Colonial Power and the Native:

Where to start from? What to say? Because colonialism or postcolonialism is a never ending issue. Postcolonial studies have a fashion in today's world. Ironically it has become a fashion to study the 'wretched class'.

The identity of the 'native' is constructed for the westerner's gaze. A community of the 'native' with some traditions and customs, with a family,  with a voice, and with a history, has been transformed into an object or let say 'oriental' by the colonizer.

For some last five-six centuries the world has been trained to see everything from a western perspective. The knowledge is generated by the West and a king of 'whiteman's myth' was created that everything of the West or White will definitely be good or rather say 'Best'. The phrase 'White man's burden ' was very popular. So the White took it as their responsibility to reform the 'other' world.

The world was divided. The West has become a metaphor of patriarchy and the non-western world are feminized.The culture of the native was not respected. The native became the synonym for barbaric and savage. The colonial power marginalized the native. In the process of transforming and reforming the natives, they were dehumanized.

The history of the 'native' was eradicated and was recreated by the colonizer. The 'native' is taught the language, religion, tradition, etc... of the colonizer. In that way the 'native' is translated. Translation means transforming the material identity. With Colonization the culture of the 'native' is transformed into the subordinated culture of a colonial regime, and all aspects of the original culture have to reconstructed and reshaped.

In that way the nation suffers from the death pangs as the culture, creativity, imagination, knowledge and history of the 'native' dies and it cannot be covered up. 

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein v/s Kenneth Branagh's movie Frankenstein:

Pre-viewing tasks:

·        What is gothic scientific fiction?

·        What is a frame narrative?

·        What is the point of view of the author?

·        What are the viewpoints of different characters?

·        Do you have confusion about the title of the novel?

·        Who do you think is the real monster, the Creator or the Creature?

·        What is tabula rasa?

·        What is the significance of the subtitle "The Modern Prometheus"?

·        Do you think Mary Shelley's Frankenstein stands on the brick of revolutionary changes?

While viewing the movie:

·        How is the beginning and the end of the movie?

·        Do you feel the effect of horror in the movie?

·        What do you think about the character of the monster in the movie?

·        What do you think about the conversation between Victor and the monster?

·        Do you think that some scenes are omitted or replaced by other scene? How is the effect of these changes?

·        Do you think the director has used appropriate symbols in the movie?

Post-viewing tasks:

·        What is the difference between the movie and the novel?

·        Does the movie help you to understand narrative structure of the novel?

·        Do you think the movie is helpful to understand the viewpoints of different characters?

·        What do you think about the creation of lady monster in the novel and Elizabeth's look of a monster in the movie?

·        Think about Victor's acceptance of Elizabeth and rejection of the monster.

·        Do you think the director is faithful to the novel?

Screening  Kya Kehna in the context of The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

1.    What are the names of the protagonists in both the works?

2.    Write their story in brief.

3.    What is the role played by society in Hester’s life?

4.    What is the role played by society in Priya’s life?

5.    Compare and contrast the male characters, Roger Chillingworth, Arthur Dimmesdale, Rahul, and Ajay.

6.    Compare and contrast ‘The scaffold scene in The Scarlet Letter’ and ‘a year-end performance in Kya Kehna in which a group of students performs a play on Priya and her pregnancy’.

7.    What are the reasons that Arthur Dimmesdale and Rahul do not come forward to accept their fatherhood? How do you they differ and what are the similarities?

8.    What is the role played by Chillingworth in Hester’s life? Why do you think he wanted to take revenge on Hester and Dimmesdale?

9.    What is the role played by Rahul’s mother in Priya’s life? Why do you think she wants to take revenge on Priya?

10. Write a note on class difference in Kya Kehna.

11. Why do you think the director has lifted the character of Ajay to the ideal state? Is it possible in real life? What are the reasons of your YES or NO?

12. How do you see Hester and Priya as individuals?

13. Write a critical note on the end of the movie and the novel. Why do you think the novelist has not given happy ending?

The Oldman and The Sea

The Oldman and The Sea is a novella written by Earnest Hemingway an American writer. The novella is with single action, single thought and single plot. Hemingway has used very limited characters to express the grand importance of struggle in life and an individual’s strength and capacity of fight against the odds of life.

The Oldman, Santiago goes for fishing and comes back with nothing for eighty-four days. He still continues to go without losing courage. Though he has faced failure in life for many times, he is still hopeful in his eyes about skill and luck. He feels that he is still capable of bearing the weight of great fish. On the eighty-fifth the oldman goes for fishing. He goes deep into the sea to catch a big fish. A huge fish is stuck in his fishing bait but he has not seen his pray. He can just feel the weight. The fish starts pulling the boat and it continues for 2-3 days. Finally it appears on the surface then starts circling the boat. The oldman respects the fish’s strength and mightiness and calls the fish his brother and gathering all his courage he kills the marlin. The oldman is victorious but the victory is short lived. The sharks come to eat the marlin. The oldman tries to save is price but cannot do anything. The body is marlin is mutilated. When the oldman comes back only the head of the great fish was left. He was tired and goes to sleep.

In the critical journey of life the oldman tries to get inspiration. Manolin is as such character in the oldman’s life. The readers look at the oldman from the boy’s eyes. When the oldman was alone in the sea he desperately wishes for the boy’s company. In the critical time of life the oldman’s frequently visits his past. The scene of young lions playing at seashore is his pleasant memory. Every time he dreams lions. Yeats: “ Some one scene, some one adventure, some one picture that is the image of his secret life, and this one image, if he would buts brood over it his lifelong, would lead his soul.” The dream of lions has a special space in the oldman’s life. These particular person and scene helps him to be positive in his life. So the oldman fails but he never loses.

Here are some questions: Enjoy thinking

1.      Can you mark a critical phase of your life?

2.      Do you have any such person whom you recall in the crisis?

3.      What is the importance of that person? Why?

4.      What is the importance of dream of lions in the novel?

5.      Do you have any such scene or image you frequently like to visit?

6.      What is the reason of your obsession for that scene?

7.      Replace the oldman with yourself. How would be the approach if you fail like the oldman in life?

Middlemarch by George Eliot (Applying Feminism) Task for Students

In Middlemarch Eliot notably focuses on women of The Victorian society. As the novel is by a woman and for women Feminism can be applied at its best. Eliot has portrayed women of slightly different classes. She has put them in different situations.

Dorothea, majorly concerned one, is an upper class woman with idealistic ideas about life and marriage. Her decision to marry Edward Casaubon is because she wanted to a part of intellectual discourse with her husband. She decides to marry him because she wanted to help him in his research work as an assistant. It can be also interpreted that she wanted to satisfy her intellectual hunger by marring him. It was the time in which education and knowledge was limited to men only. Women were excluded from it. Perhaps for Dorothea it was the only way to be knowledgeable but she fails.

Rosamond is a girl of upper middle class. She wants to marry someone who does not belong to Middlemarch. By marrying someone life this she wants go out of Middlemarch town. She is very materialistic. She marries Dr. Lydgate but ultimately the marriage fails. One can't blame Rosamond for what she is as she has learned everything from the patriarchal society where the law of the father is powerful one.

Mary Garth is a middle,class woman but she is very realistic and natural. She stretches herself to help her family. She does not believe in romanticizing love and marriage instead she is very strict and hard on wrong decisions of Fred. She fulfills her responsibility of making him into a man.

All these women are involved in the process of creating 'safe zone'. They wish to have 'E' securities (Emotional and Economical). To see, at what extent they get success, requires critical thinking. 

Frankenstain by Mary Shelley (Pre-task)

Mary Shelley traveled through Europe and during her travel she visited Frankenstein castle. An alchemist used to do experiments there before two centuries. After coming back from her travel she had a dream and then she composed the novel, at the age of Eighteen. The novel is about the creation of a monster by the protagonist. The creation is given the name of 'Monster'. The word 'monster' has many connotative meanings. Based on this you are suppose to answer following questions?

1) When did you have a dream?
2) What did you see in your dream?
3) Based on your dream if you are asked to create something, What type of creation would be there?
4) The creation will be ugly or beautiful?
5) If ugly, why? If beautiful, why?
6) What are your interpretations for the word 'monster'?
7) Have you ever visited such kind of places which has some connections with horror and terror?

Mourning Becomes Electra

Mourning Becomes Electra is written by Eugene O’Neill an American playwright. The play is divided into three parts. Home Coming, The Hunted and The Haunted. In this modern play O’Neill has juxtaposed myth and nineteenth century American society.

The house appears as a mere physical entity. He regards physical landscape as just a shadow of mental image. The haunted house in Mourning Becomes Electra is like a monster swelling its own breed. It is a visual symbol of Mannon fate. The white portico as contrasted with the house is a false façade hiding the truth that the house is the camera-eye of destiny. To Christine, the house appears like a mask on Puritan grey ugliness. While to Lavinia it is a temple of Hate and Death, to Orin it looks Ghostly and dead like ‘a tomb’, but none of them can sneak away from the sinister grip of the house. The momentary escape and release promised by sea only intensifies the feeling that the characters are doomed to wither their life in it. Ezra, Christine, Orin and Lavinia (entombing herself in the house) die in the house; the house works out their destruction and thus is a symbol of Mannon’s way of life. The house is an artistic symbol with multiple layers of meaning. O’Neill himself points out the Mannon house emerges in the context of modern man’s dilemma as a grotesque perversion of the Greek meaning of life. Thus the house here is an emblem of decay and waste and meaninglessness in modern life. So the house here is just a house, it is not a home. The idea of ‘home’ is an obsessive one with O’Neill. He was never at rest with the idea of ‘home’.

The house is a general setting of the play. It is the large building of the Greek temple type that was in vogue in the first half of the nineteenth century. It evokes most prominently the contrast between the Greek way of life and modern man’s perversion of everything that is Greek. The house, either interior or exterior, remains the scene of action and the Mannons, with a brief illusory escape into the sea, are finally drawn to be doomed in the house. In the beginning of the play windows are open, but when Ezra returns they are shut. The house turns out to be a death mask. The shutter remains closed even after Ezra’s death, for the house is virtually a tomb with his corpse in it.

So in Mourning Becomes Electra O’Neill has portrayed a family but the family is a fragmented family. They live in their world. Here we see lack of love and care, lack of understanding, lack of feeling etc… It’s because they live in a house not in a home.

Drama represents the cultural attitudes of the age to which it belongs and also presupposes the existence of a dramatic tradition which it uses. The plot and the characters of a play relate to the cultural situations and embody the problems and the question of the time. In Mourning Becomes Electra O’Neill portrays the nineteenth century attitude and the Freudinaism, juxtaposing Greek myths with modern problems. O’Neill has created a modern tale of the Oresteia theme of Greek mythology, transmuting the background, and embodying modern cultural attitudes, in place of those embedded in the Greek story.

The Brigadier Ezra Mannon recalls to our mind Agamemnon. His wife Christine hates him, and her dislike for her husband may be attributed to the first night of their marriage and also to the fact that Ezra compelled his Orin to join the war. Christine poisons her husband to be able to carry on her love affair with Adam Brant whose prototype is Aegisthus, the lover of Clytemnestra. Adam Brant is the son of Marie Brantome and David Mannon, Ezra’s uncle who was expelled from the house for his illegitimate love, by Ezra’s father Abe.

In The Hunted, Lavinia Ezra’s daughter attached to her father and suspicious of her mother’s amorous feelings for Adam Brant, decides to take revenge in collaboration with her brother Orin who has been freed of his attachment to his mother. Christine commits suicide to learn the death of Brant who has been murdered by Orin.

In The Haunted, Orin and Lavinia sail to the South East Pacific Islands in search of oblivion and peace. Lavinia after visiting the islands which represent peace and innocence returns with Orin, enthused with a new spirit, and overcome an ardent desire to enjoy life. Her immediate proposal to Peter for marriage is abhorrent to him and the charms of marriage having been lost, she decides to immure herself in a cell, in the Puritan Mannon way, away from the company of men, doors barred and the sunlight denied. Orin also has left her, and is driven to shoot himself. Orin-like-Orestes, has murdered Aegisthus-like-Adam, and has a sense of attachment to Electra-like-Lavinia.

The events in the first two plays cover a period of a fortnight in the spring of 1805, and the third part covers more than a month in the summer of 1866. Nearly all the incidents except Adam Brant’s murder take place in front of the Mannon house or inside. The characters of Seth (the gardener) with Amos-Ames, Lousia, and Minnie constitute the chorus, the people watching and spying on the aristocratic and the rich Mannons. Their use of the local dialect is significant. O’ Neill, besides introducing the elements of chorus, has depicted the mask-like faces of his characters. Describing Lavinia, O’Neill observes “Above all, one is struck by the same strange, life like mask impression her face gives in repose.”Eve Ezra’s face has the same strange semblance of life like mask that we have already seen in the faces of his wife and daughter and Brant.” Their faces bear an impress of the characteristics of the Mannon passion of destroying one another. The Mannon house, the White Grecian Temple itself is mask-like.