Postcolonial theory and Cultural Study

ASSIGNMENT

PAPER No. 4

The Cultural Study

• Name :- Dabhi Rita A.
• M. A Sem :- 2
• Roll no. :- 20
• Topic :-  Postcolonial study.
• email : dabhirita1198@gmail.com
• Enrollment no. :- 2069108420200007
• Submitted :-Department of English

              Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji       Bhavnagar University

💠 Postcolonial theory and cultural            study.

💠 Beginning :-

                     Postcolonial theory is a body of thought primarily concerned with accounting for the political, aesthetic, economic, historical, and social impact of European colonial rule around the world in the 18th through the 20th century. Postcolonialism refers to a historical phase undergone by third world war countries after the decline of colonialism : for example when countries in Asia, Africa, Latin America and the, Caribbean separated from the European empires and were left to rebuild themselves. Many third world writers focus on both colonialism and the changes created in a postcolonial culture. Among the many challenges facing postcolonial writers are the attempt both to resurrect their culture and combat the preconception about their culture.

💠 Postcolonial theory :-

                         A theoretical approach to analyzing the literature produced in countries that were once colonies, especially of European power such as Britain, France and Spain. Postcolonial theory also looks at the broader interaction between European nations and the societies they colonized by dealing with issues such as identity (including gender and class), language, representation, and history. Because native language and culture were replaced or superseded by European traditions in colonial society, part of the past colonialist  project is reclamation. At first glance postcolonial studies would seem to be a matter of history and political science, rather than literary criticism.

                         In literature we find many great postcolonial critics like, the  Palestinian American cultural critic Edward Said was a mejor figure of postcolonial thought, and his book Orientalism is often credited is founding text. And also we find that the other postcolonial critics like Homi K. Bhabha, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak and Frantz Fanon etc. So, let's discuss many critics' views about postcolonialism one by one.

♦️  Edward Said :-  

  

"You cannot continue to victimize someone else just because you yourself were a victim once—there has to be a limit"

   

~ Edward Said

            

                     Edward said's concept of Orientalism was an important touchstone to postcolonial studies. Said's ingenious argument that the Orient was a hegemonic "European invention", a "European representation" as "a place of romance, exotic beings, haunting memories and landscape, remarkable experiences" that had nothing to do with actual reality, has played a major role in disjuncturing the prevailing discourse of empires and conquest. The postcolonial theory is a contemporary school of thoughts.

                           Said sharply critiques the western image of the Oriental as " irrational, depraved (fallen), child- like 'different'," which has allowed the west to define itself as "rational, virtuous, mature,' normal'." Most importantly, postcolonial theory reveals the hidden structures of power and knowledge that govern the social construction of the "Orient" as other Said discusses in" Orientalism".  The West's claim to knowledge of the East gave it the power to control it, and represent it. Postcolonialism is a theory contains poststructuralist nuances of power/ knowledge (Foucault), hegemony ( Gramsci), difference/ differAnce, deconstruction (Derrida) and other such critical theoretical frameworks. Said's approach to postcolonialism is characterised by his emphasis on historicism and empiricism. He questions the theoretical orthodoxy of postmodernism by challenging Jean Francois Lyotard's theory (1978) that  the era of grand narratives of emancipation has ended in the present, postmodernist age.

                          Said contends that for many people in non Western world, the grand narrative still dominates the psyche of colonized subjects and still exists in various shapes and forms is hegemonic western imposition on the mind.  Said want the west to open up "the culture to experience of the other which have reminded "outside" the norms manufacture by the "insiders". ( Orientalism p. 24)

♦️ Frantz Fanon :-

                        

                    The French Algerian Frantz Fanon's anti - colonial works, Black Skins/White Masks and The Wretched Of The Earth, have considered the building blocks in which postcolonial theory was constructed. And also Fanon was a Caribbean Marxist, humanist thinker who has analyzed the "Psychopathology of colonization". Fanon's most famous work "Wretched Of The Earth" was a study of how anti colonial movement can work towards decolonization. In it Fanon closely analyzed the suffering and sense of lost identity of the 'native' and the the dubious role played by the 'native elite' who mimic and admire colonizers and also behave like the oppressors.

     

                 Fanon's anti-colonial critical work had a great impact on the liberationist movement  across the globe. And also his book "Wretched Of The Earth" has been an important inspiration for postcolonial cultural critics and literary critics who seek to understand the decolonizing project of Third World writers especially those interested in African and African American text.

♦️ Homi K. Bhabha :-

Homi k. Bhabha has been praised as a leading postcolonial critic and also he is one of the most important thinker in postcolonial criticism.  He is highly influenced by western poststructuralists theory, notably Jecques Derrida, Jecques Lacan and Michel Foucault. He has contributed a set of challenging concepts such as Hybridity, Mimicry, Ambivalence, the stereotypes, the Uncanny, the Nation otherness etc. to postcolonial theory. Bhabha critiques the presumed dichotomies between center and peripheries; colonized and colonizer. He proposes instead a dialogic model of nationalities, ethnicities and identities characterized by what he called hybridity; they are something new, emerging from a '' Third Space" to interrogate the givens of the past. Perhaps his most important contribution has been to stress that colonialism is not a one way Street, that because it involves an interaction between colonizer and colonized, the colonizer is as much affected by its systems as the colonized. The colonized subjects often mimics the colonizer, desiring to take on the 'superior' persona of the colonizer. Bhabha calle this " syndrome Mimicry" but very often this Mimicry can be ironic, almost becoming a mockery.

♦️ Gayatri Chakravorty spivak :-

           Gayatri Chakravorty spivak is a very important figure in postcolonial feminism, who examines the effect of political independence upon "subaltern" or subproletarian women in the Third World. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak's subaltern studies reveals how female subjects are silenced by the dialogue between the male-dominated Waste and the male-dominated East. The question of identity is front and centre for Spivak, with a cult following built up in the 1980s, Spivak mediates an identity for subaltern by creating a counter discourse that undercuts the dominant structures. Like Said she is fluent in several languages and literatures, crossing the intellectual border between North America, Europe and India, the place of her birth.

              Like Said, Spivak has often  been the target of criticism from small minded critics for her privileged and elitist background, her use of theory and her persona. " Strategic essentialism" is another mejor concept in postcolonial theory that spivak has contributed. Spivak rejects the notion of Identity based on national or regional affiliations both Said and Spivak believe in a secular identity. Both Edward Said and Gayatri Chakravorty spivak discuss the need for postcolonial intellectuals to become responsible public intellectuals and represent those who are oppressed, but both also realize that intellectuals may also be compromised by their influence and positions. "A Critique of Postcolonial Reason"  is a very important book by Spivak.  Spivak wrote her book as an attempt to understand and describe a more responsible role for the postcolonial critic. A Critique of Postcolonial Reason tracks the figure of the “native informant” through various cultural practices—philosophy, history, literature—to suggest that it emerges as the metropolitan hybrid. The book addresses feminists, philosophers, critics, and interventionist intellectuals, as they unite and divide.

♦️ To sum up :-

                               So. Frantz Fanon's foundational work provided a manifesto for understanding the psyche and condition of colonialism. Postcolonial theory has been built upon this foundation with the use of Said's theory of Orientalism as a systemic and  systematic super structure. As postcolonial theory has grown and circulated over the last three decades, it has acquired various standards and new areas of critique. Said and other two contem6 critics Homi K. Bhabha and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, are generally considered to form the holy trinity in postcolonial theory. According to Robert Young (1995).

                             The Postcolonial literature deals with framing identities, the politics of rewriting, translations, relation between nation and nationalism. Postcolonial critics accordingly study diasporic texts outside the usual Western genres, especially productions by aboriginal authors, marginalized ethnicities, immigrants, and refugees. Postcolonial literatures from emerging nations by such writers

as Chinua Achebe and Salman Rushdie are read alongside European responses to colonialism by writers such as George Orwell and Albert Camus.

💠 Work cited :-

Burney, Shehla. “CHAPTER TWO: Edward Said and Postcolonial Theory: Disjunctured Identities and the Subaltern Voice.” Counterpoints, vol. 417, 2012, pp. 41–60. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/42981699. Accessed 8 Mar. 2020.

Guerine, Wilfred L. A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature. Oxford University Press, 2005.

Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. A Critique of Postcolonial Reason: toward a History of the Vanishing Present. Harvard Univ. Press, 2003.

Mythological and formalist approach in Frankenstien

ASSIGNMENT

PAPER No. 1

The Romantic Literature

• Dabhi Rita A.
• M. A Sem :- 2
• Roll no. :- 20
• Topic :- mythological and formalist approach in Frankenstein.
• email : dabhirita1198@gmail.com
• Enrollment no. :- 2069108420200007
• Submitted :-Department of English                             Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar                       University

💠Beginning :-

                In the present time myths are very important for us to read because they tell of the morals and traditions of those societies. And also many great and modern writers referred to these myths in their writing particularly once originating from Greek and Roman mythology as well as the Bible, the tele the Shelley talks is an old one rife with the profundities and far reaching implication of antiquity.

                          Frankenstein, or the modern Prometheus by Mary Shelley. The novel might have been written as a horror story, but the ideas and themes prevalent in the novel are ones men have grappled with  for ages, from ancient Greek myth to the Bible. In Shelley's novel, the allusions to the myth of prometheus and the biblical story of creation provide parallel characters for Frankenstein and his creation.

💠 About Author :-

          Frankenstein; or The Modern Prometheus  by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1797-1851). She was a well known English author . She also edited and promoted the works of her husband, the romantic poet and philosopher P. B. Shelley. And her father was the political philosopher William Godwin. Her mother was also philosopher and feminist. Mainly Shelley was known for her efforts to publish her husband's works and her novel Frankenstein. The novel Frankenstein tells the story of Victor Frankenstein, a young scientist who creates a sapient creature in an unorthodox scientific experiment. Frankenstein is infused with elements of the Gothic novel and the Romantic movement. In this novel we find that Mary Shelley used many myths like Prometheus, Paradise Lost etc. Mary Shelley's works often argue that cooperation and sympathy, particularly as practised by women in the family, were the ways  the reform civil society. Apart from this she wrote many other notable works like,

• "History of a six weeks' Tour"

• "Frankenstein; or The Modern Prometheus (1818)

• " The last Man" (1826)

• " Perkin Warbeck" (1830)

• " Lodore" (1835)

• "Historical novels Valperga" (1823)

• " Faulkner" (1837) etc

💠 Mythological approach in Frankenstein :-

                 

                   Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein  has become one of the greatest novels of the Romantic period. Its allusion to the classical epic Paradise Lost, by John Milton, combined with the archetypical figure of Prometheus composes the novel’s mythological heritage. Myths are crucial elements when analyzing Frankenstein. First, they are the hypotexts of the novel. Second, Frankenstein has become a myth, a cultural icon.

                      In Frankenstein, Mary Shelley uses the myth of Prometheus and Paradise Lost in an ambivalent mode; they maintain their original meaning, but, at the same time, they acquire a specific feature that suits the novel better. For instance, the archetypical figure of Prometheus is represented by a mortal man, which changes significantly the outcome of the story. Besides, the figure of a divine creator, Prometheus in the Greek mythology or God in Milton’s epic, is transformed into a fallible mortal man in the novel.

"To us it seems that Hermes' speech is to the point.

What he commands to you is to relax from your

self-will and seek the wisdom that's in good advice.

Do as he says, since wrong is shameful in the wise."

--The Chorus, Prometheus Bound

   

                  In Ancient Greek mythology, Prometheus was said to be the wisest of all the Titans. In the form of fire Prometheus is credited with bringing mankind knowledge and enlightenment. He stole fire from the Gods of Mount Olympus. For acting against the decree of the Gods, who wanted to keep the power of fire to themselves, Prometheus was harshly punished. He was chained to a rock to have his liver eaten out every day by an eagle. Every night his liver would grow back. This was to be his punishment for all of eternity.

           The title of Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein; Or The Modern Prometheus itself suggests that Mary Shelley was influenced by this tale.Prometheus, the pagan version of man’s creator, was one of the favorite archetypes of the Romantics. Aside from the title, Shelley borrows from the tale of Prometheus a sense of consequence resulting from seeking enlightenment and power. Victor is her modern incarnation of Prometheus. He, as Prometheus was, is fascinated by the power of electricity (lightning). We can recall from the narrative the moment when he becomes captivated by its fantastical power. Frankenstein is not a mere copy of this mythological story; it has new plot, themes and settings.

                  Another important hypotext of Frankenstein is Milton’s Paradise Lost for it represents the Christian version of the creation of man. In the novel we find that monster who read Paradise Lost . And also here we find that creature can be related to Adam, Eve and Satan. And Victor Frankenstein maybe compared mainly to God, Adam and Satan. Mary Shelley borrows Milton’s concept of Paradise Within and, paradoxically, has her characters experience a Hell Within. For instance, in Paradise Lost, Satan declares that “the mind is its own place, and itself can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven'', which emphasizes the idea that living in a paradise, or a hell, depends on each one’s mind; it’s a matter of choice.In Frankenstein, the Creature puts himself on the same level as Satan when he chooses to hunt Victor down and make him suffer. In the novel when a creature feels loneliness, which seems his greatest fear. He meets De Lacey's family, he thinks that he was accepted by De Lacey's family but as he is rejected, and then he goes to his creator to request a companion " as deformed and horrible as" him. First Victor agrees to help the monster, but at the end he destroys the other creature before he finishes it. Thus, the monster is condemned to loneliness again, and, after Frankenstein’s death, the Creature doesn’t see any reason to continue living and condemns himself to experience a real hellish ending. Even his final moment of life alludes to Satan and his eternal lost condition. In Mary Shelley’s novel, Paradise Lost’s archetypes are invoked to establish a contrast between her characters’ experiences and the ideal paradise.

💠 Formalist approach in Frankenstein :-

                    The formalist method of literary criticism is primarily focused on the text itself, rather than external topics such as history and background, the author's biographical information, or the social contexts which surround a piece of work. In this aspect, the element of form is considerably more abstract than the obvious box-within-a-box structure alluded to above. Here we find that two opposing concepts, with related word and phrase patterns, give not a visual shape or from the novel but a contrast that forms a major theme of the novel, even as the contrast provides an aesthetic appreciation of the novel. In the novel two quests of Walton and Frankenstein : they dream of great scientific successes that would win them enduring respect from their fellow human beings. This pattern of dreams and disasters is clearly manifested in Frankenstein, particularly in recurrent words and phrases, the words hope and despair being the dominant ones.

                     In the beginning of the novel Walton's first letter to his sister we already see his desire to discover the "power" of "the needle" and he has "ardent curiosity" to pursue his study of what the magic of the compass may be.Walton's second letter introduces the idea of loss and loneliness. The latter IV introduces the theme hope, where Walton quotes Frankenstein as saying,

"You have hope, and the world before you, and have no cause for despair. But I--I have lost everything, and cannot begin life anew".

       In Chapter 9, the last of Volume TWo, Frankenstein agrees to the request, upon which the monster departs. The word hope does not occur here, but clearly it is a moment of hope for him. For Frankenstein, however, it is another low ebb and " the gentle affection of my beloved Elizabeth was inadequate to draw me from the depth of my despair." So, the chapter and volume end with that motive of something between hope and despair.

💠 To sum up :-

                     So, when Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein, she appropriated the means of Prometheus and paradise lost and adopted them to a new context. The fact that Frankenstein, as the myth of Prometheus, may be re-viewed reinforces the idea that it has become a myth as important to our society as Prometheus was to the Romantics. If we analyze the novel Frankenstein through the formalist perspective at the time we find that the form of the novel is largely shaped by the contrast between hubristic hope and human despair. The word hope and despair are clear exponents of this theme. we occasionally have a box-within-a-box effect, which in turn introduces a possibility of a shifting point of view.

💠 Work cited :-

• Guerine, Wilfred L. A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature. Oxford University Press, 2005.

• Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft. Frankenstein. London: Hughes,Harding,Mavor and Jones, 1818.

Major themes of Middlemarch

ASSIGNMENT

PAPER No. 2

The Victorian Literature

• Dabhi Rita A.
• M. A Sem :- 2
• Roll no. :- 20
• Topic :- Themes of Middlemarch
• email : dabhirita1198@gmail.com
• Enrollment no. :- 2069108420200007
• Submitted :-Department of English                     Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar                    University

💠 Why might George Eliot have written about the role of marriage. Consider the role of money. Consider the role of political progress.

💠 About Author :-

                  Middlemarch, in full title Middlemarch : A study of provincial life, novel by Mary Ann Evans (22 November 1819 - 22 December 1880)  known by her pen name George Eliot. Middlemarch is considered to be George Elliot's masterpiece. The novel was published in eight parts in 1871-72 and also published in Four volumes in 1872 . In the novel Eliot described many issues including the status of women, the nature of marriage, idealism, self-interest, religion, hypocrisy, political reform, and education etc. The focus, however, is on the thwarted idealism of its two principal characters, Dorothea Brooke and Tertius Lydgate, both of whom marry disastrously. Apart from this novel she wrote manny other notable works like,

• “Middlemarch”
• “Felix Holt”
• “Scenes of Clerical Life”
• “Romola”
• “Adam Bede”
• “Daniel Deronda”
• “The Mill on the Floss”
• “Silas Marner”

💠 Major themes  :-

                      Theme is defined as a main idea or an underlying meaning of a literary work, which may be stated directly or indirectly. In the Middlemarch we find that George Eliot who described many mejor themes like,  the role of money, society of Middlemarch as a web, role of marriage, and political reform etc. So, let's discuss the themes of Middlemarch one by one.

💠 Role Of Money (💸💰💸) :-

                      Here in the novel we find that both money and the lack of it cause many problems for the characters in Middlemarch. In the novel some characters are obsessed with money , whereas others spurns it. The novel presents a variety of ways in which money issues can have a damaging, even ruinous impact on a person's life. The way in which money has a problematic impact on people's lives is through the greed simulated by the possibility of inheritance. This is best demonstrated by the scene of Mr. Featherstone's funeral , when all his money relatives assemble to hear the reading of his will. This scene brings out the very worst in the assembled characters; rather than focusing on mourning Featherstone or even just maintaining dignity during the reading of the will, they greedily obsess over how much they will inherit from him. This is illustrated by the description of Fred Vincy biting his cheeks to stop himself from smiling when he learns of his inheritance.

                                       Another significant way in which money ruins people’s lives is the concept of “dirty money,” which becomes especially prominent toward the end of the novel. When a desperate Lydgate is forced to the brink of declaring bankruptcy, he accepts a loan offered to him by Bulstrode. It turns out that this money was acquired through deception and theft, and when this fact emerges Lydgate is implicated in the scandal that ensues, making him a pariah in Middlemarch society. In the novel along with Ladislaw, Dorothea and Caleb Garth are other examples of characters who reject greed. Dorothea repeatedly says she hates her wealth, and she eventually chooses to marry Ladislaw even though the stipulation in Casaubon’s will means that doing so will make her lose everything she inherited from her deceased husband.

💠 The society of Middlemarch as a web :-

                        In the novel we find that Elliot continuously uses the metaphor of a web. A small society of Middlemarch is a metaphor for an intricate web of social relationship. The story in the novel reveals the reciprocal correlation between an individual character and the external society. She intricately weaves together the disparate life experiences of a large cast of characters. Many characters subscribe to a world-view; others want to find a world-view to organize their lives. For example, Lydgate wants to do great things as a doctor/researcher, but his marriage to the very conventional Rosamond and his attempts to go his own way are both failures. One needs allies to buck convention—and a supportive wife. Lydgate's lack of understanding of the web of society and his bad marriage means he ends up selling out his talent for money, something Eliot condemns. All of society suffers when a person can't pursue their talents and ideals. In the Middlemarch we see that Lydgate himself suffers from an empty life as he abandons his youthful hopes. And also in the novel we see that especially in the cases of Dorothea and Lydgate, the web of society traps people so that they can not fully use their gifts.

                       The absence of a single, triumphant world-view to organize all life is the basic design of Middlemarch. The web of Elliot's Middlemarch (1871-72)  reflects this advocacy of communication on many levels. Her vast knowledge of natural and physical science helped to create its structure and imagery, and the novel's network. The novel offers the communications web as an epistemological and moral model, suggesting that the securest knowledge and the finest life are those richest in connections.

💠 Marriage :-

               Marriage is  one of the major and central themes of the novel Middlemarch . Most of the characters in Middlemarch marry for rather than obligation, yet marriage still appears negative and unromantic. In the Middlemarch we find that two examples are the failed marriage of Dorothea and Lydgate. Dorothea's  marriage failed because of her youth and of her disillusions about marrying a much older man.

                        And on the other side we find  that Lydgate's marriage fails because of his irreconcilable personality. Mr. and Mrs. Bulstrod also faces a marital crisis due to his inability to tell her about the past, and Fred Vincy and Mary Girth also face a great deal of hardship in making their union. As none of the marriages  reach a perfect fairytale ending. Middlemarch offers a clear critique of the usual portrayal of marriage as romantic and unproblematic.

💠 Political Reform :-

                  This is another important theme of the novel. Politics and science seem equally to offer the prospect of social improvement to Eliot’s characters. The Catholic Relief Act of 1829 has just been passed, removing the long-standing ban on Roman Catholics becoming Members of Parliament at Westminster. Reform is in the air. The people of Middlemarch continue to debate ‘the Catholic question’, but there are even greater changes on the horizon. Politics possesses Dorothea’s uncle Mr Brooke, who stands as a parliamentary candidate in support of the Reform Bill introduced by the government of Lord Grey, who became Prime Minister in 1830. What was called The Representation of the People Act eventually passed in 1832.

                Mr Brooke is on the side of parliamentary reform, a cause suspiciously regarded by many of the burgers of Middlemarch. Brooke is supported by Will Ladislaw, a far more intelligent idealist, who tries to advise him but frets at his incompetence. Brooke is convinced that the times are with him – ‘we shall make a new thing of opinion here’ – but proves a poor advocate of progress (ch. 46).George Eliot’s first readers lived in a post-Reform age and are invited to think that the 1832 Act was overdue and modest in its ambitions.  Yet it is entirely characteristic of the novel that enthusiasm for reform is depicted with rueful irony.

💠To concluded :-

                       A major theme in Middlemarch is Eliot's exploration of the way the web of society is both necessary and restrictive. Eliot argues that we are not simply individuals pursuing our own desires but that what we do impacts the people around us, and their actions, in turn, impact us. Middlemarch is not about a lone hero, or a handful of lone heroes, but about the life of an entire town. For this reason, Eliot subtitled her novel "A Study of Provincial Life."

Scientific aspects in Frankenstein

Scientific aspects in Frankenstein from RitaDabhi1

Slow Movement

Welcome readers!

💠 Slow Movement :-

"Slow down and everything you are

closing will come around and catch you"

~ John De Paola

                  It is a culture revolution against the notion that faster is always better. The slow philosophy is not about doing everything at a snail's pace. It is about seeking to do everything at the right speed.

                       Carl Honore's 2004 book  In Praise Of Slow , in this book we find that he explored how the slow philosophy might be applied in very field of human endeavour and coined the phrase " Slow Movement ".  And also Jean Baudrillard, Paul Virilio and Ulrich Beck who gave the different way to outcome the danger of speed. Jean Baudrillard described the term, " Simulacra " of postmodern life which have taken the place of real objects. Baudrillard geve the description of reality and artificial things that how its changes the life of people.

Ulrich Beck discussed on the risk society. Risk theory for cultural studies reveals the extent that society or Culture thrives on risk providing information about potential risk, possible solution and so on. Beck said that while looking for the solution of the problem, the solution itself turn down to be problem. Thus, above all information we can say that Slow Movement creates the way of dangerous which put harm effect on society.  All above three Baudrillard, Virilio and Beck gave idea of new technology, speed of science and risk society which connected with culture. And also life of people.