Thinking Activity: The Birthday Party

 The Birthday Party by Harold Pinter 

Pinter's The Birthday Party is a perfect example of Comedy of Menace. Throughout the play, we find that the hint of menace is inflected upon the individual freedom of a person and it juxtaposes the comic element drastically dilutes the comic appeal. Pinter shows his state in the existential view that danger prevails everywhere and life can't escape from it. Pinter thinks that Stanley, the protagonist, might have committed a serious crime and is on the run for escaping the consequence and legal implications of his life. This is precisely comprehended while he almost never leaves his room and becomes furiously apprehensive when Meg informs him that two gentlemen are coming to stay in this boarding house. Stanley soon tactfully tries to conceal his apprehension by mentioning his successful concert and about a favourable job proposal of a pianist. But we can realize his innate apprehension for imminent interrogation or arrest by the two new guests at the boarding house. 

Waiting for Godot

♧ Samuel Beckett  :

Beckett is considered to be an important figure among the French Absurdists. “Waiting for Godot” is one of the masterpieces of Absurdist literature. Elements of Absurdity incorporated in the play are so engaging and lively. It is quite clear from the very word “Absurd” that it means nonsensical, opposed to reason, something silly, foolish, senseless, ridiculous and topsy-turvy, therefore, a play having loosely constructed plot, unrecognizable characters, metaphysical angst is called an absurd play. Actually the ‘Absurd Theatre’ believes that humanity’s plight is purposeless in an existence, which is out of harmony with its surroundings. The awareness about the lack of purpose produces a state of metaphysical anguish which is the central theme of the Absurd Theatre. On an absurd play logical construction, rational ideas and intellectually viable arguments are abandoned and the irrationality for experience is acted out on the stage instead.

Micro fiction ( Writing & Reading)

VIRTUAL LITERARY FESTIVAL 2020

Organized by Department of English, Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhaji Bhavnagar university 

25th - 26th - 27th December 2020

Micro fiction competition

{ 1 }  Dharti Makwana ( Sem 4 )

{ 2 }  Kishan Jadav  ( Sem 1 )

{ 3 }  Nirali Makvana  ( Sem 4 )

{ 4 }  Hina Malek  ( Sem 4 )

{ 5 } Mehal Pandya ( Sem 4 )

{ 6 } Kavisha Aalagia ( Sem 4 )

{ 7 } Ruchi Joshi  ( Sem 4 ) 

{ 8 } Samiya Kagdi ( Sem 4 )

{ 9 } Asha Dhedhi ( Sem 4 )

{ 10 } Khushbu Lakhupota ( Sem 1 )

{ 11 } Latta Baraiya ( Sem 1 )

Mahendi ( Photographs )

VIRTUAL LITERARY FESTIVAL 2020

Organized by Department of English, Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhaji Bhavnagar university 

25th - 26th - 27th December 2020

MAHENDI COMPETITION ( PHOTOGRAPHS )

Khushbu Lakhupota ( Sem 1 )

Nirali Makvana ( Sem 4 )

Asha Dhedhi ( Sem 4 )

Dharti Makwana ( Sem 4 )

Payal Chudasma ( Sem 4 )

Bharti Dharaiya ( Sem 4 )

Mehal Pandya ( Sem 4 )

Hina Malek ( Sem 4 )

Assignment ( Season 3 )

 Welcome 

Assignment 

The Post - Colonial Literature 

S. B Gardi

 Department of English, MKBU

Nirali N. Makvana

Sem :- 3

Roll no. 15

niralimakvana9599@gmail.com 

niralimakvana.blogspot.com 

slideshare.net/NiraliMakvana1

Towards a Critique of Colonial Violence: Fanon's Black Skin and White Mask & Gandhi's Hind Swaraj  

♧ Introduction  :-

Colonialism is both a practice and a worldview. As a practice, it involves the domination of a society by settlers from a different society. As a worldview, colonialism is a truly global geopolitical, economic, and cultural doctrine that is rooted in the worldwide expansion of West European capitalism that survived until well after the collapse of most colonial empires. Historically, Colonies in the strict sense, " Settlement " had existed long before the advent of global capitalism. The English word, " Colony " is derived from the Latin term, " Colonia " denoting an outpost or settlement. However, Colonialism as a principle of imperial statecraft and an effective strategy of capitalist expansion that involved sustained appropriation of the resources of other societies, indeed religion of the world 

for the benefit of the colonizing society, backed by an elaborate ideological justificatory apparatus is a modern West - European invention par excellence emerging from the 15th century onwards. 

♧ Definition  ( Colonialism  ) :

As Gayatri Spivak argues,

 

" Representation has two interlocking aspects: vertreten (approximately meaning “stepin someone's place, represent politically in the formal sense”) and darstellen (roughly “re-present, place there,portray”). The tortuous history of colonial representations unfolded in a field of power marked by these two dimensions: The former severely limited the contexts in which the colonized subject could represent herself, and the latter ensured that representations were neither natural nor innocent, as they were always implicated by colonial social relations. "

The word colonialism, according to the Oxford English Dictionary(OED), comes from the Roman ‘colonia’ which meant ‘farm’ or ‘settlement’, and referred to Romans who settled in other lands but still retained their citizenship. Accordingly, the OED describes it as,

" A settlement in a new country … a body of people who settle in a new locality, forming a community subject to or connected with their parent state; the community so formed, consisting of the original settlers and their descendants and successors, as long as the connection with the parent state is kept up."

♧ Foreword: Remembering Fanon : Self, Psyche and Colonial Condition :-

" O my body, make of me always a man who questions! "

                                     Black Skin, White Masks

The book, " Black Skin White Masks "  divided into Eight chapters. The title of each chapter reflects the harsh reality of racism and desire of the black people and white people which portrays the picture of colonial mentality toward racism. The book looks at what goes through the minds of blacks and whites under the conditions of white rule and the strange effects that has, especially on black people. The book started out as his doctoral thesis that he wrote to get his degree in psychiatry. So it is written for white French psychiatrists and speaks mainly about Martinique and France in the early 1950s. The Chapters are :-

• The Black Man and Language 

• The Woman of Colour and the White Man

• The Man of Colour and White Woman

• The So Called Dependency complex of the Colonized 

• The Lived Experience of the Black Man

• The Black Man and Psychopathology 

• The Black Man and Recognition 

• By Way of Conclusion 

ln articulating the problem of colonial cultural alienation Fanon radically questions the formation of both individual and social authority as they come to be developed in the discourse of Social Sovereignty. The social virtues of historical rationality, cultural cohesion, the autonomy of individual consciousness assume an immediate, utopian identity with he subjects upon whom they confer a civil status. The civil state is the ultimate expression of the innate ethical and rational bent of the human mind; the social instinct is the 

progressive destiny of human nature, the necessary transition from Nature to Culture.

Fanon grew up in Martinique, an Island in the Caribbean ruled by France. The  Capital of France, Paris was the metropole, the centre of the empire. Martinique was the bush, the outback, the hinterland, a nowhere kind of place. 

All the top people in Martinique either came from France or received their university education there. They all spoke in perfect French. But most black people in Martinique did not. They spoke Creole, a dialect of French noted for its Swallowed r's. Its closest counterpart in America is Ebonics. Everyone is taught to look down on at school. The middle class tries not to speak it at all except to servant and shame their children out of using it. Fanon noticed that when people came back from France after receiving their university education they would speak in painfully perfect French and yet even if you speak perfect French the racism does not stop.

♧ Mahatma Gandhi's Hind Swaraj and Colonialism in India  :-

Much has been said about Mahatma Gandhi’s Hind Swaraj over the last century. It has been seen as Gandhi’s answer to the revolutionaries, with whose methods he differed. Where does it stand for in the context of a time when colonial hegemony was the order of the day? What sentiments would it have evoked on minds of readers? We do not know for sure, but a textual analysis of the work can be a step towards analysing the message it contained. The text is like none other. It counters – even if through the employment of much polemic – the fundamental claims of colonial modernity in India.

The British came to India and colonised it at a time when western Europe was witness to an array of processes that would usher in a modern world. The Church had been questioned, the scientific revolution had burst forth, and the 18th century Enlightenment had also impacted the way people thought of themselves.

Reason had replaced tradition as an a priori path to knowledge. And perhaps replaced the idea of God, to a limited extent. Yet, this coming of age of autonomous human agency was in practice accompanied by colonial expansionism.

The normative promises of the Enlightenment and the scientific revolution were seamlessly transformed into colonial exploitation and even racism in practice. Antonio Gramsci’s writings bring forth the distinction between the pre-modern, totalitarian state and the modern, hegemonic state. The British saw themselves as a “modern” and modernising state in India. Gandhi in 1908 mounted, in Gramscian terms, a counter-hegemony, a war of position, in the form of the Hind Swaraj . It attacked colonising Europe not on their not being European enough in a modern, hegemonic, sense, but in being fatally modern-European. He imagined the nation in profoundly anti-modern ways in the Hind Swaraj . He dismissed mechanised production; centralised, modern states with powerful armies; modern medicine; the idea of rule of law, and also parliamentary democracy. The point here is not whether he retained these ideas till the end. The point is the breath of life these ideas may have brought to a struggling people further hurt by the colonial claim that they were an inferior civilisation. He adds,

 “The English have not taken India; we have given it to them. They are not in India because of their strength, but because we keep them.”

He argues, “We have managed with the same kind of plough as existed thousands of years ago. We have retained the same kind of cottages that we had in former times and our indigenous education remains the same as before. We had no system of life-corroding competition. Each followed his own occupation or trade and charged a regulation wage. It was not that we did not know how to invent machinery, but our forefathers knew that, if we set our hearts after such things, we would…lose our moral fibre. They further reasoned that large cities were a useless encumbrance and that people would not be happy in them. They were, therefore, satisfied with small villages.”

Textually, Hind Swaraj is an engagement with what freedom means. It disagrees fundamentally with those for whom the freedom of India meant the transfer of political control from British to Indian hands but retention of all British institutions, from the Parliament to a modern, standing army. As Gandhi puts it, “We want English rule without the Englishman. You want the tiger’s nature, but not the tiger; that is to say, you would make India English. And when it becomes English, it will be called not Hindustan but Englistan. This is not the Swaraj (freedom or self-rule) that I want.”

♧ To Sum up  :-

After World War II, formal colonisation gave way to more indirect control, largely through economic intervention (known as ‘neo-colonialism’, a term that was coined by the Ghanaian anticolonial leader Kwame Nkrumah to describe the condition of Africa in the (1960s), or through puppet regimes, such as the US control of South Vietnam, or through military intervention (such as the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, or more recently the US occupation of Iraq). These later histories alert us to both the differences as well as the continuities between formal and more oblique forms of colonial control, a subject to which we will return periodically.

♧ References  :-

♧ Böröcz, József, and Mahua Sarkar. “Colonialism .” SAGE, 2012, pp. 229–234.

♧ Fanon , Frantz. BLACK SKIN WHITE MASKS . Pluto Press, 1986.

♧ Loomba , Ania. Colonialism/Postcolonialism . 3rd ed., Routledge , 2015.

♧ Pathak, Vikas. Gandhi's 'Hind Swaraj', Which Represented a Powerful Counter-Hegemonic Pitch, Challenged Colonialism. 12 Oct. 2019, www.nationalheraldindia.com/opinion/gandhis-hind-swaraj-which-represented-a-powerful-counter-hegemonic-pitch-challenged-colonialism.

Assignment ( Season 3 )

 Welcome!

Assignment 

The American Literature 

S. B. Gardi 

Department of English, MKBU

Nirali N. Makvana 

Sem :- 3

Roll no. :- 14

niralimakvana9599@gmail.com 

niralimakvana.blogspot.com 

slideshare.net/NiraliMakvana1

The Lines that continue to Separate us : Borders in our " Borderless " world, with the reference of the poem " Mending Wall " by Robert Frost 

♧ Abstract  :-

Yes, we are included in the list of developed countries. Am I right? But why ? What are the reasons ? According to my opinion developed in the sense we are increasing our nuclear power, planes, Helicopters and many more powerful weapons for defeating the other countries and making our navy and army more powerful and rich. Because we have the relationship of animosity to each other. Only because of the little piece of land. Time and again the army of each country is killing people of other neighbouring countries. After these all can we say that we are in the list of developed countries because our army is so powerful and rich. We must have to think about it in detail. So, here I am dealing with the topic, " The Lines that continue to Separate us : Borders in our Borderless world with the reference of the Poem " Mending Wall " by Robert Frost. 

♧ Research objectives  :-

♤ To know more about how Robert Frost reflects the relationship between the countries through his poem, " Mending Wall. "

♤ To peek into the current relationship of India with neighbour countries and their animosity relations. 

♤ To know some other literary examples or works which portrays the picture of this type of issues. 

♧ Introduction  :-

Robert Lee Frost  was born on 26th March 1874 and died on 29th January 1963. He was an American poet. His work was initially published in the United States.  Known for his realistic depictions of rural life and his command of American colloquial speech. Frost frequently wrote about settings from rural life in New England in the early twentieth century, using them to examine complex social and philosophical themes. 

Frost was honoured frequently during his lifetime and is the only poet to receive four Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.  He became one of America's rare public literary figures, almost an artistic institution. He was awarded the " Congressional  Gold Medal  in 1960 for his poetic works. On July 22, 1961 Frost was named Poet Laureate of Vermont. 

♧ Critical evaluation of the poem, 

Mending Wall 

Frost’s Mending Wall, which can also be read in full here, was published in 1914 by David Nutt. In modern literature, it is considered as one of the most analyzed and anthologized poems. In the poem, the poet is a New England farmer, who walks along with his neighbor in the spring season to repair the stone wall that falls between their two farms. As they start mending the wall, the narrator asks his neighbor why we need a wall. The poet says that there is something that doesn’t love a wall, but his neighbor says, “Good fences make good neighbors.”

Mending Wall principally analyses the nature of human relationships. When you read Mending Wall it feels like peeling off an onion. The reader analyses, philosophizes and dives deep to search for a definite conclusion that he is unable to find. Yet the quest is more thrilling and rewarding as compared to the Holy Grail itself. The reader understands life in a new way and challenges all definitions.

At the very outset, the poem takes you to the nature of things. Therefore, the narrator says something does exist in the nature that does not want a wall. He says man makes many walls, but they all get damaged and destroyed either by nature or by the hunters who search for rabbits for their hungry dogs. Hence, as soon as the spring season starts, he (narrator), with his neighbor, sets out to repair the wall that keeps their properties separated. Though the narrator comes together with his neighbor to repair the wall, he regards it an act of stupidity. He believes that in fact both of them don’t need a wall. He asks why should there be a wall, when his neighbor has only pine trees and he has apple. How could his apple trees go across the border and eat his neighbor’s pine cones. Moreover there is no chance of offending one and another as they don’t also have any cows at their homes. While the narrator tries to make his neighbor understand that they don’t need a wall, his neighbor is stone-headed savage, who only believes in his father’s age old saying that, “Good fences make good neighbors.”

In terms of form, “Mending Wall” is not structured with stanzas; it is a simple forty-five lines of first-person narrative. Frost does maintain iambic stresses, but he is flexible with the form in order to maintain the conversational feel of the poem. He also shies away from any obvious rhyme patterns and instead relies upon the occasional internal rhyme and the use of assonance in certain ending terms (such as “wall,” “hill,” “balls,” “well”).

This poem is the first work in Frost's second book of poetry, “North of Boston,” which was published upon his return from England in 1915. While living in England with his family, Frost was exceptionally homesick for the farm in New Hampshire where he had lived with his wife from 1900 to 1909. Despite the eventual failure of the farm, Frost associated his time in New Hampshire with a peaceful, rural sensibility that he instilled in the majority of his subsequent poems. “Mending Wall” is autobiographical on an even more specific level: a French-Canadian named Napoleon Guay had been Frost’s neighbor in New Hampshire, and the two had often walked along their property line and repaired the wall that separated their land. Ironically, the most famous line of the poem

 “Good fences make good neighbors”

was not invented by Frost himself, but was rather a phrase that Guay frequently declared to Frost during their walks. This particular adage was a popular colonial proverb in the middle of the 17th century, but variations of it also appeared in Norway, 

“There must be a fence between good neighbors”

Germany,

 “Between neighbor’s gardens a fence is good”

Japan,

“Build a fence even between intimate friends”

and even India,

“Love your neighbor, but do not throw down the dividing wall."

Let us see the examples of issues in modern times between India and neighbouring countries. 

♧ Issues between India & Pakistan  :

India and Pakistan have fought in numerous armed conflicts since their independence. There are three major wars that have taken place between the two states, namely in 1947, 1965 and the Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971. In addition to this was the unofficial Kargil War in 1999 and some border skirmishes. The history between India and Pakistan, both nuclear powers, is inextricably linked. The countries have fought a series of wars since gaining their independence from Great Britain in 1947, largely over the Kashmir region, to which both countries lay claim.

India became a nuclear power in 1974, and Pakistan became a nuclear power in 1998.

Neither country has used nuclear weapons in conflict, but many experts fear that the ongoing crisis could escalate beyond conventional weapons use.

Here is a brief history of the conflict between the two countries.

August 1947: Following the end of British rule, British India was partitioned into India and Pakistan. The provincial division was based on Hindu and Muslim majorities, which caused mass migration for those that did not live in the majorities. Hundreds of thousands of people were killed in communal violence resulting in an atmosphere of hostility that has remained for decades. The Jammu and Kashmir regions have been disputed since partition, with Pakistan and India both claiming ownership.

♧ Issues between India and China  :-

In August, India accused China of provoking military tensions at the border twice within a week. Both charges were denied by China, which said the stand-off was "entirely" India's fault. In early September, China accused India of firing shots at its troops. India accused China of firing into the air. Relations between India and China have been worsening over the past few months, and the two world powers are facing off against each other along their disputed border in the Himalayan region. What ' s the source of tension?

The root cause lies in an ill-defined, 3,440km (2,100-mile)-long border that both countries dispute.

Rivers, lakes and snowcaps along the frontier mean the line can shift, bringing soldiers face to face at many points, sometimes leading to confrontation.

The two nations are also competing to build infrastructure along the border, which is also known as the Line of Actual Control. India's construction of a new road to a high-altitude air base is seen as one of the main triggers for a clash with Chinese troops in June that left at least 20 Indian soldiers dead .

♧ " This Bloody Line " by Redcliffe :-

Marking the 70th anniversary of the partition of British India, and the creation of India and Pakistan as two independent countries, India Today tapped director Ram Madhvani and Equinox Films/Great Guns, to create a short film featuring Sir Cyril Radcliffe.

Radcliffe is most well known for drawing the dividing line that soon led to one of the largest mass migrations in human history.

Set in 1966, ‘This Bloody Line’ delves into the circumstances surrounding the partition through a fictitious conversation between Sir Cyril Radcliffe and his wife Antonia. In the film, which was remarkably filmed in a day, centers on W.H.Auden’s scathing poem, “Partition“, forces the aged Radcliffe to revisit painful memories and confront his role in an event that resulted in the loss of millions of lives.

♧ To Sum up :-

Thus, above all information making us aware about how we are growing. Our country becoming more powerful year by year but we are putting steps back by increasing animosity with our neighbouring countries. As we all know that " Literature is the mirror of society " it portrays the picture of the situation and issues between society and countries through literature. 

♧ References  :-

♧ Alexander, Deepa. The Man Who Saw Tomorrow. 3 Apr. 2017, www.thehindu.com/entertainment/movies/ram-madhvanis-short-film-this-bloody-line/article17772788.ece.

♧ Frost, Robert. "Mending Wall." Gleeditions, 17 Apr. 2011, www.gleeditions.com/mendingwall/students/pages.asp?lid=305&pg=5. Originally published in Tendencies in Modern American Poetry, edited by Amy Lowell, Macmillan, 1917, pp. 92-93.

♧ Karackattu, Joe Thomas. “India - China Border Dispute : Boundary - Making and Shaping of Material Realities from the Mid - Nineteenth to Mid - Twentieth Century .” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , vol. 28, 2017, pp. 2–25.

♧ Singh, Sandeep, et al. “Changing Equations of India - Pakistan Relations : Unresolved Kashmir Dispute as a Decider Factor .” International Research Journal of Social Sciences , vol. 4, no. 3, 2015, pp. 88–95.