Contesting Homogeneity: Stereotypes and Heteronormativity in Aruni Kashyap’s His Father’s Disease

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Debajyoti Biswas
Keyword(s):  
Short Story ◽  
Regional Identity ◽  
Power Structure ◽  
Northeast India ◽  
Short Story Collection ◽  
Anglophone Literature ◽  
Counter Narrative ◽  
Literary Regionalism ◽  
A Site ◽  
Dialogic Space

Abstract This article analyses Aruni Kashyap’s short story collection His Father’s Disease. Kashyap challenges hegemonic structures through an emerging writing area tentatively classified as ‘Anglophone fiction from Northeast India’. By engaging with Foucault’s reading of Power/Knowledge this article examines the disciplining of literary regionalism (Anglophone literature from Northeast India), territory and sexuality encapsulated in Kashyap’s exposition of heteronormative societies across cultures. Through the stories Kashyap weaves a dialogic space within the narrative world that challenges various forms of stereotypes relating to regional representation in literary works as well as regional identity and sexuality prevailing in the contemporary world’s existing social and literaryscape. Therefore, it becomes pertinent to observe how Kashyap’s text becomes a site of contention where on one hand the stereotype is accommodated within the power structure, hence controlled and regulated by various agencies, and on the other hand the same knowledge is appropriated by the author as a counter-narrative/reverse-discourse.

scholarly journals THE DOUBLINGS IN A SHORT STORY COLLECTION STARI DANI BY BORISAV STANKOVIĆ

2020 ◽  
pp. 119
Author(s):  
Milica Aleksić
Keyword(s):  
Short Stories ◽  
Short Story ◽  
Short Story Collection ◽  
Unconscious Selection ◽  
Counter Narrative ◽  
Story Collection ◽  
Selection Of

In this paper we discuss the doubling of characters' identities in Borisav Stanković's short story collection Stari dani (1902), and a conscious or unconscious selection of another protagonist as an alternative for performing a particular protagonist’s activity the doubling of the actual narrative world through counter-narrative, simulated narrative, comparison and narrative negation will be analyzed. We will try to show how the patriarchal context determines this otherness of worlds and protagonists, and what the cause-effect relations has to do with the psychologization of Stanković's protagonists and the development of the story in nine short stories of the aforementioned collection.

scholarly journals Unreal Homes: Belonging and Becoming in Indian Women Narratives

Humanities ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 133
Author(s):  
Sofia Cavalcanti
Keyword(s):  
Short Story ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Domestic Sphere ◽  
Indian Women ◽  
Anglophone Literature ◽  
Moving Force ◽  
Structural Framework ◽  
Women's Lives ◽  
Jhumpa Lahiri ◽  
A Site

In an epoch which has to do fundamentally with space, the concept of home has entered the epistemic scene, both as a commodity and a discursive formation. Contemporary Indian women writers, who are a major facet of present Anglophone literature, have often chosen the domestic sphere as the structural framework of their stories. However, despite the traditional idea of home as a static physical site where women’s lives unfold, a more complex and fluid concept emerges from their narratives. After discussing conflicting definitions of home both as a site of belonging and becoming, I will provide a comparative analysis of the short story Mrs. Sen’s by Jhumpa Lahiri and the novel Ladies’ Coupé by Anita Nair. By looking at the transitional spaces inhabited by the women protagonists—respectively, the diasporic space in the U.S. and a train car in India—I will show how home is a psychic-inhabited place taking shape in memory, imagination, and desire. In conclusion, home is an unreal site at the core of women’s subjectivities, transcending the physicality of the homeland or the household and assuming a metonymic significance. Its inward or outward-moving force gives birth to “homeworlds” made of liminal paths where new possibilities of identity construction are produced.

INTERVIEW WITH PETINA GAPPAH

Imbizo ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 92-98
Author(s):  
Faith Mkwesha
Keyword(s):  
Short Stories ◽  
Short Story ◽  
First Language ◽  
Short Story Collection ◽  
The Third ◽  
University Of Cambridge ◽  
Book Award ◽  
The University ◽  
The Guardian ◽  
University Of Zimbabwe

This interview was conducted on 16 May 2009 at Le Quartier Francais in Franschhoek, Cape Town, South Africa. Petina Gappah is the third generation of Zimbabwean writers writing from the diaspora. She was born in 1971 in Zambia, and grew up in Zimbabwe during the transitional moment from colonial Rhodesia to independence. She has law degrees from the University of Zimbabwe, the University of Cambridge, and the University of Graz. She writes in English and also draws on Shona, her first language. She has published a short story collection An Elegy for Easterly (2009), first novel The Book of Memory (2015), and another collection of short stories, Rotten Row (2016).  Gappah’s collection of short stories An Elegy for Easterly (2009) was awarded The Guardian First Book Award in 2009, and was shortlisted for the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award, the richest prize for the short story form. Gappah was working on her novel The Book of Memory at the time of this interview.

scholarly journals Office Setting as Organizational Structure in “Bartleby the Scrivener”

SAGE Open ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 215824401769043
Author(s):  
Lori Duin Kelly
Keyword(s):  
Organizational Structure ◽  
Short Story ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Institutional Ethnography ◽  
Interpersonal Dynamics ◽  
Office Setting ◽  
Linguistic Markers ◽  
The Social ◽  
Bartleby The Scrivener ◽  
A Site

This article uses a methodology from the social sciences known as institutional ethnography to analyze the office setting in Herman Melville’s short story “Bartleby the Scrivener” as a site of social organization. This approach contributes to an understanding of how that office came to adopt specific structures as crucial to its functioning and how, as a consequence of those structures, individuals’ roles within the organization’s hierarchies became constituted. As fieldwork occurs inside of organizations, institutional ethnography also provides a tool for identifying and evaluating linguistic markers for an individual’s placement within a larger organizational structure. This approach to the story seems particularly useful for understanding the interpersonal dynamics at the heart of “Bartleby.” At the same time, it provides a method for identifying the larger institutional process at work in Melville’s story, one that contributes to the reproduction of a system of social relations in the workplace that requires subordination and compliance to insure its success.

scholarly journals Petite idole énigmatique aux yeux allongés et pleins de rêve ». Les stéréotypes orientalistes dans Le Harem entr’ouvert d’A.-R. de Lens

2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 200-210
Author(s):  
Małgorzata Sokołowicz
Keyword(s):  
Short Story ◽  
North Africa ◽  
Short Story Collection ◽  
Story Collection

The present paper describes some orientalist stereotypes concerning women and manifesting themselves in Le Harem entr’ouvert (1919), a short story collection by Aline Réveillaud de Lens (1881–1925), a French painter and writer, whose works are devoted mainly to North Africa. The paper focuses on three, most common, stereotypical representations of the Oriental woman according to which she is, firstly, a beautiful odalisque serving the man; secondly, extremely sensual and thus unfaithful and, finally, jealous and, sometimes, very cruel. The author attempts to explain the origins of those representations and to answer the question why A.-R. de Lens used them in her writings

scholarly journals The Intertextual Use of Greek Mythology in Agatha Christie’s Detective Fiction

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 321-331
Author(s):  
Tatiana Ternopol
Keyword(s):  
Short Stories ◽  
Short Story ◽  
Detective Fiction ◽  
Comparative Methods ◽  
Greek Mythology ◽  
Short Story Collection ◽  
The Face ◽  
Greek Myths ◽  
Story Collection ◽  
Over Time

This study investigates the intertextual use of Greek mythology in Agatha Christie’s short stories Philomel Cottage, The Face of Helen, and The Oracle at Delphi, a short story collection The Labours of Hercules, and a novel, Nemesis. The results of this research based on the hermeneutical and comparative methods reveal that A. Christie’s intertextual formula developed over time. In her early works, allusions were based on characters' appearances and functions as well as on the use of motifs and themes from Greek myths. Later on, she turned to using allusory character names; this would mislead her readers who thought they already knew the formula of her stories. Although not a postmodern writer, A. Christie enjoyed playing games of allusion with her readers. She wanted them not only to solve a case but also to discover and interpret the intertextual references.

scholarly journals Significance of Short Story Cycle in Rachel Joyce’s A Snow Garden and Other Stories: An Analytical Study Using Complexity Theory

2022 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Complex Systems ◽  
Complexity Theory ◽  
Short Story ◽  
Urban Setting ◽  
Centralized Control ◽  
Short Story Cycle ◽  
Short Story Collection ◽  
Evolving Networks ◽  
Story Cycle ◽  
Narrative Techniques

Rachel Joyce’s short story collection A Snow Garden and Other Stories (2015) is composed of seven stories which occur during a fortnight of the holiday, Christmas season. The collection uses narrative techniques which make it a unique set of stories. The stories have an urban setting and examine the intricacies of human relationships. The sense of interconnection highlighted by Joyce in the stories elevates it to a short story cycle. A short story cycle consists of individual stories which can stand on their own as complete narratives while also maintaining fictional links running through all the stories. The paper is an attempt to establish A Snow Garden and Other Stories as a short story cycle. It also argues that by narrating the interconnected nature of human lives Joyce’s work is exploring life as a complex system. As a scientific philosophy complexity theory explores the behavior of complex systems including human societies. Complex systems are self-organizing, dynamic, evolving networks that operate without any centralized control, similar to human societies. This paper will apply the principles of complex systems to reveal patterns of human behavior represented in Joyce’s work.

scholarly journals Condemnation of Religious Concepts: An Examination of Chubak's "An Afternoon in Late Autumn" through Bakhtin's Theory of Grotesque Realism

2018 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-67
Author(s):  
Sayed Mohammad Anoosheh ◽  
Muhammad Hussein Oroskhan
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Short Stories ◽  
Short Story ◽  
Lower Section ◽  
Persian Literature ◽  
Social Hierarchies ◽  
Late Autumn ◽  
New Perspective ◽  
Style Of Writing ◽  
A Site

The first traces of modernism in Iranian society can be found in the second decade of twentieth century which was deeply embedded with religious concepts. With regard to Persian literature, short story was developed as a new genre and a sign of modernism of that period by prominent Iranian writers such as Sadeq Hedayat (1903-1951), Mohammad Ali Jamalzadeh (1892-1997) and Sadegh Chubak (1916-1998). In this way a cultural clash was broken out between the traditional religious concepts and the new modern ideas. Among these writers, Chubak was more influenced by the doctrine of modernism. He expressed his message colloquially through his short stories to instigate the lower part of society. His naturalistic style of writing delved into the most gruesome details of people's life with the aim of shocking his reader in experiencing a new perspective previously ignored. To highlight Chubak's style of writing attempt is made to explore one of the highly praised short stories entitled "An Afternoon in Late Autumn" on the ground of the Bakhtin's theory of grotesque realism cited in Rabelais and His World. Grotesque realism is a site upon which religious and social hierarchies can be subverted and renewed. This study tries to reveal that Chubak followed the Bakhtin's grotesque realism to evoke a new outlook particularly in the lower section of society.

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