SMART MOVES

James Baldwin: The Dark Realities of Racial Ferment in America

2023-10-10T06:19:55-04:00

African-American literature from approximately 1940 to the mid-1970 was primarily a masculinist enterprise dominated by Richard Wright’s protest novel and Ralph Ellison’s literary pluralism. It can be surmised that along with Alice Walker, re-discovery of Zora Neale Hurston and the pastoral tradition, the last two decades have witnessed an explosion of writing by black women and the recuperation of a black female literary history that dramatizes a specifically urban sensibility suggested by the novels of, among others, Nela Larsen, Ann Petry, and, of course. Toni Morrison. In the process, Baldwin’s novels have been relegated to the archives of the unread, cast aside in favour of the lapidary, famously polemical essays. The novels, however, despite their poor critical reception, are interesting because they rarely capitulate to the urge for a simplified rhetoric that characterizes the essays of the early 1970s, persistently retaining the unresolved tension and complexity of a writer- a gay black writer no less-divided between his role as a popular spokesman for the race and his role as an artist whose imaginative life encompasses aesthetic standards that may alienate a popular audience. The novel form partially liberated Baldwin from the pressures that, he felt as an essayist answerable to frequently hostile audience, both black and white. Baldwin’s work, moreover, suggests a cultural space where the trend in black literary history to polarize itself along gender lines might be reversed.

‘Culture’ in Orhan Pamuk’s Select Novels: Istanbul, Snow and The Black Book

2023-01-11T10:14:57-05:00

Asia Minor reflects a great cross road of ancient civilizations and is geographically positioned between the Black sea and the Mediterranean Sea. The Romans called this broad peninsula as Lesser Minor and it has become the Asian Part of the present Modern Turkey. This peninsula is spread from the east of Greece, the Aegean Sea across Thrace and Greeks call this land as Anatolia.

Asia Minor is located to the west of Asia and half a mile towards Europe at the separated city of Istanbul. The two continents Europe and Asia Minor are linked by two suspension bridges over the Bosphorus River. Asia Minor shares it borders on the northwest with the Sea of Marmara. The peninsula area is of 292,000 square miles.

The high arid plateau of Asia Minor about 3,000 feet is flanked by rugged mountain ranges to the north and south. Several salty lakes were formed in the plateau region by a number of mountain ranges enclosing valleys which are flat and broad.

LANGSTON HUGHES: THE MAN AND THE POET

2023-10-09T07:27:46-04:00

Langston Hughes is usually thought of as a poet, but he also wrote novels, plays, short stories, essays, autobiographies, newspaper columns, children’s books, and the words to operas. He also translated into English the works of foreign poets. Hughes was one of the first black writers who could support himself by his writings. He is praised for his ability to say what was important to millions of black people. Hughes produced a huge amount of work during his lifetime. He also has influenced the works of many other writers. He wrote for almost fifty years.

Langston Hughes is famous for his descriptions of black American life. He used his work to praise his people and voice his concerns about race and social injustice. His work is known all around the world and has been translated into many languages. Hughes’s poetry had serious messages. He often wrote about racial issues, describing his people in a realistic way. Although his story was not often pleasant, he told it with understanding and with hope. Langston Hughes thus is a voice of the havenots, downtrodden and the marginalized sections of the scoiety not only in America but also elsewhere.

Wings of Courage: Feminist Consciousness in the Select Texts of Buchi Emecheta and Flora Nwapa

2021-04-23T09:26:27-04:00

Buchi Emecheta’s Second-Class Citizen (1974), The Joys of Motherhood (1979) and Flora Nwapa’s Efuru (1966) are texts that can be read in the light of feminist literary theories. These texts were selected as it dealt with the obstacles and oppression that Nigerian women encountered in their lives. These texts attack patriarchy and examine the personal from black women’s point of view. These selected texts attempts to cleanse the society that upholds patriarchy and analyze the situation of black women from their own point of view. Both fictional and autobiographical elements in these texts serve to highlight the experiences of different black women and expose the various ways by which women are affected by race, gender, culture and tradition. The focus of the book is on the lived experiences of black women in Nigeria. An attempt is made to analyze the lives of black women as is seen by the Nigerian women writers, Buchi Emecheta and Flora Nwapa.

The selected novelists outline the changes in the social and cultural arenas due to the spread of western education and Christianity. Both Efuru and The Joys of Motherhood portray the ostracization of the childless women prevalent in the community. Efuru analyzes the western influence on traditional Igbo beliefs and customs. Efuru, the protagonist is not shattered for being childless. She emerges as an independent woman, creates new identity and spiritually nurtures her community.

Emecheta’s The Joys of Motherhood does not glorify motherhood. Children do not necessarily have a loving relationship with their mothers. Emecheta states in the novel, “the joy of being a mother is the joy of giving all to your children” (219). The title of the novel is taken from Flora Nwapa’s Efuru and sounds bitterly ironic. The Joys of Motherhood is her most complex novel where she differs from the existing socio-political and cultural imperatives. She uses literary devices like flash back, interior monologue and bildungsroman. In this novel she deals with several issues like the problems of polygamy, motherhood and situation of widows and childless women. While male writers like Chinua Achebe portray mother with reverence, Buchi Emecheta presents the problems and chaos involved in a mother’s life.

Nnu Ego, the central character in Emecheta’s The Joys of Motherhood realizes that children do not always bring fulfillment. As Marie A. Umeh points out in “The Joys of Motherhood: Myth or Reality?”

What Emecheta does is to present an African woman’s reaction to a universal problem. Children often fail to honour their parents. In voicing this idea through the traditionalist, Nnu Ego, Emecheta emphasizes the fact that women have the social responsibility to criticize and participate in the social order (41).

Nnu Ego evolves from a staunch traditionalist to a feminist as she realizes her second class status. As Umeh states,

The ironies and cruelties of her life force the protagonist to move from the collective consciousness to the individual consciousness … Like her spokesperson, the narrator, Nnu Ego having found a place for herself in the new order of female emancipation divorces herself from the traditional African concepts in her search for abundant life” (43).

Finally she realizes that sacrificing friends and comforts of life for her sons were mistakes. Sometimes Emecheta personally identifies with the character as when she says, “The men make it look as if we must aspire for children or die” (187).

Second-Class Citizen successfully depicts the protagonist Adah’s growth from a naïve young girl to her final stage of self-realization and independence. The novel discusses the numerous struggles of Adah as a mother, wife and as a migrant. Though she faces racism in London, her husband, Francis is her major opponent. The novel describes her life in a foreign land with an inconsiderate and selfish husband. Katherine Frank asserts that “the best place to approach Emecheta’s fiction is with neither her first nor her last book, but with Second-Class Citizen” (479).

All these selected texts throw light on women’s dreams, their ability to master pain and betrayal with courage and their capacities to evolve into strong independent women. The women characters in these novels like Efuru, Adah, Nnu Ego and Adaku assert the needs of both collective and individual female identity within their culture. These women transcend the barriers imposed by the traditional Igbo society though Nnu Ego becomes a rebel only after her death. They participate fully as human beings for the welfare of their community instead of confining themselves to their roles of daughters, wives and mothers.

Does Feminism Support Infidelity? Through The Novels of Manju Kapur with Special Emphasis on Home and a Married Woman

2021-04-22T09:12:30-04:00

An internationally acclaimed Indian woman novelist, Manju Kapur, the Common Wealth Prize winner is also called the Jane Austen of India. Born on 6^th August 1948 in Amritsar, she has lived through the turbulent times in India. She was graduated from the Miranda House University College for Women. Then she took her MA at Dalhousie University in Halifax in Nova Scotia and an M.Phil from Delhi University. She then returned to her alma mater Miranda House as a teacher and retired from there. As her father worked in the cultural attaché in the Indian Embassy in America and Canada, she spent her childhood there. She is married to Gun Nidhi Dalmia, and has three children. She lives in Delhi.

She is one of the famous post independence feminist writers who fought for the rights of women through her novels. She has written five full length novels. Difficult Daughters (1998), A Married Woman (2002), Home (2006), The Immigrant (2009) and Custody (2011) are her widely acclaimed novels. All her novels deal with the problems faced by Indian woman in her life and how she deals with these problems. Her debut novel Difficult Daughters won the Commonwealth Prize for First Novels (Eurasia Section) and became a best seller in India. Home was shortlisted for Hutch Crossword Book award.

Many customs like Purdah system, child marriage, Sati, ban on remarriage etc prevailed in India and all these customs marginalized women. The feminists united to eradicate these social evils from our society. Preserving the culture of India, Manju Kapur wanted her characters to be strong enough to gain their genuine rights which society once denied. She is a post colonial feminist writer who raised her voice against the traditional patriarchal culture. She is the one who introduced the concept of ‘New Woman’ in Indian novels. Till then, the Indian feminist writers dealt with the pathetic condition Indian women suffered in this male dominated society. Manju Kapur wanted her protagonists to move a step forward from these woman stereotypes. She wanted a woman who questions the rules regulated by patriarchy and who breaks all the shackles which limits her from gaining an identity of her own. Though she craves for gender equality in all aspects, she never wants her characters, especially her women characters to move away from the culture of their mother country. There is an underlying moral in all her novels. She never wants her feminism to go beyond the limits of Indian culture.

UGC NET/SET DIGEST MARKETING MANAGEMENT

2021-04-22T12:34:38-04:00

Marketing Management is one of the most fundamental areas of concern in this contemporary world. No doubt the phenomenon of designing, manufacturing, estimating benefits and costs have changed a lot but marketing is the functional area that has witnessed crucial level of competition in the recent business arena. It is also one among the most relevant field for research and study for students, scholars as well as other researchers. This book is one such initiative that is equipped with MCQ’s on Marketing Management and surely shall help the learners up to greater extent in getting latest knowledge and qualifying competitive examination. The book has been written with one prime objective of providing comprehensive knowledge to those students who are eager to qualify UGC NET/SET/SLET and want to join the prestigious teaching profession. The themes on whom various MCQ’s have been covered in this book include understanding of Marketing Management, Marketing Strategies, plans and policies, Corporate and Business level planning, Analyzing Marketing Comprehensions, Internal and external environment and environmental sectors, marketing research and forecasting, customer value analysis, customer and business markets, buying and decision process, segmentation and positioning, building brands, analysis of market competition, product and pricing strategy, designing and management of services, designing of marketing channels, ebusiness and ecommerce, integrated and holistic marketing, promotion mix, global marketing, holistic market orientation, social responsibility and marketing etc.

I hope that the book will be highly appreciated by students, scholars and teachers. Moreover, I welcome all suggestions that will help in appraising contents and enrichment of this book.

Devotional Elements in the Poetry of Tukaram and Ralph Waldo Emerson-A Comparative Study

2021-12-31T11:36:40-05:00

Comparative study of literature is an important discipline, which has opened several avenues of studying cultures of different religions, and countries. The world of literature offers opportunities to acquaint ourselves with literature and the genius working at different times and places. Many a time, it so happens that though two minds are separated by time and spaces think alike. This is particularly so in the case of poets and prophet. Tukaram belong to 17^th century from India, state of Maharashtra who wrote devotional poetry in Marathi whereas Ralph Waldo Emerson belongs to 19^th century of America. Generally two cases looks so unlike each other, separated by time and religion representing two different cultures. However, the creative urges that inspired two have much in common. The 17^th century, India was a politically disturbed country and inherent paradoxes in the caste structure made the life of an individual like Tukaram a sage of suffering. 19^th century America was equally hostile to independent thinkers and theologian like Emerson whose transcendental philosophy was a deviation from prevalent puritan thought. Emerson led the life of a saint who swam naked in the Walden and preached in the street of Boston. A Divinely gifted orator project him as an exponent of a new religious philosophy. Tukaram’s religion belief value every individual as representative of the Almighty made him a poet of divine concerns.