...Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi Email: sskylarky@gmail.com ABSTRACT Historically women have been silenced in history and literature. In the social sphere they have been “pressed”-oppressed, depressed and suppressed. With the setting in of the modern period, women began to snatch for themselves spaces for themselves. In India with the struggle against colonialism another silent struggle went on simultaneously. That was by women to bring themselves at par with men. This was visible even in the literary sphere. In the current paper we would trace the feminist way of portraying women in Anita Desai’s two most popular and widely acknowledged novels- CRY, the peacock and where shall we go this summer. Here in this paper our concern is to look at how in post colonial period women English writers of India have dealt with the theme of “woman oppression”. Have she raised a loud voice or revolt or has silently taken way to some other way to escape this position. Taking queue from the broader sub-themes of today’s Seminar, the paper would look at the dynamics of Indian English women writers concern and feminist thoughts in the writings in post independent India. Looking at the time constraints, for the sake of convenience we would look at the famous characters characterized by the famous writer Anita Desai. Her famous woman characters, the heroine of “CRY, THE PEACOCK” and “WHERE SHALL WE GO THIS SUMMER” has been taken up for this brief research. Keywords: Feminine, Feminist, Patriarchy...
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...her father's side she was descended from Colonel Alexander Spottswood, a colonial governor of Virginia, and on her mother's side, she was related to a number of prominent New England families. Helen's father, Arthur Keller, was a captain in the Confederate army. The family lost most of its wealth during the Civil War and lived modestly. After the war, Captain Keller edited a local newspaper, the North Alabamian, and in 1885, under the Cleveland administration, he was appointed Marshal of North Alabama. When Helen Keller Met Anne Sullivan At the age of 19 months, Helen became deaf and blind as a result of an unknown illness, perhaps rubella or scarlet fever. As Helen grew from infancy into childhood, she became wild and unruly. As she so often remarked as an adult, her life changed on March 3, 1887. On that day, Anne Mansfield Sullivan came to Tuscumbia to be her teacher. Anne was a 20-year-old graduate of the Perkins School for the Blind. Compared with Helen, Anne couldn't have had a more different childhood and upbringing. The daughter of poor Irish immigrants, she entered Perkins at 14 years of age after four horrific years as a ward of the state at the Tewksbury Almshouse in Massachusetts. She was just 14 years older than her pupil Helen, and she too suffered from serious vision problems. Anne underwent many botched operations at a young age before her sight was partially restored. Anne's success with Helen remains an extraordinary and remarkable story and...
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...Anil’s Ghost, Todd Hoffmann describes Michael Ondaatje’s novel as a “mystery of identity” (449). Similarly, Aritha van Herk identifies “fear, unpredictability, secrecy, [and] loss” (44) as the central features of the novel and its female protagonist. Anil’s Ghost, van Herk argues, presents its readers with a “motiveless world” of terror in which “no identity is reliable, no theory waterproof” (45). Ondaatje’s novel tells the story of Anil Tessera, a Sri Lankan expatriate and forensic anthropologist working for a UN-affiliated human rights organization. Haunted by a strong sense of personal and cultural dislocation, Anil takes up an assignment in Sri Lanka, where she teams up with a local archeologist, Sarath Diyasena, to uncover evidence of the Sri Lankan government’s violations of human rights during the country’s period of acute civil war. Yet, by the end of the novel, Anil has lost the evidence that could have indicted the government and is forced to leave the country, carrying with her a feeling of guilt for her unwitting complicity in Sarath’s death. On one hand, Anil certainly embodies an ethical (albeit rather schematic) critique of the failure of global justice. On the other, her character stages diaspora, in Vijay Mishra terms, as the “normative” and “ exemplary … condition of late modernity” (“Diasporic” 441) — a condition usually associated with the figure of the nomad rather than the diasporic subject — and thus raises questions about the novel’s regulatory politics...
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...remove this template. This article was last edited by Fowler&fowler (talk | contribs) 0 seconds ago. (Purge) V. S. Naipaul VS Naipaul BBC.jpg Born Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul[nb 1] 17 August 1932 (age 81) Chaguanas, Trinidad and Tobago Occupation Novelist, travel writer, essayist Nationality Trinidadian, British Genres Novel, Essay Notable work(s) A House for Mr. Biswas In a Free State A Bend in the River The Enigma of Arrival Notable award(s) Booker Prize 1971 Nobel Prize in Literature 2001 Spouse(s) Patricia Ann Hale Naipaul (1955–96) Nadira Naipaul Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul (/ˈnaɪpɔːl/ or /naɪˈpɔːl/; b. 17 August 1932), is a Trinidad-born Nobel Prize-winning British writer known for the comic early novels of Trinidad, the later, bleaker, novels of the wider world, and the vigilant chronicles of his life and travels, all written in widely admired prose.[1] Naipaul has published more than 30 books, both of fiction and nonfiction, in a career spanning more than 50 years. Naipaul married Patricia Ann Hale in 1955. She served as first reader, editor, and critic of his writings until her death in 1996. To her Naipaul dedicated his masterpiece, A House for Mr. Biswas. Contents 1 Background and early life: Trinidad 2 Education: Port of Spain and Oxford, 1943–53 3 London, Caribbean Voices, marriage, 1954–56 4 Early Trinidad novels: 1956–58 5 A House for Mr...
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...Enotes… Arms and the Man | Introduction Shaw was already a celebrity arts critic and socialist lecturer when he wrote Arms and the Man in 1894. One of Shaw’s earliest attempts at writing for the theatre, it was also his first commercial success as a playwright. Although it played for only one season at an avant-garde theatre, thanks to the financial backing of a friend, it was later produced in America in 1895. Accustomed to the melodramas of the age, however, even sophisticated audiences often did not discern the serious purpose of Shaw’s play. Thus, Shaw considered it a failure. True success did not come until 1898, when Arms and the Man was published as one of the “pleasant” plays in Shaw’s collection called Plays: Pleasant and Unpleasant, and it subsequently gained popularity as a written work. Included in this collection of plays are lengthy explanatory prefaces, which note significant issues in the plays and which have been invaluable to critics. In place of brief stage directions, Shaw’s plays also included lengthy instructions and descriptions. Another unique aspect of Arms and the Man was its use of a woman as the central character. Set during the four-month-long Serbo-Bulgarian War that occurred between November 1885 and March 1886, this play is a satire on the foolishness of glorifying something so terrible as war, as well as a satire on the foolishness of basing your affections on idealistic notions of love. These themes brought reality and a timeless lesson...
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...IGOROTS * Home * IGOROT SONGS * IGOROT DANCE * IGOROT TRADITIONS * MONEY ON THE MOUNTAIN IGOROT TRADITIONS IGOROT TRADITIONS When we talk about Igorot identity and culture, we also have to consider the time. My point is that: what I am going to share in this article concerning the Igorot culture might not be the same practiced by the Igorots of today. It has made variations by the passing of time, which is also normally happening to many other cultures, but the main core of respect and reverence to ancestors and to those who had just passed is still there. The Igorot culture that I like to share is about our practices and beliefs during the "time of Death". Death is part of the cycle of life. Igorots practice this part of life cycle with a great meaning and importance. Before the advent of Christianity in the Igorotlandia, the Igorots or the people of the Cordilleran region in the Philippines were animist or pagans. Our reverence or the importance of giving honor to our ancestors is a part of our daily activities. We consider our ancestors still to be with us, only that they exist in another world or dimension. Whenever we have some special feasts (e.g., occasions during death, wedding, family gathering, etc.), when we undertake something special (like going somewhere to look for a job or during thanksgiving), we perform some special offer. We call this "Menpalti/ Menkanyaw", an act of butchering and offering animals. During these times we call them...
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...his son inherited much of his father’s parsimony, he rebelled against the strict morality of his upbringing, and against Victorian morality in general. After the death of his father, he scandalized his family and friends by setting up housekeeping with Caroline Graves, a young woman who already had a daughter, and presumably a husband. Even when the opportunity presented itself later in life, he refused to marry her, encouraged her to marry another man, and then moved in with her again when that marriage failed. In the meantime, he kept a mistress on the side, Martha Rudd, by whom he had three children. At his death, he divided his estate equally between his two mistresses and two families. Through much of his life, he was plagued by bad health. He was small and somewhat deformed, and rheumatism contracted in his thirties caused him to take increasingly-large doses of laudanum. He himself admitted that he was a bit of a hypochondriac, and eventually became a recluse much like Frederick Fairlie in The Woman in White. To please his parents, he tried the tea business for five years and later studied law, but had no love for either pursuit. He was drawn to the arts, as was his brother Charles, who for a time worked among the Pre-Raphaelites (and later married Charles Dickens’ daughter), and determined to be a writer. His big break came when he met Charles Dickens in 1851. The two were soon fast friends, collaborating on short stories for the magazine edited by Dickens...
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...visiting India. Balram is an Indian man from an impoverished background, born in the village of Laxmangarh. Early on, he describes his basic story: he transcended his humble beginnings to become a successful entrepreneur in Bangalore, largely through the murder Mr. Ashok, who had been his employer. Balram also makes clear that because of the murder, it is likely that his own family has been massacred in retribution. In Laxmangarh, Balram was raised in a large, poor family from the Halwai caste, a caste that indicates sweet-makers. The village is dominated and oppressed by the “Four Animals,” four landlords known as the Wild Boar, the Stork, the Buffalo, and the Raven. Balram's father is a struggling rickshaw driver, and his mother died when he is young. The alpha figure of his family was his pushy grandmother, Kusum. Balram was initially referred to simply as “Munna,” meaning “boy," since his family had not bothered to name him. He did not have another name until his schoolteacher dubbed him Balram. The boy proved himself intelligent and talented, and was praised one day as a rare “White Tiger” by a visiting school inspector. Unfortunately, Balram was removed from school after only a few years, to work in a tea shop with his brother, Kishan. There, he furthered his education by eavesdropping on the conversations of shop customers. Balram feels that there are two Indias: the impoverished “Darkness” of the rural inner continent, and the “Light” of urban coastal India. A mechanism...
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...A Passage to India E. M. Forster Online Information For the online version of BookRags' A Passage to India Premium Study Guide, including complete copyright information, please visit: http://www.bookrags.com/studyguide−passageindia/ Copyright Information ©2000−2007 BookRags, Inc. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. The following sections of this BookRags Premium Study Guide is offprint from Gale's For Students Series: Presenting Analysis, Context, and Criticism on Commonly Studied Works: Introduction, Author Biography, Plot Summary, Characters, Themes, Style, Historical Context, Critical Overview, Criticism and Critical Essays, Media Adaptations, Topics for Further Study, Compare &Contrast, What Do I Read Next?, For Further Study, and Sources. ©1998−2002; ©2002 by Gale. Gale is an imprint of The Gale Group, Inc., a division of Thomson Learning, Inc. Gale and Design® and Thomson Learning are trademarks used herein under license. The following sections, if they exist, are offprint from Beacham's Encyclopedia of Popular Fiction: "Social Concerns", "Thematic Overview", "Techniques", "Literary Precedents", "Key Questions", "Related Titles", "Adaptations", "Related Web Sites". © 1994−2005, by Walton Beacham. The following sections, if they exist, are offprint from Beacham's Guide to Literature for Young Adults: "About the Author", "Overview", "Setting", "Literary Qualities", "Social Sensitivity", "Topics for Discussion", "Ideas for Reports and Papers". © 1994−2005, by Walton Beacham. All other...
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...Tradition And Modernity In the instinctive mode of western scholars, I had once thought of Tradition and Modernity as individual chapters, each of them thinking about its topic as an entity to be understood in its respective essence and unity. But I have come to understand in perhaps an equally perennial move by western students of Indian culture that these two terms do not in themselves exist. But they do function, dialogically. They work in relation with each other. Modernity functions as an economic and social tool to achieve some wealth, flexibility, and innovation for individuals and groups; Tradition functions, partly and at times largely, as a mythological state which produces the sensation of larger connectedness and stability in the face of shockingly massive social change over the last half-century. One might also say that Modernity is an economic force with social, cultural, and political correlatives; Tradition is a cultural force with social, economic, and political correlatives. Satisfyingly asymmetrical in their relation, they require us, in talking of one, to talk also of the other, just as they induce us to move as nimbly as possible between theoretical abstraction and experiential reality. But their separation is itself part of the mythological drama in current Indian thought, just as their mutual implication is the import of the same ironic smile that brings to an effective close any conversation one hears here about them. And so we take them in turn only...
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...2013B Carefully read the following excerpt from the short story “Mammita’s Garden Cove” by Cyril Dabydeen. Then write a well-organized essay in which you analyze how Dabydeen uses literary techniques to convey Max’s complex attitudes toward place. ‘Where d’you come from?’ Max was used to the question; used to being told no as well. He walked away, feet kicking hard ground, telling himself that Line he must persevere. More than anything else he knew 5 he must find a job before long. In a way being unemployed made him feel prepared for hell itself even though he knew too that somewhere there was a sweet heaven waiting for him. How couldn’t it be? After all he was in Canada. He wanted to laugh all of 10 He continued walking along, thoughts drifting back to the far-gone past. Was it that far-gone? He wasn’t sure . . . yet his thoughts kept going back, to the time he was on the island and how he used to dream about 15 being in Canada, of starting an entirely new life. He remembered those dreams clearly now; remembered too thinking of marrying some sweet island-woman with whom he’d share his life, of having children and later buying a house. Maybe someday he’d even own 20 a cottage on the edge of the city. He wasn’t too sure where one built a cottage, but there had to be a cottage. He’d then be in the middle class; life would be different from the hand-to-mouth existence he was used to. 25 His heels pressed into the asphalt, walking on. And slowly he...
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...2013B Carefully read the following excerpt from the short story “Mammita’s Garden Cove” by Cyril Dabydeen. Then write a well-organized essay in which you analyze how Dabydeen uses literary techniques to convey Max’s complex attitudes toward place. ‘Where d’you come from?’ Max was used to the question; used to being told no as well. He walked away, feet kicking hard ground, telling himself that Line he must persevere. More than anything else he knew 5 he must find a job before long. In a way being unemployed made him feel prepared for hell itself even though he knew too that somewhere there was a sweet heaven waiting for him. How couldn’t it be? After all he was in Canada. He wanted to laugh all of 10 He continued walking along, thoughts drifting back to the far-gone past. Was it that far-gone? He wasn’t sure . . . yet his thoughts kept going back, to the time he was on the island and how he used to dream about 15 being in Canada, of starting an entirely new life. He remembered those dreams clearly now; remembered too thinking of marrying some sweet island-woman with whom he’d share his life, of having children and later buying a house. Maybe someday he’d even own 20 a cottage on the edge of the city. He wasn’t too sure where one built a cottage, but there had to be a cottage. He’d then be in the middle class; life would be different from the hand-to-mouth existence he was used to. 25 His heels pressed into the asphalt, walking on. And slowly he...
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...Dedication Prologue: The Day my World Changed PART ONE: BEFORE THE TALIBAN 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 A Daughter Is Born My Father the Falcon Growing up in a School The Village Why I Don’t Wear Earrings and Pashtuns Don’t Say Thank You Children of the Rubbish Mountain The Mufti Who Tried to Close Our School The Autumn of the Earthquake PART TWO: THE VALLEY OF DEATH 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 Radio Mullah Toffees, Tennis Balls and the Buddhas of Swat The Clever Class The Bloody Square The Diary of Gul Makai A Funny Kind of Peace Leaving the Valley PART THREE: THREE BULLETS, THREE GIRLS 16 17 18 19 20 The Valley of Sorrows Praying to Be Tall The Woman and the Sea A Private Talibanisation Who is Malala? PART FOUR: BETWEEN LIFE AND DEATH 21 ‘God, I entrust her to you’ 22 Journey into the Unknown PART FIVE: A SECOND LIFE 23 ‘The Girl Shot in the Head, Birmingham’ 24 ‘They have snatched her smile’ Epilogue: One Child, One Teacher, One Book, One Pen . . . Glossary Acknowledgements Important Events in Pakistan and Swat A Note on the Malala Fund Picture Section Additional Credits and Thanks Copyright Prologue: The Day my World Changed I COME FROM a country which was created at midnight. When I almost died it was just after midday. One year ago I left my home for school and never returned. I was shot by a Taliban bullet and was flown out of Pakistan unconscious. Some people say I will never return home but I believe firmly in my heart that I will. To be torn...
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...The aim of this paper is to accentuate his political and social ideologies from the context and introduce to some of the reactions of postcolonial critics. Idylls of the King, a Piece of Victorian Literature: Especially if Tennyson's Idylls are the first and only piece of Arthurian literature one has read, one can irritatedly ignore its dedication and letter to the royals Albert and Victoria, and simply summarize it as the story of a medieval King, the adventures of his accompanying knights, the fortune of the ladies at his court, and the creation and downfall of his kingdom in twelve books. Those readers, however, who are familiar with the previous versions of Arthurian stories written by Chrétien de Troyes and Thomas Malory, for instance, cannot be satisfied with that. They wonder about Tennyson's framing poems “Dedication” and “To the Queen”, stumble over the changes the author made in his adoption of the Arthurian legends, and start thinking about what Idylls of the King really is about. So did Cecil Y. Lang and published her results in the essay Tennyson's Arthurian Psycho-Drama. In her work she makes an important discovery, namely that “Tennyson seldom composed anything […] without some kind of contemporary reference” (Lang 16). This finding excludes the possibility 1 that Tennyson just wanted...
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...Dedication Prologue: The Day my World Changed PART ONE: BEFORE THE TALIBAN 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 A Daughter Is Born My Father the Falcon Growing up in a School The Village Why I Don’t Wear Earrings and Pashtuns Don’t Say Thank You Children of the Rubbish Mountain The Mufti Who Tried to Close Our School The Autumn of the Earthquake PART TWO: THE VALLEY OF DEATH 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 Radio Mullah Toffees, Tennis Balls and the Buddhas of Swat The Clever Class The Bloody Square The Diary of Gul Makai A Funny Kind of Peace Leaving the Valley PART THREE: THREE BULLETS, THREE GIRLS 16 17 18 19 20 The Valley of Sorrows Praying to Be Tall The Woman and the Sea A Private Talibanisation Who is Malala? PART FOUR: BETWEEN LIFE AND DEATH 21 ‘God, I entrust her to you’ 22 Journey into the Unknown PART FIVE: A SECOND LIFE 23 ‘The Girl Shot in the Head, Birmingham’ 24 ‘They have snatched her smile’ Epilogue: One Child, One Teacher, One Book, One Pen . . . Glossary Acknowledgements Important Events in Pakistan and Swat A Note on the Malala Fund Picture Section Additional Credits and Thanks Copyright Prologue: The Day my World Changed I COME FROM a country which was created at midnight. When I almost died it was just after midday. One year ago I left my home for school and never returned. I was shot by a Taliban bullet and was flown out of Pakistan unconscious. Some people say I will never return home but I believe firmly in my heart that I will. To be torn...
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