POSTMODERNIST INTERPRETATIONS OF THE NOVELS OF MAGGIE GEE

A THESIS SUBMITTED TO

BHARATI VIDYAPEETH DEEMED UNIVERSITY, PUNE (UNDER: THE FACULTY OF ARTS, SOCIAL SCIENCES AND COMMERCE)

FOR THE AWARD OF DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN ENGLISH

BY MR. VAIBHAV A. DHAMAL M.A.

UNDER THE GUIDANCE OF DR. RAJARAM S. ZIRANGE M.A., M.Phil., Ph.D.

RESEARCH CENTRE:

DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH BHARATI VIDYAPEETH DEEMED UNIVERSITY YASHWANTRAO MOHITE COLLEGE OF ARTS, SCIENCE & COMMERCE, PUNE

SEPTEMBER 2016

CERTIFICATE

This is to certify that the work incorporated in the thesis entitled

‘Postmodernist Interpretations of the Novels of Maggie Gee’ submitted by Mr. Vaibhav A. Dhamal for the award of the Degree of

Doctor of Philosophy in English under the Faculty of Arts, Social

Sciences and Commerce of Bharati Vidyapeeth Deemed University,

Pune, was carried out in the Department of English, Yashwantrao Mohite

College of Arts, Science and Commerce, Bharati Vidyapeeth Deemed

University, Pune, during the period from 2011 to 2016 under the guidance of Dr. R. S. Zirange.

Date: /09/2016 ( Dr. K. D. Jadhav )

DECLARATION BY THE CANDIDATE

I hereby declare that the thesis entitled ‘Postmodernist

Interpretations of the Novels of Maggie Gee’ submitted by me to the

Bharati Vidyapeeth Deemed University, Pune for the award of the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in English under the Faculty of Arts,

Social Sciences and Commerce is an original piece of work carried out by me under the supervision of Dr. Rajaram S. Zirange. I further declare that it has not been submitted to this or any other university or institution for the award of any Degree or Diploma.

I confirm that all the material, which I have borrowed from other sources and incorporated in this thesis, is duly acknowledged. If any material is not duly acknowledged and found incorporated in this thesis, it is entirely my responsibility. I am fully aware of the implications of any such act which might have been committed by me advertently or inadvertently.

Place: Pune ( Mr. Vaibhav A. Dhamal ) Research Scholar

Date: /09/2016

CERTIFICATE OF GUIDE

This is to certify that the work incorporated in the thesis entitled

‘Postmodernist Interpretations of the Novels of Maggie Gee’ submitted by Mr. Vaibhav A. Dhamal for the award of the Degree of

Doctor of Philosophy in English under the Faculty of Arts, Social

Sciences and Commerce has been carried out in the Department of

English, Yashwantrao Mohite College of Arts, Science and Commerce of

Bharati Vidyapeeth Deemed University, Pune during the period from

2011 to 2016 under my direct supervision/ guidance.

Date: /09/2016 ( Dr. Rajaram S. Zirange ) Head, Dept. of English Bharati Vidyapeeth Deemed University Yashwantrao Mohite College, Pune

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

‘Every act of a human being is under the adjudication of the most exalted, omnipotent and omnipresent Almighty God’.

I am grateful to Hon’ble Dr. Patangrao Kadam, Founder and Chancellor, Bharati Vidyapeeth Deemed University Pune, who was the main source of inspiration for undertaking this research work.

I am indebted to a visionary academic leader and distinguished researcher Hon’ble Prof. Dr. Shivajirao Kadam, Vice Chancellor, Bharati Vidyapeeth Deemed University, Pune for permitting me to go ahead with this difficult task as well as his constant motivation and appreciation to complete the work in right direction.

I am thankful to Hon’ble Dr. Vishwajeet Kadam, Secretary, Bharati Vidyapeeth, Pune for his continuous encouragement in this research work.

I am also indebted to Principal Dr. K. D. Jadhav, Joint Secretary, Bharati Vidyapeeth, Pune for allowing me to use the resources and necessary infrastructure of the college to accomplish my research work.

It gives me immense pleasure and pride to express my deep sense of gratitude and respect for my guide Dr. Rajaram S. Zirange, Head, Dept. of English, BVDU Yahwantrao Mohite College, Pune. I consider myself fortunate to be associated with him who gave a decisive turn and significant boost to my career.

I would also like to express my gratitude to Dr. P. M. Bulakh, Director, BCUD and Dr. S. I. Kumbhar, Dean, Faculty of Arts, Social Science and Commerce, Bharati Vidyapeeth Deemed University, Pune who always helped me with their valuable suggestion throughout my research work.

I will always be grateful to Dr. Mrs. Muktaja V. Mathkari, Principal, Abasaheb Garware College, Pune and Adv. Madhav Khanwelkar, Former Deputy Registrar, SPPU, Pune for their wholehearted moral support.

I also like to thank for the encouragement and the support by Mr.Pralhad Patil, Dr. Vijay Koli, Dr. Vaibhav Jadhav, Mr. Ganesh Wagh, Dr. Vivek Rankhambe, Mr. Sambhaji Pisal and the other staff of Yashwatrao Mohite College, Pune.

I would also like to thank my co-researchers Mr. Sayantan Mondal and Mr. Meharaj Shaikh for their every possible help. My special mention is due to Mr. Sambhaji Jadhav for timely completion of the typing work.

The words are an inadequate means to express my heartfelt gratitude to my father and my mother for everything they have provided to me. I will fail in my duties, if I miss the name of my wife Dr. Sonali and my daughters, Anushka and Arpeeta for taking their time and utilizing the same for this work. I am indebted to them forever.

While preparing this thesis, many known & unknown well-wishers, relatives and friends have directly or indirectly contributed their share in this work.

I am aware that it is an extremely difficult task to express my sincere thanks and gratitude to all of them. However, I shall be failing in my duties if I do not put on record my gratitude towards them.

Place : Pune

Date : / / 2016 ( Mr. Vaibhav A. Dhamal ) Research Scholar

'I write for the joy of the language and the form, and to pay the mortgage. I also write because life is fascinating, beautiful, and short. I want to record my experience, and my brief attempts at understanding it, for others, while I can.'

- Maggie Gee (Born on 2nd November, 1948) C O N T E N T S

Chapter Name Page I Introduction 1-25 I.1 Postmodernism and its Implications I.2 Life and Works of Maggie Gee I.3 A Comparative Analysis of the Two Groups of Novels I.4 The Proposed Plan of the Research II The Postmodern Ideology and Maggie Gee's Fiction 26-68 II.1. Modernism II.2. Postmodernism and its Legacy II.3. The Architects of Postmodernism II.4. Postmodernist Fiction and its Contribution III Condition-of-England Novels: A Self-Reflective 69-130 Mood III.1 Disintegration of Social Institutions: Family and Marriage III.2 Materialism: Lack of Spirituality, Morality, Religion and Faith III.3 Visual Representation: Cinematic Techniques and Visual Impression of Objects, Places and Persons III.4 Pastiche and Photographic Presentation: Music, Painting, Sculpture and Other III.5 Postmodern Narrative Technique: Plot Structure, Setting, Characterization, Point of View and Structural Design III.6 Class Conflict, Inequalities, Violence and Social Mobility III.7 Marginalization and Search for Self-Identity III.8 Cultural Studies: Multiculturalism as a Multidisciplinary Approaches III.9 Global and Domestic Concerns between Wealth and Poverty III.10 Thematic Complexities and Stylistic Devices III.11 Digitalized World: Techno Culture, Pop- culture, Media Culture and Supersonic Speed III.12 Sociological, Psychological, Political and Economic Aspects in Postmodern Age III.13 Humans, Non-humans and Nature: Interrelationship III.14 Black Comedy and Hyper Reality III.15 Maggie Gee’s Philosophy of Life and her Interest in Evolutionary Biology III.16 Loss of Ecological Equilibrium and Impact of Postmodernism on Human Psyche Chapter Name Page IV Ugandan Novels: Home Coming, Cultural Conflicts 131-192 & Social Critique IV.1 Disintegration of Social Institutions: Family and Marriage IV.2 Materialism: Lack of Spirituality, Morality, Religion and Faith IV.3 Visual Representation: Cinematic Techniques and Visual Impression of Objects, Places and Persons IV.4 Pastiche and Photographic Presentation: Music, Painting, Sculpture and Other IV.5 Postmodern Narrative Technique: Plot Structure, Setting, Characterization, Point of View and Structural Design IV.6 Class Conflict, Inequalities, Violence and Social Mobility IV.7 Marginalization and Search for Self-Identity IV.8 Cultural Studies: Multiculturalism and Multidisciplinary Approaches IV.9 Global and Domestic Concerns between Wealth and Poverty IV.10 Thematic Complexities and Stylistic Devices IV.11 Digitalized World: Techno Culture, Pop- culture, Media Culture and Supersonic Speed IV.12 Sociological, Psychological, Political and Economic Aspects in Postmodern Age IV.13 Humans, Non-humans and Nature: Interrelationship IV.14 Black Comedy and Hyper Reality IV.15 Maggie Gee’s Philosophy of Life and her Interest in Evolutionary Biology IV.16 Loss of Ecological Equilibrium and Impact of Postmodernism on Human Psyche V Conclusion 193-210 V.1 Major Findings of the Present Study V.2 Practical Implications of the Study V.3 Academic Implications of the Study V.4 Pedagogical Implications of the Study V.5 Scope for Further Research Bibliography 211-222

CHAPTER-I: INTRODUCTION

I.1 Postmodernism and its Implications

I.2 Life and Works of Maggie Gee

I.3 A Comparative Analysis of the Two Groups of Novels

I.4 The Proposed Plan of the Research

I.4.1 Aim of the Present Study

1.4.2 Objectives of the Study

1.4.3 Methodology of the Research

1.4.4 The Scope and Limitations

1.4.5 Significance of the Study

1.4.6 Proposed Chapter-scheme

Chapter-I: Introduction 1

CHAPTER–I INTRODUCTION

The first chapter attempts to give the reader an introduction to the present research that is, a close knit study of postmodernism and its connection to the author, Maggie Gee, whose novels are selected for the analysis. Further, the chapter gives a biographical sketch of Maggie Gee highlighting the elements that have contributed to her making as an author of postmodern literature. At the end of this chapter, the researcher explains the aim, the scope and limitations of the study, significance of the study; research methodology used for analysis and interpretation of the study, rationale for the selection of the novels and tentative chapterization of the present research.

I.1 Postmodernism and its Implications Postmodern literature is marked both stylistically and ideologically through the random use of fragmentation, paradox, unreliable narrators, often unrealistic and downright impossible plots, sports, parody, paranoia, dark humor and literary conventions such as authorial self dependence to promote this idea

Postmodern writers reject outright meaning, and, instead, highlights the possibility of multiple meanings, or a complete lack of meaning, within a single literary work to celebrate the free random movement of postmodern ideals in their novels, stories and poems and this is what can be observed in Maggie Gee's work as well because she can be classified as postmodern writer and this is what the researcher has tried to work out in his thesis.

Postmodern literature, art and literature often is a confluence of 'high' and 'low' forms, as well as the different styles and forms of writing and storytelling and rejects the distinction between the boundaries as such and do not bother conforming to one particular variety rather focus on mixing and creating a fusion of all and thus administering the idea of postmodernism. Chapter-I: Introduction 2

Instead of the standard modern literary quest for meaning in a chaotic world of the following, postmodern literature is very likely to have meaning as it understand this chaotic world that is offered in front of the writer as well as the reader. Postmodern novel, story or poem often present this literary modernist search for meaning is through a parody.

Postmodern literature's stylistic and ideological boundaries go beyond that of modern literature and the radical change is more virulent than what the world expected from modern literature since the end of World War II and postmodern literature is a response to this act. Modern as well postmodern writers have often presented things through fragmented, and disturbing narratives but post-World War II postmodernism became the experimentation ground and some of the best stories were found in Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, Albert Camus, and Virginia Woolf among others. What is displayed in the novels is that it shows the world as a decadent place, totally ruined world, as it is a rigorous effort already undertaken postmodern writers as they observed countless disasters. The world was being beyond redemption or understanding the world was difficult but postmodern writers made it easier but it also depended on the readers and their understanding.

Many postmodern authors through the various disasters that occurred in the last half of the 20th century saw it and interpreted it with a deep sense of paranoia that has left a number of authors confused and agitated. Postmodernist Literature also speaks about the possibility of disaster and apocalypse on the horizon as it gave away an awareness of this problem. The exact meaning and the reasons behind the perception of an event came to be seen as impossible postmodern conundrum.

Postmodern literary authors also gave rise to different movements and ideas that have further influenced and strengthened Chapter-I: Introduction 3

the postmodern literature as it has helped the world understand the world as is to conceptualize it. It can be argued that knowledge and facts are always relative to the specific situation and any idea, concept or event that any precise meaning is trying to find out is both pointless and impossible in the postmodern situation. Similarly, many postmodern literary imaginations of the author's original belief that the world is already different and that is impossible to detect a singular sense has fallen and this exactly is what Maggie Gee has tried in her literary work.

I.2 Life and Works of Maggie Gee Maggie Gee is one of the leading female postmodern novelists. She is basically an academician. She was born on 2nd November, 1948 and hails from Poole, Dorset, United Kingdom, which is her birth place. She completed her graduation from Somerville College, Oxford. After completing her graduation in English, she worked as an editor. Pursuing a career in journalism, she initially took a job of teaching. Then, she joined Wolverhampton Polytechnic in which she took up a research job and then, began her careers as a researcher. She obtained her doctoral degree in 1982. She worked as a writing fellow at the University of the East Anglia. Her career as a novelist had the vision of capturing reality through various perspectives. Maggie Gee was chosen as one of the six women among the twenty writers on the Granta Best of Young British Novelists list in 1983. She was the first female Chairperson of the Royal Society of Literature (2004-2008). Gee is currently, the Vice President of the Royal Society of Literature and Professor of Creative Writing at Bath Spa University, United Kingdom. She had worked on the Management Committee of the 'Society of Authors' and the government's Public Lending Right Committee. In 2012, Gee was nominated as an Officer of the Order of the British Empire for significant contribution to English literature. In Chapter-I: Introduction 4

2016, she was elected a Non-Executive Director of the Authors' Licensing and Collecting Society. Presently, Maggie Gee is a resident of London and happily stays with her husband Nicholas Rankin and daughter Rosa. In 2012, an International Conference on her own contribution to postmodern British novels was organized at School of English, University of St. Andrews, Scotland, United Kingdom and she herself attended all the sessions and shared her views also. She has been always a prominently literary figure in the national and international conferences, workshops, seminars and literary meets. Maggie Gee‟s writing shows her strength as a creative artist and an innovative experimentalist. Her creative writing is characterized by the Art and Craft of the creative writing. Therefore, her style is intensely self- conscious and exhibits the deeper sense of emotional, psychological and social processes. The combination of structural pattern and meaningful substance is found in all her writings. The political and social conditions of the contemporary time are realistically presented in her novels. She started her luck in creative writing with her extra ordinary talents. She keenly watches the beauty of the natural world. She has carried out the same in her twelve novels, her short story collections and other writings. Her interest in evolutionally biology is transparently seen in the creation of her characters. Her characters are not only biological products but at the same time, the prominent members of the postmodern social world. The amalgamation of scientific facts and imaginative fiction is noticed in Maggie Gee‟s writings. Her writings through her novels and short stories distinctively different from the contemporary writers, reflected through her critical presentation of reality and imagination. Her global concern is noticed in the choice of her political themes. The multiplicity of the subjects and genres has been handled by Maggie Gee in her twelve novels and in her number of short stories. There are the tensions and the Chapter-I: Introduction 5

conflicts in her novels which present both domestic and global dimensions in a fine artistic balance. The satirical domestic situation in The White Family presents the multicultural interaction. The issues of racial prejudices, cultural differences and class inequalities are dealt with by Maggie Gee in all her writings. Global conflicts, apocalyptic visions and environmental disasters are glaringly noticed in a novel like The Flood. Her writing has realistically reflected the social and political situation in contemporary Britain. But her romantic thrillers like Light Years and Grace treat the social, cultural, economic, political, sociological, psychological and biological conditions of the postmodern period in Great Britain. She is very critical in analyzing the contemporary situations in terror, racism, environmental issues, family and social disputes etc. She is influenced by the prominent modernists writers like Virginia Woolf, Vladimir Nabokov and Samuel Beckett. On the other hand, the realists like Charles Dickens and William Makepeace Thackeray are among the major nineteenth century novelists, who have their impact on the writing of Maggie Gee. Maggie Gee‟s experimentation has put her in the tradition of Fielding and Dickens as she has had the narrative technique of authorial omnipresence like these master writers. Like these writers, Maggie Gee is always prepared to comment on or intervene on the actions presented in her fictional works. As a satirist, Maggie Gee often comments on various political and social issues as she has represented in her novels: The White Family (racialism), The Flood (environmental disaster), My Cleaner (parenting in the contemporary times) and My Driver (Kenya, Uganda, Congo and the African conflicts). The reader will always find common themes like feelings of love, intense resentment, bitterness, suffering of loss, joys of reconciliation and intimacy of the family relationships, dealing with social, political, economic and global issues in her novels. This has made her, once for all a local, as well as a global novelist. She has also dealt with other issues such as shelterlessness, poverty, Chapter-I: Introduction 6

climate change, nuclear weapons, migration, multicultural political divisions and economic compulsions. Both postmodernism and postcolonialism are ideas and signs what can be called the presence of the past and a marker of events that has already happened in the past. Postmodernism draws our attention to modernism, which it supersedes. The past, it reminds us of, is lived history and not just a literary and cultural movement. That difference alone should alert us to the political implications of pitting these terms together. For "postmodernism" is not merely a term, a mere label to designate a cultural phenomenon, for those who have been through the experience of this. Because our societies, the so- called Third World, have been denigrated as „backward‟ by those who consider themselves modern, modernity itself has been a problematic concept so imagine them dealing with the possibility of a postmodernist society. As developing societies, the idea of modernity is still distant as it only moving towards modernity. On the other hand, the attitude modern literatures is not that of parody but respect for their equalitarian and committed vision but postmodernist creates a difficult problem as modern literature becomes a fodder, a parody, a pastiche, things that have been done by Maggie Gee herself in the four works that have been selected for the present study. Race has made a tremendous difference in how the empire treated us. And those differences, alas, continue to this date. And this is the reason why Maggie Gee's Ugandan novels are so important in the context of this research as it shows how brutal the repercussion of colonialism has been. Maggie Gee has published twelve novels during 1981-2016. Her first novel Dying in Other Words (1981) is a technically difficult postmodern black comedy on the suicide committed by a female novelist. The days of August 1945, of bombing the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are presented in her second novel The Burning Book (1983). Light Years is the third novel published in 1985, is a science fiction work in which the entire cosmos in its majesty acts as the Chapter-I: Introduction 7

backdrop of the petty quarrel of two frivolous lovers. The Grace (1989) is the fourth novel which intermingles facts and fiction in the attempt to solve the mystery of the murder of an anti-nuclear arms race activist in Britain. Gee‟s fifth novel Where Are the Snows? (1991) depicts adult lovers trying to enjoy youth forever but then wisdom dawns on the couple. The sixth novel, Lost Children (1994) is on the orphans everywhere on this planet but in particular in thousands in the metropolitan city of London in the contemporary times. This novel depicts the tragedy of their miserable lives. The Ice Age (1998) shows how even calamities do not bring together and do not remove the deep rooted prejudices. The people from the north are not welcome to the people from the south. The White Family (2002) presents the harsh reality that racism still exists in the contemporary postmodern Britain. The Flood (2004) is a vision of future that depicts the lethargy of the administration to expose the postmodern conditions in the society divided by the „haves‟ and the „havenots‟. My Cleaner (2005) brings out the problem of parenting and how the ego conflicts lead to the disintegration of social institutions like the family and the marriage systems. Mary Tendo in My Driver (2009) is shown as a capable woman, though separated from her son, she is finally reunited with him through Vanessa Henman. Virginia Woolf in Manhattan (2014) imaginatively presents how Virginia Woolf reacts to the conditions in New York of the 21st Century. Maggie Gee‟s first novel Dying, in Other Words was published in 1981. This first novel is replete with highly intricate design of technical innovations. It is therefore, considered to be technically a difficult novel. It is endowed with highly intricate design of technical innovations. Moria Penny, the novelist, is the protagonist of the novel and the novel begins with the suicide of this young writer. Her dying is the event towards which and from which the entire action of this postmodern black comedy takes place. The novel has a technically innovative style in which past, present and future fuse and get interlinked. This novel has a circular pattern of a repetitive cycle. The Chapter-I: Introduction 8

novelist has taken the pose that the protagonist herself is writing the story which goes back to the time of Moira‟s death. Therefore, the sound of the typing is heard even after her death and even when the room is empty. That is how Moira Penny‟s suicide spreads continuous ripple effects on the lives of the characters presented in this novel. The world wars provide the backdrop for her second novel that has an innovative structural design. The Burning Book is published in 1983. This novel presents a heart griping account of a British family. The lives of the members of this family are separated and destroyed by the bombing in the wars and in the cruel heartless in human violence. Nagasaki and Hiroshima bombings too feature in this novel to bring out the futility, stark stupidity of the war and violence. The title of the novel suggests that the years of the wars and the intervening inter- war years are the years burning with bullets, shells and bombs and scorching human lives in the terrible fires. There are two separate and independent chapters in the novel on the tragic folly of the dropping of the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. This very fact that a female British novelist has exposed the inhumanity behind the two world wars indicates its postmodern character. The third novel Light Years was published in 1985. There are twelve sections in the text symbolizing twelve months of a year. The fifty-two chapters stand for fifty-two weeks of the year. These divisions stand to represent one year. Nature, the stellar bodies like the stars and the plants provide the background to the narration of an embittered quarrel between couples of lovers. The pettiness of human beings is presented through the constant quarrelling of the two lovers. A tiny human it shown being pitted against the bigger objects in the universe such as the stars and the planets to present the meanings of man in opposition to the majesty of the cosmos. This deliberate separation of the lovers is presented as the main action in many of her novels including all the four novels selected for analysis. The embittered love story and the cosmic background show how the local issues and cosmic conflicts are intermingled in this postmodern text. Chapter-I: Introduction 9

Fantasy, fact, scientific principles and imaginative flights have come together in this, are finally blended and balanced novel in the genre of „SC-FI‟ (scientific fiction). Grace (1989) is Maggie Gee‟s fourth novel. It deals with a totally different world from the world portrayed by Maggie Gee in her other novels. The narrative revolves around the murder of an anti-nuclear activist. The murder remains a mystery. This real life murder remained unsolved in reality. Its fictional parallel is presented in this novel. The involvement of British secret service is suggestively indicated. The fact and fiction often gets intermingled and a lively literary work is produced through the combination of the concern for both the domestic problems and the cosmic riddles of life in the novel as in Maggie Gee‟s other fictional as well as non-fictional writings. Grace brings out the impact of the cobs of grace, mercy pity, love, truth justice in their present postmodern period. Where are the Snows (1991) is Maggie Gee‟s fifth novel. It is again a love story but with a difference. The married couple already has grown up children. The adventure is pursued by the adult lovers to go on a holiday. They desire to enjoy a perpetual holiday for the enjoyment and pleasure trip. They make a departure leaving their grown up children behind. The couple realizes finally, that the planet is not for pleasure hunt but to carry out the responsibilities. Sex cannot be separated from child bearing. Nobody can stay young forever. This realization finally draws on the erotic lovers who want to just enjoy without shouldering the serious responsibilities and solemn duties of mature life. Life is not just a bed of roses but life is a saga of salty tears, happy smiles, pleasurable joys, unbearable pains and moving on from sorrows to sorrows. Magee Gee puts the fact of life barely to emphasize them through her accounts presented in novel like Where Are The Snows. The next novel by Maggie Gee is entitled Lost Children (1994). The sixth novel treats a completely different theme. This novel has portrayed a highly realistic picture of the conditions of a class. This Chapter-I: Introduction 10

class is completely deprived in all respects and totally neglected by the society. The novel deals with the orphans and their pitiable conditions in the present times. This text makes a point to describe how the metropolitan city of London is a place where thousands of homeless children reside in the most deplorable conditions. The novelist has put forward the fact that this is not just a local issue but almost a universal problem as the orphans are treated rashly, inhumanly everywhere in the world. The Ice People is the seventh novel by Maggie Gee which was published in 1998. The novel offers a description of dystopia, a world which is distorted and opposite of the ideal world. The novel presents a world which is dystopia, which is opposite of Utopia. Utopia is an ideal state but the dystopia is a destroyed world. The New Ice Age is predicted to come by the year 2050 AD. The protagonist is a racial hero. The North and South divide is presented in this novel in which the North represents the affluent, while the South is the land of the havenots, the deprived, the underdogs, the underprivileged, the downtrodden and the poor in the postmodern times. The novelist shows that the people of the North are forced to depart from their real habitats. The story is set in the year 2050 which will mark the coming of the New Ice Age. The North region has abundance of the potential bringing together the both who are totally destroyed. The people from the North find that they are not at all welcome in the South. Their migration is a forced and rather a reverse migration. It is the migration in order to survive as the environment on account of the Ice in the North became unsuitable for them to continue to live there. Live and let live does not govern human existence in the postmodern age but “Live for self and for nobody else”. This bitter truth dawns on the complacent people from the North. The White Family (2002) is Maggie Gee‟s eighth novel. The prejudices towards races and the other biased attitudes of the middle- class whites in Britain still dominate their mentality. The racial and other prejudices, violence and anger that often occur in the lives of Chapter-I: Introduction 11

men and women in the postmodern age are the focal points presented in this novel. This thematic network deals with violent racism, suspicious love attachment and the anger of the Gen-next. The White Family is a narrative charged with change and transformation and opens against the vivid canvas of a city park in springtime. This is Hillesden, the fictitious heart of London's multicultural borough of Brent Albion Park stands as the monument of an orderly past. He has guarded against stray footballs and untoward goings on in the gents. He is a man who is as anachronistic as his job title. He loves his bookish wife, May, with a mute devotion. He has driven away two of their children and stunted a third with his violent temper. Nevertheless, an altercation with a young black family proves too much for Alfred's aged constitution. His family comes to gather around his hospital bedside. Darren, the eldest, flies in from America. He is a successful journalist. He is still choked with anger at his father. He has come with his third wife, Shirley who has been left a wealthy widow by her Ghanaian husband. Her marriage caused almost much familial strife. Her current relationship is with Elroy Edwards, a black social worker. Though she is swaddled in cashmere and silks, she bears a sadness all her own. As a teenager, Shirley sensed a sexual sting in her father's punches. It has taken root in Dirk, the skin-headed baby of the family. Brutalized and repressed, Dirk desperately seeks acceptance as well as scapegoats in the company of loutish types. By the end of the novel, Dirk's unarticulated hatred of colourreds is coupled with his latent homosexuality to bloody effect. This prompts Alfred to perform one final and redemptive act of duty of informing the authorities of Dirk‟s crime of murder. The White Family is a worthwhile novel, but Gee has used skillful structure and tender, precise prose. There are waves of pop psychology: Alfred realizes that the 'enemy' is no more than a bunch of 'giant teenagers'. His eyes are opened to their exorcism and the Chapter-I: Introduction 12

gleaming black of their skin. Gee is unflinching the causes and consequences of racism in her investigatory analysis. She digs deep beneath the skin of her archetypes to come up with near stereotypes. The White Family is an audacious, groundbreaking condition-of- England novel. It attempts to search the roots of racial hatred and violence in the contemporary setting of England. Alfred White is an army veteran. He has mounted a 50 year campaign to enforce park rules, keep order and hold the fort. „This was England. If in doubt, keep them out‟. Even, the arrival of brightly plumed yellow foreign birds is unwelcome. Darren's school friend Thomas is a librarian and would be writer. Melissa is the teacher. Thomas fancies George coughs in his shop but is unwilling to the sell to the Asians. Elroy's brother, Winston is cottaging in the park gents. He is unable to admit that he is gay in a community that abhors batty boys. It was as if they thought only white men did it. The novel tilts expertly at a middle-class fallacy that racism is something out there, in the football terraces or the sink estates. Its genteel manifestations are insistently explored. Those who imagine themselves to be liberal are constantly wrong-footed for their casual assumptions. The novel is as telling about class mobility and urban decline or gentrification. Another feature of The White Family is the comedy and tenderness amid violence and hatred. The elderly couple took each other's hands like magnets, halves of a whole springing back together. The White Family is compulsively readable. Its head-on scrutiny of the uglier face of fair Albion is the more impressive. It is a complex artwork of literary art. The city struggles to face the natural calamity, rather through the patient sufferings of the havenots living around the Tower Blooks, the rich living on the high are irresponsibly careless and self-centered toward the hardships encountered by the lower-class people. The administration is indifferent and inefficient and so attempts to divert the public attention to the showy organization of the City Gala. The Chapter-I: Introduction 13

Flood with its contemporary setting of a modern techno-savvy metropolitan city brings out the different effects of natural calamity which has caused to the variety of groups of the citizens in particular the working class and middle class people. A veritable gallery of characters presents the cross section of the postmodern society of the twenty first century Britain. These two novels belong to the category of the conditions-of-England novels. Black comedy, satirical exposures, affection and insight feature in this novel The White Family. Water, water everywhere is what is experienced in the novel, The Flood which is dystopia, the picture of a negative world opposite to the ideal world. Maggie Gee's The Flood is an apocalyptic vision of London that poses questions about racism, class conflict and global catastrophe. Maggie Gee is never finer than when she slips into meteorological mode. She approaches her fiction as a grand forum to pose the big questions about racism, class conflict and global catastrophe. She asks the smaller questions as well. The answer appears to be that not even the approach of Doomsday will dissuade the idle and affluent from wasting time and money. In one of many marvelously engineered scenes, a well-heeled party strikes out to negotiate a hellish, three-hour journey across the city's collapsing infrastructure, arriving just in time for the flourish of the final leg as the opera house ferries patrons across the piazza in illuminated gondolas. Gee writes for the joy of the language and the form, and to pay the mortgage. The Flood is peopled with characters that embody this playful sense of irony. For example, TV scientists sacrifice truth to entertainment; publishing executives are there who never read books, affluent teenage anti-capitalists who love to go shopping and such other activities. The Flood is both, is and not a sequel to The White Family. In The Flood, these characters from The White Family are pushed into an unspecified future, the unit of currency is the dollar, Hesperica and Germania are the new entities. The president, Mr. Bliss announces a Gala to celebrate the twenty-fifth year since the city's docks had been Chapter-I: Introduction 14

turned into a pleasure zone for international tourists, The Flood, none the less, once you're in. The image of a sinking city allows Gee full rein to exercise her lyrical talent like stained waters, rusty waters, pulling down papers, pictures, people, a patch of red satin, a starving crow and the last flash of a fox's brush. The Flood is less a sequence of events than a continuous skein of interrelated moments. But, Gee's ironic montage of fallible people and sodden foxes is strong enough to make her watery city watertight. Maggie Gee tackles the social problems of contemporary England. In this novel, she has addressed global warming, domestic violence, homelessness and infertility. The political and psychological urgency characterizes her work. There is nothing dull or preachy about Gee. She loves music, fashion and popular culture, with open on a society threatened by a modern-day Noah's flood. The rich are safe on high ground, while the poor are suffer in the drowned no- man's land of the towers. The urban contemporary is revealed as a world of vandalized housing estates, marauding gangs and animal life. A fanatical religious sect is prophesying the watery end of the world. The novel is constructed as a series of almost-monologues that is, each character in this novel operates in a slightly different linguistic universe. The novel offers insight into the lives of White, Black, Muslim, Jewish, old, young, posh and deprived. There's Lottie, the lady who lunches, Shirley, the put-upon mother of twins; Delice is the bright young literary editor; Davey, the TV astrologer who dreams of doing something more important with his life. All are subtly interconnected and yet they retain the mystery and isolation of the big city. The government is engaged in an unpopular war with a far away Muslim country. Mr. Bliss says that its unpalatable guys, but they have to face it and schemes with his US counterpart, Mr. Bare. There is a lavish media party full of greedy sycophants, imagine the opening of the dome combined with Tate Modern. Chapter-I: Introduction 15

Gee presents the playful satire on modern day consumer durables through Third Dimension, Slim Jim Shoos, Lil M. Missy. Sometimes, Maggie Gee is far too arch for her own good. She has a fairly conventional view of salt-of-the-earth, working-class life. When it comes to desire, fear, madness and greed, Gee is unbeatable. On the other hand, her prose alternately is fine mixture lyrical and austere. The vision of novel, a continuum of life and death is fantastic. And the final, apocalyptic vision of heaven as a sunlit afternoon in Kew Gardens is unbearably touching. The tenth novel My Cleaner (2005) and the eleventh novel My Driver (2009) constitute the group of the Ugandan novels. The cleaner in My Cleaner is Mary Tendo, who worked for eight years as a cleaner in the household of the British woman novelist Vanessa Henman. Her son Justin was just of three years then and Mary Tendo brought him up tenderly that after ten years Vanessa Henman has to summon the Ugandan ex-cleaner back as Justin has asked for Mary Tendo. The theme of racism is treated quite differently in this novel. The differences between Mary Tendo‟s African culture and Vanessa Henmann‟s European culture are presented in both the Ugandan novels. My Cleaner is a text that handles the theme of family relationships. In particular, the mother in Mary Tendo stands apart from the woman in Vanessa Henman. In My Cleaner, Maggie Gee returns to domestic realism and to the twin themes of racism and family life. A few stray white family members reappeared from The Flood. The elegant house in affluent West London provides the setting for Gee's new novel. Instead, there is Vanessa Henman, a neurotic, middle-aged, middle-class writer, her despised painter and decorator ex-husband, Trevor, and their son, Justin, who is 22 and too depressed to get out of bed. The only person, Justin wants to see is Mary Tendo, the Ugandan cleaner who took care of him through most of his childhood when his mother was too busy in her study to spend any time with him. When Mary responds to Vanessa's cry for help the balance of Chapter-I: Introduction 16

power in the house shifts dramatically and everyone's life begins to change irrevocably. In the days, when Mary first worked for Vanessa or 'the Henman' as she calls her, she was meek and quiet, addressed her as Madam and accepted a derisory salary, while secretly loathing her employer for her meanness, her dirty habits and her neglect of her son. By the time of her second coming, Mary's blood has grown red and loud. She stands over house like a colossus. She takes in absolute control of Justin's life. She becomes the command the kitchen. She does not allow the trouble by kindly not troubling to hide her feelings about Vanessa. She thanks God every day that she is an African woman. Maggie Gee present the clash between the two women as a clash between two different classes and the opposing cultures. Apparently, Mary and Vanessa are polar opposites. Vanessa is pale and bony, and cooks soft, white, pre-prepared food that clogs everyone's innards and causes constipation. Mary is dark and voluptuous and steams up the kitchen with vast meals made from huge, earthy vegetables and great slabs of meat that kick start the metabolism. Vanessa is mean, self-obsessed and closed off. She forbids Justin the white bread he craves for. Mary is generous, outgoing, gregarious and feeds the boy forbidden jam sandwiches made with Mother's Pride. Yet at heart, we realize that they are not so very different. Maggie Gee has presented a complex and multilayered narrative. She has rendered it as accessible and satisfying as television soap. Her prose is rich and gossipy. It mixes the highbrow with the vernacular. At times, it is shockingly cynical. Her cynical characters are themselves in situation which is beyond redemption. My Cleaner is a moving, funny, engrossing book that provides just that a triumph of hope over despair. My Cleaner is concerned with beloved Ugandan domestic affairs. Mary Tendo was imported from her homeland to Britain to cheer up her former employer's depressive adult son, whom she cared for as a child. Chapter-I: Introduction 17

Maggie Gee's novel, My Driver, is technically a sequel, but deftly reprises the back story and makes for a satisfying standalone read. The situation is reversed here. In My Cleaner ex-cleaner Mary Tendo goes to London but in My Driver the British novelist Vanessa Henman visits Uganda to attend an international writer‟s conference. Both the Ugandan novels treat the thematic network of racism, family saga terrorism, women‟s status, ward and violence. These two novels deal with postmodern themes of multiculturalism, inequality, social mobility and contemporary political and economic crises. The migration is reversed. Mary's former employer Vanessa Henman and Vanessa's ex-husband Trevor make simultaneous pilgrimages to Uganda, each unaware of the other's presence. An underproductive novelist and creative writing teacher, Vanessa is attending an international writer's conference in Kampala. She hopes there to confirm her dubious status as a literary force. She desires strongly to contact Mary Tendo. Meanwhile, May Tendo has taken time off from managing the service at the Sheraton Hotel. Mary has asked Trevor to accompany him on a return to her rural village. He is a plumber. He has promised Mary Tendo to volunteer himself to repair the village well. Maggie Gee has employed the tradition of comedy. She has made clever use of near misses as the two exes. In Britain, Mary and May maintain a friendly co-dependency despite divorce, they circulate the same venues. They stop in the same roadside tourist trap to buy a matching pair of male and female lion carvings for their grandson. Yet, whimsical decisions like not turning back the clean page of a guest book to read the name of the last signatory prevent the estranged couple from meeting up. Mary has her own story. Her son Jamil has disappeared. He pops up in short, ominous passages. This boy-man was kidnapped by the Lord's Resistance Army, the lunatic Ugandan cult notorious for conscripting child soldiers who are forced to kill and mutilate for their delusional minders. Obviously, for these Conradian glimpses of the Chapter-I: Introduction 18

horror to justify themselves. Mary's son must eventually play a part in the plot; indeed, he does play the crucial role of the driver in the concluding portion of the hard. Maggie Gee‟s, My Driver is an entertaining, novel. It is executed with a lovely light touch. Gee manages to expose the many foibles of her characters without subjecting them to ridicule. Vanessa's portrayal has the pleasing quality of self-parody. She badgers an airport official for a first-class airline seat as if life itself owes her an upgrade. The depictions of the petty competitions and wordy pretensions of writers' conferences is a bright spot in the novel. A speaker murmurs that one is tempted when contextualizing the oeuvre of the postcolonial writer per se, to neglect the fundamental importance of positionality in any historiographical act. The satire is obvious at this point directed to snobbery and pretensions. My Driver is an immensely enjoyable novel. Maggie Gee has published one collection of her short stories entitled The Blue in 2006. She presents the conflict between selfishness and unselfishness through these short stories. This conflict proves to be troublesome for the young children. Environmental catastrophe is treated by the novelist in all her fictional writings. The status of women in the contemporary times is one of the themes which is very close to Gee‟s heart and finds its expression in her eleven novels and a collection of short stories. The widening and dropening rift between the rich and the poor, the haves and the havenots is a major concern touched upon in Maggie Gee‟s writings. Her twelfth novel Virginia Woolf in Manhattan was published in 2014. In this fiction, Maggie Gee has moved on the vast spectrum of time temporal dimension. She has imagined Virginia Woolf in New York, in the specific location of Manhattan in the twenty first century. The change in the last seventy five years in the social, political, cultural and literary domains are imaginatively and artistically presented with all the postmodern characteristic features. Chapter-I: Introduction 19

Magee Gee‟s twelve novels and numerous stories address the difficulties of resolving the conflict between total unselfishness and selfishness. Unselfishness often leads to secret unhappiness and resentment against the beneficiaries. Selfishness often leads to the unhappiness of others, particularly of children. This is a typical quandary of late 20th and early 21st century women, but it is also a concern for privileged, wealthy, long-lived western human beings as a whole and widens into global concerns about wealth, poverty and climate change. It is observed that her novels explore how the human species relates to non-humans, animals and to the natural world as a whole. The White Family and My Cleaner, have racism as a central theme. It is dealt with as a tragedy in The White Family. It is dealt with as a comedy in My Cleaner. In all Gee's fiction, no character is wholly bad. Her novels raise some disturbing questions about violence and prejudice in British society.

I.3 A Comparative Analysis of the Two Groups of Novels The selected four novels for the present study from the points of view of the postmodern interpretations contain the postmodern elements abundantly. The prominent similarities are that they are set against one geographical area and in that area many characters belonging to multicultural groups is proved an interesting aspect in the analysis and interpretation. The White Family and The Flood have the background of England and the whites, the black, the African and the Caribbean migrants and others have their active presence in these two novels. Members of the white family, the Edwards family, the Lucas family participate in the action of the novel. The second group of My Cleaner and My Driver is of the Ugandan novels in which Uganda, specifically Kampala, Gorilla Forest camp, Rift valley and other locations are the scenes of action in which parallel journeys are being made by Vanessa Henman and her ex-husband Trevor. But, they nearly miss each other and only in the final climatic scene they come face to face. The significance of the locations of action, Chapter-I: Introduction 20

multicultural groups and characters in action, narrow escapes and close missing encounters, violent attacks, misunderstandings, prejudices and biases are the common features in all these four novels. Racism, disintegration of family and marriage systems, human relationship, positive and negative attitudes towards gender, racial religions, class discriminations are the themes handled in all the four novels. The shifts in the balance of power is a remarkable feature in all these novels in particular in respect the relations between Vanessa Henman and Mary Tendo as well as between Vanessa Henman and her ex-husband Trevor Trigger Patchett. Three young men, Dirk White, Justin Henman and Jamil Omar belong to the lost generation but ultimately they regain their lost confidence and return to normalcy from their waywardness for some time. Shirley White and Mary Tendo have many similarities and May White stands as the ideal mother in every respect. Global issues and domestic problems are handled perfectly by Maggie Gee in these four novels giving due weightage to the novelistic elements such as theme, plot, narration characterization, design, location and language. These similarities are common in all the novels and the dissimilarities are specific to each novel depending on the central situation and other factors. The comparative and contrastive study is thus offered. Maggie Gee‟s four novels, the eighth to her eleventh novel, The White Family, The Flood, My Cleaner and My Driver thus, make a composite group. The major characteristics of Maggie Gee as a postmodern novelist of the twenty-first century are revealed in these four novels. The complexity of thematic network, the broad minded multi-dimensional multicultural groups of characters, shifting balance of power, different setting, innovative techniques and pastiche as well as black comedy are sources of the features of postmodernism observed in these four novels by Maggie Gee.

Chapter-I: Introduction 21

I.4 The Proposed Plan of the Research I.4.1 Aim of the Present Study The aim of the present study is to define the concept postmodernism. The discussion of the nature and the characteristic features of postmodernism is subsequently another aim of the present research study. The major features of postmodernism present the contemporariness of the issues presented in postmodern texts. One of the aims of the present study is to offer an evaluation of the relevance of these contemporary issues presented in the works of literature. The assessment of the novelistic elements in the works of contemporary times is one more aim of the present study. Further, it is decided to explore the substance, the structure and the style of the contemporary postmodern texts. The cinematic techniques, the techno-culture, the digitalization of life-style, the pop culture and its reflection, the plastic arts and their contribution to postmodernism are some of the features of postmodernism. The research will also try to study and analyze these features of postmodernism. In addition, the researcher will try to discuss the multidisciplinary approaches, multiple cultural studies, multiple points of view and various other multiple perspectives and the analytical investigation and evaluation of the selected novels. The examination of conceptual framework of postmodernism is to be accomplished through views, reviews and the expressions found in the historical review of the postmodernism. These are the aims of the present study which will be pursued through the course of the present study.

I.4.2 Objectives of the Study 1. To understand a broad outline of the major characteristic features of postmodernism as reflected in literature. 2. To interpret and evaluate as well as present a critical scrutiny of the thematic network used in the selected four novels of Maggie Gee. Chapter-I: Introduction 22

3. To offer an evaluative commentary of the postmodern narrative strategies used in by Maggie Gee. 4. To provide an analytical investigation of the mode of characterization and the textual significance of the setting used in Maggie Gee‟s selected novels. 5. To present the critical commentary on the structural and design a close assessment of the postmodern stylistic features reflected in the Maggie Gee‟s novels.

I.4.3 Methodology of the Research The research is application based. Hence, the researcher has chosen the primary and secondary source of data collection. Like many researches of applied nature, the present study will adopt the following methodology. Most of the work to done in applied research is library work. The analysis and interpretation will be made on the basis postmodern theory. In this present study, the researcher will made an attempt to provide the postmodern interpretation of the selected novels by Maggie Gee.

I.4.4 The Scope and Limitations The nature of postmodern theory is a very vast area of study. For practical purposes, the researcher has decided to concentrate only on the study of postmodern interpretation on the basis of data collected from the selected novels. There will be discussion of postmodern theory as central concept. It will provide postmodern interpretation of the selected novels; the study does not provide a comparative study with any other postmodern writer. Postmodernism is a broad term in criticism and a vast area of study. For the practical purpose, only four novels have been chosen for the postmodern interpretation. The selection of the novels is based on the elements of postmodernism found in these novels. For this purpose, the researcher has chosen four novels of Maggie Gee. These are The White Family, The Flood, My Cleaner and Chapter-I: Introduction 23

My Driver. In the present study, the researcher will interpret the selected novels in the context of postmodernism. Maggie Gee‟s four selected novels are analysed from the postmodern perspectives. Maggie Gee is an influential writer of the postmodern British literature. Maggie Gee provides the comments on political satire, family saga, war, terrorism, violence, racism, women, multiculturalism, class transfer, social mobility, inequality and other areas of contemporary life. Considering the nature of the subject, the researcher found good potential for the application of postmodern theory in these novels.

I.4.5 Significance of the Study One can realize the importance of postmodernism and postmodern interpretations. The present study will be helpful to interpret the text in postmodern context. The four novels selected for the critical analysis are on the basis of the features of postmodernism found in them. The prominent similarity is that these novels are set against one geographical area and many characters belong to multicultural groups. These novels are divided into two groups based on the location of action in a specific geographical area. The White Family and The Flood have the background of England and the White, the Black, the African and the Caribbean migrants and others have their active presence in these two novels. The two Ugandan Novels My Cleaner and My Driver also present a story of a writer. The present research work is also helpful to study the progress of contemporary British novel.

I.4.6 Proposed Chapter-scheme Chapter-I: Introduction The first chapter attempts to give an introduction to the present research i.e. a close knit study of postmodernism and its connection to the author, Maggie Gee, whose novels are selected for the analysis. Further, the chapter gives a biographical sketch of Maggie Gee highlighting the elements that have contributed to her making as an Chapter-I: Introduction 24

author of postmodern literature. At the end of this chapter, the researcher explains the aim, the scope and limitations of the study, significance of the study; research methodology used for analysis and interpretation of the study, rationale for the selection of the novels and tentative chapterization of the present research.

Chapter-II: The Ideology Behind the Study: A Theoretical Framework The second chapter focuses on understanding and defining the meaning and matter of postmodern literature and also identifies the critical approach adopted in the thesis. An attempt is also made to understand postmodernism and the philosophy behind it in the light of the general theoretical considerations and the historical survey. Since the selected author for analysis does not belong to any specific school, the researcher has dealt with her in terms of an eclectic approach, drawing upon insights derived from various works of postmodern critics. The chapter illustrates the ideology of postmodernism and arrives at the specific features of postmodernism as reflected in the selected novels of Maggie Gee. Gee‟s presentation of characters that maintain and accentuate their postmodern identity is the reason why the researcher has attempted to analyze her selected novels from a postmodernistic point of view.

Chapter-III: Condition-of-England Novels: A Self-Reflective Mood The third chapter focuses on two very important works of Maggie Gee- The White Family and The Flood that essentially talks about the postmodernist connection of these works with England as a nation. Maggie Gee brilliantly portrays the socio-political scenario of the contemporary England and has tirelessly exposed the problems of the nation and how they are managed. The researcher has utilized various theories to study the work of Maggie and have divided his findings under different sub-categories.

Chapter-I: Introduction 25

Chapter-IV: Ugandan Novels: Home Coming, Cultural Conflicts & Social Critique If the third chapter focused on the nation of England, the fourth chapter is essentially about Uganda, migration and how the migrants fare in a postmodernist country like England dealing with their problems and that of the nation itself. Maggie Gee once again tries to draw a balance and the researcher has worked on these things, bringing out the postmodern interpretations in contemporary socio- political life.

Chapter-V: Conclusion The concluding chapter sums up the argument made in the earlier chapters in order to arrive at certain conclusions and an attempt is also made to place Maggie Gee in the tradition of postmodern literature. The chapter presents the main findings and the pedagogical implications of the study. Finally the researcher has mentioned the limitations of the study and suggested the possible areas as well as the topics for further research.

* * *

CHAPTER-II: THE POSTMODERN IDEOLOGY AND MAGGIE GEE'S FICTION

II.1 Modernism

II.1.1 The Idea of Modernism

II.1.2 The Legacy of Modernist Fiction

II.2 Postmodernism and its Legacy

II.3 The Architects of Postmodernism

II.3.1 Jean Francois Lyotard

II.3.2 Jacques Derrida

II.3.3 Michel Foucault

II.3.4 Jean Baudrillard

II.4 Postmodernist Fiction and its Contribution

II.4.1 Postmodern British Culture and Its Challenges

II.4.2 The Postmodern Microscope of Maggie Gee's Work

II.4.3 The Postmodernist Framework of Maggie Gee's Fiction

Chapter II: The Postmodern Ideology and Maggie Gee's Fiction 26

CHAPTER-II THE POSTMODERN IDEOLOGY AND MAGGIE GEE'S FICTION

The first chapter provides information on the career of Maggie Gee and her works. Maggie Gee's work has a special place in the British Postmodern canon that started immediately after the World War II, and that's what the researcher has focused here, trying to maintain a balance between her works and the postmodern genre in general thus making a wholesome effort to bring out a proper study of Maggie Gee's work as such.

But before going to postmodernism, it is essential that a brief idea about modernism is to be discussed so that the foundation of the thesis becomes concrete and understandable, as Maggie Gee's work is a great example of how postmodernism theories functions. The four works of Maggie Gee selected here makes it essential to understand how the author has made an attempt to understand the postmodern conundrum that the characters as well as the scenario that has become part of this situation. The postmodern avenue of Maggie Gee can never be denied. She has made it a point to understand, to deplore, to deconstruct, to elevate, to make a noise about the postmodern situation in her works and how the characters are trapped and there is no respite from this loop that they are in without a doubt. This loop, this cycle can never end and this is what makes Maggie Gee's work even more crucial to understand everything that is there without falling apart. This falling apart, as mentioned by W.B. Yeats in his poetry, is part of the modern as well as postmodern tradition where people have fallen apart due to their own hubris as well as the hubris created by the society. This has to stop but how? Maggie Gee hence challenges this notion but it is not that easy to come out of it. The characters in her works are trapped in different problems and the researcher has further debated this problem in chapter III and IV, a proper study that finally helps to understand how Chapter II: The Postmodern Ideology and Maggie Gee's Fiction 27

things are done in the postmodern setup without raising an eyebrow. Maggie Gee's work is extremely important and crucial to this setup and that's why the researcher has made an attempt to bring about everything that will finally help one and all to understand what exactly Maggie Gee has done in her work and what all themes she has explored. Though this chapter will give the brief idea of the ideological framework of entire thesis, the third and fourth chapter will base their assumptions and readings on this chapter to help the researcher finally reach his goal.

II.1 Modernism

Modernism plays a very important role in the history of literature. After the age of Victorian Literature, modernism emerged as a direct response to the growth and development witness in the Victorian age though it is said that Hunger (1890), written by Knud Hamsun was the first modernist novel while the works of Henrik Ibsen could be considered the first examples of modernist plays among many other works

But between World War I and World War II, modernism played an important role, travelling all across the world and witnessed majorly in the works of American as well as European literature and this clash brought postmodernism together in the literary genre but this was not enough because the modern as well as the postmodern genre themselves were part of this crucial crusade against the decay of the social as well as moral landscape.

Hans Berten confirms in his The Idea of the Postmodern: A History (1995):

Between 1963 and 1967 the debate on what would later be called postmodernism really took off, in response to the anti-modernist trends in literature, the arts, and, more hesitantly, architecture. In 1963 Leonard B. Meyer published his ‗The end of the Renaissance?‘ and Ihab Hassan started his inquiry into the ‗literature of silence‘ Chapter II: The Postmodern Ideology and Maggie Gee's Fiction 28

with ‗The dismemberment of Orpheus‘. In 1964 Susan Sontag made herself the most prominent theorist of the new developments with ‗Notes on ―camp‖‘, ‗Godard‘s Vivre Sa Vie‘, and the seminal ‗Against interpretation‘, followed in 1965 by the equally influential ‗One culture and the new sensibility‘. That same year saw the publication of Leslie Fiedler‘s ‗The new mutants‘ and of Robert Venturi‘s ‗A justification for a Pop architecture‘. By the time that Frank Kermode felt compelled to point out—quite correctly—that the developments in the various arts could ‗be seen as following from palaeo- modernist premises without any violent revolutionary stage‘, the new agenda was firmly on the table. As is usual in such cases, that agenda was not only determined by the advocates of the new, but in practically equal measure by its declared enemies. (Berten: 1994, p. 22)

The writers like William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway, Zora Neale Hurston were some of the earliest practitioners of modernism and later shifted to postmodern variants as well and this debate is totally relentless. Faulkner went on to influence future modernist works like Lillian Hellman's The Children's Hour (1934), Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937) and Hemmingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940), to just name a few. This happened because of a number of reasons, like the American entry into world stage as a superpower, the failure of the world to stop World War I, and of course the continuous problems that resulted in World War II that finally brought out the postmodern explosion. The modernist era saw the rise of the high where the low was rejected because the modernists felt that only high literature could do justice to the societal degradation and break apart this monotony that accompanied them.

What makes Modernism work and how relevant it is to literature? First of all, the idea behind modernism is the focus on fragmentation and a solid breakdown in plot, characters, theme, images, and premise thus creating a typical non-linear phase in the narrative sequence. The narrative sequence saw a major as well as drastic change that got together to create the modernist canvas that Chapter II: The Postmodern Ideology and Maggie Gee's Fiction 29

would later bring up the postmodern landscape finally without breaking down or breaking apart.

The narrative involves a major theme of loss and another extremely well-intentioned theme is the element of truth? What exactly is this truth in the modernist context that is which has to be known and understood? The truth exposes that age, the problems of that age and the way the age played with the sentiments that was finally captured by the modern writers that later influenced the postmodern writers.

The modern fiction attacked the family values - as the growth happened, as farmers became labourers, as labourers became businessmen, and the social strata changed, as money poured in, the family unit started getting destroyed. Importantly, Jane Austen or other novelists that projected family as a safe being was decried and destroyed by the writers who believed that the family was not a safe zone. These ideals are used by Maggie Gee as well and can be seen under the postmodern aegis. The postmodern ideals are much more radical than the modern values but it started here only.

Vivian Liska in Modernism (2007) has the opinion that:

The invisible is a persistent theme in much writing of the late 1890s through World War I, whether in popular culture or in the most erudite literature and art. As Gabrielle Buffet-Picabia, a member of avant- garde circles in pre-war Paris and wartime New York, recalled, ―[i]t would seem […] that in every field, a principal direction of the 20th century was the attempt to capture the ‗non-perceptible‘‖ (Buffet-Picabia [1951], 225). The existence of invisible phenomena that might be intuited by the sensitive artist or poet was already a staple of Symbolist theory, supported by the later nineteenth- century revival of idealist philosophies, a general openness to mysticism and occultism in the period, and the growing dissatisfaction with positivism‘s reliance on sense data alone. (Liska: 2007, p.384) Chapter II: The Postmodern Ideology and Maggie Gee's Fiction 30

Further the characters in modern fiction are other important elements whose presence is used to disturb the narratives and bring out the age where everything was disruptive. The simple, linear straightforward narratives were finally over and it was time for the modernist to come and take over without giving space for others as the time was right to bring up something new and serious.

The authority was challenged and so was the truth that was there. Modernists made sure that the truth was the absolute and nothing else would come and change things. There was, like as different ideologies are, opposed but nothing concrete came out of it as more and more authors came together to take up modern ideals and finally end this problem of opponent.

Other important elements of Modernism are movement away from religion, the reversal of traditional roles, ambiguous ending, and such works often leave a lot of questions with the reader; they don‘t tie everything up for you. Often setting is more than just the setting as well as the use of improper grammar to reflect dialect. More sexuality and the use of intertextuality are often found. More use of the first person narrative, reflecting the lack of universal truth, i.e. there are only individual truths.

As you can see, modernism is more complex than traditional writing; Background is just that, background. The writing is in chronological order and all loose ends are tied up for you in the end.

Postmodernism came about around the end of World War II was not studied as a form until the mid 1980s. The characteristics are the same as modernism except postmodernism is more playful or celebratory regarding the world's insanity. The idea being, okay, the world is chaotic, there are no universal truths, let‘s see what we can do with that. Chapter II: The Postmodern Ideology and Maggie Gee's Fiction 31

Both modernism and postmodernism may have all or some of the above characteristics; it isn‘t required that all of the traits are used in order for a piece to be classified as modernist writing. The key characteristics are usually fragmentation, loss, distrust of authority, and the lack of universal truths

The horrors of World War I (1914-18), with its accompanying atrocities and senselessness became the catalyst for the Modernist movement in literature and art. Modernist authors felt betrayed by the war, believing the institutions in which they were taught to believe had led the civilized world into a bloody conflict. They no longer considered these institutions as reliable means to access the meaning of life, and therefore turned within themselves to discover the answers.

Known as The Lost Generation, American writers of the 1920s brought Modernism to the United States. For writers like Hemingway and Fitzgerald, World War I destroyed the illusion that acting virtuously brought about good. Like their British contemporaries, American Modernists rejected traditional institutions and forms.

II.1.1 The Idea of Modernism

A state of alteration was created through the idea of modernism. Modernism started immediately after the end of Victorian and Georgian era and it was a direct attack against the realist techniques adapted by the writers to enable themselves but modernists attacked such writers through a different approach.

A cultural movement brought a number of writers as well as continents together. Modernism could be noticed in several Latin American writers and their works and it was easily an idea of influence that later travelled across all over the world though modernism found solace in the anglophonic sphere without a problem. Modernism and absolute modernism were two different Chapter II: The Postmodern Ideology and Maggie Gee's Fiction 32

ideas as some writers dealt with realism as well as modernism and later were criticized for their approach. Many works of Victorian era, like that of Charles Dickens though focused on realism can also be called modernist in approach but it was likes of Ezra Pound or James Joyce. Joyce and Virginia Woolf are some of the foremost exponents of modernist traditions.

The machinery of modernist tradition was a result of this divide that back footed the idea of realism and brought modernism in the forefront when high art became the watchword without denying the subject matter to get lost in this gloss Selective appropriation did happen when modernist ideals refused to accept the low and this is when modernism brought out its aristocratic side, refuting as well as refusing to associated itself with certain important elements of the bygone era and trying to create a totally new era thus annihilating the old for the new.

Ideological consequences started coming up as different writers took modernism differently with a gap that can be seen in the Anglophonic zone itself through England and America and their subject matter as well as literary output was far different than what the modernist ideas could deal with but this difference later gave rise to the idea of postmodernism.

To show modernism was opposed by postmodernism, Stuart Sim in Postmodernism and Philosophy (2001) says:

Jacques Derrida's deconstruction became one of the most powerful expressions of the poststructuralist ethos. Deconstruction was directed against the system- building side of structuralism, and took issue with the idea that all phenomena were reducible to the operations of systems, with its implication that we could come to have total control over our environment. What Derrida was concerned to demonstrate was the instability of language, and indeed systems in general. Signs were not such predictable entities in Derrida's view, and indeed there was never any perfect Chapter II: The Postmodern Ideology and Maggie Gee's Fiction 33

conjunction of signifier and signified to guarantee unproblematic communication. Some 'slippage' of meaning always occurred. For one thing, words always contained echoes and traces of other words, with their sound-quality, for example, invariably putting one in mind of a range of similar-sounding ones. Derrida provided evidence of this slippage in action by means of a concept called 'difference', a neologism derived from the French word difference (meaning both difference and deferral). One could not detect which of the two words was intended in speech (they are pronounced the same), only in writing. To Derrida, what was revealed at this point was the inherent indeterminacy of meaning. Linguistic meaning was an unstable phenomenon: at all times, and all places, difference applied. (Sim: 2001, p. 5)

Historical paradigm shift makes the relevancy of modernism even more as the ideological edifice keeps on making temporal jumps to come to a proper shape and prove itself to be a definite source of a major cultural change as witnessed by the practitioners of modernism but these changes are opposed by the previous practitioners as well and are resisted till the new cultural construct finally is embedded and accepted.

The technological investment was heavy in the creation of the modernist milieu as these changes inspired the writers to create something that had the idea high art in them. Discovery of electricity, railways, aeroplane all prompted the modernist to take cue and indulge in them as witnessed in several works and this gave modernism a sharp edge over others.

The exile of self brought the best in the modernist ideology. Writers from all over the world had converged at Paris to create a canonical social group where ideas were exchanged, where themes and premises were mercilessly criticized as well as brought to the notice of other prominent authors. Different cities of the world be it Paris be it London the writers took cue from this ever-changing world Chapter II: The Postmodern Ideology and Maggie Gee's Fiction 34

and later political and social changes that finally gave the postmodernist construct a self of its own.

The integration with mainstream was another condition that was met with resistance but it was not going to be an easy task at all and this is where the modernist came together to make sure their voices were heard. Virginia Woolf's desperate plea in her works was never to be ignored or be it James Joyce who made Dublin a modernist city that echoed the sentiments of one Leopold Bloom who traversed around the city without making a fuss but that was all about modernism, a cupid with a lost lover desperate to deliver its arrow and find a target so that it can aim.

II.1.2 The Legacy of Modernist Fiction

Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness (1899) is often considered by many one of the greatest pieces of modernist literature, that not only attempted to focus on the colonial mispolicies of the British government but besides that it prompted a debate on the relationship between the protagonist and the antagonist- Kurtz and Marlowe in an alien setting and the psyche of their respective self as they battle their own demons and monsters surrounded and lost in a hostile situation, far away from their own homeland. The approach, the style as well as the execution prompted critics to notice the way Heart of Darkness imbibed itself into the modernist setup.

James Joyce is another bright star of the modernist fictional setup whose Finnegan's Wake or The Dubliners or other works are the ideals of the modernist genre. The style later helped the postmodernist to adapt themselves as well. His writing was based in and around a city and it prompted a whole genre that made the city an icon, an anthromorphic genius of its own that later helped the American lost generations create their own genre and writing. Chapter II: The Postmodern Ideology and Maggie Gee's Fiction 35

The effect of World War I was an important mark on the modernist genre as a whole. Though the effects would be seen later in the 20s and 30s, the four year battle made many modernists solidify their resolved and fight against the unnatural subversion of powerful elite that enjoyed this blood lust. The British war poetry during this war was a highlight of the modernist power that was going to come soon and overpower other genres and that precisely what happened.

Virginia Woolf's works were another important addition to the modernist ideals. Her works that were essentially feminist as well as helped many to understand the problems of women who apparently belonged to the higher class but had a problem of their own that no one was going to listen. This unwillingness resulted Woolf to attempt to bring out this side of the aristocracy that resonated all across the world.

Dorothy Richardson, who is more famous for using the idea of stream of consciousness, is another important modernist writer and her works again were close to that of Virginia Woolf but she included a class-variety i.e. working on different and more subtle ideas revolving around modernism and the class barrier that modernism created on its own.

Eugene O'Neill was another America writer who brought the usage of Greek mythology straight to the American household, a pastiche that would later inspired the postmodernist. It is to be noted that Maggie Gee's work is somewhat close to Eugene O'Neill aesthetics as it took the ordinary and gave it a massive dose of the extraordinary dripping in mythological mesmerisation.

Bertolt Brecht was another playwright whose works were extremely important to the modernist struggle. He took the ordinary out of the play and injected it with a new sense of desperation, an attempt to restructure the entire policy of the literature that was focused too much on the ordinary, the result was astounding as Chapter II: The Postmodern Ideology and Maggie Gee's Fiction 36

Brecht's work also paved the way for the postmodernist genre to later take notice and consider.

Federico García Lorca was another European that has to be considered because of the way he dealt with his subject. Though it was an end that no one accepted as he was killed during the Spanish civil war but his works of romantic nature mixed with modernist sensibilities created a genre within genre and though he primarily wrote in Spanish he finally managed to create a place for himself through his writing.

D. H. Lawrence was another important writer whose works proved to be controversial and banned. His use of sexuality as well as other taboo topics led many to believe he was a pornographer but it didn't stop him indulging himself through his genius as he kept on hammering the British upper and lower classes, bringing out the hypocrisy, the frustration all together through his pen.

William Faulkner was close to D.H. Lawrence when he took on the American south and others through his works and exposed the America that people seldom knew about something that was never attempted before. The American landscape that was yet to reach great heights and was thriving as the Victorian age of technology prompted it to the rat race of development became exposed through the work of Faulkner who became the chief exponent of modernism in the American colony.

T. S. Eliot, E. E. Cummings, and Wallace Stevens, Ezra Pound, T. S. Eliot, Hart Crane, Marianne Moore, William Carlos, Williams H.D., and Louis Zukofsky, David Jones, Hugh MacDiarmid, Basil Bunting, and W. H. Auden are some of the modernist poets whose works are as important as that of the writers as well as the playwrights. In a landscape overwhelmed by several tragedies the poets used their works to reflect on such things. A precursor would be the British war poets and these poets would take a lot from them in Chapter II: The Postmodern Ideology and Maggie Gee's Fiction 37

terms of style and affectivity that would ultimately result in the creation of a massive canon. Like The Wasteland of T.S. Eliot highly debatable because of its modernist as well as postmodernist ideals lay bares the entire ideology of modernism, the way the world was hammered thanks to the carnage, the development, a mixed potpourri that wouldn't even grasp at the destruction it has caused rather it moved on and on, thus setting the stage for the postmodernist creation. Wallace Stevens was another important writer whose personal wasteland became the city of Chicago and who wrote mercilessly on the tragedies and travails of the city and its people with many poets following several policies.

II.2 Postmodernism and its Legacy

Postmodern literature is part of socio-cultural and historical development that came into existence after the end of the second world war though the change was fraught with difficulties as the modernist theorists and practitioners wouldn't allow such a new radically changing thing to come up all of a sudden and this resulted in a clash but finally postmodernism became a mainstay in the genre of different things.

The thematic problem of postmodernism happened because the modernists were not willing to accept the ideals that postmodernism offered and this resulted in a stalemate but still this thematic device to use postmodernism in the high and the low of all things made things much more easier but also importantly many writers and playwrights and poets opened up to this.

The changing nature and understanding of art and its form can be once again traced back to the Second World War as the world lay in ruins, writers rebelled against the general lack of apathy that literature and other forms witnessed. Modernism was decaying just like the society and it had to be fought against and this is when the Chapter II: The Postmodern Ideology and Maggie Gee's Fiction 38

radical ideas of postmodernism finally showed the way out of this misery.

Parody and Caricature became mainstay of the postmodernist legacy as it used humour and other stuff to totally breakdown and criticize the society in general and this is when things became even more important because this criticism is not straightforward. Postmodernism made sure things were hidden and this is when theorists like Derrida and others came together to make postmodernism a more tough nut to crack than one could actually think of.

Pop Culture as Ideology is something that happened once postmodernism entered the new wave era of the 60s that can be attributed to the Beatles and other such pop cultural pieces of history that has to be seen. Postmodernism relied heavily on them, like the works of Andy Warhol who radicalized art or the works of Norman Mailer among others who made sure that the idea of postmodernism was not a mere bluff but it should continue till the end of time, an infinite loop of things that keep on duplicating themselves in different ways.

The intuition of radical pluralism is something that comes of through pop culture. Be it films, be it songs, be it novels , short stories or poems, postmodernism is plural in its self and never ever can it go singular and the way it keeps on moving forward without the help of modernism anymore. The high and low finally meets and people could finally experiment, finally jazz could mix with metal, finally a highly placed social person could abuse, and postmodernism had it all.

But the paranoia world was still there and it didn't really with the second world end, rather it mutated and different conflicts came together to make postmodernism take them up with more zeal so that it could finally nail them up in one long chain. Writers, artists all Chapter II: The Postmodern Ideology and Maggie Gee's Fiction 39

came together, collaborated using different texts as such that finally resulted in a postmodernist revolution but the conflict never ended rather it is as persistent as the postmodernist movement and the cause taken up the writers in general.

The relationship between the author, the text and the reader hence comes under heavy scrutiny and how they have fought and contributed in this postmodernist struggle. This is something that the reader has to contribute more by paying special attention to the writer as well as the artist's work by trying to find out those hidden clues that are there without which it is really not possible for them to function.

The hardship of postmodern motif hence is to keep the readers with them. The readers are the main soldiers here who have to read and understand what the postmodernism is trying to offer. If they fail, postmodernism fails but what is even more important is that writer should encourage the readers to delve deep into the works that they are reading without which postmodernism as such will fail.

The textual conundrum is something that every postmodernist work suffers from. The writer himself or herself cannot challenge this problem. The work they are creating is not under their dominance, rather it is they who are dominance and they have to surrender and it is they who have to move forward using it without slowing down and this is what is observed in Maggie Gee's work as well that has been dealt by the researcher that has helped in the proper structure of the thesis.

II.3 The Architects of Postmodernism II.3.1 Jean Francois Lyotard Lyotard's work is characterised by an opposition to universals, meta-narratives, and generality as such that makes his work an important part of the postmodernist crusade. He has made several critical universality claims that brings about enlightenment and it Chapter II: The Postmodern Ideology and Maggie Gee's Fiction 40

brings out the fundamental base of postmodernism as such that can be studied under a broader aegis. He talks chiefly about the postmodern condition.

Lyotard's postmodernist leanings come from his rejection of Marx and Freud. Freud is an important part of postmodernism but it is disappointing to understand the capriciousness of Marx's Hegelian connection that makes him reject Freud. It is blocked in the range of economic relations with other meanings of postmodernism as offered by Lyotard. It represents the politics of science as well as theology, in both cases an orientation of lack of awareness towards theology and the arbitrariness of roaming on top. Consequently, Lyotard also dismissed the Theodor W. Adorno's Negative Dialectics because Lyotard saw them as a demand of submissiveness to religion and the religion of history here is the framework of clinical resolution. Lyotard's' libidinal economics was he to describe the purpose of the search and the intensity of libidinal investment in various social mode thus bringing his the condition of the postmodern to the forefront.

Lyotard has this constant definition of postmodernism that is taken from his most celebrated work The Postmodern Condition (1984):

I have read a thinker of repute who defends modernity against those he calls the neoconservatives. Under the banner of postmodernism, the latter would like, he believes, to get rid of the uncompleted project of modernism, that of the Enlightenment. Even the last advocates of Aufklarung, such as Popper or Adorno, were only able, according to him, to defend the project in a few particular spheres of lifethat of politics for the author of The Open Society, and that of art for the author of Astbetiscbe Tbeorie. Jurgen Habermas (everyone had recognized him) thinks that if modernity has failed, it is in allowing the totality of life to be splintered into independent specialties which are left to the narrow competence of experts, while the concrete individual experiences "desublimated meaning" and "destructed form," not as a liberation but in the mode of that immense ennui which Baudelaire described over a century ago. My question is to determine what sort of Chapter II: The Postmodern Ideology and Maggie Gee's Fiction 41

unity Habermas has in mind. Is the aim of the project of modernity the constitution of socio-cultural unity within which all the elements of daily life and of thought would take their places as in an organic whole? Or does the passage that has to be charted between heterogeneous language games those of cognition, of ethics, of politics belong to a different order from that? And if so, would it be capable of affecting a real synthesis between them? The first hypothesis, of a Hegelian inspiration, does not challenge the notion of a dialectically totalizing experience, the second is closer to the spirit of Kant's Critique of Judgment, but must be submitted, like the Critique, to that severe re-examination which postmodernity imposes on the thought of the Enlightenment, on the idea of a unitary end of history and of a subject. (Lyotard: 1984, p. 17)

Lyotard's modern cultural idea is that of a sceptic. Doubts about the effectiveness of the universal principles of the postmodern condition were to provoke. Lyotard argues that since World War II, due to the technology and advancement of technology has exceeded our requirements for the grand narratives. His narratives that bring together disciplines such as science and culture, social practices, argues against the possibility of justifying this advancement. Narratives we tell to justify a set of laws and the stakes are inherently unjust. Meta-narratives we see a loss of confidence in science, art and literature have an effect on it. Little narratives are to explain the social changes and political problems have become a popular way to explore the grand narratives as well. Lyotard argues that the answer is the driving force behind modern science. Metanarratives fade as science in its search for truth suffers a loss of confidence, and therefore must find other ways of legitimating their efforts. The scientific validity of the information related to the machines is increasing dominance. Lyotard argues that one day, in order to be considered useful knowledge; it will be converted into computerized data. Years later, the inhuman his book, published in 1988, in which he displays in a world where technology has taken over led to its writing and this is what the inhuman stands for, the postmodern conundrum. Chapter II: The Postmodern Ideology and Maggie Gee's Fiction 42

II.3.2 Jacques Derrida

On several occasions, though a staunch postmodernist, Derrida has referred to himself as a historian. Derrida has always favoured the Western philosophical tradition culture, beliefs and even then has broadly questioned the same. The major discourse, questioning and by trying to modify them, to democratize the university scene and attempted to politicize it, Derrida's Western culture fragmentation of the assumptions called for his challenge. On occasion, a certain sense of Derrida radicalization of Marxism referred to as fragmentation.

From Plato to Rousseau to Heidegger along with his wide reading, Derrida argues that Western philosophy often uncritically has taken the symbolic depth model of language and consciousness as allowed to control their own concept. He said that the metaphysics of presence which appeared to have been part of the same force as it sees often unacknowledged assumptions. This logocentrism as Derrida argues has marked or made binary oppositions to write the understanding of racial differences on our conception of speech has an effect on everything that makes hierarchized. And this can be witnessed in deconstruction expose and seeks to undermine such metaphysics and as the researcher understands marks its way forward in Maggie Gee's work as well.

Hence Christopher Norris in Deconstruction, Theory and Practice (1982) has the opinion:

To present ‗deconstruction‘ as if it were a method, a system or a settled body of ideas would be to falsify its nature and lay oneself open to charges of reductive misunderstanding. Critical theory is nowadays a reputable academic business with a strong vested interest in absorbing and coming to terms with whatever new challenges the times may produce. Structuralism, it is now plain to see, was subject from the outset to a process of adaptation by British and American critics who quickly took heart from what they saw as its ‗practical‘ or ‗commonsense‘ uses. What started as a powerful protest against ruling critical assumptions ended up as just Chapter II: The Postmodern Ideology and Maggie Gee's Fiction 43

one more available method for saying new things about well- worn texts? By now there is probably a structuralist reading, in one guise or another, of just about every classic of English literature. A few minutes‘ search through the index of any learned journal is enough to show how structuralism has taken hold in the most respectable and cherished quarters of academic study. Old polemics are quietly forgotten because the ground has meanwhile shifted to such an extent that erstwhile opponents find themselves now in a state of peaceful alliance. (Norris: 1982, p. 71)

All speech are binary oppositions, are also intended to make it clear that by no means is to approach built around texts as Derrida calls it . This approach to the text, in a broad sense, is the way Ferdinand de Saussure's semiology gets affected. Saussure, considered one of the fathers of structuralism, has approved the rules of language with other conditions within the mutual determination to get their meaning.

Derrida focused on perhaps the most quoted and famous of this book, Of Grammatology (1967). In this book appears an essay on Rousseau, the statement that there is no reference to the outside, that there cannot be any reference to the outside. Derrida's critics suggest that he wrote often mistranslated phrase in French and has been accused of doing it often to spread widely these deconstructive notion and to make this translation appear such as to suggest that Derrida has nothing but words and words that makes Derrida's postmodernist stance even more powerful. The text is a reserved self with nothing to do with outside of it and this is where the postmodernist dictum becomes more powerful. Derrida once explained that the claim all things in general has become a sort of slogan, is so badly understood, fragmentation as nothing and means nothing as it is not out of context, which says exactly the same thing, the formula would have undoubtedly been less shocking. Chapter II: The Postmodern Ideology and Maggie Gee's Fiction 44

II.3.3 Michel Foucault

Foucault's thought and actions make him one of the leading critics of social and political issues in the postmodernist setup, propose solutions to positive critics than deny their concerns over the postmodernist issue. Since no relationship is devoid of human power, freedom becomes elusive - even as an ideal freedom and that's what the postmodernist always looks for. This trend, which critiques normativity as socially constructed and contingent, but in order to mount an implicit critique of the model, depending on the sly attempts to argue that a lot depends on Enlightenment principles as crypto normativist as part of Foucault's thinking i.e. the characters have to be part of the postmodernist culture against which philosopher Jürgen Habermas lead a struggle. A similar criticism has been advanced by Diana Taylor, and Nancy Fraser, who argues that Foucault criticized traditional ethical systems, he denies himself resort to concepts such as freedom and justice, and therefore lacks the ability to generate positive alternative. But it is to be remembered that postmodernism is also about negative aspects and how to make sure that these negative things are also part of the canon.

Iain D Thomson thus has argued in Heidegger, Art, and Postmodernity (2011) hence argue:

Martin Heidegger (1889–1976) was probably the most influential philosopher of the twentieth century; certainly he remains the most controversial. This enduring controversy stems not only from Heidegger‘s undeniably a horrendous politics, legendarily difficult prose, and profoundly challenging views, but also from the fact that a list of the major thinkers inspired by the works he wrote after Being and Time (1927) reads like the required table of contents for any good anthology of ―contemporary continental philosophy‖: Giorgio Agamben, Alain Badiou, Jean Baudrillard, Maurice Blanchot, Stanley Cavell, Gilles Deleuze, Jacques Derrida, Hubert Dreyfus, Michel Foucault, Luce Irigaray, Jacques Lacan, Emmanuel Levinas, Jean- François Lyotard, Herbert Marcuse, Jacques Rancière, Chapter II: The Postmodern Ideology and Maggie Gee's Fiction 45

Richard Rorty, Charles Taylor, Gianni Vattimo, and Slavoj Žižek. For all these postmodernists (the heading under which this diverse group is often lumped together), Heidegger‘s later philosophy served as a formative influence as well as a primary point of departure. Yet, despite his immense influence, Heidegger‘s own philosophical attempt to articulate a postmodern understanding of being and so help usher in a postmodern age remains shrouded in darkness and confusion along with the other views at the heart of his later thought that is a situation this book hopes to help remedy. (Thomson: 2011, 47)

Similarly, Foucault scholar Nancy Pearcey explains the contradictory stance stating that it is impossible to achieve fairness, the principle that an objective statement is disrupted their own claims.

Philosopher Richard Rorty has argued that Foucault's archaeology of knowledge 'is fundamentally negative, and a copy of such knowledge's new theory thus fails to install. Rather, Foucault's theory is just some ideas about reading history but it does provide invaluable maxims. As far as Rorty could administer that one can see, it's all in the past to offer great descriptions, on how to avoid being trapped by historical assumptions and carefully sort out complement and helpful hints. These signs largely consist of progress but they are not look for meaning in history, intelligently or any area of freedom as the development of the culture of a given activity does not see history and to not use any philosophical vocabulary to such activity or goal to characterize is the essence of work. But it does not assume that the way to present this activity is conducted in the past to serve the goals of the postmodernist struggle.

Foucault argues often what is considered a lack of rigor in their analysis has been criticized by historians. For example, Hans-Ulrich Wehler harshly in 1998 did the same thing calling Foucault him a bad philosopher. Foucault criticized Wehler's wrong humanities oriented ideas and social sciences as a well-received fraud in retaliation to this Chapter II: The Postmodern Ideology and Maggie Gee's Fiction 46

criticism. Wehler, according to the works of Foucault supplied insufficient empirical historical aspects, but also often contradictory and therefore they were lacking in clarity and thus his criticism of Foucault was unacceptable. For example, Foucault's concept of power is disparagingly undifferentiated, and a disciplinary society can't really understand it and this is where Wheler belonged to. This is the thesis of Foucault. Wehler feels that this is only possible because of Foucault's proper authority, force, power, violence but the legitimacy makes no difference. In addition, the sources of his research (prisons and psychiatric institutions) are based on the one-sided selection and neglect other types of organizations, such as the factory. Also, Wehler finds Foucault‘s dependence on Max Weber and Norbert Elias faulty because he criticized the idea of the social science while major German-speaking theorists did not. But Foucault had refuted all charges In all, it can be concluded that Foucault's flaws in its so- called endless series of empirical studies is an intellectually stimulating study of the perspective it offers to the postmodernist canon that makes Foucault an important theorist of the same.

II.3.4 Jean Baudrillard

As Jean Baudrillard developed his work during the 1980s, he moved to the economic theory of mediation and mass communications. Although his interest in Saussurean semiotics and symbolic exchange (as influenced by anthropologist Marcel Mauss) the logic of retaining the work of Marshall McLuhan was an impressive one as it made his contribution to postmodernism a sustainable act. Baudrillard paid attention to how forms of communication is determined by the nature of social relations that is about developing ideas that are employed in a society and helps in the postmodern communication. In doing so, Baudrillard's structural semiology understood a historical version to consider the impact of both Saussure and Roland Barthes went beyond formal semiology. Chapter II: The Postmodern Ideology and Maggie Gee's Fiction 47

Simulation, Baudrillard claims, is the current phase of the façade. Everybody is a referent, with a hyper-reality composed of references. Renaissance, which was a major excuse for most people for fake historic progress (e.g. royalty, nobility, purity, etc.) is of a real referent to stand for to display objects that do not exist in other words. In the spirit of hypocrisy that was emulated by that age, others in dissimulating that a person or a thing is not true. The Industrial Revolution, the major excuse product, series or other things hence can be propagated on an endless production line; and finally at the present time, the major excuse model, which by its nature already stands for endless reproducibility, and is already reproduced itself in the context of different realities.

As Christopher Butler himself echoes in Postmodernism: A Very Short Introduction (2003):

Perhaps the most celebratedly outrageous assertion of the essential unreality of the culture in which we live was made by Jean Baudrillard, who echoed Foucault in arguing that Disneyland is there to conceal the fact that it is the ‗real‘ country, all of ‗real‘ America, which is Disneyland (just as prisons are there to conceal the fact that it is the social; in its entirety, in its banal omnipresence, which is carceral). He goes on to say that Disneyland (with its Pirates, Frontier, and Future World fantasy set-ups) is presented as imaginary in order to make us believe that the rest is real, when in fact all of Los Angeles and the America surrounding it are no longer real, but of the order of the hyper-real and of simulation. It is no longer a question of a false representation of reality (ideology), but of concealing the fact that the real is no longer real, and thus of saving the reality principle. The Disneyland imaginary is neither true nor false; it is a deterrence machine set up in order to rejuvenate in reverse the fiction of the real. (Butler: 2003, p. 112)

1980s and 1990s, during which one of the most common themes of Baudrillard was historicity, or more specifically, progress and modernity in today's society, the idea of using his political options was again much applauded. He argued much like political theorist Chapter II: The Postmodern Ideology and Maggie Gee's Fiction 48

Francis Fukuyama that history had ended with the spread of globalization or disappeared; however, contrary to Fukuyama, Baudrillard averred that the history should not be understood as the culmination of progress, but as the fall of the very idea of historical progress. For Baudrillard, the end of the Cold War did not represent an ideological victory; indeed, the utopian dream shared between both the political right and left of the missing signals. The liberal vision of global communism and global civil society to Marxist philosophy, giving further evidence of their protest ends. Baudrillard argued that he had always hoped the illusion to win; In fact, as the illusion of logic, he was nothing more than a dream in the end a misguided idea of thought:

The end of history is also the end of the subsequent loop of time that makes the postmodern temporal shift an indefinable process. Alas, this too comes under the problem of the postmodernist construct. There is now the old ideologies, old regimes, and old values those are to be disposed of in trash cans. Where was Marxism, which actually invented the historical debacle and what will happen to it in the postmodernist system..

Within the theme of a society and the fast-paced electronic communication and the collapse of the global information network, the mask to be always, as thought, was being ruled by the unavoidable circumstances that showed the way. Physicist Alan Sokal, who created a quasi-scientific terminology that, drew the ire of the postmodernist canon as such. Baudrillard wrote that the motion was unstable society moved to the linearity of history that for once and for all saw the particle accelerators and the referential orbit of things that smashed and had gone

In making this argument against Baudrillard, Jean-François Lyotard, who famously argued that there's no longer the 20th century "metanarratives" and there was no scope for any room that found Chapter II: The Postmodern Ideology and Maggie Gee's Fiction 49

some similarities with the post-modern philosophy. But, besides just lamenting the collapse of history, gone beyond are Lyotard and Baudrillard there is also a chance to analyze how to progress further down the idea of legitimacy despite such indifferent perception that was being employed to try and for sake of postmodern consistency. Baudrillard argued that a universal endpoint of the history in which all conflicts resolution will be found in their original perception was considered redundant; universality is still a notion as an excuse for the actions was used in world politics. Universal values, which according to him, no one any longer universally believed that there were still rhetorically employed to justify otherwise unjustifiable choice. That means, he wrote, even though there are believed to now ends, and in order to hide the harsh realities of the current (or, as he, unrealities would put) are employed. In the Enlightenment, universalization was viewed as unlimited growth and forward progress was what the champions of enlightenment wanted.

Today, by contrast, universalization is expressed as a tool of escape. This escape velocity created a significant confusion as outlined in the perception that is included, but it never truly was free of all discourse that has been including self-referential field but it cannot break into the postmodern confusion as Baudrillard suggests.

II.4 Postmodernist Fiction and its Contribution

Jorge Luis Borges, has a significant direct impact on many postmodernist fiction writers of today for he dealt with metafiction and magical realism that later became the mainstay of postmodernist milieu.

When compared with the modernist literature of the 19th century, both modern and postmodern literature represents a break from realism. Character development, both in modern and postmodern literature, for example Virginia Woolf and James Joyce, or as exploratory poetry style or stream of consciousness shows, drawing Chapter II: The Postmodern Ideology and Maggie Gee's Fiction 50

on the example of modernist consciousness within the states to investigate and explore subjectivism, turning from external reality is, in many cases by T.S. Eliot's The Wasteland (1922).

In After Postmodernism (1995), R. A. Smith, and Philip Wexler stated:

In both discourses difference is strategically deployed to serve particular political objectives. In the first example, the ‗sexed self‘ or ‗woman‘s voice‘ is inserted in the discursive politics of traditionally male conferencing. In post-structural feminist terms the masculine voice is challenged and deconstructed. Feminist voices are reconstructed through the organization of feminist pedagogy plenary sessions, feminist networking, feminist interruptions, and feminist interpretations of male speech. The ‗sexed self‘ represents the ‗Other‘ and speaks for the ‗Other‘. The master‘s tool, Derrida‘s deconstruction, becomes the politically effective strategy for incorporating the ‗sexed self‘ within the discourses of ‗male‘ conferencing. But the question that remains unanswered is—who is represented by this ‗sexed self‘ and who are the ‗others‘ that she, the ‗sexed self‘, is speaking for? In the second example, the position of a ‗racialized self‘ is taken up to rebuke ‗white women‘ for not engaging in issues of racism. In this context the ‗sexed self‘ is strategically repositioned first as the centre of oppression, and then, through the deploy of deconstruction, the marginalized voice. The centre now, no longer remains the patriarchal self, masquerading as the neuter self, but the Eurocentric masculine and feminine self. The political effect of this strategy is to deconstruct the power of the centre through the insertion of difference—but what next? Is the centre reconstructed or is it endlessly deferred to ‗Others‘ through the endless suspension of meaning? (Smith: 1995, P. 153)

Many postmodern playfulness works (Finnegan‘s Wake Joyce or Virginia Woolf's Orlando, for example), and they may look similar to the postmodern works in the present, but when the playfulness of postmodernism becomes central command and the real meaning of the achievement is totally unlikely because the postmodern playfulness happens only in the given setup. Alice B. Toklas (1933) Chapter II: The Postmodern Ideology and Maggie Gee's Fiction 51

biography of Gertrude Stein's playful experimentation with the style has been described as shift towards the postmodernism and one of the first major attempts to create something that was far away from the modernist creation but this was not really taken kindly by others.

In 1939, the Irish novelist Flann O'Brien Third Policeman was rejected for publication and published posthumously in 1967 until a revised version is called before the original was published in 1964. Dalkey Archive who died two years ago before this considered O'Brien's work but they are completely lost. Notwithstanding the presence of mere procrastination, literary theorist Keith Hooper called that the style they call post-modern novel as one of the first criteria as concerned. The prefix post, however, does not necessarily mean a new era. Indeed, it is also a reaction against modernity after World War II (in its disrespect for human rights, the Geneva Convention as has confirmed, Nanking, Bataan Death March, the atomic bombing of Hiroshoma and Nagasaki and indicate by means of coercion , the Holocaust, the bombing of Dresden, the firebombing of Tokyo, and Japanese American internment). At the beginning of the Cold War, the civil rights movement in the United States, postcolonialism (postcolonial literature), and personal computers (Cyberpunk hypertext fiction and fiction): Rise of the important post-war events could indicate a response that was suppose to end it all but rather started a major struggle all made a part of this postmodern struggle. Some further argue that the introduction of post-modern literature can be marked by significant publications or literary events. For example, some traces of John Hawkes can be called the beginning of postmodernism with The Cannibals first published in 1953 while the first performance of En attendant Godot or Naked Lunch in 1956, The Howl of for others in 1959 marks the beginning of postmodernism, so postmodernism cannot be brought or caught in one moment rather it is plural. At the beginning of it is marked by important moments or theory like that of Jacques Derrida in 1966 and his lecture Structure, Chapter II: The Postmodern Ideology and Maggie Gee's Fiction 52

Sign, and Play or Orpheus in 1971 or as late as the exclusion of the use of Ihab Hassan In form of postmodernist beginning. Brian McHale's main thesis details on this change, many postmodern works have grown out of modernity, modernity is characterized by a dominant epistemological, while postmodernism works primarily concerned with questions of ontology. Aftermath of the war and transition statistics could also be seen in the postmodernist setup. Although postmodern postmodernist literature is everything written in the period, the aftermath of war in the literature (such as Theatre of the Absurd, the Beat Generation, and magical realism) does not contain significant similarities. These events are sometimes collectively labelled "postmodern"; more generally, some important figures (Samuel Beckett, William S. Burroughs, Jorge Luis Borges, Julio Cortázar and Gabriel Garcia Marquez) are there and they have made an important contribution to the post-modern aesthetic as cited.

Alfred Jarry, Surrealists, Antonin Artaud, Luigi Pirandello, the Theatre of the Absurd, and so on, also influenced by the work there. The term "Theatre of the Absurd" was coined by Martin Esslin 1950s to describe a trend in the theatre; He is related to the concept of the absurd and Albert Camus took it in most of his works mainly related to the work of Sisyphus eternally trapped who couldn't escape from this drudgery.

Beat Generation" was the youth of materialist America during the 1950s; Jack Kerouac, who coined the term, spontaneous prose as a maximalistic, to create multi-fiction epic addition to the lost time. Magical realism, a technique popular among Latin American writers (and even their own style can be considered), the supernatural element (a famous example in Gabriel Garcia Marquez's apparently a practical mind and a divine figure eventually being treated as mundane dismissive treatment are "a very old man with enormous wings"). Beckett and Borges, Vladimir Nabokov, as well as a commonly cited figure is transitional; Expanding the Postmodernism leaders or Chapter II: The Postmodern Ideology and Maggie Gee's Fiction 53

central figures in the literature is not an organized movement, therefore, it is more difficult to say if it has expired or when it will end (to, say, than Joyce announced the end of modernity or with the death of Woolf). Catch-22 in 1961 or the publication of arguably postmodernist Slaughterhouse-five in 1969, and many others like that of Thomas Pynchon's 1973 novel Gravity's Rainbow is often called the postmodern redux. Both postmodernism and in general is considered as redefining moment for literature. Some represented and inspired by Raymond Carver with a new surge of realism in the 1980s, announced the death of postmodernism. With this new emphasis on realism in mind, some declared that postmodernism would come back and it was not yet dead, with the last great novel The Satanic Verses (1988) that belonged to the postmodern era.

But postmodernism won't die so soon as Patricia Waugh observes in Metafiction: The Theory and Practice of Self-conscious Fiction (1984):

Desiring communication which is impossible because the level of narration is separate from the level of story, the ‗I‘ attempts to treat the text itself as an addressee. This coming together of speaker and text is described as if they were lovers: ‗We are so close to each other now, you are so much a part of me that if you ceased to exist, it would be as if a part of me had become dead tissue‘ (p. 142). The irony is that the text, of course, is the speaker, and vice versa. Like ‗starcrossed lovers‘, they are dependent upon each other for existence (a more radically metafictional treatment of the problem examined in Johnson‘s Christie Malry‘s Own Double Entry). However, some British and American writing does, like Sarraute‘s, operate metafictionally at the level of the sign. In John Barth‘s ‗Autobiography: A Self- Recorded Fiction‘ (to which a note is added: ‗the title ―Autobiography‖ means self-composition: the antecedent of the first person narrator is not I but the story speaking of itself. I am its father, its mother is the recording machine‘; Lost in the Funhouse, p. 1), the story explicitly discusses its own ‗identity‘ crisis. This involves its defects – ‗absence of presence to name one‘ (p. 38) – and its attempts to ‗compose‘ itself (p. 36), Chapter II: The Postmodern Ideology and Maggie Gee's Fiction 54

given these defects. Gabriel Josipovici‘s Moebius the Stripper (1974) directly confronts the problem of absence by reproducing the text typographically in the form of a representation of a Möbius strip and exploring the crisis of Möbius, who has to die for the story to become text, who of course depends on the story for existence, but who cannot exist because of the story. (Waugh: 1984, p. 60)

II.4.1 Postmodern British Culture and Its Challenges

Letting go of colonies was the first step towards British postmodernist culture and the way the nation started getting affected. The idea was clear- the independence movement of these colonies affected the Britishers like nothing else as people started questioning if it was possible for the Britishers to hold on to their wealth and what would happen once freedom was granted to the phrase- the sun never sets in the British Empire.

The debacle of World War II finally prompted the British Empire to let go all of their colonies phase by phase as they realized that they cannot keep it at all. Though they were part of the winning allies it was Russia and USA who took all the credit and the British Empire finally had to settle and things ended bitterly for them as it slowly struggled to get back to their feet.

The angry young man phenomenon was something that came during the 60s and 70s just before Margaret Thatcher came to power and became a war cry for Britishers to rally and regroup and finally end the power struggle they were witnessing as the nation was slowly going through a lean phase. Theory of absurd was another important postmodernist genre that happened because of playwrights like Samuel Beckett that questioned the idea of the existential crisis that the world in general faced. Chapter II: The Postmodern Ideology and Maggie Gee's Fiction 55

Sarup Madan has a perfect explanation for this problem: Postmodernism is being talked and written about everywhere in contemporary Western societies. The term postmodernism is being used in many artistic, intellectual and academic fields. The figures usually associated with postmodernism include: Rauschenberg, Baselitz, Schnabel, Kiefer, Warhol and, perhaps, Bacon, in art; Jencks and Venturi in architecture; Artaud in drama; Barth, Barthelme and pynchon in fiction; Lynch in film (Blue Velvet); Sherman in photography; Derrida, Lyotard, Baudrillard in philosophy. There are, of course, other subjects that should be mentioned: anthropology, geography, sociology the list is endless, and the names of those included and excluded lead to vigorous debates and bitter controversies. But one thing is clear: postmodernism is of great interest to a wide range of people because it directs our attention to the changes, the major transformations, taking place in contemporary society and culture. The term is at once fashionable and elusive. (Madan: 1993, p. 45)

Samuel Beckett's seminal work Waiting for Godot (1953) is something that has become the pinnacle of postmodernist culture and is still widely read and tried to be understood as the playwright has made sure that understanding it should be difficult thus making it a postmodernist phenomenon.

Harold Pinter was another postmodernist exponent who focused more on the society exploiting the individual as can be seen in his magnum opus The Birthday Party (1958) that was a war cry against fascist leaders and curb of free speech among others. It also pointed to the more hostile British society as such as more immigrants came to the place and was faced with problems

The Margaret Thatcher Era was another high point of British society that was gradually diminishing the core of the British society as people became more hostile and there were more problems than once could imagine. The Thatcher era led to wide discontent faced by the British people and though she was widely unpopular she still held power for a long time destroying the nation in the process and its Chapter II: The Postmodern Ideology and Maggie Gee's Fiction 56

people though they survived this onslaught unleashed by a power hungry politician.

Challenges Faced by Maggie Gee was hence to incorporate all of this together and weave a proper tale that would make the postmodernist study of Maggie Gee's work a perfect delectable premise that would also give a greater understanding of the nation as a whole, a postmodernist creation still trying to battle the battles that were there without bowing out.

The crisis of the British Society in general has made its way in here and Maggie Gee in all her work has made sure that these are included. The postmodernist ideology is not to merely bring out the problems and address them but also to solve them but it is to be noted that the problems set in a postmodern setup can never be solved, it can be diminished but it is only temporary.

European Union and Brexit are two of the major problems of the British people as a large number of people want to leave the European Union that has again landed the nation in a problem but given the way things are this might lead to another postmodernist conundrum but then it is up to writers like Maggie Gee to use them and try and answer them without making or breaking up the postmodernist setup in the process.

II.4.2 The Postmodern Microscope of Maggie Gee's Work

The Cultural kickback is part of the postmodernist culture as the postmodernist ideal takes up everything possible, everything is equal before itself trying to understand if the culture of different things are all there or has it changed or has it made itself bend to accommodate itself in the postmodernist setup and this is when the problem starts. Chapter II: The Postmodern Ideology and Maggie Gee's Fiction 57

Steven Connor hence says: This movement from 'text' to 'context' has another dimension, too. One of the contradictions of modernist architectural theory is the disparity between its ambitions for an architecture which, in its spare functionality, can be seen as impersonal, and a desire to seize the opportunities for heroic individual vision and expression architecture as the 'pure creation of the mind', as Le Corbusier put it.17 In arguing for an architecture which is more responsive to its contexts, postmodernist architects like Robert Venturi have turned away from such heroic individualism. Charles Jencks similarly emphasizes the collaborative as opposed to the individualistic nature of postmodernist architecture, looking back with approval to the intimate, mutual comprehension between architect and client of earlier times, in which aims and intentions were pragmatically shared, as opposed. (Connor: 1997, p. 77)

England, Uganda and Uganda England is part of Maggie Gee's greater narrative and she tries to make use of the postmodern culture through this exchange that happens between England and Uganda and the characters who belong to this two different countries. This is when things go haywire for all the characters as they try to survive in this postmodernist cultural setup and as they come under alien cultures they have the fear that they will lose it.

Disintegrating the fragments of narrative is again done to make sure the characters remember part of their cultures and are not lost. Maggie Gee makes use of this dichotomy and allows her British characters to travel all the way to Uganda to understand as well as make sure that they experience that culture they have no idea about while it is important to see how the characters react to such a thing.

Extension of sociological enquiry is achieved through it as the characters find themselves in different alien society. So how do they react to it? Maggie Gee's works are exactly of that sense, that how the writers have worked and focused on this reaction and will this reaction helps them i.e. the characters who lose their self as well as Chapter II: The Postmodern Ideology and Maggie Gee's Fiction 58

identity in the alien landscape. But this is not new, the modernists have done this, but the postmodernist approach is totally different.

Preoccupation with absolute nothingness is something that the postmodernists deal with and Maggie Gee's characters as they face in apocalypse in the flood stare at this absolute nothingness and this is when the postmodernist focus upon the impending doom and will the characters lose their postmodernist stance as well as being. How does the writer deal with the crisis that is of course inspired by real life problems and events.

The Flood and the Biblical Assumptions hence are nothing but manmade disasters and epics. Like the flood and the class divide can be witnessed as the British society is now totally ravaged and trying to find a way out of this mess but it is not that easy as one can see. As apocalypse comes back in the form of different natural disasters the reader has to read beyond them and understand that this disasters actually speak about the problems of the society in general that is slowly disintegrating.

As the society disintegrates the alienation and exploitation of the common man too happens because of the society stops paying attention to them and they have to fend for themselves as the society is a mess itself, a problem of survival happens. The characters or the common men and women become alienated from themselves as well as their own self and that was it and what remains and this is not going to be the end of it.

Loss of direction and sense too comes in as the landscape is overpowered by this natural disasters and men and women try to find a way out of this. But then once again this loss of direction as well as sense is a part of the greater postmodernist debacle that the entire world was facing. How could literary help in such a critical situation. It was possible only by the direct involvement of the characters and the way the characters got involved with the readers. Chapter II: The Postmodern Ideology and Maggie Gee's Fiction 59

Kinship with Strangers is what the writer had to happen in the postmodernist setting without which the things were not possible at all and this kinship was brought in by many like the works of Maggie Gee who felt the only way to deal with this postmodern crisis was to involve the reader as well as the writer and this is basically what has been done in her works and she continues to do so in her other works that this thesis has not taken under consideration.

Individual rejection of the apathy is another important theme of Maggie Gee's work as well as that of postmodernism. The apathy of the postmodernist creation was something that couldn't be helped or done on its own; the apathy was a dangerous precedence that had to be brought to an end. But what resulted in this apathy? The postmodernist doctrine fought against it but with time as it passed by the apathy was seen in them as well and works of Maggie Gee challenged this apathy.

The problems of defining the term is another major problem of postmodernism because postmodernism itself challenges such norms and values through which it establishes itself in the broader terms of benefit for the theorists as well as the common readers as such. The contradiction posed by Postmodernism and Maggie Gee's work is something that the researcher has taken up. Maggie Gee's work reflects 80s as well as 21st century Britain and this contradiction in the varied subject is what makes Maggie gee's work so incredible to the readers as well as the writers.

The pessimistic optimism is another part of the postmodern conundrum and that is something one has to be aware of. The idea is simple as postmodernism came from the ashes of the problems of the 2nd world war and this is who the pessimism turned to optimism as one has to survive and humans did survive the carnage. Chapter II: The Postmodern Ideology and Maggie Gee's Fiction 60

Jan Faye in After Postmodernism (2012) says: The view of interpretation advocated so far holds that interpretations are answers to different sorts of representational questions and that interpretation contains a necessary contextual element which has to be understood in order to grasp the nature of interpretation. Questions depend on what the questioner wants to know, and the relevance of the question, as well as the answer, is determined partially by the background assumptions of both interpreter and interprets. Thus, one kind of interpretation is explanation of meaning; another kind is construction of meaning. At first glance, this pragmatic analysis of interpretation and explanation does not seem very much different from Hans-Georg Gadamer‘s hermeneutic view of interpretation, a view which regards an interpretation as an answer to a question raised by a text. But, in spite of the fact that both approaches consider interpretation to be part of an interrogative interchange, there are some fundamental differences between these two views. Those differences are concerned with establishing a scientific understanding of a text. Where the pragmatic- naturalistic approach sees the usual scientific interpretation of a text as an explanation of meaning, Gadamer – and even more radical postmodern authors – always assume interpretation to be a construction of meaning. This contrast of opinions is due to the significant divergence in their views about the aims of interpretation within the so-called interpretive disciplines. (Faye: 2012, p. 108)

Rejecting reality and accepting the surreal became part of his survival, a tool that finally managed to break all the stereotypes and resulted in the creation of the postmodern kaleidoscope that helped the readers as well as writers to create their own terms and rules for the postmodernist setting to acquiesce.

Allegiance to the new, that is appropriated from the old, is something what Maggie Gee has done in her work and this can't be tampered with and we have to look carefully as she has borrowed a lot in her timeline of work that can't be defined as such as the part of postmodernist milieu but for surely this allegiance to appropriation is a constant trick performed now then by different writers. Chapter II: The Postmodern Ideology and Maggie Gee's Fiction 61

Philosophical base as well as the artistic base is touched by the likes of Maggie Gee who feels that it is essential in terms of postmodernist crisis and without this the postmodern can't function. The postmodernist values need a crisis, a problem and the zeal to solve it and all the books retain a small universe of their own that can't be functioned and utilized to bring this up and the problem getting solved.

The end of literature and creation of new literature is what postmodernism looks forward to. The literature has to end to give rise to something new and gorgeous and without this the very idea of postmodernism can't function. Maggie Gee has used similar and dissimilar premises in her works just to convey this idea where different characters meet under different circumstances. Destruction of the regular and managing the irregular is another example of postmodernist zeal and different writers have done it time and again and will be time and again. Though some have maintained a balance some have out rightly decried and criticised the modernist outlook and have accepted the postmodernist as their own of expressing their self and this is where Maggie Gee triumphs.

Is ordinary the new postmodernist and we have to agree if we look at Maggie Gee's work as most of the characters are from the ordinary background while the modernist made sure the characters though ordinary faced and became something extraordinary while in the postmodernist dealings the characters remain ordinary depending on the writers as such.

The messing with narratives is something that continues with the postmodernist exponential growth and can be witnessed as we have reached 21st century and will be witnessed further. Thought Maggie gee has kept it simple though the way her characters break wall and indulge with one another, it is a constant reminder to the reader of how the postmodernist crux works. Chapter II: The Postmodern Ideology and Maggie Gee's Fiction 62

Maggie Gee's incorrigible self is something that affects her work in general. Her ‗self‘ is that of the colonizer and when she writes about the colonized that self tries to overpower her and make her wonder if she is doing the right thing by criticizing the past and bringing it out in the present through her characters that will re-align itself with the temporal shift as created within the postmodernist creation.

The apparatus of Maggie gee's works is strictly that of the postmodernist who tries to bring the nation, the country, the people all under a similar apparatus so that studying as well as writing about them is easier. Maggie Gee's work talks of two distinct phases, i.e. the Thatcher era and the non-Thatcher era and the characters are the result of this clash of two different phases and thus it helps writers like Maggie Gee to deliver a proper postmodernist statement.

The Poioumena of Maggie Gee's works hence is about the nation as well as the characters that the nation of England has. The characters some who belong to the nation, some who are immigrants at the end of the day are part of the nation itself and they can't be thrown out of this set up. Maggie Gee's work along with other British postmodernists is the result of the things they have witnessed and hence this readerly-writerly text that they have chalked up is this Poioumena as it talks about the creation of the book itself through the stories.

The Conceptual exploration is the most important of this thesis as the researcher is trying to understand what sort of postmodernist concepts have Maggie Gee tried to include in her works. The four works that are included here is to work on the conceptual framework that Maggie Gee has created through a grid of postmodernist mesh that brings out the themes and her own understanding of the postmodernist crisis that we see.

The Argumentative stand of postmodernist dictum is part of Maggie Gee's work. She makes it her resolve to understand how her Chapter II: The Postmodern Ideology and Maggie Gee's Fiction 63

characters will behave when they face different situations be it an apocalypse or be it the immigrant and the colonizer's clash in the ex- colony who has now set up and opened up its doors for all those who have been colonized. The epistemological shift in Postmodernist works is a constant threat but this has been utilized by Maggie Gee in her works to create something wonderful as she has absorbed this problem through her characters who are there in this landscape but are not really lost as they keep on seeking a way out of the postmodern debris that have trapped them but then they are not going to walk out so easily.

Andreas Huyssen states in After the Great Divide (1986):

It is obvious that the hardness of the epistemological subject, the identity of self consciousness mimics the unrelated experience of the consistent, identical object. Adorno's critique of the deeply problematic nature of such fortifications of the subject, which is reminiscent of the romantics is summed up poignantiy when he writes. The subject is all the more a subject the less it is so; and the more it imagines itself to be and to be an objective entity for itself, the less it is a subject. (Huyssen: 1986, p. 27)

The notion of deconstruction is an accompanying factor that keeps on happening here and there but Maggie Gee's idea is to deconstruct her characters than the text itself as it makes them feel more wanted than abandoned both by the readers as well as the writer. The characters are ably guided to a proper podium and then opened up and deconstructed without making them suffer as they ultimately reach their destination.

Absolving the nation of the crisis faced in Maggie Gee's work is another major point of her work as she tries to understand how different set of characters in different strata of the society has to fight to come up and stand up in the postmodernist landscape without being thumped down by the superior. The postmodernist actually argues that there are no superiors or inferiors here but all of them are Chapter II: The Postmodern Ideology and Maggie Gee's Fiction 64

nothing but the postmodernist pawns who have to behave accordingly or die trying.

Globalization and multiculturalism too plays an important part in this thesis work as Maggie Gee has made sure she has used this concept to give the postmodernist conundrum much more impetus. Postmodernism cannot function if they don't take the idea of globalization or postmodernism seriously in them and this would only lead to further problems because post 90s- the idea of globalization and multiculturalism became very important. The breaking of Berlin Wall as well as the breaking of USSR gave a major boost to the idea of globalization as well as multiculturalism.

Crisis of information and media too spread as the world entered the 21st century with wars getting fought over media and other such tools to try and destroy whatever little was there to understand but the postmodernist shackle was not too easy to destroy. Writers made sure they criticize this tool of obnoxious usage and then finally break apart the entire premise without giving a respite but this was not very easy. The postmodernist weapon was to bring them all under the same microscope and destroy them all but things were not as rosy as can be seen in Maggie Gee's work.

The late capitalistic onslaught finally happened and this made sure that the writers like Maggie Gee couldn't bring out the entire truth but postmodernist ideology wouldn't allow such things to happen. Though the world is capitalistic the written word is far greater and that's what has been utilized by Maggie Gee to expose the world as it is.

II.4.3 The Postmodernist Framework of Maggie Gee's Fiction

The British postmodernist desire comes because there is a constant need to change and upgrade things, to make it even more reliable as the world goes through several temporal and random changes and this is when Maggie Gee's work puts a microscopic vision Chapter II: The Postmodern Ideology and Maggie Gee's Fiction 65

on the nation, pointing out, chaffing out the good from the bad through her work and everything that is there.

Hence Linda Hutcheon in her seminal work A Poetics of Postmodern: History, Theory Fiction (1988):

As we have seen, such a paradoxical model of postmodernism is consistent with the very name of the label for postmodernism signals its contradictory dependence upon and independence from the modernism that both historically preceded it and literally made it possible. Philip Johnson probably could not have built the postmodern Transco Tower in Houston if he had not first designed the modernist purist form of Pennzoil Place—and if he had not begun his career as an architectural historian. All architects know that, by their art‘s very nature as the shaper of public space, the act of designing a building is an unavoidably social act. Parodic references to the history of architecture textually reinstate a dialogue with the past and—perhaps inescapably—with the social and ideological context in which architecture is (and has been) both produced and lived. In using parody in this way, postmodernist forms want to work toward a public discourse that would overtly eschew modernist aestheticism and hermeticism and its attendant political self-marginalization. (Hutcheon: 1988, p. 59)

The Problem of the British postmodernist is that Britain as a nation suffered serious problems after the Second World War and this is when they the postmodernist crisis brought out even more the humiliation the nation had suffered. Once their colonies were gone, Britain was an ex-empire no more the superpower that they claimed they were and this is where their journey to glory ended and the postmodernists brought this out without glorifying the past misdeeds of the nation.

The place of Maggie Gee in British Postmodernist canon is an important one and her work tries to make a bridge between the colony and the colonizer and how they behaved exchanged ideas as well as tries and break the ice. And not only has she done this but she has made sure that she follows the path showed by other postmodernists Chapter II: The Postmodern Ideology and Maggie Gee's Fiction 66

in her attempt to restructure her own vision of a nation that has been slowly decaying and dying out because of things that are not in control.

Zadie Smith is another writer whose work is extremely important keeping in mind Maggie Gee's writing and she too has made it a point to describe and destroy the entire perceived notion as related to Maggie Gee's work

Monica Ali‘s another brilliant work, Brick Lane (2007) can be read as a complementary value to My Driver. In Brick Lane she talks about a Bangladeshi bride in South hall, the most craved after Asian migrant place in UK and her stories and travails as she travels back and forth Bangladesh and UK through a temporal shift that is not seen in any other way but a postmodern microscope and this results in the ideological clash that is spoken a lot about.

Ideological clash is bound to happen as the temporal shift neglects the basic ideas associated with the ideology of the writer as well as the reader along with the characters. All these three entities are totally different and they maintain a chain, a chain that is unbreakable till the ideological problem arises that forces all three to unite uneasily over the similar and familiar postmodernist landscape as we witness in Maggie Gee's Driver where all the characters finally unite in Uganda under questionable circumstances.

The disaffected characters - are characters who do not take advantage of the impossibility of the situation and this makes postmodernism something different. The 21st century is a huge cesspool and the characters continue their seminal existence here. The characters feel that it can't do enough as this timeline will overpower and destroy them as witnessed in Maggie Gee's works.

The 21st Century Conundrum is another thing the postmodernist theorists as well as the theory should look into. Chapter II: The Postmodern Ideology and Maggie Gee's Fiction 67

Postmodernism had its roots in the end of the Second World War and it must have witnessed a lot of changes. This temporal shift, the accompanied changes should be looked over and over to make the theory more accessible as well as concrete for it to make it sober in front of the people trying to apply it or indulge in it.

The Banter of Postmodernist Crisis is another problem that keeps on occurring now and then as different postmodern theorists brings it up. This banter happens because of different ideas as when replicated and understood by these theorists that leads to a gap among all of them but it doesn't mean that postmodernist banter or the crisis is a fallacy in the theory itself, rather it enables it to debate and criticize properly.

Can the Postmodernist desire in the narrative be curbed? That's one burning question that always fuels the postmodernist movement. If it is looked at through the postmodernist prism then it is the desire of the entire humankind that is projected here but the postmodern cannot always accept it as its own. The desire has to be curbed but it can't be done always. When we look at Maggie Gee's characters, they suffer because their own desires have made them modern day Sisyphus.

Fear and uncertainty is an important part of Maggie Gee's work as can be observed in The Flood where the characters wait for the flood to happen and the gap between the rich and the poor is totally in front of the readers who see how this divide has been appropriated by the postmodernist ideals and values.

As Brian Mchale in Postmodernist Fiction (1987) says: The space of a fictional world is a construct, just as the characters and objects that occupy it are, or the actions that unfold within it. Typically, in realist and modernist writing, this spatial construct is organized around a perceiving subject, either a character or the viewing position adopted by a disembodied narrator. The heterotopian zone of postmodernist writing cannot be Chapter II: The Postmodern Ideology and Maggie Gee's Fiction 68

organized in this way, however. Space here is less constructed than deconstructed by the text, or rather constructed and deconstructed at the same time. Postmodernist fiction draws upon a number of strategies for constructing/deconstructing space, among them juxtaposition, interpolation, superimposition, and misattribution. (Mchale: 1987, p. 45)

The rehabilitation of the desire in Maggie Gee's work is done only because postmodernism allows us to do so, because the construct of postmodernism is something that is extremely important to the semblance of this entire study. The researcher had made it a point to understand this paradigmatic changes and how easily Maggie Gee's works put itself up in this changing landscape.

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CHAPTER-III CONDITION-OF-ENGLAND NOVELS: A SELF-REFLECTIVE MOOD

III.1 Disintegration of Social Institutions: Family and Marriage III.2 Materialism: Lack of Spirituality, Morality, Religion and Faith III.3 Visual Representation: Cinematic Techniques and Visual Impression of Objects, Places and Persons III.4 Pastiche and Photographic Presentation: Music, Painting, Sculpture and Other III.5 Postmodern Narrative Technique: Plot Structure, Setting, Characterization, Point of View and Structural Design III.6 Class Conflict, Inequalities, Violence and Social Mobility III.7 Marginalization and Search for Self-Identity III.8 Cultural Studies: Multiculturalism as a Multidisciplinary Approaches III.9 Global and Domestic Concerns between Wealth and Poverty III.10 Thematic Complexities and Stylistic Devices III.11 Digitalized World: Techno Culture, Pop-culture, Media Culture and Supersonic Speed III.12 Sociological, Psychological, Political and Economic Aspects in Postmodern Age III.13 Humans, Non-humans and Nature: Interrelationship III.14 Black Comedy and Hyper Reality III.15 Maggie Gee’s Philosophy of Life and her Interest in Evolutionary Biology III.16 Loss of Ecological Equilibrium and Impact of Postmodernism on Human Psyche

Chapter - III: Condition-of-England Novels: A Self-Reflective Mood 69

CHAPTER-III CONDITION-OF-ENGLAND NOVELS: A SELF-REFLECTIVE MOOD

Postmodernist interpretation of the novels The White Family and The Flood are extremely important keeping in mind the contribution of Maggie Gee in the postmodern genre. The researcher here has attempted to that, rethinking and reorienting these two novels under postmodernist aegis of the 21st century.

III.1 Disintegration of Social Institutions: Family and Marriage Maggie Gee‟s novel The White Family is a ground-breaking novel. This is a contemporary work of fiction which has brought out emphatically the ideological as well as the emotional chaos of the society in the twenty-first century. The emotional chaos is created because of the way the author has tried to write and analyze things. Thomas, the Librarian, has watched the scene from some distance in which the Negro woman blamed Alfred White, the Park Keeper, for not allowing her children to play ball-games and to walk on the grass. Suddenly, Thomas who has just taken leave of Alfred White notices something unexpected. He sees Alfred collapse fifty meters away. Falling, heavily backwards in his army grey coat as if he has been shot in battle. (Gee: 2002, p.15)

This hospitalizes Alfred and the stroke proves to be cancer. In the hospital, May, Alfred‟s wife and Alfred himself find their entire family coming together at his bedside. Darren the eldest son is a successful columnist journalist. He now lives in America. He already has two broken marriages. He now lives with his third wife. This journalist is 'an angry young protester‟ and his ire is quite explosive, which his readers highly relish. Their only daughter Shirley had shocked both Alfred and May by marrying Kojo, a Ghanaian lecturer. After Kojo‟s death in an accident, she has become a widow. Now she is with Elroy, a West Indian social worker. Dirk, the youngest son works Chapter - III: Condition-of-England Novels: A Self-Reflective Mood 70

at a newsagent‟s counter. He cannot contain his hatred of „coloureds,‟ old people and women. The illusion of „sticking together‟ as a family, is one of the important aspects for all these separated members in The White Family. Postmodernism is marked by the disintegration of social institutions like family. The family system has lost its integrity but the vacuum has remained the same and the gap has widened more terribly. Maggie Gee‟s eighth novel The White Family focuses on the prejudice and violence, which has ingrained in the contemporary postmodern society. Violence that has been depicted here is the direct offshoot of the imbalance created in the postmodern society. The family system in the social fabric has collapsed and its vacuum has not been filled up by any other social system. With the disintegration of the family system, there is the total breaking up of the institution of marriage. Marriages need the foundation of love and faith. In the twenty first century, the cementing force of mutual faith has become powerless on account of the self-centered attitudes of every individual. Love, like a butterfly, gets attracted to every blooming flower and moves from one beautiful flower to the more beautiful flower. That is why out of the three siblings, the two older ones have found that marriages have made their lives unsteady. The eldest son of the couple, Alfred and May White, is Darren, who flies in from America, where he is a popular columnist. He is now with his third wife, because his earlier two marriages failed. This is how the collapse of the marriage institution is noticed in the postmodernist period after the 1980s. In the case of their second child, their only daughter Shirley, it is found that, she went against the wish of her parents and got married to her Ghanaian boy-friend. She has been left as a wealthy widow now. She is now having her current marital relationship with Elroy, a social worker. That has also caused much family strife. She is rich, but sad in her life. This feature of postmodernism is reflected in this novel The White Family by Maggie Chapter - III: Condition-of-England Novels: A Self-Reflective Mood 71

Gee. Maggie Gee writes about Thatcher era Britain and the problem it created. Margaret Thatcher, the British PM was known for her iron will and took several unpopular decisions that pushed the nation and its citizens towards a variety of problems. The postmodern age is characterized by the disintegration of most of the social institutions. The family is such a social institution that binds together the members of a family. This used to be the situation in the good old days of traditional and conventional life. In the contemporary times, there have been gaps in the family life. The love, the attachment and the mutual faith among the members of the family has receded like a withdrawing wave on the seashore making the family life bare and barren, loveless and hopeless. This is noticed in the family of Lottie and Harold. Harold tried to talk about his book when Harold and his wife Lottie started walking to the subway station. Lottie said, It‟s a beautiful day; don‟t feel you have to talk about it darling. I absolutely know your book‟s wonderful. You don‟t have to prove a thing to me.... And if not, your next one certainly will be. (Gee: 2004, p.104)

Lottie is not interested in Harold‟s academic pursuit. They begin to talk about Lola and Davey, „Boys are different,‟ said Harold, absently, „I don‟t really know any, but I was one once.‟ These weren‟t any teenagers then, of course. Now they‟re be a tribe, especially the girls.... (Gee: 2004, p.105)

This shows how the relations among the members of the family are. Harold has academic interests. Lola is a Giant Baby, Lottie is not interested. Family life is totally disintegrated in the postmodernist age. Marriage is a social institution that is based on love and is cemented by faith in one another. Marriage is the institution that has sanctified the personal live-in relationship through its holy attachment. The husband and the wife care for each other trust each other and remain the loved ones throughout their married life. Respect for others was always shown. Chapter - III: Condition-of-England Novels: A Self-Reflective Mood 72

Harold had a choice; yield or suffer. Were there any choices, really in life? He put his arm around her. After all, he loved her. There was only one Lottie, Yielding, he suffered. (Gee: 2004, p.107)

Harold has succumbed completely to the dictates of Lottie. Marriage has brought men and women, husbands like Harold and wives like Lottie on the stage of dispute. The social institutions like family and marriage have become disintegrated. This is how the social institution like marriage has become disintegrated in the postmodernist age.

III.2 Materialism: Lack of Spirituality, Morality, Religion and Faith Materialism is in vogue at times. The advent of materialism means the loss of spirituality, morality, religion and faith of all the persons from the family of Alfred White; this is so transparent in the personality of the youngest member of the White family-Dirk. Dirk muses about his Dad, his famous brother Darren and about himself. Dad is my other claim to fame. As well as my brother, who‟s more-world-famous. Different kind of fame, isn‟t it, really? They‟d never think of having Dad on the tally, but everyone around here knows Dad. And I‟m his son. And Darren‟s brother. We‟ve got a lot of go, in my family. And I shall be someone. I‟ll make my mark. I shall get into the history books. Carve my name. Carve my name with-whatever. I‟m good with words, but sometimes they escape me. (Gee: 2002, p.110)

This is Dirk who just muses, does not do anything spectacular. He achieves almost nothing because he is not sure about himself. It is obvious in the fact, when he says that, he is good with words but words often escape him. The lack of confidence is the product of the lack of spirituality. Shirley, Dirk‟s sister, married to a coloured person, but Dirk is full of spiteful hatred for the coloureds. His father Alfred White does not like the encroachment made by the coloureds and in particular, he is angry with them because they violate all civic rules. Lacks of spirituality, morality and religious faith have caused such a Chapter - III: Condition-of-England Novels: A Self-Reflective Mood 73

negative response from some of these members of the White family. This stark materialism is a feature of postmodernism reflected in this novel. This is the age when everyman is like an island. Even in the crowded streets, a man remains single, solitary, lonely, an alien, a stranger and an isolated being. Alfred White is such a man, who experiences this self-centredness, which has overpowered his whole existence. In the post-war and the cold-war world, this feeling of loneliness has been constant and universal for every person. People wait endlessly for Godot, who never comes. People suffer life constrained, chained, imprisoned like the couple in Samuel Beckett‟s Endgame. There is „No Exit‟ from the monotony of life. Man has become an „Outsider‟ in his world. This is acutely experienced by Alfred White, the Park-Keeper, a man characterized by the contempornity of his life. The centre of life is the man himself. He thinks of himself and of nothing else. He goes on thinking of his job of serving the public. He is proud to be addressed as Alfred...the Park. That Park, which cannot be imagined without Alfred, the Park-Keeper. His self-centeredness has made him detached from his family. This aloofness has deviated him from his sons and his only daughter. This is quite inevitable in the postmodern age of the „Hollow Men the Stuffed Men‟ like Alfred White. The postmodern age is fully materialistic. There is a complete lack of spirituality, morality, religion and faith. This is noticed in the novel „The Flood‟. The preacher delivered his sermon... „God said to Noah, “The loathsomeness of all mankind has become plain to me, for through them the earth is full of violence. I intend to destroy them, and the earth with them.” The Lord said, “Make yourself an ark with ribs of cypress...”‟ In Victory Square, there was a wide raft of people round a placard like a mast, painted in red. The letters dripped and ran down like blood. „LAST DAYS‟, it proclaimed. „ONE WAY OUT.‟ „Awake,‟ roared the man, addressing the crowd. „Awake and look around you! What do you see? Filth! Corruption! Chapter - III: Condition-of-England Novels: A Self-Reflective Mood 74

In God‟s sight the world has become corrupted, for all men are living corrupt lives on earth.‟ The rest was inaudible, but every so often, „Awake‟ surged up again, like an island in the flood. (Gee: 2004, p.30)

The corruption of the present life is again and again emphasized. It is so because, people have become totally materialistic. In that crowd, a woman, who was happy to get a new job of cleaning at the city swimming pool? Another woman turned her eyes up ecstatically and she was caressing fondly the smooth hairy coat of a mongrel. They were worried about the wet pamphlets and were concerned with the fact that they had thousands of copies of those „Last Days‟ pamphlets. This is the stark materialism. There are people; thinking of the new job, caressing dogs, distributing the propaganda pamphlets, their getting wet and the large number of copies available for distribution. Religion, morality, faith have been receding and materialism has been set sidelining spiritualism. This postmodern feature of materialism is very well brought out through the sermon and congregation scene in this novel. Delorice was an avid reader. She had always been a reader, in every spare moment in bed, in the bath. She gave her evaluation of Emma Dale‟s new book provisionally titled A Breast in Winter an upbeat rural cancer saga. „It is not an original work of literature at all,‟ “was her verdict on this book. She called Emma Date‟s novel naff, sentimental and dated. She wondered, grimly, what they‟d think of Emma Dale. If all those copies of “A Breast in Winter” were spread out across the square, they would cover it completely. Half a million copies would spill over the side-streets, infect the libraries, and infect the bookshops. The city published thousands of books every year, spewing them out then pulping them. (Gee: 2004, p. 35)

This is the publishing industry. Each book is published in at least five half a million copies. Delorice Edwards, Winston‟s sister is now the centre of her family, after Winston‟s unexpectedly sudden Chapter - III: Condition-of-England Novels: A Self-Reflective Mood 75

murder by Dirk White. She is conscious of her responsibilities and the burden on her shoulders. And yet, she was somewhere on top of this heap, and part of Delorice was still pleased to be there. Another part wondered how on earth she‟d done it.” It was dream-like, uneasy. It all seemed random. (Gee: 2004, p. 35)

This shows how Delorice Edwards thinks highly of herself of her vast, continuing reading and her ability of judging the worth of books. She is engrossed in her world. This self-centeredness is a mark of postmodernism of the twenty-first century.

III.3 Visual Representation: Cinematic Techniques and Visual Impression of Objects, Places and Persons The cinematic technique is a part of the postmodern fiction. The cinematic technique means the taking of the shots from different photogenic angles. It means cinematic cuttings, as the editor of films envisages. There are visual images and concrete figures and objects which are projected in a film. In order to show the background from distance, a long shot is used. The camera takes a panoramic shot of the entire background. There are shots which show the blown up contours of the face and gestures of a face from very close quarters and from magnified angles. This shot is known as a close up. In addition to long shots and close ups there are zoom shots and other cinematic devices. In The White Family by Maggie Gee, this technique is handled very skillfully. The first chapter of The White Family is an illustration of the use of cinematic techniques. Albion Park on a fierce spring moving. A mad March day of ice and fire. Thomas‟s feet beat a tattoo on the path. Every hair, every bristle on his chin stands on end. He is a small star-ship of blazing neurons. (Gee: 2002, p.11)

The setting of the park is sketched in very few words. Place and Time are mentioned without any delay, just in the first line of the Chapter - III: Condition-of-England Novels: A Self-Reflective Mood 76

novel. It was the morning in spring in the month of March – which is both cold and hot. And glimpses Alfred beyond a row of plane trees, a small brisk figure in a military great coat. His familiar flat cap with its thin fringe of white hair, in the middle distance by the prize flower-beds. It‟s the only bit of grass where people aren‟t allowed to walk; one of Alfred‟s main jobs is shooting them off. (Gee: 2002, pp.11-12)

Alfred White‟s pen-portrait is presented here mentioning his military greatcoat and flat cap and his brisk figure. But as turns to look for them, he sees Alfred collapse, fifty meters away, his cap coming off as he wheels and crumples, falling heavily backwards in his army greatcoat as if he has been shot in bottle. (Gee: 2002, p.15)

How Alfred collapsed is described here. Photographic reality is noticed in these shots. The close up of Alfred and the long shots of the setting and Alfred collapsing, illustrate the use of the cinematic techniques of long, zoom, close up shots in words. Maggie Gee writes about objects, places and persons with visual effects. The use of concrete expressions, visual images and colours is made in creating visual effects. It‟s something we can all share, isn‟t it? The place people go to be together. I think it‟s the heat of Hillsden the Park, As London gets dirtier, and more frightening. (Gee: 2002, pp.16-17)

The second chapter of the first part, the beginning of this novel, The White Family, illustrates the use made by the novelist of the visual impressions. The objects, persons and places are visually presented as noticed in the illustration quoted above. The Park is the place that is visually described and contracted with the visual impressions of the city of London. The Park is the heart of the Hillsden area in the city of London itself. The greenery and clean and clear peace of the area of the park attracts the people who come together to enjoy the fresh pollution-free atmosphere there. On the other hand, the city of London Chapter - III: Condition-of-England Novels: A Self-Reflective Mood 77

is getting dirtier every day on account of the crowds, the sweat, the garbage, the pollution and the suffocation there. It is a terrible place. The park is attractive, while the city terrifies a person. May opens that door, to smile, to chide. But it‟s Thomas, not Alfred. Black shapes behind him. A short policeman in a giant helmet. She furrows her brow, turning back to Thomas... On his free, the dash, the cold. (Gee: 2002, p.17)

Behind Thomas, the neighbor, May, White, notes the presence of same black shapes. She notices a short policeman wearing a giant helmet. The sketch of the person is briefly drawn by mentioning the giant helmet, put on by a short figure. The graphic visualization of the person is made by the novelist. The visual impression helps the reader see that object immediately, sensuously, tangibly all at once. Franklin‟s finger slipped out of Winston‟s nose and jabbed, quite by accident, into his eye, a good result for Franklin, till Winston, roaring with surprise and pain, crushed his elbow into Franklin‟s genitals. Both of them bellowed like startled bulls. Shirley span the wheel hard and the crucifix hanging in the front of the car swung wildly and hit the roof. (Gee: 2004, p.21)

In the Towers Shirley has brought the twins. They are bent on making mischief. These have projected the concrete images of the quarrel scene. Franklin‟s finger centered Winston‟s eye rather accidently. This is presented through the cameo-work need to project this action. Winston is surprised, felt pains and hit back with his elbow. Such quick actions can only be caught by camera and the photogenic frames. These cinematic scenes are well captured. Their roaring like bulls, Shirley‟s snap action of stopping the car is also photographed quite skillfully. The postmodern writers have used these cinematic techniques very artistically. The concrete description of objects, places and persons is possible through the visual impressions through what the novelists present in their writings. In Maggie Gee‟s novel The Flood; there is a perfect illustration of the use of visual impressions. Chapter - III: Condition-of-England Novels: A Self-Reflective Mood 78

Mummy kills cats! Shouted Franklin triumphantly, hugging Winston, who hugged him back. The two boys began kissing each other‟s faces like cats licking each other, making little breathy noises of happiness. Franklin broke off first. „Mummy drives on tops of cats! The cat got dead‟! (Gee: 2004, p. 27)

The hugging and kissing are the actions which are, almost visually presented here. The kids go on shouting that their mother Shirley has killed a cat, crushed under her car. That cat got dead, poor cat,‟ said Winston and suddenly began to cry, big tender tears in which, as Shirley stopped to wipe them, she briefly saw a perfect miniature ribbon-crossed parcel of light, the reflection of the four paned kitchen window;, a black cross on a white background. There had been a large cross just inside the front door. Perhaps Faith or Kilda had become religious. Shirley felt glad, it would keep her sons safe. But the tears kept welling from Winston‟s eyes. (Gee: 2004, p. 27)

The death of the poor cat, the tears in Winston‟s eyes are described visually and concretely. The objects reflected in tears are described concretely to present the visual impressions. The description of the object, the cross, is also visually presented. Objects, places and persons are visually presented in The Flood by Maggie Gee, as in her other novels. The Biblical sermons are being preached by the Last Days group preachers like father Bruno. The singing of group and brotherhood songs continued throughout the congregation. Sculptured images were found in many places. There were gardens, open spaces and the museum and the zoo hill. These were the spots and specimens of the articles of artistic creation. Painters, she decided, could say things like that. He tucked the cigarette in his jacket pocket, and Shirley found her cheeks felt hot. Above the lake, above the hill, the pinks in the sky were deepening, the smallest scraps and totters of cloud suddenly burning an ardent red. Just for a few minutes the whole sky caught fire, the pinks and scarlets intensified to crimson and then the sun slipped behind the bank; Chapter - III: Condition-of-England Novels: A Self-Reflective Mood 79

both clouds and circling birds turned black. (Gee: 2004, p. 50)

This extract uses the colourful imagery of the plastic art of painting. All the fine arts are fused in the beautifully lyrical descriptions and lively, dynamic narrations and action-packed dramatizations and emotionally charged delivery of dialogues have added to the fusion of the fine arts as reflected in The Flood by Maggie Gee. Singing and dancing too accompanies the artistic reflections, filtering through the pages of the photographic presentation of contemporary reality in the novel.

III.4 Pastiche and Photographic Presentation: Music, Painting, Sculpture and Other Pastiche is a feature of postmodern literature. Pastiche means the inter-mix of more than one form of literature. The White Family displays an intermingling of many forms such as poetry, dramatic monologue, and dramatic presentation itself. The point of view changes in each chapter. The part „The Hospital‟ has forty chapters; the other part „The Church‟ has six chapters as the novel has in all forty-nine chapters. The last forty-ninth chapter has the title „No Ending‟. The rest of the chapters are named by the character or characters whose view point is presented in that chapter. Each person becomes the narrator of the action. In the 47th chapter, 1) „Tennyson, dear,‟ she whispered in the silence, slipping inside the entire familiar Victorian patterns in their long cool scrools, the believed rhythms of her other Alfred: He watches from his mountain walls, and like a thunderbolt he falls. But she couldn‟t concentrate; Alfred, Alfred. (Gee: 2002, pp. 22-23)

2) No.... Grave.... Shall Hold His Body down... The messages come, and summon me home Is the hand of the Devil Is Satan work Lord, I am saved, why do You forsake me? Awake, and rise to my defence You are the Lord, there is not other... Chapter - III: Condition-of-England Novels: A Self-Reflective Mood 80

You have created both darkness and light Jesus, Lord, shall we never come home? No....Grave .....Shall Hold His Body Down (Gee: 2002, pp. 404-406)

3) O that were possible After long grief and pain To find the arms of my true love Round me once again Alfred Tennyson, Alfred, Alfred. (Gee: 2004, p. 408) 4) Wind in the leaves. Among his people... „I‟m sorry, May....‟ „Don‟t Alfred...‟ „May, dear...‟ „So proud of you...‟ His hand fluttered, faint ,restless. „Things to do.‟ No, Alfred... hush, dear... it‟s over, love‟ Here in the grass he was safe to sleep. (Gee: 2004, p. 410)

This is Pastiche – in which prose, drama and poetry are the different forms of literature which have intermingled. The plastic creative arts too have their presence marked in the postmodern literature. It is photographically presented as it is the description of the background of Albion Park in London. Albion Park. It was a hundred years old, the local hospital and, the library – was built by the same local builder who had a death hand with stone and red brick and a love of details, pediments, cornices. The drink fourteen was a married model like a miniature Gothic novel. (Gee: 2002, p. 48)

This is the architectural design, Gothic, Victorian and modern blended together expertly. The musical notes are scattered all over the novel Snatches from the Bible and the Psalms are there. All these arts have mingled to produce a photographic presentation of all that is picturesque, dramatic and attractive. There is another musical note too. Twilight and evening bell, And after that the dark! And may there be no sadness of farewell, When I embark ... (Gee: 2002, p. 24)

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Other notes are found in May‟s prayer in her dream. Do what You like to him, but get him out...Send him back to me. He wants to be out... He needs to be outside in the light. Please, if there is anyone or Anything... we‟ve done our best... You know we tried ....family was everything to us. There‟s the kinds to think about... especially Dirk... he‟s no more than a baby... he needs his dad... Do what You like to him, but send him home. (Gee: 2002, p. 28)

Sculpture, architecture, music, paintings and other arts helps to create the photographic presentations in the novel. „Do you like being outside‟ Shirley asked Ian. „My father always liked to be outside. He was a park- keeper, you see.‟ „I don‟t like cities,‟ Ian told her. „I came here when I was a lad of seventeen. My life went wrong. There were a lot of lost years. Too young to be a barman, I suppose.”I went crazy. Tried to smash up a hotel. Then I kicked the bottle and went to art school.‟ „So why do you stay here, if you don‟t like cities‟ Shirley asked him, half over her shoulder, turning to call the boys and go. Lorna and Henrey and Gerda were leaving. (Gee: 2004, p. 50)

This portion is dramatic as the use of dialogue, which is quite witty, is made in it. Lyrical descriptions are mixed with fantasy and humour in the novel. „A satirist this lyrical, warm-hearted and imaginative is, like a unicorn, a rare and precious beast.‟ (Weekend Australian, Back Cover, The Flood (2009): Saqi Publication. This is how satire, lyrical poetry, fantasy, dry humour, black comedy, drama, biography, narration and other forms of literature have been deliberately put together in the inter-mix, in this postmodern novel by Maggie Gee.

III.5 Postmodern Narrative Technique: Plot Structure, Setting, Characterization, Point of View and Structural Design The chapterisation of the novel The White Family includes 3 main chapters and 48 sub-chapters. The beginning has two chapters, The Hospital which has forty chapters and The Church has six chapters, with one last forty-eighth chapter entitled No Ending. There Chapter - III: Condition-of-England Novels: A Self-Reflective Mood 82

are three major parts and forty-nine chapters. Each chapter has a different narrative technique. The first two chapters of „The Beginning‟ present the view-points of Thomas Lovell and May White respectively. In the first chapter, Thomas Lovell, Darren White‟s friend, Alfred White‟s neighbor and a frequent visitor to Albion Park in which Alfred White works as the park keeper, presents the moments before, during and after the fall of the keeper of the park-Alfred White. From a distance, Thomas saw the heated arguments between a coloured woman and the park keeper as the rules were violated by the mother and her children. From the long distance itself, he notices Alfred White falling and he rushes close. In the close-up shot, Alfred‟s deteriorating condition is revealed and with the help that he musters from the locals and the police, Thomas manages to put Alfred White in the Hospital. The second chapter is narrated how May White, Alfred‟s wife, goes in a nostalgic mood, remembers the happy and not so happy moments of the past. She has presented the past passing down the memory lane. The encounter between Winston and May narrated in the twenty first chapters is so dramatic. May is in the grip of fear, initially thinking that the black boy was about to strangle her but then she realized how he helped her to recover from the shock of suddenly slipping on the floor. That is how each chapter has different narrative techniques-sometimes tragic, sometimes happy, sometimes dramatic, sometimes about the conditions around and sometimes about the happenings in the deep recesses of the human psyche. Plot is the arrangement of action in the prose narrative. Novel is a prose narrative that is artistic and it presents the reality in an imaginative manner. Plot constructs the incidents in a logical manner. In the present narrative of forty-eight chapters, the incidents are present in a zigzag manner consisting of the present, going backwards in the past and moving forward again. In the construction of the plot of a novel, arrangement, sequencing, deletion and selection are the processes used. The entire span of Alfred White‟s career and his Chapter - III: Condition-of-England Novels: A Self-Reflective Mood 83

domestic life is projected in the novel. There are forty chapters in the second part of the novel which is entitled „The Hospital‟. What is significant in this part is the coming together of all the members of the White family, Shirley, Alfred and May‟s only daughter, who had married Kojo from Ghana was the first to arrive. The eldest son Darren, after his third marriage with Susie in Bali, Indonesia, has reported after the youngest of the siblings Dirk, came to be by the bedside of his sick father. Dramatization, narration, nostalgic recollection, description are the methods used to present the action. Alfred collapsed after his heated argument with a coloured family. Dirk is against the coloureds as they have taken away his job and have spoiled his future. Shirley did marry Kojo on African and even after her becoming a widow, she is currently with Elroy another coloured person. Elroy‟s younger brother Winston is murdered by Dirk. These are the major incidents which are, woven artistically in the fabric of the plot of this novel. Characters are the agents of action in a novel. Their motives cause the performance of action. Their emotions are presented through conversations. Their rational arguments are featured prominently in a work of literature. This is how the heart-felt feelings and the brain-storming feelings of the characters have their due role in the mode of characterization. The novelist uses different modes or methods of character portrayals. In The White Family there are six- seven characters that are prominent. The protagonist is Alfred White. The three major narrators of action are Alfred‟s wife, May, his daughter Shirley and his neighbor and his son Darren‟s friend Thomas Lovell. A full-fledged sketch of Alfred White is drawn through direct description, through the impressions of May, Shirley, Dick and Thomas as well as Darren- his temperament, his career and his final hospitalization. Dirk‟s characterization is through his prejudices and his dislike of the coloured people. He unnecessarily murders a young Chapter - III: Condition-of-England Novels: A Self-Reflective Mood 84

black boy. May‟s memories portray her character. Shirley‟s mixed feelings and her efforts to compromise. May is the link that holds together all her children as well as her husband in a close embrace. She functions as the balancing ring among the other four members of her family. Shirley too has many of these compromising broad-looking strategies to fuse together the contacts with her brothers and her black husband and presently her black lover, Kojo and Winston through reactions about him, are presented indirectly by the novelist through her skillful art of characterization. The settings of the novel, The White Family, are mentioned in the titles of the major parts of the novel, such as The Hospital, The Park and The Church. All these places are in the metropolitan city of London. The Park is the location of initial action of the novel. The memories of the past are disclosed in the third part of the novel. The first past is, The Beginning, when the initial action takes place. Thomas Lovell witnesses the alternation between an African family and the Park-Keeper Alfred White. Setting sets the tone of a novel. Setting is significant as it captures the mood to be presented. Setting symbolizes the thoughts and feelings of the characters. Setting shows the life to be projected. Setting gives the background and acts as the foreground for the action being presented. Setting is thus a vital novelistic element that integrates the theme, the plot, the characterization, the structure and the style of a novel. In this novel, „The Hospital‟ and „The Church‟ are the two other locations that project the progress of the protagonist‟s hospitalization. The crime committed by his son, Dirk, in murdering Winston, Alfred White‟s reporting the crime to the authorities and his subsequent death. The Church is the location where both the funerals take place almost simultaneously. Setting of the novel is fitting to the practice of the postmodern novel writing. The novel The White Family has adopted different points-of-view for its forty-eight chapters. May White, Dirk White, Shirley White and Thomas Lovell are the main characters whose points of view are Chapter - III: Condition-of-England Novels: A Self-Reflective Mood 85

adopted in the novel. May White‟s point of view is presented in eleven chapters and Dirk White‟s point of view gets expressed in nine chapters, Shirley has eight chapters to reveal her point of view. While Thomas Lovell has eight chapters to place his point of view in front of others. There are thirty-six chapters through which the points of view of these four main narrators of action in the novel, The White Family. Three-fourths of the novel is presented through the points of view of these four characters. The other White family members Arthur White‟s point of view is independently presented in three chapters and in three more chapters his point of view is presented with May‟s point of view in two and with the Africans in one chapter. The White Family as a whole gets one chapter to present its own point of view. Darren White presents his own point of view, but both the times he shares the chapter either with his friend, Thomas or his wife Susie. The remaining three chapters present the points of view Elroy, once independently, of Elroy and Shirley in one other chapter and the point of view Winston is presented in one chapter independently. The multiplicity of points of view presents a panorama of the entire situation, the beginning of the situation and its consequences on all the members of the White family. The predominance of the members of the White family in the matter of giving vent to their point of view is a remarkable postmodernist feature of this novel. The structural design of the novel, The White Family, has six parts. The first part „The Beginning‟ is of the first two chapters (pp.9- 17). The second part is „The Hospital‟ having eleven chapters from the third to the thirteenth chapter and pages are from 19 to 92).The third is „The Shop‟ which covers the next twelve chapters from fourteenth to the twenty-fifth (pages 93 to 194). The fourth part is „The Park‟ that contains seventeen chapters from twenty-six to forty two and pages from 195 to 345). The fifth part is, The Church, from the forty third to the forty-eighth chapter and pages from 347 to 410. „No Ending‟ is the last chapter without any number assigned to it and it covers four Chapter - III: Condition-of-England Novels: A Self-Reflective Mood 86

pages from 411 to 414. The major narrators are the three members of the White family and Thomas Lovell. The White Family occupies the position of the narrator in a single chapter. There are in all fourteen narrators. The structural design is marked by the chapter division and by the role played by the narrators. The narrative technique varies from section to section of each chapter of the postmodernist novel, The Flood, by Maggie Gee. The opening and closing of the novel is indicated by two brief sections entitled „Before‟ and „After‟. These sections present the conditions in the flood-affected city before and after the great natural calamity. Perhaps the dead can move through time. If time is an endless unspooling ribbon, the living see only the short bright section to which they cling, panting, struggling, peering out, blinded from the spot-lit moment. Perhaps the dead see the whole of the road, stretching out for ever, before, behind, three thousand human generations. Under the city, the dead travel overheads. Searching for something, Homing, Homing. (Gee: 2004, pp. 8-9)

The narration of actions and events is made in the novel from both these angles, the first is time-bound with the living and the second is timeless with the dead. Right from The President Mr. Bliss and his administrator to the twin sons of Shirley -Franklin and Winston, whose actions and reactions are presented through the various narrative techniques-authorial narration, third person narration, first person narration, the dramatic pieces and lyrical descriptions. These are the various narrative techniques used by the postmodern novelist Maggie Gee. The Flood by Maggie Gee has presented the story during the times of a natural calamity after the continuous rains in the city. The city is sinking under the rising waters. The low-lying localities are submerged. The poor people are living in tower blocks. They are packed in the smaller apartments. The rich are safe, because they dwell on the high raised ground. The President Mr. Bliss with his colleagues in the administration is making every effort to handle this Chapter - III: Condition-of-England Novels: A Self-Reflective Mood 87

difficult situation. The city administration is making all the efforts to avoid the untoward incidents taking place during the flood. After months of ceaseless rains, the situation is very delicate and therefore dealing with it has become more and more difficult to help the stranded people. Therefore, the usual administrative trick of diverting the attention from the disaster is used and the organization of „City Gala‟ is announced. Lottie, her husband Harold, son Davey and their daughter Lola are seen doing their own bit belonging to their high status as rich persons. May White, her daughter Shirley Edwards, her grandson Franklin and Winston and her son Dirk White have to face the difficulties „The Last Days‟ group has started the recruitment campaign? There are various other characters whose predicament is presented in the plot construction that is presented in the initial and concluding sections and the middle eighteen chapters. The natural calamity is the central event of the novel, The Flood in which, the city is getting submerged in the rising waters after the continuous rains and for months. The narrative is unfolded through “Actually drawn characters, and subtitle observations about relationships and nature.” (Time Out, Back cover, The Flood (2004): Saqi Publications). The major characters are drawn from the characters of the novel The White Family. Alfred White has died and Darren White has become an American citizen. May White, Shirley Edwards (the daughter of May and Alfred White) her live-in partner - Elroy Edwards, Dirk White and May‟s grandsons Franklin and Winston. These are the characters that live in the packed, crowded locations in the low-lying area of the city, known as the tower blocks. These characters struggle helplessly and hopelessly, and face the odds of the calamity in the uncompromising circumstances. Their sorrows, sufferings, pains and travails are presented in the novel. The other family which has four members Lottie Lucas, her „intellectual‟ but docile husband Harold, her son Davey, the TV announcer and her daughter Lola, continues to live, as ever as, they are not required to Chapter - III: Condition-of-England Novels: A Self-Reflective Mood 88

face the calamity, being the residents of high-rise apartments. Mr. Bliss, the President, and his administrative team presents another group of characters, administratively efficient but indifferent enough to announce the celebration of grand City Gala. There are other characters that represent other groups, nationalities, religions and cultures. These are the agents of action in this postmodernist novel. The location of the action of this novel, The Flood, is the city of London. The zoo is one of the locations of action. The City Institute too occupies the setting in some portion of this novel. Finally it is the „City Gala‟ which has strategically diverts the attention from the calamity. These places are peculiarly drawn with their full details. The pen- portraits of these locations have been sketched in such a manner that these places, sites and spots have come alive. They impressively capture the public attention in order to present descriptively, narratively, crucially and dramatically the action of the novel, The Flood. The last location is the day brightened by the summer sunlight on the occasion of summer solstice. Everybody is welcome to play, dance and enjoy. The calamity is over and everybody is relaxed but the interval of the days of the flood has been charged with tensions and conflicts. Utopian novels portray the world of dreams. These works present an ideal model of life. The postmodern context makes Maggie Gee consider her work implanted in a dystopian setup. The problems, the conflicts and other things make 20th and 21st century a dystopian avenue that the writers have consistently used in their works. Dystopian works present the bleak darkness of human life. It presents a negative picture, rather a distorted life. It portrays a disturbing aspect of human life. The Flood is a novel that tells the terrible impact of the natural calamity. The point of view adopted in the novel is that of a commentator, who comments dispassionately on what is taking place around. The point of view is that of an artist, who belongs to the postmodern trends and postmodern age. This is the age that posed questions on the utility of existence of an individual in the society. The Chapter - III: Condition-of-England Novels: A Self-Reflective Mood 89

rich face no problems, as they are high above the situations that the ordinary people have to face. The novelist is sympathetic about the poor people who live in the low lying tower blocks. She is rather critical of the indifferent attitude adopted by the administration in such calamities. There is a high satirical note in presenting the „City Gala.‟ The point of view adopted by Maggie Gee is that of a humorist. This is how a humorous, satirical point of view of the novelist is displayed in this negative rather dystopian novel like The Flood. Maggie Gee as a postmodern writer exposes the contemporary realities, in her works like The White Family and The Flood. The structural design is marked by the twenty divisions of the novel. The first section „Before‟ is of just three pages, presenting the author‟s point of view, in relating the circumstances before, during and after the flood. The contrast between the real city and the city of dreams is presented. This section is followed by eighteen chapters which have a number of unmarked sections. The first chapter has such eight sections which deal with May‟s nostalgic memories of the past, introducing Lottie and Harold‟s and Bruno‟s Janes. These eighteen chapters unfold the action, the reactions, the responses of many groups- the German sisters, the Mohammedan couple, Moira and Angela and others during the difficult time of the flood. The administrative indifferent efficiency is projected quite sarcastically. The announcement of the „City Gala‟ is an attempt to divert the attention of the people from the present calamity. The usual excuse of the threat of an imminent war with the enemy is also a stock-in-trade excuse of these administrators. Both these strategies are used by The President and his executive staff. The last section is „After‟, which is of five pages only. It is reported that it was the holiday atmosphere, when the sun sprang out and everybody came out for the summer solstice. There are butterflies and gnats and frogs. Men and animals are gleefully enjoying the bright sunny day after the flood. People are playing dancing and even Chapter - III: Condition-of-England Novels: A Self-Reflective Mood 90

dreaming. All have come arm in arm to lie down, at last in the darkness that has enveloped the city.

III.6 Class Conflict, Inequalities, Violence and Social Mobility There are racial differences which have been treated as the forefront material in the novel, The White Family. These are class differences which are reflected in this novel. Darren White belongs to the upper class in the social structure. He has a well-salaried job. He gets good international assignments. It is his profession, his white- collared job, his intellectual pursuits and other privileges, that he enjoys the top position in the social framework. His brother, Dirk White, is jobless. Opportunities have been denied to him. Thomas Lovell is a librarian. He is also employed in a white collared job and is perusing intellectual interests. He is less rich but less unhappy if he is compared with Darren White. There are thus three unequal classes, the top belongs to Darren, the middle to Thomas and the bottom belongs to the youngest jobless, hopeless Dirk White. There is Shirley, who is quite rich because she has inherited a large property from, Kojo her ex-husband. She is, she is a noble-minded and kind hearted philanthropic woman who believes on giving to others what they desire to possess. She too belongs to upper class, if her riches are counted but because of her relations with the Africans – first with Kojo from Ghana and now with Elroy, the black social leader, she is not socially given the status that she deserves as her legitimate due. Thus class inequalities have many subtle shades of differences. The White Family gives an account of the different criteria applied to the class differentiation in the postmodern times. Violence and Terror have become the watchwords of the postmodern world. Violence has become the watchword in the postmodernist context and has been used by Maggie Gee to show how important it is in today‟s world that is used by the superior to bring down the inferior. Fundamentalism is on the rise. Political and social Chapter - III: Condition-of-England Novels: A Self-Reflective Mood 91

tensions are growing; economic crises have reached to enormous heights. Physical force is what pushes men to present their conflicting veins and vested interests. Dirk was prejudiced against the coloureds. He felt that his job and his future was lost and was taken away by the coloureds. He had become a loser on account of them. And Dirk felt a terrible excitement, something he wanted, something he needed, and „Fuck you, fuck you,‟ he panted, he moaned, and he felt his cock swell inside his trousers, and he slipped the knife gently out of his jacket and hit the bastard in the middle of his chest, the blade sliding in surprisingly easily, sticking it, jerking it, forcing it in, holding it there, screaming with panic, „Fuck you, fuck you,‟ for the body was too heavy, too big for him, he would bring Dirk down, and Dirk only let go when the blood pumped out, drenching, spurting, so much, so hot, was he human, then, must they both fucking down-? (Gee: 2002, p. 345)

Dirk, saw a black figure moving to the toilet block. Both Dick and the man came closer in the shade near that block. Dirk took out his knife and with its blade hit that unknown and unidentified coloured individual. This is how the murder, rather needless and causeless killing, took place. Dirk out of spite stabbed an innocent person through his racial discrimination. Violence is noticed here. The coloured man himself had done no harm to Dirk. Yet Dirk took him as the representative of those who turned him into a loser and a jobless person. Thomas Lovell, Darren White‟s friend and Alfred White‟s neighbor, is a senior librarian, an academician, who is working on his second book on postmodernism. He is in love with Melissa, who works tirelessly for the council. Her love for Thomas is bound to raise her status on the social ladder. She will be a middle class woman with prestige. Growing in status is known as social mobility of moving into the class higher than one‟s own class. This is everybody‟s wish. Everyone desires to move upwards in social class. This upward mobility is the driving force in all the activities. Chapter - III: Condition-of-England Novels: A Self-Reflective Mood 92

She was born in Sussex, on the South coast... Naturally Melissa was born in Sussex. The loved her job. „I love the kids, they break your heart, they‟re just so sweet‟. (Gee: 2002, p. 199)

Melissa, Thomas Lovell‟s, was born in Sussex, in the countryside. From this rural background, she will get merged in the metropolitan environment. Her social mobility is noticed here as she progressively climbs the steps of the social ladder. The Flood projects the inequalities between the two major social classes, the rich and the poor. The flood did not bring any problems to the richer people because they lived in the high raise apartments of the city and so the rising flood water did not reach to them. The poor lived in the low-lying tower blocks. Their dwellings got submerged in the flood. The richer city-dwellers all lived in separate houses. They thought they were safe behind walls and windows, in nice, green neighborhood far from the Towers. But actually nothing was separate any more. The walls had become as thin as paper. Thieves moved through doors and windows like smoke. The rage round the Towers spread out in slow ripples. The Towers weren‟t as distant as he had once through; he‟d been shocked, and told himself not to be shocked, when he learned that Delorice sometimes stayed there with her sister... (Gee: 2004, p. 90)

The social classes were divided by their inequalities. The economic inequality is evident between the class as the class distinctions are transparent in the categorization of the two classes as „rich‟ and „poor‟. The social status is the other mark of inequality. The considerations of upper and lower class distinctions are found in this feature that distinguishes the two unequal classes of the poor and the rich. The other distinctive features are the residential quarters. There are separate bungalows of the rich and the tower blocks of the poor. The customer and food habits too differ in the case of these two classes. The presentation of class inequalities is a feature of postmodern ism the novel by Maggie Gee. Chapter - III: Condition-of-England Novels: A Self-Reflective Mood 93

Violence has become an integral portion of the life in the contemporary times. There are multiple causes on account of which there is an out-break of violence in each and every corner of the globe. The two great world wars of the twentieth century killed and wounded millions of people. The World War-II ended with the greatest of inhuman violence that has ever taken place in the history of mankind – the dropping of the atom bombs on the two cities of Japan- Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Since then the out bursts of violence continued to raise their heads in Korea, Vietnam, Congo, Israel, Iraq and many other parts of Europe and South America. After 1980, the fierce arms race between the Capitalist Block led by America and the Communist Block led by Russia and the cold war of about thirty-five years came to an end and hostilities stopped. This has led to the increasing violence caused by terrorism, fundamentalism and drug addiction. Moira is hustled away to the front door of the radio station by youthful minions who try not to look at her, though she notes the glances of wild amusement they shoot sideway under their brows at each other. She doesn‟t care; she rises above them; she flays, with her eyes, the pasty young faces; God has prepared the lake of and sulphur. She clings to the door frame, suddenly tired. Recently she has not been eating. (Gee: 2004, p. 266) This gives a glimpse into the outbreak of violence in the contemporary postmodern times. Social life in the postmodern period after 1980 is characterized by the division of the social strata into three layers of class divisions such as the upper rich class, the middle class and the lower poor class. „The builders‟ labourers, the rat-catchers (though the rats are there, just beneath the floor, in the U-bends of the staff lavatories, and round by the bins, in a frenzy of activity, sniffing and whiffling at the wonderful plenty, the prawn heads, the chicken skins, the lambs‟ feet, the creamy shell of cooling fat skimmed off the gravy); the door-to-door vendors of dish-cloths and oven gloves; the sanitary engineers, the plumbers; the Chapter - III: Condition-of-England Novels: A Self-Reflective Mood 94

bus conductors with their ticket-machines; the lice inspectors with their nit-combs; the primary school- teachers (no one wants to be told things); the hospital auxiliaries, the midwives. (Gee: 2004, p. 245) These are the categories of the lower classes of the menial workers. They are rat-catchers or lice-gatherer, the vendors and the hawker, who belong to the dregs of the social structure. Classes have their own set of morals which they follow uprotestingly and ungrudgingly. They are the keepers of the morality in their own way. The violations are class specific. It is noticed that there is disproportionate reverse ratio of classes and their morality. These are the reflections of postmodernism in the novels like The Flood.

III.7 Marginalization and Search for Self-Identity Postmodern times are peopled by the men and women from different climes and from different tribes and races. A Postmodernist is always marginalized. His circumstances and his choices force him to become marginalized. He remembered the Arabs, in Palestine. At pilgrimage time, the time of the hajji. You would see them coming in the distance, and the first thing you‟d notice was the size of their feet, great huge feet like kangaroos, because they used to bind‟em up with blankets. They didn‟t have boots, or else they didn‟t believe in them... Weird beliefs. They weren‟t really human. they‟d walk thousands of miles to worship god. You had to hand it to them looking back, though it struck him as comic, at the time, these little figures with enormous plates- of-meat, plodding like donkeys across the desert. Never giving up, though some must have snuffed it, with the shooting and dirt and exhaustion and flies, and sometimes he‟d heard their feet went septic. It didn‟t matter. They were – pure spirit. Spirit kept you going when the body failed. (Gee: 2002, p. 393)

The Arabs from Palestine are one of the most marginalised groups in the world. They are superstitious. They are backward. They are poor. They are helpless people. They are living on the margins of the society, they remain on the periphery. They are decentered people. Chapter - III: Condition-of-England Novels: A Self-Reflective Mood 95

Their portrayal is presented in are incident in the novel The White Family. Three of them. Young. African. Big! And he drew himself up, he tried to look jaunty, he even tried to whistle a bar of „Colonel Bogey‟, but he didn‟t have any air in his chest – He suddenly felt he might fall on the floor, fall where he was and lie on the pavement, but it loomed behind them, the police station, huge, monumental, his goal, his rock, and he would not yield, he would stay on his feet- He would stay on his feet. They would cut him down. „hey, man,‟ said one of them, „wicked trousers!‟ The enemy were looking at his pajamas. They were laughing, but it didn‟t seem unfriendly. (Gee: 2002, p. 401)

These are the other marginalised people of the world. The Africans, the Blacks and the Negroes are discriminated on account of their racial identity. They are the coloureds, they are the blacks. Race has made them different. They are illiterate and sick with diseases. Their backwardness has made them marginalised. The presentation of the marginalised people is a major feature of the novel, The White Family. The postmodern literature is characterized by the search of identity. The postmodern man does not know who he is and what the purpose of his life is; in this connection, it is the relentless search for identity of the self, is the feature found in the careers of the members of The White Family. Alfred White is a veteran soldier of the Second World War, but now he is the park-keeper. He thinks that he is the Park itself. There are of course many occasions when he realizes that it is not his identity. He is May‟s husband, but her world is quite different from his world. The self-centeredness of his character has made him totally alienated and completely isolated from the other members of his family. He is the father of two sons and one daughter. His eldest son Darren is now an American citizen. He is successful in his career and has therefore distanced himself from his parents in England and has accepted the American life-style for himself. Alfred‟s youngest son, Chapter - III: Condition-of-England Novels: A Self-Reflective Mood 96

Dirk, has not yet found any stability for himself. He has become one of the lost souls. He belongs to the generation of the lost young men who aspire for much but get very little. Alfred‟s daughter Shirley has estranged herself from the other members of the White Family. That is how every one of the five members of this family is in relentless search of what their identity is? What their selfhood is? In the social fabric of any society of the postmodern period there are certain groups that belong to the centre, the mainstream of the social structure. At the same time, there are many groups which live beyond these core, central or mainstream groups. They are called the peripheral groups or the marginalised groups. Women are the major marginalized groups on account of the gender discrimination, which is shown to them considering them to be inferior to or lower than the mainstream group of the males. There are many other marginalized groups of the coloureds, as they are discriminated on account of the racial discrimination. There is religious discrimination which is shown towards the members of the minority groups of the population. Another criterion that is used to mark the distinction between the mainstream and the marginalized social groups is the class structure that is built upon the economic wealth. Those who live in comforts and luxuries belong to the upper classes which form the core group of the social fabric, while those who are deprived of the economic wealth are the poor individuals in the existing social structure. This characteristics feature of the postmodern is reflected in the novels like The Flood by Maggie Gee. Dirk White killed Winston Edwards, the younger brother of Elroy Edwards, who happened to be the present live-in partner of his sister Shirley (White) Edwards. He was sent to Gall wood jail and now he was released from there. They had sent Dirk to Gallwood, the city prison, which was only a bus ride where Mum lived, but she didn‟t bother. She‟d forgotten him. (Gee: 2004, p. 25)

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When Dirk was in prison, he was not visited by his mother May White. He felt that she had forgotten him. Now Dirk White was thinking about his own life, his status in the family and in the society. He realized that he had come out of the bonds of family relationships with his brother, sister and mother. He therefore seeks to know who he is? What is his identity? What is his selfhood? What is the mission of his life? These are the soul-searching and self-searching question he is trying to answer. He is trying to find the key to his selfhood. So he hadn‟t told her he was out of prison. She wouldn‟t be glad.” She wouldn‟t want to know. He didn‟t need Mum, or Darren or Shirley. (Gee: 2004, p. 25)

He of course found a way, a new way in his search of his own identity. It didn‟t matter now, because he had a new family. Now Dirk had brothers and Sisters again, the Brothers and Sisters of the Last Days. He was accepted at last. He was one of them. (Gee: 2004, p. 25)

This is how he has made a search for his own status; his identity has found it as a member of a group. This is another postmodern feature that is reflected in the novel The Flood.

III.8 Cultural Studies: Multiculturalism as a Multidisciplinary Approaches The White Family is a model work as far as the reflection of multiculturalism in Modern British Literature is concerned. It presents cultural studies collection in a nutshell. There are European, African, North American, South American and Asian cultures presented in the novel. There is the representation of African culture in Kojo- who belongs to the paramount families in Ghana in Africa. There are Elroy, presenting Shirley‟s lover and his younger brother Winston who are present the glimpses of the African culture. There are the three young Africans who help Alfred White to reach the Chapter - III: Condition-of-England Novels: A Self-Reflective Mood 98

police-station to report what crime his youngest son, Dirk, has committed. The European culture is presented by Alfred and Dirk who are like the proverbial John Bulk with a bull-dog mentality of racial discrimination. The gentle humanity of the European culture is personified in May White, with her great patience, tolerance and compassion. Shirley is the most broad-minded member who stands as a bridge, a link, a balancing ring between the rich and the poor, the whites and the blacks. Bali the Island in Indonesia presents the Asian landscape in passing. Darren White, his third wife, Susie and his children and his ex-wife presents the North American culture through their thoughts, words, gestures and actions. The chamber laid in the hotel comes from a South American country; various other migrants from India, China, Pakistan and other countries of the world reside in the metropolitan cities of Europe and America. It is the salad bowl of multiculturalism that is offered in this novel. Postmodern is characterized by the feature of multi-culturalism. Migrations have increased. This enhanced mobility has added a large chunk of population of foreign origins. This has resulted in multiculturalism. The United States of America calls itself the cradle of multiculturalism and advocates the „melting pot‟ status of all those who are involved in any kind of multi-cultural activities. There are some other countries outside USA, which too are multi-cultural in every sense. England is such a country. India has to offer all the salad-bowl of multicultural aspects in its ancient civilization as the diversity is kept intact in spite of the integrity and unity of the country as a whole. Moreover it has become a part and parcel of the great Indian civilization. Men and women, in particular, who were victimized and presented on religious, ethnic and political grounds, made England their destination. For work and education, many nationals of different countries have flocked to this country. Alfred White and Dirk White cannot tolerate the mass-scale encroachment on the British style of Chapter - III: Condition-of-England Novels: A Self-Reflective Mood 99

life and they hate these black Africans. There are Indians too as Dirk White had an encounter with a fat Indian woman, who deliberately put her hand on Dirk‟s lap and kept it there for long. Other multicultural groups have come from all the countries of Europe in order to avoid these regimes. Multiculturalism is thus an integral part of postmodernism. Discipline is a branch of knowledge. The present age is characterized by the plethora of approaches, which signify various disciplines. Alfred White looks at everything from his disciplined approach as he has during the war times in the army. Whatever you do, do your jobs meticulously is what he always sells his children which sometimes annoys them. Always, finish a job, he said, “If a job‟s worth doing, it‟s worth doing properly”. (Gee: 2002, p. 207)

This is how Alfred White, the ex-serviceman, has applied his military discipline even in his family life. His wife May White uses a different discipline, which is noticed in her humanitarian approach in her conflict of the choice between her duty and her maternal instinct. She favours with her maternal attitude her youngest son, Dirk, when the occasion demands. Shirley has a broad attitude to all, the whites and the coloureds as noticed in words and actions. Her brother Dirk applies a totally different approach, through his discipline and his treatment is finally approved of by her brother. It is noticed that Dirk has a truly different view of the contemporary situation; Darren White is initially different and is not prejudiced against the coloureds because they have not taken away his job and other opportunities of establishing himself in a decent life. He is a self-made independent person. This is how these five members of the White family are the followers of different viewpoints and disciplines and take up different approaches to the same situation. These are therefore multi-disciplinary approaches reflected in the novel. Chapter - III: Condition-of-England Novels: A Self-Reflective Mood 100

The days when the imperial powers of Europe established their colonies in Asia, Africa and Latin America have passed. Colonialism has gone but the mentality of the colonizers and the colonized has remained the same. The colonizers still consider themselves to be superior in every respect. The nations that established colonies all over the globe amassed wealth to a large extent. The rapid industrialization, the universal mechanization and the all-round growth in economic and political supremacy are the reasons which have made these colonizers rich and developed and therefore politically powerful. The colonized nations have suffered from the inferior status that is accorded to them and they have continued to remain suppressed for want of opportunities of development. These countries had their own developed civilizations before the colonizers subjected them to servitude. They are now caught between the cultural conflict of their fascination for their old native culture, civilization and their longing for the new colonizer‟s culture and civilization of progress, development and liberalism. The cultural conflict is experienced but through the stages of alienation, cultural shock, assimilation, the stage of acculturation is ultimately reached. The city has citizens who have come from different cultural backgrounds but all these groups will have to approach the problems of the world from the points of view of cultural studies which are quite relevant to the postmodernism. Multi-disciplinary and inter-disciplinary approaches are being adopted now-a-days in all the serious studies. The distinctions among the sciences, technologies, social studies, humanities, arts and fine as well as applied arts and other branches of knowledge have become totally blurred. The boundaries among technical sciences, medical pathies and practices, and biological disciplines have merged to such an extent that any serious attempt of investigation, analysis and evaluation is made by resorting to the multi-disciplinary approaches. There are the members of Segall-Lucas family who are looking at the phenomenon of the flood from different disciplinary approaches. Chapter - III: Condition-of-England Novels: A Self-Reflective Mood 101

Davey will adopt the astronomical approach. His father Harold is a strict academician and his academic discipline will be reflected in his approach to the grim watery situation around. Lola, their daughter, has her own view of the „situation, while Lottie will be specifically sceptical about it all. Similarly, May White has all her concern with her twin grandsons- but Shirley, her daughter, has a professional attitude and approach to this disaster. Dirk White has joined the protesters and thus adopts an Anti-establishment view of the matter, Mr. Bliss and his colleagues look at it from the administrative angle. Multi-disciplinary approaches rule the times of the postmodernist age. There are the multicultural groups presented in the novel The Flood. Lottie Segall-Lucas and the members of her family are whites and are Christians. Shirley White-Edwards first married Koja, a person from Ghana. Now she has twin sons Franklin and Winston from her present live-in partner Elroy Edwards. The Whites and Blacks are represented by Lottie Segall-Lucas and her family members and on the other hand there are Elroy Edwards and his two sons Franklin and Winston. The racial groups are an integral part of multi- culturation. These are religions like Hinduism, Buddhism and trends like existentialism and post-modernization in literature. The claims of these various racial, religious, social, philosophical and political groups are represented in various ways in a multi-cultural society. There is the group of the Last Days to which Dirk White is attracted. There are Rukhsana and Mohammad, the Islamic couple, worried about the rising waters. There are Gerda and Lorna, the Germans. The population in a metropolitan centre comes from all the continents of the world-America, Africa, Asia, Australia and Europe. There are different linguistic groups that speak different languages and their dialects. These people are busy in various occupations. Multi-culturalism is the melting pot of people having various affiliations and their unity in diversity is the marked characteristic of the present times. Postmodernism is thus characterized by multi- culturalism. Chapter - III: Condition-of-England Novels: A Self-Reflective Mood 102

III.9 Global and Domestic Concerns between Wealth and Poverty Elroy is Shirley‟s lover now; previously she married Kojo, from Ghana. After Kojo‟s death, she has taken to Elroy. She is having “her big white body” she came to Elroy and asked him to forgive, what her younger brother Dirk White had done to Elroy‟s younger brother Winston. The incident has sparked off a racial conflict. It is not just a conflict between the whites and the blacks; it is a conflict between the established and those who are not established. It is a conflict between the „haves‟ and the „have not‟s.‟ The blacks or the brooms belong to their native countries which are not yet developed. These countries were the former European colonies. Though the Europeans have stopped ruling these counties, their economic dependence is still on their former colonial masters. Due to the lack of industrialization in these counties their economies are still weak and dependent. The gap between wealth and poverty is ever-widening. The blacks and the other marginalized groups, tribes, communities, nationals, and societies are still struggling to get enough to meet both the ends. They are poor, illiterate and backward. In spite of these obstacles in their path of upliftment, the mentality of Alfred White or his son Dirk White shows clear signs of prejudiced hatred for these poor marginalized people. The White Family by Maggie Gee traces this feature of the post-modernist life and Elroy and Darren stand on the opposite sides. One is born rich and has become more rich and the other is born poor and has remained poor till now and perhaps will remain poor for a long time. The White family has five members in all-Alfred is the father and May is the mother of the family. Darren is in America, Shirley the daughter of the family married Kojo, Dirk the youngest is still not stable in his career. Europe, Africa and America are the continents in which the three siblings live. It is the global scenario but the three siblings have come together after a long gap, because of a domestic Chapter - III: Condition-of-England Novels: A Self-Reflective Mood 103

tragedy. Alfred White fell on the ground and was hospitalized in the critical care ward. Global as well as domestic concerns are interwoven in the story of this novel The White Family by Maggie Gee. He‟s on his third marriage by now, you know, None of us got invited to the last one. They ran off to Bali Very glamorous... You didn‟t come to my wedding, did you? I can‟t remember if I asked you.‟ „No‟, he said, But didn‟t I hear‟...? „My husband died three years ago. Cancer. (Gee: 2002, p. 87)

The age of postmodernism is characterized by the inter-mingling of the big and small issues, global problems and domestic troubles at one and the same time. The clash of civilization had to happen as the superior tried to bring down the inferior and the inferior has to repel it at any cost. Asia boasts of beautiful Bali that is chosen as the venue of Darren‟s third marriage with Susie. Marriages have reached international destinations in the continents of Asia and Africa as in the cases of Darren and Shirley respectively. It is the speed that drives and motivates everybody for action. Alfred‟s fall has brought the members of his family from three or rather four continents together. This shows how a domestic concern can transform into global proportions. There are many problems which have global as well as domestic dimensions. Violence, pollution and corruption are such problems which have these universal as well as local directions. Other such problems are administrative indifference, the marginalization of groups on the basis of discrimination the disparity among the various sections of the society divided on the criterion of class, gender, race, religion, culture and nationality. In the novel The Flood this dual nature of the contemporary conflicts is portrayed very artistically. Kilda sat down looking pleased at first, and joining eagerly in the acclaim, but then, as she realized Bruno had finished, as he started his parting benediction, she briefly looked aggrieved or puzzled. She almost looked as if she might get up and say something, but there was no room Chapter - III: Condition-of-England Novels: A Self-Reflective Mood 104

for her to say anything; when Bruno was there, his spiritual power lay over them like a net of white ice, leaving the disciples locked, synchronized, lost in the steely perfection of grace. (Gee: 2004, p. 124)

Kilda‟s concerns are domestic and local, while father Bruno‟s concerns are universal and global. The cosmic concerns are connected with the local problems in the post-modernist novels like The Flood.

III.10 Thematic Complexities and Stylistic Devices Racial discrimination is one of the major themes treated in the novel The White Family by Maggie Gee. The White Family is an audacious, groundbreaking condition-of-England novel which tilts expertly at a middle class fallacy that racism is something “out there” in the football terraces or the sink estates... Finely judged and compulsively readable. (The Guardian review, The title page, The White Family (2002): Telegram Publishers)

Times Literary Supplement remarks: Picking up where Toni Morrison leaves off, Gee reminds as that racism not only devastates the lives of its victims, but also those of its perpetrators, like Eugene O‟Neill, Maggie Gee moves skillfully between compassion and disgust. (The title page, The White Family (2002): Telegram Publishers)

In addition to this theme of racial discrimination and its aftermath, the two other themes which emerge, are the presentation of the realistic portrait of the contemporary British Society and the disintegration of social systems like the family and the marriage in the present times. It portrays realistically the present and that is why it is a Condition-of-England Novel. A transcendent work, splitting open a family to bare the rough edges of prejudice, self- righteousness and petulant self-justification that we all recognize. The words of James Baldwin resonate throughout: “Book thought me that the thing that fermented me the most were the things that connected me to everyone who was alive and who had ever been alive. (Daily Telegraph, the title page, The White Family (2002): Telegraph Publishers) Chapter - III: Condition-of-England Novels: A Self-Reflective Mood 105

The White Family points to now directions in British writing. Full of the power and passion, as well as some timely warnings, this is one of the year‟s finest novels, and it deserves the widest possible readership. (Literary Review, the title page, The White Family, (2002): Telegraph Publishers)

The depiction of the contemporary British social conditions and the break-up in the intimate relationships within marriage and among the siblings in a family are treated realistically as the contemporary themes in the post-modernist novel. Postmodern style is marked by the features of being crispy as it is noticed in Darren White‟s outburst; He shook his head, three times, over-vehement. „No, I would never have left my kids. It hurts like hell. It‟s a fucking disaster.‟ I avoided his eyes. His tie was expensive, but bore a trail of tomato seeds, drying. „Might you – will you – have kids with Susie?‟ „That bitch. „A pause; he seemed to hear himself. „She‟s not really a bitch. I‟ve had too much to drink. But she says we‟re not ready for them yet, as a couple. Whatever that‟s fucking supposed to mean.‟ „What does it mean?‟ „We fight a lot. She thinks it wouldn‟t be good for the child...‟ There was a long pause. He stared at his nails or the bare fingertips where his nails should have been. He had bitten the flesh, little blackened pink wounds. „She‟s right in a way. It was hell for my kids... Do you know what it means to feel you‟ve fucked up? „Well can‟t you stop?‟ „Look, it‟s all handed down. They dole it out, we pass it on. The bloody therapists are right about that much. My fucking father‟s got a lot to answer for -‟ he broke off with a gesture of despair. „You don‟t believe me. I can see it in your face. You‟re so bloody English. Can‟t you handle anger?‟ It was so American, „handling anger.‟ „Look, you‟re mate. My old mate. It‟s just, I was sitting here, half- asleep- It‟s a shock to see you. I‟m just – catching up. And I am quite fond of your old man.‟ (Gee: 2002, p. 209)

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Here the expression “handling anger” is peculiarly American. It has the crisp rainy style, so specific to the American citizens in general. He cleared his throat, and looked embarrassed. „Um, I do love Susie, actually. Although, I give her a hard time. She‟s – the best woman I‟ve ever been with. (Gee: 2002, p. 212)

Here is another straight confession from a husband who feels guilty about the way he treats his wife who is the best woman he has ever met. It was May who found him. Of course it was May. Who else could have guessed where Alfred would go? Not one worried about him, once he‟d done what he had to. A squad car was sent to take him back to hospital, but when May phoned the ward, Alfred hadn‟t arrived. At the station, no one recalled who was the driver. The hardly seemed to register Alfred‟s name, as though he had already slipped into the past, fading away as if he‟d never been... He‟ll have asked the policeman to drive him to the Park, she realized, suddenly, sitting there distractedly, pulling at her nails, frowning her hair, listening to the clock in her empty house, her nest from which all the birds had flown, they had taken Dirk, her child was gone.... The White family was finished, then. But it was Alfred, finally, she minded about. Where had he gone, her duck, her dear one? (Gee: 2002, p. 407)

This is the stylistic peculiarity of the gentle, restrained type. It is neither melodramatic, nor over sentimental but restrained and sober as suitable to the times of the postmodernist age. I would have been justified. I had a right. But sometimes things just don‟t work out. I couldn‟t kill him. I just wasn‟t ready. It probably takes practice, killing someone. Maybe each time you get a little but closer. You can lose a battle and still win the war. We shan‟t lose the war. It‟s too important. The future of England depends on us. Never forget what Spearhead says..... We are many, and our reach is long. (Gee: 2002, p. 194)

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This is Dark White, the frustrated young man, the hater, the criminal. His style is characteristically a young rebel‟s of the postmodern age. The flood was the Apocalyptic Vision in the Bible of the dissolution of life at the time, when Noah took his Ark through the great waters. The Apocalyptic vision of the flood in the contemporary times is presented in the novel, The Flood. The disaster, the world‟s end is so near but „Human Spirit in Invincible.‟ “Man will be destroyed but will never be defeated.” The Flood is Gee‟s most apocalyptic vision to date... an incredible feat of sustained imaginative continuity. (The Guardian, Back cover, The Flood, (2004): Saqi Publication.)

Champions the varieties of human resilience in the face of overwhelming odds. (Daily Telegraph, Back Cover, The Flood (2004): Saqi Publications)

Though there are tremendous odds against man, though there are dangers, difficulties and problems which man is required to face, there is the strongest desire to survive in every man. This desire for life makes a human being struggle for life, to try continuously to float on the stream of life. Even in the worst level of live, even the slimy dregs of slum life, people continue to live and try to get the upper- hand over the adverse circumstances. This is what is known as human resilience. In the novel The Flood there are varieties of this human resilience which are presented through the life stories of the members of the White, Edwards, Segall Lucas and other families. The realistic presentation of the contemporary life is another theme treated in the novel The Flood by the postmodern novelist Maggie Gee. The postmodern novel is characterized by the stylish, peculiarities, peculiar to a multi-racial multi-religious and multi- cultural set-up. Later, as they were rowed through the drowned kingdom they saw the beauty and the havoc. The river stretched out like a golden flood-plain. Only a scattering of birds traced lines on its surface. Where a Chapter - III: Condition-of-England Novels: A Self-Reflective Mood 108

great throng of specimen oaks once stood, every one of them different, from all over the world – Turko, Malai, Anaturia – the water now shone, inscrutable. Not a twig, not an acorn, waved above. A magpie flared across the bronze. „One for sorrow,‟ said a small man with glasses, winking at Lottie in a way she disliked. The water was dazzling, but dissolute. (Gee: 2004, p. 108)

„Miss‟, said Gerda, although she had been told many times not to call the teacher Miss. All the girls called their teacher Miss. „Why does it have to be wet play again? This morning it was fine, and we played outside. (Gee: 2004, p. 114)

But I have to stay here, I‟m a grandmother. The twins need me, Shirley needs me, she told herself, frustrated, squaring thin shoulders, trying to push like the others did. (Gee: 2004, p. 117)

„Dirk‟, she said, „That was weird. It wasn‟t, you know, what I told Burno.‟ „What wasn‟t?‟ said Dirk, only half-listening because he was trying to gauge the depth of the puddles. „That stuff he said about us increasing, and filling the earth, and like ruling all the animals. He got all that from the Bible. It wasn‟t what I actually said to him.‟ „What did you say to him, then?‟ (Gee: 2004, pp.124- 125) The first extract tells about a small man with glasses, who is the speaker. The second is about Gerda‟s complaints about wet play. The third reveals May‟s mind. The fourth is the conversation between Kilda and Dirk White. Kilda tells Dirk that whatever is spoken by Bruno is the stuff taken from the Bible. The style varies according to the character‟s nature. That is the stylistic peculiarity of the postmodernist novel is the pliability of the style.

III.11 Digitalized World: Techno Culture, Pop-culture, Media Culture and Supersonic Speed The twenty-first century is marked by information explosion. Computer technology is being applied in almost all the fields and the use of e-media has become almost universal. Social networking through Internet, Twitter, Facebook and other vehicles has become an Chapter - III: Condition-of-England Novels: A Self-Reflective Mood 109

integral part of the daily routine. The most revolutionary feature is the digitalization of all sources of information and knowledge. Whatever is available for storing is being kept in the digitalized format. It has given a secure medium for storing and distributing information throughout the world. Darren White makes use of the digitalized, format in his work as a writer of journalistic features. The entire publishing industry has taken recourse to the format of digitalization. The Hospital is the place where the application of digitalization is noticed everywhere. Right from the patient‟s admission to the hospital to his discharge from there all information related to each patient is put in digital format. The science and art of library keeping now depends completely on the digitalization. Thomas Lovell works on such a situation in which he is surrounded by digitalization. This is a feature of the postmodernist times. It is a mechanized system but it has a compact space-saving and security oriented application. Digitalization is unique in its utility value as a postmodern feature. Technology is the engine of growth and development of these days. Technology has revolutionized the modes of transport with supersonic jets and nuclear-powered ships, bullet trains and superfast cars. The entire globe is held in your hands on account of the recent developments in communications. It is predicted that the desk-top computers have become anachronistic museum pieces and the same fate looms large over laptops as the mobile apps have all the facilities of retrieving and disseminating information to all the corners of the globe at the click of a button. Migrations have brought people from all the continents together. Kojo, Elroy, Winston are the representatives of the population from Africa. The Chambermaid came from South America. In few hours Darren and his wife Susie rushed to Alfred White‟s bedside from Indonesia. The man from Milan is running a food joint in London. Darren White and Susie are settled in America. The luxury hotel, the facilities in the hospital, the tube is the remarkable signs of the techno Chapter - III: Condition-of-England Novels: A Self-Reflective Mood 110

savvy age of postmodernism. There are tremendous advances and an advantage of the technological progress that has embraced all works of life. Pop is the abbreviation of popular. Scott F. Fitzgerald in his novel The Great Gatsby heralded the jazz age. Rockstars brought the rock‟n roll music that made the dancers more speedily and jerk elastically, Twist and disco were the dances set to the loud rhythmic beats. This is pop music. It has gone through the reins of the dramaticality. Pop-art is heralded by Pablo Picasso as he attempted to draw what he saw mentally and impressionistically. Modern art and paintings are designed through the lens within. Popular literature too has enthralled the hearts of millions of readers. A writer like Stephen King has produced about sixty novels which are all the bestsellers. The modern forms of fine arts in painting, music and literature – have moulded the artistic tastes of the public at large. The pop-arts have ushered in the pop-culture. In a novel like The White Family the reflections of the pop culture are noticed almost at every page. What these persons wear as their construes have marks of the new pop-culture whether it is a headgear put on by May or Shirley or it is the bag that May carried and which came out with the bundles of currency notes that Winston handed over to May. Whatever they eat or drink such as pizzas or sausages or Coke or Pepsi have all become a part and parcel of the present culture in the postmodern times of the twenty first century. The age of postmodernism is known as the age of IT-Information Technology. People are more hungry for information-even stray bits of it rather than for food. Information is coming in from all the directions. From every nook and corner, the print and non-print media is disseminating news and information of all types. Before breakfast the newspapers are consumed, not a single moment can be spent without Radio and films. The home has become a theatre. All these marks of postmodernist way of life and the craving for information are present in the novel The White Family. Chapter - III: Condition-of-England Novels: A Self-Reflective Mood 111

The only thing she‟d known about her adoption was the name of her family, which was all too common. Then, with the murder, there were pictures in the papers. She looked in the paper and saw her mother. (Gee: 2002, p. 412)

This is younger Shirley, thinner, more thoughtful, little gold glasses. Through the papers and the news of the murder committed by Dirk and the photographs of the members of The White family in the papers, younger Shirley met Shirley the elder, her mother and her two siblings. They arrived at the graveyard to bury Alfred White, the Park Keeper. What they saw was chaos, No one could park. The press was there, in banks, in droves, shoving cameras and microphones in the faces of weeping shouting, reluctant people. Darren got out blinking mining, oddly fish-like as he took it in, as if he had never seen this before, though he must often have seen it before but never before when it was his father. (Gee: 2002, p. 413)

The press in these days has become an omnipresent and omnipotent force to reckon with. How do you feel now? Is what they will ask to satisfy the curiosity of the information seekers? Their flashes, their microphones have become just a part of their set-up now. Their cameras are almost inseparable from them as they require to catch a shape of whatever is happening. Speed is the most important tool in the busy schedule of these times. People rush from morning to evening to catch the mode of transportation. Buses, trains, ships and planes- all are now within the reach of everyone. These are the jet set times. It struck Shirley and Thomas at the same moment, and their eyes met, briefly, apprehensive, as the man snatched up his bleak tray in disgust and turned, with a little flounce of anger and tiredness – It was Darren, of course. Darren‟s tanned face, which gaped and grew pinker the moment he saw them. He had come after all, the prodigal son. „Darren White, Voice of the Left, Man of the People‟ as the papers called him. A jet- lagged man with an American twang, making a mean little scene in a cafe. (Gee: 2002, p. 89) Chapter - III: Condition-of-England Novels: A Self-Reflective Mood 112

Darren, the oldest son of the White family of Alfred and May, is a person who belongs to this age of supersonic speed. He has travelled with a supersonic speed to reach the hospital from a place beyond more than the seven seas. He swept up to them in a gale of tension, handsome from a distance, gaunt close up. His hair had subtly changed colour, Shirley realized; the grey in his curls had disappeared. His face underneath was tighter, older, the lines set hard in a mask of tan. „Hello,‟ he said. „Hi everyone,‟ as if there were too many of them to manage individually. „I‟m just trying to get some morsel of substance out of the bloody NHS.‟ His wife hovered behind him, pretty, uncertain, her pink suit fitting like an elegant glove, her hair hanging bobbed, healthy, and expensive. „This is Susie,‟ he said, gesturing angrily. „My new wife. She couldn‟t eat a thing on the plane. Of course neither of us eats red meat, and the veggie stuff was drowning in saturated fat. (Gee: 2002, p. 89)

Nothing but speed counts nowadays. Not just Time and Time with speed it is Money. Digitalization is a recent development. All the old systems have either become totally digitalized or are on their way to be digitalized. Digitalization is a technological advance. All the yardsticks which are used to measure the length, the breadth and the depth of the mater have become digitalized. In the novel, The Flood, this digitalized world is presented by the administrative machinery that controls the city. The waters of The Flood are continuously rising; the rain has been pouring down cats and dogs for a number of days. Mr. Bliss, The President and his colleagues in the administrative set-up make every effort to face the natural calamity. They are using all the sophisticated measures available in today‟s digitalized world. They even try to divert the attention of the citizens through the broadcasts and the telecasts on radio and television which have also become completely digitalized. The organization of the City Gala is another digitalized show that is Chapter - III: Condition-of-England Novels: A Self-Reflective Mood 113

deliberately arranged. The contemporary world is indeed the world that has become a digitalized world as shown in the novel The Flood. The twenty-first century is the century in which science and technology has taken over the charge of the entire globe. The technological advances have been remarkable in the areas like nano- technology, biotechnology, information technology, computer technology and others. Davey was cruising back into the watery city as the sun‟s first rays hit the tops of the Towers, having spent the night at the Observatory. He registered another cloudless sky. That he was driving into light, without the faint fretting of windscreen wipers in his vision. That the surface of the motorway was almost dry. And last night the dark had been teeming with stars. (Gee: 2004, p. 146)

The observatory is the centre of observing the astronomical wonders in the space. The age is remarkable for its space technology and rocket technology. The technical culture has enveloped all the aspects of human life. There is no part of life that is not touched by technology in these days. The making of the motorway is also a technological marvel of the contemporary times. Techno-culture is a part and parcel of the postmodern world and the, postmodern life- style. Maggie Gee in her novel The Flood has presented this feature of postmodernism. Popularity is what sells the products. Popularity is the only criterion that runs the markets, fashions, trends and styles which are determined definitely by popularity. The marketability of a product decides its popularity. Products/ items which are consumed in a large number become quite popular. There are waves of popularity as the public tastes and public opinions continue to change. Popular culture makes people aware of writings which have gained popularity, of songs which are sung by the public and also heard or seen on the television. Films are a part and parcel of popular culture. That is why in the City Gala celebrations of the popular artists from various fields had assembled to give a glimpse of the popular culture of the present Chapter - III: Condition-of-England Novels: A Self-Reflective Mood 114

times. The film stars, the opera dancers and singers, the stage personalities, the writers, poets and dramatists and the entertainers of all types assembled to mark the event of City Gala. Their presence was there to cash in their popularity. The crowds grew thicker, finding call the popular celebrities together to increase the standard of the public festival with joy and merry-making. The reflection of such a grand exhibition of pop-culture is a feature of postmodernism noticed in Maggie Gee‟s novel The Flood. The audio and video equipment has come into a full bloom these days. Radio, television and films have encompassed the whole of life in the postmodern age of these days. The City Gala celebrations were meant to divert the public attention from the natural calamity of the flood and the consequences of the same on the life of the people. On the day of celebrations: Only the creme de la creme have been chosen, the people the city defines itself by, the rich, the celebrities, the people who count the styles and the faces that are known and copied, stars, actors, leaders, beauties, all the names baptized in the tabloids, famous chefs and fashionistas, ballet-dancers and fancy hair dressers, horoscope-writers and football players, game-show hosts and TV presenters, all the showmen who make people happy, plus a salting of „real people‟ like Elroy, people who have climbed to the top of something worthy, firemen, ambulance men, doctors, police, who are glad and embarrassed to see the celebrities, staring at them hungrily, sharply assessing, wanting to laugh, to sneer, to wave, sharing space-time with them at last, the dream-figures, the screen-figures... And yet, they are proud the celebs are here. All the guests have a glow, as they mount the stairs, their shoe-soles massaged by the rouge-red carpet, and caressive little thoughts flit around like bluebirds – „everyone who‟s anyone is here, my dear‟ – and they are here, thank God they have made it; the bluebirds of happiness perch on their shoulders; against long odds, home safe, home free; anyone who‟s anyone, my dear, is here: (Gee: 2004, p. 235) Film actors, TV anchors, radio jockeys and other celebrities on the Media Channels have assembled on the city Gala day. The Chapter - III: Condition-of-England Novels: A Self-Reflective Mood 115

gathering presented the representatives of all sorts of non-print media. Broadcasting, telecasting, screening and presenting are in full swing. There is the air of the media hype in the present postmodern age. Speed has dominated life of the present days. Speed at its fastest is the supersonic speed and that is the speed of the jet planes that fly at the speed that goes beyond the speed of the sound waves. Thousands of miles are not a great distance in these days of speed. A business executive gets up early in Tokyo, takes his breakfast in Bangarook and has his lunch in London and dinner in San Francisco and halts at night in Melbourne. The same is the way in which Darren White has come to attend the City Gala day. Big name journalists- Darren White, (May White‟s son, Dirk White‟s brother, over from Hesperica for the Gala, fresh from his third divorce, the „famous brother‟ who has always upstaged Dirk, making him feel smaller, stupider, meaner); he has written a daring attack on Bliss exposing his „sabotage‟ claims as a frau to be published tomorrow in Daily Mire. (Gee: 2004, p. 242)

III.12 Sociological, Psychological, Political and Economic Aspects in Postmodern Age The White Family saga presents a sociological document of the life in the postmodern time. There are sociological factors in addition to the psychological features of their own which have made and motivated the members of the White family in sociologically significant directions. The Affluent strata of the sociological structure are presented by Darren White and his wife Susie and also by Thomas Lovell and his beloved Melissa. There is the broad liberal individual in their midst. She is a big white‟ lady who has all the compassion of the world in her heart for the marginalized, the underdogs, the backward classes. She has no sense of colour and racial discrimination. She married Kojo and even after his death she shares a firm bonding with his sister and his other relatives in Ghana. She is never tired of giving “something” to them out of whatever she possesses. After Kojo‟s death, she has taken up with Elroy and both are happy to get united. Chapter - III: Condition-of-England Novels: A Self-Reflective Mood 116

This is sociological strata. Another positive strata of humanitarianism is noticed in whatever is experienced by May White. A considerate and conscientious sociological strata is presented by Thomas Lovell, the strata to which Alfred and Dirk belong is negative in action as both of them nurse the racial prejudice against the Africans. The strata of the underdogs are presented by all the Africans. That is how a postmodernist feature of sociological stratification is projected in the present novel. Politics and Economics are the two pillars of life in the Post- modernist Age of the twenty-first century. The present times are influenced by the combined might of politics and economics in the first decade of the twenty-first century. The economic considerations play a significant role in the lives of the three males and the two females of The White Family. The eldest son is successful, but the youngest son of the family-has yet to stand on his own. The two brothers therefore present two contradictory pictures as the members of the White family. The parents Arthur and May have to undergo many hardships due to the meager economic income which they receive. Dick the youngest member, the baby of the family has no steady income. His financial predicaments are the source of anxiety of his parents. You have to be though. You have to be strong. That‟s how the British go their empire and maybe we‟ve lost it by going soft. Just like the fall of the Roman Empire. The best of the Romans died at their posts. Died fighting for what they believed in. Too few Romans, there were by then and great dark hordes pourting over the walls..... They‟ve kept cutting down the council have, they‟ve gone on weakening us, year by year. The new idea is, authority is bad. The new idea is all softly „For fear of upsetting people‟ they say, For fear of upsetting the coloured people. (Gee: 2002, pp. 222-223)

This outburst shows how the British are upset about the encroachment on their economic and political interests and privileges. They have lost their empire, their strong and study economic Chapter - III: Condition-of-England Novels: A Self-Reflective Mood 117

stronghold, their political supremacy, Alfred thinks that the British are shrinking, they are getting, cut down every year. The social, political and economic conditions of the contemporary times are reflected in this postmodern novel by Maggie Gee. The Flood by Maggie Gee presents the microcosm of the life in the twenty-first century. The members of the families like Segall of Lottie, Harold, Davey and Lola, Edwards- Elroy Edwards, Shirley (White) Edwards, Franklin and Winston-Faith and Kilda, Delorice and others are presented in this novel. The life sketches of these individuals are portrayed in such a manner that this gives an idea about the social life as a whole. Winston and Franklin. May doted on them. She had three more grandchildren who lived abroad, and they were white as paper, but she never saw them. She‟d rather have mixed ones who come round for tea. For she herself was not prejudiced, had never been part of the menfolk‟s silliness. Indeed, she had a soft spot for Elroy, who was handsome (as Dirk, her son, had never been handsome), and had a good job in the Public Health Service, the poor old struggling Public Service. (Gee: 2004, p. 13)

The presence of the marginalized groups, the way the coloureds have become more and more prominent and the growing attitude of sane understanding are the facts that relate everything about the social life of the present times of the twenty first century. This shows how racism is treated sanely or foolishly. The struggling Health Service is one of the welfare schemes that have lost its glamour. This fact shows that the novel is a sociological document of the postmodern age. The social life in the postmodern age is not at all immune to political and economic influences. Economy governs life around us. Economy is the engine of growth and development. Even in the developed countries, economic conditions matter a lot. The countries have developed economies but the distribution of wealth is uneven. Few are the affluent and many more are still the deprived ones. Political conditions depend upon a nation‟s economy. On account of Chapter - III: Condition-of-England Novels: A Self-Reflective Mood 118

the economic political conditions tremendously affects the social and personal lives in the contemporary time. Here in The Flood, the impact of economic and political conditions in Britain is presented in the way the administrative machinery is handling the situation of this natural calamity. Intelligence is preparing a dossier Mr. Bliss (the President) tried to ignore a deep suppressed litter that broke from the bottom of the room. But that‟s not the point. We have to be proactive we think they‟ve got nuclear as well. (Gee: 2004, p. 39)

Mr. Bliss the President solicited reactions for being pro-active from his colleagues in the executive room. He asked them to be realistic. People have started demanding things and it is essential to respond to these. The Press Release, the national security measures and Mass Immunization are the ways suggested. „Mr. Bare‟s very much onside, said Mr. Bliss. „We‟re thinking May. Provisionally but if things worsen, we could go in April. (Gee: 2004, p. 39)

This is the impact of economic and political situation in the country on life in the society and life of the individuals. This is a postmodernist trait that is noticed in The Flood.

III.13 Humans, Non-humans and Nature: Interrelationship All the men and women are the children of God. The fish, the birds, the trees and the flowers, the reptiles and the mammals are also the creations of God, the Father of the Universe. All these creatures, human beings as well as non-human beings are thus linked as the creatures belonging to the same creative process which is a universal process. The inter-relationships among all these creatures need to be governed by all-embracing love, all-enveloping compassion and all-trusting faiths. Nature binds all these creatures together, as it is the power that nourishes them all with its soil, its waters and its sun light and its air. A little further on, an island of green was salted with pale wood anemones. The boat paused while they Chapter - III: Condition-of-England Novels: A Self-Reflective Mood 119

rested their eyes on the kindness of detail after so much blankness. Moles had survived, they had left black earth-works; primroses starred their wrinkled leaves. There were cream narcissi which ruched red centres, satiny tulips, gold and blue irises curled like delicate tips of tongues. The long grass whispered, hope, beauty. (Gee: 2004, p. 113)

This is how nature and its tiny micro-organisms like anemones and moles and plants like primroses, tulips, irises and grass are inter- related and interlinked and this affinity and attachment needs to be kept intact. Thomas is the librarian, Alfred White‟s neighbor. Thomas used to visit the park quite often and knew that the park would be open from 8 in the morning to dusk in the evening. Thomas remembered the summer evenings he spent in the Park. He remembered vanished evenings in the Park in summer, there were a few perfect weeks of late, scented light, dizzy with roses and tobacco flowers. (Gee: 2002, p. 52)

Thomas remembers the summer evenings on which he visited the Park. There were pairs of lovers. Thomas too was in love with Jeanie in those days. The relation between the youthful couple of lovers like Thomas and Jeanie was quite cordial. Human relationship matter the most in life. The following, the humane treatment to others and the tender approach to one and all are the chief marks of a good relation keeping with others. The beauty of Nature refreshed the visitors. The beautiful trees, plants, bushes, flower-beds and roses and tobacco flowers made the scene invigorating Nature and human beings are mutually inter-related through love and beauty and scented light, brightness and fragrance made the scene lovely and lively. Alfred would be there every single night, doing his rounds, checking the bushes, making sure the lovers didn‟t got out of hand and offend the old ladies walking their dachshunds. (Gee: 2002, p. 52)

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Even the dogs the dachshunds-taking for an evening walk by the ladies have become the in separable part of the atmosphere. Nature links men and animals. As S.T. Coleridge remarks man lives with “The fish, the bird and the cast in blessed presence of nature.

III.14 Black Comedy and Hyper Reality The novel The White Family is full of situational and verbal ironies. These comic moments expose a dark side of human behavior and the modern civilization. This postmodernist element of the use of black-comedy is quite transparent in the novel by Maggie Gee. Thomas was glad to see a gardener stooping dutifully over the bed by the fountain, trowel glinting in the sun as he dug. She dug, he corrected himself; a middle- aged woman in a navy Mack he had mistaken for overalls, digging the crescent-shaped bed which was already a riot of tulips and daffodils. (Gee: 2002, p. 49)

Here he mistakes the woman for a man is an ironical comment on the blurring distinction between the dress code among men and woman in the postmodern time of the present century. He saw she held a bulb in her trowel. It had already sprouted a pink bud and a trailing beard of root-hairs, black with earth. „Sorry‟, he said, „did I startle you?‟ Three, others lay on the path beside her, „Are you must putting those in? Isn‟t it rather late‟? (Gee: 2002, p. 50)

Thomas Lovell first mistook the woman as a man and now he mistakes her for being a gardener. There is one bulb in her trowel and three more bulbs nearly. He thinks that she is going to put them in and planting them but on the country, she was digging them out. This confusion gives a specimen of black comedy. He finally realizes that the woman was actually stealing flowers and the bulbs. Black comedy ironically sets a situation in its proper perspective. The reality is presented in the postmodernist works in a minute but an intensely tense manner. This is therefore the presentation of hyper reality.

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I stood on the platform in a veil of rain. I looked into the tunnel. Which train would it be? Yellow eyes. They have yellow eyes. Thundering out of the underworld, thundering back down into the dark. It would be easy, a falling, an ending, gliding down where I could sink no further. (Gee: 2002, p. 172)

Shirley, (Alfred and May White‟s daughter) is about to commit suicide thinking she had nowhere to go, nothing to do and that nobody loved her, anybody wanted her. The presentation of this is a well-enacted dramatic presentation. It is the presentation of hyper- reality rather intensely presented to bare the reality behind the reality itself. There would be the moment of impact. I flinched. But then, I already knew about that, the moment when something very hard and heavy crashes into something breakable, and once it has happened it will happen again, it will never stop happening till the smash-up is final. I wanted it over, I wanted to go. I heard the echo of the train approaching, the first small tremors, then the gathering roar. I looked it in the eyes. I walked to the edge. My mind was perfectly blank and final. At last I should be released from myself, just a little step forward, it was coming, it was here- Then something lunged at me, from the side, grabbed me, winding me, knocked me over, I felt myself fall and was suddenly praying: please God, no, I‟m not ready... Jesus, save me. Jesus, save. (Gee: 2002, p. 172)

Ruby offers hers as well as her husband‟s love and protection to Shirley. This dramatic scene presents the hyper reality of the postmodern age. The novel The Flood is a postmodernist work of fiction and makes use of the various shades of humour- irony, satire, sarcasm, black comedy and other. It is a very funny book, which uses the language, which echoes the water that ebbs and flows and eventually floods the pages.

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„There are hundred, hundreds hundred, thousand hundred, One Way people now,‟ he told her, whirling his hands about. „I know only the Muslim people, Mary Muslim people very good people.‟ There was a long pause while she buttoned her coat; her fingers felt like someone elses; the coat seemed unwilling to be buttoned, as if her body wanted to get out. He watched her, his eyes intent and hot. Suddenly they were gazing at each other; she was out of her depth, too old, too frail, but her eyes gazed, and her body swatted, and she failed to force the button through the buttonhole. „If I marry you, you can become Muslim. I can have four wives, the Koran says.‟ He smiled a complicated, ghastly smile, a mixture of lust and gallantry and despair because he knew she was going. May was touched and upset by his need of her, but as pity began, her excitement vanished. Men were needy; she knew about that, but she made it to her feet, she extended her hand. In any case, he didn‟t really mean it. „I‟m going,‟ she said. „You‟ve been very kind. Thank you for telling me about your religion.‟ She stood there smiling with her hand stretched out. But she had forgotten some courtesy, some essential stage in the dance of compliments, and now the good will was cooling, dying. She had got it wrong as she often did. Her friend was staring at the floor again, eyes darting up briefly to hers, then away. His parting, from above, looked very straight, and very white. Without meaning to, she had rejected him. Now he had some moral high ground to reclaim. „My religion very strict,‟ he said, sullenly. „All bad things banned, very banned. I am always good Muslim, Mary.‟ „May I hope I haven‟t made you go against your religion.‟ He bowed, stiffly, ignoring her hand. (Gee: 2004, pp. 196-197)

The use of humour is continuously made here-May is always addressed by Jehangir, the Pakistani Muslim, as Mary. He does not address her correctly though she corrects him every time. The wrong use of “ed” twice is made by Jehangir. The Koran say, is what he says instead of using says. This is the use of humour. It is black comedy which is a characteristic feature of Maggie Gee‟s post-modernist Chapter - III: Condition-of-England Novels: A Self-Reflective Mood 123

writing. Satire and irony are sprinkled through the use of such black comedy. The racial and religious caustic comments are funny and add spice to the dramatized event of the meeting between May White and Jehangir, the Pakistani Muslim. The realistic presentation of the contemporary world is made in the postmodern novels like The Flood. Reality is presented in a hypersensitive manner. This is noticed in the city Gala celebrations. The Gala! The city must have its Gala. „EAT, DRINK, FOR TOMORROW YOU DIE‟ said some of the posters of the One Way protesters. There were hundreds of them; they had cloned themselves, quietly, effectively, down in the dark, through the long winter of wet and fear. They were human; they hoped; they bid for salvation. Now they would be saved, while the others would perish, the rich, the lucky, the lovely, and the sinful. They had come here today on a tide of excitement, for round the Towers and in the poor north-east- in the south-east reaches down by the river – in the broken-down estates near the Western Gardens, the refugee centres and „Canvas Town‟, in all the districts where One Way was strongest, there weren‟t enough lucky people to hate. They wanted to see them; they were hungry for the enemy; to sniff their perfume, to snack on their flesh, to feast their eyes on the gloss, the wealth – (Gee: 2004, p. 232)

All the protesters have come tonight. The anti-war lots are outline force, with whistles and hooters and drums and megaphones, furious, howling with their longing for justice, trying to deafen Mr. Bliss into peacefulness. „BLISS OUT!‟ says dozens of rainbow banners of the blissed-out anti-drug-law protesters. A long-haired boy waves „WALA IS LA-LA‟. „WHY DO YOU NEED TWO SKINS?‟ scream the placards of the anti-fur protesters. „DISS THE BLISS!‟ shout the teen-friendly slogans of the anti-government campaign. „BLISS A DEAD LOSS‟ shouts a hand-lettered poster. „PISS OFF BLISS‟ says a turquoise banner. (Gee: 2004, pp.233-234)

This is how the poster war goes on the Gala day in the city. Anti-drug, law, anti-fur, anti-government and other varieties of posters make their protestations transparently vocal and visible. The Chapter - III: Condition-of-England Novels: A Self-Reflective Mood 124

real situation is presented on a heightened pitch. Its volume and range is sharp.

III.15 Maggie Gee’s Philosophy of Life and her Interest in Evolutionary Biology The postmodernist world-view is disclosed and exposed by Maggie Gee, the novelist who truly belongs to the twenty-first century British Fiction. In her novels, Gee has brought out the ideological and emotional chaos of the postmodernist age of the present time. This truly contemporary writing has shown the despair and the hope, the bitterness and the compromise of the contemporary time. Alfred White is a Park Keeper in Albion Park, London. He has been away from home most of the time of the working day. He looks after wife and his three children, sometimes dangerously and sometimes tenderly. This has estranged his three children from him. When Alfred collapses on duty one day, it becomes evident that the families are strong in spite of what has gone before. All of them rush to his bedside to nurse him in his illness; Alfred‟s younger son, Dirk White, hates and fears all black people. There is a violent murder of, Winston, Elroy‟s younger brother, by Dirk White. Elroy, the black social worker and Dirk came face to face. Racial discrimination is a taboo subject. Like May White who has to choose between justice and the claims of kinship. Maggie Gee has a wider liberal world-view of universal humanitarianism. This broad-based humanism based on love and not hatred, on tolerance and not prejudiced misunderstanding, on compassion and not on cruelty, on peace and not on violence, on kind compassion and not divisive factionalism and fundamentalism. „Truth Always Wins‟ is Maggie Gee‟s dictum in The White Family, and „Justice Prevails‟ is what she hopes for the future. Alfred White and May White make a very loving couple. For May White, Alfred is her‟s alone, her own, her dearest, her dear duck, her dear dove, her dearest man, her Alfred, her own Alfred. For Alfred Chapter - III: Condition-of-England Novels: A Self-Reflective Mood 125

White too May is the only dearest one, his dearest wife, his dearest dove. The couple has three children. The biological evolutionary principle is seen in the careers of these children. The eldest is Darren White. He went to America to make his career. His career has blossomed fully, grandly, richly. He is a rich American now, who is given assignments from Madrid to Melbourne and from Sydney to Singapore. He has married his third wife Susie in Bali just recently; he has children from his two marriages. Darren White, his two ex-wives, third wife Susie and his children are all American in their life-styles and way of thinking. This is the biological extension of the British family of the Whites. The daughter of the Whites is Shirley – She chose a black from Ghana- Kojo as her husband. Her partner in relationship currently is Elroy, the black social worker. She has thus affiliations with the coloureds. She is now involved in the broad-minded engagement with the blacks as her partners in life. This is another extension of the British family in the face of coloureds. She too has children- Shirley the daughter has the twins. Biological evolutions have placed her in this situation of uniting east and west. These two biological evolutions point towards America and then to Africa too. Dirk White is an exception and hates the Blacks as they, according to him, have taken away his job and his future opportunities. He biologically has extended Alfred White‟s line. This is the projection of Maggie Gee‟s interest in evolutionary biology and genetics. Maggie Gee‟s novels represent of the today‟s life in England, it is portrayed realistically, exposing the drawbacks of the contemporary age. The drawbacks of the present day life are the total materialism which has given rise to the rat race competition for getting on the top, through the acquisition of wealth and social status. These materialistic pursuits have brought in the lack of spirituality. This has led to the absence of moral values in the present day. In such circumstances, Maggie Gee adopts a critical vision of the contemporary life. She has humorously and satirically exposed the Chapter - III: Condition-of-England Novels: A Self-Reflective Mood 126

pitfalls in the postmodern society in advanced country is like England. The indifferent administration, the exploitation of the poor and the rich behaving carelessly and irresponsibly are the drawbacks which Gee has presented in her novel The Flood. Gee‟s ability to ask big “what if?” Questions while never losing sight of the humdrum details of life... gives her un-brave new world credibility. (The Independent, Title page, The Flood (2004): Saqi Publications)

This remark reports that along with big metaphysical problem the humdrum details of common life are projected by the novelist as her vision of life. The Flood mirrors life as it is and so presents the familiar, distorted, ugly, sordid aspects of life in the postmodern time. Her vision of life is eloquent angry and brilliant and her exposure is imaginative and realistic, warm-hearted and sharp-witted. The first section of the novel The Flood entitled „Before‟ acquaints with this aspect of her talents. I lived my life in the earthly city. The earthly city, down on the plain. Designed for humans. And pets, their playthings. (Gee: 2004, p. 7)

This city is for the human beings and their playthings which are their pets like dogs, cat and pigeons. What else was there? Billions of microbes, snails and worms and birds of course, visiting the gardens; nesting, foraging. Quivering, flashing on the flowering quinces, Calling sharp warnings against the cats. Jackdaws, thrushes, pigeons, starlings with dark silk rainbows on the wing. On Daffodil Hill, near the city Zoo, you saw how many, how beautiful: Sley-wide, skimming trapezia of starlings, smoking of the edges as they turn so the blue. (Gee: 2004, pp. 7-8)

This is how evolutionary biology and the novelist‟s interest in the science is reflected in the description of the environment of the city which is the habitat of billions of microbes, millions of snails and worms and thousands of jackdaws, thrushes and pigeons. The fauna of the surroundings of the city assembled gets displayed in the description of the biological details. Chapter - III: Condition-of-England Novels: A Self-Reflective Mood 127

Mr. Bliss set hawks to reduce the pigeons, but rebellious old people turned up with sacks of birdseed and pop-corn to woo them back. The arrests were partial and inefficient. The city-dwellers liked their pigeons. (Gee: 2004, p. 08)

The biological control by the official machinery of pigeons is resisted by the city-dwellers who liked the pigeons. This is evolutionary biology as reflected in the novel The Flood.

III.16 Loss of Ecological Equilibrium & Impact of Postmodernism on Human Psyche Ecological equilibrium is lost due to pollution and deforestation. The co-existence of man, fish, beast and bird is maintained properly, if the ecological conditions are in perfect harmony and equilibrium. Trees give shade and fruits. Rivers give us the elixir of life, which is water. Bushes bloom with berries and flowers. Plants and flower beds delights us. We are wonder struck by the majesty of hills and mountains. Therefore the beauty of nature either naturally created or artificially, becomes a spot that harmonizes body, mind and soul of all the human beings. The human beings as well as the non-human beings have the responsibility of sustaining and protectingthe ecological equilibrium. One such spot carved in the heart of London is Albion Park. Albion Park. It was a hundred year old, built in the spate of philanthropy that heralded the end of the nineteenth century, when the local hospital was built, and the library, both of them by the same local builder, who had a deft hand with stone and red brick and a love of detail; pediments, cornices. The drinking- foundation was a marvel, a spired, four-sided, stone creation modeled like a miniature Gothic cathedral. It was the focal point to which all paths led. Not far away the Park Keeper‟s lodge was a solidly impressive Victorian pile, two-story, detached, with fine large windows. (Gee: 2002, p. 48)

This was the beautiful location where Albion Park in which Alfred White worked as the Park Keeper, was situated. Parks are the Chapter - III: Condition-of-England Novels: A Self-Reflective Mood 128

lungs of the city. They keep the city free from pollution, at least they lesson it. It was on account of this, the park needed to be kept in a disciplined manner. No Littering, No Soiling, No Golfing, No Motorcycles, No Camping, No Caravans. (Gee: 2002, p. 17) These were the restrictions imposed to keep the park free from any contamination. „No Pollution Zone‟ was what the Park was meant to be. Alfred White has to keep an eye, so that these abuses are not practiced. In doing his duty he collapsed and was put in the hospital but could not recover there. Postmodernism has many advances. Most of these are material advances of life. The postmodern time has become more comfortable, more luxurious but less secure. There are stressful elements which affect the human mind. Discrimination, prejudices and violence are increasing day by day. Dirk White, is prejudiced against the blacks and the coloureds. He cannot and does not approve of his sister, Shirley‟s marriage with Kojo, a man from Ghana. On the day Dirk turned up at the very last moment, wearing a dark jacket he had borrowed from someone, note the sort of jacket that teenagers wore, and a bright pink tie, entirely surprising. He looked almost handsome, with his yellow-white hair, but he spoke to no one, stoop open-eyed and furious throughout the ceremony, never kneeling down to pray, then afterwards retreated to a corner of the beautiful apricot hotel lounge and sat with his father, backs to the wall, drinking beer, not wine, and refusing to eat. They wove away together at the very end, self- righteous and sullen, looking neither left nor right, as if they alone had behaved irreproachably, as if they had won a great victory, between them. (Gee: 2002, p. 75) Dirk turned up on the day of Shirley‟s wedding in a jacket and a pink tie. He behaved like a moron. He remains silent and speechless throughout. He is furious throughout the wedding ceremony. He is attending the wedding but without his heart, his good self in it. His sullenness is caused by the psychic effect on him of his age. Chapter - III: Condition-of-England Novels: A Self-Reflective Mood 129

This is the way men and women think in these time. Postmodernism is the age of stress and impatiens mainly because of psychological unbalancing. Youngsters like Dirk White, are under the tense psychic mood because of his temperament which is affected by the conditions around. It is the postmodern trend to find the loss of the synthesis of the various views about the loss of ecology and its degradation. This is something that needs to be recorded and in the postmodern writings the same has to be recorded in front of readers for their thinking. In the novel The Flood Maggie Gee shows how the loss of equilibrium in nature has caused the natural calamity of the great flood. Here they come now, arm in arm, flowing like water into their future. They pass without seeing us, homing, home, here in the city whose name is time, glimpsed long ago, across the river, the ideal city which was always waiting – the lit meadows, the warm roof-tops, caught in these steady shafts of sunlight. City suspended over the darkness. Above the waters that have covered the earth, stained waters, bloody waters, water heaving with wreck and horror, pulling down papers, pictures, peoples; a patch of red stain, a starving crow, the last flash of a fox‟s brush, city which holds all times and places. (Gee: 2004, pp. 324- 325) The separation from ecological environment is noticed here. Cities and urban locations have departed from the equilibrium of ecology. The stained, bloody waters, horrible, wretched garbage filled waters show how equilibrium in nature has been lost in the post- modernist age. The tendencies and trends of the postmodernism have made their great impact on the human psyche. The human mind has about twelve decades ago been found to have deeper recesses in it. The waking mind and the subconscious mind are the two layers. The subconscious mind possesses the faculty of driving men and women to action. Now, the impact on the human psyche in the contemporary times has shown that the psychological diversions have given rise to terrorism and fundamentalism. This has led to the violent protests Chapter - III: Condition-of-England Novels: A Self-Reflective Mood 130

and out bursts of violent acts in the recent past. The psychological imbalance has made individuals to suffer a great deal from the sense of alienation, rootlessness, hopelessness, homelessness, loneliness and other disorders. The modern man has realized the futility of life as there is no exit from the dull and boring routine of life struggles. They lead lives which are nothing but waiting for nothing in a dark vacant tunnel of turmoil and physical as well as psychological sufferings. The period after 1980 has changed the life and consequently the human psyche to a large extent to bring in the frustration, boredom, complexity and futility of postmodern life, all over the globe. This is reflected in the novel The Flood by the postmodern novelist Maggie Gee. The idea of The Flood though traced back to Noah‟s Ark, it can be seen as a metaphorical extension of the Second World War where Britain was constantly under attack and many thought apocalypse was near. The Flood hence is the metaphorical representation of the anxious society.

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CHAPTER-IV UGANDAN NOVELS: HOME COMING, CULTURAL CONFLICTS AND SOCIAL CRITIQUE IV.1 Disintegration of Social Institutions: Family and Marriage IV.2 Materialism: Lack of Spirituality, Morality, Religion and Faith IV.3 Visual Representation: Cinematic Techniques and Visual Impression of Objects, Places and Persons IV.4 Pastiche and Photographic Presentation: Music, Painting, Sculpture and Other IV.5 Postmodern Narrative Technique: Plot Structure, Setting, Characterization, Point of View and Structural Design IV.6 Class Conflict, Inequalities, Violence and Social Mobility IV.7 Marginalization and Search for Self-Identity IV.8 Cultural Studies: Multiculturalism as a Multidisciplinary Approaches IV.9 Global and Domestic Concerns between Wealth and Poverty IV.10 Thematic Complexities and Stylistic Devices IV.11 Digitalized World: Techno Culture, Pop-culture, Media Culture and Supersonic Speed IV.12 Sociological, Psychological, Political and Economic Aspects in Postmodern Age IV.13 Humans, Non-humans and Nature: Interrelationship IV.14 Black Comedy and Hyper Reality IV.15 Maggie Gee’s Philosophy of Life and her Interest in Evolutionary Biology IV.16 Loss of Ecological Equilibrium and Impact of Postmodernism on Human Psyche

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CHAPTER-IV UGANDAN NOVELS: HOME COMING, CULTURAL CONFLICTS AND SOCIAL CRITIQUE

In the present chapter the researcher has done postmodernist interpretation of the two Ugandan Novels is My Cleaner and My Driver by Maggie Gee. This chapter attempts to give an idea about the purpose of undertaking the present study. In the present context, the objectives are quite obvious as the study intends to find out the presence of postmodern features in the two Ugandan Novels, which are selected for the analytical investigation. It is noteworthy that the postmodern features in these novels of Maggie Gee are found in plenty. Each of the postmodern features is explained through the presentation of the copious textual illustrations and through the appropriate critical commentary of the specific features. Uganda was a British protectorate and it is to be noticed that how immigration happened after the end of the colonization that again created a postmodernist conundrum- because the colonizer and the colonized came together in this set-up.

IV.1 Disintegration of Social Institutions: Family and Marriage Vanessa Henman is a write- a novelist. A woman from Uganda, Mary Tends, worked about eight years in the middle class Henman household in London. She worked as a cleaner for Vanessa and looked after carefully and affectionately her only son – Justin. After ten years Mary Tendo left England and went to Uganda. Vanessa sent a letter inviting her to come to London again. She tells Mary about it on the phone. I started to tell her about Justin, his terrible depression, his refusal to eat, the way he was getting less and less mobile, the succession of doctors who could do nothing. „Justin hates everybody, Mary. Except you. Of course you know how much I love him. (Gee: 2005, p. 42)

Chapter - IV: Ugandan Novels: Home Coming, Cultural Conflicts and Social Critique 132

Vanessa Henman needs Mary Tendo‟s services after a gap of about ten years. Her need is genuine. She faces a family crisis. In the postmodern period the social institutions are in disarray, they have crumbled, collapsed. The family bonds are the bonds of blood relations. These are the bonds of kinship. There is mutual attachment by which the members of a family are closely associated. These bonds and relations have snapped now. The family system has shrunk to become a nuclear family of just the parents and their children, preferably only one son and only one daughter. This is the canvas and small compass of the family ties Vanessa Henman, her husband Trevor and their son Justin, as the three members of Henman family. The lack of mutual love and communication has made the situation uncompromising. The distinctive feature of disintegrated family life is characteristic feature of postmodern society. The marriage system is a social institution that has sanctioned the man-woman relationship. The need to be together, the natural urge of procreation and the bonding of male and female is sanctified by this institution of marriage. Specifically in the postmodern period, this bonding has become almost binding. This leads to the break-up in the relationship. The husband and the wife lose the interest in their life partner. This is what is happening quite often these days. This results in the single-parent (preferably female) living away from the husband, as is the case of Vanessa Henman. I asked her, where is the family? She looked puzzled, and then she laughed. You are form Africa, of course. This is a single-parent family. That means, it is just me and my boy. Women like me rather like it that way.‟ She said it with strange, show off face that made me think that she did not really like it. (Gee: 2005, p. 32)

Vanessa Henman explained to Mary Tendo what she meant by a single-parent family. By the expression “women like me” Vanessa Henman meant that the modern women are different from African women. Their families do not have too many children, aunts, sister and grandchildren. The disintegration of family as well as marriage Chapter - IV: Ugandan Novels: Home Coming, Cultural Conflicts and Social Critique 133

system is the characteristic feature of the postmodern age, portrayed and presented by Maggie Gee in novel My Cleaner. Human beings have established themselves in certain ways of life styles, traditional customs and systems of thinking. What is best thought and created by human beings, is known as culture of a specific group of human beings, Agrarian civilization was replaced by the industrial civilization and that too is replaced by the information technology. In the history of human civilization various social institutions have regulated human conduct. One of the powerful social institutions is the family system. The patriarchal family has been the basis of the social organization. The kinship bonds held men belonging to a clan together in a family group. For centuries, the family system continued as the predominant social system. In the days of modernism and postmodernism these social institutions are crumbling and collapsing. In the novel My Driver, this disintegration of family as a social institution is presented through the disintegrated family life of the two members of one and the same family as that of Vanessa Henman and her ex-husband Trevor, whom she calls „Tigger‟. Mary Tendo has invited Trevor to help her to mend the well in her village, and she has asked Trevor not to let Vanessa know, because otherwise Vanessa might want to come with him, since Vanessa seems to think they are still married; though she also likes to tell the story of the divorce, which she demanded bravely, as a feminist. (Gee: 2009, p. 19)

Vanessa Henman, the writer has already taken divorce from her husband and so the house is broken. She stays as a single parent with her son. The break-up and the collapse of the family system are noticed in the relations, which are strained in the Henman household. The social institutions like the family system and the marriage system has depended on the march of human civilizations and cultures for thousands of years. That grasp has become loosened. As a feminist Vanessa Henman demanded the divorce and she obtained the same from Trevor. Chapter - IV: Ugandan Novels: Home Coming, Cultural Conflicts and Social Critique 134

„I want something for my grandchild.‟ She feels pride as she says it. It‟s like a statement that she is a good person, the fact she has a grandchild, and cares for him. „Yes, there are toys for children,‟ he says eagerly, driving her towards a stand of wooden animal. „These are very cheap. You can buy many. How many grandchildren do you have?‟ „Oh, one,‟ she says, and is slightly ashamed. „I expect I will have more, I am still quite young.‟ he looks at her, amazed at this. After a pause, he says, „Yes, Madam, you are still young.‟ In the end she buys a small wooden lion. Isaac‟s disappointed, but time is getting on. „For my little grandson,‟ she says to the woman, who smiles at her. „The last customer also has bought one for his grandson,‟ she says as she wraps it. „They are popular. But he bought a male one, you bought – Madam, I do not know the word for this.‟ (Gee: 2009, pp. 254-255)

The other customer who bought another wooden lion was nobody else but Vanessa Henman‟s divorced ex-husband Trevor- Tigger. This is how their marriage did not last, did not succeed. Vanessa Henman, as a feminist; demanded this divorce as she considered herself superior to her husband who was just a plumber, while she was a middle-class writer. This disintegration of family and marriage systems indicates a postmodern trait.

IV.2 Materialism: Lack of Spirituality, Morality, Religion and Faith The age of postmodernism is characterized by the material greed and lust. Money madness has grown. Financial terms are the talk of the town. People are measured by their stocks and by their bank balance and credit cards. Possession mania has taken hold of men everywhere. Earning and spending are the main activities of daily life. „Give‟ and „Take‟ are the major affairs in which men are involved. This materialism has pushed in the craze for material possessions and so spirituality and morality have lost their hold on humanity and religious faith. Unspirituality, immorality and faithlessness are rampant everywhere. Chapter - IV: Ugandan Novels: Home Coming, Cultural Conflicts and Social Critique 135

Don‟t forget that Abdu is a Muslim too, says Mary quickly, but Abdu shrugs and smiles. Mary has dreaded being asked about Jamey, but once she tarts to talk, it is almost a relief. Ugandan Muslims aren‟t strict like Omar. Well he wasn‟t at first, but as he grew older.... Remember Omar was Libyan. And may he work for the embassy, of course. He thought I was holding him back. He changed. People change. He began to believe he could find someone better, younger, less stubborn, a good Muslim.‟ Now the words come less easily. And he thought – it would be better for Jamie too. When we were posted back to London, things readily went wrong. Omar grew afraid of all the godlessness here. He thought that Jamil would be sucked in May be find a non-Muslim girlfriend, because what? Because, Omar himself had done the same. And so –Mary stops, and takes a gulp of water. (Gee: 2005, p. 132)

Mary Tendo‟s ex-husband the Libyan, Omar, feared the godlessness in the country when they were posted back to London. The choice of a non-Muslim girl-friend was considered immoral by him. This is unspirituality that has enveloped in the present time. Materialism and immorality have held the modern society in their tight grasps. Mary Tendo, a Ugandan woman, worked in Vanessa Henman‟s house when her son, Justin, was just three years old. May worked in London for eight years and looked after Justin almost like her own son Jamil. Justin grew under her protective care for eight years. Now after ten years he is about twenty two, but he has not grown up. He is just a big baby, day by day he is getting less and less mobile. „Mary! He whines, in explosive panic, „You have to be joking, you know I can‟t drive, my mother made you promise to look after me!‟ „Yes,‟ says Mary. „Nineteen years ago. But now it is over. You are no longer a baby; I do not have to look after you. Now I shall get out so that you can take over. (Gee: 2005, p. 309)

Justin starts sobbing and panicking. He faces the horrible terror of adult life, where he will be cold. She suddenly realizes that while she is there he will always be a baby who expects Mary to be his Chapter - IV: Ugandan Novels: Home Coming, Cultural Conflicts and Social Critique 136

nanny, his second mother. Mary Tendo tells Justin to move in the driver‟s sit which he does not do. He just sits there shaking; a boy in a bubble, a frozen boy, and Mary suddenly realizes what she must do now to remove his fear. This fear can be seen in today‟s young generation. They are afraid of facing life on their own. They make a cocoon of their own life and place themselves inside it, hidden in a corner. Coming out with confidence is not possible for such people. They lack the pluck to see things as they really are. This plucklessness is a tendency of the postmodern age. Modern times are stamped by the presence of materialism and the possession mania for all things which are materialistic. The growth of materialism is the sign of the decline of spiritualism. There is total shrinking of religious faith and the hold of religious powers on human of life. These harsh realities of life have emerged on account of the growing commercialized life around. The man Charles is not to be jealous of, Trevor, is talking to his on-off Iranian girlfriend in London. She is off, really. They both know it. They have tried to love each other, given up. His reading, when she wants them to go out, annoys her: „What is point, Trevor? Always reading books.‟ Soraya‟s charming, fractured English no longer charms him. Nor her youth, which merely makes him feel old: besides, at 32, she‟s aware of time passing. She‟s accursing him of being „unavailable,‟ a word she picked up from an American TV talk show about Men Who Cannot Love. „Unavailable?‟ he asks her, puzzled. „You came here to get away from the veil.‟ „You make always stupid joke, Trevor.‟ „No, really – oh, I see! UNAVAILABLE.‟ „You correct always my English, Trevor!‟ And with that she bursts into tears again, and says, between sobs, „You never, never marry me, either. I am not joke. I am art teacher. AN art teacher. I am good at job – good at MY job. Do not correct. I come here four years ago and learn everything, English from start-up. And make myself something. But to you I am nothing.‟ „Remember I‟ve done this marrying lark before. I was hopeless at it, so Vanessa tells me. And how many times have you called me hopeless? I‟m not rich enough. Nor young enough Look, I‟m boring, to you, But I like being boring. You need a nice, rich young Chapter - IV: Ugandan Novels: Home Coming, Cultural Conflicts and Social Critique 137

genius. Someone like Damien Hirst, Soraya. And he could give you that skull full of jewels.‟ Resignedly, she nods, and cries again. „But is not genius, Damien Hirst. Only genius at making money. You are nice man, Trevor. Nice man. Sorry.‟ He knows she needs British citizenship, but even when they were first together – he likes to please, but he can‟t go that far. „You‟re a lovely girl, Soraya. Someone will marry you.‟ „Yes. Is obvious.‟ He‟s hurt her pride. „Now you must leave, Trevor, I am busy. Go please, now. I must prepare my class.‟ (Gee: 2009, pp. 71-72)

This is stark materialism. Trevor cannot marry his on-off Iranian girl-friend, as he has already burnt his fingers in his marriage with Vanessa. He gives her a purely material, practical advice to marry a young person who is rich. Soraya needs British citizenship for practically material reasons. This materialism is a trait of postmodern literary works like My Driver by Maggie Gee. In the novel My Driver the British writer and teacher Vanessa Henman invited her cleaner Mary Tendo from Uganda to London, to look after her twenty two year old son, Justin. Maggie Gee in her next novel, My Driver, presents a totally different situation; Vanessa Henman goes to Kampada, Uganda to attend an International Writers Conference. Her divorced husband Trevor, has also been invited by „cleaner‟ Mary Tendo to build a well in her remote village. Vanessa was not aware of this. Her vanity and self-centredness are noticed in My Driver. An hour later, the passengers for Entebbe are in a queue for boarding. Vanessa, hardly able to stand upright with the weight of her flight bag dragging back her shoulders, is pleading with the British Airways steward, who is smiling automatically, consulting his list. „I am representing the British Council, and I will be writing about Uganda. I will definitely mention British Airways in my article, if you could offer me an upgrade.‟ His face becomes frankly puzzled as she adds, pink-faced with the foretaste of failure, „I asked the gentleman in Departures. This is my novel. I‟m Vanessa Hennman.‟ It‟s hard to hold the book, her flight bag, her boarding-card and her litre of water. Why can‟t they make things easy for her? Chapter - IV: Ugandan Novels: Home Coming, Cultural Conflicts and Social Critique 138

„I‟ve checked the list. You‟re in World Traveller.‟ „Thank you.‟ She smiles, ecstatic: she‟s pulled it off. She‟s been upgraded to World Traveller. And then she‟s suspicious. A sinking of the heart. „Is that an upgrade?‟ I‟m afraid not.‟ (Gee: 2009, pp. 29-30)

This is her vanity, her puffed-up pride holding herself to be a great author and a famous dignitary. In her self-centeredness, Vanessa Henman demands up gradation in the allocation of seats in the British Airways flight. She promises a mention in her writing on her visit to Uganda. She is put in World Traveller Category. Her self- centred attempts have yielded good results. She has got an up- gradation. This self-centre vanity is a postmodern.

IV.3 Visual Representation: Cinematic Techniques and Visual Impression of Objects, Places and Persons The series of photographic concrete images is projected on the screen to project a film. It has visual transparent clarity of its own. There are different ways in which the image in a film is captured by the camera. The camera is put either on a crane or a trolley and the up-down, front-back movements of these allow the cameraman to take shots from different angles. There is the entire background caught through a long short and the scene appears magnified through a shot called close up as it is taken from close quarters. These techniques are used in presenting an incident from the novel, in addition to the fictional techniques; the cinematic techniques are also used. Next morning the phone rings at seven am. A man with a foreign voice is shouting. „Wrong number,‟ Vanessa says, half-asleep. He seems to be shouting, „Merry Christmas.‟ „This is a wrong number!‟ she shouts back, and crashes the phone back on to its cradle. She is teaching today: she needs her sleep. Two minutes later, the phone rings again. She snatches it up, and bellows „Yes?‟ This time the voice is speaking very slowly, as if to a dangerous idiot. „Mary Tendo please. I am phonin‟ from Uganda. This is her house? I must speak to Mary Tendo.‟ Chapter - IV: Ugandan Novels: Home Coming, Cultural Conflicts and Social Critique 139

Vanessa goes to the door, her eyes still half-closed, and bellows „MARY!‟ at full volume. „Telephone! From Africa!‟ Mary seems to appear from the wrong direction, from Justin‟s bedroom rather than her own, and brushes past her without a word, sits down on her bed, and takes possession of the phone, leaning back on Vanessa‟s pillows, smiling and swinging her feet up cheerily. After three or four minutes, which feels like an hour to Vanessa, standing there frowning and rubbing her eyes, Mary Tendo rings off, and says, „Thank you, Miss Vanessa.‟ „It was very early,‟ says Vanessa, meaningfully. „It is all right, Miss Vanessa, do not worry. I was already awake, relaxing.‟ „I hope the phone-call was important. Is somebody ill? Has someone died?‟ Vanessa is not at her best in the morning, but the edge of irony is lost on Mary. „Think God, my friend is very well. This was my friend the accountant, Charles. One day you will meet him when he comes to London!‟ „Oh really.‟ Vanessa‟s voice contains a wealth of meaning, but Mary has already gone back to bed, smiling a broad and kindly smile. Vanessa cannot get to sleep again. (Gee: 2005, p. 85)

This is how cinematic techniques are used in the novel My Cleaner. The postmodern novel My Cleaner, has presented objects, places and persons through the visual impressions. Mary Tendo has travelled by air from Uganda to Heathrow airport in London. She is greeted there by Vanessa Henman. The visual images are sensuous and appeal to the senses of sight through their clarity and colourfulness, the senses of hearing through the musical and rhythmic sounds, the senses of touch through the softness of silk, the senses of smell through the fragrance and the senses of taste through the buds of bitter-sweet, sour-hot tastes. But we were still young, and very happy. Happiness never turns into stone. Happiness gleams like sand in your hands. We tried out the echo in the open air theatre. Beyond the stage, more sand, then sea. The sky was bright blue and had no edges. There were no clouds. It was full of hope. There was sand in my Chapter - IV: Ugandan Novels: Home Coming, Cultural Conflicts and Social Critique 140

pockets for years and years. Hard bright grains to press with my fingers. (Gee: 2005, p. 16)

Sand as hard bright grains to press provides the visual impressions of brightness, smallness, hardness and timelessness. Bright blue cloudless sky too makes a visual impression. This is how the use of sensuously appealing concrete clear and transparent images is made in the novel. A novel is a long prose narrative that captures a realistic picture of human experience. The narrative techniques of a novel depend on the use of prose appropriately. The appropriate use of prose includes the visualization of the narration. The visualization is brought in by using the techniques used by cinematographers. A camera captures the background through a long shot and magnifies the expression in the eyes through a close up. There are other ways of narrating photographically. „I‟m thinking of going to Bwindi‟ says Vanessa. „To see the gorillas. I always wanted to. But it is rather near the border with DRC.‟ „I wouldn‟t go anywhere near Congo‟, says Deirdre, though no-one else seems to have heard what she said, which is a pity, since Vanessa hoped to make an impression.‟ Deirdre has spiritedly resumed her story. „I had this teeny-weeding nightdress on, and my friend Polly was sleeping naked, and this huge black man.‟ She stops her story as a tall Ugandan waiter brings her another beer on a tin tray. „Enjoy your beer, dear,‟ he says, but they cannot see his face, outlined against the palm trees and the blue starry might, and he walks away, silently, back to the hoted, to the bawling white men in the crowded bar. (Gee: 2009, p. 123)

Deirdre‟s telling of the story of a huge black man entering, the waiter‟s arrival with another glass of beer, his address to them, the palm trees, the starry night and the other details stated in prose are such that they need cinematic cuttings of moving from one to another scene, storytelling, arrival, departure, landscape, the juxtaposition, long and close up shots and other cinematic techniques are used by the postmodern writers. Chapter - IV: Ugandan Novels: Home Coming, Cultural Conflicts and Social Critique 141

Visual impressions are the concrete images of objects, places and personas which are presented by the novelist in describing these objects and narrating these incidents. It is the presentation that appeals so the senses of sight in order to reproduce the object described in a visual manner. The rice, the flour, the soap, the oil, all the big packs of foodstuffs are received without comment, as if they here expected, and almost insufficient, but some cans of Coca-Cola, three plastic footballs and two packs of biros are exclaimed over. The clothes are certainly the star of the show: Jacob takes some shoes, and tries them on, appreciatively, slowly, watched by his family and the uncle is delighted with his grey zipped jacket. He zips it up: he zips it down. Then Mary shows the meat and everyone laughs, and the women of Jacob‟s family take it and disappear behind a thin red curtain that divides the kitchen from the lining space. (Gee: 2009, p. 183)

Each item given by Mary to Jacob‟s family is visually described. There is solidity, there is concreteness and there is the material physical presence of these objects. That is how the oil, the flour, the soaps and the rice are presented visually. These items are presented first and it is commented that these food stuffs have been expected. Then there are clothes and shoes. These are tried by those who receive them. This is now each item presented is with visual impression in order to indicate the way postmodern writers describe the objects in their novels like My Driver by Maggie Gee.

IV.4 Pastiche and Photographic Presentation: Music, Painting, Sculpture and Other Poetry, novel and drama are the major forms of literature, which use the medium of language and express emotions, narrate incidents and dramatize actions. In the postmodern writings these distinct features are of the genres of literature. The generic distinctions are blurred, removed and deliberately eliminated. Maggie Gee has inter- mixed these diverse generic features in her successive novels one after Chapter - IV: Ugandan Novels: Home Coming, Cultural Conflicts and Social Critique 142

another, mixing poetic lines, dramatic dialogues and descriptions and narrations in prose of high literary merits. ‟Leave him, Mary‟, Vanessa gasps, „Just let him go.‟ „But he is a thief. In Kampala, we deal with them! Every week, the crowd catches someone on the street, Next day they report a death in the papers!‟ Mary is shouting this at Derrick. „Villain, I will kill you if you take my money.‟ „He hasn‟t taken anything.‟ (Gee: 2005, p. 281)

The whole scene is dramatically presented in actions and in words too. The conversation goes on between Mary Tendo and Vanessa Henman, but there is the third person, Derrick, about whom they are speaking. The way Mary Tendo deals with him is characteristically the Kampala, the Ugandan way. Such open air street dramas do take place almost every day there. The spirit of this theatre of the people is very well captured here. The genres of novel and drama have come together to create an artistic effect through the use of simplicity of diction in this novel. Pastiche is a distinctive mark of postmodernist writings of the twenty-first century. The fine arts are photographically and realistically presented in the postmodernist works of art, in particular in the works of literature. The gaps in the house become wide and deeper. They sit there stranded in the shadowy sitting room, surrounded by photographs of strangers, and suddenly they feel what they did not before, two African women in a foreign land. Mary stares at Vanessa‟s African masks which her employer is particularly proud of, staring out at them from an expanse of pale plaster, dark cicatrized faces with empty eyes. They do not fool like ancestors. (Gee: 2005, p. 175)

She goes dancing in the early hours at Club Afrique in Canning Town, and although the pounds are a lot of money, although there are too many Congolese, it is wonderful to hear Ugandan music, Ragga D, Trishlaa and Jingo Shoe, and Mary loves dancing, though when she was with Omar she only danced at home, with him. Now all the men want to dance with her, although she is a decade older than some of them. The beat is in her blood, her hips, her heads. She could Chapter - IV: Ugandan Novels: Home Coming, Cultural Conflicts and Social Critique 143

dance for ever: shows the Dancing Queen. Oh, and here is her favourite, Chameleon. (Gee: 2005, p. 127)

The arts and artistic pursuits are evident there Music, dance, painting and sculptured masks are noticed everywhere. The plastic arts are there in the socialization that has been initiated and expanded by Mary Tendo to meet Ugandans in London. Arts help in this process of assimilation of multi-cultural groups in a metropolitan centre like London. This is a peculiar postmodernist feature that is reflected in the works of Maggie Gee. The genres of literature in the days of conventional writings till the outbreak of the world wars, maintained their own independent formats and styles, dominated the thinking in those days. In the modern and post-modern literature such conventions are not followed rigidly. Now the inter-mix of genres of literature such as prose, poetry and drama has become a norm. It has become a characteristic feature of postmodernist writings. Poetic descriptions, dramatic situations and the use of dialogue and narration of incidents have become the prevalent tendency, in particular, of the postmodernist novelists. Maggie Gee makes use of this feature of inter-mingling of the genres of literature in her novels. Such an inter-mixing of the forms of literature is called pastiche. She leaves Trevor in the car with Mercy and Theodora and walks into the shop by the petrol pumps. A few minutes later she returns, not smiling, with a clanking plastic bag, from which she takes three cans of Fanta, two of which she shoots forcefully back over her shoulder at Mercy and the little girl in the back. There are cries of pleasure and surprise. „Are you happy, Mercy?‟ She asks in English, as if she wants Trevor to know the maid is happy. „I think you are fine now, with your Fanta.‟ „Eeee aunty tweyanziza.‟ A coo of assent, and a slurping noise. „And for you I have also bought a Fanta, ‟ she says to Trevor, handing it over, „and something else I think you like even better.‟ It‟s twenty cigarettes. She is really trying hard. „Well, that‟s kind of you, Mary‟, he says, mollified. „But tell Chapter - IV: Ugandan Novels: Home Coming, Cultural Conflicts and Social Critique 144

you the truth, I‟ve given them up. Didn‟t I mention it, on the phone?‟ „I see! Vanessa has made you give them up.‟ He spots the glint behind her glass. (Now he thinks about it, he‟s sure he told her). „It‟s not Vanessa,‟ he protests. „I don‟t have to be told what to do, like a child ... I suppose it might have been Soraya, though, partly, Anyway, I‟d better not start again.‟ (Gee: 2009, p. 160) The use of dramatic situations and plenty of dialogue in a prose narrative is there. Maggie Gee has made use of intermingling of the different forms of literary writings – Pastiche. Literature is a product of creative verbal structure. Words and rhythmic patterns are used as the medium of literature while the medium of music is the combination of sounds and rhythmic patterns. Music and literature are temporal fine arts. Painting, sculpture and architecture are the spatial or plastic arts. They have the formal structure which is visually observed. Colors, the medium of sculptures-stone, wood, metal and the architectural designs are medium used for the plastic arts. These arts have made their impact felt in the works by Maggie Gee. Musical and poetic expressions are found in plenty in the novel, My Driver. The descriptions of nature are highly musical. Many of the descriptions are picturesque. In particular the descriptions of nature are, as colourful as the pictures painted by master painters. The artistic forms are transparent in major portions of the novel. The fire part pattern has high architectonic peculiarities. The dramatization and the flitting gestures and graceful movements of the different parts of the body used in dancing too have their contribution in the poetic descriptions and splendid forms and structures of the plastic arts. The fine arts have been mixed quite artistically by the novelist Maggie Gee.

IV.5 Postmodern Narrative Technique: Plot Structure, Setting, Characterization, Point of View and Structural Design The novel, My Cleaner, narrates the three intimately attached persons, crossing the barriers of race, class, gender and nationalities. Chapter - IV: Ugandan Novels: Home Coming, Cultural Conflicts and Social Critique 145

Vanessa Henman is a British writer, who hires a cleaner in her house. Her son, Justin, was just three years of age then. Her plumber husband, Trevor, was also there, rather neglected and often ridiculed by Vanessa Henman. Mary Tendo respects Trevor, and loves Justin almost like her son. Ten years ago, she went back to Kampala in Uganda. Now she is again summoned by Vanessa Henman, because she wants Mary Tendo to look after Justin in his period of depression and immobility. The return of Mary Tendo to the middle class household of Vanessa Henman shifts the power of balance dramatically, as Mary Tendo occupies almost heroic status there. The promise of looking after Justin, who had she made nineteen years ago, is very satisfactorily fulfilled by Mary Tendo. She makes the dependent boy a full grown man. This narrative is unfolded from Mary Tendo‟s and Vanessa Henman‟s perspective in the novel My Cleaner. At least fourteen chapters – twenty-five percent are narrated from Mary Tendo‟s point of view. „Much of the joy of reading Maggie Gee derives from her ability to take control of a complex and multilayered narrative and render it as accessible and satisfying as television soap. Her prose is rich and gossipy; it mixes the highbrow with the vernacular, and is, at times, shockingly cynical.‟ (Gee: 2005, Title Page)

This is how various narrative postmodernist strategies are used to unfold this narrative. Putting together the entire action, the serialized episodes, providing the cause and effect, are the ingredients of the way in which the plot of a novel is constructed. The invitation to Mary Tendo by Vanessa Henman to London for looking after her grown-up son Justin is the starting point of the plot of the novel My Cleaner. The next part of the plot is Mary Tendo‟s arrival in London and she takes charge of her job and her ward- Justin. She is very careful and tender in her dealing with the grown up baby Justin, that is simply depressed on account of his loss of nerve and pluck. Mary Toando‟s socialization is Chapter - IV: Ugandan Novels: Home Coming, Cultural Conflicts and Social Critique 146

the way she expands the horizon of her life in London. She finds many Ugandan women working in London and they begin to exchange and tally their notes. The stage after that is more dependence on Mary Tendo and Vanessa Henman‟s withdrawal into her own self-centered cocoon. Mary Tendo becomes the need of the household. She is the link between the mother and the son. In the last portion of the plot of this novel, Mary Tendo makes Justin a responsible grown up man, who accepts his becoming a father graciously. These five stages are progressive steps which have made the construction of the plot an engrossing, interesting work that needs a thorough start to finish reading as a postmodern text. Parallel characterization is prominently noticed in the mode of characterization in My Cleaner. Mary Tendo and Vanessa Henman are closely attached to each other, despite of the differences in their races, religions, class affiliations and nationalities. They represent the status of Africa and Great Britain, relations through their life stories. One is a careerist writer and the other belongs to the working class of the cleaners. Trevor, Vanessa Henman‟s husband and Mary Tendo‟s ex- husband Omar from Libya are sailing in the same boat. Omar has taken divorce from Mary Tendo for the godlessness in the life of London. Trevor is estranged from his sophisticated wife Vanessa Henman. She is a writer while he is a plumber. Their sons too have some similarity. They are able bodies, well- knit and intelligent. Justin is depressed on account of a set-up and is emotionally distributed. Jamil is frustrated as he has not got the opportunity to open up and bloom freely. There is lack of confidence in Justin but there is the lack of suitable opening for Jamil. Mary Tendo and Justin are the characters which have grown during the course of the action of the novel. Mary Tendo is now an executive keeper in a prestigious hotel in Kampala, Uganda and is about to be with the account friend Charles. Justin is a proud person now who has grown in his, stature. This mode of characterization displays a postmodern trait in Maggie Gee‟s writings. Chapter - IV: Ugandan Novels: Home Coming, Cultural Conflicts and Social Critique 147

The narrative pattern is presented in My Cleaner, is determined by the point of view adopted by the narrator. Fourteen chapters of the fifty-six, have been presented through the point of view and perspective of Mary Tendo, „Did Justin‟s mother send you to tell me to stay away?‟ asks Zakira, „She puts the phone down on me you know.‟ „I do not really come here from Miss Henman,‟ Mary hurries to say. „I came from Justin.‟ Zakira stares for a long moment, deciding, And then she says, „Well, it‟s Justin‟s baby.‟ And Mary claps her hands, and jumps in the air. „It is Justin‟s baby, I am so happy! I am Mary Tendo, I am Justin‟s nanny.‟ A small tear starts from Zakira‟s eye. No one has been happy about this baby, „My God, you‟re Mary. I‟ve heard so much about you. Is it really you? When did you come back?‟ (Gee: 2005, p. 172)

This illustrates the use of various points of view of different characters. Vanessa Henman is cross with Zakira; Zakira and Mary Tendo are glad to have the baby. Mary Tendo almost dances with joy to know about Justin‟s baby. Zakira is also happy to meet Mary Tendo for the first time. She has heard a lot of about her and knows that she genuinely cares for Justin. The multiple points of view indicate a postmodern trait. The setting of the novel is from both the continents of Europe and Africa who share a history of bloodshed and conflict, a history where Europe was the master and Africa its slave. The protagonist of the novel is Mary Tendo, who is a cleaner from Uganda. For the last ten years Mary Tendo has worked in various capacities in Uganda finally becoming an Executive housekeeper in a prestigious hospitality establishment in Kampala, city of Uganda. Her life story is unravelled in the novel along with the change in her relations with Vanessa Henman and her son Justin. A large portion of the novel has the setting of the city of London in Great Britain. There are portions when the action is set against Uganda and sometimes in Libya too. Chapter - IV: Ugandan Novels: Home Coming, Cultural Conflicts and Social Critique 148

The setting of a novel sets the spirit of the novel. The core of the narration of a novel is characterized by its distinctive setting. Maggie Gee‟s novels are called „Conditions-of-England Novels,‟ as they project the realistic picture of life in the contemporary time in England. The emotional attachment, the sensitive ups and downs, the mental conflicts, the psychological analysis of middle class life is related with the presentation of the place of action. My Cleaner is a postmodern novel and its novelistic elements display the peculiar postmodern environment through this novel. The structural design of the novel, My Cleaner, is marked by the divisions in parts and chapters. The novel has given broad divisions in five parts-Part-I from chapter 1 to chapter 10, Part-II from chapter 11 to chapter 19, Part-III from Chapter 20 to Chapter 34, Part-IV from chapter 35 to chapter 48 and Part-V from chapter 49 to chapter 56. There are in all fifty-six chapters in the novel. The exposition is presented in the first ten chapters in which Vanessa Henman, the British writer, invites her former cleaner, Mary Tendo, to come back to London from Uganda. The rising action leads to the way Mary Tendo takes charge of her grown up baby, from chapter eleven to chapter nineteen. The third part from chapter twenty to chapter thirty-four deals with the expansion of Mary Tendo‟s personal life into her socialization with the other Ugandan workers in London. The fourth part of chapter thirty- five to forty-eight presents the growing dependence on Mary Tendo and her occupying the central position in the middle-class Henman family. She is carefully and tenderly looking after her duties. The fifth part runs from chapter forty-nine to chapter fifty-six shows how Mary Tendo helps the depressed Justin to become fully aware of his manhood and also parenthood. This is the step by step development of the structural design of the novel, My Cleaner. The novel, My Driver, has presented a reverse situation. Two Europeans are on a safari in the interiors of central Africa. Vanessa Chapter - IV: Ugandan Novels: Home Coming, Cultural Conflicts and Social Critique 149

Henman is attending an academic conference to impress others with her proud self and vain belief, that she is a writer of international repute. She then decides to have a tour to Bwindi, Impenetrable Forest, in order to see the gorillas in their natural and original habitat. It turns to be a horrifying experience for her. On being invited by Mary Tendo, the ex-cleaner in the Henman household, Trevor, Vanessa Henman‟s ex-husband, has also come to Uganda, to help Mary to build a well in her village. He too goes through a series of memorable experiences on his tour of the interiors of rural Uganda. Mary Tendo is also a seeker. She continues her search to find out the whereabouts of her son, Jamil, who has been missing. These journeys make the three central characters, who are always on the move. The narratives follow these characters moving and many innovative strategies are used to present their safaris in Africa. Travelogue, dramatized situations, ecological awareness, political commentary, economic review and sociological document are the devices which are used to convey the thrilling and enjoyable outings in a sparkling witty fashion. Thus postmodern narrative techniques are employed in My Driver. Vanessa Henman has been invited for a writer‟s conference. She enthusiastically takes her flight to Kampala. After her stint in the conference, she decides to go on a real African Safari in the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest on the border of Uganda and Congo. Her flight and her safari in the car with her driver Isaac is crisscrossed by the flight and the safari taken by her ex-husband Trevor. The journey that is undertaken by Trevor is to provide the elixir of life to the thirsty, in the rural countryside of this central African country – Uganda. These two journeys are simultaneous, though the travellers are unaware of this. The journeys are dramatically presented and therefore Vanessa Henman is surprised to see one Ugandan woman is driving a car and the passenger is a British citizen. She does not imagine that her ex-cleaner Mary Tendo Chapter - IV: Ugandan Novels: Home Coming, Cultural Conflicts and Social Critique 150

is the driver and her ex-husband Trevor is the traveller in that car which has moved ahead of her car driven by Isaac. The plot of the novel is constructed to narrate the account of these journeys, undertaken by the two Britishers in Uganda. No journey is possible without a driver and therefore how the drivers conduct these journeys is what constitutes the plot of this novel My Driver. The novel My Driver is about the reunion of those who were estranged and who were lost. Vanessa Henman got herself divorced from her plumber husband Trevor Patchett. Both of them have landed in Kampala, Uganda. Almost simultaneously, but on totally different missions, Vanessa Henman has come to attend a writers conference. Vanessa Henman and Trevor Patchett are the two central characters of this novel. Mary Tendo and her husband Charles, her son Jamil and her daughters, Theodara are the other characters, who have been presented in this novel. My Driver is the title of the novel and initially this driver is Issac, who is taking Vanessa Henman to Bwindi Impenetrable Forest. She quarrels with him during their safari. On this safari, she has to face a situation which almost endangers her. She is rescued from this catastrophe and gets another driver to drive her back. She, along with Trevor, returns to Mary Tendo and Mary lovingly embraces Vanessa Henman for bringing back her son Jamil to her. These reunions have portrayed these major characters in an artistically realistic manner. The broad liberal outlook of humanism is impressively elaborated through the modes of characterization, which Maggie Gee has handed. These agents of action enchant with their sparkling humour, black comedy and brilliance of wit. „My Driver transcends.... clichéd political correctness. This is a writer who clearly knows her way through central Africa‟s alphabet soup of rebel groups, and who has a clear-eyed grasp of the scramble for money and power that drivers the region‟s war... Gee‟s novel is an admirable success.‟ (Green: Financial Time: 2009, Title page)

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Uganda, in Central Africa, is the location of action in the novel My Driver. The political conflicts in central African countries such as Congo and Uganda provide the backdrop for action. The forests on the borders of Congo and Uganda occupy the central place is the setting of the climatic scenes of crisis and rescue. Bwindi Impenetrable Forest is visited to watch the mountain gorillas and the same location becomes the centre of dramatic action on which Vanessa Henman, her ex- husband Trevor Patchett, and Jamil, are involved. The hotel and conference venue, the Sheraton Hotel, where Mary Tendo works as the Executive Keeper are the other locations where action takes place. Another spot of action is Mary Tendo‟s village, where Trevor has come to build a well for the supply of water. The novel deals with towns, journeys, safaris and therefore a lot of action takes places “on the road”, when life-time‟s experiences are enjoyed and endured by the major characters of this novel. The use of multiple points of views is a major feature of the postmodern fictional writings and the same feature is found in Maggie Gee‟s novel My Driver. The novel begins with Vanessa Henman, the British novelist who is preparing for her flight to Kampala in Uganda to attend a Writer‟s Conference. The point of view used in narrating this portion is generally that of the novelist. Her pride and vainglory are imposed through her conduct, as she unfolds it. The other point of view adopted is that of Trevor Patchett, a plumber who has arrived in Uganda to work on a project of humanitarian service of water supply to the villagers. Mary Tendo‟s point of view is central to the narrative pattern of the novel My Driver. She is sad because her son Jamil is missing. She is on the mission of searching for her lost son. Her husband, Charles, the accountant, also presents his point of view in the course of the action, to voice his opinions on the matters of significance and the action that is unfolded by him with his liberal comments. The novelist Maggie Gee has lent her voice to these multiple figures so that the same experience is viewed from different Chapter - IV: Ugandan Novels: Home Coming, Cultural Conflicts and Social Critique 152

angles and this has added to the narrative strength of the present fictional work My Driver as a postmodern novel. My Driver has six parts and it has forty-six chapters. Its six parts are... (i) In Flight Entertainment (Chapter One to Eight, page 07 to 83) (ii) Outsiders (Chapter Nine to Sixteen, page 87 to 149) (iii) The Fountain of Life (Chapter Seventeen to Twenty six, page 153 to 231) (iv) Do-si-do (Chapters Twenty-seven to Thirty seven, page 235 to 302) (v) Heart of Darkness (Chapter Thirty eight to Forty three, page 305 to 338) and (vi) The Long Road Home (Chapter Forty Four Forty-six, page 34 to 364). The first eight chapters narrate how Vanessa Henman prepares for her flight to Kampala in Uganda in central Africa to attend a writers Conference there. Her attendance at the conference proved to be remarkable in her own estimate. In the second part of the novel, there are two outsiders Vanessa Henman and Trevor Patchett, who have visited the country in Africa. Vanessa Henman has two other missions to complete – one is her Safari to Bwindi Impenetrable Forest and the other, she wants to meet her ex-cleaner, Mary Tendo who is presently working as an Executive Keeper at the Sheraton Hotel in Kampala. She successfully completes both the missions and while doing this, she comes across many outstanding memorable experiences that involve her ex-husband Trevor Patchett, Mary Tendor‟s husband Charles, Mary‟s missing son, Jamil and her reunion with Mary Tendo herself and the unforgettable quarrel with her driver, Isaac. The third part is thus the Fountain of Life‟s experiences. The fourth part presents the rescue operations and in the fifth part problems deepen into the Heart of Darkness of the Dark Continent. Chapter - IV: Ugandan Novels: Home Coming, Cultural Conflicts and Social Critique 153

The sixth part is of reunions of Vanessa and Trevor and Mary and her son Jamil. The structural design of the novel has the distinctive features of postmodern.

IV.6 Class Conflict, Inequalities, Violence and Social Mobility Class inequality is noticed in the central pair of characters in the novel My Cleaner. Vanessa Henman is a British writer, she also works as a teacher. She has a good income. Her family is of two persons only, herself and her Justin. She can afford to keep a full- time nanny to look after her son Justin. Vanessa belongs to the rich upper middle class. Mary Tendo comes from Uganda. She is not rich. She has to work and earn her own wages. This is how she has chosen to work as a cleaner in London to maintain herself and for eight years she genuinely, carefully and tenderly looked after Vanessa Henman‟s son Justin. The class inequality between Vanessa Henman and Mary Tendo is thus transparently presented. Their nationalities are different. Their religious affiliations are different. There are other Ugandans in London and the differences which are there between Vanessa Henman and Mary Tendo are noticed in these Ugandans and the British citizens too, who belonged to the middle class. In addition to this, there are many migrants from Asia and Africa, who too belong to the lower and poor strata of the society, projecting the class inequalities among them. Violence is everywhere. There is no peace, as conflicts after conflicts have cropped up. Mary Tendo has noticed that there was a visitor who tried to molest and physically attack Vanessa Henman. So Marry Tendo came forward and chased that intruder away with her tactful skills of tackling such delicate situations. Violence is the major principle that has dominated the life in the present-day world. There is global violence and Mary Tendo herself has suffered from this violence. Her son Jamil is missing. Perhaps he has been taken away by the terrorists. Chapter - IV: Ugandan Novels: Home Coming, Cultural Conflicts and Social Critique 154

The violence that prevails all over the world is now on account of the notorious activities, which are being carried out by the terrorist and fundamentalist groups. The use of destructive weapons is very common. These groups continue to blast bombs, destroy the towers, attack the innocents and kill them in hundreds. This inhuman Violence has embraced the global situation violence is also caused due to the territorial ambitions, the false notions of supremacy, the religious conflicts, the intolerance of the opinions held by others. The woods are burning, the frontiers are on the fire and therefore in the postmodern time, violence is rampant. Morality is a set of values which determine the thinking and social conduct of a human being. Morality or the guiding principles for social conduct are fixed by conventional ethics and the ideals from the epics or legends. The Ten Commandments have set the rules of how to lead life decently and justly. The maxims like „Love Thy Neighbor‟ and Put forward the other cheek, if you are slapped on the first cheek‟ or „The Good Samanitan and Moses are to be followed and the conduct of Judas or Coin is to be avoided. This is essential morality that emphasizes the significance of conscience. The social structure and the belonging to a particular social class have made their impact felt on the acceptance and allegiance to morality. In the novel, My Cleaner, the cleaner is a Ugandan woman, Mary Tendo, who has displayed her exemplary and illustrious moral influence on the characters which are emotionally disturbed and psychologically upset. Justin has totally been listless, pluckless, because of the circumstances around him. He was changed into a sleepy baby, a bundle of bones and flesh, almost a nothing. The conversion shows how morality of a kind-hearted, broad-minded “humane” individual instills a new vigour, a sense of confidence and sanity is a person who is upset. This postmodern feature is noticed in Maggie Gee‟s My Cleaner. In Bwindi Impenetrable Forest, the small boy-man is hovering around the camp, of the trekkers – Gorilla Forest Camp and is waiting Chapter - IV: Ugandan Novels: Home Coming, Cultural Conflicts and Social Critique 155

for his opportunity. That is a four feet high pygmy, belonging to the tribe called Batwa. He has come to the camp so that from the heap of shoes, he can take away shoes for him as he has nothing on, to protect himself from the adversities in the forests. Then there are the servants, drivers, cleaners, waiters and others who are healthy Africans of good height and bulky physical structure. These are not the tribal people. They are the poor slum-dwellers in Uganda. They make a very large portion of the Ugandan population. The Batwa tribesmen own nothing and though these poor job hunting Ugandans have something more than the hill people, they too are “Havenots”. The first family is at the top in both the political and economic arenas, next comes the class of the employed like Mary Tendo, who is now an Executive Keeper or her husband Charles, an accountant. Then there are the outsiders, the Foreigners, and the former colonizers, from Europe like Trevor Patchett or a Vanessa Henman, who belong to the nation with a developed economy and belong to the category of “Haves”. That is the structural pattern of class levels. Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda have been long engaged in violations of security control over their borders. Violence breeds more violence, violence makes men, soldiers, terrorists and even the rulers blood-thirsty. Uganda and DRC announce a new agreement that will „allow us to go forward together.‟ There will be talks, in Tanzania. Kabila and Museveni are both hopeful (And besides, Kabila has trouble at home. Laurent Nkunda‟s on the move again. (Gee: 2009, p. 337)

The violent conflicts on the frontiers in the forests are suspended for the time being. This is of course a breather. It is just a pause to start the hostilities with new deadly weapons and more embittered soldiers, DRC has agreed to stop violence because there is violent struggle at home inside Congo. Uganda too faces the natural calamity of floods in its northern region. This has dissatisfied the soldiers, not because they desired to die. Their girlfriends will hardly be impressed as the more money they get on being on active service Chapter - IV: Ugandan Novels: Home Coming, Cultural Conflicts and Social Critique 156

will stop. The peace talks are also too just stagger and ultimately there is a break-up, which marks the beginning of more terrible violence, more blood thirsty attacks, more fatal equipment and more ammunition in store. Violence is inseparable from the postmodern age. Uganda and Congo are not the only points where violence continues to take place. Class morality is the part of social morality. Morality is a set of guiding principles of conduct in personal as well as social life. These principles are based on the eternal values such as love, compassion and equanimity. The social structure is stratified by different layers of class divisions and each class has its own specific code of conduct. Mary Tendo lies in bed beside Charles. He is starting to snore, just a small gentle trumpet, but tonight, Mary does not mind it. She curls towards him, tuck her toes under his feet. She is thinking about church. How good to go back. She is happier than she has felt for weeks. (Gee: 2009, p. 332)

Once the men have gone, they are suddenly shy. She stands, wild-haired in pajamas and glasses, with insect cream all over her face, shivering a little with shock and emotion. „How on earth did you get where?‟ She asks him „Am I dreaming, Tigger? „Are you really here?‟ She has taken his hands, both his hands in hers. They stand like children, waiting to dance. (Gee: 2009, p. 335)

Mary Tendo and her life-partner Charles, the accountant, belong to the middle-class of the Ugandan society; Vanessa Henman and her divorced husband Trevor Patchett belong to the upper middle- class of the British society. These two classes are different but both the groups are dominated by the eternal morality that is based on humanism. Postmodernist social groups have shown how they get morally bound in the present times.

IV.7 Marginalization and Search for Self-Identity Maggie Gee has presented a full-fledged picture of the contemporary world of the twenty-first century. The contemporary world is characterized by the dichotomy that is found in several social Chapter - IV: Ugandan Novels: Home Coming, Cultural Conflicts and Social Critique 157

groups of the present day world. This dichotomy is metaphorically expressed through the images of “centre” and “margin” or “core” and “periphery”. These two groups are categorized on the basis of gender, economic status, race, religions and nationality. The marginalized or peripheral groups are those which are far from the “centre” or “core” of the social structure or edifice. The poor are the deprived and the rich are the privileged. The suppressed are women and the dominating group is of the males. There is racial discrimination even when the governments have prohibited racial discrimination, but the law does not reform the social mentality and does not eradicate the deep-rooted age-old conventional beliefs. This is how the different marginalized groups are presented in this novel through the racial groups of the Britishers and the Ugandans, the Congolese, the Moroccans and the Libyans. The representation of the marginalized groups is a postmodernist feature which is prominent in My Cleaner. Mary Tendo was born in Uganda about thirty-eight years ago. Her mother sold vegetables by the roadside. Her father worked hard. She got her graduation completed. Then in Vanessa Henman‟s house, she worked for eight years as a cleaner. For the last ten years she was in Uganda. Her position now is fine and now she desires to find herself, her own role in life. She makes a search for her own identity. Is she just a nanny of a twenty-two year old grown up boy who is not at all active, who is spineless, nerveless? Is she an independent citizen of Uganda? Is she a writer who has written the story of her own life in search of her individual identity? Who is she? Whose mother, whose second mother, whose cleaner whose wife, whose friend – what is her status and what is her role in the scheme of things in general? What is she? She herself makes a quest of her own identity. Here I am important, the Linen Store Keeper. It is a good job, only just below the House Keeper. Perhaps as a graduate I might have done better, but everything doesn‟t go to plan. The years of wandering, years I lost, times that I don‟t need to think about, for I have done well, I have found my place. I wear smart suit, and the Chapter - IV: Ugandan Novels: Home Coming, Cultural Conflicts and Social Critique 158

thin gold chain that Omar gave me when I was his wife. (Gee: 2005, p. 13)

This is how she assesses herself as an individual. She judges her present to be pleasantly happy. She has obtained position, money, social status and happiness in her life. She takes panoramic view of her life and makes a search to find out her own identity as a person, as a mother, as a wife, beloved, cleaner, worker. She is pleased with what she has attained in her life. The writers, the cleaners, the house-maids, the cooks, the mechanics and other menial workers belong to the marginalized classes of the social fabric. Their economic status has thrown them to the peripheral margins. In a family, the centre is held by the male bread-winner and therefore the other members including the female members are kept out of the core portion of the social world. There are major five races in the world; the Caucasian Whites, the Negroid blacks, the Mongolian yellows, the Dravidian brownies and the Austrasaliad tribal. On account of slave trade and colonial rule, a large Negroid population was forced to migrate to the continents of Europe and America. The Negroids are still marginalized, though there are many laws and bans on racial discrimination. Such racial groups get marginalized. Religion makes men marginalized in the case of the religious groups. Gender, class, economic status, political affiliations, religious beliefs, racial attachment and other grounds are there for the marginalization of different groups of people in a social structure. My Driver by Maggie Gee has presented this discriminatory marginalization of various groups on the basis of different grounds in the postmodern trends of the contemporary time of the twenty-first century. This representation is most remarkable in the case of the characters that have played the role of ‘My Driver’ in the novel such as, Trevor Patchett, Mary Tendo, Isaac and finally Jamil. Mary Tendo has written about her life in Uganda and in London. She has honestly retold about her experiences. This is her search Chapter - IV: Ugandan Novels: Home Coming, Cultural Conflicts and Social Critique 159

within. She is making a search of her own identity. Though she lived in London twenty years ago, her heart was never away from her village, from her dear ones, her son and her relatives and whatever belonged to Uganda. She is truly a citizen of Uganda. Her identity is the Ugandan in every sense. I feel strange when I think about going to the village. I have longed and planned to go back to Notoke, but now the day is almost upon me. Because of what? I must look in my heart. Jamil, my son, my lovely boy. My son is an absence, always trying to grow bigger, but I dare not let it eat up my soul. Life is hard, and short, and we have to live it. And my kabite, Charles, is also in my heart, but he never troubles me (except when he is lazy about doing the shopping and goes to Garden City and spends too much money, because he likes to drop into Aristoc bookshop, instead of buying cheaply, in the market). He is a good man, if a little skinny. And then there is our daughter, as he always reminds me. She has a beautiful name, Thodora. Perhaps I wanted her to be a boy, but she is my daughter and I will love her. And my brother, my sisters, and aunties, and nieces and nephews are in my heart too, though they have grown distant. I sometimes sent them money when I was in London, though not every month, because London is expensive, and some of those girls are not well-behaved, though of course my sister gets cross and denies it, because a mother must defend her children, but i know they go too often to the beer-shop near Notoke, and what if people say they are prostitutes? Still I wish that, like her, I had many children. (Gee: 2009, p. 34)

Mary Tendo is a woman of the village, and she is the mother of Jamil and Theodora. She is the woman of Uganda. She belongs to her brothers, sisters, auntie, uncles, nieces and nephews. She is bound by the bonds of kinship. She is now the citizen of the world. This is the relentless search for identity which is a thematic feature of postmodernism in a novel like My Driver.

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IV.8 Cultural Studies: Multiculturalism and Multidisciplinary Approaches Knowledge is infinite. It has no limits. No boundaries and frontiers can bind knowledge. Knowledge is indivisible but for the sake of convenience, knowledge has been broadly divided into large groups of academic faculties and smaller units of disciplines. Though disciplines are separated into individualized units and sub-units, no discipline remains separated from the other disciplines. A physicist needs to know the chemical properties, biological features of an object of mass and volume. Literature partakes of different disciplines from history and geography to logic, philosophy and sociology as well as anthropology. This is what is being advocated, as scientists have realised that arts, social studies cannot be separated from sciences and their respective disciplines. This is known as the multi- disciplinary approach. The historical, economical, political, philosophical, sociological and psychological approaches are essential to study a literary work. Shakespeare‟s view of history which is based on the tenets of monarchy needs to be assessed against the other tenets of political administration. Maggie Gee‟s novels on the Ugandan background offer an opportunity of such multi-disciplinary and inter-disciplinary approaches. The need for such multi-disciplinary approaches is urgently felt in the postmodern time. The contemporary world cannot be grasped fully without these approaches, which involved various disciplines as the encyclopedic bits and bytes of information need to be utilized in academic discussions. Maggie Gee‟s novel My Cleaner, illustrates this fact as a post-modernist feature. Cultures have got inter-mixed in the contemporary time. Inter- cultural contacts have increased. The studies of cultural inter-action have gained a great momentum. Mary Tendo is from Uganda. Her first husband Omar is from Libya. Vanessa Henman belongs to England as does her divorced husband Travor Patchetk. Zakari is from Morocco. This is how the major characters of this novel, My Cleaner, belongs to Chapter - IV: Ugandan Novels: Home Coming, Cultural Conflicts and Social Critique 161

the different races, nations and religions. Co-existence has brought them together and cultural affiliations have bound them fast. Cultural studies approach is the most appropriate to understand the present coming together of individuals belonging to different cultures. Assimilation and acculturation into the target culture from the native culture is needed to attain such a world. Mary Tendo worked for eight years as a cleaner and a housekeeper in the household of Vanessa Henman. She comes to London and her kind attention, close care and her firm stand, as well as her encouragement made Justin regain his manhood. Mary Tendo in her role, as a keeper, is more confident on account of her close contact with the European culture. She herself has become quite confident. A culture study has become a postmodernist feature in Maggie Gee‟s novel- My Cleaner. These are migrations from different continents to Europe and America. The developed economies have attracted populations from abroad, which have migrated from their native countries in search of better opportunities of higher education, jobs, economical and political prospects. This has resulted in the presence of people belonging to different multi-cultural groups. There are people from the continent of Africa from Ghana, from Nigeria, from states across the continent of Asia. In the novel My Cleaner a proud presence of multiculturalism is noticed even at the surface level. There are Congolese, Ghanaians, Nigerians, Kenyans and Ugandans everywhere in the metropolitan city of London. They are working as cleaners and are busy doing various other petty jobs. It is worth the journey to the other side of town to sing her heart out on Sunday morning with other Ugandan Anglicans who know you open your mouth when you sing. Who laugh and chatter after the service, and do not whisper, or pretend to be humble. Mary eats muchoma on Saturday nights with friends of her elder sister‟s ex-boyfriend, and the smell of roast meat is the best in the world, both salty and sweet, with burnt- surgery juices that core the pink core in dark caramel- thought they tell each other that they miss Kamphala, Chapter - IV: Ugandan Novels: Home Coming, Cultural Conflicts and Social Critique 162

the sprays of white star on the blue night sky, the punters eating their pork out of doors, licking the salt off bare warm fingers. They complain, they talk loudly, they roar with laughter. They tell stories about kyeyo in London: one‟s a lawyer in Kampala, but a bouncer here; the teacher washes dishes: the senior civil servant is selling kitchens on the telephone. Most of them hold down at least two jobs, and some of them are studying as well. All of them have fallen asleep on buses, as Mary once used to, years ago. All of them find London ferociously expensive, and yet they send money home, and save, and manage to go out as well. „We are Ugandans. We know how to party.‟ Now Mary remembers how to party. She goes dancing in the early hours at Clumb Afrique in Canning Town, and although ten pounds is a lot of money, although there are too many Congolese, it is wonderful to heat Ugandan music, Ragga D. Trishlaa and Jingo Shoe, and Mary loves dancing, though when she was with Omar she only danced at home, with him. Now all the men want to dance with her, although she is a decade older than some of them. The beat is in her blood, her hips, her heels. She could dance for ever; she‟s the Dancing Queen. Oh, and here is her favorite, Chameleon. (Gee: 2005, pp. 126-127)

Multiculturalism in the postmodernist time is noticed in the presence of groups of people from different, continents of the globe. Multiculturalism has become the watchword of the postmodern society. Uganda is a republic in central Africa, which has the total area of 2,41,038 square Kilometres. Its population is approximately 35 million. There are about 84 percent Christians of which 42 percent are Roman Catholics and 42 percent are Protestants while Muslims are 12 percent in the Ugandan population. The four major ethnic groups are Baganda (17%), Karamjong (12%), Basogo (8%) and Iteso (8%), which constitute about 45% of the total population. There are seven minor ethnic groups Langi (6%), Rawarda (6%), Bagisu (5%), Acholi (4%), Lugbara (4%), Bunyoro (3%) and Batobo (3%), which are 31% while others are 24%. This information shows that Uganda is a multi-racial, multi-linguistic, multi-ethnic (eleven ethnic groups having more than three-fourth population of about 27 million) and multi-religious country. Chapter - IV: Ugandan Novels: Home Coming, Cultural Conflicts and Social Critique 163

There are outsiders too, as the tobacco and breweries are run by the multi-national companies. Lake Victoria, Equator Experience, Gorilla Forest Camps, African Safari are the tourist attractions and tourists continue to flock to this spot of nature‟s beauty. This shows how the different ethnical and religious groups co-exist in this country. Multi-culturalism is what is the order of the day and as tourism industry is of great significance, as the earner of foreign currency, it is encouraged. That is why Maggie Gee has reversed the basic situation by bringing two British citizens to the country in central part of African content and its interiors. There are infinite variations in the life-styles of people in the two different countries which are presented in Maggie Gee‟s two novels My Cleaner and My Driver. These two countries are England and Uganda. History, geography, culture, technology, arts, wildlife, social structure, religious faiths and economic status of the people of these two countries are different and need to be approached differently. Each aspect needs to be studied, observed, analyzed and assessed from different angles. There are multiple approaches which need to be adopted in order to evaluate the relative significance of these multi- dimensional aspects of life in these two countries. Trevor, you deserve a holiday,‟ says Mary, sounding very loud and deerful, to Trevor whose eyes and cars seem too sensitive, today, as if the whole worlds is shouting at him. They are driving down a long straight road, but the slightest bump makes his head lurch horribly. Here, only thirty minutes from the village, you would think last night‟s rains had never happened, Lorries and coaches thunder past. She is driving him away, away. „So is this a holiday?‟ he asks. All Mary has said is that they‟re going on an outing. His tools, his possessions are in the boot. „I am driving you to the equator. Trevor. This will be very interesting for you. And then I think you should go to Queen Elizabeth Park. „There is a nice hotel, it is called Mweya. I saw you have brought your American Express card. It was lying on the mattress beside your shoe.‟ (This she says quietly: there are people in the back, and you never know who is listening.) “The Chapter - IV: Ugandan Novels: Home Coming, Cultural Conflicts and Social Critique 164

bazungu always go to Mweya. Lions, hyenas, crocodiles”, she continues brightly, but Trevor‟s not encouraged. (Gee: 2009, p. 244)

The Equator from geographical angle, part from the botanical lions and crocodiles from the zoological and card from economic angles are to be approached. There are natural exchanges of persons and groups have put them in circumstances in which they come in contact with the religious faiths of Christianity and others faiths, their marriage and family systems and other social organizations, their habit and costumes, their traditions, their festivals, customs and beliefs. These are multi-colored, multi-faceted and at times multi-splendored and multi-dimensional aspects of social life and human civilizations, which makes the cultural affiliations of different social, political, religious and ethnic groups in the world. These various aspects have been studied from various perspectives. The most useful approach to carry out this stupendous work is the culture studies approach that has been developed during the last three decades or so. Maggie Gee‟s postmodernist works of fiction have embraced and reflected this culture studies approach thoroughly.

IV.9 Global and Domestic Concerns between Wealth and Poverty Land then, on the reverse, I see an ink postscript. ‘PS. Obviously we should pay return airfare. And reward you VERY HANDSOMELY.’ Suddenly, the future lights up like a necklace. If I had enough money, I could go to my village. I could come back rich, and go to my village. Without asking my kabito for money. It comes out of blue. It is chance, or fate, but perhaps God wants me to leave my country. Now I‟m back in Kampala, I don‟t want to leave, but... My life is a story of arriving and leaving. (Gee: 2005, p. 37)

Poverty and wealth are two economic conditions which have divided the world in two major classes of the global population. There has been the conflict between these two classes. In the novel My Chapter - IV: Ugandan Novels: Home Coming, Cultural Conflicts and Social Critique 165

Cleaner by Maggie Gee the conflict is presented quite dramatically. The ex-cleaner Mary Tendo is summoned by Vanessa Henman. The difference between the two is that of their economic status. Vanessa Henman has agreed to pay handsomely to Mary Tendo for her housekeeping job. Mary Tendo wants money to find out her son, Jamil and therefore needs the money which she treasures dearly. Uganda has a lot in respect of natural and mineral resources but still the country has remained undeveloped for want of opportunities. Vanessa Henman is rich and her country has a developed and advanced economy. There is this difference between the two persons, the two classes and the two countries on account of being either rich or poor. Mary‟s anger ebbs away. They are what they are. And with a slow upsurge of pity and pride, Mary finally starts to believe it. The house where Vanessa grew up is poor. (Gee: 2005, p. 242)

Vanessa Henman the well-to-do writer and teacher take her ex- cleaner Ugandan Mary Tendo to her village. The relatives of Vanessa Henman are still poor and the village is still poor. Poverty is what needs to be eradicated. This fight against poverty is universal. My Cleaner presents both the global and domestic problems of the contemporary times. Racism is one of the burning issues of the present times. There have been laws against the practices of racial discrimination. Though this means that such discrimination is legally banned, there is still the presence of the wrong practices. The mentality contemns to remain the same even after those are declared to be illegal. The eternal conflict is still on the levels of the individuals, the social classes and even of the nations. These are some of the global problems. The problem of the loss of nerve and confidence is faced by Justin. This is a domestic problem. The global and domestic issues are there for the participants. These problems are presented in the novel. Vanessa Henman is a novelist who has some domestic crisis. She has divorced her husband. Her son Justin is a young man of twenty-two years but has lost his confidence. She cannot handle the Chapter - IV: Ugandan Novels: Home Coming, Cultural Conflicts and Social Critique 166

situation on her own. The presentation of both the global and the domestic issues is noticed in the postmodern novel My Cleaner. There is the global divide. It is the East-West Divide or North- South Divide. Economically, the countries of the west are the most developed. USA, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, England, France, Germany, Russia and other countries belong to the West and these are the advanced economies of the world. The countries of the East mainly the countries from Africa and Asia and from Latin America are under developed or undeveloped countries. The Human Development Index (HDI) of these countries is much below the standard norms. There are the two HDI calorie-intake HDI and the education and health factor dependent HDI and on the basis of both the counts, above mentioned countries make either G7 or G20 rich developed counties. The other divide is North and South; meaning counties in the Northern hemisphere being relatively advanced as the countries mentioned above are all situated in the North while Latin American, African and Asian countries are situated in the South. This is the global conflict between poverty and wealth and between the poor and the rich which is reflected in Maggie Gee‟s novels too. By the time Trevor sees the three boys on the corner, waving and holding out their merchandise, the pain in his ankle is changing colour, from a dullish ache to a red alert. How long, he thinks, will this road go on? Because until we‟re off it, I can‟t hand over to Vanessa. „Boys selling fruit,‟ he says to her. Her face is white, her fore-head is clenched, her eyes are crimped shut like the cowrie shells they were selling in the shop at Mweya Lodge. „Don‟t stop,‟ she says. „Please. Please. Let‟s get this over.‟ „I need a break. Tiny twinge in my ankle from when I fell. There‟s a stopping place.‟ She moans with fear as he stops and gets out. What if it rolls back down the hill? He buys three bowls at a thousand shillings each. The boys wave after them, noisily grateful, but his foot feels worse after the interruption. (Gee: 2009, p. 346)

The fruit sellers or the Uganda women sell their wares at the street-side in the heat thought the day in the hot or rainy weather. Chapter - IV: Ugandan Novels: Home Coming, Cultural Conflicts and Social Critique 167

That is their poverty. The tourists are the only rich who come Uganda. The rift, the gap between the two classes is visible in Maggie Gee‟s postmodern novels. Postmodernism is characterized by the true account of the global as well as domestic concerns. Both the microcosm and the macrocosm are presented through the delineation of the personal and global problems. That evening, Vanessa sits in the Sheraton Piano bar, drinking a Bell beer, which is wonderfully refreshing, her bandaged feet comfortably stretched out before her, sending an email to her son. „Today your mother has had marvelous adventures and proved the essential goodness of Uganda‟s population! I had a stand-off with an African stork, about seven feet tall, which almost attacked me! Then I was caught in torrential rain! Later I was exploring a remote bit of Kampala, not a single white face for miles, of course, and a young man tried to snatch my bag, but a VERY smart Ugandan businessman in a pin-striped suit (rather handsome!), who I suppose must have been looking at me, saw what he was up to and shouted at the thief, and then a wonderful old Ugandan woman in green traditional dress (who I had befriended on the local bus) positively flung herself upon him, and the thief had to run for dear life! And afterwards the old woman insisted on walking me back to a safer part of town. I ask you, would that have happened in London? „Now, sweets, how are you, and Zakira, and Abdul Trevor? Kissy kissy kissy to my little man! Don‟t forget, you must not SMOTHER him! Hugs and kisses from Mumsy/ Gran.‟ She presses „Send,‟ but nothing happens. She presses „Save Draft,‟ and gets the „clock‟ icon. All round her, other huddled laptop owners are also jabbing buttons in frustration. The network‟s down; why has this happened to them? They have a right to good communication. It‟s the twenty-first century. The whole world is connected. Except it isn‟t. They stare blankly at their screens, which cast an ageing, ghastly blue light on their faces. Ghosts of human beings, drained by machines. Then the other lights go out, and the bar‟s plunged in darkness; the pianist, who has been giving his all, with excessive use of tremolo and loud pedal, skids to a halt with an arpeggio that horribly misses its final note; but the generator kicks in, the light blinks and steadies, and there‟s a soft Chapter - IV: Ugandan Novels: Home Coming, Cultural Conflicts and Social Critique 168

explosion of shared relief and laughter before they return to the lonely cyber highways where Vanessa‟s email has been lost forever. And out in the suburbs, where there are no generators, and everyone‟s used to daily power-cuts, Mary and Charles, in total darkness except for brief swoops of homing car headlights through the window, decide they will not light a candle because it is so nice to go to bed. So very nice to be together, close to each other in the warm kind night. (Gee: 2009, pp. 82-83)

The global issue is of connectedness and loss of communication. The other related issue is of power and power failure and the technology relating too. Mary and Charles deciding to go to bed are the domestic concerns. Both the global and domestic concerns get intermingled in the postmodern period of the contemporary times as noticed in Maggie Gee‟s novels.

IV.10 Thematic Complexities and Stylistic Devices Any work of narrative fiction deals with various issues. There are many issues taken together to present the realistic picture of the contemporary world in the postmodern works of fiction. My Cleaner is such a postmodernist work of art that deals with the contemporary issues. Racism, class conflict analysis of middle-class life and mentality and women‟s lives are the central themes which are dealt with in this novel by Maggie Gee. This too brings together the thematic complex and makes it integrated, wholly to the prose, narrative My Cleaner. Style is the writer‟s peculiar way of expressing what he desires to convey. Style is a characteristically distinctive feature of whatever a writer writes. That is why a writer‟s style is known as Shakespearean style or Wordsworthian style. The same is the case with Maggie Gee‟s postmodernist style of writing. (i) „But Justin is what? He is a moper, a sleeper. He is not in a hurry about anything, once I understand, I know I can help him. (Gee: 2005, p. 68) (ii) „Justin, I have run a very nice bath‟. Chapter - IV: Ugandan Novels: Home Coming, Cultural Conflicts and Social Critique 169

„I don‟t need a bath‟ „You smell like a donkey‟ This made him laugh and cover his face. „If you go this way, you will grow a tail‟. (Gee: 2005, p. 68) (iii) „Fifi talk to me darling. I need a friend. No absolutely right, I‟m not very happy. Mary isn‟t doing a hand‟s turn. They both just lie there. I am waiting on them.‟ „It‟s their energy levels,‟ Fifi says. „You have to release their energy blocks. I did tell you about the “Lettuce Plus” diet?‟ She hears Vanessa sigh down the line. „When did Mary get here? She‟s probably exhausted. Don‟t forget you are bathed in radiation in planes. But you always said she was a good little worker.‟ (Gee: 2005, p. 75) The peculiarities of style vary in these three illustrations. The first illustration is what Mary Tendo thinks about Justin Henman, the writer Vanessa Henman‟s son‟s depression and its probable cause. The second is the interchange between Mary Tendo and Justin about Justin having a bath. In the third, Vanessa Henman and Fifitalk about Mary Tendo and some other matter. Every illustration shows that suitable stylistic peculiarities are used appropriately in this text. Racism is one of the major themes of the thematic complex of Maggie Gee‟s novel My Driver. Racial discrimination was in vogue till recently in Africa and in the continents of America and Europe too wherever Africans got migrated. The search for identity, search for mental peace, and search for the lost ones are also interwoven as the themes in the thematic fabric of this novel. The portrayal of political conflicts and economic crises is offered. Humanitarian service is next to the service to God. The work of providing water to the needy in the rural countryside of a country that is still groping for development carried out by Mary Tendo and Trevor, is another thematic strand. The journeys made by Trevor, Mary Tendo and Vanessa Henman occupy the major portion of the novel. Human relationships last long and bind one another fast. This message is conveyed through the thematic treatment given in the novel to various issues of the contemporary times. This is a fast-moving energetic emotional journey Chapter - IV: Ugandan Novels: Home Coming, Cultural Conflicts and Social Critique 170

and a soul-searching safari in Uganda in central Africa. They are presented in a witty style and are spiced with gentle humour and pungent biting sarcasm at the vain glorious and have applauded the efforts of those who have displayed their human features in interactions with others. The Postmodern writings are characterized by certain stylistic peculiarities which are specifically used in a novel like My Driver. Mary is a rare fully-fleshed African character in a book by a White European novelist. It‟s the struggle that matters to Gee, the struggle to... imagine someone unlike ourselves, to imagine how they might imagine and how we might all share a single world... sparky and funny and terrifically entertaining. (Ness: 2009, Guardian, Title page)

The boy looks back at the shouting woman, briefly: looks back, gapes, crumples in an instant. Now he‟s on his knees; he begins to cry, like a hurt crow keening, harsh, painful, his voice-box breaking, barking with sorrow, and she clutches her breast, she screams like a banshee, tears at her heart as she falls like him, they are both kneeling in the dusty road, crawling towards each other like children, open-mouthed, gasping, the tears spurting, scrambling over the dust and stones until Mary can seize him in her arms, and Charles, not understanding, scared, says, „Leave her alone!‟ and thrusts the boy away, but his wife encircles her wounded son, her strong arms enfold his thin shaking body, his cheeks are scarred, his neck is scarred, one eye is reddened and half-closed, he smells of excrement, earth, decay, but the curve of his mouth she knows so well – she looks up at her husband, face streaming with tears, and gasps, sobs, „It is Jamil. It is my Jamie. My Jamil.‟ And to Vanessa: „You found my son. God be praised, you have found my son.‟ And then she turns to Theodora. Her tongue loosens, she speaks to her. „Laba, Dora mwana wange. See, my Dora, my darling girl. Mwana wange omwagalwa! It is your brother. It is Jamie! Wuuyo mwanyoko Jamie!‟ And after a while, she embraces Vanessa. Through their thin clothes, they feel the hearts thudding. Through tears and tiredness and the limits of skin. (Gee: 2009, p. 355)

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Mary Tendo‟s lovely and lively character is quite transparent through the language she uses; the novelist has made use of the peculiar stylistic features to each of the characters that she has created.

IV.11 Digitalized World: Techno Culture, Pop-culture, Media Culture and Supersonic Speed Red, amber and green signals indicate-stop, start and go in the context of the vehicular traffic on a busy street in a metropolitan city. The Morse code used just two sounds and their various combinations to communicate messages that contained various semantic connotations. In the same manner, the digits are ten from zero to nine. These single digits if expanded become two-digit, eight-digit, and sixteen-digit numbers. Now a wrist watch or a wall clock displays the digitalized divisions of time into hours, minutes, seconds and even nano-seconds. A mobile phone, a radio or a television set displays the digitalized numbers on the screen or through the sound waves. This is the age of digitalization. It has covered the entire world and it is the current trend that has occupied the complete computer and space technology. In the novel My Cleaner Maggie Gee, has presented the contemporary digitalized world in all its details and in its various formats. When Mary Tendo flies into Heathrow it is a cold clear evening in mid-September and she is nervous about Immigration. She checks her passport one again, and her pink notebook with Miss Henman‟s number. Her fingers leave damp prints on the cover and she wipes them on the hard webbing of her seatbelt, telling herself, „In a few hours it will be over.‟ Yet looking around her, on the plane, at the anxious faces of younger Ugandans, licking their lips, staring out of the window, she guesses she‟s one of the very few with a job to go to and a place to stay. For her, getting a visa was not impossible. Her bank statements could pass the test, with a cash injection from her friend the accountant, and of course Vanessa Henman, at the other end, was a doctor, a householder, a college lecturer, which made Mary‟s paperwork look good. In time, the agency issued the visa. Yet the process has Chapter - IV: Ugandan Novels: Home Coming, Cultural Conflicts and Social Critique 172

left Mary feeling like a criminal. They even took prints of her index fingers! When she first went to London, all those years ago, everything had been so much simpler. (Gee: 2005, p. 53)

From Uganda the ex-cleaner Mary Tendo has come back to London. She has travelled from Uganda in the central African forests, to the digitalized world of the Heathrow airport in London. The postmodern world is characterized by the techno-culture. This means, it is the culture which is dominated by advances in the technological fields. The technology has made man stronger, faster and more efficient. Machines have made laborious tasks easier. Machines have made human life more comfortable and more luxurious. Justin‟s mobile and Justin‟s television set are the signs of the technological advances which are now accessible even to an ordinary person. Vanessa does not notice when her house is clean, she only notices when it is dirty. But, in fact the house is better now Anya is cleaning it. The bathroom smells of lemons again. The wastepaper baskets shed their ragged crowns of newsprint. The flowers in the dining room are fresh, and the vases are no longer surrounded by brown petals, lying on the table like a note of spilled tobacco. The dado-and-picture-rails are white, where once they were traced with long smears of soft charcoal. (Gee: 2005, p. 135)

This is how the house is made tidy and nice with the help of a cleaner‟s deft skills and the technological assistance she has received from many of the electrical and electronic appliances the wonders of science, the pretty tiny gadgets which have made men and women techno-savvy these days. It is the culture that is littered with popular arts, popular movies, TV shows and soaps, popular radio programmes, jazz, dance, popular music and popular artistic paintings. There is popular writing of a novelist like Stephen King, whose more than fifty novels have been in the best seller lists for months and for years. A best seller is a book of which more than a million copies are sold. Chapter - IV: Ugandan Novels: Home Coming, Cultural Conflicts and Social Critique 173

Maggie Gee in her novels presents the Condition-of-England more in particular, the Condition-of-London. Maggie Gee has presented the novelist Vanessa Henman as one of the protagonists of her novels like My Cleaner and My Driver. She is a teacher who takes classes on a course of creative writing. This is again something related to writing something for the sake of popularity. Pop arts and pop- artists have commercial significance too. There are now the commercial successes in films, shows operas and serials. Radio, TV, films and the various forms of literary writings available in print, have shown how the pop culture prevails through and through every pore of life in the contemporary times. The books are the products of the print channel. Vanessa Henman has written two novels and fetches creative writing. Right from the morning that brings in the printed newspapers to the late night news on the television set, the entire daily life of a man or a woman in the postmodernist times is occupied by one or the other form of the media channels. Morning news at 6 a.m. and news at 11 p.m. mark the daily schedule both on the radio and television channels. There are books read as well as books unread on all sides of Vanessa Henman‟s bedroom. These are various formats of the print media even in Justin‟s room. Mary Tendo decides to write about her experiences of childhood in Uganda and about her stint as a cleaner for eight years in London. Her writing has been approved and appreciated by the agent of the publishing firm. There is a rare novelty in her writing newspaper periodicals and books are the products of the print media channel that are everywhere in the novelist‟s London apartment. The formats of non-print media mainly radio broadcasts, television operas and film screenings too have their significant place in the life of the postmodernist days. The contemporaneity of these media channels and their sparkling, eye catching public glare and attention has become the central attraction in the lives of the people in the postmodern period as noticed in My Cleaner. Chapter - IV: Ugandan Novels: Home Coming, Cultural Conflicts and Social Critique 174

In about eight to nine hours both, the novelist who is invited for a conference and the plumber-mechanic invited to build a well in a village in the rural countryside, have reached Kampala – the capital city of Uganda in central Africa. That is the speed of a jet plane nowadays and the supersonic speed is the normal speed in the contemporary times. Time does not wait for anyone. It is therefore imperative these days to reach in time. The speed matters most these days. No delay is permissible, procrastination is a crime. Achieving targets is essential. Setting goals is a must and accomplishing them has become the order of the day. He ambles back down the sunny street, which is certainly an improvement on London. Yesterday everything had felt unreal, with the nine-hour flight and then the trip to the lake, and in the evening, in order to be polite, he had sat up talking to Charles and Mary.” In fact Mary was doing most of the taking, until he actually fell asleep, his head sinking slowly on to the table and Charles has escorted him to bed although Mary seemed a little disapproving, as though he was failing in his essential task, which as to learn everything there was to know about Uganda. (Gee: 2009, p. 156)

This is how everything needs to be fast. Trevor Patchett travelled in a jet-plane and the next day he is on the move again to the countryside of Uganda. Things must be finished before it starts raining. Speed is the most vital factor in the contemporary postmodernist age. The sound barriers have been crossed by the speed of vehicles of transport. Now a days all the major air services are flying at supersonic speed but soon all the other vehicles on land, water and space will have attained the same speed. The postmodern world of the present twenty-first century is charged with speed and is becoming speedier. All the daily chores and activities are now revolved second, minute and hour of a clock. In a few hours it will be over,‟ Yet looking around on the plane, on the plane, at the anxious faces of younger Ugandans, licking their lips, staring out of the Chapter - IV: Ugandan Novels: Home Coming, Cultural Conflicts and Social Critique 175

window, she guesses she‟s one of the very few with a job to go and a place to stay. For her, getting a visa was not impossible. (Gee: 2005, p. 53)

This is Mary Tendo coming from Uganda to London to respond Vanessa. She has no time to lose. There are precious lives depending on her tactful persuasion, encouragement and motivation. Digits are dominating every move every action of every individual in the present day world of the twenty-first century. Justin sinks into paralysis. It is pulling him down, sapping his will. It seems he can‟t get Abdy to the doctor. At 8.29, he is on the phone to the Health Centre: the maddening voice of the answering machine, which asks him to wait to be put through, so he waits, and pays, for their phone bill‟s enormous, until they cut him off, without warning, and the cycle repeats, he keeps ringing and ringing (thank God Abdul Trevor is watching TV), it‟s 8.45, it‟s 8.47, then suddenly there are only five minutes left, his fingers hit the „repeat call‟ button faster, more angrily, God help me, why is this happening to me, it‟s 8.58, there‟s no time left – it‟s 8.59 when he gets through, and a real voice answers, thank God a human, but she says, „Oh no, you‟re too late for today.‟ All appointments have gone. He‟s failed. That‟s that. He‟s a hopeless father. He can‟t do anything. All Zakira‟s words come back to him. He sits there, paralyzed, cursing himself. Then he slouches through to the sitting-room. Ah, that‟s why Abdul Trevor was quiet. Curiously, he has gone to sleep, which is quite unusual when he‟s watching television. But at least it gives Justin a little respite. (Gee: 2009, pp. 242-243)

This is digitalization everywhere. Trains move according to digitalized time tables. Planes fly on auto-pilots and digitalized boards; digitalized transactions are made online every move, every act. Every minute is being digitalized. This digitalization of entire human life, of past, present and future of social network is the postmodern feature. In the postmodern period, the life-style and the predominant culture is characterized by the technological advances. Technology has taken the entire global civilization in its fold. And on Kampala Road, the great thoroughfare that plunges through the chest and the bowels of Kampala, Chapter - IV: Ugandan Novels: Home Coming, Cultural Conflicts and Social Critique 176

past the towering banks and the red-roofed post a where refugees go to pick up their parcels, past the bare wires and joists of half-built hotels and the pleasant coffee-smells of Steer‟s and Nando‟s, past the white metal chrysalises of briefly-parked taxis and the workmen urgently repairing the pavements – on a section of pavement that‟s not yet been repaired or cleared of its multi-coloured lichen of sellers, spread out on the concrete, legs flat in the heat, offering matches and lighters and sugared nuts, and chewing gum, biros, pencils, wallets – he finds, where he remembered seeing her, a thin, pretty woman selling newspapers, and most of them, he sees, intrigued, are old, single copies of magazines and weekly papers, some of them American or British, a time magazine dating back to august, an economist forecasting a hot, dry spring, although it is already autumn – but she also has a small pile of today‟s New Vision. (Gee: 2009, pp. 155-156)

This is the situation in Kampala, in Uganda in central Africa which is surrounded by Kenya, Congo, Nigeria and Tanzania. The roads, the banks, the hotels, the joints like Steer‟s and Nando‟s, the taxis and even the newspapers suggest how life has changed in the countries, far from Europe and America. The techno-culture has caught up all the corners of the world. This is witnessed in the advances outlined in My Driver. Nothing happens without the involvement of the Media. The Media – both print and non-print, and now the newly added e-media have created such hype, such a publicity drive, such a campaign to muster opinions, such a furor and such protests all over the globe these days. The Prime Minister of Belgium gives an interview; what Kony has done is „a stain on the soul of humanity‟, (though the Belgians themselves have never been punished for what they did for decades in the Congo: the rape, kidnap, torture, murder). And another ICC signatory state, America, joins in. „Make peace quickly or we‟ll be coming after you, US tells Kony‟, is this week‟s headline in the Kenyan paper, ‘The East African’, which also claims they will send in the marines (yet the Americans have not been punished for their own war-crimes, which they are still busily committing in Iraq). They all feel better for holding the Chapter - IV: Ugandan Novels: Home Coming, Cultural Conflicts and Social Critique 177

line. They puff up their chests and mouth their mantras, the war against terror, the rule of law, the ICC indictments must go ahead. (Gee: 2009, pp. 261- 262)

The nature of media hype is clear. Those who have committed many violent bloody war-crimes now advertise themselves to be the brokers of peace. The suppliers and manufacturers of the weapons for war are talking of peace. “What is not” is published as “What it is” and “How better it is” through the various media-channels to befool the public at large. Such a media-hype is a postmodernist feature. The two persons travel extensively and Mary Tendo is also on the move in search of her lost son, Jamil. At the conference venue... Vanessa sitting, just after sunset, surrounded by the other writers and smattering of giant school children, through an Evening of International Writing at the dark, dank National Theatre, which squats hot and airless like a square, chocolate brown excretum from the 60s, slaps, plops in the centre of Kampala. Though at first she was astonished not to be on the programme, the soon realises, these are mostly second-rates. This is more or less what Peter Pargeter hinted when the found him to ask about the omission. (And Tadjo, for example: Tedjo‟s is not there. Oh, you‟re reading tomorrow, in a more intimate contract. We felt that would show your gifts to advantage. He looked uneasy, and then added, with a little Hourish. And obviously, someone of your experience will have had many chances to read in bigger venues. Which is not true of the Africans here. (Gee: 2009, p. 145)

The reading from the novels, the music that runs in the hotel, the dancing that goes on in the ball room are all the part of the popular art culture in the postmodern period. The film, the plays and the paintings contributed to pop art a lot.

IV.12 Sociological, Psychological, Political and Economic Aspects in Postmodern Age Mary confidently tells Vanessa Henman to wash the dishes after performing this feat of changing Justin‟s personality positively. It is a performance of sociological importance, making a man and a father Chapter - IV: Ugandan Novels: Home Coming, Cultural Conflicts and Social Critique 178

out of a young sleepy baby. This progressive development is the documented record of a sociological history of the contemporary times. So, when Justin telephones, nervous, guilty at ten O‟clock having got of four hours‟ sleep and tells his mother that they had to turn back, they will not be coming, but they are both safe, she does not complain, she works with relief, and when Mary comes on the line to speak to her, Vanessa doesn‟t care that some Ugandan will be staying, she says, „Yes‟ at once, „Yes, yes of course‟ and says Mary must help herself „to whatever‟ and „of course, Mary dear, take care of Jastin.‟ „Vanessa Justin will take care of himself.‟ Mary Tendo is laughing, softly. (Gee: 2005, p. 312)

This is how what has transpired between Mary Tendo and Justine and between Mary Tendo and Vanessa Henman is a sociological document of the postmodernist time. The middle of the twentieth century and later decades saw the emergence of the independent countries all over Asia, Africa and South America. These were formerly the European colonies. That meant the end of the colonial rule by the colonizers from England, France, Germany, Spain the Netherlands (Holland) and Portugal. After attaining independence the economic as well as political conditions of these countries and the economies of the colonies were still dependent on the countries of the colonizers. The pattern was exporting the raw materials to and importing the products from the colonizers. This was the dependence in the economic field and on the political front, most of the African countries surrendered to their former masters and their ideologies. Democracy in many countries could not take roots properly. There was dictatorship of the autocratic rulers and the rule of the military. A country like Uganda was under the direct oppressive regime of the dictator Idi Amin. These political and economic circumstances had their impact on the lives of the Ugandans or in counties like English to which they had migrated themselves. Chapter - IV: Ugandan Novels: Home Coming, Cultural Conflicts and Social Critique 179

But now I have a good job, in Kampala. I wear shiny high heels imported from Dubai, which are cheap to me, at 10,000 shillings, so I have three pairs in different colours and pink-and-blue Masai beds from Kenya, and my flat has a TV-clock-radio and white plastic furniture you just sponge clean, all done in seconds, as good as new. And a small refrigerator with an ice-box. And a special bin for the sliced white bread I buy whenever I feel like it, and a tin for the cakes I enjoy at weekends. (Gee: 2005, p. 17-18)

Many Tendo has books in her possession. She wants to write her own story. She desires to go back to the village with her friend Charles with sugar, paraffin, net ball and football. Charles will drive his car and wear his suit. These are Mary Tendo‟s dreams for the future. She wants the economic front to flourish rapidly making her rich a person, possessing articles, furniture, car and clothes. This has the impact on her accepting the job of a cleaner for eight years is the past and now of a house cleaner with the goal of earning more than three thousand pounds. A novel is an account, in prose, of the life as seen through the novelist‟s temperament. Maggie Gee presents life as it is, and she presents the postmodern vision of the social life in the twenty-first century. She presents life in all its aspects-personal, groups, social, national and international-from the deep recesses of the human psyche to the life on the surface, on the streets, on the pavements, in the corridors of power, in the hotel lobbies in the conference rooms, in the seminar halls, the reading rooms the Gorilla Forest Camp (GFC), the markets, the shops, the street side sellers – all these are presented by her. She presents a panoramic view of the full spectrum of the life as a whole. She philosophizes; she documents a sociological view of human life with its social institution, its political, economic and religious organizations. Maggie Gee‟s novels present sociological documents of the time and space she has chosen to portray realistically. Vanessa Henman, Mary Tendo, Trevor Patchett, Justin and Zakira, Charles and , her son Jamil; present about five to six different aspects of life in Chapter - IV: Ugandan Novels: Home Coming, Cultural Conflicts and Social Critique 180

London and in Kampala, on the roads to the Rift Valley in Uaganda, in Gorilla Forest Camp, in Sheraton Hotel in Kampala and other places both in England and Uganda. This is the veritable portrait of the sociological account presented by Maggie Gee. Maggie Gee has documented the contemporary life through her novels. Politics has pervaded all the aspects of human life all over the globe. Political policy determines the life-style of the entire population of a nation in the modern times. Equally important are the economic conditions, as the countries are categorized in three distinct groups of developed economic, emerging economies and undeveloped economies. A nation like Uganda belongs to the group of undeveloped economies. There are huge natural resources but those are still untapped and have remained unutilized. There is oil under Lake Albert, oil all along the rich, hidden border regions of Congo and Uganda. There are oil and gold and diamonds, no-one knows how much. Peasants pan for gold in Bwindi Impenetrable Forest; just a very little, a little at a time, in the dappled shadows, when no-one is working. But foreigners are interested in the gold: for medicine, for technology, for fairy-tale wedding-rings for, ingots, the safe place to keep your money. Foreigners are interested in the oil. Foreigners are interested in the diamonds. And the oil price is going up. It is well over 100 dollars a barrel. Uganda as sitting on lakes of money compared to which the revenue from sitting on lakes of money, compared to which the revenue from tourism is peanuts. Peanuts for Monkeys and gorillas. (Gee: 2009, p. 153) The President of Uganda was restless and sleepless. The political situation is dependent on the economic situation. Uganda has vast reserves of oil, gold and diamonds but those are still untapped and lie below Lake Albert, which has become a point of conflict with the neighboring country- Congo. These economic and political developments lead to violence, insecurity and tension. There are bright prospects of development but it is still stunted, and is full of obstacles due to the crises in these areas.

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IV.13 Humans, Non-humans and Nature: Interrelationship Nature is the bond that links all living beings together from the non-human beings to the finest and the biggest of the creatures. There is the vast expanse of nature beauty in the wild forests of Western Uganda. My Kabito had never thought about it. „Mary, why do you want to go there? There were enough animals in my village. The bazungu like animals more than people. They even like lions and crocodiles.‟ But I am stubborn and do not agree. For a start, I myself like animals. (Jamie and I, we both liked animals. When I was a child, I grew very found of goats, because I liked the boy who was the goathered, and I liked Jamie‟s pets, even the mangy hamster, and I took him to London Zoo on Saturdays.) I told Charles, I want to see my country. It is our country; it does not belong to them, these old bazungu in their four-wheel drives, wearing pale brown clothes all covered in pockets, which makes them look like ancient soldiers hung about with battle-kit, with cine- cameras and walking-sticks and water bottles and binoculars. They go on safari with polite black drivers. Without the drivers they would be too frightened (yet they think they own them: they always say „my driver,‟ „Could you go and see if my driver is waiting?‟ (Gee: 2005, pp. 89-90)

From goats to lion and crocodiles, all animals are charged with the same spark of life which is there in human beings. Nature is the force that binds stones and rocks, plants and trees, grass, herbs and shrubs, frogs and crabs, snakes and scorpions, fish and turtle, cats and dogs, lions and tigers, rhinos and elephants, gorillas and apes in the ever-changing cycle of life. The inter-relations among all the objects of Nature and human as well as non-human beings need to be based natural laws. The galaxies in the space, the living organisms of all types from unicellular to multi-cellular – the stones, the trees and the birds all belong to Mother Earth. The stellar objects, the flora and fauna and the human as well as non-human beings in nature need to stick together. There is a chain from insensitive to most sensitive and from Chapter - IV: Ugandan Novels: Home Coming, Cultural Conflicts and Social Critique 182

irrational to rational being in the creation. Order is the governing principle and its opposite is Chaos. The day slips past, the light slips away, as she checks, discards, rethinks, amasses. Till the whole white duvet is a grid of possessions. A city in miniature: her fortifications. Seen from above, its a labyrinthine puzzle, a piecemeal shell for some small white snail. Where does she fit in this chaus of detail? By the time she‟s had supper, her notebook by her plate, Vanessa has ticked off everything she needs to take and has crammed it, with an effort, into her rucksack. She can lift it, yes, but not carry it far. Never mind, her driver will carry it. That‟s why he‟s there: to look after her. (Gee: 2009, p. 217)

The things that Vanessa Henman will need while going to Gorilla Forest Camp have been crammed in her luggage. That is how the human beings are linked with and chained to the non-human things in the universe as a whole. Maggie Gee has presented this aspect of post-modernism very artistically through her Ugandan.

IV.14 Black Comedy and Hyper Reality Maggie Gee makes use of black humour in her novels as in... Of course,‟ says Juanita, brightening. „Is the story of my life? I help everybody, always.‟ She tells a few stories to illustrate this, which are very long and incoherent, and then they start remembering their youth, so they are all laughing again, over coffee: about how Mary put salt in the supervisor‟s tea: how Abdul locked a sneak in the stock cupboard. (Gee: 2005, p. 132)

These are funny pranks, mischiefs that put others in awkward tricky situations.

A tall handsome man with a huge purple turban and one long earring like an elephant‟s tusk emerges, half- dancing, from a side-alley from which reggae music ebbs and flows. He embraces Abdu like a brother. „This is the Doctor,‟ Abdu says. „And this is my sister, Mary.‟ They shake hands. „And my other sister. Juanita,‟ he adds, almost too late, pushing her forward. „Are you from Uganda?‟ Juanita asks, suspicious. Chapter - IV: Ugandan Novels: Home Coming, Cultural Conflicts and Social Critique 183

Abdu bursts our laughing, and pats the tall man on the back, „Nawe ori munauganda?‟ Which part of Uganda are you from, my brother?‟ „Don‟t use your barr-barous language with me, Abdu. I‟m from the Ca-rib-bee-an, miss,‟ he spells out, laughing. “The Doctor is my name. Everyone knows me.” Juanita nods without understanding. „So what part of Africa did that tall man come from?‟ she asks, once they are settled in the warm cafe, with its view of the street and all its peoples. „Montserrat, not Africa,‟ Abdu tells her. „A tiny island. But he knew Bob Marley.‟ „I know Bob Marley,‟ says Juanita, jealously, eager to recover from any mistake. „Everyone knows Bob Marley.‟ And she gets up, laughts, and begins to dance, as if she were young again and happy, to the words she is singing, in a high cracked voice, „Don‟t rock the boat... Don‟t rock the boat,‟ and Abdu and Mary sing along with her. (Gee: 2005, pp. 130-131)

The tall man is from the West Indies, he is coloured. Juanita takes him for an African because of his racial features. He corrects her, but she does not understand being Spanish. There is confusion and misunderstanding. This leads to a funny exchange. There is irony, there is subtle satire. Africans are taking over the whole of England and they are getting richer. This is the refrain that is voiced by Juanita repeatedly. There is biting sarcasm in her words and reactions. This gives rise to the use of sober humour which is known as black comedy-a characteristic feature of postmodernism. The realistic portrayal of the contemporary world is a feature of modern literature. This is the projection of hyper reality, Juanita exposes this. Throughout most of the meal, she complains, like a poem. Her sadness is real, her husband is ill, has not worked for years, because of diabetes, her daughter, who was clever, left school at fifteen and got involved with a drug-dealer. The fact that he was black has not endeared her to Africans: „I‟m not saying‟ nothing, but he was coloured.‟ Now the daughter has a baby that Juanita „never‟ sees (though it turns out that this means every other weekend.) „Why? Why has God done Chapter - IV: Ugandan Novels: Home Coming, Cultural Conflicts and Social Critique 184

this to me?‟ Then Junnita has a beer and becomes even franker. (Gee: 2005, p. 131)

This is the reality. This Spanish woman thinks that God had been harsh to her. Her husband has not worked for years, as he suffers from diabetes. Her daughter has left school early and got involved with a coloured drug dealer and has given birth to a baby. Juanita remarks that she will never see her daughter‟s baby, but the reality is that she sees her every other weekend. God‟s cruelty, her sticking to the same old job of cleaning and Mary and Abdu‟s success are presented as the portrayal of the hyper reality of the life in the contemporary times. Vanessa considers to be a bang proves to be a whimper and that illustrates the sly use of black comedy, sarcasm, broad satire and ironical punches striking one and all. In the same manner she plans an adventure of the African safari, to visit the deep forests and dark jungles on the bordering areas of Congo and Uganda near the lake that has under it vast reserves of gold and diamonds and oil which is known as „liquid gold‟. The comic misadventure is another illustration of the use of black comedy. An old American female tourist shouts that she needs a bathroom, but she is told to observe silence, so as not to scare the gorillas. This rather painful, awkward situation becomes hilariously funny in the course of the narrative in the novel My Driver. The political commentary is full of broad satirical remarks. There is banter in presenting the economic scenario of the country, Uganda. The stork‟s encounter with Vanessa Henman is both a thrilling suspenseful drama and the ridiculous human predicament against nature and its forces. The use of black comedy is a characteristic feature of postmodernism. Reality with high tension dramatic situations both comic and tragic, serious and light, sweet and sour, brilliantly witty and energetically fast-moving is presented by the postmodern novelist Maggie Gee in My Driver. Elaine Showalter writes, “Brilliantly Chapter - IV: Ugandan Novels: Home Coming, Cultural Conflicts and Social Critique 185

negotiates the explosive racial territory of the British abroad with feeling, observation, humour and art”. (Guardian: Books of the Year, cover). Hilary Mantel has remarked “A fast-moving, energetic, constantly surprising book, which takes the reader on a big emotional journey, a book that makes you laugh when it doesn‟t make you flinch.” (Telegram Books: 2009, Title page) These remarks indicate that My Driver presents reality, in a hypersensitive brilliant manner. The theme of racism is treated with art, feeling and humour. It is an enjoyable reading, a book that makes a big emotional journey. It has a light, humorous, comic touch. It‟s expressiveness is transparent. It sketches the dark, sober realities of the contemporary world, but at the same time, gives it a gentle touch. This is the reflection of hyper reality in the postmodern novel My Driver.

IV.15 Maggie Gee’s Philosophy of Life and her Interest in Evolutionary Biology Every writer presents his or her vision or philosophy of life through the works of literature. Maggie Gee has adopted a very broad view in dealing with the problems of racial discrimination and class conflict, in particular, with reference to the changing shifts in the relationships between Vanessa Henman, and her cleaner Mary Tendo. Maggie Gee‟s humanitarian point of view has become her remarkable vision of life. Her philosophy on these issues is quite remarkable as multiculturalist postmodern writer. Maggie Gee is a super and pitiless analyzer of middle- class angst. Elegant, humorous and surprising, this is a classy performance. (Gee: 2009, inside back page)

She intelligently and humorously presents a critical dissection of the contemporary reality of the postmodern times. She has pictured the life in the twenty-first century carefully and beautifully. The hope for the better is there in all her writings. She believes in the essential goodness of man and acts accordingly. This is a funny book, that is a Chapter - IV: Ugandan Novels: Home Coming, Cultural Conflicts and Social Critique 186

must read text. The light candour works well to show how the tradition of gentle humour initiated by Jane Austen and others has remained intact even in the writings of the postmodern novelists of the present time. Maggie Gee‟s liberal vision of life is remarkably projected through her works. Maggie Gee is interested in biological advances. She is keen to know the evolutionary changes all around in nature. Item three: the African herbs in the kitchen. The food was one thing, but now she is bringing in strange little packets of dried root and power, glass vials of seed- heads like shrunken pupils, wizened black plant-stuff from another world. I asked her, quite nicely, „Are these herbs for cooking?‟ But she said, „No it is medicine for Justin. I have told him to stop taking his Prozac,‟ and I said, „But Mary, that could be dangerous!‟ And she said, „Vanessa, Prozac is dangerous. Especially now Justin is working with Trevor. What is he is painting up a ladder? I am sure that Prozac will make him sleepy.‟ (Gee: 2005, p. 191)

This is how Mary Tendo has started bringing some herbs which she calls as medicinal plants to be given to Justin, instead of giving him Prozac which she will make him sleepy. This is alternative medicine. In the continents of Asia and Africa, these indigenous treatments are still in practice, many of these pathies are depend on the herbal plants, seeds, leaves, flowers, roots and powders. The tribals all over the world believe in the efficacy of these medicinal plants and other biological specimens and their medicinal properties and potential. Mary Tendo believes in the biological properties of the roots, seeds and herbs she brings to be administered to Justin for getting energy. This is of course not acceptable to Vanessa Henman, who has become a part of the modern metropolitan life. She has departed from the evolutionary changes and advances brought in the biological sciences in the modern times. Maggie Gee belongs to the elite group of 21st century British Novelists like Martin Amis, Julian Barnes and Angel Carter. Maggie Gee in her earlier work, Dying, in other words, passes from her initial Chapter - IV: Ugandan Novels: Home Coming, Cultural Conflicts and Social Critique 187

interest in technical and stylistic innovations to the universal questions of personal morality in private life, to the themes of racist violence, interracial relationships and the impact of the encounters with different cultures. Her eighth novel, The White Family, is a conditions-of-England Novel from where she boldly ventures to write on the issues of the contemporary multicultural society, not only in Europe or America, but in Africa too. She has crossed the boundaries of race, class and gender. The likeness in difference is what she has explored in My Cleaner and its sequel My Driver. Broadening her horizons of life she is the voice of conscience in these two novels- My Cleaner and My Driver. Her philosophy of life understands the significance of negotiation and commitments in life. Vanessa Henman and Mary Tendo misunderstand each other initially but later on they change and they change better with understanding of humanity as a whole. Maggie Gee has thus presented themes of violence racism, multi culturalism, role of women, social inequality and has presented the areas of contemporary life through the postmodern perspectives in her novels. Maggie Gee is a novelist with a broad vision, liberal catholicity and enlightened humanitarian approach. Evolution is a biological process. From a unicellular to complicated formation of multi cellular organism, the developmental growth, that transforms the seed into a mammoth tree. Maggie Gee‟s interest in the evolutionary biology is evident in all her novels. There are significant passages that relate facts and beauties of the flora and fauna of Uganda. After attending the Writers‟ Conference in Kampala Vanessa Henman, has decided to visit the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest in central Africa on the borders of DRC, The Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda. She hires a taxi and her driver is Isaac. Vanessa thinks, this is absolute hell. Why am I putting myself through this? They have been trekking through the trees since breakfast, but this time there has been no magical resolution. They have glimpsed the gorillas, always fleeing onwards, and grey anxious shadows in the dense dripping forest. Once the actual rain started, Chapter - IV: Ugandan Novels: Home Coming, Cultural Conflicts and Social Critique 188

it took only thirty minutes before the trekkers were drenched to the skin, despite their layers of hi-tech rainwear, their boots and gaiters and gloves and balaclavas. This rain is different. This rain is the ocean. They float about, helpless, in-consequential, marshaled by their chief guide, who fears to lose them, and fears to give up the trek without a sighting. (He has his instructions. FIND THE GORILLAS. If not, the tourists can ask for a refund. (Gee: 2009, p. 310)

They plough on upwards through the undergrowth. Ahead of them, a nervous group of gorillas scatters and flees, always higher, unable to settle, becoming increasingly irascible as their attempt to rest and eat are frustrated. At the end of the equally wretched human column, one of the fat American women is weeping, soundlessly, and the other one is cussing slowly and rhythmically every time her boot cuts into her bruised Achilles tendon. „I need the bathroom,‟ the weeper says, but her voice is lost in the hiss of the rain, the squelch of the boots, and the rustle of rain- clothes. „I need the bathroom!‟ She is suddenly screaming. (Gee: 2009, p. 311)

The trekkers went to Bwindi Impenetrable Forest to watch the gorillas in the forests but were quite disillusioned. Evolutionary theories state gorillas to be primates, close to men in evolutionary process like the apes. Their forest dwellings are dear to them and they are averse to them as they are wild animals and not domestic pets. The same happens when a stork approaches Vanessa in Kampala on the pavement. Biological studies are interesting but contact with the birds or beasts in the open can be threatening. My Driver illustrates this fact.

IV.16 Loss of Ecological Equilibrium and Impact of Postmodernism on Human Psyche The city, where Mary Tendo works, is now a crowded place. It has lost its ecological balance. Uganda is a country rich in naturally beautiful landscapes. It has an infinite variety of flora and fauna. Now the glorious beauty of nature lies scattered and barren. Commercialization and urbanization have taken the toll of nature‟s Chapter - IV: Ugandan Novels: Home Coming, Cultural Conflicts and Social Critique 189

gifts. There are shops and markets in place of groves and forests. There are ruins of time; the ravages of time have made nature bare and dry. Postmodern times have introduced the novelties of commerce and that has ended the glamorous grandeur of the splendors and the beauties of nature. The future grips us in its jaws, Once this was the City of Antelopes. Now there are no more golden kobs jumping away down the green slopes. So many shops selling mobile phones, dozens of them, hundreds, though many people buy them, then can‟t afford to keep paying for air-time. So the city is littered with dead metal beetles. But the shops keep on springing up cheerful and hopeful, decorated in bright yellow plastic, with tidy staff in the South African style, smiling at us all in sky-blue uniforms. And there are South African burger bars, too, copies of American burger bars, where confident young people sit and smoke and talk and wave their mobiles at each other. Though surely they cannot like the food. It is ten times the price of smoked beef and matooke. They make the burgers from the animals‟ entrails, teeth and hooves, stuck together with fat. My friend who works there told me about it. The ice-scream is nice. Sweet and creamy. (Gee: 2005, p. 15)

This is how the loss of ecological balance is presented. Antelopes have disappeared and metal beetles of cellphones have occupied the environment. The sun setting over Leptis Magna. Omar, my husband, took me there. It is a great ruined city in Libya. He took me there, as a wife, a lady. He had a camera. He took pictures of me, by the severed stone heads of the snakey-haired women. There were fifty of them. They were all different. Each of them looked sad in a different way. And those sadnesses survived two thousand years of history. (Gee: 2005, p. 16)

Another degradation of ecology is noticed in the ruins of the city. The postmodern age is characterized by the loss of ecological equilibrium. The human psyche is a complex network. There are deeper recesses in which subconscious sensations float. At times these suppressed sensations cause mighty explosions. The novel, My Chapter - IV: Ugandan Novels: Home Coming, Cultural Conflicts and Social Critique 190

Cleaner is a smart satire on a subject which is central to most women‟s lives and psyches. Women either keep their own houses clean on their own by working themselves or they pay someone to do the same for them. Here in this novel, the British novelist Vanessa Henman pays Mary Tendo her Ugandar cleaner. The close scrutiny of the psyche of these two women is offered in the course of the novel. In addition to the presentation of the psychic undercurrents in the minds of these two women, the novelist Maggie Gee has presented the distortions which have taken place in Justin‟s mind. The change in the young man‟s psyche is the result of the postmodern trends and tendencies of the present time. He is obsessed by the unpleasant experiences in his youth. These experiences have resulted into the loss of Justin‟s confidence and courage. He has lost the will to move, to work and to do anything. He just lies down, and sleeps day and night. That is the terrible impact of certain incidents on Justin‟s psyche. The presentation of his psychic turmoil and subsequent turnover is made by Maggie Gee in her novel My Cleaner. The degradation of ecology is the result of the commercial exploitation of Ugandans by the British. Smoking, drinking and drug abuse have been encouraged by the colonizers. It is noticed that the youngsters in the country have now become the materialistic persons, who do not care for the ecological equilibrium to be maintained in a country like Uganda. One specific illustration of this materialistic pollution is the growing of the tobacco plantations because the British companies are in need of tobacco as the raw material from Uganda. That was rich, though Trevor, smiling at his paper. When Mary worked for Nessie, she was always smoking, and always having to pretend she didn‟t. (Gee: 2009, p. 161)

These are the reactions to the growing habit of smoking among the Ugandans and the citizens of already corrupted and polluted Uganda. This is how materialistic habits begin to emerge. These postmodern trends need to be neglected because the ecological balance needs to be Chapter - IV: Ugandan Novels: Home Coming, Cultural Conflicts and Social Critique 191

maintained. The balance in ecology has been lost, which is a postmodern feature. Postmodernism has its tremendous impact on the human psyche. This impact is noticed in the psychological make-up, of the two central female characters of the novel. Vanessa, according to Mary Tendo, has become moody and clumsy. Her divorce, her career as a novelist, her job as a teacher of the course in creative writing and her son Justin‟s condition have influenced her so much that she is always under some tension. On the other-hand, Mary Tendo is a born Ugandan. In her twenties she worked as a cleaner for eight years in Vanessa‟s household. After her stint as a cleaner, Mary Tendo, went back to her native land. There because of her close contact with Europe, European culture and her education, she is now working as a house keeper. Her skills, her kind nature, her sanity and her decent conduct have made her confident of her own abilities. She has reformed Vanessa‟s twenty-three year old son Justin. Vanessa swallows nervously: this is it. The taxi-park is a deep, noisy pit of metal. No-one can get in, no-one can get out. About a hundred identical dirty white Toyota vans are blocking the entrances and exits, and the drivers greet and insult each other at full volume through the open windows, and the fumes are thick and bitter, choking Vanessa, though none of the other passengers cough and gasp. After hours of short, abortive, jolting man oeuvres, the taxi finally lurches to a halt, packed in side by side with its brother tin- cans. Vanessa‟s hunds tremble slightly as she clutches her possessions and slides along the seat, ready to get out. But the woman beside her in the green gomesi takes her arm – Vanessa jumps, and then feels ashamed, because of course she doesn‟t distrust Ugandasn – and says, in surprisingly good English, „You can wait at my side. I am going further, in this taxi, after half an hour. I will tell you when the right taxi is coming. This area is not good for you.‟ She looks at her kindly, and then falls quiet, takes a Bible from her bag, and begins to read it. Vanessa settles back, grateful for the Bible. It‟s nice to have Christians about when you need them! Though of course she takes pride in being an agnostic. (Gee: 2009, pp. 78-79)

Chapter - IV: Ugandan Novels: Home Coming, Cultural Conflicts and Social Critique 192

Vanessa is nervous. She is scared. This nervousness is noticed by her co-traveler Ugandan, in her taxi. This Ugandan woman in good English, assures Vanessa that she will show the right taxi but till then Vanessa can wait by her side. This is how growing confidence is the impact on the Ugandan‟s, while Vanessa undergoes a period full of tensions in this alien land. That is the impact of postmodernism on the human psyche. The human psyche fails to grasp its impact in the context of the 20th and 21st century. The psyche was overpowered with the postmodern conundrum of living out or living it in. The façade or the illusion, the postmodernist ideal life‟s all there, all true but it simply doesn‟t sum up this problem and this is what Maggie Gee‟s work tries to do, a proper study of what the impact is all about. The alien land itself represents the postmodernist landscape, where the characters are lost and they have to discover themselves at any cost and this is what the great 21st century postmodernist divide is all about.

* * *

CHAPTER-V: CONCLUSION

V.1 Major Findings of the Present Study

V.2 Practical Implications of the Study

V.3 Academic Implications of the Study

V.4 Pedagogical Implications of the Study

V.5 Scope for further Research

Chapter - V: Conclusion 193

CHAPTER-V

CONCLUSION

The chapter presents an overview of the ongoing research and the researcher has presented the main findings of the study. This chapter also explains the pedagogical implications of the study and finally, gives suggestions for further scope for research. An attempt is made to offer critical observations and remarks on the postmodernist characteristics found in the novels by the British novelist, Maggie Gee. The selected four novels are sub-divided into two groups. The first group is of the two novels – The White Family (2002) and The Flood (2004), which belong to the category of the condition-of-England novels. The second group is of the remaining two novels. These two subsequent novels My Cleaner (2005) and My Driver (2009) belong to the group of Maggie Gee‘s Ugandan novels. This chapter offers a review of the entire research study undertaken to search the post- modernism in Maggie Gee‘s novels. As with structuralism and post-structuralism, there is a great deal of debate about how exactly modernism and postmodernism differ. The two concepts are of different vintage, 'modernism' being a long-standing category which is of crucial importance in the understanding of twentieth-century culture, whereas the term 'postmodernism', as is well known, has only become current since the 1980s. Modernity versus postmodernity is a densely packed piece. It presents an analysis of (aesthetic) modernism, it defends that modernism against ‗neo-conservative‘ criticism, it gives an explanation for the ‗failure‘ of the surrealist revolt and it ends with an overview of anti-modernists and their positions, ranging from the ‗old conservatives‘ to the ‗neo-conservatives‘ by way of the ‗young conservatives‘. Modernist that was a prevalent practice among critics, theorists had a real difficult time in accepting postmodernist values and ideas and it was looked at it with scepticism. Chapter - V: Conclusion 194

Both postmodernism and postcolonialism are ideas and signs what can be called the presence of the past and a marker of events that has already happened in the past. Postmodernism draws our attention to modernism, which it supersedes. The past, it reminds us of, is lived history and not just a literary and cultural movement. That difference alone should alert us to the political implications of pitting these terms together. For ‗postmodernism‘ is not merely a term, a mere label to designate a cultural phenomenon, for those who have been through the experience of this. Because our societies, the so- called Third World, have been denigrated as ‗backward‘ by those who consider themselves modern, modernity itself has been a problematic concept so imagine them dealing with the possibility of a postmodernist society. As developing societies, the idea of modernity is still distant as it only moving towards modernity. On the other hand, the attitude modern literatures is not that of parody but respect for their equalitarian and committed vision but postmodernist creates a difficult problem as modern literature becomes a fodder, a parody, a pastiche, things that have been done by Maggie Gee herself in the four works that have been selected for the present study. Race has made a tremendous difference in how the empire treated us. And those differences, alas, continue to this date. And this is the reason why Maggie Gee's Ugandan novels are as important in the context of this research as it shows how brutal the repercussion of colonialism has been. Talking of disintegration of social institutions family and marriage in Maggie Gee's work, it is essential to look at the postmodernist ethos generally associated with such themes. Postmodernist roots started somewhere after the World War II when the entire world was in chaos and disorder. It was a time when people had to rebel and fight against the inequalities that was happening in the world and postmodernist creators too came forth doing the same. Chapter - V: Conclusion 195

One of the major aspects of postmodernism was the lack of spirituality and the loss of morality. But this came because human faith was shaken because of the conflicts and the loss of lives. If we look at Hitler and his persecution of Jewish people, it becomes more clear. Also, postmodernism came together with the freedom of colonies but the existence of colonies became other conflicts. Human Beings, seeing so much bloodshed totally lost faith in god, immigrants who travelled to distant countries in search of better livelihoods, too got trapped in this. Maggie Gee's works have a lot of biblical references, like The Flood, which is a resemblance of Noah's Ark and god flooding the earth to purge it of sins that was troubling the world. But ‗the flood‘ here is extremely metaphorical and has nothing to do in general and concerns with the characters of Maggie Gee's works in particular. This game of metanarration could go on and on, since arguably the narrative remains vulnerable, thanks to the author's concerns. But this is not the point. What is important in all these internalized challenges to humanism is the interrogating of the notion of consensus. Whatever narratives or systems that once allowed us to think, could define, public agreement that are now being questioned, by the acknowledgement of differences in theory and in artistic practice. Maggie Gee's works have resulted in creating a broader paradigm that has created as the novels are manifestations of late capitalist, bourgeois, informational, post-industrial society, a society in which social reality is structured by discourses postmodernism endeavours to teach and bring out the problems that were there. The cinematic technique used by Maggie Gee in her work is another postmodern creation. When postmodernist writers came together, their idea was to totally dismantle the modernist setup and bring a mixture of high and low, to question, to usurp what was there. Hence, narratives became much more radical, and denounced the Chapter - V: Conclusion 196

regular forms of writings. Maggie Gee and other British postmodernists precisely, create new from the old. What does the postmodernist try to achieve when he or she is creating a pastiche? It is a random assortment of memories, memories that were lost and later found. The attempt of the postmodernist is to create a long chain of memories. The modernist often in an attempt to create the pure art refuses to look beyond the 'high' and avoids the 'low'. Here, the high means things that have philosophical value, things that were used by the aristocrat, things that the makers of the society feel have some intrinsic value. Another important element in the postmodern setup is the narrative technique. If a thorough assessment is done, not a single postmodern writer will follow similar pattern and that's why the established notions and regulations came under challenge. A comparative study will reveal as to how every regular narrative pattern has been deconstructed and destroyed by postmodernist writers. Is it to confuse the readers or to challenge them? Of course, it is done so that the readers can think. A normal narrative often escapes the reader's attention. Postmodernist writers have often effectively tackled the subject of class conflicts as well as inequality. Maggie Gee's novels are reminiscent of J.M. Coetzee's work, especially the life and times of Michael K. Maggie Gee is more concerned about camouflaged apartheid that was happening in England and other countries and no country was able to save itself from the inequality, class conflict, from the tremendous problem of racial tension. Postmodernist writers like Maggie Gee have used their writing as a tool to bring them down. But the world, as it has become, is now a multicultural world, where borders have broken down. It is only because we see that the colonizers and colonized have been able to come together. It is not easy as problems like cultural gap exists; it is also because the globalized, multicultural, world is, never easy to accept. The basic problem is the term equality. It is only when the world will seriously Chapter - V: Conclusion 197

taking the postmodern writer to solve. Till then, no way the writer will let these things go. As Maggie Gee has done in her work or other British postmodernists have done like Martin Amis who have consistently attacked the aristocratic values of the British people. Same goes with other British writers like Angela Carter who totally annihilated the very idea of decorum and attacked everything possible. The writers have had their own version of dystopia and they challenged it. The postmodernist's world is something that is made of nightmares. Here the poor and the rich are both under attack. The global and domestic concern that we see has its roots in history as history has constantly favoured the rich and not the poor. But as the postmodernist age approached, conflicts like World War II happened, the suffering spared no one. But this is not the only aspect of postmodernism. The suffering that we are talking about can be existential and that's where the focus was. But the existential crises of the rich and the poor itself is very different and that's what Maggie Gee has shown. Postmodernism relies heavily on confusing the readers. The writing style itself becomes more complex as it is a challenge thrown to the reader to understand, to decipher. The writer is a creator here, and he refuses to challenge his authority and if possible undermine it at any cost. The reader has to understand beyond the mere words uttered by the characters. Postmodernist age offers no concrete answers or hope to the then existing challenges/ issues. And every postmodernist character is marginalized even though the surrounding that he is in, gives the hint that he is free. The idea of postmodern theorist‘s is to discover where the freedom lies and how one can be free. French philosophers like Sartre as well as British playwrights like Harold Pinter and Samuel Beckett have all created and debated this issue as to whether the human being are really free or otherwise. Maggie Gee too has followed this ideal and that's why in her writing, Chapter - V: Conclusion 198

we see that not a single character is free, they are all trapped in their personal hells. The world has changed and as it entered the digital world, the crisis of the postmodernist only increased. Media that was the fourth pillar was even more prying than we could think. But a large chunk of human life came online and the crisis, the suffering only increased. Rather the suffering now had a different avenue as such. Maggie Gee's novels and its characters too focused on that, as they displaced from one place to another but as they got uprooted their sadness, their problems too got uprooted and traveled with them and this was not going to end so soon as long as the postmodernist world stands. New theories will come out but the problems will remain the same. Depends on how it is dealt with. The postmodernist age is also fought with the conundrum related to sociological, psychological, political as well as economical aspects. The economic problem after the end of the Second World War, lost its balance, but this was not the end. The rich had the infrastructure, and they started exploiting and the freed countries soon started suffering. Maggie Gee's Ugandan characters like Tendo, comes in search of that economic freedom that was denied. The argument that identity does not derive from class positions, never definitive, always relational and social reality is a differential system produced a multiplicity of subject-positions. And this is, where the Ugandan novels of Maggie Gee helps us understand the postmodernist discourse of race, racial superficiality properly. Inevitably, it casts a shadow, as it projects a world, howsoever partial or incoherent. The aim of such texts is not to prevent the reconstruction of a world but only to throw up obstacles to the reconstruction process, making it more difficult and thus more perceptible to the racial tensions. To accomplish this, it has at its disposal a repertoire of stylistic strategies and other methods. Nature again plays an important role. The interrelationships created are another point, as humans mix their emotions with the Chapter - V: Conclusion 199

physical objects. The settings come together to create this relationship. When humans try and transfer their problems to such non-humans, then and then only the problems occur. A non-human can never become the companion of the human. Most theorists of postmodernism who see it as a cultural dominance agree that it is characterized by the results of late capitalist dissolution of bourgeois hegemony and the development of mass culture that creates these difference and they can't reciprocate the way they want. The increasing uniformization of mass culture is one of the forces that postmodernism exists to challenge. But it does seek to assert difference, not homogeneous identity. Of course, the very concept of difference could be said to entail a typically postmodern contradiction: ―difference,‖ unlike ―otherness,‖ has no exact opposite against which to define itself. Postmodern difference or rather differences, in the plural, are always multiple and provisional. Postmodern culture, then, has a contradictory relationship to what we usually label our dominant, liberal humanist culture. It does not deny it, as some have asserted it. Instead, it contests from within its own assumptions. Modernists like Eliot and Joyce are usually being seen as profoundly humanistic in their paradoxical desire, for stable aesthetic and moral values, even in the face of their realization of the inevitable absence of such universals. Postmodernism differs from this, not in its humanistic contradictions, but in the provisionality of its response to them: it refuses to poset any structure or, what Lyotard calls, master narrative—such as art or myth— which, for such modernists, would have been consolatory. It argues that such systems are indeed attractive, perhaps even necessary; but this does not make them any less illusory. For Lyotard, postmodernism is characterized by exactly this kind of incredulity toward master or metanarratives: those who lament the ―loss of meaning‖ in the world or in art are really mourning the fact that knowledge is no longer primarily narrative knowledge of this kind. This does not mean that knowledge somehow disappears. It Chapter - V: Conclusion 200

is all there, inside the writer's mind and reading and understanding Maggie Gee helps us reach closer to the knowledge that is offered in the postmodernist landscape. Loss of ecological equilibrium is random in the postmodernist age. It is nothing but the culmination of something that was bound to happen and Maggie Gee focuses on how such ecological problem misbalances the narrative itself. This is an extremely important part of Maggie Gee's writing. In the postmodernism the ideological and the aesthetic have turned out to be inseparable. The self-implicating paradoxes of historiographical metafiction, for instance, prevent any temptation to see ideology as that which only others fall prey to. Maggie Gee's works are historiographies as well, but fictional as she brings out the history through common men and women. What postmodern theory and practice has taught is less than that ―truth‖ is illusory, than that it is institutional, for we always act and use language in the context of political conditions. Ideology both constructs and is constructed by the way, in which we live in the totality and by the way we represent that process in art. These are has to be natural, ordinary and appealing to common sense. Our consciousness is usually, therefore, uncriticized because it is familiar, obvious, transparent and Maggie Gee's observation is more than what many can digest. Such catalogues seem to project a crowded world, inexhaustibly rich in objects, that it defies our abilities to master it through syntax; the best we can do is to begin naming its many parts, without any hope of ever finishing. Yet, at the same time, the decontextualization of words through the catalogue structure can have the opposite effect, that of evacuating language of presence, leaving only a shell behind—a word-list, a mere exhibition of words. Both tendencies are represented through the impossibility of violence and racial tensions that keep on coming up again and again. Catalogues in postmodernist fiction seem inevitably to gravitate toward the word-list pole, even if they begin as assemblages of objects. Chapter - V: Conclusion 201

Postmodernist fiction is morally bad art, and tends to corrupt its readers but this is just a fad created by the modernist critics. It does so by denying external, objective reality. There was a time when denying the reality of the outside world could be seen as a bold gesture of resistance, a refusal to acquiesce in a coercive order of things. Nowadays everything in our culture tends to deny reality and promote unreality, in the interests of maintaining high levels of consumption. It is no longer official reality which is coercive, but official unreality, and postmodernist fiction, instead of resisting this coercive unreality or even celebrates it. This means, ironically enough, that postmodernist fiction, for all its antirealism, actually continues to be mimetic. Unfortunately, it has chosen to imitate the wrong thing, and it imitates it passively and uncritically: Where reality has become unreal, literature qualifies as our guide to reality, by de-realizing itself in a paradoxical and fugitive way, mimetic theory remains alive. Maggie Gee herself imitates as she uses history, suffering and other things to fill up her work. Literature holds the mirror up to reality and unreality; its conventions of reflexivity and anti-realism. Postmodernist fiction is a manifestation of a consciousness, so estranged from objective reality, that it does not even recognize its estrangement, as such the vaunted fragmentation of art is no longer an aesthetic choice; it is simply a cultural aspect of the economic and social fabric. According to this view, postmodernist fiction has become just another part of the problem, rather than part of the solution. These are serious charges, and need to be answered. They are all the more serious for having come from critics sophisticated enough to know not to identify reality simplistically with the conventions of nineteenth-century realism. It is too late in the day, even for those who are most nostalgic for unproblematic mimesis, to recommend a return to the fiction of Austen, Balzac, Tolstoy, and George Eliot. Everyone knows now that the conventions of nineteenth-century fiction were just that, conventions, and not a transparent window on reality, and that there are other, equally legitimate means of getting Chapter - V: Conclusion 202

access to the real besides Victorian realism. Or rather, these critics are sophisticated enough not to openly recommend a return to the nineteenth century. However, the more one probes their critical assumptions, the more it appears that Victorian realism is, after all, the norm against which they have measured postmodernist fiction and found it wanting. The critical problem, not always attended to by contemporary critics, is to discriminate between anti-realistic works that provide some true understanding of non-reality and those which are merely symptoms of it. In practice, this turns out to mean that the only acceptable anti-realistic writing is antirealism that implies nostalgia for a lost order and coherence like in Maggie Gee's Ugandan novel where the immigrants come in search of a better life, while in The Flood the metaphorical apocalypse is persistent as this antirealism in the service of social satire. In other words, writing is acceptably anti-realistic only if it stands in some fairly explicit and direct relation to a form of realism. Where this relation becomes more distant or oblique then certain legitimacy to art that is not realistic. Fabulous art can be morally as good as realistic art, as long as it stands by its (fantastic) premises and proceeds honestly from them. Like Henry James, whose argument in ―The art of fiction‖ (1884) that willingness to grant the artist his or her subject, refusing to judge a realistic as necessarily superior to a non-realistic one. Yet in fact the case has been prejudged, as it is required that fiction should project the air of reality. And that's what Maggie Gee's work has done- it has projected an air of reality by taking several things that many readers might find preposterous and absurd.

V.1 Major Findings of the Present Study A search of the social institutions which have been prevailing from the times immemorial is made and found that the family system is bound by the blood relations. It is said that walking from steps Chapter - V: Conclusion 203

together is sufficient to form a permanent friendship between the two individuals. However, it is observed that the family ties are broken in the contemporary society. The old structure of the joint family of the traditional times has totally disintegrated. The nucleous family has become the standard norm. Individuals are self-centered and they prefer this break-up of human relationships. It is observed that the marriage system also seems to have collapsed. Tendo married Omar, a Librarian in England; Omar deserted her to go to his native country. She then marries Charles, the Accountant. Vanessa Henman has divorced her ex-husband Trevor Patchett. Even then, they continue to communicate and contact each other quite frequently. Justin is the link that holds both of them together. Marriage in the postmodern setting is as hopeless and as meaningless as Maggie Gee portrays in her writings. The next finding of this study is based on the characterization of the two young men. Dirk White has a bias against the coloured. He has attained nothing and therefore, he plays the game of blame to the others for his present condition. The other young man is Justin, the son of Vanessa Henman and Trevor Patchett, who has lost his confidence and his nerve. These frustrated young men show that rootlessness and unluckiness is the characteristic feature of the postmodern life of the individuals. The social as well as the individual life in postmodern times is almost a meaningless struggle for mere survival. To exist is to live. To breathe is to live. There are uncompromising hostile circumstances through which men and women have to wriggle through to pass from breath to breath, experience to experience as aliens and strangers. The researcher is of the opinion that love, faith and integrity are thrown to the winds. Old values have disappeared and wrong, bad, harmful practices are rampant. What man has made of Nature is that Nature‘s bounty is plundered and looted. Pollution in the environment, corruption in public life and violence to others are some of the malpractices which has become the value system of the day. Chapter - V: Conclusion 204

During the study, the researcher has observed the total disintegration of the self, spirituality reflected in the selected novels. There is a rat race to gain material benefits in this age of earning and spending. Gross materialism has become main characteristics feature of the consumer capitalism. It is observed that the world is divided on various parameters. The divisions in the social fabric are like rich and the poor, the have‘s and the have-not‘s, the developed and the undeveloped, the civilized and uncivilized, the literate and the illiterate and so on. The researcher is of the opinion that 'all is not lost' in the postmodern period of the twenty first century. There are two women in these four novels that stand out as mothers, not of their sons and daughters and even of their husbands, grandchildren, neighbours, other relatives and everybody around them. Mary White is the linking bond and the balancing ring for her husband Alfred, her sons Darren and Dirk, her daughter Shirley, her grandchildren, her daughter-in- law, her son-in-law, her neighbours. Love wins all. Love embraces all. Love links all. Love encompasses all. Like Mary White, there is another Mary, Mary Tendo from Uganda. She loves Justin; she holds together both Vanessa and her husband, Tigger, Omar and the Uganden Charles. She is reconciled with Jamil, her son from Omar. She loved everybody, crossing the boundaries of race, religion and nations. The researcher speaks out that compassion is a rare virtue. Vanessa's husband Patchett even after their divorce continues to keep himself in contact with her, helps her in her need, and repairs whatever is out of order in Vanessa's house. Patchett goes to Uganda because Mary Tendo, their former maid servant has requested him to visit her village and help her in building a well for the thirsty villagers there. Pachett notices a young boy being harassed by hooligans and gives him a life. This young man finally drives the car to the safe destination and brings Vanessa to Mary Tendo's house and there is the reunion of Mary Tendo and her lost son, Jamil, the young driver Chapter - V: Conclusion 205

who brought Vanessa and Patchett safely. Patchett's compassion makes him attend on Vanessa, help Mary Tendo and rescue Jamil. Compassion is therefore, a virtue that always needs to be adopted by the entire mankind. Further, it is stated that the present study brings out the truth that developing human relationship is surely a path of progress to the overall development of the community at large, the society as a whole. Races, religious, castes, classes, genders, distances will not obstruct progress and prosperity of human if one heart is linked to the other, one lamp is lit by the another. This is what the bond of human relationship can achieve. Maggie Gee emphasizes the boding through human relationships. It is also confirmed that discrimination is a vice which has vitiated social fiber human life. Discrimination is the biased attitude and the prejudicial behaviour towards others. Discrimination is practised on various levels and against different groups based on gender, class, race, religion and nationality. Gender discrimination is practiced against women. Class discrimination has divided the society into the groups of ‗haves‘ and ‗have-nots‘, the rich and the poor. Racial discrimination has segregated whites, blacks, yellows and brownies in different racial conglomerations, religious discrimination has separated Christians and Muslims in particular and International discrimination has divided the world into East and West, North and South divisions of the developed and undeveloped which have divided the entire human population. The divided selves, divided families and the divided society have torn the entire fabric humanity. The breakdown of social institutions that have existed from the times immemorial, in the present times, is a major blow to the social fabric/ unity. It is found that the social institutions have completely collapsed on account of the man-made upheavals. The breakdown of the family system itself is a byproduct of the postmodern breakdown, as the writer witnesses. Chapter - V: Conclusion 206

The damage in the relations between the husband and wife which were brought together through the age-old system of marriage is another conclusion of the present study. The sanctity of the marriage system has been largely lost on account of the loss of basic cementing trust that holds the married couples together. This lack of trust has caused divorces and separations among the partners in marriage. The social and individual life is scrutinized through the study and found that man has lost his confidence and is confused in facing life challenges. The loss of confidence has resulted into the maladies of the present times such as rootlessness meaninglessness, hopelessness and homelessness. The remedial measures are necessary to improve the situation that prevails in the postmodern time. The hostility with the environment has crippled, constrained and weakened human beings, in the conditions that exist around. The hostile circumstances are the results of what man has made of other men and of course the Mother Nature. The tragedy of the man lies in his own doing in the postmodern time. Man is getting the fruits of what he had sown of his own wrong doings. The hostile environment is uncompromising and man is trapped in troubles on account of that adversity. The strong attraction for material pleasures and material possessions has put men into wrong values indulging in corruption and violence. This has resulted in the loss of spiritual strength of the individual among the people. This may be seen in the colonial and postcolonial conflicts. Largely, the British people destroyed this very moral fabric whose sole intention was only to get profit. It is concluded that of all the religions, the best religion is Humanity. Love and pity of Christianity, peace and justice of Islam, compassion and wisdom of Buddhism, non-attachment and non- violence of Jainism, community boding and selfless service of Sikhism, truth, goodness and beauty of Hinduism, discipline of Judaism and Chapter - V: Conclusion 207

liberty and brotherhood of tribal people are all integrated in Humanism. Maggie Gee has contributed to the postmodern British literature through all her writings, speeches, articles and interviews. She has presented the combination of the popular arts, media hype, pop music, the commercialism, the technological advances, the supersonic speed, the evolutionary biology, the interdisciplinary approaches and the other marks of highly mechanized and urbanized life of the contemporary times. She has dealt with the loss of spirituality, emergence of materialism, corruption, pollution, self-centeredness, lack of bonding in family, as well as, marital relations in the two conditions of England novels,. The violent fundamentalism, terrorism, discrimination, widening gap between have‘s and have-not‘s, psychosis and neurosis, the political divide, the religious fanaticism, the social disintegration, the economic depression, sociological separatism, the philosophy of negation, nihilism, the lack of positivism, the hopeless condition of human existence, the uncompromising hostile environment and other postmodern features are reflected in her novels. The method of narration, the construction of plot, the use of sensuous colour and nature imaginary, the appropriate structural design, the suitable setting, parody, irony, pastiche, satire and other stylistic peculiarities make her as the leading postmodernist female British novelist. Two of her characters will stand as memorable humanitarian figures - the genuine mother- Mary White and generously active Mary Tendo. Maggie Gee deserves the front rank position among the postmodern British novelists of the twenty first century. She occupied this place through her novels, short stories, her autobiography and her public appearances in conferences, interviews and on other public platforms.

Chapter - V: Conclusion 208

V.2 Practical Implications of the Study The first practical implication of the present study is that the concept of postmodernism, its definitions, its nature, its functions and its scope are brought out through this study. The most significant practical implication is the dissemination of the detailed discussion, with copious examples of the major features of the conceptual theory and practical implementation of postmodernism in the contemporary age. The second practical implication of the present study is that the exposition, the analysis and the evaluation of the novelistic elements such as the theme, the plot, the characterization, the narrative technique, the structure, the setting and the style are given in the course of the present study. The four selected novels are The White Novel, The Flood, My Cleaner and My Driver by Maggie Gee. Her novels are replete with postmodern features and these are examined in details, with illustrations from the text to support the argument. The third practical implication of the present study is that the presentation of textual data, its interpretation and analytical evaluation and other assessments have the utility value, in the critical theory of the postmodernism. This is beneficial informative data which has the practical advantage of the study.

V.3 Academic Implications of the Study The postmodernism and its features with illustrative examples, analysed and interpreted in the present study can be considered as a part and parcel of the literary studies of the twenty first century literature. It will also have the relevance of being included in the curriculum of contemporary literary criticism. The theory and practice of literary criticism and the survey of contemporary literature will remain incomplete, if the present study, its data and its conclusions are not taken into consideration, while designing the course contents related to the contemporary literature and contemporary literary criticism. Academically, the literary theory is of the great significance Chapter - V: Conclusion 209

as it marks a definite progressive stage in the development of the multiple approaches to the contemporary literature. The second scholastic implication is that the texts on contemporary literature and contemporary literary criticism will have the significant portions of the textual presentation in the materials production process. Syllabus designing and materials production are the two areas of the academic discipline and the academic implication of the present study has a relevance of its own in this regard. The next proposition of the present study is that the evaluation pattern of both internal and external tests and examinations can be properly determined. The data used in the present study has the potentiality of being put to such use of academic significance.

V.4 Pedagogical Implications of the Study The academic discussion and the relevant data will help the pedagogues, that is, the teachers of literature, understand the novels, in question, in their proper perspectives and enjoy the reading of the present study. The concentration on the single novelist Maggie Gee and that too on four of her postmodern novels and the futures of postmodernism will help the pedagogues to appreciate, understand and evaluate the novels in the light of the present study, postmodernism and its features will enrich their use of the present study. Both the teachers and their students will be at great advantage through the intensive and extensive use of the present study. It will be a powerful instrument to the practicing pedagogues and their students of the present and successive generations. The second pedagogical implication is that the actual learning and teaching process and its methodology will make use of the study. This will help the understanding of the theory and practice of postmodernism and to find out the innovative techniques of teaching the similar texts in the light of the present research work. Chapter - V: Conclusion 210

It will have benefits to the prospective features as a model of teaching the theory of literature the schools of literary criticism and the texts that illustrate the theory and practice of literary theories.

V.5 Scope for Further Research The present study was exclusively devoted to the postmodernist interpretations of four selected novels of Maggie Gee. The term postmodernism can also be used to interpret other novels of Maggie Gee. Thematic study of Maggie Gee‘s novels can also be a research area as she has used many themes in her novels. So, thematic study of her novels can be an interesting area to study. Maggie Gee‘s novels represent contemporary conditions in England and hence, realism in her novels can also become part of research. Maggie Gee‘s writing technique, artistic plot construction, setting of her novels and art of characterization can also be another area of research. Comparative study of Maggie Gee and other postmodern novelists can be explored as further area of research. Discourse analysis of the novels of Maggie Gee can also be undertaken by way of research, as she has shown thematic complexities and stylistic devices in her novels.

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SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Primary Sources Fictional work Gee, Maggie. (1981) Dying, In Other Words. Harvester. Print. Gee, Maggie. (1983) The Burning Book. London: Faber and Faber. Print. Gee, Maggie. (1985) Light Years. London: Faber and Faber. (re-issued by Flamingo, 1994, and by Saqi Books, 2005). Print. Gee, Maggie. (1988 and 2009) Grace. London: Telegram and Heinemann. Print. Gee, Maggie. (1991) Where Are the Snows? London: Heinemann. (re- issued by Saqi Books, 2005). Print. Gee, Maggie. (1994) Lost Children. London: Flamingo. Print. Gee, Maggie. (1994) The Burning Book. London: Flamingo. Print. Gee, Maggie. (1998) The Ice People, London: Richard Cohen Books. (revised edition, Telegram, 2008). Print. Gee, Maggie. (2002 and 2012) The White Family, London: Saqi Books and Telegram. Print. Gee, Maggie. (2004) The Flood. London: Saqi Books. Print. Gee, Maggie. (2005) My Cleaner. London: Saqi Books. Print. Gee, Maggie. (2009) My Driver. London: Telegram. Print. Gee, Maggie. (2014) Virginia Woolf in Manhattan. London: Telegram. Print.

Memoire Gee, Maggie. (2011) My Animal Life: A Memoir. London: Saqi Books. Print.

Collection of Short Stories Gee, Maggie. (2006) The Blue, London: Saqi Books. Print.

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Non-Fiction Gee, Maggie. (2007) The Anthology of New Writing. co-edited with Bernardine Evaristo (Granta/British Council). Print. Gee, Maggie. (2003) Diaspora City: The London New Writing Anthology. (contributor) London: Arcadia Books. Print. Gee, Maggie. (1982) Anthology of Writing Against War: For Life on Earth. (editor) (University of East Anglia,). Print. Gee, Maggie. (1996) How May I Speak in My Own Voice? Language and the Forbidden. (Birkbeck College: The William Matthews Lecture). Print.

Book Chapter or Section Gee, Maggie. (1982) Anthology of Writing against War: For Life on Earth. (editor) (University of East Anglia). Print. Gee, Maggie. (2011) „Living with insects.‟ In: Page, R, ed. Litmus: short stories from modern science. Manchester: Comma Press. Print. Gee, Maggie. (2010) „Beyond ending.‟ In: Bryson, B, ed. Seeing further: the story of science and the Royal Society. London: Harper Press. Print. Gee, Maggie. (2015) „Foreword.‟ In: Dillon, S and Edwards, C, eds. Maggie Gee: critical essays. Canterbury: Gylphi. Print. Gee, Maggie. (2015) „How may I speak in my own voice? Language and the forbidden.‟ In: Dillon, S and Edwards, C, eds. Maggie Gee: critical essays. Canterbury: Gylphi. pp.261-280. Print. Gee, Maggie. (2016) „Writing climate change.‟ In: Gross, S, ed. Memory in the twenty-first century: new critical perspectives from the arts, humanities, and sciences. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. pp.170-174. Print.

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Webliography (The online resources are accessed during October 2013 - March 2016). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maggie_Gee_(novelist). www.theguardian.com › Arts › Books › Maggie Gee. https://literature.britishcouncil.org/writer/maggie-gee. www.curtisbrown.co.uk/client/maggie-gee. Bibliography 220

www.telegraph.co.uk › Culture › Books › Book Reviews. Maggie Gee: Writing the Condition-of-England Novel https://books.google.co.in/books/isbn=1441162771 Mine Ã- zyurtKiliç - 2013 - Literary‎ Criticism. Contemporary British Women Writers https://books.google. co.in/books?isbn=1843840111 Emma Parker - 2004 - Literary‎ Criticism. Royal Society of Literature » Maggie Gee rsliterature.org › RSL Fellows. BBC News - Author Maggie Gee: 'Libraries are a free education' www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-12224672 The Ice People, Maggie Gee - Eco-Fiction eco-fiction.com/ice-people- maggie-gee. Maggie Gee - The White Family - The Interview Online www.theinterviewonline.co.uk › Library › Books. Maggie Gee: Critical Essays/Sarah Dillon drsarahdillon.com/ books/maggie-gee-critical-essays. Interview with Maggie Gee - Words on Words blogs.nottingham.ac.uk › Blogs › Words on Words › Staff Words. “A Sense of Completeness, of Understanding, Enfolding All Difference”: An Interview with Maggie Gee, www.oxfordjournals.org/page/6018/9. Jonathan Derbyshire, "The Books Interview: Maggie Gee", New Statesman, 8 March 2010. Katie Allen. "Weldon and Hensher head to Bath Spa". The Bookseller. The London Gazette: (Supplement) no. 60009. p. 10. 31 December 2011. Michèle Roberts, "My Animal Life", The Independent, 9 April 2010. Kathryn Hughes, "My Animal Life by Maggie Gee", The Guardian, 15 May 2010. ÖzyurtKiliç, Mine (December 2014). ""A sense of completeness, of understanding, enfolding all difference": an interview with Maggie Gee". Contemporary Women's Writing, Advance Access (Oxford Journals) 9 (2): 167. doi:10.1093/cww / vpu030. Bibliography 221

Derbyshire, Jonathan (8 March 2010). "The books interview: Maggie Gee ("My Animal Life")". New Statesman. Audio slideshow interview with Maggie Gee about The White Family on The Interview Online. Video interview with Maggie Gee about The White Family on Meet the Author. Video interview with Maggie Gee about The Blue on Meet the Author.

The following references are accessed from https://www. theguardian.com/book/maggie-gee Virginia Woolf in Manhattan review – a literary resurrection. Ellmann, Lucy. (22 August 2014). Maggie Gee interview: „Writing novels is a pastly profession.‟ O‟Keefee, Alice. (15 June 2014). A plea to restore Kensal Rise library to us. Gee, Maggie. (31 May 2012). Maggie Gee: When my parents died. Gee, Maggie. (29 May 2010). My Animal Life by Maggie Gee. Hughes, Kathryn. (15 May 2010). Maggie Gee‟s guide to the literary jungle. Emms, Stephen. (23 March 2010). My other life: Maggie Gee. Maggie Gee was an aviator during the second war – or so the literary festival seemed to think. Gee, Maggie. (14 February 2010). Out of struggle. Ness, Patrick. (28 March 2009). Writers‟ rooms: Maggie Gee. https://twitter.com/maggiegeewriter. http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/ maggie-gee-my-manhattan-transfer-with-virginia-woolf- 9536272.html. Williams, Holly. (15 June 2014). Maggie Gee: „My Manhattan Transfer with Virginia Woolf‟. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/bookreviews/10877289/ Virginia-Woolf-in-Manhattan-by-Maggie-Gee-review-a-jaunty- jeu-desprit.html. Bibliography 222

Brown, Helen. (11 Jun 2014) Virginia Woolf in Manhattan by Maggie Gee, review.

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