a transdisciplinary biannual research journal Vol. 4 Issue 1 January 2017 Scan QR Code Postgraduate Department of English to read Back Issues Manjeri, Malappuram, Kerala. www.kahmunityenglish.in/journals/singularities/ Chief Editor P. K. Babu., Ph. D Principal D.G.M.M.E.S. Mampad College, Mampad Members: Dr. K. K. Kunhammad, Head & Asst. Professor, Dept. of Studies in English, Kannur University Mammad. N, Asst. Professor Dept of English, Govt. College, Malappuram. Dr. Priya. K. Nair, Asst. Professor Dept. of English, St. Teresa's College, Eranakulam. Aswathi. M . P., Asst. Professor Dept of English, KAHM Unity Women's College, Manjeri. Shahina Mol. A. K. Assistant Professor and Head Department of English KAHM Unity Women’s College, Manjeri Advisory Editors: Dr. V. C. Haris School of Letters, M.G. University Kottayam Dr. M. V. Narayanan, Assoc. Professor, Dept of English, University of Calicut. Editor's Note Singularities aspires to be a journal which not just records the researches through publishing, but one which also initiates dialogues and urges involvement. True research writing needs to take on the job of intellectually activating untrodden tangents. The Singularities conferences, envisaged as annual events, are meant to be exercises in pursuing the contemporary and wherever possible, to be efforts in leading the contemporary too. Space that permeates our existence, that influences the very way in which one experience, understand, navigate and recreate the world was selected as the theme for the annual conference of Singularities in 2017. The existence of space is irrevocably intertwined with culture, communication, technology, geography, history, politics, economics, and the lived experience. Understanding the spatial relationships, the tensions and dynamics that inform them, enables us to form insights into the process that configure the spaces we move through, inherit and inhabit. Spatial studies, also designated by terms as geocriticism, geopoetics or spatial humanities, is a growing body of critical scholarship, that attempts to discern the metaphysics of a culture from its own material. It frames an alternative method to the historical, biographical and narratological, to the perception of a culture. The papers that are going to be presented in the Singularities Conference on Space, compiled in the special conference volume, not only examined the cultural attributes of a measurable space, but critiqued the imaginary, otherworldly, mythical, fantastic, cyberspace, and even the hybrid zones where fiction meets reality. We are happy to present Singularities Space Conference Issue which offers stimulating read in terms of the experience of Space. P. K. Babu., Ph. D Chief Editor Contents 1. Dr. Abida Farooqui 7 - 10 Eking out Space through Myths: Reading Thomas King’s ‘Green Grass, Running Water’ 2. Anagha. E. 11 - 16 A Narratological Study of Benyamin’s Novels 3. Anfal Mooliyathodi 17 - 23 Space Memories: A Geocritical Comparison of London City in Mrs Dalloway and The End of the Affair 4. Aparna Mohan 24 - 30 Mapping Ontario: The Poetics of Space in Alice Munro 5. Christina Dhanasekaran 31 - 41 All it Takes is One Bad Day… Lunacy and Space in Batman: The Killing Joke 6. Dr. Roopa Philip 42 - 49 Imagining the Yakshi: A Study of the Novel Yakshi and the Movie Ennu Swantham Janakikutty 7. Dr. Mathew P. Joseph 50 - 53 Elizabeth Zachariah The Quest for Survival Space Beyond Caste, Gender and Religion; En route Bama's Karakku 8. Hasiya. T. 54 - 57 Ibis as Transcultural Space: Zooming Amitav Ghosh's Sea of Poppies 9. Dr. C. Isaac Jebastine 58 - 61 Ms. M. Subarna A Psychoanalytic Reading of Jhumpa Lahiri's “The Treatment of Bibi Haldar” 10. K. Kalaivani 62 - 70 Perec's Life: A User's Manual: 'Textualizing' the Spatiality of Human Lives 11. Manju V. V. 71 - 75 Dalit Feminism and Modern Indian Theatre: A Critical Response to Scape Goats 12. Mansoor Cherusseri 76 - 80 Transfiguration of “Home”: A Study of Mahmoud Darwish's Poetry with Reference to “Space” 13. Namitha Raphael Ukken 81 - 87 Postcolonial Space as Described in Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart 14. Nayan Mary Tom 88 - 94 Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon: The Making of a Postcolonial Space through an Alternative Historiography 15. Olaluwoye. E. Layo 95 - 106 A Pragmatic Analysis Of The English Language Used By Drug Peddlers In Lagos Intra-city Buses 16. Priyanka M. C. 107 - 113 Traversing Gender Boundaries: Discordant Selves in Kaushik Ganguly's Arekti Premer Golpo 17. Resmi. R. 114 - 118 Voicing the Unheard Anthems: A Probe into the Postcolonial Subaltern Space in Aravind Adiga's The White Tiger 18. Santhosh. P. C. 119 - 123 Honor Killing and Female Destiny in Cultural Discourse: An Analysis of Male Power Structures in the Documentary 'A Girl from the River: The Price of Forgiveness' 19. Saran. S. 124 - 128 Excavate the Subaltern: Analysing the Dalit Facet in Celluloid 20. Shamla. K. M. 129 - 136 'Intimate Space' in Orhan Pamuk's Silent House and The Museum of Innocence: A Reading 21. Sonia Thomas 137 - 141 Exploring the Visual Culture: A Study of Richard Ross's Architecture of Authority and Juvenile in Justice 22. Suja Mathew 142 - 146 Constructing a Dystopian Space: An Analysis of Laszlo Krasznahorkai's Satantango 23. Sunil Kumar Mannil 147 - 152 Popular Oppana: A Critical Commentary 24. R. Uthra 153 - 159 From space to place: Catharine Parr Traill's The Backwoods of Canada Dr. Abida Farooqui Eking out Space through Myths: Reading Thomas King’s ‘Green Grass, Running Water’ Colonization and settlement had devastating consequences on the indigenous communities of North America. Entire cultures were expected to be absorbed into and engulfed by the hegemonic discourse without much ado. The only option left for the Native American tribes was either to assimilate or to vanish. Since assimilation was conceived as an impossibility, it was conveniently assumed that they will vanish sooner or later. The myth of the vanishing Indian, established with the certainty and authority of scientific discourse, was steeped in contradiction. Attempts at assimilation were carried out in full swing, albeit with the conviction that they will not be able to assimilate. Indigenous cultures rendered mute consequent to colonization resist the onslaught of the colonial discourse by finding anchorage and sustenance in their own culture-specific myths. They were deprived of their means of livelihood, their language, their culture and their land. Amidst persistent, yet failed colonial efforts to ‘acculture’ the indigenous communities, survival became the key issue. Native populations were dwindling, their traditional habitats were plundered, their customs and rituals banned. These uprooted cultures seek out myths to interrogate the pernicious effects of racism, to survive in an exceedingly hostile world and to address contemporary reality,. Myths enable them to carve out a space for themselves. In embracing myths, they redefine Eurocentric concepts of space and time, bring together the real and the unreal within the same space, and reiterate the existence of alternative epistemologies. This paper seeks to explore how the mythic in the novel ‘Green Grass, Running Water, enables them to situate themselves in the present day world. Besides invoking a mythic consciousness, the novel reconfigures the empiricist notions of space and time in an effort to fathom the mystery of the universe. In ‘Comparing Mythologies’, Tomson Highway explains the rationale of going back to myths. “… without mythology, we would be nothing but walking corpses, zombies, mere empty hulks of animal flesh and bone, skin and blood and liquid matter with no purpose, no reason for existing, no use, no point, nothing.” (Comparing Mythologies, 18) Myths “delineate the spiritual nervous system (of the community) in all its wondrous, mystical, magical complexity.”(Highway, 20) For the Natives, it also served the purpose of decolonization. Returning to myths was more than an attempt to return to the past, it was an attempt to survive in the contemporary. In ‘Green Grass, Running Water’, mythical figures do not occupy an extraterrestrial space, they intermingle and interfere in the lives of ordinary Indians. The novel presents two strands of narratives one is the realistic story of Lionel, Eli, Alberta and Charlie Looking Bear. The other is the magical story involving coyote and the four Indians. The two strands merge to create what Vizenor calls a complex polyphonic, yet playful “mythic verism.” (Vizenor, 190) Coyote crosses a wide range of conceptual boundaries by meddling in the lives of contemporary Indians. The ‘constructs’ of reality are challenged by another sort of reality that circumvents the established modes of expressing reality. Mythic reality is informed by newer notions of time and space. Space is one vast Dr. Abida Farooqui is Asst. Professor in English, PTM Govt. College, Perinthalmanna 7 Singularities Vol.4 Issue 1 January 2017 ISSN 2348 – 3369 expanse that encompasses land, water and the sky. The time invoked is a primordial time that encompasses the past, the present and the future. The identity of the four Indians interrred at the mental asylum escape in order to ‘fix’ the world transcends normative notions of time and gender. The janitor guesses that they could be over hundred years of age, and that they could be either men or women. Every time they escape, they fix that part of the world they deem to be repaired and return. The Native world has been turned topsy turvy in the aftermath of colonialism and they have taken upon themselves the task of setting things right. They interfere in the world around them and make creative changes. The endings of the Westerns in Bill Bursum’s Home Entertainment Barn which regularly feature the triumph of cowboys over the Indians are altered much to Bursum’s chagrin that he imagines glitches in technology. Myths operate in the realm of primordial time and space. The novel does not follow the linear notions of time and space.