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Subject: ENGLISH Class: B.A. Part 1 English Hons., Paper-1, Group D Topic: of Protest Lecture No: 27

By: Prof. Sunita Sinha Head, Department of English Women’s College Samastipur L.N.M.U., Darbhanga Email: [email protected] Website: www.sunitasinha.com Mob No: 9934917117

NOVEL OF PROTEST

DEFINITION

• The novel is the written form of the thoughts of writers expressing themselves about a given time in history. Each writer engages into writing with a motif. Some write about romance, others about adventure, but others decided to write to defend a cause, to voice the anger of the oppressed. • The social novel, also known as the social protest novel, is a "work of fiction in which a prevailing social problem, such as gender, race, or class prejudice, is dramatized through its effect on the characters of a novel". Such works include problem like poverty, conditions in factories and mines, the plight of child labor, violence against women, rising criminality, and epidemics because of over-crowding, and poor sanitation in cities. 2

• Terms like thesis novel, novel, industrial novel, working-class novel and problem novel are also used to describe this type of novel; a recent development in this genre is the young adult problem novel. It is also referred to as the sociological novel. • The social protest novel is a form of social novel which places an emphasis on the idea of social change, while the proletarian novel is a political form of the social protest novel which may emphasize revolution. While early examples are found in 18th century England, social have been written throughout Europe and the . • Although the definition of protest literature is obviously fluid, a working definition of protest literature can be regarded as all art that implicitly or explicitly critiques society of its social ills. • Protest novel, or also named the social novel is a work of fiction that depicts the daily sufferings of people under a force, be it political, social or economic. Its main concerns are classes’ conflicts, powers clashes, oppression, and segregation.

• Modern writers should do more than merely reflect the despair and ennui of late-bourgeois society; they should try to take a critical perspective on this futility revealing positive possibilities beyond it. It is not enough to highlight weaknesses in criticizing since this would produce pessimists and non- believers who do nothing to solve their problems. It should offer constructive and corrective criticism since no literature of note would just stop at cultivating cynicism, helplessness, disillusionment and alienation to its readers.

CHARACTERISTICS OF PROTEST NOVEL

• Protest literature has existed in various forms throughout literary history, awakening people to the injustices around them. • To Marshall, protest happens when there is something in the society that people do not like; it may be the law, institutions, cultural traditions or practices that are not right or fair. 3

• According to Abrams Protest literature derides and ridicules disorders in the society evoking attitudes of contempt, moral indignation and scorn in order to correct human vice and folly. • This shows that protest literature is a vital tool for social transformation because it articulates people’s grievances and challenges unpopular government policies thereby being the voice of the voiceless. • The voice of protest should be directed towards changing a wrong system, not individuals, and should point to areas of growth and renewal. • Protest literature is not propaganda for war, incitement for imminent violence or advocacy of hatred based on ethnicity, gender or religion. • Protest literature shows a wide range of dissenting voices from a gentle complain to radical criticism. Implicit or hidden criticism can be in the form of , irony, metaphor or sarcasm. • There are two dominant devices in the protest novel:

The Narrative: We mean by narrative method the cinematic technique, for instance, several actions happening or taking place at the same time, with a switch from one character to another. The narrator usually is detached from the narrative in order to not betray his emotions, without personal intrusion, the writer guarantees a certain objectivity in his writings leaving the reader the only judge about what he had written. Realism: When one mentions description in a context of protest, it is of course following the realism current. As its main concern is to bring to light the worries and problems of the forgotten people.

IMPORTANT WORKS

• The protest novel emerged in every part of the world. In France, we have Émile Zola, writer of the pioneer novel in realism Germinal that dealt with 4

miners on strike to defend their rights and better working conditions, fighting with valour the machine that was devouring everyone’s motivation and life. Another writer is with his Misérables, presenting the social background in which people were living and the harshness of their conditions again. • In America, we also have some novels that dealt with this issue such as novels by but in a satirical tone, denouncing the slavery issue, the hypocrisy of society. Steinbeck too had written Grapes of Wrath in an attempt for social protest despite the fact that it received many negatives echoes. • In Africa, writers have tried to exteriorize the daily struggle of people with the white forces, protest novels were able to show the world the realm of the oppression that they live in. The protest novel came to rescue the voices of many oppressed, to protest against the tyranny. Some end with an eventual hope for the future, others with complete surrender of the black people to their own fate. There have been works like Mine Boy by Peter Abrahams and A Walk in The Night by Alex La Guma. What we have seen so far from these few examples that most European, American writers focus on their suffering and they struggle that they are having to survive in a society ruled by their own people from the same country sharing the same history.

IMPORTANT WRITERS OF ENGLISH LITERATURE

• was one of the most important social critics who used fiction effectively to criticize economic, social and moral abuses in the . He showed compassion and empathy towards the vulnerable and disadvantaged segments of English society, and contributed to several important social reforms. Charles Dickens’ novels depicts the living conditions of the workers, complete Laissez-faire of the mass, but what all these early protest novels have in common is that they do not share any kind of insight in the future of this category of people, it rather denounce in a passive way, meaning that there is no identity to defend in the first place, but more likely interests. In his novel The Pickwick Papers created a utopian and nostalgic vision of previctorian and pre-industrial England prior to a rapid industrialization and urbanization. Although the novel was designed to be 5

comic, it is not free of Dickens’ characteristic social commentary, which would become more pronounced in his later novels. which represents a radical change in Dickens’ themes, is his first novel to carry a social commentary similar to that contained in the subsequent condition of England novels. Dickens explores many social themes in Oliver Twist, but three are predominant: the abuses of the new Poor Law system, the evils of the criminal world in London and the victimization of children. The motif of child abuse in the context the Victorian education system is continued in Nicholas Nickleby. The novel contains a serious social commentary on the conditions of schools where unwanted children were maltreated and starved. was in fact an attack on the Manchester School of Economics, which supported laissez-faire and promoted a distorted view of Bentham’s ethics. The novel has been criticized for not offering specific remedies for the condition of England problems it addresses.

• CHARLES KINGSLEY used fiction as a springboard for his religious and social opinions and made his narratives extensions of the tracts and pamphlets he wrote for The Politics of the People and The Christian Socialist. Kingsley derived from his notion of the social responsibility of the privileged classes. Like Carlyle and , Kingsley opposed the laissez-faire system and believed that the improvement of social relationships could be done by a natural aristocracy, i.e. an aristocracy which arises out of work and education rather than birth or special privilege. He was deeply convinced about the need for social reform under the auspices of the Church of England. He strongly believed that moral and educational reform of the would eventually disable the militant radicalism of some of its members. Kingsley’s commitment to social reform is expressed emphatically in his three novels, Yeast, Alton Locke, Two Years Ago, and the classic fairy tale, The Water-Babies. Charles Kingsley denounced the injustice surrounding the workers.

• ’S Nineteen Eighty-Four which comes as a critique to communism and the control of the mass media over the public opinion. However, we see in this novel that despite the awareness of one individual in his society, his protest, he eventually submits again to the system to cheat 6

death. The notion of self-sacrifice appears to be very weak in the British writings.

• British author WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY is best known for his satiric sketches and novels of upper- and middle-class English life and is credited with bringing a simpler style and greater realism to the . Vanity Fair: A Novel without a Hero (1848), a panorama of early nineteenth-century English upper-middle-class society, is generally regarded as Thackeray's masterpiece. Although Vanity Fair has received more critical attention than any of his other works, many regard The History of Henry Esmond, Esq., a Colonel in the Service of Her Majesty Q. Anne (1852), a historical novel set in early eighteenth-century England, to be his most well- planned and carefully executed work.

• ANTHONY TROLLOPE became one of the most successful, prolific and respected English of the Victorian era. Some of Trollope's best- loved works, known as the Chronicles of Barsetshire, revolve around the imaginary county of Barsetshire, but he also wrote penetrating novels on political, social, and gender issues and conflicts of his day. In his wide survey of social conditions in England he comes closer to French realists like Balzac and Zola. A vein of satire runs through his works. The Warden and Framley Parsonage are his other major works.

• SAMUEL BUTLER, English , essayist, and critic whose satire Erewhon foreshadowed the collapse of the Victorian illusion of eternal progress. The Way of All Flesh, his , is generally considered his masterpiece. It certainly contains much of the quintessence of Butlerism. This largely autobiographical novel tells, with ruthless wit, realism, and lack of sentiment, the story of Butler’s escape from the suffocating moral atmosphere of his home circle. He vehemently attacks the modern society, its treatment of crime, poverty and sickness, its religion and its trust in machinery.

• BENJAMIN DISRAELI was a celebrated Statesman and Prime Minister of England besides being a novelist too. In Vivian Grey, he attacks fashionable 7

society. His other novels which are satiric in tone are Henrietta Temple ,Coningsby, ,Tancred to name a few.

CONCLUSION • Protest literature helps to interrogate a society’s beliefs and convictions questioning their reliability. This leads people to ask the right questions about themselves helping them to find appropriate answers to their problems.

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By: Prof. Sunita Sinha Head, Department of English Women’s College Samastipur L.N.M.U., Darbhanga Email: [email protected] Website: www.sunitasinha.com Mob No:9934917117