Volume 3, Issue 3(5), March 2014 International Journal of Multidisciplinary Educational Research

Published by Sucharitha Publications Visakhapatnam – 530 017 Andhra Pradesh – India Email: [email protected] website : www.ijmer.in

Editorial Board Editor-in-Chief Dr. Victor Babu Koppula Faculty Department of Philosophy Andhra University – Visakhapatnam -530 003 Andhra Pradesh – India

EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS

Prof. S.Mahendra Dev Prof. Josef HÖCHTL Vice Chancellor Department of Political Economy Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research University of Vienna, Vienna & Mumbai Ex. Member of the Austrian Parliament, Austria

Prof.Y.C. Simhadri Prof. Alexander Chumakov Director Chair of Philosophy Department Institute of Constitutional and Parlimentary Russian Philosophical Society Studies, New Delhi & Formerly Vice Chancellor of Moscow, Russia Benaras Hindu University, Andhra University Nagarjuna University, Patna University Prof. Fidel Gutierrez Vivanco Founder and President Prof. (Dr.) Sohan Raj Tater Escuela Virtual de Asesoría Filosófica Former Vice Chancellor Lima Peru Singhania University , Rajasthan Prof. Igor Kondrashin Prof.K.Sreerama Murty The Member of The Russian Philosophical Society Department of Economics The Russian Humanist Society and Expert of the Andhra University - Visakhapatnam UNESCO, Moscow, Russia

Prof. K.R.Rajani Dr. Zoran Vujisiæ Department of Philosophy Rector Andhra University – Visakhapatnam St. Gregory Nazianzen Orthodox Institute Universidad Rural de Guatemala, GT,U.S.A Prof. A.B.S.V.Rangarao Department of Social Work Swami Maheshwarananda Andhra University – Visakhapatnam Founder and President Shree Vishwa Deep Gurukul Prof.S.Prasanna Sree Swami Maheshwarananda Ashram Education & Department of English Research Center Andhra University – Visakhapatnam Rajasthan, India

Prof. P.Sivunnaidu Dr. Momin Mohamed Naser Department of History Department of Geography Andhra University – Visakhapatnam Institute of Arab Research and Studies Cairo University, Egypt Prof. P.D.Satya Paul Department of Anthropology I KETUT DONDER Andhra University – Visakhapatnam Depasar State Institute of Hindu Dharma Indonesia Prof. Roger Wiemers Dr.Merina Islam Professor of Education Department of Philosophy Lipscomb University, Nashville, USA Cachar College, Assam

Prof. G.Veerraju Dr R Dhanuja Department of Philosophy PSG College of Arts & Science Andhra University Coimbatore Visakhapatnam Dr. Bipasha Sinha Prof.G.Subhakar S. S. Jalan Girls’ College Department of Education University of Calcutta Andhra University, Visakhapatnam Calcutta

Dr.B.S.N.Murthy Dr. K. John Babu Department of Mechanical Engineering Department of Journalism & Mass Comm GITAM University –Visakhapatnam Central University of Kashmir, Kashmir

N.Suryanarayana (Dhanam) Dr. H.N. Vidya Department of Philosophy Governement Arts College Andhra University, Hassan, Karnataka Visakhapatnam Dr.Ton Quang Cuong Dr.Ch.Prema Kumar Dean of Faculty of Teacher Education Department of Philosophy University of Education, VNU, Hanoi Andhra University, Visakhapatnam Prof. Chanakya Kumar University of Pune Dr. E.Ashok Kumar PUNE Department of Education North- Eastern Hill University, Shillong

Dr.K.Chaitanya Postdoctoral Research Fellow Department of Chemistry Nanjing University of Science and Technology People’s Republic of China

© Editor-in-Chief , IJMER Typeset and Printed in India www.ijmer.in

IJMER, Journal of Multidisciplinary Educational Research, concentrates on critical and creative research in multidisciplinary traditions. This journal seeks to promote original research and cultivate a fruitful dialogue between old and new thought. Volume 3 Issue 3(5) March 2014

C O N T E N T S 1. Reflections on The Usage of Language and Reality in 1 Writing Novel by South Asian Women Writers of English S.Prasanna Sree 2. Conquering Style: Stylistic Problems of South Asian 10 Women Writers Writing in English S.Prasanna Sree 3. Experiments and Expression: Recritiquing the 15 Concept of Indian Writing in English by South Asian Women Writers S.Prasanna Sree 4. South Asian Women Writer’s Experimenting with 23 Syntax while Re-presentations and Reflex ions in Indian writing in English S.Prasanna Sree 5. The Myth is a Myth? Reflections on new Diaspora 40 Women Writers S.Prasanna Sree 6. ‘Freedom from Physical Slavery: Emotional Bondages 50 and Psychological Oppression: Is the Real Victory of Self’; Reflection on Harriet Beecher Stowe’s ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’ S.Prasanna Sree 7. Human Efforts are Either to Penetrate or to Subdue: 59 Understanding Harriet Beecher Stowe’s ‘Dred’ S.Prasanna Sree 8. Constrain etched the Crisis’: Reflection Alan Paton’s 67 Cry the Beloved Country S.Prasanthi Sree 9. Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) 71 Koppula Swathi 10. Gender Dynamics in Manju Kapur’s “Difficult 77 Daughters” Aditi Abhishikta 11. Gendered Hauntings: The Joys of Motherhood, 85 Interpretive acts, and Postcolonial Theory S.Prasanthi Sree 12. Caste discrimination on Arundati Roy’s The God of 91 Small Things V.Kavitha and B.Rajesh Kumar 13. Why Girls Right Matters? Taboos, Harmful 96 Traditions of Social Inequality Teshome Tola Turo

14. Self Realization to Self Actualization 107 U.Girija 15. The contours of violence and atrocities on the 114 marginalized communities Ch Sampath Kumar

16. Cliped Wings of Dalits in the Select Novels of Bama’s 128 ‘Karukku and Baby Kamble’s ‘the Prision We Broke’ P. Gouthami Dr. K.VICTOR BABU ISSN: 2277-7881; Impact Factor -2.735 Editor-in-Chief INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH

Visakhapatnam -530 003, Andhra Pradesh – India, www.ijmer.in

Editorial …….. Provoking fresh thinking is certainly becoming the prime purpose of International Journal of Multidisciplinary Educational Research (IJMER). The new world era we have entered with enormous contradictions is demanding a unique understanding to face challenges. IJMER’s contents are overwhelmingly contributor, distinctive and are creating the right balance for its readers with its varied knowledge. We are happy to inform you that IJMER got the high Impact Factor 2.735, Index Copernicus Value 5.16 and IJMER is listed and indexed in 34 popular indexed organizations in the world. This academic achievement of IJMER is only author’s contribution in the past issues. I hope this journey of IJMER more benefit to future academic world. The current issue deals with South asian women writers of Indians, New Diaspora Women Writers, Communicative language teachng, Self Realization to Self Actualization, Bama’s Karukku and Baby Kamble’s the Prision we broke and etc. These applied topics are a fund of knowledge for their utilization. In the present issue, we have taken up details of multidisciplinary issues discussed in academic circles. There are well written articles covering a wide range of issues that are thought provoking as well as significant in the contemporary research world. My thanks to the Members of the Editorial Board, to the readers, and in particular I sincerely recognize the efforts of the subscribers of articles. The journal thus receives its recognition from the rich contribution of assorted research papers presented by the experienced scholars and the implied commitment is generating the vision envisaged and that is spreading knowledge. I am happy to note that the readers are benefited. My personal thanks to one and all.

(Dr.Victor Babu Koppula) INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 REFLECTIONS ON THE USAGE OF LANGUAGE AND REALITY IN WRITING NOVEL BY SOUTH ASIAN WOMEN WRITERS OF ENGLISH

Prof.S.Prasanna Sree Department of English Andhra University Visakhapatnam

“There is easy reading. And there and also adept in conveying the is literature.” –Anon Signpost reality of this hybrid and complex Given the intertwining of identity in English prose. politics and poetics in the novel, The Rise of the Novel in South which has been referred to as “an Asia incorporating quasi-encyclopedic The novel is not an art form cultural form,” (1) the stylistic intrinsic in the South Asian literary changes and innovations introduced tradition, and the novel written in by South Asian women writers to the English is an even younger branch body of literature written in English of its literature. As for the novel could well reflect and impact upon written in English by South Asian the changing social order being women writers, this represents a depicted. The roles and uses of very recent development on the mythology in South Asian women’s South Asian English literary scene. writings of today, and of the continuing influence of mythologies The male writers have long been on the attitudes of South Asians celebrated by the literary world, towards women. these structural with Rabindranath Tagore winning innovations succeed in reconciling the Nobel Prize for Literature in form to its material, in producing a 1913 and V.S. Naipaul winning the writing which is simultaneously same in 2001, and Salman Rushdie distinctively South Asian in identity and Michael Ondaatje winning the

1 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014

Booker Prize (in 1981 for Midnight’s However Mukherjee, Spivak, Children and in 1992 for The Seshadri and other critics have English Patient respectively). South already voiced growing concerns Asian male writers have also that serious literary criticism is still featured amongst Commonwealth painfully inadequate both in quantity Prize Winners, the ones of the last and quality in this young but rapidly decade include Rohinton Mistry (in growing branch of literature this 1992 for Such a Long Journey, and lack of serious literary criticism may again in 1996 for A Fine Balance) partly be due to the fact that this and Vikram Seth (in 1994 for A literary subculture has yet to be Suitable Boy). Arundhati Roy, accepted into mainstream Western winner of the 1997 Booker Prize literature, but it may also partly be with The God of Small Things, and because the novel is an adopted form Jhumpa Lahiri, winner of the 1999 in South Asian Literature. Pulitzer Prize with her collection of The Western novel has mainly short stories, Interpreter been rooted in the concern over an ofMaladies.(2) individual’s situation or experience The publicity of successes of Roy in a certain or particular given time and Lahiri on both sides of the and place. Many literary genres such Atlantic has brought world as poetry and verse, epics and recognition for South Asian women mythologies, religious writings, and writers and encouraged aspiring oral literatures, have long been writers who are currently more developed to very high art forms in prolifically published than ever South Asia, but the novel was a before in the history of the genre. distinctly foreign and even alien South Asian women’s writings have genre. become more popular and It was alien in two widespread as a consequence. fundamentals.

2 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 A central underlying assumption constrains of his community, the of the classic Western novel is that notion not of the hero (for heroes are it will contain an individual or plentiful in South Asian epics), but individuals playing his or her role(s) of the protagonist. It has been in a specific place and at a specific argued by Mukherjee that where the point in human history. It also Western protagonist is an individual usually supposes that the individuals free to seek his or her destiny and would be either coping with make his or her choices, the significant social changes or making tradition-bound South Asian significant social changes in their cultures leaves its people far less lives. The novel depicts and freedom of choice, (for its women in comments upon change - which is particular,) mapping or chartering one of its most basic themes - as their lives according to the dictates opposed to continuity. In this, the of culture, patriarchy and tradition, novel form was eminently suitable to a large and encompassing degree. to writers who wished to depict the Moreover, Hinduism and Buddhism, changes that were crowding thick which are widely practiced in South and fast into urban and Asia contain the concepts of destiny, industrialized parts of South Asia, reincarnation, and one’s present life and it also was the perfect medium being the product of past lives, which in which to record and detail the is then portrayed by writers as a many and drastic social changes possible tendency of many South taking place as a result of the Asians to a certain passivity, economical and political policies resignation and acceptance which were being implemented. Characters in South Asian The South Asian literary shores writings are therefore far less likely giving importance of the individual to be in the mould of the hero single- transcending or escaping the handedly charting his course in life

3 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 and being the master of his fate and be open to debate, but it is true that captain of his soul, defying the as an art form, the novel only began norms of his community in the in earnest in India in the 1920s. The process. Characters in South Asian first novels were written in Bengali, novels are portrayed to be deeply and Mukherjee suggests that this embedded in their community, often may be because Bengal was the first seen to be wrestling with multiples region to have close contact with the ties of duty, tradition, expectations British .The very first Indian novel and familial claims, and their own to be written in English was by culturally instilled passivity. This, of Bankim in 1864, entitled Rajmohan’ course, is in stark contrast to “the s Wife. This novel has been described classical Bildungsroman(3) plot as a “dud” by Rushdie and similarly [which] posits ‘happiness’ as the by other critics, and Bankim himself highest value.”(4) reverted to writing in Bengali (with far more literary success) after his According to Meenakshi single attempt at writing a novel in Mukherjee, “It is ... impossible to English. According to Rushdie, for a write a good novel today that further seventy years after remains suspended out of time and Rajmohan’ s Wife, no English fiction space; it must have a definite of any remarkable quality was location in the temporal and spatial produced in India until “the literary reality.”(5) Mukherjee further stimulus offered by the English contends that the late development language gave rise to the Indian of prose fiction in Indian literature novel in English in the Thirties ... is related to the late emergence of “(7) Meenakshi Mukerjee suggests historical sense amongst Indians.(6) that it may be no coincidence that Whether or not it would be the novel in English emerged in impossible to write a good novel India in the 1930s, the decade just irrespective of time and place may

4 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 prior to Independence, when “there The 1970s were, in Mukherjee’s was an urgency to foreground the opinion, a barren decade except for idea of a composite nation.”(8) In the the writings of Shashi Deshpande, 1950s and 1960s, it was unsurprising and it was not until Rushdie’ s that many, if not most, of the novels Midnight’s Children burst upon the reflected the political upheavals of literary scene in 1981 that there once the age. The few women novelists of more emerged a profusion of the time - Anita Desai, Ruth Prawar liveliness in South Asian Literature Jhabvala, Kamala Markandaya, and in English. “Prose writing ..... Nayantara Sahgal, for example - created in this period by Indian wrote novels strongly threaded with writers writing in English is proving political consciousness. The best of to be a stronger and more important the pioneering South Asian women body of work than most of what has writers wrote in polished prose and been produced in the 16 “official fluent, standardized English. The languages” of India .... .in the 1980s women writers of the Fifties and and 1990s, the flow of good writing Sixties were the few who had access has become a flood.”(9) In the 1980s, to English education and publication there was a rapid increase of opportunities due to family or social publications by women writers in connections. The majority of these certain parts of South Asia, and this women authors could be classified as was probably in part due to the members of the elite; a relatively increased opportunities for privileged class and/or caste who had education and employment, the luxury of social or family especially for women of the middle support, adequate financial classes, an economically as well as resources, and leisure time in which socially defined class which was to write -they had Virginia Woolfs swiftly expanding. proverbial “room of one’s own”.

5 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 By this point, a significant traditionally proudly prioritized the change in the genre had occurred. welfare of the community over that In the Fifties, authors may have of the individual. While this has displayed an inclination to idealise much to do with the changed and protagonists, acutely aware that changing readership, and many of their readers would be consequently with whom the readers Western ones, consciously or sub- can identify, it also represents the consciously writing to portray “the third phase predicted by authentic” character, and also the Showalter(10)that of self discovery, most virtuous. These writers of the the quest for freedom now being 1980s were of the new generation turned inwards. The works of South brought up in a post-Independence Asian women writers follow this Indian-subcontinent. pattern and the novels are increasingly introspective, open- Authors were now choosing the ended, and questioning. Issues are man-on-the-road, the ordinary no longer black and white, answers character, the everyday, middle-class are neither stereotypical nor easy to protagonist, as their subject. To be find, and there are fewer obvious sure, some like Githa Mehta still villains. Men are no longer seen as wrote novels like Raj, claiming to tell the enemy, but society, norms, a tale of a princess and her customs and traditions, continue to extraordinary life, but the vast be regarded as hampering the majority of writers had turned to growth and development of women. depicting a social reality likely to be A new order seems to be emerging shared by millions of others. with the rapid changes of women’s The protagonists of these economic circumstances, the writings faced a common and central disintegration of large joint-families, problem of seeking individual and the migration from rural to fulfillment in a culture which had

6 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 urban areas. Female protagonists proletarian progressivism; India’s are seen to be in search of self- modem destiny; social change and fulfillment, order, meaning and cultural transformation; regional security amidst the confusions and and communal identities; the East- uncertainties of their new West encounter; questioning conditions. No longer do authors affirmation of tradition.’’ Ironically, look to larger-than-life characters the contemporary South Asian and extraordinary scenarios to write women writers of today are not about; they have chosen to draw drawing on such a wide variety of their material from the known, the themes, and of the six broad themes familiar, and the immediate. outlined by Harrex, only half are still However, although it is being actively discussed. If Harrex understandable that these changes were to comment on contemporary and the subsequent immediate Indian fiction in English today, it is effects on their lives may be unlikely that he would be able to uppermost in the minds of South praise it for a “wide variety of Asian women writers, there is a themes”. Protest, the destiny of curious lack of attention to politics India, regional and communal and the effect that may be having identities, and generally speaking, on the lives of women in the politically inclined topics, are largely subcontinent. avoided or neglected by South Asian women writers of today. On the other H.C. Harrex had noted that “the hand, there is a definite focusing and early Indian fiction in English may prioritizing of the East-West not have been innovative in form encounter and the mutually and technique, but it certainly was influencing factors; much is being rich in its wide variety of themes”, written about the yielding of which he then divided into six tradition to the demands of categories: protest, reform and

7 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 modernity and technology; and there 2 The only previous woman writer is little doubt that South Asian based in South Asia to win the women writers are deeply engrossed Booker Prize is Ruth Prawer Jhabvala in 1975 for Heat and in recording and depicting social Dust; Arundhati Roy is the first change and cultural transformations South Asian woman to win the over the generations. Booker Prize In addition to the themes 3 Franco Moretti, The Way of the outlined by Harrex, South Asian World. The Bildungsroman in women writers have included European Culture (London: themes of domesticity, marriage, Verson, 1987). According to food, gender discrimination, and Franco Moretti, Bildungsroman perhaps most significantly, the is the form which will dominate theme of victimhood. As will be or make possible the Golden discussed in greater detail in the Century of Western narrative. course of this thesis, this theme of 4 Moretti 3. victimhood (11) has secured such a 5 Meenakshi Mukherjee, The Twice central place in the genre that it Born Fiction. Themes and effectively sidelines a number of Techniques of the Indian Novel in other themes. It is a theme English (New Delhi: Heinemann particularly favoured by the South Educational, 1971) 18.

Asian women writers. The concerns 6 Ibid. of South Asian women writers do 7 Usha Bande, Victim naturally overlap with those of Consciousness in Indian-English South Asian men writers, but there Novel (Jalandhar, India: ABS, is a difference in emphasis and focus. 1997).

References 8 Meenakshi Mukherjee, The 1 Edward Said, Culturalism and Perishable Empire: Essays on Imperialism (London: Indian Writing in English (New Chatto&Windus, 1993) 84. Delhi:Oxford UP, 2000) 174.

8 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 9 Salman Rushdie, “India and World Literature.” Frontline. August 1979. Online. 9 February 2000.

10 The three broad phases of development undergone by a literary subculture as outlined by Elaine Showalter as discussed in the fourth section of the Introduction.

11 Taken from Usha Bande, Victim Consciousness in Indian-English Novel (Jalandhar, India: ABS, 1997) XV111.

9 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 CONQUERING STYLE: STYLISTIC PROBLEMS OF SOUTH ASIAN WOMEN WRITERS WRITING IN ENGLISH

Prof.S.Prasanna Sree Department of English Andhra University Visakhapatnam

Any South Asian writer writing As much as English as a global literature in English would be faced language offers the author the with the daunting knowledge that opportunity to reach a global there already exists a considerable audience, the author is also body of literature written in this challenged with the finding of a language, not only in UK, but in distinctive voice in this vast body of USA, Canada, Australia and a large literature. number of other Commonwealth It was once assumed that the Countries. most insurmountable obstacle for Regardless of whether South South Asians writing in English was Asian writer cares to be regarded as simply that they were attempting to a postcolonial writer, by writing in write in a foreign language, the English, he or she would be keenly language moreover of their conscious of entering into colonizers, a language other than competition in the most prolific their mother tongues. writing language in the world. It Writing in English bore a tag of would be difficult for the South servility as well as the badge of Asian novelist to escape an elitism. Today, at least two awareness of the possible Western generations after Independence, and global audience, simply due to many South Asians are either bi- his/her choice of language apart from lingual or multi-lingual, claiming anything else. English not only as a mother tongue,

10 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 but as their language, and therefore, notions, sentiments, attitudes, a language of South Asia. It is also ideology and vocabulary. Even to this an official language in India and date, one of the criteria of a remains in general use in other successful piece of literature written South Asian countries like Pakistan in English by South Asians would be and Sri Lanka, for official, the extent to which it is successful educational and even military in employing the English language purposes. This proficiency and with fluency, yet remaining familiarity with English has meant distinctively South Asian without a shift or change in stylistic sacrificing either clarity or problems for South Asian writers aesthetics. rather than a decrease of the same. According to Mukherjee, one In the words of Bourdieu, cultural reality in South Asia may “language is an integral part of differ largely from another cultural social life, with all its ruses and reality and the differences can be iniquities, and that a good part of our articulated in regional languages social life consists of the routine and dialects, “ ..... Cultural units in exchange of linguistic expressions in India tend to be aligned on linguistic the day-to-day flow of social lines.”(13) In the vernacular interaction.”(12) This being the case, languages of South Asia, or in the first and perhaps the most bhasha, literature is inclined to be fundamental problem which regionally distinctive; for example, continues to confront and challenge Bengali Literature and Tamil South Asian writers is the problem Literature which originate from the of presenting a South Asian reality north and south of India in a language neither evolved to respectively, differ in their literary articulate it, nor comprising the history, tradition and practices. necessary inherent concepts, Given this difference, it is significant

11 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 that the works of a Bengali writer In general, the writing in English and that of a nuances and connotations contained Tamil writer doing the same, a part in language depend on certain of names of foods, clothing, places, complicity on the part of writer and and rituals which have been retained reader, or between two speakers, and in the vernacular, are virtually rests on a foundation of shared impossible to differentiate, let alone beliefs. (15) Writing in English identify by style, in written English. therefore, puts South Asian writers This ‘disappearance’ of the regional in the difficult position of not being differences or distinctiveness is able to simply and freely imply and further compounded by the choice of connote, but of also having to explain material, particularly by South and educate the reader in the process Asian women writers, who in their of reading. A South Asian writing in desire to strike a chord of common English cannot assume the understanding across the spectrum understanding of his/her readers, or of South Asian regions, have been expect too much by way of common inclined to select themes with broad assumptions. “No two languages are or universal appeal. Moreover, ever sufficiently similar to be because the target readership is considered as representing the same diffused and may include those who social reality.”(16) In the translation have no first-hand experience of of cultural notions through the India, the anxiety on the part of vehicle of the English language, the authors is manifested in the pull author runs numerous and likely towards homogenization, “an risks of symbolism and imagery inability to perceive those realities being misinterpreted, of nuances situated outside the cognitive limits being missed altogether, of signifiers imposed by English and which falling on stony ground, of cannot be appropriated into the East-West or colonial-indigenous paradigms.”(14). 12 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 innuendoes and intimations missing quality of that particular area, its their marks typical responses and its distinctive spirit.”(17) during the It has been noted by many critics contemporariness this problem gets that the problem of nuances and diminished with the increase in connotations appears most acutely travelling and in the promotion of in the writing of dialogue. If an national identity. Many, moreover, author is writing of people who do are very cosmopolitan, and this not speak or think in English, the cosmopolitan outlook is in fact one problem is acute, and unrealistic of the solutions to the problem of dialogue sequences may well be the finding common ground and result. Even if the author is writing common themes in the choice of of South Asians who do ordinarily literary material. In choosing to converse in English, it may not be write of urban situations and in Standard English but a brand of settings, for example, South Asian English which may be nearly authors find they can trigger that incomprehensible to native speakers chord of common understanding, of English. both nationally and internationally, However, it is not only in and thereby side-step the problem of dialogue that this stylistic problem regionalism. This however, once rears its head; it can be in the choice again inclines South Asian women of material too, although this is a writers to limit themselves to a problem which offers more obvious handful of themes. and ready solutions. Mukherjee Some South Asian authors have explains it thus: “Generally discovered that problems can be speaking, his [the author’s] area of opportunities. In attempting to intimate experience is limited to a convey new concepts, or concepts small geographical area. The quality which would have been that marks his writing is often the

13 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 unacceptable by traditional ideas in specific times and places. standards, or even concepts which That these writers elect to write in directly conflict with culturally English is a particularly pertinent ingrained habits and expectations, point; while it is a choice loaded with writing in English is one way in political and social implications, which to find words, articulation, English may also be the language in and notions, for change, protest, and which they can experiment and difference. For example, in certain recreate, offering them a new Indian languages, the word for literary territory to be claimed and independence, especially where it conquered. applies to women, may carry References strongly negative connotations, and 12. Pierre Bourdieu, Language and even the stigma of shame. In using Symbolic Power Trans. G. English to depict and even express Raymond and M. Adamson independence for women, authors (Cambridge : Polity, 1991) . are less constrained by the negative 13. Mukherjee, Twice Born 24. cultural baggage which traditionally 14. Mukherjee, Perishable Empire burdened the concept. This unique 200. position of the perpetual outsider 15. Bourdieu 23. has perhaps afforded them a unique springboard from which to make 16. Edward Sapir, Culture, Language creative linguistic experiments. The and Personality (Berkeley, U of California P, 1956). novel has perhaps been the literary form which has offered South Asian 17. Mukherjee, Twice Born 174. women writers the best opportunity to engage and converse with their culture, to chart social and cultural changes, and to anchor notions and

14 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 EXPERIMENTS AND EXPRESSION: RECRITIQUING THE CONCEPT OF INDIAN WRITING IN ENGLISH BY SOUTH ASIAN WOMEN WRITERS

Prof.S.Prasanna Sree Department of English Andhra University Visakhapatnam

As the problems of writing in and literal translations of words, English have changed over time, so proverbs and clichés, which may too are the solutions so ingeniously either be glaringly obvious and even devised by the authors. Literal disruptive to the reading process, or translations may be neither which may be subtly interwoven into adequate nor appropriate, and new the rest of the text. Literal linguistic experiments have become translation however, is seldom the the order of the day. best solution, and most contemporary novelists choose to Mukherjee identified three leave only single words areas of linguistic experimentation untranslated, words which they tried by South Asian novelists, either cannot or choose not to although she had her reservations as translate. Generally speaking, most to the varying degrees of their South Asian women writers identify success. these experiments for the benefit of Experimenting with Diction their readers by italicizing the One of the most widely tried relevant words. Some may choose literary experiments by South Asian not to do so, perhaps preferring to women writers is experiments with insert foreign words in the English diction, and this is a many-pronged text without drawing too much experiment. It may include direct attention to the insertion, both for

15 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 the purpose of reflecting their Apart from names of foods and natural mode of thought and dishes, ties of kinship are often left expression, and for a closer in their vernacular also, perhaps for intertwining of their culture into the the sake of authenticity in dialogue, English language. Some authors and again, perhaps to convey a South provide translation lists at the back Asian approach to kinship and other of their novels, which others, again relationships (for even non-blood perhaps deliberately, do not. related South Asians may well address each other as kin). Examples Words which are most of these include didi (older sister), commonly left untranslated are bhaiya (brother), bahu (daughter-in- nouns, and more seldom, verbs. The law), chacha (paternal uncle). untranslated nouns most popularly included in South Asian women’s However, it must be noted that writings fall into a number of such terms differ tremendously from categories. Names of South Asian language to language and from dishes or foods or fruits are region to region in South Asia. commonly left in their original Names of items of clothing are also language, either because this commonly left untranslated. imparts the cultural flavor more Examples of such would be sari successfully, or perhaps there is no (length of cloth worn wrapped English equivalent. For example, around the body in specific ways), one often comes across words like shalwar khameez (combination of paan (betel leaves wrapping lime tunic and pants), dupatta (long, and nuts, which are then chewed), scarf-like item), and even accessories halwa (dessert made of grated carrot like bindi (the coloured round dot in and milk and sugar), ghee (clarified the centre of the foreheads of butter), dhal (dish cooked with women), kumkum (the red powder lentils). sprinkled by married women in the

16 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 parting of their hair), mangalsutra occasions; words like accha (okay), (a string ofblack beads worn by arrey (oh! no, shame). married women). Apart from names of dishes and Other words left untranslated foods, items of clothing, ties of are exclamations, and in this case, kinship, and exclamations, there are it is most likely that they are a number of other miscellaneous included in their original form for words left in the vernacular which the sake of authenticity; especially are quite liberally besprinkled in in dialogues (because in moments of South Asian women’s novels. The crisis and high emotion, it has been word Puja is one which makes a observed that many fluent but non- frequent appearance, perhaps native English speakers are likely to because it not only translates as revert to their mother tongues). “prayer”, but it involves a certain set Exclamations may include those of rituals carried out in the process ranging from pride to horror; of the praying. shabaash (congratulations, well Another such word is done), bas (enough, finished), hai Besharam, which could be roughly ram (with religious reference and translated as “shameless” or most commonly used to express “without modesty”, but which surprise or shock), chichi (a chiding actually appears to be a word which which is not directly translatable but encapsulates many cultural the sentiment “for shame!” comes expectations and stereotypes and close to this). Conversation fillers connotations. Used sparingly and which may either contain a whole appropriately, all these categories of array of possible meanings, or no words left in the vernacular which particular meaning at all, are also are included in literature written in deliberately included on many English are justifiable and even desirable. The criteria in judging the

17 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 successful inclusion of these words addition is an invented word made would be relevance and clarity. to rhyme with the English one is Besides inclusion of words foreign to more often than not used to express English(18), another linguistic contempt, disparagement, and experiment tried by many authors discouragement, though sometimes is the distortion(19) of or alteration it can be used in a playful vein. The or addition to English words. This, alteration of English words also again, falls into several categories. signals the possibility that these may The misspelling of English words is be the English words which are one form of alteration. An example included in vernacular speech. of this would be saar for “sir”, which One author who has may be deliberately misspelled revolutionized the use of the English either to indicate the approximate language and made some of the most sound of the mis-pronunciation of innovative and numerous of the word, or to indicate illiteracy, linguistic experiments, is Arundhati class, education levels, or regional Roy. Her linguistic experiments are dialectic influences. Often, novel and largely successful; misspelling is a successful device successful because they manage to because in context, comprehension infuse the English words with a is seldom disrupted or threatened, South Asian (and perhaps Malayali) and very often, a humorous note is set of connotations without added: “Excellent discipline, sooparb distorting the English language. The manners.”(20) rest of this subsection will therefore Another form of alteration is in focus on illustrating some of Roy’s adding to words, for example, gad- novel and potent linguistic bad, politics scholitics, which is experiments. Roy’s novel The God of immensely common in bhasha. The Small Things is full of capitalized latter two examples where the words, and even phrases. “Crawling

18 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 Backward Days”, for instance, is of the twins, the protagonists in her Roy’s invention of another way of novel. “If you ever ... disobey me in referring to the days when the caste Public, I will see to it that you are system was legal and Untouchables sent away ... “(22) This chastising suffered a certain set of social of the twins by their mother indignities. “Love Laws” is another indicates to the children that such example, “ ... Love Laws laid “Public” is not only referring to the down who should be loved. And how! opposite of private, but refers to And how much.”(21) Roy does not certain situations. “When Ammu capitalize without attaching was really angry, she said Jolly explanations and meanings, but Well.”(23) Equally, the capitalization once having capitalized and of the words “Jolly Well” indicates explained, she then uses these words the perception of the twins of a or phrases again and again, thereby certain mood of their mother’s, a compiling a vocabulary of her own, certain mental state which is creating a set of definitions signaled and conveyed by her use of pertinent only to her writing. The those certain words. capitalizing of words, which by Roy’s Roy does not limit her system usage almost amounts to of referrals to known words. She sloganeering, enables Roy to creates new phrases through the encapsulate very complex cultural telling of little side tales, tales which connotations in a compact manner, feed into the mosaic of background which makes for a very rich and or emotional inheritance of her unusual usage of the English protagonists, and the consciousness language. of which is seen to affect them in Not only does Roy capitalize as their lives. “Pappachi’s Moth” is one a set of referrals, she also does so to clear example of this, summing up illustrate the workings of the minds in two words the tale of frustration

19 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 and grief of the protagonists’ BUY INDIAN.” “NAIDNI YUB, grandparent, which filters through NAIDNI EB.” She combines words with all types of negative like “bluegreyblue” to describe the connotations into the existence of colour of a person’s eyes, and she the protagonists, “A cold moth with separates words, “A wake. A live. unusually dense dorsal tufts landed Alert.” Through the use of all these on Rahel’ s heart. “(24) devices, Roy deconstructs and decodes English words to enable a One stylistic device which many new and culturally different authors employ, and which Roy perception of them. In this, Roy is exploits to perfection, is the amongst the most successful of combining of two or more English South Asian novelists for her words to form a new word which taps mastery of the English language to into pre-existing codes or triggers a the extent of being able to make it certain understanding. For example, serve her ends in expressing and “sour metal smell”, is explained by depicting a South Asian set of values Roy through the process of and realities. This is the process of association of experience, “like the reconciliation of two realities being steel bus rails and the smell of the carried out painlessly and with true bus conductor’s hands from holding elegance. Roy has much explaining them.”(25) This is a method which to do in the course of her novel - works very effectively, both linking which does not make for easy the reader from the a posteriori to reading - but she blends the the a priori, as well as conjuring up education of the reader into overall a whole set of associated memories. the construction of the novel without Roy is an author almost playful running the risk of losing the in her use of English. Besides narrative thread. “For me, the way capitalising words, Roy also reads words, punctuation and paragraphs words backwards, “BE INDIAN,

20 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 fall on the page is important as well language I waz taught to hate myself - the graphic design of the language. in/ & yes/ in order to think n That was why the words and communicate the thoughts n thoughts of Estha and Rahel, the feelings I want to think n twins, were so playful in the page ...I communicate/ I haveta fix my tool was being creative with their to my needs/ I have to take it apart design.”(26) to the bone/ so that the malignancies/ fall away/ leaving us It would be useful to juxtapose space to literally create our own Roy’s linguistic experiments with image.’m those of another woman writer who also sought to express herself and This quick glance at Shange’s her reality in a novel form. Ntozake work indicates the myriad of ways Shange is an African American in which cross-cultural writers of dramatist, who was very self-aware literature in English experiment in her alteration of the Standard with methods, forms, and stylistic English. Instead of capitalizing devices, to reconcile their subjects words or phrases, she put names and with their mediums. South Asian other normally capitalized words in women writers, however, are notably the lower-case, seeking the right to far less aggressive or confrontational redefinition and re-identification. than one such as Shange in their Shange experimented with the linguistic experiments and usage of omission of punctuation marks, English. Theirs is seldom a challenge intending to upset the ordinary to the mainstream literature; their perception of readers, derail tone is persuasive rather than expectations, and thereby defiant. Anger is not a tone deconstruct.”I cant count the commonly found in literature by number of times I have viscerally South Asian women writers. In fact, wanted to attack deform n maim the this lack of anger is a significant

21 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 characteristic of South Asian women’s works in the context of Third World women writers.

References

18 It must also be noted that the English Language may intend to or already have incorporated some such words.

19 I use the word “distortion” without necessarily wishing to imply any misuse of the English language.

20 Taken from Anita Rau Badami’s Tamarind Mem (London: Viking- Penguin, 1996) 22.

21 Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things (London: Flamingo- HarperCollins, 1997) 177.

22 Roy 148.

23 Ibid.

24 Roy 112.

25 Roy 72.

26 Arundhati Roy, “The Salon Interview/Arundhati Roy” Salon Sept 1997. Online. 15 Oct 2001.

22 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 SOUTH ASIAN WOMEN WRITER’S EXPERIMENTING WITH SYNTAX WHILE RE-PRESENTATIONS AND REFLEX IONS IN INDIAN WRITING IN ENGLISH

Prof.S.Prasanna Sree Department of English Andhra University Visakhapatnam

The second form of English. In other similar instances, experimentation as identified by it is unclear as to whether or not Mukherjee is experimentation with such sentence constitutes the syntax. Constructing what would be manner of expression most natural considered back-to-front sentences is to the author, which is then a fairly common device because it transposed onto the character. It suggests literal translation:from a may also indicate that the author is language which may differ partially under the influence of tremendously in sentence second language interference There construction from the English are occasions where Indian-English language. For example, this is a syntax may come across to the native sentence in a novel spoken by a English speaker as quaint or Sindhi horoscope reader/priest in his amusing. For example, Bhai Sahib opening remarks to a client, of the paragraph above, when “‘Nowadays, even for God, people recommending a sapphire to his will not pay,’ Bhai Sahib client which would defend her grumbled.”(28) Such sentences may against evil influences, says, “The deliberately be included by the quality is not mattering, only the author to indicate that the character stone is mattering.”(29) This is not a native English speaker, or it particular type of English is may indicate that the conversation instantly recognizable to those who is not actually taking place in are familiar with Indian-flavored

23 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 English as being a very typical Mr Singh guffawed. “These Yannas, instance of how English is indeed they are saying yex for x, yam for commonly used (or misused) on the am ... when they are speaking subcontinent. Deliberately English, no one is understanding.” incorporating grammatically “How it matters what English they incorrect English and experimenting are speaking?” Mr Srivastava with misspelling words may be one groaned. “All I am wanting is good way of imparting a South Asian Madrasi tenant for my barsati and flavor to the writing, but as has been only tenants I am getting are from mentioned, it is also a literary device north.” Mr Singh nodded to indicate the social background or sympathetically. “I myself being circumstances of the speaker. Punjabi am seeing this.”(30)

One South Asian author who Appachana’s other writings employs syntactic experimentation include instances of sentences in with a notable degree of success is dialogue being short and abrupt, Anjana Appachana. Appachana ungrammatically cut off, repetitive, records or composes grammatically circular in thrust, and generally incorrect English in dialogue with capture in written form typical such skill and consistency that she speech patterns. Appachana successfully depicts an Indian brand reconciles her two realities by of English, and retains that note of rearranging English words to authenticity. Appachana deploys this express Indian sentiments. Anjana technique in a sympathetic manner, Appachana is one of the few women infusing humour without malice into writers who have succeeded in her writing discovering and manipulating the porosity in the language boundaries “Mr Aggrawal chuckled. (31) between English and the Indian “Madrasis, they are speaking such languages. badly pronouncing English.” “Yes,”

24 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 Experimenting with Imagery even in its form alone. The Anger of Aubergines. Stories of Women and The third mode of Food intersperses short stories with experimentation Mukherjee recipes for the dishes mentioned in outlined involves the use of imagery. the stories. The stories highlight and It may be imagined that the imagery analyze the relationship between and symbolism employed by South South Asian women and their food, Asian women writers would differ and it not only mentions wide tremendously from their European selection of dishes, but also explains or American counterparts, for the ingredients and methods. The instance. The use of imagery is recipes and the careful explanations closely allied with cultural convey a sense of the author understanding of stories, myths, and attempting to communicate directly legends. The role of mythology will with her readers, and it also suggests be analysed in the last section of this that readers of different cultures chapter, and the use of imagery will could bridge their differences in be differed to the same section. coming together on such common Other Experiments grounds as culinary interests. It is In concluding this study of the amongst the most accessible of various stylistic experiments South Asian writings in English, employed by South Asian women structured, as it is, to be accessible. writers, it is worth mentioning two Sharma’s work is also other authors, Bulbul Sharma and significant because it can be seen to Rama Mehta, who have be forming the recently emerging imaginatively employed techniques pattern of contemporary women’s of bridging the cultural divide. writings, which explore new forms Bulbul Sharma wrote a collection of and styles which some women short stories which was remarkable writers are most comfortable with

25 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 and through which they feel best to of the unfamiliar in a familiar be able to express themselves. language and syntax. African American women writers Apart from the style and literary have also displayed many instances devices used by South Asian women of including recipes and herbal writers to infuse their writings with concoctions in their young literary a sense of place, there is one more tradition, and otherwise using significant and oft overlooked distinctively feminine modes to technique of writing which manages convey their multi-layered to convey a way of thinking, a minds meanings. mental approach to issues which is Sharma draws attention to natural to people of certain many aspects of the South Asian ethnicities, for example, and wholly culture while writing in alien to people not of those conventional English, using form ethnicities. The following and content, rather than medium or illustrations of this technique are language, to communicate a South drawn from Rama Mehta’s Inside Asian ambience. This technique is the Haveli, published in 1977. contrary to many other authors who Mehta’ s novel is written in fluent deliberately seek to keep the names English, but it is also clearly the of foods and dishes in the vernacular, work of an author fluent in at least but it is a technique no less one other language judging from the workable. For Sharma’s South Asian sentence structures and manners of readers, there would be the pleasure expression, which are far from being of meeting the familiar in an those of conventional standard unfamiliar, and to her non-South English. Published in London, this Asian readers, there would be the novel describes a lifestyle which complementary pleasure in reading would be totally alien and unknown to the average Briton. Mehta

26 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 attempts to convey to her readers the practices and ideology which internal workings of a Haveli” in governs a haveli in Rajasthan lies in Rajasthan, a social set-up which is her characters’ dialogue, which feudal in structure. reveals their mental approach to issues, their expectations, their To this end, Mehta retains values, and their social norms. For rather than translate many terms, example, the mistress of the haveli such as terms of kinship and address comes upon a quarrel between two for example, “Bai Sa, Bua Sa, Kaki of her servants, Lakshmi and Sa, Mami Sa”, the honorific “ji” Lakshmi’s husband, Gangaram: attached to names, and also names “Leave my maid alone. Get out of of foods such as “roti” and “laddoo”. here. Who are you to talk to her in Mehta does translate some phrases this fashion in front of me? I have which she judges would be brought her up. How dare you raise incomprehensible to her English your hand in my presence? Did I speaking readers, phrases which also marry her to you that you treat her convey the flavour of the place and like this? Remember, she is your period, such as the traditional wife.”(32) blessing of “May you have eight sons”, or “May the Haveli flourish It is edifying to follow the for ever”. The narrative itself mistress’s train of thought as she contains much explanation, reacts to the tensed situation where ostentatiously for the benefit of Gangaram accuses Lakshmi of Geeta, the haveli’s newest arrival, infidelity and adultery. Her very first but also for the benefit of the reader command to Gangaram is given uninitiated in knowledge of referring to Lakshmi as “my maid”, Rajasthani and haveli customs. not “your wife”, which stresses the However, Mehta’s most successful priority assigned to the relationships experiments in conveying the within the haveli, and stresses too

27 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 the authority of the mistress, which secondary to the duty he owes to his is apparently above even the mistress. traditional conjugal authority of a In all her arguments, the man over his wife. Next, she forcibly mistress of the haveli reveals the reminds Gangaram of his lowly control the haveli has over the position with regard to herself, personal lives of its inhabitants, the emphasizing not only her authority internal hierarchy of power, and the over Gangaram’s wife, but also over demand for loyalty, obedience and Gangaram himself. She goes on to awareness of one’s proper place and say, “I have brought her up.” position on the part of servants. This This seemingly is a fact which short passage alone illustrates the carries much weight and social values of such a society. substantiates her claim both to the Mehta writes in English, but in authority she assumes as well as to certain sentences, she appears to be her role as Lakshmi’ s defender. The mentally translating her ideas from mistress’s anger flashes out again as another language into English, such she rebukes the man servant for as “Did I marry her to you that you forgetting himself and what is due treat her like this?” [italics mine]. to her as a mistress in daring to Although the general purport of the “raise his hand in [her] presence”. sentence is easily understood, it is a Only after all this does she finally rather odd manner of expression. mention the fact that Lakshmi is Having examined all manners of Gangaram’s wife, and once again, experiments with the usage of the with reference to the part she played English language by South Asian in the arrangement, which almost women writers, it would also be implies a transfer of ownership, and instructive to turn our attention to which certainly implies that the duty how the writings are constructed, Gangaram owes to his wife is

28 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 the framework within which all Although there have these literary experiments are made. undoubtedly been some South Asian women writers who appreciate the Forms and Frames differences between short stories It is unsurprising that even and novels, and have skilfully today; many successful employed the short story form, there contemporary South Asian novelists have also been others who seem to are also short story writers. In terms use the short story as a way of trying of historical and geographical their hand at writing, as a coordinates(33), short stories differ preparatory ground to writing a full from novels and even from novellas length novel. Further, a fair number in that they need not be (although of South Asian women writers they often are) rooted in a particular appear to either deploy the short- time and place. story form simply as a mini-novel, “The difference between the or to regard the novel as a extended novel and the short story is primarily version of a short-story. Chitra in the contrasting treatment of the Banerjee Divakaruni (a diasporic same material. The same personages author from USA) goes so far as to may appear equally in short stories, have produced one story in her short or in a novel, but the point of view is story collection which she then used entirely different, for the short story again, with the same plot and observes people from the outside, the characters, and even using many of novel from the inside. The short the exact same sentences in a later story writer describes impressions of novel, merely embellishing the life which he [sic] has seen, the original short story and detailing the novelist sympathetically portrays scenes a little more. The entirely the life he has entered into and made differing point of view as explained his own.”(34) in the quotation above, which

29 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 differentiates and sets the two forms I am sure I heard it wrong. ‘They of writing apart, are completely lost want me to have an abortion.”’ in Divakaruni’ s handling of her From Sister of My Heart: material. Juxtaposing the following “There is a lot of disturbance on the quotes will provide a clearer idea as line. I can hardly hear Sudha’s voice to the extent to which Divakaruni as she says hello. ‘Sudha, what’s reuses material and reproduces wrong? I’ve been worried sick. Has sentences verbatim, with no something happened to Ramesh or appreciable change at all in view your mother-in-law?’ ‘No,’ Sudha point. In Arranged Marriage (a short says, ‘They are fine,’ she adds with story collection), the protagonists venom ..... Then she says, ‘They are Anju (married to Sunil) and want to kill my baby. ‘What?’ I am Runu (married to Ramesh), while in sure I heard it wrong. ‘My mother- Sister of My Heart (a novel) in-law wants me to have an published 2 years later, the abortion.”’ protagonists are Anju (again Many of the contemporary married to Sunil) and Sudha South Asian short story writers (married to another Ramesh). write with a particular and From Arranged Marriage: somewhat narrowly specified theme “There is a lot of disturbance on the in mind. For example, Jhumpa line. I can hardly hear Runu’s voice Lahiri’s Interpreter of Maladies as she says hello ... ‘What’s wrong, deals mainly with the adjustment Runu? I’ve been worried sick. Is it Bengalis have to make when making Ramesh? Or your mother-in-law?’ the transition from a life in the East ‘No,’ says Runu, ‘They are fine,’ she to a life in the West, while Shauna adds with venom .... Then she says, Singh Baldwin’s English Lessons ‘They want to kill my baby. ‘What?’ and Other Stories revolves around a similar theme - that of Sikhs

30 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 learning to cope with life in Canada portraying various solutions or and reconcile two identities. possible methods of coping. I would argue that this very form of writing In writing a number of short is a potentially limiting one because stories with a common theme, these it restricts the worldview of the writers attempt to present a number writers and encourages a of facets of the same social issue, and prescriptive and oversimplified consequently, a number of ways portrayal of lifestyles (either their protagonists have chosen to workable or non-workable), trapping deal with these issues. This the writer into a continual process technique has become increasingly of categorisation. However, it must popular and even celebrated of late. be kept in mind that short stories are It is a form of framing not only tales, more apt to embody timeless themes but of framing the diasporic and are generally less dependent on experience. social context than novels.(35) The latent danger in this Consequently, “short stories are technique is that there exists within more likely to identify characters in it, an underlying tendency, or at least archetypal terms and are more temptation, to reduce complex social patterned and aesthetically unified issues into bite-size (or at least short- than novels are.”(36 ) story length) episodes. This “neatly- Not all South Asian women packaged” style of writing seldom writers subscribe to this technique, progresses beyond being an exercise which moreover, appears more in depicting a social problem - as popular with the diasporic writers skilfully, lyrically, authentically, and than those writing from within completely as possible, but South Asia?7 To take an example of nevertheless depicting a definite an excellent short story collection problem, not simply a scenario - and which produces archetypal then suggesting or at least

31 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 characters but which is far from liberty to include not one, but two limited in its content and depth by stories of Sharmaji, the brazen, its form, we may turn to talkative, perpetually wronged Appachana’s Incantations and Indian clerk, merrily exploiting the Other Stories. This collection of inefficiency of Indian bureaucracy. short stories is not constructed In her writing, Appachana reveals thematically, appearing instead herself to be a humorous, perceptive, rather more like a kaleidoscope of and sympathetic writer, observant the social scene, giving the reader but never prescriptive. Her stories intriguing glimpses of a broad cross- are open-ended, non-moralistic both section of Indian day-to-day life. in tone and conclusion, and This collection includes a tale of a frequently tinged with amusement. young daughter-in-law struggling to Many South Asian women writers cope with traditional familial may have written collections of short pressures while maintaining her stories, but few have yet utilized the identity as a autonomous career montage form or the short-story- woman, stories of parent-child sequence. A montage differs from a relationships in a rapidly changing collection in that each story, social and economic environment, complete as it is in itself, is also the tale of a young girl traumatised linked in some way to the other by the knowledge of a beloved sister stories, either through the plot, or victimised by repeated and regular through the characters, or both, rapes, and perhaps most charming eventually forming a unified whole. of all, it includes the caricature of An example of this can be found in Sharmaji. Clearly, Appachana the work of an African American realised the potential of this fictional writer who first wrote a short story character, and given the structure of sequence because she was not her short story collection, was at certain of being able to write a whole

32 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 novel, and thus chose to begin by However, it is interesting to writing short stories. Gloria Naylor note that the montage form or short- wrote The Women of Brewster Place, story-sequence is gradually a sequence of short stories where beginning to be employed by some each story told the tale of different South Asian women writers. Tahira women living in the same block of Naqvi (a Pakistani author) and apartments called Brewster Place. Thrity Umrigar (an Indian author) Naylor repeated the montage in have both published works in 2001 another piece of writing, Bailey’s which could justifiably be regarded Cafe, where each character who as montages, in slightly differing ended up at Bailey’s Cafe had his/ forms. Umrigar’s ‘montage’ is her own chapter and story. In both similar to that of Naylor’s, and is a cases, Naylor added concluding novel formed out of a series of chapters which brought all the chapters, each chapter devoted to characters together at one time and individual Parsi residents in an in one location, thus completing the apartment block in Bombay. Naqvi’s montage in full. This stylistic device short story collection could be has yet to be widely adopted by considered a montage by virtue of South Asian short story writer. the characters in each short story Given the increasingly favored style being related (sometimes tenuously) of writing short stories along a single to the characters in the other stories, major theme, the montage which thus forming a network across the encourages interaction between the collection. characters of the various isolated In both cases above (in Naqvi’s stories, may serve to broaden the work as well as in Umrigar’s), scope of the writing and reverse any neither author appears to have set tendencies to stereotype. out to use the short-story-sequence - it was almost by chance their

33 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 writings form a montage. Umrigar’s some of which have only been book is in fact titled, “Bombay Time. partially successful. A Novel.” Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni in South Asian women writers Sister of My Heart for instance, seem to have experimented at employed in a rather greater depth with the use of unsophisticated manner, a form of language than they have with the writing in which the two narrative narrative form or structure. Much voices of her protagonists took turns fiction written in English by South to be heard, each in alternate Asian women writers is relatively chapters. The form itself may have linear in form and straightforward worked except for the fact that both in plot construction. Flashbacks to narrative voices neither appeared to the past in the memories of various be one and the same character, a characters, or characters digressing character with two names, the dual from the main story line to relate accounts neither conflicting nor stories, are common enough, but individualized, the two opinions they usually feed directly into the simply two halves of a whole. This main story line rather than forming somewhat oversimplified attempt at sub-plots or counters plots. even-handedly presenting two protagonists did, however, succeed to There have however been a certain extent in juxtaposing two several experiments with interesting very different possible lives led by forms, and the following paragraphs the women of one family. will provide some thumbnail sketches of examples of literary Arundhati Roy portrayed most structural experiments tried by of her novel through the eyes of South Asian women writers; some of children, thus enabling her to which have been successful, and question the most basic of traditional assumptions, even

34 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 inverting them, turning them on but of the hidden past-past-present. their heads with a child-like With the destruction of Velutha and playfulness, to incredibly strong the consequent crumbling of other effect. sections of the social edifice of Ayemenon, Roy’s novel exposed the Roy’s novel was constructed hidden ramifications of the social architecturally, influenced by her structure and the effect it has on its early training as an architect. Like individuals. rooms being built around other rooms, each character, furtively Another author whose writings grinding away at his/her personal dealt with the hidden past and the axe, contributes to constructing the guilty secrets of communities is catastrophe. Each action, petty or Anjana Appachana. However, the significant, goes a little way further construction of Appachana’s towards exposing and straining the Listening Now is not along a time faultlines of the society, until the frame, but along a frame of hapless Velutha, who is as much a characters. This long novel of 510 victim of circumstances as he is pages is segmented into nine everybody’s victim, is eventually sections, most of which are named murdered. Ray’s novel is also largely after the women characters who constructed back-to-front. It begins feature significantly in the life of the with the climax and oscillates back chief protagonist, Padma. and forth in time, back to delve into Each section presents Padma’ s the past for whys, and forwards into story from the point of view of the the present to see how the climax - a character it was named after, turning point in the life of many of inviting the reader to take different the characters involved - has affected angles of viewing, and offering the those who survived. Roy’s time perspective of distinctly differing frame is not of a past-present-future, personalities. In each section, the

35 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 story is reiterated, but the plot is conjugal exchanges in Hariharan’s revealed a little further as more and novel, (for that is what they are, more pieces of the mosaic of Padma’s exchanges rather than dialogues or life fall into place. This story line is conversations) slice repeatedly into neither linear nor circular; it is a the narrative, rupturing the flow of spiralling one. The story is told and Devi’s life, jolting and abrupt. retold several times over, each Hariharan times the insertion of retelling taking the plot a little closer these exchanges to perfection, to the conclusion. (Retelling and reflecting Devi’s experience of reconstruction in the work of South married life with a husband who Asian women writers will be appears briefly and disappears discussed at greater length in the frequently. This particular novel of following section.) Hariharan’s comprises three parts. We first encounter Devi in America A South Asian novelist whose through an omniscient narrator, but forte is form rather than language, as soon as Hariharan returns Devi and who habitually uses the to India, Devi’s voice begins to tell structure of her narrative to her own story, taking over from the emphasise her point, is Githa voice of the omniscient narrator. Hariharan. One of the most eloquent This change in narrative voice is of structures found in her novel The significant because by so doing, Thousand Faces of Night is the Hariharan distances Devi from her protagonist’s communications with American experience and hints that her husband. (The very title of this for Devi, her life like her voice only novel is reminiscent of The becomes distinct when she is home Thousand and One Nights which in India. In Parts One and Two, also features a wife attempting to Hariharan produces a heavy flow of hold her husband’s attention and to smooth narrative, merging Devi’s communicate with him.(38)) The

36 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 memories with her present, position from which to write all- mingling fairytales with Devi’s knowingly, to present an aerial view reality. This seamless intermingling so to speak, of the scenes they is indicative of Devi being all but observed. The omniscient narrator overwhelmed by tales, submerged was a natural choice for the authors into momentary forgetfulness of of this age, reflecting as it does their reality just as the reader is concerns with the wider political and submerged into momentary social issues. As we have noted forgetfulness of the main story line. earlier in the chapter, there was a In the third and final part however, shift of focus from the community the stories end for Devi when she to the individual in the next two leaves her husband. In this final part decades of writing English fiction, of Hariharan’ s novel, there are no and this in turn has been reflected more legends of princesses and in the shift of the narrative voice splendours, no more fairy tales, from the omniscient to the first perhaps signalling Devi’s choice to person narrator. Moreover, where turn from fairy tales of her girlhood personas were of both genders in the and hopes, to confront the stark Fifties and Sixties, increasingly in reality of the present she has chosen. the following decades, the personas chosen by South Asian women Hariharan is one of the few writers were women. It is thought contemporary South Asian novelists that the contemporary novels of to experiment with the narrative South Asian women writers are voice. The majority of the South many of them at least partially Asian writers of the 1950s and 1960s autobiographical. writing English fiction, wrote in the voice of the omniscient narrator, By the 1970s, there was also a distancing themselves from their definite pattern emerging of South characters, but selecting this as a Asian women writers projecting

37 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 their childhood memories and democratically hands the narrative experiences into their novels, voice from character to character, drawing upon this rich and and this structure highlights the relatively untapped vein of material complex, confusing, and close-knit for their writings. Anita Rau Badami gallimaufry of voices and influences in Tamarind Mem for example, uses in the life of her protagonist. A the first person narrator to tell the recent diasporic voice on the literary tale of a girl growing up as a scene, that of Meera Syal, offers yet daughter of a strong but unfulfilled another twist on the use of the first mother, whose husband’s job on the person narrator device. Syal in her railways meant a life of continual most recent work, Life Isn’t All Ha uprooting and resettling. Shama Ha Hee Hee has three first person Futehally, in Tara Lane also employs narrators (as well as an omniscient the first person narrator to portray narrator to organise the progression the life of a sheltered and privileged of novel), but she shows that none girl growing up to take her place in of the three are reliable narrators, a sheltered and privileged world that each believes they are speaking created by her men-folk, a persona the truth reliably, but in actuality, haunted by an active conscience and none are able to see the complete burdened with the guilt of class picture. Syal’s undermining of the privileges, yet terrified of disrupting reliability of the narrator questions the delicately balanced equilibrium the reliability of the opinions and of her comfortable life. Anjana ideas which she has been fed and or Appachana also uses the first person which she has otherwise imbibed. narrator predominantly, but hers is Syal’s work also questions the a slightly different usage in that validity of the role models and moral Listening Now is a novel with many code taught to South Asian women. first person narrators. Appachana

38 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 References 36. Charles E. May, ed., The New Short Story Theories (Ohio: Ohio UP, 28. Ntozake Shange, for colored girls 1994) xxvi. who have considered suicide when the rainbow hasn’t been enuf(1978. 37. Ibid. London: Methuen, 1992) 68. 38. Hariharan’s 1999 novel, When 29. Meira Chand, House of the Sun Dreams Travel, deals directly with (New Delhi: Penguin, 1989) 10. the characters from A Thousand and One Nights. In this novel, 30. Chand 12. Hariharan deconstructs the original 31. This excerpt was quoted at some story of Sheherezade length in order to impart the full experience of this brand of English. Taken from Anjana Appachana’s Incantations and Other Stories (New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers UP, 1992) 65.

32. The term “porous language boundaries” was taken from Mukherjee, Perishable Empire

33. Rama Mehta, Inside the Haveli (London: Women’s Press,1971) 70.

34. Mukherjee. Twice Born.

35. A. Sherwin Cody, “The Difference between the Novel and the Short Story.” How to Write Fiction: Especially the Art of Short Story Writing: A Practical Study of Techniques (London: Bellairs & Co.,1895).

39 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 THE MYTH IS A MYTH? REFLECTIONS ON NEW DIASPORA WOMEN WRITERS

Prof.S.Prasanna Sree Department of English Andhra University Visakhapatnam

Story telling has been of nor permitted. Like the African identified by South Asian women Americans who evolved forms of writers as part of the oral tradition, signifying in language in order to a tradition predominantly practiced retain, conceal, and convey by women, and one of the traditions meanings in the face of oppression common to women of all classes and while escaping detection and castes. In a patriarchal culture punishment, South Asian women which imposes many and varied have also evolved their own forms restrictions on women, storytelling of signifying, one of which is story serves to inform while concealing, to telling. (39) inspire and caution, to threaten and Story-telling involves the entreat. Story-telling is a very recounting of legends, myths, and important aspect of South Asian also the tales of one’s family and culture, being an indispensable tool familial history. Mukherjee of communication in a world of commented upon the use of myths oblique and unspoken rules, imbibed in South Asian writing as the part and ingrained fears and taboos, of the novel which was not imported. unwritten but inflexible behavioral In all other respects, she noted that boundaries. It features most the South Asian novelist was at prominently in the women’s world liberty to take a leaf out of the book where straightforward and frank of his or her Western counterpart, discourse may be neither approved

40 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 but in recounting legends and tales, myths are generally used to enrich South Asian writers had to turn to and enhance a tale, by extending the their own culture. It has been argued understanding of the reader and that this is a relatively comfortable tapping into an already existing situation for South Asian novelists knowledge or set of ideologies and because South Asians are closer to cultural norms. Using myths as their mythologies than many others, touchstones or reference points may and experience their legends and be a quick way of neatly presenting tales on a day-to-day basis rather a complex social situation. Myths than in any textbook. Myths are very work on the basis of readers and widespread across South Asia, and authors having common many cultures and regions may assumptions, depending upon the share the same mythologies, but reader to make the connection these could appear in many between the new protagonist and the variations. mythical character. Critics, both Western and Eastern, have Mukherjee identified two commented upon the danger of ways in which myths are used by myths which both provide and South Asian writers; the reinforce archetypes and obsolete “digressional technique”, which is moral codes, thereby informing, the story told within the story and shaping and exploiting expectations. generally used as mini-moral lessons “Few myths have been more or fables, and the “structural advantageous to the ruling class parallel”, where a mythical situation than the myth of woman; it justifies underlies the whole or a part of the all privileges and even authorizes novel. She further noted that the use their abuse.”(40) The proximity of of mythology by South Asian writers South Asians to their myths and may either be conscious or legends, the interweaving of such subconscious. As a literary device,

41 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 tales into the fabric of ordinary “Kali” after the powerful and living, may therefore represent a fearsome mother/warrior/avenger problem. Myths, by their nature, are goddess.) Vrinda Nabar warns given to abstraction and against underestimating the hold oversimplification. “Easy binaries that myths have over the minds of that are deployed in explaining the South Asians, and tells us that when position of Indian women have been she was a child, she was “a victim to habitually the ideological enclaves of [the Sita myth’s] hypnotic charm” exploitation.’,(41) If, as said above, and plagued her parents to change it is predominantly the women who her own name to Sita.(42) tell the stories and recount, The effect of these tales and augment, and otherwise keep the myths, the magic of them if one may myths alive, than it may be ironic call it that, is so pervasive that the that it is the women who, partially grown woman may not manage to at least, forge the very chains which completely shrug off the aura of may be used to bind them. fantasy or the mythical associations, Story telling is so integral in and all too often, as a consequence, the lives of South Asians that many life could then contain a series of South Asian women writers explain disillusionments. Githa Hariharan that it is common practice for girls in The Thousand Faces of Night to be named after heroines from gives us adequate illustration of this. myths and stories. Names like Devi From her novel which employs the (princess) and Sita (princess and digressional technique, it appears wife to Rama) are common that the fairy tales told to little girls examples, and women are mostly concern marriages, with the encouraged to live up to these implication that this should be the names. (I have not yet come across climax of a woman’s life and a case of a woman being named ambition. Marriage certainly

42 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 features as a prominent theme in grandmother, almost without South Asian women’s literature, but exception, are embellished with although the authors do indicate the material riches and opulence, centrality of marriage in their “Priceless gems, the size of ripe women protagonists’ lives, they pumpkins, hung at the tips of constantly write of the unfairy-tale- chandeliers; the marble pillars shone like quality of life after weddings, like mirrors”.(43) The effect of such insisting that marriage brings a exaggerated embellishment is a whole new set of difficulties and dangerous one, imparting as it does problems to be dealt with, rather the implicit message that good than solving any. South Asian behavior (which includes adherence women writers consciously choose to to and acceptance of traditions) will portray the much unhappiness be rewarded with riches, and that which usually lies in store for women womanly virtue is defined as patient after being given in marriage. These endurance, self-sacrifice, suffering, novels depart from the practice of and obedience. Stories are told to the earliest novels written by children in order to educate, women, gothic novels of romance chastise, discipline, and curiously and horror, which customarily enough, entreat them to acceptance, depicted the marriage of the heroine more, to an accustomed acceptance. to her desired hero as the destination The child who questioned the logic of her life’s journey, and as the of love as a result of marriage, is told, climax and close of the novel. “When you marry, Devi, your heart moves up to your shoulder and slips The Thousand Faces of Night down your arm to the palm of your is a novel which incorporates an hand. The hand that holds yours exceptionally large number of fables tightly as you walk around the fire and myths. The tales told by Pati, receives it like a gift. You can’t do the protagonist’s beloved

43 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 anything about it: when you marry, expectations of the perfect husband, it goes to him and you never get it as is common enough in Bengali back”.(44) This fanciful explanation culture, and will necessarily undergo which is passed off as rationale is so a sense of disappointment in the deeply ingrained in Devi that as a early days of marriage.(46) (Roy also newly married woman, she is identified that men do not appear to “bewildered by my own response, labour under the same illusions and my acceptance of our nightly are more inclined to regard marriage rituals”.(45) Devi, fed as she had in the light of a necessary been on a diet of fantasies, is apt to arrangement rather than a romantic accept the tales she hears in too attachment, “marriage as a literal a manner, to ascribe too much necessity, a milestone like any credence to these tales. She even other.”) However, Roy also explained reaches for more to sustain her, that in a culture where the girls are drinking in Baba’s stories with aware they will be married by avidity although at that point, she arrangement, these myths and is no longer a child. For Devi, the romantic illusions appear to help boundary between reality and prepare them to accept such fantasy alternatively blurs and re- arrangements with as much emerges with painful vividity when equanimity as possible, and as such, applied to her daily life. Manisha have their uses as well as pitfalls. Roy, in her analysis of Bengali Vrinda Nabar, however, women, gives an example of the insists that the influence of the social and practical uses of this myths is an insidious one, and serves cultural ritual of disillusionment, to strengthen the fears and illusions which Hariharan had described in which are used to govern women and her fiction. Roy points out that a instill docility, “there is a young bride crammed with fundamental parity between our

44 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 perpetuation of mythical stereotypes can be traced back to the Sita/ like Sita(47) and Draupadi (48) and Savitri/Sakuntala models.”(53) our present-day reluctance to admit Being only too aware that many any change that threatens the female figures can indeed be traced andocentric, patriarchal set-up.”(49) back to the Sita/Savitri/Sakuntala models, South Asian novelists of “In that country where doors today regularly portray their are adorned with flowers and protagonists grappling with the mango-leaves the houses decorated problem of reconciling these time- with lighted lamps, in that country honored role models with the the woman is still a slave. Where Sita changing times and their changing had to pass the ordeal by fire’ needs. Although many tales are still Nevertheless, both Roy and told of exceptional women, Nabar in their arguments, and goddesses, princesses, selfless wives Hariharan in her fiction, strongly of holy men, and women of support the suggestion that myths extraordinary beauty and/or virtue, do indeed form the identity of Indian contemporary South Asian women women: “Indian womanhood is novelists appear to be reacting to the constituted by a multi-layered way such tales permeate their lives accretion of myths. From the ways by consistently bringing to their in which Indian womanhood has readers realistic, ordinary been ‘invented’, ‘imagined’, and protagonists, confused, struggling ‘defined’, a map may be drawn of the and erring. With the rise of authentic contours of class formation in portrayals of women in fiction, the modem India.”(52)”Authentic influence of myths has receded portrayals of women began to appear slightly into the background and in English fiction [in the 50s and became far more a digressional 60s], but the literary prototype into technique than a structural one. As which the female figure was molded

45 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 much as the finding of a voice (and to retell tales from their perspective being articulate) is the finding of and in the light of their experiences autonomous identity, retelling is the as women. Retelling tales features process of deconstruction of gender significantly in the writings of South and racial myths, and of Asian women novelists who seek to reconstruction, the unveiling or tell of a patriarchal society in the resurrecting of other stories, real life voices of its women, retelling in a stories. It is a characteristic of South form and a language peculiar to Asian women’s writings that women. In some of her short stories, generations of women appear in their Shashi Deshpande retells myths tales, inheriting emotional legacies, from the point of view of mythical their lives interwoven and characters like Karna and Kunti, interconnected. These are the myths who speak of other mythical and tales of their mothers and characters like Draupadi, foremothers which have long Ghandari, Arjuna, and remained silenced and Bhima, as contemporaries.(54) overshadowed, and which the Deshpande retells in an attempt to writers are now identifying as recreate the mythical atmosphere in sources of influences. Legends may present times and invites the reader have receded into the background, to experience the depth of emotion but stories of one kind or another which she imagines must appear to continue being interwoven accompany the events and into the fabric of South Asian occurrences. By so doing, Deshpande women’s perceptions and realities. seeks to bring her readers closer to Contemporary women experiencing the myths by fleshing writers are even beginning to out the abstractions of the myths rewrite myths, to expose the myth and making the characters both of the myth, as part of their attempt emotional and introspective.

46 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 However, in her short stories, and therefore, her declaration, “If I Deshpande does not realise the was going to play out a travesty of potential power of retelling to the the myths that have filled my full. Deshpande neither exposes nor childhood, I would tear aside all undermines the implication of a pretence ... “(55) is ironical in the myth, as Hariharan, for example, extreme. For Devi, the arranged does. In juxtaposing the fairy tales marriage was part of the childhood and myths with the life of her fairytale which as an adult, she was protagonist, Hariharan shows how encouraged to accept and enact. This distanced these myths are from the further blurs the boundary between reality of day-to-day life. The reality and fantasy, suggesting how answers given by the story-teller closely entwined the two can be for when questioned by the child about even for the modem South Asian the story are fanciful, illogical women. answers, in keeping with the tone of Not only are the legends and the tale. myths of long ago retold by South Hariharan embellishes her Asian women writers, but their own tales lavishly, opulently, and even stories are also constantly retold and lovingly, but by emphasizing and revised. The tale of Mayamma, even exaggerating the splendors, she another character in The Thousand is signaling to her reader the Faces of Night, is retold by absurdity of attempting to emulate Mayamma herself and no longer by heroines who dwelt in and under the omniscient narrator in the later such different circumstances. In The stages of her life. Hariharan, in Thousand Faces of Night, we see permitting Mayamma a voice, that the protagonist Devi is acknowledges the development of conscious and aware of the huge this character’s selfassertion after influence myths have had over her, passing through the stages of being

47 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 a daughter, a wife, a daughter-in-law, problems. Their narrative voices are a mother, and eventually a widow. clear and articulate, and The retelling enhances the first increasingly unafraid to be less than version with further details; perfect, ready to question and Hariharan achieving through the experiment and tell their tales in written form a fairly credible their own particular language. reproduction of an oral tradition References : with its multiple layers of stories 39. Henry Louis Jr. Gates, Signifying within other stories. Monkey: A Theory of Afro- Many South Asian women American Literary Criticism novelists make no secret of their love (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1988). for myths and stories and fairy tales, 40. Simone de Beauvoir, The Second but increasingly, the purpose of their Sex (London: Jonathan Cape, writing is to tell their own stories, 1953) 74. stories which are testimonies of 41. Jasodhara Bagchi, Indian Women. strength and struggles, not fantasies Myth and Reality (Hyderabad, of wondrous beauty and India: Sangam, 1995) 2. unimaginable riches. It is clear that 42. Vrinda Nabar, Caste as Woman many South Asian women writers (New Delhi: Penguin, 1995) 113. are willing to toy with fables, myths 43. Githa Hariharan, The Thousand and legends, to not only appropriate Face of Night (London: Women’s but also reinvent these aspects of Press, 1996) 28. their culture. Far from seeking to 44. Hariharan 3 7. escape the reality of daily life in their 45. Hariharan 50. story-telling, South Asian women 45. Manisha Roy, Bengali Women writers use their writings to analyse (Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1975). and disentangle the complexities and conflicts of their lives and

48 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 47. Sita: wife ofRama in the 54. Shashi Deshpande, The Intrusion Ramayana, abducted by Ravana and Other Stories (New Delhi, and required to prove her chastity India: Penguin, 1993). by walking through fire (the agni- 55. Hariharan 23. pariksa).

48. Draupadi: a princess won by Arjuna and shared amongst the five Pandava brothers.

49. Nabar 118.

To prove she was a pativrata Ahilya(50) to sacrifice herself to Indra’s sexual desire, and Draupadi was divided up among five men, the woman of that country still remains a slave ... “(51)

50. Ahilya: a woman seduced by the god Indra who disguised himself as Ahilya’s husband.

51. Hira Bansode, “The Slave.” Trans. from Marathi. Taken from Vrinda Nabar, Woman as Caste (New Delhi: Penguin, 1995) 118.

52. Bagchi 1.

53. Vijayalakshi Seshadri, The ‘New’ Woman in Indian-English Women Writers (New Delhi, India: BR,1995).

49 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 ‘FREEDOM FROM PHYSICAL SLAVERY: EMOTIONAL BONDAGES AND PSYCHOLOGICAL OPPRESSION: IS THE REAL VICTORY OF SELF’; REFLECTION ON HARRIET BEECHER STOWE’S ‘UNCLE TOM’S CABIN’

Prof.S.Prasanna Sree Department of English Andhra University Visakhapatnam

Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle out what decides, determines, Tom’s Cabin is a classical example defines, and denotes freedom. of the writer’s stand of slavery and Freedom is often perceived to be freedom. This novel, first of its kind ‘freedom from oppression’, deals with the plights of the particularly ‘freedom from slavery’. unfortunate slaves who were treated The modern conception of as ‘human property’ in the hands of freedom has implying certain their masters. fundamental or basic rights dates The concept of freedom has been back to the writings of seventeenth a hotly debated topic in literature for century theorists such as Francis a long time. The question of ‘re Hutcheson and John Locke. It is to interrogation’ of freedom often be noted here that the writers such brings with it several challenges of as Rousseau, Hagel, Max, T.H. Green historical processes which et al., interpret ‘freedom’ from the continually shape and alter the very angle of positive concept whereas definition of freedom. It matters to theorists like Constant, Humboldt, every individual who believes that Spencer, and Mill look at ‘freedom’ freedom is a fundamental condition from a contrary angle. The last two for human progress. Though the core decades have witnessed an explosion meaning of freedom remains of interest on writing by and about unchanged, it is still difficult to find black women

50 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 Black women writers they home and outside. Hence black constitute the foundations of the feminist perspective dominates the African American women’s literary spirit and tone of African-American traditions, containing as they do, the literature. first book of poetry by an African In today’s world, women American Poems on Various have started asserting their rights Subjects, Religions and Moral By and getting themselves properly Phyllis Whitely (1773); the first book represented in appropriate forums of essays by an African American, and bodies. More particularly black Essays by Ann Plato (1841); and the women are dealing with political first novel published by a black machinations of the racial and person in the United states, Our Nig sexual beliefs, feelings and actions by Harriet Wilson (1859). that black men writers have Black women writers’ maintained toward their black contribution to concept of freedom females, in the street, in the family, is very significant for several and in the bedroom. Their reasons. The most important reason perspectives and approaches are being: black women beings at once more realistic and consistent with black, female and poor have been the aesthetic and faithful to the victimized on several grounds such actual experiences of black women as racism, sexism and capitalism. in America. These women writers who Harriet Beecher Stowe, themselves have experienced such though a white women, has been tortures in their real lives give a influenced by the best values of the profound understanding to the time that she speaks vociferously for world about their world of slavery. the sake of justice and truth. Stowe They have to fight against various belongs to a group of writers who can forces of oppression within their transcend their immediate

51 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 landscape for a broader and better of all that can be attempted for them, understanding of the fundamental by their best friends under it (xiii). issues which concern humanity. Stowe attempted to revolutionize the Stowe is remembered today for her genre of anti-slavery fiction. The bold and courageous statements broader canvas of the novel enabled against human slavery at a point of her to combine and develop the plots time that slavery was a legally of children ton away from their sanctioned institution. Her parents, young women hounded by campaign for human rights, lecherous slave holders, husbands particularly for the rights of black and wives severed from each other, women who were double- and slaves lashing out against theirs marginalized has brought about a masters and that children were great social change. relegated to separate stories and compressed into brief vignettes. Stowe is a representative writer of nineteenth century. She Readers come to know Uncle brings to light the agony, pain, Tom and Aunt Chole, Eliza and restlessness, alienation, physical and George, Cassy and Emmeline whith mental torture faced by the slaves an intimacy unprecedented for the in hands of the white masters. African-America characters. And In her own words, Stowe tells her readers arrive at a visceral readers in “Preface” to Uncle Tom’s understanding of how slavery Cabin that The object of these pervert family life as Stowe takes sketches is to awaken sympathy and them from the flawed patriarchal feeling for the African race, as they household of the Shelby’s in which exist among us; to show their wrongs a well meaning wife is powerless to and sorrows, under a system so prevent her husband from selling necessarily cruel and unjust all to his most faithful slave, to the overtly defeat and do away the good effects dysfunctional household of the St.

52 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 Clares, dominated by a monstrously Gloria Naylor, encompassing the selfish wife and mother who keeps pioneering work of Zora Neale her slaves apart and puts them up Hurston in the forties. Barbara for auction in defiance of her Christian calls it the “Development husband’s whishes to the of a Tradition” meaning that it has pandemonium of Simon Léger’s been a continuously evolving plantation, where a bachelor master process, if one can trace the imposes sadistic regime of rape and development of the black women’s concubinage. Stowe was successful self from its infantile stage of in restructuring the plot that she invisibility to its present stage of borrowed from her predecessors and self-definition and self-assertion. A made it suitable for her purpose. detailed study on the writings of Stowe’s commitment to the cause of black women writers helps the liberation of Blacks and particularly reader understand the responsibility women’s liberation is evident they have on their shoulders to ‘fight invariably all through her writings. within‘and to ‘fight out’ to establish She attempts to portray the injustice their ‘self’ in all dignity and respect done to the slaves through her they deserves. A noted critic Alexis powerful sentimental writings by De Veau says, I see a greater appealing to the mercy of the right commitment among black women thinking and conscious humanity. writers to understand self multiplied Black women literary in terms of community, the tradition can be traced back to community multiplied in terms of the Philis Weatley in the eighteenth world. Barbara Christian rightly century down to boom period—the observes to be able to use the range seventies and eighties with its of one’s own voice, to attempt to remarkable talented writers such as express the totality of self, is a Paule Marshall, Alice Walker and recurring struggle in the tradition of

53 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 those writers from the nineteenth First Uncle Tom’s Cabin was century to the present. written as a protest against the African American women Fugitive Slave Law, which was, for writers have long felt the need to many northerners, the most express and assert their self despite controversial element of the all the odds. Early African-American compromise of 1850 in that it has women writers such as Nella legally mandated them to cooperate Larsen, Jessie Fauset, Ann Petry in the capture and return of the and Frances Harper have clearly runaway slaves. Second, it was expressed their bounded duty and written as a lamentation in response mission. Francis Harper in her to the death of her infant son, preface to Iola Leroy writes that her Charley. story’s mission would not be in vain The novel Uncle Tom’s if it awakens in the hearts of our Cabin has elicited in the course of countrymen a strong sense of justice its one hundred and fifty years in and a more Christian like humanity print responses ranging from tears (281).Harper makes a forceful plea to outrage. The tears were the result through her writings for “freedom” of her harrowing and, for many, and “justice” for Americans who in effective representation of the 1890s were being lynched, burned cruelties of slavery, in particular its out, raped, humiliated and deprived devastating impact on slave families. of their rights as citizens in the wake The upset generated by her novel of failure of Reconstruction. But the has a more complicated trajectory. intention of Harper is to please and Not only were readers devastated by impress the white readers by the fact that such brutal senses were creating a lady-like version of the being enacted in slaves states, but heroine, Iola Leroy, whom many readers for very different Americans are expected to respect reasons outraged by Stowe’s even though she is black. 54 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 depiction of them. For example, depicted women in the novel that led Southern whites, in general, to their abolitionist views by their objected to Stowe’s allegedly false moral and Christian beliefs. This depiction of the peculiar institution. novel has a great impact in the Despite all this, it is a deeply moving pursuit of abolishing slavery in the novel which appeals to the finer middle of the nineteenth century. sentiments of people. It shows The novel Uncle Tom’s humanitarian sympathies extended Cabin takes the reader through by the writer to the cause of freedom different kinds of setting suggesting of African American. Indeed the different situation. At the outset, it responses to Uncle Tom’s Cabin starts out in Kentucky, where Tom provide a medium through which is owned by a kind-hearted master one could construct a history of U S name by Arthur Shelby. Mr. Shelby black/white relations. is shown to be having the The story of Uncle Tom’s appearance of a gentleman in the Cabin is strong appeal to the right- midst of an earnest conversation thinking citizens in an effort to with Mr. Haley, a slave trader. The prompt abolitionist action. The conversation is over a deal which Mr. author with her seemingly Shelby is forced by debt to part with paternalistic attitude has created an two slaves; Uncle Tom and Harry, impression of feministic the young son of his wife’s servant implications with the expressive Eliza to a trader named Haley. Eliza female characters that voiced their overhears the conversation between beliefs and showed moral superiority Haley and his wife and, after over their male counterparts. The warning Uncle Tom and his wife, novel has made it very clear that Aunt Chloe, she takes Harry and both women and slaves were victims flees to the North, hoping to find of male domination, and she ‘freedom’ with her husband George

55 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 in Canada. Haley pursues her, but Eliza and her son have been taken to other Shelby slaves alert Eliza to in by a Quaker family and joined by the danger. She miraculously evades George to prepare for the next stage capture by crossing the half-frozen of their escape. Ohio River, the boundary separating Tom, on a Mississippi river Kentucky from the North. Haley boat, meets a little white girl named hires a slave hunter named Loker Eva St. Clare, is touched by her and his gang to bring Eliza and beauty and gravity, and resuces her Harry back to Kentucky. Eliza and from drowning. Eva’s father ‘buys’ Harry make their way to a Quaker Tom from Haley at Eva’s request, settlement, where the Quakers agree and Tom accompanies the family to help transport them to safety. (father, daughter, and cousin Eliza accidently hears the Ophelia) to their New Orleans home. discussion, warns Tom and his wife, There he meets Eva’s mother, a and runs away with her child, spoiled and bigoted woman, and the followed by Haley, who is prevented slaves belonging to the household. from catching her when she crosses He and Eva from a close the Ohio River and is aided by relationship, by reading to Tom from helpful citizens. The trader, Haley his Bible, Eva herself grows to meets two slave-catchers who agree understand and love Christianity. to pursue Eliza and Harry. After the unfortunate death of St. Meanwhile Tom refuses to runway Clare and his daughter Tom is sold and is taken by Haley towards New to a wicked plantation owner, Simon Orleans. Sometime later, Eliza’s Legree up the Red River. Tom being husband, George, himself an escaped a man of spiritual strength and slave in disguise, discovers that Eliza honesty is put to rigorous test here. is headed for Canada and sets out to He endures his fate while helping find and to join her. Meanwhile, others in need.

56 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 Tom’s new owner Simon Legree who being sought at the Lake Erie port owns a cotton plantation on the Red where they expect to cross into River is man of crudest nature. He Canada. But Eliza, George and tries his best to take the religion out Harry cross into freedom. But Tom, of him. He also buys two women. in the months to follow is put to They are taken to the man’s run excruciating pain and suffering. He down plantation among the swamps. is tortured, traumatized, yet can’t be Tom is set to picking cotton, and shattered. The faith in him grows tires to make the best of his position stronger and stronger. He can’t be by prayer and hope. He meets Cassy, made spiritually weak. He is just Legree’s black concubine, and learns waiting for the last hour of her horrifying story. Tom is whipped ‘deliverance’ to come. He longs for mercilessly for attempting to help his home. His spiritual strength in his fellow salves, and Legree vows the face of adversity brings hope to to break his spirit or kill him. Cassy other slaves. He is given the grace does her best to save Tom. During to prevail in spirit against Legree’s his stay, Tom wields a powerful torture. Finally Legree gives up, and influence on the slaves. He gives the dying Tom forgives him and the men slaves ‘a feeling of hope, moral who whipped him. support in times of adversity and George and Shelby arrived to request them to wait for God’s help’. buy Tom’s freedom are in time only He reads to them The Bible. Tom to hear his last words. He says,” Oh, reads: “come unto ME, all ye that Master George, you’re too late. The labor and re heavy laden, and I will Lord’s bought me, and is going to give you rest (318). take me home— and me long to go. Back in Midwest, Tom Coker, Heaven is better than a slave catcher has warned the Kentucky”(381), “I have been poor Quaker that Eliza and her family fellow; but that is all past and gone,

57 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 now. I am right in the door, going family life. Above all, Stowe into glory. Oh, Master George intended to convince the nation that Heaven has come! I’ve got the slavery was a sin that harmed both victory—the Lord Jesus has given it slaves and the souls of slave owners. to me”(381). Finally George could By treating human beings as get only the mortal remains of Tom property that could be bought and to give him ‘a decent burial’. Tom sold, slavery separated husbands has become a martyr, dies for the and wives and parents and children, cause of the poor creatures. It is to thus standing in opositi8on to both be noted here that the death of Tom familial and Christian love. was highly symbolic that it signifies Using sentimental rhetoric the culmination of the suffering and melodramatic situations, and encountered by the slaves and hope writing in clear, accessible language, for a new life for the unfortunate Stowe appealed to her culture’s slaves. investment in the sacredness of Although Stowe had set out home, family and Christian to ‘make the whole nation feel’ the salvation. Stowe, being an advocate horrors and injustice of slavery, she for the cause of justice brings to light couldn’t have anticipated the the injustices done against the enormous and unprecedented unfortunate humans which reduce impact her novel would have on the them to ‘things’. national psyche. The novel appealed References to a wide audience by drawing upon 1. Frances Harper, Iola Leroy, mainstream religious and cultural Shadows Uplifted,3 rd ed. (Boston beliefs. Stowe mobilized evangelical : James H, Earle, 1895),281. doctrine and the ideal of domesticity to argue that slavery was both unchristian and destructive to

58 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 HUMAN EFFORTS ARE EITHER TO PENETRATE OR TO SUB- DUE: UNDERSTANDING HARRIET BEECHER STOWE’S ‘DRED’

Prof.S.Prasanna Sree Department of English Andhra University Visakhapatnam

Harriet Beecher Stowe’s On the other hand, Stowe imbues Dred: A Tale of the Great Dismal Dred with many of the prevailing Swamp published in 1856 as a follow racial stereotypes of African up to Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1853), the American men as savages. As Stowe most successful and controversial describes him: The large eyes had abolitionist tract ever written. Dred that peculiar and solemn effect of is set in Chowan County, near the unfathomable blackness and Great Dismal Swamp. The title darkness which is often a striking character is an escaped slave and characteristic of the African eye But religious zealot who aids fellow slave there burned in them, like tongues of refugees and spends most of the flame in a black pool of naphtha, a novel plotting a slave rebellion. He subtle and restless fire, that is a composite of Denmark Vesey and betokened habitual excitement to the Nat Turner, two real leaders of slave verge of insanity (241) Dred is insurrections. Dred is a character of George Harris, the refractor slave great strength and intellect who from Stowe’s first novel—a whole represents a much more assertive volcano of bitter feeling burned in his and potentially dangerous slave bosom, and sent streams of fir character than the loyal slaves, through his veins…. He had been passive victims, or doomed escapees able to repress every disrespectful who inhabit Uncle Tom’s Cabin. word; but the flashing eye, the gloomy

59 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 and troubled brow, were part of a that helped inspire Stowe to publish natural language that could not be Dred in 1856. That year, South repressed (UTC,II). Dred reacts like Carolina United States Senator George, looks like Tom, and speaks Preston Brooks caned Senator and acts like no one else in Stowe’s Charles Sumner, the irascible first anti-slavery novel. Unlike Tom, abolitionist colleague from who forgives his masters, Dred Massachusetts. The Kansas territory represents the possibility the had also erupted into civil war over punishment may be followed by the extension of slavery. Then, in retribution, human and divine. He 1856, a group of antislavery echoes the warning at the end of guerillas, under the leadership of Uncle Tom’s Cabin that the “signs John Brown, murdered several of time” may portend for the United proslavery men. States a coming day of vengeance, The major characters in the rather than a “day of grace legal drama and star-crossed (UTC,388). romance come from two slave- Dred, however, is only a owning families, the Gordons and peripheral character in the novel. the Claytons. The two most Instead, most of the plot is centered sympathetic members of the Gordon on white and mixed race, or mulatto, family (of Canema plantation) are characters and the way the Southern Nina and her mulatto half-brother, legal system supported slavery. Harry, who is the son of their father, Indeed, it was not so much the Colonel Gordon, and his slave cruelty of masters towards their mistress. Colonel Gordon and his son slaves, but rather the violence Tom, are cruel-hearted masters who between white pro- and anti-slavery also wield great political power. Nina forces, which had erupted since the Gordon is in love with Edward publication of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Clayton, a lawyer and planter who

60 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 secretly hopes for an end to slavery cut short when she dies during a and treats his slaves kindly in the cholera epidemic. On the Gordon mean time. Edward’s father, Judge plantation lives the Mulatto Harry, Clayton, is the Chief Justice of North who is the son of his master and a Carolina Supreme Court. secret brother to Nina. Harry is unfitted to be a slave by his There are two central court parentage and his education. Aunt cases that propel the action of the Milly also serves at Canema. She is novel, complicate familial and majestic and devout, and she tells romantic relations, and present Nina her harrowing story of losing Stowe’s thesis that slavery corrupted fourteen children to slavery and Southern justice and humanity. Both finding rage and religion. When of the lawsuits are based on actual Milly is shot by her temporary state court decisions, as Stowe employer, Stowe recapitulates the records in her second appendix. The Mann case, which the budding first legal challenge is set in motion lawyer Edward Clayton argues and when Nina hires out Milly, her wins, only to have his father, a judge, personal slave, to Mr. Baker in order overturn the verdict on appeal. to raise money for the ailing Canema Niana’s racist brother Tom plays the plantation. Canema is a plantation Legree role. In the pine woods near in North Carolina. It is presided over the swamp, loyal, steely Old Tiff by Nina Gordon. She begins as a takes the visionary slave rebel, flighty young woman and develops inhabits the Great Dismal Swamp. a sense of moral responsibility under the guidance of her suitor, Edward Edward Clayton uses Clayton. Along with his sister Anne, Magnolia Grove to conduct a series Clayton supervised Magnolia Grove, of “experiment(s)” to prepare their family plantation in South African Americans for freedom Carolina. Nina’s moral education is (309). Dred is part of a wider literary

61 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 imagining of alternatives to slavery than his sister, and he himself is in the decade before the Civil War taught several lessons. Edward including Sarah Josepha Hale’s hopes that the example of Magnolia 1853 Liberia; or Mr. Peyton’s Grove will spur emancipation. He Experiments and Frank’s J. Webb’s insists on teaching his slaves to read 1857 The Garies and Their Friends. and write, despite the resistance of Both these novels respond to Stowe. his fellow plantation owners and the Clayton is certain that the day of threats of Tom Gordon. His firmness liberation will come, and he insists leads to his being beaten senseless that enslaved. African Americans with a cane by Tom, after the fashion “be emancipated on the soil”(310). of the chivalry of South Carolina as Stowe pointedly notes (493). Here According to Clayton and his she refers to South Carolina sister Anne, education is the key to representative Preston Brooks’s advancement. In Dred, Stowe attack on the anti-slavery refuses the status quo, the position Republican senator Charles Sumner that slavery is wrong but that in the Senate chamber in May 1856. nothing can be done about it. In addition to this physical Whenever characters voice this education in southern hostility to opinion, they are condemned. reform, Clayton receives legal Through the Claytons’ education about institutional “experiments,” Stowe tests violence in his father’s courtroom. contemporary efforts at legal reform Jude Clayton reverses his son’s and gradual emancipation. She at conviction of the employer who shot her paternalist, or materialist worst Milly, using works taken from the when she describes the entry into mouth of Jude Ruffin: “THE the schoolroom of Anne’s uniformed, POWER OF THE MASTER MUST synchronized hymn-singing elves BE ABSOLUTE, TO RENDER THE (314-315) Edward is more serious

62 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 SUBMISSION OF THE SLAVE Gordon’s blows in Dred’s PERFECT” (353). stronghold, Clayton, like Stowe, becomes interested in Dred, as a In an exchange of letter with psychological study (509). The effort Harry, now escaped from Canema, to imagine and to represent Dred’s Clayton acknowledges the justice of perspective is part of Stowe’s the argument that African novelistic experiment in reckoning Americans under slavery have a different points of view, which she right to resist oppression to declare defends as an artistic and political their independence, but he necessity (445). Finally, Clayton maintains that they are not yet resign from the bar, protesting the ready to govern themselves. law of slavery and of his father. He Clayton’s gradualism and risks his property and his life in paternalism are allied with his racial continuing to instruct his slaves. But essentialism, and all three are it is to be noted that Clayton is not undermined by the fastidious Dred. While acknowledging their metaphors in his odd parley with his irresistible force of emancipation, he sister Anne: The Ethiopian race is a defends his reformist model as an slow-growing plant like the aloe . . . “escape value,” a way of yielding but I hope, some of these days, they’ll gracefully before the growing force of come into flower; and I think, if they the people (460-470). Disillusioned ever do, the blossoming will be by the violent resistance to his plans, gorgeous.There is no use in trying to he buys land in Canada. There, we make the negroes into Anglo=- are told briefly at the end of the Saxons, any more than maki9ng a novel, he and Anne have moved with grape-vine into a peer-tree. I train the their slaves, who now have become grape-vine (328). tenants. They have established a Clayton receives education in thriving agricultural community. Swamp, too. Recovering from Tom

63 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 Clayton relinquishes idea of Ruffin, who presided over a similar emancipation on United States soil. case, State v. Mann, in 1829.) In a Yet both Clayton and Dred share a fashion typical of sentimental moral resoluteness. Victorian fiction, Stowe has her hero resign from the practice of law, and Milly is the opposite of Dred. Nina, too pure to live in a sinful She embodies the loyalty of slaves world, dies of cholera. and the femininity and Christian grace of women. When Baker, in a The second lawsuit in the drunken rage, tries to punish a slave novel involves Cora, the slave sister for a small offense, Milly intervenes. of the mulatto Harry Gordon. Baker hits Milly, then shoots her Colonel Gordon’s sister, Mrs. when she tries to escape the Stewart, takes Cora with her to punishment. Nina is outraged and Louisiana there. Cora is retains Edward to sue Baker. (The emancipated after she marries Mrs. suit was based on state law, which Stewart’s son, George. When George allowed slave-owners to seek dies, the former slave Cora inherits recompense for damage to their his plantation. But Mr. Jekyl, an evil personal property.) Edward jumps at lawyer, uses the law to rob Cora of the chance to both please Nina and her property and return her to strike a blow against the abuse of slavery. slaves. Edward wins the case, but In the meantime, Edward loses when Baker appeals to the Clayton and his sister, Anne, have state Supreme Court. What is worse, become devoted to the uplift, if not Edward’s father, Chief Justice Judge the emancipation, of their slaves. Clayton, writes the opinion. (Stowe Edward and Anne begin to tutor notes in the preface that she based their slaves, but an angry white mob Judge Clayton on the real North sabotages the effort. Only the Carolina Chief Justice Thomas intervention of Edward’s friend, the

64 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 pragmatic lawyer-politician Frank There are several ways in Russell, who opposes slavery in which Dred represents both a private but supports it in public, continuation and an extension of the stops the destruction. The siblings abolitionist arguments Stowe made soon leave North Carolina for in Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Like its Canada. predecessor, Dred was aimed Harry Gordon’s battle of primarily at Northern white readers conscience mirrors that of Edward in an effort to convince them of the Clayton and Frank Russell. Stowe humanity of slaves and the ways in seems to use Harry to represent the which slavery corrupted white divided mind of Southern slaves. On Southerners. Uncle Tom’s Cabin, one extreme is Milly, a loyal slave, however, had presented both kind who counsels love for the master and and cruel masters, thus placing patient endurance of earthly blame on the individual, not the tribulation for the reward of eternal larger institution. By contrast, in freedom in heaven. On the other Dred, Stowe indicts the entire extreme is Dred, the leader of a system of Southern slave statutes. potential slave insurrection. Despite Stowe argues that enshrining Milly’s warnings, the wavering slavery in law did not prevent Harry eventually brings his family abuses. Rather, it released the to join Dred’s forces. Just as they are passions of slave-owners from preparing to assault the white personal control and gave social community, however, Milly appears sanction to the horrors of slavery. In in the swamp, singing a gospel tune. addition, Stowe uses the swamp Miraculously, the song touches setting of Dred to represent the Dred’s heart and his thirst for indolence and stagnation of vengeance disappears. Instead, he Southern civilization and morality leads his band of refugees out of the caused by slavery. Aside from its swamp and north to freedom. 65 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 symbolic value, the Great Dismal 2. (David C. Miller, Dark Eden: Swamp was also where runaway The Swamp in Nineteenth- slaves from nearby plantations in Century American Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge North Carolina and Virginia actually University Press, 1989. 90-102). did hide out. Some of them even plotted rebellions. It is part of an 3. Brophy, Alfred L., “Humanity, Utility, and Logic in Southern immense chain of swamps, regions Legal Thought: Harriet Beecher of hopeless order, where the abundant Stowe’s View in Dred: A Tale of growth and vegetation of nature, the Great Dismal Swamp,” sucking up its forces from the humid 1997 soil, seems to rejoice in a savage 4. exuberance, and bid defiance to all Hovet, Theodore R., The Master Narrative: Harriet human efforts either to penetrate or Beecher Stowe’s Subversive subdue (209). It is to be noted here Story of Master and Slave in that in Stowe’s novel, and in the Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Dred, nineteenth century, this “immense Lanham, MD: University Press chain of swamps” and this “hopeless of America, 1989. disorder” provided a sanctuary for African Americans attempting to escape from bondage.

Reference

1. Robert S. Levine, Martine Delany, Frederick Douglass, 144-1763, and “Introduction” to Dred: A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp. New York “Penguin Books, 2000, ix-xxxv

66 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 CONSTRAIN ETCHED THE CRISIS’: REFLECTION ALAN PATON’S CRY THE BELOVED COUNTRY

Prof.S.Prasanna Sree Department of English AUMSN PG Centre, Kakinada

Introduction Protest is the beginning of change by raising a question, the “Keep the Land, Guard the man opens the door. Once made, a Land, Care for the Land”, for the promise will have to be fulfilled Land keeps men, Guards men, Cares sooner or later. Opening of the letter for men. “Destroy it and man is is understandable because once destroyed”. It is warning for the opened it cannot be shut again. To white rulers and black inhabitance open a door is the commit oneself. of Africa, but also for all the people Though one can shut a door, it is not of the earth the careless disregard a thing lightly done. When people go and indifferences towards the earth to Johannes Burg they do not come which is holy ground is the cause of back not easily or not innocently at the tragic condition of man not least. When a door is open we must merrily of the tragedy of Africa. go through even though we do not Cry, the Beloved Country it know what awaits us at the end of is “the plain and simple truth”. the passage. But without asking Appearance and reality are no longer questions or opening doors, it is separate. They have been impossible to discover answers to interchangeable. “Johannes Burg is reach anywhere ultimately, what referred to as the ‘great city’ “but, will bring one to the end of the in fact, it is a fine modern city with search is not external help but the some tragic slums”. individual’s ‘readiness’. The journey

67 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 must nevertheless be undertaken by Stephen’s sister Gertrude the individual himself. she went to Johannesburg to search for her husband but she never back In Cry, The Beloved Country, to her native place circumstances Stephen Kumalo is a priest of the changed her to prostitute, Stephen’s Church at Ndotsheni he is interested brother John Kumalo who was in reuniting his own family come to settled in Johannes burg was understand the greater problems corrupted merrily by the power of facing his race. The white man has his own voice and he is thankful in disrupted the old man’s but refuses such a coward and Stephen’s son to accept the native in the new Absalom Kumalo who went to search world. But the natives live in an for his aunt and he too never back instructed world where there are no to the native place. Stephen’s money, values and no order to adhere to. belief in the goodness in the society Kumalo is the suffering hero, he and for one moment even his comes to complete awareness of life, religion and he finally sustained by he has undergone to intense his faith in man and god and sees suffering in all aspects of life. His salvation around him in the acts of suffering is seen partially in the fact James Jarvis the death of a white that he wants to restore the family man’s son Arthur Jarvis the father and the tribal system. He comes to James Jarvis understanding the an awareness that the tribal system racial problem of South Africa and can never be restored and he fails in trying to understand his son. Jarvis his attempts to restore his own also gains a feeling for Kumalo’s family this failure and suffering suffering and attempts to alleviate caused him though he matures into the old man’s suffering in many a man who has a larger appreciation small ways. for the trials that the others must undergo.

68 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 Stephen Kumalo leaves his son does not know the “custom of the native district to search for his three land”. he found them but he faces his The knowledge that power greatest test that his son has made corrupts and love alone cleanses the murder that is the white heart will remove that veil of man(Jarvis) but Stephen Kumalo darkness from upon their eyes and unable to understand what went show them standing, stripped of the wrong and where is Absalom’s mask of colour in the full light of childhood that made him kill a man, truth, the writer speaks not only for a white man Stephen being a priest Africa but for whole world which has feel ashamed of the failure of his son become darkened continent! to battle with temptation and Stephen kneeling upon the overcome it. What must have broken summit of a mountain should pray in Absalom that he could bring “long and earnestly” for his kith and himself to kill another man. kin and for the beloved country he One can face change, holds on to the faith that god will however fearful it may be, but one save Africa when men will cease to cannot face the unchangeable. Paton fear it’s salvation and when love will conceives of a possible answer for all cast out a fear so deep it had cast our questions in a greater reverence out kindness from human hearts. for and greater humility before the References earth we live by. We ought to cherish in human life. If we don’t care for it, 1. Emecheta, Buchi. The joys of Motherhood. Oxford Heinemann, if we don’t guard it, it will destroy 1979. the land. The ground is holy and cannot bear too much profanity. 2. Bhabha, Homi. The Location of Culture. New York: Routledge, 1994. Stephen Kumalo feels as “ strange pride and strange humility” that the

69 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 3. Armah, Ayi Kwei. The Beautiful ones are not yet Born. Oxford Heinemann, 1968.

4. Appiah, Kwame Anthony. In my Father’s House: African in the Philosophy of Culture. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1992.

5. Amadiume, Ifi. Male Daughters, Female Husbands: Gender and Sex in an African Society. London: Zed, 1987.

70 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 COMMUNICATIVE LANGUAGE TEACHING (CLT)

Koppula Swathi Research Scholar Department of English Andhra University, Visakhapatnam

Communication is the conventional or unconventional activity of conveying information signals, may take linguistic or non- through the exchange of thoughts, linguistic forms, and may occur messages, or information, as by through spoken or other speech, visuals, signals, writing, or modes.Language is a system of behavior. It is the meaningful symbols with standard meanings. exchange of information between Through language, members of two or more living creatures. society are able to communicate with scheflen 1974 rightly pointed out one another. It is an integral aspect saying Communication is an of culture. Language allows humans organized, standardized, culturally o communicate with one patterned system of behavior that another.”Communicative language sustains, regulates and makes teaching can be understood as a set possible human relationship. of principles about the goals of Communication may be defined as language teaching, how learners any act by which one person gives learn a language, the kinds of to or receives from another person’s classroom activities that best information about that person’s facilitate learning, and the roles of needs, desires, perceptions, teachers and learners in the knowledge, or affective states. classroom”.(Jack c Richards,2006, p Communication may be intentional 2) or unintentional, may involve

71 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 Noam Chomsky argued language but also on the Language is not a habit structure. Learning Management process. Ordinary linguistic behavior  An enhancement of the learner’s characteristically involves own personal experiences as innovation, formation of new important contributing sentences and patterns in elements to classroom learning. accordance with rules of great An attempt to link classroom abstractness and intricacy. CLT is  language learning with usually characterized as a broad language activities outside the approach to teaching, rather than as classroom. a teaching method with a clearly defined set of classroom practices. As The communicative such, it is most often defined as a list approach could be said to be the of general principles or features. One product of educators and linguists of the most recognized of these lists who had grown dissatisfied with the is: audio-lingual and grammar- translation methods of foreign David Nunan’s (1991) five features language instruction. They felt that of CLT: students were not learning enough An emphasis on learning to  realistic, whole language. They did communicate through not know how to communicate using interaction in the target appropriate social language, language. gestures, or expressions; in brief,

 The introduction of authentic they were at a loss to communicate texts into the learning situation. in the culture of the language studied  The provision of opportunities for learners to focus, not only on Margie S. Berns, an expert in the field of communicative language

72 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 teaching, writes in explaining supporting them.Teachers in Firth’s view that “language is communicative classrooms will find interaction; it is interpersonal themselves talking less and listening activity and has a clear relationship more and becoming active with society. In this light, language facilitators of their students’ study has to look at the use learning (Larsen-Freeman, 1986) (function) of language in context, Communicative language teaching both its linguistic context (what is is an approach to language teaching. uttered before and after a given piece The goal of CLT is to enable students of discourse) and its social, or to communicate in the target situational, context (who is language. The method is learner speaking, what their social roles are, centered with emphasizes on why they have come together to communicative activities that are speak)” (Berns, 1984, p. 5)CLT related to day to day life situations. approach which developed as CLT characterizes the following reaction away from grammar features: focused approaches to teaching To engage learners in authentic which give priority to accuracy and  environment. the sentence as unit of presentation. CLT’s goal of language learning is  Focus on all four components of communicative competence which of communicative competence we develop through making (grammar, discourse, socio communication the focus of linguistics and strategic classroom. CLT is essentially a competence). general set of principles that refer  Fluency and accuracy are seen to how communication can be the as complementary ideas. focus of teaching and learning. It is  Spontaneity of the language. a scaffold engaging the students and

73 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 CLT is completely learner abilities of the students. The main centered. The role of the instructor idea behind this is learning becomes is entirely different in CLT unlike more interesting when topics are the traditional methods of teaching, relevant to the students level, needs where teacher speaks and students and interests and when students are listen. The learners remain passive. themselves are engaged, involved in In CLT on other hand the students creating, understanding and are active participants and learners. connecting to knowledge. This The teacher serves more as a creates vitality and motivation facilitator setting up the activities within the students. that require students to Essentially learners are communicate with one another.If the treated as co creators in the learning students feel that they are doing process as individuals with ideas and something useful with the language issues that deserve attention and they will be motivated. The activities consideration. CLT is a holistic emphasize on fluency without approach. It doesn’t focus only on worrying about perfect the traditional structural syllabus. grammar.Pair works, role plays, It takes into consideration group talks are used extensively to communicative dimension of engage even the weak students in language. the learning process. We can In a world where memorize Einstein’s words, I never communications of information and teach my pupil. I only attempt to information technology have been provide the conditions in which they broken new considerable ground, can learn. Same here in CLT. In CLT can play an important role in student centered teaching like CLT education. Target language should we centre our planning, teaching not only be used during and assessment on the needs and communicative activities but also for

74 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 classroom management such as that important structures and rules giving instructions, explaining would be left out.CLT has gained activities, assigning homework etc. widespread acceptance in the world In this way students will realize that of language study. CLT can succeed, the target language is a means for as long as teachers don’t completely communication not just an object to reject the need for the structure be studied. Though there were provided by grammar. Teachers certain amounts of criticism in CLT must strive for moderation and don’t viz. The various categories of neglect the merits of other methods. language functions are overlapping CLT, in the hands of a balanced and not systematically graded like teacher, can bring new life and joy the structures of the language. to the classroom. Its vitality makes Notional syllabus was criticized as it an important contributor to merely replacing one kind of list, language learning approaches. namely a list of grammatical Conclusion structures, with another list of Communicative Language notions and functions. The Teaching is best considered an communicative approach focuses on approach rather than a method. the use of language in everyday Thus although a reasonable degree situations, or the functional aspects of language, and less on the formal of theoretical con­sistency can be discerned at the levels of language structures. There must be a certain and learning theory, at the levels of balance between the two. It gives design and procedure there is much priority to meanings and rules of use greater room for individual rather than to grammar and rules interpretation and variation than of structure. Such concentration on most methods permit.Today CLT language behavior may result in can be seen as describing a set of core negative consequences in the sense principles about language learning

75 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 and teaching, as summarized above, Second Edition. New York: assumptions which can be applied in Cambridge University Press. different ways and which address 6. Larsen-Freeman, D. (1986). different aspects of the processes of Techniques and principles in teaching and learning. language teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

7. scheflen,a.(1974). How behavior References means. Garden city, NY: Doubleday. 1. Berns, M. S. (1984). Functional 8. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ approaches to language and Communicative_language_teachingý language teaching: Another look. In S. Savignon & M. S. Berns (Eds.), Initiatives in communicative language teaching. A book of readings (pp. 3-21). Reading, PA: Addison-Wesley.

2. Brumfit, Christopher (1984). Communicative Methodology in Language Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

3. Nunan’s (1991). Designing tasks for communicative classroom. Cambridge: CUP

4. Jack c Richards. (2006). Communicative Language Teaching Today. Cambridge University Press.

5. Richards, Jack C., and Theodore Rodgers (2001). Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching.

76 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 GENDER DYNAMICS IN MANJU KAPUR’S “DIFFICULT DAUGHTERS”

Aditi Abhishikta Ph.D Research Scholar Department of English Andhra University, Visakhapatnam

Novels became immensely French or The Young Spanish popular at the turn of the nineteenth Maiden written in English. century. It even surpassed Poetry The works of Indian women and Drama and became the only novelists in English show a form which attracted readers of harmonious blending with the touch varied tastes and temperaments. of feeling and form. These assets of There have been a number of works have occupied a significant reasonable causes contributing to place in the horizon of not only the exceptional popularity of fiction Indian Literature but also of world in the twentieth century such as Literature. Arundhati Roy, Manju variety and complexity of themes, Kapur, Bharati Mukherji, Gita treatment of sex, man-woman Mehta, Jhumpa Lahari, Kamala relationship, art and technique, Markandeya, Mahasweta Devi have foreign influences etc. The first been crowned not only with the Indian women Novelist who made a success of luminous international pioneering efforts in writing novels accolades and awards but also in the of profound psychological establishment of new identity and significance was Toru Dutt reawakening of omen in the history renowned not only as a poet but also of Indian Society. highly recognized as a novelist for her fictional work like Le Journal de Mademoiselle d Arvers written in

77 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 ‘Virmati’, alone but it is about Since time immemorial there Indian omen predicaments in has been unmatched unique general. This paper is a portrayal of contribution by Indian women women who are torn between family novelists not only in the making of responsibilities and their aspiration successful creative writing in the for education. The protagonist dares field of fiction but interpreting and to cross one patriarchal threshold rewriting issues related to pre and but she is caught into another where post colonial experiences as they her free spirit is curbed and all she appeared on the platform of English does is mere adjustment and Literature in Indian context. In compromise with situation, people these works one can have a clear and life. insight of feelings, sentiments, emotions and psychological themes This paper is also an attempt imbibed with the experience of to knock at the consciousness of the partition and more specifically ell-knit family structure that are in focusing the woman’s experience in built in Indian traditions and value particular This paper discusses the system. It tries to invoke one’s gender dynamics prevailing in intellect to answer to the questions Indian Society. It intends to explore asked many a times but unheard and the message that a woman who tries unanswered whether E of whom a to create an identity for herself is society is made have left any scope branded as a ‘difficult daughter’ by for women in a deep patriarchal the family and the society. It society to create a space for them in showcases the social realities on ho the journey of quest for identity. a woman negotiates in social relations. It is not just a literary work about the protagonist

78 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 Manju kapur is one of the analysis of its adaption or negligence contemporary Indian Women is the chief area where one needs to Novelist. She is a Professor of probe into. “Difficult Daughters” English Literature at Miranda also revolts against deep rooted House, New Delhi.”Difficult family tradition, resolution and Daughters” was published in 1998 acceptance of life. It also makes one and it won The Commonwealth conscious of the stereotypes with Writers Prize in 1999 for Eurasian regard to the status of women as Region. It is a careful presentation ‘Karyeshu Daasi’ confined to the of three generations of women traditional role of a daughter, wife written during the time of partition. and mother. Since ages this status ‘Virmati’ the protagonist, her in the Indian Society has witnessed mother Kasturi and Virmati’s shadows and echoes at the backdrop daughter Ida who is narrating the of socio-cultural reality. story of her mother and ‘Virmati’ is an epitome of grandmother. The theme of the feminine suffering. Being the eldest novel centers around the backdrop child in the family at the age of only of gender dynamics and social ten she is shouldered with the realities in education concern. responsibility of upholding the Though the seed of the story culture of a Hindu Punjabi family. is seen sown in the events of pre and She takes the burden of not only the post independent eras its depth and household work but becomes the the matter of concern has the same second mother to her eleven siblings intensity at the present time owing to her mother Kasturi’s ill scenario having little difference with health. She becomes quite the passage of time. the question of mechanical in the chain of duties but education of women has gained at some corner of her heart she momentum after independence. Its always yearned for little love, significance and the ultimate affection, sympathy and care from 79 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 her known ones particularly from After repeated deliveries mother her mother which she seems to be Kasturi’s health is deteriorated. She missing a lot. The relationship is sent to Dalhousie for fresh air and between a mother and a daughter is improve her health along with her universally acknowledged to be the youngest daughter Paro. Viramathi strongest one and most delicate tied stays with them tot take care of both. with the swet string of love, care, This is the time and place where, affection and endurance where both Virmati’s educated cousin reciprocate more than just a mother Shakuntala who visits them. and a daughter, either as two close Shakuntala’s modern, independent, friends or sisters. in case of Virmati ideas, attitudes ignite in her mind and her mother Kasturi it is found the light of education. that Kasturi has not one but eleven It makes Virmati believe in children to take care of. In this her own potentials that she can also process her love towards the eldest create her own identity without daughter Virmati is unknowing becoming weak against any found missing. adversity. “At times Virmati yearned Virmati takes her study for affection, for some sign that she seriously, she fails in her first was special. However when she put attempt of appearing F.A. exam, but her head next to the youngest baby, she does not want to give up , as she feeding in the mother’s arm, Kasturi knows this is the only medium to get irritated and push her away “ fetch her freedom from the old Have you seen to their food-clothes- orthodox, rigid restrictions and studies ?” value based traditions. This is the only way to be in her own self- where her ambitions, desires, sense and sensibilities are faithfully expressed.

80 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 she attempts for the second time and even gets a job as a Principal in a succeeds. She wants to study further, School . But earns the title of ‘ but is caught by the decision of the Difficult Daughter’ and gets family, they arrange a suitable negative stereotypes from her match of a canal engineer to get her known ones of her temperament and married. attitude. While making a She does not want to stick to comparison between a society of the generation of her mother Kasturi century ago and a society of today where women’s role is confined to quite often a question is raised – how child bearing and domestic chores. many Virmatis have really She wants to take a bold and radical conquered all these hurdles in the step of liberating herself from the journey of self identity and how restrictions imposed by the many remained unheard. In the conservative family. process of attaining her existential She feels suffocated, choked self Virmati undergoes uncountable and lonely in the hands of tradition. agony and suffering. Her mother Kasturi discourages for education explaining it would be a At the sudden demise of her sin on her part to refuse marriage father, when she comes back home as it will create a problem for her to pay her deep condolences, she get sister’s marriage. the treatment of a stranger. She is Now Virmati stands on her fight made conscious that she had no against the power of patriarchal set place in the family any more. More up. Crossing the orthodox miserable was the blame that she conventional family values and had to bear of being responsible for unpalatable remarks of the society , her father’s death. she steps out from conventional roles for higher education. She completes her B.A, stays in a hostel in Lahore , completes her M.A,

81 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 Neither her family nor the society Viramati represents the Indian try to comprehend her true desire for women’s psyche as a victim in the education. Thus Virmati remains hands of social approval of man, lonely, feels being in exile among her family and society. Where as it own ones. Is it just because she becomes a big issue in case of aspire to study more and got “Women’. The same thing becomes involved in an intellectual love with quite uncommon, unnatural and the Professor which paved way finds difficulty to be accepted and towards opening new chapters of recognized by the family and society higher studies, job, marriage and as well. Moreover, if any women tries suffering ? to achieve it they are embalmed to But where was her fault then be ‘difficult daughters’ or ‘self ? Lack of maternal love, loss of centered’ and ‘selfish wives ‘or familial affection and her growing ‘unsuccessful mothers’. desire to be educated drew her It is all about the attitude and towards the Professor who was the prevailing stereotypes towards only hope for her to fulfil this need women in our society with regard to and achieve the desired birth of a girl child, education, identity.Thus “ Difficult Daughter” dowry, employment and health showcases the difficulties, agony, aspects. It is mere stupidity to point humiliation and turmoil of a woman out fingers towards society, because who tries to overcome her cultural society has not made us rather we identity in search of a self identity made the society. If at all we plead and this process leaves her hard for any change, it has to start with hearted and desolate. Her suffering the change in every individual’s and psychological crisis unheard. attitude. Virmati’s tragedy is the tragedy of the ambition and existential self.

82 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 Since ages, till date history has frame work, one needs to perceive witnessed many ups and downs in the human being as an independent the status of Indian women in social, entity to have come to this world, to religious, political, economic, make his or her life purposeful, education and health aspects. There meaningful and worthwhile in the have been deliberate efforts by the pursuit of his/her dreams , ambitions Indian Constitution, Feminist entitled to the complete liberty of the activism, civil society activism, social expression with the best use of one’s reforms both historically and senses but it has been found again contemporary in the process to bring and again that in the case of ‘ Men’ a social change in the society these things are quite common, towards women empowerment. It is natural, accepted and recognized by widely accepted that though there is the family and society and they get some mobility in the social status of full support and encouragement women in our society, yet there is a whereas, it becomes a big issue in lot to be done to see a gender equal case of women. The same thing society. In the words of Simone de becomes quite uncommon, Beauvoir, “the factors which unite us unnatural and finds difficulty to be are far more important in our lives accepted and recognized by the than the gender differences that family and society as well. Moreover, divide us” In the words of Gandhi, if any woman tries to achieve it she the progress of any country depends is embalmed to be ‘ difficult solely on the education of women. If daughter’ or self centered and selfish you educate a boy, you educate only wife or unsuccessful mother. one individual. If you educate a girl, It is all about the attitude you educate the whole family. and the prevailing stereotypes Before making a concrete towards women in our society with division of gender in the mental regard to the birth of a girl child,

83 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 education, dowry, employment and health aspects. It is mere stupidity to point out fingers on the society because, society has not made us, rather we made the society, if at all we plead for any change in the society, it has to start with the change in every individual attitude.

References

1. Manju Kapur ( 1998) Difficult Daughter , Pub by Penguin Books,Delhi

2. Simone de Beuvoiur ( 1953) The Second Sex.Pub by Alfred knopf, New York.

84 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 GENDERED HAUNTINGS: THE JOYS OF MOTHERHOOD, INTERPRETIVE ACTS, AND POSTCOLONIAL THEORY

S.Prasanthi Sree Department of English AUMSN PG Centre, Kakinada

In most traditional African enjoyed a considerable amount of societies there was a fairly well independence socially and especially defined pattern of duties and economically. responsibilities shared by Males and Buchi Emechetas the joys of Females. By enlarge the male was motherhood(1979) opens with a the dominant partner; and most haunting scene. The protagonist societies had a patrilineal kinship Nnu Ego, flees her home in great pattern. In some societies the distress and despondency, frantically women had to show excessive placing as much distance between deference to her husband she had to herself and the latest of the misdeeds address him as her master, was not attributed to her spiteful “spirit”; allowed to eat at his table and had the sudden death of her newly born to kneel before him. She has often son. Running “ like someone been referred to as a beast of burden pursued” – here , by the absent on the other hand there were also presence of her vengeful chi, the matrilineal societies where women guiding spirit from the realm of the had considerable powers and living dead who has rendered her life exercised political influence that unbearable Nnu Ego seeks to women still lack in advanced terminate the excruciating pain that western societies today and even in accompanies her long succession of tribes where male authority was failed attempts at motherhood. Her largely unchallenged, such as the Ibo arduous efforts to achieve tribe of Eastern Nigeria, she often

85 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 motherhood the very standard of Nnu Ego’s life reveals a narrative success for women according to the saturated with pathos. Her struggle customs of Nnu Ego’s community for achieving the ideal of have yielded nothing but grievous motherhood she encounters many loss culminating in the death of her obstacles. first son. Faced with this failure She is apparently plagued by presumably orchestrated by her her Chi who offers her the worst of harassing Chi, she prepares to throw both worlds when desirous of herself off the extended carter bridge children and economically capable of in the port city of logos. providing for them, she is rendered The Chi in this scenario barren but “ now that (she) cannot actively contributes to Nnu Ego’s afford them” , Nnu Ego gives birth misery by ceaselessly haunting her, to nine children her difficulties and but neither the spirit nor the functions as a powerful testimony dreadful inequities it carries out are regarding the undue burden placed isolated phenomena in this novel. on her and the women she Nnu Ego and her community read represents the opening haunting her situation as resulting from her scene which affords Emecheta the spirits malevolence drawing our opportunity to level a powerful attention to the connections critique against the workings and between questions of trappings of gender as encoded and interpretations, constructions of structured in a multi layers social justice. hierarchy. For which Nnu Ego’s misery is the “Sins” of her father, Emechetas Novels focus us to Nwokocha Agbadi namely his hand help our attention on the ways that in the slave trade and in particular sensual politics of interpretations “unfair” acquisition of one woman are practiced in cultural and post who had been “promised to a river colonial studies. In an overview of

86 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 goddess”. The slave woman is placed The slave woman figures not in Agbadis compound as primary simply as guiding spirit of Nnu Ego; servant to Agunwa. Agbadi’s first she is Nnu Ego. The protagonist, in wife upon Agunwa’s untimely death, other words, becomes an avatar of however the slave woman is forced this captive servant, so that one to accompany her mistress into the embodies the other. The rest of novel spirit world as local custom dictates. teases out the implications of this ostensibly metaphorical association, Nnu Ego’s unfortunate trough which Emecheta eventually gendered haunting is established conjoins the condition of slay hood through the act of interpretation. and the condition of womanhood. The tie between Nnu Ego and the slave woman is underscored in part Emecheta also places under in dibias analysis of the infant Nnu her critical lens the interpretive Ego’s seemingly abnormal lump on work of the mediator between the her head. Convert the cause of the living people and the ghostly matter, slave woman’s death, the young the seething absent presence, that protagonist’s physical characteristic surrounds them(Gordon 195). leads the dibia to an unsettling This signal contrasts in conclusion. focus, interpretation and therefore “The child is the slave tone between Emecheta’s and woman who died with senior wife Agunwa. Bhaba’s construction of the colonial She promised to come back as condition opens up questions about a daughter now here she is. That is why, this child has the fair resistance to which we will return skin of the water people and towards the end. It also provides us Painful lump on her head is from the beating your men with a means for further exploration gave her before she fell into the grave” of their initial premises from which (27: emphasis added) other differences emanate. For instance where as Emecheta

87 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 represents a variegated colonial patriarchal rule. Upon her return to landscape ranging from city to rural her native rural Ibuza, Nnu Ego village, Bhaba’s theory for instance finds her father on his deathbed, silently privileges the contact zones hovering in the luminal space between cultures as the metonym of between life and death. the entire colonial space, when in Alter Agbadi passing, the fact little or no cultural contestation scene of his death (and preceding can be found in some areas of a given liminal state of partial colonial territory. The terrain consciousness) is subsequently (re) outlined by Bhaba is only one of interpreted for Nnu Ego by many spaces in the colonial sphere. Adankwo, the senior wife of her Emecheta’s attention to the husband Nnaife’s brother (and fraught politics of interpretation via eventual inherited wife of Nnaife): her representation of the dibia “[W]e all knew that your leaves us with much to consider, father died in the actual sense of the particularly when placed in relation word about five days before you to Bhabas work. By the novel’s arrived [….]. People die or should die conclusion, she extends her interest gradually, familiarizing them-selves even further by joining it with with their ones on the other side questions of justice to provide an step. Your father, however, kept implicit critique of gendered coming back, waiting for you.” (158). interpretations of ghosts. Through She follows this up with a the circumstances surrounding judgment, strict warning, and mild another ghost of sorts in the admonishment of NnuEgo, who has narrative, Emecheta carefully no desire to return to Lagos, “where exposes the masculinist conditions were so demanding” constructions of justice that help (156): preserve the foundations of

88 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 “Would it then be right for Emecheta? How, in this light, to map you to offend such a father? […] the modalities of resistance and you’re not doing him justice by subjectivity? The ruptures and backing away from the fissures in the colonial discourse that responsibility he left you with […] render hegemonic power less than you are running away from the total are well worth celebrating, but position your chi has given you and to overlook the hardships that leaving it for a woman your husband emanate from the various types of inherited from your brother [Adaku, interstices, as instantiated in the NnuEgo’s co-Wife], a woman who we case of Nnu Ego, is to miss a here all know to be very ambitious fundamental element of social […]. What to you think you are contestation, Conversely, doing? […] You have done your duty representations of unqualified to your father […]. Now it is to your desolation coupled with pure lack of husband that you should go.”(158). agency do not entirely square with the complex texture of lived The difficult, haunted life experiences. It is perhaps the space of Nnu Ego has its own haunting between the absolutes- between the effect on the reader. Emecheta’s exuberant jouissance that portrayal is bleak indeed, and characterize some readings of resistant in the afterlife leaves little resistance, on the one hand, and the hope or inapiration for the living. decimating pain that attends loss This returns us to the contrasting and turbulent, sometimes violent, tones and emphases in Emecheta’s change, on the other- with which we and Bhabha’s endeavors. How are might concern ourselves. Attention we as readers to negotiate Bhabha’s to this interstice resists simplistic celebratory theorization of the and polarized formulations that colonial relationship and its much feature the colonized ad either more desolate fictional rendering by

89 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 implied victor or vanquished victim Philosophy of Culture. Oxford: and commits us to mining for and Oxford UP, 1992. teasing out the ambiguous, 5. Amadiume, Ifi. Male Daughters, contingent, and blurred contacts Female Husbands: Gender and Sex between colonizer and colonized. In in an African Society. London: Zed, this uneasy interstice between 1987. Bhabha and Emecheta, we may very well determine the outlines of “Complex Personhood” situated within an equally complicated cultural terrain. Phantom-like, troubling, and elusive though it may be, this formidable issue is one well worth grappling with pursuing – not one from which we should run away like Nnu Ego.

References

1. Emecheta, Buchi. The joys of Motherhood. Oxford Heinemann, 1979.

2. Bhabha, Homi. The Location of Culture. New York: Routledge, 1994.

3. Armah, Ayi Kwei. The Beautiful ones are not yet Born. Oxford Heinemann, 1968.

4. Appiah, Kwame Anthony. In my Father’s House: African in the

90 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014

CASTE DISCRIMINATION ON ARUNDATI ROY’S THE GOD OF SMALL THINGS

V.Kavitha B.Rajesh Kumar Research Scholar Research Scholar Department of English Department of English Andhra University, Visakhapatnam Andhra University, Visakhapatnam

Evolution of Dalit literature not a caste” he is a man exploited has a great historical connotation in by the social and economic India. Traditionally Indian society traditions of his country. He doesn’t is organised by caste or (varna’s). It believe in god, rebirth, soul, holy provides to the individual an books, teaching separatism fate and identity in the locality. The Hindu heaven because they have made Society has been traditionally him a slave. “He does believe in devided into four varnas. In modern Humanism”, Dalit is a symbol of times Hindu society is much more “change and revolution”. Dalits are complex with thousands of castes. come from the poor communities Castism may defined as the who under the Indian caste system discrimination of persons on the were considered to be “untouchable” basis of castes, especially the upper and “downtrodden”. caste people treating themselves as Here in this paper I examine superior and others as inferior or how dalits are suffered in society. dalits. Most appropriate definition The entire novel shows the focal of dalit is given by Gangadhar event of the novel is a socially pantawane a professor of Marathi transgresive and ultimately doomed at milind college and founder and love affair between Ammu and low- editor of Asmitadarsh(mirror of caste carpenter velutha. A person identity) the organ of Dalit born into particular caste. Caste literature. He said “To me dalit is determines your position and 91 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 function in society. Dalits were not caste system is unique to india and free to choose any profession he so Ambedkar also pointed out that likes. The low caste people were not in india not only the division of allowed to acquire wealth, land, and labour. But also division of Education. No one can change their labourers, social status, and caste. Marriage is often restricted occupation of a person. with caste. So it is frowned upon to The novel is stuffed with marry outside your caste. Within illustrations of caste politics. The each caste there are many sub dizygotic twins are let known their castes or (jati). Even more tightly grandmother mammachi “when defined social groups defined by paravans were expected to crawl birth, marriage and occupation. The backward with a broom, sweeping higher your caste, the more away their foot-prints so that privileges and benefits. The lower Brahmin and Christians wouldn’t caste the more menial work and defile themselves by accidentally status. stepping into a paravan’s foot print. A large number of people in In mammachi time, paravans, like traditional India were kept outside other untouchables were not of the chaturvarna system. In the allowed to walk on public roads, not olden days untouchability was allowed to cover their upper bodies, practices against them. During the not allowed to carry umbrellas. british rule they were called They had to put their hands over scheduled caste, the term scheduled their polluted breath away from caste was first used in the those whom they addressed.” government of Indian act 1935 . This amply reveals how a Dr .B.R.Ambeddakar wrote sensation of abhorrence and in one essay “why the Dalit people dominance is installed in children, lived outside of the village “. the who are rather naive to comprehend

92 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 all these racial myths. Writer On counter by the police pushed out attacks the society ridden with of the house by her own sibling, untouchbility. vexed at searching for a job for mere livelihood and found dead after Inequalities in wealth and some time in a lodge. She is land ownership are largely undoubtedly a dalit though she was responsible for the persistence of born in caste family. When velutha caste problem in India. The social falls a victim to the police cruelty and economic relationship in and dies in the night. Roy describes traditional India highly unequal. his death “The God of loss, The God Although the lower caste people of small things “. he left no foot print foiled hard for generations together in sand, no ripples in water, no they did not have the ownership image in mirror. They do not realise over the land they cultivated. They that is doing so, they are trying to led a life of bonded labourers and dismantle the traditional rules put serfs. While situation has improved down by the so called protectors of during the last 10years. Their Indian culture. For ammu and general conditions remains far from velutha caste on status do not satisfaction. matter. The historical truth reflected Attitude changes are in Arundati roy’s “ The God of Small necessary to remedy this situation. Things” The women protagonist One welcome feature is the growing who is born in upper Syrian resistance from the victims and the Christian and died on untouchable. tendency to assent their When a women is deprived of higher constitution and legal rights. For education, harassed by husband, the depressed classes like tribals neglected divorce and moreover and those destined to live in the loer unlawfully imprisoned in home. rungs of social hierarchy literature While her beloved is killed in fake.

93 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 had always been means to achieve Distributors, 2000. ISBN 81-7156- “self-respect”. 887-4. Excerpts

This literature encapsulate 4. Arundhati Roy’s The God of small things: a reader’s guide, by Julie the pain, humiliation and poverty Mullaney. Published by Continuum of this community. Which has lived International Publishing Group, at the bottom of india’s social 2002. ISBN 0-8264-5327-9. pyramid for millennia. These are 5. Reading Arundhati Roy’s The God truly inspiring book that reveals of Small Things, by Carole Froude- untouchable quest for dignity and Durix, Jean-Pierre Durix. Published the recognition of their human by Editions universitaires de Dijon, worth, rather than to india’s own 2002. ISBN 2-905965-80-0,. success in eradicating the evils of 6. Arundhati Roy’s The god of small the caste system. things: a critical appraisal, by Amar References : Nath Prasad. Published by Sarup & Sons, 2004. ISBN 81-7625-522-X. 1. Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things: Critique and Commentary, 7. Derozio To Dattani: Essays in by R. S. Sharma, Shashi Bala Talwar. Criticism, by Sanjukta Das. Published by Creative Books, 1998. Published by Worldview ISBN 81-86318-54-2. Publications, 2009. ISBN 81-86423- 19-2 2. Explorations: Arundhati Roy’s the God of small things, by Indira Bhatt, 8. The God of Small Things: A Novel Indira Nityanandam. Published by of Social Commitment, by Amitabh Creative Books, 1999. ISBN 81- Roy. Published by Atlantic 86318-56-9. Publishers & Distributors, 2005. ISBN 81-269-0409-7. Excerpts 3. The God of Small Things: A Saga of Lost Dreams, by K. V. Surendran. 9. Arundhati Roy’s The god of small Published by Atlantic Publishers & things, by Alex Tickell. Published by

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Routledge, 2007. ISBN 0-415- 35843-4. Excerpts

10. Caste and The God of Small Things Emory University.

11. The God of Small Things, Chapter One – Paradise Pickles and Preserves New York Times

95 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 WHY GIRLS RIGHT MATTERS? TABOOS, HARMFUL TRADITIONS OF SOCIAL INEQUALITY

Teshome Tola Turo Research Scholar English Department Andhra University, Visakhapatnam

Introduction behavior. In the same culture, as useful practices exist, there are also Background harmful practices. This paper deals Ethiopia, one of the countries with how some traditions affect in the east of Africa, has a diverse young girls’ right particularly in mix of many ethnic groups with their early childhood in some local nearly 80 languages. As it has a communities in Ethiopia. These diverse mix of ethnic groups such as traditions include family oriented Oromo, Amara, Tigre, and Sidama “Do’s” and “Don’ts”. It also presents and so on, in each ethnic group and how parent son preference affects in the country as a whole, there exist the girls’ right and educational a number of traditions, customs and achievements. norms. These cultures, traditions, Objectives values and norms which have the power of unifying and tying The objective of this study is communities together are to disclose the concealed but harmful transmitted from generation to traditional practices which generation. The traditions and particularly violate the right of customs a given society believes to young girls in some local be helpful are therefore preserved communities of Ethiopia. These for the next generation because traditions exist in the form of Do’s cultural and social norms are highly and Don’ts and have been supported influential in shaping individual by different taboos. More specific

96 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 objective is to describe how such - Communities adhere to harmful harmful practices like taboos related traditional cultural practices to food, play, fart, and circumcision such as genital mutilation or are contributing to the violation of child marriage e.g. Nigeria, girl’s right, and how parents’ son Sudan, Somali, Ethiopia preference affects the girls’ right and b. Intimate Partner Violence their educational achievements. - A man has a right to assert power Review of Literature over a woman and is socially Harmful practices are violent superior. A man has a right to or devastating acts against one’s “correct” or discipline female. natural right. They may wreck the e.g. India, Nigeria, Ghana. physical and psychological health - A woman is responsible for and integrity of individuals (WHO, making a marriage work 1996). The social norms can protect e.g. Israel against violence but they can also Intimate partner violence is a support and encourage violence. - taboo subject. e.g. South WHO (2009) listed many cultures Africa and reporting abuse is and norms that support violence disrespectful e . g . across the world. Only few which are Nigeria related to this paper are cited here under. Here are the examples of - Divorce is shameful e . g . norms and the violence it supports. Pakistan a. Child Treatment Violence - A man’s honor is linked to a woman’s sexual behavior. Here, - Female children are valued less any deviation from sexual norms in society than males e . g . disgraces the entire family, Peru

97 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 which can then lead to honor as noted in Boyden et al (2012) the killings e.g. Jordan 1995 Federal Constitution prohibits laws, customs and practices that c. Sexual Violence oppress or cause bodily or mental Sex is a man’s right in marriage - harm to women. The 1997 Federal e.g. Pakistan. Cultural policy also mentions the - Sexual violence is an acceptable need to abolish harmful traditional way of putting women in their practices. However, regardless of the place or punishing them e.g. measures taken, some harmful South Africa traditions persist violating the girls’ right often supported by taboos. - Sexual activity (including rape) is a marker of masculinity Harmful practices generally e.g. South Africa have some cultural, social or

(WHO, 2009:5) religious foundation (SRSG, 2013). Social tolerance of violent behavior Ethiopia has also been is likely learned during childhood, quoted as a country that long been through the use of corporal known for exercising genital punishment or witnessing violence mutilation, early marriage, male in the family or in other settings. In over female domination, gender Ethiopia, the socially transmitted inequality such as high son values, cultures, norms and preference (Almaz, E, 1991; costumes have partly helped society Teshome, 2002; Hirut, 2004). The and partly made them handicapped. Ethiopian government strongly Females are the disadvantaged social opposes female genital cutting and group just in similar way as other early marriage, designating them as African countries. In Ethiopia, men Harmful Traditional Practices and and women seem to have clearly proscribing them in law. For example defined roles. Traditionally men

98 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 have been responsible for providing differences between males and for the family and for dealing with females result in discriminatory family contact outside the home rewards, statuses, opportunities and whereas women have been roles as shall be discussed below. The responsible for domestic work and differences in the ways in which looking after children. Parents treat individuals are treated through the their children quite in a different socialization process lead to the manner; they give more freedom to development of real psychological sons than daughters. and personality differences between males and females (Almaz, 1991). As of the tradition, Ethiopian men neither cook nor do shopping Traditions are often and housework because such protected by taboos, according to activities are regarded as women’s SRSG (2013) are strong social bans job. Women are considered to be related to human activity or social subordinate to their husbands. For custom based on moral judgment instance, a female informant in Arsi and religious beliefs. Ethiopia has (One of the regional state Zone in both beneficial and harmful Ethiopia), as Hirut (2004) noted, traditional practices. The helpful stated that a man is a big person who traditional practices such as has higher social position and breastfeeding, relieving women from knowledge, who can govern others work before and after delivery, and think in wider perspectives; providing special care and a while a woman is a person who can nutritious diet for a newly delivered serve a man, who is like the mother are few examples. Harmful husband’s object transferred traditional practices are those through marriage, and whom a customs that are known to have bad husband can do anything he wishes effects on health, equality and social to do. These socially induced rights. Those harmful practices

99 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 indicated in different literature protected by taboos. Families use (Lott, 1987; Hirut, 2004; Ashenafi, most of these practices as a rule to 2003) commonly mentioned in other teach their children grow African countries and other parts of behaviorally good by getting aware the world are also found in Ethiopia of the wrong and right social norms. like genital mutilation (FGM), early They are harmful acts but persist marriage, and marriage by because they are often not either abduction, forced marriage, questioned or are a deep-rooted polygamy, menstruation and social value that can’t be altered in Nutritional taboo. These are the short course of time. most and widely known harmful Taboo Related to Play practices on which tremendous Studies have shown that measures have been taken. The recreation plays a vital part in a following harmful traditions are also child’s emotional and mental widely performed clandestinely development. When time for play is (undercover though not publicly) found by girls, it often takes place and persist regardless of measures near the home. Young boys, however, or withstanding the measures taken have full right and are allowed to go on it for having strong and deep- for any play outside the home. When rooted acceptance by the society. girls wanted to have any play of their Concealed Harmful Traditions interest, they need to hide in Ethiopia somewhere and play in a secret, but, There are some traditional unfortunately, if found doing it, then practices that initiate the they are blamed of evil play not maltreatment of female children in allowed, they shall be cursed, remote part of Ethiopia so far used intimidated and penalized. Because as the Do’s and Don’ts. These they violate the norms, they play like harmful practices are often

100 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 male. Then question comes aren’t conceive on her knee or urinates in they circumcised? her stand. A girl should not eat too much. To protect female from eating Taboos Related to Excretion too much males including father tell The other funny practice a proverb, “ one ‘enjera’ is a lunch allowed for the boys but shame for for male but one is to search spoon the girls is being found farting. for a lady and two is her lunch.” This While a normal man/woman is just to warn her not to be a belly. biologically expected to fart 14- 20 After having either breakfast, lunch times a day (Clark and Kumar, 2005) or dinner it is a shame for a girl to it is like a curse for a lady to fart and belch as it is forbidden to do in the may be penalized. If the father hears presence of any elders. If a father the whistling fart belongs to lady he hears his daughter belching, he soon scolds, “you donkey come and shit insults, “You dog, come and vomit on my head!’ soon the mother may before me!” So to cleanse from such pinch, kick, or corporally punish her. a curse she needs to eat very small To this opposite, very surprisingly, amount, chewing in only one of her the family members feel very happy check so slowly, as expected. when sons fart and it’s assumed Taboo as reinforcing blessing that the children eat to their Circumcision satisfactions. According to vast literature, Taboo Related to Food for example Boyden et al (2012) the The other traditions girls not main reason for circumcision are, to allowed to do at family level is constrain from errant sexual drinking water standing. No girl is behavior and ensure purity, or allowed to drink water while otherwise, according to Ashenafi standing. This is because it is the (2003), uncircumcised girl is act of a male and if she does she will unclean, remain standing, damage

101 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 house furniture, and so blood of Within a family, we have seen circumcision washout disease. With different social inequality, this and previously mentioned particularly gender inequalities in concealed traditions, the society the examples raised so far. One of the relate with circumcision so as to give manifestations is gender-based firm stand the practice should exist. discrimination that is the son’s Thus, a girl found quarrelling, preference in the family. A number jumping, struggling with calves or of literatures indicate that it is a doing anything like her counterpart, common practice in most African boy, shows also the warning sign of and Asian countries to have more being uncircumcised and assumed son preference than girls. Where it she has totally gone out of way. This is mostly concerned, the educational is why it is believed that and economic implications of son uncircumcised girls are assumed to preference are so serious. run wild, are considered to bring The following traditional shame and disgrace to her parents. practice depicts the son preference Fortunately, the uncircumcised ones over girls in Ethiopia. On functional even may also refrain from free plays ceremonies like “Atete” in some as equal as male because of the Oromo communities, the boys are interpretation follows it. These Do’s told to see towards inside of their and Don’ts grow as sinful behavior home and the girls to see towards in their late college or university outside of the house. This is to show education particularly while boys remain home even after enforced to express themselves marriage and has an indication of freely. belongingness for the family forever. Son Preference as a Cause of The girl, however, as she will leave Social Inequality for marriage in the future, her membership is disregarded and lack

102 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 such belongingness. On similar reinforced throughout life (WHO occasions, abided to such norms and 1996). Ethiopian society is socialized perceptions, girls serve with foods in such a way that girls are held and drinks to the whole member of inferior to boys. In the process of the family including boys even the upbringing, as clearly noted by younger ones and eat after males. To Haregewoin and Emebet (2003) and that worst, it is not only eating after Hirut (2004) boys are expected to the rest of the family, they may eat learn and become self-reliant, major the left over or may receive food of bread winners, and responsible in lower nutritional value. different activities, while girls are brought up to conform, be obedient WHO (1996) indicates that and dependent, and specialize in preference for sons is a powerful indoor activities like cooking, tradition. WHO explains this washing clothes, fetching water, preference manifests itself in caring for children, etc. Thus, such neglect, deprivation, and gender-based discrimination no discriminatory treatment of matter girls reach even university in daughters to the detriment of their their adolescent would have a physical and mental health. In serious negative impact in their South-Asia, a son-preference leads to educational and at large their life abortion of girls in India success. (Rangamuthia et al, 1997) and additional children if the first born Impact of the Harmful Practices is a girl said (Hatleback, 2012:1). Playing like male, eating like Male preference, as mentioned by a male, drinking like male, sitting Hatlebakk , adversely affects like male, farting like male, spitting, females through inequitable belching, etc are all what a girl is allocation of food, education, and humiliated for. These embarrassing health care, a disparity frequently traditions have negative cumulative

103 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 impact on her humanly moral and call attention of worldly effort such education while she grew up in such as early marriage, genital a manner in all educational setting mutilation, abduction, raping etc are including university. No doubt that pacing towards the control. Despite her fate would be resulted in lacking international and national efforts to confidence and self-esteem, eradicate them, those traditions admitting inequality, powerless to which are harmful to girls addressed decide her own future, lack of so far, are being practiced autonomy, failing to reclaim her undercover though not publicly. own right or to get freedom from One way to mold children such a concealed home right with good practice is to mock on violence. No semesters education these harmful practices and present could easily freed her from such best examples as a model. What firmly entrenched norms. This has parents teach their children and an inbuilt psychological pressure what children read, see, and learn when they come to university and from adults, from one another, and feel shy in group formation such as the media, is also what teachers free talk, cooperative and peer typically model in the schools and feedback in writing. reinforce in the behavior of the Conclusion and children in their classes (Lott, Recommendation 1987:64). Teachers are the important figures, as central as the In Ethiopian case in the textbook in actively transmitting current two decades a number of messages about gender. This is not measures have been taken and there something done only in primary or have been fruitful results. Though secondary school; it should extend to such certain localities based all levels. The frequent harassment practices still generate and and core source of frustration and regenerate, those severe ones which

104 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 nervousness we often encounter in generation shall be free of such universities is the cumulative effect underground operations. As the of these practices, too. traditional socialization is the product of patriarchal social system, Men and women have to the ball (power to decide) is in the refuse and avoid all the harmful court of men; therefore, raising the customs and traditions. These level of male awareness by should include the following motto. employing them in gender Girls should no more be forced to inequality at home, office, religious, learn such gender role socialization institutions, has paramount effect. which disregard their humanly right making them second citizen or References: prepare themselves to be ‘good’ wife 1. Almaz, E. (1991). Perspectives on and mother. Rather they should be Gender and Development. In: given rights to study well their Tsehai Berhane Selassie (Ed.) education, right to challenge GenderIssues in Ethiopia. Institute hardship, right to aspire leadership, of Ethiopian Studies. Addis Ababa University, Addis Ababa. right to have a far sighted vision. Girls should not suffer from the 2. Ashenafi M. (2003). FGM – MYTHS man-made customs, like that of early AND JUSTIFICATIONS: Eighth International Metropolis marriage, polygamy, and the do’s Conference Vienna, September 15- and don’ts traditional rules. 19, 2003 To do these, there should be 3. Boyden, J., Pankhurst, A. and inter-institutional interaction such Yishak, T. (2012). Harmful as family and school, family and Traditional Practices and Child local governors, family and religious Protection:Contested leaders to uncover the concealed but Understandings and Customs of harmful practice that impede Female Early Marriage and Genital inequality so that the coming Cutting in Ethiopia. http://

105 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 www.tandfonline.com/toc/cdip20/ Learning, Brooks/Cole Publishing current March 9, 2014 Company, Monterey, California.

4. Clark, Kumar, M. (2005). Kumar & 9. SRSG. ( 2013). Violence against Clark clinical medicine (6th ed. Children: Protecting Children from ed.). Edinburgh: Elsevier Saunders. Harmful practice in plural legal.

p. 266. Online resource: http://srsg. Flatulence#Normal_flatus_volume_ violenceagainstchildren.org/page/ and_intestinal_gas_dynamics 850#sthash.XH8zJaP8.dpuf

5. Haregewoin ,C. , Emebet, M. (2003). 10. Teshome, N. (2002). Low Towards Gender equality in Participation of Female Students in Ethiopia. A Profile of Gender Primary Education: A Case Study Relations.Swedish International of Dropouts from the Amhara and Development Cooperation Agency. Oromia Regional States in Ethiopia. UNESCO, IICBA 6. Hatlebakk, M. (2012). Son- preference, number of children, 11. World Health Organization. ( 2009). education and occupational choice Changing cultural and social norms in rural Nepal: CMI Working Paper. that support violence http:// WP 2012: 8, www.who.int/ violenceprevention/ 7. Hirut, T. (2004). Violence Against publications/ en/index.html Women in Ethiopia: A Strong Case of Civil Society Concern. 12. World Health Organization. (1996). In:Chowdhury, S., Wais, A., and Female Genital Cutting: A Joint Kahsai Wolde Giorgis (Eds) Civil WHO/UNICEF/UNFPA Statement. Society in Ethiopia: Reflections on http://www.advocatesforyouth.org/ Realities and Perspectives of Hope. publications/521?task=view African – Asian Studies Promotion Association.

8. Lott . (1987) Women’s Lives: Themes and Variations in Gender

106 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 SELF REALIZATION TO SELF ACTUALIZATION

U.Girija Research Scholar Department of English Andhra University, Visakhapatnam

In Indian English writing, Room of one’s own “.she drama is sparsely cultivated field. acknowledges that all women ought Consciously the fear of women to let flowers fall upon the tomb of intruding into the boundaries of Aphra behn ,for it is she who earned writing plays might have trigged the them the right to speak their minds. men writers not to encourage Though there are less women venturing into the dramatic number of women dramatists, but creation. It is almost impossible to still one can find some silverling in trace out the women dramatists the clouded atmosphere of Indian from the Sophocles to Shakespeare English drama. The foremost as there is no mention of them in playwright is Bharati Sarabhai literary history. There arouse a followed by Mrinalini sarabhai, women dramatist, Aphra behn, a Swarna kumara devi , Ghoshal, friend of john Dryden who earned Smt.k.b.thakur , shanta rama rao her livelihood by writing plays. She and few others. Sarabhai has to her challenged the dominant literary credit, two Plays : “The Well of the men and dared to write and establish people (1943) and two women herself as no other woman could do (1948).In the play “the well of the ever before .she became the mother people” the writer tries to give a new of all women writers around the meaning to age old beliefs and world. Virginia woolf hail from customs. She projects a picture of contribution of Aphra behn and synthesis of religion and social pays tribute to her in the essay “A service. Sarabhai uses this story for

107 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 her play with her personal yeatsian influence is seen in the symbolism and crafts it into the opening line, contemporary social and political Things take sudden shape. (wp) situations of Indian society. The well of the people has its As Dr.premananda kumar origin in the Haridwar kumba mela. says, “It is a bold attempt on the part In 1938 Bharati sarabhai was of Bharati sarabhai to have taken up touched by a story that appeared in a challenge to present a spiritual Harijan, (wp preface) a Weekly problem in terms of physical action, journal edited by Gandhi. An old she achieves success not because she woman fails to achieve her ambition controls the use of symbols and at of going on pilgrimage to kasi and the same time avoids. the monotony Haridwar and she decides to please of a long vague story. What she has god by building a well for “THE Choosen is also a simple theme.” UNTOUCHABLES”in her village (nanda kumar 254). This play is one with her savings. Sarabhai has taken of the first plays in Indian English up the bold task of merging themes- drama by a woman, set in the pre- social, individual, political, mystical independence period. The Vedantic and philosophical. The play comes concept that god is within, is in a period when the term” presented in the story. Sarabhai was FEMINISM” was unheard of in the the only woman playwright of pre- Orient. A study of the work “THE independent times. though the WELL OF THE PEOPLE” is theme of the play is social reform, attempted in this article. the verse contains the mysticsm of It is evident that the story is kabir, The kabir philosophy of the symbolic charged with Gandhi’s Tagore, the romanticism of socio-political ideologies, The wordsworth and keats and keats Saviour of all these people is and the symbolism of .T.S Eliot,

108 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 Gandhi. He is a prophet, who has Rani is the first female come to show the right path to the protagnanist in Indian English piligrm who has to show the right drama. She is a Maithili behari path to the pilgrim who has wrong Brahmin widow with out enough visions. “THE WELL OF THE money to go to beneras and kasi . PEOPLE” is the poetic and symbolic Rani like mother India is old with and seems to He influenced by centuries of age behind her and but Gandhi’s thoughts. The workers with the burden of tradition and says that Gandhi is the saviour. culture. Metaphorical,zyrical and philosophical significances beautify the “Oh,Who to be our saviour, Who to the new visionary I am not see benares, god doesnot Paring his eyes discover Push a sick vessel like this body to This Stark,Bare Pageanty?(wp 29) Each post of earthly piligrimage, The play has no act or scene always division. it is poetic and symbolic To full and fill, still stop and fill to and sarabhai’s ideals move from full, specific to general, from the old But my soul,my free swan,can woman to the suffering Bring indeed humanityand to the children of Dust On a small well, with water .A voice is heard giving the pure as mother ganga.(WP 41) philosophy of life: Rani is also the spokes woman of gandhian ideas . she is “Why do you go to Haridwar, to physically weak but mentally strong Kasi, in spirit. Rani’s condition is pathetic my soul ,when i am within? as she has lost her husband and son Piligrim, piligrim, which ,what is it .she lived by weaving Dhaka you seek muslin which had become a dying Outside.? (W P 22).

109 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 art. she worked for twenty years and water of that could be as pure as once every seven days she takes the Ganga.The well is not built in life woven threads and sells it and time but there is a promise that it money. With such hard labour she would be done as she had given her saves seventy silver coins and hard earned savings to build a well. dreams, So the karma yogi turns into gnana yogi as realisation dawns her. There With my own eyes I shall see are two scenes the village scene and benares the haridwar scene which are in And my husband and will total contrast representing modern Reap salvation(WP 37) british india and india of epic. The The woman wants to go with poor peasants are crushed the intention of bringing moksha to constantly by one oppressor after the the souls of her dead husband and other feudal- lords,moughul rulers, son but with her broken leg she and the british, the women are the cannot make it to the benares.No worst lotand they are helpless as in one risk making the long journey theseimage with her. She is loud voiced but kind- hearted. She bathes in the river and “Generations crushed him,bullied cooks her food o its banks. Helpless in his mother’s stomach.”(wp 25) The Darshan sight of And Brocaded land lord with Gandhi, who comes on foot to tenant’s disgorged wife”.(WP 25) mithila, the mythological city of THE characters chetan, sita’s birth inspires Rani. She lifts sanatan and vichitra represent a harijan sweeper boy who is younger generations.they are straining to see Gandhi.The boy Gandhi an workers. Chetan is reminds her of her own son and it is cynical in his attitude towards the then she decides to build a well near women.He expresses actuality that the temple of her own village and

110 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 no miracles happen inspite of the of the poor out caste is mentioned n long piligrimage .If untouchability the line, marginalised one section of the “Better the cow that society,the women were twice scavengers”(WP 24) moved from the main stream –one Like cow, the well is also an by the caste and then by their integral part of the hindu culture gender. The writer further describes and tradition. IT IS not only the the pathetic conditions of the source of life but also a strange force women. in sustaining the caste order and the “Doorless, windowless mud raised source through which the upper 1.Huts exposed old and yound and caste can deprived the untouchables child woman and exercise the power, authority Pottering about and men scarce, and superiority over them. A wonderful common well for all the communities As peacocks .”(WP 34). invalidates the caste based power The villagers were full of politics and helps to remove widows as mentioned in the play as untouchability and this revolution there was no widow-remarraige. comes from a womens of higher The poor women were the once who caste. The play highlights a moral suffered the most. Rani has taken message that doing service to up the her clean task of building a mankind by making available to common well in the premises of the many people the very source of life, temple with the intension of water. breaking the barriers of caste and It’s carries a very strong also allowing harijans into contemporary appeal and his highly mainstream society. The class and per formative with it’s vivid the caste conflict, the practice of dramatic aspects. The women’s untouchability and the exploitation

111 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 dying wish was that THE Well “Mother, you will, you will, should be built. From the orthodox Even now your senses love, belief she mores to ADVAITAof Fall and watch, splashing along sankaracharya’s philosophy of god Within .you will live , live lives within every human being and To see the people’s well Gandhi an philosophy to humanity Spell in rose golden walls” (WP 46) .she condemns blind faith and The old woman is not an superstion and casticsm. But the last individual but mother India who stanza the feeling of despondency. wants her children to live as one, and The youth do not take up the work root out will of caste system. Though of building the well immediately. she is ignored as mother India is , They were involved in the freedom she persists in her love for her struggle, they are arrested and children. Like the river and the well await the time for conditions to she onlY bestows and never become favourable to take up such denies.one realise that from despair idealistic activity. and disappointment comes a social reform which will bring about a new Sarabhai describes the social order. protognanist “these love is filling her pitches from the well yet she has no Sarabhai asserts the truth rope where with to draw that good lives within us and it is a water”.(WP ).The women is full of futile attempt searching for good else love for mankind that she envisions where. Life itself is a piligrimage-a a better life for them but her which search for truth-all reverse have the is not fulfilled as the rope(i.e.) same water, all image of god are society doesn’t lend support to her lifeless ,all scriptures’ are mere to enable to distribute the water of words and the itself is Maya AS love. The chorus pays home as to the KABIR SAY’S , great woman,

112 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 “I laugh when I Hear that fish in References: water is thirsty “ (w p 23). 1. Dr.Premanandh kumar,

Meaning that god is everywhere, is “Barathi sarabhai’s English plays, critical essays on Indian as and around us. The old woman writing in English. 283 can be considered as a representative of all woman in India 2. Bharati sarabhai’s , “THE WELL OF THE PEOPLE” P.2 . Sarabhai’s ideas and aspirations are thus mouthed by the protagonist t, Rani. India is a mother to her ,neglected by her son and she is troubled. But she consoles herself that a mother can never be destroyed. Mothersource of sustenance to her children. Finally she says it is not haridwar that a true Bhaktha that must aim at is humanism and social service that brings real moksha by washing away sin’s. The path of idealism is the path of moksha. The journey to holy place are dip in the gang doesn’t bring salvation. Hence, Service to mankind is service to god. The story /play gives us a clear picture of how spirituality had been transformed to humanity.

113 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014

THE CONTOURS OF VIOLENCE AND ATROCITIES ON THE MARGINALIZED COMMUNITIES

Ch Sampath Kumar Research Scholar Department of English Andhra University, Visakhapatnam

Dalits in India live a the police and of higher-caste precarious existence, shirked by groups that enjoy the state’s their own society because of their protection. Dalit women are rank as “untouchables” or Dalits, frequent victims of sexual abuse. In literally meaning “broken” people, what has been called India’s at the bottom of India’s caste “hidden apartheid,” entire villages system. in many Indian states remain completely segregated by caste. “For the word of God is living and National legislation and active, sharper than any two-edged constitutional protections serve only sword, piercing to the division of to mask the social realities of soul and spirit, of joints and discrimination and violence. Caste marrow, and discerning the clashes, particularly in the states of thoughts and intentions of the Bihar and Tamil Nadu, but also in heart.” (Hebrews, 4:10) Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Dalits are razored by the Karnataka, and Gujarat, reflect serrated edges, the upper caste and patterns which are common to the government, on both sides, like many parts of the country: a loss of a double-edged sword that faith in the state machinery and discriminated against, denied increasing intolerance of their access to land, forced to work in abusive treatment have led many degrading conditions, and routinely Dalit communities into movements abused, even killed, at the hands of

114 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 to claim their rights. In response, arrested and tortured in custody as state and private actors have a means of punishing their male engaged in a pattern of repression relatives who are hiding from the to preserve the status quo. The authorities. Dalits, who dare to report also documents the challenge the social order, have government’s attempts to been subject to abuses by their criminalize peaceful social activism higher-caste neighbors. Dalit through the arbitrary arrest and villages are collectively penalized detention of Dalit activists, and its for individual “transgressions” failure to abolish exploitative labor through social boycotts, including practices and implement relevant loss of employment and accesstor legislation. water, grazing lands, and ration shops. For most Dalits in rural India “Untouchables” or Dalits, who earn less than a subsistence literally meaning “broken” people, living as agricultural laborers, a at the bottom of India’s caste social boycott may mean destitution system.Dalits are discriminated and starvation. against, denied access to land, forced to work in degrading In India’s southern states, conditions, and routinely abused, thousands of girls are forced into even killed, at the hands of the prostitution before reaching the age police and of higher-caste groups of puberty. Devadasis, literally that enjoy the state’s protection. meaning “female servant of god,” Dalit women are frequent victims of usually belong to the Dalit sexual abuse. In what has been community. Once dedicated, the girl called India’s “hidden apartheid.” 1 is unable to marry, forced to become a prostitute for upper-caste Like other Indian women community members, and whose relatives are sought by the eventually auctioned off to an urban police, Dalit women have also been

115 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 brothel.Bhanwari Devi’s case is a retaliation for her intervention in typical example of the influence of the child marriage. Upon caste bias on the justice system and approaching the police, Bhanwari the inability of lower-caste women was told, however, that she was too to obtain redress. It is also a striking old and unattractive to merit the example of rape as a weapon of attentions of young men. retaliation used to punish and The trial judge acquitted the silence women’s rights advocates. accused on the reasoning that “rape The nature of the district judge’s is usually committed by teenagers, opinion sounded many alarms, and and since the accused are middle- the case itself was taken up by aged and therefore respectable, several women’s rights they could not have committed the organizations in north India. crime. An upper-caste man could Bhanwari Devi joined the not have defiled himself by raping Rajasthan Government’s Women’s a lower-caste woman.”45 Those Development Programme (WDP), accused of raping Bhanwari also called Sathin, in 1985 as a enjoyed political support. BJP grassroots worker.44 In April 1992 leader Kanhaiya Lal Meena she reported the child marriage of reportedly organized a rally in the one-year-old daughter of Ram support of the accused.46 As of Karan Gurjar to WDP authorities. February 1999,Bhanwari was still The police came to the village and in court appealing the acquittal. tried to stop the marriage, but the Bhanwari’s case, and in family proceeded with the ceremony particular the manner in which it in secret. On September 22, 1992, was handled by the police and the in the presence of her husband, courts, is not an isolated incident. Bhanwari was gang raped by Cases at all levels have the potential members of the Gurjar family in to be influenced by the judge’s

116 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 personal perceptions of caste and Unity people had a split.152 A few gender that are brought to bear in people leftthem and gave determining the credibility of information about party activities to evidence or the likelihood of guilt. landlords. The landlords contacted The case material that follows, RanvirSena in Bhojpur, saying that though not specific to the report, is they needed help controlling them. intended to illustrate the The RanvirSena came out at 4:00 atmosphere of prejudice that Dalit p.m. They ate and drank liquor with women face – both as Dalits and as the landlords and attacked at 9:00 women. These biases are pervasive p.m. They had a list of whom to all the way to the top of the legal attack but got drunk and killed system. The few cases that manage anyone and everyone.153 to reach the Supreme Court still do The activists also claimed not escape these deep-seated that the purpose of Bathe was “to prejudices. teach others not to rebel or raise a According to members of voice. In so doing women became Bihar Dalit VikasSamiti, a vulnerable and were sexually grassroots organization, the events assaulted... They raped women and that unfolded in Bathe were more cut off their breasts. A woman complex than a random attack on a whose pregnancy was nearly Dalit hamlet: complete was shot in the stomach. They said that otherwise the child CPI was organizing in Bathe will grow up to be a rebel.”154 because the residents were so poor and exploited, they couldn’t even “The caste system is an feed themselves after a full day’s economic order. It prevents work. When they asked for more someone from owning land or wages, they were beaten down even receiving an education. It is a more. Some CPI (M-L) and Party vicious cycle and an exploitative

117 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 economic arrangement. andowning As part of village custom, Dalits are patterns and being a high-caste made to render free services in member are co-terminous. Also times of death, marriage, or any there is a nexus between [being] village function. During the lower-caste and landlessness... Marama village festival in Caste is a tool to perpetuate Karnataka state, caste Hindus force exploitative economic Dalits to sacrifice buffalos and drink arrangements.” their blood. They then have to mix the blood with cooked rice and run – R. Balakrishnan, chairman, Tamil into the village fields without their Nadu Commission for Scheduled chappals (slippers). The cleaning of Castes and Scheduled Tribes27 the whole village, the digging of constitutional provisions and legal graves, the carrying of firewood, and texts exist to abolish untouchability the disposal of dead animals are all and to protect the members of the tasks that Dalits are made to scheduled castes and tribes but the perform.26 policies adopted to improve the As Human Rights Watch situation of members of the was told by a government scheduled castes and tribes and to investigator in Tamil Nadu, one protect them from abuses are far doesn’t practice untouchability beyond practice. Basic supplies such when it comes to sex.”36 Rape is a as water, and medical facilities and common phenomenon in rural the better, thatched-roof houses are areas. Women are raped as part of denied to them by the upper caste. caste custom or village tradition. “Untouchability” is further According to Dalit activists, Dalit reinforced by state allocation of girls have been forced to have sex facilities in which dalits often with the village landlord.37 In rural receive almost next to nothing if areas, “women are induced into they receive any at all.25

118 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 prostitution (Devadasi system)..., women. Dalit women are easy which is forced on them in the name targets for any perpetrator because of religion.”38 The prevalence of upper castes consider them to be rape in villages contributes to the “sexually available” and because greater incidence of child marriage they arelargely unprotected by the in those areas. Early marriage state machinery. The BathaniTola between the ages of ten years and massacre in Bihar in 199641 sixteen years persists in large part epitomizes this phenomenon. because of Dalit girls’ vulnerability The “landlords” wanted to to sexual assault by upper-caste reassert their feudal tyranny over men; once a girl is raped, she the poor who have started becoming becomes unmarriageable. Dalit more vocal and by attacking the women are also raped as a form of most vulnerable, women and retaliation. Women of scheduled children, they sent a clear message castes and scheduled tribes are that they would not allow anyone raped as part of an effort by upper- to disturb the social structure... caste leaders to suppress Women were raped and hacked. movements to demand payment of The huts and small houses in which minimum wages, to settle the victims took shelter were burnt sharecropping disputes, or to down. The shrill cries failed to draw reclaim lost land. They are raped by the attention of the police posted a members of the upper caste, by kilometre and a half away because landlords, and by the police in their food came from the landlords’ pursuit of their male relatives. houses.42 Despite overwhelming During the 1960s and 1970s, evidence to the contrary, upper- the Dalit Panthers, and several caste leaders deny the prevalence groups with a Marxist/Leninist or of sexual abuse against Dalit Maoist orientation, emerged outside

119 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 the framework of recognized [Naxalites] have been flashpoints in political parties and parliamentary the agrarian scene in Bihar over the politics to confront the established last fifteen years. This is not a new powers. The Dalit Panthers were phenomenon. What is relatively formed in the state of Maharashtra new however is the entry on the in the 1970s, ideologically aligning rural scene... of a new upper caste themselves to the Black Panther landed organization called the movement in the United States. Ranabir Sena. It has, over the last During the same period, Dalit three years, been responsible for a literature, painting, and theater series of massacres of the rural poor, challenged the very premise and such that the names of obscure nature of established art forms and villages have become known to a their depiction of society and wider public through the national religion. Many of these new Dalit press... artists formed the first generation In a region where tragic of theDalit Panther movement that massacres repeat themselves with sought to wage an organized monotonous regularity, the state’s struggle against the varna system. response is predictable and Dalit Panthers visited “atrocity” misdirected – setting up more police sites, organized marches and rallies camps and increasing the financial in villages, and raised slogans of allocation for anti-Naxalite direct militant action against their operations... The issues remain the upper-caste aggressors.46 same; the landlord army is different The organized killing of poor each time. We are condemned to peasants and landless labourers by reiterate the same demands each middle and upper caste landed time and like some ritual drama armies and [the ensuing] retaliation whose script is familiar to all, the by Marxist-Leninist organizations same events are re-enacted each

120 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 time, drawing the same reactions the victims, including women and from the state... One has to children, have been shot in their remember that the dreadful reality beds while they were sleeping. of bloody massacres are the outcome Members of the senas have also of [the state’s] refusal to address raped women and girls during the basic questions of agrarian struggle. attacks. They have often claimed responsibility for the attacks and – People’s Union for Democratic have even announced beforehand Rights, Agrarian Conflict in Bihar which villages they planned to and the RanbirSena, October target. However, because the senas 199761 enjoy the patronage of powerful The eastern state of Bihar, elites, they operate with impunity. with a population of eighty-six Scheduled castes constitute million people, is notorious for its close to 14 percent of the population poverty and lawlessness. Political in Bihar; most of the agricultural leaders who depend on landed elites laborers belong to these castes.The for support have had little interest implementation of reservations in in pursuing reforms. Wages for favor of the backward castes has agricultural laborers are also improved their status throughout among the lowest in the country. In the state; the same has not held true many districts workers are not paid of scheduled castes whose status in money but instead often work a continues to deteriorate. Central full day for as little as two kilograms Bihar in particular has seen a of rice. consistent rise in abuses against Hundreds of Dalits have scheduled castes since the early been killed in sena attacks since the 1990s at the hands of upper castes early 1990s. The attacks frequently and backward castes who employ take place at night; in many cases, them as laborers on their lands.

121 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 Rapes and murders of Dalit women like kicking us in the stomach. We in particular have reportedly have to save ourselves and our increased during this period.64In crops. We need protection from the districts of central Bihar, Marxist/Leninists. After we got money-lending, bonded labor, together, we began to give them an sexual assaults on rural women, appropriate response, a jaw- and abuse of the landless class by breaking response. For all of landowners have all contributed to Bhojpur district, we chose our men violent clashes between various and from that year on, we have been castes.68 battling with CPI(M-L). Those who have land are with us, and those The RanvirSena was who do not are with them.92 founded by upper-caste Bhumihars in Belaur village, Bhojpur district, On the evening of January in 1994.83 It first made 25, 1999, at least twenty-two Dalit international headlines in July men, women and children were 1996 with its attack on BathaniTola killed in the village of in Bhojpur district, Bihar, which left Shankarbigha, Jehanabad district. nineteen Dalits and Muslims, police ignored early warnings and mostly women and children, dead. supported the upper cast. A little Sixty members of the sena over two weeks after the reportedly descended on the village Shankarbigha massacre, on the and set twelve houses on fire. night of February 10, 1999Dalitswere killed.The police Since 1970 there have been did not arrive until 8:00 a.m. the problems. It has been difficult for following morning.136 farmers. We cannot even get out of our house. They steal our crops and Human Rights Watch also call strikes. We are farmers. That’s interviewed seven female residents how we earn. They destroy that. It’s of the village, many of whom

122 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 witnessed the rape, mutilation and They broke in and tried to murder of five girls. Thirty-two- open our box of valuables. They year-old Surajmani Devi recounted couldn’t so they took my chain and what she saw: earrings off my body. There were ten to twelve of them in the house. Everyone was shot in the They didn’t wear any masks. I said chest. I also saw that the panties I had nothing. They said open were torn. One girl was Prabha. She everything. My mother was shot, was fifteen years old. She was and she fell down. They flashed a supposed to go to her husband’s torch on my face. Then they shot house two to three days later. They me, and I felldown.The police took also cut her breast and shot her in me to the hospital. After a three-day the chest. Another was Manmatiya, operation I came to, and the police also fifteen. They raped her and cut took a report from me. Some people off her breast. The girls were all have been arrested, others are still naked, and their panties were free. They looted all the houses.148 ripped. They also shot them in the vagina. There were five girls in all. At the time of the massacre, All five were raped. All were fifteen Jasudevi was at her husband’s or younger. All their breasts were home in another village. She cut off.147 arrived in Bathe the morning after the attack to find her two sisters- Twenty-five-year-old in-law and her fifteen-year-old niece Mahurti Devi was shot in the shot to death. “My niece was stomach but survived her injuries supposed to go to her husband’s after extensive surgery. She had house the same day. She was returned home after a dispute with expecting a child. When I found her her husband and was living in her it looked like she was trying to run mother’s house. She recalled: away when she was shot.”149

123 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 Seven-year-old Mahesh Kumar was According to members of being held by his mother when she Bihar Dalit VikasSamiti, a was shot. She fell forward and grassroots organization, the events protected his body with her own. that unfolded in Bathe were more She then died.150 complex than a random attack on a Dalit hamlet: Local police had been aware of the possibility of violence long On the morning of April 10, before the Bathe massacre. On 1997, members of the upper caste November 25, 1997, sena leaders gunned down eight residents of openly held a strategy meeting Ekwari village in Bhojpur district seven kilometers away from Bathe. in an operation that lasted two Sena leader ShamsherBahadur hours. Police officers stationed Singh had also been touring the nearby forced open the villagers’ area in the months before the houses and then stood by and massacre openly seeking donations watched as the massacre took place. from supporters. Police officers The partisan role of the claimed to be aware of these police could not have been clearer. meetings but dismissed them as While policemen pried open doors routine – missing yet another of houseslet the killers in... opportunity to intervene and SagarMahato said he saw the police preempt a sena attack. One officer running away and watching from a was quoted as saying, “It’s like distance.163 crying wolf. The Communist Party Dalit women face the triple of India (M-L) keeps sending us burden of caste, class, and gender. complaint letters every week, we Dalit girls have been forced to can’t take action every time.”151 become prostitutes for upper-caste patrons and village priests. Sexual

124 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 abuse and other forms of violence Integrated Rural Development against women are used by Society, Madras, February 14, landlords and the police to inflict 1998. In Tamil Nadu, the father’s given name, which comes before political “lessons” and crush dissent one’s given name (often in the form within the community. According to of an initial), often serves as the a Tamil Nadu state government family name for his children. official, the raping of Dalit women Throughout the country, Dalits and exposes the hypocrisy of the caste lower castes also use their caste system as: name as their last name. Many of

“no one practices untouchability the people interviewed in this report, therefore, identified when it comes to sex.”7 themselves only by their given References name, and not their caste name or 1. Human Rights Watch, Broken their father’s name.

People: Caste Violence Against 6. 26 Human Rights Watch interview India’s “Untouchables”, 1 April with activists in Karnataka, 1999, available at: http:// Bangalore, July 26, 1998. www.refworld.org/docid/ 7. 27 Human Rights Watch interview 3ae6a83f0.html [accessed 20 March with R. Balakrishnan, chairman of 2014] the Tamil Nadu Commission for 2. 44 “In Brief: Recent Rape Cases,” Scheduled Castes and Scheduled p. 20. Tribes, Madras, February 13, 1998.

3. 45 Ibid. 8. 36 Human Rights Watch interview 4. 46 K. S. Tomar, “Atrocities against with R. Balakrishnan, director of Rajasthan women on the rise: Tamil Nadu chapter of National Report,” The Hindustan Times, Commission for Scheduled Castes May 28, 1998. and Scheduled Tribes, Madras, February 13, 1998. 5. 25 Human Rights Watch interview with Nicholas, director of

125 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 9. 37 Dr. R. M. Pal, “The Caste being sexually violated in India for System...,” p. 19. various reasons including land disputes and caste conflicts,” [no 10. 38 “Statement made by the Dalit date] Inter Press Service. Liberation Education Trust on the Situation of Untouchable People 13. 46 Sandeep Pendse, ed., At (Dalits) in South Asia region, at the Crossroads: Dalit Movement Today World Conference on Human (Bombay: VikasAdhyayan Kendra, Rights of the United Nations on 1994), pp. 69-82. 24th June 93 at Astoria Centre, 14. 61 The People’s Union for Vienna during the 11th meeting of Democratic Rights is one of India’s the Main Committee,” Annexure I most respected national human in Human Rights from the Dalit rights organizations. RanbirSena is Perspective (Madras: Dalit one of several spelling variations of Liberation Education Trust), p. iii. the private militia’s name. Others 11. 41 See details in Chapter IV. include Ranbeer and RanveerSena. Nineteen Dalits and Muslims, Throughout this report, the mostly women and children, were organization is referred to as the killed by members of the RanvirSena. RanvirSena, a private militia of 15. 68 Hindwan, “A question of upper-caste landlords, in economics...,” The Pioneer. BathaniTola (a Dalit hamlet of 16. 92 Human Rights Watch interview BarkiKharaon village) in July with Madhan Singh, Bhojpur 1996. The attack was reportedly an district, Bihar, February 27, 1998. effort to weaken the resolve of CPI(M-L), a leftist guerrilla 17. 136 Dipak Mishra and Satyendra organization, and to prevent a labor Kumar, [no title], Times of India, boycott on hundreds of acres of February 12, 1999.

land. 18. 147 Human Rights Watch 12. 42 Neena Bhandari, “Sexual interview with Surajmani Devi, Assaults on Women: Women are

126 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 Jehanabad district, Bihar, the killers shouted pro-sena February 25, 1998. slogans during the Bathe attack.

19. 148 Human Rights Watch 24. 153 Human Rights Watch interview with Mahurti Devi, interview with BDVS members, Jehanabad district, Bihar, Jehanabad district, Bihar, February 25, 1998. February 26, 1998.

20. 149 Human Rights Watch 25. 154 Human Rights Watch interview with Jasudevi, interview with BDVS member, Jehanabad district, Bihar, New Delhi, February 21, 1998. February 25, 1998. 26. 163 Ahmad, “Pregnant woman 21. 150 Human Rights Watch raped...,” The Telegraph. interview with Bathe resident, 27. 7. Human Rights Watch interview, Jehanabad district, Bihar, Madras, February 13, 1998. February 25, 1998.

22. 151 Yogesh Vajpayee, “Police was aware of RanvirSena attack,” Indian Express, December 5, 1997.

23. 152 According to a press report, a year before the massacre the village was aligned with Party Unity but had since shifted to CPI(M-L) after the murder of Party Unity leader Chapit Ram. Party Unity members alleged that CPI(M-L) was behind the murder. “Bloodbath at night,”Rediff on the Net, December 3, 1997, www.rediff.com/news/dec/ 03kill2.htm. The same article also reported that villagers claimed that

127 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 CLIPED WINGS OF DALITS IN THE SELECT NOVELS OF BAMA’S ‘KARUKKU AND BABY KAMBLE’S ‘THE PRISION WE BROKE’ P.Gouthami Research Scholar Department of English Andhra University, Visakhapatnam

The present paper compares literary forms. . The plight of the two Dalit women writers’ Dalit who meekly move on with their autobiographies entitled The suffering in patience, the twin trials Prisons We Broke from Maharashtra of poverty and exploitation is and Karukku from Tamil Nadu. portrayed as a saga of acceptance of These two novels focus on the humiliation without protest. Dalit degradation and inhuman treatment literature echoes the agony of the of the Dalit community brought experiences of untouchables. It about by the Hindu caste institution. portrays the caste humiliation, The caste system is the spine of the injustice, atrocities, and Hindu religion. The caste system has discriminations perpetrated by the been bound in India but the upper caste people. It expresses the discrimination based on birth has political consciousness that focused been widely practiced. Both the on the struggle for self-respect and books focus also on how the Dalits dignity for the community. converted to other religions are still Dalit literature is essentially subjected to subordination, etc. The a protest literature. Many writers Dalits of India have had undergone have voiced the agonies and a variety of humiliations and aspirations of Dalits. According to sufferings at the hands of the Khalid Akhter, Dalit literature’s hegemonic elites. Now they have “primary motive is to give a voice to become articulate enough to express the relentless oppression of Dalits in the Dalit Experience in various India’s caste hierarchy and the

128 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 possibility of their social, cultural Hinduism till her conversion. The and political emancipation”(1). To Prisons We Broke contains incidents

Sharankumar Limbale, a well- and events in the life of Kamble known Dalit writer. And “Dalit before the mass conversion of the literature is the uprising of the Dalits in Maharashtra in 1956. written word against the millennia- Kamble exposed the plight of the old social injustice manifesting Mahar women. In the caste Hindu itself as brutalities committed on society, the Mahar women were Dalits all over the country” reduced to inanimate objects. (Basheer,1 ). Arjun Dangle, a Dalit Kamble not only blames Hinduism writer- cum-editor points out that for the ill-treatment given to the “Dalit Literature is marked by revolt Dalits, but also condemns it as a and negativism, since it is closely religion of animals. Besides, she associated with the hopes for declares that the pride of the caste freedom of a group of people who, as Hindus is at the cost of the lives of untouchables, are victims of social, the ignorant Dalits. Kamble’s economic and cultural inequality” autobiography has depicted a (vii). realistic picture of the society in which she was raised. The following Baby Kamble’s book was are some selected incidents and published in the year 1986 in events in the life of Kamble, Marathi and later on it was narrated in The Prisons We Broke. translated and published in English The Prison We Broke talks more in 2008.Baby kamble is an activist about Dalits’ blind and and a writer. Bama’s Karukku was superstitions. Both men and women published in the year 1992 in Tamil, possessed the evil spirit and and then translated into English and considered it as the curse of God and published in the year of 2000. Baby Goddesses. Kamble lived her life as a Dalit in

129 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 Baby Kamble is an activist patriarchal society. In the memoir, and writer. She mobilized Dalit the retrospections of the author flow Women’s Organization. She was a out profusely in beautiful colors. She contemporary of Ambedkar and talks about the life in her village, deeply influenced by Ambedkar’s called Veergaon. In her memory, the ideology. She also runs an Maharwadas never had a prosperous ashramashal in Nimbuses. She was life. On one side, ignorance and lack born in 1929 Veergao, a village in of reasoning ruled them, on the western Maharashtra, in her other side, the Maharwadas life was grandparent’s house. Her dominated by poverty and grandparent worked as butler in epidemics. Death rate was high European households in the cities because of the ceaseless starvation around. Since they sent money home and lack of medical facilities for the each month, their family was fatal epidemics. More over somewhat better off than the others superstitions adorned their around it. Pandhrinath was her blindness. father and was a contractor in The condition of the Mahar profession. He earned and helped women was miserable. They had to fellow people. do all the house hold duties, and go “The Prisons We Broke” is the first for selling wood to earn for work that comes in Dalit Literature their daily bread. They collected all which is written by a woman. It is the left over from other places to give because of that itself, the book them to their children. Most of the deals with the two major problems time women had to go on hunger of the society: firstly, the oppression unendingly. When a ritual comes, and exploitation of the Dalit by the the work of the women got doubled. upper class: secondly, the They had to plaster their house with discrimination towards women in a cow dung, and clean the utensils and

130 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 the clothes. Girls got married at the present society. Even now age of eight or nine. And they discrimination is not completely became pregnant at a very tender wiped out from our society. There are age which created a lot of a lot of villages which should be complications in their first delivery. brought into the light of main They lead a very pathetic life in their stream. The educated people should husband’s home. If a girl could not work for them. Once, Baba Sahib do the house hold duties, she was worked for the community. That is abused by her in-laws. She could not why the society got freedom. Now go back to her home also, in the fear those who enjoy freedom should of scolding from her father and work to unchain others. I, as a reader brothers. could hear another reformer’s sound in Baby Kamble’s voice. A new The author talks about the inspiration is born out of her voice. influence of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar in Education, prosperity and comforts the memoir. Ambedkar was the light should not make us unaware of the of their life. He asked the Mahars problems of society. We will have to to educate their children, and utilize our faculties to support and inspired them to fight against the guide others to the main stream, atrocities. He asked them not to give only then we can enjoy the real value offerings to the gods who never cared of our life. about them. And he also asked them not to eat the dead animals. Karukku portrays a realistic

Baby Kamble and her relatives picture of the Dalits in Tamil Nadu. actively participated in the They are not educated people. As a revolutionary activities. She was result, they are not aware of the very much influenced by Ambedkar. stratagems of caste conscious and By the end of the novel Kamble casteist non-Dalits, which degrade talked about the responsibility of the the Dalits. They live their lives as

131 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 bonded labourers. They are the majority had to trek a long distance worst victims in the Hindu caste to reach their school. They also had system, thus Bama makes attempts to bear the stigma of poverty. The to bring about awareness among children of the upper classes them by saying that they should were well-dressed and decorated know the truth and uplift with jewels. The poor Dalit children themselves. Bama portrays a whole were severely handicapped. They lot of family and social rituals even were mere shadows in comparison while cataloguing the woes of with children of the same age from the so-called untouchables, their other communities. In the hostels, destiny and credulous acceptance of their dress, bearing and eating hypocritical ideologies. They become habits were subjects of adverse easy prey to passion and the criticism and comment. The nuns notorious policy of ‘divide and rule’ made uncharitable, unchristian cunningly practiced by the caste- remarks about the way Dalit Hindus. children conducted themselves. In addition, all menial jobs in and Even the conversion to around the church were allotted to Christianity (which promises the Dalit converts and their equality) tried out by many Dalits children. Even when Dalits became has failed to alleviate their woes. The priests or nuns, they were victims of new religion based on love and discrimination. This is exemplified tolerance, still was powerless to in Bama’s own experience as a nun. remove the stains of untouchability. The church, the school, and the Bama describes how faith house of the priest continued to be was forcibly implanted in the located in the vicinity of the streets children through bullying and occupied by the upper castes. The intimidation. Children were told of Dalit students who were the the stories of the devil moving about

132 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 with a book and a weighing scale. though. Pious practices, through the The nuns, Bama feels, had spoken novena and the rosary. I came to more of the devil than the guardian realize that you could see God angels. She is at pains to show how through the mind’s eye, in nature, baptism, confession, first and in the ordinary events of communion, and confirmation were everyday. So all the rituals that I had more a ritual than an initiation into followed and believed in so far, a new faith and spiritual suddenly began to seem meaningless responsibility. Bama frankly traces and just a sham. The desire to her spiritual concerns, as she says: become a nun, fell away from me “When I finished schooling in my entirely at this time (102). village and joined the convent As a teacher in a school run boarding school to study in the ninth by nuns, her experiences were worse. that I felt class, the fear-bhayam The behavior of the nuns upset her. towards God gradually left me They ran a boarding school which paasam and love- , grew (101). was nominally for the sake of After completing schooling, destitute children but in fact they Bama enrolled herself in college. By made those children do every menial now, she has developed an task that was needed. They behaved independent spirit. She didn’t feel as if they were the queens there, and the need of others’ help in reaching everybody else was there only to run out to God. To quote Bama’s words: errands for them. The few nuns who “I felt in my heart that I could go were even slightly humane had a and speak directly to God without difficult time. And even amongst their intervention. I could no longer themselves there were caste believe that God could only be divisions between the rich and the reached, as they had taught us, poor, and even divisions over the through prayer learned by rote languages that they spoke. . . Besides

133 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 the usual lessons, they could have rather luxurious life of the nuns educated the Dalit children in many pricked Bama to the quick. She felt matters, and made them aware of the emptiness of serving the rich to their situation in the world about the exclusion of the suffering and the them. But instead, everything in the down trodden who were left high and manner in which they directed dry by the organized religion. It was them, suggested that this was the not as though she did not try to way it was meant to be for Dalits, continue an insider in search of that there was no possibility of reform. She read the life story of the change. . . .(103). founder of the order; felt an unshakable desire to be like her. She The desire to be different argued with her peers only to be impelled her to read the scripture reminded of her vow of obedience. with devotion and she saw the She was burdened by the dichotomy futility of formal religion “I learnt of saying one thing and doing that God has always shown the another. “There is something ugly in greatest compassion for the saying one thing and doing another. oppressed. And Jesus too, associated himself mainly with the poor. Yet How long can one play—act in this way? Anyway it wasn’t possible for nobody had stressed this nor pointed me. I could only leave the order and it out. . . . The oppressed are not return into the world. And I don’t taught about him, but rather, are know if they have become so taught in an empty and meaningless way about humility, obedience, habituated to their play-acting that they can no longer distinguish patience, gentleness”(104). between the role and reality”(107). Finally she took the plunge; Naturally she could not be at resigned her job and joined the order. peace in the order. She chose to quit But incongruity between the vows of though she did not what to do. But simplicity and poverty and the

134 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 she had her education as her amour. out of a specific experience, the She was ready for hard work, but to experience of a Tamil Dalit Christian live as a young woman, a Dalit woman. Yet it has a universality at woman remaining single and in its core which question all employment was indeed a slippery oppression, disturbs all ordeal. She had to penetrate many complacencies, and reaching out layers of prejudice and conventional empowers all those who have expectation before she could assert suffered different oppressions (xiv). herself and face society with To sum up, Karukku is confidence. It is this battle that is at a path-breaking literary text which the heart of the autobiographical reveals the variegated responses of Karukku. Apart from being a work, people of marginalized groups ; successful teacher, Bama emerged as while some are meek the other are a writer giving expression to Dalit vociferous and rebellious just like consciousness and sensibility. The Bama. battle was by no means easy. She had Thus, Kamble and Bama problems as a Dalit,a wman, and as both are neither Hinduism nor a single woman. But she did succeed Christianity offers any concrete in the end. solution to the agony of Dalits. They Karukku-her- Speaking of seem to claim that their personal creation, Bama confesses: “I experience both as Hindu Dalit and as a described myself in Karukku Christian Dalit reveal the dominant bird whose wings had been clipped. features of Dalit suppression and I now feel like a falcon that treads subordination. Kamble is more vocal the air, high in the in the criticism of the educated skies.( Lakshmi Holmstrom who xi) Dalits who forget their roots and translated the work into English ignore the Dalit cause; Karukku of feels that, “Karukku was written

135 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ISSN : 2277-7881; IMPACT FACTOR - 2.735; IC VALUE:5.16 VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3(5), MARCH 2014 Bama focuses more on the suffering of less educated and illiterate Dalit.

References

1. Limbale, Sharan Kumar. Towards an Aesthetic of Dalit literature: History, Controversies, and Considerations. New Delhi: Orient Longman, 2004. Print

2. Faustina, Bama. Karukku Trans. Lakshmi Holmstrom. Chennai: Macmillian India, 2000 Print.

3. Limbale, Sharankumar Towards and Aesthetics of Dalit

Literature in English Orient Longman (translated by Alok

Mukherje)2004, ISBN 81-250-2656- 8

4. Kamble, Baby. The Prision We Broke Trans,Maya Pandit. New Delhi: Orient Blackswan,2009 print.

5. Prasad, Amar Nath. Dalit Literature: A Critical Exploration. New Delhi: Sarup and Sons, 2007. Print.

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