scholarly journals The Demonstration of Indian Virtues in Vikram Seth’s A Suitable Boy

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-41
Author(s):  
T R Deepak
Keyword(s):  
Social Order ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Indian Literature ◽  
National Politics ◽  
Academic Activities ◽  
History Of ◽  
Indian Aesthetics ◽  
Modern Context ◽  
Literary Output ◽  
Shed Light

Indian literature has provided a platform for the writers to highlight the virtues of human civilization. The diversified attitude of people is emanated with the purpose of reviewing social, political and historical characteristics. Vikram Seth is one of the protuberant novelists of Indian literary consequence. He has exerted on the ideals of human virtues and principles in his colossal expression A Suitable Boy (1993). The novel deals with the post-independent groundswell of cultural India. He has interlaced the epitomes of society, politics and history bearing in mind the rootedness of common folk. The insight of the novel generates a kind of impulse among the bibliophiles with a sequence of queries and assumptions about the animation of social order. It also shed light on the identity, religious and national predicaments which are treated as inherent in India. The novel is an embodiment of satires perceived in the history of Indian humanity. It also embarks on the subjects of Indian National Politics till the period of first post-independent elections. The antagonism between Hindus and Muslims, workers and landlords, liberation of women and academic activities are interwoven in the literary output. Lata, the protagonist has been able to sustain the Indian aesthetics and illustrates the motivation in ascertaining her discrete aspiration. Love is the most important aspiration of human endurance, but it should not be the final optimal. An individual must be prepared to reform his choice and brand life as a meaningful one. Hence, the research paper makes an effort to demonstrate the Indian virtues in Vikram Seth’s A Suitable Boy within the modern context.

Las libertades rotas en Ordesa de Manuel Vilas

2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 75-82
Author(s):  
Natalia Szejko
Keyword(s):  
The Novel ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Shed Light

The purpose of this article is to shed light on the subject of freedom and its search in the novel Ordesa by Manuel Vilas. The book is composed of micro scenes and stories which are complemented with photos, and the totality evokes the sensation of sadness and nostalgy. The author combines the memories of his childhood, the history of his family and the history of Spain. The narration in the novel also transmits the sensation of abandonment, desperation and depression. The article analyzes Ordesa from the perspective of the psychological catharsis in which the narration of the pain leads to relief, applying the theories of Aristoteles, M. Bernays, S. Freud and J. Brauer as well as psychotherapeutic use of catharsis.

The Silent Side of Polyphony: On the Disappearances of “Silentium!” from the Draft s of Dostoevskii and Bakhtin

Slavic Review ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 75 (3) ◽  
pp. 678-701
Author(s):  
Jason Cieply
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Negative Theology ◽  
History Of The Novel ◽  
Gradual Development ◽  
History Of ◽  
Brothers Karamazov ◽  
Shed Light

In drafts, correspondence, and diaries from the mid-1870s, Fedor Dostoevskii makes repeated allusions to Fedor Tiutchev’s paradoxical articulation of the inefficacy of the word in “Silentium!” but removes them from the printed versions of his texts. The only exception is Brothers Karamazov, where Dmitrii reproduces garbled fragments of the poem under interrogation and in commenting on Ivan’s silence-like speech. I use these “traces” of “Silentium!” to shed light on Dostoevskii’s conscious experimentation with authorial silence in novels conventionally understood in terms of the polyphonic proliferation of speech. Beginning with Mikhail Bakhtin’s own allusion to “Silentium!” in the unpublished Author and Hero in Aesthetic Activity, the theorist came to emphasize the role of silence in polyphony. Drawing on Jacques Derrida’s acknowledgement of the affinity between negative theology and the negative path to affirmation taken in deconstruction, I show how Bakhtin comes to conceive of the history of the novel as the gradual development of apophatic strategies for approximating the unspoken interior world of the other in writing.

The Anglo-Indian Novel to 1947

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ralph Crane
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Indian Literature ◽  
Dominant Form ◽  
Indian History ◽  
Victorian Period ◽  
Prose Narratives ◽  
History Of ◽  
Anglo Indian

This chapter explores the Anglo-Indian novel. The history of British writing on India stretches back almost as far as the Indo-British imperial encounter and includes travel writing, missionary letters, military memoirs, and scholarly accounts of Indian history and culture, all of which were published in great numbers in the eighteenth century. Literary texts followed, and included short prose narratives depicting Anglo-Indian life, missionary tales, descriptions of the landscape, and stories of native life. While all these forms were well received in their day, none was to prove as popular as the novel, which during the nineteenth century became the dominant form of Anglo-Indian literature. In the early nineteenth century, India was also used as an exotic setting for early fictions by a number of writers who would go on to rank amongst the best-known novelists of the Victorian period.

The character of Mehmed-paša Sokolović in Ivo Andrić’s works

2018 ◽  
Vol 63 (1) ◽  
pp. 30-51
Author(s):  
Kim Sang Hun
Keyword(s):  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Literary History ◽  
Oral Tradition ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Nobel Committee ◽  
History Of ◽  
Historical Fact ◽  
The One ◽  
The Cost ◽  
Literary Output

SummaryIvo Andrić was searching and finding material for his stories and novels in the past, especially in the history of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which represents the central topos in his literary output. As noted in the explanation of the Nobel Committee, Andrić received in 1961 the Nobel Prize in Literature “for the epic force with which he has traced themes and depicted human destinies drawn from the history of his country”. The protagonists of Andrić’s stories and novels rarely include important historical personalities, and the most significant among them as a literary subject was Mehmed-paša Sokolović, the 16th century Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire. The way in which Andrić portrayed the character of Mehmed-paša Sokolović in the novel ‘The Bridge on the Drina’ (Na Drini ćuprija) reflects some of the fundamental premises of his approach to narration, including his profoundly humanist intentions. Andrić held that oral (and written) stories and legends contained the true history of the humanity, and that one could grasp from them the real meaning of that history. Accordingly, in portraying Sokolović’s character, being confronted with historical documents on the one hand, and folkloric material on the other, Andrić gave primacy to the latter, even at the cost of disagreement between historical fact and oral tradition. Moreover, Andrić did not seek “the meaning of history” of Mehmed-paša Sokolović and his bridge in the historical data from Sokolović’s impressive political career accomplished in the Ottoman Empire, but in the bridge which outlived him and started the legend about him. With the novel ‘The Bridge on the Drina’ he created a “literary history” about the creation and meaning of the Višegrad bridge on these grounds – a unique literary “legacy for Mehmed-paša’s legacy”, widening and deepening the legend of Mehmed-paša Sokolović.

Onto the ‘black bulletin board’ of shame, or Yury Dombrovsky in the archives of the Higher State Literary Courses (VGLK) (1925–1929)

2020 ◽  
pp. 213-276
Author(s):  
I. Duardovich
Keyword(s):  
Bulletin Board ◽  
Court Case ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Literary Life ◽  
History Of ◽  
Gang Rape ◽  
History Of The University ◽  
The University ◽  
First Time ◽  
Shed Light

Founded in Moscow almost a century ago, the Higher Literary-Artistic Institute was nicknamed Bryusov Institute. However, following the poet’s death and the dissolution of his school, it was the Higher State Literary Courses (VGLK) that carried on Bryusov’s project. Very little is known about VGLK, much less about Y. Dombrovsky’s life as a student there. Working on the writer’s biography, the author turned to archives and discovered facts and documents related to Dombrovsky, which also shed light on the history of the university and student and literary life in Moscow in the mid to late 1920s. Among the findings were VGLK records of the scandal involving Dombrovsky and his statement submitted to the Presidium, as well as other documents, this time in relation to a different court case, a trial that shocked Moscow public in 1928: it concerned an alleged gang rape of a female VGLK student, who later committed suicide. These incidents are described in the novel The Faculty of Useless Knowledge [Fakultet nenuzhnykh veshchey]. All materials are published and commented for the first time.

scholarly journals Midnight's grandchildren : adolescence in contemporary global literature

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Marissa Fugate
Keyword(s):  
Growing Up ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Global Literature ◽  
Narrative Art ◽  
Emerging Nations ◽  
Transitional State ◽  
History Of ◽  
Intimate Link ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Literary Output

"Midnight's grandchildren : adolescence in contemporary global literature" assesses the trope of adolescence in contemporary global literature, as it is employed to describe and act as a metaphor for emerging nations. My inquiry reads against the prevailing idea of adolescence as a pejorative term indicating a transitional state, and argues for adolescence as an enduring and distinct realm of infinite possibility. I chose to investigate how this social information is delivered through narrative art, which has a long history of works on adolescence, such as the bildungsroman. Unfortunately, most narratives look specifically at how the adolescent grows up, or what happens while they are looking forward towards adulthood. These types of literature play a part in the intimate link between the accepted cultural definition of adolescence as a space to outgrow and the rhetoric used to discuss and ultimately exclude emerging nations from participation in the global community. The ramifications of reading adolescence as a transitory place that always begets maturity is a systematic marginalization of nations -- and associated literary output -- that do not fall into and comply with the expectations of late-stage global capitalism. One effect of this marginalization is an insistence that the emerging nation novel acknowledge its debt to the colonial "parent." I contend that the anxiety provoked by adolescent reproduction maps onto social anxiety about emerging nations. By re-imagining adolescence in the novel as a distinct plane of existence without the baggage of "growing up," I argue that it is possible to reimagine emerging nations on new terms that devalue and destabilize the current order.

Investigating the Dynamics of Suicidal Ideation

Crisis ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-69 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nina Hallensleben ◽  
Lena Spangenberg ◽  
Thomas Forkmann ◽  
Dajana Rath ◽  
Ulrich Hegerl ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Suicidal Ideation ◽  
Small Sample Size ◽  
Unipolar Depression ◽  
Small Sample ◽  
History Of ◽  
Severity Of Depression ◽  
Ecological Momentary ◽  
Depressive Episodes ◽  
Ema Method ◽  
Shed Light

Abstract. Background: Although the fluctuating nature of suicidal ideation (SI) has been described previously, longitudinal studies investigating the dynamics of SI are scarce. Aim: To demonstrate the fluctuation of SI across 6 days and up to 60 measurement points using smartphone-based ecological momentary assessments (EMA). Method: Twenty inpatients with unipolar depression and current and/or lifetime suicidal ideation rated their momentary SI 10 times per day over a 6-day period. Mean squared successive difference (MSSD) was calculated as a measure of variability. Correlations of MSSD with severity of depression, number of previous depressive episodes, and history of suicidal behavior were examined. Results: Individual trajectories of SI are shown to illustrate fluctuation. MSSD values ranged from 0.2 to 21.7. No significant correlations of MSSD with several clinical parameters were found, but there are hints of associations between fluctuation of SI and severity of depression and suicidality. Limitations: Main limitation of this study is the small sample size leading to low power and probably missing potential effects. Further research with larger samples is necessary to shed light on the dynamics of SI. Conclusion: The results illustrate the dynamic nature and the diversity of trajectories of SI across 6 days in psychiatric inpatients with unipolar depression. Prediction of the fluctuation of SI might be of high clinical relevance. Further research using EMA and sophisticated analyses with larger samples is necessary to shed light on the dynamics of SI.

George Hoggart Toulmin: politics and geology

1978 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 481-481
Author(s):  
ROY PORTER
Keyword(s):  
French Revolution ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Lower Class ◽  
Great Distance ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Christian View ◽  
The Social ◽  
French Enlightenment ◽  
Political Conservatism ◽  
History Of

The physician George Hoggart Toulmin (1754–1817) propounded his theory of the Earth in a number of works beginning with The antiquity and duration of the world (1780) and ending with his The eternity of the universe (1789). It bore many resemblances to James Hutton's "Theory of the Earth" (1788) in stressing the uniformity of Nature, the gradual destruction and recreation of the continents and the unfathomable age of the Earth. In Toulmin's view, the progress of the proper theory of the Earth and of political advancement were inseparable from each other. For he analysed the commonly accepted geological ideas of his day (which postulated that the Earth had been created at no great distance of time by God; that God had intervened in Earth history on occasions like the Deluge to punish man; and that all Nature had been fabricated by God to serve man) and argued they were symptomatic of a society trapped in ignorance and superstition, and held down by priestcraft and political tyranny. In this respect he shared the outlook of the more radical figures of the French Enlightenment such as Helvétius and the Baron d'Holbach. He believed that the advance of freedom and knowledge would bring about improved understanding of the history and nature of the Earth, as a consequence of which Man would better understand the terms of his own existence, and learn to live in peace, harmony and civilization. Yet Toulmin's hopes were tempered by his naturalistic view of the history of the Earth and of Man. For Time destroyed everything — continents and civilizations. The fundamental law of things was cyclicality not progress. This latent political conservatism and pessimism became explicit in Toulmin's volume of verse, Illustration of affection, published posthumously in 1819. In those poems he signalled his disapproval of the French Revolution and of Napoleonic imperialism. He now argued that all was for the best in the social order, and he abandoned his own earlier atheistic religious radicalism, now subscribing to a more Christian view of God. Toulmin's earlier geological views had run into considerable opposition from orthodox religious elements. They were largely ignored by the geological community in late eighteenth and early nineteenth century Britain, but were revived and reprinted by lower class radicals such as Richard Carlile. This paper is to be published in the American journal, The Journal for the History of Ideas in 1978 (in press).

“What Freedom?”

2019 ◽  
Vol 74 (3) ◽  
pp. 305-331
Author(s):  
John Owen Havard
Keyword(s):  
South America ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Free Condition ◽  
Narrative Design ◽  
Economic Liberalism ◽  
History Of ◽  
Ways Of Thinking ◽  
John Owen

John Owen Havard, “‘What Freedom?’: Frankenstein, Anti-Occidentalism, and English Liberty” (pp. 305–331) “If he were vanquished,” Victor Frankenstein states of his monstrous creation in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818), “I should be a free man.” But he goes on: “Alas! what freedom? such as the peasant enjoys when his family have been massacred before his eyes, his cottage burnt, his lands laid waste, and he is turned adrift, homeless, pennyless, and alone, but free.” Victor’s circumstances approximate the deracinated subject of an emergent economic liberalism, while looking to other destitute and shipwrecked heroes. Yet the ironic “freedom” described here carries an added charge, which Victor underscores when he concludes this account of his ravaged condition: “Such would be my liberty.” This essay revisits the geographic plotting of Frankenstein: the digression to the East in the nested “harem” episode, the voyage to England, the neglected episode of Victor’s imprisonment in Ireland, and the creature’s desire to live in South America. Locating Victor’s concluding appeal to his “free” condition within the novel’s expansive geography amplifies the political stakes of his downfall, calling attention to not only his own suffering but the wider trail of destruction left in his wake. Where existing critical accounts have emphasized the French Revolution and its violent aftermath, this obscures the novel’s pointed critique of a deep and tangled history of English liberty and its destructive legacies. Reexamining the novel’s geography in tandem with its use of form similarly allows us to rethink the overarching narrative design of Frankenstein, in ways that disrupt, if not more radically dislocate, existing rigid ways of thinking about the novel.

A Compact Embodiment of Pluralities and Denial of Origins: Atwood’s The Year of The Flood

2016 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 141
Author(s):  
Rana Sağıroğlu
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Margaret Atwood ◽  
Rapid Change ◽  
The Novel ◽  
The World ◽  
Narrative Techniques ◽  
Why Questions ◽  
Near Future

Margaret Atwood, one of the most spectacular authors of postmodern movement, achieved to unite debatable and in demand critical points of 21st century such as science fiction, postmodernism and ecocriticism in the novel The Year of The Flood written in 2009. The novel could be regarded as an ecocritical manifesto and a dystopic mirror against today’s degenerated world, tending to a superficial base to keep the already order in use, by moving away from the fundamental solution of all humanity: nature. Although Atwood does not want her works to be called science fiction, it is obvious that science fiction plays an introductory role and gives the novel a ground explaining all ‘why’ questions of the novel. However, Atwood is not unjust while claiming that her works are not science fiction because of the inevitable rapid change of 21st century world becoming addicted to technology, especially Internet. It is easily observed by the reader that what she fictionalises throughout the novel is quite close to possibility, and the world may witness in the near future what she creates in the novel as science fiction. Additionally, postmodernism serves to the novel as the answerer of ‘how’ questions: How the world embraces pluralities, how heterogeneous social order is needed, and how impossible to run the world by dichotomies of patriarchal social order anymore. And lastly, ecocriticism gives the answers of ‘why’ questions of the novel: Why humanity is in chaos, why humanity has organized the world according to its own needs as if there were no living creatures apart from humanity. Therefore, The Year of The Flood meets the reader as a compact embodiment of science fiction, postmodernism and ecocriticism not only with its theme, but also with its narrative techniques.

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