Portrayal of the Curse of Barrenness in A Stench of Kerosene, and The Barren Women of Balramgaon
India is known by all, for its rich culture, flavored with its own
unique customs and traditions. Both Mark Tully and Amrita Pritam give
graphic details presenting the flavors of the Indian scene. We see how
important social life is in India, where the communities in the
village all come together for the cultural festival of Holi. The
setting is vibrant and full of life in Balramgaon, the village is
dowsed in color, making everyone takes part in Holi, except the cows
and buffalos; Holi is the season for song and dance, contrast and
color and festivity and fertility. Even in Chamba, a harvest festival
was being celebrated. A historically agrarian society that celebrates
its productive land with such vigor demands that its women exhibit the
same level of fertility. Marriage and child bearing are a fundamental
part of this culture, as communal life is given a lot of importance
and the strength of a community lies in its people.
In a place where society and community is given so much importance,
social stratification finds its way in. Indians take pride in
everything they do and everything they possess. This need for
superiority is the reason for the caste system in India, which is
still prevalent in the villages. The principal criterion on which the
caste system is based is the principle of natural superiority and
sometimes, religious beliefs. Natural superiority in this case is not
physical prowess or intelligence, but bodily purity. Since this is not
apparent, it is essential that social practices, occupations, life
styles, rituals and ta...
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... poverty, of splendor and rags, of palaces and
hovels, of famine and pestilence, of genii and giants and Aladdin
lamps, of tigers and elephants, the cobra and the jungle, the country
of a hundred nations and a hundred tongues, of a thousand religions
and two million gods, cradle of the human race, birthplace of human
speech, mother of history, grandmother of legend, great-grandmother of
tradition, whose yesterdays bear date with the moldering antiquities
of the rest of the nations - the one sole country under the sun that
is endowed with an imperishable interest for alien persons, for
lettered and ignorant, wise and fool, rich and poor, bond and free,
the one land that all men desire to see, and having seen once, by even
a glimpse, would not give that glimpse for all the shows of all the
rest of the globe combined."[1]
...has a national identity, an identity borne of many cultures and in the spirit of cooperation.
'For the first time, perhaps, since that land emerged from the waters of the geologic ages, a human face was set toward it with love and yearning'
A few upper caste youths, hiding behind parapet of the building in an opposite auction place, stoned the pot. “C-r-a-ash” a sound Teeha heard. The youths struck Methi’s pot and her whole body became drenched completely. It is her caste that is her flaw. By the time, Teeha moved towards Methi as soon as the pot shattered. Methi’s companions stood at some distance from them. Mathi was wet from head to feet. She stood rooted to the ground. The upper caste youths’ eyes roved over Methi’s breast and navel visible through her wet clothes, because the woman was an untouchable’s community in that village. So the upper caste youths wanted to humiliate her in public place. Look at this caste that became a weak and means of under-estimation. Teeha, a Dalit and an outsider, has openly hit a Patel youth that is a burning issue. But a low-caste girl was assaulted which is considered as sign of upper caste
There is a place where not far from my hometown, which, since my childhood, still holds the secrets to life. It was a place where we were free. Free to do whatever we wanted to do, say whatever we wanted to say, it was our place, our river. It was a simple place, no paved or asphalt roads for the commotion of busy traffic, no tall buildings to block out the sunlight, no sense of time to feel rushed or anxious, no effects from the outside world. It was a beach on the coast of Lake Sakakawea called “Little Egypt.”
As part two begins, and she sends away the aldermen about her owed taxes, it states the smell; the smell that had been taken care of, by former townsmen, thirty years before. The foreshadowing and touch of romantic mystery added says, “That was two years after father’s death and a short time after her sweetheart - the one we believed would marry her - had deserted her.” (145)The smell gives question, mystery, and confusion to the reader. Why would there be a smell and why is it important to the story? Why is it also important to make...
benefit it’s own country no matter what the stake is. We come together as one for public
it's certain characteristics that set us apart from other countries. The fact we are self-reliant, and
the place where no one knows his name, nor the vast expanse of the sea; a
When read for the first time, The Waste Land appears to be a concoction of sorts, a disjointed poem. Lines are written in different languages, narrators change, and the scenes seem disconnected, except for the repeated references to the desert and death. When read over again, however, the pieces become coherent. The Waste Land is categorized as a poem, but exhibited visually, it appears to be a literary collage. And when standing back and viewing the collage from afar, a common theme soon emerges. Eliot collects aspects from different cultures or what he calls cultural memories. These assembled memories depict a lifeless world, in which the barrenness of these scenes speak of a wasted condition. He concentrates on women, including examples of violence committed against them and the women's subsequent lack of response to this violence, to show how apathetic the world is. But The Waste Land is not a social commentary on the plight of women. Rather, the women's non-reaction to the violence against them becomes a metaphor for the impotence of the human race to respond to pain. Violence recurs throughout time, and as Eliot points to in his essay "Tradition and Individual Talent" in the epigraph, we can break this cycle of violence and move ahead only by learning from the past and applying this knowledge to the present.
Kimberly Tsau, for example, follows De Quincey's lead in her analysis of T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land, suggesting that among the violence, apathy, and disjointedness of the poem is a call to face and learn from suffering. Her essay, "Hanging in a Jar," examines how Eliot collects a variety of "cultural memories," cutting and pasting them together to form a collection that is both terrifying and edifying.
Kothari employs a mixture of narrative and description in her work to garner the reader’s emotional investment. The essay is presented in seventeen vignettes of differing lengths, a unique presentation that makes the reader feel like they are reading directly from Kothari’s journal. The writer places emphasis on both her description of food and resulting reaction as she describes her experiences visiting India with her parents: “Someone hands me a plate of aloo tikki, fried potato patties filled with mashed channa dal and served with a sweet and a sour chutney. The channa, mixed with hot chilies and spices, burns my tongue and throat” (Kothari). She also uses precise descriptions of herself: “I have inherited brown eyes, black hair, a long nose with a crooked bridge, and soft teeth
The dry, emotionally and spiritually barren village, and the villagers as an extension of the village, then encountered inexorable changes. A poetic sense slowly stepped into...
First, the suffocation of Kamal by gasoline fumes illustrate the unexpectedness of dying that leaves a father in pain, as described by the tone of agony and pessimism, negative connotations of words, and choppy, repetitive sentences, which without the scene, leaves the movie with little emotional effect of loss and trauma. As Amir switches vehicles to a fuel truck to migrate to Pakistan, he notes his lungs “collapse, tighten squeeze” and finds that the air “wasn’t right [and] wasn’t supposed to be a solid,” expressing his uncertainty by stating a scream would happen (121). The author uses a second person point- of- view to convey the darkness and poor conditions of the tank, and literally puts Amir in a situation where he cannot see the problems. The description of the air indicates that the memory is vivid and foresh...
afar over a vast country and its tail lost in the depths of the land"
Chitra Banerjee’s The Mistress of Spices is a diasporic tale built amidst a stream of voices, both male & female, sharing their joys and sorrows as immigrants to the United States. The author interweaves her text with strands of Magical Realism, Postcolonial Criticism and Feminine discourse to produce a patchwork of messages that overlap but never contradict.