Postcolonial - Page 5

A Stylistic Investigation of the Act of Murder in Doris Lessing’s The Grass is Singing

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345 views

Ujjal Jeet

Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar, Punjab. ORCID: 0000-0003-1897-2142. Email: ujjal.eng@gndu.ac.in

 Volume 13, Number 2, 2021 I Full-Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v13n2.34

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Abstract

This paper is a functional stylistic study of a selected passage from Doris Lessing’s novel The Grass is Singing. In the novel The Grass is Singing, a white woman in Rhodesia is killed by her black servant but surprisingly the murder instead of bringing a stir spreads a silence in the local white community. Further, the text on an intuitive reading seems to absolve the murderer of the crime which forms the research question of the paper. Thus, close and systematic textual analysis of the text representing the murder scene was conducted and it was found that the linguistic choices of the text does create a semantic universe where the murder and the murdered are allegorical figures representing nature and nurture in a mutual conflict. The methodology for linguistic analysis of the selected text is borrowed from Michael Halliday’s theoretical system Systemic Functional Linguistics. The text is analysed by means of transitivity system which provides the investigative tools to study the representational choices of the text.

 Keywords: Functional Stylistics; Systemic Functional Linguistics; Transitivity; Ideational metafunction; Experiential Choices; Lessing Studies

The Era of Environmental Derangement: Witnessing Climate Crisis in Amitav Ghosh’s Gun Island

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570 views

Nupur Pancholi1, Sanjit Kumar Mishra2

1Research Scholar, Department of Applied Science & Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee, India. E-mail: npancholi@as.iitr.ac.in, nupurvpancholi@gmail.com
2Professor, Department of Humanities & Social Science, Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee, India. E-mail: sanjit.mishra@hs.iitr.ac.in

 Volume 13, Number 2, 2021 I Full-Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v13n2.29

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Abstract

Drawing on Amitav Ghosh’s novel Gun Island (2019) together with his nonfictional The Great Derangement (2016), the article strives to present that while advancing endless desires, human-centric culture and the idea of ‘good life’ drive climate change and environmental deterioration. It seeks to enumerate the devastating consequences of changing climatic conditions and degenerating ecosystems and their cumulative impacts on the humankind and non-human world. It aims to locate how human life at the margins has been affected by these cataclysmic consequences through analysing Ghosh’s Gun Island. It attempts to show that human interventions had significantly fuelled the global climate crisis in the seventeenth century, decoding the myth of Bonduki Sadagar that Ghosh identifies in Gun Island.

 Keywords: Climate change, human-centric culture, the idea of ‘good life’, environmental derangement, myth of Bonduki Sadagar

“Prompter’s Whisper”: History, Travel and Narrative in Post-Colonial Indian English Travel Writing

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297 views

Komal Yadav

PhD Research Scholar, JNU, ORCID: 0000-0003-4049-8192, Komalydv94@gmail.com

 Volume 13, Number 1, 2021 I Full Text PDF
DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v13n1.48

“Prompter’s Whisper”: History, Travel and Narrative in Post-Colonial Indian English Travel Writing

Abstract

The theory revolution and the counter-traditional wave in humanities in the 1980s have garnered attention towards new localism by positing alternatives to the great tradition. In this, Travel writing has proved adaptable and responsive to post-colonial and Globalization studies, thereby shaking off its ‘middlebrow’ status. Keeping in mind the relevance of travel writing in Global politics, the paper aims to engage with In an Antique Land: History in the Guise of a Traveller’s Tale (1992) by Amitav Ghosh to delineate the question of History, Travel and Narrative in Indian English Travel Writing. The paper contends that Ghosh uses the Hybrid non-fiction space of the travelogue to write a counter-narrative to the Eurocentric discourse of Travel writing. It seeks to foreground that the reverse Grand tour of Amitav Ghosh problematizes the western hegemonic hold on the field of Ethnography and History. The paper is divided into two parts- the first part will establish In an Antique Land as Resistive subaltern history, followed by the second part, which focuses on Ghosh’s privileging of third world ethnography to write an alternative narrative.

Keywords: Travel, Subaltern History, Ethnography, Narrative.

Modernity and Alienation in Fahd Al-Atiq’s Life on Hold

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306 views

Dr. Ebrahim Mohammed Alwuraafi

Department of English Language and Literature, Faculty of science and Art-Al-Mandaq, Al-Baha University, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Email. ebrahimwarafi@gmail.com, e.mohammed@bu.edu.sa ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5537-7548

 Volume 13, Number 1, 2021 I Full Text PDF
DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v13n1.47

Modernity and Alienation in Fahd Al-Atiq’s Life on Hold

Abstract

The second half of the twentieth century Saudi Arabia witnessed an extraordinary economic boom that resulted from the oil production. The new wealth changed people’s life and instead of the old and impoverished life, there started a new one of unimaginable riches and wealth. This sudden metamorphosis has had negative psychological impacts such as alienation and estrangement on Saudis who, unexpectedly, found themselves in an entirely new world. Fahd Al-Atiq’s novel Life on Hold depicts this economic transformation and its impact on the life of Saudi people. The aim of this paper is to analyze Al-Atiq’s usage of alienation as a consequence of modernity and consumerism in Saudi Arabia. The paper examines Al-Atiq’s disappointment with modernity as a culture of alienation in its celebration of appearance and superficiality which necessitates the need to look beyond the surface.

 

Keywords: modernity, alienation, Saudi Arabia, Saudi novel

Consumption and the Indian Diaspora: A Study of Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake

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507 views

Rashmi Das

Ph.D. Research Scholar, Dept. of English, Tezpur University, Assam, India.

ORCID ID: 0000-0002-2322-9049. Email: rashmidas094@gmail.com

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­ Volume 13, Number 1, 2021 I Full Text PDF
DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v13n1.38

Consumption and the Indian Diaspora: A Study of Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake

Abstract

For the diaspora, consumption remains a significant exercise, as it acts as a means of appropriation of the host land, while also being an agency of assimilation and categorisation. Moreover, the fact remains that consumption or eating simultaneously entails regeneration and violence. As such, this paper justifies how the locus of consumption is multifaceted, being not only physical, but also metaphorical, and at times hyperreal, whereby the diaspora exists not only as consumers, but also as an item of consumption by the hosts. For this purpose, Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake (2003) has been analysed through the methodology of close reading, to present how food and its narrative is used as a repetitive metaphor and an ideological implement, which further illuminates the technicalities of consumption among the Indian diaspora. To set the stage, this paper briefly summarises the development of food studies as a genre, which has successfully enlarged the scope of literary criticism and research. Theoretically, this paper draws on Mikhail Bakhtin’s discourse of food and eating as presented in his work Rabelais and His World (1965). By examining the unifying trope of food, this paper attempts to study the numerous dichotomies between the diasporic body and the concept of the grotesque body, as put forward by Bakhtin. This paper also attends to the concept of “culinary citizenship” (Mannur, 2010, p. 20) and traces the way it is overturned in favour of culinary “interorientation” (Bakhtin, 1965/1984, p. 317).

Keywords: Consumption, Food, Diaspora, Culinary citizenship, Culinary interorientation, Banquet, Inverted exoticism.

 

Linguistic nationalism in early-colonial Assam: The American Baptist Mission and Orunodoi

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317 views

Arnab Dasgupta

Asst. Professor, Hansraj College, University of Delhi, ORCID ID: 0000-0002-3394-4564. Email: adasgupta@hrc.du.ac.in

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­ Volume 13, Number 1, 2021 I Full Text PDF
DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v13n1.32

Linguistic nationalism in early-colonial Assam: The American Baptist Mission and Orunodoi

Abstract

This paper will attempt to map the emergence of linguistic nationalism as a direct offshoot of the language debate in early-colonial Assam. In 1836, Bengali was made the language of courts and schools in Assam. Ten years later, the Baptist Mission at Sadiya started publishing a monthly magazine called Orunodoi. Orunodoi gradually became a critical instrument in the effort to reinstate Assamese as the language of the province’s courts and schools. How did the emergent public sphere react to the debate on language? What was the power dynamic between an emergent native intelligentsia, the Baptist Mission and the colonial state in early-colonial Assam? What are the factors that prevented Assamese from being reinstated as the language of courts and schools in Assam until 1873? Was the debate on language merely about imposition of a ‘foreign’ language, or was the discourse more fluid with concerns like language standardisation operating as undercurrents? Can the language debate in early-colonial Assam be isolated as the first assertion of a sub-national identity based upon cultural and linguistic ‘uniqueness’? Through an analysis of some articles published in Orunodoi, read along with private letters and official correspondences of the American Baptist Mission in Assam, this paper will attempt to address some of these questions and recover the context of the debate around language in nineteenth-century Assam.

Keywords:  Assam, Colonial, Print culture, Linguistic nationalism, American Baptist Mission

Tales of the Horrors of War: Analysing Select Indian Fictions on World War I

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268 views

Md Shahnawaz

Independent Scholar. Email: mdshahnawaz.ms69@gmail.com

 Volume 13, Number 1, 2021 I Full Text PDF
DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v13n1.13

  Tales of the Horrors of War: Analysing Select Indian Fictions on World War I

Abstract

Conscription of Indian men from different states and ethnicities were recruited to fight in the First World War for the British in foreign lands, while Indian resources kept the Allies going. The discursive reduction of it quantified India to merely numbers, of soldiers given, soldiers lost, tons of food sent, and money spent. The Indian Movement for Independence as an act of political negotiation with the British masters had warranted the cultural amnesia of the Indian intellectual class about the War’s impact to focus on the more vital demand, and how easily were all the unwanted marks of the War hidden and left behind. Thus, my paper will examine the representation of War in India and identify the ways in which Indian involvements in the War remain unacknowledged in the contemporary period through select works of fiction and non-fiction by Indian authors. Therefore, it is a pressing concern that much of the information about the World War I from an Indian perspective is lost, or is on the verge of being lost forever, because of the general apathy towards the preservation of such materials. This engagement with the First World War is not acknowledged the way it should be, since most of these works are not even categorized or identified as ‘war literature’ even if their sole concern remained precisely that. It is also important in this regard to understand the inclusion of the World War I in the silences and the omissions. Therefore, I will analyse select literary texts by Indian authors to evaluate the intersections of fiction and history alongside the enunciation of the unknown/forgotten voices of the marginalized people in the World War I.

Keywords: World War I, Indian literature, history, cultural consciousness, nationalism.

Thuggee in England: Tracing the Origin and Development of Fantasies of Thug-Invasion and Reverse Colonization in late nineteenth century British Fiction

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428 views

Ayusman Chakraborty, PhD

Assistant Professor of English (W.B.E.S.). Taki Government College, hinduayusman@gmail.com, ORCID: 0000-0003-0641-0652

 Volume 13, Number 1, 2021 I Full Text PDF
DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v13n1.12

Thuggee in England: Tracing the Origin and Development of Fantasies of Thug-Invasion and Reverse Colonization in late nineteenth century British Fiction

Abstract                                                                                                                                       

A lot has been written on Thuggee and nineteenth century British operations against it. Instead of delving directly into either of these two well investigated areas of research, this paper seeks to chart how several nineteenth century British writings exhibit a curious fear of Thug infiltration. Keeping in their minds some actual instances, early British colonial officials worried about the Thugs joining government services under them to survive and sabotage the anti-Thuggee campaign. This paper argues that this apprehension gradually developed into the fantasy of being reverse colonized by the Thugs. Late Victorian writers of fiction fantasized the Thugs invading England, or, what must have been more unnerving to them, converting the Britons themselves to Thugs. Using unpublished official records and literary works as sources, this paper tries to map how colonial anxiety of ‘Thug infiltration’ originated and later grew into the fantasy of reverse colonization by the Thugs. It also tries to link this to specific historical developments in that period.

Keywords: Thuggee, Thug infiltration, Thug immigration, invasion, Reverse colonization, British female Thugs.

A Nation within a Nation: English Education as a Tool of Divide and Rule Policy in Colonial India

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452 views

Thakurdas Jana1 & Sandip Sarkar2

1State Aided College Teacher, Post-Graduate Department of English, Bhatter College, Dantan, West Bengal, India. E-mail: thakurdas0901@gmail.com

2Assistant Professor, Department of Humanities and Social Science, NIT, Raipur, India. E-mail: sandipsarkar7@gmail.com

 Volume 13, Number 1, 2021 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v13n1.01

Abstract

Famous Irish political scientist and historian, Benedict Anderson, in his book, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism has described nations as imagined communities. Stephen May, the British novelist, playwright, and TV writer, has viewed that language is used as a political tool to strengthen the imagined community of a nation-state. Eventually, many countries have been named after the language predominantly used in a particular country. But during the colonial expansion that the linguistic identity of a colonised nation like India and its people has been transformed in different ways. With the English Education Act, 1835 Lord Bentinck defeated the Orientalists and promoted English education in India. Consequently, different missionaries like Joshua Marshman, William Carey, William Ward, and Alexander Duff, who principally used English education to preach Christianity among the Indians, and British officials like Charles Grant, Lord Macaulay, William Hazlitt, and also some higher-class Indians like Raja Rammohan Roy, Keshab Chandra Sen, Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay supported the Anglicist view and tried to spread the English education in India. Different English schools like Dharmatala Academy were built and in the curriculum of different universities, the writings of different English authors like Francis Bacon, William Shakespeare, John Milton, Joseph Addison, Alexander Pope were included. Many higher-class Indians became more interested in English study losing their interest in vernacular education. Vijay Agnew in her autobiography, Where I Come From, and Madhu Kishor in her article “The Dominance of Angreziyat in Our Education” have accused English education of making them unaware and ignorant of the Indian culture and writings. In this way, the higher-class English educated Indians have created one English nation within the Hindustan. Even the translation of different Indian classical texts into English like Sir William Jone’s translation of Abhjnanasakuntalam in 1789 and Sir Charles Wilkins’ translation of Bhagabadgita in 1784 has also paved the way for forming a different identity. In this context, the present paper aims to show how the different tools for spreading the English language divided the nation into two, supporting the divide and rule policy of the British, which is still effective in the so-called united, equal, and democratic India.

Keywords: nation, division, colonialism, English education, India.

Nineteenth-Century Eurasians and Spatiality in Emma Roberts’ Scenes and Characteristics of Hindostan, with Sketches of Anglo-Indian Society (1835)

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280 views

Divya A
Assistant Professor, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai, India. ORCID: 0000-0002-4516-6763. Email id divya@iitm.ac.in

 Volume 12, Number 6, 2020 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v12n6.12

Abstract

In this article, through a spatial reading of Roberts’ Scenes and Characteristics I illustrate how the stringent regulations of the East Indian Company disempowering the Eurasians are manifested through the spatial strictures, and how notions of cultural purity and hierarchy are realized through the politics of space in colonial India. Spatial concepts of lived space, third space, and hybridity— drawn from the theories of Homi Bhabha, Edward Soja and Henry Lefebvre—are useful in mapping the spatial politics in nineteenth-century India, especially in relation to the Government-house in Calcutta, the seat of the highest authority in colonial India, and the marginalized orphanages/schools run by the East India Company primarily for the benefit of Eurasian children. Discrimination through spatially segregation was practiced by the British East India Company in order to preserve the racial purity of the European upper class at the helm of the Indian colony.  My paper illustrates how the fortunes of the male and female “half-castes” of empire were variously charted, and how spatial homogeneity was subverted through the subtext of marital relations. The “third space” that some of the fortunately-marked interracial men and women occupy constantly pulled at the seams of apparently inviolable concepts of homogeneity and purity to expose and challenge the cultural dominion of the British Empire.

Keywords: Eurasian, spatiality, Bhabha, Soja, Government-house, Lefebvre, third space, colonialism, East India Company, orphan.

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