Indian English Literature Research Articles

Depiction of societal evils in chetan bhgat’s revolution 2020

This paper focuses on Chetan’s thoughts where he conveys in his writings that in a developing country youngsters are failing to get recognize Chetan bhagat the creative writer in the field of Indian English Literature has portrayed the mechanical life of youngsters in his novel Revolution 2020. The paper brings forth the empathetic life of youngsters and the political problems in a vivid manner. It shows the life of the protagonist and the burden faced by them by relatives and society.

Narrating “India”: Liminal Narratives of Northeast and Assertion of Identity

The canonical notion of the Nation has always been a highly problematic and significant motif in Indian English literature. A close perusal reveals the staggering conflicts that arise as the counter-narratives raise pertinent questions that dispute the validity of the official discourse. One may argue that it is too simplistic to think of a singular concept of ‘India’ that can appease the demands of pluralistic narratives. Rather, one should envisage ‘Indias’ that open itself to fluid perspectives and accommodate polyphonic narratives. It is at such a juncture that writings from the Northeast India play a decisive role as they effectively re-mould the concepts of identity and authenticity in narrating the Indian experience. When writers like Siddhartha Deb, Anjum Hasan, and Anungla Zoe Longkumer examine the nuances of a liminal discourse that had hitherto been excluded from the nationalist canon, they become potent narratives that hint at the palimpsestic layers of a pluralistic discourse. The present paper tries to analyse works like The Point of Return (2003), Lunatic in My Head (2007) and The Many that I am (2019) as narratives that become persuasive layers of a palimpsestic notion of nation.

THE FEMALE IN SELECTED LITERARY PIECES: A SOCIAL CRITICISM

In the previous two decisive decades, feminism's enquirers have imprinted a vital rebuke to the way social science has etched out men, women, and society. Arguments regarding epistemology, method, and methodology have been entwined with confabulations about how to effectively modify skewed and partial accounts in the setting of traditional analyses from the dawn. To grasp the comprehensiveness of the social sciences' metamorphosis, to distinguish women and gender practices, one required to observe the most visible approaches to alter the classic analyses' andro-centrism. Feminists have attempted to 'include women' in these discussions. We find three types of women who emerged as undisputable candidates for this framework: women who contributed to public life and were already being studied by social scientists, women social scientists, and women who have been victims of the most abhorrent and blatant forms of male pre-eminence. This research article is an endeavor to study feminism taking selected literary pieces from Sanskrit, British English Literature and Indian English Literature. KEYWORDS: Women in Our Society, Gender Inequalities, Women in British Society, Women in Ancient Indian Society, Society through Literature

Women and Emotional Variabilities: Reading of the Delicate Complexes ‘Subjecting Asha-Binodini’ in Tagore’s Chokher Bali

Women have often been deployed from many social representational practices for their absently marked subject positions; they have been made to function as the ‘subjects’ of absent political representations. Feminism as such had no pinpointed strategy of commencing in Indian geography, except for personalities protesting against social rules to demand equal spaces for the women. In the field of Indian English Literature that can be considered as feminist writings, we indeed have remarkable contributing personalities like Mahasweta Devi, Jhumpa Lahiri, and many more. Culture functions as a foundationalist fable in shaping identities and sustaining them, and such Bengali culture has also created women as a separate entity definable by few ‘fixed’ characteristics of linguistic absence. In this regard Judith Butler beautifully stated that “Women are the sex which is not “one”. Within…a phallogocentric language, women constitute the unrepresentable…women represent the sex that cannot be thought, a linguistic absence and opacity” (Butler, 13). Rabindranath Tagore’s literary pieces has often been called feminist works for they constructively deconstructed the intricate cultural stigmas. Tagore’s presentation of women was both subversive and culturally vibrant, few dominated; while few were dominated, which my paper would try discerning by the application of queer-post-structuralist feminist theory.

The Graphic of Identity Exertion in Indian English Fiction

The whole world has been witnessing speedy advances in the meadow of science, technology, and communication. These advancements have antagonized the cultural issues both at the national and international level. The cultural issues have fashioned an exemplary transference in comprehending the notions of character and identity. Culture is the most imperative ingredient of human animation for refining and nourishing the quality of life. India is a country where an individual is able to visualize the juxtaposition of different cultures, traditions and heritages. These elements have successfully sowed the needs of unity in diversity for the betterment of cultural bonding among the citizens. The ideals of culture are very much bestowed in arts, history, philosophy, language and literature.Literature is an exhibition of human disposition in verbal, non-verbal or written demonstration. Culture is observed as one of the strategic causes in conforming to the archetypes of literature. Many of the writers in Indian English literature have enchanted to epitomize culture as their foremost predicament in their chronicles. Identity of an individual is fabricated on the application of culture in Indian civilization. Change in identities is perceived as the enduring phenomenon of human life. The changed identities of human life are very much shed light in the expositions of Indian English Fiction. Hence, the research paper endeavours to study the graphic of identity exertion in Indian English Fiction within the obtainable charter.

Re -Negotiating the Trauma Theory in Select Partition Novels

Purpose: This paper analyses the traumatic aspects prevalent in select Partition novels in Indian English literature. An inquisition of how these writers delineate the traumatic condition of the women characters in their partition narratives and the manner in which they interweave memories, pangs, sufferings, thoughts, riots and experiences with their past and the sense of trauma experienced by them. This study will be examined in detail on the effects of disaster or catastrophe on the inner psyche of characters and consciousness that dismantles the identity of an individual. Design/Methodology/Approach: It will be a qualitative analysis including close reading, interpreting, comparing, and contrasting the primary sources chosen for the study. Critical essays on trauma theory and partition novels and books on partition narratives and trauma theory will also be incorporated to conduct the research. Findings/Results: The outcome of the partition of the Indian subcontinent will ever be an issue of national prominence. The Partition event has enhanced many problems and inquiries about citizenship, national identity and traumatic experiences of the people. However, it is often examined, it still postulates from us an upholding pursuit for many essential answers. Originality/Value: The literature of partition sheds light on the then subsisting doctrines and its shift due to partition, which renders in new discernment about the social, historical and psychological experiences during that time. Partition induced a great agitation in history that interwoven with the miseries and trauma. These novels investigate how people outlived the holocaust, how they survived grappled with the trauma and renew their lives. These writers have perceived the pathos of people and the human agonies that preceded and accompanied partition. These novels demonstrate the impressions of abstruse nostalgia of the survived and deposed and intense pain of missing their motherland forever. Paper Type: Analytical research study.

Contribution of the British To Develop Indian English Literature

Development of Indian English Literature in India gathered momentum with the consolidation of British imperialism in India. As we know the British sow the seed of Indian Writing in English during the period of the British rule in India. English language and literature in India starts with the advent of East India Company in India. It all started in the summers of 1608 when Emperor Jahangir, in the courts of Mughals, welcomed Captain William Hawkins, Commander of British Naval Expedition Hector. It was India's first tryst with an Englishman and English. Jahangir later allowed Britain to open a permanent port and factory on the special request of King James IV that was conveyed by his ambassador Sir Thomas Roe. English were here to stay. Indian writings in English were heavily influenced by the Western art form of the novel. It was typical for the early Indian English language writers to use English unadulterated by Indian words to convey experiences that were primarily Indian. The core reason behind this step was the fact that most of the readers were either British or British educated Indians. In the early 20th century, when the British conquest of India was achieved, a new breed of writers started to emerge on the block. These writers were essentially British who were born or brought up or both in India. Their writing consisted of Indian themes and sentiments but the way of storytelling was primarily western. They had no reservation in using native words, though, to signify the context. This group consisted likes of Rudyard Kipling, Jim Corbett, and George Orwell among others. In fact, some of the writings of that era are still considered to be masterpieces of English Literature. KEYWORDS: Contribution of British, Development, British works & strategy, English Literature.

Redefining Nationhood and Nationality through Historiographic Metafiction in the Shadow Lines

Purpose: Postmodernism is a general movement that developed in the late 20th century across the arts, philosophy, art, architecture, and criticism, marking a disappearance from modernism. The term has been more often used to describe a historical age which followed after modernity. Postmodernism is a period of uprising which refers to ups and downs in each walk of life and the different disciplines of knowledge be it literary work, philosophy, or science. Postmodern literature revokes some modern literary methods by transforming them. Historiographic Metafiction is a contradictory term that consists of two opposite categories such as history and metafiction. It is having dual representations because such writings reflect the reality as well as fictional position. An attempt is made by the Post-colonial Indian English writers to liberate Indian English literature from the foreign bondage. Historical events such as agitations, migration, movements, refugees, colonial hegemony; social-economic and cultural problems like encounter of the east-west, caste, and class became the concerns of the writers. Design/Methodology/Approach: This paper is prepared by making a study of Primary source and accumulating secondary data from educational websites and written publications. This qualitative research is carried out by studying and interpreting the existing knowledge on the subject. The paper tries to analyze the historiographic metafictional features as depicted in The Shadow Lines by Amitav Ghosh. Findings/Result: After reviewing many articles, books and thesis it has been found that the paper aims to study Amitav Ghosh's notions like ‟ Nationhood and National distinctiveness in "The Shadow Lines” as a reminiscence novel, highlights a few historical happenings like the Second World War, the Swadeshi movement, and the Partition of India in 1947 and communal uprisings in Bangladesh and India. The ardent nationalism upheld by the protagonist that is the narrator’s grandmother is questioned and re-analysed. Ghosh searches for appropriateness of traditional identity such as nation and nationalism. Originality/Value: This paper makes a study of the major character Thamma with special reference to her concerns of Nationhood and Nationality. The identity of Thamma in the novel is given prominence being a woman she stands for her thoughts and identifies her as an individual who faced tragedy but still who had the courage to raise her voice till the end. Paper Type: Analytical Research paper.

Modern Indian Literature in Translation

The translation is essential to communicate the meaning of one language into another without disturbing the originally felt emotions. It has been noticed that translation has always been primary to Indian literature, and especially Indian English literature. Encouraging translation talent in India is also a relatively new and interesting space. Since the vernacular writings have been translated into English, it’s getting easier for the audiences to understand the point of view of the writers. It is the strength of this vernacular pen that makes writings so dynamic in Indian languages. In the Indian context translation to English is also an act of harmony as it brings voices of protest and those of the subaltern as well, to the advantaged and the powerful challenging them in their space. This research will focus on Marathi subaltern writings translated into English and their impact on the readers, especially the literature created by Dalits (formerly referred to as Untouchables), one of the most exploited and silenced communities in India.

Colonial Struggle-Revolt of Adivasis against Corporate Policies and It’s Invisibility in Modern Global Fictions of Indian English Literature

The treatment to the adivasi community in Postcolonial Indian English fiction lacks in many grounds. Tribal historical revolts, encroachments of British rule into tribal territories, grabbing lands of the tribals, exploitation of tribal women, cruel landlords, deforestation and degradation of tribal environmental values do not find realistic representation in Indian English fictions. In Gita Mehta's The River Sutra, tribal are shown as the worshipper of Narmada River and performing some ritual on the bank of River Narmada, but tribal religious concerns are not so much the limited and full of superstitions. They consider land, forest and water as godly gift to them. In fact these natural objects are itself Godlike for them but when British power and landlords took the illegal entry in their territories, they protested against them and became the epitome of valor and martyrdom in the history. This research article tries to examine the bias attitude of mainstreams literature writing regarding the adivasi heritage and glorious tradition of revolt and sacrifice.

Indian English is also Creole: Incorporating Regional Bias in Research Pedagogy

Research pedagogy in India should readjust itself to accommodate claims of regional autonomy in arts and letters. Different ways of reconstructing a pedagogy of research are recommended. Reflexive Humanism ensures adequate assessment and evaluation of cultural, literary, and aesthetic achievements of diverse populations. The Indian English corpus is redefined as a creolized Indian language with lexical and semantic factors borrowed from English. The consciousness of pro-national subjectivism is also considered an essential constituent of Indian English literature. Lines of research are suggested for aspiring scholars in the Indian academy. The author emphasizes a dynamic and sensitive adaptation of research methodology which respects and reintegrates itself with the evolution of globally aware, contemporary society in India.

Role of Indian English Literature in Nation Building in Pre-Independent Era: With Special Reference to Raja Rammohun Roy, Rabindranath Tagore and Sir Aurobindo

Role of Indian English Literature in Nation Building in Pre-Independent Era: With Special Reference to Raja Rammohun Roy, Rabindranath Tagore and Sir Aurobindo

AMITAV GHOSH'S THE GLASS PALACE: A POST-COLONIAL CRITIQUE

This paper studies the postcolonial approach in the novel The Glass Palace, written by Amitav Ghosh, one of the well-known writers in Indian English literature. This research is an attempt to analyse The Glass Palace through the systematic investigation of postcolonial discourse. The present study assesses the novel through close reading, considering the theories and terms given by various postcolonial theorists such as Edward Said, Gayatri Spivak, Homi K. Bhabha, Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths, Helen Tiffin, and Frantz Fanon. The colonial period lasted until 1947 in India, and the end of the 20th century marked the end on colonisation in most of the colonised countries of Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. After India got independence from British rule, writers like Salman Rushdie, Amitav Ghosh, Shashi Tharoor, Vikram Seth commenced new drifts in their writings by intertwining history with fiction. Historical events and imperialism were there in most of their fiction. In The Glass Palace, too, the author has blended two genres, history and fiction. Historical personages and events reflected in the novel like Invasion of British Army over Burma in 1885, Indian Rebellion of 1857, The Quit India Movement in 1942, and The Second World War in 1939-45, Riots in India, Ghadar Movement; and the personages like The royal family of Konbaung dynasty, Mahatma Gandhi, Dadasaheb Ambedkar, Taraknath Das, Lala Har Dayal are some real historical figures in the novel. In this critique of post-colonialism, theories given by postcolonial theorists in the field of postcolonial studies are scrutinised, i.e. hegemony, subaltern, exile and displacement, diaspora, mimicry, hybridity, ambivalence, and otherness.

Existentialism in Anita Nair’s Ladies Coupe

This paper is an attempt to explore the fragrance of existentialism in Anita Nair’s Ladies Coupe. She was born on 26th Jan., 1966. She has penned down three very famous novels; The Better Man (1999), Ladies Coupe (2001) and Mistress (2005). She happens to be a multi-talented literary figure, holding her authority not only in the field of fiction but also that of poetry. She is better known as a competent modern woman-novelist in the realm of Indian English literature of the modern age. Currently she lives in Bangalore. Ladies Coupe is basically a novel of the “feminine sensibility” but it remains unsuited to the category of the female-writing that represented women as “battered, bartered and abandoned” on the shoals of low self-worth. It rides triumphantly against the tide giving us a glimpse of the innate strength that a woman has to rebuild up her life. This is why Nair has called her novel a story revealing about “ordinary women with indomitable spirit”. Unlike her first novel – ‘The Better Man’, having a male protagonist, Nair’s ‘Ladies Coupe’, rotates around the 45 year old bachelor Akhila or Akhilendeswari, being a pen pusher in the Income Tax Department. She has gone fed up with the lone provider in her family. One day, she happens to get a ticket booked for Kanyakumari to explore certain answers for herself, mainly to the question if a woman is able to make her survival alone, being away from her family. There are five other women accompanying her for the overnight journey. They are Janaki, married with Margaret, a forty year old young Chemistry-teacher, Prabha Devi, very close to Akhila’s age, the fifteen year old Sheela and Mariakonthu, a woman who is obviously different from the rest of them. All these women connect their life-stories to Akhila, helping the latter to gain her full potential woman and struggle with the response to the questions she has been searching out so long. Thus this paper analyses the search-operation of Akhila as she arrives by degrees as to how she should live her life freely and maintain her own identity in this patriarchal society. Anita Nair has paid emphasis on the fact that it is not the response to the question which has been alluding Akhila so long, but the search for exploring it which is more pleasant to the protagonist. The central character Akhila’s responsibility has been considerably exposed. She has found the potential to come out more afresh from the prison-house of her old-self as symbolized by the stiffness of the cotton saris she always used to put on while working. She can at least switch back to her previous life where perhaps nothing could have changed on the surface but on a mental plane a sure process of development has occurred.

Reading Creative Translations of Jibanananda Das’s Bengali Poetry into English: A Journey across the Frontiers of Experiences

Indian English literature generally refers to that body of writing, which is produced in the English language by the litterateurs of an Indian origin. It is however, understandable that creative translations should also be located into the corpus of Indian English literature. Historically speaking, what gave the first solid footing to Indian English poetry was Rabindranath Tagore’s Gitanjali, and this came in the form of creative translation. After Rabindranath we find another accomplished poet of twentieth century Bengal to practice creative translation of his Bengali poetry into English. This poet is Jibanananda Das, whose English- language poetry in the form of creative translation is yet to receive a broader audience. The present paper seeks to study three of these creative translations titled Meditations (Manosarani in Bengali), Darkness (Andhakar in Bengali) and Sailor (Nabik in Bengali), which seem to form a complex sequel in respect of Jibanananda’s deep concern for the socio-cultural unrest that characterized the general fabrics of life in Bengal after the Partition of 1947. Moreover, these poems appear equally contemporary in the twenty first century, when the disruptive forces of corruption, falsehood, debauchery, political coercion and cultural denigration are more severely at work to corrode and annihilate the cultural roots of Bengal. So, the purpose of the present study is two-fold: first, to show how the creative translations of Jibanananda continue to strike the note of a universal humanity in the present times, and second, to voice for their inclusion in forthcoming anthologies of Indian English poetry. For, these poems composed by one of the greatest poets of modern Bengal would make room for readers from all over India to savour the taste of a fine artistry that transcends the limits of every ideological bias.

CRITICALANALYSIS ON THE POEMS OF JAYANTA MAHAPATRA WITH REFERENCE TO THE ECO-CRITICAL PRAXIS: ECO-POETICS AND CULTURAL ECOLOGY.

Jayanta Mahapatra is one of the doyens of Indian English literature. Being an Indo- Anglican writer, he came to the literary arena in his later half of his life. He was then conferred with Sahitya Akademy award for his seminal work Relationship in 1981. This gave him the title of a modern Indian writer among the international literary circle. Most of his works are bound to the culture of Orissa and his works are rich in images picked from Bhubaneswar, Konarka, Puri and Chilka lake. He is a patron of Indian civilization and an ardent ghter against environmental concerns, social issues and political inequalities. Reading Mahapatra’s poems under Ecocritical praxis is an interesting realm of inquest where he has penned his genuine concerns and cultural tracks through his poems. Eco-poetic aspects are abundant in his poems that Mahapatra reconnects the human activity with nature and also resist the current human intervention in this exploitive capitalistic world. Cultural ecology has a deep connection in his poems that his characters are the testimonies of the reconnection between man and nature. Irrespective of his age, he is still an ardent writer who has a vision for optimistic posterity.

Locating Women in the Naxalbari Movement: A Story of Resistance and Fabrication of the Individual Female Identity

The objective in this paper is to explore the role of women in the Naxalbari movement by studying how a woman resists all the patriarchal authorities and carves her own space in a male-dominated movement through The Naxalites: A Novel (1979), a representative text on the Naxalbari movement in Indian English Literature. The Naxalbari movement (1965-1975) is the first peasant revolution within twenty years of Indian Independence that initiated in a small village named Naxalbari situated in the Darjeeling district of West Bengal. Though there have been many scholarly studies on the movement, the representation of women and their experiences in the texts on the movement in Indian English Literature has not yet been traversed upon. The paper, therefore, addresses this gap by studying the movement from the feminist standpoint through one of the representative texts. While on one hand, historical records show how women had been frontline warriors in the initial phase of the movement only to be marginalized with the spread of the movement; on the other, none of the chronicles on the movement recognizes the role of women and their contributions in it. Through the text of The Naxalites: A Novel, this paper engages with such problematic and contradictory location of women through the portrayal of a female character who attempts to change the whole direction of the movement with the aim to make it more sustainable. Thus, the paper tries to analyze women as a subversive force within the movement who represent the critical voice against the patriarchal framework by suggesting an alternative modus operandi while staying within the folds of the movement.

Pain and Pleasure in Kamala Das’ My Story

Pain and Pleasure are the two psychological terms, used in English language and literature to show or describe the state of human mind with the perception of occurring incidents in their lives. In the relation of meaning, both of the terms are adversative adjectives to each other but both have the most important elements in the existence of human beings in the absence of each other. Pain describes the dark side of life or mental the state of human sufferings while pleasure is expressed during the mental state of joy and entertainment or light side of the life. Both of the terms have been well expressed in the autobiographical work of Kamala Das, My Story published in February 1973. This paper is going to explore the human state of mind in the most autobiographical work of Kamala Das, the female Keats and Lawrence of Indian English literature.

Torn between Cultures: Reading Shashi Tharoor’s Riot

Shashi Tharoor is a distinctivevoice in the Postcolonial Indian literature in English with his remarkable contribution of more than 16 works of fiction and non-fiction. Postcolonialism refers to a set of theoretical concepts, approaches and interventions which deals with the diverse effects of the interaction between the colonizer and the colonized. History, politics and culture have always been a dominant preoccupation of the Indian English novelists. The compulsive obsession was perhaps inevitable since the genre originated and developed concurrently with the climatic phase of colonial rule. As a diplomat and writer, Shashi Tharoor has explored the diversity of culture in his native country. He has made his point in many of his interviews that the novel is full of collisions of various sorts- personal, political, cultural, emotional and violent. Riot is a novel about the ownership of history, about love, hate, cultural collision, religious fanaticism and the impossibility of knowing the truth. The novel chronicles the mystery of an American 24-year old lady, Priscilla Hart. The intention of this paper is to explore the cultural conflict between the East and the West and an attempt is made to examine Shashi Tharoor’s Riot as a conveyor of the various distinguishable features to the divergent cultures. The characters of Riot are facing problems and striving to achieve their identities as Indians and as individuals in Indian society. Lakshman, though an educated Indian, cannot share his intellectual ideas with any fellow Indians, but feels quite comfortable with Priscilla, an American lady. Yet, he cannot completely forego his Indian identity and is aware of their irreconcilable gap between their culture, values and outlook towards life.

Exploring ecocriticism in Indian English literature: A harmonious discourse with nature

Exploring ecocriticism in Indian English literature: A harmonious discourse with nature