Smart Moves Journal IJELLH (International Journal of English language, literature in humanities)
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Contextualizing gender: a Comparative Study of Speak and The Round House
Get PDFFeminist discourse has gone a long way to reject any fixed categories or definitions for itself. While keeping its interest in gender issue, modern day feminists reject any major generalization at the cost of ignoring diversity of various groups and identities. In this scenario, postmodern feminism has become a practice to contextualize every gender problematic to understand the subtle nuances and deeper layers behind the question of women’s identity and freedom. Present paper sheds light in these different layers by comparing two different situations both of which involve a rape of central woman protagonist. While one is the case of a teenage girl from white American society, another one is a married woman from Native American culture. While rape brutally affects both the women, there are differences in the mechanisms and workings of this exploitation
Fragmented Worlds - a Postmodernist perspective of Contemporary Literature and Society
Get PDFPostmodern writing styles merging with socio-cultural qualities of cosmopolitanism and metamodernism have produced literature that is intrinsically distorted and diverse. With characters regularly experiencing psychological insecurities, disillusionment and consumerist victimisation; we often witness stories of fragmentation, identical consumerism and identity crisis all over contemporary literature. The commonality of these stories, especially when focused on modern urban metropolitan locations is what this paper focuses on.
With issues relating disillusionment, self-inflicted isolation, frustration, crisis and a consequent insensitive society especially found in city-spheres; the paper shall attempt to understand the modern problems of lopsided growth in individuals in a world that is becoming more and more self-involved every day. By means of selected texts in literature, the paper shall recognise consumerism based issues of identities thereby collecting and possessing all strands of contemporary postmodernism together
Psychoanalytical Analysis of the play Ruined
Get PDFThis paper talks about the psychological analysis of the female survivors of the war-struck zone of the Democratic Republic of Congo as portrayed in the play Ruined by Lynn Nottage. Sexual assault, rape and torture have been treated as weapons of war to demoralise and destroy the lives of people in DRC. Interaction with such events impacts the psychological well-being of women. Nottage tries to observe and generalise the lives of Congolese women and discusses the psychological implications of rape, torture, wars and genocide. This literature suggests that for the Congolese rape victims, post-assault help-seeking becomes a ‘second rape’, which is dual victimisation of the women of Congo
A Review on Historical Aspects of Critical Pedagogy
Get PDFThis paper makes a review of inventory and application of critical pedagogy in education sector, in particular, and also in general practices of critical thinking, skepticism, decision making process, etc. Critical pedagogy as a concept originated and developed in academia, for development of critical mind of learners. Education broadens the students’ views of reality. Education is transformative, bringing all kinds of changes in human mind, as well as in the society and the nation. Education makes students critical and skeptical on the issues which are frequent in their daily life. Therefore, all kinds of social, cultural, economical and political issues are solved by critical mind of the learners. Education must be democratic in nature and system. People in power make education system in their own favour, dominating the powerless people. Therefore, education is political. Those who participate in critical pedagogy resist the constraints that those in power impose on them. Critical pedagogy can be applied in all faculties and subjects like music, economics, mathematics, sociology, political science, English language teaching, English literature teaching, and so on. Teachers also must be qualified with the critical pedagogy approach. They must be confident with the knowledge and skills for applying Freire’s methods of teaching effectively in the classroom. They must be critical thinkers, self-reflective, culturally conscious for the pedagogical situation to enhance students’ understanding of the world.
The major purpose of this review is to point out the effectiveness of critical pedagogy in education and in general. After teachers’ role in critical pedagogy, knowledge of the language and of the world, consciousness or ‘conscientization’, power resistance, value judgments, perception of reality and truth, empowerment, transformation, decision making skills, critical thinking, skepticism, negotiation, problem posing and solving, and many other aspects of learning in critical pedagogy are explained in this review paper
Identify and Self-Search in Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale
Get PDFThis paper attempts to capture the social status, domination of women by men faced by Offred, the protagonist of the sixth best seller novel by the Canadian author Margaret Atwood. The famous fantasy fiction The Handmaid’s Tale is written in the dystopian tradition.Through this novel, she has penned powerfully her social concern regarding the social status, domination, the mental turmoil and the identity crises of women in a male – dominated society and their consequent struggle to overcome this domination, repression and subjugation through many modes of escape strategies. This kind of struggle gives them power to speak against their situation and change their self to enable them to lead a dignified life in the same society. Six years before the publication of this novel, Margaret Atwood had commented on the writing of fiction in a way that seems to anticipate the novel. She comments “What kind of world shall you describe for your readers? The one you can see around you or the better one you can imagine? If only the latter, you’ll be unrealistic. If only the former, despairing, But It is by the better world we can imagine, that we judge the world we have”.
 
The Queerness in Shikhandi: Concerning Devdutt Pattanaik’s Shikhandi and Other Queer Tales They Don’t Tell You
Get PDFQueer theory is a realm of critical theory that developed within/in the early 1990s, out of the fields of queer studies and women\u27s studies. Shikhandi is an important character in the Mahabharata. Hindu tales have many references to queerness; one among them is the story of Shikhandi, a woman who became a man. The gender of Shikhandi is a controversial subject, in epics especially in Mahabharata, men are considered as great warriors, full of masculinity and resilience. But while approaching the text from a postmodernist perspective, we can analyze the gender of Shikhandi as the ‘other gender’, Mahabharata, which means great India have much popularity in India, as Homer’s poems over the Greeks. This paper seeks to examine, how the character of Shikhandi in Mahabharata,who is neglected in the society, the queerness in Shikhandi which is flexible and fluid made him/her a remarkable character in the great epic
The Mediocre Growth of a Grandiose Simpleton: An Analysis of Howard Jackobson’s The Mighty Walzer.
Get PDFThe Mighty Walzer is the story of a boy who dreams of winning fame, fortune and the adoration of beautiful women, as a table tennis player. He wants to make his life grandiose like all of us. However, it is a pity that he fails. Oliver, the protagonist is not disheartened. Even though he has not struck his fortune, life gives him other riches- the riches of life and growing up itself. Thus, the novel can be seen as the celebration of the trivial processes of growing up. The more we read, the more we realise that the mediocre lives presented in the novel are grandiose in their own ways. Thus, the author is examining the grandiosities of our mediocre lives. The novel is the life story of each and every one of us. It is the celebration of the simple life of a commoner with its trivialities and mediocrities. However, there is an exuberant grandiosity in this existence. It is this grandiose process of life which is emphasised in this study.
Set in the1950s England, The Mighty Walzer is semi-autobiographical. Howard Jacobson in the veil of the character Oliver,Walzer depicts his own self as a confused Jewish boy growing up in Manchester. When it comes to home, nothing is closer to heart than the childhood memories. Jacobson’s the Mighty Walzer is indeed a childhood memoir. The novel is a bildungs roman narrative. It is absolutely hilarious, comic and sublime. It has the grace and charm of a childhood dream. Jacobson’s wit was lauded from all quarters, when the novel was first published. Sunday Times observes: “Jacobson writes with agility that gives pleasure akin to humour even when it isn’t actually funny. It is the sheer charm of his intelligence that feels like wit.” The Independent in its review quotes: “This mature novel has the sustained exuberance and passion of his youthful writing but within an epic…. An achingly funny book….An amazing achievement….There is few novelists today who can imbue the trifles of life with such poetry.”
Jacobson wrote this rollicking, loose limbed, semi-autobiographical novel in Australia at the end of 90s, having finally put enough distance between events to revisit the humiliation. He puts before us a number of childhood milieus in a straight forward and grandiose fashion. There is no holding back when it comes to a number of intimate sexual and mental give and takes. It is these truthful ejaculations that make the novel hilarious. One can really denominate the novel in Mario Vargas Illosa’s terms as a piece of ‘mental masturbation.’Howard Jacobson amuses his readers in The Mighty Walzer. The characters and milieus in the novel are regular, common and mediocre. We can connect ourselves with the various characters and their eccentricities. The more we go into the novel, the more we realize that the desires, anxieties, failures, successes, sufferings and frailties of the characters are in fact the mirror reflections of our own milieus. Thus, when we look at with disdain the ‘jacking off’ –of Oliver, Sheeney’s women hunting, Sabine’s promiscuity, Aunt Fay’s mid 30’s love affair etc., we are pitying our own repressed desires and inhibitions. Such is the psychological depth with which each of the characters are handled
The Political and Philosophical Themes in Sri Aurobindo’s Perseus the Deliverer
Get PDFSri Aurobindo had a definite purpose in the choice of the Perseus – Andromeda myth for his play ‘Perseus the Deliverer’. He was actively engaged in the country’s struggle for freedom. Perseus the Deliverer is one among the numerous writings in Bande Mataram through which he gave clarion call to the people to arise, awake and struggle relentlessly and tirelessly till the shackles of slavery were broken and the Mother India was liberated. After here liberation Sri Aurobindo also wanted India to be reinstated in her glorious role of leading the entire humanity on to the path of spiritualit
Assessing Kambui Hills North Forest Reserve Community’s Participation in Forest Reserve Management and Sustainability in Kenema District, Eastern Sierra Leone
Get PDFThis paper explores Kambui Hills North Forest Reserve (KHNFR) community’s participation in forest management and sustainability in Kenema District as a case study. Crucial issues examined were the forest reserve management strategies used by forest communities, participation of stakeholders in forest sustainability and livelihood activities of forest communities in the KHNFR. For sampling technique, six (6) forest communities were randomly sampled. From the sampled communities, forty two (42) respondents were sampled from the study communities. A structured questionnaire was used to collect data from the field and focus group discussion guide. Descriptive statistics was used to analyze the data. Findings revealed that there was a Core Forest Management Plan operated by the communities and stakeholders but the District Forest Office (DFO) does not follow its prescriptions strictly. It also indicated that the involvement of forest communities in the management of KHNFR was very small and low income generating livelihood activities. It was therefore recommended that forest communities in the KHNFR should be provided with alternative livelihood sources so as to empower them play the role of co-managers of the forest reserve
Politics of Performance: a Study of Kandasamy’s Novel When I Hit You
Get PDF“…[T]he category “woman” as well as the category “man” are political and economic categories not eternal ones” as commented by Monique Wittig. However, in any patriarchal society these categories are treated to be eternal through repeated naturalisation determining ‘ideal’ gender roles for both the genders. In Kandasamy’s novel When I Hit You the ‘young wife’ started to imbibe and epitomise the role of an ‘ideal wife’ as determined by the patriarchal society. The novel emphasises on the performativity of the pre-assigned gender roles of the protagonist and the authoritative agencies of patriarchy determining her as “evil spirit” when faced with performative resistance. In this dialectics of performance and resistance the writer’s words become the tool of resistance for the marginalised ‘young wife’ of Kandasamy’s novel. Her criticism is not only against the construction of these gendered roles but also against their naturalisation and appropriation. The primary focus of this paper is thus to discuss the politics behind the gendered roles and the agenda of interpellation working behind the project of their naturalisation with a focus on the necessity of subversion of these roles for the protection of the individual self