Commonwealth Literature

Commonwealth Literature

Name: Baraiya Bhavna P.

Roll No: 3

Sem: 3

Year: 2013-14

Submitted To: 

                           Department Of English

                          Maharaja Krishnkumarsinhji                      Bhavnagar University.

                

First of all what is the commonwealth…?

vCommonwealth

                                        

                       Commonwealth is a traditional English term for a political community founded for the comman good. Historically, it has sometimes been synonymous with “republic” The English noun Commonwealth in the sense meaning “public welfare; general good or advantage” dates from the 15^th century. The original phrase “the commonwealth” or “the common weal” comes from the old meaning of “wealth” which is “well-being”. The term literary meant “common well being”.

                      In the 17^th century the definitionof “commonwealth” expanded from its original sense of “public welfare” or “commonweal”, to mean…

                           “A state in which the suprem power is vested in the people; a republic or democratic state”.

                           In the area of colonialism, it indicates the former British Commonwealth of Nations i.e. the former British empire consisting of the United Kingdom, its dependencies and certain former colonies that are now sovereign nations.

                         The Commonwealth of Nations, also known as the Commonwealth or the British Commonwealth, has manifested a distinctive literary development, marked by its cultural and historical diversity. The Commonwealth is an intergovernmental organization of 54 nations which were formerly part of the British Empire. The Commonwealth aims to provide a framework of common values, facilitating cooperation between its member states in the field of democracy, human rights, rule of law, free trade and peace.                        

                         In general, Commonwealth literature is a vague term which defines English-language works written in the former British colonies or place which had the status of dominions. Also known as New English Literature, it is a body of fictional works grouped together because of the underlying cultural history and certain recurrent patterns. As Commonwealth writers come from a wide variety of regions, they win fame in the Anglo-American world because of their exotic setting and characters.

                          Some scholars, for example Tiffin in her Commonwealth Literature: “Comparison and Judgment”

  

                                                        …argue that the very notion of Commonwealth Literature is in it self narrow and misleading. Others criticize the term as anachronism. Debates are centered also on the distinctions, similarities or overlapping of the term Commonwealth Literature and Postcolonial Literature. Hence, in an essay entitled Commonwealth Literature does not Exist, Salman Rushdie defined this type of fiction as…

                            

                          "A body of writing created in the English language, by persons who are not themselves white Britons, or Irish, or citizens of the United States of America."

                           However, he complained that the term is patronizing and marginalizes a number of writers, adding that this body of fiction will never be included in English literature, which will be always its superior.

                           The exact characteristics of Commonwealth literature also remain debatable. Recurrent motifs there are misuse of power, exploitation and alienation as well as post-colonial society. Apart from the issue of shared characteristics, scholars debate as to which writers to be included in the Commonwealth canon. Famous names among Commonwealth writers include:

Ø Salman Rushdie,

Ø R. K. Narayan,

Ø Nayantara Sahgal and

Ø Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

Ø Japanese Nobel Kazuo Ishiguro.

·       Salman Rushdie

                           Salman Rushdie is one of the key representatives of contemporary Commonwealth literature. As an Indian-British novelist, he is world famous for his novel Midnight Children (1981), which won the Booker prize. Most of his books are set in India and have a particular emphasis on history. He is classified as a magical realist writer. Rushdie triggered protests in the Muslim world with the release of his novel The Satanic Verses (1989). Even the Iranian government pronounced a fatwa, or a death sentence, against Rushdie.

vImaginary Homelands

                                                 Imaginary Homeland is a collection of essays, reviews, and interviews which were made from 1981 to 1991. Rushdie's writing deals with the political, cultural, and imaginative exchanges which took place in the East and the West. Rushdie shows how although past geo-political colonialism largely continues as a cultural process in the present things are nevertheless unavoidably changing. Things always have changed, but the difference is that now subaltern groups are writing their/our own stories.

                                              In Imaginary Homelands Rushdie admits to the fictional polishing up of history/memory so as to be able to represent it as either history or fiction. (The result is meta- fiction) It is this inquiry into reality and memory, and how one is effected by historic and cultural movement, translation, migration, that underscores much of Rushdie's writing. He establishes his political context in the first two chapters, and then, the paper "Commonwealth Literature Does Not Exist" acts as a kind of preface to the literature he reviews.

vCommonwealth Literature' Does Not Exist

                                       In his essay "'Commonwealth Literature' Does Not Exist" , Rushdie describes the category 'Commonwealth Literature' as a ghetto, created by those who practice English literature 'proper'. "Every ghetto has its own rules" and "one of the rule one of the ideas on which the edifice rests, is that literature is an expression of nationality", and that culture springs from tradition. He says that "what we are facing here is the bogy of Authenticity ... (which) is the respectable child of old-fashioned exoticism. It demands that sources, forms, style, language and symbol all derive from a supposedly homogeneous and unbroken tradition". An exoticized culture must always show its credentials in order to prove itself worthy of 'special' attention.While Western cultures are seen as dynamic, progressive, and developed it is demanded of exoticized cultures to be original, pure, simple and preferably religious. At its worst, the term postcolonial implies a kind of pre-colonial (primitive) purity which has become corrupted because it could not resist the colonizers (modern) domination. It does not take into account that the process of colonization changes both the colonizer and the colonized and that cultural exchange is heterogeneous and not singular. Racial, cultural, linguistic singularity, or purity, is not only unlikely but also a pathological pursuit.

Role of English in India

English Language Teaching - 1

Topic               Role of English in India

Name              Bhavna P. Baraiya

Roll No.           3

Class               M.A. Sem. 3

Submitted to    Heenaba Zala

                      Department of English

                      MK. Bhavnagar University

                      Bhavnagar

                                  

   Introduction :

                                                      English language has been playing an important role in our educational system as well as in our national life since two centuries. It is believed that the british introduced English in school curriculam with a view to impose English culture and traditions in Indian social and cultural life, but this beliefe is  not correct. When India became free in 1947, some of our leaders   were not in favor of introducing English in our curriculam because of atoresaid reasons.

                                   Language policy in India has adapted itself to the changing demands and aspirations of people over the period of time from 1947 to the present. Change has occurred on many counts. Firstly, the question of a national language – which was wisely addressed during the formative years of independence by not declaring any language as the national language – has now been permanently settled.

                                   The existence of English in India means that it is no longer necessary to consider the issue of a national language. In other words, India does not need a national language since there are no functions which a national language might play that are not already fulfilled in some other way. The beneficiaries of this de facto policy are the indigenous Indian languages in the regions where they prevail; if any additional function were to be required then it could be satisfied by bringing in English.

                                  In a way an associate official language, English knowingly or unknowingly has played an instrumental role in maintaining the diversity of India’s language scene because the existence of English has meant that it has not been necessary to select any one Indian languages as a national language. In fact, the states which used to rally to slogans such as angriji hatao (remove English) are now eagerly introducing English in the first year of schooling.

                              English today is almost a compulsory second language. Once deprived sections of the society now perceive the language as an instrument for progress. The recent news of a temple for English language in a village in the Hindi heartland tells the thing.

                              English today is almost a compulsory second language. Once deprived sections of the society now perceive the language as an instrument for progress. The recent news of a temple for English language in a village in the Hindi heartland tells the thing.

                              However, the public’s demands are not being met meaningfully. Most schools in the country do not have the facilities and proficient teachers needed to cater to the demand. As mentioned above, meaningful language education requires teachers who are skilled and knowledgeable as well as contextualised materials (print and others). But an enabling English language environment in the school also needs to be ensured.

                             The most important of these three prerequisites is the English teacher, but the English language proficiency of English language teachers in quite a number of schools is questionable. Consequently, teacher education is one major area which needs drastic changes if quality teachers are to become available. Materials development (particularly textbooks) for the teaching and learning of English has not yet been professionalised

                             On the contrary, materials development has been commercialised to the extent that India now has thousands of publishers who publish English language textbooks. An enabling English language environment also cannot be created overnight. Learners need to experience appropriate input so that they can become engaged with the language, but a language teacher who himself or herself does not possess the required proficiency cannot create such an environment. Children need to feel the language in the air in school because, for the vast majority of children, English is not available outside school. The creation of such an enabling environment has to be encouraged through curricular and other activities in and outside school.

                            It is better to have English taught as a subject rather than impose a bad English medium education. Equipping English language education with the essentials in the native medium schools would benefit learning in general and language learning in particular. But converting schools to become English medium without proper support would be detrimental and counterproductive.

                           

Conclusion:

                            Schools can be developed as multimedia schools where both the content subjects and the language are taught and learnt well in a complementary and supplementary manner. A ‘language across the curriculum’ perspective and a strategy of multilingualism (NCERT 2005) would be of benefit on many counts. The centrality of language in learning needs to be recognised. English, then, can play a vital role as a language of mutual benefit – benefiting Indian languages as well as itself – and so enriching education as a whole.

Comedy of menace

Comedy of menace

Name: Baraiya Bhavna P.

Roll No: 3

Sem: 3

Year: 2013-14

Submitted To:  Dr. Dilip Barad

                           Dpt. Of English

                           Bhavnagar Uni.

                               Here I am going to explain the term “ Comedy of menace ” in another words it calls “Dark comedy” In reference of Harold Pinter’s play. “ Birthday Party ”. Harold Pinter has also used  “Comedy of menace”  in his other plays such as “  The Room ” and “ A Slight Ache “.

                                If we see a word a  ‘menace’ then it means as a noun ‘A threatening quality’ or ‘a dangerous or troublesome person or thing’ and as a verb it calls ‘threaten’.

                                Comedy of menace it suggests that although they are funny, they are also frightening or menacing in a vague and undefined way.

                               Even as they taugh, the audience is unsettled, ill at ease and uncomfortable.

                               The term comedy of menace founded by Irving Wardle, he is drama critic. Then Comedy of menace is a term used to describethe play of David Compton and Harold Pinter. A term Comedy of menace is borrowed from the subtitle of Compton’s play ‘The Lunatic view: Acomedy of menace, in reviewing their plays in Encore in 1958. “Comedy of Menace”caught on and have been used generally in advertisements and in critical accounts, notices, and reviews to describe Pinter’s early plays and some of his later work as well.

                            If we talk about “The Birthday Party” as the comedy of menace, then it is a tragedy with a number of comic eliments – it is a comedy, which also produces an overwhelming tragic effect. Throughout the play we are kept amused and yet throughout the play we foind curselves also on brink of terror. Some indefinable and vague fear keeps our nerves on an edge.

                         When we are viewing the play we fell uneasy all the time even when we are laughing or smiling with amusement. This dual quality gives to the play a unique character.

Ø The menace evolves from actual violence in the play or from an underlying sense of violence throughout the play.

Ø It may develop from a feeling of uncertainity and insecurity. The audience may be made to feel that the security of the principal character, and even the audience’s own security, is threatened by some independing danger or fear.

Ø This feeling of menace establishes a strong connection between character’s predicament and audience’s personal enxieties.

Pinter’s own comment:

                                          “More often than not the speech only seems to be funny – the man in question actually fighting a battle for his life.”

-which situations appear funny to us?

-But in fact for the character concerned is a terrifying experience?

-Illustrations from the text? (blind man’s buff interrogation)

Progression – towards Pinteresque effect: Use of Pause

Pinter Pause:

                        One of “the silences”- when Pinter’s stage directions indicate pause and silence when his characters are not speaking at all – has become a “trademark” of Pinter’s dialogue and known as the “Pinter pause”.

Ther are two silences…

1)   One when no word is spoken.

2)   The other when perhaps a torrent of language is being employed.

                    This speech is speaking of a language locked beneath it. That is it is continual reference. The speech we hear is an indication of that which we do not hear. It is a necessary avoidence, a violent, sly, anguished or mocking smoke screen which keeps the other in its place. When true silence falls we are still left with echo but are nearer nakedness. One way of looking at speech is to say that it is a constant stratagem to cover nakedness. Pinter once said in interview:

                  “We have heard many times that tired, grimy phrase: ‘failure of communication’… and this phras has been fixed to my work quite consistently. I believe the contrary. I think that we communicate only too well, in our silence, in what is unsaid, and that what takes place is a continual evasion, desperate rearguard attempts to keep ourselves to ourselves. Communication is too alarming. To enter in to some one else’s life is too frightening. To disclose to others the poverty within us is too fearsome a possibility. I am not suggesting that no character in a play can never say what he in fact means. Not at all I have found that there invariably does come a moment when this happens, when he says something, perhaps, which he has never said before. And where this happens, what he says is irrevocable, and can never be taken back”.

The atmosphere of menace:

                                                   The atmosphere of menace is also created by Pinter’s ability to drop suddenly from a high comic level to one of deep seriousness. Illustrations from the text? Cread news – about child birth, happy to feel nostalgic about piano show – remembrance of present state, interrogation, birthday party’s play – strangle/rape)

                       By this technique the audience is made aware that the comedy is only at surface layer. The sudden outbreaks of violence (verble/physical?) in the play confirm this and leave the audience unsure of what will come next. Illustrations from the text?  

Fear in the play:

                            There is fear in the play. Fear for what? Several things! By whom ? Just as Stanley (or Meg) is the main vehicle for comedy in the play, so is he main vehicle for the presentation of fear. Are other characters frightened? Illustration from the text?

                               (All the characters are suffering from the fear of unknown. Perhaps they laugh to forget their fear, they live in past or avoid to see in mirror-because of fear.

v     The room or house

                                  The room or house represents security from the outside world but sadly it is impossible to sustain. The menace in the form of Goldberg and McCann represents a hostile outside world. They are the exeption to the rule where life is normal and pleasant outside

v     The general setting

                                

                                                      The general setting of the play is naturalistic and mundane, involving no menace, However one of Pinter’s greatest skills is his ability to make an apparently normal and trival object, like a toy drum, appear strange and threatening. Pinter can summon forth an atmosphere of menace from ordinary everyday objects and events, and one way in which this is done is by combining two apparently opposed moods, such as terror and amusement. Much of Birthday Party is both frightening and funny. Stanley is destroyed by ‘a torrent of words, but mingled in with the serious accusations

E.g. “He’killed his wife”

        Are ones which are trivial and ludicrous.

v     Reverse dramatic irony:

                                         In traditional irony, the audience knows what the acters don’t. In Pinter the characters have secrets we never discover.

v     Conclusion:

                   Thus to conclude, we may say that the absurdity of the play which is represented through menacing effect has its own symbolic significance. It tries to explain the human predicament in this indifferent & hostile worled.   

Ø The menace evolves from actual violence in the play or from an underlying sense of violence throughout the play.z

Ø lkkkl

Redefining the 'A' :Relation between an Individual & the Society

                          

Name: Baraiya Bhavna P.

Roll No: 3

Sem: 3

Year: 2013-14

Submitted To:  Heenaba Zala

                          Department of English

                          Bhavnagar University

   

                          During the Puritan times in Massachusetts, adultery was the worse sin one could ever commit. In Nathaniel Hawthorne's novel, The Scarlet Letter, the protagonist, Hester Prynne, cheats on her husband (believing he was lost at sea) with a minister. The town becomes aware of her sin after realizing the birth of her child, Pearl. As a result, Hester must wear a scarlet letter "A" on her clothing so that the town can look down on her shameful action and recognize her as a woman who committed adultery.

                            Hester Prynne was an example of what women should not be, during this time, women were seen as inferior and men had total authority. Through her oppressions, Hester became a stronger woman, redefining the roles of society and the abilities of women.

                         In the novel, the women were strictly defined within a spectrum in order to label women as a whole. Hawthorne mentions that...

"Women derive pleasure,

incomprehensible to the other sex,

from the delicate toil of the needle"

                         The author exposes the hidden pleasures of women that cannot be expressed on public. The choice of diction within this quote further emphasizes the role of women. Quickly, the reader gets the impression that women are nothing in comparison to men, that they are fragile human beings, yet deep inside, they are hard workers who struggle to gain a voice. Hester does not have to work so hard in order to be recognized because of the sin she has committed. However, she does have to work hard to gain respect, which is something she earns through her hard work and warm heart. But at the end of it all, Hester is still a sinner,

"Thus the young and the pure

would be taught to look at her,

with the scarlet letter flaming

at her breast... as the figure,

the body, the reality of sin"

                       

                       Hester plays an example of what women should not be and what can happen if they do chose to follow Hester's footsteps. Hester stood through all her punishments; she took them like a man. Instead of running away from her consequences, the faced them and it only made her stronger.
                       

                      One of the most evident symbols in the novel is the scarlet letter, as the novel progresses, the meaning of the symbol changes. This letter not only signifies adultery but it also reveals Hester as a self-controlling woman, for she defines the letter embroidered on her chest instead of vise versa.

"The letter was a symbol of her calling.

Such helpfulness was found in her,

- so much power to do,

and power to sympathize,

- that many people refused to interpret

the scarlet A by its original signification.

They said that it meant Able"

                     

              Instead of being recognized as a sinner, society started to see her as a capable, strong woman. This shows how Hester is able to control over the person she is and what she does. She proves to society that she is a good person who does not have to be miserable in the process of her punishment. But whatever she did, Hester was still a sinner,

"in the lapse of the toilsome,

thoughtful, self-devoted years

that made up Hester's life,

the scarlet letter ceased to be

a stigma which attracted the world's

scorn and bitterness"

                         In other words, her sins still haunted her; society knew what she had committed. There was nothing Hester could possibly do because she was a woman. So although the letter on her chest was redefined by society, she was still a helpless woman, not even the man who helped her with this sin was there by her side to help.


                    Cautiously, Hawthorne advances the notion that if society is to be changed for the better, such change will be initiated by women. But because society has condemned Hester as a sinner, the good that she can do is greatly circumscribed. Her achievements in a social sense come about as by-products of her personal struggle to win a place in the society; and the fact that she wins her place at last indicates that society has been changed by her. Might there be in the future a reforming woman who had not been somehow stigmatized by society? Although in his later works Hawthorne was to answer this question negatively, in The Scarlet Letter the possibility, though faint, is there.

Conclution:

                     Here in ‘The Scarlet Letter’ an individuals tries his/her ‘wings of fire’ to fly but trapped or caught in social taboos. Hester is wild by nature, she has a power to change so the individuals always become victim of society.

Method and Methodology

Name: Baraiya Bhavna P.

Roll No: 03

Sem: 02

Paper: Cultural Studies

Topic: Method and Methodology

Method

And

Methodology

        Method is the technique employed by the researcher to frame questions, collect and organize data. Thus ‘method’ refers to the actual fieldwork, questionnaires, databases, identifying sources.

           Methodology refers to the political position and the interpretive strategies used by the researcher. This refers to the epistemological approach, and concerns the philosophical, political approach of the researcher; where she scrutinizes her own interpret the data collected.

For example:

                     If you are studying representations of women in popular Hindi films, the first step in method would be…

·       To organize the questions to be asked

·       To take decisions about the people to interview (age group, class composition, language)

·       To prepare the questions

·       To conduct the interview

 The methodology would include

·       Identifying your own ideology (Marxist, feminist)

·       Reflecting on your experiences before framing the questions

·       Interpreting the data collected based on your assumptions

              Cultural Studies, as we know, is about power and studies how power informs all acts of cultural production and meaning generation. It is therefore important to realize the positions the researcher and object occupy and the power relations between them.

              Cultural Studies has a set of warnings that we need to keep in mind in any analysis of culture:

·       What gives us (academics, researchers) the authority to use people as resource material to study their culture?

·       What is the relationship between knower (researcher) and the known (object of the study)?

·       What is the location from which the researcher is asking the question the analysis?

In most cases of rigorous Cultural Studies, the researcher isolates her own locations and politics while analyzing culture. This means, the researcher has to be conscious of the ‘vantage point’ from which she is making the observations and interpretations. This is termed ‘reflexivity’ in social and critical theory, where the researcher reflects on her own position.

If for instance…,

                     I am exploring the culture of cyber technology in India, I need to identify my own position with regard to the ‘subject’ I am observing upper-caste, internally diasporic, metropolitan, male, middle-career academic with the humanities at an elite university with a fairly decent infrastructure. From this position and informed by the politics of my location, I observe cybercafés, rural e-governance and a digital divide from my friends in First World universities, but who feels that the younger generation uses technology much better than I ever can! This reflexivity opens up my observation and agenda. How do I see myself as a knowledge-producer, critic or commentator in relation to and with the subjects I study?  Does being an academic lend more authority’ to what I say or ask? What is the validity of my knowledge or observation? This set of questions is central to the politics of research itself.

                Cultural Studies in the Euro-American contexts, especially those from a feminist perspective, often connects empirical data and theorizing about this data with a wider feminist politics in the public realm. Thus, feminist studies of film audiences link the representation of women in film media with larger issues of gender inequality in society. This is crucial because one of the basic assumptions of Cultural Studies is that cultural artifacts can not be studied independent of the social and material contexts. Representations of women in films therefore are located in actual contexts of gender oppression, domestic violence, patriarchal family structures and economic inequalities of the genders.

      Two factors have to be kept in mind:

·       The study should draw upon as large a number of ‘sources’ for it to have any value.

·       It should be, if possible, spread out over a period of time and contexts, if we need to make a generalized statement about cultural practices.

  Commentators like John Fiske (1996) have argued that the old-fashioned mode of ethnography, where the researcher immerses’ her in the culture being studied is unnecessary because we mostly study our own cultures now. Further Culture Studies is more interested in the way meanings are made and t5he discourses within these are made. This involves study of the processes of representation and ‘texts, seeing these as instrumental in the construction of identity. That is, Cultural Studies investigates, intensively, the production of meaning rather than involving itself in extended observation. The ides is not to merely accumulate data- though such descriptions are valuable but to ask question of epistemology and politics of the data that has been produced.

       The recording of experience is, as we shall see, the cornerstone of all Cultural Studies. Following Ann Gray (2003) three propositions can be set out here:

·       Identifying what is knowable

·       Identifying and acknowledge the relationship of the knower and the known

·       What is the procedure for ‘knowing’?

This requires formulating the structure of the case study’. The ‘case study’ is a limited bounded system which is under observation of particular phenomena.