scholarly journals Mesopotamian Faulkner: As I Lay Dying and the Southern Anthropocene in the 1930s

2021 ◽  
pp. 231-245
Author(s):  
Joseph Kuhn

This article attempts to read William Faulkner’s novel As I Lay Dying (1930) within the recent theoretical framework of the Anthropocene. It pays particular attention to the local appearance of the Anthropocene in the interwar American South, which became visible in flooding and deforestation. It argues that the story of the hill-farming Bundren family requires more than an ideological reading that would emphasize the eventual assimilation of the family to the modern market in the New South. It advances instead an ecological-historical interpretation, central to which is a reading of the deceased Addie Bundren as a topographical figure for the toxic southern soil. Her family are seen as continuers of a tradition of “agrilogistics” (Timothy Morton) that dates back over twelve thousand years to Mesopotamia. The article tries to identify the consequences of this reading for Faulkner’s representation of character, which can be seen as a static product of the deep time of geological periods. Finally, it argues that Darl Bundren’s subjectless, extreme consciousness is the only one in the novel that has some comprehension of the advent of the southern Anthropocene, although he has no way of extracting himself from this advent apart from absolute madness.

Author(s):  
Clayton Childress

This chapter examines how Jarrettsville came to be, and how even its title was eventually derived, by tracing the social life of artistic creation within it. Between 1998 and 2004, Cornelia Nixon was working on a novel titled Martha's Version, the story of Jarrettsville based entirely from Martha Jane Cairnes's first-person perspective. Nixon was sixteen years old on a cross-country flight when her mother first told her the family story that would become her inspiration for writing Jarrettsville. The chapter first narrates the true events that Nixon fictionalized in Jarrettsville before discussing her education, writing style, and literary influences; her family and personal life as raw materials for the novel; and the research process for Jarrettsville. It also considers how the practice of writing is influenced by things such as background experiences and training, and the field of creation by social interactions. Finally, it explains how Jarrettsville came to be called Jarrettsville.


2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 54-56
Author(s):  
C Joy Hepzibah

Adoption is a beautiful thing in the world when it comes to giving life to abandon children. But as said often, “The only guarantee if a child is adopted is trauma,” the same adoption is so brutal when the child has been separated from the living family members and given for adoption. There is no worse pain than the pain of the children being separated from their birth family. This research throws light on abscission from the familial cohesion because of the critical situations in the family. Here, in this study, a young child is abscissed from her own family by adoption. The permanent separation from her biological parents creates the feeling of separation and longingness in the novel, And the Mountains Echoed, written by Khaled Hosseini. Pari, is theadopted child, and the protagonist of the novel was in her immature age when she had been separated from her family. The importance of familial relationships is shown very deeply in this novel through the plight of the protagonist, Pari. After the years of separation, the same child who became a mature woman gets reunited with her brother. But the traumatic experience that she had undergone can never be undone.


2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 130-138
Author(s):  
Dr. Bharti Tyagi ◽  
Rupa Rana

The Fire-Dwellers (1969) is one of the Manawaka series novels of Margaret Laurence. The novel was written at the time when women’s emancipation movements were gaining momentum, primarily in the United States, but in other parts of the world as well. So, clearly, the narrative is largely affected by women’s simmering discontent with their stagnant lives in Canada too. The novel reflects Canadian women’s desire to free themselves from the common drudgery at home and to be part of a more active populace working outside the home, themselves writing the rules of their lives. The woman protagonist in the novel, Stacey MacAindra, is a common housewife taking care of her husband and their four children. She feels she is happy keeping the societal values intact but suddenly feels frustrated realizing one day that she is the only one in her family whose existence in the family is only for others, while to everyone else in the family their lives are important for themselves, not for others. However, my reading of The Fire-Dwellers is that Margaret Laurence was not in total disregard of family values, or for complete independence of women from the patriarchal system as we see it in women's emancipation movements today. 


Author(s):  
Anton Wahyudi

The novel Sepertiga Malam di Manhattan by Arumi E is very interesting to study. This novel is a novel about the struggle of a family to get happiness. This novel is the Arumi E's 27th newest novel. The struggle in this novel is to make the family happy, expecting for the baby. Before writing the novel, Arumi E did a research in the places written in the novel to achieve a very interesting fictional story and most of this story was taken from the traveling results so it was so interesting. The objective of this research is to describe (1) the Autopoetic System in the novel Sepertiga MalamdiManhattan by Arumi E. (2) The differentiation system in the Novel Sepertiga Malamdi Manhattan by Arumi E.The research method used is in the form of a descriptive qualitative method that uses a social system approach. The method used by the researcher is the dialectical method. The data source used in this research is the novel Sepertiga Malamdi Manhattan by Arumi E, published by Gramedia publisher in 2018. The data collection in this study uses the steps of reading the novel. To collect data, the researcher use any instrument.There are two results of the study: (1) The autopoetic system in the novel Sepertiga MalamdiManhattan by Arumi E. is concerning to some characters who have their own beliefs or rules in their lives who do not want to follow the rules of others, they are more confident in their own way to success and purpose of life. (2) The system of differentiation in the novel Sepertiga Malamdi Manhattan by Arumi E. is covering the handling of changes in the environment, the characters are able to adapt to the new environment, which has a different culture from the original culture. This shows evidence of the system autopoetic and differentiation in the novel Sepertiga MalamdiManhattan by Arumi E.


Author(s):  
J. Hodgson ◽  
T.J. Maxwell

Studies in the UK on continuously stocked swards dominated by perennial ryegrass show that both net herbage production and lamb output per hectare are maximised when herbage mass is maintained at 1200-I 500 kg OM/ha (3-5 cm surface height) during the main season of growth. The use of this information to define sward management objectives is outlined, and the incorporation of these objectives into the spring and summer phases of a grassland sheep enterprise is illustrated


2016 ◽  
Vol 78 ◽  
pp. 73-82 ◽  
Author(s):  
F.G. Scrimgeour

This paper provides a stocktake of the status of hill country farming in New Zealand and addresses the challenges which will determine its future state and performance. It arises out of the Hill Country Symposium, held in Rotorua, New Zealand, 12-13 April 2016. This paper surveys people, policy, business and change, farming systems for hill country, soil nutrients and the environment, plants for hill country, animals, animal feeding and productivity, and strategies for achieving sustainable outcomes in the hill country. This paper concludes by identifying approaches to: support current and future hill country farmers and service providers, to effectively and efficiently deal with change; link hill farming businesses to effective value chains and new markets to achieve sufficient and stable profitability; reward farmers for the careful management of natural resources on their farm; ensure that new technologies which improve the efficient use of input resources are developed; and strategies to achieve vibrant rural communities which strengthen hill country farming businesses and their service providers. Keywords: farming systems, hill country, people, policy, productivity, profitability, sustainability


2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 247-266
Author(s):  
Michelle L. Wilson

Initially, Oliver Twist (1839) might seem representative of the archetypal male social plot, following an orphan and finding him a place by discovering the father and settling the boy within his inheritance. But Agnes Fleming haunts this narrative, undoing its neat, linear transmission. This reconsideration of maternal inheritance and plot in the novel occurs against the backdrop of legal and social change. I extend the critical consideration of the novel's relationship to the New Poor Law by thinking about its reflection on the bastardy clauses. And here, of course, is where the mother enters. Under the bastardy clauses, the responsibility for economic maintenance of bastard children was, for the first time, legally assigned to the mother, relieving the father of any and all obligation. Oliver Twist manages to critique the bastardy clauses for their release of the father, while simultaneously embracing the placement of the mother at the head of the family line. Both Oliver and the novel thus suggest that it is the mother's story that matters, her name through which we find our own. And by containing both plots – that of the father and the mother – Oliver Twist reveals the violence implicit in traditional modes of inheritance in the novel and under the law.


Author(s):  
Deirdre David

In the mid- to late 1950s, Pamela emerged as a critically acclaimed novelist, particularly after the family returned to London. In perhaps her best-known novel, The Unspeakable Skipton, she explores the life of a paranoid writer who sponges on English visitors to Bruges. The novel was hailed for its wit and sensitive depiction of the life of a writer. She also published a fine study of a London vicar martyred in marriage to a vain and selfish wife: The Humbler Creation is remarkable for its incisive and empathetic depiction of male despair. The Last Resort sealed her distinction as a brilliant novelist of domestic life in its frank depiction of male homosexuality. While continuing to publish fiction, Pamela maintained her reputation as a deft reviewer. In 1954, she and Charles travelled to the United States—the first of many trips that were to follow.


Author(s):  
Jane Austen ◽  
Jane Stabler

‘Me!’ cried Fanny … ‘Indeed you must excuse me. I could not act any thing if you were to give me the world. No, indeed, I cannot act.’ At the age of ten, Fanny Price leaves the poverty of her Portsmouth home to be brought up among the family of her wealthy uncle, Sir Thomas Bertram, in the chilly grandeur of Mansfield Park. There she accepts her lowly status, and gradually falls in love with her cousin Edmund. When the dazzling and sophisticated Henry and Mary Crawford arrive, Fanny watches as her cousins become embroiled in rivalry and sexual jealousy. As the company starts to rehearse a play by way of entertainment, Fanny struggles to retain her independence in the face of the Crawfords’ dangerous attractions; and when Henry turns his attentions to her, the drama really begins… This new edition does full justice to Austen’s complex and subtle story, placing it in its Regency context and elucidating the theatrical background that pervades the novel.


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