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The Third Gender Conundrum: A Critical Reading of Girl, Woman, Other
Full text linkGender is a social construct that has acquired the status of a natural phenomenon over the years, owing to the history and tradition behind its social, linguistic and cultural performance. The social conditioning on the binary system of gender necessitated the creation of a third category to represent deviant expressions. This paper critically examines the limitations of a third gender category as an expression of identity. It argues that while the third gender as a category provides social acceptance to a certain level, it is still reductive and is an offshoot of the very binary system of gender classification it challenges. The study seeks to examine this problem through a critical reading of the 2019 Booker Prize-winning novel Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo. The characters from the novel are analyzed to explore the shifts in cultural and social discourses around the traditional binary gender system. It examines how the characters navigate the intersections of sex and gender through self-expression, thereby contributing to the need to revisit the third gender as a linguistic, social and cultural expression of gender deviance. The paper calls for a revisionist approach to initiate a paradigm shift in the mainstream perceptions of gender identity
Landscape As A Catalyst in The Emergence of Rosie As A Transformed Woman in R. K. Narayan’s The Guide
Full text linkMalgudi forms the regional backdrop of all the fascinating novels of R.K.Narayan. Malgudi of his fiction is always an interface between older conceptions of conventional values and modernised views that emphasise the ubiquitousness and inescapability of change in the face of modernity. The geographical landscape of reference expands further in his middle period novels, such as Waiting for the Mahatma, The Guide and The Painter of Signs. The discussion tries to explore the character of Rosie, the female protagonist in The Guide and how landscape of Malgudi brings the essential transformation in her character. Rosie is portrayed in the novel as a multi-faceted personality. Rosie appears to be conventional after marriage with natural expectations from her husband but she becomes very progressive and modern as the novel progresses. She enters Raju’s life as a tourist as Raju being a tourist guide takes the responsibility to make them visit different places of interest. Raju accompanies Marco and Rosie to the Mempi Hills where Marco immerses himself in the cave frescoes and in his academic pursuits. Rosie being a devadasi belonged to a lower caste and her family was indebted to Marco for giving her an opportunity to become his wife. Although Rosie becomes his wife but her desire as a wife is not fulfilled. Raju’s care and affable nature gradually awakens the woman in her. She is imbued with nature in her visit to the Mempi hills and tries to find utmost satisfaction in observing the beautiful landscape of the Mempi hills. She is even fascinated by the king cobra dance which is appalling to anyone. She is rejected as a wife by Marco and even he disregards her talent as a classical dancer, but still, she finds happiness at the Peak House in the dense jungle high up in the Mempi Hills as she could attach herself with the silence and bliss of nature. This attachment with Raju at the Mempi Hills brings her very close to him and she decides to leave Marco. Thus, the landscape of Malgudi plays a very significant role to bring out the woman in her who could claim for her identity. Her life with Raju becomes very successful as she becomes a professional dancer, a wealthy independent woman with a successful identity of her own. Although Raju deceives her by forging her signature but she continues to survive as an independent individual in the midst of all instability in her life. The paper attempts to depict Rosie as a strong character, struggling with the gendered discrimination in a society for being a devdasi. This realization in her comes only when she absorbs herself in the natural landscape of Mempi hills.
(Malgudi menjadi latar regional dari semua novel menarik karya R.K. Narayan. Malgudi dalam fiksinya selalu menjadi titik temu antara pandangan lama tentang nilai-nilai konvensional dan pandangan modern yang menekankan pada kehadiran dan keniscayaan perubahan dalam menghadapi modernitas. Lanskap geografis dalam karya-karyanya semakin meluas dalam novel-novel periode tengahnya, seperti Waiting for the Mahatma, The Guide, dan The Painter of Signs. Pembahasan ini mencoba mengeksplorasi karakter Rosie, tokoh perempuan utama dalam novel The Guide, serta bagaimana lanskap Malgudi membawa transformasi penting dalam karakter dirinya. Rosie digambarkan dalam novel sebagai pribadi yang memiliki banyak sisi. Rosie tampak konvensional setelah menikah, dengan harapan-harapan alami dari suaminya, namun ia menjadi sangat progresif dan modern seiring berjalannya cerita. Rosie memasuki kehidupan Raju sebagai seorang wisatawan, dan Raju yang berprofesi sebagai pemandu wisata bertanggung jawab untuk membawa mereka mengunjungi berbagai tempat menarik. Raju menemani Marco dan Rosie ke Pegunungan Mempi, di mana Marco tenggelam dalam lukisan-lukisan gua dan kesibukan akademisnya. Rosie, yang berasal dari latar belakang devadasi, termasuk dalam kasta rendah dan keluarganya berutang budi pada Marco karena telah memberinya kesempatan untuk menjadi istrinya. Meskipun Rosie menjadi istri Marco, keinginannya sebagai seorang istri tidak terpenuhi. Perhatian dan sifat ramah Raju perlahan membangkitkan sisi kewanitaannya. Ia meresapi keindahan alam saat mengunjungi Pegunungan Mempi dan menemukan kepuasan dalam mengamati pemandangan indah di sana. Ia bahkan terpesona oleh tarian ular kobra, sesuatu yang biasanya menakutkan bagi orang lain. Rosie ditolak sebagai seorang istri oleh Marco, bahkan bakatnya sebagai penari klasik diabaikan. Namun demikian, ia menemukan kebahagiaan di Peak House, sebuah rumah di tengah hutan lebat di puncak Pegunungan Mempi, karena ia dapat menyatu dengan keheningan dan kedamaian alam. Kedekatannya dengan Raju di Pegunungan Mempi membawanya pada keputusan untuk meninggalkan Marco. Dengan demikian, lanskap Malgudi memainkan peran yang sangat penting dalam membangkitkan jati dirinya sebagai seorang perempuan yang mampu menuntut identitasnya sendiri. Hidupnya bersama Raju menjadi sangat sukses karena ia berhasil menjadi seorang penari profesional, wanita mandiri yang kaya, dan memiliki identitas yang kuat. Meskipun Raju kemudian menipunya dengan memalsukan tanda tangannya, Rosie tetap bertahan sebagai individu yang mandiri di tengah segala ketidakstabilan dalam hidupnya. Tulisan ini mencoba menggambarkan Rosie sebagai karakter yang kuat, yang berjuang melawan diskriminasi gender dalam masyarakat karena latar belakangnya sebagai seorang devadasi. Kesadaran ini hadir dalam dirinya hanya ketika ia larut dalam lanskap alam Pegunungan Mempi.
Pragmatic Use of Direct and Indirect Speech Acts of Students in Public Primary Schools in Plateau State, Nigeria
Full text linkThis paper examines the pragmatic responses and context interpretation of students in public primary schools in Plateau State, Nigeria, to direct and indirect speech acts. Methodology: Using qualitative data that were collected using Discourse Completion Tasks (DCTs) and classroom observation, the study analyses the responses and interpretations of the direct and indirect speech acts of the students. The study paid close attention to the context of the use of speech acts. The DCT were administered on 100 students in primary schools. Findings: The data revealed that majority of students within the Nigerian primary school system have problems interpreting indirect speech acts. The students also have problems in understanding the role of context in helping to shape their responses to the indirect speech acts. The findings also showed that majority of the students demonstrated a good understanding in interpreting direct speech acts and the context of its occurrence. Study implication: The findings of this study contribute to the general understanding of the significance of context in interpreting and producing indirect speech acts. The problems associated with the interpretation and production of correct speech acts bring to the fore the need to incorporate some aspects of pragmatics into the teaching curriculum of English language teaching at the primary levels. This strategy will help in raising the pragmatic awareness and pragmatic competence of the students at the primary school level
The Stillness
Full text linkThe poem, The Stillness talks on the retreat embraced during tea-time. It presents to its readers the awareness of stillness needed in every emotion a human would face with a sip of a glass of tea
Halala (Talaq) 2019
Full text linkHalala (2019) is a prevailing and emotional web series that discovers the controversial Islamic practice of Nikah Halala. The story follows Afza and Raahil, a young couple whose marriage falls apart after Raahil, in a fit of anger, gives Afza triple talaq—an instant and irrevocable divorce. When he later realizes his mistake and desires her back, they discover a painful truth: for them to remarry, Afza must first marry another man, consummate the marriage, and then get divorced again. With no choice, Afza agrees to the halala marriage, and Raahil’s connection Zaid steps in to help. But things do not go as premeditated. As Afza spends time with Zaid, she begins to form an unexpected emotional bond with him. This puts her in a difficult position—torn between her past, her emotions, and what society expects from her. Starring Shafaq Naaz, Ravi Bhatia, and Eijaz Khan, and directed by Deepak Pandey, Halala goes beyond just a legal ritual. It looks deeply into the emotional toll such customs take on women, raising questions about love, autonomy, and identity. The series offers a raw, realistic view of how tradition can sometimes clash with personal freedom and human dignity.
Rewriting Gender Roles: Feminist Reinterpretation of Mythological Narratives
No full textMythological stories form the basis of many cultures as they are passed down through generations, serving as a means of conveying values, beliefs and traditions. Mythological tales generally idiolize and glorify male prowess. Gender inequality in mythology is a complex issue which is deeply ingrained in the socio-cultural fabric of the Indian society. This representation often mirrors the gender disparity in our lives as well. These narratives frequently portray women in subordinate roles which directly reflects the patriarchal norms prevalent in the society. Revisionist mythology takes these ancient tales and caters them to the modern readers by reinterpreting them. One of the prevalent themes of the revisionist mythology is the point of view of a female character which helps the reader in understanding the situation of females in the ancient times. Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni and Kavita Kane, through their revisionist mythological novels, provide a new outlook on traditional narratives that challenges the existing gender bias and creates a platform for female empowerment in mythological retellings. The paper discusses and argues that the modern retellings have created an alternative feminine discourse by breaking the ideological male canon and also aims to explore the gynocentric myth created by these women writers.
Representation of Loss and Dislocated Identity in Intizar Husain\u27s An Unwritten Epic
Full text linkIntizar Husain has gained recognized reputation as the chronicler of the after-effects of the Partition in Urdu literature in South Asia. Born in undivided India in 1925 and migrated to Pakistan in 1947, he has watched and undergone the complicated question of an unsettled homeland. Immersed in the memories of the pre-partition era, a deep sensation of loss and homesickness resonates in his fiction. His short fiction deals with the theme of Partition and its various issues directly or indirectly. One of the most hard-hitting stories, \u27An Unwritten Epic, \u27expresses the multiple problems of the Partition. Portraying the inter-village conflict, communal violence, and the associated euphoria for the creation of Pakistan as the story\u27s backdrop, Intizar Husain presents the extraordinary life and the tragic fate of a village wrestler, Pichwa, in the fictional village named Qadirpur situated somewhere in a remote district of the United Province in pre-Partition India. Pichwa is a bully renowned for his fighting skills with the club (lathi). He never leaves an opportunity to show his dominating muscle power to his opponents. The story\u27s narrator is so captivated by Pichwa\u27s heroic charisma that he becomes obsessed with composing an epic in prose using the creation and freedom of Pakistan as its background. This obsession with Pichwa\u27s heroism and the idea of an epic reflects the narrator\u27s idealism and his desire to find meaning in the chaos of the Partition. \u27An Unwritten Epic\u27 captures the profound loss and identity crisis associated with dislocation. Uprooted from his stable and established surroundings, Pichwa is wholly lost once he reaches an unnamed town in Pakistan. His sense of identity and belongingness undergoes a tremendous change. Pichwa, who could become an epic hero, is rendered just as a symbol of victimhood and loss, with tragic ironies that follow. He is the powerful symbol of dislocation that embodies the loss of home, identity, and belongingness. He is destitute, where his old identity cannot fit in, and the new one remains elusive. The paper aims to analyze how \u27An Unwritten Epic\u27 explores the subjectivity of loss and dislocated identity as a profound consequence of the migration to Pakistan. It examines how the story covers the intricacies of social, cultural, and personal turmoil during the migration. It also scrutinizes how Intizar Husain highlights the political upheavals that uproot individuals from their native land and leave them adrift in a fragmented world
The Apocalypt, Thanatos & Sick Flower
No full textThese three poems by Pradip Mondal—"The Apocalypt," "Thanatos," and "Sick Flower"—delve into cataclysmic dread, mortality, and elusive deception. "The Apocalypt" unleashes an end-times vision of melting icebergs, fiery monsters, cosmic collisions, and prowling doom, echoing ancient prophecies amid surging sins and divine madness. "Thanatos" personalizes death as a parasitic worm sapping vitality, propelling the speaker toward Charon\u27s boat in futile, aging denial. "Sick Flower" personifies a treacherous bloom that seduces at life\u27s dawn only to entomb in the grave, embodying life\u27s camouflaged betrayals. Together, they weave existential terror with mythic undertones