Title Significance of "The Home and The World"

Hello,

       This Blog is an Assignment of paper no.: 201-  Indian English Literature Pre-independence .In this assignment I am discussing Title significance of "The Home and The World". 

Personal Information 

Name:- Mansi B. Gujadiya

Roll Number:-12

Enrollment Number:-4069206420220013

Batch:-M.A SEM -3( 2022-23 )

Email ID:- mansigajjar10131@gmail.com

Paper Number:-201

Paper Code:-22406

Paper Name:-Indian English Literature Pre-independence

Submitted to:- English department MKBU

Topic:- Title Significance of "The Home and The World"

 Introduction 

The Home and the World could be read in more than one way, and through different interpretations. The Home and the World is a novel that reads like an allegory on the failure of the Indian nationalist projects,3 circling around the issues of “Home” versus “World,” tradition versus modernity, created by the active involvement of the colonisers in the cultural, economic and administrative life of the colonised. It could be read as an allegory on the failure of Indian nationalism to accept tradition and modernity, home and the world, concurrently. In addition, the novel offers an alternative nationalist project that could free India from its obsession with the colonising powers: true freedom of the nationalist imagination will be gained by going beyond every form of ideological prejudice and separation, and by synthesising every conceivable value that could be useful for the development and maintenance of the nation. And as a concrete example of his alternative nationalist project, Tagore founded Visva Bharati University in Santiniketan in 1921.

About the Poet

Rabindranath Tagore, widely regarded as one of the greatest poets in the world, was an overall genius whose contributions are spread through literature, music, art, and social reform. Born on .May 7, 1861, in Calcutta (now Kolkata), India, Tagore was a prolific writer who produced a vast body of work comprising poems, songs, plays, essays, and novels. His deep philosophical insights and lyrical expressions have earned him immense admiration, both in his homeland and globally.

As a child, Tagore displayed a keen interest in literature and was encouraged by his family to pursue his passion. He began writing poems at a young age and published his first collection of poetry, "Bhanusimha Thakurer Padabali," at 16. His poetry reflects a deep sensitivity to the world around him, encompassing themes of love, nature, spirituality, and the complexities of human emotions. His writing style is marked by a profound simplicity that captures the essence of his thoughts and feelings. In addition to his creative pursuits, Tagore was deeply engaged in social and political reform. He believed in the power of education and established an experimental school called .Santiniketan, which later became Visva-Bharati University. Tagore's vision of education emphasized the importance of freedom, creativity, and a broader understanding of the world.

About novel

The novel "The Home and the World" is written by a famous personality Rabindranath Tagore. It was initially written and published in Bengali in 1916 and later translated into English by Surendra Nath Tagore. The Bengali title of the novel is "Ghare Baire." This social and political novel is based on the different cultures of the society. The novel's central theme is love, the tradition of society, and nationalism. The novel is about the Swadeshi movement in Bengal, the partition of Bengal, east Bengal, and West Bengal in 1905. The Swadeshi movement was one of the large protests and movements of that time when British Colonial Rule controlled India. It played a significant role in the independence of India. The novel talks about the conflict between tradition and modernity and contains a detailed discussion of the love triangle between the characters present in the novel. Tagore discussed the tradition's personal and political aspects and offered a deep study of human emotions and the stress when a tradition experiences a sudden change in its legacy.

The story revolves around three main characters. Nikhil a progressive zamindar (landlord) who supports and follows Western ideals and encourages his wife, Bimala, to embrace her independence and mental growth. Bimala, a young and sheltered woman, finds herself ragged between her loyalty to her husband and her growing fascination with Sandeep, a charming and brave nationalist leader who fights for a radical and militant approach to the freedom movement. The psychological pain that Bimala goes through as she negotiates the complications of love, duty, and self-discovery is expertly portrayed by Tagore. The story explores issues of identity, gender roles, and the effects of personal decisions during political instability from her point of view. The characters must deal with their views and disagreements as the tale develops, which has dramatic and unexpected results. The Home and the World explores competing ideologies and the intensely human conflicts that result from societal change

Title significance 

The title of the book The Home and the World by Rabindranath Tagore can be interpreted at various levels. At one level it tells about the struggle of Bimala in choosing between her ‘home’ behind the purdah, the outside ‘world’ that her husband Nikhil has introduced her to. Moreover, Bimala is also torn between being a faithful wife of Nikhil who is her ‘home’, and Sandip her attraction and newly found love representing the outside ‘world’. At some deeper into the novel, however, the title symbolizes the two ideologies Bimala must choose between - Nikhil’s pragmatism that represents the ‘home’ and Sandip’s idealism that represents the ‘world’.

It is due to Nikhil’s exertion that Bimala crosses the threshold of her secluded, sheltered ‘zenana’existence behind the purdah and enters the outside world. Ironically, this crossing of the threshold coincides Sandip’s entrance into their lives; proving, as Nikhil observed, ‘if you will not go to the world, the world will come to you’. It was at the sight of Sandip that Bimala, drawn to his nationalistic fervour, makes the choice between staying inside her ‘home’ and meeting him in the outside ‘world’, and chooses the latter.

Smitten by Sandip's fiery speeches and his vision of her as the ‘Queen Bee’ as contrasted with her own husband Nikhil's ostensibly indifferent attitude towards the freedom struggle, Bimala finds herself increasingly attracted to Sandip. Nikhil is the man of her home; Sandip represents to her the outside world, not only because he is her link to the nation, her source of information to all that is happening outside her home in the country, but also because he is an outsider who embodies all the vitality and passion that she supposes the outside world to contain but that has been absent from her own domestic life. She emotionally trips, vacillates between Sandip and her husband, and decides to take side with Sandip until she returnes home bruised and humiliated but with a more mature understanding of both Nikhil, her Home, and Sandip, the World.

Through the love-triangle, Tagore explores the war between idealism and pragmatism inside Bimala’s mind and extends its sphere of influence to encompass the issues dividing India during those times of strife and struggle through the depiction of the revolution and the Swadeshi movement.

Nikhil, who was keen on social reform but repulsed by nationalism, gradually loses the esteem of his spirited wife, Bimala, because of his failure to be enthusiastic about anti-British agitations, which she sees as a lack of patriotic commitment. However, despite seeing clearly that she is unimpressed by his worldview, he refuses to compromise his principles and persists in his quiet belief in humanism over nationalism .This measured stance of her husband towards politics fails to win Bimala’s approval.

Unconvinced by this non-flamboyant, practical approach towards freedom and fascinated by the illusive utopia presented to her by Sandip, Bimala is torn between the two extremes. Her choice stands between the inclusive humanism practiced in her Home and the militant nationalism followed by the World. She wavers towards the latter, taken in by the goddess image Sandip created of her and the power he seems to impart in her every time he speaks. But in the end, when Sandip isexposed, her dreams are shattered and reality strike and she comes back to her husband “hesitatingly, barefoot, with a white shawl over her head”, back to the ‘home’ she has abandoned and neglected.

It is well known that Tagore, after a brief dip into the Swadeshi movement, became disillusioned with nationalism and condemned it on the grounds that ardent nationalism, in the process of uniting all Hindus, would end up alienating other religions and nationalities and promoting hatred and exclusivity that would break the country apart and destroy people’s humanism. In that context, the title of the novel can be interpreted as an appeal to strive towards global unity and shun the politics of nationalism. There are several plot points in the novel – such as the harassment of Miss Gilby, and the alienation and consequent uprising of the Muslim traders - that can be considered evidence of this. Thus, through Nikhil, who was Tagore’s spokesperson and his counterpart in many ways, Tagore tried to explain his dream of his ‘home’ coexisting in harmony and mutual friendship with the ‘world’.

Conclusion

The Home and the World, written by Rabindranath Tagore, ends with a heartfelt conclusion that makes us think deeply about love, loyalty, and the clash between tradition and modern ideas. At the end of the story, the characters' lives become disturbed, and we see the consequences of their choices. As the story ends, Bimala realizes the consequences of her attraction towards Sandip and the wrong path she followed unthinkingly. She understands that Sandip's love and his betrayal of ,Nikhil's trust were destructive. Bimala could not even say sorry to Nikhil for her wrong deeds.

The conclusion of The Home and the World shows Tagore's talent in describing deep emotions and the complexities of human nature. It reminds us of balance, empathy, and looking within ourselves in a world that struggles with old and new ways, personal desires, and social responsibilities. Ultimately, Tagore's book teaches us that the journey to self-discovery and improving the world takes work. But we can find harmony and grow together by understanding, caring, and taking the time to understand one another. The Home and the World is a timeless story that forces us to think about the ups and downs of relationships, the impact of beliefs, and the universal search for who we are and where we belong. The psychological pain that Bimala goes through as she negotiates the complications of love, duty, and self-discovery is expertly portrayed by Tagore. The story explores the importance of identity, gender roles, and the effects of personal decisions during political and domestic instability from her point of view

Words:-1765

Image:-3

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Susan Character Study

Hello,

       This Blog is an Assignment of paper no.: 203- The Postcolonial Studies  In this assignment I am discussing Character Study of Susan. 

Personal Information 

Name:- Mansi B. Gujadiya

Roll Number:-12

Enrollment Number:-4069206420220013

Batch:-M.A SEM -3( 2022-23 )

Email ID:- mansigajjar10131@gmail.com

Paper Number:-203

Paper Code:-22408

Paper Name:-The Postcolonial Studies 

Submitted to:- English department MKBU

Topic:- Susan Character Study 

Introduction

Foe, published in 1986, is the fifth novel of South African writer J. M. Coetzee who won the Nobel Prize in 2003 and the Booker Prize twice. Foe, set in the 18th century, is a poignant contemporary rewriting of Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe. It tells a story about how Susan, a female castaway and a character absent in Defoe’s original text, challenges Crusoe and Foe, and how she pursues the right to speak for Friday. Through depictions of Susan’s complex relationships with Crusoe, Foe and Friday, Susan’s marginal status is especially noticeable. Hence, this blog attempts to explore Susan’s de-marginalization in Foe from the perspective of feminism through the analysis of the crescendo of female voice and Susan’s quest for authorship.

The novel finally focuses on Susan’s failure to tell Friday’s story and her complete submission to patriarchal system, however, in the process, the increasing feminist awareness of Susan Barton and Susan’s de-marginalization can be seen as a successful point. She challenges patriarchal authority through the crescendo of her voice from silence to cry-out and her transformation from “the Other” to “the Self”.

Literature Review

Foe, the rewriting of Robinson Crusoe, has attracted great attention from home and abroad. Numerous researchers have conducted a variety of studies from the perspectives of post-colonialism, feminism, deconstruction and intertextuality.

Susan’s De-Marginalization

The Crescendo of Susan’s Voice: Transformation from Femininity to Existential Choice

“Crescendo” is a musical term. It metaphorically refers to a gradually loud Susan’s voice in Foe. This section aims to explore Susan’s De-marginalization through the analysis of the crescendo of Susan’s voice. Her voice changes from silence to cry-out illustrating her transformation from holding back to having the courage to face patriarchy, which means Susan transcends femininity constructed by patriarchy society and voices for her true self. It is actually a way of de-marginalization.

Susan’s Silence

In Foe, Crusoe’s island is a metaphor for patriarchal society, and Crusoe represents patriarchal domination. Susan, a female in a marginal status, thus chooses to be silent when facing male authority. For example, before Crusoe goes out to make a routine inspection of the island, he gives Susan a knife for self-defence and demands Susan not to leave his residence, yet the reason given by Crusoe is that the apes outside are not afraid of women. And he even said to Susan “while you live under my roof you will do as I instruct!” . Then, Susan complies with Crusoe’s request to stay in his castle. It conjures up the concept “female domain”, which emerges because the industrial revolution led to the emergence of different domains of activity for men and women  . The female domain emphasised femininity, where it is generally accepted that women should fulfil their roles as wives and mothers and that, in the home, women must be pure, pious, gentle, kind and obedient, and more than that, women are inherently fragile, incompetent and innocent, thus male protection is needed to protect them from the evils of society  . Because of this femininity constructed by social and matriarchal system at that time and her marginal status as a newly arrived and female, Susan is unable to be completely independent and separate from Crusoe, thus she choose to be silent and become a “woman” under the patriarchal rule, and still cannot carve out an authentic existence for herself, choosing what she wants to be. However, it does not mean that Susan’s voluntary silence is a complete submission to male authority; her feminine consciousness actually keeps in the process of awakening.

 Susan’s Cry-Out

Although Susan is under patriarchal rule, represented by Crusoe, she is still boldly in revolt. Her voice gradually changes from silence to cry-out, for instance, Susan’s request for a pair of shoes. Susan has no extra clothes or shoes, and she cannot always walk without shoes. But when she repeatedly asks Crusoe, Crusoe shows his reluctance several times, only asking Susan to be more patient because he would make a good pair of shoes for her, then there remains no action. When Susan retorts to Crusoe in the rough sandals she has made by herself, “patience has turned me into a prisoner” , Crusoe throws away all of the materials left in exasperation. Ren (2014) considers the image of shoes as “a marker for civilization”, because it is Adam and Eve who are enlightened and understand shame and so cover their naked bodies with clothing, hence shoes in here become the symbol of civilization  . However, this study tends to take the image of shoes as a representation of discourse power, not just civilization. In Crusoe’s patriarchal rule, shoes are made by men and given to women, just as men forcibly give women certain characteristics. Susan’s decision to make her own shoes is a reflection of her voice “cry-out” and struggle for discourse power. This example illustrates that Susan realises her marginalised status, and her stronger feminine consciousness makes her voice for her true self and transcends patriarchal structure. It is actually a great progress in carving out an authentic existence for herself and de-marginalizing.

In short, Susan’ gradual loud voice from silence to cry-out shows the awakening process of her feminine consciousness. She tries to get rid of marginal status and the femininity given by patriarchal society, transcending traditional rule and making a new existential choice to be truly self.

Susan’s Quest for Authorship: Transformation from “the Other” to “the Self”

The quest for authorship of Susan actually has gone through a process of development, from the submission to traditional female status to her query about patriarchal authority of male writers then to her quest for her own authorship. This section aims to explore the process of Susan’s quest for authorship and analyse how she transforms from “the Other” to “the Self” and achieve the goal of demarginalization.

Susan’s Submission to Traditional Female Status

In The Second Sex, Beauvoir argues that men set themselves up in the role of the subject and name women as “the Other''. Women are constructed by men, by whole social structures and traditions. Women’s creative potential has been suppressed by the patriarchy, while men control “truth” and power. As a result, women have lost their vitality and become “the Other ''. In Foe, It is after Susan’s talk with the captain on her voyage back, she is encouraged by him to turn her island experience into a story, a truthful story. It is a story you should set down in writing and offer to the booksellers  . The captain’s words have intrigued in her the idea of narrating the island story. But as a woman in the patriarchal society, Susan is not confident of her creative ability from the very beginning. She thinks the only way is to find a writer for her to finish this task, thus she seeks help from Mr. Foe. From this example, Susan’s subconsciousness of seeking for male writer’s help illustrates Susan's submission to her traditional female status and to be “the Other”. To some extent, this patriarchal norm suppresses women's attempts and creativity in writing.

 Susan’s Query about Patriarchal Authority of Male Writers

Because of Susan’s submission to her traditional female status and lack of confidence at the beginning, she asks Mr. Foe for help. However, in her contact with Foe, she becomes less and less trustful of his ability and work. Thus, Susan begins to query about the male writer’s authority. Foe tries to explore more details of their story on the island in order to make the story more intriguing. His version includes five parts: “the loss of the daughter; the quest for the daughter in Brazil; abandonment of the quest, and the adventure of the island; assumption of the quest by the daughter; and reunion of the daughter with her mother”. He argues that the island story lacks variety and it should be written as a mere section of his version. He even tends to add episodes which do not actually exist in her story. On the contrary, Susan considers it unnecessary to reveal a whole history of her existence, and she is against his construction of the story which fails to tell the truth. From this example, it can be seen that under the control of Foe’s patriarchal authority, Susan realises that her life is determined by Foe’s authorship and authority, and thus it has become a story without anything left. Susan’s query about Foe’s authority means that her role of “the Other” begins to be changed and her attempt to break through to marginalised status. She gradually transforms from “the Other” to “the Self”.

Susan’s Quest for Her Own Authorship

According to Beauvoir, “the Self” is active and knowing, whereas “the Other” is all that “the Self” rejects: passivity, voicelessness, and powerlessness. In the process of Susan’s quest for authorship, she actually has transformed from “the Other” to “the Self”. Susan, as a woman in a marginalised status, hopes to narrate her story according to her own will, but she discovers that Foe always indulges in outrageous adaptation of her story. Foe ignores the truth of her narrative and divides the story into five parts, and thus Susan is against his conception. “I lived there too, I was no bird of passage, no gannet or albatross, to circle the island once and dip a wing and then fly on over the boundless ocean. Return to me the substance I have lost, Mr Foe: that is my entreaty”  . Susan determines to trace her lost substance by relating her island story. She challenges the patriarchal authority and is eager to gain the true substance by relating her own story. She struggles against gender inequality in the patriarchal discourse and attempts to recover the right to speak for the marginalised group. The opposition between Susan and Mr. Foe for the discourse power of the story is the embodiment of female writers’ struggle in the patriarchal society, which has a great significance to the subversion of authorial authority.

 Conclusions

With the assistance of Beauvoir’s existential feminism, this is attempts to explore Susan’s de-marginalization in novel Foe through analysing the crescendo of Susan’s voice and Susan’s quest for authorship.

By examining the crescendo of Susan’s voice, the study finds that Susan’s voice changes from silence to cry-out illustrating her transformation from holding back to having the courage to face patriarchy, which means Susan transcends femininity constructed by patriarchy society and voices for her true self. Besides, the process of Susan’s quest for authorship shows Susan’s transformation from “the Other” to “the Self”.

Susan’s gradual loud voice from silence to cry-out and the process of Susan’s quest for authorship illustrate that the process of her de-marginalization in patriarchal society is successful because of the awakening of her feminine consciousness and her transformation from “the Other” to “the Self” during the process. 

Words:-1867

Image:-2

Thank you 

Three Prose Writers

 Hello,

       This Blog is an Assignment of paper no.: 202 -Indian English Literature -Post- Independence  In this assignment I am discussing Three Prose Writers.

Personal Information 

Name:- Mansi B. Gujadiya

Roll Number:-12

Enrollment Number:-4069206420220013

Batch:-M.A SEM -3( 2022-23 )

Email ID:- mansigajjar10131@gmail.com

Paper Number:-202

Paper Code:-22407

Paper Name:- Indian English Literature -Post- Independence 

Submitted to:- English department MKBU

Topic:- Three Prose Writers 

Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan

Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, (5 September 1888 – 17 April 1975) was an Indian philosopher and statesman who served as the second president of India from 1962 to 1967. 

One of the most distinguished twentieth-century scholars of comparative religion and philosophy, Radhakrishnan held the King George V Chair of Mental and Moral Science at the University of Calcutta from 1921 to 1932 and Spalding Chair of Eastern Religion and Ethics at University of Oxford from 1936 to 1952.

Radhakrishnan's philosophy was grounded in Advaita Vedanta, reinterpreting this tradition for a contemporary understanding. He defended Hinduism against what he called "uninformed Western criticism", contributing to the formation of contemporary Hindu identity. He has been influential in shaping the understanding of Hinduism, in both India and the west, and earned a reputation as a bridge-builder between India and the West.

Radhakrishnan was awarded several high awards during his life, including a knighthood in 1931, the Bharat Ratna, the highest civilian award in India, in 1954, and honorary membership of the British Royal Order of Merit in 1963. He was also one of the founders of Helpage India, a non profit organisation for elderly underprivileged in India. Radhakrishnan believed that "teachers should be the best minds in the country". Since 1962, his birthday has been celebrated in India as Teachers' Day on 5 September every year.

Radhakrishnan did not have a background in the Congress Party, nor was he active in the struggle against British rules. He was a politician in shadow. His motivation lay in his pride of Hindu culture, and the defence of Hinduism against "uninformed Western criticism". According to the historian Donald Mackenzie Brown,

"He had always defended Hindu culture against uninformed Western criticism and had symbolised the pride of Indians in their own intellectual traditions."

Teacher's Day 

When Radhakrishnan became the President of India, some of his students and friends requested him to allow them to celebrate his birthday, on 5 September. He replied,

"Instead of celebrating my birthday, it would be my proud privilege if September 5th is observed as Teachers' Day."

His birthday has since been celebrated as Teacher's Day in India.

Works by Radhakrishnan

•  The philosophy of Rabindranath Tagore (1918), Macmillan, London, 294 pages
• Indian Philosophy (1923) Vol.1, 738 pages. (1927) Vol 2, 807 pages. Oxford University Press.
• The Hindu View of Life (1926), 92 pages
• Indian Religious Thought (2016), Orient Paperbacks, ISBN 978-81-222042-4-7
• Religion, Science and Culture (2010), Orient Paperbacks, ISBN 978-81-222001-2-6
• An Idealist View of Life (1929), 351 pages
• Kalki, or the Future of Civilization (1929), 96 pages
• Eastern Religions and Western Thought (1939), Oxford University Press, 396 pages
• Religion and Society (1947), George Allen and Unwin Ltd., London, 242 pages
• The Bhagavadgītā: with an introductory essay, Sanskrit text, English translation and notes (1948), 388 pages
• The Dhammapada (1950), 194 pages, Oxford University Press
• The Principal Upanishads (1953), 958 pages, HarperCollins Publishers Limited
• Recovery of Faith (1956), 205 pages
• A Source Book in Indian Philosophy (1957), 683 pages, Princeton University Press, with Charles A. Moore as co-editor.
• The Brahma Sutra: The Philosophy of Spiritual Life. London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1959, 606 pages. 
• Religion, Science & Culture (1968), 121 pages

Philosophy

Radhakrishnan tried to bridge eastern and western thought, defending Hinduism against "uninformed Western criticism", but also incorporating Western philosophical and religious thought.

Advaita Vedanta 

Radhakrishnan was one of the most prominent spokesmen of Neo-Vedanta. His metaphysics was grounded in Advaita Vedanta, but he reinterpreted Advaita Vedanta for a contemporary understanding. He acknowledged the reality and diversity of the world of experience, which he saw as grounded in and supported by the absolute or Brahman. Radhakrishnan also reinterpreted Shankara's notion of maya. According to Radhakrishnan, maya is not a strict absolute idealism, but "a subjective misperception of the world as ultimately real."

Intuition and religious experience 

"Intuition", synonymously called "religious experience", has a central place in Radhakrishnan's philosophy as a source of knowledge which is not mediated by conscious thought. His specific interest in experience can be traced back to the works of William James (1842–1910), F. H. Bradley (1846–1924), Henri Bergson (1859–1941), and Friedrich von Hügel (1852–1925),[34] and to Vivekananda (1863–1902),[39] who had a strong influence on Sarvepalli's thought. According to Radhakrishnan, intuition is of a self-certifying character (swatahsiddha), self-evidencing (svāsaṃvedya), and self-luminous (svayam-prakāsa). In his book An Idealist View of Life, he made a powerful case for the importance of intuitive thinking as opposed to purely intellectual forms of thought. According to Radhakrishnan, intuition plays a specific role in all kinds of experience.

Radhakrishnan discernes five sorts of experience:

1. Cognitive Experience:

• Sense Experience
• Discursive Reasoning
•  Intuitive Apprehension

2. Psychic Experience

3. Aesthetic Experience

4. Ethical Experience

5. Religious Experience

Classification of religions

For Radhakrishnan, theology and creeds are intellectual formulations, and symbols of religious experience or "religious intuitions". Radhakrishnan qualified the variety of religions hierarchically according to their apprehension of "religious experience", giving Advaita Vedanta the highest place:

• The worshippers of the Absolute
• The worshippers of the personal God
• The worshippers of the incarnations like Rama, Kṛiṣhṇa, Buddha
• Those who worship ancestors, deities and sages
• The worshippers of the petty forces and spirits

Radhakrishnan saw Hinduism as a scientific religion based on facts, apprehended via intuition or religious experience. According to Radhakrishnan, "if philosophy of religion is to become scientific, it must become empirical and find itself based on religious experience". He saw this empiricism exemplified in the Vedas:

The truths of the ṛṣis are not evolved as the result of logical reasoning or systematic philosophy but are the products of spiritual intuition, dṛṣti or vision. The ṛṣis are not so much the authors of the truths recorded in the Vedas as the seers who were able to discern the eternal truths by raising their life-spirit to the plane of universal spirit. They are the pioneer researchers in the realm of the spirit who saw more in the world than their followers. Their utterances are not based on transitory vision but on a continuous experience of resident life and power. When the Vedas are regarded as the highest authority, all that is meant is that the most exacting of all authorities is the authority of facts.

From his writings collected as The Hindu View of Life, Upton Lectures, Delivered at Manchester College, Oxford, 1926: "Hinduism insists on our working steadily upwards in improving our knowledge of God. The worshippers of the absolute are of the highest rank; second to them are the worshippers of the personal God; then come the worshippers of the incarnations of Rama, Krishna, Buddha; below them are those who worship deities, ancestors, and sages, and lowest of all are the worshippers of petty forces and spirits. The deities of some men are in water (i.e., bathing places), those of the most advanced are in the heavens, those of the children (in religion) are in the images of wood and stone, but the sage finds his God in his deeper self. The man of action finds his God in fire, the man of feeling in the heart, and the feeble minded in the idol, but the strong in spirit find God everywhere". The seers see the supreme in the self, and not the images."

To Radhakrishnan, Advaita Vedanta was the best representative of Hinduism, as being grounded in intuition, in contrast to the "intellectually mediated interpretations" of other religions. He objected charges of "quietism" and "world denial", instead stressing the need and ethic of social service, giving a modern interpretation of classical terms as tat-tvam-asi. According to Radhakrishnan, Vedanta offers the most direct intuitive experience and inner realisation, which makes it the highest form of religion:

The Vedanta is not a religion, but religion itself in its most universal and deepest significance."

Radhakrishnan saw other religions, "including what Dr. S. Radhakrishnan understands as lower forms of Hinduism," as interpretations of Advaita Vedanta, thereby Hinduising all religions.

Although Radhakrishnan was well-acquainted with western culture and philosophy, he was also critical of them. He stated that Western philosophers, despite all claims to objectivity, were influenced by theological influences of their own culture.

Awards and honours 

Civilian honours 

National 

India:

• Bharat Ratna Ribbon.svg Recipient of the Bharat Ratna (1954)

 British India:

• Knight Bachelor Ribbon.png Knight Bachelor (1931), ceased to use the pre-nominal of Sir in 1947 following India's independence.

Foreign 

 Germany:

• D-PRU Pour le Merite 1 BAR.svg Recipient of the Pour le Mérite for Sciences and Arts (1954)

Mexico:

• MEX Order of the Aztec Eagle 1 Class BAR.png Sash First Class of the Order of the Aztec Eagle (1954)

United Kingdom:

• Order of Merit (Commonwealth realms) ribbon.png Member of the Order of Merit (1963)

Other achievements 

• A portrait of Radhakrishnan adorns the Chamber of the Rajya Sabha.
• 1933–37: Nominated five times for the Nobel Prize in Literature.
• 1938: elected Fellow of the British Academy.
• 1961: the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade.
• 1962: Institution of Teacher's Day in India, yearly celebrated on 5 September, Radhakrishnan's birthday, in honour of Radhakrishnan's belief that "teachers should be the best minds in the country".
• 1968: Sahitya Akademi fellowship, The highest honour conferred by the Sahitya Akademi on a writer (he is the first person to get this award)
• 1975: the Templeton Prize in 1975, a few months before his death, for advocating non-aggression and conveying "a universal reality of God that embraced love and wisdom for all people." He donated the entire amount of the Templeton Prize to Oxford University.
• 1989: institution of the Radhakrishnan Scholarships by Oxford University in the memory of Radhakrishnan. The scholarships were later renamed the "Radhakrishnan Chevening Scholarships".

He was nominated sixteen times for the Nobel prize in literature, and eleven times for the Nobel Peace prize.

 Radhakrishnan on a 1989 stamp of India

N. RAGHUNATHAN 

The little known story teller of The Hindu

The 'edit writer of The Hindu’ for 31 years. N. Raghunathan, who died in 1982, was also a brilliant writer of short stories and plays, capturing in authentic Thanjavur Tamil.

The world of journalism knew him as the ‘edit writer of The Hindu’ for 31 years. N. Raghunathan, who died in 1982, was also a brilliant writer of short stories and plays, capturing in authentic Thanjavur Tamil the disintegration of feudalism and social structure constructed in the face of modernism in the beginning of the 20th century.

The natural storyteller in Raghunathan transcends life in agraharam and he could describe the entire society with a unique style, punctuated with rich imagery, possible only for a keen observer of his surroundings.

He uses the phrase “cactus milk” to describe the density of the Thanjavur degree coffee, likens the face of an embarrassed character to “ pontha kalayam ” (mud pot with holes) and colour of a river in spate as “ kaaka’ colour, the colour of a crow. But his description of the patterns inside the Thespesia flower ( Poovarasu ) to the emergence of the lotus from the navel of Lord Vishnu will elevate the status of the odourless flower to a new level.

His in-depth knowledge of both ancient Tamil literature and western classics, including his favourite writer Dostoevsky, finds expression in all the 18 stories he wrote under the pen name “ Raskian ” in Bharatha Mani , a magazine run by his friend K.C. Venkatramani between 1938 and 1948.

He published his short story collection in 1962, and in 2006 Tamizhini released Rasikan Kathaikal which included his four plays and one of Sotto Voce articles in English by him under the name Vigneswara.

“I used to write articles for Bharatha Mani . I wrote short stories on his insistence,” Raghuanthan had said in the preface to the short story collection. He also worked for the Daily Express , and in 1926, joined The Hindu.

“He was the most brilliant editor of Indian journalism and not just of The Hindu ,” said N. Ram, Chairman of the Kasturi and Sons Ltd.

A. Sathish, a Tamil professor and editor of Rasikan Kathaikal, had said Ragunathan stood out among his contemporaries with his technique of literary and oral tradition.

“He probably is the first Brahmin to write about envy, perversion, violence and glee lurking in the subconscious human mind. That could be the reason for him not getting his place in Tamil literature while he was celebrated as a great writer in English,” he said.

Raghunathan had a clear idea about fiction. “A fiction writer will succeed only if he empathises with his character. But he cannot affect the individuality of his characters,” he had remarked.

“You feel like entering into a world destroyed long ago. Even though he used manipravalam (a mix of Tamil and Sanskrit) it never hindered the flow of his language,” said writer Yuvan Chandrasekar, in his foreword to the republished short story collection.

Works

• in English and held by 12 WorldCat member libraries worldwide
• The Rāmāyaṇa of Vālmīki by Vālmīki( Recording )
• in English and held by 7 WorldCat member libraries worldwide
• This Ramayana production combines the inner bliss of Vedic literature with the outer richness of delightfully profound story telling
• The Avadi socialists by N Raghunathan( Book )
• 2 editions published in 1964 in English and held by 7 WorldCat member libraries worldwide
• Our new rulers by N Raghunathan( Book )
• 2 editions published in 1961 in English and held by 6 WorldCat member libraries worldwide
• The concept of dharma in the Itihāsas and the Purānas by N Raghunathan( Book )
• 5 editions published between 1954 and 1956 in English and held by 6 WorldCat member libraries worldwide

Nirad Chandra Chaudhuri 

Nirad Chandra Chaudhuri CBE (23 November 1897 – 1 August 1999) was an Indian writer.

In 1990, Oxford University awarded Chaudhuri, by then a long-time resident of the city of Oxford, an Honorary Degree in Letters. In 1992, he was made an honorary Commander of the Order of the British Empire.

Books by Nirad Chaudhary

• The Autobiography of an Unknown Indian (1951)
• A Passage to England (1959)
• The Continent of Circe (1965)
• The Intellectual in India (1967)
• To Live or Not to Live (1971)
• Scholar Extraordinary, The Life of Professor the Right Honourable Friedrich Max Muller, P.C. (1974)
• Culture in the Vanity Bag (1976)
• Clive of India (1975)
• Hinduism: A Religion to Live by (1979)
• Thy Hand, Great Anarch! (1987)
• Three Horsemen of the New Apocalypse (1997)
• The East is East and West is West (collection of pre-published essays)
• From the Archives of a Centenarian (collection of pre-published essays)
• Why I Mourn for England (collection of pre-published essays)

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Ecofeminism

Hello,

This assignment is about one interesting topic: Ecofeminism. And it's taken from the perspective of seeing feminism in the context of Ecofeminism.

Personal Information 

Name:- Mansi B. Gujadiya

Roll Number:-12

Enrollment Number:-4069206420220013

Batch:-M.A SEM -3( 2022-23 )

Email ID:- mansigajjar10131@gmail.com

Paper Number:-204

Paper Code:-22409

Paper Name:- Contemporary Western Theories and Film Studies 

Submitted to:- English department MKBU

Topic:- Ecofeminism 

Introduction 

Ecofeminism, like the social movements it has emerged from, is both political activism and intellectual critique. Bringing together feminism and environmentalism, ecofeminism argues that the domination of women and the degradation of the environment are consequences of patriarchy and capitalism. Any strategy to address one must take into account its impact on the other so that women's equality should not be achieved at the expense of worsening the environment, and neither should environmental improvements be gained at the expense of women. Indeed, ecofeminism proposes that only by reversing current values, thereby privileging care and cooperation over more aggressive and dominating behaviours, can both society and the environment benefit.

The notion that women's and environmental domination are linked has been developed in a number of ways. A perspective in which women are accredited with closer links with nature was celebrated in early ecofeminist writings, by, for example, Carolyn Merchant in the United States and Val Plum wood in Australia. These advocated ‘the feminine principle’ as an antidote to environmental destruction, through attributes, which nurture nature. This ‘essentialist’ perspective, often adopting an ideal of woman as earth mother/goddess, has, however, also discredited ecofeminism and led to disaffection among some early protagonists (see, for example, Janet Biehl). In addition to being critiqued for its essentialism, this view of ecofeminism has also been charged with elitism through its provenance in a white, middle-class, Western, milieu. However, Vandana Shiva's consistent and persuasive ‘majority world’ voice has been a counterpoint to this, and arguably, gender and environment have been articulated together more powerfully, and been more influential, in majority world settings (see, for example, Wangari Maathai in Kenya), although how this has been done has been questioned by writers such as Cecile Jackson and Melisssa Leach.

Ecofeminism:-

Ecofeminism, especially as formulated in the 1970s and 1980s, received much criticism from feminist scholars for its essentialist leanings placing women as closer to nature. Scholars and activists critical of ecofeminism found the continued association of women with nature (as opposed to culture) as problematically reinforcing existing patriarchal structures that oppress women. Third World feminist scholars criticised the essentialist leanings of ecofeminism for creating a single unified image of woman, ignoring the differences among women and the intersections of gender with other social structures such as class, age, and ethnicity.

Feminist geographers and geographers interested in the political ecology of resource access and control likewise have found ecofeminism to be a problematic basis for understanding the gendered aspects of nature and environments. Vandana Shiva has been the foremost shaper of ecofeminist thought with respect to Third World women and environments, and for political ecologists working in the rural Third World her theoretical position has been particularly problematic. For example, Shiva’s 1988 publication, Staying Alive: Women, Ecology and Survival in India, explored the negative effects of the Green Revolution in India on both rural women and the environment and identified a feminine principle which she argued is necessary for maintaining humanity’s balance with nature. This feminine principle represents rural Third World women’s distinct spirituality and relationship to the environment that is crucial for the realisation of a just and sustainable development. Many geographers view Shiva’s argument as a romanticization of both the feminine and the indigenous as antidotes to a destructive modernist and capitalist development.

More recently, there have been several scholarly attempts to reclaim the promise of ecofeminism for addressing gender-based oppression and environmental destruction. In 1999, two ecofeminist theorists (Catriona Sandilands and Noel Sturgeon) issued important calls for salvaging ecofeminism, specifically as political action, distinguishable from a theoretical and analytical tool. One body of work (Sandilands) attempts to move ecofeminism forward as a project in radical democracy, with the potential to destabilise hegemonic categories, identities, and discourses. In this effort, it draws upon the constructivist strand of ecofeminism, recognizing ecofeminism’s potential to destabilise, but also identifying significant risks in the strategic application of essentialism for political activist purposes. As argued by many feminist scholars, essentialism reifies existing identities and discourses, in effect legitimising and bolstering them.

A second body of work (Sturgeon) takes a critical look back at the role played by ecofeminism in international debates during the 1990s around women and environments. It highlights the positive contributions of ecofeminism as an international political discourse, arguing that the intervention of scholars like Shiva into the discourse on women, environment, and development came at a crucial moment in time. Prior to Shiva’s intervention, international discourse had positioned poor women primarily as destroyers of the environment, through their role in population growth and in the necessary provision of basic household needs. This work argues that Shiva’s ecofeminist theory and feminine principle should be placed into a historical and political context that led to the transformation of women into agents for positive environmental change. In this perspective, ecofeminist intervention opened a political space for the participation of women in sustainable development and in environmental conservation as experts, instead of as villains or victims.

Nature and Gender:-

Ecofeminism and Peace

Analyses of the intersectionality of race, class, and gender oppression have been applied in the arena of environmental activism. Ecofeminism has developed as an international movement that includes academic feminists and first and third world environmentalists. Ecofeminism encompasses a variety of approaches to thinking about and acting on behalf of the environment, but all ecofeminists recognize the necessary linkage between a healthy ecology and healthy lives for women and children. Ecofeminists view patriarchy as responsible for both the oppression of women, the poor, and indigenous people and for systems of production and consumption which view nature as a commodity to be used and discarded. Vandana Shiva has argued that in pursuit of an illusion of progress, Third World development projects designed to promote industrialization on the Western model have enriched their Western sponsors while doing little if anything to alleviate the poverty of Third World people. Worse, they have tended to replace small-scale indigenous ecological practices with large-scale degradation of the environment. Shiva distinguishes between material poverty and spiritual poverty. While Third World material poverty is real and highly visible, it is also relative to the supposed superior standard of living of the developed nations. The spiritual poverty in the midst of material pleasures of the developed nations – demonstrated by high rates of mental illness, drug addiction, and personal violence – and the relation between spiritual poverty and estrangement from nature, is less visible to Westerners themselves, but still very real.

Sandra Harding and other feminist philosophers of science have argued that science and technology have played a leading role in worldwide patriarchal dominance. The supposed value-neutrality and objectivity of scientific method has cloaked science and its resulting technological advances in an aura of certainty and inevitability. In reality, science has been firmly in the control of and has conferred its benefits upon the wealthy and powerful. Its pretence to be a progressive force for all humankind has served to conceal such damaging results as destabilising and polluting military technologies, exploitation of natural resources, and unchecked consumption. Harding and others have argued that it is important to recognize the validity of non-Western and indigenous methods of acquiring knowledge. It is also necessary to acknowledge that social contexts and value systems influence all forms of knowledge production, including Western science, so that these practices and their results can be properly examined and critiqued. In the absence of these critiques, science and technology will continue to be a force for widening the gap between the richer and poorer nations, resulting in increasing misery and political instability.

Feminist Political Ecology:-

This approach draws on both feminist ecology and political ecology. It has been influential in human geography, perhaps more so than many other feminist ecological approaches. Ecofeminism is the lens through which many feminist geographies of Nature have been produced. While recognized as a broad church, this approach does not necessarily draw on ecology. Feminist political ecology questions the construction of identity, particularly as a basis for situating the researcher in relation to the research being undertaken. It recognizes multiple subjectivities and seeks to combine traditional geographical research techniques with feminist approaches of participatory mapping and oral histories. The approach also recognizes the gendering of environments. Recent work within this tradition has also noted the rural bias within political ecology, and attempted to address this issue.

Feminism, Environmental Economics, and Accountability:-

The basic principles of ecofeminism require the addressing of the key national and global economics' concerns including the ones created by the simplistic economics formula of inputs required for production being capital, land, and labour to produce outputs. This limited consideration of inputs, according to Henderson (1984) needs to be replaced by the new conceptualization of minimal entropy society with revised key inputs that are required and that cannot be excluded from the equation including capital, resources and knowledge.

Ecofeminism principles are based around nature being the central consideration for preservation and protection, requiring efficient use of natural resources, asking for the consideration of nurturing and community growth and development as important priorities and indicators of success (Henderson, 1984) rather than the conventional economic GDP measures which have been criticised for their lack of consideration of comprehensive performance, output, and impacts at the national level (Stockhammer et al., 1997). The conventional GDP measures are considered as inadequate and unreliable measures of social welfare (Van Den Bergh, 2009). This is a brief consideration of ecofeminism which has been provided here to establish that there is a strong link between environmental economics and ecofeminism and that these principles define the basic premise of environmental economics which entails broader environmental and societal oriented considerations and which encompasses a significant departure from conventional economics' considerations.

conclusion:-

 In sum, we can say that feminism grew out of radical, or cultural, feminism (rather than from liberal feminist or socialist feminism) … In the mid-1970s many radical/cultural feminists experienced the exhilarating discovery, through historic and archaeological sources, of a religion that honoured the female and seemed to have as its “good book” nature itself … We would not have been interested in “Yahweh in a skirt,” a distant, detached, domineering godhead who happened to be female.

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The Circuit of Culture

Hello,

       This Blog is an Assignment of paper no.: 205 (A) Cultural Study. In this assignment I am discussing  The Circuit of Culture.

 

Personal Information 

Name:- Mansi B. Gujadiya

Roll Number:-12

Enrollment Number:-4069206420220013

Batch:-M.A SEM -3( 2022-23 )

Email ID:- mansigajjar10131@gmail.com

Paper Number:-205(A)

Paper Code:-22410

Paper Name:- Cultural Study 

Submitted to:- English department MKBU

Topic:- The Circuit of Culture 

Introduction 

The theory was devised in 1997 by a group of theorists when studying the Walkman cassette player. The theory suggests that in studying a cultural text or artefact you must look at five aspects: its representation, identity, production, consumption and regulation. Du Gay et al. suggest that "taken together (these 5 points) complete a sort of circuit...through which any analysis of a cultural text...must pass if it is to be adequately studied."

Gerard Goggin openly uses this framework in his book Cell Phone Culture: Mobile technology in everyday life in order to fully understand the cell phone as a cultural artefact. His book is split into four parts: production, consumption, regulation, and representation and identity (through looking at mobile convergences).

The Circuit of Culture :-

the Circuit) was created as a tool of cultural analysis, initially by members of the British Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS), and later developed as a conceptual basis to the 1997 Culture, Media & Identities series (Sage & Open University). This provides a brief history of the Circuit of Culture from its beginnings in the CCCS through to its later use and development. Reference is made to a number of interdisciplinary studies that have critiqued the Circuit or made explicit use of this tool of analysis. The Circuit’s application and usefulness are examined through reference to a recent study that draws on the Circuit to explore a topical cultural phenomenon, international (full fee paying) student programs in Australian state schools (Leve, 2011a). An assessment will be made of how this tool has been utilised and made contextually relevant as a tool of analysis that opens the way for an exploration of the multiple interrelated processes involved in the construction and management of a cultural phenomenon. The Circuit of Culture emphasises the moments of production,representation, consumption, regulation and identity, and the interrelated articulations of these moments, and is considered for its contemporary significance and possibilities for considering the increasingly complex multiple modes of each of these mutable moments.

What is the procedure for 'knowing? This requires formulating the structure of the 'case study'. The 'case study' is a limited bounded system which is under observation for particular phenomena. & sefine & evcm The 'Circuit of Culture' A sophisticated analysis of cultural artefacts requires a close examination of five basic elements, which together constitute what Paul du Gay et al have called 'the circuit of culture' (1997). 

David Bowie:-

David Bowie is one of the most influential artists for the last 40 years and yet in terms of academic scholarship he has, until recently, garnered minimal attention. He has an incredibly dedicated fan base, had global main-stream success, is influential in numerous cultural and artistic arenas, and straddles the popular with the avant-garde and experimental nexus. His cultural currency is presently at an all-time high, his death creating a revisitation to, and a canonization of, his oeuvre, and an outpouring of grief and remembrance that seem to cut across or through different generations and international landscapes. His most recent albums and theatre work have had him defined as being at his artistic peak (Gill 2013); while, the globally touring ‘David Bowie Is …’ exhibition, that started at the V&A in London in 2013, has broken attendance records across the world.

 More profoundly of course is the fact that David Bowie crosses borders and ‘articulations’, whether this be the resigning of gender and sexuality, the confrontation with regulatory masculinity and sexual mores, or the way he was an active consumer in the production of his own star image fictions. We might speak of David Bowie as simultaneously being part of culture but also embodying a distinct culture that employs specific meanings and practices. His own sonic and visual assemblages have allowed cultural fissures to be created and polysemic tapestries to emerge and converge. As a type of science fiction he is an alien messiah and alienated outsider. He is, then, the living embodiment of the waveforms of the circuit of culture.

These elements are: 

• 1) representation
• 2) identity
• 3) production
• 4) consumption
• 5) regulation

 What these elements present is a process through which every cultural artefact, object or event must pass. The elements work in tandem, and are closely linked with each other, a process that has been called 'articulation'. In order to illustrate the 'circuit of culture' we need to use a concrete example. 

Let us take a now-ubiquitous technological device: the television. 

1)Television and Representation :-

What does the television represent, and how is it represented? The answers to these two related questions are basically means to discuss the centrality of representation in a culture. Television represents communication, information entertainment Most television ads work with these three aspects, with more features and facilities.

 

2)Television and Identity :-

What kinds of identity does television project? What is the difference between state (that is, government) television programmes and say, STAR TV?

Television and Identity What kinds of identity does television project? What is the difference between state (that is, government) television programmes and say, STAR TV?

 What kind of age group is targeted in particular kinds of promotional material? Do car and mobile phone manufacturers target youth? What kinds of identity are given importance in tel 17/88 ri - Family? Young professionals? Youth? Business culturer What does it mean to appear on television? Is the identity of a public intellectual governed by appearance on a programme? Think of so-called 'serious' programmes on contemporary affairs like Aaj Tak, health and medicine or yoga. What is their target audience? What is the Indian identity projected on television? Does the Northeast of India come into the picture? Or Dalits? If so, what is the tone of programmes that try to give representation and space to the marginalized? As we can see the series of questions posed above are about cultural and public contexts where identities are linked to images on screen. Cultural Studies is interested in the ideologies that underlie these identity-projections. self -prejetia a Tuencnoes, Seuf esteem.

3)Television and Production:-

 The theme of production can be phrased as a series of pointed questions: Look at the major television manufacturers. What are the policies in these companies? How is recruitment done? What welfare policies are in place for workers? How much profit does the company make? Does the company project a democratic work culture? Does the management mix with the workers? Does the company cater to an Indian milieu specifically? Does it project itself - owned companies like Electronics Corporation of India Limited (ECIL) did - as a truly Indian' firm? state- lill Reliarce or kytsher handed aver a Cahitoer or child ? to a man.

4)Television and Consumption :-

Small Tv or LED Who are the major buyers of television sets, black and white and colour? What are their income levels? Why would you buy a particular model? Is the choice of a particular kind dictated by fashion, taste, functionality? Do you upgrade models because you are an enthusiast and can afford to? Television and Regulation:- Consider the union government's ban on Fashion TV, ostensibly because it offends Indian cultural sentiments. y po ban on Paum leel What does the government do with regard to either production or consumption? What is the role of the censor board or the Information and Broadcasting Ministry in television sales, production, programmes? This 'circuit of culture' is perhaps the most thorough examination of any cultural artefact. As we can see it covers a range of issues and themes from the question of media representation to the construction of identities in a culture. The 'circuit of culture' includes within it several smaller components and modes of analysis. The rest of this chapter outlines some of them. Cultural Studies today, in most academies across the world, adopts certain key areas and methods to understand the modes of meaning-production. These are: language, discourse identity everyday life ethnography media studies reception/audience studies cultural intermediaries.

Conclusion:-

 In sum up we can say that the Circuit of Culture has proved useful as a conceptual tool for probing the complexities of cultural construction of meanings and reminding me to look beyond the surface – whether contemplating an image, a statement, a document or a theory. The elements of the revised Circuit reached beyond the production/consumption binary and allowed me to stop and consider moments in that process. Representations are produced and consumed but they are also affected by regulatory practices, identity and assumed meanings and connections with what is already known. The Circuit and its related cultural studies theoretical grounding allows for delving into all of the complexities, or alternatively, focussing on the complexities of only one or some of these processes.

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"Robinson Crusoe" and "Foe"

Hello everyone,in this blog I will discuss Robinson Crusoe" and "Foe"


Introduction

Foe is a 1986 novel by South African-born Nobel laureate J. M. Coetzee. Woven around the existing plot of Robinson Crusoe, Foe is written from the perspective of Susan Barton, a castaway who landed on the same island inhabited by "Cruso" and Friday as their adventures were already underway. Like Robinson Crusoe, it is a frame story, unfolded as Barton's narrative while in England attempting to convince the writer Daniel Foe to help transform her tale into popular fiction. Focused primarily on themes of language and power, the novel was the subject of criticism in South Africa, where it was regarded as politically irrelevant on its release. Coetzee revisited the composition of Robinson Crusoe in 2003 in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech.



J.M.Coetzee:-

J.M. Coetzee, in full John Maxwell Coetzee, (born February 9, 1940, Cape Town, South Africa), South African novelist, critic, and translator noted for his novels about the effects of colonization. In 2003 he won the Nobel Prize for Literature.



Plot of the novel:-

Susan Barton spends years looking for her missing daughter in Brazil. She finally gives up on her search and sails back to England. The ship's crew mutinies and casts her adrift in a boat with the body of the dead captain. When Susan can row no more, she plunges into the water and washes ashore on an island. The island is inhabited by a 60-year-old white man named Cruso and his mute slave named Friday.

Susan is accepted into the two men's company. She eats and sleeps in Cruso's camp while she tries to fathom the strange relationship between Cruso and Friday. The island provides Cruso and Friday with enough food to survive but Susan is driven nearly mad by the constant wind. Cruso keeps no record of his time on the island and has no desire to leave. He grinds his teeth in his sleep and his memory is scattered. Susan and Cruso argue when she wanders outside of his encampment but he yields to her and agrees to make her a pair of shoes.

Susan struggles to make Friday obey her. Cruso reveals that Friday's tongue was cut out by slave masters. Susan wonders whether Cruso cut out Friday's tongue and she begins to pity Friday. One day Cruso is struck down by a fever. Susan nurses him back to health. She lays beside the feverish Cruso on his bed during a terrible storm. When she feels his unwelcome hands on her body, she tries to push him away but eventually she relents. Cruso and Susan have sex one time and never mention it again.

Susan sees Friday paddling a log out to a specific area of the sea off the coast of the island. When he spreads petals on the water Susan wonders whether Friday possesses a hidden secret. Later Cruso shows her the system of terraces he has created from rocks. The terraces are large gardens designed for the island's future inhabitants. The gardens remain bare because Cruso has no seeds to plant.

Cruso contracts a fever again. A ship lands on the island while he is ill and offers Susan the chance to escape. She takes the sick Cruso aboard and sends the crew to collect Friday. All three leave the island. Cruso dies on the voyage home by which time Susan is posing as his wife.



Part 2

Susan writes a series of letters to the writer Daniel Defoe whom she addresses as "Foe." She hopes that he will write and publish her account of the island but they disagree on how the story should be told. Susan and Friday live together supported by Foe. He pays for their food and lodging in exchange for the rights to Susan's story. The heavily indebted Foe disappears to escape the attention of bailiffs who want to recover their money; this leaves Susan and Friday to fend for themselves. With nowhere else to go, they move into Foe's empty house. They grow carrots in his garden and sell his possessions in order to survive.

A girl begins to watch Foe's house. Susan is suspicious of the girl and confronts her. The girl reveals that she and Susan share the same name. Susan refuses to believe that the girl could be her daughter. She believes that the girl is a liar and that she has been sent by Foe in order to give the story of Susan's life a happy ending. The girl stays in Foe's house until Susan leads her to a forest clearing and tells her that Foe is her father. Susan hopes the lie will confuse the girl and encourage her to leave. The girl departs the next day. Friday finds a set of Foe's robes and wears them while he dances manically in the house. This strange behavior frustrates Susan.

Susan and Friday walk to Bristol. Susan tries to grant Friday his freedom. She hopes to put him on a ship and return him to Africa. The walk is long and hard. They sleep outside and eat what they can but soon they appear disheveled and homeless. They arrive in the major port Bristol, where Susan tries to convince a ship to take Friday. She suspects every captain that agrees to her plan will sell Friday back into slavery. Susan and Friday remain in England.


Part 3

Susan and Friday return to London from Bristol and arrive at Foe's new lodgings. He invites them in and orders food for everyone. Foe's work on Susan's story is progressing slowly. They disagree on how the story should be told. Dinner ends and Foe welcomes the arrival of the girl who pretended to be Susan's daughter. The girl is accompanied by an older woman named Amy who claims to have been the girl's nurse. Both the girl and Amy insist that they know Susan, but Susan insists that they do not. Foe admits that he is trying to manufacture a happy end to the story.

Later that evening Amy and the girl make their excuses and leave. Susan prepares to leave with Friday but Foe invites them both to stay. He gives Friday a place on the floor in the corner where he can sleep. Susan accompanies Foe to bed. They lay awake after having sex and talk about Friday and the need to tell Friday's story.

The next day Foe encourages Susan to teach Friday to write. She spends all morning trying but becomes frustrated. Susan tries to explain her failure. She leaves Friday behind and goes out for a walk around London. Friday is sitting at Foe's desk when she returns and is scribbling the same letter over and over. Foe believes that Friday is learning to write. Susan and Foe sit on the bed and talk.


Part 4

An unnamed narrator walks in a dreamlike state around Foe's lodgings. The narrator observes Susan and Foe while they sleep and examines Friday closely. The narrator finds a manuscript in the room and begins to read. The narrator is transported to the island and goes below the waves to the sunken ship. The narrator finds Friday in the corner. Examining Friday's mouth, the narrator notices a long slow stream pouring out.



How would you differentiate the character of Cruso and Crusoe?

In Daniel Defoe’s novel, Robinson Crusoe, the novel portrayed as a foundational text to early fictional writings and introduced writers as well as readers to having a narrative in an island setting. Within Defoe’s novel, one is able to get a glimpse of the stereotypical gender roles from the 17thcentury because patriarchy reigned supreme. Women were property while men were authoritarians. The novel is shown through the eyes of a middle-aged white male during colonization. Crusoe “owns” the islands and instructs those living there just as if he were the “governor” or political leader-just as any British colony would be governed. By this, the reader is able to see through the eyes of Robinson Crusoe about the issues of not only gender but with race and independence. AlthoughRobinson Crusoewas written in the early 1700’s, a more recent novel by J.M. Coetzee called Foewas an artistic piece that imitated Defoe’s well-known work. Even though the two novels share many similar aspects, Coetzee framed his work to provide an updated perspective of the story Defoe had composed by adding in the presence of a woman figure, incorporating a new setting, and more modernistic viewpoint.

Feminist Criticism & Ecocriticism & Marxism & Queer theory

Hello everyone,in this blog I will discuss Feminist Criticism & Ecocriticism & Marxism & Queer theory



Feminist Criticism:-

Feminist criticism is concerned with "the ways in which literature (and other cultural productions) reinforce or undermine the economic, political, social, and psychological oppression of women" (Tyson 83). This school of theory looks at how aspects of our culture are inherently patriarchal (male dominated) and aims to expose misogyny in writing about women, which can take explicit and implicit forms. This misogyny, Tyson reminds us, can extend into diverse areas of our culture: "Perhaps the most chilling example...is found in the world of modern medicine, where drugs prescribed for both sexes often have been tested on male subjects only" .



Common key concepts in theory:-

Women are oppressed by patriarchy economically, politically, socially, and psychologically; patriarchal ideology is the primary means by which women are oppressed.

In every domain where patriarchy reigns, woman is other: she is marginalized, defined only by her difference from male norms and values.

All of Western (Anglo-European) civilization is deeply rooted in patriarchal ideology, for example, in the Biblical portrayal of Eve as the origin of sin and death in the world.

While biology determines our sex (male or female), culture determines our gender (scales of masculine and feminine).

All feminist activity, including feminist theory and literary criticism, has as its ultimate goal to change the world by prompting gender equality.

Gender issues play a part in every aspect of human production and experience, including the production and experience of literature, whether we are consciously aware of these issues or not.




Feminist literature:-

Feminist literature is fiction, nonfiction, drama, or poetry, which supports the feminist goals of defining, establishing, and defending equal civil, political, economic, and social rights for women. It often identifies women's roles as unequal to those of men – particularly as regarding status, privilege, and power – and generally portrays the consequences to women, men, families, communities, and societies as undesirable.

A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) by Mary Wollstonecraft, is one of the earliest works of feminist philosophy.

Some works of feminist literature:-

• 1)A Vindication of the Rights of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft
• 2)A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf
• 3)Feminism is for Everybody by bell hooks
• 4)Gender Outlaw by Kate Bornstein
• 5)Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay
• 6)Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
• 7)Men Explain Things to Me by Rebecca Solnit
• 8)Redefining Realness by Janet Mock
• 9)Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde
• 10)The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

Three main types of feminism emerged:

• 1)mainstream/liberal
• 2)radical, and
• 3)cultural.

Three waves of faminism:-

First Wave Feminism - late 1700s-early 1900's: writers like Mary Wollstonecraft (A Vindication of the Rights of Women, 1792) highlight the inequalities between the sexes. Activists like Susan B. Anthony and Victoria Woodhull contribute to the women's suffrage movement, which leads to National Universal Suffrage in 1920 with the passing of the Nineteenth Amendment.

Second Wave Feminism - early 1960s-late 1970s: building on more equal working conditions necessary in America during World War II, movements such as the National Organization for Women (NOW), formed in 1966, cohere feminist political activism. Writers like Simone de Beauvoir (Le Deuxième Sexe, 1949) and Elaine Showalter established the groundwork for the dissemination of feminist theories dove-tailed with the American Civil Rights movement.

Third Wave Feminism - early 1990s-present: resisting the perceived essentialist (over generalized, over simplified) ideologies and a white, heterosexual, middle class focus of second wave feminism, third wave feminism borrows from post-structural and contemporary gender and race theories (see below) to expand on marginalized populations' experiences. Writers like Alice Walker work to "...reconcile it [feminism] with the concerns of the black community...[and] the survival and wholeness of her people, men and women both, and for the promotion of dialog and community as well as for the valorization of women and of all the varieties of work women perform" .

Feminism allows equal opportunities for both sexes. Gender roles (a set of conforming rules that say how a person should behave based on their gender) can be harmful to both men and women. ... It is also unfair to place pressure on boys to fulfil certain roles that are based on their gender.



Example:-

"Still I Rise" is an empowering poem about the struggle to overcome prejudice and injustice. It is one of Maya Angelou's most famous and popular poems. Although written with black slavery and civil rights issues in mind, "Still I Rise" is universal in its appeal. Any innocent individual, any minority, or any nation subject to oppression or abuse can understand its underlying theme—don't give in to torture, bullying, humiliation, and injustice.



Still I Rise

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.


Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
’Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.


Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.


Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops,
Weakened by my soulful cries?


Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin’ in my own backyard.


You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.


Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?


Out of the huts of history’s shame
I rise
Up from a past that’s rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.


Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.



Still I Rise and Feminism:-

In this poem we find that Maya Angelou raised her voice for the black Women."History's shame" represents slavery and the treatment of africans in colonies. Despite how other black people have been treated in the past, she'll succeed. Shows how much confidence she has in herself and that the race problem in America will solved.

This poem is based on many topics:-

• Politics
• History
• Trade
• Oppression
• Societal Issues
• Individual Rights
• Slavery
• Peaceful Protest

In this poem speaker is someone who faces unjust hatred and prejudice from society. She is also clearly a person who is unafraid to confront her oppressors and mock them with a series of cheeky rhetorical questions. Finally, she is also confident enough to assert her inevitable rise above such antipathy.

More specifically, the speaker of "Still I Rise" is strongly implied to be Angelou herself (which is why we've chosen to use female pronouns in reference to the speaker throughout this guide). The reference to the speaker "danc[ing] like [she's] got diamonds/ At the meeting of [her] thighs" is, perhaps, a nod to Angelou's past as a nightclub dancer. The allusions to slavery and the metaphor comparing the speaker to a "black ocean" also imply that the speaker is a black person living in the western world.

That said, the speaker can also be considered more broadly as representative of any person facing the indignity of racism and oppression. The speaker, who successfully rises above such oppression at the end of the poem, can then be viewed as a symbol of hope for marginalized peoples around the world.

Maya Angelous's poetry is often autobiographical and as such tackles issues related to black identity and womanhood. Angelou herself once said she felt she "was following a tradition established by Frederick Douglass—the slave narrative" in her use of personal narrative in her work. A singer, songwriter, dancer, playwright, and actress, Angelou also often blended recitation, theater, music, and dance in her performances onstage. Perhaps it's no wonder then that Angelou's poetry has often been described by as even better heard than read. Indeed, "Still I Rise" can perhaps best be appreciated through performance.



Ecocriticism

If we look for a meaning of Ecocriticism then that means :

"ecocriticism is the study of the relationship between literature and the physical environment".



The term Ecocriticism is coined by William Rueckert in a 1978 article which called for the formulation of "an ecological poetics".

Ecocriticism is known by a number of other designations, including "green (cultural) studies", "ecopoetics", and "environmental literary criticism".

Ecocriticism was a term coined in the late 1970s by combining “criticism” with a shortened form of “ecology”—the science that investigates the interrelations of all forms of plant and animal life with each other and with their physical habitats.

“Ecocriticism” (or by alternative names, environmental criticism and green studies) designates the critical writings which explore the relations between literature and the biological and physical environment, conducted with an acute awareness of the damage being wrought on that environment by human activities.



Key concept of Ecocriticism:-

• 1. It is claimed that the reigning religions and philosophies of Western civilization are deeply anthropocentric.
• 2. Prominent in ecocriticism is a critique of binaries such as man/nature or culture/nature, viewed as mutually exclusive oppositions.
• One poet Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote in England some twenty years later, in “Inversnaid”:
• What would the world be, once bereft
• Of wet and of wildness? Let them be left,
• O let them be left, wildness and wet;
• Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet.
• 3. Many ecocritics recommend, and themselves exemplify, the extension of “green reading” (that is, analysis of the implications of a text for environmental concerns and toward political action) to all literary genres, including prose fiction and poetry, and also to writings in the natural and social sciences.
• 4. A conspicuous feature in ecocriticism is the analysis of the differences in attitudes toward the environment that are attributable to a writer’s race, ethnicity, social class, and gender.
• 5. There is a growing interest in the animistic religions of so-called “primitive” cultures, as well as in Hindu, Buddhist, and other religions and civilizations that lack the Western opposition between humanity and nature, and do not assign to human beings dominion over the nonhuman world.

Examples:-

If we gave a example of this theory so we can take a A great example of an ecocritical reading of Wordsworth’s “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” is Scott Hess’s article “John Clare, William Wordsworth, and the (Un)Framing of Nature.”

Hess argues that Wordsworth treats the daffodils like a photo on a postcard. Wordsworth doesn’t involve himself in nature. Instead, he looks at nature from afar (like a cloud), and leaves as soon as he has had his fill. In other words, Wordsworth acts like the tourist who comes by once and snaps a quick picture before moving on.

With any theoretical approach there is always the danger that we misrepresent the text in order to further our own agenda. In this case it might be pointed out that Wordsworth is at pains to describe the communion he has with nature. He is not simply a solitary observer, watching from a distance. The personification of the flowers suggests a kind of kinship between people and nature. As Ralph Pite points out, “In Wordsworth’s work, ‘the natural world’ is always social, both in itself and in its relation to man. Consequently, nature does not offer an escape from other people so much as express an alternative mode of relating to them”.

So here if we look from this perspective Wordsworth sees ntature as a teacher, a friend, and a mirror of what it means to be human–and yet he also respects nature’s independence, the distance and difference between humans and their environment.

So this we can do best Ecocritical reading of this poem.



Marxism

The definition of Marxism is the theory of Karl Marx which says that society's classes are the cause of struggle and that society should have no classes.

This is the short and sweet definition of Marxism.

Marxist criticism:-

Marxist criticism, in its diverse forms, grounds its theory and practice on the economic and cultural theory of Karl Marx (1818–83) and his fellow-thinker Friedrich Engels (1820–95).

I found some key points which you get easy to understand.


Key Terms:-

• 1)Class:- a classification or grouping typically based on income and education Alienation a condition Karl Heinrich Marx ascribed to individuals in a capitalist economy who lack a sense of identification with their labor and products
• 2)Base:-the means (e.g., tools, machines, factories, natural resources) and relations (e.g., Proletariat, Bourgeoisie) or production that shape and are shaped by the superstructure (the dominant aspect in society)
• 3)Superstructure:-the social institutions such as systems of law, morality, education, and their relat.ed ideologies, that shape and are shaped by the base.

The main features of the Marxist theory of literature are that literature, like all forms of culture, is governed by specific historical conditions, and that literature, as a cultural product, is ultimately related to the economic base of society.

Important 20th-century Marxist critics include :-

• 1)Georg Lucáks,
• 2)Antonio Gramsci,
• 3)Louis Althusser, Terry Eagleton,
• 4)Raymond Williams,
• 5)Frederic Jameson

In England the many social and critical writings of Raymond Williams manifest an adaptation of Marxist concepts to his humanistic concern with the overall texture of an individual’s “lived experience.” A leading theorist of Marxist criticism in England is Terry Eagleton, who expanded and elaborated the concepts of Althusser and Macherey into his view that a literary text is a special kind of production in which ideological discourse—described as any system of mental representations of lived experience—is reworked into a specifically literary discourse.

The most prominent American theorist, Fredric Jameson, is also the most eclectic of Marxist critics. In The Political Unconscious: Narr

ative as a Socially Symbolic Act (1981), Jameson expressly adapts to his critical enterprise such seemingly incompatible viewpoints as the medieval theory of fourfold levels of meaning in the allegorical interpretation of the Bible, the archetypal criticism of Northrop Frye, structuralist criticism, Lacan’s reinterpretations of Freud, semiotics, and deconstruction.

Examples:-

As a example of Marxist theory we take a Romeo and Juliet novel. In that novel we will find that Benvolio wanted peace between the Montagues and Capulets. ... Romeo and Juliet and West Side Story are known to be monumental productions. They both thoroughly show Marxism through their characters. Even with different mise en scenes they both excelled in their sets and having believable characters.

Marxism involves the structure of power. Looking through a Marxist lens, Romeo and Juliet convey alienation from others similar to West Side Story.

Here in this both stories you can find a alienation.

Romeo and Juliet and West Side Story are known to be monumental productions. They both thoroughly show Marxism through their characters. Even with different mise en scenes they both excelled in their sets and having believable characters. The alienated characters enhanced the productions further by bringing in more conflict and opposing views. Alienation from others can be seen in both settings by the not characters conforming to societal expectations. Whether it's not being manly enough or having different opinions than others,West Side Story and Romeo and Juliet both have corresponding amounts of alienation from.



Queer theory


Queer theory’s origins are in LGBT studies – which focus on sexuality and gender. It soon distanced itself from those approaches due to disagreements with the stable identities that LGBT studies suggest. Queer theory emphasises the fluid and humanly performed nature of sexuality – or better, sexualities. It questions socially established norms and dualistic categories with a special focus on challenging sexual (heterosexual/homosexual), gender (male/female), class (rich/poor), racial (white/non-white) classifications. It goes beyond these so-called ‘binaries’ to contest general political (private/public) as well as international binary orders (democratic/ authoritarian). These are viewed as over-generalising theoretical constructs that produce an either/or mode of analysis that hides more than it clarifies and is unable to detect nuanced differences and contradictions. But queer theory also analyses and critiques societal and political norms in particular as they relate to the experience of sexuality and gender. These are not viewed as private affairs. Just as feminists perceive of gender as a socially constructed public and political affair, so queer theorists argue with regards to sexuality and gender expression.

See Teresa de Lauretis, Queer Theory: Lesbian and Gay Sexualities, 1991; and Annamarie Jagose, Queer Theory: An Introduction, 1996.

Both lesbian studies and gay studies began as “liberation movements”— in parallel with the movements for African-American and feminist liberation— during the anti-Vietnam War, anti-establishment, and countercultural ferment of the late 1960s and 1970s. Since that time these studies have maintained a close relation to the activists who strive to achieve, for gays and lesbians, political, legal, and economic rights equal to those of the heterosexual majority. Through the 1970s, the two movements were primarily separatist: gays often thought of themselves as quintessentially male, while many lesbians, aligning themselves with the feminist movement, characterized the gay movement as sharing the anti-female attitudes of the reigning patriarchal culture. There has, however, been a growing recognition (signalized by the adoption of the joint term “queer”) of the degree to which the two groups share a history as a suppressed minority and possess common political and social aims. In the 1970s, researchers for the most part assumed that there was a fixed, unitary identity as a gay man or as a lesbian that has remained stable through human history.



Examples:-

" Orlando" is the best example Of Queer theory.

Virginia Woolf wrote in a letter to a friend in the 1920s, “[I] intend to cultivate women’s society entirely in the future. Men are all in the light always: with women you swim at once into the silent dusk.” As her exquisite love letters to and from Vita Sackville-West tell us, Woolf made good on her intention — but nowhere does her lesbian sensibility come more vibrantly alive than in her novel Orlando: A Biography.

Virginia Woolf's 1928 novel Orlando is a masterpiece of modernist queer fiction. Chronicling the life of the titular protagonist, who changes sex from male to female and lives for over 400 years.

Both women were married to respectable men of financial means – Virginia to the publisher and author Leonard Woolf, Vita to the diplomat and writer Harold Nicolson.

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