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Issue of Dalit Identity and the Partition of Bengal
Get PDFThis paper attempts to present the history of partition of Bengal and the issues of Dalit communities that they faced during and aftermath of partition of India in 1947. It presents the experiences of the ‘Chhotolok’ or Dalits and the sufferings they encountered because of the bifurcation of the Bengal province. The paper deals with the migration process in Bengal side and the treatment of government and higher-class societies towards lower class/caste people in their ‘new homeland’. The paper presents an account of representation of Dalits in Bengali partition narratives and the literature written by Dalit writers. The paper also presents their struggles in Dandyakaranya forest and the incident of Marichjhapi Massacre in post-partition Bengal as depicted in several Bengali partition novels written in Bengali and English language
Wilderness in Ruskin Bond’s Dust on the Mountains
Get PDFThroughout reading short stories one realizes how the most fundamental stories of Indian culture also narrate tales of human existence. The Pañcatantra fables written in Sanskrit have also originated in India addressed to children that have stories that have been tailored distinctively to the evident needs of the child. Most of these stories are immersed in the Indian culture in which children grow up. Interestingly, Ruskin Bond as a story writer focuses on the epistemological foundation of the stories while incorporating fiction and personal experiences and, at the same time, with ecological concerns. His stories then become an assortment of experiences and anecdotes to understand the postulate in the story of humanity and the wilderness. This research paper is a study of Bond’s Dust on the Mountains that examines the stories as an expression of the narratives of civilization and wilderness. The aim of this paper is not only to read the book of stories that bridge different interdisciplinary subjects defining and describing wilderness but also to explore how the narrative speaks to readers with a wide range of backgrounds and interests. The study incorporates an ecocritical perspective to examine the metanarrative that frames both author’s and readers’ imagination, perception, and way of life
Aspects of the Narratives of Slavery in the Afro-American Literature as Represented by Harriet Jacobs and Frederick Douglass’ Works
Get PDFHarriet Ann Jacobs’ Incidents in the life of a Slave Girl (1861) and Frederick Douglass’ Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave (1845) are two very significant works to show slave narratives Afro-American Literature. They provide many aspects in attempting to portray the complex sufferings and different kinds of frustrations, especially that the threat to the existence of their families and their rights as human beings in American society. The works present real stories and scenes lived by both writers in that dark era. The article makes a kind of comparison between them to highlight how both sexes suffered to the same extent. Jacobs represented the female side while Douglass represented the male side of black slaves in America through their works. The article aims to shed light on the brutal effect of slave and the crimes of the racist white American people upon these vulnerable people in a society of an ideal country in which the worst forms of racism are still practiced and the murder of George Floyd’s crime is not far from us. Therefore, it is the duty of the free people of the whole world to expose these heinous acts and work to prevent them and support the oppressed
Existential Dilemma in Toni Morrison’s Beloved
Get PDFToni Morrison verbalizes in novel manners the pain and battle of a traumatized self and local area. In her novels, the traumatic truth of a dark self shows itself in the characters' self-hatred and self-disdain, and in the deficiency of their individual and cultural identity. Her fiction resolves issues of African American history, traumatizing experience and identity, often additionally captivating with inquiries of sex and sex, and, less significantly, class. When writing in a climate where everything except a couple of dark writers battled for acknowledgment, presently the subject of much recognition, Morrison’s work has provoked various and assorted basic reactions. The Beloved and Song of Solomon utilize the devices of disruption, corruption and sensuality to portray the traumatic encounters of the Black ladies’ heroes. During the last fifteen or so years grant treating the Morrison oeuvre has blossomed, making her clearly quite possibly the most talked about creators of the contemporary time frame. Toni Morrison’s In her novel, Beloved (1987), Toni Morrison shows the overwhelming impacts of slavery and its specialist disasters as these impacts show themselves through numerous ages of one family. The trauma of slavery is with the end goal that nobody contacted by it can break liberated from the past, even a long time after actual freedom. This is valid for the novel's hero, Sethe, a once in the past oppressed lady living in Cincinnati after the Civil War and third novel Song of Solomon (1977) goes about as a milestone in her profession, since it uncovers the imaginative development she has acquired, and furthermore presents the arrangement she has observed to tackle the overwhelming issues she depicts in her initially traumatizing novel. The distinctive traumatic occasions make Morrison's novels appropriate for logo helpful perusing and examination
Understanding the Nobel Laureate ‘Mo Yan’ Through His Fiction
Get PDFOne of the main characteristics of Contemporary Chinese Literature is that it has remained true to the time it represented. Although it has been used extensively to serve the political agenda of the Communist party on occasions, but it has managed to carry forward the idea of realism, which started to flourish during the May Fourth period. After the announcement of the policy of “Reform and Opening up” by Deng Xiaoping in the Post Mao period China, a brilliant story teller emerged from the rural area of Gaomi in Shandong province of China. This paper aims to understand the phenomena created by Mo Yan’s writings in contemporary period of Chinese literature. The paper initially has discussed the major trends in post-Mao period Chinese literature to provide the background for understanding the emergence of Mo Yan. The paper has tried to discuss the major trends in Mo Yan’s writings focusing on the fiction-world created by him in his novels. Then it has further analysed the characteristics of Mo Yan’s writings. Finally, through the analysis of available contents a conclusion has been drawn
Not So Beautiful Life: A Study on the Treatment of Black humour in Life is Beautiful
Get PDFThe Holocaust is one of the most tragic events ever happened in the human history. It was a systematic, bureaucratic and state sponsored persecution and murder of around six million Jews by the Nazi regime and its collaborators. Our memory of Holocaust, especially of the people belonging to this generation has been shaped more by popular representations, especially in films. The film Life is Beautiful directed by Robert Benigni portrayed the horror of Holocaust connotatively using black humour as its main medium. A short analysis of how Benigni uses black humour and other visual-cinema techniques in bringing out the terror of Holocaust among audience is studied in this article. Though the movie seems to fall under the genre comedy, it discusses connotatively the serious issues related to the life of Jews under Nazi regime without any use of violent images or scenes that reflect the real terrors of Holocaust
Gandhian Way of Education: M.K. Gandhi’s Educational Philosophy in R.K. Narayan’s Swami and Friends
Get PDFM.K. Gandhi is a unique paradox. He has been sanctified and idolised for his beliefs and teachings and at the same time has been assumed as an impractical idealist. On the contrary his educational philosophy has been highly practical and in the ever-changing times and challenges of the 21st century, it becomes pertinent to explore it.Education is the facilitator of humanity. It is precisely this understanding of education that Gandhi propounds in his philosophical understanding of the same. The roots of all evils lie in ignorance of education and the roots of all virtuousness lies in adherence to it.R.K. Narayan (1906-2001) and M.K. Gandhi (1869-1948) were two major figures of the 20th century India, owing to the former’s literary and the latter’s political and philosophical sensibilities. Gandhi's ideas and ideals regarding education are multi-faceted. For him education has multiple aims and objectives. For him education is not only a means to serve an individual or a national cause but goes on to serve the still larger cause of humanity. It is this aspect of his teachings which will remain the focal point of this paper. The novel Swami and Friends (1935) is written in the characteristic Narayanian vein which refuses to evolve and incorporate serious issues on the surface. Though primarily it appears to be apolitical and plain in style, the novel nonetheless exhibits some serious issues related to education. Efforts would be made in the paper to show how the educational system portrayed in the novel is in stark contrast to the educational philosophy and the ideals for which Gandhi pined throughout his life. The paper would hence attempt to delineate the Gandhian educational philosophy by placing it in and around the critique of education that R.K. Narayan offers in his debut novel Swami and Friends (1935)
The Dynamics of Social Seclusion in the Select Short Stories of Manju Bala
Get PDFThe paper intends to study Manju Bala’s short stories such as Conflict, The Housemaid Special, Discrimination in the light of dalitism. Bala being a Bengali Dalit woman writer portrays the grim condition of the marginalized women in Bengal with her empirical study. In all three stories, we happen to witness caste-based discrimination, gender biasness, social injustice, domestic violence and so on. The female protagonists may be seen as transgressing the conventionality but society in large biased towards gender roles. Women are seen only as objects, peace providers, calm and quiet so on. They as we see are not provided with any emancipatory spirit even by their kith and kin but they have tried to go beyond with such obstacles. And throughout their journey, the characters face multiple dilemmas, troubles and conflicting emotion. The discriminatory practice is not something external or physical but cognitive. This mental dilemma is quite noticeable. We attempt to observe how economic stability fails to secure self-esteem and social prestige not only due to caste discrimination but also gender expectation. Patriarchy always runs high in controlling the minds that of the uncontrolled. Patriarchy, somehow, interpellates that women need not to be educated and provided with what the males in particular are provided. From early childhood till maturity, we see how the characters are marginalized and bullied by others. The term Dalit comes in contact in this paper to suggest any kind of exploitation faced by anybody. Thus, this paper tends to highlight all such issues which are silently nurtured by society
The Ideal of Democracy is distorted in Naipaul’s The Suffrage of Elvira
Get PDFDemocracy it’s a beautiful concept, where Equality, Freedom, Justice provided to the people of all strata of society irrespective of caste, creed, gender etc. Actually Democratic form of system is very ideal for administrative point of view. There are equal opportunities for all sorts of people to participate in the formation of government and equal responsibility while framing rules and regulations as well. Both the people and the elected representatives failed completely to uphold the very basic objectives of democracy. And this is nothing but the murder of Democracy. Because in Democratic form of system everything should be transparent but whereas for as third world countries are concerned, no transparencies only corrupted administrative officials, corrupted representative and the people too. This leads to the distortion of the ideal of the Democracy. Abraham Lincoln says about Democracy “of the people, by the people and for the people”. But the present scenario reconstitutes the statement “of the money, by the money and for the money”. Hence in this article Naipaul’s The suffrage of Elvira will be discussed
Teacher Competency and the Needs of the Learner
Get PDFIn any educational system there are broadly speaking, five clearly defined components. They are: (1) students, their needs and expectations; (2) teachers, their competencies and commitment; (3) infrastructure which includes buildings, libraries, laboratories and classrooms; and (4) syllabi of courses, their framing and execution; and (5) most importantly a clearly conceived and unambiguously stated objective. Detailed discussions on the theoretical aspects of these components can go on ad infinitum. In order to make our discussions meaningful and relevant, it will, of course, be desirable to read our analysis of the related issues in the context of our own situation in the country. It will not be an exaggeration to assert that the area which attracted the least serious attention of those responsible for the governance of our educational system during the post-independence period is education. We may gloat over the unbridled proliferation of educational institutions and explosion of student-population flocking to these institutions. But the big question remains and that is whether our educational system as a whole is founded on any definite objective which alone can provide a sustainable direction. Flexibility in objectives is understandable but a radical deviation from the age-old purpose of liberal education meant for shaping humans into a worthwhile creation of God can only prove disastrous. Education should aim at primarily developing students' personality and chiselling those inherent traits in him with which he is born in God's own image. This assertion may sound too holistic to utilitarian ears. But it has stood the test of time since humanity came into existenc