Thursday, April 5, 2012

E-C- 401 New Literatures


v  Assignment paper : E-C- 401 New Literatures
v Topic                     : Thematic study of “The White Tiger” Skin, White Masks" 
v Student’s Name   : Gandhi Pooja S.
v Roll No                : 08
v URL                     : gandhipooja151011.blogspot.com
v Semester              : 4
v Batch                   : 2011-12

                           Submitted to,                                 
                          Dr. Dilip Barad                                           
                       Department of English              
                        Bhavnagar University

v Introduction:
The White Tiger depicts the chaos, suffering, frustration, inferiority and black misery hidden behind the global, glittering urban spectacle. The writer has shown how individual aspirations and dreams are suppressed under massive social strictures and pressures. The White Tiger is fantastic depictions of life in two fast globalizing nations where the pace of life seems to be accelerating but human values and moral, ethical system seems to be fast declining and set for a downward spiral towards chaos.
v Master-slave Relationship:
Balram Halwai, the protagonist is a typical voice of underclass metaphorically described as “Rooster coop” and struggling to set free from age-old slavery and exploitation. His anger, protest, indulgence in criminal acts, prostitution, drinking, chasing, grabbing all the opportunities, means fair or foul endorse deep-rooted frustration and its reaction against the “haves”. Bloody acts, opportunism, entrepreneurial success of Balram, emergence of Socialists in India alarm that the voice of the underclass cannot be ignored for long.
v Gap between poor and rich:
What Adiga highlights is the ever widening gap between the rich and the poor and the economic system that lets a small minority to prosper at the expense of the majority. It has been pointed out that the period since the neoliberal economic reforms were introduced in India, there has been greater economic disparity. There is a growing consumption by the rich and the urban upper middle income groups. Side by side we see the lives of the poor becoming more vulnerable and precarious. Balram, a poor driver couldn’t enter a mall as he belonged to the poor class. If he walked into the mall someone would say “Hey, That man is a paid driver! What‘s he doing in here? In portraying the character of Balram, Adiga has excelled in projecting a typical psychopath, our society can churn out.
v Two faces of India:
Adiga's The White Tiger in an epistolary style depicts men and women fighting impossible odds to survive: there is class war - the war between "the two castes: Men with Big Bellies and the Men with Small Bellies". As for as destinies are concerned, Adiga's observation is that there are only two destinies- "eat or get eaten up". The text is a depiction of India's class/power struggle, an example of how the India of call centre meets the India of slum dweller. "Bangalore and Gurgaon are portrayed as hubs of active and places are flood lit literally with magnificent malls and captivating dance floors attracting the youth of society".
v Light and darkness:
The theme of light and darkness is appearing very often in the story of Balram Halwai. For Balram the river Ganga is a symbol for darkness which results in calling it “Ganga of black”. Warning Wen Jiabao not going to wash himself in the Ganga naming all the different diseases, acids and garbage that flows in it, he describes the death bringing power of the stream. Originally it is a holy river which cleans body and soul. Therefore it is a big tourist attraction and very famous. But Balram tells about the “real” Ganga with all the dangers which only the Indians know. The more away you live from the source the dirtier it is because of the burnt cadavers, acid and dirt that were thrown into it. That means all the people who don’t live near the source live in the darkness which means poverty and lack of prospects.
v Conclusion:
Adiga has focused on the changing trends, mindsets, value systems in post globalization Indian society. Adiga try to break the mould of stereotypical portrayal of rural life as one of pristine innocence, instead showing rural life as petty, demeaning, hostile and retrogressive. 




E-E-405 A Study of Special Author: Thomas Hardy as a Novelist


           
v  Assignment paper: E-E-405 A Study of Special Author: Thomas Hardy as a Novelist

v Topic                 : Thomas Hardy as Pessimist Writerack Skin, White Masks" 
v Student’s Name   : Gandhi Pooja S.
v Roll No                : 08
v URL                     : gandhipooja151011.blogspot.com
v Semester              : 4
v Batch                   : 2011-12

                           Submitted to,                                 
                          Dr. Dilip Barad                                           
                       Department of English              
                        Bhavnagar University

Pessimism is a state of having no hope that one's troubles will end or that success or happiness will come ever. It also means a condition of having the belief that evil is more common or powerful than good.
 He is a pessimist like the classical writers who consider Man merely a puppet in hands of mighty fate. His pessimism is redeemed by two other ingredients in his work – his lofty view of human nature and his capability to make us laugh at comic side of things. Hardy himself says: “My pessimism, if pessimism it be, does not involve the assumption that the world is going to the dogs … On the contrary my practical philosophy is distinctly Melioristic.” Doubts, despair, disbelief, frustration, industrial revolution, disintegration of old social and economic structure all these factors probe deep into his writings and heighten its somber, melancholic and tragic vision. They were plenty of tragedies in the life of the poverty stricken Wessex folk. Hardy's attitude toward his female characters is extraordinarily complex.
            Tess of the D'Urbervilles it explored the dark side of his family connections in Berkshire. In the story the poor villager girl Tess Durbeyfield is seduced by the wealthy Alec D'Uberville. Throughout the novel she keeps on revolving around the predetermined circles of her cruel fate. Being the eldest child she has to go to D'Urbervilles for earning. Her seduction plays a vital role in her destruction. Tess is rejected by society on becoming pregnant. She goes to earn for her family to Talbothays. Her love affair, her marriage and then sudden rejection by Angle Clare, all this make her a victim of conventional social attitude. Her sufferings in winter season of Talbothays after the departure of Angel Clare and in the courtship with Alec are untold. Her murder of Alec in order to rejoin Angel and her hanging soon afterwards also show a long series of sufferings but she faces them boldly.
After the bitter denunciation of the sexual double standard in Tess, Hardy expanded his satiric attack in his next novel, Jude the Obscure, which criticized the institutions of marriage, the Church, and England's class system. Again Hardy was savaged by critics who could not countenance his subversiveness. He was attacked in the press as decadent, indecent, and degenerate. The story dramatized the conflict between carnal and spiritual life, tracing Jude Fawley's life from his boyhood to his early death. Jude marries Arabella, but deserts her. He falls in love with his cousin, hypersensitive Sue Bridehead, who marries the decaying schoolmaster, Phillotson, in a masochist fit. Jude and Sue obtain divorces, but their life together deteriorates under the pressure of poverty and social disapproval. The eldest son of Jude and Arabella, a grotesque boy nicknamed 'Father Time', kills their children and himself. Broken by the loss, Sue goes back to Phillotson, and Jude returns to Arabella. Soon thereafter Jude dies, and his last words are: "Wherefore is light given to him that is in misery, and life unto the bitter in soul?Tess and Jude are helpless in front of fate or destiny.
Far from the Madding Crowd is also about love, marriage and disappointments. Tragedy is here in seeds, often attenuated into pathos, especially as far as Bathsheba is concerned. The novel seems to depict the outlines of a tragedy of the sexes without going into the depths of it. A number of tragic ingredients are unquestionably present, but the focalization on Bathsheba’s love stories and her endurance in the tale show how they are contained and underplayed, while at the same time they infect the story and give it its particular nostalgic hue, its undertones of pathos. If Bathsheba’s predicament is fearful and awe-inspiring, our pity for Boldwood is checked by his insensitivity and even cruelty in his treatment of his beloved before the murder scene. As for Troy, he has become such a highly despicable character at that point of the narrative that his death is but the necessary wiping out of the narrative of a disruptive element.
Shakespeare, on the other hand, holds character fully responsible for mishap. Fate plays a major role in many of Hardy's novels; Tess of the D'Urbervilles, Jude the Obscure, The Mayor of Casterbridge, etc contains various instances where its effects are readily apparent. Moreover, Hardy's novels reflect a pessimistic view where fate, or chance, is responsible for a character's ruin. Although it is much more subdued, fate and pessimism are still visible.