Asiatic: IIUM Journal of English Language and Literature
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Exploring the Issues of Gender and Ethnicity in Shirley Geok-lin Lim’s Sister Swing
Full text linkThis essay will provide an analysis of Shirley Geok-lin Lim’s Sister Swing (2006), a coming-of-age novel centred on the three daughters of a traditionalist family in Malacca, Malaysia. After examining the character of the patriarch, Ah Kong, and the hierarchical relationship he strove to establish and maintain with the victimised women of his family (both his wife and daughters), this article will, first of all, explore the strategies employed by the three sisters to emancipate themselves from his tyranny, and their different degrees of success. As it will be shown, the revolt against the patriarch is closely connected with the discovery of one’s body and sexuality, as well as with the notion of movement and travelling, signifying freedom from the shackles of tradition, and a quest for a home which is not merely a physical place. Secondly, given Lim’s overcoming of the binary opposition between the immigrant’s country of origin and the US (and her subsequent adoption of a transnational perspective), this article will delve into the distinct way the author deals with the issue of ethnicity, namely by focusing on the problematic interaction between different ethnic communities in the American context, and their lack of understanding and communication with one another
English Writing as Neo-colonial Resistance: An Exchange of English Poetry in Hong Kong
Full text linkAfter its handover in 1997, Hong Kong has arguably moved to a neo-colonial situation, where many of its native inhabitants are facing threats from China in their daily lives and material conditions. This has given rise to a movement of resistance against the hegemony of China. Most English writing in Hong Kong have yet to pick up this recent socio-political tension, but in 2012, an English poem written by a mainland Chinese student studying in Hong Kong came under fire for its superficial criticism of Hong Kong from a mainland Chinese persona. The poem drew angry responses from Hong Kong netizens, who then created parodies of the poem to mock China. In this article, I consider this poetic exchange one of the few instances where mainstream social sentiments in Hong Kong intersect with the much neglected English writing of the city. This poetic exchange – the original poem and the various imitations – delineates the social, cultural and political fault lines between China and Hong Kong. The literary value, I argue, lies not in the individual poems, but in how this action-reaction communication alerts us, via poetry and English writing, to be sensitive to the neo-colonial situation of Hong Kong
Sacred without God: Bhakti in the Poetry of Arun Kolatkar
Full text linkOf all literary traditions that have silhouetted the contours of modern Indian Poetry, the tradition of Bhakti poetry stands out pre-eminently from the rest; it provides a creative template out of which modern Indian English Poetry stems forth. In fact, the subversive poetics of the saint poets that characterises Bhakti poetry becomes a ready tool in the hands of many anti-establishment movements of contemporary Indian literature to critique the established hegemonic structures of the society that prevent a free play of creativity. It is in this context that we can locate the significance of Arun Kolatkar's poetry. An extensive reading of contemporary Indian English Poetry reveals that no Indian English poet has internalised the sensibility of Bhakti tradition to the extent that Arun Kolatkar has in his works; such internalisation makes his poetry the most fascinating site to look for the contemporary manifestations of Bhakti. Hence, this paper attempts to explore the influence of Bhakti poetry on Arun Kolatkar, arguably the greatest Indian English poet, and seeks to delineate the way the spirit of Bhakti creeps into his poems while detailing the material world. Although Kolatkar is least interested in using poetry as a means to express the intense longing for a personal deity as the Bhakti poets did, his passionate devotion towards life matches the devotion of saints in its intensity. The paper, thus, attempts to bring out the quality of devotion that has an existence in Kolatkar's poetry without any concrete references to God and religion
Translation as Allegory: Adaptation of Premchand’s “Shatranj Ke Khilari†into Film
No full textRoman Jakobson's idea that adaptation is a kind of translation has been further expanded by functionalist theorists who claim that translation necessarily involves interpretation. Premised on this view, the present paper argues that the adaptation of Premchand's short story “Shatranj ke Khilari†into film of that name by Satyajit Ray is an allegorical interpretation. The idea of allegorical interpretation is based on that ultimate four-fold schema of interpretation which Dante suggests to his friend, Can Grande della Scala, for interpretation of his poem Divine Comedy. This interpretive scheme is suitable for interpreting contemporary reality with a little modification. As Walter Benjamin believes that a translation issues from the original – not so much from its life as from its after-life – it is argued here that in Satyajit Ray's adaptation Premchand's short story undergoes a living renewal and becomes a purposeful manifestation of its essence. The film not only depicts the social and political condition of Awadh during the reign of Wajid Ali Shah but also opens space for engaging with the contemporary political reality of India in 1977
Writing Back: Ethics and Aesthetics in Joss and Gold
Full text linkShirley Geok-lin Lim’s novel, Joss and Gold, published in 2001, can be viewed as quintessentially “academic†in some ways because, though it has an intricate plot and a well-paced narrative, it also raises all the pertinent questions that are the central preoccupations of resistance discourses such as feminism and post-colonialism. My paper will examine how these resistant discourses emerge in the text and the ways in which the novel writes back to a western tradition that has typecast Asia in general and Asian women in particular. I examine some of the ethical concerns and aesthetic designs that emerge and discuss how characterisation, plot and thematic concerns push forward ethical agendas. I also discuss how the ethical and aesthetic dimensions meld into each other in order to foreground issues that are central to the debate, such as the construction of the modern Asian woman, the concept of the nation and so forth
