Journal of English Language and Literature (JELL)
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Mahakavi Devkota: a Myth-taker & a Myth-maker
No full textLaxmi Prasad Devkota is simply hailed as the Mahakavi in Nepal that means he is the greatest poet of Nepal. He had a romantic inclination that a reader may easily notice while going through his writings. Of course, he had an immense knowledge of the romantic tradition of the West but at the same time he was a great scholar of English, Hindi, Sanskrit, and Nepali literature. Due to his vast range of knowledge, he has been able to draw numerous mythologies from various places and use them in his writings. But he is not just a taker of foreign myths because he even twisted them at many places. He was very playful of his subject matters and styles. Another interesting thing about Devkota is that his writings do not just take and break foreign myths; he also makes new myths in his own way. This is why this paper argues that Devkota is a taker, breaker, and a maker of myths
‘De-exoticizing’ the Exotic: Victor Segalen’s Aesthetics of Difference
No full textIf Segalen’s radical approach to the exotic has earned him the appreciation and the consideration of such authors as Michel Leyris, Claude Lévi-Strauss, and Abdelkébir Khatibi, and others, it has gone almost unnoticed by Edward Said in his Orientalism, who mentions him only once in passing, and dismissively so, among writers who were not ignorant of “the wisdom of the east” such as Pound, Eliot, Yeats, Arthur Waley, Fenellosa, and Paul Claudel. Although Said does not inflict on Segalen the bad treatment he inflicted on some other French Orientalists, and in fact puts him alongside such ‘venerable’ figures as Pound, Yeats, and Claudel, one would expect him to make a more honourable mention of Segalen whose views on colonialism and exoticism were radically opposed to the then-accepted colonial views on such issues. Whether this was simply an oversight on the part of Said or an intended critical dismissal, it is, nonetheless, a fact that Segalen is becoming more and more ‘incontournable’, difficult to ignore, overlook, or dismiss, and this, for the exceptional views he expresses on the question of exoticism and colonialism
The Nickel Boys’ Elwood through the Scope of Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey
No full textThis paper examines The Nickel Boys’ main character Elwood, explaining that his story is an accurate representation of Joseph Campbell’s hero’s journey or “monomyth.” It explains the stages of the hero’s journey and compares them to moments in Elwood’s story
Corruption and the leadership question in Nwabueze’s A Parliament of Vultures and Ogbeche’s Harvest of Corruption
No full textCorruption is one of the numerous problems that besieged most African nations immediately after their independence and is still eating deep into their systems. In Nigeria, the economic, socio-political and religious sectors are in disarray. Corruption is increasing and is at the edge of turning into a norm. It has reached the extent of undermining development and economic prosperity that more than 75% of the people are living in abject poverty. Politicians devoid of integrity, patriotism and commitment lead but blow the whistle on their efforts in the fight against corruption. Many writers have expressed the menace of corruption in their works. This paper explores playwrights’ critical responses to the fight against corruption in Nigeria and aims at providing solutions by highlighting the severe punishments to be meted on citizens guilty of corruption. It also aims at unfolding qualities expected of the citizens for a meaningful fight of corruption
Information Literacy Skills in Turkey
No full textIn our modern times, in which the accumulation of knowledge is rapidly increasing, acquiring and developing information skills through education proves to be a lifelong endeavour. The prerequisite for lifelong learning is information literacy. In the process of education, which needs to continue at every stage of life, it is becoming more important that individuals have a wide variety of literacy skills, the most pressing of which is information literacy. So called skills enable students to learn a language, especially English language effectively. At the forefront of the basic skills that need to be possessed by people these days, is the finding of information, the use of it and the production of it. From the beginning of the twenty-first century, technological factors have been increasing their dominance in the communication of information as well as in the production of it. Therefore, students within the education system began to feel the need to develop different literacy skills. By virtue of the current importance of the subject, information literacy has been analysed in detail and problems relevant to the subject have been noted and solutions have been sought
Postcolonial reading of select poems of A.K.Ramanujan
No full textThe proposed paper will attempt at making a close scrutiny of A.K.Ramanujan’s poems ‘Snakes’, ‘A poem on particulars’, and ‘Small-scale reflections on a great house’, in the light of postcolonialism . Though many attempts have already been made at highlighting postcolonial and postmodern traits, in many Indian poems in English, they have not fore grounded the points of deviation, while applying these theories to Indian poems written in English. The present paper will take up the use of the English language and projection of macrocosmic self (nation) through the microcosmic self (family) for analysis and demonstrate how A.K.Ramanujan’s poems mentioned above can be seen as exemplifying them in clear-cut as well as concrete terms.Besides showing the scope for interpreting these three poems from this perspective, the proposed paper also argues that it is the interplay of binary opposites such as the colonizer and the colonized in terms of handling the form and individual self and the collective self in terms of the content that makes possible the postcolonial reading of these three poems
Monomyth Analysis on Katniss Everdeen’s Journey in Suzanne Collin’s The Hunger Games 1st Series
No full textThis paper aims to reveal the Journey of Katniss Everdeen by exploring the way monomyth concept is established within the The Hunger Games 1st series. It employs Joseph Campbell’s theory of mythical heroes and quests which he initiates in his book Heroes with a Thousand Faces. The analysis discovers that Katniss initiates her Heroine Journey by volunteering herself to join the Hunger Games. She passes various trials that influence her character’s transformation. She gains two identities during the Journey, as an innocent girl from District 12 and as a victor of Hunger Games. She achieves the true love act with Peeta as a trigger step to move to the next Journey. This paper concludes that the cycle of monomyth in this series ends in the middle of Return stage. It indicates that this series is a trigger act and a beginning step of Katniss Journey for transforming herself to be a heroine at the end of her Journey
Examining the Effects of the Ragged School in Literature
No full textThe ability to educate all children, despite social class was an important responsibility. However, some of these problems included social problems that had been faced by poor children during this Victorian Era. Charles Dickens encountered the ragged schooling, which made a lasting impact upon him and is said to have been a significant element in his writing of A Christmas Carol. It was through Charles Dickens’ legacy was using his novels and other works to reveal a world of poverty and unimaginable struggles. His vivid descriptions of the life of street children in the city, workhouses and Yorkshire boarding schools lead to many reforms. Although “Ragged” Schools began to grow and were seen as a movement. For many who would not have been able to have an education, authors such as Charles Dickens, was able to receive a free education and a betterment of life for the poor, that would and will, even today, inspire others to do something to help those suffering in oppression and poverty
Politics of Self and Other, Act of Ambivalence and Resistance, Cricket and Colonialism, Indian Pluralism, Anti-colonial Propagan
No full textNarayan’s Swami and Friends (1935) luminously portrays its child protagonist Swaminathan’s adventures in soul making, his skirmishes with his little comrades and reconciliations in his soupy school, his contact with the experienced adult world vis-à-vis apparently apolitical, shallow and banal Swami and Friends (1935) also postulates encoded political and cultural resistance so strategically camouflaged by Narayan’s narrative devise. Narayan’s Anti-colonial propaganda, his aversion to fundamentalism and authoritarianism, his earnest desire to bring the subaltern narrative into our mainstream narrative give him a special place in literary world. Kudos to the Nietzschean Will to Power of the common inhabitants of Malgudi and the little urchins of Albert Mission School that they dared to join the protest march against the hegemony of their white colonial masters. Swami much like Ishaan of Aamir Khan’s Taare Zameen Par (2007) used to shudder at the very thought of his monotonous school where his wings of freedom used to be crushed under the fatal mill of the authoritarian and strict teachers except D.Pillai who was famous among the students. Swaminathan’s hybrid identity, Rajam’s Europeanized existence, overlapping associations of tradition and modernity, class struggle, Centre/Periphery, Self/Other, Master/Slave dichotomy in Swami and Friends (1935) actually celebrate Narayan’s deep concern for our pluralistic and multicultural Indian identity where Narayan has also given space to the subaltern existence like Rajam’s family cook who was insulted and undervalued by Rajam only because Rajam belonged to the centre of a power structure. In this paper I would like to investigate in which way Narayan has pointed out the various agathokakological entities of human life through the artistic representation of his characters, his celebration of India’s heterogeneous identity, class struggle, the marginalized and peripheralized existence of subaltern voices, politics of colonial masters’ Self and the muted Other in an unequal power structure where a very limited number of people actually get access to the resources , ambivalence, hybrid identity etc. with reference to Swami and Friends (1935)
The Voyage to the Self: the Coexistence of the Opposites in Hesse’s Abraxas
No full textMan’s life has always been looked upon as a journey. Like any other journey, life has its own destination too. The destination is contingent on the direction the voyage is made. In case of the majority, the direction is outward – from the ‘self.’ That is why the common lot never become individuals. Rather they are reduced with time to a part of the system which is euphemistically called ‘human society.’ A few, however, make the movement in the opposite direction – to the ‘self.’ The journey of such a person is never easy. He needs to pass through various phases of life. Having done that, he gains ‘wholeness’ of existence, that is, his ‘self.’ In that self coexists the contrary inclinations – good and evil, moral and immoral, conscious and unconscious. Hermann Hesse’s timeless classic ‘Demian’ bears the same motif. The protagonist, Sinclair, is able to explore his self only when he has experienced the opposite forces of life. Sinclair’s friend Demian who throughout the journey remains his guide, becomes a part of his consciousness like God in the end