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Poetry and the Black Arts Movement: Articulation of Cohesion and Subversion
-- Shimi M Doley
The Black Power Movement of the 1960s and 1970s—a movement for the empowerment of the
African-Americans in the United States also ushered in the formulation of a new paradigm of `cultural
nationalism' in arts. The black artists adopted a language of radicalism which was a conscious strategic
orientation to constitute a community. In trying to formulate a new paradigm for arts, the black artists
experimented with new vocabularies, images, and perspectives which were sometimes drawn from their African
heritage. Don L Lee's (Haki Madhubuti) poem "The Primitive" employs a language that subverts the whole
Euro-American concept of `whiteness' and `civilization.' Amiri Baraka's (LeRoi Jones) poem "SOS," in the
nature of an SOS call, employs the rhetorical device of `signifyin' which means `to hint, to put on an act,
boast, make a gesture.' This paper discusses how this new aesthetic of the black arts debunked the
western paradigm of `art for art's sake.' Poetry of the Black Arts Movement was an important tool for
registering protest and creating social awareness among the black masses. It emphasized the functional aspect
of art. Amiri Baraka's (LeRoi Jones) iconic poem "Black Art" is a concrete manifestation of this
radical aesthetic. One of the radical contributions of this Movement was the identification of literature
with identity.
© 2010 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
Empowering Oneself to Break Free from a European Psychology and Framework:
A Study of Ntozake Shange's Choreopoem, For Colored Girls Who Have Considered
Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf
-- Melissa Helen
Ntozake Shange's For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is
Enuf is a perfect example of postmodern theater, which rejected the old forms of writing plays. The dawning of
a new century has brought new power conflicts and politics, new challenges, new opportunities,
and new kinds of theater—like `the theater of images.' Shange's work is representative of the
experimental group of the sixties and the seventies. The colored ladies in the choreopoem are representative of
black women who are on a journey of self-discovery. Shange traces the transition of the black women's lack
of selfhood to their love of self and self-assertion. The black women's love and dependence on men
and their emotional vulnerability bring them to the depths of nothingness, despair, and eventually
suicide. From this nothingness and a reduction to nonbeing, they empower themselves with their will `to be,'
to live, and to participate in the community of `be-ing,' which is their own becoming and being. The ray
of light and new hope is found in the rainbow. Shange makes her colored girls scatter and gather;
sometimes they freeze in a place, and at times they move all over the stage. She makes her characters speak at
times in turn and sometimes together. She makes them collectively enact their lives and experiences.
This paper presents an analysis of For Colored
Girls by examining the choreopoem in terms of the
issues, structure, and techniques employed.
© 2010 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
A Novel in Stories: A Reading
of Gloria Naylor's The Women
of Brewster Place
-- Rajyashree Khushu-Lahiri
This paper attempts a reading of Gloria Naylor's The Women of Brewster Place as being
representative of the story cycle genre and posits that the contemporary story cycle genre may be situated within a
dual frame—one that embraces both western and non-western traditions as its elements of the psychic
and the fantastic— and help locate the reader within these two literary traditions. Further, the paper
contends that by negotiating the between worlds' spaces that separate the stories in a cycle, Naylor opens
up new routes to inscribing connection and community, thus facilitating a historical revision.
© 2010 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
History in the Future Tense: Sinclair
Lewis's It Can't Happen Here
-- Nibir K Ghosh
Since the beginning of creation and throughout the march of time, dictators and authoritarian rulers
have always silenced all kinds of opposition in the name of patriotism and idealism in order to sustain
the advantages they had procured through the gross abuse of power. This paper sheds light on
the perspectives of fascism—considered in relation to the economic, social, political, and
psychological conditions from which fascism springs—and showcases how Sinclair Lewis's It Can't Happen Here makes use of the medium of the novel to show that a faithful recording of history can and should
serve as an indispensable counselor in civic behavior and state policy. The paper critically evaluates
how Lewis's novel paints the devil of fascism in its true colors and convincingly proves his hypothesis as
to why totalitarianism cannot find a foothold in America. Lewis's warning, against the backdrop of
the 1930s, takes on a prophetic note, as liberal-minded Americans even today remain wary of
demagogues who usurp power through democratic means and use the same power to perpetuate a totalitarian
system of authority.
© 2010 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
Revolution in the Consciousness
of Time: The Clarion Call
of Norman Mailer
-- R V Jayanth Kasyap
The advent of Norman Mailer into the postwar American literary domain brought a new hue to the
intellectual and political outlook. He was, beyond doubt, a controversial writer and thinker. For all his
inhibitions and personal excesses, he was the one who wrote to make `revolution in the consciousness of
times.' Mailer's obsession was human dignity and individual will to lead life on the basis of freedom. His
was a distinct vision which did foresee the threats of totalitarianism. His mission was individual
personal salvation. Mailer extensively and effectively used the concept of existentialism in almost all his
literary endeavors. This paper is an attempt to throw light on Mailer's treatment of the existential philosophy.
It also endeavors to highlight the humanistic concerns in Mailer's selected writings.
© 2010 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
Self-Assertion and Affirmation
in Saul Bellow's The Victim
-- Binod Mishra and Narinder Kumar Sharma
Saul Bellow's works have been analyzed from different angles and dimensions. Many critics
consider him to be an iconoclast; however, that does not take anything away from the corpus of Bellow's
writings. Bellow's literary acumen is reflected in his attempt to underline the importance of faith in human
lives. Life cannot be seen as a calculation where certain things always get an upper hand. Moreover,
the chemistry of life is not tantamount to balancing equations. It can never flow technically in one
direction and can take turns at times. Uncertainties and upheavals in life may occur to anyone at any moment.
But these forces should not enervate us. For, human will has the potential to overcome the ravages
and rigors of life. The suppression of human will may lead to disastrous consequences, whereas the
assertion of human will may help in getting over all the calamities that come our way. Bellow's second novel,
The Victim (1947) deals with themes of human accountability and belongingness. The paper analyzes
Bellow's views in this regard and argues that the damnation of man is not caused by external forces alone,
but also by his own actions. Man is often responsible for bringing about his own destruction. However,
he can always explore within himself the element of faith, which acts as an antidote to all his ills,
despite being at odds with the outside world.
© 2010 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
Scriptorium as a Zone
of Signifiers: Paul Auster's Travels in the Scriptorium
-- Adrene Freeda D'cruz
Paul Auster's Travels in the
Scriptorium (2006) meticulously explores the intricacies of
self-reflexive fiction by locating it inside a scriptorium, a metaphor for language. Confined to the secluded space of
the scriptorium, the amnesiac protagonist of the novella, Mr. Blank, scripts various narratives which
have personal, historical, and political overtones. Moreover, the intertextual ruminations of these
narratives not only rupture the autonomy conventionally attributed to the author but also systematically critique
the notion of `master narrative.' In exposing the textuality of the text, these narratives bifurcate into
a heterogeneous sequence of events and construct irreducible structures of language. Besides,
these diverse texts provide the novella with a sense of indeterminacy that is very much in tune with
the uncertainties inherent in language. Much like the differential signifiers in the language system
envisaged by poststructuralists, the characters and events in the novella, in creating a world of their
own, unmistakably represent signifiers which differ and defer the possibility of a finite structure
of representation. Drawing on the key concepts of Jacques Derrida's deconstruction, including
`differance,' `aporia,' `trace,' and `play,' this essay posits Travels in the Scriptorium as a postmodern
metafictional text that strategically resists closure through a deferral network of signifiers.
© 2010 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
Interrelations Between Literature and Life: Literary Mentors in Philip Roth's The Professor of Desire
-- Gustavo Sánchez Canales
This paper attempts to analyze the importance of `literary mentors' in Philip Roth's The Professor of Desire mainly by focusing on the presence of Anton Chekhov's `romantic disillusionment' and
Franz Kafka's `spiritual imprisonment' in the protagonist, David Kepesh. As explained throughout this
paper, David Kepesh resorts to Chekhov and Kafka and develops what this author calls a
`literature-as-therapy philosophy' as the only way to put his unbalanced personal life in order.
© 2010 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
Imagination and Reality:
An Overview of Wallace
Stevens's Poetry
-- Smita Jha
An ardent exponent of `reality,' Stevens has made various efforts to investigate its complex structure.
To Stevens, reality may be factual or invented. However, he is a critic of factual reality because it has
neither meaning nor content, and thus contributes nothing to our understanding. The observer remains
passive and without any involvement. Hence, Stevens considers it pointless to limit ourselves to factual
reality. Stevens's is an imaginative conception of reality, for it is secular and earthbound:
"Beyond earth he will not project
himself." This paper traces the relationship between imagination and reality in
Stevens's poetry and shows how the poet rejects all attempts at self-transcendence and is fully satisfied with this
world, which he is deeply involved in.
© 2010 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
Depiction of Women
in Hemingway's Short Stories
-- Samina Azhar
Ernest Hemingway was an American icon who represented, in his works, masculinity at its highest
form. His male protagonists were the epitome of a man's man, who enjoyed bullfighting, boxing, hunting,
and fishing, and dared to seek the adventures of war. Coupled with this, Hemingway's depiction of
women characters in his short stories and novels forced many critics to view him as a misogynist. This
paper discusses Hemingway's portrayal of women in his short stories. Although his main characters
were always male and his female characters took the backseat, Hemingway may be called a chauvinist,
but never a woman hater. Also, one should not forget that Hemingway, as an author, gave voice to the
dilemma, nada, stoicism, and disillusionment of his times.
© 2010 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
The `Venice' of Pound
and Meena Alexander
-- Hoshang Merchant
Those who have read Ezra Pound's Venice poem know how the city, where the poet died and
was buried, becomes an art-object, literally, in their hands and a metaphor for the aesthetic soul. This
paper takes a close look at the Venice poem of Pound and that of one of his Indian heirs, Meena Alexander,
and shows how the Indian heirs of Pound are far-ranging, though closely following his structural
method, while still facing the same conundrums of waking versus dreaming, home versus the world,
which makes for exciting poetry, even if without the genius of Pound.
© 2010 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
Wendell Berry: High Priest
of Kentucky Nature
-- S S Prabhakar Rao
Recipient of several prestigious honors, including the T S Eliot award and the Cleanth Brooks award
for lifetime achievement, William Berry, the bard of Kentuckian nature, has been a votary of pristine
nature. After leaving the job as a professor in soulless New York, he moved to his native central Kentucky
and has been living the life of a farmer in his farm, where his imagination has taken root. A vehement critic
of mechanization, like Thoreau, he also championed the cause of the small farmer, like Jefferson. To him
the manifestation of the cycle of death and birth is affirmative, and he draws hope for sustenance even in
the passing away of his maternal grandfather, whom he loved the most.
The realization of every small part as a link with harmony greater than itself, is the enduring aspect
of his poetry. A passionate activist of environmental protection, he is also against excessive
government control and thoughtless wars, as in Vietnam. The present paper traces Berry's attachment to nature
and his passionate evocation of the manifestations of nature, which ignites an analogous emotional
response from a sensitive Indian reader.
© 2010 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
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