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The Pangs of the Diasporic: A Study
of Meera Syal's Anita and Me
-- Fewzia Bedjaoui
Meera Syal, as a post-colonial writer, who shares the experience of growing up and living in an environment with
a dominant English language and culture which were not hers, seems comfortable and confident with her dual identity.
In the context of Syal's Anita and Me, Meena, the protagonist, is becoming a hybridized girl, by abrogation and
appropriation of elements of the dominant English culture, notably the English language and culture and through
particular attitudes which relegate her from marginal/subordinate positions to those reached from cross-fertilization.
© 2010 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
The Ideology of Modernism in Amitav Ghosh's The Shadow Lines
-- Ritu R Agarwal
An attempt has been made in this paper to analyze The Shadow Lines as a novel which, in Lukac's words, is a
work wherein the technique employed is not merely a stylistic device but a ``formative principle governing the narrative
pattern and the presentation of characters.'' Amitav Ghosh's The Shadow Lines (1988) is the story of the family and friends of
the nameless narrator which has its roots in broader national and international experience. In the novel the past, present
and future combine and melt together erasing any kind of line of demarcations. The title is a good example for showing us
the symbolist and the realist elements. For Lukac realism is the literary mode which is capable of representing the totality
of society. Amitav Ghosh's The Shadow Lines is rooted in reality and yet it looks beyond. First of all, there is the use
of simple language. Another significant factor the novel has is that the main characters are very real, almost rounded.
The text deals with the concerns of our period, the search for identity, the need for independence, the difficult
relationship with colonial culture. The Shadow
Lines interweaves fact, fiction and reminiscence. It is a continuous narrative
which replicates the pattern of violence not only of 1964 but also of
21st century. Lukac's ideology gets reflected in The Shadow Lines, which cannot be termed a `realist' novel but a novel written with roots in modernism and post-modernism.
© 2010 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
Rushdie, the Enchanter of Tales
-- M Madhusudhana Rao
In this paper, the focus is on Rushdie's idea of history as inclusiveness of all civilizations, in the East and West
through the character of Qara Koz, the Enchantress of Florence. She is a symbolic bridge between the East and West, as she is
the archetypal migrant. Rushdie tells this story of migrants, world over through the epochs of Akbar and the Italian
extravaganza. Rushdie also describes the art of storytelling in a self-reflexive manner, through the tales of Mogor and Akbar,
the Great. This narrative is structurally divided into two into the
15th century Moghul period in its oriental landscape and timescape and the
mid-15th century Italian exravaganza
through the human character of Qara Koz. Built into these issues of the East and West is the question of migrancy, both as
an experience and an idea for its own sake. Mogor, Qara Koz and Akbar are the displaced selves, without roots. Migrancy
is their way of understanding the world,
as for them displacement is, in reality, re-placement in another setting and milieu for joy and fulfilment. According
to Rushdie, every new place for a migrant is an imaginary homeland, with the qualities of "a culture of inclusion"; it is "one grand syncretization of the earth, its vanities, its philosophies, its sports, its
whims". For Mogor, the archetypal migrant, story telling is his way of discovering the world, as his desire is to "step into the
tale he is telling and begin a new life inside it". Thus, in this novel, Rushdie, by problematizing the art of story telling,
through three narrators, Gubadab, Mogor Dashwant and the authorial self, portrays the issue of displacement, which is
very seminal to his art, as a writer and thinker.
© 2010 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
Language Use in Bilinguals: A Case Study
-- N V S N Lakshmi
This paper deals with the bilingual factors that affect use of a language among nine science research scholars from
India. Although English is the official language and the first language in India, subjects' preference of language is taken
into consideration. So this resulted in the subjects' mother tongue being L1 and English being L2. The function of
bilingualism is viewed at in an educational context in this paper. Individual differences are also mentioned in terms of the
bilingual behavior with regard to motivation, attitudinal behavior, aptitude, language acquisition/learning, learning tools
and sociolinguistic awareness. A questionnaire and an informal interview method are adopted to measure the
bilingual behavior of the subjects. It is interesting to note that scientists, teachers, peer group/friends are part of the
integrative motivation of the subjects, whereas examinations, getting a job, status of English are the source of instrumental
motivation to learn the language. Data also reveals the ways subjects have acquired L2 i.e., English. This study has
pedagogical implications such as correlation between listening and speaking, between reading and writing, exploiting
students' interests to teach various language skills from one source, a need to expose students to various learning strategies
to master the basic language skills.
© 2010 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
Grammatical Deviations in e-English
-- Naveen Kumar H C
English used in electronic medium has been a frequent issue of discussion for teachers, grammarians and linguists, because
the language used in it has many deviations from the traditional language. The individuals who are connected to each other
with the electronic medium seem to bring a revolution in communication. As it happened with the emergence
of printing technology, radio and TV, many changes are seen with the emergence of Internet and mobile communication
too. This paper aims
at studying certain significant grammatical deviations in e-English
found in the discourses of non-native speakers of English. For this purpose, SMS, e-Mail, chatting and online
community messages of Indian users are collected and studied.
© 2010 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
Firing the Canon: Radicalizing the Goals of Undergraduate
Literature Courses
-- Kamalakar Bhat
The purpose of this paper is to identify the possible changes in the aims and objectives of English literature courses
at the undergraduate (UG) program. This is a feasible and relevant endeavor because without further radical restructuring
of syllabi UG programs would soon become both irrelevant and uninspiring. There are two levels at which the problem
needs to be addressed: ideal and practical. Ideally, we should be able to design a syllabi that would make the subscribers of
the program fluent users of the English language and offer exposure to literary/cultural traditions that expand their horizon
of imagination. Practically, we should develop syllabi which are freed from the prison house of canon. This paper
suggests that in restructuring the syllabi, we need to expand the literary discourses studied and accommodate more
contemporary interests.
© 2010 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
"The Sublime and The Beautiful": William Jones on Ancient Arabian Poetry
-- Jalal Uddin Khan
William Jones was one of the great Orientalists of all time.
His academically and intellectually informed Orientalism began with his translation of ancient Arabian poetry,
especially The Muallakat, which he found to be both beautiful and sublime. To him, the natural, as opposed to imitative
and artificial, description of ancient Arab tribes and their tribal conflicts and loyalties, and their normal ways of life
including love and duty, and horses and camels against the backdrop of a dry and dreary landscape was deeply rhapsodic
and expressive. More specifically, it was the desert plains and stony Arabias that Jones found beautiful as well as
sublime. Following Edmund Burke, who is credited to have popularized those aesthetic notions/categories after the middle of
the 18th century, Jones, about a decade later, applied them in his study of ancient Arabian poetry containing fresh
descriptions of man and nature and recommended the Eastern models including the Persian and the Indian to instill new life into
what he thought was the stale and hackneyed condition of European literature.
© 2010 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
Images of Women in Hindi Dalit and African American Literature:
A Cross Cultural Survey
-- Anurag Kumar and Nagendra Kumar
With the rise of `marginal discourse', Dalits, Blacks and women have been frequently and prominently discussed
in literature. It is no more a secret that Dalits in India and Blacks in America and elsewhere have been the most
exploited, subjugated and oppressed classes. More so, women of these classes, by virtue of their gender, are even worse victims
as they suffer double marginalization because of their class/caste/race and gender. The literatures across the globe are full
of the images of women who have suffered due to their caste/race and gender. This paper discusses the images of women
in Hindi and African American literatures that are culturally divergent, yet same in essence and attitude.
By juxtaposing the two, the paper seeks to highlight the prevalence of certain maladies despite all sorts of cultural differences.
© 2010 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
BOOK REVIEW
An Insightful Introduction
-- C Subba Rao
Author : Introduced and Transcreated by
S S Prabhakar Rao
© 2010 IUP holds the copyright for this review. All Rights Reserved. |
