Table of Contents Articles: Modern Poetry and Cinematography: A Comparative Study of T.S Eliot's The Waste Land and Nissim Ezekiel's Selected Poems - Sasan Bazgir 5 Bleeding somewhere behind high Mountains: Contemporary Poetry in English from Tibetan and Chakma Refugee Poets - Nigamananda Das 11 Bhalchandra Nemade's Kosla: A Narrative of Revolt and Trapped Anguish - D.P. Digole 21 The End of Cages: Deconstruction of Marginal Institutions in Angela Carter's Nights at the Circus - Nozar Niazi, Sabrie Saedi 30 Writing Marginality and the Politics of Writing: Re-reading Representation of Women in Selected Assamese Short Stories - Sarangadhar Baral 38 Listening to the Id: Interpreting Shobha De's Snapshots - Naresh K. Vats 47 Ritual Suicide and the Paradoxical Nature of Regeneration: A Comparative Study of Tagore's Sacrifice and Soyinka's Death and the King's Horseman - Ujjwal Kr. Panda 55 Tiger Hills: Weaving A Tapestry of Fortune and Fortitude of Devi – 'The Tigress" - Neeta Puranik & Indira Javed 61 Interrogating the Self: Doris Lessing's The Summer Before the Dark - Supriya Agarwal 66 Indian Poetics as a New Dimension of Comparative Literature: Potential Possibilities and Pitfalls - Shalini Saxena 71 Subverting Gender Hierarchies in Angela Carter`s The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman and The Passion of New Eve - Shima Sadat Mirmousa 75 Juvenile Narratives and Environmental Concerns - Rajesh Kumar 82 Teaching English Drama in Indian Socio-Cultural Context - Madhukar Janrao Nikam 87 Gopinath Mohanty's Paraja: A Peep-hole to Tribal Life in Orissa - V. J. Chavan & R.T. Bedre 95 Confessionalism: Recent Trends in American Poetry - S. Barathi 101 T.V.Reddy The Poet – The True Son of Indian Villages - R. Venkataramana 107 Kalam's Academic Inspirational Reflections - A.Edwin Jeevaraj 112 Women's Sensibility and the Partition Trauma: An Analysis of Bapsi Sidhwa's Ice Candy Man - Shahnaz Begum 121 Revitalizing Folk Tales Of Rajasthan: Vijay Dan Detha's Chouboli and other Stories - Daisy 127 D. H. Lawrence's The Captain's Doll: A Rereading - Gagan Behari Das 134 Fetishizing 'Marginality': Contemporary Indian Academia and the Rise of Subaltern - Ajit K. Mishra 142 The Relevance of Dostoevsky to the Modern World - Poornima M 151 Postcolonial Gothic in Toni Morrison's Beloved - Arul Gaspar 156 Tagore's Critique of Imperialism and Nationalism: A Reappraisal in the Modern Day Context - Shyamali Dasgupta 160 Marginality in Things Fall Apart - Masoud Khosravi 169 Redefining Intertextuality - Sanjiv Kumar 175 Diasporic Psyche and Conflicts inBharati Mukherjee's The Tiger's Daughter - B.J. Geetha 181 From Englishness to Indianness: The Migrant's Experience in Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses - Judith Sebastian 187 Reconstruction of Black Woman's Image in the autobiographies of Maya Angelou - S. B. Bhambar 192 Book Review: Romancing with Life: Dev Anand - N D Dani 196 Postcolonial Ecocriticism : Graham Huggan and Helen - Bir Singh Yadav 199 Poetry: Albert Russo: Who Made Us The We Way Are? 202 Alienated 204 The Fate of A Brilliant Young Mind 205
Our Esteemed Contributors 206 Labyrinth: Volume-3, No.3 July-2012 ISSN 0976-0814; pp. 5-10
Modern Poetry and Cinematography A Comparative Study of T.S Eliot's The Waste Land and Nissim Ezekiel's Selected Poems - Sasan Bazgir
Abstract: It is believed that two main inventions that entirely changed the West to a very modern-economical world were 'railway' and 'weaving machine'. Railway opened a new way for villagers and new cheap labours in the companies. It was the beginning for villagers' irregular immigration to metropolises to find a job in weaving companies or any other companies. Nevertheless, one more prominent event that chanced the world might be the invention of cinematography. Though, it is considered as the seventh art and so to speak the last among arts, but its inevitable effects on the world might not be disregarded. A modern poet like T.S Eliot seems to be one of the first progressive poets who used cinematography techniques in his poetry. In fact, Eliot and some others opened a new horizon to the world of poetry. Though 40 or 50 years later, but the same movement came to the East. In India, it was Nissim Ezekiel who first grasped the helm of Indian modern poetry in English. He led the ship to a new land, where a nation could sip the taste of new nectar that brought about a generation of modern poets. This paper aims to explore such techniques in the poetry of these two mentioned poets. The visual arts of Eliot and Ezekiel's poetry step in the same territory of cinema and photography. Different in tools, but they cover the same purpose. Once a click on camera plays the same role of a pen on a blank sheet. Keywords: Cinematography, modern poetry, T.S Eliot, Nissim Ezekiel. By the end of Nineteenth Century, the world direction was suddenly changing from its cliché, and some new dimensions were scattering over the age. Like any other art, poetry also was wrestling with its ancestors and looking for its destiny in the modern world. If in music, modernists responded to the lush symphonies of the nineteenth century with atonalism or in painting they undermined Realism by movements like Postimpressionism, Expressionism, Cubism, Symbolism, Imagism, Dadaism, Futurism and Surrealism; in poetry also the new way of responding the world was happening. Skepticism, modern images and ironies, depicting the real world as it was not the moral world of the Victorian and Romantic poets, sexual images, man's isolation, describing the World War's effects and many other new aspects were the imminent results of such a progressive movement. One good example in modern art might be Pablo Picasso's painting. During and after The Second World
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Bleeding Somewhere Behind High Mountains: Contemporary Poetry in English from Tibetan and Chakma Refugee Poets - Nigamananda Das
Abstract: The paper seeks to assess poetry written in English by Tibetan and Chakma refugee poets. These marginal minor poets who struggle to voice the predicament of the subaltern, and the crises in their region have neither been encouraged nor solaced by anybody. But they have not stopped their poetic exploration of the exilic pain, predicament and the stark realities of life. Keywords: Exilic disappointment, nature, nostalgia, homeland, diaspora, solitude, chaos, hunger, primeval dreams, mysteries, terrorism, tribal ecology Contemporary Tibetan and Chakma refugee writers though a few in number have produced powerful poems in English, their other tongue, and have voiced their sorrows and sufferings. The minority literatures produced by them reflect the agonies of their souls in language of intense passion and sincerity. Tibet, a small mountainous country, is always in woes. About its writers who write in English we have not heard much and if asked perhaps it is difficult to name its writers. The present attempt is to examine select poems of some of Tibetan poets who write in English and who are mostly living as Tibetan refugees in various dispersed locations and such writers can be called Tibetan diasporas living abroad and are nostalgic of the experiences and emotions of their homeland. The paper attempts to introduce and explicate some of the concerns of these poets and as such it paves the path for furtherance of examining the works of such writers. The paper gives short introduction to such poets' and their sentiments. The selected poets discussed in this paper are Bhuchung D. Sonam, Tenzin Tsundue, Tenzin Dickyi, Tsamchoe Dolma, Gendun Choephel, K. Dhondup, Ngodup Paljor, Gyalpo Tsering, Tenzing Rigdol, and Tsering Dolkar. Poems of two Chakma poets-Niranjana Chakma and Jogamaya Chakma are also discussed with a background to the brief history of the sufferings of the Chakma refugees. Exilic disappointment and everlasting nostalgia are the major hang-over in the writings of these poets though nature is always a key to unlock their emotions. An iconoclastic monk scholar and poet was the first ever Tibetan to write verses in English which were published Mahabodhi journal in 1930s when Tibet was an independent country. Due to brutal Chinese aggression and occupation of Tibet, refugees entered into India and flooded in different 11 Labyrinth: Volume-3, No.3 July-2012 ISSN 0976-0814; pp. 21-29
Bhalchandra Nemade's Kosla: A Narrative of Revolt and Trapped Anguish - D.P. Digole
Abstract: Nemade's debut novel Kosla (1963) is a brilliant tour de force which remains a trendsetter even today nearly 50 years after its first publication due to its open-endedness and immense potential for varied interpretations. The present paper interprets Bhalchandra Nemade's magnum opus Kosla (Cocoon) as 'a narrative of revolt and trapped anguish'. It highlights how a sensitive youngster rebels against the prevalent hypocrisy and hollowness of the established value-system represented by his family. Keywords: Marathi novel, new morality, revolt, anguish, hypocrisy Bhalchandra Namade (b. 1938) is one of the foremost and radically influential of the contemporary Indian novelists distinguished by his striking originality, dexterous handing of modernist techniques and nativist claims. He has to his credit six novels, two collections of poems, two volumes of critical writings and numerous essays on varied issues related to literary culture like Translation, Comparative studies, Linguistics, Stylistics and so on. He made an unparalleled impact on the Marathi literary scene with the publication of his debut novel Kosla in 1963 and attained the stature of an all – India writer through his writings like Bidhar (1975), Jarila (1997), Zool (1979), Teekaswayamvar (1990), Indo-Anglican writings (1991) and the latest novel Hindu (2010). He got the prestigious Sahitya Akademi Award for his critical work Teekaswayamvar in 1991 and honorary D. Litt. Degree from North Maharashtra University, Jalgaon in 1993. Besides, he is the recipient of numerous awards like H.N. Apte Award, R.S. Jog Memorial Award, Labhasetwar Award, Marathi Abhyas Parishad's Mahabank Award and Maharashtra Foundation Award. He has emerged as a high priest of Nativism in literature, both by precept and practice, trying to free Indian literature and criticism from the shackles of Euro-American dominance. Nemade's debut novel Kosla (1963) is a brilliant tour de force which remains a trendsetter even today nearly 50 years after its first publication due to its open-endedness and immense potential for varied interpretations. It has been the most appreciated and widely interpreted novel by eminent critics like Dilip Chitre, Narhar Kurundkar, Chandrashekhar Jahagirdar, Vilas Sarang, Sukanya Aagase, Rekha Inamdar-Sane and Vasudev Sawant. Some interpret it as the tragedy of present generation, while others call it 'an exposition of the hollowness of the established socio-cultural values and moral decadence.' Still others 21 Labyrinth: Volume-3, No.3 July-2012 ISSN 0976-0814; pp. 30-37
The End of Cages: Deconstruction of Marginal Institutions in Angela Carter's Nights at the Circus - Nozar Niazi & Sabrie Saedi
Abstract: In the long-lasting history of patriarchy, women, as feminists remind us, have been “the other” of the society, who are encaged in several established institutions in order to be monitored by the dominant discourse. In Nights at the Circus, Carter goes to these institutions and their oppressed inhabitants in order to shed light on these previously neglected territories. Her goal is to depict the long-age history of women's objectification and to deconstruct the dominant discourse by the symbolic destruction of these marginal institutions. By analyzing two of these marginal institutions, the brothel and the freak show, the present paper wishes to demonstrate how Carter accomplishes her feminist mission. The whores, likewise, are portrayed as potential revolutionary elements who, finally, stand up to patriarchy and its domineering norms. Keywords: deconstruction, marginal institutions, the brothel, the freak show, the other Introduction: In her influential study, The Second Sex, Simone de Beauvoir argues that in the patriarchal Western thought, “woman has represented the other that can confirm man's identity as Self, as rational thinking being”. She continues that the notion of the Self which Man has assigned to himself can only be defined in opposition to something which is not- self: “she is the incidental, the inessential as opposed to the essential. He is the Subject, he is the Absolute. She is the Other” (qtd in. Sim. The Routledge Companion to Postmodernism, 1998, 43). Feminism, therefore, from its very beginning, has acknowledged that women are reflected and constructed as men's “other” and are silenced by the phallocentric discourses. This is, indeed, one of those binary oppositions which, Derrida believes, constitute Western culture based on the principle of Logocentrism, and in this one, of course, it is the woman who occupies the inferior position: “the patriarchal hierarchy defines women as the negative pole whereas men are considered as neutral and positive. Women are seen as 'the other' to men”, therefore, Kiliç continues, “unless cultural life changes, masculine attributes will continue to be valued over feminine ones which see women as the second sex” ( “The Function of Fantastic …”, 2005, 33). This Other, however, should be monitored and subjugated in order not to make ruptures in the smooth flow of the patriarchal power. Some 30 Labyrinth: Volume-3, No.3 July-2012 ISSN 0976-0814; pp. 38-46
Writing Marginality and the Politics of Writing: Re-reading Representation of Women in Selected Assamese Short Stories - Sarangadhar Baral
Abstract: Writing the margins is tantalizingly akin to the heroics, it seems. But in close scrutiny, writing marginality like writing the center is positional and not free from ideological dimensions of the writing. This fact too emerges from a close reading of short stories of Assam which are written by some of the powerful writers. The present article studies the marginality of women in narratives and that in a marginalized zone of India's political geography. It moreover explores and finds that the margin is not a homogenous domain even while constituted by all women. The writer too is involved in her socio-political equations and ideological affiliations, while the new, apparently radical, meanings in the narratives are but culturally constructed. In other words, writing is a site of power interests, and a carving up of new meanings out of the available common reality indicates it. All the short stories treated here project the secular ambitions of the writer and the character, and the sacred assumptions of the classical tradition are for better abandoned. Keywords: writing, margins, politics, ideological, cultural, constructions, homogeneity, contest, meanings, power relations. Writing has not remained an activity in innocence in any age and more so in contemporary times. Various schools of thought and movements in literature such as postmodernism, feminism, postcolonialism, and identity and ideology issues have positioned writing as a much contested space for vibrant ideas and insinuating debates in our times. In other words, writing has now opened up a social space for contesting ideologies feverishly asking for more equitable distribution of powers and benefits; and thus, the interests once considered aesthetically literary are now seen as politically positioned, and meanings once held as unitary are now contended as culturally constructed either to concede or threaten otherwise dominant power relations. In modern Assamese short stories, varied ideologies are seen embedded, which have released ideas that move beyond their writers and their culture to claim further equally valid zones of human enquiry and recognition. Romy Clark and Roz Ivanic have aptly observed that “[all] writing is at the center of political stuggles”, and that all writers “struggle over meanings” of the scripted. This well supports the critical assumption that the writing is a zone of contest for power. They have further noted, “All writing is located within the wider socio-political context; this means that the issues concerning 38 Labyrinth: Volume-3, No.3 July-2012 ISSN 0976-0814; pp. 47-54
Listening to the Id: Interpreting Shobha De's Snapshots - Naresh K. Vats
Abstract: The id operates on what Freud calls the pleasure principle, engaging in completely selfish and pleasure oriented behavior, concerned only with the immediate gratification of instinctual needs without reference to reality or moral consideration. Snapshots presents demolition of the long established social conventions and value system, though a little overreaching. Major characters in Shobha De's fiction follow their instincts. Snapshots registers the reflections of the novelist on the lives of six women, who were friends at Santa Maria High School, as well as on their environment. Snapshots catalogues many women with diverse marital status and attitudes towards matrimony ranging from outright rejection of it to meek submission to the traditional bond of matrimony. Marriage, with traditional definition and implication, is seen more as a hindrance to a woman's efforts to attain fulfillment. The characters stand tall and gracefully accept the responsibility of all kinds of after effects – whatever may be their mutual equations as women. Keywords: id, ego, superego, anxiety, neurotic, liberation, self, fulfillment Sigmund Freud suggests that a person's behavior results from the three key systems of the personality: the id, the ego, and the superego. The id is the source of instinctual drives and can be understood as a kind of storehouse of biologically based urges: the urge to eat, drink, eliminate, and sexual gratification. The id operates on what Freud calls the pleasure principle, engaging in completely selfish and pleasure oriented behavior, concerned only with the immediate gratification of instinctual needs without reference to reality or moral consideration. The id usually controlled by the ego which operates on the reality principle. The ego supposed to controls the id's demands until appropriate and accepted outlets have been discovered. The third component, the superego, is the moral guard and is commonly known as conscience. The superego develops through internalizing the taboos and moral values of the society. The id is the original system of the personality; it is the matrix within which the ego and the superego become differentiated. The id consists of everything psychological that is inherited and that is present at birth, including the instincts. It is the reservoir of psychic energy and furnishes all the power for the operation of the other two systems. It is in close touch with the bodily processes from which it derives its energy. (Theories of Personality: 36)
47 Labyrinth: Volume-3, No.3 July-2012 ISSN 0976-0814; pp. 55-60
Ritual Suicide and the Paradoxical Nature of Regeneration: A Comparative Study of Tagore's Sacrifice and Soyinka's Death and the King's Horseman - Ujjwal Kr. Panda
Abstract: Does religion advocate violence ? In the light of two fundamentally contradictory notions about the practice of ritual sacrifice I would try to seek the answer by dint of a comparative study of two plays belonging to two radically different cultures but dealing with the same theme – the ritual suicide. The first play under consideration is Rabindranath Tagore's Sacrifice (1917 ; from original Bengali play, Visarjan published in 1889-90) and the second one is Wole Soyinka's 1975-play Death and the King's Horseman. The mythical and symbolic significance associated to the ancient practice of ritual sacrifice has come vis-à-vis with the modern and secular interpretation of all these as mere religious savagery in both of these plays. The scuffle between the religion and the state is the crux of tension here. The plays are similar in a number of ways- the plots sound identical. Keywords: Ritual, sacrifice, religion, violence, Tagore, Soyinka Meaning of Ritual Sacrifice in Indian and African Context: The word 'Sacrifice' has come from the Latin word 'Sacrificium' related to 'sacrificus' and 'Sacer' meaning 'holy and sacred'. Ritual killing of human beings or animals in practised by many religions as a means of appeasing a god or gods or changing the course of nature. Animal sacrifice is common to almost all cultures, from the Hebrews to the Greeks and Romans, Israelites, Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, African and sub-Saharan cultures and from the Aztecs. Again, in ritualistic performances like the Spanish bullfights, Kapparos in Judaism, Kurban in Islam, the Hindu Ashvamedha, the Japanese Harakiri, the African Voodoo etc. the remnants of ancient ritual of animal sacrifice are apparent. The basic implication of this ritual killings is almost the same in all religions – killing has been considered to be the most potent way of attaining renewal and regeneration for the community going through the phase of deadening stupor. In its original Vedic conception, sacrifice is a selfless, creative action, meant for the benefit of the world. In the RigV eda the supreme Purusha is said to have created the universe by means of sacrifice, and the later Sacred Books of the Hindus repeat the same idea. It would not be difficult to show that this is also the idea of the Brahmanas, signifying the association of the gods of the Vedas with the 55 Labyrinth: Volume-3, No.3 July-2012 ISSN 0976-0814; pp. 61-65
Tiger Hills: Weaving A Tapestry of Fortune and Fortitude of Devi – The Tigress - Neeta Puranik & Indira Javed
Abstract: Set against the backdrop of Coorg culture and tradition, custom and ceremonies Sarita Mandana's 'Tiger Hills' captivates our attention for enchanting tale of its leading figure, Devi. Her roller coaster life gives the author with an ample opportunity to paint different shades of her persona. This paper traces Devi's incredulous odyssey from a small town girl to a business tycoon of coffee plantation- a coffee queen. The paper attempts to delineate the trauma and subsequent rise of a simple girl who finds her wings clipped when the unfortunate rape by childhood friend Devanna devastates her life and tears apart her soul too. But she takes this incident into her stride and with her feminine grit and determination reaches a pinnacle of success navigating all conventions of society. Keywords: Tiger, Tigress, culture,feminity, rape, rebellious, strength, will-power, fight, identity, marriage. Termed as the Indian version of 'Gone With the Wind' and also carrying trace of colleen McCullough's 'The Thorn Birds' Sarita Mandana has created sensation among readers. Ordained with tantalizing milieu of Coorg culture and tradition, custom and ceremonies, the flora and fauna and the magnificence of the dizzing, glorious sight of Coorg-compassing over a period from 1878 to 20th century, 'Tiger Hills' leaves a remarkable yet bumpy jaunt of its protagonist Devi. The only girl born to the Nachimanda family in a stretch of sixty years Devi becomes the entity of adulation for the entire family. Her birth is being heralded mysteriously by hundred herons and we anticipate a perfect and great life in future. However, a small town girl, who revels in the simple pleasures of life like crafting wishes with the wings of the luck-bird, storing cow dung, prancing amidst fields and jungles Devi seems to be a complete assertion of feminine allegiance with nature along with her childhood mate Devanna. Suddenly, she finds her wings clipped when the unfortunate rape by Devanna devastates her life and snaps off her innocence. Unexpectedly and quite ironically the rape acts as a catalyst and invigorates Devi's life and the darling of Nachimanda family transfigures into a Tigress – the first lady to the become a dynamic business tycoon of coffee plantation – “A Coffee Queen”Since the rape of Devi “Not only is the feminine Eros discouraged but its opposite, rape is proffered as a substitute. The event of 'rape', in that it involves the violation of the self, in its psychological and physical integrity, thus becomes central to the 61 Labyrinth: Volume-3, No.3 July-2012 ISSN 0976-0814; pp. 66-70
Interrogating the Self: Doris Lessing's The Summer Before the Dark - Supriya Agarwal Abstract: An imaginative and talented writer of the modern British fiction, Doris Lessing has focused on myriad images of humanity. The present paper traces the journey of the life of a woman who breaks free from the stereotype life which she is pushed into, with time. Crossing boundaries she questions herself, to discover and rescue the woman who is lying hidden. Taking up an opportunity that comes her way, she undertakes a journey which is twofold –one physical, another symbolic. To convey the inner workings of the mind, there is a serial dream of the protagonist, central to the plot. The final return of Kate, back to her family at the end of the novel is indicative that she would begin anew, with a changed self. Keywords: Unconscious symbolic, mirror stage, dream sequence, morality, language and sexuality. The Summer Before the Dark belongs to Lessing's middle phase of writing where taking Kate Brown as an example, the phenomenon of housekeeping, ageing, of becoming physically unattractive and gaining independence has been taken up, exposing the questioning of the self by woman. She is at a midpoint of her life when everyone else has individual plans for the summer while she finds herself at a loose end. For more than twenty years she has given herself up to her marriage, putting aside all her native talents for a career of performing motherly and wifely roles. Kate Brown is on the verge of growing old when she begins her journey of self- discovery, which leads to an acute searching of her lost self and personality. She gradually sheds off some of the catering to the needs and wishes of her four grown up children varying between the age of twenty three to seventeen, she feels as if 'she were locked in a large box with four exploding egos… that nothing had happened to her for a long time and she could look forward to nothing much but a dwindling away from full household activity into getting old' (9). Unexpectedly an opportunity comes her way and allows her to come out of her confined self. She emerges out of her cocoon and crosses boundaries. Kate crosses the boundary not only of home, language and sexuality but also becomes conscious of her body and the self. At some point during that week she rushed to buy the dresses that would admit her 'like a passport to this way of life' (29), and thus begins the change and the process of self-realization and exploration. She stands in front of a large mirror to look at herself to affirm that there stood in front of her a pleasant looking fashionable woman on the verge of middle age. The viewing and parading in front of the mirror has been used by Lessing as a device to trace the various stages of psychological development. Many a time it is the hand mirror, she
66 Labyrinth: Volume-3, No.3 July-2012 ISSN 0976-0814; pp. 71-74
Indian Poetics as a New Dimension of Comparative Literature: Potential Possibilities and Pitfalls - Shalini Saxena Abstract: The interplay of aesthetics and ideology which usually supplies critical paradigms in the study of culture and literature is of immense importance. The status of Indian literary aesthetics has suffered an egregious diminution in the contemporary times. It is disparagingly argued that 'Indian aesthetics' has become obsolete and is not relevant to the modern times. However, 'Indian Aesthetics' is of great importance not only to the Indian scholars but also to the Western scholars. The present paper attempts to explore the affinities between the western literary theories and the Indian aesthetics .It also thrashes out ways and means of reconciling them to evolve a scientific approach for the evaluation of literary works. Keywords: Aesthetics, Natyasastra, rasa, deconstruction, vibhava. Literature has a universal & timeless appeal. Transcending the barriers of time and space it spreads across lands and cultures. The speculations of the aestheticians of the West and India about the locus of literariness have many ideas in common. The present paper is an attempt to explore the affinities and differences between the western literary theories and Indian aesthetics and find out ways of reconciling them. The term 'Indian Aesthetics' refers to 'Sanskrit Poetics'. It incorporates a body of Sanskrit writings on literary theory and criticism from prosody to philosophy. In the beginning there were two currents of Indian aesthetics; one relating to drama called 'Natyashastra' and the other relating to poetry and other literary forms called 'Alankarasastra'. In the course of time this distinction was obliterated and both poetry and drama came to be known as 'Alankarasastra' or 'Sahityasastra'. The oldest known book on Indian Poetics is 'Natyasastra' by 'Bharat Muni'. It was written sometime between 1st to 3rd A.D. It is mainly about drama but Bharat also discusses sentences, arrangement of sentences, their quality, rhetoric type etc. Still considered a classic despite 2000 years old, it continues to remain relevant. 'Natyasastra' analyses 8 types of 'Rasa'(sentiments).Two outstanding rhetoricians followed Bharat are Dandi ,the writer of 'Kavyadarsha'(6th cen) and Bhamaha, writer of 'Kavyalankara' (7th-8th cen). Dandi discusses 30 types of rhetorical devices. On the other hand Bhamaha thinks that a “happy combination between words and their meanings make poetry”(43). Following Bhamaha, Acharya Vamana (8th cen) in 'Kavyalankarsutravrtte' believed that 'simile' was the most important rhetorical device. Aristotle's 'Poetics' holds the most 71 Labyrinth: Volume-3, No.3 July-2012 ISSN 0976-0814; pp. 75-81
Subverting Gender Hierarchies: Angela Carter's The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman and The Passion of New Eve - Shima Sadat Mirmousa
Abstract: The present study examines how Carter's novels of 1970s, The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman and The Passion of New Eve, erode the gender boundaries and celebrate the confusion of the male/female categories. It argues the ways in which the novels deal with the subversive act of overturning the masculine empowerment and the feminine disempowerment opening the possibilities to build a topsy- turvy world deplete of masculine authority and filled with feminine superiority. Keywords: passive female/active male dichotomy, patriarchy, masculinity, domination One of the very conspicuous leitmotifs calling attention in Carter's fiction in general is the way she harmonizes the seriously imbalanced binary oppositions. Carter attacks the conventional lines of thought and indicates how the boundaries of fixed categories become easily vulnerable: “Her books unshackle us, toppling the status of the pompous, demolishing the temples and commissariats of righteousness. They draw their strength, their vitality, from all that is unrighteous, illegitimate, low” (qtd. in Cavallaro 5).In this respect, Sarah Sceats maintains that Carter “seeks to subvert received truths and conventional thinking on many levels and in diverse areas. This is particularly so both in gender relations and their intersection with class and race” (143).Out of the various areas Sceats claims, Carter`s chief concern is with the male/female dichotomy. In fact, breaking any demarcation line traditionally drawn between masculinity and femininity, Carter considers women as highly capable figures who are able to successfully escape male oppressive forces. As the following discussion of the novels suggests, Carter not only develop a utopian coexistence between male/female dichotomy allowing both sides of the binary to coexist on an equal level, but also goes one step further representing women as more authoritative and dominant poles. Carter's treatment of subversion in The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman is more associated with passive female/active male dichotomy. She attempts to undermine the stereotypes inherent in femininity indicating the absurdity of the conventional belief of sexual and behavioural passivity of women. Deconstructing the conventional views, Carter in fact attempts to prove that women, however much they are victimized or exploited, maintain 75 Labyrinth: Volume-3, No.3 July-2012 ISSN 0976-0814; pp. 82-86
Juvenile Narratives and Environmental Concerns - Rajesh Kumar Abstract: This paper begins with the assumption that the time has come when we ought to open our eyes to the prevalent ecological formulae around us because if the tilt gets even slightly more un- favourable, humans will be in dire peril. In fact, the whole calisthenics of the ecology oriented sciences and arts is pointed at safeguarding humanity against imminent extinction. Keywords: Ecocriticism, Ecoliteracy, Extinction, Survival Ecocriticism is a unique passage toward understanding the relationship between man and his environment through literature by not restricting itself to a particular band of theories – the pluralistic approach is inclusive and operates pervasively. Merely the locution is new – the content is as dated as man's pastoral recognition of the human-nature bond. If techonologies can go green, if there can be green commerce, there is no question why literature should not perform its expected role of being a combatant in defending mankind from a real threat. It is more than mere rhetoric of apocalypse, it is a plaintive cry for survival: Regardless of what name it goes by, most ecocritical work shares a common motivation: the troubling awareness that we have reached the age of environmental limits, a time when the consequences of human actions are damaging the planet's basic life support systems. We are there. Either we change our ways or we face global catastrophe, destroying much beauty and exterminating countless fellow species in our headlong race to apocalypse.( Glotfelty,xx) The ecocritical corps, however, has not looked much keenly at children's literature and its gaze has lingered generally upon the fiction, drama, poetry and literary dogmas directed at grown-ups. An applicatory examination of children's literature makes it evident that it has been creating awareness of the ecological exigencies among kids for a very long time, although its quantum and quality have differed in velocity. Of late, ecoliteracy has become a more vigilant exertion with an unequivocal message for sustaining social enterprise and cultural intellections toward the nurturing of an ecological maxim that will implant man as an imperishable biological component in the history of infinite time. The term 'ecoliteracy' was coined by David W. Orr and Fritjof Capara in 1992. It implies 'the ability to understand the natural systems that make life on earth possible. To be ecoliterate means understanding the principles of organization of ecological communities (i.e. ecosystems) and using those principles for creating sustainable human communities'.(Ecological Literacy-web) 82 Labyrinth: Volume-3, No.3 July-2012 ISSN 0976-0814; pp. 87-94
Teaching English Drama in Indian Socio-Cultural Context - Madhukar Janrao Nikam
Abstract: India has the longest and the richest tradition in drama. During the age of the Vedic Aryans, drama was performed in a simple way. Different episodes from the Ramayana, the Mahabharata, and the Bhagavad-Gita were enacted out in front of people. It depicts different situations relating to men good, bad and indifferent, and gives courage, amusement, happiness and advice to all of them. When Britishers came in India, the crippled Indian drama regained its strength. In 1920, a new drama in almost all the Indian languages came to the fore, it was a drama largely influenced by prevailing movements like Marxism, Psychoanalysis, symbolism, and surrealism. Indian drama got a new footing when Kendriya Natak Sangeet Akadami was started in January 1953 National school of drama set up Sangeet Natak Akadami in 1959 was another development. The year 1972 was a landmark year for Indian theatre. Badal Sircar, Vijay Tendulkar and Girish Karnad have contributed to the modernization of the face of the Indian theatre, these play wrights have made bold innovations and fruitful experiments in terms of both thematic concerns and technical virtuosities. Keywords: Drama, English, India, university, multicultural, Dattani India has the longest and the richest tradition in drama. So much has been made over the crisis in English literature as field, as corpus, and as canon in recent years, that some of it undoubtedly has spilled over into English education. This has been the case in predominantly English- speaking Anglo- American and Commonwealth nations, as well as in those postcolonial states where English remains the medium of instruction and lingua franca of economic and cultural elites. Yet to attribute the pressures for change in pedagogic practice to academic paradigm shift per se would prop up the shaky axiom that English education is forever caught in some kind of perverse evolutionary time- lag, parasitic of university literary studies. What is the future of English education in the new millennium? How has English education responded to realities of new and culturally diverse student populations, new texts and communications, media, changing job markets and life pathways? What might it mean to teach and to profess English in a multilingual and multicultural, and multimediated world where it is alternatively seen as threat and promise, deficit and capital? These are the issues which one can think about Literature Specially drama teaching. Pre-independence English occupied a very important place in India. It was official language of the administration, medium of instruction and 87 Labyrinth: Volume-3, No.3 July-2012 ISSN 0976-0814; pp. 95-100
Gopinath Mohanty's Paraja: A Peep-hole to Tribal Life in Orissa - V. J. Chavan & R.T. Bedre
Abstract: Paraja is an English translation by Bikram K. Das. of Gopinath Mohanty's Novel. Paraja is remarkable for the depiction of tribal life in the hills and jungles of the Eastern Ghats of Orissa. These primitive people follow all the ancient customs of marriage, festivals, hunting and are exploited by moneylenders and government officials. Sukru Jani, the widower protagonist of the novel represents the Paraja.. Sukru Jani's vision of future makes him a universal man or everyman or 'quintessential man'. In the novel Gopinath Mohanty provides many ethnological details which highlight the lifestyle of the Paraja, Domb and Kondh tribes. In his portrayal of tribal life, Gopinath Mohanty invites comparison with the Nigerian novelist, Chinua Achebe. Keywords: Gopinath Mohanty, Orissa, Kondh, Gadaba and Saora tribes, Paraja, Rana, Paika, Mali, Chinua Achebe Gopinath Mohanty is one of the most celebrated novelists of the twentieth century Indian literature. He has penned twenty-four novels, ten collections of short stories, three plays, two biographies, two volumes of critical essays and five books on the languages of Kondh, Gadaba and Saora tribes. Belonging to the Orissa Administrative Service from 1938 to 1969, he had translated Maxim Gorky's 'My Universities', Leo Tolstoy's 'War and Peace' and Rabindranath Tagore's 'Jogajog' into Oriya. He is the recipient of Sahitya Academy Award, Jnanpeeth Award and Padma Bhushan Award for his significant contribution to literature. Four of his novels namely Paraja, Danapani, Laya Bilaya and Dadi Budha have been translated into English. Among his novels, Dadi Budha, Paraja, Amrutara Santana and Aphanca project the tribal life in Orissa. Paraja is an English translation of the Oriya novel with the same title by Gopinath Mohanty and translated into English by Bikram K. Das. In his fiction, Gopinath Mohanty explores all aspects of life in Orissa both in the plains and in the hills. Among his novels, Paraja is remarkable for the depiction of tribal life in the hills and jungles of the Eastern Ghats. The Paraja and Kondh are the two tribal communities living in tiny clusters of hamlets in the southern part of Orissa. These primitive people are exploited by moneylenders and government officials. They feel that exploitation is as old as the hills and the forest surrounding them. In spite of this, they celebrate the joys of life; they drink and dance and sing; they find pleasure in the chirping of birds; in the smooth flowing streams and in the mist 95 Labyrinth: Volume-3, No.3 July-2012 ISSN 0976-0814; pp. 101-106
Confessionalism: Recent Trends in American Poetry
- S. Barathi
Abstract: American poetry originated in the United States differs from British poetry mainly due to America's multicultural tradition. In other words, it is the verse written in altered form of English. American poets open their own personal faults and frailties, their private histories and intimate experiences for close examination by the readers of their poetry. Twentieth century America apparently witnessed a tremendous change in literary field especially in the field of poetry. For the first time in the literary history, poets shared their personal experiences in their poems. This is something new to the postmodern readers. Poets like Robert Lowell, W. D. Snodgrass, Randal Jarrell, Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, Elizabeth Bishop, Sharon Olds and Marie Howe daringly exposed their own 'self' in their works. These poets developed their unique styles drawing on transcending but stretch out to new domains with a distinctively contemporary flavor. The works of these writers are termed as “confessional” as their works mainly focus on their personal pain and agonies. The present paper aims at giving a clear-cut view on the beginnings of the confessional school of poetry in American Poetry. In addition, the paper deals with the major changes made in this school and some of the famous confessional poets in America from the past to present. Along with that, the article focuses on the changes present in the confessional poetry in the recent years. Keywords: Personal, Autobiographical, Confessional, Inner Self, Confessionalism, Proto - confessional, Post confessional American poetry differs from British poetry chiefly because of the cultural diversity and it remains a hybrid literature with verses written in altered form of English. American poets got inspiration from the new physical setting and the evolving culture of the colonies. The poets of United States aped the contemporary British models in the seventeenth century. However, during the latter part of the Eighteenth Century there was a tremendous development with the emergence of Revolutionary- era poets like Barlow and Philip Freneau. Their poetry was epic written in traditional form offered the prospect of America as the future culmination of civilization. Anne Bradstreet was the first female poet to publish a volume of poetry. Her verses on the burning of her house in 1666 and poems on the death of her grandchildren can be considered as proto-confessional as they contain personal elements. In The Prologue Bradstreet writes, “I am obnoxious to each carping tongue/ Who says my hand a needle better fits,/ A poet's pen . . .”(25-27) shows her resistance 101 Labyrinth: Volume-3, No.3 July-2012 ISSN 0976-0814; pp. 107-111
T.V. Reddy The Poet: The True Son of Indian Villages
- R. Venkataramana
Abstract: T. V. Reddy's poetry presents the graphic picture of the rural Indian life which is the life of Indian villages mostly agriculturalist in character. In his presentation of rural settings, Reddy re-creates the rural ethos and depicts the village, the farmer, the tiller, the corn- reaper, the thirsty fields, the snake charmer, the sparrow, and the simple men and women of the village. Reddy is, without doubt, one of the true representative poets of Indian English poetry. Keywords: T.V. Reddy, graphic picture, rural ethos, rural India, British Romantic Poets Dr. T. Vasudeva Reddy, born in December 1943 in a village near Tirupati, did M.A. in English in Sri Venkateswara University, Tirupati, A.P. in 1966. Since then he had worked as lecturer and Reader in English and retired as Principal of Govt. Degree College in A.P. in December 2001.He was awarded Ph.D. in 1985 for his thesis on Jane Austen andhe received the Awards of International Eminent Poet in 1987, Hon. D. Litt. from the WAAC, San Francisco in 1988, Best Teacher Award at the College & University level from the Govt. of A.P. in 1990, Best Poetry Award for his poetry book The Fleeting Bubbles from Michael Madhusudan Dutt Academy, Calcutta in 1994,the prestigious UGC Award of National Fellowship in 1988 (as visiting Professor for 2 years) and the most cherished 'Excellence in World Poetry Award' in 2009. His biography figures in the American Biographical Institute (USA), International Biographical Institute (Cambridge), Reference India & Asia (New Delhi) and Sahitya Akademi (New Delhi). He is a renowned poet, critic & novelist of international repute and his poems appeared in French Journals in Paris. The following are his poetry publications: When Grief Rains (1982), The Broken Rhythms (1987), The Fleeting Bubbles (1989), Melting Melodies (1994), Pensive Memories (2005) and The Gilding Ripples (2008).Two more books Echoes and Blighted Lights are now in press. It is very gratifying to note that Dr. T. Vasudeva Reddy, with six collections of Indian English Poetry to his credit and two more in print, has since been called “a poet of repute and eminence” and as Dr. Rosemary Wilkinson states, he is “a poet of high caliber to whom poetic lines come unbidden” and that his poetry “flows spontaneously”. For a perceptive critic who goes through his poetry it is obvious that the poet has a unique way of expressing his poetic experience and excellence 107 Labyrinth: Volume-3, No.3 July-2012 ISSN 0976-0814; pp. 112-120
Kalam's Academic Inspirational Reflections - A. Edwin Jeevaraj
Abstract: Kalam's outlook of his memorable academic educational experience with his teachers described in his 'Autobiography' is not only written as an offering or gratitude to his teachers, but also as the reflections of basic problems of education and his indirect articulation of the feelings and problems of students. The study will be a fruitful and inspiring for the total teaching and the student community. Keywords: Society, Abdul Kalam, Wings of Fire : An Autobiography Kalam and Wings of Fire: An Autobiography: Kalam, a man of multiple personality, is an unparallel visionary idealist. He is the owner of tuning the minds of all kinds of people through producing more positive lines creating internal motivational vibrations among the readers and listeners. His sharing of knowledge through simple language, implemented in his works changed even the ordinary people to be more futuristic with the strengthened wings called 'self confidence.' Kalam's lines in which the incidents of his life portrayed, are used as, quotes in most of the motivational programs arranged for the professionals, students and teachers of all disciplines and all stages in his contemporary period itself. Anyone, who needs to explore the meaning and secrets of success, can more confidently end up in choosing Kalam's life as a perfect solution for their search. No patriotic person would deny this opinion, that no highest honorary awards of the world would give absolute honor in praise of some great personalities, and one among them is Dr. Kalam representing, simplicity and humanistic approach in all the places throughout his life. All these rewarded him most deservingly with the highest civilian award of the country, the Bharat Ratna and more number of honorary doctoral awards from many reputed universities of the world. “Wings of Fire: An Autobiography” by A.P.J. Abdul Kalam with Arun K.Tiwari, is a book of a true icon of the post colonial technological renaissance, dedicated to the development his nation. One of the reviews on 'Wings of Fire' by Seshadri Nathan says, “it is an autobiography of a scientist with diamonds studded in between his experiences in fact, lots of them”. The peculiar nature of Kalam's 'Autobiography” is that it is attempted to portray the tour of a humble, modest, poor and rural person's life turning from obscurity to be an extra ordinary talented scientist, spiritual guru, the president of India, and the great humanitarian's achievement of the 112 Labyrinth: Volume-3, No.3 July-2012 ISSN 0976-0814; pp. 121-126
Women's Sensibility and the Partition Trauma: An Analysis of Bapsi Sidhwa's Ice Candy Man - Shahnaz Begum
Abstract: The Partition of India in 1947 gave to Indian novelists sensational topics around which to weave their stories. Partition literature depicts the trauma of communal violence, particularly perpetrated on women. This paper aims to examine the Parsi novelist Bapsi Sidhwa's novel Cracking India also known as Ice Candy Man to find out a suitable answer of the traumatic experiences faced by women and children during Partition. Keywords: Partition, trauma, marginalization, victimization, holocaust, ostracization, vengeance, feministic, humiliate Partition of India and the migration holocaust that followed have given Indo Anglian fiction writers some monstrous, horrifying, pathetic and sensational topics around which to weave their stories. The partition novels written in the latter part of the twentieth century both by male and female novelists depict the “trauma of communal violence” ( Geetha Ganapathy-Doré, 2011:11). These novels present a realistic description of the people of the Indian subcontinent, on account of the violence let loose by a spurt of sudden communal occurrences. The novelists feel that politics was responsible for human slaughter from all sides and no particular side could be held responsible for the ugly and repugnant events. Their approach is objective in the sense that all have tried to expose human nature and its capability of perpetrating cruelty and barbarism on its own creed. The novels prove that the traumatic experiences of the partition have shaken their writers to roots compelling them to give vent to their indignation at the terrible holocaust which claimed a huge loss of innocent human lives. Not only the grownups but also innocent children and infants became victims of this barbarism, when wickedness, violence, and pure evil erupted into a powerful mass that soared out of control and consumed everyone in its path; no one, man, woman, or child was able to escape it. It is very difficult to give an exact account of the people who became the victims of the partition trauma but its ―impact can be compared to that of great war on Britain or the second world war on Japan and France (Roy: 2009). Male novelists like Khushwant Singh, Saadat Hasan Manto, Rahi Masoom Raza, Bhishma Sahni, Chaman Nehal, Amitav Ghosh and others have written on the partition issue and made fruitful attempts to 121 Labyrinth: Volume-3, No.3 July-2012 ISSN 0976-0814; pp. 127-133
Revitalizing Folk Tales of Rajasthan: Vijay Dan Detha's Chouboli And Other Stories - Daisy
Abstract: Indian Literature stands as the mirror of Indian Culture, exemplary of its exceedingly rich prehistoric tradition. A strong characteristic of Indian literature is the sublime influence of regional kathas, fables, stories and myths, which later developed as a distinct genre and were termed as the `regional literature`. Known as the Shakespeare of Rajasthan, Vijay Dan Detha has become a living legend with his path-breaking research and archival work revitalizing oral literature of Rajasthan. Only recently, the folk based tales of Detha have been translated into English. The latest, two volume Chouboli and other Stories is an anthology of 25 delightful folktales of Rajasthan, very carefully selected, translated and presented from the vast body of Detha's work by Christi A Merrill, in association with Kailash Kabir, known for his extensive work of translating Detha into Hindi. My research paper would explore in detail how these mesmeric stories of wise shepherds, foolish kings, crafty ghosts, clever princesses, honest thieves, talking necklaces, and amorous snakes, grapple with contemporary concerns and age-old dilemmas and blur the lines between rural and urban, ancient and contemporary, to pose situations that find echoes across languages, cultures and ages. Keywords: Folk Tales, Regional Literature, Rajasthani, Chouboli Indian Literature stands as the mirror of Indian Culture, exemplary of its exceedingly rich prehistoric tradition. Regarded as one of the oldest body of literary works, Indian literature goes back to even those times, when copious written literature was still not in vogue and oral form was very much prevalent. A strong characteristic of Indian literature is the sublime influence of regional kathas, fables, stories and myths, which later developed as a distinct genre and were termed as the 'regional literature'. Indian literature, as the cradle of the art of narration, gave birth to an important and independent genre of literature, the regional literature of India. The journey of regional literature of India is long, yet rich; it unveils the saga of the changing tradition of India, whilst murmuring momentarily about the exhaustively recognizable past of India. There are two major language groups in India – Indo Aryan and Dravidian. While the latter group of languages comprises of the south Indian languages like Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam; the former includes Indian languages like Hindi, Punjabi, Bengali, Marathi, Sindhi and Gujarati etc. Rajasthani is a language which bears its roots in Vedic Sanskrit/Sauraseni Prakrit, but since it has been considered a dialect of Hindi (before and after independence) officially; its grammar 127 Labyrinth: Volume-3, No.3 July-2012 ISSN 0976-0814; pp. 134-141
D. H. Lawrence's The Captain's Doll: A Rereading - Gagan Behari Das
Abstract: The paper discusses the use of symbolism in D.H. Lawrence's in The Captain's Doll and examines the role of such symbols which bring changes in the meaning of the story, that is, what appears to be meaning, changes in interpretation when the deep meanings of the symbols are analyzed. The symbols thus present a complex dynamism. Keywords: symbols, concepts, images, complex dynamism, sequentiality, intersubjectivity The present discourse intends to explore the use of symbolism in The Captain's Doll that releases significance of the tale from the narrated events. Association of words with their meaning generalizes the symbolic character of language, but a literary symbol dynamically suggests its association with concepts and images at once in different levels beyond comprehensive capacity of the mind. An image, event, or figure in the narrative can replace the whole story, give it significance, or meaning different from what has been stated, when the said figures acquire symbolic power. Suggestive value of a symbol is infinite, and depends more on perceptive or interpretative act than on objectivity. To speak plainly, literary symbol translates events, incidents into concepts and images in such a manner that the idea remains infinitely unapproachable (Abrams 322). To state that symbol merely represents something else is to undercut its metaphorical capacity and complex dynamism, and to reduce it to public function of linguistic sign. For example, Hannele makes the doll of Alexander Hepburn, the man she is in love, but simultaneous repulsion and attraction of the man destabilizes the image evoked by the doll. The doll then, is a measure of incalculable presence and mystery of the man's unknown being against romantic adoration cult that occasions its making. Of the significant studies on The Captain's Doll, Leavis' two critiques- one in D.H. Lawrence: Novelist (237-270) and the other in Thought, Words and Creativity (92-121) are mostly referred for symbolic value by critics. Frederic P.W. Mc Dowell's essay “The Individual in His Pure Singleness”: Theme and Symbol in The Captain's Doll” appeared in The Challenge of D.H Lawrence, concentrates on the complexity and paradox in the image that explores delicate psychic region of the principal characters (143-58). Between the two reviewers, discussions appear in different books and journal articles that may be useful to see Lawrence's 134 Labyrinth: Volume-3, No.3 July-2012 ISSN 0976-0814; pp. 142-150
Fetishizing Marginality: Contemporary Indian Academia and the Rise of Subaltern - Ajit K. Mishra
Abstract: The paper examines how contemporary cultural producers in Indian academia, under the impact of corporate capitalism, have transformed resistance and 'marginality' into valuable commodities within their own unique spheres of influences. By converting an oppositional ideology into a valuable and an exchangeable commodity, and creating a fetish for the center-margin tension tactically these market players have found for them a platform for greater self- promotion and a vehicle for reaching a more diversified audience of readers, investors, and spectators. By adopting a trans-disciplinary approach to studying contemporary Indian cultural production within a global framework, the paper examines the upsurge of marginality studies which embody what Saskia Sassen has termed "the locational and institutional embeddedness of the global economy." The paper concludes by suggesting us from becoming 'genetically programmed' consumers of 'beautiful corporations'. Keywords: Marginality, subaltern. fetish, consumption, citizen- consumers, customer-consumers, corporate capitalism, prosumer, beautiful corporations I The central problem with living in the era of corporate capitalism is the demand to negotiate some procedures which usually symbolize a transformation inside spatial organization of social relationships as well as transactions - evaluated with regards to their intensity, extensity, and influence -producing interregional moves and sites of action, interaction, and also the exercise of power. On the surface, it may appear to be a blessing because the consumers are empowered through increased choice and vastly expanded resources of information. But it can also be a curse, because the same privileges that consumers enjoy can easily become a trap for them. Corporate capitalism almost always attaches great value to all that can be converted into commodities characterised by sheer marketability. The procedure includes products ranging from objects to ideas; and from discourse to ideology. In the recent past corporate capitalism has shown an obsession with adversarial or oppositional ideologies, because of the enormous economic possibilities ingrained in them. As the contours of resistant and oppositional ideologies are regularly and repeatedly configured in contemporary corporate culture, the focus on an alternate group referred to as marginal, resistant, oppositional and defiant enables capitalist economy 142 Labyrinth: Volume-3, No.3 July-2012 ISSN 0976-0814; pp. 151-155
The Relevance of Dostoevsky to the Modern World - Poornima. M
Abstract: The present paper is an attempt to scrutinize the relevance of Dostoevsky to the modern world. There are many striking similarities between the nineteenth century fictional world of Dostoevsky and the modern world. It will be very significant to note that Dostoevsky was very much ahead of his contemporaries in his analysis of the nineteenth century Russian society. The nineteenth century Russia was in a rather complicated condition. It saw the appearance of ideological currents in the form Slovophiles and Westernism. The Slovophiles wanted to transform the country by implementing reforms, the Westernisers dreamed of a revolution similar to one in France. On ideological plane Westernism advocated individualism and materialism, whereas Slavophilism stood for the social spirit and brotherhood for the harmonious growth of the individual and society. Keywords: Nineteenth century, Crime, Modern society, Relevance If we analyze the world history it is evident that through the ages man has involved in criminal activities irrespective of geographical boundaries. Crime has emerged as a favorite subject for most of the writers of the world. The criminals of the fictional world of Dostoevsky are at par with the scheming, highly educated criminals of the modern world. His novels and other writings are relevant to the twentieth century literature and philosophy. Through the prism of his keen insight we can have a better understanding of the real world. Even after 140 years of his death, he appears to be so real and new. His background strongly influenced his intellectual and literary interests. The subjects he selected for his novels are so very rational and of modern concern. His heroes are singular yet universal who created a new sensation in Russian fiction. In his writings Dostoevsky delves into the moral, political, intellectual and religious questions of existing society. His tales of hatred and murder is the greatest questions of our own time, and they are common to all mankind. If we analyze his fiction we realize that he was not just a chronicler of the exact physical surroundings. They also mirror the problem of a modern society. His characters are such that we remember them forever. We see many Raskolnikovs, Sonias(Crime and Punishment), Stavrogins, Captain Lybatkin (The Possessed), and Arkady Makerovitch, (A RawY outh), in our day-to-day life. There are many women like Ms.Mary Libyatkin (The Possessed), Nastasya Fillipovna, (The Idiot), Grushenka (The Karamazov 151 Labyrinth: Volume-3, No.3 July-2012 ISSN 0976-0814; pp. 156-159
Postcolonial Gothic in Toni Morrison's Beloved - Arul Gaspar
Abstract: This article addresses the haunting experiences of the blacks, especially black women in the hands of white slave traders, described in 'Beloved'. It presents their horrible past in the form of all sorts of inequalities and their unquenchable thirst and burning desire to attain emancipation from the clutch hold of catchers. The idea of struggle and fighting for freedom is explored here through the concept of Postcolonial Gothic. Thus I examine the blacks' continuous sorrows and sufferings in their own land, cultural deterioration at home land and a deep desire for life with dignity and self-worth. Keywords: Trauma, exploitation, Gothic, Beloved. “The sold one never returned, the lost one never found. One, he knew, was dead for sure; one he hoped was, because butter and clabber was no life or reason to live it.”(Morrison, 1987, 125-126) Toni Morrison vividly paints the picture of painful experience like crossing the valley of shadow of death in one's beautiful life. The book entitled Beloved just speaks a volume about black, traumatic experience wherein the black women were considered a breeding animal to till the white man's soil and sometimes to teach the features of human body. Morrison's Beloved on one side is filled with timeless past in which certain haunting experiences have been relived, disremembered and unaccounted for to tell the world that giving a measure of free life (269) to the enslaved for life, unnamed to work and die, sold out to the next potential white buyer for any use and the black mothers to give their milk to the white babies and make their off springs go hungry is so essential and on the other side it is a teaching tool for the present and the post generation to know the fact that the issues of race, gender, sexuality, power, exploitation, annihilation, dehumanization, deportation, discrimination, physical and psychological abuse and abominable slavery are not just terms in the postcolonial literary world to study the horrible past and unravel the unbearable truth about the mutilated, maimed and blown up blacks but a life-lesson to cogitate over the rippling effect they have left in the realm of human history as an indelible mark. All the above issues and factors are employed in the novel through the character Sethe, a powerful black woman, the protagonist of Beloved. This work beautifully brings out the value of emancipation at the cost of one's own child; moreover, Sethe takes pride in killing her own crawling child and trying to kill other children rather than handing them to the slave catchers to see her own 156 Labyrinth: Volume-3, No.3 July-2012 ISSN 0976-0814; pp. 160-168
Tagore's Critique of Imperialism and Nationalism: A Reappraisal in the Modern Day Context - Shyamali Dasgupta
Abstract: Tagore was opposed to militant nationalism and extremism, and he also rebelled against imperialism and war. He began to think if"Nationalism” could be made to transcend into"Universal Humanism”. He advocated self-power, constructive patriotism, and union of the masses, and was consistently inclined to invest"Sovereignty” in society rather than in the State. He was opposed to any form of tyranny and suppression on free development of human personality. Tagore's preference to society over State makes him out to be an individualist, and not an anarchist. The poet criticized authoritarianism and totalitarianism for its ruinous creed. He was a champion of the people and not of the nation. He was a great critique of militant nationalism. He wanted to guard against the fetish of Nation and Nationalism. In his opinion, Nationalism was organized gregariousness and mechanical gluttony; and he also criticized the barbaric manifestations of imperialistic arrogance and racial chauvinism. War, according to him, was due to aggressive Nationalism, arms race, glorification of power and such other national vanity. The suggestions and prescriptions of the poet to tackle social and political problems still hold good in today's world, infested by violence, intolerance, fanaticism, war and terrorism. Keywords: Militant nationalism & extremism, totalitarianism, universal humanism, constructive patriotism. Tagore believed that Imperialism and Nationalism were a source of war and carnage; death, destruction, and divisiveness, rather than international solidarity, that induced a larger and more expansive vision of the world. This idea was pervasive in many of his writings: his letters, essays, lectures, poems, plays and fiction. He was opposed to Imperialism and radical Nationalism which boldly proclaimed that"large nations do what they wish, while small nations accept what they must”(qtd. In Chomsky, p.16), and that in which, as Radha Krishnan said,"self-interest is the end; brute force, the means; conscience is taboo”. Radical Nationalism, that blinded people to the notions of truth and justice, made them brutish and fanatical, and led to war instead of freedom and peace, was abhorred by Tagore. He criticized it as" a cruel epidemic of evil … sweeping over the human world of the present age and eating into its moral fibre”(Nationalism, p.9); a terrible force that sought
160 Labyrinth: Volume-3, No.3 July-2012 ISSN 0976-0814; pp. 169-174
Marginality in Things Fall Apart - Masoud Khosravi
Abstract: This paper is an attempt to explore the elements of marginality in the characters and culture of Igbo people in Things Fall Apart. The novel tells us about the rise and tragic fall of Okonkwo (protagonist). Through this novel Achebe tries to show the breaking up of the Igbo society by the emergence of the colonizers. Things Fall Apart can be considered as the lament of the Igbo people for their culture and traditions. After the emergence of the colonizers in the colonized countries, they tried to push the culture and traditions of the natives to the margin by their religion, culture, language and technology. Keywords: marginality, center, periphery and colonization. The most important idea in colonial discourse is the binary opposition of periphery and center. According to the colonizers, in center they have technology, discipline and modernization, but on the periphery side, there are only confusion, barbarity and superstition. In this paper, I would like to analyze the effects of the colonizers on the center of the Igbo society and how they pushed people like Okonkwo who previously were in the center toward the margin. I am going to trace the elements of marginality in the characters of the Igbo people and also the elements of marginality in the culture of the Igbo people. Online Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary defines the word 'marginalize' as “to make somebody to feel as if they are not important and cannot influence decisions or events, to put somebody in position in which they have no power.”(web) Babylon online dictionary defines 'marginality' as: “state of being peripheral, lack of centrality, position at the edges or outside of main form” . (web) . In spite of being a very controversial term, post- colonial writings have attempted to make well the injuries of the marginalized peoples. In such writings, authors have attempted to preach opposition against the brutality of the colonizers. One of these writers is Frantz Fanon. The Wretched of the Earth is the first book in which its author Fanon tries to say that 'blackness' is the production of the whites. He mentions that by this word they want to show themselves as superior to the natives. He also tries to illustrate that by some binary opposition like controller/ controlled, wealth/ poverty, self-fulfillment/ self- denial the whites have tried to justify their position and at the same time push the natives to the margin. The basic idea of the colonial discourse is the opposition of margin and center. According to Edward Said this opposition has systematized the
169 Labyrinth: Volume-3, No.3 July-2012 ISSN 0976-0814; pp. 175-180
Redefining Intertextuality - Sanjiv Kumar
Abstract: The moment one plunges into the vast domain of knowledge, he/she realizes that no sphere of knowledge can be studied in isolation and so reading of any text requires proper 'connect' with other texts located in altogether different contexts. Concept of text being as complex as an organic being, the wholeness of meaning can be achieved only with the proper understanding of the parts associated to it. It is in this background that interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary approaches to knowledge hold relevance in present day world characterized by multifarious realities. The world realities have taken an unimaginable shape with the transformations in various spheres of knowledge, be it humanities, sciences or social sciences. The gamut of theories debating intertextuality in postmodern context have gained desired coinage because the concepts like 'differance', 'pastiche', 'hyper- reality', 'celebration of differences' and 'mini-narratives', essentially require proper contextualizing of texts pertaining to social, cultural, economic and political realities. The very idea of globalization has added to the complexity of human lives and so it is imperative to explore the interrelationship among various developments in different walks of life. The holistic understanding of the present scenario is possible only if one is able to perceive the dimensions of human growth in terms of socio-cultural transformations. It is in this context that the present paper intends to locate intertextuality in the postmodern milieu marked with an entirely new set of realities. Keywords: Intertextuality, Interdisciplinary, Multidisciplinary, Postmodern, Text and Context. In the age characterized by plurality, multiculturalism, cyber activities, and globalization, no text can have a uniform or monolithic interpretation; rather, the text derives its meaning from various sources within and outside the limits of the primary discipline. With the emergence of scores of postmodern theories baffling the readers all the time, it is quite absurd to restrict the reading of the text within a specific context because 'intertextuality' makes it imperative for the postmodern reader to be guided by the complexities of the 'meaning' with its motley shreds scattering across the socio-cultural contexts of the author as well as the reader alike. The text is generally interpreted in the light of it being either 'autonomous' or an entity inviting multiple interpretations depending upon the context of the author or the reader. The entire debate over text is now prominently closer to establishing the notion of 'affective fallacy' instead of 'intentional fallacy'. Umberto Eco seems to be quite justified when he challenges the hegemony of the author and 175 Labyrinth: Volume-3, No.3 July-2012 ISSN 0976-0814; pp. 181-186
Diasporic Psyche and Conflicts in Bharati Mukherjee's The Tiger's Daughter - B. J. Geetha
Abstract: Bharati Mukherjee, an India-born American novelist, is anacquainted voice in the Indian Diaspora. Her fiction depicts the cross-cultural crisis faced by women characters in her novels. She found herself difficult to acclimate to the double cultures, customs, and traditions, which she depicts through her female protagonists' cultural crisis. Her first novel The Tiger's Daughter (1972) deals with an upper class Bengali Brahmin girl named Tara Banerjee Cartwright, who goes to America for higher studies.. This paper throws light on the cross cultural conflict of the central character. Keywords: Conflicts, diaspora, culture. Diasporic consciousness in the world of literature is becoming an increasing overriding phenomenon. It is the mental flight of the people constantly trying to reconstruct their present from a past that is lost to them. Their roots shoot down only to strike against a frozen, fractured consciousness and they begin a search for crevasses to reconstruct what is broken.There is continues analyses ofthis phenomenon as a growth of an individual writer within the framework of continuing encounters with the homeland.Exile, expatriation, and immigration are the characteristic situations of diaspora. The motivation behind modern exile and migration may vary from political or religious persecution to economic problems. Whatever the reason behind exile and migration, the impact of dislocation - political, cultural, economical and geographical - on the psyche of a diasporan remains complex. Contemporary diasporic literature deals with the injuries, frustration and uprooted-ness of that complex psyche of the individual. There are many Indian diasporic writers whose autobiographic account of their exiled life feeds greatly the contemporary literature. BharatiMukherjee, anIndian-born American novelist and short-story writer, whose work reflects Indian culture and immigrant experience.In her first novel, Mukherjee hasdealtwith the shock, uneasiness, and haphazard transformation of the immigrants. This has become a stock theme in her subsequent novels likeWife and Jasmine, and The Middleman and Other Stories.she draws on her experiences of the old world while writing with insight about the new world to which she now belongs. Her more recent books, particularly The Holder of the World, confirm that hers is an original voice at the cutting edge of American immigrant and multicultural literature.Mukherjee in a recent interview has clearly stated that her aim in her novels is, “We immigrants have fascinating tales to relate. Many of us have lived in newly independent or emerging countries which are placed by civil and religious conflicts...... When we uproot ourselves from those countries 181 Labyrinth: Volume-3, No.3 July-2012 ISSN 0976-0814; pp. 187-191
From Englishness to Indianness: The Migrant's Experience in Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses - Judith Sebastian Abstract: Salman Rushdie differs from the other diasporic writers in his representation of the immigrant experience in The Satanic Verses (1988) in many ways. One, Rushdie uses magical realism to portray the diasporic experience instead of resorting to a realistic experience. Two, his characters do not create a “third space” (as envisaged by Homi Bhabha) nor are they trapped in a “trishanku” state (as Uma Parameswaran posits).The other novelists either envisage an interstitial place for their characters in the adopted land or consider their characters' immigrant status as equivalent of an exile- from where they look back at their homeland with nostalgia and longing. Rushdie gives the foreign land a strikingly paradoxical positive value. Keywords: Immigrant experience, magical realism, India, England, Anglophile, Indianness. In his essay “In Good faith” Salman Rushdie says If The Satanic Verses is anything, it is a migrant's eye view of the whole world. It is written from the very experience of uprooting, disjuncture and metamorphosis (slow or rapid, painful or pleasurable) that is the migrant condition and from which I believe can be derived a metaphor for all humanity (394). This “uprooting”, “disjuncture” and “metamorphosis” have been captured by several Indian authors like V. S. Naipaul, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, Bharati Mukherjee, Suniti Namjoshi, Jhumpa Lahiri and Salman Rushdie. However, Salman Rushdie differs from the others in his representation of the immigrant experience in The Satanic Verses (1988) in many ways. One of the protagonist's of The Satanic Verses, Saladin Chamcha does have a series of negative experiences in his adopted land (England) but they act as a catalyst and catapult him dynamically back to his homeland (India). The encounter with England though negative is simultaneously nourishing and vitalizing because it directs him back to his roots to be reconciled with his parents and subsequently his motherland. One, Rushdie uses magical realism to portray the diasporic experience instead of resorting to a realistic experience. Two, his characters do not create a “third space” (as envisaged by Homi Bhabha) nor are they trapped in a “trishanku” state (as Uma Parameswaran posits). The other novelists either envisage an interstitial place for their characters in the adopted land or consider their characters' immigrant status as equivalent of an exile - from where they look back at their homeland with nostalgia and longing. Rushdie gives 187 Labyrinth: Volume-3, No.3 July-2012 ISSN 0976-0814; pp. 192-195
Reconstruction of Black Woman's Image in the Autobiographies of Maya Angelou - S. B. Bhambar
Abstract: Maya Angelou, hailed as a global renaissance woman, is a celebrated poet, memoirist, novelist, educator, dramatist, producer, actress and civil rights activist. She has acquired an important position in the literary scene of Afro-American writing. She has opened new vistas of black female suppression through her autobiographies. She is known for her series of six autobiographical volumes focusing on her childhood and early adult experiences. Maya Angelou's autobiographical statement is the most Afro-American of all Afro- American literary pursuits. The focus of her writing is concerned with the question of what it means to be Black and female in America. Her autobiographies introduce us to a world of prostitution and pimps, con men and street women, drug addiction and spiritual disintegration. She has revealed profound truths to any ear which can hear it. Her autobiographical statements present a powerful and authentic condition of Afro-American womanhood in her quest for understanding and love. She has publicly discussed her personal life. Her work centers on themes such as identity, family and racism. The present paper attempts a study of the six autobiographies to unfold Angelou's reconstruction of the black woman's image. Keywords: Afro-American liberation, Black womanhood, identity, family, racism. Maya Angelou believes that the problem of Afro-American liberation is to be seen as both an internal and an external reality. Her autobiographies set a precedent not only for other black women writers but for the genre of autobiography as a whole. Through her series of six autobiographical volumes, she has become recognized and highly respected as a spokesperson for blacks and women. The problem of identification of the being is one of the salient features of African- American literature. It is full of an identity replete with confusion and indirection. Maya Angelou has presented herself as a role model for African-American women by reconstructing the black woman's image throughout her autobiographies. Maya Angelou, with her new awareness of her power and struggling to liberate herself, has enriched and expanded the international corpus of Black literature. Turning inward to a more personal vision, she had enormous popular appeal. Angelou account of how she writes is moving in its honesty and simplicity: I write because am a Black woman, listening attentively to her 192 206 Our Esteemed Contributors Ÿ Sasan Bazgir, Iranian National, Research Scholar, Dept. of English, University of Pune, Pune, Maharashtra. [email protected] Ÿ D.P. Digole, Assistant Professor, P.G. Dept. of English, People's College, Nanded, Maharashtra. [email protected] Ÿ Nozar Niazi, English Department, Lorestan University, Iran. [email protected] Ÿ Sabrie Saedi, M.A in English Literature, Lorestan University, Iran Ÿ S.D. Baral, Associate Professor, Mizoram Univesrsiy, Aizawl, Mizoram. [email protected] Ÿ Naresh K. Vats Assistant Professor University School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Guru Gobind Singh University, New Delhi. [email protected]. Ÿ Ujjwal Kr. Panda, Research Scholar, Dept. Of English, Vidyasagar University, West Bengal. [email protected]. Ÿ Indira Javed, Asst. Prof of English, Govt. Motilal Vigyan Mahavidyalaya, Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh. Ÿ Neeta Puranik, Asst. Prof of English, Govt. Hamidia Arts & Science College, Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh. [email protected]. Ÿ Supriya Agarwal, Head, Dept. of English, Central University of Rajasthan, Ajmer, Rajasthan. [email protected] Ÿ Shalini Saxena, Associate Professor, Dept. of English, KR Postgraduate College, Mathura, Uttar Pradesh. shalinisaxena999@ gmail.com Ÿ Shima Sadat Mirmousa, Research Scholar, University of Mysore, Mysore, Karnataka. [email protected]. Ÿ Rajesh Kumar, Professor, Department of English, Nilambar Pitambar University, Medininagar, Jharkhand. [email protected] Ÿ Madhukar Janrao Nikam, Assistant Professor, Dept.of English, Athawale College of Social Work Bhandara, Maharashtra. [email protected] Ÿ V. J. Chavan Assistant Professor of English at JES' Vaidyanath College, Parli (V) Dist. Beed, Maharashtra. Ÿ R.T. Bedre assistant professor of English SSJES' Arts, Comm. & Science College, Gangakhed. Dist. Parbhani. Maharashtra. [email protected] Ÿ S. Barathi, Research Scholar, Department of English, Annamalai University, Annamalai Nagar, Tamil Nadu. [email protected] Ÿ R.Venkataramana Research Scholar, Dept. of English, Yogi Vemana University, Kadapa, Andhra Pradesh. [email protected]. Our Esteemed Contributors 207 Ÿ A. Edwin Jeevaraj, Research Scholar, Dept. of English, Anna University, Chennai, Tamil Nadu. [email protected]. Ÿ Shahnaz Begum, Assistant Professor, Department of English, Millat College, Darbhanga, Bihar. [email protected] Ÿ Daisy, Associate Professor, B.P.S.M. Girls' College, B.P.S. Mahila, Vishwavidyalaya, Khanpur Kalan, Sonipat, Har yana. [email protected] Ÿ Gagan Behari Das, Associate Professor, Head, Dept. of English, Madhabdev College, Dikrong, Assam. Ÿ Ajit K. Mishra, Sr. Assistant Professor, Dept. of English Studies & Research, D.A-V. College, CSJM University, Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh. [email protected] Ÿ Poornima. M, Associate prof. of English, JSS College for Women, Chamarajanagar, Mysore, Karnataka. [email protected]. Ÿ Arul Gaspar, Dept.of English Studies, Christ University, Bangalore, Karnataka. [email protected] Ÿ Shyamali Dasgupta Assistant Professor in English Seth Soorajmull Jalan Girls' College, Kolkata, West Bengal. [email protected]. Ÿ Masoud Khosravi, Iranian National, Research Scholar, University of Pune, Pune, Maharashtra. [email protected]. Ÿ Sanjiv Kumar, Asstt. Professor, Department of English, Central University of Haryana, Mahendergarh. [email protected]. Ÿ B.J. Geetha, Assistant Professor of English, Periyar University, Salem, Tamil Nadu. [email protected]. Ÿ Judith Sebastian, Associate Professor in English, Assumption College, Changnacherry, Kerala. [email protected]. Ÿ S.B. Bhambar, Head, Dept. of English Arts & Commerce College, Gadhinglaj, Kolhapur, Maharashtra. bhambars@ rediffmail.com.
The other esteemed contributors are at the Editorial Board of Labyrinth.