'I am the shadow of sorrow, catalyst of the happiest moment.
Being the companion of all human being, I am the man to probe into Nature.'
 
By »——(¯` Prosenjit´¯)——»
________________________

'Tomorrow will surely come'

A Very Short Introduction of Postcolonial Analysis On the Novel "Robinson Crusoe"

Colonization is a process when one group cannot determine themselves and another group dominates them. The phenomenon of colonization does not happen only in real life but also in written fiction. The example of colonization in the real life is colonization that has done by Dutch to Indonesian people. While, colonization could be found in economics, politics, education, culture and literary work. Daniel Defoe as an English novelist writes colonization process in his novel “Robinson Crusoe”.

Related to the phenomenon above, this research aims to answer two following questions; the first is how the colonization reflected in Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, and second is how the dominant power dominated the colonized people.

This research is a descriptive qualitative research. The data source of this study is the novel Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe. The data of this study are all sentences in the form of written dialogues, monologues and expression, which are collected from novel Robinson Crusoe. The steps of data collection are reading and understanding the text, picking up the data dealing with the problems, selecting and classifying the data that were related with the problem of the study. To analyze the data, he presented the data, interpreted the data, evaluated and drew the conclusion.

Based on the findings and discussion of the data, it is concluded that there are colonization that are reflected in Daniel Defoe’s novel Robinson Crusoe. The major character has been the major colonizer. Hegemony of Robinson Crusoe was huge. He could determine everything around him in order to be appropriate for his business. There are many ways to dominate “silent other” that are used by the major character, Robinson Crusoe. Hey are controlling communication channel, confiscated proprietary right, and giving a pseudo positive pleasure.

The researcher hopes that this research can give a new contribution to the readers, especially the students who are interested in postcolonial discourse. Furthermore, it is hoped for further researchers to conduct the research, which not only focuses on reflection of colonization but also on the other aspect of postconsonantal.

Source: englishthesiss

 

A Short Summary of “The Guide” by R.K. Narayan

The Guide is the most popular novel of R.K. Narayan. It was published in 1958, and won the Sahitya Akademy Award for 1960. It has also been filmed and the film has always drawn packed-houses.

It recounts the adventures of a railway guide, popularly known as ‘Railway Raju’. As a tourist guide he is widely popular. It is this profession which brings him in contact with Marco and his beautiful wife, Rosie. While the husband is busy with his archaeological studies, Raju seduces his wife and has a good time with her. Ultimately Marco comes to know of her affair with Raju and goes away to Madras leaving Rosie behind. Rosie comes and stays with Raju in his one-room house. His mother tolerates her for some time, but when things become unbearable, she calls her brother and goes away with him, leaving Raju to look after Rosie and the house. 

Rosie is a born dancer, she practices regularly and soon Raju finds an opening for her. In her very first appearance, she is a grand success. Soon she is very much in demand and their earnings increase enormously. Raju lives lavishly, entertains a large number of friends with whom he drinks and gambles. All goes well till Raju forges Rosie’s signatures to obtain valuable jewellery lying with her husband. The act lands him in jail. Rosie leaves Malgudi and goes away to Madras, her hometown. She goes on with her dancing and does well without the help and management of Raju, of which he was so proud. 

On release from jail, Raju takes shelter in a deserted temple on the banks of the river Sarayu, a few miles away from Malgudi, and close to the village called Mangla. The simple villagers take him to be a Mahatma, begin to worship him, and bring him a lot of eatables as presents. Raju is quite comfortable and performs the role of a saint to perfection. 

However, soon there is a severe famine drought, and the villagers expect Raju to perform some miracle to bring them rain. So he has to undertake a fast. The fast attracts much attention and people come to have darshan of the Mahatma from far and wide. On the twelfth day of the fast, Raju falls down exhausted just as there are signs of rain on the distant horizon. It is not certain if he is actually dead or merely fainted. Thus the novel comes to an abrupt close on a note of ambiguity. 

The last pages of Narayan’s best novel, The Guide, find Raju, the chief protagonist, at the end of a lifetime of insincerity and pain. As a professional guide to Malgudi’s environs, he invented whole new historical pasts for bored tourists; he seduced a married woman, drifted away from his old mother and friends, became a flashy cultural promoter, and then tried, absentmindedly, to steal and was caught and spent years in jail, abandoned by everyone. 

His last few months have been spent in relative comfort as a holy man on the banks of a river: a role imposed on him by reverential village folk. But the river dries up after a drought and his devotees start looking to him to intercede with the gods. Raju resentfully starts a fast, but furtively eats whatever little food he has saved. Then abruptly, out of a moment of self disgust, comes his resolution: for the first time in his life, he will do something with complete sincerity, and he will do it for others: if fasting can bring rain, he’ll fast. 

He stops eating, and quickly diminishes. News of his efforts goes around; devotees and sightseers, gathering at the riverside, create a religious occasion out of the fast. On the early morning of the eleventh day of fasting, a small crowd watches him quietly as he attempts to pray standing on the river bed and then staggers and dies, mumbling the enigmatic last words of the novel, “It’s raining in the hills. I can feel it coming up under my feet, up my legs….” 

Characteristically, Narayan doesn’t make it clear whether Raju’s penance does actually lead to rain. He also doesn’t make much of Raju’s decision, the moment of his redemption, which a lesser writer would have attempted to turn into a resonant ending, but which is quickly passed over here in a few lines. What we know, in a moment of great disturbing beauty, is something larger and more affecting than the working-out of an individual destiny in an inhospitable world. 

It is and the words are of the forgotten English writer William Gerhardie, on Chekhov, but so appropriate for Narayan that sense of the temporary nature of our existence on this earth at all events…through which human beings, scenery, and even the very shallowness of things, are transfigured with a sense of disquieting importance. 

It is a sense of temporary possession in a temporary existence that, in the face of the unknown, we dare not overvalue. It is as if his people hastened to express their worthless individualities, since that is all they have, and were aghast that they should have so little in them to express: since the expression of it is all there.

Source: www.shareyouressays.com 

R.K. Narayan's Narrative Technique in his The Guide

Narayan uses the interesting technique of a varied narrative perspective. The story shifts back and forth between first and third person narrative; at times it is Raju, the main character speaking, and at other times the story is told from the point of view of an omniscient narrator. The author also utilizes cinematic elements such as flashbacks and jump cuts.

When we first encounter Raju, he is about to meet Velan, and he is seen at this point from the perspective of an omniscient narrator. Then Raju takes over the narrative chores and relates his progress from sweetmeat seller to jailbird to Velan. In between, the omniscient narrator punctuates Raju's narrative by showing him dealing with the villagers as a holy man.

The Guide divided into two parts, narrates Raju’s childhood, love affair, imprisonment (first part) and growth into a swami (second part). Though the streams move simultaneously, the first part is set in Malgudi. Raju’s past and the second part is set in Mangla, Raju’s present. While Raju’s past in Malgudi is narrated by Raju himself, his present in Mangla is narrated by the author.

R.K. Narayan is a novelist of common people and common situations. His plot of The Guide is built of material and incidents that are neither extra-ordinary nor heroic. The Guide is a story of Raju’s romance, his greed for money, his sin and repentance.It is also the story of everyman’s growth from the ordinary to extra- ordinary, from the railway guide to the spiritual guide.

For most of his life Raju had managed to manipulate other people's emotional needs for his own advantage, but the novel shows him going beyond himself to do a genuinely disinterested act at the cost of his life.

Raju begins his professional life as the owner of a sweetmeat stall at the railway station in a region of India that has become a popular tourist attraction. He soon discovers that he has a knack for telling people what they would like to hear and becomes a fulltime guide. This profession leads him into an affair with one of his clients, Rosie, the neglected wife of an anthropologist Marco. Rosie has a passion for dancing which Marco doesn't approve of. Rosie, encouraged by Raju, decides to follow her dreams and walks out on her husband. Raju becomes her stage manager and soon with the help of Raju's marketing tactics, Rosie becomes a successful dancer. Raju, however, develops an inflated sense of self-importance and tries to control Rosie. Gradually, the relationship between Raju and Rosie becomes strained. Marco reappears and Raju inadvertently gets involved in a case of forgery and gets a two year sentence. After completing the sentence, Raju is passing through a village when he is mistaken for a sadhu (a spiritual guide). Reluctant not having to return in disgrace to Malgudi, he stays in an abandoned temple. Raju satisfies the demand of villagers of Mangala. Slowly and gradually, he becomes the spiritual guide of the villagers who come to get all sorts of issues resolved by him. They start to trust and listen to him and soon he earns their respect and turns into a guru or god like person for them.

Everything is running smoothly till the time the village is afflicted by a major drought and one of the villagers mistakes Raju’s comments to be a vow to keep a fast for 12 days in order to please the rain gods. Raju has no other option but to comply by his vow. The role that he took unhappily and forcibly in the beginning becomes very dear to him as time passes. He starts believing in his role and feels that for the first time in his life he is doing something for the people, selflessly, out of humanity and not lust for money or any other material goods. The news of his fasting spreads throughout the country like wildfire and a huge crowd of curious onlookers from other places starts gathering round him. As he can no longer take the fasting, his legs give away, he collapses dreaming or visualizing the rain drops somewhere in the hills. The novels ends with a question still unanswered whether he dies and whether the rain actually comes.

In Narayan’s plot there is a mixture of the comic and serious, the real and the fantastic. So is the case with The Guide.Raju, the poor becomes the rich, the convict gets the reputation and regard of the saint, the holy man and the swami. There is squalor, poverty and misery in the life of Raju on the other side there is relief, which is beautiful and charming Rosie.

Another technique Narayan uses is imagery and symbolism which is rooted in Indian culture but has universal appeal. At the end of the story, where Raju is drowning, his eyes engrossed towards the mountains as a brilliant sun rises and villagers look on. By juxtaposing the simple background of the Indian village at sunrise with the suicide scene, Narayan effectively communicates Raju's death as an image of hope, consistent with the Indian belief in death and rebirth.

Narayan’s has a gift of sketching pen pictures that bring scenes and characters vividly to life without taking recourse to ornate or excessive description. Narayan’s simplicity of language conceals a sophisticated level of art. Narayan handles language like an immensely flexible tool that effortlessly conveys both the specific as well as symbolic and the universal. The tone of The Guide is quite and subdued.

Thus the use of flashback, common lifestyle, comedy, language and the double perspective, Raju’s and the novelist’s make the novel fresh stimulating, provocative and interesting.

Source: Literary articles

-Feminism-

Feminism is a collection of movements and ideologies that share a common goal: to define, establish, and achieve equal political, economic, cultural, personal, and social rights for women. This includes seeking to establish equal opportunities for women in education and employment.

*LIGHTS OUT" by Manjula padmanabhan, played on Kolkata-based theatre group TreeHat

@Tuesday evening at Gyan Manch was a pleasant surprise. The full house attendance for Manjula Padmanabhan's Lights Out was overwhelming to say the least. And surely, that was an encouragement for the bunch of young theatre enthusiasts of the Kolkata-based theatre group TreeHat that staged the play.

Lights Out deals with a very common yet much misunderstood 'bystander effect". A middle class couple debates over an incident that is happening outside their building and conjures up various possible interpretations of what's being seen and heard. During the course of the conversation, few others join the couple. But none of them want to go out and help. They are either happy being voyeurs or too concerned about their safety.

Says director Shubhayan Sengupta, "Lights Out is our second production. We took a joint decision to stage Manjula's play that talks about social awareness. Though the actual events had taken place in the 80s, we don't see much of a change in the reaction of people to disturbing events happening right in front of them. Our play was intended as an eye-opener." The group had also invited the playwright to Tuesday's performance. "She was very supportive but unfortunately, couldn't make it because she was busy attending a literature conference on Tuesday," Sengupta adds.

Ask the director about the target audience and he insists on wanting to attract the city's movie-going audience. "Most English theatre productions in Kolkata are in the realm of the abstract. But we want to create a space for alternative entertainment. The crowd might not necessarily be well-versed in Samuel Beckett, Tennessee Williams and Anton Chekhov. Serious theatre, for them, might turn a bit boring." So, TreeHat's production explored a style of treating serious issues in an entertaining fashion. In many ways, this is a style that contemporary Indian cinema follows as well!

Another interesting concept in this production was the presence of a theatre mentor Aman Agarwal, who had been an assistant director himself when the same play was staged at the University of Pennsylvania. Speaking about his role, Agarwal says, "Unlike a co-director, a director mentor is the person who can't make decisions. He is assisting the director but not as a trainee but with as much or even more experience than the director. However, he will not take the final call."

A zeal to experiment and a desire to connect with the youth. Seems like English theatre in Kolkata has a lot more excitement in store without always being didactic and abstract.


Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com

Margaret Atwood's "Surfacing"- Plot Overview

The unnamed narrator returns to Quebec after years of absence to search for her missing father. She brings her boyfriend, Joe, and a married couple, Anna and David. On the way to a village near her father’s island, the narrator visits her father’s friend Paul. Paul can provide no new information on how to locate the narrator’s father. A guide named Evans takes the narrator and her companions to her father’s island, where the narrator searches for clues regarding her father’s disappearance. She becomes convinced that her father has gone mad and is still alive.

The narrator works in spurts on her freelance job illustrating a book of fairy tales, but her worries prevent her from accomplishing any real work. David proposes staying on the island for a week. The narrator agrees, though she secretly fears her crazed father’s reemergence. During their stay, David launches constant insults at Anna, couching them as jokes. Anna confesses to the narrator that David is a womanizer. She complains that David constantly demands that Anna wear makeup. The four go on a blueberry-picking expedition. They canoe to a nearby island, where Joe unexpectedly proposes to the narrator. The narrator refuses Joe, telling him how she left her last husband and child.

Back on the island, Paul arrives with an American named Malmstrom. Malmstrom claims to be from a Detroit wildlife agency. He offers to purchase the island, but the narrator refuses. She pulls Paul aside and tells him that her father is still alive. Paul seems skeptical. After the visitors leave, David offhandedly accuses Malmstrom of being a C.I.A. operative who is organizing an American invasion of Canada. The narrator looks through her father’s records and consequently believes that he is likely dead. She sees that he had been researching Indian wall paintings and that he had marked several sites on a map. She decides to visit a site.

The narrator convinces her friends to accompany her on a camping trip to see the wall paintings. On their way to the campsite, they see a decomposing blue heron that has been hanged from a tree. David insists on filming the dead heron for a movie he is making called Random Samples. The heron’s death haunts the narrator. She sees evidence of two campers entering the area beforehand, and she quickly assumes that they are Americans and to blame for the crime. Meanwhile, the four companions set up camp. Anna tells the narrator she has forgotten her makeup and David will punish her. The narrator goes fishing with David and Joe. They encounter the Americans, and the narrator notices an American flag on their boat. The narrator brings her companions to a site from her father’s map, but there are no wall paintings. Frustrated and confused, they return to camp. On the way, they again encounter the American campers. The narrator is surprised to discover that the campers are actually Canadian; what she had thought was an American flag is actually a sticker. However, the narrator claims the campers are still Americans because their slaughter of the heron is a distinctly American action.

The four return to the cabin. The narrator locates another site on her father’s map but realizes that the government has raised the water level in this part of the lake. She will have to dive to see the paintings. Outside, the narrator observes David tormenting Anna by insisting she take off her clothes for Random Samples. Anna eventually relents but then feels humiliated. The narrator asks David why he tortures Anna, and David claims he does so because Anna cheats on him. The narrator canoes to a site from her father’s map. She dives repeatedly in search of the paintings. On a particularly deep dive, she sees a disturbing object and screams and swims for the surface. Joe has followed her onto the lake and demands to know what she’s doing. She ignores Joe and realizes that what she saw was a dead child. She believes it to be her aborted baby. She changes her story from leaving her husband and child to having an affair with her art professor and being forced to abort their baby.

The narrator’s vision throws her into a psychosis. She believes that her father had found sacred Indian sites and resolves to thank the gods for granting her “the power.” Joe tries to speak to the narrator, but she remains impenetrable. He tries to rape her, but he leaves her alone once she warns him that she will get pregnant. Later, David tries to seduce the narrator, telling her that Joe and Anna are having sex. The narrator nevertheless resists David’s advances. A police boat comes to the island, and David tells the narrator that the police have found her father’s body. Deep in her madness, the narrator refuses to believe David. That night, she seduces Joe so she can get pregnant. She feels that a new child will replace her lost baby. Joe falsely believes that the narrator has forgiven him for cheating on her.

On their last day on the island, the narrator abandons her friends. She destroys David’s film and escapes in a canoe. The narrator’s companions search in vain for her, eventually leaving the island. Alone on the island, the narrator falls deeper into madness. She destroys the art from her job and nearly everything inside the cabin. She becomes an animal, running around naked, eating unwashed plants, and living in a burrow. She imagines raising her baby outdoors and never teaching it language. She also has visions of her parents. Eventually, hunger and exhaustion bring the narrator to sanity. She looks at herself in the mirror and sees just a natural woman. She resolves not to feel powerless anymore. Paul arrives at the island with Joe. The narrator realizes she loves Joe and resolves to reunite with him. She pauses in the cabin, looking out at Joe, waiting.


Source: sparknotes.com