Journal Literary Aesthetics

Archives Volume-1, Issue-2 (July-December)

Paper Title:: Kamala Markandaya’s Art of Characterization in Possession
Author Name:: Rajinder Kaur Saggu
Country:: India
Page No.:: 1-6

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Kamala Markandaya’s Art of Characterization in Possession

Author: Rajinder Kaur Saggu

The subject-matter of all fiction is human experience. Characters, therefore, occupy an important place in a novel because it is through them-their personalities, thought processes, emotional complexities and their actions that human experience is expressed. In contrast to drama where primary importance is given to plot and characters are considered secondary, the essentials of a novel are, to quote Duffin, “first, character, second, character and third, character.”(Duffin,p.78) Kamla Markandaya, a leading Indo-Anglian novelist, seems to have been fully aware of this act and has provided a rich gallery of portraits in her novels. Her sense of involvement in Indian social life, her keen observation, critical acumen and feminine sensibility have helped her in delineating characters from various shades of life: the western and Indian, the rich and the poor, urban and rural. Beginning with poor peasants, Markandaya has gone on to portray princes and Maharajas. In between she has covered characters from almost every class: sophisticated families of westernized Indians, ultra-modern men and women, orthodox grannies, swamis, beggars, artists, peasants prostitutes, government officers and patriots.

Paper Title:: Spiritual Sterility
Author Name:: Parkash Verma
Country:: India
Page No.:: 7-20

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Spiritual Sterility

Author: Parkash Verma

Anxiety, frustration, alienation and disillusionment have always been there in almost every age. The only sure remedy has always been reinstatement of the religious view of life. Many creative writers and critics of Eliot's age realized the importance of religion and preferred to write religious rather than secular poetry. Strength and confidence grew among those who had religious approach & attitude to life as they had witnessed the damage done by secularism. Eliot realized the seriousness of this inner or spiritual crisis and also the need of his time. Referring to the constantly deteriorating standards of morality; he writes: "The whole of modern literature is corrupted by what I call secularism.

Paper Title:: Fiction and the Claims of Political: A Study of Rohinton Mistry’s A Fine Balance
Author Name:: Krishanu Adhikari
Country:: India
Page No.:: 21-33

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Fiction and the Claims of Political: A Study of Rohinton Mistry’s A Fine Balance

Author: Krishanu Adhikari

1930s marked the rise of Indian English Fiction, initially in the hands of the “Big three” of Indian English literature, i.e. Mulk Raj Anand, Raja Rao, and R.K. Narayan. Since its inception, it has been open to the claims of political. During 1930s and 40s, the impact of Gandhian nationalism and Nehruvian politics are redolent enough in the novels. But with the passage of time the political themes in Indian English fiction take a crucial turn towards more complexity. The fusion of political ideologies and individual self pervades Indian English fiction from 1950s onwards. The women novelists of 1950s like Anita Desai and Kamala Markandya, among many others portray the psychological aspects of women in an essentially patriarchal Indian society, whereas the novelists like Arun Joshi and others focus mainly on the tainted nature of postcolnial Indian Politics. But the novelists from 1980s onwards not only highlighted the prevalent corruption in Indian politics and society. Rather they brought to the fore the gaps and silences in these dominant political ideologies and how these dominant voices suppress the voices of the others.

Paper Title:: The Image of Intellectual Survivor in Saul Bellow’s Herzog
Author Name:: Gian Chand
Country:: India
Page No.:: 34-41

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The Image of Intellectual Survivor in Saul Bellow’s Herzog

Author: Gian Chand

The American novelists in the 1960s discarded the country’s values of despair, disbelief, and disillusionment in favour of the positive values of hope for future, belief in human life, and respect for human dignity. As a result, the problem of man’s survival in the face of the complex social conditions of our time became the chief thematic concern for the major contemporary American novelists. They projected in their novels man set against the overwhelming odds of his chaotic existence that constantly force him to die as broken and defeated in the most unheroic way. But, he refuses to succumb to the adverse circumstances of life and finally rises above them through his indomitable courage and invicible will to live. He is firmly determined to “stay rooted in the wasteland-in the system that attempts to deny his vitality and concentrate all his energies on battling both himself and the mysterious powers that control him, thereby assuring himself that he is alive.

Paper Title:: In The Memory of “Phenomenal Woman” Reading Resistance in the Selected Poems of Maya Angelou
Author Name:: Chandip Kaur, Sandeep Kaur
Country:: India
Page No.:: 42-46

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In The Memory of “Phenomenal Woman” Reading Resistance in the Selected Poems of Maya Angelou

Author: Chandip Kaur, Sandeep Kaur

The decision of not getting reduced by the adversities of life has strengthened the spirit of humanism. It has not only enlightened the human minds by helping them to recognize their capabilities and human rights but has also provided the fortitude to claim their identities. Humanism is a prism with the various shades of mankind. The spirit of humanism has been appropriately summed up in the following quote of William James,
“Humanism is not a single hypothesis or theorem, and it dwells on no new facts. It is rather a slow shifting in the philosophic perspective, making things appear as from a new center of interest or point of sight.”

Paper Title:: Layers of Cross Cultural Reality in Bharati Mukherjee’s Jasmine
Author Name:: Shailja Rana,
Country:: India
Page No.:: 47-56

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Layers of Cross Cultural Reality in Bharati Mukherjee’s Jasmine

Author: Shailja Rana,

Beginning with an expatriate’s uprooted identity in the early 1970’s, Bharati Mukherjee’s creative faculty explored he transitional dilemma of characters in early 80’s, whose acculturation bids were occasionally thwarted by the complexity of cultural plurality in the adopted land. However, after the publication the The Middleman (1988), the process of cultural acclimatisation appears to be complete and the characters betray the confidence of an immigrant, almost a naturalized citizen, in facing the challenges of human life.

Paper Title:: Isolation and Community in Jhumpa Lahiri’s Interpreter of Maladies
Author Name:: Rupinder Kaur Chahil
Country:: India
Page No.:: 57-63

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Isolation and Community in Jhumpa Lahiri’s Interpreter of Maladies

Author: Rupinder Kaur Chahil

While Indian writers have been making a significant contribution to the world literature since Independence, the past few years saw a massive flourishing of Indian fiction in the global market. Though the writers vary in style yet there is a common thread binding them together- The sense of exile and alienation. The recent literature of emigration and exile is forged by perspectives that emerge from at least two cultures, identities and in some cases, languages. The themes in migrant literature however vary, depending not only on the country of origin but also on the pattern of the migration itself. The attention of the first generation migrant literature is often directed at the act of migration, the passage to another land, the reception in the emigration country, issues of rootlessness and racism, nostalgia and longing. While some of these issues do crop up in second generation migrant writing, it does so often in much more morally complex way. Affiliations are more ambivalent, there is recognition that globaluprootedness is a global phenomenon and the focus is not on the country of origin or arrival, but in the community that does not fully belong to either.

Paper Title:: Literary Aesthetics and the Discourse of ‘Good Taste’ in Post Liberalization Bengali ‘Parallel’ Cinema
Author Name:: Spandan Bhattacharya
Country:: India
Page No.:: 64-74

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Literary Aesthetics and the Discourse of ‘Good Taste’ in Post Liberalization Bengali ‘Parallel’ Cinema

Author: Spandan Bhattacharya

The post-liberalization film culture in West Bengal experienced a group of filmmakers who generated a sense of nostalgia for a lost tradition of a glorious past of Bengali literary cinema of the previous decades valued by the suave, middleclass, Bengali intelligentsia. Amidst the overall monopoly of contemporary popular cinema some films like Unishe April (Rituparno Ghosh, 1996), Asukh (Rituparno Ghosh, 1999), Paromitar Ekdin (Aparna Sen, 2000) Ek Je Achhe Kanya (Subrata Sen, 2001), Shanjhbatir Roopkathara (Anjan Das, 2002 ) etc that emerged in the mid 90s constructed the paradigm of the post 1990s Bengali literary film culture, not only in terms of their use of particular style elements or narrative devices or their cinematic appeal but also their imagination of a ‘class’ of audience. The discourse of literary-ness became a primary concern of this post-1990s Bengali film practice and literary-ness of Bengali cinema has been seen as a marker of ‘good taste’ amongst a section of Bengali intelligentsia. The discourse of literary-ness got reflected not only in the film form, but also in the production-distribution system, the strategies of exhibition, and the media discourses generated around these films. This film culture which aims to bring out Bengali cinema from the commercialized model of the mainstream circuit was often referred as the ‘parallel’ cinema. This paper is an attempt to read how literary aesthetics functions as the politics and poetics of this ‘parallel’ film culture and aims to address the question of ‘taste’ associated with this film practice mapping it on broader terrain of Bengal’s film history.
Keywords: Good taste; bhadralok; literary-ness; intelligentsia; parallel; Bengali cinema

Paper Title:: Ladies Coupe: Psychological Confinement of Middle Class Educated Women (Internally and Externally)
Author Name:: Sandip Sarang, Garima Goyal
Country:: India
Page No.:: 75-78

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Ladies Coupe: Psychological Confinement of Middle Class Educated Women (Internally and Externally)

Author: Sandip Sarang, Garima Goyal

Ladies Coupe by Anita Nair is one of the brilliant inductions of strength and endurance. Through this novel, Nair reveals restlessness and dilemmas that a woman faces throughout her life and her immediate urge for love and independence. In a way, writer through her various female characters operates on a broader canvas taking into account the lives of certain women belonging to middle class families. The pristine stance of the author particularly makes her story more than just the predictable feminist platitude that it might appear. The author has captured the experiences and the proficiencies of everyday life (that a mother, a wife, a daughter and an unmarried woman undergoes) in a very realistic manner. Nair is very committed in highlighting the afflictions and contradictions of women’s lives; the sacrifices they make in their marriage and family, their forced choices and (required) self-imposed relationships. The novel emphasizes on an inner strength that is possessed by every human being as seen in the major character- Akhila.

Paper Title:: A Soul of Light: A Reading of Three Poems of Vivekananda
Author Name:: Ayon Halder
Country:: India
Page No.:: 79-83

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A Soul of Light: A Reading of Three Poems of Vivekananda

Author: Ayon Halder

India has given birth to several Hindu religious reformers along with influential spiritual personalities who have contributed to build the nation. They have all stressed upon the fact that India is avowedly the most notable country where religious introspection has fairly a long cherished history. Vivekananda is mainly considered to be an eminent figure among the others for making Hindu religion popular among the people of the West. He has always been eager to look into all other religious doctrines in order to broaden the mental horizon and support the ideals of religious tolerance. He has a firm conviction that no nation can progress without possessing an inherently strong religiosity. As an Indian monk he never has any reservations against other religious doctrines and this proves quite evident if we go through his poem No One to Blame in which he explains the essence of Buddhist philosophy. In one of his lectures while Vivekananda draws a comparison between Hinduism and Buddhist philosophy he explicitly admits that “The Vedanta philosophy is the foundation of Buddhism and everything else in India, and the Advaita philosophy of the modern school has a great many conclusions similar to those of the Buddhists.”

Paper Title:: The Confessional Hero in William Styron's The Long March
Author Name:: Sohan Singh
Country:: India
Page No.:: 84-91

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The Confessional Hero in William Styron's The Long March

Author: Sohan Singh

Confession is regarded as necessary for attaining divine/social forgiveness or appeasing the burdened conscience. In the Old Testament, the Lord, God said to Amram's son, Moses: "Say to the people of Israel, when a man or a woman commits any of the sins that men commit by breaking faith with the Lord, that persons is guilty, he shall confess his sin which he has committed" (Num V.6). If in the ecclesiastical terms, it is "breaking faith with the Lord", then in the social terms it is necessitated by "breaking faith" with the society.

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