Smart Moves Journal IJELLH (International Journal of English language, literature in humanities)
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Aldous Huxley\u27s Brave New World: A Satirical Examination of Modern Society
Full text linkHuxley\u27s "Brave New World" marked his first foray into the realm of dystopian science fiction, despite being his fifth novel. The narrative unfolds in a future, entirely fictitious One World State, wherein citizens undergo environmental engineering to establish an intelligence-based social hierarchy. This hierarchy is founded on advanced reproductive technologies, sleep-learning techniques, and psychological manipulation through classical conditioning. This essay interprets the novel as an allegory for contemporary society, drawing parallels to a world grappling with the idea of a radical \u27Restart\u27 and the pursuit of an envisioned utopia orchestrated by the New World Order. Huxley\u27s keen awareness of the distinction between science and technology becomes apparent, as he underscores the potential misapplication of cutting-edge scientific knowledge, particularly in the form of perilous technology. He sounds a cautionary note about the dangers posed by such technology, especially when wielded by an all-powerful technocratic state well-versed in the manipulation of its citizens through psychological means rather than brute force, in stark contrast to Orwell\u27s portrayal of a dystopian society in his famous work, "1984
Familial Anticipation and Personal Inclination in Amulya Malladi’s The Mango Season: A Study of the Woman Protagonist’s Triumph in Overcoming Conflicts
Full text linkA writer of immense talent, Amulya Malladi holds an important place among Indian diasporic writers. Her novels explore many themes like cultural conflicts, social issues pertaining to matriarchy and patriarchy and human relationships. Her crowning work The Mango Season presents the intricacies and inner reality of Indian society. It focuses on the Indian family, the Indian summer, the Indian tradition, the typical Indian marriage system, and caste discrimination prevalent in the Indian society. Priya, the protagonist of the novel The Mango Season, is a highly educated woman from an orthodox Indian family. After working in America for seven years, she returns to India, which leads to an unexpected turning point in her life. She desires to marry her American boyfriend, Nick, but her family expects her to marry an Indian of its choice. She is caught between her traditional family’s expectations and her own desires in this novel. Using behaviorism theory, this research paper investigates Priya’s predicament and her ultimate triumph. This study shows how her situation influences her behaviour. Even though Amulya Malladi portrays Priya as a well-educated and independent woman, she is still stuck between familial anticipation and personal inclination. She struggles to decide whom to satisfy – her family or herself. This paper aims to depict how Priya struggles and ultimately achieves her desire to lead a life of her own choice
Howls and Whispers: Animal Subjectivity, Human Grief, and Decolonial Kinship in Canadian Francophone Fiction
Full text linkAs scholars debate the ethics of the "animal turn," indigenous voices expressing multispecies kinship for decades remain underappreciated in Canadian Francophone literary scholarship. This study examines innovative zoopoetic techniques employed by André Alexis and Naomi Fontaine to decolonize emotional paradigms and reorganize interspecies ethics. We analyze Fifteen Dogs (2015) and Manikanetish (2017) through three theoretical frameworks: zoopoetics theory, affective neuroscience, and decolonial affect theory. Using comparative textual analysis, we investigate animal narrative agency and challenge anthropocentrism. Alexis reveals human cognitive limitations through canine perception, while Fontaine, drawing on Innu ontologies, emphasizes reciprocal relationships and animal agency. Their contrasting approaches to grief—individual ownership versus communal ecological survival—redefine ecological ethics. This research demonstrates how Canadian Francophone literature contributes to conversations about multispecies justice and indigenous sovereignty in the Anthropocene. The novelty lies in triangulating experimental literary form, neuroscientific frameworks, and indigenous land-based wisdom to illuminate how these narratives challenge Western epistemic violence. Our findings show that these texts create innovative models of interspecies coexistence that move beyond anthropocentric paradigms, offering critical insights for environmental humanities and decolonial studies
A New Historicist Exploration of War\u27s Impact in Nayomi Munaveera’s Island of a Thousand Mirror
Full text linkNayomi Munaweera\u27s Island of a Thousand Mirrors offers a unique perspective on the Sri Lankan Civil War through the dual narratives of Yasodhara, a Sinhalese woman, and Saraswathi, a Tamil girl. Employing a New Historicist lens, this analysis examines how the novel challenges traditional narratives of the conflict, which often focus on political and military battles. By the experiences of ordinary civilians, the novel sheds light on the social, cultural, and emotional impact of the war. It explores how pre-existing ethnic tensions intertwined with gender dynamics to shape the daily lives of Sri Lankans. This approach aligns with New Historicism\u27s emphasis on the interplay between historical events, cultural context, and individual experiences. By examining Island of a Thousand Mirrors through this lens, the abstract argues that the novel contributes to a more nuanced understanding of the Sri Lankan Civil War
Exploring the Interconnectedness of the Human and Natural Worlds in American Literature
Full text link“One touch of nature makes the whole world kin” this is a thought provoking quote by William Shakespeare, highlighting the interconnectedness of humans and nature suggesting that nature reflects our inner lives. We all know that literature always tries to connect human emotions and other literary theories. In recent days, literature also captures the interconnectedness of humans and nature. From the concept of transcendentalism to environmental activism, we can see the enduring power of nature in literature. Particularly, the American literature has a rich custom of representing nature as a dominant, royal, and sacred force. Most of the classical and modern literary works makes the readers to feel and understand that nature is a source of inspiration guiding the entire world. This symbiosis is brilliantly portrayed in many American genres. The advanced concepts of literature give more importance to ecology because the depletion of planetary resources has resulted in several ways including the society’s mental and physical well being. This phenomenon underscores the intricate web of connections between human societies and the environment, highlighting the far-reaching consequences of human actions on the natural world. Modern American literature tries to address the harsh realities of the environmental changes happening in the name of urbanization. Several factors affects the bond including rising global temperatures, sea-level rise, and extreme weather events are all linked to human activities that disrupt natural systems, such as pollution, deforestation and other activities against nature. The present paper aims to explore the way how American authors connect the interconnectedness of Human and Nature in their literary world
Unveiling the Collective Unconscious: A Jungian Reading of Prophetic Vision in Tahereh Mafi’s Shatter Me
Full text linkThis paper offers a Jungian psychoanalytic reading of Shatter Me, a young adult dystopian novel by Tahereh Mafi. It focuses on the psychological evolution of Juliette, the protagonist, who transitions from repression and isolation to empowerment and self-actualization. Based on the ideas of Carl Jung—collective unconscious, archetypes, the Shadow, and individuation—the analysis interprets the symbolic language and inner struggle of the novel. The repeated motifs, such as Juliette\u27s visions of a bird, symbolize her unconscious desire for freedom and transformation. Her changing relationships, particularly with Warner and Adam, take Juliette\u27s psyche through the integration of polarities within her. The paper also explores how Mafi’s stream-of-consciousness style and fragmented syntax mirror Juliette’s fractured mental state. Ultimately, this approach positions Shatter Me as more than a dystopian romance; it becomes a psychological allegory that reflects timeless struggles of identity, emotional trauma, and inner unity
Tracing a Forgotten Monument of British Colonial Oppression and Salt Taxation in Roy Moxham\u27s Novel, The Great Hedge of India
Full text linkThe present study examines the history and remnants of the Hedge of India, a 2,504-mile customs line established by the British to enforce the salt tax in the 19th century. The author\u27s research, using historical records and maps, confirms the hedge\u27s existence and details its evolution into a massive, labour-intensive barrier maintained by over 12,000 men. The article explains that the hedge was built to prevent salt smuggling into the Bengal Presidency, where the salt tax was particularly high. This tax had severe public health consequences, causing widespread health issues due to insufficient salt consumption. Abandoned in 1879, the hedge\u27s physical traces were located by the author in the Agra and Jhansi districts, using historical maps, GPS technology, and assistance from local villagers. The search not only uncovers the hedge\u27s physical remnants but also provides a deeper understanding of this overlooked symbol of British control and the lasting legacy of the salt tax on colonized India
The Unity of Effect in Edgar Allan Poe’s The Black Cat: Narrative Structure and Symbolic Design
Full text linkThis paper examines Edgar Allan Poe’s The Black Cat through the theoretical lens of the unity of effect, demonstrating how coherent emotional intensity is produced through the interplay of unreliable narration, symbolic recurrence, and rhythmic narrative design. Integrating close reading, narratological analysis, and symbolic criticism, the study argues that Poe transforms external horror into an internal psychological mechanism. The narrator’s defensive rhetoric and fractured syntax construct a confined mental space where reason and madness coexist, while recurring motifs—the black cat, the white patch, the noose, and the wall—form a cyclical structure of guilt, retribution, and punishment. The simultaneity of the cat’s cry and the wall’s collapse converts psychological tension into aesthetic revelation, fulfilling Poe’s principle of the unity of effect.
Beyond aesthetic coherence, the story also reveals the moral and gender tensions embedded in nineteenth-century domestic ideology. By redefining the unity of effect as both a narratological and symbolic mechanism, this paper contributes to the understanding of Gothic aesthetics and the structural logic of modern short fiction
Everyday Resistance in Temsula Ao’s Aosnela’s Story
Full text linkThe paper tries to underscore the character of the protagonist Aosenla in Temsula Ao’s novel Aosenla’s Story with the aid of James Scott’s theory everyday resistance. According to James Scott everyday resistance is highly undramatic and it requires neither outright collective defiance nor rebellion. The actors of everyday resistance are often ordinary people who are powerless and unable to strike back at their oppressors directly. It is subtle, passive and covert. Even the actors are unable to understand that they are part of an act of resistance. The paper closely observes Aosenla’s character with the aid of this theory and identifies the various acts of everyday resistances by which Aosenla tries to outshine the so called powerful and emerges out as a woman of newfound freedom and self of her own
Children as Connecting Agents to Divorced Parents: A Study on Manju Kapur’s Custody
Full text linkParents alone can feel and realize the importance of children. A family without a child will never be a family at all. The growth of a family depends on the availability of a child in it. Marital life aims at having children after the marriage. Children decorate their house and make the family a lively one. The word family enjoys its full meaning only when there is a child in it. One who never hears the musical sound of lisping will not appreciate the music sound of any kind. Hence children occupy a prominent role in families which in turn societies. The expression of children has been the subject of many a writer in all the literatures. The presentation varies -the happy family they contribute to the cruelties meted out to and the agencies of evil forces they become -and their expression create a great impact in the minds of the readers. Manju Kapur an Indian novelist of the modern times engages children to draw the deplorable nature they are subjected to. In her novel Custody, the title itself is self explanatory that it presents the repercussions of the custody battle that the parents fight against each other. It becomes a long-drawn-on battle and the children are tossed in the tumultuous legal waves which do not end. The end itself is heartbreaking to them as the brother and sister themselves are legally separated to live under the custody of single parenting. The novelist realistically portrays the Indian domestic panorama of children under the custody of divorced parents. However, the separated children stay as nodal agencies for the connection of their parents