scholarly journals Music, History and the Human Psyche: A Critique of Salman Rushdie’s The Ground Beneath Her Feet

2021 ◽  
Vol 58 (1) ◽  
pp. 3127-3131
Author(s):  
Kinshuk Chakraborty

Culture and its ramifications, since time immemorial, have been hot seats of debates and negotiations. The myriad nuances which are associated with any culture for that matter glaringly and very rightly finds true expression in various kinds of fiction. Salman Rushdie has always emerged as one of the notable writers who is known for the enticing yet subtle amalgamation of different genres of writing in his so called “cult” pieces of artistic creation. Talking about a cult text, what better can fit in than the ever-popular The Ground Beneath Her Feet which makes one glued to the seat. Starting from the elements of history to the pivotal roles played by different songs and musical notes, the novel encapsulates them, thereby making the text a rich hotchpotch of schemas. However, what elevates the oeuvre of the piece is the inherent dealings with the psychological traits of human beings. This paper is an attempt to bring in the attributes of history and music to the forefront without neglecting the attributes of the human psyche. It also efforts to portray how distorted an individual can turn out to be with an improper psychological state of mind.

2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (11) ◽  
pp. 1530
Author(s):  
Xiu Zeng

Jack London is one of the most outstanding and celebrated critical realists in American literature in the 20th century, he is well recognized in his artistic creation of literary works with the feature of naturalism. The Call of the Wild is one of his naturalistic works filled with adventure and fighting spirit. The main character of the novel is a dog named Buck. By concentrating on Buck's gradual reversion from a civilized pet to a primordial beast, Jack London demonstrates the power of heredity and environment in determining and shaping one’s mind and behaviors. Naturalists believe that mankind is the product of environment, the power of heredity and force of environment are greater than the will of human beings. It is not the strongest of the species that can survive, but the one most responsive to changes. Humans have to adapt themselves to the environment for survival. In The Call of the Wild, the principle of literary naturalism is mainly reflected in the effects of the hereditary and environmental factors on the fate of the main character, Buck.


Author(s):  
Muhtadin Muhtadin ◽  
Sugi Murniasih

The objective of this research was to describes the morality contained in the novel Affairs at the Negeri di Ujung Tanduk the works Tere Liye. The research method used content analysis. The data in this research is a sentence containing the moral values ​​contained by the novel of the State at Ujung Tanduk Karya Tere Liye. Technique of collecting data using documentation technique and record. Data analysis techniques with steps: data reduction, data tabulation and coding, interpretation, classification, and conclusion. The result of the research shows that morality in Tere Liye Negeri di Ujung Tanduk novel is: first, human relationships with other human beings in the form of self existence, self esteem, self confidence, fear, death, longing, resentment, loneliness, maintaining the sanctity of greed, developing courage, honesty, hard work, patient, resilient, cheerful, steadfast, open, visionary, independent, brave, courageous, optimistic, envy, hypocritical, reflective, responsible, principle, confident, disciplined , and voracious. Second, human relationships with other humans or social and nature in the form of cooperation, acquaintance, hypocrisy, caring, hypocrisy, caring, friendship, smile, mutual help, and betrayal. Third human relationships in the form of God's menthidising and avoiding shirk, piety and pleading with prayers, prayers performed by human beings, as an awareness that everything in this universe belongs to God. Keywords: morality, literature, novel


Author(s):  
Н. Алтыкеева ◽  
Б. Ниясалиева

Аннотация. Макалада романдын мазмунунан орун алган пейзаждык сүрөттөөлөр талкууланат. Пейзаждык сүрөттөөлөр чыгарманын көркөмдүүлүгүн, эстетикалык баалуулугун арттыруу менен катар эле каармандардын образын тереңден ачып берүүдө, окуялардын өнүгүп-өсүшү жана алдыда боло турган окуялар тууралуу окурманга маалымат берүүдө кошумча каражат катары колдонулат. Жазуучу романда пейзаждык сүрөттөөлөрдү өтө кылдат колдонгону байкалат. Алсак, тоо адамдагы улуулук жана бийиктикти айгинелейт, толукшуган ай жан- дүйнөнүн бөксөрбөй толуп турушун көрсөтөт, ачык асмандын алай-дүлөй түшкөн көрүнүшкө айланышы - каармандын ички сезими, уйгу-туйгу ойлонуусу, жан дүйнөсүнүн бурганак болушун ачып көрсөтүүдө маанилүү болсо, чабалекейлердин тынымсыз учуп чабалакташы, жан алакетке түшүп чыйпылдашы – алдыда боло турган кырсыктуу окуя тууралуу кабар берсе, согуштун апааты жашыл шибердин, бак-дарактардын күлгө айланышы, чымчык-куштардын күздү күтпөй кайдадыр учуп кетип жатышы менен түшүндүрүлөт. Tүйүндүү сөздөр: пейзаж. роман, идея, легенда, эпилог, каарман, негизги окуялар. Аннотация. В статье дается пейзажное описание. Пейзажное описание используется в произведении как дополнительное средство эстетических ценностей и помогает раскрыть образы героев, и действия произведения. Писатель в романе тонко использует пейзажное описание. Например горы возвышенное и самое ценное в человеке, а полная луна – счастливое душевное состояние человека, а превращение безоблачного неба в бущующий вид – указывает, как неспокойно в душе главного героя, его беспокойные мысли, как бушует его внутренний мир, а ласточки неспокойно летающие, предвещают несчастье, птицы улетающие раньше времени, превращение зелёной травы, деревьев в пепел предвещают ужасы войны. Ключевые слова: пейзаж. роман, идея, легенда, эпилог, герой, главное событие Annotation. The article discusses the landscape description. The landscape description is used in the work as an additional tool for aesthetic values and helps to reveal the images of heroes, and in the development of the action of the work/ The writer in the novel subtly uses the landscape description. The mountains are the sublime and the most valuable in a person, and the full moon is a happy state of mind of a person, and the transformation of a cloudless sky into a raging view indicates how restless the soul of the protagonist is, his restless thoughts. How his inner world is raging, and the swallows are restlessly flying, foreshadow the misfortune, the birds flying away ahead of time, the transformation of green grass, trees in the forehead the horrors of war. This article describes the idea of the story "Do not kill" which is given instead of the epilogue in the novel "When the mountains fall" which was written by Ch.Aitmatov. It considers the role of a story that calls to live in peace and to end wars that are occurring in the world. Keywords: Landscapе, novel, idea, legend, epilogue, hero, main event.


Author(s):  
Pushpa Raj Jaishi

Vanishing Herds (2011) is Henry Ole Kulet’s novel that hovers around the ecological depletion caused by the anthropocentric attitude of the human beings. Set in the East African Savannah, the novel grapples with the critical issue of anthropogenic environmental degradation. The novel is based on the tribulations of a young Maasai couple –Kedoki and Norpisia whose epic journey through the wilderness provides a window through which the destruction of the physical environment can be viewed. Additionally, the text catalogues the challenges faced by a pastoralist community’s attempt to come to terms with the socio-economic realities of a fast-evolving contemporary society. The paper is an attempt to study this novel under the surveillance of green lens and throw light on the ecological destruction especially the clearing of the forest by human self centered endeavors and to critique the anthropocentric attitude of the human beings that render the environment at the verge of destruction.


MANUSYA ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 122-153
Author(s):  
Yao Siqi

《蛙》/ua55/ (frog) by the Nobel Prize winning Chinese author Mo Yan describes China’s changing its highly controversial one - child policy and system of forced abortions over the past half-century. Frog metaphors are omnipresent throughout the novel. The present study aims to investigate these metaphors within the framework of George Lakoff and Mark Johnson’s (1980) Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT) and the “GREAT CHAIN OF BEING” system of George Lakoff and Mark Turner (1989) to deepen our understanding of their nature and manifestations. Zoltán Kövecses’s (2002) “HUMAN BEINGS ARE ANIMALS” and “ANIMALS ARE HUMAN BEINGS” were also considered as cognitive metaphorical models. Moreover, the viewpoint of “phonetic metaphor” initially proposed by Ivan Fónagy (1999) was also taken into account. Results were that in Mo Yan’s work, the frog plays an essential role in the conceptualizing conventional views of certain areas in China. The analysis demonstrates how a cognitive approach offers an effective way to explore the cognitive basis of the text’s view on the complex relationship between the basic human rights and the dilemmas of living in a repressive society. This paper also hopes to make a certain contribution to comprehending frog metaphors in terms of more clearly delineated concepts and ideology reflecting China’s real society of a one-child policy and its traditional counter - policy notion.


1994 ◽  
Vol 49 (1) ◽  
pp. 50-74 ◽  
Author(s):  
Howard W. Fulweiler

Our Mutual Friend, published just six years after Darwin's The Origin of Species, is structured on a Darwinian pattern. As its title hints, the novel is an account of the mutual-though hidden-relations of its characters, a fictional world of individuals seeking their own advantage, a "dismal swamp" of "crawling, creeping, fluttering, and buzzing creatures." The relationship between the two works is quite direct in light of the large number of reviews on science, evolution, and The Origin from 1859 through the early 1860s in Dicken's magazine, All the Year Round. Given the laissez-faire origin of the Origin, Dicken's use of it in a book directed against laissez-faire economics is ironic. Important Darwinian themes in the novel are predation, mutual relationships, chance, and, especially, inheritance, a central issue in both Victorian fiction and in The Origin of Species. The novel asks whether predatory self-seeking or generosity should be the desired inheritance for human beings. The victory of generosity is symbolized by a dying child's "willing" his inheritance of a toy Noah's Ark, "all the Creation," to another child. Our Mutual Friend is saturated with the motifs of Darwinian biology, therefore, to display their inadequacy. Although Dickens made use of the explanatory powers of natural selection and remained sympathetic to science, the novel transcends and opposes its Darwinian structure in order to project a teleological and designed evolution in the human world toward a moral community of responsible men and women.


Janus Head ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-66
Author(s):  
Hub Zwart ◽  

This paper subjects Dan Brown’s most recent novel Origin to a philosophical reading. Origin is regarded as a literary window into contemporary technoscience, inviting us to explore its transformative momentum and disruptive impact, focusing on the cultural significance of artificial intelligence and computer science: on the way in which established world-views are challenged by the incessant wave of scientific discoveries made possible by super-computation. While initially focusing on the tension between science and religion, the novel’s attention gradually shifts to the increased dependence of human beings on smart technologies and artificial (or even “synthetic”) intelligence. Origin’s message, I will argue, reverberates with Oswald Spengler’s The Decline of the West, which aims to outline a morphology of world civilizations. Although the novel starts with a series of oppositions, most notably between religion and science, the eventual tendency is towards convergence, synthesis and sublation, exemplified by Sagrada Família as a monumental symptom of this transition. Three instances of convergence will be highlighted, namely the convergence between science and religion, between humanity and technology and between the natural sciences and the humanities.


2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-54
Author(s):  
Karthikeyan P

The novel speaks about the efforts taken by Piyali Roy, an Indian American biologist to make a study on marine mammals, especially on Irrawaddy dolphins.The novel is set in Sundarbans. Piya arrives at Sundarbans which is considered by her as a suitable place for carrying out her study. She lands on an island in Sunderbans and gets acquainted with an inhabitant of that place named Fokir. He remains to be a guide for her and instructs her about the marine habitats. Fokir being a resident of that place, he knows about the tides occurrence in the seas and the perils. Though he knows these, to the dismay of the readers, Fokir dies when a storm breaks out followed by heavy rain and powerful and devouring tides. As ideas given by Fokir could be the sources for decades of ‘research’,with the sponsorship of Nilima and involvement of local fisherman, Piya starts an institution in the memory of Fokir. The novel deals with the dislocation of people due to tide. Tide causes great havoc to the life and property of the inhabitants of the islands in Sunderbans. The poor people who have become victims of natural catastrophe suffer from hunger. I would like to bring out the human environmental relationship in the novel. Human beings depend on nature and environment. Eco Criticism on this novel helps to evaluate this literary text in the literature and environment perspective.


2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 32-35
Author(s):  
Sivaranjani K ◽  
Rajarajan S

God created women in the incarnation of himself how flowers are soft and tender women’s attitude also springy and gentle. In every bud beautiful flowers hiding themselves like in every woman their powerful attitude towards nature are camouflaged, their potentiality will prim out automatically in a needy situationand they shine beautifully like full bloomed flowers in their looming. Women are like grey, white moths in the earlier phase without maturity, they may act childishly. But through their full prime of life and progress, they turned into the spectacular multihued butterfly and they burnish glowing in their society and family life. That’s the attitude of Clarissa,who behaved has a moth in early stage, thenmatured as a full blown fantabulous butterfly by giving the party. The novel “Mrs. Dalloway” starts and ends on the same day by narrating how human beings are close with nature and how they preserve and conserve ourenvironment..


Author(s):  
Yuliya Golovnyova ◽  
Albina Novikova

Descriptions of the process of artistic creation take an outstanding place in V. Nabokov’s works and abound both in conventional and creative metaphors. In this article we analyze metaphoric representation of the concept “creative process” in V. Nabokov’s novel “The Gift”. The theoretical basis of research is the descriptor theory of metaphor by A.N. Baranov. The article reveals the most frequent metaphorical models of creative process in the novel and the areas of its metaphoric conceptualization.


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