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 ASSIGNMENT SOLUTIONS GUIDE (2017-2018)
M.E.G.-8
New Literatures in English
Disclaimer/Special Note: These are just the sample of the Answers/Solutions to some of the Questions given in the
Assignments. These Sample Answers/Solutions are prepared by Private Teachers/Tutors/Authors for the help and guidance
of the student to get an idea of how he/she can answer the Questions in given in the Assignments. We do not claim 100%

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accuracy of these sample answers as these are based on the knowledge and capability of Private Teacher/Tutor. Sample
answers may be seen as the Guide/Help for the reference to prepare the answers of the Questions given in the Assignment.

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As these Solutions And Answers are prepared by the Private Teacher/Tutor so the chances of error or mistake cannot be

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denied. Any Omission or Error is highly regretted though every care has been taken while preparing these Sample

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Answers/Solutions. Please consult your own Teacher/Tutor before you prepare a Particular Answer and for up-to-date

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and exact information, data and solution. Student should must read and refer the official study material provided by the
university.
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Ans. The following points should be noted in this context:
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Attempt all the ten questions and answer each question in approximately 500 words.
Q. 1. Attempt a postcolonial analysis of South Asian literatures written in English.
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1. As per the postcolonial point of view the old canonized works such as Shakespeare’s The Tempest and

universal meaning. m
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2. The teaching of the colonial text is bound to differ in the classroom teaching.
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Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre need to be studied afresh from the revisionist angle in view of authorial intention and

education.

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3. It is worth-noting that like Ngugi in Kenya, Mahatma Gandhi in India was totally opposed to the English

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4. According to him, this created a gap between the educated classes and the masses.
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in 1938.
6. It tantamounts to :
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5. In his opinion, it is English education which “makes their presence possible in India.” This is what he said
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(i) rejection of the imperial culture, and
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(ii)an assertion of Indian nationalism.

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7. (i) According to David Faust (in his article “Politics of Development in Post-colonial India” published in

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“Economic and Political Weekly” (EPW) (July 28 August 3, 2001, Vol. xxxvi, No. 30) English medium education
causes social fracturing.
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(ii)As a marker of class privilege, it causes struggle and polarization, causing tension among classes and castes

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and on religions and gender lines.
8. If in Raja Rao’s preface to Kanthapura we get the textual strategies of subversion and appropriation, in

w
R.K. Narayan’s “The English Teacher” (1946) we find the hero Krishna rebelling against English education,
characterizing the era a “whole century of false education.”
9. However, English literature is praised when we have the words “what fool could be insensible to
Shakespeare’s sonnets or ‘The Ode to the West Wind.”
10.The postcolonial pedagogy undertakes to retrieve and provide recognition to the long-suppressed knowledge
systems.
11. The following words of Stuart Hall merit attention:
“... When cultural studies began its work ... it had ... to undertake the task of unmasking what it considered to
be the unstated presuppositions of the humanist tradition itself. It had to bring to light the ideological assumptions
underpinning the practice, to expose the educational programme ... and to try and conduct and ideological critique of
the way the humanities and the arts presented themselves as parts of disinterested knowledge.” (Hall, 1990, 15)

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Problems with the Postcolonial Paradigm
It should be noted that:
1. The ground realities of the developing countries of South Asia or Africa differ widely from the high theories
circulated by diasporic intellectuals because of their educational empowerment.
2. (i) Certain critics reject outright the theoretical and intellectual theories unrelated to “everyday” sociality.
(ii)Among them, we have:
(a) Arif Dirlik,
(b) Aizaz Ahmad, etc.
3. According to Ahmad, preoccupation with a “play of identities” obscures the “real” politics of collectivity.
4. Similarly, Dirlik in his article, “The Postcolonial Aura: Third world criticism in the age of global capitalism,”
argues that “epistemological and psychic orientations of postcolonial intellectual” do not address the “problems of
social, political and cultural domination.”

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5. (i) A sort of myopic approach is thus, inherent in the postcolonial literature.
(ii)While the main focus of social feminists and Marxists is on class system, the psychoanalytic feminists are

chauvinism.

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chiefly concerned with gender and sexuality with a stress on feminism and a rebellious attitude against male

1. In this context, the following remarks of the French critic Foucault as quoted by Leela Gandhi, seen very
pertinent:

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One must not suppose that there exists a certain sphere of ‘marginality’ that would be the legitimate concern of
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a free and disinterested scientific inquiry were it not the object of mechanisms of exclusion brought to bear by the

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economic or ideological requirements of power. If ‘marginality’ is being constituted as an area of investigation, this

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is only because relations on power have established it as a possible object... (quoted in Gandhi, 98, 55)
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2. It is realized that the feminists in particular are skeptical about the ideology of marginality which deem a
play or mask to suppress or sideline feminine writings in this male-dominated world. a
3. Among certain other marginalised writers were:
(i) Dalits in India and
(ii)Aborigines in Australia, etc.
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Q. 2. Attempt a critical summary of the novel A Grain of Wheat.

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Ans. The events of the novel take place in the days of 1963 before and on the day of Uhuru, Kenya’s liberation

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from British colonial rule. The novel also features flashbacks of the past.

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Mugo, an introverted villager of Thabai, does not want to give a speech at Uhuru, even though town elders ask
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him to. The village thinks him a hero for his stoicism and courage while he was in detention during Kenya’s State of

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Emergency, but he labors under a secret: he betrayed their beloved Mau Mau fighter, Kihika. He is restless and can

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achieve no peace in the village.
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Kihika had joined the Mau Mau as a young man and attained fame for capturing the police garrison at Mahee

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and killing the cruel District Officer (‘DO’) Robson, but after Mugo betrayed him in secret, he was captured and

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hanged. Those planning Uhuru want to honor him. Mugo had betrayed Kihika because he was unsettled by the
young man’s zeal and because of the reward offered for his head, but as soon as he betrayed him he felt remorse.
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Most people, including General R. and Koina, two Mau Mau soldiers, believe Karanja was the one who betrayed

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Kihika. They plan on executing him at Uhuru.
Mugo was not the only man from Thabai who spent time in detention camp. Gikonyo, a well-respected business-

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man and former carpenter, was also taken to a camp. Before the camp he was very much in love with his beautiful
wife Mumbi, the sister of Kihika. He had won her love even though many, including Karanja, a friend of Kihika,
sought her love as well. He dreamt of her while he was away, and was horrified to find out that Mumbi had borne a
child by Karanja while he was gone those years. He does not believe they can ever repair their relationship, and he
throws himself into his work.
Karanja works at Githima, a Forest Research Station started by the British. He tries to cultivate the approval of
the DO, Roger Thompson, who is stationed there with his wife Margery. Thompson was once destined for an illus-
trious career, but it was derailed by a hunger strike and violence at Rira, the camp where Mugo was. Now Thompson
is at Githima, but is preparing to return to Britain because he does not want to be around when whites are no longer
in charge. Karanja did not join the freedom movement but rather started to work for the whiteman, first joining the

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homeguard and then becoming Chief during the Emergency. This incurred a lot of resentment from people; however,
Karanja was simply looking out for himself.
Mumbi, distressed that her husband no longer loves her, comes to see Mugo. She confides in him the story of
how she and Gikonyo fell in love, and how sad she was when he was away in camp. She only fell for Karanja's
advances when she heard Gikonyo was returning and became deliriously happy. She begs Mugo to come to Uhuru;
on a second visit to him, she begs him again. Mugo becomes violent and says he betrayed Kihika. Mumbi is shocked,
but she does not want any more blood shed for her brother.
Uhuru arrives, the day first rainy and then sunny. People are joyful and all of them want to see Mugo, even
though he has said he is not coming. There are games and speeches. There is also a spontaneous race, and Gikonyo
and Karanja find themselves competing with each other (much as they competed in a race for Mumbi's attention long
ago). They stumble, though, and Gikonyo breaks his arm and has to go to the hospital.

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General R. gives a speech instead of Mugo and calls for the traitor to step forward, assuming it will be Karanja.
Mugo comes out of the crowd and says it is he who did it; he feels a sense of freedom at first, quickly followed by
terror. No one accosts him, and the confused crowd parts and lets him go.

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Later, General R. and Koina come to arrest him and tell him he will have a private trial. Mugo makes peace with
this, deciding he will accept his punishment.

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Some of the village elders feel that Uhuru did not go well, and that there is something wrong.
Karanja heads back to Githima. He is unhappy and considers killing himself in front of a train. Ultimately, he
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decides against this.

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Gikonyo wakes in the hospital and finds himself ready to make amends with Mumbi. When she visits him, he

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tells her he is ready to speak of the child he has assiduously ignored since he came back. She tells him it must wait
until they can have a serious and heartfelt discussion of their wants and needs. He is happy, and plans to carve a stool
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featuring an image of a pregnant Mumbi.
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Here Karanja ruminates on his possible place after Thompson leaves and white power fades away. As he is a
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traitor to his own people, his predilection to imagining continued white dominance makes sense; moreover, it is
sadly prescient. After Uhuru, Kenya's move into a post-colonial future is all but stable and peaceful. While whites
may no longer be officially in power, the capitalist structures laid down during colonialism will endure, and the

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societal divisions caused by turning some Kenyans against others in the quest for a modicum of financial and

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physical security leads to disunity and discord. We may disagree with Karanja and hope that his wishes will not be
realized, but his selfish desires become reality all the same.
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Thompson recounts the moment when Mugo comes to him and betrays Kihika, although the reader doesn't know

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this yet; the story only becomes clear towards the end of the novel. Ngugi ably depicts the differing perspectives of

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the two men in this encounter, showing the tremendous gulf between them. Thompson is afflicted by prejudice, full
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of European assumptions regarding the superiority of the white race to the childlike, sly, and savage African. He only

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sees what he wants to see and can only act in a condescending, cruel manner. Mugo is not acting, of course: this is a

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profoundly serious moment for him, and his internal struggle is absolutely clear to the reader. His roiling emotions
are real, and he does not wear a mask at all. It seems impossible for the white man and Kenyan to understand each
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other, as colonialism has poisoned the relationship.

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Q. 3. Write a detailed note on Soyinka’s political activism.
Ans. 1. There is a scene of chaos in most of Sub-Saharan African countries.

w 2. They are oppressed by:

(i) Civil wars
(ii) Social disturbances
(iii) Military dictatorships
(iv) Large-scale political violence
(v) Tyrannical conditions
(vi) Widespread corruption
(vii) Economic stagnation
(viii) Famines
(ix) Droughts
(x) Hunger deaths

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 (xi) Unemployment
(xii) Large-scale rigging in elections
(xiii) Wide disparity between incomes
(xiv) Callousness and highlandedness of the ruling cliques, etc.
3. Crow and Banfield call it “the disruption of African history.”
4. (i) This disruption has mainly beeen caused by long exploitation of African resources by imperialist powers,
and
(ii) large-scale disregard and vandalism (by such powers) of African:
(a) languages
(b) traditions
(c) cultures, and
(d) religions.

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5. Another problem is the creation of artificial national boundaries as in the case of Nigeria.
6. Ethnic rivalries have also played havoc with the smooth functioning of social and national life of Africans.
7. Another negative factor is the unbearable foreign debt which the African nations have to pay.
8. It would seem that art and literature may not be possible in such depressing circumstances.

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9. It is, indeed, paradoxical that those very countries which are dogged with seemingly incurable ailments
have created writers of highest stature in Africa as:
(i) Wole Soyinka

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(ii) Ngugi wa Thiong’o
(iii)Hubert Ogunde
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(iv) Ama Ata Aidoo, etc.

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10. In spite of all this, colonialism could not destroy the African culture completely.
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11. Many of the elements of the African culture are still being used and even getting revived, such as African:
(i) myths
(ii) rituals
(iii) traditions
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(iv) dances
(v) music
(vi) oral traditions
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(viii) seasonal rituals
(ix) celebration of the New Year.
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(vii) traditions of travelling theatre

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(x) Mysteries of Ogun
(xi) Folk songs and dances. f
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12. It may be useful to study some of the books in this regard, such as:

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(i) (a) ‘The Trial of Dedan Kimathi’ by Ngugi wa Thiong'o and Micere Mugo.
(b) It is about reinterpretation and recuperation of past history and tradition of Africa.
H
(ii) Books concerning use of African oral tradition:

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(a) ‘Ozidi’ by J.P. Clark
(b) ‘The Marriage of Anansewa’ by Efua Sutherland’.

w (iii)‘Kinjeketile’ by Ebrahim Hussein.

This book is also about African past history and tradition.
13. The important point which distinguishes colonisation and decolonisation is that:
(i) colonisation is based on individualism.
(ii) decolonisation is concerned with a sense of the community.
14. In this connection, Fanon observes:
The native intellectual had learnt from his [colonial] masters that the individual ought to express himself fully.
The colonialist bourgeoisie had hammered into the native's mind the idea of a society of individuals where each
person shuts himself up in his own subjectivity, and whose only wealth is individual thought. Now the native who
has the opportunity to return to the people during the struggle for freedom will discover the falseness of this theory.

5
The very forms of organization of the struggle will suggest to him a different vocabulary. Brother, sister, friend—these
are words outlawed by the colonialist bourgeoisie, because for them my brother is my purse, my friend is part of my
scheme for getting on. (36)
15. It must be said to Soyinka’s credit that he has fairly succeeded in combining the Yoruba cultural traditions
with those of the western literary traditions.
16. (i) In Part I of A Dance of the Forests we find a lack of solidarity among characters such as:
Rola and Demoke.
(ii) Later, Forest Father in the guise of Obaneji stops their bickering and advises them to live on peacefully
and cooperatively.
(iii)(a) It is, however, towards the end of Part II that we find Demoke undergoing the expiation ritual on behalf
of the community.

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(b) It is here that the spirit of decolonisation manifests itself clearly.
(c) Moreover, when Demoke talks of expiation, he does not mean it for himself alone but for the community,

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that is, “we three”—Demoke, Rola and Adenebi. This is what he tells his father.
1. Edward Said calls “nativism” a tendency to “leave the historical world for the metaphysics of essences ....
in a word, to abandon history.”
2. In sport a “nativist” is a writer who has the tendency as mentioned above.

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events.

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3. (i) Such a writer is not interested so much in historical specificity as in philosophical generality of historical

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(ii) He is especially interested in specific traits which got enacted in history age after age and in different
i
civilizations of different periods.

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4. (i) Certain critics of younger generation of Nigeria such as Biodun Jeyifo give a verdict against Soyinka in
this connection.
a
country and the independence of Nigeria did not obsess him.
m
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(ii) Soyinka is said to have stated that certain historical events including the Nigerian's history as a colonised

(iii) He even says that “Death and the King's Horseman” is not a play about the “clash of cultures.”

historical events.
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5. These and other assertions even by Soyinka himself should not detract the reader into believing that Soyinka

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is a “nativist,” believing in philosophical generality of history rather than its specific traits as enshrined in particular

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6.(i) In this regard, Soyinka should not be dubbed as a nativist since he does not ignore history as such.

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(ii) In Dance of the Forests, for instance, there are numerous incidents which are based on actual historical
events.
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(iii)The most important point to be observed in both A Dance of the Forests and Death and the King’s Horseman

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and even in Kongi’s Harvest in that Soyinka is very much alive to the cruelties, tyrannies and injustices of the times

Examples:
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and he portrays them with relentless vigour in his own style.

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(a) Common disdain of the sincere warriors like the Dead Man who fights against ‘injustice.’

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(b) Tyrannical attitude of the dictatorial Mata Kharibu.

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(c) Disregard of the artist in society particularly by the ruling classes when Madame Tortoise is ready to risk
the life of the Court Poet just for a canary.

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(d) Disregard of the past heroes by the living.
(e) Machinatism of the Slave Trader to get the Dead Man to exploit him.
(f) A general despondancy about the future as visible from the condition of and treatment meted out to the
Half-Child.
(g) Cunningness and lust for power held dear by some such as Eshuoro.
(h) The healing touch of some as of Ogun and Forest Father. Even in history all cannot be painted black
indiscriminately.
(i) The slave Trader gives a bribe to get the Dead Man. This is certainly a reflection on the prevailing atmosphere
of corruption in Nigeria of Soyinka’s times.
(j) There may be certain people like Demoke (who is an artist) who may be ready to risk their lives and expiate
for the community, but whether the change brought about by them or others like them will be all-prevalent or long
lasting is not certain.

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 (k) The complaints made by several spirits are complaints against the destruction of environment in essence and
are essentially topical and contemporaneous.
(l) The ants’ complaint regarding the danger of their getting decimated is an expression of man's endless greed
which has played havoc with the lives of “the wretched” the poorest, loneliest and lost.
(iv) (a) Thus, by no means, has history been ignored or even philosophised by Soyinka to earn the nickname of
a “nativist.”
(b) He has only given a new orientation to history by ignoring trivialities and mere description or statement of
historical events.
(v) One can say that Soyinka is an artist who wants art to be used as a vehicle of social change, but he is not
interested in using it as a mechanism of propaganda to highlight his philosophy, if any.
Q. 4. Analyse the novel Ice-Candy Man from a postcolonial perspective.
Ans. What is the Postcolonial?

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1. About three quarters of the people of the world come under the influence of colonialism.
2. The term “postcolonial” is used by Bill Ashcroft et al (in “The Empire Writes Back” – 1989) to “Cover all
the culture affected by the imperial process from the immanent of colonization to the present day.”
3. We can say, as per Ashcroft’s definition that :

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All the literature which has been written in the countries under the process of colonization (colonized countries),
from the time of colonization to the present day, should be termed as postcolonial literature.
4. Examples of postcolonial literature are the literatures of:

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(i) India
(ii) Bangladesh
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(iii) Pakistan
(iv) Sri Lanka
(v) Canada a ad
(vi) Caribbean countries
(vii) Australia
(viii) Malaysia
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(ix) Malta
(x) New Zealand
(xi) Singapore
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(xii) South Pacific Countries, etc.

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5. If Ashcroft’s definition is taken seriously, even the literature of the U.S.A. should be regarded as a postcolonial

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literature, but it is not regarded as such because of:

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(i) USA’s neo-colonizing role in history
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(ii) USA’s most dominant position is the present world as the sole super-power.

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6. Ashcroft et al further say about the postcolonial literatures as under:

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“They (postcolonial literatures) emerged in their present form out of the experience of colonization and asserted
themselves by foregrounding the tension with the imperial power, and by emphasizing their differences from the
assumptions of the imperial centre.” H
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7. (i) Another dimension to the term “postcolonial” should also be borne in mind.
(ii) It is that the term also denotes a theory or a perspective, that is,

w (a) a postcolonial perspective or

(b) a postcolonial reading of a text.
(iii) In this context, it is not imperative that a work must have been written or produced in one of the erstwhile
colonies or by a colonial writer.
8. A lucid example in this context can be Shakespeare’s ‘The Tempest’ :
(i) This play was not written in an erstwhile colony.
(ii) It was not written by a native of any of the colonies.
(iii) Thus, the play cannot be considered to fall in the category of post-colonial literature.
(iv) It can, however, be read from a post-colonial perspective.
(v) It is because the play has some such elements in it.

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 (vi) It is undeniable that the psychological implications of colonialism are anticipated by Shakespeare in the
play.
9. In contrast to Shakespeare’s ‘The Tempest’, “A Tempest” (1969) by Aime Cesaire can be regarded as a
production of postcolonial literature since:
(i) it has been written by a postcolonial writer, and
(ii) it deals in particular with the phenomenon of colonialism.
The Fiction of a Postcolonial writer:
1. The famous Kenyan writer Ngugi wa Thiong’o says in his “Decolonising the Mind” (1986):
The real aim of colonialism was to control peoples' wealth ... colonialism imposed its control on the social
production of wealth through military conquest and subsequent political dictatorship. But its most important area of
domination was the mental universe of the colonized, the control, through culture, of how people perceived themselves
and their relationship to the world. Economic and political control can never be complete or effective without mental

2. He further says that the colonizers in order to grind their axe undervalue:

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control. To control a people’s culture is to control their tools of self-definition in relationship to others.

“peoples culture, their art, dances, religions, history, geography, education, and literature and the conscious

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elevation of the language of the coloniser” (Ibid. 16)

colonised people’s faith in their own:

(i) art .
3. It becomes clear then that among the important fictions of a postcolonial writer is the rehabilitation of the

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(ii) culture
(iii) religion
(iv) history
a r din
(v) mythology, etc.
a
Apart” (1958).
Strategies Employed by the Postcolonial Writer: m
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4. To sum up the Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe may be quoted as he said in his first novel : “Things Fall

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1. A number of strategies are used by the postcolonial to serve their purpose, among them, we have :
(i) The use of native languages.

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(ii) Remoulding of English language as by Sidhwa in Ice-Candy-Man.

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(iii) (a) Countering the colonizer’s viewpoint as far as history is concerned and

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(b) Presenting an alternate historical version by the post colonial writer as does Chinua Achebe in “Things Fall
Apart.”

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(iv) Sidhwa also rewriters history in Ice-Candy-Man to cut both:

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(a) the British view of history
(b) the Indian version of history.
Ice-Candy-Man : An Analysis :
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1. In Ice-Candy-Man, Sidhwa cuts:

H
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(i) The British version of history, as well as

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(ii) The Indian version of history.
2. She gives the version of history from :
(i) the Pakistan angle, as well as

w (ii) the Parsi angle.

3. She mentions the past history of the Parsis:
Col. Bharucha, again answering his own question, continues : ‘Our forefathers carefully stirred a teaspoon of
sugar into the milk and sent it back.
‘The Prince understood what that meant. The refugees would get absorbed into his country like the sugar in the
milk...And with their decency and industry sweeten the lives of his subjects.
‘The Indian Prince thought : what a smart and civilised people ! And he gave our ancestors permission to live in
his kingdom !’
‘Shabash ! Well done !’ say the Parsees, regarding each other with admiration and congratulatory self-regard.
‘But, as you see, we have to move with the times,’ roars the Colonel, his oratorical capacities in full form. ‘Time
stands for no one !’

8
 ‘Hear hear ! Hear hear !’
Even I applauded on cue.
‘Time and tide wait for no man !’
Thunderous applause.
‘Let whoever wishes rule ! Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Christian ! We will abide by the rules of their land !’
A polite smattering of Hear hears ! The congregation, wafted on self-esteem and British proverbs, does not
want to be brought back to earth.
‘As long as we do not interfere we have nothing to fear ! As long as we respect the customs of our
rulers – as we always have – we’ll be all right ! Ahura Mazda has looked after us for thirteen hundred years: he will
look after us for another thirteen hundred !’
Like English proverbs, Ahura Mazda's name elicits enthusiasm.
‘We will cast our lot with whoever rules Lahore !’ continues the Colonel.

m
4. She points out that the forefathers of the Parsis were very intelligent people.
5. The moment of Partition presented a dilemma to the Parsis.
6. They were thought to be indifferent and callous.
7. Sidhwa tries to highlight that the Parsis:
(i) were alive to situation and that

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(iii) Thus, they played a silent but positive role.

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(ii) they aid a lot of humanitarian work to mitigate the sufferings of the victims of communal riots.

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There is a drift now towards the inner sanctum. Electric-aunt beckons Cousin and Mother signals me. We step

in
into the inner room and I can see through two barred windows and an open archway the main fire altar. It is like a
gigantic silver egg cup and the flames are dancing above a bed of white ashes.
Q. 5. Analyse A House for Mr. Biswas as a diasporic allegory.
Ans. Diasporic Novel a ad
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1. (i) Away from the motherland, the diasporans feel a sense of loss and gloom.

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(ii) To bridge cultures through widening of experience needs the diasporic sensibility.
2. If A House for Mr. Biswas is read on postcolonial premises, this diasporic unhappiness becomes clear.

d
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3. (i) Mr. Biswas did find a house in the Sikkim street at last, but it was an ideal one upto his expectations.

l
(ii) He only consoled himself with its illusory benefits like the soothing shade of the laburnum tree.
4. The “Root” and “Route” metaphors:
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Modernity and Double Consciousness.”
5. (i) The “Root” Metaphor:
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These two metaphors are used in the study of diasporic literature by Paul Gilroy in “The Black Atlantic :

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It pertains to the reconstruction of a pure, uncontaminated, genuine homeland as dreamt by the first generation
of immigrants. f
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(ii) In A House for Mr. Biswas, Pundit Tulsi dreams of returning to India, but his dream remains unfulfilled till
his death.

we u an
(iii)Naipaul’s grandfather, as he tells in “Finding the Centre,” died when he was returning to his native village
near Gorakhpur. H
w Th
6. The “Route” Metaphor: This metaphor suggests:
(i) The journey to plantations and

w (ii) the relations and interactions the indentured immigrants had with their colonizers/masters/planters.
(iii)Their relations were only those of slaves and masters, and this has “contaminated” the diasporic memory
and ethos for ever.
(iv) According to Vijay Mishra (“(B) Ordering Naipaul : Indenture History and Diasporic Poetics,” p. 195), the
“route” metaphor is located in:
(a) the ship and
(b) the plantation barracks.
(v) Regarding the ship Mishra says:
The ship ... is the first of the cultural units in which social relations are resited and renegotiated. For the old,
exclusivist Indian diaspora, the ship produced a site in which caste purities were largely lost (after all the crossing of

9
the dark ocean, the kalapani, signified the loss of caste) as well as a new form of socialization that went by the name
of jahaji-bhai (ship-brotherhood). Social interactions during these lengthy sea voyages began a process that led to the
remaking of cultural and ethinic identities, to a critical self-reflexivity of the kind missing from the startified and less
mobile institutions of the homeland. (Mishra, 195)
7. (i) The indentured immigrants had no prior experience of a foreign country and the restrictions that were
imposed on them in the plantations.
(ii) Hence, life there was a virtual hall for them.
(iii)It was like an exile.
8. In the barracks:
(i) each family got just one room.
(ii) There was no separate place such as:

m
(a) kitchen
(b) bathroom or
(c) toilet.

o
9. This is how a Fijian Indian poet, Satendra Nandan (now living in Australia), has described life in the barracks
in his poem “Tota's Tale”:

c
An empty line of twenty-four rooms :
Eight feet by twelve feet.

t . g
r
Once it housed native workers.
Eight died : others fled
in
Who would live among the dead?
Homeless I had come in search of paradise
a ad
m
This house of hell was now all mine.
(Nandan, Lines Across Black Waters, 11-12)
Re
d
in ks
y e
10. (i) In the present, novel, Mr. Biswas had to live in the barracks of Green Vale.
(ii) This life of great privation gooded him to have a house of his own.
11. (i) The indentured immigrants had to work from 12 to 16 hours daily.
(ii) The wages were low.
l
(iv) They got about 25 cents per day.
t O bu
n oo
(iii)These wages remained unchanged throughout the nine years of indenture.

s
(v) Out of this amount, over one third was deducted for the supply of ration.

r -
(vi)They were not allowed legally to share their rations.

.e o E
(vii) Hence, Naipaul says:
f
Growing up in Trinidad, I had never wanted to be employed. I had always wanted to be a free man. This was

b d
partly the effect of my peasant Indian background and the colonial agricultural society of Trinidad. And though it

we H
u a n
had not been easy in the beginning. I had remained a free man. (Naipaul, A Turn in the South, p. 261)
12. Even, the descendents of the indentured immigrants could not get the much-desired independence.
13. (i) In the barracks, there was a struggle for space, which is likewise visible in the Hanuman House.

w Th
(ii) In the latter, this space was available freely only to:
(a) Mrs. Tulsi

w (b) Shekhar, her elder son

(c) Owad, her younger son and
(d) Seth, her sister's husband and manager of her estate.
14. In the barracks (as in the Hanuman House, in general):
(i) everything had to be shared.
(ii) there was no privacy, even for:
(a) living, and
(b) keeping one’s valuables.
15. The doll’s house was broken by Shama because it was bought only for Savi and not all the children in the
Hanuman House.
16. Still, it was the Hanuman House which gave same comfort to Mr. Biswas.

10
 17. In this home, Hanuman himself was a source of strength, both:
(i) physical and
(ii) spiritual.
18. The indentured immigrants believed that like Rama, one day they would return to their mother land in a state
of glory.
19. Thus, the Ramcharitmanas and the Gita became a part of their life.
20. It was for this that the Hanuman House was a source of strength to the three families to which Mr. Biswas
was related.
(i) The Tulsi family
(ii) The Raghu family
(iii)The Ajodha family.
21. According to Mr. Vijay Mishra: (Regarding Naipaul’s Writing about his father’s pamphlet : “Religion : Pandit
Ayodhya Prasad and Trinidad’’) :

o m
My father did write the pamphlet and published it too. I remember it as a very slim red covered booklet in our
bookcase. I believe my father said that (a certain relative) had bought the stock and destroyed it – but I do not know
whether I really heard this or whether I have made this up ... My father at one stage read parts of the pamphlet to me
.... The booklet was later lost or destroyed.
22. There were open debates between:
. c
(i) the Sanatanists and
(ii) the Arya Samajists.
r ting
a
23. Sometimes, these debates took the shape of conflicts.
24. This led to a lot of ill feeling among the people of Indian diaspora.
25. Even at present, there is a clear divide between these two Hindu sects.
ad
26. In the novel:

m
(i) Naipaul’s maternal uncle, Sambhoonath Capilede is a staunch Sanatanist and
(ii) Naipaul’s father and Mr. Biswas are Arya Samajists.
y e Re
d
27. Naipaul calls himself an agnostic.

in ks
28. He ridicules religiosity of all kinds including:
l
t
(ii) long speeches made by Arya Samajists.

O b u
(i) “heavy and ugly” statues of Hindu gods in the drawing room of the Tulsis and
n oo
29. Naipaul’s own sensibility thus, does not tally with the general diasporic sensibility which deems religion

s r
important – a sort of talisman, as it implies a link with the motherland.
-
.e o
30. This diasporic sensibility allows modifications but not negation or rejection of religiosity, including all the rites
and rituals connected with it.
f E
d
31. (i) Naipaul is, however, a highly complex writer and in his works, you do not get just narratives (concerning
b
we u an
exile and loss) but also counternarratives.
(ii) Cites Mr. Mishra : (p. 41)
H
My father rejecting one world, came into contact with another. In him was played out the whole tragic drama of

w Th
an ancient civilization coming into contact with a hideous colonial mimicry of another civilization.
(V.S. Naipaul, Archive 1 : 1.3 Cited by Vijay Mishra, 194)

w 32. Mishra also talks of signs and in A House for Mr. Biswas we have many signs.
33. Even if Naipaul does not explicitly use the word “diaspora”, it is clear that his works are concerned with
diasporic experience which implies:
(i) displacement
(ii) migrancy and
(iii)a longing for an imagined homeland to which the diasporans cannot return.
34. Thus, the novel becomes characteristic in turning into a creative hysteria vis-a’-vis India’s vast physicality.
Q. 6. “The Spoiler’s Return” by Walcott talks about the corruption in Trinidadian society. Examine
the poem and critically analyse it.
Ans. Derek Walcott, by his work, achieved three colossal feats.

11
 First, he wrote about the Caribbean landscape in such as way as to magnify it. Not only did he give our landscape
a certain epic status, he conferred on it deific significance as perhaps only the fallen Taino, Arahuacan ancestors,
deified before.
Here is Walcott writing in Omeros:
“The same sunrise stirred the feathered lances of cane down the archipelago’s highways.”
This is not just cane. Cane you pass by when coming down the highway. He bequeaths stature and majesty to
ordinary cane. He confers on us our landscape -that which we have been taught, like Caliban, the Shakespearean
slave, to despise-a majesty. The canefield is filled with feathered lances stirred by the sunrise!
Here he is writing about the Caroni plains in “The Spoiler’s Return” (1981):
“The torn brown patches of the Central Plain,
Slowly restitched by needles of rain,

m
And the frayed earth, crisscrossed like old bagasse,
Spring to a cushiony quilt of emerald grass,
And who does sew and sow the patch of land?
The Indian. And whose villages turn to sand?”

c o
Here he uses an extended metaphor; all the words and images relate to sewing. Just as a person sews, stitches

t .
a quilt, just so do the needles of rain sew the frayed clothes of earth into a cushiony emerald quilt of grass. The
industrious rains are transforming the brown, old garb of the dry season into the wet season, a munificent quilt of
g
r
green grass. “Criss-crossed like old bagasse” depicts the patchwork of the Caroni cane lands lying in fallow. This is
what Spoiler sees as he watches out over the Caroni plains from the Laventille hills.
in
a
Second, Walcott savagely attacks the post-colonial kingdoms of the Caribbean. The last two lines of the last
d
excerpt, for example, critiques the way we have transformed our villages, agricultural lands, into “sand”, a metaphor
a
of sterility. In “The Spoiler’s Return”, using a barrage of rhyming couplets, Walcott unleashes his best irony, sarcasm,
puns, banter and vituperation to critique Trinidad in 1981.
m
y e Re
In “The Spoiler’s Return”, Walcott assumes the mask of Spoiler, the dead kaisonian known for his humour and
irony. He uses the persona of Spoiler, his identity and voice. Spoiler is in hell with the other great satirists, spoilers

l
u d
of the age: “Lord Rochester, Quevedo, Juvenal, /Maestro, Martial, Pope, Dry-den, Swift, Lord Byron, /The lords of

in ks
irony, the Duke of Iron”; things have become so corrupt in Trinidad, he has no choice but to come back from hell to
sing about it. He sits high on a bridge in Laventille, and witnesses the local scene.
n oo
What does he see?

t O b
People excuse their failure to act: “Is the same voices, that in the slave ship/Smile at their brothers, 'Boy. Is just
the whip!”
s r -
.e o
All the ethnic groups seem compromised-by greed. All the pillars of society-the artist, journalist, justices of the

f E
high bench, politicians, the ordinary folk-have become merce-nary, anti-revolutionary. And, “Corbeaux like cardinals
line the La Basse”.
b d
Graft, curry favour and corruption reigns. All is bobol, pappy show, mimic:

we u a n
“Is carnival, straight Carnival that’s all

H
The beat is base, the melody bohbohl,

w Th
All Port of Spain is a twelve-thirty show,
Some playing Kojak, some Fidel Castro,
Some Rastamen, but, with or without locks,

w To Spoiler is the same old khaki socks.”

We dance to a base beat, to the music of bobol. We are all actors in a Carnival drama. There are no revolutionar-
ies, just men mimicking the American television detective Kojak; or imitating the real revolutionary, Castro; or are
Rastas with locks, not philosophy. To Spoiler, “is the same old khaki socks”. Khaki was the wear of the colonial
master, commando and field foreman.
Walcott develops this theme of colo--nial re-entrapment in the following lines:
“Is crab climbing crab-back, in a crab-quarrel,
And going round and round in the same barrel,
Is sharks with shirt-jacs, sharks with well-pressed fins,
Ripping we small-fry off with razor grins;
Nothing ain't change but colour and attire.”

12
 Around and around we go in the same barrel. No one has a solution of how to get out of the barrel. Instead of
finding a solution, we are climbing on each other’s backs. The new elite, in his official wear, his shirt-jac, his lapels
pressed fine and neat, like the fins of sharks pressed to its sides, now attacks the small fries, the sardines in the social
ecology, with razor grins. Walcott concludes that nothing has changed but colour and attire: from jackets, ties and
khakis to sharks in shirt-jacs.
Walcott’s third monumental feat has been to win acclaim. He produced a plethora of plays, paintings, films and
books of poems. He won the Nobel Prize in 1992. He was the man who cut his studies short at The University of the
West Indies in the 1960s and stood in a market square in St Lucia peddling his poems. He believed in his craft. He
persisted in a workmanlike way. His craft, fidelity to his work, brought the Caribbean into the light of metropolitan
review and scholarship.
Q. 7. Attempt a critical analysis of the poem “Stone” by Brathwaite.
Ans. Analysis
1. In this poem, dedicated to Mikey Smith, the radical artist, we are confronted directly with the persona of
the subject.
2. The poem describes the last moments of Smith’s life when he was stoned to death on the Stony Hill.
3. There is a sort of pathetic fallacy in the predatory aspect of Nature:
o m
(ii) As the stone actually fell on the persona, the sky became “the red sea sky.”

. c
(i) As the first stone fell on Smith, it was morning and the sky was “johncrow” (threatening).

t
4. Here, we may have:

g
r
(i) a Biblical allusion – the waters of the Red Sea parting allowing the Israelites to pass through and then its
closing up so that the Pharoah’s soldiers who were chasing them, could be drowned.
in
a
(ii) The perpetration of violence which is like nature “red in tooth and claw”. (Tennyson).

persona.
ad
5. With the fall of the stone the peaceful microcosmic world as in a drop of rain suddenly changed for the

6. The persona suddenly became full of:

(i) “beast & plunder”
(ii) “gnashing badwords” m
y e Re
(iii)like “angry water”
7. For this reason, he could not cry with pain.

uld
in ks
8. However, his outbursts against injustice were futile just like:
n oo
(ii) “The ogogs bark” (barking dogs)
9. Smith's poetry dealt with:
s t
(i) “gnashing badwords among tombstones.” (that is, in the graveyard).

r
O b
-
.e o
(i) social and political concerns.
(ii) its issues were:
f E
(a) poverty
b d
we u an
(b) education
(c) exploitation of lower classes
H
(d) materialism in the present society, etc.

w Th
10. The most pathetic image we have in the poem is the image of mother:
“she upsidown a tree like she was screaming” and nobody cared to pay attention to her screams.

w
11. (i) Smith’s own mother was a factory worker.
(ii) Through this image, probably Smith wants to describe the plightful condition of female workers in particular
whose life was nothing but life in death.
12. (i) The poet shouted at this sight, but nobody cared to hear his shouts either.
(ii) The poet’s poems have been wasted perhaps on undeserving people.
13. (i) The poet who wanted to express such situations in his poetry, was not given a chance to do so.
(ii) This was possible if:
“the tape was switched on & running.”
14. Smith had been acclaimed at several places:
(i) Amsterdam

13
 (ii) at UNESCO in Paris
(iii)West Berlin.
15. (i) It was a vehement acclamation :
“clapping &
clapping &
clapping .....”
(ii) In contrast, however, “not a soul or Stony Hill to even say amen ...”
16. The ferocity of physical attack and its emotional impact is discernible in expressions such as:
(i) “happening happening”
(ii) “the fences began to crack in my skull”
(iii)“there were loud boodooooongs”

m
(iv)“guns going off”
(v) “fireworks”
(vii)“the river coming down”
(it can also mean the flow of blood from his head).
(vii) “dreadlocks were in fire” (dreadlocks refers to uncut matted hair of The Rastas).

c o
become dysfunctional.

t .
17. His tongue which was previously pressed against his smiling teeth can now only “unannounce,” having

g
r
18. There was hardly any effect on nature:
(i) the son was “staring”
in
(ii) “de butterfly flittin.”

a
19. The situation is reminiscent of that depicted by W.H. Auden is one of his poems:
ad
m
(i) when Christ was crucified and
(ii) when Icarus fell from the sky.
Re
20. Smith could “hear tread of my heart.”

d
in ks
y e
21. There was “the heavy flux of the blood in my veins...”
22. Smith hears the sound of his bodily finations (as that of blood flowing in his veins) like the racerbration of
ship bells.
l
t u
n oo
23. This is reminiscent of the music played by lands at carnival for which a theme is chosen every year, this
year's theme being a national one – “bom sicai sica boom ship bell ...”
O b
s
24. Continuing the ship image, Smith talks of:

r -
(i) “it was like a wave on Stony Hill ...”

.e o E
(ii) “it was like a broken schooner into harbour” (but it was “muffled in the silence/of its wound.”)
f
25. The situation was like the sudden thunder in the peaceful blue sky.

b d
26. (i) Smith, however, now finds himself in a situation of inner and outer peace.

we u a n
(ii) He feels the coming alive of Marcus Garvey, the founder of the Universal Negro Improvement Association
(UNIA).
H
27. Certain elements in the poem align Smith with the Rastafarian movement:

w Th
(i) the use of ‘I’
(ii) the mention of ‘dreadlocks’

w (iii)concern for justice and social reforms.

28. Smith identifies himself with the situation as:
(i) “i had become that sound.”
(ii) “my/ears were bleeding/sound.”
(iii)“i am the stone that kills me.”
29. A notable point in the poem is how the elements – fire, water and air, become the spokespersons for venting
out the dying man's emotions:
“the soft volcanic ash.”
30. However, nature has regenerative powers in itself and it can:
(i) bloom into “flower” and
(ii) rip “upward/into shoot.”

14
 31. While his detractors were full of:
(i) “spit”
(ii) “cutrass wit” and
(iii)“ivy whip,”natural life remained undisturbed, as even the birds had no knowledge of Smith's heavy breathing
and pain and “sparrow twits pluck tic & tapeworm from the grass.”
32. Even though he identifies his detractors with warthogs (African Swine), who let loose “wrinkle jumbimum”
(evil spirits) on him, yet he does not directly blame them and finally, submitting to his fate, resulting from –
“the stone fell that morning .....
i could not hold it back .....”,
Smith considers himself to be one with the stone for becoming as lifeless as the stone itself :
“i am the stone that kills me.”
Q. 8. Attempt character sketches of both Waldo and Arthur and show how they are not ordinary twins,

m
but also a device for dramatizing the antithetical self.
Ans. Waldo
1. Main characteristics of his character are:
(i) tension
(ii) rigidity

c o
(iii) stomach-trouble
(iv) misanthropy

t .g
r
(v) fastidious disgust
(vi) dislike for:
in
(a) love and
(b) relationships
a ad
(vii) desiring to be an artist, he finds such things a hindrance to his personal identity as such.

(ix) disinclination to yield to sensuousness

(x) unmitigable egocentricity
m
(viii) a feeling of love for loneliness marked by a sense of guilt.

y e Re
(xii) without a hope for redemption
(xiii) longing for:
u d
in ks
(xi) not capable of a compassionate treatment

l
n oo
(a) recognition and

s t O b
(b) individuality but actually sinking more and more into obscurity.
(xiv) self-interest
r -
.e o E
(xv) remoteness from others
(xvi) self -absorption f
(xvii) callousness
b d
we
(xviii) supercilious indifference.
u an
2. According to Walsh: “Waldo carries this fierce sense of his own identity and his resistance to the intrusion
H
of others to a point where it is pathological and, since it is invariably connected with self-love, evil ... he is a spiritual

w Th
and emotional solipsist. Life and experience seem to him a violation of his enclosed perfection, an assault on his
privacy” (Walsh, 93).

w 3. He feels bondaged to Arthur in spite of himself.

4. His only contact in real life is Arthur, but it is his tragedy that even if he is known to be superior to Arthur, he
actually ends up as his hater.
5. There is a marked difference between Arthur and Waldo :
(i) Waldo’s is mainly the question for personal identity.
(ii) Arthur is interested in looking into the might into very nature of being.
6. There is in him a sense of:
(i) inadequacy and
(ii) frustration.

15
 7. Contrary to this, Arthur’s life is marked by:
(i) an open display of affection and
(ii) his intuitive irrationalism.
8. Waldo was taught by his mother:
(i) “We can achieve what we want if we are determined, if we are confident that we are strong.”
(p. 77)
(ii) He had not been taught to pray.
9. (i) He made a futile attempt at fiction writing when he wrote:
“Tiresias a Youngish Man.”
(ii) This was in consonance with his desire for :
(i) literary pursuits and
(ii) an intellectual life.
10. He tells Dulcie :
“I want to, and am going to write about myself.” (p. 94)
11. Among his achievements were :
o m
(i) several articles
(ii) a fragment of a novel
. c
(iii) worship of the fellowship of Australian writers and
(iv) reading a paper on Barron field to the Beecroft Literary Society.
r t ing
a
12. According to McCulloch: “Waldo is the sterile artist without a source, without connection to the source

of the universe.”
ad
of life. He is a representative of twentieth century intellectual man who has cut himself off from love and the mystery

13. Towards Arthur his relations are marked by:

(i) jealousy
(ii) love-hate m
y e Re
d
(iii) need, etc.

in ks
14. He considers Arthur an idiot, an inferior being.
l
16. Then, he is overtaken by:
(i) Narcissism and
t O bu
15. He is jealous of him and hates him for all his good qualities.
n oo
(ii) insensitivity.
s r -
.e o
17. When Arthur shows interest even in ordinary activities of life such as squeezing of butter, kneading the
f E
dough, for which Mrs. Brown appreciates him, spurning Waldo, the latter feels upset: “Waldo was more jealous of

d
that word than he was of Arthur’s privilege. He wondered where he had got it from. Because words are not Arthur’s
b
we n
line. It was Waldo who collected them, like stamps or coins. He made lists of them. He rolled them in his mouth like
u a
polished stones. Then Arthur went and sprang this vocation thing of his.” (35-6)
H
18. Once Arthur Waldo to allow him to act in his play, Waldo refused.

w Th
19. He did not want to share his literary life with Arthur.
20. When he finds Arthur with Dulcie, he begins to hate him even more.

w 21. Waldo’s incapability to commune with his father is clear from:

“Sitting in the train Waldo suddenly looked straight into his father's face ... Waldo might have leant back to
continue the escape he had made if his clothes tightening hadn't constrained him, together with the fear that freedom
might be the equivalent of isolation. So that in the end he would have liked to touch his father's goodness, but could
only be touched by it” (79).
22. Waldo hated 57 things and persons and Mrs. Poulter was one of them.
23. A glimpse of Arthur and Waldo as boys can be had from:
“So they moved through the landscape of boyhood, two figures seen at a distance, or too close up ... he learned
to give them what they wanted. Occasionally, in passing, after returning the scones to the table, he would very
carefully brush the crumbs which had fallen on Arthur’s knees, with a candid though ostentatious charity which
moved the observer – as well as the performer” (75-76).

16
 24. Even when Waldo finds Arthur and Dulcie close to each other, he thinks marrying her and muses in the
following manner. Waldo went over the way in which he would benefit by marriage with Dulcie. On the financial side
they might have to skimp a bit at first, because he would refuse to touch anything Dulcie brought with her until he
proved himself as a husband. Nobody would be in a position to say theirs was not an idealistic marriage.... Then the
home. Undoubtedly he would benefit by having a home of his own. A bed to himself ... But it was his work which
would benefit most. The atmosphere in which to evolve a style. The novel of psychological relationships in a family,
based on his own experience for truth, illuminated by what his imagination would infuse. One of the first things he
intended to do was buy a filing cabinet to install in his study. (149-150)
25. Thelma Herring makes the following comments: “The novelist systematically undermines all Waldo's
pretensions, and his final judgement on him, conveyed through the dog's symbolic mutilation of his corpse, could not be
harsher : yet the reader who remembers the all-too-human embarrassment of the young Waldo, writhing under the
physical protection of his imbecile brother, the diffident warnings of his unworldly father, the patronage of the wealthy

m
Mrs. Musto, is likely to retain for him, even in his desiccated and self-cherishing old age, some grains of sympathy that
may soften without fundamentally changing the verdict that White clearly invites us to make” (Herring, 75).
26. We have the following at page 183 of the novel about Waldo's split existence: Because Mr. Brown

o
of the intellectual breathers in the Botanic Gardens must never be confused with the subfusc, almost abstract figure,

c
living on top of a clogged greasetrap, and the moment of creative explosion, under the arches of yellow grass, down

t .
Terminus Road. Waldo Brown, in whom these two phenomena met on slightly uneasy terms ... looking out from
behind his barricade of words and perceptions ... his less approachable self ... So Waldo, who was in frequent
g
r
demand, continued to refuse, on principle, by formula.

in
To submit himself to the ephemeral, the superficial relationships might damage the crystal core holding itself

its algebra, of course – the better to convey eventually its essence. (183)
Arthur a
in reserve for some imminent moment of higher idealism. Just as he had avoided fleshly love – while understanding

ad
m
1. The whole life can be seen in the combined character of Waldo – Arthur.

y e
2. However, individually, they have a love – hate relationship.
Re
3. According to the blurb, the twins are : “two people living one life ... They shared everything — except their

bother to look. He understood.”

4. The points to be noted are:
u d
in ks
view of things. Waldo, with his intelligence, saw everything and understood little. Arthur was the fool who didn't

l
n oo
(i) Arthur is a holy fool.

s t O b
(ii) (a) Outwardly, he seems to be deranged

r
(b) Inwardly, he has mystical intimations.
-
.e o E
5. He has the capacity to:
(i) see into the heart of the matter f
b d
(ii) merge creative memory and the present in a soft-edged shifting pattern.

we
(i) Sacramental images and
(ii) sibylline language. H
u an
6. He has a luminous vision resulting from his devotion to :

w Th
7. He has to say something in language :
(i) ‘Words are not what make you see.’

w ‘I was taught they were,’ Waldo answered in hot words.

‘I dunno,’ Arthur said, ‘I forget what I was taught. I only remember what I've learnt.’ (56)
(ii) He smiled, though for all those pairs of twins with no word between them to express the truth. (280)
8. Waldo actually is afraid of him in the matter of language.
9. (i) Knowledge means to him:
(a) altruism
(b) selflessness and
(c) responsibility.
(ii) It is not meant to confer superiority.
(iii) It is in this light that Arthur sees the purpose of writing.

17
 10. After the gruesome death of Waldo, he learns that he has learnt more from life than literature (p.
307): ‘‘He squarred his shoulders, he put on the cloak of an air, and swirled inside the Public Library, squelching over
the polished rubber, trailing his identity round the room in which he had begun the struggle to find it. If he no longer felt
moved to take down a book, it was because in the end knowledge had come to him, not through words, but lightning.’’
(307)
11. He is on the side of truth and inclination for trust of everyday tangibles (p. 227): Arthur eventually
added Mr. Allwright to what he knew as truest : to grain in wood, to bread broken roughly open, to cow-pats, neatly
freshly dropped. If he did not add Mrs. Allwright it was because she did not fit into that same world of objects, she
never became distinct, she was all ideas, plots and tempers. In myth of life, he never took to Hera. (227)
12. He has a practical mind and his approach is down to earth:
(i) milking the cow
(ii) kneeling the dough
(iii) making bread.
13. He enjoys his work as a delivery boy with the grocers, Allwrights.
14. He is kind to animals.
o m
c
15. He can solve sums like a prodigy.
16. His candid nature and affable manners make him a darling of:
(i) Dulcie Feinstein
(ii) Mrs. Poulter and
t .g
(iii) his mother.
17. He has the national faculty of grasping others feelings quickly.

a r din
18. According to Goodwin: “Waldo’s “sterile, jaundiced view of life is balanced by Arthur’s. Confused and

a
inarticulate, he nevertheless has a radiant goodness and insight that are represented by his four mandala-like marbles.

m
y e Re
He realizes that most of those around him cannot appreciate them or their meaning, that ‘It was himself who was and
would remain, the keeper of the mandalas, who must guess their final secret through touch and light.’ The struggle to
guess their meaning is symbolized by the ‘red gold disc of the sun’, which he strives to hold, but also by the icebergs,

d
that ‘moaned and jostled one another, crunching and tinkling ... to splinter into glass balls which he gathered in his

in ks
protected hands” (Goodwin, 173).

l
u
19. His solid mandala stands for:

n oo
t
(i) his insight and
(ii) need for an encompassing totality.
O b
21. As Walsh points out:
s
20. He is “fatuated with the glints and clouds and lights in his glass marbles.” (Walsh)
r -
.e fo E
“Arthur contemplates his marbles almost in a religious sense, seeing in it mysteries, realities, symbols and
significances – an endless range of reality enclosed in a miniature universe.”

b d
22. Waldo interacts with him sceptically when he is explaining his difficulties with “The Brothers Karamazove”
in the library.

we H
u a n
23. The question of god which is one of the thematic preoccupations of the book, comes on surface

w Th
when after seeing a performance of “Gotterdammerung,” he remarks :
“Who and where are the gods? He could not have told, but knew, in his flooded depths.”
24. According to Thelma Herring:

w “Brought up by parents who are conscientious unbelievers, Arthur is untroubled by religious questions until in old
age he becomes perplexed by the problem of pain and the Christian emphasis on “the blood and the nails,” and begins
the search for his identity, which he finds, however, “not through words, but by lightning.” To Dulcie Feinstein, with
whom he experiences spiritual union, he is the instrument through whom her dying father is reunited to God; and to
Mrs. Poulter ... he becomes the object of faith when her God is brought crashing down by the shock of the discovery
of Waldo's defiled body.” (Herring, 78)
25. McCulloch says: “Arthur the Divine fool, the holy idiot, is developed to bring forth, by means of contrast
with Waldo, the concept of the sterility of the intellect when it is divorced from the spirit and from love.”
26. At page 305 of the novel, we have: “Waldo had always hated people, but always rather, well, as a joke.
Waldo had done his block at Arthur, but always more or less as a brother. Till it was made plain as a bedstead that the
life, the sleep they had shared, must have been jingling brassily all those years with the hatred which only finally killed”
(305).

18
 27. Waldo’s death becomes a problem for Arthur: “All his family gone, he was threatened with permanent
manhood.” (p. 306)
28. According to McCulloch: “It is important to realize that neither Arthur or Waldo can exist as a whole
individual without the other. Consequently there is a logical reason for Arthur ending up in a “nut house” at Waldo's
death .... Waldo should not be viewed merely as a character who exists as a contrast to the true seeker, Arthur. It is
through the form and structure of “Waldo’s section” that we can understand “Arthur's section.” Although structured
separately the two parts interact, and the interdependence of the two sections reflects the necessary interdependence
of the two brothers” (McCulloch, 50).
Twins as a Structuring Principle
1. According to the blurb, the twins are: “two people living one life .... They shared everything except their
view of things. Waldo, with his intelligence, saw everything and understood little. Arthur was the fool who didn't
bother to look. He understood.”
2. There are two points of view:
(i) First by Waldo
(ii) Second by Arthur
o m
3. The two brothers seem to be a study in contrast:
(i) Waldo is dry and callous.
. c
(ii) Arthur is candid and full of mystical lyricism.
4. The tension between the two is both:

r ting
a
(i) grave and
(ii) comical.
ad
5. Walsh points out: “The twins are themselves divided parts of one person, and the tension which divides

m
y e Re
and unites them dramatizes the disturbance within man and within the single person. They act out that impure mixture
of love and hate which is both the condition of the relationship of every human being to another and the condition of
the attitude of the individual within himself to himself.” (Walsh, 86)

uld
in ks
6. According to Thelma Herring: “Waldo and Arthur, in fact are not ordinary twins, but rather a device for
dramatizing the concept of the antithetical self....From the technical point of view the device is handled brilliantly : the
twin narratives do not ask of the reader the kind of imaginative cooperation demanded by Voss, but Arthur’s account
n oo
s t
is a check on Waldo's, showing how his apparent blunders are deliberate (as when he calls to the dogs after seeing
O b
Waldo in their mother's dress, to warn him of his presence). (Herring, 74)
7. This is what Edgecombe has to say:
r -
.e fo E
(i) “For if Waldo’s section is longest and more discursive, less reliant on symbolism, it tends to reflect the
intellectual precedence he has always assumed over his brother and the rationalism that will seek meaning through

b d
statement rather than through sacramental imagery. The events common to both narratives ... articulate most acutely

we u an
the points at which the temperamental and philosophical divide between the two brothers declares itself.”
(Edgecombe, 62)
H
w Th
(ii) “the twinning is one of emotional warmth to rational coolness, of approach to recession, of extra – to
introversion, of inclusiveness to fastidious rejection, indeed of centrally antithetic tendencies of human nature.”
(Edgecombe, 64)

w 8. According to Kirpal Singh: “It is a mistake, I feel, to see White as an anti-intellectual. Waldo's knowledge
in The Solid Mandala may be faulty, bigoted, narrow and perverse, but it is as necessary to a complete grasp of
reality as is Arthur's morbid and childish fascination with his orange marble. Waldo and Arthur are twin manifestations
of a whole that is out of joint.” (Singh, 120)
9. McCulloch observes: “It is important to realize that neither Arthur or Waldo can exist as a whole individual
without the other. Consequently there is a logical reason for Arthur ending up in a “nut house” at Waldo's death ....
Waldo should not be viewed merely as a character who exists as a contrast to the true seeker, Arthur. It is through the
form and structure of “Waldo's section” that we can understand “Arthur's section.” Although structured separately
the two parts interact, and the interdependence of the two sections reflects the necessary interdependence of the two
brothers.” (McCulloch, 50)

19
 Q. 9. Do you think that The Stone Angel is an appropriate title for Laurence’s novel? Give reasons for
your answer.
Ans. The Stone Angel – The Title
1. Laurence said in an interview with Michel Fabre (in 1981): “Titles are important as they should in some
way express the theme of the book in a rather poetic way.”
2. “Solid and, ethereal, opaque and spiritual, The Stone Angel confronts the reader with a challenge that is left all
the move because of the oxymoron quality of the phrase,” says Simone Vauthier in her essay, “Image in Stones,
Images in Words.”
3. Says further Vauthier: “Announcing the new–the text to come–also resonates with the old: Thomas Wolfe’s
lyrical novel, Look Homeward Angel. Hardly have we had time to puzzle about it, however when the narration
blocks our flight of imagination by presenting us with a fictional referent for the title. “Above the town, on the hill
brow, the stone angel used to stand ....” (p. 3)
4. (i) The Stone Angel is a marble statue “brought from Italy at great expense.”
(ii) It is erected in the cemetery in memory of the narrator – protagonist's mother.

o m
(iii) This has its effect on the narrator's memory : “She viewed the town with sightless eyes.” (p. 3) This is
characteristic as much of Hagar as of the statue.

. c
5. Thus, the title is a nexus of meaning to (re) construct, rather than being an element of the decor.
The Stone Angel : A Referential Object
1. There are three major characters in the novel:
(i) Hagar
r ting
a
(ii) her father Jason Currie
(iii) her son John.
2. All three have some concern with the statue.
ad
novel:
m
y e
(i) First occurrence: in the description of the Manawaka cemetery. Re
3. The Stone Angel becomes a motif in the sense that it appears frequently in various episodes and forms in the

d
(ii) Second occurrence: when Hagar was going to leave her husband and Manawaka, she had a last glimpse
of the cemetery and the statue.
lin ks
t u
(iii) Another occurrence: Hagar and John go to the cemetery. Then
n oo
(a) Hagar finds the statue “toppled over on her face”. (p. 178)

O b
(b) She also finds that it has been painted with lipstick.

her son Marvin with her, she notices:

s
(iv) Still another occurrence: When Hagar visits the cemetery towards the end of the novel as a elderly son,
r -
.e fo E
(a) “The earth had heaved with frost around her.”
(b) “Someday, she’ll topple entirely and no one will bother to set her upright again,” (p. 305) says Hagar.
4. We learn from these occurrences:
b d
we
(i) The Stone Angel has both:

H
u a n
(a) an aesthetic ancestry in the barque tradition and

w Th
(b) a mercantile one in the commercialisation of religious art.
(ii) In the inhospitable land of the prairie, it shows decline.
(iii) The Stone Angel is a representative of divine creatures, but it suffers like the fate of human beings.

w (iv) Even in the beginning of the novel, we smell the stone angel being animate: “She viewed the town with
sightless eyes. She was doubly blind.” (p. 3)
5. The story of the statue is linked with the story of source characters in the novel:
(i) Jason Currie, the Manawaka store-owner, bought it “in pride to mark (his wife's) bones.” (p. 3)
(ii) She often tells Hagar “she had been brought from Italy it a terrible expense and was pure white marble.”
(iii) His words express his own cultural valves of life and have not much to do with the artefact.
6. Hagar’s son on the other hand, has a different character:
(i) he paints her with lipstick
(ii) he overthrows her
(iii) this expresses his :
(a) being an iconoclast

20
 (b) intrinsic rebellious nature.
7. Hagar orders him to restore the statue and he has to obey her.
8. This shows :
(i) Hagar cannot tolerate profanation.
(ii) She cannot leave the statue alone.
(iii) She also cannot leave her son alone.
9. This makes the statue a sign in the narrated world in the sense that the character has the willingness to take
action :
(i) to play or
(ii) play with the sign.
Q. 10. Analyse the term ‘New Literature in English’ as a possible advance on ‘Commonwealth Litera-
ture’.
Ans. (i) It should be borne in mind that the non-British authors whose works emerged from the cross-cultural

pened with the valuation of Toru Dutt's poetry by Edmund Gosse.

(ii) According to Norman Jeffares:
o m
contact between the British colonisers and the colonised natives have not always been rightly appraised as it hap-

c
It is quite understandable that:

(b) The literatures of different nationalities and regions:

—provide local colour, and also .
(a) Literature should be judged according to cosmopolitan standards and not national standards.

t g
—enrich the English language.

a r in
(c) The word “English” (with capital “E”) stands for the English spoken by native speakers of the language.

d
(d) —The word “english” (with small “e”) stands for an english spoken by non-natives.
—Such as “english” is part of the term “World Englishes”.
a
such as :
—It is different from a “standard code, English.”

m
y e Re
(iii) Thus the term “New Literatures in English” refers to the distinctiveness of these works offering diversity

d
(a) thematic

in ks
(b) linguistic

l
u
(c) formal

n oo
t
(iv) It should be noted that the, modern theoreticians, prefer to use the term “Postcolonial” for literatures from
the commonwealth countries.
O b
Framing Communication Literature

s r -
(i) Dennis Walder was perhaps the first to use the term “provincial” by referring to “a few provincial U.K.

.e fo E
universities”, in connection with the start of certain courses in American, commonwealth, Irish and African literatures
in the 1950s.

b d
(ii) Walsh called the works Pestering to these countries as “little clusters of ‘local’ texts.”

we u an
(iii) Thus, there emerged a new turn to the disjuncture between the:
(a) metropolis, and the
H
w Th
(b) periphery.
(iv) (a) The term “metropolis” refers to the centre or origin of the colonial power, and
(b) the term “periphery” refers to the regions over whom that colonial power was exercised.

w (c) “periphery” also refers to these regions over whom the colonial powers is still being exercised in forms
known as “neo-colonial” forms or means.
(v) This leads us to the recognition of and differentiation between the two terms:
(a) metropolitan, and
(b) peripheral.
(vi) Thus:
(a) London is the metropolitan centre, and
(b) countries colonised by Britain in Asia and Africa were the periphery or the outports.
(vii) Now, it is not hard to understand the difference between:
(a) cosmopolitan, and

21
 (b) provincial.
(viii) Quite understandably,
(a) the metropolitan literature is cosmopolitan, and
(b) the peripheral literature is provincial.
The term can be explained on
(a) The institutional-temporal basis, and
(b) political, social and economic basis.
(a) The Institutional-temporal basis:
(i) Walsh Walder had expressed his views regarding the prescription of local texts in syllabi at the Univeristy of
Cape Town in South Africa.
(ii) The first school of Commonwealth Literature in England was founded at Leads University in 1964.

m
(iii) However, even before that, in 1958, the first institute of Commonwealth Literature was founded at Aarhus
University in Denmark by Professor Greta Hort.

Literature.

c o
(iv) It was, however, in 1970 that William Walsh was appointed as professor to the first chair of Commonwealth

(b) Political, social and economic basis: In this connection, the following points should be noted :

(a) India and Pakistan gained independence in 1947.

t .
(i) These factors became an object of study for the reason of contemporaneous conditions, for example,

g
r
(b) Nigeria in 1960 and
(c) Kenya in 1963.
in
(ii) In 1960, the West Asian Federation was formed.
(iii) The writings that arose out of:
a ad
m
(a) “national strivings” and
e
(b) the process of “decolonization” had a major impact internationally, as Walder points out.
R
(a) Asia,
d
in ks
y e
(iv) During the 1950s and 1960s, that is in post-war Britain, a large nuclear of migrants from its former colonies
arrived, as from:

(b) Africa and

l
(c) the Caribbean.

t u
n oo
(v) This had a deep impact on Britain, e.g. the Immigration Act was passed in 1968 to exclude the non-whites
O b
s
from a sense of national belonging.

r -
(vi) This, however, also led to the production of what came to be known as “Black” (cultural) Commonwealth

.e o E
Literature.
f ■■

b d
we H
u a n
w Th
w

22