scholarly journals Cultural Identity and Identity Crisis in the Selected Novels of Githa Hariharan

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 1-8
Author(s):  
Dr. Leena V. Phate
Keyword(s):  
Women Characters ◽  
Cultural Identity ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Identity Crisis ◽  
Female Characters ◽  
Self Identity ◽  
Male Dominated ◽  
Modern Self ◽  
The Way

Githa Hariharan is a successful feminist writer. Her first novel The Thousand Faces of Night (1992) won the prestigious Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for the best first novel in 1993. Her novels portray the struggle of female characters for their identities which are challenged by caste, religion, violence and nationality. The present paper is an attempt to examine and review the way Hariharan’s women characters encounter the orthodox roles and identity forced on them by the male-dominated social order as they try to rebuild a modern self-identity for them. For this purpose, her novels The Thousand Faces of Night, The Ghost of Vasu Master and Fugitive Histories are thoroughly studied in this paper. 

scholarly journals Across community barriers: female characters in Vimala Devi’s short stories

2019 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. e45888
Author(s):  
Cielo Griselda Festino
Keyword(s):  
Short Stories ◽  
Women Characters ◽  
Cultural Identity ◽  
Short Story ◽  
Main Argument ◽  
Female Characters ◽  
Short Story Cycle ◽  
Short Story Collection ◽  
Story Cycle ◽  
Story Collection

This article brings a reading of the short-story collection Monção [Monsoon] ( 2003) by the Goan writer Vimala Devi (1932-). The collection can be read as a short-story cycle, a group of stories related by locality, Goa, character, Goans, from all walks of life, and theme, in particular women´s milieu, among other literary categories. In her book, written from her self-imposed exile in Portugal, Devi recreates Goa, former Portuguese colony, in the 1950s, before its annexation to India. A member of the Catholic gentry, Devi portrays the four hundred years of conflictive intimacy between Catholics and Hindus. Our main argument is that Devi´s empathy for her culture becomes even more explicit in Monção when her voice becomes one with that of all her women characters. Though they might be at odds, due to differences of caste, class and religion, Devi makes a point of showing that they are all part of the same cultural identity constantly remade through their own acts of refusal and recognition. This discussion will be framed in terms of Sidonie Smith and Julia Watson’s theory of autobiography (2001) as well as the studies on Goan women by the Goan critics Propércia Correia Afonso (1928-1931), Maria Aurora Couto (2005) and Fátima da Silva Gracias (2007).

scholarly journals Identity Crisis suffered by the Women Protagonists in the Novels of Arundhati Roy and Kiran Desai: A Comparative Study

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rajneesh Kumar ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Women Characters ◽  
Cultural Identity ◽  
Identity Crisis ◽  
The Other ◽  
Collective Identities ◽  
Literature Study ◽  
Panoramic View ◽  
Arundhati Roy ◽  
Indian Women ◽  
Comparative Literature Study

Identity crisis is one of the most dominating thematic concerns in the novels of Arundhati Roy and Kiran Desai. Sucked into the vortex of ascribed and achieved identities, the characters portrayed by these two authors struggle to create their personal identity and individuality. Roy has dwelt on the idea of identity on several platforms, be it on the page or stage. She has an in-depth understanding of individual and collective identities. On the other hand, Desai focuses on multiculturalism and dislocation in families that pose athreat to one’s social, civic and cultural identity. Her works offer some fresh insights into diaspora identity. This paper critically examines identity crisis suffered by the women protagonists in the novels of Roy andDesai within the comparative literature study framework by focusing on the method of thematology. Roy mulls over the significance of women in families and society. There is no dispute regarding their inevitable role, but their status is definitely a matter of debate. In her debut novel, Roy speaks freely about the concerns of women, but the issue of identity crisis outdoes in her second novel due to the polyphonic sounds of her women characters. Desai, to the contrary, presents an idealistic picture of Indian women. This paper delineates that Roy and Desai unearths various dimensions of womanhood in general and wifehood in particular. Both Roy and Desai deal with the issue of identity against the socio-cultural backdrop of India. They depict a panoramic view of identity crisis faced by women.

The Women Characters in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness

2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 16-18
Author(s):  
Sachin Gadekar
Keyword(s):  
Women Characters ◽  
Research Paper ◽  
Female Characters ◽  
The Real ◽  
Comprehensive Account ◽  
Heart Of Darkness ◽  
The Way

The present research paper is an attempt to provide a comprehensive account of the female characters in Joseph Conrad’s well-known novella Heart of Darkness. The real interest of this study lies in what Conrad has to say about female characters, conduct and also the way in which he projects them. Thus, I have here attempted to examine the female characters in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, to set these characters against their male counterparts, and so, to allow an increased awareness of the depiction of female characters as submissive, dominated by men, often deceived by others and with lack of their own identity. Clearly, it would be little short of a marathon task to do the study of all Conrad’s major fictions with feministic perspective, and so, this study limits its concern to his masterpiece novella such as Heart of Darkness

scholarly journals A Reading of Shakespeare’s Three Female Characters – Hermione, Portia and Calpurnia

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 7
Author(s):  
Silvia P Deenadhayalan
Keyword(s):  
Women Characters ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Female Characters ◽  
Patriarchal Society ◽  
Male Dominated

(A statement) is sexist if it contributes to, encourages or causes or results in the oppression of women. (Mills 83). For many years, humanity has been ruled by a patriarchal society. In the male dominated society, women have been viewed as objects, marginals, subalterns or inferior human beings. Shakespeare’s tragedies are monolithic and the heroes occupy the centre and the women characters get a subordinated treatment. The heroes are given a free ‘voice’ but the women are simply their ‘echo’.

From Silent Suffering to Strong Self Identity: A Study of Anees Jung’s Breaking the Silence

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
Dr. M. Sandra Carmel Sophia
Keyword(s):  
Women Writers ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Indian Society ◽  
Female Characters ◽  
True Self ◽  
Indian English ◽  
Self Identity ◽  
The Family ◽  
Male Dominated ◽  
Set Up

Anees Jung is one of the widely read post–independence Indian English women writers who write consciously of the issues that concern the educated middle-class women in Indian society. She attempts to closely analyze man-woman relationship within the family and the contemporary social set-up. She focuses on the captivating problems and the suffocating environs of her female characters who struggle hard in this malicious and male-dominated world to discover their true self identity. Jung does not advocate separation from the partner but a diplomatic assertion of one’s identity from silent suffering.

The ethnic-cultural space of modern Karachay-Balkar poetry

2019 ◽  
pp. 247-259
Author(s):  
R. A. Kerimova
Keyword(s):  
Detailed Analysis ◽  
Cultural Perceptions ◽  
Cultural Space ◽  
Self Identity ◽  
Cultural Globalization ◽  
Younger Generation ◽  
Fundamental Values ◽  
The Way

The article is devoted to the problems of ethnic-cultural perceptions in contemporary Karachay-Balkar poetry. It defines criteria for shaping an ethnic and civic self-identity. The paper discusses how cultural globalization affects the ideology of the Karachay-Balkar people. In a detailed analysis of works by N. Bayramkulov and A. Bakkuev, two poets of a younger generation, the author argues that fundamental values and stereotypes take priority in the poetic mentality of younger artists. Closely examining the themes of the poets’ works – philosophy, religion, history, society and politics – the author specially describes the way each poet deals with the nation’s artistic memory. Another focus is on the analysis of poetics. It is suggested that the young poets’ creative method is found at convergence of realism and mythopoeia. Their poetry centers around the mythical images of stone, water, mountains, and ‘taulu’ (‘a man of the mountains’).

CULTURAL IDENTITY AND SYMBOLIC INTERACTIONISM IN KARMA BROWN’S NOVEL “RECIPE FOR A PERFECT WIFE”

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Alia Afiyati ◽  
Divya Widyastuti ◽  
Yoga Pratama
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Identity ◽  
Symbolic Interactionism ◽  
Literary Work ◽  
Cultural Identities ◽  
George Herbert ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Female Characters ◽  
George Herbert Mead ◽  
The Past ◽  
Stuart Hall

In a literary work, two characters can be narrated as the attention center that contains the cultural identity from certain generation. Meanwhile, a symbol actually can cause an interaction within characters. This research discusses about cultural identity and symbolic interactionism reflected in a novel. There is a novel entitled “Recipe for a Perfect Wife” by Karma Brown that tells about two female characters that are represented as a housewife from different generation. This research uses descriptive qualitative as the research methodology and content  analysis as the method in analyzing the object of the research, a novel entitled “Recipe for a Perfect Wife”. This research also uses the intrinsic approach to analyze the characterization, plot, and setting. This research reveals two kinds of a housewife. They are a housewife and working woman, and a full-housewife. This research finds five cultural identities in the past and present time that is related with a housewife reflected by two female characters in the novel by using cultural identity theory by Stuart Hall. This research also reveals the symbol and memory even three concepts of symbolic interactionism that is mind, self, and society based on symbolic interactionism theory by George Herbert Mead.

Summaries

2018 ◽  
Vol 46 (4) ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Identity ◽  
Cultural Adaptation ◽  
Theoretical Background ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
National Identities ◽  
Female Characters ◽  
Low Countries ◽  
Cultural Stereotypes ◽  
Cross Cultural Adaptation ◽  
Representation Of Sexuality

Eduard Cuelenaere, Gertjan Willems & Stijn Joye Same same same, but different: a comparative film analysis of the Belgian, Dutch and American Loft Against the theoretical background of the concept ‘karaoke-Americanism’, this article compares the Belgian, Dutch and American version of the film Loft. Several (dis)similarities in the representation of sexuality, female characters, and ethnicity, as well as some formal changes, are observed. By combining these results with self-conducted, in-depth and press interviews with the filmmakers of these films, it is ascertained that, although the three versions share a similar use of specific Hollywood conventions, the changes in representation were motivated by perceived cultural differences. Building on known cultural stereotypes and clichés, filmmakers reinforce specific cultural (and national) identities, with the aim of enhancing the recognizability for their local audiences. In conclusion, the Dutch and Belgian filmmakers, in an attempt of localizing the universal, realized a hyperreal version of their own or another culture. Keywords: film remakes, cross-cultural adaptation, cinema in the Low Countries, karaoke-Americanism, cultural identity

Oral Literature and Transculturality: A Study of Contemporary Cameroonian Songs

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-64
Author(s):  
Anne Obono Essomba
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Identity ◽  
Oral Tradition ◽  
Culture Shock ◽  
Oral Literature ◽  
Universal Values ◽  
Hybrid Product ◽  
The Way

Globalization led by Europe has spread so-called 'universal' values across the globe, which seems to have cultural intermingling as its backdrop. All human endeavors are based on a culture that has become multidimensional. All the time, in their diversity, cultures try to complement and absorb each other. However, in this meeting of cultural giving and receiving, it takes on a new face, the culture shock.  This encounter causes major changes in our modern societies, giving way to a loss of cultural identity and internal imbalance. This article aims to analyze the way in which contemporary Cameroonian musicians use cultural and linguistic facts for communication purposes and other arguments. The aim of our work is to show how the various songwriters have found, through song, a new mode of resistance so that African traditions escape sedimentation. In this way, they reconcile the elements of oral tradition and the contributions of modernity to create a hybrid product. To illustrate our point, we have chosen oral texts from different regions of Cameroon.  In order to better understand the transcultural reality in the texts, we will highlight the marks of traditional and modern aesthetics, then show that the transcultural is seen as a space of symbiosis between the traditional and the modern.

scholarly journals Die dialoog tussen die voorblad, die manneplot en die verhale in Dulle Griet van Riana Scheepers

Literator ◽  
2001 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 113-132
Author(s):  
G.H. Taljaard
Keyword(s):  
Short Stories ◽  
Female Character ◽  
Female Characters ◽  
Survival Mechanism ◽  
Male Attitudes ◽  
The Way

The dialogue between image and text in Riana Scheepers's Dulle Griet This article examines the way in which the content and theme of Riana Scheepers’s Dulle Griet (1991) interact with the “manneplot” (traditional and/or stereotypical portrayal of female characters within novels) and with the cover illustration of the book – a detail of “Mad Meg” (as she is often referred to) from Pieter Brueghel’s Dulle Griet (1562). It explores how the women in Scheepers’s short stories are portrayed – not only as vulnerable, but also as evil and corrupt. They are abused victims; but they are also tyrannical abusers. They are innocent maidens and mothers, but also lovers, prostitutes, lesbians and murderers. The way in which the gradual degeneration of the anonymous central female character relates to Brueghel’s image of “Mad Meg” on her way to the jaws of hell is discussed in this article. But the article also demontrates Scheepers’s concern with feminist issues by using the cover as an ironic “frame”, and shows that the moral decline of the women portrayed in the text seems to be as a result of the actions of chauvinistic men, who appear in different forms throughout the text. Female degeneracy can thus be seen as a survival mechanism, in a world – and a text – dominated by the masculine paradigm, the “manneplot” of traditional male attitudes to women.

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