scholarly journals Humor or Black Humor? The Use of Humor and Irony in The Financial Expert

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 32-36
Author(s):  
Abel Justine
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Social Issues ◽  
Central Character ◽  
Raja Rao ◽  
Financial Expert ◽  
Black Humor

K. Narayan was one of the pioneers of Indo Anglian fiction along with Mulk Raj Anand and Raja Rao. Their heydays were marked by complicated social issues such as India’s struggle for Independence and the more stressful period afterwards. Among the three, many consider R. K. Narayan as the most realistic in fiction considering Indian settings. The Financial Expert is again considered as Narayan’s masterpiece by many. It’s a well-constructed novel in five parts. The story is focused on three main aspects relating to the central character of Margayya. They are; Margayya’s determination to acquire wealth, his love for his own son Balu and his relationship with his brother and sister in law. It is at times mesmerizing to analyze Narayan’s use of humor and irony in crafting the fate of a normal middle class individual.

Holding the Center

2012 ◽  
Vol 94 (2) ◽  
pp. 230-255
Author(s):  
Michan Andrew Connor
Keyword(s):  
Los Angeles ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Cultural Identity ◽  
Good Life ◽  
Social Issues ◽  
Central City ◽  
The Good Life ◽  
Television Shows ◽  
White Middle Class ◽  
The City

Early television shows that focused on Los Angeles as subject, such as The City at Night (KTLA) and Jack Linkletter's On the Go (CBS), assured white, middle-class, suburban viewers that they had a place in the larger metropolis by presenting a selective knowledge of its features and issues. On the Go surpassed the entertainment level of The City at Night to address some serious social issues. By the mid-sixties, suburbanization had been fully embraced as the "good life." Shows such as Ralph Story's Los Angeles (KNXT), instead of engaging suburban viewers in metropolitan issues, entertained them with glimpses of the city's "oddities." The change in tone marked the passing of the center of cultural identity from the central city to the suburbs.

scholarly journals The Dark Phase of Cultural Conflict in The Novel ‘Twilight in Delhi’

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 13
Author(s):  
Lakshmi B
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Western Culture ◽  
Drastic Change ◽  
Cultural Conflict ◽  
Dark Phase ◽  
Central Character ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Upper Middle Class ◽  
The Rich ◽  
Muslim Culture

Twilight in Delhi is a very fine novel crafted by Ahmed Ali presenting the cultural conflict of pre-independence Delhi. Ali captured the very essence of the Old Delhi in the first part of the novel whereas moving to the last part he painfully portrayed the drastic change of the Old Delhi with a noted shift in the culture and tradition. The plot of the novel develops around the central character Mir Nihal and his son Asghar, with their contradicting ethics. Ali’s mastery in creating literary pieces is evident at the point where he changes his characters to powerful symbols to highlight the theme of the novel.  Mir Nihal, an upper-middle class person with his ideologies deep-rooted in the rich Muslim culture seems to pose a challenge to Asghar’s doctrine with its base on Western culture.

scholarly journals Short Story: A Vehicle for Reflection of Socio-Economic Concerns of the Nation

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 74-77
Author(s):  
K Hanumatha Reddy
Keyword(s):  
Short Story ◽  
Social Issues ◽  
Complex Form ◽  
Literary Work ◽  
Literary Form ◽  
Social Reformer ◽  
Rabindranath Tagore ◽  
Raja Rao ◽  
History Of ◽  
Story Writing

The history of the short story is as old as human civilization. The parable, fable and folk tale are its different forms and all of them, share their origin and pattern with poetry. After the maturity of the novel as a genuine genre, the descendent craft of the short story writing sprang up from a variety of soil late in the nintenth century, previously, the short story was assigned an inferior statues, mostly recognized as a little piece of literature that an author/writer tossed of between major productions. At present, the prolific writers in this field have considered the modern short story as a complex form, making in depth but lacks in length.With the advent of literary art, the yearning for tales has acquired new dimensions. The range and scope of the stories has become extensive, wide and universal. Now the writer of short stories endeavours to explore various manifestations of life which primarily include inter-personal relationship,man’s association with nature,the learning experiences of life and other social issues. The human relationship continues to be the nucleus of any literary work. In a country like India,anyone, who wishes to be a writer,has to shoulder moral responsibility. The author through his work provides an outlet to his innermost unexpressed feelings and frees his mind from these emotions. Sometimes he brings to the notice of his readers his observations of social and cultural setup,thus performing the role of a social reformer. As a genuine artist the author needs to shoulder the responsibility to interpret life in all its shades and colours for the common man. The prominent Indian practitioner’s off short story as a literary form included K S Venkataramani, K Nagarajan, Raja Rao, Rabindranath Tagore, Mulk Raj Anand, Ruskin Bond, R K Narayan, etc.

scholarly journals Slaying the Monsters of Racism: A Geertzian Reading of Night of the Living Dead

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mengxi Chen
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Dynamic Process ◽  
Social Issues ◽  
The Other ◽  
Clifford Geertz ◽  
Civil Rights Movements ◽  
Living Dead ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The U.S

Religion and culture are interact with each other, and by the definition of Clifford Geertz, rituals can be expressed by quite a lot of ways in art. No one can doubt that in our world we are surrounded by religious symbols, which represent themselves via paintings, musics and movies. In this article, the author wants to elaborate how the horror movie, this unique movie genre, worked in illustrate social issues of civil rights movements of 1960s. In Night of the Living Dead, the zombies represent the middle class racism and the complacency about racism, which are  indifferent and bloodthirsty.  The dynamic process of killing the zombies presents the rituals of the U.S. that the heroes always conquer the evil. On the other hand, the evil always stands for the shortcoming of humans. The fighting between the righteous and the evil never stops.

scholarly journals New Trends in Sustainable Environmental Governance in Mainland China. The Zhejiang Case.

SAGE Open ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 215824402110231
Author(s):  
Gentian Qejvanaj1
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Environmental Sustainability ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Environmental Governance ◽  
Social Issues ◽  
Political Legitimacy ◽  
Multinational Companies ◽  
Accountability Mechanism

The trade-off between environmental sustainability and economic growth has been the focus of an extensive debate in the developing world and in this debate China is no exception, as it moves away from a single-minded growth-only policy toward a more sustainable economic model. The reason for this new policy trend has to be found in civil society’s rising environmental awareness and the growing accountability by local governments and multinational companies. Interviews with civil society and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) mainly based in Zhejiang province, together with secondhand data from national online database show that a political feedback mechanism is possible also in a non-democratic country like China, and despite the Chinese political framework lacking an accountability mechanism, the civil society growing environmental concerns and multinational companies’ reputation abroad have indirectly forced policymakers to act toward tighter environmental regulation. In conclusion, this study shows that the Chinese middle class is not fully passive in its relationship with the local government, but it activates when its key interest is threatened, and as the Chinese middle class grows rich and educated and the economic growth slows down, a similar accountability mechanism could be replicated concerning issues where political legitimacy of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is not questioned like economic or social issues.

Reconstructing Masculinity in Charlotte Riddell's ‘The Open Door’ and Rudyard Kipling's ‘They’

2014 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 62-78 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Bissell
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Scientific Discourse ◽  
Central Character ◽  
Open Door ◽  
Masculine Identity ◽  
Ghost Stories ◽  
Spiritual Awareness

This essay examines how two much-anthologised ghost stories from the long nineteenth century – Charlotte Riddell's ‘The Open Door’ and Rudyard Kipling's ‘They’ – challenge the perceived idea that the experience of witnessing a spectre has a shattering or feminising effect on men. Instead, ghostly encounters enable the male protagonists to develop a form of spiritual awareness which bolsters rather than undermines their embodiment of traditionally masculine traits. The concept of manliness was continually being contested and redefined during the period in which these tales were published. Its perceived links with rationalist materialism were also being eroded as various male-orientated groups sought to synthesise the ghost within scientific discourse. ‘The Open Door’ intriguingly promotes a supernaturalised form of masculine identity through an interrogation of class: the spectral encounter is crucial in the development of the middle-class protagonist into a model of hardworking Victorian masculinity. ‘They’ reworks the motif of the manly but spiritually sensitive central character via a focus on paternity, suggesting that trauma and loss can be adequately incorporated into this rehabilitated form of British masculinity. Both tales thus utilise the experience of ghost-seeing to highlight the importance of emotion and sensitivity to masculine identity at the end of the long nineteenth century.

scholarly journals The Middle Class of Malgudi

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 49-54
Author(s):  
Anirban Mukherjee
Keyword(s):  
Short Stories ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
South Asian ◽  
Social Issues ◽  
Educational Achievement ◽  
Indian Society ◽  
Educational Success ◽  
South Indian ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
Lifestyle Practices

This paper discusses the depiction of ‘middle-class values’ by the celebrated Indian writer R.K. Narayan. Malgudi, a fictional South Indian town, is a prototypical representation of typical Indian society and the literary works of Narayan vividly mirror the everyday happenings. Content analysis of selected short stories, namely, ‘Forty-Five a Month,’ “Iswaran” and “Sweets for Angels,”; reveal the peculiarity of the Indian middle class and the author’s apt derision of certain lifestyle practices associated with modernity. Set in the backdrop of the 1930s, the stories capture the labyrinth of social issues and problems that plague South Asian societies. For instance, educational achievement is considered to be of utmost importance for preserving one’s status and the achievement of social mobility by the middle class. Ironically, educational success is often unsuccessful in buying freedom from alienating and oppressive livelihood practices engaging the middle class. There is also an accompanying erosion of ‘social capital’ and the expanding “radius of distrust.”

scholarly journals Representaciones en torno a los empleados públicos en Chile, 1880-1920

2017 ◽  
pp. 63
Author(s):  
Diego Barría Traverso
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Social Structure ◽  
Public Administration ◽  
Social Issues ◽  
Public Employees ◽  
Period 1880 ◽  
The Social ◽  
The One

Este artículo analiza otro tipo de discusión en torno a los empleados públicos: aquella que se centró en cuestiones de carácter social. Lo que se busca encontrar en el período 1880-1920 es un conjunto de representaciones que permitan asignar un lugar a los empleados públicos dentro de la estructura social. A partir de la revisión de novelas sobre el período, prensa satírica y ensayos que analizaron la llamada “crisis del centenario”, se muestra que los empleados públicos eran un sujeto social diferenciado de la elite. Igualmente, se destaca que al empleado se lo caracterizaba como un tipo con una serie de vicios asociados a la identidad chilena. Se argumenta que la cantidad de críticas en torno a los empleados presentadas en diversos medios escritos durante la época (novelas, prensa y ensayos) muestran que estos fueron constituyéndose, de forma creciente, en actores relevantes de la vida nacional.Palabras clave: Empleados públicos, clase media, administraciónpública, ChileRepresentations about Public Employees in Chile, 1880-1920AbstractThis article analyzes another type of discussion about public employees: the one that focused on social issues. What is sought to be found in the period 1880-1920 is a set of representations that allow to assign a place to public employees within the social structure. From the review of novels on the period, satirical press and essays that analyzed the so-called “crisis of the centenary”, it can be seen that public employees were social subjects differentiated from the elite. Equally, it is emphasized that the employee was characterized as a type with a series of vices associated with the Chilean identity. It is argued that the number of critics about employees presented in several written media during the time (novels, press and essays) show that they were increasingly becoming relevant actors of national life.Keywords: Public employees, middle class, public administration, ChileRepresentações em torno aos funcionários públicos no Chile, 1880-1920ResumoEste artigo analisa outro tipo de discussão em torno dos funcionários públicos: aquele que se centrou em questões de caráter social. O que se procura encontrar no período 1880-1920 são um conjunto de representações que permitam definir um lugar aos funcionários públicos dentro da estrutura social. A partir da revisão de romances sobre o período, imprensa satírica e ensaios que analisaram a “crise do centenário”, mostra-se que os funcionários públicos foram sujeito social diferenciado da elite. Argumenta-se que a quantidade de críticas em torno aos funcionários públicos apresentadas em diversos meios escritos durante a época (romances, jornais e ensaios) mostra que estes foram se tornando, cada vez mais, em atores relevantes da vida nacional.Palavras-chave: Funcionários públicos, classe média, administração pública, Chile

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