Postcolonial Indian Literature in English: Narayan, Jhabvala, Rushdie
Indian literature in English which is accessible to us in the West, still has its roots in colonial literature and the tensions between East and West. A European naturalism is often present; a concern to posit India as an arena within which Western readers can identify realities is inherent within much of this writing. The following are three examples of the progression of post-Independence literature.
Twenty years after Independence, R.K.Narayan was still tackling issues of colonialism. The Vendor of Sweets (1967) takes us through the tensions integral to a family in which two generations belong to two different cultures. Ascetic Jagan belongs to an old India of family and history ;his son to an India increasingly subject to the foregrounding of the commodity and a dramatic industrialisation. Narayan explores the inevitable clash of what is, in many ways, both a colonial and a post-colonial encounter: Jagan, a follower of Gandhi and a veteran of the wars against British Imperialism, must attempt a negotiation of an ethos invasive to his own definitions of nationality; Mali, without this structure, must reconcile an American capitalism with India's own sense of what constitutes a modern nation.
This theme is continued in Ruth Prawer Jhabvala's Heat and Dust (1975). Again two generations, this time British, must come to terms with an alien culture. Whilst Olivia's adventures are romanticised, Jhabvala attempts to explore in a more sophisticated manner the social outlay of Anglo-Indian relations with the higher Muslim classes and Olivia's step-grand-daughter is confronted with an India that remains hidden in the works of Kipling, Forster or Narayan. Leelavati the beggar-woman's life, if not her behaviour, demonstrates an unusual social awareness of the lowest castes. It is to be noted that the East-West dichotomy within the later generation has become less strained: modern Britain is expected now to accept India on its own terms.
Salman Rushdie, whose work has been produced in the eighties and nineties, has removed himself from the sites of both nationality and naturalism but remains in an engagement with economic colonialism and its consequences.
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The piano held symbolic significance in the story of the family and their struggle to move forward. The piano represents the importance and value of slaves during slavery. Slaves were traded for objects during slavery. Slaves were of no importance to their slave owners. As Doaker says in the story “now she had her piano and her niggas too”, meaning slaves were nothing more than an accessory to their slave owners (Wilson 395). Doaker sarcastically speaks of how slaves were not considered humans but property. As Sandy Alexandre states in her work, “Property and Inheritance in August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson”, “Doaker sees greed where there should be something like repulsion or at least a semblance of hesitation to accept such an ill-begotten gift”(77). Alexandre argues slaves are not given the proper respect and are not considered equal. This specific event from the story shows how little to ...
Because this theme is so prevalent in the work and because The Piano Lesson is a short drama, the most important point of comparison between Berniece and Boy Willie is how they manage their family history. The central conflict of the story is between these two characters who are at war over use of their family legacy. In this drama, family legacy takes the shape of a large piano with expertly carved scenes of the siblings’ family history. Their great-grandfather had etched the scenes into the wood while in the home of his former master and the family had sacrificed much to attain the instrument after their emancipation. This symbol is invaluable to the plot because it symbolizes not only their family, but the family sacrifice, freedom, and legacy. Both Berniece and Boy Willie understand the symbolism of the piano, but where Berniece wants to keep the piano untouched and perfectly preserved, thus preservi...
In the Piano Lesson the main symbol is the piano in Berniece’s home. The piano has a lot of meaning behind it and has been through a lot. This piano has made it all the way from the South to the North, which wasn’t easy. Berniece brought the piano miles from where it was because it meant so much to her. The carvings on this piano are magnificent they represent all of her ancestors. The blood and sweat that were put into making this piano means so much more than just something you play is amazing: “ Willie Boy carved all this. He got a picture of his mama… Mamma Esther… and his daddy, Boy Charles. He got all kinds of things that happened with our family” (1183). Instead of carving what Sutter asked he made the whole piano about the history of his family. After the carving was done, the piano became a monument to his family’s
Berniece believes the piano represents the spirits of the past and should be left alone and never bothered, and is afraid to accept or embrace her family?s history. The piano represents a particularly bloody and disturbing past for her. She sees Sutter?s ghost and senses his presence, and is constantly haunted by the thought of the dead spirits coming into her life. She believes the piano stands for the bloodshed in her family?s history, and is ashamed of the violence associated with obtaining it. When encouraged to play the piano, she refuses steadfastly, saying ?that piano?s got blood on it.? She thinks that the spirits in the piano are bad, and is ashamed of the bloodshed they have caused. ?All this killing and thieving,? she exclaims. Berniece also believes the piano has strong sentimental value, and won?t agree to let go of it any way. She remembers how her mother cared so much about it. Berniece says, ?For seventeen years she rubbed on it till her hands bled....
The quest for identity in Indo-English writing has emerged as a recurrent theme, as it is in much of modern literature (Pathak preface). Indeed, often the individual's identity and his quest for it becomes so bound up in the national quest for identity, that the individual's search for his identity becomes allegorical of the national search (Pathak pr...
Vollrath, T. L. (1991). U.S. trade in competitive world markets. FoodReview, 14(1), 26. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.
Another economist Douglas Irwin wrote a book titled “Against the Tide”. The book is an Intellectual History of Free Trade; it is an interesting, educational account of how free trade appeared and of how the concept of free trade has coped with two centuries of attacks and criticism.
The various forms of oppression, over race, class, or gender, all operate with one uniform principle: a belief in their own superiority over another. Just as women have always suffered under the oppression of men in patriarchal systems, a quarter of the world, the natives of India, the aborigines of Australia, the Canadians and Africans, endured the iron hand of British rule for centuries. Using the novels, Freedom at Midnight by Dorninique Lapierre and Larry Collins, and Clear Light of Day by Anita Desai, I explore the relationship between the British colonizers and the Indian people, and the relationship between Bakul, an Indian diplomat, and Tara, his innocent wife. The relationships between the two countries and the married couple represent a mother/child relationship by incorporating the idea of co-dependency. In Freedom at Midnight Great Britain plays the role of a matemal parent that 'intends' to save India, while India appears to be a rambunctious child, needing to be tamed. Within Desai's novel, Clear Light of Day, Bakul is a self-serving parent who sees hope in reforming Tara and 'intends' to rescue her from her primitive world in Old Delhi. While both Britain and Bakul begin with good intentions, the result of their efforts, especially Britain's, proves to be detrimental to India and Tara, respectively.
There are people bustling, merchants selling, Anglo-Indians watching, and birds flying overhead. How many perspectives are there in this one snippet of life? They are uncountable, and that is the reality. Modernist writers strive to emulate this type of reality into their own work as well. In such novels, there is a tendency to lack a chronological or even logical narrative and there are also frequent breaks in narratives where the perspectives jump from one to another without warning. Because there are many points of view and not all of them are explained, therefore, modernist novels often tend to have narrative perspectives that suddenly shift or cause confusion. This is because modernism has always been an experimental form of literature that lacks a traditional narrative or a set, rigid structure. Therefore, E. M. Forster, author of A Passage to India, uses such techniques to portray the true nature of reality. The conflict between Adela, a young British girl, and Aziz, an Indian doctor, at the Marabar Caves is one that implements multiple modernist ideals and is placed in British-India. In this novel, Forster shows the relations and tension between the British and the Indians through a series of events that were all caused by the confusing effects of modernism. E.M. Forster implements such literary techniques to express the importance or insignificance of a situation and to emphasize an impression of realism and enigma in Chandrapore, India, in which Forster’s novel, A Passage to India, takes place.
In this essay, I will refer to several authors who attempt to move away from viewing colonialization through political and economic frameworks, mainly Ashis Nandy, Mahmood Mamdani, and Frantz Fanon. I will delineate the ramifications of colonialism on identity, discuss the
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Free trade is a form of economic policy which allows countries to import and export goods among each other with no government interference. In recent years there has been a general consensus in economist’s stance on free trade. They view free trade as an asset. Free trade allows for an abundance of goods with increased varieties and increased availability. The products become cheaper for consumers and no one company monopolizes an industry. The system of free trade has been highly controversial. While free trade benefits consumers it has the potential to hurt manufacturers and businesses thus creating a debate between supporters of free trade and those with antagonistic positions.
The concept of orientalism refers to the western perceptions of the eastern cultures and social practices. It is a specific expose of the eurocentric universalism which takes for granted both, the superiority of what is European or western and the inferiority of what is not. Salman Rushdie's Booker of the Bookers prize winning novel Midnights Children is full of remarks and incidents that show the orientalist perception of India and its people. It is Rushdie's interpretation of a period of about 70 years in India's modern history dealing with the events leading to the partition and beyond. Rushdie is a fantasist and a creator of alternate realities, the poet and prophet of a generation born at the degree zero of national history. The present paper is an attempt to study how Salman Rushdie, being himself a writer of diasporic consciousness, sometimes perceives India and its people as orientalist stereotypes and presents them in a derogatory manner.
Salman Rushdie’s novel Midnight’s Children employs strategies which engage in an exploration of History, Nationalism and Hybridity. This essay will examine three passages from the novel which demonstrate these issues. Furthermore, it will explore why each passage is a good demonstration of these issues, how these issues apply to India in the novel, and how the novel critiques these concepts.