Karma (Kushwant Singh)

 About the Author:

Kushwant Singh is a prominent Indian novelist and journalist. He was born on 2^nd February 1915 at Hadali, which is now in Pakistan. Singh completed his Bachelor’s degree in the Government College, Lahore and thereafter he went to London to study Law in King’s College. A significant post-colonial writer, Kushwant Singh is known for his clear-cut secularism and humour. He was awarded with the most prestigious awards of Indian such as Padma Bhushan and Padma Vibhushan. He was the editor of several journals and newspapers, including “The Illustrated Weekly” and “Hindustan Times.” He was also a Member of Rajya Sabha from 1980-1986. Some important novels written by him are  “Train to Pakistan”, “I shall not Hear the Nightingale” and “Delhi: A Novel”. His autobiography, “Truth, Love and A Little Malice” records his views on sex, wine, and women and on life, religion and country. He passed away in 2014.

Introduction:    

Kushwant Singh’s short stories are mostly set in Indian atmosphere. They are both humorous and ironical. The story, “Karma” is based on the Indian philosophy that ‘out action decide our fate.’

The proud aristocrat Sir Mohan Lal:

Sir Mohan Lal was waiting in the first class retiring room at the railway station. He looked handsome in his western dress. He disliked speaking his mother-tongue, Hindustani. Mohan Lal spoke English like Oxford scholars. So he felt very proud about himself and looked down at his wife other Indians who did not know to speak English like him. Outside the waiting room, his wife, Lachmi was sitting on a steel trunk. She was wearing a dirty white sari with a red border. She was a typical native woman. Lachmi called a coolie to carry her luggage. The coolie asked her whether she was travelling alone. Lachmi said that her husband who was a barrister was also travelling in the same train. He always travelled in first class compartment so that he could meet many Englishmen in the train. She said that as she could not talk English, she had to travel in the ladies’ compartment. As soon as the train arrived, Lachmi managed to find a seat in the ladies’ compartment.

 

Mohan Lal’s imitation of English manners:

The arrival of the train  did not disturb Mohan Lal. He thought that excitement and hurry were the marks of ill-breeding. He got u and moved into his first class compartment without any hurry or excitement. He sat by the window and took out a copy of “The Times.” His Balliol tie, The Times, scotch and the English cigarettes were proofs of his western style. He could never forget the glorious life that he had lived in England for five years. This made his to dislike his own country people. He criticized the manners and attitudes of his fellowmen (Indians) thinking that they are illiterate.

Arrival of English men and Lal’s excitement:

Now Mohan Lal felt lonely in the compartment. Suddenly he saw two English soldiers on the platform looking into the compartment for space. Mohan Lal was happy enough to invite them, though they had reservation in the second class compartment. Mohan Lal wanted to have conversation with them during the journey.

The fate of Sir Mohan Lal:

The drunken soldiers, Bill and Jim entered into the first class compartment. Sir Mohan Lal was happy to invite them. But they showed no respect for Mohan Lal, because Mohan Lal is an Indian. They shouted at him and ordered him to get out of the compartment. But Mohan Lal protested and argued in King’s English. On the other hand, the soldiers did not bother about his refined English and started throwing Mohan Lal’s luggage on the platform and finally they pushed Mohan Lal out of the compartment. Mohan Lal fell on the platform and could not do anything against the soldiers. However, his wife, Lachmi without knowing all these things comfortably sitting in the ladies unreserved compartment chewed betel leaves and spat the saliva through the window.

Conclusion:

The proud Mohan Lal did not give respect to his wife and in turn he was not respected by the British soldiers. According to Indian philosophy it is Sir Mohan Lal’s ‘karma’ which was back to him and brought him  shame and insult.

Uncle Podger Hangs a Picture (Jerome K Jerome)

 

Bring out the humour in the story, “Uncle Podger Hangs a Picture”

About the Author:

Jerome Klapka Jerome was an English writer and humourist, best known for the comic travelogue, “Three Men in a Boat” published in 1887. He was born in Staffordshire, England. His other works include the essay collection, “Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow” and “Second Thoughts of an Idle Fellow. His “Three Men on the Bummel” is also one of his famous novels.

 Introduction:

The episode, “Uncle Podger Hangs a Picture” is an extract from Jerome K. Jerome’s “Three Men in Boat.” The episode is a hilarious comedy. Uncle Podger projects himself as a man of tall trades but proves a master of none. The way he commends the whole family members for the simple work of hanging a picture on the wall is highly amusing.

Uncle Podger takes up the task:

Uncle Podeger decided to hang a picture on the wall. The picture had come from the frame-maker’s and was in dining room waiting to be hung on the wall. When Aunt Podger wanted someone to do it, Uncle Podger came forward voluntarily and assured her that he would do it himself and she need not to worry about it. There started the comedy.

The involvement of the whole family:

Uncle Podger began the work by taking off his coat and getting ready for the job. At first, he sent the girl out for buying six pence nails. Then he sent the boy to inform the girl about the size of the nails. Thereafter, Podger asked Will to get him his hammer. He told Tom to look for the ruler. Then he told them that he needed the step-ladder and the kitchen chair too. Jim was dispatched to Mr. Goggles, the friend of Podger to bring him spirit level. Before borrowing he was told to pay Mr. Goggle due respect. Maria was advised to remain available there to hold the light. The girl was sent to get a string. Tom was asked to lift the picture. The whole house was involved in executing Uncle Podger’s orders.

The mismanagement of Uncle Podger:

Uncle Podger began doing things clumsily. He lifted up the picture but dropped it carelessly. Trying to pick up the pieces of glass, he cut himself. He and his family search for his coat because in the coat pocket he had kept the handkerchief. The family members could not find his coat anywhere in the house because he was sitting on the coat. Some time after, new glass had been got and fixed. Uncle Podger started his work again. All the family members stood around him to help him. Two persons held the chair. A third helped Podger on it and held him there. A fourth handed him a nail and a fifth passed him the hammer. Uncle Podger took hold of the nail first but dropped it. He asked all the members to search for it. The nail was found but this time the hammer was lost.

The picture fixed at midnight:

When the hammer was found, the mark he had made on the wall was lost. Now one by one, all the family members informed him about different points as mark and this created confusion. Finally, Podger decided to make yet another measurement and this time he leaned too much and fell on the piano. This created a bang sound from the piano. Now Aunt Podger got angry and informed Uncle Podger that she would make arrangements to go and spend a week with her mother, if he liked to hang picture next time. Uncle Podger remarked that women were in the habit of making fuss about little things. In the final attempt, Uncle Podger spoilt the plaster on the wall. Then he flattened his nose against the wall once before being successful in hanging the picture out the midnight time. But the picture itself hung crooked and insecure. All the members of the family were tried. Then Podger stepped out heavily down the chair. But he was proud to say that some people called in a man to do a little thing like that.

Conclusion:

Uncle Podger’s attempts and the problems faced by the family members while Podger was trying to hang the picture on the wall create a hilarious comedy. The self-centered Podger commends the whole family for a very simple task shows that Jerome’s humour is fully evident in this episode.

 

 

 

 

 

"Shakespeare" by Matthew Arnold

 Matthew Arnold- Matthew Arnold was born in Laleham, Middlesex on 24th December 1822 and is widely known for his essays and poetry. Arnold’s poetry tackled psychological themes like those of Sylvia Plath’s works and his poetic excellence was constituted in the transparency of expression.

Shakespeare- “Shakespeare” is Arnold’s one of the most read and favoured sonnet. William Shakespeare, a major literary figure and the greatest dramatist in the world of English Literature, had already established himself as a critics’ favourite poet, before the beginning of Arnold’s poetic career. Matthew Arnold being impressed by Shakespeare’s artistic abilities wrote this famous sonnet in his honour.

 

Setting of Shakespeare-

The poem is composed in the form of a sonnet as a means to honour Shakespeare who was known for his sonnets and plays. Though the poem does not follow the regular rhyme scheme and is definitely not composed similar to Shakespeare’s sonnet, the irregular rhyme gives the poem the setting of a natural speech. The poem cannot be associated with a specific physical location and the poem is set in the form of thoughts full of praise for the great Shakespeare.

Summary of “Shakespeare”:

Arnold begins by praising the great Shakespeare from the very first word of his sonnet, “others”. He is quick in distinguishing Shakespeare from the rest and acknowledging his uniqueness, he says, other poets and artists can be questioned regarding their works and they too are eager to answer those who might try to understand their work. But Shakespeare differs from all the others since he is “free” and so is his “art”. The critics do question his work but instead of answering them, Shakespeare replies with a smile continuing his “art still”, giving every person a chance to form their own interpretation of his work, finding their own meaning among the multiple edges and variations a single art piece of his is filled with.  

The poet says that Shakespeare’s knowledge is “out-topping”, beyond the reach of mortals and unquestionable. He compares Shakespeare’s artistic abilities and knowledge to that of a mountain top covered with clouds, meeting the sky, the ordinary being able to see and appreciate the unapproachable from far. This comparison can also be seen as the differences being pointed out between “others” and Shakespeare. This difference is further highlighted when speaker says that Shakespeare is like the mountain whose feet meet the seas while his crown reaches the “heavens”, the sky. The mere mortals including the “others” are just provided with the glimpses of the “cloudy border”, that is just a few indistinct parts of his art. Here, Arnold is praising the vastness of Shakespeare’s works. The poet then praises Shakespeare’s majestic abilities, when he says that Shakespeare’s imaginative abilities rise like stars and shine alongside sun’s beaming rays, just like the lofty mountain.

Shakespeare was self educated and a self made man. The poet is in awe of his abilities and mentions the significance of Shakespeare’s self taught education, his own experiences being his only guidance. And then the poet says that despite this fact, Shakespeare, a God like creature, walked on earth, never completely understood by his fellow men but for the poet, it was for the best. Arnold here is critical of Shakespeare’s works being questioned and his worthy art not being appreciated enough.  The poet says that the human beings have to endure all the sorrows of life and all the grief. Yet, Shakespeare being taught from his own grief has the majestic ability to remain detached from personal views and his works portray the common and relatable aspects of every human being and thus, his work can be seen as a victory over all the pain human kind has suffered.

Poetic Devices in “Shakespeare”:

Repetition: “We ask and ask—Thou smilest and art still”; “Making the heaven of heavens his dwelling-place”
Alliteration: “And thou, who didst the stars and sunbeams know”; “Self-school’d, self-scann’d, self-honour’d, self-secure”

Metaphor: In “for the loftiest hill”, Shakespeare and his art has been compared with the mountain top.

Personification: Mountain has been personified as an extraordinary figure

Tone of “Shakespeare”:

The poem is set in a calm tone of a natural speech and is strong enough to convey the poet’s praises of Shakespeare.

Conclusion- This poem is a brilliant and skillful composition by Matthew Arnold which reminds the readers of the unquestionable greatness and uniqueness of Shakespeare.

 

Harvest - A Play by Manjula Padmanabhan

 

Critical analysis of Manjula Padmanabhan’s “Harvest” as a postcolonial and postmodern play.

Cyberculture’s influence in our lives and its possible threat to human physical identity is well documented in “Harvest”. This is the most important feature in the postmodern world. American Virgil, posing as Ginni, seduces and controls the Prakash family. He uses gadgets like the “Contact Module” or the “Video Couch” to disperse identity through “cybernetic circuits”. Both the receiver and the donor assume new identities in the digital arena. Harvest highlights important questions about “digitization” of identities and separation from the physical form. Problematization of identity in cyberspace is pivotal to the discourse of postcolonialism. For marginalized bodies identity politics and suffering is rooted in the physical body. In “Harvest”, first world exploits the third world via wireless communication and unlimited money. Jaya sustains a postcolonial resistance to such capitalist domination. She claims her body, evocative of her dignity, through the corporeal limitation of death.  

 The “body” gains centre stage in Manjula Padmanabhan’s dystopic, futuristic play “Harvest”.  The play distinguishes between the impoverished but healthy donor body of the Third World and the wealthy but ailing First World body. The variegated distinctions also include, inter alia, the differences between the male and the female body, the aged and the young body and real and the virtual body. Manjula Padmanabhan’s play, “Harvest”, written in 1997, has a futuristic setting in a Bombay of the year 2010 against a backdrop that assumes that all debates over the legal, moral and ethical validity of organ sales and transplants have been resolved and that the market for sale of organs has been fully institutionalized. The fictional transnational corporation in the play, viz. “InterPlanta Services”, that performs these procedures is an embodiment of the increasing proliferation of global capitalism. The play highlights the unequal relations between the wealthy First World populations and their impoverished Third World counterparts.

 The lure of a better lifestyle seduces the donor, Prakash family to enter into an ethically questionable transaction of organ sales. The First World receiver, Virgil, in the guise of Ginni, appropriates their dignity, pride and identity with the inducement of rewarding the poor family with “quick money”. Padmanabhan registers a protest against this practice. The insistence of Jaya, Om’s wife, on physical touch and contact with the First World receiver upsets this hegemonic construct. She prefers to die with dignity than to live ignobly by sacrificing her identity, rooted in her Third World body. The play aims to bring forth the pivotal role played by technology in tempting the Third World donors into compliance. For this, the play uses sci-fi gadgets and a futuristic, dystopic setting. It is via one such gadget, viz. the “Contact Module”, that we see Ginni visible only through a screen suspended from the ceiling but never in her physical form on the stage.

 Identity in a Posthuman World Padmanabhan’s play is a postcolonial and posthumanist protest against the ominous future in which man has no place. The “technologized” body aims to displace the corporeal self. It marks the redistribution of the positions of self and non-self, equilibrium and non-equilibrium, body and consciousness. Harvest needs to be contextualized in the hypotheses of posthumanism rooted in the changing concepts of the western self. Identity in the play is problematized across many levels. The blonde, light skinned “youth goddess”  is a manifestation of Virgil, the aged, diseased American male who has worked through four bodies in fifty years. The hint at the desire for a more “perfect” body is explicit here. Padmanabhan takes a dig at popular stereotypes of western consumerist culture that exploits our desires to acquire physical features and personality traits popularized and commoditized by media and technology.

Globalization and capitalistic forces have taken this obsession with body alteration into the age of technology. Identity is now embodied in a new discourse – “cyborgology”. Over the past two decades, high-tech companies in Japan, USA and other parts of the World have been trying to develop humanoid robots that can emulate our way of living right down to our bodily functions and physical appearance. The aim is to create an external agent on which the “human” can be imposed − a simulated man as well his replacement in the digital future. Cyberculture provides clues to the proliferation of globalization and technology that the First World uses to dominate in transactions with the Third World. In the posthuman state, it is spread throughout the cybernetic circuit. The “Contact Module”, performs an integral role in obscuring the actual physical existence of Ginni, while concurrently enabling her to monitor the daily activities of Om and his family members. It allows her to maintain her distance from the unsanitary conditions of the site of colonization i.e. the home of the Prakash family.

Capital is one such consideration that creates and controls cyberculture. It determines the production, distribution and consumption of goods and services in the global market and is also a mechanism for control. The invention of modern gadgets like the computer, mobile, internet and wireless communication has further broadened the horizon of globalization.

For the marginalized and subaltern sections of society, the sites of resistance and justice need to be situated within the body and are tenuous if placed within a disembodied and abstract “consciousness” (ibid.). The protest against the lure of an “improved”, abstract consciousness and staunch loyalty to the embodied form is initially mirrored in the character of Jeetu, Om’s brother. He is introduced as a male prostitute, about the same age as his brother Om, but bearing a more easy-going persona. He is described as being conscious of his body. This is in stark contrast with Om’s. The donors of the Prakash family i.e. Om’s mother, referred to as “Ma”, Om’s wife Jaya, and Om are all described as malnourished, unkempt and physically unimpressive. The instinctive desire for them, particularly, Om and his mother, to be rid of these bodies is palpable. Jaya is described as thin and haggard, she looks older than her nineteen years while Ma is stooped, scrawny and crabby. Jeetu’s active resistance against “InterPlanta” and its insidious objectives is evident when he fails to turn up at the First briefing by the agency’s guards to the Prakash family. At Jaya’s pleading to return home and register himself with the agency he clarifies his stance.  His corporeality is a site of resistance against the imperialistic order and pervasive reach of technoglobal gadgetry that aims to obliterate all impediments to its rule.  

 Framing many of our posthuman fantasies, this other of technology permanently impels us to know, to direct and control, to transform and modify, without ever strictly defining the limits we may arrive at in our hunger for Posthumanism, Cyberculture & Postcolonialism in Manjula Padmanabhan’s “Harvest” completeness. Constrained by physical incapacitation and/or death, the human species wishes to change from its assigned mode of being to become what its best machines already are. Hollywood blockbusters like Iron Man, Transformers, and The Matrix announce the end of man in their celebration of the body made perfect or left behind, their dream of the dissolution of self through computer technology, bioscience, or the intersection of consumerism and the new digital environment. Posthuman provides new images and new terms of human evolution, and examine transitory stages in the development of human intelligence.

 Resistance to Posthumanism; “Harvest” addresses this notion in the image of Ginni. In Act III scene 2, Virgil’s voice reaches Jaya. He is the actual First world receiver, willing to pay for the youthful bodies of hapless Third-World donors. Jaya is filled with terror at the disembodied voice from the whirring, ablaze Contact Module. When Jaya asks about Ginni, Virgil explains that she was a “Nothing. Nobody. A computer-animated wet dream”. Ginni, the young, beautiful woman is a manifestation of Virgil’s machinations to seduce his desired target. She’s a primitive form of cyborg having no links to the human world of physical boundaries or wholeness. Throughout the play, we see her face and hear her querulous voice prompting Ma to call her an angel. The gifts that she has bestowed upon the Prakash family seem nothing short of miracles to them. She always appears to be out of their reach since her location affords her geographical distance. Even her transient image is untouchable as the Contact Module swings away every time a donor, be it Jeetu or Jaya, tries to touch it. In Act III scene 1, we watch the InterPlanta guards mistake Jeetu for Om and take him away, only to bring him back swathed in bandages. It is a horrible realization of the separation of identity from the human body. His clothes, white on white, and his face and head covered in bandages give him the likeness of an unnamed machine, a faceless entity. He has been transformed into an individual cyborg with implants in place of eyes and a visor across them, a posthuman body that is first disembodied and then re-embodied enabling his transition into another consumer body.

Ginni’s images are transmitted directly into Jeetu’s brain and he is completely entranced by her. Ironically, it is only by turning Jeetu into a likeness of her own mechanic self that Ginni, the virtual projection, has been able to appear in her full avatar to him. She beams images of her “body” into Jeetu’s brain so that he is mesmerized into agreeing to further extraction of organs from his own corporeal body. The body that Ginni shows off to Jeetu is nothing but a digital projection, a virtual incarnation of the desires of the flesh. It is almost a mockery of the physical form and its locational limitations. When Virgil communicates with Jaya through the Contact Module and coaxes her to look at him, she refuses by turning her face away. When she turns, a projection of Jeetu is standing before her. Padmanabhan defines this as “apparition”.

 Even as the image of Jeetu speaks, the voice emanates from the Contact Module. Virgil tries to lure Jaya by using the body of Jeetu, by exploiting her desires for Jeetu. She argues that Jeetu is dead and so is his body. But Virgil asserts that he has a “casing”.  This scenario once again raises the issue of the body as a manifestation of identity. In the era of contemporary social and critical theory, the notion of a stable, unified and coherent identity is rejected. Instead, modern age theory sees identity as a series of negotiations, differences and discourses. In a world where race, class, gender or sexuality are of importance to the adoption of the persona, cyberspace allows an individual to choose an identity, to masquerade, mimic and transcend bodily identities and interact with the world as somebody else. The individual’s subjectivity exists in a dispersed state, where the boundaries of the self are no longer the body or the skin.

 It is Jaya who finally launches a protest against this “fluidity” of identity. She rejects the “body” of Jeetu that Virgil has now occupied. She resists Virgil’s advances and the claims of his desire for her. He insists that she has known the mouth that is now speaking to her or the body that will plant a child inside her. Jaya questions the voice emanating from Jeetu’s body regarding the paternity of the child she will bear. Will the child be Virgil’s because he has donated his sperm or will it be Jeetu’s since the body is his? The problem of ownership and parentage is intimately entwined with the problem of identity. Jaya asserts that she wants the pain, the agony of childbirth even as Virgil proposes a painless procedure. Her final resistance is symbolized in her decision to end her life if the InterPlanta guards try to break her door down and force her to comply. She has found a new way of winning − winning by losing. Jaya refuses to allow her womb to be treated as a laboratory for the First World colonizer for his experiments with self preservation and securing right to perpetuity.

Hawk Roosting (Ted Hughes)

 

About the Author:

Ted Hughes is consistently described as one of the twentieth century’s greatest English poets. Born August 17th, 1930 in Yorkshire, his family moved to Mexborough when he was seven to run a newspaper and tobacco shop. He attended Mexborough grammar school, and wrote his first poems from the age of fifteen, some of which made their way into the school magazine. Before beginning English studies at Cambridge University (having won a scholarship in 1948), he spent much of his National service time reading and rereading all of Shakespeare. At Cambridge, he 'spent most time reading folklore and Yeat's poems,' and switched from English to Archaeology and Anthropology in his third year.

Introduction:

The poem, “Hawk Roosting” is in the form of a monologue. Through the rapacious hawk, the poet talks about the megalomaniac leaders and power-mongers of our time who ruthlessly destroy fellow human beings in order to maintain their superiority.

The hawk’s closed eyes:

The poem opens and closes with the personal pronoun “I” which is an unmistakable sign of the speaker’s lust for power and self-projection. The hawk is perching on the topmost branch of the tallest tree in the forest. Its eyes are closed, which is probably an indication of the bird’s self-conceit and self-importance. The hawk deliberately refuses to recognize others. The bird’s inaction does not mean that it loves idleness. It reality, the bird, with its eyes closed, is rehearsing and planning how to kill and eat without any trouble.

Nature nurtures the hawk:

It appears that nature collaborates with the hawk. The existence of tall tree on which to perch, the lightness of air, which enables the hawk to fly without much effort, the sun’s rays which falls on the bird and also on the earth – all these natural phenomena are advantageous to the hawk. In addition to all these things, the open surface of the earth provides the hawk a full view of its prey.

The bird’s body:

The bird proudly states that its body is designed in such a way as to enable to pursue its predatory course easily. It is not likely to fall, for its feet are hooked in order to catch the top branches of the tree firmly.  The hawk says that based on the evolutionary theory, it is the highest order in bird’s family. It also says that it may not allow other birds to evolve than it. This is the tall claim that a dictator makes, as he carefully destroys potential rivals not to aspire to his position.

Hawk- a killer bird:

The bird says that it flies up or revolves according to its own whim and fancy. It states proudly that all belongs to it and so it can choose its own time and manner of killing. It does not resort to any sophisticated arguments to justify its destructive acts. Again like a dictator, it says that its business is to “tear off heads” and “the bones of the living”. This in its innate character and it cannot be changed by any force. It thinks that being conditioned by nature it has the ‘right’ to kill and that it need not put forward any arguments in self-defence. It is doing what it is made by nature to do.

The hawk and the dictator:

The hawk says that the sun is behind it. This means literally that the sun is setting. But his could also mean that the hawk rules over natural phenomena  such as such. It also says that the sun may be erratic but is never changes its destructive character of killing prey. Being a killer its eyes are always alert and its action is also swift but careful. This exactly reflects the attitudes of a dictator. To maintain the status, like a hawk, the dictator kills others without nay mercy thinking that nature has provided him with such power. The hawk does not indulge in self-explanation of its killing nature. Like this the dictator also does not feel sorry about any ill-deed that he does to others. The only thing that the hawk and the dictator want is to retain their power in-tact.

Conclusion:

The poet by comparing hawk and dictator, has brought out the philosophy of modern life. The hawk is a natural phenomenon. But a man turned into a dictator when his greediness reaches to pinnacle. He loses his human nature and turns into cruel bird like the hawk which basic duty is killing and eating. The poem states that there will be always ‘a killer and the killed’. Things like this will exist for ever.

The French Revolution

 

Introduction:

The French Revolution that began in 1789 altered the political landscape of feudal Europe irrevocably. Centuries of oppression came to an end, bringing about great changes in the social and political framework of France. This revolution, which lasted from 1789 to 1799, affected the rest of Europe also. People everywhere were inspired with democratic ideals, and the power of the king and the aristocrats came crumbling down. Nowhere in Europe could royalty and nobility even again take their power for granted after the uprising of the peasants in France.

Causes for the French Revolution:

The changes in the social, economic, political, and intellectual domains were causes for the French Revolution. The aristocratic structure of society before the revolution consisted of three orders or ‘estates’ : the clergy constituted the First Estate; the nobility, the Second Estate and the rest of the population which was more than ninety-five percent belonged to the Third Estate. The nobles represented the wealthy class, the bourgeoisie stood for the intelligent section such as doctors and merchants  and the lowest of the social position was occupied by peasants. While the first two Estates enjoyed privileges such as exempted from paying tax, the Third Estate suffered untold misery and poverty, for they needed to pay taxes to the State, the Church and the nobles. . The Old Order was thus based on privilege, despotism and exploitation.

The court of Louis XVI was known for its extravagance and pomp. The king believed in the divine right theory and ruled in an arbitrary manner. The people had not share in the government and the States-General had not met since 1614. Queen Marie Antoniette was unpopular  and arrogant and irritated the already frustrated people further. There was confusion in very department of administration. There was an urgent need for reform and the king was incapable of it.

Course of the French Revolution:

French writers like Voltaire and Rousseau has a profound effect on the middle class. Voltaire pointed an accusing finger on several lapses in French law which doled out harsh punishment for small offences. His writings helped to awake public conscience in France. In his famous book, “The Social Contract”, Rousseau explained that the king governed a state owing to a contract with his subjects. He established the fact that the people had every right to question the ruler if he failed in his duty towards them. This reasoning inspired many thinkers of the day and they joined the revolution. Motivated by Rousseau they were ready to destroy the old system of government altogether.

The American War of Independence was an inspiration to the French people. The way in which the American rose against the unfair taxation of the British government, and their ultimate triumph, acted as a great stimulus to the oppressed people of France.

All these brought matters to a boiling point, and with the attack on the state prison, the Bastille in 1789, the French Revolution began. The Old Order was overthrown. The French drew up a declaration called the “Declaration of the Rights of Man.” The concept of absolute monarch was rejected. Louis XVI was not happy about these developments and he sought foreign help. This enraged the mob further and it resulted in the horrifying September Massacres.   Thousands of royalties, priests, and nobles were killed on the streets. From 1794 to 1794, there was a Reign of Terror. Louis XVI was beheaded. In the name of ‘liberty, equality and fraternity’ more than  a million people were cruelly butchered. The revolution came to an end in 1799.

Effects of the French Revolution:

The first events of the revolution were well received in England. Many progressive Englishmen were happy to see France emerging from the shadow of absolute monarchy. The government of England was happy to see the weakening of France due to the internal strife. This was the initial reaction in England. But as the revolution took a bloody side with the September Massacres and the Reign of Terror, English opinion altered. The upper classes were alarmed to note the passing of power from the monarch to the lower classes in France. At first they were disgusted by the sadism of the peasants and later this disgust gave way to fear and panic. They feared that a similar situation could be created in England. Burke’s “Reflections on the Revolution in France” sounded a note of terror. In it, he upheld the authority of the ancient institution and claimed that the revolution was a disaster. He also pointed out that if it was not controlled, it would spread all over Europe and ruin its fine civilization. His opinion really changed the minds of the English.  A reply to Burke was made by Tom Paine in his “Rights of Man.” In it he supported the American and French revolutions. He said that people had the right to alter any existing government if they were not satisfied with it. The majority of the people however shared Burkes’ anxiety about the future of Europe.

 

Rise of Napoleon:

Meanwhile Austria and Prussia fought against France but they were defeated by the French. This victory gave the French to spread its power throughout the European continent. They promised assistance to any nation that sought to overthrow its ruler. Reluctantly, England entered into a war with France in 1793. A kind of an emergency situation was created in England. The king and the nobles were panic-stricken and even the mildest suggestion of reform was frowned upon. Outspoken proponents of reform were suspected of being ‘Jacobins.’ (Jacobins were entirely hostile to aristocratic privileges and to all feudal forms of government.)

One famous Jacobin was Napoleon Bonaparte, who wished to make France a democratic republic. After the execution of King Louis XVI in 1793, a group of Jacobins led by Maximilien Robespierre gained control of the French government, when some of the French cities revolted against Robespierre, they were supported by Britain. Napoleon was sent to command the army at Toulon. Napoleon succeeded in driving the British-aided rebels back and gained control over Toulon. Unfortunately, for Napoleon his rapid rise of success suffered a setback with the fall and execution of Robespierre in 1794. He regained his power the following year when he defended the royal palace, the Tuileries, from attack by angry mobs who wanted to destroy the ruling National Conventions that was being held there. He was hailed as a hero and made a major general.

Between 1792 and 1795, France has been at war with several states of Europe. Under the leadership of Napoleon, France defeated Austria in 1797. After several years of civil disturbance, the French longed for peace and welcomed the leadership of Napoleon who controlled the French government in 1799. He no ruled France as a dictator. Several people who held democratic opinions were arrested. The press had no freedom and people should not form club or societies.

Napoleon was not satisfied with ruling France alone. He wanted to conquer the neighbouring countries. He was crowned emperor in 1802 and he began his attacks on Europe by 1905. He defeated Prussia, several German states, Naples, Holland, Warsaw and Tuscany. Britain was forced to enter the war in order to curb the rising power of Napoleon. The war came to an end after the Battle of Waterloo in 1815 when Lord Wellington defeated Napoleon.

Effects of French Revolution in the Lives of the English:

These Napoleonic war affected British life in several ways. England had borrowed heavily to meet the expenses of the war. The first problem therefore was the huge national debt. As a result taxes were raised, food became scarce, and there was inflation all around. After the war came to an end, nearly half a million soldiers and sailors were sent home. They added heavily to the long list of the unemployment. Unemployment became a serious problem for the authorities.

The import of corn was stopped during the twenty years of the war. Soon after the war, this ban was removed and European corn flooded the market. The price of English corn therefore had to be reduced drastically. This was resented by English farmers and to protect them the Corn Law was passed in 1816. The Corn Law hit the poor people for they had to pay more for the corn. The poor started revolting against and so the first Reform Bill was passed. Napoleon Wars gave England an excellent opportunity to revel its real army strength on land and sea to the world. England emerged from these wars as a superpower.

 

The French Revolution stirred the British people and affected their literature in a major way. There was a complete break with the Age of Reason and a new kind of literature known as the Romantic Revival was born. The chief characteristics of the poetry of this period were closeness to nature, simplicity of style, and the employment of the language of the common man. Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley, and Keats were the poets who specialized in this style of poetry.

The Death of the Author (Roland Barthes)

 

Introduction:

Roland Barthes, one of the most influential and brilliant critics in the twentieth century, was a staunch advocate of semiology and structuralism. His famous treatise “The Elements of Semiology” (1964) and famous essay, “Introduction to the Structural Analysis of the Narrative” made memorable contribution to the evolution of semiology and structuralism which were initiated by Ferdinand de Saussure. In the beginning he wanted to ‘found a science of literary criticism.’ Later, under the influence of Derrida and Lacan his interest shifted from the general rules and constraints of narrative to the production of meaning in the process of reading.

Critical analysis:

In his famous essay, “The Death of the Author” Barthes asserted that “the birth of the reader must be at the cost of the death of the author.” In his most important work of literary criticism S/Z (1970) he comments exhaustively on Balzac’s famous story “Sarrasine”. His method of analysis provides an insight into structuralist  narratology. In the “textual Analysis of a Tale” (1973) by Edgar Allan Poe, he breaks down the text in lexias or small units of sense. Barthes aimed at showing how each small unit carries “many different meanings simultaneously or in different codes.”

Barthes proposes that structuralism is capable of an explanation of any sign system of any culture. He also perceives that such an explanation necessities a theology of meaning or explanation. This gives rise to the idea of ‘meta language’ which implies beyond language or second order language. Each order of language implicitly relies on a meta-language by which it is explained. Meta-language means “the language and terminology used to talk analytical about language itself.” In the course of interpreting one another the metalanguages will suffer ‘aporia’ or indefinite regression and thus, will vanish ultimately. He defends structuralism.

In “The Death of the Author” Barthes points out that the reader must cultivate an independent concept of the text and must completely dissociate himself from the author. When the writing begins, “the author enters into his own death.” In the capitalist ideology great importance has been attached to the “persona of the author.” The author still occupies a dominant place in histories of literature, biographies, magazine and interviews. Men of beliefs have been anxious to establish close relationship between authors and their works through diaries letters and memoirs. Literature is tyrannically author centred. An author’s life, readings, tastes, passions etc. are supposed to influence his writings. But “criticism consists for the most part in saying that Baudelaire’s work is the failure of Baudelaire, the man, Van Gogh’s his madness, Tchaikovsky’s his vice.” Barthes disagrees with the established view that “a work is always sought in the man or woman who produced it…”

 Barthes's essential argument is that the author has no sovereignty over his own words (or images, sounds, etc.) that belong to the reader who interprets them. When we encounter a literary text, says Barthes, we need not ask ourselves what the author intended in his words but what the words themselves actually say. Text employ symbols which are deciphered by readers, and since function of the text is to be read, the author and process of writing is irrelevant.

 "The death of the author" notion means that meaning is not something retrieved or discovered, having been there all the while, but rather something spontaneously generated in the process of reading a text, which is an active rather than passive action. Barthes does not intend to suggest that the death of the author lets any reader read any text any way he or she like (though others aside from Barthes perused this line of thought). What Barthes is suggesting is that reading always involves at least a little bit of writing or rewriting of the text's meaning.

 Barthes's "The Death of the Author" is an attack on traditional literary criticism that focused too much on trying  to retrace the author's intentions and original meaning in mind. Instead Barthes asks us to adopt a more text oriented approach that focuses on the interaction of the reader, not the writer, with it. This means that the text is much more open to interpretation, much more fluid in its meaning than previously thought.       

 Referring to the New French Criticism, Barthes observes that Mallarme was “the first to see and foresee in its full extent the necessity to substitute language itself for the person who until then had been supposed to be its owner.” Language supersedes the author. Writing requires impersonality and objectivity. It is the language which ‘acts, performs and not the author.” Mallarme suppresses the author in the interest of writing and thus, restores the place of the reader. Proust too denies the superiority of the author in his work. Linguistics has recently provided the destruction of the author with a valuable analytical tool by showing that the whole of enunciation is an empty process, functioning perfectly without their being any need for it to be filled with the person of the interlocutors. The writer is nobody in writing. It is the language that matters. Brecht distances the author from his work. The test is made and red in such a way that at all its levels the author is absent. The author exists before writing a book, but ceases in exist when it is completed. He or she is the past of his/ her book. Barthes points out that “the author is thought to nourish the book, which is to say that he exists before it, thinks, suffers, lines for it, is in the same relation of antecedence to his work as a father to his child.”

Conclusion:

In modern time the writer has no existence. “He is born simultaneously with the text.” He has no being preceding or exceeding the writing. The reader interprets a work. The author has no place. Barthes concludes “ it is necessary to overthrow the myth, the birth, the reader must be at the cost of the author.”

The Agrarian Revolution in England

Introduction:

The great development in farming that resulted from a series of discoveries and inventions during the 1700s is known as the Agrarian Revolution. This revolution changed not only the landscapes of England but also the lifestyle of its people.

Old System:

Before the revolution, a lot of time and land were wasted. A farmer was forced to allow one-third of his land to lie fallow since the soil would not bear crops continuously. The old strip system, where a farmer’s holding were scattered, forced the farmer to waste a lot of his time walking about from one strip to another. Methods of cultivating had hardly changed since Saxon times. The open field system was in use. This consisted of large open fields with no fences. Each village was surrounded by such fields.

Changes and Developments:

The agrarian revolution brought about primarily some changes and developments:

1.      The Enclosure Acts

2.      Improved methods of growing crops

3.      Improved methods of breeding livestock

4.      Invention of new farm equipment

With the increase in population, there was a pressing need for greater production. The strip system was wasteful but the farmers were disinclined to try out any new methods. The Enclosure Acts were passed and strips of land of thousands of acres were enclosed to make compact fields. There were two kinds of enclosures – enclosure of common land or wasteland and enclosure of the open fields by redistributing the land. The second kind enclosure caused a lot of distress to poor farmers as they did not have proper legal documents to claim their land at the time of redistribution. Some poor farmers were unable to pay the cost of fencing their land and were forced to sell. The age-old system where every householder had his own bit of land disappeared from England. The Enclosure Acts paved the ways for better farming with reduced wastage. But it destroyed a whole way of life. The poor villagers who lost their land were driven to the cities in search of new jobs. This mass exodus of the people brought about the greatest change in English history; by the end of the century, England had changed from a rural to an urban country.

Charles Townshend experimented with crop rotation. He introduced the four-field rotation system in England. He pointed out that by growing turnips along with two kinds of grain and clover, the soil could be enriched. Each crop either added nutrients to the soil or absorbed differed kinds of nutrients. By this method, farmers did not have to leave any part of their land fallow. Another advantage was that fodder was available for the livestock even during winter. This system was used and popularized by an English man named Thomas Coke who also experimented with the idea of enriching the soil with manure.

 The first important inventor of the Agrarian Revolution was Jethro Tull who was a farmer himself, invented a machine to drill holes for sowing seeds. Earlier, sowing was done by scattering which involved a lot of wastage.

 Robert Bakewell was one of the pioneers who experimented with livestock. He experimented with the ‘longhorn’ breed of cattle. He produced improved breeds of cattle, sheep, and horses. He became famous for developing a breed of sheep that could be raised for meat as well as for wool. Earlier, sheep were raised only for wool. Bakewell’s new breed of sheep was called the “Leicester Sheep”

Charles Colling followed Bakewell’s method and succeeded in developing the “shorthorn” breed of cattle which are now famous all over the world. There were others such as George Culley and John Ellman who did pioneering work in cattle rearing and breeding.

 Effects of Agrarian Revolution:

The enclosure system forced even the rich landlords to borrow money to meet fencing costs. Thus, the English banking system developed. It has been mentioned that poor farmers were badly affected by the enclosure system. Earlier, every man had his own bit of land. Now, he lost the land and also the right to graze his animals on wastelands. He either became a paid labourer or went to the city. Although Agrarian Revolution had several advantages such as better production and greater efficiency , in involved a lot of hardship too. This is portrayed by many English writers like Oliver Goldsmith in their writings. 

"Femininity, Narrative and Psychoanalysis" by Juliet Mitchell

 Introduction:

Feminism means “the belief and aim that women should have the same rights and opportunities as men” and “the struggle to achieve this aim.” Feminism as a movement became popular in 1960s. it aimed at liberating women from various manifestation of gender based discrimination and exploitation. John Start Mill (1806-1873) in his book The Subjection of Women (1869) and Mary Wolstone Craft (1750-1797) in A Vindication of Rights to Women (1792) were the pioneers of the Feminist Movements or Feminism.  They frankly exposed the inhuman and injustice done to women and the hypocrisy.  

With the passage of time, Feminism became an important ideological-political force. The feminist writers of the 1960s exposed the marginalization of women under  male hegemony. A large number of women writers – Helena Cixous, Elaine Showalter, Lisa Tuttle, Alison Juggar, Toril Moi, Susan Gubar, Kate Millet, Juliet Mitchell, Julia Kristeva, Alice Jardine and many others stood firmly for women’s emancipation and empowerment. They challenged the unjust and exploitative gender based social constructions and radically changed the general perception of women’s place in society.

Juliet Mitchell’s “Femininity, Narrative and Psychoanalysis”

About the author:

Juliet Mitchell who began her career as a lecturer in the universities of Leeds and Reading, became a freelancer with leftist leanings. Her famous essay, “Women:  The Longest Revolution” contributed to New Left Review (1966) heralded the emergence of a politically radical feminism.” She was the fiery advocate of Women’s Liberation Movement. She published Psychoanalysis and Feminism (1974). She worked as a psychoanalyst in London. “Femininity, Narrative and Psychoanalysis” is her famous lecture delivered at a conference held on “Narrative” in Australia in 1972.

Femininity, Narrative and Psychoanalysis:

In this essay, Juliet Mitchell establishes correlation between feminists, narrative and psychoanalysis by giving suitable illustrations from a novel, Wuthering Heights.

Psychoanalysis depends on conversation between the psychoanalyst and the patient. It is immaterial whether the analyst or the patient is male or female. Psychoanalyst hears the patient’s histories and retells them. The patient narrates his or her story. The analyst listens and when he or she retells them, something from the analyst intrudes or disrupts and “the anarchist carnival” is offered. “Something form the analyst’s own association disrupts, erupts, into that narrative – the analyst asks a question from a new perspective and the history starts all over again.”

During the seventeenth century the novel, preeminently written by women novelists was the main literary form. Mitchell remarks that “the novel starts with autobiographies written by women in the seventeenth century.” These women novelists were trying to establish “the subject in process.” They were trying to “create a history from a state of flux.” – a flux which they themselves were experiencing in “the process of becoming women within a new bourgeois society.” They wrote novels to describe the changing condition of women under capitalism. Mitchell comments: “The novel is that creation by the woman of the woman or by the subject who is in the process of becoming woman, of woman under capitalism.” However, the feminist novel is not a “homogeneous construction.” There are points of disruption and autocriticism within it.

Economic base and artefacts are also recreated in changing social structure. New literary forms emerge in which changing subjects recreate themselves within a new social context. “The Novel” writes Juliet Mitchell, “is the prime example of the way women start to create themselves as social subjects under bourgeois capitalism, create themselves as a category; women … we have to know where women are, why women have to write the novel, the story of their own domesticity, the story of their own seclusion within the home and the possibilities and impossibilities provided by that.”

Julia Kristeva attacks this tradition as “the discourse of the hysteric.” Mitchell positively accepts this attack: “The Woman novelist must be hysteric. Hysteria is the woman’s simultaneous acceptance and refusal of the organization of sexuality under patriarchal capitalism.” She thinks that there is nothing like female writing, expressing woman’s voice. To her it is “the hysteric’s voice which is the woman’s masculine language talking about feminine experience. It is both simultaneously the woman novelist’s refusal of the woman’s world – she is after all, a novelist – and her construction from within masculine world of the woman’s world. it touches on both. It touches, therefore, on the importance of bi-sexuality.”

Mitchell expresses her views on the psychoanalysis theories behind the position of women novelists. “at the point in which the phallus is found to be missing in the mother, masculinity is set up as the norm and femininity is set up as what masculinity is not. What is not there in the mother is what is relevant here, that is what provides the context for the language. The expression which fills gap is, perforce ‘phallocentric.’

Lacan calls it symbolic, which is the point of organization. Here sexuality is constructed as meaning. All heterogeneity disappears. It becomes organized and created round masculine and feminine poles. What has already been discussed can be called “pre-oedipal, the semiotic, the carnivalesque, the disruptive.”

Mitchell illustrates her viewpoint from “Wuthering Heights” . Emily Bronte does not write for the patriarchal order but she works within the terms of language which is known as phallocentric.” She ironically questions the justification of the patriarchal organization. Emile Bronte’s script, stolen from her, was presented to the publishers, by her sister, Charlotte and was published under a male pseudonym Eills Bell. It is a private novel, concerned with two narrators – a man, Lockwood and a woman, the nurse, Nelly Dean. Lockwood parodies the romantic male lover. He is a fop who thinks that he loves all things romantic. This is criticized within the novel itself by Isabella who thinks that dark complexioned Heathcliff , the romantic Gothic hero will prove to be the true gentleman beneath all his cruelty.

The story of Catherine and Heathcliff “is a story of bisexuality, the story of the hysteric.” Instead of giving a whip to Catherine, her father gives her a fatherless gypsy child, named Heathcliff, which was the name of her brother who died in childhood. She finds a broken whip inside her father’s pocket. Instead of this whip she gets a brother/ lover, Heathcliff.

Catherine marries Edgar Linton. She dies in child birth. She dies but haunts Heathcliff who she wanted to marry, for twenty years. Heathcliff also wants to be one with her in the moment of death. In this imagined sexual union between Catherine and Heathcliff the incest taboo is ignored. Mitchell observes: “The choices of the woman within the novel, within fiction, are either to survive by making the hysteric’s ambiguous choice into femininity which does not work (marrying Edgar, or go for oneness and unity, by suffering death.) walking the moors as a ghost with Heathcliff.

In the seventeenth century novel, “women had to construct themselves as women within new social structure. The woman novelist hysterically rejects, the symbolic definition of sexual difference under patriarchal law, unable to do so because without madness we are unable to do so.” So type of writing is either conformist (the novels of Mills and Boon) or critical (The Wuthering Heights).

Conclusion:

Thus Mitchell positively treats the hysteric condition of women writers in this speech. Mitchell advocates that only in the hysteric condition women are able to question the male hegemony in male language and this  enables them to emancipate and create a place for them .