Smart Moves Journal IJELLH (International Journal of English language, literature in humanities)
Not a member yet
2837 research outputs found
Sort by
Navigating Neurodiversity: Humour as an Adaptive Defence in Henry Winkler and Lin Oliver’s Niagara Falls, or Does It?
Get PDFHumour plays a vital role in children\u27s literature, not merely to entertain but also to serve as an adaptive defence to cope with difficulties, especially in narratives of marginalisation shaped by disability, race, class and gender. Narratives on cognitive differences, such as learning difficulties, often portray protagonists who are typecast. The shift from the medical to the social turn in Disability Studies emphasises the need for reasonable accessibility practices to prevent vulnerability. Hank Zipser: The World’s Greatest Underachiever is a series of 17 books, published between 2003 - 2010, each dealing with an experience in the life of the protagonist Hank Zipzer, who has a learning difficulty. This series narrates the troubles of social exclusion and misrecognition experienced by the American actor Henry Winkler before being diagnosed with a learning difficulty. This paper attempts to study the first book in the series, Niagara Falls, or Does It? (2003), to examine how the protagonist uses humour as an adaptive defence mechanism to reframe the narrative around his learning differences. This helps him navigate moments of vulnerability and deflect instances of marginalisation into self-assertion. The study also discusses how derisive use of humour reinforces academic hierarchies. Complementing these findings, this analysis also focuses on how the teachers’ attitudes, peer relations, and family dynamics reinforce or challenge the stigma associated with the cognitive difference of the lead character
Signal Lost: Silence, Noise, and Digital Overload in Jennifer Egan’s The Candy House
Get PDFIn a culture of relentless digital exposure where silence is scarce, connectivity constant, and attention fragmented, Jennifer Egan’s The Candy House (2022) stages a quiet rebellion. This paper examines how Egan transforms silence, noise, and technological saturation into both thematic material and narrative form to critique the erosion of human interiority in an algorithmic age. The novel’s speculative technology, “Own Your Unconscious,” dramatizes a collapse of signal—a world where meaning drowns in noise and selfhood fractures under overstimulation. Through a close reading of characters such as Bix Bouton, Lincoln, and Alfred Hollander, the study explores the psychological and affective costs of information excess. Drawing on posthuman theory, affect studies, and digital media ethics, it links Egan’s formal experimentation to her ethical critique of digital life. Moments of narrative pause and silence emerge not as voids but as acts of resistance gestures that reclaim agency within a culture addicted to exposure. The Candy House thus becomes a literary meditation on digital noise, affective exhaustion, and the fragile persistence of the self, asserting that in a world governed by incessant connectivity, silence endures as the last refuge of authenticity and ethical reflection
Parental Desire and Expectations in Mahesh Dattani’s Dance Like a Man: A Study of Desire and Identity Formation
Get PDFMahesh Dattani’s play Dance Like a Man skilfully depicts the intricate relationships between parents and children, emphasising how personal goals are influenced by parental expectations and desire. This study intends to explore how parental expectations and desire impact individual desire and identity formation with an emphasis on the complex relationships between parents and children through a critical analysis of the play’s characters and their relationships. The effects of parental expectations on the relationships between parents and children are examined in this research paper, with a focus on how it affects and influences the children’s sense of self. It also looks at how parental expectations and desire are portrayed in the play in an effort to better understand the intricacies of the human condition and the never-ending search for self-definition. The play portrays two generations of a Bharatnatyam dancer family, highlighting the change of parental expectations carried on by time. Jairaj and Ratna were the first generation of Bharatanatyam dancers from the family. Their daughter Lata belongs to the second generation. Jairaj’s story highlights the ways in which gender expectations and lack of parental support influence personal desire and aspirations. Lata’s story, on the other hand, reflects how parents try to fulfil personal desires through their children’s success. This research examines the impact that tradition and legacy have on people’s lives, posing issues regarding how to strike a balance between personal preferences and family expectations
Speech Act Analysis of Charlotte McConaghy’s Once There Were Wolves: An Ecofeminist Study of Abuse and Resistance
Get PDFLiterature and language are inseparable. Reading literature through linguistic analysis can greatly augment our understanding of the author’s purpose and the characters’ psychology. This paper employs Searle’s classification of speech acts to make an ecofeminist reading of Charlotte McConaghy’s novel Once There Were Wolves and examines how some characters show abuse towards women as well as nature, and others express resistance to it through specific speech acts. It also makes a comparative analysis of the patterns of speech acts of men and women, the oppressor and the oppressed, and those who want to rewild and protect the natural world, and those who stand against it and want to maintain the status quo.
The research establishes a fundamental correlation between language, gender, and the environment. It reveals the significant role of language in shaping and communicating social structures, and highlights the significance of speech act analysis in ecofeminist studies
Folktales as Cultural Memory: Exploring Belief Systems of the Munda Tribe of Odisha Through Translation
Get PDFThe Munda community of Odisha preserves its world view, spiritual relationship with nature, and socio-cultural identity through an extensive body of oral folktales. These tales function as living archives of traditional knowledge, ritual practices, environmental ethics, and community norms. This research explores how selected Munda folktales, when translated into English, illuminate the cultural beliefs of the tribe while simultaneously revealing the challenges and responsibilities translation carries in representing indigenous epistemologies. The analysis particularly focuses on narratives that address cosmology, ancestor worship, gender roles, and harmonious coexistence with the natural environment. By combining folkloristic interpretation with translation studies, this paper argues that translation is not merely a linguistic act but a vital means of cultural mediation. It further reflects on how documenting and translating such stories contributes to their preservation in the face of cultural erosion brought by modernisation, migration, and dominant linguistic cultures. The paper concludes that translating Munda folktales into English enables wider academic engagement and global recognition, while also underscoring the urgency to maintain the integrity and contextual richness of indigenous traditions
Surveillance in literature: stalking in the name of safety
Get PDFWe have come a long way from the days of human spies to strange gadgets of James Bond or Mission Impossible to the microchips and drones to the government funded agencies like National Security agency that have access to all the telephone and Internet records through the Telecom companies. Surveillance can be viewed as a violation of privacy, while authoritarian governments seldom have any domestic restrictions as against the so called liberal democracy. Over the past 20 years surveillance has become an increasingly important topic within both academic and public debate. A society where privacy and human dignity is eroded or abolished completely or the social divisions and exclusions that are fostered warning us about the current trend of our age
A Revelation of Life-Experiences in Dr. B.R. Ambedkar\u27s Waiting for a Visa
Get PDFThis article endeavours critically to analyse and evaluate the life experiences of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar in his autobiography, Waiting for a Visa. A literary autobiography is truly a full and actual portrayal of the truthful incidents, pains, pleasures, actions, achievements, successes and failures of a protagonist\u27s life. It is genuinely a life story of a great person authored by himself or herself. Ambedkar\u27s autobiography entitled Waiting for a Visa presents justifiably a true story of the experiences, observations, sufferings and struggles of the character hero’s life and gives authentically a deep insight into the inner-outer personality and public life of Ambedkar and his contemporaries. Apart from introducing a detailed description of his life the autobiographer, Ambedkar, reveals actually an abridged account of his life- experiences and observations that are much more significant and relevant to the modern world than merely introducing dates and events of his life. Ambedkar is popularly known as the father of Indian constitution and is immensely honored as one of the most intellectual personalities ever born in Indian society. This study evaluates objectively that Ambedkar\u27s autobiography, Waiting for a Visa contains continuously historical, cultural and intellectual significance in the moral evolution of several communities of Indian life. It reveals dispassionately the literary relevance of the major issues that the autobiographer raised fearlessly through his bitters experiences of evil practice of untouchability in Indian national life. The narrated conflict in the autobiography is wholly a literary device that stands for a struggle between the two conflicting forces. One represents moral language, conduct and dignity while the other represents immoral language, conduct and evil practice of untouchability. The conflict plays a vital role of struggle that creates crucial hardships in this life story of Ambedkar and is used to move the autobiography forward. In Waiting for a Visa Ambedkar tirelessly struggles for his education, water, food, shelter and safety. It is exceptionally appreciable and inspirational. With the help of moral and humanitarian values like meekness, kindness, courage and patience Ambedkar endeavors powerfully to overcome the immoral thinking, attitude of the Hundus who were responsible for this injustice. He fought bravely against conservative tradition, custom, false belief, superstitions, social discrimination and immoral people who made Dalit people deprived of their basic and existential rights and due dignity on the ground of the hierarchical system in Indian national life. He uses technically the first person pronoun such as I, me, my, we, us, our
Navigating Spaces, Transforming Places: A Masseyan Analysis of Gender Empowerment in Kamali
Get PDFDiscrimination against men and women is largely made possible by the gendered division of space. It is normal for men to occupy public spaces, whereas women are restricted to domestic spaces like kitchen. As Indian society is patriarchal, it resonates with the mainstream discourse of spatial gender division. Women’s access to sports is limited by this gendered spatial setup as sporting activities are performed in so-called public spaces; traditionally, sports have been considered a “male preserve.” (Theberge, 1985) Adventure sports like skydiving, surfing, skating, mountain climbing, and mountaineering are traditionally performed by men. Hence, the mere participation of women in these activities challenges the masculine hegemony and gendered division of space that these activities entail. This paper critically examines the documentary titled, “Kamali” (2019) directed by Sasha Rainbow, which tells the inspiring story of Kamali Moorthy, a young skateboarder challenging societal norms in a small fishing village in Tamil Nadu, India. By employing Doreen Massey\u27s space, place, and gender theory, the paper seeks to examine how the film explores the intersections of space, place, and gender within the cultural context. Doreen Massey\u27s theoretical framework emphasizes the fluidity and relational nature of space and place, challenging fixed and essentialist perspectives
Literature as a Vehicle for Ideas: Indulekha and the Victorianization of Kerala Society
Get PDFO. Chandumenon\u27s Indulekha, published in 1889, is generally considered to be the first Malayalam novel. The book was a complete success. The first edition sold out within three months and the English translation was published within a year. By 1989, the 100th anniversary of the novel\u27s publication, 72 reprints of Indulekha had been made. In 1889, the Malayalam-speaking region of India was divided into Malabar, ruled directly by the British under the Madras Presidency, and the princely states of Cochin and Travancore. Indulekha sold spectacularly in all three regions. The state of Kerala was only founded in 1956, but the concept of Kerala is at least as old as the Raghuvamsha of Kalidasa, where it is mentioned. My article attempts to analyze and evaluate Indulekha as a vehicle for Victorian ideas. The Kerala of 1889 in which the novel appeared was ripe for a socio-cultural revolution and Indulekha was both a product and a catalyst of this revolution. Queen Victoria\u27s reign lasted from 1837 to 1901. She was proclaimed Empress of India on January 1, 1877 at the imperial Durbar festival in Delhi. My article argues that Indulekha acted as a vehicle for transporting Victorian ideas to Kerala. First of all, the novel can be seen as a piece of propaganda for English classes. Madhavan, the hero of the novel, is passionate about English education. The novel presents a contrast between the sambandam marriage, which was then almost universal among the Nayars of Kerala, and the monogamous marriage, which was the ideal of Victorian society, and valorizes the latter. Indulekha, the novel\u27s titular heroine, escapes a sambandam relationship to marry Madhavan. As the narrative comes to an end, we learn that Madhavan has been appointed to the civil service. Instead of being an unemployed parasite in his tharavad, Madhavan decides to make a living. He marries Indulekha and goes to Madras, and one can read the trajectory of Madhavan\u27s life as a movement from the joint family of tharavad in a village in Kerala to a nuclear family in Madras, the seat of the British presidential government
Redefining Boundaries: Innovations in English Language Teaching in India
Get PDFThis paper explores the evolving landscape of English Language Teaching (ELT) in rural India, emphasizing the critical need for proficiency in English as a means of social and economic advancement. With rural areas contributing significantly less to the GDP despite their large population, enhancing English literacy is essential for human development. The paper traces the historical roots of ELT methodologies, from the Grammar-Translation Method to contemporary approaches like Communicative Language Teaching and task-based learning. It highlights the transformative potential of integrating modern technology, including e-learning platforms and digital tools, to create engaging and inclusive educational experiences. The significance of cultural relevance in teaching through literature and community engagement is also discussed. The research aims to provide educators, policymakers, and scholars with insights into effective strategies for fostering communicative competence in students. Ultimately, the study advocates for a holistic approach that prioritizes collaboration, lifelong learning, and cultural sensitivity in ELT, aiming to equip learners with the language skills necessary for navigating a globalized world while fostering mutual respect and understanding