Indian English Literature Research Articles

The Political Exploitation of Feminine Sensibility in Alphabet of Lust

Kamala Das is one of the great voices of feminine sensibility in the history of Indian English literature. She wrote poetical and non-poetical works on love and sex very openly and frankly. Political issues have also been a concerning matter in the personal as well as political life of Kamala Das. Her poetical or non-poetical works have the source of political issues in the form of feminine exploitation to the core of life in the patriarchal society all over the world. Her literary works have a great source of such exploitation in not only her social views but also in the politics, extending from the local to the upper level of cabinet ministry. The present research paper is trying to explore the political exploitation of the feminine sensibility in her novel, Alphabet of Lust, 1976.

Cultural Shock in Anita Desai’s Novels

Cultural Shock is a phenomenon which is generally experienced by the migrants whether they migrate for jobs, studies or in case of women, after marriage. Anita Desai has dealt with Cultural Shock in her novels along with other major themes.
 Anita Desai is one of the pioneers of Indian English Literature. Her novels are replete with themes of Cultural hybridity, alienation, nostalgia cross-cultural clashes etc. These themes are studied under the gamut of theme of Cultural Shock which forms a prominent theme of Desai’s novels. The characters she potrays in her novels undergo a transition from one culture to another wherein they receive this Cultural Shock because the new culture appears to them completely alien and contradictory to their opionions. Critics have often praised her for her lucid writing style and fecundity of thought in various books, edited volumes and research articles. However, the theme of Cultural Shock explicitly expressed in her novels has not caught the attention of many critics. There seems to be a considerable dearth of critcal appraisal with regard to the experience of Cultural Shock by her characters once they migrate from homelands to abroad.
 The present study aims to fill this void by emphasizing and critically examining the novels of Anita Desai with respect to the theme of Cultural Shock. The Cultural Shock of individuals which Anita Desai has potrayed in her books once they migrate from subcontinent towards the western world. The characters make a conscious choice or sometimes a forced decisions to migrate in expectation of better future and life in the new found worlds. The paper analyses the experience of Cultural Shock by these migrants once they reach and confront the alien cultures.
 The paper will also deal with the resultant themes of alienation, depression, nostalgia and agony experienced by the characters once they migrate from eastern cultures to western culture. The research article also delves deep into the cross-cultural connections and hybridity produced once the two culture meet and mingle in an individual’s personal life.

Socio-Economic Global Cultural Flow with Reference to Select Indian English Novels

The world is unified by the word ‘globalization’ as a result of the growing interdependence of the world’s societies, economies, technologies, cultures, investment and information. Today, everything is accessible at one’s finger tips, because the world is interconnected. There is networking in all walks of life. Communication has become easier than ever and technology has begun to replace human resources. On one hand, globalization claims to have simplified living by interconnecting different parts of the world, but on the other hand, life seems to have become more complicated in the name of sociocultural networking and technological revolutions. The circulation of ideas, culture, language, and material goods as a result of networking, the reason for globalization, has been identified as global cultural flows, according to the social anthropologist and globalization theorist, Arjun Appadurai. The paper aims to look into the socio-cultural, political and economic impacts of globalizationon developing countries like India, with the help of three contemporary novels of the twenty first century Indian English literature – The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri, The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga, and Q&A by Vikas Swarup. It explores the aspects of globalization in the select novels, in an attempt to understand the modern world under the influence of globalization, liberalization and capitalization.

C.D. Narasimhaiah: Teacher and Critic

Professor C.D. Narasimhaiah was my teacher at the University of Mysore, for my M.A. (1966-68); he was also the supervisor for my Ph.D. (1968-71), so a personal perspective in this article is inevitable. The first part discusses his unique qualities as a teacher. He end eavoured to teach us to evaluate a piece of writing by examining the words on the page, never by the author's life or reputation. He had the capacity to convey his enthusiasm for the books and authors he loved. He took a personal interest in his students, and continued to mentor me even after I had obtained my Ph. D. The second half of the essay examines CDN's critiques of Indian English literature, ranging from his book review of K.R. Srinivasa Iyengar's Indian Writing in English(1962) to his Samvatsar Lecture (2003).

A River Sutra: A Dialogic and Meta-Narrative Work

A River Sutra (The holiest river Mother Narmada), a great novel of Geeta Mehta was published in 1993 which received the greatest attention of all Mehta’s works. The story is told and set around Narmada in central India Though Geeta Mehta, as a postcolonial writer perhaps, known more for her essays than novels, is also a documentary filmmaker and journalist. She is one of the well-known contributors in Indian English Literature, which has a long tradition of women writers such as earlier novelists Kamla Markandaya, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, Anita Desai, Shashi Deshpande, Arundhati Roy, Kiran Desai, etc. All these activities share a focus on India, the country of birth – its history, politics and cultures. The same concerns inform her novel: A River Sutra, a modern revisitation of prevalent traditions of Indian aesthetic and philosophical thought.

Quest and Assessment for Self-Identity in the Select Novel of Arun Joshi

Literature is one among the fine arts like painting, sculpture, and music which express emotions, feelings, humour, and happiness using language as a medium of communication through different sorts of the genre like prose, poetry, drama, and novel. It reflects the items that happen within society and life. It deals with human being’s personal experience, nature, war, culture, imagination, history, etc. Indian English literature is that the outcome of the works written by the Indian author who writes in English. In India, there are numerous languages and different literatures. Arun Joshi deals with a very difficult situation of a modern man and is sensitively alive to the various dimensions of tortures, exerted by the difficult character and demands of the society in which same age man is destined to live. The heroes of his novels are helpless outsiders and the harsh strangers. The consciousness of man’s rootlessness and new feeling and the major search for a meaningful self is the key factor of Joshi’s novels.

Of fear and fantasy, fact and fiction: Interrogating canonical Indian literary historiography towards comprehending partition of Bengal in post-Independence Indian (English) fictional space

A victim of the partition of Eastern India/undivided Bengal, a refugee is one who has ironically left behind the real but has carried on forever indelibly imprinted in memory that which is lost and remembered in superlatives, thus moving and simultaneously resisting to move. Remaining mentally anchored forever on ‘Bengal’s shore’ and having been denied the moment of adequate articulation of the loss in factual terms partly due to immediate trauma and partly due to the inherent politics of the language of standard literary expression vis-à-vis spoken language (Bangla vs Bangal respectively) with its hierarchic positionings, as well as the politics of state policy that attributed partition of Western India primordial signification, the Bengali Hindu refugee migrating from erstwhile East Pakistan (and now Bangladesh) to India, has never ‘really’ spoken and this is the hypothesis of this argument. Thus, what is heard, being far removed from the historical moment of rupture that was partition and with the loss of that fateful generation is bound to be ‘fiction’ and not ‘fact’. This paper proposes that since the refugee voice was denied adequate articulation of the ‘facts’ and the ‘fears’ resultant from partition in this part of Eastern India, that historical moment of perception and documentation has been irretrievably lost. Hence any attempt at documenting the same now shall obviously result in fictionalization of and fantasizing the loss as is evident in original and translational post-Independence Indian English Fiction -the moment of loss being the moment of fictional genesis. This paper also puts forward the necessity of identifying two specific periods beyond ‘independence’ whose axiomatic point would be the partition of Eastern India/ undivided Bengal viz. pre-partition and post-partition Indian Literature. The same shall apply to Indian English Literature both in original and translation.

Aju Mukhopadhyay’s Short Stories: A Multicoloured World

Aju Mukhopadhyay is one of the brightest stars in the firmament of contemporary Indian English Literature. He is a magnificent literary artist, in fact a versatile genius. As a visionary poet he has enraptured the hearts and minds of millions of poetry lovers, both in India and abroad. He is a profound critic, and his insightful critical studies are highly valued in the literary world. His essays on various subjects have made a mark in every field. He is a great storyteller too, both in English and Bangla, and the range of his short stories has baffled the fiction lovers. Like his previous volumes of short stories, the present collection too offers a large variety of subjects and feeds the craving of every set of readers. Aju’s world is so vast that you cross the national boundaries many times to peep into a new world. You open the window to a new story and step into a different world altogether. “In the Company of William, Samuel and Dorothy”, Aju takes us to the Lake District of England to enjoy the company of the great Romantic poets, William Wordsworth, S. T. Coleridge and Dorothy Wordsworth. His description is so vivid that you really feel you are watching everything happening before your ‘fleshy eyes’. In the next story “They Came Down from the Roof of the World”, the writer takes you indeed to the roof of the world, Tibet and the Tibetan Cause. Tibet and New York come alive before you and you partake in the stormy scenes, the rebellion, the persecution, the great Dalai Lama escape and the aftermath.

Ethics without God in the Novels of Mulk Raj Anand

Anand’s fiction may appropriately be called literature of ‘ethics without God’ a literature of protest, a kind of literature which he holds in high esteem because it strikes hard at the roots of sectionalism, snobbery, contempt, etc., which cause the modern man’s degeneration and despair. His creative writing are doubtless saturated with the element of ethics which is inalienably related to his view of life. A large number of critical studies are available on Mulk Raj Anand, the Titan of Indian English literature and pioneer of Indian English novel. But much remains to be done to bring out exhaustive and composite work on this subject. The present study is a sincere endeavor to undertake a comprehensive evaluation of ‘Ethics without God’ in his novels. It also aims at presenting an organic character of his fiction and proper appreciation of Anand’s genius.

Deplorable Condition of Women and Patriarchal Domination in Bapsi Sidhwa’s The Pakistani Bride

Parsi writers have contributed a lot to Indian English Literature. The Indian Parsi novelists express their feelings in the form of art. The novelists reflect the psychological dilemma of the minority community and its identity crisis through their works. Being a Parsi writer, Bapsi Sidhwa sees a kind of mental migration when she hybrids from her native land, and pours her feelings and thoughts in to her novels. She is known for her exploration of women’s inner psyche who aspire to live in modernity, inept to break traditional quality intrinsic in them. Most of her writings contain a pinch of migration and male dominance taste when one chews them. The expatriate writers face multi-cultural situation which merges with their personal anguish due to prejudice. They project the cultural confusion and confrontation of a multi-racial society. The quest for identity, aspiration for belongingness and love for native land is found as a part of non-erasable conscious in all expatriate writers. This paper reveals the socio-cultural background and the authoritative patriarchal Pakistani society in the novel The Pakistani Bride The novel portrays how the institution of marriage and patriarchy deplores and represses an orphaned girl’s self-identity. It also pinpoints the problems of a little girl Zaitoon as an alien in an alien land or culture. It enforces deportation as a pathway to sculpt for belongingness of her ‘self’. At the end, Zaitoon succeeds by rejecting the alien culture and tradition.

Gender and Religion in Kamala Das’ Poetry

Kamala Das was one the illustrious poets in the history of Indian English literature. She represented a typical middle class Indian woman’s dual conflict of ideas through the portrayal of her own persona with the backdrop of Indian life and culture in her versatile poetry. Kamala Das was a champion of woman’s secret longings, aspirations and desires. Her poems are full of her personal feelings as a woman and the realization of own self. The present paper focuses on the voice she lends for every woman agonized in marriage and the reawakening of her soul, which she submits to God.

Radical Voices in Indian English Poetry: A Study of the Poetry of Kamala Das

The creative genius of Kamala Das, one of the most prominent voices of protest in Indian English Literature is often compared to the American poet Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton as both of them used the confessional mode of writing in their poetry. Kamala Das, born in 1934 in Thrissur district of kerela emerged as a distinctive poetic voice with the publication of the first volume of her poetry Summer in Calcutta. In her poems Kamala Das has always raised a voice against the conventionalized figure of a woman, seeking a more dignified and honourable position for woman as an entity. In fact her poetry addresses the most critical issue in the contemporary society-the need to awaken the women. Her poetry collections include- Summer in Calcutta (1965), The Descendents (1967), The Old Playhouse and Other poems (1973), Tonight, This Savage Rite (1979), The Collected Poems (1984). My Story published in 1976 is her autobiography.

Postcolonial trauma in Indian literature in English in the 21st century

Postcolonial trauma in Indian literature in English in the 21st century

The Portrayal of Girl Child in Ruskin Bond’s The Blue Umbrella

Ruskin Bond, Indian author of British decent, was born on 19 May 1935 at Kasauli, Himachal Pradesh. He was raised at Jamnagar (Gujarat), Shimla and Dehradun. He is a well-known Indian writer in English. He has written more than hundred short stories, six novels, three collection of verse and over thirty books for children. He is considered to be an icon among Indian writers and children’s author and a top novelist. He received Sahitya Academy award for his book; Our Trees Still Grow at Dehra in 1992, and was honored with Padam Shree in 1999 for his lifetime contribution to Indian literature in English. He was awarded with Padam Bhusham in 2014. He has been writing for the last fifty years in different genre of literature. His stories and novels got wide publicity worldwide in India. Various directors produced films on his novels. He was also appreciated by various prizes and awards at national level. In 2005, the Bollywood director Vishal Bhardwaj made a film based on his popular novel for children, The Blue Umbrella. The movie won the National Award for best Children’s film. It is a fine specimen published in 1992. This novella has also been filmed in 2007. It is set in a small village of Garhwal, where a little highland girl, Binya lives. She trades her lucky leopard claw pendent with a picknicker lady for a pretty blue umbrella.

Radical Voices in Indian English Poetry: A Study of the Poetry of Kamala Das

The creative genius of Kamala Das, one of the most prominent voices of protest in Indian English Literature is often compared to the American poet Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton as both of them used the confessional mode of writing in their poetry. Kamala Das, born in 1934 in Thrissur district of kerela emerged as a distinctive poetic voice with the publication of the first volume of her poetry Summer in Calcutta. In her poems Kamala Das has always raised a voice against the conventionalized figure of a woman, seeking a more dignified and honourable position for woman as an entity. In fact her poetry addresses the most critical issue in the contemporary society-the need to awaken the women. Her poetry collections include- Summer in Calcutta (1965), The Descendents (1967), The Old Playhouse and Other poems (1973), Tonight, This Savage Rite (1979), The Collected Poems (1984). My Story published in 1976 is her autobiography

Space and Identity of Women in Indian English Writings

The women’s studies have been receiving increasing academic and disciplinary recognition throughout the globe. The writers are determined to narrate, respond and react to the place of women in society. The purpose of the present paper is to redefine the image of women in post colonial Indian English literature. The post colonial Indian English writers focus on major issues relating to woman such as her awakening to the realization of her individuality, her breaking away with the traditional image. The transformation of the idealized women into an assertive self willed woman, searching and discovering her true self is described by various Indian Writers like Anita Desai, Sashi Deshpande, Nayantara Sahgal, Bharati Mukherjee, Kamla Markandaya, Manju Kapoor and many others have depicted females who are not silent sufferers but have learnt to fight against injustice and humiliation.

A Critical Analysis on “Revolution 2020” - An Amalgam of Socio- Political Commercialization World Combined with Love Triangle

Literature is considered to be an art form or writing that have Artistic or Intellectual value. Literature is a group of works produced by oral and written form. Literature shows the style of Human Expression. The word literature was derived from the Latin root word ‘Litertura / Litteratura’ which means “Letter or Handwriting”. Literature is culturally relative defined. Literature can be grouped through their Languages, Historical Period, Origin, Genre and Subject. The kinds of literature are Poems, Novels, Drama, Short Story and Prose. Fiction and Non-Fiction are their major classification. Some types of literature are Greek literature, Latin literature, German literature, African literature, Spanish literature, French literature, Indian literature, Irish literature and surplus. In this vast division, the researcher has picked out Indian English Literature. Indian literature is the literature used in Indian Subcontinent. The earliest Indian literary works were transmitted orally. The Sanskrit oral literature begins with the gatherings of sacred hymns called ‘Rig Veda’ in the period between 1500 - 1200 B.C. The classical Sanskrit literature was developed slowly in the earlier centuries of the first millennium. Kannada appeared in 9th century and Telugu in 11th century. Then, Marathi, Odiya and Bengali literatures appeared later. In the early 20th century, Hindi, Persian and Urdu literature begins to appear.

Tagore’s “Broken Nest”: Fantasy Vs Reality

This story instantly takes us back to 1879 Calcutta to explore the seeds of India’s early movement for independence from England and to examine the restrictions placed on educated Indian women. It’s like Victorian England but instead it’s Victorian India in which a neglected wife, on the point of breaking through to self-awareness, begins to perceive male dominion as a hollow façade of beards, braces and boredom. “The Broken Nest” is one of Tagore’s best works. Rabindranath Tagore is a legend in Indian English Literature. He has portrayed his characters in such a way as to teach a moral lesson to society through them. Its chief asset is a subtle and deep analysis of the psychology and interpersonal relationships of its characters. The unadulterated love and longing of an intelligent woman , Charulata, for her younger brother-in-law ,while the husband is pursuing his intellectual hobby of running a radical English newspaper in Calcutta, Charulata is left to confide her creative passions with her artistic and poetic brother-in-law, it is difficult to define where this crosses the line from admiration to love.

A cross-cultural analysis of female protagonist on selecting novel of chitra banarjee divakaruni and bharati mukherjee

In the 21st century, women's writing in English has been considered as a powerful medium of modernism and feminist proclamation in the contemporary society of patriarchy life. The last two decades have witnessed extraordinary success in feminist writings of Indian English literature even Today is the generation of those women writers who are rich and have been educated in the West. Hence, this paper examines to analysis the cross-cultural values and divulgences of female protagonist’s of the great diasporic writers Chitra Banarjee Divakaruni and Bharati Mukherjee select novels. It also discussed the problems of women and in their suppressions in our post-modern society how they lost their identity and how do they feel their separation of culture from native land to an alien land.

MULTICULTURALISM AND ASPECTS OF GLOBALISATION IN KIRAN DESAI’S INHERITANCE OF LOSS

Indian English Literature pertains to the body of work by writers from India, who pen strictly in the English language and whose native or co-native language could be one of the numerous regional and indigenous language of India. English literature in India is also intimately linked with the works of associates of the Indian Diaspora. Among other writers, Kiran Desai is one of the most renowned writers in the Indian English Literature. With Kiran Desai, a literary tradition is reborn. One of the major themes in the novel is multiculturalism. Multiculturalism relates to communities containing multiple cultures. The term is used in two broad ways, either descriptively or normatively. As a descriptive term it usually refers to the simple fact of cultural diversity. It is generally applied to the demographic make-up of a specific place, sometimes at the organizational level, eg: school, businesses, cities, or nations. As a normative term, it refers to ideologies or policies that promote this diversity or its institutionalization. In this sense, multiculturalism is a society at ease with the rich tapestry of human life and the desire amongst people to express their own identity in the manner they see as fit. Such ideologies or policies vary widely, including country to country. Another major theme in the novel is globalization, which is a process of international integration arising from the interchange of world views, products, and other aspects of culture. Advances in transportation and telecommunications infrastructure, including the rise of the telegraph and its posterity the Internet, are majorfactors in globalization, generating further interdependence of economic and cultural activities. The term globalization has been increasing use since the mid-1980s and especially since the mid-1990s. The term globalization is derived from the word globalize, which refers to the emergence of an international network ofsocial and economic systems. This paper attempts to analyze Kiran Desai’s novel The Inheritance of Loss to bring out the various aspects of multicultural clashes and globalization.