This paper concerns itself to the novel Freedom Road (1944) that depicts the situation after the culmination of chattel slavery in America on January 1, 1863. Chattel slavery involved the purchase and sale of African American slaves. The practice was institutionalized in America since the sixteenth century. The settlers in America included The Dutch, The French, The Spanish and The Portuguese. They were controlled by the British and wanted to liberate themselves during The American Revolution of 1775. They promised that the African slaves brought along would be liberated after the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence(1775-1783). This promise was not kept up even after 80 years. The African slaves suffered deep anguish for they …show more content…
She is interested in the conditions of “The Emancipated Slaves”. She had planned to bring out a literary monthly Praja Sahiti (People’s Literature) in the 1970’s. She thought of introducing some novels depicting the lives of the African-American slaves of the past so that they would inspire the reading public to think about the problems of that time and thereby think of changing the present day state of affairs. In the course of her search she found this novel of Howard Fast, Freedom Road (1944). She wanted to introduce the novel Freedom Road to the Telugu readers. This paper aims at a comparative study of Howard Fast’s Freedom Road (1944)and Ranaganayakama’s Sweccha Padham(2007), to show how the spirit of the original text is carried forward from English to Telugu and to show the differences between both the versions. Key …show more content…
The incidents in the novel Freedom Road begin in 1867 when the former slaves in South Carolina were living as “Free Laborers”. The American Civil War is discussed as a back ground to the novel Freedom Road. In her version Ranganayakamma details the American Civil War so as to familiarize the Telugu readers to the American situation of 1867. She always writes forewords to her novels which depict the actual conditions of the society to which her novels belong. She is very considerate to prepare the Telugu readers to read any of her novels. She begins her introduction to the novel Freedom Road with the American Civil War. The advantage of such introduction is that the readers are well prepared to understand the American situation of
To understand the desperation of wanting to obtain freedom at any cost, it is necessary to take a look into what the conditions and lives were like of slaves. It is no secret that African-American slaves received cruel and inhumane treatment. Although she wrote of the horrific afflictions experienced by slaves, Linda Brent said, “No pen can give adequate description of the all-pervading corruption produced by slavery." The life of a slave was never a satisfactory one, but it all depended on the plantation that one lived on and the mast...
Slavery was the core of the North and South’s conflict. Slavery has existed in the New World since the seventeenth century prior to it being exclusive to race. During those times there were few social and political concerns about slavery. Initially, slaves were considered indentured servants who will eventually be set free after paying their debt(s) to the owner. In some cases, the owners were African with white servants. However, over time the slavery became exclusive to Africans and was no limited to a specific timeframe, but life. In addition, the treatment of slaves worsens from the Atlantic Slave trade to th...
Literary scholars have subjected Anil’s Ghost, Michael Ondaatjee’s only novel about Sri Lanka, to heavy criticism on grounds that it fails to portray the island’s civil war in a “credible manner”. Indeed, working primarily as a historical backdrop, the war does not directly concern Anil Tissera, the expatriated Sri Lankan protagonist. Anil seems to function not as an insider but rather, as an investigating spectator concerned about the nature of extrajudicial killings in the island. The critique leads to several questions: To what extent did postcolonial literary studies comfortably accommodate the genre of ‘literature of conflict’ to denote the faithful portrayal of violence and war? What, if any, are the possibilities for what we term ‘literature of conflict’ to point out ways in which peace can be imagined in nations such as Sri Lanka where the ethnic war has become the defining postcolonial national reality? How do these imaginings or reflections of peace, in turn shape ideas of nationalism? Transition sentence here.
Dalit literature contests written histories where the entire life and cultural heritage of these specific set of people have been neglected. Only a literature of their own can express the real life experiences and their history. The movement which began with Mahatma Jyotirao Phule and Dr. Ambedkar with the message, “Don’t let your pen be restricted to your own questions” (Nimbalkar 32 - 33) is genuinely carried out by Dalit writers, to awake, to emancipate and to make them realize that every human being is equal. In course of this development, Dalit authors’ pen not only restricted to mere proclamations of equality, liberty and fraternity but also tries to make Dalits proud of their origin by highlighting positive aspects of their culture and acknowledging various Dalit art-forms. The two biographical novels taken for this paper, Kalyan Rao’s Untouchable Spring from Telagu and Dr. Narendra Jadhav’s Outcaste - A Memoir from Marathi, are faithful to these aspects.
Her works include 36 novels, 48 short novels, 150 short stories, 15 travelogues, 7 collections of articles, one talking book, 4 volumes of literary research books, 2 volumes of anthologies, and biographies of Smt. Indira Gandhi and Sri. G.D. Naidu. Her stories and articles have been published in prominent Tamil periodicals and many have been translated into English, Japanese, Ukranian and other Indian languages.
Right from its’ inception, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) was perceived as a party which had eliminating the Hindi language from Tamil Nadu as a prime agenda. The birth of the DMK on September 17, 1949 was accompanied with future General Secretary C N Annadurai stating that ‘linguistic imperialism’ has been established b...
Anchita Ghatak, writes, ‘A Life Long Ago chronicles, through family memories, the changes affecting post colonial South Asia…It also raises some important questions about class, caste, community, religion and gender that continue to trouble us in contemporary times” (vii-ix). In very cryptic and short chapters the writer unveils storehouse of humanity deep within her own heart. Simplicity of narration is her best ornament to reach the largest part of humanity and farthest core of the reader’s mind reviving their ethical sense. Humanism stands for two basic values: first and foremost, love of fellow beings and solidarity of mankind without distinction of race, caste, creed or nationality and second intellectual integrity and scientific spirit according to which all beliefs however firmly held, are liable to modification or rejection in the light of further knowledge and experience. In chapter one, the narrator, a little girl of ten years of a Hindu family describes her kinship with Majam Dada who proves what true humanism is and how love of fellow beings can win over all barriers of caste, class or even distance. The first chapter opens with the news of Dada’s death, “For fifty years, I had been oblivious to the frozen tears inside. And those tears were now streaming down my face”(1; ch. 1) Such was the bond of humanity among the writer and Majam dada that the narrator at her very tender age could easily make out that her foster mother who was
Its narrative realizes the female protagonist’s method of living to reconcile with her family, to be aware of the filial relationship and the marital circumstances. The novel is covered with a variety of narratives of Devi, of her mother Sita, her grand mother and of the house maid, Mayamma. This novel is a trial to disclose the inner lives of woman and the inner aspects are concentrated on with complete picture. This novel is written in a woman’s voice. This very novel makes an attempt to overcome an unsolved situation faced by the suppressed and oppressed womenfolk mainly in
Dalit movement began in Maharastra during the seventies of the twentieth century, witnessed the emergence of Dalit literature. The translation of such literature proclaims the problems of Dalits, the voiceless to the world. The first wave Dalit writers have shown Dalit women characters as victims not as fighters, whereas the second wave, attempted to portray women as real: heroic, audacious and self-respecting, began placing them in the battle field for fighting against atrocities. One such Dalit writer is Bama, well-known for her novels Karruku (1992), Sangati (1994) and Vanmam (2002), belongs to paraya community. Holmstrom commends in the introduction of Sangati that, “Bama was already formulating a ‘Dalit feminism’ which redefined ‘woman’
The debut novel by Arvind Adiga was published in 2008 and talks about the life of Balram Halwai, the son of an auto rickshaw puller who lived in a village in Dhanbad with his grandmother, parents, brother and extended family. The story has been told from Balram’s point of view who spent his childhood in ‘darkness’-in the impoverished area of rural India-in poverty and illiteracy, as he had to drop out of his school because his family had to arrange for his cousin’s dowry and so they couldn’t afford to pay for his education. His name itself is the proof that the dominant caste system in India has divided its population into higher and lower social classes. Balram’s frustration is evident from the fact that he critizes the caste system and points
According to her, the warp and woof of her works attract attention when “ the themes are analysed, the social and political elements are subtly camouflaged and subdued by dwelling on emotions and responses which are far more engrossing than the hard facts of reality.(Jain 1987:1). As her discussion progresses from thematic concerns to philosophical and psychological issues.The primary task of this paper is to dwell upon the female strength without losing the inner self of the character in all critical situations. The focus will remain on the politicization of land and landscape through the study of women’s search for identity in this complex social world where alienation, disintegration and submissiveness are inherently attached to female psychology. For example, Where Shall We Go This Summer is based on relating Sita’s desperate search for direction of India’s anxiety to find her identity.
The format of the book is that of a speculative mythology thriller based in contemporary Ayodhya, Mithila and Lanka. It has been almost a decade since Sita has mysteriously disappeared from Ayodhya, leaving it an intolerably repressive kingdom, where dark secrets lie beneath the veneer of the glorious ‘Ayodhya Shining’. Peppered with many parallels to contemporary socio-political conditions in India, the book makes intelligent comments about vital issues like land dispossession, a biased media, the government-corporate nexus, terrorism, state surveillance, intolerance, manipulation of ‘history’ and of course, misogyny. Amidst all this, our unnamed narrator journalist develops an obsession for searching for Sita which becomes a metaphorical journey for hunting out the truth. Along the way, she comes across rebels and the misrepresented, like Kaikeyi, Shoorpanakha and Sam Boo Kha, who shed very different light on the official version of Ayodhya’s story, though we are also indirectly cautioned against taking all their words at face value. An elderly, decrepit Kaikeyi in the prologue to the novel remarks, “…me, Kausalya, Sita—all we’ll ever be are villains or footnotes in history textbooks” (19). To redeem such women, the novel carries the testimonies of several of them, forging an unlikely bond between them through a story that otherwise thrusts them apart. Thus, a feel-good story slowly unravels to reveal its cracks and fissures until a new one emerges, bitter but more
The present paper aims at studying the novel as a love story whose dimensions are touched by caste, creed and other socio-political realities existing in the regionally contextualised boundaries of the South Indian state of Kerala. The narrative of The God of Small Things hinges on or around the Ayemenem House and at times peeps into the misty atmosphere of the History House to delicately explore the big things lurked unsaid inside. This novel features the very worst sort of war, a war that captures dreams and re-dreams them. Altogether, the novel reiterates how it really began in the days when the love laws were made. The laws that lay down who should be loved, and how, and how much. This manifests almost like the guiding motif of this novel. On the whole Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things is a major breakthrough in Indian fiction in English. Especially in typical Indian setting, the depiction of an engaging tale of cross caste forbidden love between a Paravan
Raji Narasimhan, a writer, translator and journalist, has skilled hand in portraying women’s world. She has written five novels - The Heart of Standing is You Cannot Fly, Forever Free, Drifting to a Dawn, The Sky Changes and Atonement. Her novel Forever Free, which is shortlisted for Sahitya Academy Award, is the story of a young woman Shree, who sets out in search of freedom and fulfillment of her life in the patriarchal society. It became famous due to its realistic depiction.
The Indian background from which he comes is submerged in a mixed culture whose other components is equally croded and twisted, and it exercises an oppressive hold on people’s sentiments. The West Indian and East Indian cultures are products of cultural displacement oppressed by a sense of dereliction. The absence of any well–defined traditions promotes or necessitates such pragmatic qualities as cleverness, resourcefulness, common sense, and manipulation of people and circumstances. The need to survive becomes the immediate requirement of the individuals, and all of Naipaul’s characters turn out to be experts in what art of surviving at all odds. Naipaul is very much interested in what happens to individuals in a colonial ethos. It is in tracing the rites of passage through which these individuals have to pass that Naipaul the ironist surfaces. One of the major themes of Naipaul’s work is the colonial artist discovering his own artistic potentialities. For a West Indian writer who is disinherited by all traditions and at the same time exposed to all traditions, the problem of becoming a writer is in itself an assertion, of independence and identity. Living is in borrowed culture, the west Indian, more the most, needs writers to tell him who he is and where he stands. Naipaul’s work is in sense as implicit