...Agustín Reyes Torres Roy’s Inglish in The God of Small Things: A Language... 195 ROY’S INGLISH IN THE GOD OF SMALL THINGS: A LANGUAGE FOR SUBVERSION, RECONCILIATION AND REASSERTION1 Agustín Reyes Torres, Universitat de València Email: agustin.reyes@uv.es Abstract: In The God of Small Things, Arundhati Roy separates English from Englishspeakers. She reappropriates the language not only to portray complex characters and narrative themes, but also to create a postcolonial discourse that criticizes, questions and subverts the old dominance of the imperial colonizer. Mainly addressed to a western audience, the use of Inglish in this novel is a crucial factor to reveal the development of a hybrid conscience, reassert the Indian identity and make the reader feel displaced from their native tongue Keywords: English language, postcolonial, hybridity, Indian identity, discourse Título en español: El Inglish de Roy en The God of Small Things: Una lengua para la subversión, la reconciliación y la rea¿rmación. Resumen: En The God of Small Things, Arundhati Roy distancia al hablante-nativo de inglés de su propia lengua. El inglés que utiliza no solo presenta personajes y temas complejos, sino que crea un discurso poscolonial que critica, cuestiona y socava el antiguo dominio del colonizador. Dirigida principalmente a un lector occidental, el Inglish de Roy en esta novela es determinante para representar el desarrollo de una conciencia hibrida, rea¿rmar la identidad india y lograr...
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...Literary Theory and Schools of Criticism Introduction A very basic way of thinking about literary theory is that these ideas act as different lenses critics use to view and talk about art, literature, and even culture. These different lenses allow critics to consider works of art based on certain assumptions within that school of theory. The different lenses also allow critics to focus on particular aspects of a work they consider important. For example, if a critic is working with certain Marxist theories, s/he might focus on how the characters in a story interact based on their economic situation. If a critic is working with post-colonial theories, s/he might consider the same story but look at how characters from colonial powers (Britain, France, and even America) treat characters from, say, Africa or the Caribbean. Hopefully, after reading through and working with the resources in this area of the OWL, literary theory will become a little easier to understand and use. Disclaimer Please note that the schools of literary criticism and their explanations included here are by no means the only ways of distinguishing these separate areas of theory. Indeed, many critics use tools from two or more schools in their work. Some would define differently or greatly expand the (very) general statements given here. Our explanations are meant only as starting places for your own investigation into literary theory. We encourage you to use the list of scholars and works provided for each...
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...Men In Nervous Conditions: An Ignored Matter The men of Zimbabwe struggled to assert the independence of their people against political, cultural and religious colonial pressure (Vembe), but reduced women to silent supporters (Stone 113). This dynamic still holds true on the literary front, where male writers of Zimbabwe, and Africa in general, present to the west male-centered, idealized pictures of traditional women and culture. Women, however, uncertain that men will revalue them, concern themselves with the pressures within the culture (McLeod). For this reason, the men of Africa generally discourage female authors from revealing their gritty perspectives. Further, E. Kim Stone writes, “Under colonialism, female storytellers were excluded from the few powerful positions the British system of colonization allowed in Rhodesia,” suggesting the traditional place of women as storytellers, somewhat ironically, was also suppressed by the colonizers. Only women are interested in revealing the internal pressures of postcolonial Zimbabwe. But these hidden pressures are just the ones that cause the “nervous conditions” in the book titled as such. A female character narrates this text about women, bearing to light women's struggles to be themselves within a constraining environment. But even as critics revel in this rare, realistic portrayal of Zimbabwean women, they seldom explore the significance of Tsitsi Dangarembga's representation of men, too often passing them off as flat characters...
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...T.H. Breen presents a fresh perspective on the American Revolution in his most recent book, “American Insurgents, American Patriots: The Revolution of the People”. He strives to correct the popular narrative of American Independence by restoring ordinary individuals to the forefront of the Revolution. Breen argues that there would have been no Revolution and no independent nation if ordinary men and women had not chosen to act—the Revolution was, after all, a people’s revolution (p. 4). Although Breen doesn’t discredit the contribution of the Founding Fathers, he does argue that they were neither the first, nor the most powerful force behind independence. Rather, it was the insurgents who first sparked rebellion—the Founding Fathers came along behind them (pg. 4). Breen re-writes the historical timeline, one driven not by the elite but by the men and women that, in many ways, history has forgotten. Early in the book, Breen acknowledges the reluctance to refer to American Patriots as insurgents. Insurgency is discomforting; it stirs up thoughts of violence and lawlessness. During the Revolution, even colonists active in rebellion against the crown didn’t see...
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...The Lover-Duras The Lover (French title: L'Amant) is an autobiographical novel by Marguerite Duras, published in 1984 by Les Éditions de Minuit. It has been translated to 43 languages. It was awarded the 1984 Prix Goncourt. The Lover is also a 1992 movie based on this novel, directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud and starring Jane March and Tony Leung Ka Fai. The cast also included Lisa Faulkner. The film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Cinematography. Summary of the movie Set against the backdrop of French colonial Vietnam, The Lover reveals the intimacies and intricacies of a clandestine romance between a pubescent girl (Jane March), from a financially strapped French family and an older, wealthy Chinese man (Tony Leung Ka-Fai). The story is narrated by Jeanne Moreau, portraying a writer looking back on her youth. In 1929, a 15 year old nameless girl is traveling by ferry across the Mekong Delta, returning from a holiday at her family home in the village of Sadec, to her boarding school in Saigon. She attracts the attention of a 32 year old son of a Chinese business magnate, a young man of wealth and heir to a tidy fortune. He strikes up a conversation with the girl; she accepts a ride back to town in his chauffeured limousine. Compelled by the circumstances of her upbringing, this girl, the daughter of a bankrupt, manic-depressive widow, is newly awakened to the impending and all-too-real task of making her way alone in the world. Thus, she becomes his lover, until...
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...Diasporic Cross-Currents in Michael Ondaatje’s Anil’s Ghost and Anita Rau Badami’s The Hero’s Walk HEIKE HÄRTING N HIS REVIEW of Anil’s Ghost, Todd Hoffmann describes Michael Ondaatje’s novel as a “mystery of identity” (449). Similarly, Aritha van Herk identifies “fear, unpredictability, secrecy, [and] loss” (44) as the central features of the novel and its female protagonist. Anil’s Ghost, van Herk argues, presents its readers with a “motiveless world” of terror in which “no identity is reliable, no theory waterproof” (45). Ondaatje’s novel tells the story of Anil Tessera, a Sri Lankan expatriate and forensic anthropologist working for a UN-affiliated human rights organization. Haunted by a strong sense of personal and cultural dislocation, Anil takes up an assignment in Sri Lanka, where she teams up with a local archeologist, Sarath Diyasena, to uncover evidence of the Sri Lankan government’s violations of human rights during the country’s period of acute civil war. Yet, by the end of the novel, Anil has lost the evidence that could have indicted the government and is forced to leave the country, carrying with her a feeling of guilt for her unwitting complicity in Sarath’s death. On one hand, Anil certainly embodies an ethical (albeit rather schematic) critique of the failure of global justice. On the other, her character stages diaspora, in Vijay Mishra terms, as the “normative” and “ exemplary … condition of late modernity” (“Diasporic” 441) — a condition usually associated...
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...A particular interest in childhood rose since the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries by both philosophers as well as writers who depict childhood as a stage of innocence, unlike adulthood which is the stage of experience. This representation is developed in nineteenth century writings which witnessed specific gendered stories either for boys or girls. Those stories were meant to reinstate in the child the requirements of society from his gender in the future. A girl has to prepare herself to be a housewife whose place is the private sphere, or who will be the angel in the home, while a boy must prepare himself to the public sphere, to be the bread winner of the family. This leads us to the claim that children's stories are not ideologically...
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...University of Tennessee, Knoxville Trace: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange Masters Theses Graduate School 5-2010 Bharati Mukherjee and the American Immigrant: Reimaging the Nation in a Global Context Leah Rang University of Tennessee - Knoxville, lrang@utk.edu Recommended Citation Rang, Leah, "Bharati Mukherjee and the American Immigrant: Reimaging the Nation in a Global Context. " Master's Thesis, University of Tennessee, 2010. http://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_gradthes/655 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at Trace: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. It has been accepted for inclusion in Masters Theses by an authorized administrator of Trace: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. For more information, please contact trace@utk.edu. To the Graduate Council: I am submitting herewith a thesis written by Leah Rang entitled "Bharati Mukherjee and the American Immigrant: Reimaging the Nation in a Global Context." I have examined the final electronic copy of this thesis for form and content and recommend that it be accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts, with a major in English. Urmila Seshagiri, Major Professor We have read this thesis and recommend its acceptance: Lisi Schoenbach, Bill Hardwig Accepted for the Council: Carolyn R. Hodges Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School (Original signatures are on file with official student records.) To the Graduate Council:...
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...Compass 46(3), 1999, 259–271 Lewis R. RAMBO Theories of Conversion: Understanding and Interpreting Religious Change The author explores the nature of theory and provides an overview of resources for the study of conversion to Islam. Theory is valuable in so far as it illuminates different aspects of a phenomenon. Various theoretical approaches include some dimensions and exclude others. Scholars of conversion must be aware of theoretical issues and systematically utilize theoretical options with sophistication. Such an approach will expand understanding of conversion and also enhance comparative studies of conversion. Theoretical orientations considered in this paper include: globalization, post-colonial, feminist, cross-cultural, religious/spiritual, intellectualist, narrative, identity, ritual, psychoanalytic, archetypal, attribution, attachment, process/stage, and Islamization theory. L’auteur analyse et offre un panorama des théories disponibles pour réaliser une étude des...
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...Described by Terry Eagleton for The Guardian as the “literary mainstream”; these characters are often referred to as the Outsider due to their exclusion from the community in which the text is set. The characters who are referred to as Outsiders can be portrayed in different ways; their initial exclusion from society can ultimately lead to a narrative of their acquisition of power throughout the text but similarly, can portray a story of their maintenance of the minimal power they have over the course of the text’s plot. However, this is not to argue that some Outsiders presented within literature do not have power over the course of the development of the text so, as a consequence, remain excluded from the society. In this case, the text would then be considered an exposition of the character’s experience from their position in society rather than the author’s attempt of trying to integrate their character into society through their work. Furthermore, the author themselves may be considered an Outsider through their own status in society; they command their readers to be Outsiders themselves within the novel. As well as to read and observe the narrative in order to emulate the same feeling within themselves, within the reader or to have a specific impact on the issues surrounding humanity at the time. The contrast in the ways in which the portrayal of an Outsider can develop arose within the study of Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre and Jean Rhys’ Wide Sargasso Sea as the novels highlighted...
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...Literary Criticism Review Paradigm: a framework containing your basic assumptions, ways of thinking and methodology about how something should be done, made or thought about. Cognitive dissonance (psychology): the excessive mental stress and discomfort experienced by the individual who: * Holds 2+ contradictory beliefs, ideas, of values simultaneously * Is confronted by new info that conflicts with existing BIV Is/ought dilemma: us aging -> the world as we wish to be OR the world as it actually is HISTORICAL LENS/NEW HISTORICAL LENS Historical criticism -> insisted we need to know a literary piece, that we need to know authors bio, social background, ideas during that time, cultural milieu (environment) New historicism New Historicism: seeks to find meaning in a text by considering the work within framework of prevailing ideas/assumptions of its era. *All about paying close attention to historical context of literary works (e.g: poems, novels, plays) GOALS: 1) Study how a work of literature reflects its historical/sociocultural context 2) Understand how literary works comments on and relates to its context Therefore, approach is interdisciplinary Example of this lens: Always by Erasure MARXIST LENS (Karl Heinrich Marx + Friedrich Engles) * A form of critique for interrogating all societies and their texts in terms of certain specific issues like race, class, and the attitudes shared within a given culture (see terms) * Marxist critique may...
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...iNTEGRATIVE Perpetual evolution: A dynamic integrative approach to developing praxis in counselling psychology Table of Contents Table of Contents 1 Theory Building in Counselling Psychology 2 The Impulse Toward Eclecticism 4 My Bohartian History 6 Adlerian Psychotherapy as Structured Eclecticism 10 My Adlerian Roots 11 Beyond Adler: Robertsonian Meme Therapy 13 The Nature of Self 13 The Potential for Using Memes in Counselling 15 A Use of Meme Theory in Counselling a Suicidal Youth 17 Holistic, Dynamic and Integrative: Looking Forward in Our Profession 21 Summarizing the Foundational Principles of My Practice 21 Revisiting Holism 23 Future directions 25 Footnotes 27 Theory Building in Counselling Psychology An early text lamented, “A good theory is clear, comprehensive, explicit, parsimonious, and useful. We appear to have a paucity of good theories in psychology” (Stefflre & Matheny, 1968). Lent attempted to reduce this paucity by formulating his own theory: Wellness is intended to capture the notion of health as a dynamic state or process rather than a static endpoint; psychosocial wellness acknowledges the importance of both intrapersonal and interpersonal functioning. The multiple aspects of wellness would include a) self-perceived (domain and/or global) satisfaction (hedonic well-being), b) domain/role satisfactoriness, c) presence of prosocial versus antisocial behavior, and d) low levels of psychologistical...
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...Reading the Novel in English 1950–2000 i RTNA01 1 13/6/05, 5:28 PM READING THE NOVEL General Editor: Daniel R. Schwarz The aim of this series is to provide practical introductions to reading the novel in both the British and Irish, and the American traditions. Published Reading the Modern British and Irish Novel 1890–1930 Reading the Novel in English 1950–2000 Daniel R. Schwarz Brian W. Shaffer Forthcoming Reading the Eighteenth-Century Novel Paula R. Backscheider Reading the Nineteenth-Century Novel Harry E. Shaw and Alison Case Reading the American Novel 1780–1865 Shirley Samuels Reading the American Novel 1865–1914 G. R. Thompson Reading the Twentieth-Century American Novel James Phelan ii RTNA01 2 13/6/05, 5:28 PM Reading the Novel in English 1950–2000 Brian W. Shaffer iii RTNA01 3 13/6/05, 5:28 PM © 2006 by Brian W. Shaffer BLACKWELL PUBLISHING 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148-5020, USA 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK 550 Swanston Street, Carlton, Victoria 3053, Australia The right of Brian W. Shaffer to be identified as the Author of this Work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs, and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, except as permitted by the UK Copyright, Designs, and...
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...about their lives and aspirations. The forms used by Filipino authors may be indigenous or borrowed from other cultures, and these may range from popular pieces addressed to mass audiences to highly sophisticated works intended for the intellectual elite. Having gone through two colonial regimes, the Philippines has manifested the cultural influences of the Spanish and American colonial powers in its literary production. Works may be grouped according to the dominant tradition or traditions operative in them. The first grouping belongs to the ethnic tradition, which comprises oral lore identifiably precolonial in provenance and works that circulate within contemporary communities of tribal Filipinos, or among lowland Filipinos that have maintained their links with the culture of their non-Islamic or non-Christian ancestors. The second grouping consists of works that show Spanish derivation or influence in the themes and forms employed, and these may include literary works that are translations of original Spanish writings, or adaptations of the same. A third grouping comprises works belonging to the American colonial tradition. Literary production under this tradition shows the impact of American colonial control, which facilitated through the educational...
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...teachers: It’s often the best teachers who expect the most from your kid. Instead of mindlessly bad-mouthing the teacher in front of other parents or, most of all, your kids, take the time to find out what’s going on. Having taught high school, for a millisecond, I can relate to most of Clark’s advice. Most, that is, but certainly not all of it. The article does come off, in places, as if the teacher is always right. But I do believe there is an us-against-them attitude when it comes to parent-teacher relations. Hearing that some parents bring lawyers to school meetings with them to discuss things, such as a child’s alleged cheating, is downright alarming. In one of my education classes, I learned that parents tend to carry their own childhood baggage to their children’s schools with them, and this can create an obstacle in the parent...
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