BEGE-108(2012-13)

1. Write short notes on any two:

(i) Style:

Ans: Reading novels has been a form of popular entertainment for more than three
hundred years. The origin of the novel may be traced to the prose than three hundred
years. The origin of the novel may be traced to the prose writings of seventeenth
century Europe. It was only in the beginning of the nineteenth century that he novel
came to India. Though it was the Europeans who introduced the form, Indian writers
soon began to experiment with the new form in their own regional languages. In a
country where the literacy rate is not very high, novels generally find a place in the
bookshelves of an only those one who are literate. The stories and their essence were
passed on from one generation to another and a cultural bridge was established
between the past and the present. Initially the communication was oral, but with the
invention of the written word, and subsequently writing, the communication became
literary.

The manner in which the story is to be told often determines the style of its narrations. Is
narrations. Is the novelist going to adopt a serious tone or is she going to be humorous.
She may be prophetic in style or satirical. We have perhaps noticed that each novelist
has a different way of telling a story. The style and tone of the novel is not only
determined by its social-historical context but also by the subject matter of the novel.
Attia Hussain uses a lyrical style to evoke a sense of tragedy that lies intertwined in
time. Georege Orwell is satirical because in the middle of the dangers of totalitarianism
and to create to warn the intellectual world of the dangers of totalitarianism and to
create a human conscience that would oppose all forms of suppression and to create a
human conscience that would oppose all forms of suppression. Dickens the immediacy
of the drama that unfolds in each event that he narrates. Each novelist employs a style
by which she is able to successfully communicate the essence of the story to the
readers.

ii) Social Change in Sunlight On A Broken Column:

Ans:

The disintegration of the old hierarchical and agrarian society or the breakdown of the
large joint family. This was a change taking place all over the country and whether Attia
Hosain in sunlight on a Broken Column writes about a Muslim household in Lucknow or
Mulk Raj Anand writes about a peasant family in Punjab. The underlying situation is real
to all Indians and lies very close to their immediate experience.
Laila the narrator of sunlight on a Broken Column, is a young girl when the novel
begins, living a sheltered life behind the wall of the zenana in an orthodox aristocratic
family. And as Laila changes from the lonely, perplexed introspective girl behind the
purdah into a young woman who can think and choose, our perspective on the world
changes along with the change in her vision. In the fourth part of the novel we see what
a great period of social change is covered in the novel.

Laila came to pay a visit to ‘Ashiana’ the house associated with many memories. As the
said that her most private emotions were contained by this house, as much a part of its
structure as its every brick and beam. Its memories condensed her life as in a
summary.” She felt embarrassed to find strangers living in the rooms where she had
spent a good portion of her life. She felt grieved at the thought that these strangers were
labeled ‘refugees’ while her cousin Saleem, who opted for Pakistan was called
‘evacuee’. Laila’s presence in the house brought tears to the sunken eyes of the faithful
servant, Ram Singh. He lamented the great change brought about by the unhappy
developments. He said to Laila that the house, Bitia, this is not how you should have
come to the house. He saw her grow up in it, and he should have seen her children, and
the children of Kemal Mian and Saleem Mian grow up in it. Hagwan should have taken
him from this earth before he saw this happen. To Laila the house was a living entity,
and the tears and words of the old servant opened her closed heart. She turned towards
the house with every nerve alive and quivering, and found it a living being. In its decay
she saw the one familiar way of life buried and the other coming to an end. A month
after the partition of the country, Saleem had left for Pakistan and Kemal remained
behind. The old world has undergone a tremendous change. Power and privileges
existed no more, and Kemal was left with no alternative but to sell principles. He had
married a non-muslim. The constitutional abolition of the feudal system threw
landowners into misery, cracking their world completely.

2. What role did the women play during the French Revolution as depicted by
Dickens in A Tale of Two Cities.

Ans:

In most social arrangements, women and men traditionally occupy separate “Spheres”
of activity; women’s sphere is the personal and private world of the home and the
family, and their activities are reproductive and domestic, while men’s sphere is the
public world of the streets and the workplace and their activities are productive and
political. In Victorian literature and value – systems, this separation of the spheres was
strictly enforced, and the place women in the home – while it reduced and trivialized
women’s roles – also idealized and elevated it. This is the place that Lucie Manette is
given in A Tale of Two Cities, in line with the heroines of most of Dicken’s other novels.
But times of historical crisis – like war, revolution and struggle – women’s participation
in public events becomes crucial, as happened in the French Revolution. Several
historians have noted that women played a key role in revolutionary activities, especially
since the popular agitations often centered on lack of food and women were the most
hard hit by this deprivation. The historian George Rude notes, for instance that “a
leading part” in the agitation of September, 1789 was played by the women of the
markets and faubourgs it was they who gave a lead to their menfolk in the great march
to Versatiles on 5 October.” For his portrait of Mme. Defrags Dickens relied to a certain
extent on Carlye’s historical portrait of Demoiselle Theroigne; and there were other well
known woman leaders of the revolution from woman he could draw for the figure of
Mme Defrags.

Thus woman were no longer confined to the world of home and family but became
actors in the larger world in the public affairs. What fascinated and repelled English
historian of the Revolution like burke and Carlyle was the violence of woman I the
Terror. This seemed to them to go against nature itself, to do sex women, to strip them
of their “feminine” qualities of passivity and pity, and to reverse the order of things.
Hence their descriptions of women revolutionaries were often shrill and their angry
denunciations accused them of being “monsters,” “witches”, harpies’ or
vampires”Dickens follows Burke and Carlyle in his descriptive accounts. In the account
of the hanging of foulon. I other places, as in the description of the storming of the
Bastille, Dickens focused on Mme. Defarge’s bloodthirsty behavior.

But Dickens never loses sight of the reasons for the women’s violence, as the passage,
quoted above shows. They have borne the brunt of the oppression of the ancient
regime precisely as women, in their domestic and familial roles; as a women who have
seen their children starve, and their husband father and lovers imprisoned or killed. In a
tale of two cities the very fast act of injustice perpetrated by the aritocaracy that we see
is the Marquis coach running over a child in the streets.

He is completely indifferent to the grief of the child parents and simply tosses a cion to
the distraught father as compensation for the loss. It is this act that sets off a chain of
violence and counter –violence in the narrative.

In A Tale of Two Cities woman are shown also as the sexual victims of the aristocracy.
The originating act of the action of the novel is the rape of a poor peasant girl by the
Evremonde twins and it is as her sister that Mme Defarge seeks revenge upon the
entire Evremonde clan.

There for Dickens on one level seems to suggest that woman are biologically red on
tooth and claw”(“that ‘the female of the species is deadlier than the male”-a claim borne
out by Mme. Defarge seen in comparison with her husband). But at a deeper analytic
level he also shows that it is their natura feelings as woman –as sexual victims as
grieving mother and wives that provokes them into committing “unnatural” acts of
violence and revenge.

Whenever we see Mme. Defarge in a Tale of Two cities it is not within the home but
standing her wine –shop or in doorways or out on the streets she is not shown as a
mother and daughter even her knitting is a revolutionary act(a secret register) not a
domestic or feminine activity. She is active dynamic a leader. In all this she is a contrast
to Lucie Manette as we shall see.

Yet dickens wants to demystify this awful woman. He shows us the crowed of men and
woman going back to their homes after hanging of Foulon to their normal family relation
and affection

Similarly at the end of the novel Mme. Defarge is revealed as a woman seeking revenge
for her family death at the hand of the Everson’s. Though this reduces her stature as a
political figure fighting for an abstract cause and her impact as an impersonal force of
retribution that Dickens had built up throughout the narrative it gives her action a certain
sympathetic colouring.

Hence Dickens ambivalent attitude to the French Revolution his acceptance and
rejection of it may be partly located in his double attitude towards the woman of the
revolution and explains and is explained by his extremely complex depiction of Mme
Defarge as their representative.

3. Highlight the symbolism of the characterization of Pearl and Chillingworth in

the scarlet letter.

Ans:

The major characters in the novel are symbolic at different levels:

1) Chillingworth is a scientist. A devoted scholar all his life, he is known in the Puritan
settlement as a physician gathering a wide variety of herbs. He is also described as a
minner, a geometrician and engineer. He goes “deep” into Dimmesdale’s mind and
heart: there he “delves,”probes. “brows” like a treasure seeker in a dark cavern, he dug
into the poor clegyman’s hear, like a miner searching for gold.” He studies
Dimmensdale as a “geometrical problem”. As an engineer, he knows “the spring that
controlled the engine”of the minister’s nature. He brings a “terrible machinery to bear”
upon him, and tampers with “the delicate spring” of his mind and conscience. In short,
he analyses, dissects and studies Dimmesdale as a scientist looks at his material.

2) Hester represents art. In the first eight chapters, she is six time spoken of as
“pedestated” like a statue; elsewhere she is majestic and statue like of marble quietude,
and of marble passiveness of brow”/ Chillingworth is said to have made of her a “marble
image of happiness”. Before she came to Dimmesdale, she had “ a marble coldness”.
She is also inclined to impart artistic shapes to things. The scarlet letter that she wears
is also inclined to impart artistic shape to things. The scarlet letter that she wears is
gorgeous, luxuriant and “artistically done with” an elaborate embroidery. The clothes,
she makes for Pearl are of a “fanciful, a fantastic ingenuity”.

3) Dimmesdale, the clergyman, represents religion. He is a “heavy ordained apostle, “

an “angle’ in speech and action , a miracle of holiness” and of whitest sanctity. He is
constantly associated with the white colour, embodying holiness. He is a kind of lamp
whose light is the word of God: he fasts and prays to Keep the grossity of the earthly
state from clogging and obscuring his spiritual lamp.”

4) Pearl is a symbol of Nature.She grows up in the lap of Nature, away from the
community and other children. As a “natural child,” Pearl, rejecting the companionship
of human children, became intimate with growing things. She plays in the tide pools with
horse – shoe crabs and seawood. In the forest scenes, she is garlanded with wild
flowers and she moves among wild animals without alarming them. She has a “bird like
voice,” and flies “ like a bird”. She is also compared to flowers, the Northern lights, the
day, a brook, a deer., a butterfly and sea foam sparring natural phenomena, vegetarian
and animal kingdom.

At the symbolic level, their interactions become highly meaningful. Thus Hester leads
Dimmesdale away from his religious duties and diverts him from the path of Puritan
righteousness , indication that art secularizes religion. Their union results in Pearl the
adulterous child suggesting that the product of art and religion is invariably illegitimate. It
is also closer to art and bears no affinity to religion, as Pearl resembles Hester and not
Dimmesdale. The creative powers dominate over the redemptive powers. He writer has
used the symbols so safely that readers hold interest. This makes the novel to read
easily.

4. Attempt a Feminist reading of The Awakening.

Ans:

In The Awakening, Edna Pontellier undergoes many changes. She discovers a sense of
independence and shows this through her emotions and rebellion against her husband
and children. She also experiences a sexual "awakening" as a result of her love for
Robert and an adulterous affair with Arobin. Edna's life is changed so drastically that
she realizes there is no way for her to live a normal life and be happy any longer.

Edna's sense of independence is portrayed in descriptions of her feelings throughout

the novel. It is also evident that she has found a new freedom when she rebels against
her husband and the norms of society. Edna first feels emotions toward being
independent when she swims for the first time. This is a turning point in her life, as she
is able to swim off on her own, with the desire to "swim where no woman had ever
swum" (Chopin 37). Edna continues to indulge in this new-found freedom when she
disobeys her husband's requests to join him inside later that night. "She perceived that
her will had blazed up, stubborn and resistant. She could not at that moment have done
other than denied and resisted" (Chopin 42). Edna becomes angry with her marriage,
he husband and her children because of the restraints they hold on her life. Because of
them, she is not able to fulfill her deepest desires. She stomps on her wedding ring, tells
her husband that marriage is "despicable", and denies attention to her children out of
resentment towards their power (Leary 154). However, Edna realizes that these actions
are useless and makes up her mind that she shall just do as she pleases, regardless of
the wishes of her family. She leaves her home because it is not hers; it is Mr.
Pontellier's home and it is his money which pays for it, not her own. She claims that the
home never quite seemed like her own and declares that "I know I shall like it, like the
feeling of freedom and independence" (Chopin 107). Edna also relieves herself of the
social conventions which her husband finds necessary. Edna begins to enjoy her new
independent life without Leonce. She grows accustom to doing things on her own and
finding her own friends and begins to spend time with a new group of people.

Every step which she took toward relieving herself from obligations added to her
strength and expansion as an individual. She began to look with her own eyes; to see
and apprehend the deeper undercurrents of life (Chopin 127).

Edna allows a sense of independence to swell within her, openly claiming she will no
longer be anyone's possession and she shall walk alone. Through her death she
acquires the ultimate feeling of independence. She feels free from every restraint placed
upon her, and knows that she is her own person.

Edna's sexual awakening has been described as the main focus of the novel (Leary
162). Her emotions and desires are revealed when she discovers her love for Robert.
She also exposes her newly-found needs when she has an affair with Arobin. Edna
experiences the "first-felt throbbing of desire" (Chopin 40) when sitting with Robert at
Grand Isle. She begins to blindly follow her impulses, without being sure why. Edna is
unconsciously awakening her sexual desires which have been repressed so long by
society's demands on her. She realizes that what she feels for Robert is very different
than what she feels for her husband, or what she will ever feel for her husband. Edna
comes to the realization that there is a physical side to "love" as well, which it is not
acceptable to speak of during the time period. Edna becomes infatuated with Robert
because she desires something from him which she can not attain from her husband;
sexual satisfaction. However, since Robert is out of reach for Edna, she breaks down
and settles for a sexual affair with Arobin to fulfill her desires. She does not love Arobin,
nor does she hold the desires for him which she entertains for Robert. However, Edna
comes to the realization that she has sexual needs which can be executed by basically
anyone willing to please her.

Kate Chopin filled The Awakening with various types of sexual imagery. Critic Elaine
Showalter was correct in claiming, "Chopin brilliantly evokes sexuality through images
and details" (178). Chopin's use of imagery was her way of expressing feministic ideals
which were taboo during the time period. One of the most common uses of imagery in
The Awakening involves music and the effects which it had upon Edna. When Madame
Reisz strikes a series of chords on the piano, an almost orgasmic feeling overcomes
Edna and she lets the music overtake her body (Adams xxxii). After leaving her summer
paradise in Grand Isle, Edna begins to miss hearing Madame Reisz on the piano. She
seeks the old woman out at her home, and upon visitation, is told that Robert has
written to Madame Reisz. In his letter he asks that, should Mrs. Pontellier call on
Madame Reisz, would she play a piano song for her? He adds that "I should like to
know how it affects her" (Chopin 84). Robert is asking Madame Reisz to arouse in Edna
what he is not able to arouse in her himself. Because of societal constraints, Robert is
not able to express his real urges, so he asks instead that Madame Reisz play music for
Edna. Chopin uses imagery dealing with music to disguise expression of sexual desires.
Though it is devastatingly sad, Edna Pontellier realizes that she cannot remain in
society and be "normal." She has uncovered too many desires and refuses to deny
herself the right to fulfill these desires. As a result, she has no place in the society of her
time period.

Chopin uses symbolism to show the distress of Edna which leads to her suicide. One
major use of symbolism is Chopin's connections between Edna and the sea. Edna
seems to hold a special connection with the sea, it soothes her and almost appears to
relieve her of her problems, at least temporarily. The night Edna learns to swim, she
discovered for the first time a new feeling of freedom. "A feeling of exultation overtook
her, as if some power of significant import had been given her to control the working of
her body and soul." (Chopin 37). This is symbolic for the sexual discoveries she is
slowly making within herself. Even when away from the sea, thinking about it made
Edna happy, "She could hear again the ripple of the water, the flapping sail. She could
see the glint of the moon upon the bay, and could feel the soft, gusty beating of the hot
wind. A subtle current of desire passed through her body." (Chopin 77). The sea had an
effect on Edna that moved her entire being. Freud wrote of an "oceanic feeling", which
Chopin depicted in her novel. This feeling was a craving to captivate again a feeling of
"oneness", which Edna seems to desire (Natoli 195). Chopin elaborated that "The touch
of the sea is sensuous, enfolding the body in its soft, close embrace" (155). This was,
no doubt, a blatant statement regarding her use of the imagery to explain sexual desires
which were not "proper" to speak of at the time. This is why it is significant when at the
end of the novel before Edna's final swim, Edna strips nude. She felt the lack of clothing
was extremely freeing, as it gave her a new sense of independence. "In removing the
bathing suit, Edna also detaches herself from the implications of her gender." This
implies that when Edna removes her clothing, she feels sexually equal to the male
gender. (McCoy)

It is ironic that Edna drowns herself in the very same sea which gave her the first
enthralling sense of freedom. In Edna's time period, she could not simply live her life
however she chose. Once she came to this realization, Edna was no longer comfortable
in the world. She realized that the only way she could free herself from societal
restraints was to remove herself from society completely, by killing herself.

Just as Edna did not conform to the standards of her peers, Kate Chopin rebelled
against her own peers by writing the novel, The Awakening. She uses attitudes of
characters in her novel toward gender, changes in Edna and her suicide to express her
own feminist attitudes. Chopin was shunned

5. Examine Paraja as a translated novel.

Ans:

Paraja is a translated text with reference to the Oriya original. The various kinds of
translation in Paraja are:

1) Language: In paraja, a novel written originally in Oriya, one of the most significant
aspects for observation is the use of various kinds of language. The language of the
preliterate’s contrasts with the language of the literates, the colloquial language rubs
shoulders with the refined literary language and prose tends towards plays in
structuring the novel is in fact considerable. Gopinath Mohanty makes the use of a
number of expressions from the tribal language, he sometimes inserts into the text a
couple of sentences, a phrase, a few words and expressions taken from the tribal
language. At many points he has carefully explained some of these expressions and at
certain other points he leaves it to the reader’s imagination, and in such situations the
contexts provides the explanation.

2) Colloquial: Colloquial language refers to words and expressions that belong to

familiar speech and not to standardized or elevated speech. In dialogues between
different characters in the novel find innumerable colloquial expressions that are deeply
rooted in the culture of the place and the translator can at best make an effort towards
approximation due the lack equivalents in the target language. If some of the colloquial
words and expressions are given in literal translation, then there might be
misrepresentation, the import and its effect remaining in the original.

The colloquial expressions contrast sharply with language of the tribals on the one
hand, and with standard Oriya on the other. In the English rendering the translator
cannot provide the features of the colloquial, but can only try to provide the meaning of
these words without the colloquial dimension. Even if Oriya is spoken throughout
Orissa, the dialect spoken is the coastal belt is not the same as that spoken in the
Western part, nor is it the same in the south in Koraput district. Therefore it is evident
that the colloquial language gives a sense of the place too.

3. Poetic Prose: Gopinath Mohanty follows a lyrical style in his novel. At times it
becomes difficult to distinguish the borderline between poetry and prose. In the text we
find a profuse use of songs, lyrics, incantations. In addition the text itself is poetic in
style. And the poetic segments of the novel fit into the narrative with felicity and ease
and pose problems as does the transaction of poetry. At times the narrative trying to
portray situations and contexts turns very deep. Even in prose one feels a certain
rhythm. And resonance achieved through diction, images, symbolism and metaphors.
The translation in terms of images and metaphors and symbols come to the English
translation but the nuances of contrast, parallels, and echoes remain in the source text
that is to say, in the Oriya text.

4. Words and Echoes: In the translated text we will find quite a few terms and
expressions wither in Oriya or in tribal language, term like – Goti Gotinood. Putti,
Sahukar, Dharmu, Dhartina, Garod, Duduma – have been explained in the translated
text in most of these cases or they can be easily understood from the context. Dharmu
has been explained as ‘the just one’ Duduma has been explained as waterfalls, Goti-
debt-bound slave. The meanings have been provided, though the words have been
retained. Some of the phrases, expressions and allusions are peculiar to the experience
of the people and in some deep way they convey some meanings and message that
may not be available in another language.

5. Songs: The novel makes use of a number of songs and song-poems at different
junctures. In the Unit they have been pointed out clearly. Musicality is probably the most
dominant ingredient of songs and song-poems and when they are read out in original
form this aspect can very well be realized but in translation we hardly find the music.
That is why the reader of the English version of the novel does miss the music the
music of the songs used in the text.

6. Consideration: No translation is complete, and no translation is perfect in the sense

that all the intentions of the original text cannot be carried over to the target language
text. And it is more so with a novel like Paraja that makes use of the tribal language in a
text written in a regional language along with colloquialisms, his use of deep dense
poetic language makes it even more difficult. In translating this novel of the toughest
task lies in retaining the distinction between the varieties of language used for effect
quite in keeping with the characters of their background. That apart, some other
dimensions like musicality of the songs, the deep poetic language, the turn of phrases
peculiar to a people, too pose problems for purposes for transaction.