sub-consciousness ofAmerica.

Satire plays a very dominant role in most of Twain’s stories. He doesthis by employing various medium of literary devices to humiliate or mock acertain subject within human society in which he does not assent with orwould intend to see betterment upon. It was Twain’s humour and satire thatfirst brought him National stardom as a writer.


His utmost satirical works are The Celebrated Jumping Frog of CalaverasCountry and Other Sketches ( 1867), Innocents Abroad (1869), Roughing It (1872),The Gilded Age ( 1873), The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876), Punch, Brothers,Punch! And Other Stories (1878), A Tramp Abroad (1880), The Stolen White Elephant(1882), Life on the Mississippi (1883), The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885),A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (1889), Merry Tales (1892).

We cannot deny the fact that his works have after- taste so powerfulthat we still gusto it. To have just one example for the purpose is his shortstories collection Tales, Speeches, Essays, and Sketches, he makes use of variousliterary devices, prominently humour to mock and insult common items ofreligion and society politics and thus has only after- taste but post- effectstoo. Twain wrote not only to quench his pleasure and passion for writingrather it was his source of livelihood.

The sequel to his critically successful The Adventures of Tom Sawyer,Mark Twain published The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in 1885 with ahuge success. Satire was the chief method. The novel was both a fusion ofman’s cruelty to man, hypocrisy in religion, superstition and of romanticismin Huck Finn in order to entertain the reader and to make the reader consciousof the social ills which Mark Twain witnessed at the time.

Twain has a strong taste for conveying humorous smile to his reader’sfaces in distinct ways. Mark Twain humorously uses satire in his story Lifeon the Mississippi and uses it ironically in Celebrated Jumping Frog of CalaverasCountry and Other Sketches. The Lowest Animal, in which he uses this device toteach the readers a lesson by telling audiences how he thinks human beingsare lineage of animals because of their barbarian nature and immoral thingsdone by them. The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras Country and OtherSketches is a satire in which he makes the readers aware that strangers shouldnot be trusted so easily and can be costly if that trust is subjected to crueltreatment.

Twain’s The Prince and the Pauper deals with the practice of hypocrisycommitted by people. The Adventure of Tom Sawyer, concerns itself principallywith portraying a blissful image of boyhood life along the Mississippi River.Twain criticizes adult conventions throughout The Adventures of HuckleberryFinn explore critically. Mark Twain was one of the supreme satirists of histime. Satire plays an active role to show the foible of the people around him.

Mark Twain’s most fundamental satires, in fact, envelops the wholeof human race. A work such as Letters from the Earth satirizes man’sdestruction of his fellow human beings and of the ecosystem. Through satire,Twain shares his beliefs centering on many contemporary issues includingslavery and human vices. America today, even under the leadership of theBlack President Barack Obama is not free of racial issues. Clashes on thestreets are common. Africa is still under apartheid, not theoretically butpractically. In India, too, Article 16 exists in black and white, but it is notenough to provide sufficent air to article 21 , that is, Right to life. Hence,


issues are global, Universal and , above all, eternal. Mark Twain’s satiresappear to have tasted the Shakespearean spring.

Twain compiled single-minded use of words, which is understoodto be plain and simple, yet still insightful which heighten American Literature.He writes what explodes his grey cells and that too, without fear. Anotherway that Mark Twain deepens the legacy of American literature is by hisdesign of writing in the common parlance of the local people.

Mark Twain was awarded, an honorary doctorate in letters (D. Litt.)by Oxford University in 1907. He has been entitled as the father of AmericanLiterature. Twain’s wide- ranging works include novels, short stories, essays,sketches, and travelogues. He efficiently used comic exaggeration to hit thefalse pride he noticed in human beings. Mark Twain through his writings,no doubt, has influenced the modern day society to a great extent. Twain’sgenre has almost become synonymous of American Literature. His TheAdventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer entertainequally to a child and a septuagenarian. It is impossible to ignore theconspicuous undertones of Mark Twain amazing encapsulation of the childdemeanor. Mark Twain is the funniest of all American writers.

Mark Twain was a master of delineating delicate humanrelationships. The stories of Mark Twain exploit the relationship involvingchildren with the same intensity of child’s playful and philosophical level.The prodigious strength of Twain’s works lie in the preservation of childhoodoutlook throughout the story. Twain wanted to comprehend the worldthrough the eyes and ears of a child which gave the story a quality of naivety,honesty and charm. Mark Twain had not only been consistently and naturallyfunny but also he could shift from his comic mode to serious matters instantlyand be completely convincing at all registers.

Mark Twain endows his story with different nuance of child-childrelationship which creates purely humorous accounts of children’s simplecunningness which is also a part of their innocent world. The very freshnessand charm of youth flows in Tom and Huck as the characters are alsoembodiment of adventure and innocence.

Twain’s character can be more hostile and uncompromising underthe condition which deals with psychology and temperament of children asper the demand of the situation, but at the end of the day they are simply boyswith their hopes and fears, failures and inspirations. Although they aremischievous but retain the freshness and charm of their age. Twain enjoysusing childish pranks that are mischievous and full of energy. Twain’scharacters may not be heroic all the times they are simply boys with ordinarytraits which tickle the readers and fills them with the sympathy for the boyishattitudes.

Mark Twain takes his character to the extreme height and presentsthem in exaggerated form. He deploys every technique to exploit the childpsyche. He has the capacity through which he can create comical situation


which makes his reader to guffaw. They annoy the adults, at time theircomrades, with unending and mind boggling questions.

Mark Twain satirizes the problem of slavery, particularly in the deepSouth which always supported and promoted the institution of slavery. Forexample, a white man, in his one of his works, is found to be keeping slaves,but he does not want himself to be a slave to the black people. Such vices,moral intrigues are dealt in detail with in the works of Mark Twain.

Society’s hypocrisy is the target of Twain’s criticism. He also makesfun of the organization of religion, of con artists and their gullible victims, ofpride and vanity, and the lopsidedness of slavery. Twain satirises theRomantic or Transcendental philosophies saying that the man can perfecthimself. He focuses a lot on man’s innate evil nature. Twain seems to mockthe idea of moral perfect as well as the religious sentimentalism that camewith transcendentalism.

Having been one of Twain’s closest friend for decades William DeanHowells dubs Twain in his My Mark Twain as “Sole, incomparable, theLincoln of our Literature”. (Howells, XXV, 31) Ernest Hemingway in hisbook The Green Hills of Africa writes “All modern American literature comesfrom one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn”. (Hemingway, 29)

His satires would definitely be taken as peep- hole to observe theAmerican society. It would give us an insight and stuff to analyse at the sametime our own Indian society—if there is any difference in the sense of humouracross the two tropical zones of the world! Certainly, Mark Twain is globaland he breaks all the barriers.

Works Cited

1. Horny, A S. Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary of Current English, SeventhEdition, UK: Oxford University Press, 2005.

2. Howells, Dean William. My Mark Twain: Reminiscences and Criticisms, NewYork: Harper & Bros, 1910.

3. Emerson, Everett. The Authentic Mark Twain: A literary Biography of SamuelL. Clemens, United States of America: University of PennysylvaniaPress, 1984.

4. Cox, M. James. Mark Twain: The Fate of Humor, University of Missouri, 1966.5. Howells, Dean William. My Mark Twain, United States of America: Dover

Publication, 1997.6. Hill, A. Richard. Mark Twain Among the Scholars: Reconsidering Contemporary

Twain Criticism, Whitson Publishing Company, 2002.7. Hemingway, Ernest. The Green Hills of Africa, United States: Charles

Scribber’s Sons, 1935.


Eating as a Feminist Issue

Smita

Research Scholar, Patna University, Patna

“The woman who doesn’t eat much”

Susan Bordo, Hunger as Ideology (1993).

It was one of many other books that I surveyed while I was doing aresearch course on Women and Gender Studies at University of Delhi, India.During that fascinating course, I came across many such books which explorea provocative but as of yet scarcely studied facet of gender constructions:female food desire. I use the “word” desire here rather deliberately, as earlymodern definitions of appetite extended well beyond the physiological driveto eat to encompass all those physical (and shameful) longings associatedwith the body. A social set up where women’s sexual appetites and appetitesfor food are deeply linked in a patriarchal imagination and both are feared asinsatiably devouring. Femininity continues to be constructed as an act ofdominance over the female body. And, in a culture where women were bydefinition immoderate and sensual, female food appetite, I argue, constitutedan unruly desire that demanded social and moral discipline. The aim of thispaper is to make explicit precisely this connection between eating andstereotypes notions behind it. I discuss two very different texts- CharlotteBronte’s Jane Eyre and Bankim Chandra Chatterjee’s Indira, both from thenineteenth century, both written in the realist mode, both about the fortunesof its eponymous heroine. I use food as a locus to discuss various aspects ofculture, class, caste and gender that get displayed in the process. Being astudent of literature, I wish to offer a nuanced portrayal of how the Victorianconceptualization of female appetites, her health and well-being and anorexicbody were infused with contemporary notions of sexuality and gender; also,in what ways women’s relationship to food was gendered.

Food is an important and indispensable part of any culture. SilviaMergenthal notes how “[i]t is the link between the natural and socio-culturaldimensions of eating… [which] lies at the heart of an anthropology of eating.On the basis of this anthropological constant, every culture develops its owncuisine, that is, its system of language and practices around phenomenasuch as food, eating and embodiment”. Literature, moreover, is informed byand becomes one of the sites in which discourse about food gets articulated.“Literary texts reflect… the dietary habits and eating practices of the societyin which they originate”. Given the above, it becomes interesting to compare


literary texts from two very different cultures – mid–Victorian and latenineteenth century colonial Bengal (now West Bengal, a state of India) – tosee ramifications of eating practices, dietary habits and attitudes towardspreparation and serving of food reflected with literature. Carolyn Korsmeyercalls this “gustatory semantics”: “because of the temporal dimension of eating– and of testing and satisfaction of appetites – narrative contexts can furnishreflections of the meaning this activity entails.” Literary texts then can beseen as embodiments of a whole range of connotations that the language offood entails.

Based on this I read the two texts by asking the following questions:What gets counted as food? (notions of edibility and availability) Where andhow is it seen fit to be eaten? (notions of decorum and consumption) Andlastly, what does it say about who prepares it? (notions of preparation andserving). In Jane Eyre, “a novel obsessed with feeding and starvation” thesequestions reveal profound details about Victorian food culture andideological ramifications bordering on ideas of class and gender. HelenaMitchie notes that “the dinner table is important locus of interaction inVictorian culture. In the novel, it is the place where characters, plots andsubplots come together to enjoy and to produce the rich complexities ofVictorian fiction.”

Sally Mitchell elaborates on the differences in food consumptionbased on one’s social position. While the working class had bread, cheese,potatoes, etc, a more nuanced and elaborate choice of food was available tothe upper classes. In the novel too, the choice of food depends on the socialsetting. At Lowood, for instance, Jane complains about the “burnt porridge”and after her near starvation after the wedding fiasco, asks simply for “bread”.At her Aunt Reed’s or at Thornfield, more refined delicacies are available(“tart”, “coffee”, “custards, cheese-cakes and French pastries”, etc.). Similarly,on striking it rich, Jane articulates her newly found status on the basis offood: “….the two days preceding that on which your sisters are expected willbe devoted by Hannah and me to such a beating of eggs, sorting of currants,grating of spices, compounding of Christmas cakes, chopping up of materialsfor mince pies, and solemnizing of other culinary rites….”

Special spaces were accorded to special rituals concerning food. AtGateshead there is a separate “breakfast room”, a dining and [a] drawingroom” and a kitchen for the “servants’ dinner”. Timings similarly becomeimportant. Afternoon tea becomes popular round the 1840s, but is, as Mitchellcomments, considered by and large a “ladies meal”. Dinner was taken earlyin the evening but could begin, as Mitchell notes around 7.30 or 8.30 pm. InJane Eyre, “Mrs. Reed when there was no company dined early”. At Thornfield,there is a mention of “dinner at six”. Dinner is undertaken in a separatedining room. At the dinner party where Blanche Ingram and other guests areinvited, this is precisely what happens, with the possible aberration of thegoverness, Jane, being invited to join the guests after dinner in the drawingroom.


The above speaks for notions of decorum and consumption. Butdecorum also prerequisites certain about class and gender. In Jane Eyre,various attitudes about class and gender get reflected through notions offood. Mergenthal remarks on the “link between gender and the class-codedattitudes to food becomes evident when one considers who is responsible forcooking and serving it”. While she does not say so, a similar link is observedwhen one examines the question: who is considered fit company for eating?

In the beginning of the text, John Reed makes this explicit to Jane:“You have no business to take our books; you are a dependent, mamma says;you have no money; your father left you none; you ought to beg, and not tolive here with gentlemen’s children like us, and eat the same meals we do, andwear clothes at our mamma’s expense.” [Emphasis added] Class and dietarypractices hence are inextricably linked. At Thornfield, similarly, Jane as agoverness finds herself in “an ambiguous class position.” Neither is sherequired to take her meals with the servants, who have a separate meal timeand place, nor can she dine with Rochester. She usually dines with thehousekeeper Mrs. Fairfax, (“I and my pupil dined as usual in Mrs. Fairfax’sparlour”) or as during Ingram party, has her meals with Adele in her nursery.(“Everyone downstairs was too engaged to think of them”).

A similar relation is revealed between food and gender. WhileVictorian fictions may abound in mentions of food, dinners and other socialgatherings, any mention of the heroine eating is conspicuous only by itsabsence. Yet, as Mitchie observes, “despite the emptiness of the heroine’splate, women’s hunger constitutes a vital mythic force behind both the noveland the culture”. Hunger acts as a Victorian euphemism for sexuality. Smalland delicate appetites are not simply with femininity but also with virginity,as imagery of devouring would imply untamed sexuality. Jane is fed by bothMiss Temple and Bessie outside of meal time. This “secret nibbling in thebedroom”, as Mitchie calls it, makes explicit connection between food andsex. The association of women with terrifyingly voracious appetites is an oldone. In her essay “Hunger as Ideology” Susan Bordo writes “Mythological,artistic, polemical, and scientific discourses from many cultures and eras …suggest the symbolic potency of female hunger as a cultural metaphor forunleashed female power and desire” (116). Patriarchal societies thatnecessitate the suppression of female power and desire grow to fear whatthey suppress. The refusal to acknowledge female appetites causes them totake on monstrous proportions in the patriarchal imagination. Bordo notesthat women’s sexual appetites and appetites for food are deeply linked in thepatriarchal imagination and both are feared as insatiably devouring. Activefemale sexuality is terrifying because, as Bordo points out “the sexual act,when initiated and desired by a woman, is imagined as itself an act of eating,of incorporation and destruction of the object of desire” (117). Thus, thesecuring of a passive female body without desire or appetite becomes a matterof life and death. The well-fed desiring healthy woman is imagined as adangerous, deadly threat. In Mysteries of the Dark Moon, Demetra George writes


about male supremacist societies constructing “a devouring femininesexuality that causes men to transgress their moral and religious convictions,and then … consumes their vital essence and entwines them in an embrace ofdeath” (28). Female sexuality, hunger and desire were conquered and tamedthrough the imposition of a starving ideal of Victorian femininity.

In her reading of the history of the anorexic body, Anna KrugovoySilver reads the connotations surrounding the corset. The corset was supposedto give the appearance of the slender waist. “The small waist signified awoman’s lack of appetite and her self control”. Pale women signified upperclass and spiritual while large fleshy women suggested the lower classesand carnal desire. Silver remarks that anorexia nervosa first appeared inupper and middle class households as a response to the woman of idealizedslender waist. A refusal of the intake of food then appeared as a sign ofprotest. “They could deny patriarchy by simply refusing its food.” Hence,lacks of mention in conduct books and related literature of the heroine eating.

It is a similar spiritual versus carnal binary that Gilbert and Gubarread as operative in Jane Eyre. Helen Burns is the typical “Angel in the house”while Bertha Mason is the “devil in the flesh”. What needs to be added to thesame is that this coincides with Helen’s bearing near starvation at Lowoodand Bertha Mason’s cannibalistic ‘biting’ episode. Food again appears as alocus and sub-text for other socio-cultural connotations.

In the light of the above, the eating practices at Lowood deserve aspecial mention. Considered a “charity school” for children who have lostone or both parents, the school is set up as a training ground for socialpositions such as that of the governess. What needs to be highlighted in thesort of ideological indoctrination that operates within the institution –indoctrination that goes hand in hand with feeding practices. Jane mentionsher near starvation in the school repeatedly: “I was now nearly sick frominanition having taken so little the day before.” And later:

Ravenous, and now very faint, I devoured a spoonful or two of myportion without thinking of its taste;but of the first edge of the hungerblunted, I perceived I had got a nauseous mess; burnt porridge isalmost as bad as rotten potatoes; famine itself soon sickens over it.The spoons were moved slowly: I saw each girl taste her food and tryto swallow it; but in most cases the effort was soon relinquished.Breakfast was over, and none had breakfasted.

Most significantly, it is Miss Temple’s feeding of the students whichprovoke Mr. Brocklehurst’s ire:

‘Madam, allow me an instant. You are aware that my plan in bringingup these girls is, not to accustom them to luxury and indulgence, butto render the hardy, patient, self-denying. Should any little accidental


disappointment of the appetite occur such as the spoiling of a meal,the under or the over dressing of a dish, the incident ought not to beneutralized by replacing with something more delicate the comfortlost, thus pampering the body and obviating the aim of thisinstitution; it ought to be improved to the spiritual edification of thepupils, by encouraging them to evince fortitude under temporaryprivation. A brief address on those occasions would not be mistimed,wherein a judicious instructor would take the opportunity of referringto the sufferings of the primitive Christians; to the torments of martyrs;to the exhortations of our blessed Lord Himself, calling upon Hisdisciples to take up their cross and follow Him; to his warnings thatman shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedethout of the mouth of God; to His divine consolations, ‘If ye sufferhunger or thirst for My sake, happy are ye.’ Oh, madam, when youput bread and cheese, instead of burnt porridge, into these children’smouths, you may indeed feed their vile bodies, but you little thinkhow you starve their immortal souls!’

The so-called “aim of the institution” then becomes to manufacturean assembly of girls who are “hardy, patient, self-denying”. The rationing offood and its (near) withdrawal is equated here with power and a means ofcontrol.

In a similar manner, Rochester in the first half of the text “uses foodand food imagery to control Jane”. From their first encounter, Rochester usesother worldly imagery to talk about Jane. Jane is compared to a fairy, a goblin,an elf, etc. On Jane’s exclamation that she was starved at Lowood, heproclaims her to belong to another world. Matters such as physicalsustenance and such worldly concerns are not part of Jane’s agenda forRochester. “In his eyes, Jane does not need physical sustenance; her‘otherworldliness’ is his expression of her lack of physical presence.” WhenRochester tells Jane and Adele that he is her (Jane) away to the moon, it isAdele who recognizes the potential control behind the statement and exclaims

that he will starve her – there being no food on the moon.After the wedding fiasco, hungry and lost, Jane goes begging for

food door to door. “If she had held it [the door] open a little longer, I believe,I should have begged for a piece of bread for I was now brought low”. Andlater:

Once more I took off my handkerchief – once more I thought of thecakes of bread in the little shop. Oh, for but a crust! For but onemouthful to allay the pang of famine! Instinctively I turned my faceagain to the village; I found the shop again, and I went in; andthough others were there besides the woman I ventured the request


– ‘Would she give me a roll for this handkerchief?’ She looked atme with evident suspicion: ‘Nay, she never sold stuff i’ that way.’Almost desperate, I asked for half a cake: she again refused. ‘Howcould she tell where I had got the handkerchief?’ she said.‘Would she take my gloves?’ ‘No! what could she do with them?’Reader, it is not pleasant to dwell on these details. Some say there isenjoyment in looking back to painful experience past; but at this dayI can scarcely bear to review the times to which I allude: the moraldegradation, blend with the physical suffering, form too distressinga recollection ever to be willingly dwelt on.

Another dimension of dietary practices which illuminates other socio-cultural aspects, as mentioned earlier, is the question of preparation andserving. A link between gender-coded attitudes to food becomes visible whenone considers the role of the household mistress in the preparation andserving of food. Mergenthal observes how it is considered honorable for themistress to be involved in household chores, of which food serving is anindispensable part. In the text, while most of the preparation is done byservants at Thornfield, the house in the earlier part of the text lacks a mistressthat can never serve the food. In the denouement, Jane has been read ascoming to occupy a position of “worthiness” with respect to Rochester. Astature that comes along with the liberty to feed the maimed Rochester:

‘Can you see me?’‘No, my fairy: but I am only too thankful to hear and feel you’.‘When do you take supper?’‘I never take supper.’‘But you shall have some to-night. I am hungry; so areyou, I daresay, only you forget’.Summoning Mary, I soon had the room in more cheerful order: Iprepared him, likewise, a comfortable repast. My spirits were excited,and with pleasure and ease I talked to him during supper, and for along time after.

Similarly: “’… by the bye, I must mind not to rise on your hearth withonly a glass of water then: I must bring an egg at the least, to say nothing offried them.’” And late: “I dashed off the salt drops and busied myself withpreparing breakfast.”

What the above shows in a variety of mechanisms at work whichcan be seen to be entered around food and eating practices. In Jane Eyre, thereis a clear link between food, class and gender. A similar vein can be observedwhen one travels to late nineteenth century Bengal. One observes in Indira anequal obsession with food and eating practices. In fact, the drive of the


narrative comes, as will be clear later, from the dietary habits and obsessionswith food.

In her reading of four great Indian realist novels, which includesIndira, Meenakshi Mukherjee recognizes a “dilemma” involved in order to‘make one’s own’ a borrowed form. She states:

Creating real people in a recognizable historical setting – peoplewho are not mere archetypes or representatives of a caste or class ora social role (priest, landlord, mother-in-law, etc.) – necessitates anacceptance of subjective individualism and a specific awareness ofhistory. The latter had never been a component of traditionalnarrative in India, and the former was not easy in a tradition-boundsociety even though the writers themselves had begun to be restive.Changes in the write’s own value system were perceptible but thesehad not made any dent on the larger social structure, and to this ex-tent the major Indian novels of the nineteenth century reflect a centraldilemma of the period.

And yet, Indira is set in a recognizable historical setting, dealing“with contemporary society or a period within living memory” and are“realistic in intention”. Food in this regard becomes an important troupe torender the setting real.

Actions such as eating and feeding are used to create realistic effectsin the text. For instance, on her way to her husband’s home, before the incidentwith the highwaymen, the palanquin bearers are depicted as craving forfood:

The bearers said, ‘If we don’t have some refreshments, we can’t goon.’ The guards forbade this – they said, ‘This is not a good place’the bearers answered, ‘There are so many of us – why should we beafraid?’ The people had not anything all this time. Finally, they allagreed with the bearers. And later we are told that “they weretravelling with empty bellies, in pursuit of handful of rice…”

Similarly, Indira after the incident is shown with needs such as thirstand hunger, establishing a psychologically complex character: “ On top ofthat was my wakeful night, with its unbearable mental and physicalsuffering… and hunger and thirst”; “I went to her [an old woman’s] house.Seeing that I was suffering from hunger, she milked the cow and gave mesome milk to drink.”

Speaking of realism rending visible contemporary social institutions,the novel can be said to not just be constitutive of but rather be made possibleby a particular social institution – that of caste. Caste informs the novelthrough and through, but what interests us here is how an articulation of itsmanifestation is made possible by eating practices.


That the logic of caste is highlighted by the novel can be shown bythe following exchange between Indira and Subhashini:

Subhashini said, ‘Without hearing your name now, is your castereally Kayashtha?’I laughed and said, ‘We are Kayashthas.’Subhashini said, ‘I will not ask whose daughter you are, whose wifeor where your home is. Now, listen to what I say. You are the daughterof an important man, I can see that – there are still the marks ofornaments around your arms and neck. I will not tell you to do thework of a maidservant – you know something of how to cook, don’tyou?I smiled, ‘I do. I was particularly renowned for cooking in my father’shouse.’Subhashini said, ‘In our house we are all cooks’…. ‘But the followingthe custom of Calcutta, there is also a cook employed…’

Cooking becomes a privileged exercise, one that a “daughter of animportant man” can respectably undertake. Its respectability is furtherhighlighted by Subhashini stressing soon after this exchange that there isnot anything of disrepute about cooking: “We will cook, and you will cookfor one or two days a week…” [Emphasis added]

Much the same way, the link between customary practices involvingcaste and practices of food preparation and serving are rendered visible inthe following exchange between Subhashini and her mother-in-law:

… ‘You were looking for a cook, so I have brought you her.’Mistress: Where did you find her?Daughter-in-law: My aunt produced her.Mistress: Brahmin or KayashthaDaughter-in-law: KayashthaMistress: Ah! Your aunt is unlucky! What can I do with a Kayashthagirl? If we have to feed a Brahmin one day, what will we do?

Daughter-in-law: We don’t have to feed Brahmins everyday – nevermind about those few days – and then if we get a Brahmin girl we will haveto keep her – Brahmin girls are very fastidious – if we go into their Kitchenthey throw all the utensils away – and come again to give offerings of food!

A similar link is observed with gender and eating practices. There isclear link between food and gender, gender and spaces. Partha Chatterjeeremarks on the division of such spaces as inner and outer as correspondingto feminine and masculine respectively. The inner zenana becomes acommunal space for women while the outer world is masculine territory.The text shows some signs of division, of the temporal and spatial segregation


in food consumption: “After that, Raman Babu sat down to eat. We watchedfrom concealment.” [Emphasis added.] And later: “After that, the master satdown to eat. I could not go there – following the mistress’ orders, the oldBrahmin cook took the master his rice”; “After that, the mistress sat down toher food.”

Though of course one needs to be careful to not undermine anotherwise grim reality of the zenana, the kitchen, in Indira, nonetheless becomesa carnivalesque female site of banter and mischief. Pertinently though, amoment of transgression, the sidelong glance which marks her first encounterwith her husband in the narrative, happens when she crosses the inner realmto the eating area where Raman Babu and his guests are seated. Marking thistransgression is also the fact that she serves food not meant to be served byher. Food and transgression are shown to be inextricably linked.

Similar to its Victorian counterpart, the ability to cook well, to managethe household successfully is considered as ideal femininity. (“Since you aredaughters of good people, you know cooking. Aha! Can I rebuke such girls –girls of such a great house.”) Indira transforms her woe at the loss of hersocial identity into pleasure through the activity of cooking. (“Meanwhile Ialso found some happiness in cooking and serving.”) The deep ideologicalimplications of the link between gender and cooking, cooking and domesticservility is brought forward by the following:

Subhashini said ‘Are we not servants, then?’I said, ‘When his love awakens, that is the time for serving. Then Iwill fan him, massage his feet, and offer him tobacco,…’

Significantly, this awakening of love happens by way of showingdomestic servility. Much like her counterpart Jane, she wins Upendra Babuover by cooking his food: “For eight days, I inflamed my husband with all themeans which providence had given women to inflame men with.” And Later:

“On the first day I spoke caressingly; on the second day I showedsigns of affection ; on the third day I started to act as his housewife; Istarted to do that by which his meals, his sleeping, his bathing wouldbe orderly, and in every respect good; cooked with my own hands, andprepared everything, down to the toothpicks.” [Emphasis added]

Indira, then, as much a novel about food and eating practices becomessignificant in this regard. The text displays an irrefutable awareness of thelogic binding food with notions of caste and gender. Further, since written inthe realist mode, the text becomes a sound medium for the reflection of actualcontemporary concerns – concerns which enter on food and eating andfeeding practices.

Clearly, as the discussion of the above two novels demonstrates,food acts as locus for things other than itself. In an act of displacement, other


socio-cultural markers and phenomena – caste, class and gender – use foodas a way of enacting their own logic. Significantly, literature becomes a sitewhere such phenomena can get reflected. What the two novels clearly showthen is the socio-cultural specificity of notions concerning food. Yet as ourexamination provides is a clue to the mechanisms of the logic of caste, classand gender that get enacted through food and reflected in literary texts.

Works Cited

Bordo, Susan. “Hunger as Ideology.” In Bartholomae, David and AnthonyPetrosky, eds. Ways of Reading: An Anthology for Writers, 6th Edition.Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2002. pp. 138-171.

Bordo, Susan. Unbearable Weight, Berkley and Los Angelis: University ofCalifornia Press, 2003. Print.

Bronte, Charlotte. Jane Eyre, Ed. Novy Lapadia, New Delhi: Worldview, 2004.Chaterjee, Bankim Chandra. Indira.In The Poison Tree: Three Novellas.

Tr.By Marian Maddern and S.N. Mukherjee. New Delhi: Penguin books, 1996.Chaterjee, Partha. “The Nationalist Resolution of the Woman’sQuestion” ed. Gregory Castle.Postcolonial Discourses: An Anthology.Wiley-Blackwell, 2001.

Eagleton, Terry. “Emily Bronte and the great Hunger” The Irish review. No.12. Spring – Summer, 1992. pp. 108-119.

Foster, Gwendolyn Audrey. Troping the Body: Gender, Etiquette and Performances.SIU Press, 2000.

Gilbert, Sandra M. and Susan Gubar. Mad woman in the Attic: The Womanwriter and the Nineteenth Century Literary Imagination. Yale UniversityPress, 2000.

Keeling, Kara K. and Scott T. Pollard.Critical Approaches to Food In Children’sLiterature. Taylor and Francis, 2008.

Kessler, Brad. “One Reader’s Digest: Towards a Gastronomic Theory ofLiterature”, The Kenyon Review, New Series. Vol. 27 (2) Spring 2005.pp. 148-165.

Korsmeyer, Carolyn. Making Sense of Taste. Food and Philosophy, CornellUniversity Press, 2002.

Lane, Maggie. “Food”.Ed. Janet M. Todd.Jane Austen in Context, CambridgeUniversity Press, 2005.

Lindner, Christoph. “Thakeray’s Gourmand: Carnivals of Consumption inVanity Fair” Modern Philogy. Vol. 99 (4) May 2002. pp. 564-581.

Maher, Jennifer. “Ripping the Bodice: Eating, Reading, and Revolt” CollegeLiterature. Vol. 28 (1) Oral Fixations: Cannibalizing Theories,Consuming Cultures. Winter, 2001. pp. 64-83.


Malson, Helen. The Thin Woman: Feminism, Post-Structuralism, And The SocialPsychology of Anorexia Nervosa. Routledge, 1998.

McQuilland, Louis J. “Food, Drink and Fiction” The Lotus Magazine, Vol. 8 (7)April 1917. pp. 333-335.

Mergenthal, Silvia. “Dining with the Brontes”: Food and Gender Roles inMid-Victorian England”. Ed. NorberLennartz.The Pleasures andHorrors of Eating: The Cultural History of Eating in Anglophone Literature.V&R unipress GmbH, 2010.

Mitchell, Sally. “Private Life: House, Food and Clothes”, Daily Life in VictorianEngland. Greenwood Publishing Group, 1996.

Mitchie, Helena. The Flesh Made Word. Female Figures and Women’s Bodies.New York: Oxford University Press, 1987.

Mujherjee, Meenakxhi. “Reality and Realism: Indian Women as Protagonistsin Four Nineteenth Century Novels” Economic and Political Weekly.Vol. 19 (2) January 14, 1984. pp. 76-85.

Schorn, Susan. “Punish Her Body To Save Her Soul: Echoes of the IrishFamine in Jane Eyre” The Journal of Narrative Technique. Vol. 28 (3)Fall 1998. pp. 350-365.

Silver, Anna Krugovoy, Victorian Literature and the Anorexic Body, CambridgeUniversity Press, 2002.


A Study of Cultural Change and Women’s Struggle in AnitaNair’s Lessons in Forgetting

Ajay KumarResearch ScholarDept. of English

Patna University, Patna

Anita Nair is one of the eminent novelists among the contemporarywriters in English. She has authored some well known novels such as TheBetter Man (1999), Ladies Coupe (2001), Mistress (2005), Lessons in Forgetting(2010) etc. In Anita Nair’s fictions, her characters have come out of culturalchange and they are in quest of self identity. Her novels explore the freedomof woman to fulfil herself basically as a human being. Her novels reveal theeffect of social patriarchy set-up on women. Nair’s female characters breakthe chains of social standard and do not confine themselves to the boundarieswhich limit them. She never hesitates to tell the truth, however bitter it is. Hernovels are the social documents of the twenty first century.

Lessons in Forgetting is one of the most appreciated novels in therealm of Indian writing in English. It narrates the tale of Meera, is the chiefprotagonist. Meera lives in her ancestral Lilac House with her mother–Saroand grandmother, Lily. After her father’s death Meera has some hard yearswhich make her lead a simple life. The novelist remarks:

Meera never dreamt big dreams. She had no desire for designer clothes,diamonds or expensive holidays. Enough to keep roof over their headsand food in their bellies, enough to retain dignity and not have to askreluctant removed relatives for a temporary handout. Enough to liveas they did. (Lessons in Forgetting. 41)

Meera’s life changes when the Lilac house is chosen for photo shoot.Giri is a crew member of the team. He comes in contact with Meera. Heexpresses his keen interest in Meera and appreciates her beauty. Both fall inlove and decide to tie the knot. After marriage both of them are happy in eachother’s company. Giri dreams to become a richman as soon as possible. He isdelighted to possess the wealth rather than Meera. The narrator remarks.“Giri rose six inches high. What man wouldn’t? He thought of the riches laidout before him. A bride with social graces and a beautiful old home.” (Lessonsin Forgetting, 36). Giri is an ambitious man. He wants to start his own businessfor which he needs heavy amount. He convinces Meera about the purposeand tells her to sell the Lilac house to fulfil the requirement. As Lilac house isan ancestral property she refused to do so. It hurts Giri and he disappears


from her life. Meera states “He wanted us to sell the house. I refused. So he’spunishing me. This walking out on us, it’s childish vengefulness”. (Lessonsin Forgetting, 110) By refusing Giri’s idea she presents the modern womanwho is capable of taking decisions by herself. She doesn’t follow the traditionalpath to obey each and every instruction given by the husband. Simon deBeauvoir remarks “Woman is bound in a general way to contest foot by footthe rule of man, through recognizing his overall supremacy and worship hisidols” (Beauvoir, 622). This episode reflects the cultural change in the modernsociety.

Each and every relationship demands sacrifice and liberty. Marriageis the closest relationship in Indian culture but in the modern context, theconcept of marriage as an institution has been changed. Now it is consideredas a contract between a male and female. Simone de Beauvoir defines marriageas “the destiny traditionally offered to women by the society” (Beauvoir, 445)The marriage of Meera and Giri fails to carry stability due to Giri’s aspirationsfor wealth. Male chauvinism is weakening day by day. Giri feels inferior toMeera regarding the possession of property. He states “But we are not one,are we? You are the landlady and I am the tenant. There is no us. It is alwaysyou. Your house. Your family. Your friends. Has it occurred to you how Ifeel?” (Lessons in Forgetting, 108). After the departure of Giri from her life,Meera faces a number of problems but never loses hope. She is in search of ajob and takes up as a research assistant to a cyclone expert Jak which is theabbreviation of Jayamokandan Anantharaman Krishnamurthy. Jak hassettled in the USA. He has two daughters Smriti and Shruti. He always shareshis memory of childhood and tells many beautiful stories about the Indianculture, customs, tradition and geographical landscape to Smriti. Smriti isimpressed by the stories and wants to visit India. She comes here to completeher degee as she wishes to do so. She is an open minded girl and makes male& female friends in college in a very short time. She joins a forum as a volunteerwith some girls from the college. She sets a journey with her team to spreadthe message against the female foeticide. She goes to Minjikapuram, a placeabout which she has heard from her father. While walking near the sea beach,she is injured by a bit of broken glass. She visits a doctor for first aid. Shecomes to know that there is only one hospital in the village. At the hospitalshe observes a huge gathering of pregnant women and comes to know thatall these women come for scanning to know the sex of the foetus. She is veryshocked as she remarked.

Despite the laws and regulation, women still find a way ofdiscovering the sex of their unborn babies. If not the women theirfamilies. They abort the foetus if it’s a girl soon there may come a daywhen there are no moment left (Lessons in Forgetting. 285)


Smriti determines herself to fight against the female foeticide. Duringthis compaign she faces the problem of cultural difference. She has beenbrought up in the USA where living standard and dressing sense of womendo not face any social discrimination. When Smriti is in the village wearinga modern dress, people stare at her and curious to know where she is from?The novelist remarks.

One of them touched Smriti’s eyebrow stud. Doesn’t this catch inyour hair? Another woman, more censorious than curious, pinchedthe fabric of her shirt and asked in a whisper. Don’t the men stare atyou? They leer at us even when we are in a sari so when they seesomeone like you… I couldn’t ever dress like you do. All those eyesstripping me naked. I would rather die! (Lessons in Forgetting, 282)

Smriti prepares a plan to eradicate the social evils. She is of the viewthat spreading awareness would be helpful to stop the female foeticide. Shestarts to make the women realise that the girl foetus has to be given a chance.They can find joy in their daughters as sons. She investigates the matter atthe hospital and protests against the illegal acts. The novelist remarks “It’sillegal! Smriti’s voice rose. They do it here? The scan doctor is not from thistown. They bring him from somewhere else, and he tells us if we ask him, thewoman whispered. Look around you. She added. All these pregnant women,they come from various parts of the district. Do you think there are no hospitalswhere they live? It’s because of the scan doctor and then if you want it they’lldo the abortion here as well! (Lessons in Forgetting, 292)

Smriti starts to collect proof against the doctors and his team formaking a report. She meets a woman Chinnathayi whose daughter had diedin the nursing home after an abortion and she has some of the Papers andreport with her. Dr Srinivasan and his men play a trick and call Smriti byusing the name of Chinnathay? On the beach, when Smriti reaches there, thethree brawny men attacked on her and destroy her. “They were animals,these men. They tore at the girl and it seemed the more she screamed, themore excited they became… It was the smell of blood” (Lessons in Forgetting,317). This incident makes Smriti a motionless, pathetic and frozen figure,Smriti, a girl brought up in the United States has got into the troubles whenidentifying herself with the fellow Indian women. She considers it as herduty to amend the social injustice. In the words of Maya Vinay.

Smriti in Lessons in Forgetting is a victim of such a mistaken identitymen in India are still unequipped to face such a kind of modernity,which is an offshoot of progressive western education andupbringing. Smriti with all her frivolousness is also a girl who wantsto bring about a reform in the society by her social activism. She iscruelly punished by the male society for her interference in local


matters. She appears freak in the eyes of her community since shedemonstrates the possibilities of her society to a group of peoplewho are not yet ready to either grasp these possibilities oracknowledge them (Vinay, 118-119).

Jak, father of Smriti gets the news of this fatal accident. He comes toIndia to probe the issues which lead Smriti to a motionless creature. He faceslots of problems to reach at conclusion. He finds a great difference betweenthe European and the Indian culture. How cultural upbringing and socialorder affect one’s mind could be experienced in this episode when Jak meetsa government doctor to get details about the accident. The doctor remarks.

You see, that’s the problem with you people, you NRIs. You don’tunderstand that grown up girls need to be with their mothers. Youthink this is America. You send your daughter back filled with allthe permissive ideas you teach them in the west and then whensomething goes wrong, you blame India for it. She was here with aman. I hear by herself. (Lessons in Forgetting, 54)

Meera starts a new life. She helps Jak in his research very well. Shewants to change her identity now as it was a tough task to her when onceGiri urged to see her in new look in modern dress. She states “I am forty-fouryears old, Giri, I can’t dress like I am twenty. I have a daughter who’s nearlytwenty years old. It looks so silly for me to dress like she does” (Lessons inForgetting, 107) But the time has taken turn and she has to carry all theresponsibilities of her family. She is desirous to adjust in the new world bygiving up the old identities as Giri’s wife and Saro’s daughter. She visits abeauty salon and asks to give her a new hair style. Meera states “ I’ve hadthis same hairstyle for the last twenty two years, ever since Giri came into mylife. And I didn’t want to change a thing. My hair, my home, my dreams,myself. I so wanted it to be what he wanted. It’s time I became a new woman.Someone I would like to be” (Lessons in Forgetting, 177).

The novelist rebels against the traditional patriarchal set up of thesociety through the characters Sarada and Kala Chithi. Sarada has beenabandoned by her husband. Her husband left her to become a sanyasi butshe is blamed for that. Kala Chithi states “I realised then that they held Akkaresponsible for her husband leaving her. She just wasn’t a good enough wife,one who could keep her husband at her side. She was a failed woman”(Lessons in Forgetting, 196). Kala Chithi is a well educated lady and she knowsthe situation and how her sister has been suffering. She protests against thetraditional ideology as a woman can’t survive in the absence of her husband.Even she raises voice in support of Sarada. She reacts “But how can youblame Akka? Athimbair is the one who went away, all of us know that! He


left her to become a sanyasi, it wasn’t as if he went off with another woman”(Lessons in Forgetting, 196)

Kala Chithi is a woman of rebellious nature. She wants a change intraditional and cultural views regarding the marriage system and custom. InIndian culture and civilization marriage is an institution and husband isconsidered as a god to woman. The novelist remarks “We are brought up tobelieve that our husband is our god. His wishes are ours, and without himwe are nothing… Whether he is hard as a rock or as worthless as a weed, ahusband is a husband. Can you make life without your husband?” (Lessonsin Forgetting, 178). After marriage Kala Chithi has been given a new name,Vaidehi which symbolises the sacrifice, humbleness and dedication. Vaidehiis the name of Sita in the epic Ramayana, who is the wife of Lord Ram. Sherepresents ideal and dedicated wife. Kala Chithi has a beautiful lock of hair.But it hurts her and causes headache and neck droop. She wants to cut herhair off but she can’t do without the permission of her father. She seeksfreedom to take decision but the social order is an impediment in her way.She remarks “The hair made me a demure girl first and then a demure woman.I was the daughter who pleased my father and later a wife who pleased myhusband” (Lessons in Forgetting, 193) One day she gets a chance to come outof the house, with the help of Jak. She reaches at seashore and washes herhair in waves and feels relieved of her pain. She states “For the first time, I feltweightless. On an impulse I opened my hair and let the sea seep through it.My hair rose and my neck ceased to ache. I began to laugh” (Lessons inForgetting, 198). One day she challenges the male authority and cut off herhair by herself and doesn’t care the society and male dominance. After sevenyears of her marriage they do not have a child. She herself left her husbandand joins Sarada to live with her. Vaidehi resumes her old name Kala Chithiand both Sisters are happy in each other company. By abandoning husbandshe presents the cultural change that a woman can live without a husbandaccording to her own wishes.

Lily, the grandmother of Meera is the oldest character in the novel. InIndian society it is thought that in old age man and woman do not work andparticipate in physical work. They spend their life in rest in carring of familymembers. But Lily has changed the concept as at the age of seventy six shegot an opportunity to play a role in a T.V series. She is curious to perform andwants to reduce the burden of Meera. Lily remarks “You don’t have to sayanything. I am not asking you for permission. I am informing you of mydecision” (Lessons in Forgetting, 273) She also encourages Meera to face thechallenges of the society. Lily is of the view that if a woman wants to survivein the male dominated society with dignity she has to be courageous andwell determined. She advises Meera “What I have to say is important. I don’twant to talk about the wind or the trees. If they bother you so much, chopthem down!” (Lessons in Forgetting, 269)


Meera has changed her frame of mind. She cares her both childrenvery well. She provides qualitative education to both of them and also makesthem learn to face the ups and downs in life. She has a friend Vinnie who isa business woman and very practical in daily life. Vinnie invites Meera in aparty thrown at the occasion of her marriage ceremony. She feels awkward toattend the party alone and among the couples but Vinnie encourages herand states “You don’t need an escort. No one makes much of these thingsany more. A woman by herself at a party is like a man by himself” (Lessons inForgetting, 183). Meera no longer worries about pleasing her husband Giri.She has moved on in her life even her grandmother. Lily suggests to her thatshe should start a new life if she has a chance. Lily remarks if there is achance for you to make a new life, you must. It won’t about cutting your hairor acquiring a new wardrobe… A new look that turns you into a new woman.Get real, Meera, get real before your life slips away from you” (Lessons inForgetting, 274). In the beginning Meera finds herself in a big problem anddilemma. After the departure of Giri, she doesn’t lose hope and patiencetowards life as the traditional women used to give up all the means of apleasant life. Once Meera was rued with her life as she states “How is it thatmy life has never risen above a series of chichi’s: Big house, poor inmates,boy comes on work to house falls in love with house and girl. They have twochildren-boy and girl, man rises in career, wife, trails him, happy to be hishelpmate. The crisis of middle age, man abandons wife, family divides-boywith mother. Daughter declaring her allegiance to father...” (Lessons inForgetting, 76) But with the passage of time she learns to deal the life and theworld as well. From somewhere in the back of her mind a thought rises “Ifyou love your life, you are lovable. If you hate your life, you become hateworthy” (Lessons in Forgetting, 82)

To conclude, this novel explores the cultural change and women’sstruggle in the modern society. All the female characters represent the modernwoman who is capable of taking decision by her and is ready to face thechallenges of the world. Women have multi-layered identities as Nubileremarks “Indian women are deeply linked to social, cultural, religious andregional features and their identity is thus multi-layered (Nubile, 1) Patriarchyis the traditional social set up in our society in which male enjoys power andfreedom while female is deprived of such freedom and power. Women arediscriminated on the basis of physical appearance rather than rationalityand capability. Simone de Beauvoir remarks: “One is not born, but ratherbecomes a woman. No biological, psychological, or economic fate determinesthe figure that the human female presents in society. It is civilization as awhole that produces this creature, intermediate between male and eunuch,which is described as feminine” (Beauvoir, 295). The primary focus of thenovelist is on the cultural change women’s struggle and aspiration in themodern context. All the characters rebel against the traditional role of womenand patriarchal set-up and establish a new dimension of life by proving


Time Fuse

Rain-washed sky still overcastfuzzily telecast on a swamped screenflood spate on earth a wrathful waveseason of sanctions imposed from above

Loss of life transpires in newscrop damage calls forth clashing viewsabout seedsowing under a wet blanket fireGift of life and germination cooksthe divine comedy of transmigrationmigratory souls’ rush on the transmission lineto animate other physical formshuman or animaldreaded flow into the weatherproof dogchannelof absolute freedom to eat and loveunbearably oppressive

Loss of memory outweighs the lossof the gross weight of dust and ashesin the pawned pound of fleshon downhill roll

Parental sequence of tenses sufferssubversion in the dilemma about time-a ceremonial lighting arrangementfor road shows in the precosmic darkor a light and shadow play on the historic siteof sheer confusion between shooting starsand radical terrorfire for cureof unconventional, unholy maladiesand of the crime of legal possessionof one’s own land with potentially wakeful care

-

Amarendra Kumar


Questionnaire

Nasal emotions of scented lovein the smoky smelly air…

Dogs in their ‘afterdinner’ cybersearchchomps, bites and lapping licksPigs’ pongy revelryin a dripping coatanointed, drunk- nothing more black and brightthand dirt

Festering garbage packageand drainstuff ploughed offand lifted to fertilize fungusfor flowers on a dumping site

Garden plot a questionnairefor flowering answers to smellnot necessarily by opening to bloom

-Amarendra Kumar


Regeneration of the Muse

They declared her dead for all practical purposes,

Finding her of no use,

After the mind had received a blow,

A blow of reduction for convenience;

Could the Muse come back to itself after that,

To recreate ,as in a lab, the way it did work

Minus the enigmas and mystery

That Nature had arranged to sustain it in difficult circumstances.

Pushed back to a corner

To languish and die out,

The Muse liked to fight out her case—

In other ways as to how to use the medium in prose or verse!

Muse-given they hoped still they could fight back and revive phoenix-like,

Over utilitarian considerations to a renewal,

Man cannot do without.

She came to it in the last resorts,

To communicate with a network of complex implications,

Conceding to pose afresh a new image

That of a proverbial bird in flight

Rising from the ashes of its fire of extinction!

Prof. A. K. Jha


A Passage

There’s no end to it—

Man’s desire to possess.

It leads people to war, as Nietzshe saw,

Sometimes under the flag of an idea,

A version of Truth uncovered to them by a poet or a prophet,

Whoever he is or an inheritance handed down to them,

Though we know how the power game can lead to mediocrity,

Mediocrity meaning lack of the kind of freedom that is involved,

And loss of further vision,

Mediocrity meaning the sty of contentment,

Corruption and lethargy unending,

Mediocrity meaning blind hatred against the other

Whether a man, woman or a child,

Emanating from the human condition, so to say!

Is it better for them sometimes to fall out of their frenzy for a cause

And adjust to their lot?

Will they be able to give a let up to their strife,

Tossing the chip high for a change,

Turn the other side of the coin for survival,

Reconciled to a cultural evolution,

Another kind of a use of reason in an application to Truth——

For Peace

For Meditation

For joy in a trans-mental Equilibrium and the wellness of others!

Prof. A. K. Jha


Come fly with me I can fly likeJordan to beFeel like jumpAs before me If I think of lifeIts in Sahara dessert and dustIt I think of death with these dollarsThat’s goanna be worst One cant burry me hereWithout soulCan I fly and jumpLike a doll I can’t forget cold slapOn my faceCan’t forget not blaséOn my jest Yet I want to flyYet I want to die Every thought of can’t bePast, can’t every idea be lost What keep, reminds meOf a dayWhat I think looks likeAnother fragile half way But shall I want to flyI must jumpDance and cryBecause I m going to flyI’m goanna fly.

Dr.Sanjeev Dhari Sinha Asst.Prof.Tripoli University, Libya

Nietzsche's Concept of Authentic Illumination: A Spotlight

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