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Victimhood Self-construal, Irony of Tears and Melancholy amid Wealth: Critical Assessment of Select Literary and Visual Metaphors on the Niger Delta Environmental Despoilment

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Thank-God I. Igwenagu1 , Alphonsus C. Ugwu2 , Norbert O. Eze3  & Emeka Aniago4*
1Fine & Applied Arts, University of Nigeria
2Mass Comm., University of Nigeria
3,4Theatre & Film Studies, University of Nigeria. *Corresponding author.

 Rupkatha Journal, Special Issue on Poetics of Self-construal in Postcolonial Literature, 2023. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v15n5.14
[Article History: Received: 17 November 2023. Revised: 28 December 2023. Accepted: 29 December 2023. Published: 30 December 2023]
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 Abstract

Studies on self-construal indicate that man is propelled by what happens around him to react in a certain manner and this reaction, we suggest is a human universal common and a representation of conscious purposive response to concomitant environmental and circumstantial realities. This purposive response encapsulates messages, which an observer articulates and interprets; hence, our study is about deepening our understanding of the factors and variables responsible for victimhood self-construal projected in select texts on the Niger Delta environmental despoilment. Drawing from the theories of eco-criticism, victimhood, and self-construal, this study utilizes an interpretive approach to discuss select instances of victimhood portrayals in the poem ‘Delta Blues’ by Tanure Ojaide, in the drama Hangmen also Die by Esiaba Irobi and in the film Blood and Oil, directed by Curtis Graham. The study examines the primary reason, which is the dispossession of livelihood by environmentally destructive oil exploitation, adduced by the Niger Delta inhabitants to understand how it generates variables that instigate victimhood self-construal. Our observation is that in the texts the inhabitants’ victimhood self-construal can be described as purposive, the propelling variable is their concomitant environmental realities and the texts as communication media have different encumbrances and advantages regarding their efficacy and utility for advocacy.  

Keywords: eco-criticism, eco-literature, eco-film, Niger Delta, self-construal, visual metaphor.

Sustainable Development Goals: Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions, Life on Land
Citation: Igwenagu, T., Ugwu, A. C., Norbert O. Eze, N. O, & Aniago, E. (2023). Victimhood Self-construal, Irony of Tears and Melancholy amid Wealth: Critical Assessment of Select Literary and Visual Metaphors on the Niger Delta Environmental Despoilment. Rupkatha Journal 15:5. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v15n5.14 

William Gibson’s Sprawl Trilogy: Connection between Humans and Artificial Intelligence

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461 views

Shuchi Agrawal
Professor, Amity Institute of English Studies & Research, Amity University NOIDA. 

Rupkatha Journal, Vol. 15, Issue 4, 2023. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v15n4.19
[Article History: Received: 20 September 2023. Revised: 27 December 2023. Accepted: 28 December 2023. Published: 29 December 2023]
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Abstract

Artificial intelligence as it is envisioned in literature, reflects moral and social standards, sculpts societal hopes and fears, spurs scientific progress, and perhaps even foretells the future. Artificial intelligence (AI) is being developed by humans, including programmers through their code and authors and readers through millennia of discourse, starting with ancient automatons and continuing with contemporary concepts of AI. The question of what we are producing as AI becomes more human—and possibly superhuman—and what literature can teach us about these AI imaginaries are also topics covered in this paper. The researcher seeks to explain the connections between artificial intelligence and literature in this work by highlighting the numerous ways that machine intelligence helps the production and comprehension of narrative. This study will also look at the connection between humans and artificial intelligence in William Gibson’s Sprawl trilogy and how his cyberpunk trilogy allows readers to think about how the lines between humans and technology are blurring and how technology can both liberate and enslave people.

Keywords: Artificial intelligence, science fiction, cyberpunk, robotics, posthumans.

Sustainable Development Goals: Better Education
Citation: Agrawal, S. (2023). William Gibson’s Sprawl Trilogy: Connection between Humans and Artificial Intelligence. Rupkatha Journal 15:4. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v15n4.19 

 

Portrayal of Patriarchal Subjugation of Women in the Selected Works of Anita Nair

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Divyani Sharma1*    & Swati Chauhan2  
1,2 Department of English, Manav Rachna International Institute of Research and Studies, Faridabad, Haryana, India

Rupkatha Journal, Special Issue on Poetics of Self-construal in Postcolonial Literature, 2023. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v15n5.08
[Article History: Received: 12 November 2023. Revised: 26 December 2023. Accepted: 27 December 2023. Published: 29 December 2023]
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Abstract
This study will investigate how patriarchy works as a vehicle for women’s subjugation. Many female authors were born within a predominately patriarchal environment, where women have historically been subservient to socially imposed norms. Anita Nair has emerged as one of India’s most committed modern authors. She freely expresses her views about women in autocratic Indian culture. She also offers insight into how society views women and what it expects of them. The paper will portray women’s sufferings and the status of women in society. It will also shed light on the importance of education. The idea of ‘half’ by Simone De Beauvoir in her work The Second Sex will illuminate the concept of self. The paper will highlight the shifting scenarios of women and how new women transcend the confines of patriarchal setup and create new identities through Anita Nair’s novels- Ladies Coupe, Mistress, and The Better Man.

Keywords: Freedom, Individualism, Modernism, Patriarchy, Tradition, Womanhood.

Sustainable Development Goals: Gender Equality
Citation: Sharma, D. & Chauhan, S. (2023). Portrayal of Patriarchal Subjugation of Women in the Selected Works of Anita Nair. Rupkatha Journal 15:5. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v15n5.08 

Editorial Introduction: Poetics of Self-construal in Postcolonial Literature

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1.3K views

Maria-Ana Tupan     
Doctoral School, Alba Iulia University, Romania.

Rupkatha Journal, Special Issue on Poetics of Self-construal in Postcolonial Literature, 2023. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v15n5.00
[Article History: Published: 28 December 2023]
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How man is made and how he makes himself was at the crux of the anthropological inquiry launched by Immanuel Kant in his 1798 Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View. The subsequent story of the discipline, progressively aided by others, both from the field of humanities (philosophy, sociology, psychology, ethnography) and of sciences (biology, physics, physiology, psychiatry), followed one or the other paths opened by the Königsberg philosopher.

The self grounded in physiology is considered by Kant egoistic, self-centred and motivated by irrational drives: involuntary perception, subconscious associations, arbitrary taste or unaccountable desires. Keep Reading

Exploring Black Writers’ Literary Strategies for Interdependence and Global Solidarity

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494 views

Ananya Buragohain1*     & Lakshminath Kagyung2    
1,2 Department of English, Dibrugarh University, Dibrugarh, Assam, India. *Corresponding author.

 Rupkatha Journal, Special Issue on Poetics of Self-construal in Postcolonial Literature, 2023. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v15n5.10
[Article History: Received: 11 October 2023. Revised: 24 December 2023. Accepted: 25 December 2023. Published: 27 December 2023]
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Abstract

This paper seeks to explore the techniques and strategies used by African and Afro-American writers to disseminate a sense of Black interdependence and solidarity on a global level. It will examine how Black authors are unceasingly using a planned strategy in their literary works to encourage Black people to envision a sustainable future for themselves. We contend that Black authors and critics are incessantly using the literary medium to inspire Black audiences to self-heal themselves from the trauma associated with European colonization of Africa in the bygone days and this issue is yet to receive a noteworthy observation in the literary field. Hence, this paper will examine various dimensions associated with the Black literary genre to explore more about the philosophies and strategies imbibed by Black writers to encourage their people to self-heal from their past while comprehending the significance of mutual interconnectedness. The select works this paper seeks to study comparatively are Chinua Achebe’s novel Things Fall Apart (2010), Alice Walker’s epistolary novel The Color Purple (2014), Rivers Solomon with Daveed Diggs, William Hutson, and Jonathan Snipes’s fantasy fiction The Deep (2020), and Nnedi Okorafor’s science fiction Lagoon (2014). The frameworks used for this study are Postcolonialism, Africanfuturism, Afrofuturism, and African feminism which are treated as the vantage ground for this reading.

Keywords: Black solidarity, Gender, Racism, Interdependence, Sustainable future.

Sustainable Development Goals: Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions
Citation: Buragohain, A, & Kagyung, L. (2023). Exploring Black Writers’ Literary Strategies for Interdependence and Global Solidarity. Rupkatha Journal 15:5. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v15n5.10 

The Narrative Construction of National Identity in Nadine Gordimer’s July’s People

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478 views

Aparajita Dutta Hazarika1*  & Smita Devi2    
1,2 Department of English: Assam Don Bosco University, Assam. *Corresponding author.

 Rupkatha Journal, Special Issue on Poetics of Self-construal in Postcolonial Literature, 2023. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v15n5.12
[Article History: Received: 10 October 2023. Revised: 25 December 2023. Accepted: 26 December 2023. Published: 27 December 2023]
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Abstract

At a time when Gordimer was writing her short stories and novels which stretched over four decades beginning from the 1940s to the 1990s, several historical and political events were taking place in South Africa. Gordimer’s entire oeuvre of fiction was her way of responding to those historical and political events that unfolded in the country. Many writers and critics believed that the history of the Nationalist Government from 1948 onwards has been faithfully recorded by the novels of Nadine Gordimer and they “will provide the future historian with all the evidence required to evaluate the price that has been paid by the people”. (Green, 563) She published her first collection of short stories in 1949, a year after the first Nationalist Government was elected to power. Her body of work from 1949 to 2000 covers the entire period of apartheid in South Africa. Therefore, she was a writer with serious intent and meant to convey through her novels her rigid stand against apartheid. The term ‘apartheid’ means ‘apartness’, a policy meant to segregate people on the foundation of their race and colour. In The Essential Gesture: Writing, Politics and Places (1988), Gordimer noted that it was not the “problems” of her country that set her to writing; rather, it was learning to write that sent her “falling, falling through the surface of the South African way of life”. (Gordimer 1988, p. 272) This paper shall attempt to study how Gordimer constructs identity in her novel July’s People (1981). The paper posits that the most important theme in Gordimer’s novels has been identity, an issue that she has been dealing with since her childhood, due to her situation as the daughter of immigrant parents, and living and writing in South Africa at a time when her country was divided based on colour.

Keywords: apartheid, identity, politics, history

Sustainable Development Goals: Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions
Citation: Hazarika, A. D. & Devi, S. (2023). The Narrative Construction of National Identity in Nadine Gordimer’s July’s People. Rupkatha Journal 15:5. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v15n5.12 

Postcolonial Trauma in the Lives of Indian Tribes

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552 views

Nihal Zainab1    & H. Sofia2  
1,2 B. S. Abdur Rahman Crescent Institute of Science & Technology, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India.

 Rupkatha Journal, Special Issue on Poetics of Self-construal in Postcolonial Literature, 2023. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v15n5.11
[Article History: Received: 13 October 2023. Revised: 25 December 2023. Accepted: 26 December 2023. Published: 27 December 2023]
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Abstract

India is a country that is home to 1.4 billion people. These people are part of wide and intricate groups, communities, castes and tribes. While close to 91.4% of the Indian population has progressed into the colonial standard of civilization, according to the Census Report 2011, about 8.6% of people are still living in their original and natural way of life. These people are the tribes of India whose way of life has been romanticized as the ‘Indian Culture’. A section of tribal people continues to live in mountains, and forests and construct only mud houses or huts. They have little access to basic amenities like healthcare, education, electricity and water. While few tribes have moved out of their original ways of life by converting to other religions, certain tribes are still governed by their respective leaders, following the religions and customs that were taught to them centuries ago. It is at times difficult for the State Governments to reach the tribes since most of them resist any such advancements. European Colonization of India led to the discovery of several tribes that were until that point in time living in harmony with nature and forests. This paper will analyze through literature the pre-colonial and post-colonial lives of certain Indian tribes living in the mountains of Kerala and Tamil Nadu.

Keywords: tribes, trauma, assimilation, resistance, decolonization, Indian Culture.

Sustainable Development Goals: Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions
Citation: Zainab, N. & Sofia, H. (2023). Postcolonial Trauma in the Lives of Indian Tribes. Rupkatha Journal 15:5. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v15n5.11 

Poetics of Self in Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus: A Postcolonial Bildungsroman Study

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917 views

Nitisha Seoda1  & Devendra Kumar Sharma2      
1,2 Department of English & MELs, Banasthali Vidyapith, Rajasthan, India

 Rupkatha Journal, Special Issue on Poetics of Self-construal in Postcolonial Literature, 2023. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v15n5.06
[Article History: Received: 11 October 2023. Revised: 26 December 2023. Accepted: 26 December 2023. Published: 27 December 2023]
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Abstract

This study situates itself in the literary representations of the interplay of gender, class, color, race, postcoloniality, power politics, violence, identity, and the African self in a Bildungsroman. It focuses on Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus as a Bildungsroman of woman, written from a postcolonial outlook. The narrative centers on the growth, development, and experiences of the female Bildungsheld, Kambili, who eventually attains epiphany, and explores her true self and identity. In other words, the study follows an eclectic approach, which further focuses on Kambili’s odyssey of encountering freedom by tearing out the different challenges, and insecurities during the process of subjectivization, objectification, and interpellation towards her journey of becoming in a political context of a military coup in Nigeria. As a result, the article emphasizes the confluence of history and literature, as well as Africans’ experiences in the postcolonial world in general, and accounts for Kambili’s becoming in particular.

Keywords: Gender, Female Bildungsroman, Patriarchy, Postcolonialism, Self

Sustainable Development Goals: Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions
Citation: Seoda, N. & Sharma, D.K. (2023). Poetics of Self in Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus:  A Postcolonial Bildungsroman Study. Rupkatha Journal 15:5. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v15n5.06

Patient’s Consent and Autonomy in Jerry Pinto’s Em and the Big Hoom

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Nimisha Tiwari1*   & Aratrika Das2  
1,2 School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology, Indore, India. *Corresponding author.

Rupkatha Journal, Vol. 15, Issue 4, 2023. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v15n4.18
[Article History: Received: 02 June 2023. Revised: 24 December 2023. Accepted: 25 December 2023. Published: 26 December 2023]
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Abstract

This paper addresses the idea of patient consent in the Indian mental health care system. Mental hospitals tend to treat patients as machines. The personhood of the sufferer is treated as invalid. The paper argues that the conventional clinical practice dehumanizes patients, neglecting their autonomy and perpetuating the stigma associated with a psychiatric diagnosis. In contrast, through the narrative voice of Imelda’s son, Jerry Pinto’s novel Em and the Big Hoom (2012) intimately intertwines the experiences of mental illness within the broader context of familial struggles. Em refuses to become a mere statistic or a diagnostic label, embodying the agency to shape her narrative beyond the constraints of clinical definitions. The novel challenges the flawed clinical gaze and provides an alternative narrative that portrays an ambitious woman who does not succumb to the definitions of her illness. These alternative narratives resist reductionist perspectives, offering a more comprehensive understanding of mental illness that transcends clinical definitions. This paper critically examines the novel’s portrayal of patient autonomy and consent, shedding light on the implications for mental health care practices in India. It explores how the text serves as a catalyst for reevaluating conventional clinical perspectives and fosters a more compassionate and patient-centric mental health care system.

Keywords: Patient’s consent, autonomy, mental illness, caregivers, illness narratives.

Sustainable Development Goals: Better Education; Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions
Citation: Tiwari, N & Das, A. (2023). Patient’s Consent and Autonomy in Jerry Pinto’s Em and the Big Hoom. Rupkatha Journal 15:4. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v15n4.18 

Identity versus Identity Crisis: An Analysis of Erikson’s Epigenetic Principle in Isabel Allende’s Daughter of Fortune

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1K views

P. Sarojini    
Ph.D. Research Scholar in English, Sri Sarada College for Women (Autonomous), Salem. Tamil Nadu. India.

Rupkatha Journal, Special Issue on Poetics of Self-construal in Postcolonial Literature, 2023. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v15n5.04
[Article History: Received: 12 October 2023. Revised: 20 December 2023. Accepted: 21 December 2023. Published: 26 December 2023]
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Abstract

Identity and identity crisis are crucial aspects of a person’s mental and physical well-being. Identity is what sets an individual apart from others in society. An identity crisis can cause a person to experience confusion and uncertainty at various stages of their life. Erikson’s Theory of Psychosocial Development is based on the ‘Epigenetic principle,’ which suggests that our environment and culture influence how we progress through the planned stages of personality development. Erikson’s eight stages describe how people develop emotionally and socially throughout their lifespan. In Isabel Allende’s novel, Daughter of Fortune, the protagonist Eliza Sommers undergoes an identity crisis. The paper focuses on this concept of identity and identity crisis and the mystery and troubled identity surrounding Eliza Sommers.

Keywords: Identity, Identity Crisis, Epigenetic Principle, Mystery, Erikson’s Theory.

Sustainable Development Goals: Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions
Citation: Sarojini, P. (2023). Identity versus Identity Crisis: An Analysis of Erikson’s Epigenetic Principle in Isabel Allende’s Daughter of Fortune. Rupkatha Journal 15:5. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v15n5.04 

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