ISSN 2319 – 7684 MIDDLE FLIGHT SSM JOURNAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE AND CULTURE A National Level Peer Reviewed Journal Vol. 3 No. 1 November 2014 SPECIAL VOLUME: British Literature ISSN 2319 – 7684 MIDDLE FLIGHT SSM JOURNAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE AND CULTURE A National Level Peer Reviewed Journal SPECIAL VOLUME: British Literature DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH S. S. MAHAVIDYALAYA KESHPUR, PASCHIM MEDINIPUR PIN: 721150, WEST BENGAL, INDIA Vol.3 November 2014 No.1 MIDDLE FLIGHT JOURNAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE AND CULTURE A National Level Peer Reviewed Journal Editorial Board: Bill Ashcroft, Australian Professorial Fellow, School of the Arts and Media, UNSW, Sydney Krishna Sen , Professor , University of Calcutta (Retd.) Tirthankar Das Purkayastha, Professor, Vidyasagar University Sankar Prasad Singha, Professor, Vidyasagar University Mahadev Kunderi, Professor, Mysore University Binda Sharma, Associate Professor, C.M.D. College (PG) Satyaki Pal , Associate Professor, R. K. M. Residential College (Autonomous), Narendrapur (PG) Goutam Buddha Sural , Associate Professor, Bankura Christian College (PG) Jaydeep Sarangi, Associate Professor, Jogesh Chandra College Sudhir Nikam, Associate Professor, B. N. N. College (PG) Dinesh Panwar, Assistant Professor, University of Delhi Advisory Board: Jawaharlal Handoo, Professor, Tezpur University (Retd.) & President, Indian Folklore Congress Parbati Charan Chakraborty , Professor, The University of Burdwan (Retd.) B. Parvati, Professor, Andhra University Angshuman Kar, Associate Professor, The University of Burdwan Simi Malhotra, Professor, Jamia Millia Islamia University Shreya Bhattacharji, Associate Professor, Central University of Jharkhand Ujjwal Jana, Assistant Professor, Pondicherry University Subhajit Sengupta, Assistant Professor, Vidyasagar University Editor: Debdas Roy [email protected] Published: November, 2014 ISSN: 2319 – 7684 Published byDepartment of English, S. S. Mahavidyalaya Keshpur, Paschim Medinipur, Pin: 721150 Ph: 03227-250861, Mail: [email protected] © S. S. Mahavidyalaya Price: India:Rs.300.00 Overseas: $ 30 Editorial Notwithstanding the craze among a section of students in Indian universities and colleges to pursue English literature (by which the majority understand British Literature) as their course of study more from a sense of expediency than out of genuine interest, there has been, during the last decades, a shift from the ‘British’ to the ‘Non-British’, thanks to the overseas forces at play. The paradox of English studies in Indian colleges and Universities is that after their masters, research aspirants quarantine themselves against those writers on whom they thrived. What a ‘reversal’ in the ‘fortune’ of Chaucer, Shakespeare, Donne and others! The number of scholars undertaking research in British Literature has dropped dramatically. Keeping in mind the pressing ‘demand’ of the academic community, attempts have been made to dismember the university curriculum with a view to replacing some ‘dated foreign products’ with the ‘latest indigenous marketable’ ones, resulting in the reduction of the British literature to bare essentials. Restructuring of the canon is a kind of pruning which may result in significant growth and branching, but unchecked denudation of the boughs of the mother stock may lead to the death of the main trunk. That there is a middle ground between the poles – puritanical recoiling at the mention of the word colonial on the one hand and doting upon the postcolonial on the other – has been hinted at, in an essay included here, by Professor Purkayastha who, while lauding the “histrionically charged readings of the plays of Shakespeare” by some legendary teachers, has looked towards the “post-colonial adaptations/re-workings” of the immortal bard. While commenting upon the use of the word “romantic” in a variety of cultural contexts Professor Singha has discussed the “divergent echoes inhabiting the garden of romantic literature”. What’s wrong if there be ‘divergent’ notes and ‘remixes’ in ‘our’ concert of English literature studies too? Another site of reconciliation is the study of the relationships between man and nature touched upon in this volume by Kaustav Chanda. By establishing a link between Arnold’s “Empedocles on Etna” and the Bhagavad Gita Parneet Jaggi has well argued that “an Empedoclean with a painful awareness of ennui” may find solace from oriental philosophy enshrined in the Bhagavad Gita . Sourav Pal has rightly undertaken an enquiry as to whether the fictional world of Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four may “have any relevance to the world we live in”. All the papers included here excepting those of Professor Purkayastha and Professor Singha, the inclusion of which is the privilege of the editor, have been duly referred to and recommended by our esteemed reviewers. The launching of the third volume of Middle Flight would hardly be possible without the unstinted support from all concerned. Documentation has not been impeccably uniform. Some of our reviewers accepted some well-written but differently documented papers and it has been our principle to honour their decision. Congrats to all concerned for making the publication of the journal possible. CONTENTS Tirthankar Das Purkayastha Shakespeare and Our Pedagogical Practices Bipasha Majumder (De) A Green Reading of Shakespeare’s As You Like It Debdas Roy Donne’s Third Satire: A Re-reading Shivika Mathur Political Contours in Godwin’s Enquiry Concerning Political Justice Subrata Sahoo Mapping of Individual Perception onto Physical Geography: A Reading of Blake’s “London” Sankar Prasad Singha Other Echoes Inhabit the Garden: Re-reading Nineteenth Century British Romantic Poetry Joyjit Ghosh Re-reading “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” as a ‘human tale’ Srabanti Mukherjee Gendered Politics of Gaze in Browning’s ‘My Last Duchess’ Deblina Hazra ‘Elegant Economy’: A Study of Old Age and Economic Agency in Elizabeth Gaskell’s Cranford Shramana Das Purkayastha Finding the “Divinely Human”: Humanitarian Intimacy and the Crisis of Faith in George Eliot’s Silas Marner Jayanta Mukherjee The Moral Dilemma of Maggie Tulliver in George Eliot’s The Mill on the Floss: A Critical Study AninditaBhaumik Representation of Same-Sex bonds in Wilkie Collins’s Three Major novels Parneet Jaggi Matthew Arnold’s ‘Empedocles on Etna’ and the Bhagavad Gita Purnima Chakraborti Sherlock Holmes: The Myth Reworked Sudip Kumar Das Memory and Writing: A Study of Hardy’s ‘Poems of 1912-13’ Bidisha Mukherjee Playboy and Patriarchy: Reprtesentations of Authority and Resistance in J. M. Synge’s The Playboy of the Western World Samit Kr. Maiti Conrad’s Heart of Darkness: An Apocalyptic Voyage of Self-discovery through Psychic Explorations Maitrayee Misra The Inseparable Shadow: Depiction of Death in Katherine Mansfield’s ‘The Garden Party’ and ‘The Fly’ Sourav Pal Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four: No Concern for Us? Asis De & Soumen Chatterjee Need the Mask of the ‘Man’? : Exploding Masculinity in Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse Hasina Wahida Multiple Voices in T.S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”: A Bakhtinian Reading Basudeb Chakrabarti Identity in Harold Pinter: An Existentialist Exploration of Deborah’s Trauma in A Kind of Alaska Soumya Mukherjee Fear: A Major Catalyst in Pinter’s ‘The Birthday Party’ Kaustav Chanda Environment in Literature: An Ecocritical Reading of Kenneth Anderson’s Jungle Lore Rina Rajbanshi Ageing, Memory and Self-delusion: An Analysis of Julian Barnes’s The Sense of an Ending Contributors Professor (Dr.) Tirthankar Das Purkayastha, Professor of English, Vidyasagar University & a poet of eminence Bipasha Majumder (De), Assistant Professor & Head, Department of English, Debra T.S.K.S. Dr. Debdas Roy Assistant Professor & Head, Department of English, S. S. Mahavidyalaya Shivika Mathur , Assistant Professor of English, University of Delhi Subrata Sahoo, Assistant Professor of English, Contai P. K. College Professor (Dr.) Sankar Prasad Singha, Professor of English, Vidyasagar University Dr. Joyjit Ghosh, Assistant Professor of English, Vidyasagar University Srabanti Mukherjee , Guest Lecturer in English , Hetampur Krishna Chandra College & M. Phil. Research Scholar, The University of Burdwan Deblina Hazra, M. Phil. Research Scholar in English, Jadavpur University Shramana Das Purkayastha, Guest Lecturer in English, Vijaygarh Jyotish Ray College Dr. Jayanta Mukherjee, Associate Professor & Head, Dept. of English, Belda College Anindita Bhaumik, Assistant Professor of English, Panskura Banamali College Dr. Mrs. Parneet Jaggi, Lecturer in English, Dr. Bhim Rao Ambedkar Government College, Rajasthan and a poet of eminence Dr. Purnima Chakraborti, Assistant Professor of English, Vidyasagar College, Kolkata Sudip Kumar Das, Associate Professor & Head, Dept. of English, Hijli College Bidisha Mukherjee, Ph. D. Research Scholar, Vidyasagar University Samit Kr. Maiti, Assistant Professor and Head, Dept. of English, Seva Bharati Mahavidyalaya Maitrayee Misra, Ph. D. Research Scholar, Guru Ghasidas Central University Sourav Pal, Assistant Professor and Head, Dept. of English, Gourav Guin Memorial College Asis De, Assistant Professor & Head, Dept. of English, Mahishadal Raj College Soumen Chatterjee, Guest Teacher in English, Mahishadal Raj College Hasina Wahida, Ph. D. Research Scholar in English, The University of Burdwan Basudeb Chakrabarti, Assistant Professor & Head, Dept. of English, Jangipur College Soumya Sundar Mukherjee, Ph. D. Research Scholar in English, Vidyasagar University