Youth festival

               On a 30th M.K.  Bhavnagar University Youth Festival 'Amrut rang' is going to be hosted by the 'Takshila institute of commerce ' Bhavnagar University, the preparations are in the final stages of which the program from the inauguration to the conclusion has been drawn up.

        Even in general conversation, Bhavena is addressed as Kalanagari and Bhavnagar has given many artists, while the days of Yuvak Mohotsav, traditionally held by Bhavnagar University.  From the 19 to 21 September 2022 , M.K.  The 30th Youth Festival  Amrut rang has been organized under the auspices of the Takshashila institute of commerce  of Bhavnagar Universrsity.   

First we can see a time table of youth festival

Kala yatra 

    Youth festival start with a kala yatra on 18 th September 2022. On 4:30  o'clock. The route was from Victoria Park Water Tank to the University Amphi Theatre.

The Name of Youth Festival was given this time

"AMRUT RANG- YUVA URJA MAHOTSAV 2022"

First Day

Opening ceremony

The opening ceremony was on 19th September in Amphi theatre. Chief guests of the opening ceremony were Safin Hasan sir, IPS officer of Bhavnagar District, SP officer of Bhavnagar,, Kirtiben Dhanidhariya, Mayor of Bhavnagar, Abhishek Jain- Filmmaker and Jitubhai Vaghani, honorable Education minister of Gujarat. 

Introduction of place 

All event are organised in 5 place of University 

1. Atal Auditorium

2.Old court hall 

3. External Department 

4.Amphi theatre 

5.English Department 

Atal Auditorium

Mimicry 

      Only Four participants were there in mimicry.  There  voices  like of birds, animals, insects, train, ghost, vehicle, etc. 

Mime 

 Mime means "the theatrical technique of suggesting action, character, or emotion without words, using only gesture, expression, and movement."

Gaming which is diverting youth

75 years of independent India, freedom movement, war 

Let's support our Nation in every possible way

Robotics element in Human in Current time 

Pain of animals in Circus

યુદ્ધ નહીં બુદ્ધ

Hardships and risks at Circus. Though they wear a smile to entertain others, forgetting their pain and sufferings.

Amphi theatre

1. Lok nruty 

Old court hall

1.Bhajan 

2.Sugam sangit 

External Department

1. instant drowning

2. college 

English Department

1. Question - Answer

2.self written poem recitation

Day -2 Date 20 September 

Amphi theatre

1. Group song western

2. Solo song western

Atal Auditorium

1. One act play

Concept of ordeal of Sita in Ramayan

Condition of Draupadi and Shurpankha

Marrital rape

Women as property

Gange rape of Aasifa

2. Mono acting

3.Classical dance 

4.skit 

Themes of Skit were were,

Girl child education

Condition of women

Inflationary and Education, Education business and Education institution as a factor

Education system: too much load on children

Old court hall 

All events based on classical formet 

External Department

Drowning 

Festival of Navratri

Azadika Amrit Mahotsav

Village marriage 

poster making

Topics:-

 Among people

Youth Festival

Nature and I

English Department

Essay writing 

Topics:- 

Two steps towards Nature

Fatal Factors of Democracy

If Humans can know the Future 

Health is Wealth

Mobile Phone - Useful or Useless?

Short film 

      Seven colleges participated in the Short film. It concludes short films,

Magic Box

Zamku

Three

Fake it till you make it

Bhavnagar

Maharajshree

Swatantra Sangram

Day -3 on 21 September

Amphi theatre

Group song Indian

External Department

1.Rangoli 

2. Installation 

Topics:-

Cleanliness

Freedom

Culture

Old court hall

Dibet 

Closing ceremony

On the closing ceremony some guest are coming like Dr. Chetan Trivedi, Vice Chancellor of Bhaktkavi Narsinh Mehta University, RJ Akash and Singer Ishani .Dave were present.

         Swami Sahajanand College of Commerce and Management won the General Championship of the MKBU Youth Festival 2022. Sardar Patel Institute has become First Runners Up. Here is glimpse of that.

This time management committee had provided Rikshaw in the University area to help students and others to reach the event place. It became helpful to all. 

Student of English Department

The students of the department of English participated in 17 events. Out of these we have secured Champion in Elocution, first runner-up up in Mono acting and Debate and Second runner up in Western solo song, Clay Modelling, Rangoli, Short film, poetry recitation and essay writing. 

• Elocution - Dhvani Rajyaguru 
• Mono acting- Dhvani Rajyaguru
• Second in Debate - Rajeshvariba Rana and Kosha Bhatt 
• Western solo song - Emisha Ravani 
• Clay Modelling and Rangoli - Jheel Barad 
• Short film - Divya Sheta , Divya Parmar , Rajeshvariba Rana, Himanshi Parmar , Nilay Rathod 
• Essay writing - Divya Parmar
• Poetry writing and recitation - Himanshi Parmar

A Tale of a Tub

 Question:- A Tale of a Tub as a political satire 

Introduction

Swift criticizes by employing the literary device called satire in which the author exposes folly or absurdity in the behavior of an authority or society. His works are skeptical and sarcastic as well as intelligent and enjoyable. Swift’s writing and patriotism influenced British literature profoundly. With it he taught the reader to question injustice and society’s conception of civilization. His works continue to impact British literature and the body of its readers to the present.

As a satire

The satire in A Tale of a Tub is historically novel for several reasons. First, Swift more or less invented prose parody. He explains that his work is, in several places, a “parody,” which is where he imitates the style of persons he wishes to expose. What is interesting is that the word “parody” had not been used for prose before, and the definition he offers is arguably a parody of John Dryden defining “parody” in the Discourse of Satire. Prior to Swift, parodies were imitations designed to bring mirth, but not primarily in the form of mockery.Additionally, Swift’s satire is relatively unique in that he offers no resolutions. While he ridicules any number of foolish habits, he never offers the reader a positive set of values to embrace. While this type of satire became more common as people imitated Swift, later, Swift is quite unusual in offering the readers no way out. He does not persuade to any position, but he does persuade readers from an assortment of positions. This is one of the qualities that has made the Tale Swift’s least-read major work.

A Tale of a Tub is a mass of text seemingly thrown together with the purpose of deliberately confusing the reader, but its digressions upon digressions cannot mask the inevitable theme of loss, which is ultimately found in all of Swift’s works. The satire holds the present against an ideal of past perfection, and the comparison always shows the modern to be lacking. The church adulterates religion; moderns, the ancients; critics, the author. The narrator of Swift’s text seems to believe that the moment a great work or idea is put forth, it can be pure, but will always degrade with time. Because it is impossible to return to this former state, there is a heavy sense of disappointment that weighs down the more transparent wit and humor. The entire tale could be nothing more than a joke, which is aimed at not only the moderns and the church, but the audience as well. But no matter how many crude attacks Swift makes, the purpose of the story is not just to laugh at the expense of others, but to mourn the fall of an ideal that can never exist again.

It is impossible to return to an original source in the Tale because it seems as if the narrator holds a model of a linear time-line in his head. As time passes, the distance between each passing moment and the originating point must increase, and any attempt to return to the beginning must fail. Just as it is impossible for someone living in the eighteenth century to return to the first, a man who is taught to be a modern can never think exactly like an ancient. Because of this view, the narrator can almost be seen as a modern-day phenomenologist. This philosophy asserts the impossibility of observing any object as it actually is, since the viewer is separated from the object and only has a representation of it inside the mind. Once disconnected with a source, all that can be known of it is derived from a limited, outside perspective that is warped by the distance between the observer and the object being studied. In short, the further people are separated from the classics or religion, the more skewed their view of them becomes.

The main grievances of A Tale of a Tub is not only the fact that society is so separated from the origins of these subjects, but that it tries to earn the virtues they promise through a modern method rather than imitating the circumstances in which they were created. Phenomenologists believe that the closest a person can get to holding an accurate representation of anything is to extract the interpretations and personal ideas the viewer has added from the object itself. Swift writes this scathing satire in part to criticize those that do not even attempt this. Once the great classical ideas were presented, each year that followed further separated the circumstances of the reader from that of the author. By Swift’s time, the gap between the cultures was so wide that the majority who wished to learn these ideas had to read translations, dissect each section into small parts and insert contemporary comments. But, rather than studying ancient texts from the modern perspective that is the very cause of the gap, it is much more beneficial to be immersed in the classics and to be separated as much as possible from the current. Because Swift’s contemporaries failed to do this, the texts were corrupted through their attempt to apply them to succeeding societies.

The structure, or more aptly, the deconstruction of the Tale is modelled after the shredding of historical texts by modern thought. The narrator is firmly on the side of the Ancients, and views any deviation from classical works to be degenerative. So the author repeatedly jumps from the allegory of the three brothers to commentaries on critics, digressions and madness to mock the method of his contemporaries. The digressions are just as important as the allegory because he considers them to constitute a major part of all that is wrong with learned society. As he sees it, “…we are wholly indebted to Systems and Abstracts, in which the Modern Fathers of Learning, like prudent Usurers, spent their Sweat for the Ease of Us their Children. For Labor is the Seed of Idleness, and it is the peculiar Happiness of our Noble Age to gather the Fruit” .But rather than properly appreciating the gifts of these texts, the moderns reject the study of the Greek and Latin languages. They must then tear the texts apart to understand and benefit from the knowledge held within them, even if it does require compromising the original work.

The narrator’s attitude towards critics follows along much of the same lines, since they too take away from the works they are studying to further their own ends. Hacks, who make up the bulk of this group, prefer to trash literature so they may appear intelligent and discerning. They ruin texts because they stray from the purpose they should be striving for: "it is the frequent Error of those Men (otherwise very commendable for their Labors) to make Excursions beyond their Talent and their Office, by pretending to point out the Beauties and the Faults; which is no part of their Trade, which they always fail in, which the World never expected from them, nor gave them any thanks for endeavouring at” . For the narrator, there is only one way to do anything, and that is to remain as close to the original intention as possible. The critics damage the works they analyse as the moderns do the ancients, because they use their own method rather than that which has been assigned for them. Subsequently, the critic is no longer a fair judge, but becomes “a Discoverer and Collector of Writers Faults” .

Supposedly, the main subject of the Tale is the history of three primary branches of Christianity: Catholicism, as represented by Peter; the Church of England, represented by Martyn; and the Dissenters, as shown through Jack. The beginning of religion, seen through the father, is pure because it is simple. There is only one man and one doctrine, but this basic structure cannot last since corruption must always occur. The father dies, and there are now three who must uphold God’s will. Greater numbers create a greater opportunity for temptation, and the first to stray is Peter. The narrator then spends a significant portion of the allegory describing how the Catholic Church manipulates the Bible to satisfy its materialistic desires and assert its own authority, which is done in every way from hoarding wealth to worshipping tailors to cursing everyone to hell if they fail to believe it. It becomes intolerant of any opposing view and excommunicates the other two branches. No longer under their elder brother’s influence, Martyn and Jack begin to reform. With the inherited coats symbolising religion and its decorations revealing the superficial state it has fallen into, the two brothers remove the shoulder knots, Indian figures and other unnecessary additions in order to restore their coats to the original condition. But Martyn realizes that removing all the stitching will tear the fabric, and lets some of it remain to ensure that nothing will be damaged. Jack, however, is overcome with zeal and rips his coat in his eagerness to purge all the impurities.

The corruption of the church is a given because almost two thousands years have passed since the beginning of Christianity. What is important in this aspect of the Tale is that three courses of action are detailed which show not only incorrect choices, but also the correct one. The obvious, right choice is represented by Martyn, who follows the advice of the narrator and does his best to recreate the original integrity of the church that existed in the beginning. Even though this can not be exactly replicated, it at least attempts to come as close as possible. Peter does the same as all of the hack critics and follows his own designs with no regard to any damage he might cause. Jack makes the same mistake as the moderns and ruins that which he is wishes to preserve, all because he uses the wrong method. “Whatever Reader desires to have a thorow Comprehension of an Author’s Thoughts, cannot take a better Method, than by putting himself into the Circumstances and Postures of Life, that the Writer was in, upon every important Passage as it flow’d from his Pen; For this will introduce a Parity and strict Correspondence of Idea’s between the Reader and the Author” .

 Though this passage is written in a teasing manner like most of the satire, it is a firm belief held by the narrator. Whether it is reading the works of the ancients, the Bible, or a contemporary author, the most benefit and the least damage will be ensured by mimicking the situation in which a work was written.But there’s a hopelessness that pervades the Tale, as if the narrator knows that perfection can be imitated, but only a few will bother to try and the result will only be a shadow of what existed before. Only a few words are written to describe the first years in which the church was true to Christianity, and the entire reformation in which Martyn makes his compromise is summed up in one paragraph. The rest of the allegory details each folly of the Catholics and Dissenters with great relish. Far more wit and energy is used and pleasure taken in condemning those that fall short of the ideal than those who struggle to recreate it. Swift dwells on the negative, offering little forgiveness for the sinners and faint praise for the reformers.

 Once the ideal is lost, all he finds worth commenting on are the faults. Because of the narrator’s pessimism, the best and the worst of mankind are intermixed, as if to show that humans have great potential, but being human also means that it can never be reached. And if the most sublime element of humans is based in the mind, particularly intelligent thought, then the worst is rooted in the physical, i.e., bodily functions. When the narrator makes such conclusions as “the gift of BELCHING” being “the noblest Act of a Rational Creature,” his combining of the highest and lowest aspects of mankind is a reflection of his disappointment that the two must exist together and thereby limit the rise into the intellectual . Because he dwells on the worst, not only does he remind the reader of the most base acts of humans, but he writes that it is the greatest we can expect to ever achieve. He implies that the physical is behind most all of our actions, including war: “Having to no purpose used all peaceable Endeavours, the collected part of the Semen, raised and enflamed, became adust, converted to Choler, turned head upon the spinal Duct, and ascended to the Brain. The very same Principle that influences a Bully to break the Windows of a Whore, who has jilted him, naturally stirs up a Great Prince to raise mighty Armies, and dream of nothing but Sieges, Battles, and Victories” . Because it is impossible to reach the intellectual greatness of the past, he concentrates on the worst of the body, as if that is all we can ever depend on and might as well be the reasoning behind all we do.

The path that leads to intellectual achievement is very narrow and leaves no room for digression: “Thus, Wit has its Walks and Purlieus, out of which it may not stray the breadth of an Hair, upon peril of being lost” . And though a few do attempt to follow it, they can never reach the sublime state that once existed, and every day that passes only limits their potential even more. The narrator does try to guide his readers by making the correct path clear, but he has little expectation that they will heed his advice. He can only see the loss of once was, so he invariably focuses on man’s inescapable decline into hopelessness. Even if he did desire to write in the manner of the great classics he admires rather than just criticizing others for not doing so, it would be pointless. As he sees it, anything he composes could never rival the historical texts because he is so separated from them. He has intensely studied their works and culture, but any attempt to imitate them must fall short of the original. And if his talent cannot be used to add to the glory of the classics, then it might as well be used to condemn the moderns. If all writing is ultimately a corruption of that which preceded it, as the narrator seems to believe, then it is better to write of something that is despised rather than revered.

At times the Tale appears to be nothing more than a prank, due to all of the digressions and unintelligible passages that are inserted. Swift states that he is giving his readers exactly what they want, because mankind “receives much greater Advantage by being Diverted than Instructed,” and happiness “is a perpetual Possession of being well Deceived” . Swift views this as the exact problem that is ruining current learning, and puts it under the readers’ nose to frustrate them with the same method they are promoting.

Conclusion

One of the great themes that Swift explores in A Tale of a Tub is the madness of pride involved in believing one’s own age to be supreme and the inferiority of derivative works. One of the attacks in the tale was on those who believe that being readers of works makes them the equals of the creators of works.

Victoria park visit

       Hello everyone, We are going to Victoria Park on the 20 th July,with a M.A Sem 1 and our senior and Yesha Bhatt ma'am . It is a acedemic visit. It is a joyful and wounded day.In this blog i will discuss about my experience.

History of Victoria Park

           On the edges of the Gaurishankar Lake lies the well-conserved Victoria Park. Sprawling over two sq km, Victoria Park was designed in the year 1888 by Mr. Proctor Sins for Maharaja Takhtasinhji of the Bhavnagar city. It is one of the oldest man made forests in the country and has rare species of flora and fauna.

Perpose of visit Victoria Park 

          In over syllabus, we are study romantic litrature.we are study 5 main poet of Romantic Age.

• William Wordsworth
• William Black
•  John Keats
• Byron
• Coleridge

 

This all poet writer about nature,and life 

Main theme of all poets

• The Sublime.
• Reaction against Neoclassicism.
• Imagination.
• Nature poetry.
• Melancholy.
• Medievalism.
• Hellenism.
• Supernaturalism.

        Some themes are connected with nature. So we are going to close the nature.When i see a Lake so i remember Wordsworth one poem.

William Wordsworth's poem" Daffodils"

I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o'er vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host, of golden daffodils;

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine

And twinkle on the milky way,

They stretched in never-ending line

Along the margin of a bay:

Ten thousand saw I at a glance,

Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they

Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:

A poet could not but be gay,

In such a jocund company:

I gazed—and gazed—but little thought

What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood,

They flash upon that inward eye

Which is the bliss of solitude;

And then my heart with pleasure fills,

And dances with the daffodils.

I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud

His ‘Daffodils’ poem, written in 1804 and beginning “I wandered lonely as a cloud” is the quintessential Lake District poem. Wordsworth moved to Dove Cottage in Grasmere in 1799 and then Rydal Mount in 1813. Both houses are still open to the public and attract visitors from all over the world.

Dove Cottage is situated in the heart of the Lake District and is the place where Wordsworth wrote some of his greatest poetry. His sister Dorothy kept her equally famous ´Grasmere Journal´ at Dove cottage, which is still on display in the museum. William found Dove Cottage by accident as he was out walking with his brother John and fellow poet, Samuel Taylor Coleridge. He moved in with his sister, Dorothy just a few weeks later.

Such was his love of the Lake District that he described it as: “A sort of national property in which every man has a right and interest who has an eye to perceive and a heart to enjoy”.

William Wordsworth died of pleurisy in April, 1850 at the age of 80 and was buried at St. Oswald´s Church in Grasmere. His widow Mary published his autobiographical ´poem to Coleridge´ as ´The Prelude´ just a few months after his death.

John Keats poem" On Autumn "

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,  

Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;

Conspiring with him how to load and bless  

With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;

To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,  

And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;      

To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells  

With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,

And still more, later flowers for the bees,

Until they think warm days will never cease,      

For summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?  

Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find

Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,  

Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;

Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,  

Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while thy hook      

Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:

And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep  

Steady thy laden head across a brook;  

Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,      

Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

Where are the songs of spring? Ay, Where are they?  

Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,--

While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,  

And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;

Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn  

Among the river sallows, borne aloft      

Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;

And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;  

Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft  

The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;      

And gathering swallows twitter in the skie

"To Autumn" is a poem by English Romantic poet John Keats (31 October 1795 – 23 February 1821). The work was composed on 19 September 1819 and published in 1820 in a volume of Keats's poetry that included Lamia and The Eve of St. Agnes. "To Autumn" is the final work in a group of poems known as Keats's "1819 odes". Although personal problems left him little time to devote to poetry in 1819, he composed "To Autumn" after a walk near Winchester one autumnal evening. The work marks the end of his poetic career, as he needed to earn money and could no longer devote himself to the lifestyle of a poet. A little over a year after the publication of "To Autumn", Keats died in Rome.

Now I will share some pictures of Victoria Park 

Absalom and Achitophel

 Question;- "Absalom and Achitophel "as a political satire.             

           Satire is a form of literature, the proclaimed purpose of which is the reform of human weaknesses or vices through laughter or disgust. Satire is different from scolding and sheer abuse, though it is prompted by indignation. Its aim is generally constructive, and need not arise from cynicism or misanthropy. The satirist applies the test of certain ethical, intellectual and social standards to men and women, and determines their degree of criminality or culpability. Satire naturally has a wide range; it can involve an attack on the vices of an age, or the defects of an individual or the follies common to the very species of mankind.

           Absalom and Achitophel is a landmark political satire by John Dryden. Dryden marks his satire with a concentrated and convincing poetic style. His satiric verse is majestic, what Pope calls: “The long majestic march and energy divine”. Critics have unanimously remarked on Dryden’s capacity to transform the trivial into the poetical; personal envy into the fury of imaginative creation. The obscure and the complicated is made clear and simple. All this transforming power is to be seen at the very beginning of Absalom and Achitophel. The state of ‘Israel’ is easy to understand and yet Dryden shows himself a master both of the Horatian and the Juvenalian styles of Satire. He is urbance witty devastating and vigorous, but very seldom petty.

Basically a Political Satire:

        Dryden called Absalom and Achitophel ‘a poem’ and not a satire, implying thereby that it had elements other than purely satirical. One cannot, for instance, ignore the obvious epic or heroic touches in it. All the same, the poem originated in the political situation of England at the time and one cannot fail to note that several political personalities are satirised in it. Published in November 1681, the theme was suggested by the king to Dryden. At this time, the question of succession to King Charles had assumed great importance. The Earl of Shaftesbury had been thrown into prison to face a charge of high treason. There were two contenders for the succession. Firstly, Charles’ brother James, Duke of York, a known Roman Catholic; the second contender was Charles’ illegitimate son, the Protestant Duke of Monmouth. The Whigs supported Monmouth while the Tories supported the cause of James in order to ensure stability in the country. There was great public unrest on account of the uncertainty of succession. King Charles II saw to it that the Exclusion bill brought before Parliament, to exclude the succession of his brother James, could not be pushed through. The earl of Shaftesbury, a highly ambitious man, sought to capitalise on this unrest. He also urged Monmouth to rebel against his father. The King, though fond of his illegitimate son, did not support his succession because that would have been against law. The Earl of Shaftesbury was arrested on a charge of high treason and lost popular support.

Dryden’s Aim in Absalom and Achitophel:

           The aim of Dryden was to support the King and to expose his enemies. Of course, Charles had his own weaknesses; he was extremely fond of women. But Dryden puts a charitable mantel over his sexual sins. He is mild in dealing with his real vices. The king himself did not think unfavourably of his love affairs. Sexual licence was the order of the age and as such, it did not deserve condemnation. Dryden has nothing but praise for the king’s moderation in political matters and his leniency towards rebels. Dryden’s lash falls on the King’s enemies particularly the Earl of Shaftesbury. He was reckless politician without any principles who, “ having tried in vain to seduce Charles to arbitrary government had turned round and now drives down the current”. Dryden dreads the fickleness of the mob and he is not sure to what extremes a crowd can go. However, the king’s strictness and instinct for the rule of law won for him popular support and he was able to determine the succession according to his desire. Dryden’s reference to the godlike David shows his flattery of the King and his belief in the “Theory of the Divine Right of Kings”.

Political Satire Cast in Biblical Mould:

        Dryden chose the well known Biblical story of Absalom revolting against his father David, at the wicked instigation of Achitophel, in order to satirise the contemporary political situation. The choice of a Biblical allegory is not original on dryden’s part, but his general treatment of the subject is beyond comparison, as Courthope points out. But all the while Dryden takes care to see that the political satire in not lost in the confusion of a too intricate Biblical parallelism. The advantage of setting the story in pre-Christian times is obvious as it gave Dryden had at once to praise the King and satirise the King’s opponents. To discredit the opponents he had to emphasise on Monmouth’s illegitimacy; but at the same time he had to see that Charles (who was Monmouth’s father) was not adversely affected by his criticism. He could not openly condone Charles’ loose morals; at the same time, he could not openly criticise it either. With a masterly touch he sets the poem :

 

         “In pious times are priestcraft did begin

          Before polygamy was made a sin;

          When man on maultiplied his kind,

         Ere one to one was cursedly confined….”

            The ironical undertone cannot be missed; Dryden is obviously laughing up his sleeve at Charles himself, who, as a witty patron, could not have missed it, nor failed to enjoy it.

Conclusion

                      Dryden is correctly regarded as the most vigorous and polished of English satirists combining refinement with fervour. Dryden is unequalled at debating in rhyme and Absalom and Achitophel displays his power of arguing in verse. It may be said that Absalom and Achitophel has no rival in the field of political satire. Apart from the contemporary interest of the poem and its historical value, it appeal to the modern reader lies in its observations on English character and on the weaknesses of man in general. His generalisations on human nature have a perennial interest. Dryden triumphed over the peculiar difficulties of his chosen theme. He had to give, not abuse or politics,but the poetry of abuse and politics. He had to criticise a son whom the father still liked; he had to make Shaftesbury denounce the King but he had to see to it that the King’s susceptibilities were not wounded. He had to praise without sounding servile and he had to criticise artistically. Dryden achieves all this cleverly and skilfully. Achitophel’s denunciation of the king assumes the shades of a eulogy in Charles’ eyes. Absalom is a misguided instrument in Achitophel’s hands. The poem is certainly a political satire, but it is a blend of dignity with incisive and effective satire.

 

 

Shitala satam

  Hello everyone, this blog is response to kavisha ma'am's task.In this blog i will discuss about shitala satam.

          Randhan Chhath is an important date particularly in the Hindu Gujarati calendar it falls on the 6th day of Shrava Mahina, it is celebrated one day before Shitala Satam.  On this day no fires are lit in the home including the cooker. Families eat the food cooked on the day before which is Ramdhan  Chhath.

         The religious festival is dedicated to the Goddess Shitala Ma.  Lots of lovely food is prepared on the day of Randhan Chhath and consumed on the next day Shitala Satam. In India,every family would prepare puri, debra, potatoe shak, duud pak, chana shak, and all the family would sit and share the food after the pooja.

Religious reasons 

       The deity is principally featured as a women’s goddess, portrayed as a mother who defends children from paediatric ailments, such as exanthemata. She also serves as a fertility goddess, who assists women in finding good husbands and the conception of healthy sons. Her auspicious presence promises the welfare of the family, and is also considered to protect the devotee's sources of livelihood. Sheetala is also summoned to ensure refreshing rainfall and the prevention of famines, droughts, as well as cattle diseases.

The Skanda Purana describes her role:

For the sake of quelling boils and blisters (of smallpox) and for the sake of the children, a devotee takes Masūra lentils by measures and grinds them. Due to the power of Śītalā, children become free from the disease.

           Shitala, (Hindi: “She Who Is Cool”) Indian goddess of smallpox and of other infectious diseases. She is worshipped under this name throughout the regions of South Asia in which Indo-Aryan languages are spoken. In India she is widely worshipped in the rural areas of West Bengal state. In much of Dravidian-speaking India, a goddess called Mariamma possesses similar disease-causing powers. Although temples to Shitala are found in various places in North India, including Varanasi (Benares), her mythology is highly elaborated in West Bengal and Bangladesh, where mangal-kavya (“auspicious poems”) in Bengali, dating mainly from the 18th and 19th centuries, describe the appearance of the goddess among mortals, their rejection of her, and the smallpox epidemics that she visited upon them. She is worshipped in villagewide rites mainly in the dry weather of winter and spring, the seasons most favourable to smallpox transmission

Scientific reason 

       Sheetala Saptami today; the scientific reason behind having a cold meal cooked a day earlier on this day

         This vrat calls for devotees eating 'stale' but clean food. It has to be cold (room temperature) and must include sour elements. What is the science behind the prescribed manner of the Shitala Saptami festival?

Shitla Mata or Sheetala Mata moorti

       Shitla Mata or Sheetala Mata moortiKey HighlightsSheetala Saptami is a day on which Mata Sheetala or Goddess Shitala is worshippedOn this day, devotees pray for good health and long life of their childrenCold food, cooked a day earlier and stored in a safe manner, along with tangy elements is to be eaten this day

         It is called by several names. In Gujarat, they call it the Sheetala Satam, Shitala Satam or Shitala Saptami. It falls on the seventh day of the Krishna Paksha (dark fortnight/waning fortnight) of the Hindu calendar based on lunar phases.

            Devotees take on a vrat or fasting ritual complete with worship rituals. The fast is in honour of Shiatala Mata the Goddess mentioned in Skanda Puranas. She is depicted riding a donkey and carries a broom. Women worship her to pray for the health and long life of their children. 

A day of no cooking, a day to eat food cooked a day earlier

        This festival is at a time when the region (India being a tropical country) is in the midst of the monsoon. At several places, it is pretty hot and humid.

          It is said that eating simple, non-spicy, cold food stored safely from a day before is prescribed to be eaten on this day according to the shastras (ancient principles) as a relaxant to the digestive system. Sheetal is cold. The Sheetala Mata vrat incorporates 'sheetal' (cold, calming) food so that the stomach is not aggravated and gets food that is easy to digest. 

          One is supposed to bathe in water at room temperature. No hot water baths on this day. This adds to overall body invigoration. 

The symbolism of elements Sheetala Mata wears:

         The Goddess is depicted carrying a broom and wearing a garland of neem leaves to signify the importance of cleanliness and keeping your surroundings clean. She is also shown carrying a kalash or a small pot of water.

         Clean water is essential for good health. The Goddess carrying a kalash of water is significant in those aspects.

   

         Neem is a natural, tree product that has immense medicinal value. In the olden days when antibiotics had not yet been discovered, neem would be the go-to element in nature to carry out body detox or fight germs and infection. At the time of peaking monsoon, the body can use all support it gets to stay calmer, healthier and energetic.

The Vitamin-C diet our ancestors valued:

         Sheetala Mata is considered as a Goddess who frees humans of diseases and her idol carries the elements that depict things that keep us healthier. Even for those who do not believe in religious principles, the health and hygiene principles underlying this worship are undeniable.

Vaccination of smallpox

          The smallpox vaccine is the first vaccine to be developed against a contagious disease. In 1796, the British doctor Edward Jenner demonstrated that an infection with the relatively mild cowpox virus conferred immunity against the deadly smallpox virus. Cowpox served as a natural vaccine until the modern smallpox vaccine emerged in the 20th century. From 1958 to 1977, the World Health Organization (WHO) conducted a global vaccination campaign that eradicated smallpox, making it the only human disease to be eradicated. Although routine smallpox vaccination is no longer performed on the general public, the vaccine is still being produced to guard against bioterrorism, biological warfare, and monkeypox.

Frankenstein movie review

 Hello everyone, this blog is response to Yesha Bhatt ma'am's activity.In this blog i will discuss about Frankenstein movie review.

Question:- movie review of' Frankenstein '

           Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is a 1994 science fiction horror film directed by Kenneth Branagh who also stars as Victor Frankenstein, with Robert De Niro portraying Frankenstein's monster (called The Creation in the film), and co-stars Tom Hulce, Helena Bonham Carter, Ian Holm, John Cleese, Richard Briers and Aidan Quinn. Considered the most faithful film adaptation of Mary Shelley's 1818 novel, Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, despite several differences and additions in plot from the novel, the film follows a medical student named Victor Frankenstein who creates new life in the form of a monster composed of various corpses' body parts.

            Mary Shelley's Frankenstein premiered at the London Film Festival, and was released theatrically on November 4, 1994, by TriStar Pictures. The film received mixed reviews from critics, grossing $112 million worldwide on a budget of $45 million, deeming it less successful than the previous Francis Ford Coppola-produced horror adaptation, Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992).

Analysis of the movie

            In 1794, Captain Walton leads a troubled expedition to reach the North Pole. While their ship is trapped in the ice of the Arctic Sea, the crew hears a frightening noise and witnesses a mysterious figure killing their sled dogs before vanishing. The crew rescues a man, Victor Frankenstein, who had fallen in the Arctic waters. When Walton tells Victor of his determination to continue the expedition, Victor replies, "Do you share my madness?" He proceeds to tell Walton and the crew his life story, presented in flashback.

            Victor grows up in Geneva with his adopted sister, Elizabeth Lavenza, the love of his life. Before he leaves for the University of Ingolstadt, Victor's mother dies giving birth to his brother William. Devastated by her loss, Victor vows on his mother's grave that he will find a way to conquer death. Victor and his friend Henry Clerval study under Shmael Augustus Waldman, a professor whose notes contain information on how to create life; Waldman warns Victor not to use them, lest he create an "abomination".

            While performing vaccinations, Waldman is murdered by a patient, who is later hanged in the village square. Using the killer's body, a leg from a fellow student who died of cholera, and Waldman's brain, Victor builds a creature based on the professor's notes. He is so obsessed with his work that he drives Elizabeth away when she comes to take him away from Ingolstadt, which is being quarantined amid a cholera epidemic. Victor finally gives his creation life, but he is horrified by the creature's hideous appearance and tries to kill him. Frightened and confused, the creature steals Victor's coat and flees the laboratory, and is later driven away by the townspeople when he tries to steal food.

           The creature finds shelter in a family's barn and stays there for months without their knowledge, gradually learning to read and speak by watching them. He attempts to earn their trust by anonymously bringing them food, and eventually converses with the elderly, blind patriarch after murdering an abusive debt collector. When the blind man's family returns, however, they are terrified of the creature and chase him away. The creature finds Victor's journal in his coat and learns of the circumstances of his creation. He burns down the farm and vows revenge on Victor for bringing him into a world that hates him.

             Victor returns to Geneva to marry Elizabeth, only to find that his younger brother William has been murdered. The Frankensteins' servant Justine is blamed for the crime and hanged, but Victor knows the creature is responsible. The creature abducts Victor and demands that he make a female companion for him, promising to leave his creator in peace in return. Victor begins gathering the tools he used to create life, but when the creature insists that he use Justine's body to make the companion, a disgusted Victor breaks his promise. The creature exacts his revenge on Victor's wedding night by breaking into Elizabeth's bridal suite and ripping her heart out.

            Desperate with grief, Victor races home to bring Elizabeth back to life. He stitches Elizabeth's head onto Justine's body and reanimates her as a disfigured, mindless shadow of her former self. The creature appears, demanding Elizabeth as his bride. Victor and the creature fight for Elizabeth's affections, but Elizabeth, horrified by her own reflection, commits suicide by setting herself on fire. Both Victor and the creature escape as the mansion burns down.

          The story returns to the Arctic. Victor tells Walton that he has been pursuing his creation for months to kill him. Soon after relating his story, Victor dies of pneumonia. Walton discovers the creature weeping over Victor's body, having lost the only family he has ever known. The crew prepares a funeral pyre, but the ceremony is interrupted when the ice around the ship cracks. Walton invites the creature to stay with the ship, but the creature insists on remaining with the pyre. He takes the torch and burns himself alive with Victor's body. Walton, having seen the consequences of Victor's obsession, orders the ship to return home.

Jude the Obscure

 Question:- Critical analysis of 'Jude the Obscure '.

 

 

(1). Autobiographical Elements.

        Hardy has portrayed Jude as a prototype of himself. Without any tutorial help Hardy had mastered Greek and in the novel, Jude is credited with such an achievement. Hardy wanted to enter the portals of Oxford but did not do so. In the novel the external circumstances did compel Jude to desist from his attempt to become an academician. Hardy had some romantic attachment towards the illegitimate daughter of his own sister whom he had originally mistaken to be a cousin of his. After the realisation of the correct relationship Hardy had entrusted his niece Tryphena to the guidance and care of Horace Moule, an elderly gentleman. In the novel a similar incident is narrated when Jude himself marries off Sue to the elderly schoolmaster Phillotson. Sue’s cleverness in English lettering and calligraphy is only a transference of Tryphena’s similar capacity. Hardy and his first wife Emma had no blissful conjugal life and since in Jude the Obscure this has been narrated at length, in an alluded form no doubt, Emma tried to prevent the publication of the novel lest she should be placed in an embarrassing situation. 

(2). Inner tensions in structure of the novel. 

            The novel is the description of the tragedy of Jude as well as Sue—a tragedy of unrealised ambitions. What causes that tragedy? Is it indifferent force of circumstance? Is it the hostility of the society? Is it the all-powerful fate? In the ultimate analysis the cause crystallises itself into the inner tensions that Jude experiences. The series of incidents in the novel are presented, not with the aim of weaving them into a coherent plot, but to give coherence in the form of personal impressions.

      Jude and the intellectual ideal: disillusionment. Oxford has been the shining ideal of Jude's intellectual life. As Sue says, “Christminster was intended when the colleges were founded for those men with a passion for learning but no money or opportunities of friends. You were swallowed off the pavement by the millionaires’ sons”. Thus, one of the declared social purposes of Jude the Obscure is the criticism of the snobbishness of the people at the helm of educational affairs. Thomas Gray the product of the Cambridge University lamented over “Mute inglorious Miltons” lying embedded in the village churchyard. But Hardy produced a tragic hero fully alive and vociferous to a certain extent and yet, far from being a Milton nay even a mere graduate! Dickens had a greater influence on social reforms than Hardy but unfortunately he did not take up university education asa theme of any his novels. To be sure, after the publication of Jude The Obscure the English public did wake up and institutions like Ruskin College were founded to provide opportunities at the University for working class men. As depicted in the novel, Sue and the University, both seemed to Jude as objects of mysterious appeal but both of them ultimately landed him in disillusion. Despite the fact that both of them could have accorded him fulfilment, both of them frustrated him miserably Jude's craving for intellectual achievement simply resulted in being mockingly called “Tutor of St Slum” and his patient devoted attention to Sue brought him only misery in loss of the job, his children, his wife or wives and finally his life.

      Jude and Sue: counterparts on emotional plane, incomplete without one another.Sue is a bodiless phantom thoroughly unwomanly. Were Sue and Jude meant for each other? On the face of the ten commandments Hardy brought them together. They had similarities but the contrasts were also many. Hardy did the biblical trick of creating Sue by projecting one side of the character of Jude. As Phillotson is made to remark “they seem to be one person split in two.” Jude himself perceives something akin to this, when Sue escapes from the college hostel and lands herself at his lodgings in drenched clothes. She had fled to him in her trouble in the same manner as he had fled to her in his trouble. Hardy then calls them as counterparts. Both of them take interest in Pagan art and literature. Both of them have saintly unworldly streaks. Sue is Jude masquerading as himself on a Sunday. Jude's intellect nerves, sensitivity and bodiless essence have found a place in Sue. This non-physical purity coupled with intellectuality and sensitivity that has been developed in Sue contributes much to the attraction which Jude finds unable to resist. Although his yearning remained hopeless and debilitating Sue was the object of Jude’s ideal, making him recall his lost innocence before the advent of Arabella into his life.

       Arabella is pictured as a vulgar coarse woman of excessive voluptuousness. As Lawrence says, Hardy come out as a bad artist when he is offended by her coarseness, by her false hair, crudities and makes her the villain of the piece. But we cannot agree with Lawrence when he crowns Arabella as the heroine. Viewed dispassionately neither Sue nor Arabella can be raised to that status. Despite her vulgarity Arabella exhibits sound commonsense and shrewd intelligence on many occasions. The unvoiced call of woman to man arrests Jude and that call came from the coarse Arabella!

  (3). The twin-themes of the novel. 

     

      Education and sex constitute the twin themes of the novel. Different aspects of human endeavour in the realms of academic distinction and sexual satisfaction are dealt with in the novel. As Hardy has clearly explained in his preface, Jude the Obscure is “the story of the deadly war waged between flesh and spirit and it deals with the fret and fever, derision and disaster that may press in the wake of the strongest passion known to humanity”. As for the education theme it was Hardy's endeavour in the novel to portray the ups and downs, trials and tribulations of a person who, in spite of the fact that he possesses all the fundamental requirements of a prospective scholar along with a disinterested intellectual zeal, forfeits the claim for sympathetic considerations and all possible encouragement merely because he happens to be over-sensuous where beautiful women are concerned and because he has a manifest weakness for the glass that inebriates but not cheers. The very fact that he succumbs to the charms of Arabella and the intellectual romanticism of Sue later indicates that he is not very enthusiastic in his scholastic pursuits. In regard to the sex and marriage theme Hardy portrays the war waged by flesh and spirit not only against each other but also against Jude. For Sue represents spirit and Arabella the flesh and both of them claim mastery over Jude who, caught between them, experiences a predicament. The destructive power of sexuality is remarkably indicated through the activities of Arabella, because the son given birth to by Arabella happens to be the murderer of his stepbrothers and thereby he affects the whole course of the later life of Sue.

(4). Frustration and disillusionment rather than missed chances.

         In his earlier novels Hardy has been handling the theme of love very delicately like a romantic idyll. But in his later novels, especially in Jude the Obscure animality, frustration and disillusionmen gain the upper hand. Of course Victorian morality and unwritten moral codes of even progressive Victorian writers have restricted the wayward progress of his pen. Still many criticised the unusualness in the sexual behaviour out of wedlock of Jude and Sue. The critical examination of the sacrament and institution of marriage indulged in by Hardy is as noteworthy as the critical examination of the then current educational system. Jude's relationships with Arabella did not yield permanent and satisfactory results because she had been over-voluptuous, coarse and vulgar. His relationship with Sue also did not bear adequate pleasure of a permanent nature because she was more spirit tjhan flesh and body. In both the instances the frustrating influence had been inevitable.

 (5). How far is Jude the Obscure a Realistic Novel? 

           It is nearly a century since this novel has seen the light of the day. What was in vogue at the time of Hardy’s middle age (he was fifty-five when it was published and he lived more than thirty years after that) cannot be expected to hold good now. Idealism, expressionism and symbolism reigned supreme in the literary realm as far as poetry by was concerned and in the realm of fiction the realism of the type found in the novels of Dickens had attracted the readers and hence they were applauded by critics.

      The realism in Hardy’s novels is highly bedecked and sublimated by expressionism, symbolism and intellectual distortion. It may be justifiably remarked that Hardy has chalked out his own brand of realistic portrayal, wherein we can see the common textures of everyday life faithfully rendered in spite of the fact that he evidently failed very often in bringing out verisimilitude. Often he asserts certain things without convincing us by means of the subsequent events. For example take the case of Jude’s mastery of Greek and Latin by his own efforts. It is a great intellectual feat which ordinary men of average intellectual background are not capable of achieving. If really Jude had achieved that, it is a great credit to him. Then why did he fail in his University career? Surely he could have had the patronage of some academician who could not be blind to this scholarly achievement. Hardy’s critical approach to the educational problems vis-a-vis the injustices of the social firamework cannot therefore be justifiably said to be following the realistic pattern.

      The creation of the abnormal child “Father Time” may be amusing— nay a bit awful too—but it does not convince us as to the possibility of such a child walking the realistic paths of the society then, now or in the future. The dialogues in the novel are more like learned dissertations of the participants in an academic seminar or the jewels of wisdom and scholarship coming out from the mouths of distinguished elocutionists. The philosophic monologues of Jude and Sue now and then regarding the sufferings they have to bear with are tediously long, apart from the fact that the expressions used are inadequate and imprecise in many places. Realism has been attempted by Hardy but his success therein is doubtful. A fantastic touch lifts his novel from the drab realism of the documentary type to certain heights of imaginative fancy.

 

(6). A novel of purposeful propaganda.

              The highly restricting clauses of the divorce law, the problems of marriages contracted by immature people on mere impulse of the moment, the laws governing marriages in general and such other allied topics had been the central themes of many short and long novels written during the last few decades of the nineteenth century. Hardy admitted in his preface that “the marriage laws had been used in great part as the tragic machinery of the tale”. He hacl his own personal views on a rational attitude to divorce. Still the main theme in the novel Jude the Obscure is definitely not the importance or otherwise of amendments to marriage laws to make life of married couples more blissful. Why did the life of Jude and Sue not give them adequate pleasure? Hardy makes us understand that the stance of the leaders of the society had been the cause of their unhappiness. They were annoyed because these did not conform to the conventions of the society.

          Sue was against the ceremony of marriage throughout. She was of the opinion that marriage is only a sordid contract based on material convenience in householding. She was against the laws governing marriage as they then existed. She used to say that domestic laws should be made according to temperaments which should be classified. Further she desired that one ought to be allowed to undo what one has done ignorantly. This has reference to divorce laws. Even after the two-fold divorce decrees, viz, between Phillotson and Sue as well as Jude and Arabella, Sue felt that the iron contract of a formal marriage might extinguish Jude's love for her. To cherish her under a government stamp and to consider her licensed to be loved on the premises by Jude, was something horrid and sordid in Sue’s opinion. Jude's opinion is better and less rigid. He points out that people go on marrying because they are unable to resist natural forces. Sue was adamant in her opinion that legal marriage was a hopelessly vulgar institution. Having projected the different ideas regarding marriage as an institution through his characters, Hardy ultimately appears himself to be of the opinion that the marriage bond is unreasonable, and that unhappiness is inevitable in marriage. This standpoint is the reason why some critics considered Jude the Obscure as a novel of propaganda against marriage and divorce laws.

(7). Deadly war waged between flesh and spirit. 

          Hardy proudly announces in his preface that his novel dramatises a deadly war between flesh and spirit. But it is doubtful whether the idea has been properly developed to such an extent as to merit the professed fact. The interior battle between the ardour for sexual pleasure and a noble ideal of resisting the temptation has not been consistently narrated. The fact that Sue was not for sexual intercourse does not mean that she represents the standpoint of certain saintly men and women who abstain from sensual pleasures by means of disciplined mind. Sue’s mentality is somewhere between the frigidity of a sexually immature and underdeveloped woman and the abhorrence of an intellectual woman under the mistaken notion that the sexual act is something vulgar. The fact that Arabella exhibits some vulgarity in the matter of sexual craving does not carry us far into the arena of a battle between idealism and sensualism. Jude succumbs to her charms without even a show of a fight or resistance. One-way advance of sensuality without resistance or protest cannot be a war at all, much less a “deadly war”. The poor girl wanted economic security in life. She had only one weapon in her arsenal, viz., the seductive charms of a fairly beautiful woman. She used her assets with the expected results within her limited sphere.

          One way of interpreting Hardy's epithet is in the following sense. Spirit is the struggling spirit of man and the flesh is the obstructiveness of an indifferent society bent on mischief if flouted. Man and senseless circumstances are always at loggerheads. It is not the adverse destiny that is responsible for human unhappiness, as Sue began to think after the premature death of her children. Roots of human tragedy must be traced to the antagonistic elements in the society. A rational attitude demands that we do not fall into error of fatalists who blame providence for adverse results and relieve society of that responsibility. Father Time too is not an instrument of fate but only a by-product of the wayward, callous and corrupt society.

(8). Disappointments and unfulfilled aims: the effect on Jude and Sue.

         In the original preface to his novel Hardy mentions that Jude the Obscure pointed to the unfulfilled aims. Man’s life on Earth is never a bed of roses irrespective of his status in society or his financial achievement or cultural background. Why it fails is something beyond our comprehension. Something goes wrong somewhere and man suffers. Hardy attempts to portray this in all its aspects. In some places he says that the scorn of Nature for man’s finer emotions and its lack of interest in his aspirations is responsible for his sufferings. In other places he criticises the antagonism of society for human sufferings. Through Jude he anticipates the criticism of later enlightened members of the society and it is remarked—“When people of a later age look back upon the barbarous customs and superstitions of the times that we have unhappiness to live in, what will they say!” In the realm of academic pursuits the fact that Jude could not enter university because he hailed from a poor family is a justifiable criticism of the education system as it existed in England then. Of course the situation improved a lot subsequently. Here also the criticism is nowhere sustained throughout. Casual remarks here and there are no doubt made. The effect of adverse reactions in fellowbeings was terrible in the case of Jude and Sue. These experiences enlarged Jude's views of life, laws, customs and dogmas but unfortunately what happened to Sue was just the opposite. The onslaught of the triple tragedy on Sue's mind and intellect was too upsetting to enable her to maintain a balanced equilibrium. Sue becomes too submissive a traditionalist to sustain her independence of mind.

(9). Deviations and deficiencies. 

          The development of the plot, the portrayal of characters and the description of events and attitudes etc., in Jude the Obscure show distinct deviations from the other novels of Hardy. The tragic hero is a working class intellectual. The theme and the hero have been taken from the contemporary world. Hence there is no room in this novel for great heroic or poetic scenes. The thinness of the whole texture of the writing in this novel as compared with the earlier novels The Return of the Native and Tess is specially noteworthy. The world described and the links that bind men to Nature are also equally thin. The absence of poetic scenes and great heroic descriptions can be considered a great deficiency in this novel.

        In Far From the Madding Crowd and The Mayor of Casterbridge there had been ample scope for remarkable episodes in the description of which Hardy was very strong. But Jude and Sue hail from the working class though they could rise to the level of intellectuals; they had been uprooted from the way of life represented in the earlier novels that could portray Sergeant Troy's sword-play and Gabriel Oak's fight to cover the wheat ricks during the storm or scenes of gambling on the heath. Hardy was never very strong in the manipulation of plot. Shrinkage in the design throws the emphasis on this and hence serious improbabilities crop up. Improbabilities mar the realistic features of this novel. Hardy's explicit airing of his views on the tragic situation of man causes an artistic imbalance in the novel. Probably the fact that Hardy did not employ much of his poetic quality and experience in Jude the Obscure has lent to it partially some of its power and impressiveness. The high-principled soft-minded hypersensitive Jude may be a characteristic Hardy hero but Sue indicates a departure from Hardy's other heroines with her ambiguity, sexual ambivalence and the fearlessness of the “New Woman”. The subtlety of the delineation of her character graphically represents the fact that woman of her type is not uncommon in the modem world. Unfortunately the only reputed writer of any distinction who could fully understand Hardy’s achievement in creating this heroine is D.H. Lawrence.

(10). Worth of Jude the Obscure.

           This is the last novel that Hardy wrote. The Well-Beloved was published after Jude the Obscure but most of it had already been written before. The cause of the uproar against Jude the Obscure may seem ludicrous to us. In fact people will call it a conservative work on the theme of love which the modern writers treat without any reservation at all. Despite his talent, Hardy had carefully avoided exciting descriptions of lovemaking in his superb novel. Sue Bridehead might have startled some of his readers as ultra-modern and unorthodox, but in the eyes of the modern generation, she ceases to be modern at all. The Victorian public could be thoroughly shocked by a frank treatment of the sexual under-theme of Hardy's novel. But Hardy averred (we know that it is the simple truth) that he had treated less frankly than he had wished. Unfortunately in the opinion of many of his contemporaries the treatment was more frank than what was considered by them to be normal and hence acceptable. In the view of the Victorian sociologists, marriage as an institution and Oxford as the temple of learning and enlightenment were highly venerable. Hence Hardy's critical approach to those two did provoke a good deal of resentment. They would not have minded much his attack on social and religious hypocrisy even if it had been particularly more virulent than what is actually was. Hardy's fatalistic tendency caused some adverse remarks from certain quarters but on the whole the reading public mildly commended it after reading Tess of the D’Urbervilles (published in 1891) though it did not reach the level of open approbation.

Post Truth

            Hello, everyone. This blog is response from Dilip Barad Sir's activity.In this blog i will discuss about post truth.

Post truth meaning 

            According to Cambridge dictionary post truth means"relating to a situation in which people are more likely to accept an argument based on their emotions and beliefs, rather than one based on facts"

Introduction 

          Post-truth is a term that refers to the 21st century widespread documentation of and concern about disputes over public truth claims. The term's academic development refers to the theories and research that explain the historically specific causes and the effects of the phenomenon.

           While the term was used academically and publicly before 2016 (post-truth politics),Oxford Dictionaries popularly defined it as "relating to and denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief." The term was named Oxford Dictionaries Word of the Year in 2016, after the term's proliferation in the 2016 United States presidential election and the Brexit referendum in the United Kingdom. Oxford dictionaries further note that post-truth was often used as an adjective to signal a distinctive kind of politics – post-truth politics.

        Some scholars argue that post-truth has similarities with past moral, epistemic, and political debates about relativism, postmodernity, and dishonesty in politics,[9] while others insist that post-truth is specifically concerned with 21st century communication technologies and cultural practices. Some influential philosophers are sceptical of the division between facts and values. They argue that scientific facts are socially produced through relations of power. The French philosopher Bruno Latour has been criticised for contributing to the intellectual foundations for post-truth. In 2018, the New York Times ran a profile on Bruno Latour and post-truth politics. According to the article, "In a series of controversial books in the 1970s and 1980s, argued that scientific facts should instead be seen as a product of scientific inquiry. Facts, Latour said, were 'networked'; they stood or fell not on the strength of their inherent veracity but on the strength of the institutions and practices that produced them and made them intelligible."However, the article claims that it is a misinterpretation to claim that Latour doesn't believe in reality or that truth is relative: "Had they been among our circus that day, Latour's critics might have felt that there was something odd about the scene – the old adversary of science worshipers kneeling before the altar of science. But what they would have missed – what they have always missed – was that Latour never sought to deny the existence of gravity. He has been doing something much more unusual: trying to redescribe the conditions by which this knowledge comes to be known." In this sense, Latour (or Michel Foucault as well) draws attention to the institutional and practical contingencies for producing knowledge.

Example of post truth

          Even the more conventional array of lies produced by Trump are characterised by carelessness, shamelessness and numerousness. Many of his lies are misrepresentations of long-term processes in his own favour, false statements about media coverage, or lies about numbers – most recently about the number of victims of hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico. When lies become prevalent enough, the media and democratic audience easily become disoriented, losing the basic coordinates that usually support critical scrutiny.

Example in India 

Rahul Gandhi 

          From around 2012 onward, photoshopped images, memes, jokes were spread to create Rahul Gandhi’s ‘pappu’ image which consisted of calling him idiot, dumb, joker, comedian, half brained, under developed, man child who still watches cartoon network and hides behind his mother’s saree pallu. There were no facts in this narrative, only highly provocative triggers for the online masses to go ahead and lash out at a public figure with all the hate in the world. 

           The provocation often comes directly from BJP IT Cell head Twitter’s account containing ill-timed photographs or cleverly edited videos of Rahul Gandhi aimed at comic relief. These are then spread by other BJP leaders and influencers like pro-BJP journalists, bloggers etc. In Nov 2017, jokes went viral that Rahul Gandhi said he will install a machine to turn potatoes into gold. Rahul never said any such thing. But if you only watch a 20 seconds video clip edited out of the longer version of his speech, you would indeed see and hear him speaking in first person, “I would install such a machine that if you put potatoes from one side it would give you gold from the other.” He said it, but he didn’t say it, what’s the truth here? The truth is that for those 20 seconds Rahul was using sarcasm and mimicry to allege Mr. Modi of showing bizarre unrealistic dreams to potato farmers of turning their potatoes into gold. Who comes up with such sinister ideas of taking a 20 seconds of audio video clip out of context to suit a particular narrative, and why? And why do millions of social media users actually believe that he might have said it? Why does it stick on even after several media platforms busting the fake narrative?

Narendra Modi 

         In November 2016, Modi took to national television to announce that the country’s largest currency bills would no longer be in circulation, starting the very next day. The move, which was introduced ostensibly to clamp down on money laundering, eliminated 86% of India’s paper currency. Indians rushed to exchange their old notes, and in the days-long melee that ensued, wild rumours circulated online: that shops were set to hike the price of essential commodities, that new notes were imprinted with a “nano GPS-chip” that would enable the government to track down money launderers.  

Ram Setu

          An example of such statements that went viral in India was when the Science Channel, sponsored by Discovery Communications, released a two-and-a-half-minute video on December 11, 2017, on the Ram Setu, the shallow water coral formation in the Bay of Bengal, off the coast of Rameswaram. Some sections of the media circulated this as fresh evidence posited by a group of “American scientists” to support the theory that a rock formation within the Palk Bay is actually the bridge that Lord Ram and his army built to reach Sri Lanka as described in the Ramayana.

       The political class lapped this up ignoring the fact that the video was only a promo for an upcoming series called ‘What on Earth’, which seeks to discuss the images of some attention-grabbing surficial structures as captured by satellites.