Journal of Literary Aesthetics | Official English Literary Journal

Archives Volume-11, Issue-2 (July-December)

Paper Title:: THEATRICAL INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY IN MARATHI LITERATURE: A STUDY OF V. V. SHIRWADKAR’S DUSARA PESHWA
Author Name:: Pratibha Anand Patil
Country:: India
Page No.:: 1-5

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THEATRICAL INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY IN MARATHI LITERATURE: A STUDY OF V. V. SHIRWADKAR’S DUSARA PESHWA

Author: Pratibha Anand Patil

ABSTRACT
Scholars trace the evidence of the beginning of Sanskrit drama to Patanjali‟s reference in Mahabhashya (140 B.C.) . The dramatic rituals were associated with religion . The epics were used for source of plot. The mythological origin of our classical drama is related in the Natyasastra. Later in the late 18th century, the British cultural contact provided romantic history plays. Especially Shakespeare was worshiped and models of his history plays became the storehouse of patterns and moulds. Sir Walter Scott‟s historical novels also became a great source of dramatization of the Maratha history. Moreover, our history was used very effectively as a source of inspiration in the freedom struggle and nativistic movements. It is a history from above, and there is hardly any example of the subversion of history except Vijay Tendulkar‟s “Ghashiram Kotwal”. The mytho-poetic Imagination of the Marathi man always enjoys glorification of history because s/he believes that all other states in India, except Maharashtra, have only geography but history. V.V. Shirwadkar continued this tradition of dramatization of the Peshwa into Shakespearian patterns of romantic drama. In the light of the above discussion, present research paper examines Dusara Peshwa as a history play in a
Shakespearean manner.

KEYWORDS: History play, Marathi theatre, Shakespearean play, Maratha history

Paper Title:: A STUDY OF COLONIALISM AND IDENTITY IN NECTAR IN A SIEVE BY KAMALA MARKANDAYA
Author Name:: Ritvik A. Srivastava
Country:: India
Page No.:: 6-11

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A STUDY OF COLONIALISM AND IDENTITY IN NECTAR IN A SIEVE BY KAMALA MARKANDAYA

Author: Ritvik A. Srivastava

ABSTRACT
Kamala Markandaya’s novel Nectar in a Siever raises questions of colonialism in the
architecture of the self as well as deals with social issues overt and covert,that formed the rural India of the colonial ages.This article looks at the impact of colonialism on identity in Kamala Markandaya's "Nectar in a Sieve." The novel, set in mid-twentieth-century India, investigates the economic, social, and cultural changes produced by British rule. The experiences of Rukmani and her family demonstrate the compounded issues that women confront, such as heightened social vulnerability and economic exploitation. The study also examines various responses to colonial influences, ranging from resilience to resistance, and emphasizes the themes of cultural survival and psychological damage. The approach sheds light on the intricacies of identity creation under colonialism, highlighting the novel's importance in postcolonial literature.

KEYWORDS: Colonialism, economic exploitation, cultural disruption, identity, resilience,
adaptation, gender dynamics, agrarian society, cultural survival, postcolonial literature

Paper Title:: SATIRE AND SOCIAL CLASS IN REPRESENTATIONS OF POSTWAR BRITISH SOCIETY IN WILSON’S FICTION
Author Name:: Biresh Kumar
Country:: India
Page No.:: 12-18

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SATIRE AND SOCIAL CLASS IN REPRESENTATIONS OF POSTWAR BRITISH SOCIETY IN WILSON’S FICTION

Author: Biresh Kumar

ABSTRACT
This study examines how Angus Wilson’s post-war fiction mobilises satire to anatomise
British social class at a moment of rapid cultural transition. Reading Wilson’s major 1950s– 1960s novels alongside selected stories and contemporaneous accounts of class change, the study argues that Wilson’s satire functions less as simple mockery than as a diagnostic mode: it maps the moral anxieties, institutional hypocrisies, and status performances through which post-war Britain negotiated welfare-state modernity, fading “shabby-genteel” authority, and emergent forms of affluence. Wilson’s targets, professional expertise, cultural gatekeeping, domestic respectability, and elite liberal conscience, are shown to be structurally tied to class reproduction, even when voiced in progressive idioms. The study further contends that Wilson’s satiric method is distinctively “mixed”, combining comic exposure with psychological gravity and ethical seriousness, thereby offering a nuanced critique of social stratification rather than a purely punitive lampoon.

Keywords: Angus Wilson, satire, social class, post-war Britain, welfare state, cultural
institutions, middle-class identity, moral comedy

Paper Title:: NEGOTIATING OTHERNESS THROUGH RACIAL AND GENDERED MARGINALITY IN THE NOVELS OF TONI MORRISON
Author Name:: Navin Kumar Bharti
Country:: India
Page No.:: 19-27

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NEGOTIATING OTHERNESS THROUGH RACIAL AND GENDERED MARGINALITY IN THE NOVELS OF TONI MORRISON

Author: Navin Kumar Bharti

ABSTRACT
This research study examines the mechanisms through which Toni Morrison negotiates
otherness in her novels by foregrounding racial and gendered marginality. Morrison’s
narrative art exposes how African Americans, particularly Black women, navigate systems of oppression, reclaim identity, and resist hegemonic structures. Drawing upon theories of race, intersectionality, feminist thought, and postcolonial discourse, this study examines Morrison’s exploration of otherness in Beloved (1987), The Bluest Eye (1970), Sula (1973), and Song of Solomon (1977). By analyzing race, gender, colorism, trauma, community norms, and historical memory, the study argues that Morrison constructs liminal spaces where marginality becomes both a condition of oppression and a catalyst for agency. Her works challenge universalist literary paradigms, highlighting that Black identity is formed in opposition to dominant cultural narratives yet contains unique epistemological resources for self-definition. Ultimately, this study contends that Morrison transforms marginality into a site of negotiation, demonstrating that otherness is not passive imposition but a contested terrain through which her characters assert humanity, resistance, and historical consciousness.

Keywords: Toni Morrison; otherness; race; gender; marginality; Black feminism; trauma;
identity; intersectionality; community.

Paper Title:: COMING OF AGE AND IDENTITY FORMATION IN THE YOUNG ADULT FICTION OF JOHN GREEN, STEPHEN CHBOSKY, AND J. D. SALINGER
Author Name:: Naresh Prasad Singh
Country:: India
Page No.:: 28-34

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COMING OF AGE AND IDENTITY FORMATION IN THE YOUNG ADULT FICTION OF JOHN GREEN, STEPHEN CHBOSKY, AND J. D. SALINGER

Author: Naresh Prasad Singh

ABSTRACT
This study examines how three influential strands of Anglophone coming-of-age writing,
Salinger‟s mid-century adolescent alienation, Chbosky‟s late-twentieth-century epistolary interiority, and John Green‟s twenty-first-century teen voice shaped by institutional life, illness discourse, and self-reflexive media awareness, stage identity formation as both a psychological task and a narrative problem. Drawing on concepts from adolescent literature studies, the Bildungsroman tradition, and developmental identity theory, the study argues that these texts converge on a shared concern: the struggle to author a coherent self under conditions of social surveillance, trauma, and the pressure to perform maturity. However, they diverge in where they locate agency. Salinger dramatizes a negative capability of refusal and disgust with “phoniness,” Chbosky frames identity as a gradual recovery of memory and relational trust through writing, and Green repeatedly models identity as interpretive practice, reading the world‟s scripts (school, romance, grief, religion, medicine) and revising them
without fully escaping their constraints.

Keywords: Coming-of-age, Bildungsroman, identity formation, young adult fiction,
adolescence, trauma narrative, epistolary fiction, authenticity, alienation

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