UNIVERSITY OF CALICUT

SCHOOL OF DISTANCE EDUCATION

B. A ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND

LITERATURE
(I SEMESTER)

Core Course: ENG1B01

INTRODUCING LITERATURE

(2019 ADMISSION ONWARDS)

1
 INTRODUCING LITERATURE

SELF-LEARNING MATERIAL

I SEMESTER

Core Course: ENG1B01

B.A ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

(2019 ADMISSION ONWARDS)

UNIVERSITY OF CALICUT
SCHOOL OF DISTANCE EDUCATION
Calicut University- PO, Malappuram,
Kerala, India - 673 635
2
 UNIVERSITY OF CALICUT
SCHOOL OF DISTANCE EDUCATION
SELF-LEARNING MATERIAL FIRST SEMESTER

B. A ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

(2019 ADMISSION ONWARDS)

Core Course: ENG1B01

INTRODUCING LITERATURE

PREPARED BY:
JUSTIN PHILIP CHERIAN
(Modules 1 & 2)
&
SMITHA N
(Modules 3 & 4)
Assistant Professors on Contract
School of Distance Education, University of Calicut

3
4
 CONTENTS

1. Introduction
2. Module 1 : Language and its literary nuances
3. Module 2 : Polyphony in Texts
4. Module 3 : Literature and Ideology
5. Module 4 : Perspectives of the Subaltern
6. Question Paper Model

5
 Introducing Literature
The paper “ Introducing Literature” tries to explain the
linguistic, social and cultural elements which go into the making
of literature. The paper tries to tell the students why literature is
needed and how it is written. The text takes a practical look at
literature and analyses literary works to see what they are made
of.
The first part of the paper deals with the linguistic aspects
of literature. How is literary language different from normal
language? The next part of the text familiarises students with poetic
techniques used by writers. Another important subject of
discussion is how diverse points of view are incorporated in the
text. The students are trained to read beyond the literal meaning
of texts. Students also learn to understand the ideologies behind
texts. The text also helps readers to distinguish marginalised voices
within literary works.

6
 Module 1:
Language and its Literary Nuances

The first module of “Introducing Literature” is divided into

two parts. The first part deals with the syntax of language while
the second part deals with the literary techniques which transform
ordinary language into literary language.
Syntax
The language that is used in literature is different from
ordinary language. While scientific and ordinary languages are
objective and direct, literary language is creative and imaginative.
Writers often use language in innovative ways and experiment
with language. They put language to the best use and explore all
the possibilities of language.
While ordinary language is used to convey simple messages,
literature deals with complex emotions that people experience in
their life. It is important to understand the structure of a language
in order to understand its literature. The problem faced by many
Malayalam speakers is the difference between the structure of
English and Malayalam. In Malayalam, the meaning of a sentence
does not change when the order of the words change. For
example, “Raman Ravanane konnu”, means the same as
“Ravanan Ramanal kollappettu”. However in English this is not
the case. Rama killed Ravana and Ravana killed Rama do not
have the same meaning.
Transitive and Intransitive Verbs
Verbs are words which denote action in a language. Transitive
and Intransitive are two types of verbs.
“Mary ate a biscuit”. In this sentence “ate” is the verb. If the
verb answers the question “what” or “ whom”, then we can say
that, the verb is a transitive verb. So if we ask the question, “
What did Mary eat?” The answer is “Mary ate a biscuit”. Thus “
ate” is a transitive verb.
Other examples of transitive verbs -
7
 Alex sent a postcard from Argentina. She left the keys on
the table.
My father took me to the movies.
Now let us look at intransitive verbs. Consider this sentence.
“He walked home”. If we ask the question “What did he walk”,
we do not get an answer. Thus we can say that walk is an
intransitive verb.
There are certain sentences like “I gave him some money”,
which answer not only the question, what was given, but also to
whom it was given. Such verbs which take two objects are known
as di-transitive verbs. Verbs which take only a single verb are
known as mono-transitive verbs.
Let us look at some other examples.
She hesitated for a moment.
They skate together.
Adjuncts
Adjuncts are words, phrases or clauses that accompany an
Intransitive verb which answer the question where, how and when
the action took place.
For example, in the sentence “ He spoke last night”, “last
night” is a phrase which answers the question when. Similarly in
the sentence, “He spoke at the seminar”, “at the seminar” is the
answer to the question where. In the sentence, “He spoke
uneasily”, the word uneasily answers the question how.
Even if adjunct part of the sentence is removed it does not
affect the other words in the sentence.
E.g. John helped Bill in New York
Inversion
Writers often change the order of words in a sentence to
create a sense of novelty (newness) in the minds of the reader.
However we will not be able to understand this inversion (change
of order) unless we are familiar with the usual order of words in
that language. Thus an understanding of the structure or syntax
of language is necessary to understand and appreciate literature
properly.
8
 A writer may even invert the order of words to give emphasis
to one thing over another. Let us look at an example from the
story “Eyes of the Cat” by Ruskin Bond.
“Her steps seem to grow lighter, her limbs more sinewy as
she moved gracefully, softly over the mountain path.”
In this sentence, how the cat moves is given more importance
than where she moves.
Native speakers often use small particles with verbs although
they do not make any change to the meaning of what is being
said. For example instead of saying stand, native speakers say,
stand up. Up is a particle which is used with the verb stand in this
case.
However there are certain particles which change the
meaning of the verb when they are used along with a verb. Such
verbs are known as phrasal verbs. Examples: look after, put on,
put up with etc.
The word put means to place something. For example, “put
the book on the table.” However the phrasal verb “put on” means
to wear. Example: “Put on your hat.” On is a particle used with
the verb put in this case.
Examples from poetry -
‘Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines’
This line is from “Sonnet 18” by William Shakespeare.
Instead of saying “the eye of heaven shines too hot”, he inverts it
to make it literary.
Collocation
Collocations are conventional word combinations which are
used in a language. Strong is a word which is often used with tea,
but it is not usually used with rain. We often use the phrase strong
tea, but we do not say strong rain. Instead we say “heavy rain”.
Such combinations in a language are known as collocations.
Examples -
To do the homework
To make the bed

9
 To take a risk
Sense groups
In language the meaning of a sentence may not depend on a
single word. Meaning is often dependent on a group of words
used together. Such groups of words which contribute to the
meaning of a sentence are known as sense groups. Sense groups
are so important that at times how we group the words in a
sentence determines the meaning of the sentence.
For example: “Woman without her man / is a big zero”, is
different from, “Woman / without her / man is a big zero”. In the
first sentence a woman is zero without her man whereas in the
second sentence, a man is zero without his woman. Thus where
we pause within a sentence often determine its meaning. Speakers
are expected to pause at the end of a sense group to make the
meaning clear.
Example -
When I went to the market / it was crowded.
Parataxis
Parataxis is a technique used in literature in which sentences
or ideas are linked together by listing them out. These parallel
sentence constructions are known as Parataxis.
E.g.1) “The leopard had sprung at her throat”, 2) “ broken
her neck” 3) “and dragged her into the bushes” .
Hypotaxis
In hypotaxis, different clauses are linked together by using
words like although, unless, because, while, whenever etc and
one clause is subordinate to another. This means that one of the
clauses is dependent on the other.
E.g. While he cooked my breakfast, I slept.
The Poetic
Poetry finds novel ways of expressing ideas and emotions.
In ordinary usage, language is used in a limited sense. Only the
obvious meaning is evoked. This meaning is known as denotative
meaning. In poetry however the indirect meaning of words and

10
sentences are implied. This meaning is known as connotative
meaning.
Eg. I have to go miles miles before I seep
The line given above is from Robert Frost’s “Stopping by
Woods on a Snowy Evening”.
Denotative meaning: The speaker has a long distance to
travel to reach his destination.
Connotative meaning: The speaker has lots of responsibilities
to fulfill before he dies.
Comparison
One way of enriching the meaning of an expression is to
compare the idea to something else. Often an abstract idea is
compared to a concrete image. Love is a feeling which cannot
be seen or heard. However love can be expressed through a
concrete object like a flower which can be seen and touched.
E.g. My love is like a red red rose.
Imagery
Imagery refers to the use of a series of images to convey a
feeling or idea. The image of a lone cloud floating over a valley
can be used to express the loneliness of the writer.
E.g. I wandered lonely as a cloud
The line is from Wordsworth’s poem with the same title as
the line mentioned above
Metaphor
Metaphors are comparisons in which the two things are
equated to each other.
E.g. He was a lion on the battlefield.
Here the man and the lion are equated. Words like “as” and
“ like” are not used. Metaphors can be considered as symbols
also. For example, a ‘red rose’ is considered as the symbol of
love.
E.g. from poetry -
She’s all states and all princes, I...
The line is from John Donne’s “The Sun Rising”
11
Simile
Simile is a form of comparison in which one thing is compared
to another by using words like as, like etc. E.g. He was like a
lion on the battlefield.
When we compare one thing to another the qualities of one
thing is ascribed to the other. For example, when we compare
love to a rose, the beauty and fragrance of the rose is ascribed to
love.
E.g. from poetry -
Oh my love’s like a red, red rose..
Oh my love’s like a melodie
These lines were written by Robert Burns. The poem is “A
Red, Red Rose”
Personification
When we attribute human qualities to something non-human
or consider a non-human entity as a human, it is known as
personification. Personification makes the unfamiliar familiar to
us.
E.g. “Because I could not stop for Death -
He kindly stopped for me” - These are lines from a poem
written by Emily Dickinson.
“I am silver and exact, I have no preconceptions”.
These lines are spoken by a mirror. The mirror is personified
by Sylvia Plath in her poem “The Mirror”.
Hyperbole
Hyperbole is a kind of exaggerated comparison. In order
to express the intensity of an emotion extremely, a writer compares
his emotion to something which is bigger than it. For example, a
writer may compare a tear to a flood to convey the intensity of
the sorrow. Hyperbole can be considered as an amplified simile
or metaphor.
E.g. Bright like a sun
E.g. from poetry -
Homer in Illiad says, “ Mars cried out as loudly as nine or
10 thousand men”.
12
 Apart from ideas, poetry also uses music to add more value
to the poem. Rhythms and rhymes are techniques which are used
to add to the musical quality of the poem.
Syllables
Syllables are the smallest unit of utterance. A syllable is
considered as a group of sounds which is uttered together. A
word may consist of one or more syllables. Bud is a word which
consists of a single syllable. However the word summer consists
of two syllables sum/mer. Certain syllables are given more
prominence over others. The emphasis given to certain syllables
is known as stress. All the syllables in a word are not stressed
equally. Some syllables are stressed while others are unstressed.
Rhythm
Similarly some words in a sentence are given more stress
compared to others. The presence of stressed and unstressed
words in a sentence creates rhythm in speech as well as poetry.
English is therefore known as a stress-timed language.
Metre
Metre refers to the number of feet in a line of poetry. Foot
consists of a combination of stressed and/or unstressed syllables.
If a line consists of just one foot, then it is known as monometre.
Similarly two feet lines are dimetre, three feet lines are trimetre,
four feet lines are tetrametre and five feet lines are pentameter.
Instead of the word feet, beats can also be used.
An iamb is a feet in which an unstressed syllable is followed
by a stressed syllable. Five iambs are present in an iambic
pentametre. The iambic pentametre is a common metre in English.
Eg.And (one) and (two) and (three) and (four) and (five).
The words given in the bracket are the stressed syllables in the
line.
When a stressed syllable is followed by an unstressed
syllable in a feet, it is known as trochee.
Eg. (In) the (for)ests (of) the (night). The syllables given in
the brackets are stressed.

13
 Punctuation also plays an important role in conveying the
meaning and emotion in poetry.
If a complete thought is expressed in a line in poetry, it is
known as end-stopped lines.
E.g. “The woods decay, the woods decay and fall
The vapours weep their burthen to the ground”.
However in certain lines the idea is not complete and runs
on to the next line. Such lines are known as run on lines or
enjambment. Enjambment helps the writer to convey the
confusion or indecision in the mind of the speaker.
“I have no spur
To prick the sides of my intent but only
Vaulting ambition...”
Similarly, the speaker in a poem might pause in the middle
of a line. Such pauses are known as caesura.
E.g. “Vaulting ambition / which o’erleaps itself
And falls on the other / - How now! What news?”
(/ represents a pause in the line.)

14
 Module 2
Polyphony in Texts
Point of view
There are different points of view from which a story can
be narrated. If the story is told from the point of view of the
author or the central character, we can say that the story is narrated
in the first-person point of view. For example, the novel
Treasure Island by R. L. Stevenson is narrated by the protagonist
(central character) Jim Hawkins. The Adventures of Sherlock
Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle is narrated by the sidekick Dr.
Watson.
If a story is narrated by an observer who is not part of the
narrative, then the story is narrated in the third person point of
view. Most times such narrators are omniscient, which means
that they know everything about the story and the characters.
Sometimes the narrators know everything about only one
character, thus they are limited. For example, in the novel 1984
by George Orwell, the narrator knows only about the thoughts
and feeling of the protagonist, Winston. However in Jane Austen’s
Pride and Prejudice, the narrator knows everything about every
character. Thus the narrator is omniscient.
Some stories or novels may be narrated from multiple
perspectives. For example, the novel Home Fire by Kamila
Shamsie is narrated by a third person narrator from the
perspective of five different characters in different chapters. This
enables the author to express multiple ideas and view points in
the novel.
Polyphony
Perspective is very important in any story as the perspective
expresses the intentions of the author and controls the meaning
of the narrative. Some novelists employ a technique which gives
importance to the point of view of one character, but also makes
room for the point of view of other characters. The novel, Things
Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe is narrated by an omniscient
15
narrator who gives importance to the protagonist Okonkwo, but
at the same time other characters are also given space to express
themselves. Such novels are termed as polyphonic or dialogic
by critics. The terms were used by Mikhail Bakhtin to describe
the novels of Dostoevsky.
Polyphony brings about more balance and objectivity to
the narrative. Novels are different from epics which usually focus
on a single character. Novels usually present the view points of
multiple characters in the story. Some writers take polyphony to
the extreme and narrate the same event from the perspective of
different characters. The Japanese film Rashomon by Akira
Kurosawa for example, tells the story of a murder from different
perspectives.
Allusion
Allusion is a brief and indirect reference to a person, place,
thing or idea of historical, cultural, literary or political significance.
It does not describe in detail the person or thing to which it refers.
It is just a passing comment and the writer expects the reader to
possess enough knowledge to spot the allusion and grasp its
importance in a text.
For instance, you make a literary allusion the moment you
say, “I do not approve of this quixotic idea,” Quixotic means
stupid and impractical derived from Cervantes’s “Don Quixote”,
a story of a foolish knight and his misadventures.
The use of allusions is not confined to literature alone. Their
occurrence is fairly common in our daily speech. Look at some
common allusion examples in everyday life:
“Don’t act like a Romeo in front of her.” – “Romeo” is a
reference to Shakespeare’s Romeo, a passionate lover of Juliet,
in “Romeo and Juliet”.
“The rise in poverty will unlock the Pandora’s box of
crimes”. – This is an allusion to one of Greek Mythology’s origin
myth, “Pandora’s box”.
“This place is like a Garden of Eden.” – This is a biblical
allusion to the “garden of God” in the Book of Genesis.
16
 “Hey! Guess who the new Newton of our school is?” –
“Newton”, means a genius student, alludes to a famous scientist
Isaac Newton.
“Stop acting like my ex-husband please.” – Apart from
scholarly allusions we refer to common people and places in our
speech.
Function of allusion
By and large, the use of allusions enables writers or poets
to simplify complex ideas and emotions. The readers comprehend
the complex ideas by comparing the emotions of the writer or
poet to the references given by them. Furthermore, the references
to Greek Mythology give a dreamlike and magical touch to the
works of art. Similarly, biblical allusions appeal to the readers
with religious backgrounds.
Intertextuality
Intertextuality is the shaping of a text’s meaning by another
text. It is the interconnection between similar or related works of
literature that reflect and influence an audience’s interpretation of
the text. Intertextuality is a literary device that creates an
‘interrelationship between texts’ and generates related
understanding in separate works. These references are made to
influence the reader and add layers of depth to a text, based on
the readers’ prior knowledge and understanding. Intertextuality
is a literary discourse strategy utilized by writers in novels, poetry,
theatre and even in non-written texts (such as performances and
digital media).
Examples of intertextuality are an author’s borrowing and
transformation of a prior text, and a reader’s referencing of one
text in reading another.
Examples - Ulysses by James Joyce
Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys

17
 Module 3
Literature and Ideology
Introduction
This module would give an insight about the connection
between the existing power structure and literature. Literature
reflects and sometimes reveals the ideology that refers to the
dominant beliefs, ideas and representations which legitimize the
existing power relations. This module encourages learners to read
beyond the literal and enables them to perceive how literary /
cultural texts conceal /interrogate power, how they document,
critique or subvert the dominant power. It would enable learners
to read a text closely, critically and politically. Two texts prescribed
are
1. “ A Hanging” by George Orwell
2. “The Adivasi will not Dance” by Hansda Sowvendra
Shekhar
Terms/ Concepts Discussed
Power, Hegemony, Subjectivity, Irony, Interpellation,
Discourse
How is literature related to ideology? Literature most
commonly refers to works of the creative imagination, including
poetry, drama, fiction, nonfiction, and in some
instances, journalism, and song. Simply put, literature represents
the culture and tradition of a language or a people. It deals with
man’s relationship with his environment, society and his fellow
beings and hence is not free from the workings of power. A literary
text carries by default the value system of the author and the
society it addresses, impressions of the existing power structure
and the certain subjective perspectives. Therefore, when we learn
a text, we have to learn to interact with its ideology.
Let us discuss these concepts after reading the text given
below. It is an extract from Arundhathi Roy’s Booker prize winning
novel The God of Small Things

18
 “ As a young boy,Velutha would come with Vellya Paapen
to the back entrance of the Aymenem House to deliver the
coconuts they had plucked from the trees in the compound.
Pappachi would not allow paravans into the house. Nobody
would. They were not allowed to touch anything that Touchables
touched. Caste Hindus and Caste Christians. Mammachi told
Estha and Rahel that she could remember a time, in her girlhood,
When Paravans were expected to crawl backwards with a broom,
sweeping away their footprints so that Brahmins or Syrian
Christians would not defile themselves by accidentally stepping
into Paravan’s footprint. In Mammachi’s time, Paravans, like other
Untouchables, were not allowed to walk on public roads, not
allowed to carry umbrellas. They had to put their hands over
their mouths when they spoke, to divert their polluted breath
away from those whom they addressed.”
( The God Of Small Things by Arundhati Roy)
We can see that the text deals with the ideological
foundations of the caste system. Let us examine how Arundhati
Roy’s writing uses caste hierarchy to comment on how power
works in our society. As you know caste is a 2,000-year-old
system working within the context of the four principal varnas,
or large caste categories. In order of precedence these are
the Brahmins (priests and teachers), the Ksyatriyas (rulers and
soldiers), the Vaisyas (merchants and traders), and
the Shudras (laborers and artisans). A fifth category falls outside
the varna system and consists of those known as “untouchables”,
who are not even considered as human beings in the Varna system
.But today caste has moved beyond this formulation and has
become a live force in Indian culture, society and politics. Mulkraj
Anand, the great Indian English writer, portrays the evil face of
caste system in his novel The Untouchables. He has vividly
depicted in the novel the miserable lot of the unfortunate
untouchables through the story of Bakha, a sweeper boy. Later
many Dalit writers come into forefront to speak up their own
experiences through different literary forms. C Ayyappan,

19
Omprakash Valmiki, Bama, SarathkumarLimbale…etc are a few
among them.
• In the given passage how do you think Arundhathi Roy
documents the discrimination against and ostracism of the
lower castes perpetrated in the social history of Kerala.
¾ Arundhati Roy, in her novel, illustrates the social injustice
faced by the lower castes through the characterization of
Velutha who represents the Parava community and
descriptions of discriminations faced by the Paravans. These
descriptions allow the reader to understand the power
hierarchy between upper castes like Brahmins and Syrian
Christians and lower castes like Paravans and the hegemony
at play. Through the recollections of Mammachi and the
narrator and the employment of terms ‘untouchables’, ‘caste
Hindus’ and ‘caste Christians’, author here acknowledges
the caste system as omnipresent in the social history of Kerala
across religions. The literary text becomes a documentation
of the hegemony exercised by the upper castes of both
the Hindu and the Christian religion.
• How does she sensitize the readers to the social injustices
committed against the Paravans?
¾ Through the description of the lived experience, Roy
sensitizes the reader about the caste system and how it was
perpetrated across communities. Roy draws in the image
of untouchability by recounting their experiences which
includes how they had to sweep away their footprints off
the roads and abstain from clothing their upper bodies. By
documenting their lived experiences Roy makes the readers
aware of the hegemony and power hierarchy existed
between upper castes and Paravans and thereby opens up
a space for critique of the caste system.
What is power and ideology?
We all know that power is an ability to control people and
events. Power plays everywhere. Since ancient time, social
theorists tried to define the queries that people who lack economic
20
power consent to hierarchies of social and political power. They
have used philosophy, hegemony and discourse as main notion
to explain the power relations. The Marxist thought of ideology
explains how the dominant ideas within a given society reveal the
interests of a ruling economic class. Marx and others relate
ideology to a vision of society dominated by economic class as a
field of social power. Hegemonic practices of power are those
acts where the people are blind to the exercise of power. They
more or less agree to the apparatus that subjugates them. For
example, when the high caste spread the common sense that the
hierarchy of caste system is true and divinely ordained, the society
as a whole takes it for an axiomatic common sense.
Hegemony:
The notion of hegemony is especially difficult to explain in
concrete political terms. It is the political, economic, or military
predominance or control of one state over others. In Ancient
Greece (8th century BCE - 6th century CE), hegemony signified
the politico-military supremacy of a city-state over other city-
states. The dominant state was known as the hegemon.
In the 19th century, hegemony represented the “Social or
cultural predominance by one group within a society or milieu”.
Afterwards, it could be used to mean “a group or regime which
exerts undue influence within a society.” In theoretical viewpoint,
hegemony is the expression of society’s ruling classes over the
majority of the nation or state over whom they propose to rule.
Italian Thinker Antonio Gramsci (1971) describes hegemony as,
“a conception of the world that is implicitly manifest in art, in law,
in economic activity and in all manifestations of individual and
collective life.”
Hegemony is the process through which the dominant
classes/ groups propagate their beliefs and ideas with the consent
of the subordinate groups. This main stream values and ideas are
assimilated through interpellation. This term was coined by
Louis Althusser to explain the way in which ideas get into our
heads and have an effect on our lives.It is a process in which we
encounter our culture’s values and internalize them . We
21
are interpellated from the day that we are born into specific roles
that society has created for us. For example:
Girls being portrayed in magazines playing with dolls and
loving the color pink are an example of gender - role interpellation.
Ideology:
Ideology is a subject that caught great attention during the
last half of the twentieth century. In fundamental terms, an ideology
is a belief or a set of beliefs, especially the political beliefs on
which people, parties, or countries base their actions. It is a plan
of action for applying these ideas.
In a wider perspective, ideology can be explained as the
way a system, a single individual or even a whole society
rationalizes itself. American scholars Erikson & Tedin (2003)
define ideology as a “set of beliefs about the proper order of
society and how it can be achieved”.
The leading Marxist philosopher Louis Althusser used the
term Ideology to refer to these dominant beliefs, ideas and
representations which legitimize existing power relations.
According to Althusser , there are two ways in which the existing
power relations are enforced.
1) through institutions which use brute force such as the
army and the police, which he calls the Repressive State
Apparatus or RSAs
2) through various institutions such as the family, schools,
religion, politics and the media which he calls Ideological State
Apparatus or ISAs.
However, ideology is a problematic notion: it is a relatively
stable body of knowledge that the ruling class transmits to its
subordinate classes. The hierarchy of the ruler and the ruled plays
its logic to various ideological categories including that of the
binary man/woman. This latter binary is the core political quantum
around which the idea of feminism is constituted.
Feminism and Literature
As you may be well aware, we are living in a patriarchal
society where man is deemed to be the nucleus. The dictionary
22
defines ‘patriarchy’ as a “social organization marked by the
supremacy of the father in the clan or family in both domestic
and religious functions”. Patriarchy is characterized by male
domination and power. All the social norms, religions, ethics,
morality, family system and even education system have been
constructed and developed from the patriarchic system. Male
domination and the subjugation of women, children and other
(LGBT)communities are the basic operational logics of the
patriarchic system.
Literature reflects or sometimes reinforces existing power
relations. Feminist writers use literature as a tool to expose and
critique the gender discrimination in a patriarchal society.
Feminism is an ideology that believes in social, economic, and
political equality of the sexes. Feminists bring out the injustice of
male dominance in the society; the general attitude of male
towards female; the exploitation and discrimination faced by
females; the need for and ways of improving the condition of
women and, so on.
Feminist approaches to Literature
Feminist literary critics have concentrated on the role played
by literature in reinforcing gender discrimination, as well as
resisting it; the reasons for lesser significance of the contribution
by female writers in the literary tradition than that of the male
writers; the difference in the ways in which works of male writers
and female writers have represented gender discrimination
differently; and, the ways in which social conditions and literary
traditions regarding gender discrimination have affected one
another.
See for instance, this passage from Charlotte Bronte’s Jane
Eyre:
I saw he was going to marry her, for family, perhaps political
reasons, because her rank and connections suited him; I felt he
had not given her his love, and that her qualifications were ill
adapted to win from him that treasure. This was the point- this
was where the nerve was touched and teased –this was where
23
the fever was sustained and fed:SHE COULD NOT CHARM
HIM. If she had managed the victory at once, and he had yielded
and sincerely laid his heart at her feet, I should have covered my
face, turned to the wall, and (figuratively) have died to them. If
Ingram had been a good and noble women, endowed with force,
fervour, kindness, sense, I should have had one vital struggle
with two tigers- jealousy and despair: then, my heart torn out
and devoured, I should have admired her – acknowledged her
excellence, and been quiet for the rest of my days : and the more
absolute her superiority, the deeper would have been my
admiration- the more truly tranquil my quiescence. But as matters
really stood, to watch Miss Ingram’s efforts at fascinating Mr.
Rochester, to witness their repeated failure – herself unconscious
that they did fail; vainly fancying that each shaft launched hit the
mark, and infatuatedly pluming herself on success, when her pride
and self –complacency repelled further and further what she
wished to allure- to witness THIS, was to be at once under
ceaseless excitation and ruthless restraint. Because, when she
failed, I saw how she might have succeeded. Arrows that
continually glanced off from Mr. Rochester’s breast and fell
harmless at his feet, might, I knew , if shot by a surer hand, have
quivered keen in his proud heart – have called love into his stern
eye, and softness into his sardonic face; or, better still, without
weapons a silent conquest might have been won. ‘Why can she
not influence him more, when she is privileged to draw so near to
him?’ I asked myself. ‘Surely she cannot truly like him, or with
true affection! If she did, she need not coin her smiles so lavishly,
flash her glances so unremittingly, manufacture airs so elaborate,
graces so multitudinous. It seems to me that she might, by merely
sitting quietly at his side, saying little and looking less, get near his
heart. I have seen in his face a far different expression from that
which hardens it now while she is so vivaciously accosting him;
but then it came of itself: it was not elicited by meretricious arts
and calculated maneuvers; and one had but to accept it – to
answer what he asked without pretension, to address him when
needful without grimace – and it increased and grew kinder and
24
more genial, and warmed one like a fostering sunbeam. How
will she manage to please him when they are married? I do not
think she will manage it; and yet it might be managed; and his
wife might, I verily believe, be the very happiest women the sun
shines on.’(This passage is from Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre.)
• Reflect on the words in capital
SHECOULDNOTCHARM HIM
• Do you think this fact has more importance in a
patriarchal society?
In order to answer the questions above, we need to focus
on certain areas of the text. Let us see how Charlotte Bronte
presents here heroine and her passions.
Jane Eyre, the protagonist of this novel is in love with her
employer Mr. Rochester. Jane becomes desperate when
Rochester brings home a beautiful but ruthless woman named
Blanche Ingram. Jane expects Rochester to propose to Blanche.
Jane doesn’t get why anyone would not marry for love, especially
if they’re rich enough to do pretty much whatever they want, but
she figures there must be some reason that so many people who
are already wealthy and important insist on marrying to get more
money and status instead of to make themselves happy. Notice
that Jane doesn’t talk about her own ideas about marriage—
only the ideas that she would have if she were in Rochester’s
place. Somehow Jane can’t conceive of herself needing to make
a choice about marrying for love or status—only of a man like
Rochester doing so. She knows that the lady-like Miss Ingram
could not charm him. However, this fact has no importance in a
patriarchal society. A patriarchal arrangement looks at marriage
more as a social mechanism that sustains the status quo than as a
union of loving souls. In this perspective, considerations of class,
caste and social status determine marriage and matches. Jane
Eyre is critical of Victorian England’s strict social hierarchy. In
addition to class hierarchy, she must fight against patriarchal
domination—against those who believe women to be inferior to
men and try to treat them as such. In Chapter 12 of Jane Eyre,
25
Jane articulates what was for her time a radically feminist
philosophy:
“Women are supposed to be very calm generally: but
women feel just as men feel; they need exercise for their
faculties, and a field for their efforts as much as their brothers
do; they suffer from too rigid a restraint, too absolute a
stagnation, precisely as men would suffer; and it is narrow-
minded in their more privileged fellow-creatures to say that
they ought to confine themselves to making puddings and
knitting stockings, to playing on the piano and embroidering
bags. It is thoughtless to condemn them, or laugh at them, if
they seek to do more or learn more than custom has
pronounced necessary for their sex”.
Literature may portray the life of the marginalized and
excluded from the privileges of language , knowledge, material
wealth, high culture and mainstream social spaces. See this
excerpt from Maya Angelou’s autobiographical essay
“Graduation”.
Graduation , the hush-hush magic time of frills and gifts and
congratulations and diplomas was finished for me before my name
was called. The accomplishment was nothing. The meticulous
maps, drawn in three colors of ink, learning and spelling deca-
syllabic words, memorizing the whole of The Rape Of Lucrece
– it was for nothing. Donleavy had exposed us. We were maids
and farmers, handymen and washerwomen and anything higher
that we aspired to was farcical and presumptuous.
Maya Angelou, American poet, memoirist, and actress
whose several volumes of autobiography explore the themes of
economic, racial, and sexual oppression.
Angelou describes the intense differences from the white
school and hers. While first preparing for her graduation Angelou
was very excited; being quite proud of her academic achievements
and other accomplishments, Angelou was hardly able to contain
the anticipation of marching up to the stage and receiving her
hard-earned diploma. Not only was she proud of herself, but it
26
was quite obvious that those around her felt the same delight.
Her mother made her a beautiful dress, complete with an
abundance of embroideries and frills. Many people showered
her with gifts and money, imparting with her words of wisdom
and encouragement to nourish her desire to achieve. A great
feeling of happiness had been bestowed upon her, and she was
rather anxious to reap the rewards.
The time for graduation had finally come. After being lead
by her mother’s hand Angelou, nervously, took her place with
the other students as her family seated themselves in the
auditorium. They were informed that their guest speaker was on
a tight schedule and could not stay long. After taking his place on
stage, the chief guest Mr. Donleavy spoke great measures about
the improvements that would soon be received by the central, or
white school, but little of the accomplishments (outside of sports)
for the blacks. Angelou felt crushed, all hope had been
admonished as she was reminded of the Negros place in life;
maids, farmers, and other unspectacular positions. She became
quite bitter as she listened his speech.
The excerpts from Roy and Angelou show us who exercises
power and who is affected by it. The perspective of the one who
suffers the power empowers literary narratives in a very special
way.We could see that from the above examples. Subjectivity is
something in us by which we understand the world around us. It
asks us to feel the world on the basis of our perceptions.
Activity
• Assuming Donleavy is a white man of authority, figure
out how Black girl students are doubly marginalized.
Discourse
Ideologies create narratives such as the ones that we saw
above. But in a complex everyday social milieu it is often difficult
to identify each ideology working independently of another. There
is a lot of complex overlap and give and take. This alliance of
narratives is what we call discourse.

27
 The term ‘Discourse’ was first used by Michel Foucault,
a post modern thinker in his studies of modern power and modern
state machinery. He called discourse an interdependence of
meaning systems, social power and knowledge.
Let us read a passage from George Orwell’s “ A Hanging”
and discuss the nuances of discourses.
George Orwell A Hanging It was in Burma, a sodden
morning of the rains. A sickly light, yellow tinfoil was slanting
over the high walls into the jail yard. We were waiting outside the
condemned cells, a row of sheds fronted with double bars, like
small animal cages. Each cell measured about ten feet and was
quit bare within expect for a plank bed and a pot of drinking
water. In some of them brown silent men were squatting at the
inner bars, with their blankets draped round them. These were
the condemned men due to be within the next week or two.
One prisoner had been brought out of his cell. He was a Hindu,
a puny wisp of a man, with a shaven head and vague liquid eyes.
He had a thick, sprouting moustache, absurdly too big for his
body, rather like the moustache of a comic man on the films. Six
tall Indian warders were guarding him and getting him ready for
the gallows. Two of them stood by with rifles and fixed bayonets,
while the others handcuffed him, passed a chain through his
handcuffs and fixed it to their belts, and lashed his arms tight to
his sides. They crowded very close about him, with their hands
always on in him in a careful, caressing grip, as though all the
while feeling him to make sure he was there. It was like men
handing a fish which is still alive and may jump back in to the
water. But he stood quiet unresisting, yielding his arms limply to
the ropes, as though he hardly he hardly noticed what was
happening.Eight o’clock struck and a bugle call, desolately thin
in the wet air, floated from the distant barracks. The superintendent
of the jail, who was standing apart from the rest of us, moodily
prodding the gravel with his stick, raised his head at the sound.
He was an army doctor, with a grey toothbrush moustache and a
gruff voice. ‘For God’s sake hurry up, Francis,’ he said irritably.
‘The man ought to have been dead by this time. Aren’t you ready
28
yet?Francis, the head jailer, a fat Dravidian in a white drill suit
and gold spectacles, waved his black hand. ‘Yes sir, yes
sir,’hebubbled. ‘All is satisfactorily prepared. The hangman is
waiting. We shall proceed.’‘Well, quick march, then. The
prisoners can’t get their breakfast till this job’s over. We set out
for the gallows. To warders marched on either side of the prisoner,
with their rifles at the slope; two others marched close against
him, gripping him by arm and shoulder, as though at once pushing
and supporting him. The rest of us, magistrates and the like,
followed behind. Suddenly, when we had gone ten yards, the
procession stopped short without any order or warming. A
dreadful thing had happened – a dog, come goodness knows
whence, had appeared in the yard. it came bounding among us
with a loud volley of barks, and leapt round us wagging its whole
body, wild with glee at finding so many human beings together. It
was a large woolly dog, half Airedale, half pariah. For a moment
it pranced round us, and then, before anyone could stop it, it had
made a dash for the prisoner, and jumping up tried to lick his
face. Everyone stood aghast, too taken aback even to grab at
the dog.‘Who let that bloody brute in here? ‘Said the
superintendent angrily. ‘Catch it, someone!’A warder, detached
from the escort, charged clumsily after the dog, but it danced
and gamboled just out of his reach, talking everything as part of
the game. a young Eurasian jailer picked up a handful of gravel
and tried to stone the dog away, but it dodged the stones and
came after us again. Its yaps echoed from the jail wails. The
prisoner, in the grasp of the two warders, looked on incuriously,
as though this was another formality of the of the hanging. It was
several minutes before someone managed to catch the dog. Then
we put my handkerchief through its collar and moved off once
more, with the dog still straining and whimpering.It was about
forty yards to the gallows. I watched the bare brown back of
the prisoner marching in front of me. He walked clumsily with his
bound arms, but quiet steadily, with that bobbing gait of the Indian
who never straightens his knees. At each step his muscles slid
neatly into place, the lock of hair on his scalp danced up and
29
down, his feet printed themselves on the wet gravel. Andonce, in
spite of the men who gripped him by each shoulder, he stepped
slightly aside to avoid a puddle on the path.It is curious, but till
that moment I had never realized what it means to destroy a
healthy, conscious man. When I saw the prisoner step aside to
avoid the puddle, I saw the mystery, the unspeakable wrongness,
of cutting a life short when it is in full tide. This man was not
dying; he was alive just as we were alive. All the organs of his
body were working – bowels digesting food , skin renewing itself
, nails growing ,tissues forming- all toiling away in solemn foolery.
His nails would still be growing when he stood on the drop, when
he was falling through the air with a tenth of a second to live. His
eyes saw the yellow gravel and the grey walls, and his brain still
remembered, foresaw, reasoned – reasoned even about puddles.
He and we were a party of men walking together,seeing,hearing,
feeling, understanding the same world ; and in two minutes with
a sudden snap , one of us would be gone – one mindless , one
wordless .The gallows stood in a small yard, separate from the
main grounds of the prison, and overgrown with tall prickly
weeds. It was a brick erection like three sides of shed, with
planking on top, and above that two beams and a crossbar with
the rope dangling. The hangman, a grey- haired convict in the
white uniform of the prison, was waiting beside his machine. He
greeted us with a servile crouch as we entered. At a word from
Francis the two warders , gripping the prisoner more closely
than ever , half led , half pushed him to the gallows and helped
him clumsily up the ladder. Then the hangman climbed up and
fixed the rope round the prisoner’s neck.We stood waiting, five
yards away. The warders had formed in a rough circle round the
gallows. And then, when the noose was fixed, the prisoner began
crying out on his god. It was a high, reiterated cry of ‘Ram!
Ram! Ram! Ram!’ not urgent and fearful like a prayer or a cry
for help, but steady, rhythmical, almost like the tolling of a bell.
The dog answered the sound with a whine. The hangman, still
standing on the gallows, produced a small cotton bag like a flour
bag and drew it down over the prisoner’s face. But the sound,
30
muffled by the cloth, still persisted, over and over again:‘Ram!
Ram! Ram! Ram!’The hangman climbed down and stood ready,
holding the lever. Minutes seemed to pass. The steady, muffled
crying from the prisoner went on and on, ‘Ram! Ram! Ram!’
never faltering for an instant. The superintendent, his head on his
chest, was slowly poking the ground with his stick; perhaps he
was counting the cries, allowing the prisoner a fixed number –
fifty,perhaps, or a hundred. Everyone had changed colour. The
Indians had gone grey like bad coffee, and one or two of the
bayonets werewavering. We looked at the lashed, hooded man
on the drop, and listened to his cries – each cry another second
of life; the same thought was in all our minds; oh, kill him quickly,
get it over,stop that abominable noise! Suddenly the
superintendent made up his mind. Throwing up his head he made
a swift motion with his stick. ‘ chalo! He shouted almost
fiercely.There was a clanking noise, and then dead silence. The
prisoner had vanished, and the rope was twisting on itself. I let
go of the dog, and it galloped immediately to the back of the
gallows; but when it got there it stopped short, barked, and then
retreated into a corner of the yard, where it stood among the
weeds, looking timorously out at us .We went round the gallows
to inspect the prisoner’s body. He was dangling with his toes
pointed straight downwards, very slowly revolving, as a stone.The
superintendent reached out with his stick and poked the bare
body; it oscillated, slightly. ‘he backed out from under the gallows
, and blew out adeep breath. The moody look had gone out of
his face quite suddenly. He glanced at his wristwatch. ‘Eight
minutes past eight. Well, that’s all for this morning, thank God.’
The warders unfixed bayonets and marched away. The dog,
sobered and conscious of having misbehaved itself, slipped after
them. We walked out of the gallows yard, past the condemned
cells with their waiting prisoners, in to the big central yard of the
prison. The convicts, under the command of warders armed with
lathis, were already receiving their breakfast. They squatted in
long rows, each man holding a tin pannikin , while two warders
with buckets marched round ladling out rice; it seemed quite a
31
homely , jolly scene after the hanging . An enormous relief had
come upon us now that the job was done. One felt an impulse to
sing, to break in to a run, to snigger. All at once everyone began
chattering gaily.The Eurasian boy walking beside me nodded
towards the way we had come, with a knowing smile: ‘Do you
know, sir our friend (he meant the dead man), when he heard his
appeal had been dismissed, he pissed on the floor of his cell.
From fright .kindly take one of my cigarettes, sir. Do you not
admire my new silver case, sir? From the box wallah, two rupees
eight annas. Classy European style.’Several people laughed – at
what nobody seemed certain.Francis was walking by the
superintendent, talking garrulously. ‘Well,sir, all has passed off
with the utmost satisfactoriness. It was all finished – flick! Like
that. It is not always so- oh, oh! I have known cases where the
doctor was obliged to go beneath the gallows and pull the
prisoner’s legs to ensure decease .Most disagreeable!’ ‘Wriggling
about, eh? That‘s bad, ‘said the superintendent.‘Ach, sir it is
worse when they become refractory! One man, I recall, clung to
the bars of hiscage when we went to take him out. You will scarcely
credit, sir, that it took six warders to dislodge him. “My dear
fellow, “we said “think of all the pain and trouble you are causing
to us!” But no, he would not listen! Ach, he was very
troublesome!’I found that I was laughing quiet loudly. Everyone
was laughing. Even the superintentendent grinned in a tolerant
way. ‘You’d better all come out and have drink,’ he said quite
genially. ‘I’ve got a bottle of whisky in the car. We could do with
it.’We went through the big double gates of the prison, into the
road. ‘Pulling at his legs!’ exclaimed a Burmese magistrate
suddenly, and burst into a loud chuckling. We all began laughing
again. At that moment Francis‘s anecdote seemed extraordinarily
funny. We all had a drink together, native and European alike,
quite amicably. The dead man was a hundred yards away.
The short story “ A Hanging” is based on the author’s
firsthand experience as an imperialist police officer in Burma.
His detailed and clear portrayal of an entire hanging episode is
the central feature of Orwell’s work. Orwell treats the entire scene
32
with brutal honesty and directness that evokes in readers mind a
strong feeling against capital punishment.
This story uses a technique of hiding the real message by
projecting a lot of unimportant facts and details. This technique
is known by the name Irony. Irony is useful in places where
direct statements cannot fetch maximum force.
1. What strikes you first about the narrator? Does he have
the authority to stop the hanging? Why doesn’t he?
In the given narrative, the narrator is neither the one in
charge, nor the victim. This positioning makes him an observer,
not as responsible as the officer and not as hopeless as the one
who is to be hung. The first thing we observe in such a narrator is
compliance with the mood of the majority. He laughs with the
crowd on jokes cracked about the victims, he observes the face
of the victim with a sense of derision, and always keeps line with
the fellow warders. The irony works precisely because of this
narrative position.
2. How do you think a ‘civilized’ society punishes its wrong-
doers?
A civilized group of people would not believe in punishment
but corrective measures that do not employ force or violence. In
the given passage on the pretext of civilization, a group of people
punish a man by hanging him to death. This is not only a return to
the barbaric past, but a forsaking of everything good that the
journey to civilization has put in human souls. The fact that most
of the modern nations have removed capital punishment from
their legal procedures makes acts of war heinous, lawless and
anti-civilizational.
As a reader, one naturally focuses on the high emotional
points: those of the officer and the prisoner. The emphasis given
by the narrator on certain points will not be agreed upon by the
reader. This kicks off the irony in the narrative. As the narrator
waxes descriptive about the awkward physical appearance of
the prisoner in the first part, the reader will be more worried
about the mental landscape of the prisoner.
33
 The capital punishment to be executed is seen by the narrator
as an everyday, inconsequential activity. Except in that instance
when the narrator stops to think of the life of the prisoner in
terms of his functioning anatomy, the narrative keeps guarded
detachment from the emotions being staged.
The irony grows deeper when the Indian to be hung, contrary
to the expectation, maintains a very stoic, civilized and poised
stance while the white European warders appear uncouth and
inhumane. That the characters belong to different racial
backgrounds also don’t make a prominent narrative trope in the
story. This is another instance of irony. This is irony in the mode
of understatement. We as readers pick up the intended meaning
precisely because it is underplayed.
To describe the working of modern power there is no better
literary device than irony. Power, in the contemporary society is
not an evident force. It is hidden in the mesh of social relations. It
runs through hierarchies and bureaucratic labyrinths. The hidden
nature of this phenomenon can be brought out only by those
devices that can hide meanings so skillfully as to make them shine
through more powerfully.
Let us now read another story to see how literature unfolds
and interrogates the way power designs both social relations and
the relations between man and environment.
Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar
The Adivasi will not Dance
They pinned me to the ground. They did not let me speak,
they did not let me protest, they did not even let me raise my
head and look at my fellow musicians and dancers as they were
being beaten up by the police. All I could hear were their cries
for mercy. I felt sorry for them. I had failed them. Because what
I did, I did on my own. Yet, did I have a choice? Had I only
spoken to them about my plan, I am sure they would have stood
by me. For they too suffer the same as they would have stood
by me, they would have spoken with me and, together , our
voices would have rung out loud. They would have travelled out
34
of our Santhal Pargana, out of our Jharkhand, all the way to Dillli
and all of Bharot-disom; the world itself would have come to
know of our suffering. Then, perhaps, our President would have
agreed with what I said to him.
But I did not share my plan with anyone. I went ahead alone,
like a fool. They grabbed me, beat me to the ground, put their
hands on my mouth and gagged me. I felt so helpless and so
foolish.
But we Santhals are fools, aren’t we? All of us Adivasis are
fools. Down the years, down generations, the Diku have taken
advantage of our foolishness. Tell me if I am wrong.
I only said, “We Adivasis will not dance anymore what is
wrong with that? We are like toys- someone presses our ‘ON’
button, or turns a key in our backsides, and we Santhals start
beating rhythms on our tamak and tumdak, or start blowing tunes
on our tiriyo while someone snatches away our very dancing
grounds. Tell me, am I wrong? I had not expected things to go
so wrong. I thought I was speaking to the best man in India, our
President. I had thought he would listen to my words. Isn’t he
our neighbour ? His forefathers were all from the Birbhum district
next door. His ancestral house is still there. Birbhum, where Rabin-
haram lived in harmony with Santhals . I have been to that place
Rabin- haram set up. What is it called? Yes, Santiniketan.I went
there a long time ago, to perform with my troupe. I saw that we
Santhals are held in high regard in Santiniketan .Santiniketan is in
Birbhum, and our president is also from Birbhum. He should
have heard me speak, no? But he didn’t.
Such a fool I am! A foolish Santhal.A foolish Adivasi.
My name is Mangal Murmu. I am a musician. No, wait… I
am a farmer. Or…..was a farmer. Was a farmer is right. Because
I don’t farm anymore. In my village of Matiajore, in Amrapara
block of the Pakur district, not many Santhals farm anymore.
Only a few of us still have farmland; most of it has been acquired
by a mining company. It is a rich company. It is not that we didn’t
fight the acquisition. We did. While we were fighting,this political
leader came, that political leader came, this Kiristan sister came,
35
that Kiristan father came. Apparently to support us. But we lost.
And after we lost, everyone left the leaders went back to Ranchi
and Dilli or wherever they had to go. The Kiristans returned to
their missions. But our land did not come back to us. On the
other hand, a Kiristan sister was killed and our boys were
implicated in her murder. The papers, the media, everyone blamed
our boys. They reported that the Kiristan sister was fighting for
our rights and yet our boys killed her. No one bothered to see
that our boys had been fighting for our land and rights from even
before that Kiristan sister came. Why would they kill her? Just
because our boys did not have reporter friends, their fight went
unseen; while the Kiristansister, with her network of missionaries
and their friends, got attention. Now that our boys are in jail on
false charges of murder, who will fight for us? Where are the
missionaries and their friends now? If the missionaries are our
well- wishers and were fighting for us. Why did they run away?
Kill a well –known Kiristan sister, accuse a few unknown Santhal
boys fighting for their lands of her murder, move both obstacles
– the Kiristan sister and the Santhal boys out of the way, grab as
much land as possible , build as many mines as possible and dig
out all the coal. This is how this coal company works. Is this
scenario so difficult to understand that the media does not get it?
If coal merchants have taken a part of our lands, the other
part has been taken over by stone merchants, all Diku- Marwari,
Sindhi, Mandal,Bhagat,Muslim. They turn our land upside down,
inside out, with their heavy machines. They sell the stones they
mine from our earth in faraway places – Dilli, Noida, Panjab.
This coal company and these quarry owners, they have built big
houses for themselves in town; they wear nice clothes; they send
their children to good schools in faraway places; when sick, they
get themselves treated by the best doctors in
Ranchi,Bhagalpur,Malda, Bardhaman, Kolkata. What do we
Santhals get in return? Tatters to wear .Barely enough food. Such
diseases that we can’t breathe properly; we cough blood and
forever remain bare bones.

36
 For education, our children are at the mercy of either those
free government schools where teachers come only to cook the
midday meal, or those Kiristan missionary schools where our
children are constantly asked to stop worshipping our Bonga-
Buru and start revering Jisu and Mariam. If our children refuse,
the sisters and the fathers tell our boys that their Santhal names-
Hopna, SomSingrai- are not good enough. They are renamed
David and Mikail and Kiristofer and whatnot. And as if that were
not enough, Muslims barge into our homes, sleep with our women,
and we Santhal men cannot do a thing.
But what can we do? They outnumber us. Village after village
in our Santhal Pargana- which should have been a home for us
Santhals – are turning into Muslim villages. Hindus live around
Pakur town or in other places. Those few Hindus here, who live
in Santhal villages, belong to the lower castes. They too are
powerless and outnumbered. But why would the Hindus help
us? The rich Hindus living in Pakur town are only interested in
our land. They are only interested in making us sing and dance at
their weddings. If they come to help us, they will say that we
Santhals need to stop eating cow-meat and pig-meat that we
need to stop drinking haaandi. They too want to make us forget
our Sarna religion, convert us into Safa –Hor, and swell their
numbers to become more valuable vote banks. Safa-Hor, the
pure people, the clean people, but certainly not as clean and
pure as themselves, that’s for sure. Always a little lesser than
they are. In the eyes of the Hindus, we Santhals can only either
be Kiristan or the almost Safa-Hor. We are losing our Sarna
faith, our identities, and our roots. We are becoming people from
nowhere.
It’s the coal and stone, sir; they are making us lazy. The
Koyla road runs through our village. When the monstrous Hyvas
ferry coal on the Koyla Road, there is no space for any other
vehicle. They are so rough, these truck- drivers, they can run
down any vehicle that comes in their way. They can’t help it, it’s
their job. The more rounds they make, the more money they

37
earn. And what if they kill? The coal company can’t afford to
have its business slowed down by a few deaths. They give money
to the family of the dead, the matter remains unreported, and the
driver goes scot-free, ferrying another load company.
And we Santhals? Well, we wait for when there is NO
ENTRY ON THE Koyla Road. For that is when all our men,
women and children come out on to the road and swam up these
Hyvas. Then, using nails, fingers, hands, and whatever tools we
can manage, we steal coal. The drivers can’t stop us, nor can
those pot-bellied Bihari security guards posted along the Koyla
Road by the company. For they know that if they do not allow
us to steal the coal, we will gherao the road and not let their
trucks move.
But a few stolen quintals, when the company is mining tones
and tones, hardly matters. They know that if we- the descendants
of the great rebels Sido and Kanhu make up our minds, we can
stop all business in the area. So they behave sensibly, practically.
After all, they already have our land, they are already stealing
our coal, and they don’t want to snatch away from us our right to
re- steal it.
It is this coal, sir, which is gobbling us up bit by bit. There is
blackness – deep, indelible – all along the Koyla Road. The
trees and shrubs in our village bear black leaves. Our ochre earth
has become black. The stones, the rocks, the sand, all black.
The tiles on the roofs of our huts have lost their fibre – burnt red.
The vines and flowers and peacocks we Santhals draw on the
outer walls of our houses are black. Our children- dark – skinned
as they are – are forever covered with fine black dust. When
they cry, and tears stream down their faces, it seems as if a river
is cutting across a drought – stricken land. Only our eyes burn
red, like embers. Our children hardly go to school. But everyone
– whether they attend school or not – remains on the alert, day
and night, for ways to steal coal and for ways to sell it.
Santhals don’t understand business. We get the coal easy
yet we don’t charge much for it; only enough for food, clothes
38
and drink. But these Jolha – you call them Muslim, we, Jolha –
they know the value of coal, they know the value of money.
They charge the price that is best for them. And the farther coal
travels from Matiajore, the higher its price becomes.
A decade earlier, when the Santhals of Matiajore were
beginning their annual journey to share crop in the farms of Namal,
four Jolha families turned up from nowhere and asked us for
shelter. A poor lot, they looked as impoverished as us. Perhaps
worse. In return, they offered us their services. They told us that
in our absence they would look after our fields and farm them for
a share of the produce. We trusted them. They started working
on our fields and built four hut inthe corner of Matiagjore .
Today that small cluster of four huts has grown into a tola of
more than a hundred houses. Houses, not huts. While we Santhals
, in our village, still live in our mud houses,each Jolha house has
at least one brick wall and a centered yard. This tola is now
called thaJolhatola of Matiajore. Once, Matiajore used to be an
exclusively Santhal village. Today, it has a Santhaltola and a
Jolhatola , with the latter being the bigger. Sometimes I wonder
who the olposonkhyok is here. These Jolha are hardworking,
and they are always united. They may fight among themselves,
they may break each other’s scalps for petty matters, they may
file FIRagainst each other at the thana, they may drag each other
to court;but if any non- Jolha says even an offensive word to a
Jolha the entire Jolha gets together against that person. Jolha
leaders from Pakur and Sahebganji and where not come down
to express solidarity. And we Santhals? Our men are beaten up,
thrown into police lock- ups, into jails, for flimsy reasons, and on
false charges. Our women are raped, some sell their bodies on
Koyla Road. Most of us are fleeing our places to birth. How
united are we? Where are our Santhal leaders? Those chor-
chuhad leaders, where are they?
Forgive me. What can I do? I cannot help it. I am sixty
years old and sitting in the lock-up after being beaten black and
blue, I have no patience any more. Only anger. So, what was I
saying?yes, there are no shoulders, no powerful voice among us
39
Santhals. And we Santhals have no money – though we are born
in lands under which are buried riches. We Santhals do not know
how to protect our riches. We only know how to escape.
That is probably why thousands of Santhals from corners
of Pakur district and elsewhere in the SanthalPargana board trains
to Namal every farming season. They are escaping.
Did I tell you? I was once a farmer. Once. My sons farm
now. The eldest stays back to work our fields while the other
two migrate seasonally to Naml, along with their families. I used
to compose sons. I still do. And I still maintain a dance troupe.
Though it is not regular one , the kind I had earlier, some fifteen-
twenty years ago, when I was younger and full of energy,
enthusiasm and hope. Matiajore, Patharkola, Amrapara – I had
singers and dancers and musicians from all these villages. I used
to compose songs and set them to music. And my troupe, young
men and women, they used to bring my songs to life through
their dances, through their voices, through their rhythms of the
tamak and the tumadak and the trilling of the tiriyo and the banam.
At that time, our SanthalPargana was not broken up into so
many districts. Today, all Diku, Bihari and all, they have broken
up our Santhal Pargana for their own benefits. If it suits them,
they can go on breaking down districts and create a district
measuring just ten feet by ten feet. At that time, when I was
younger, even Jharkhand and had not been broken away from
Bihar. Yet, there used to be so much hope. We used to perform
in our village, inneighbouringvillages, in Pakur, in Dumka in
Sahebganji, in Deoghar, in Jamatra, in Patna, in Ranchi, even in
Kolkata, and in Bhubaneshwar, where we were taken to see the
sea at Puri. What a sight it was! And we performed in Godda,
too. Godda , where my daughter, Mugli, has been married. We
used to be paid money. We used to be given good food, awarded
medals and shields and certificates. We used to be written about
in the papers.
All that has changed now. First, all the members of my troupe
are now old. Some have been died. Many have migrated
40
seasonally. The ones who remain hum songs, sing to each other,
but a stage performance? No, not again. Like me, even they are
tired, disillusioned. All our certificates and shields, what did they
give us? Diku children go to schools and colleges get education,
jobs, what do we Santhals get? We santhals can sing and dance,
and we are good at our art. Yet, what has our art given us?
Displacement, Tuberculosis.
I have turned sixty. Perhaps more. I am called Haram now.
Haram, respectfully. I am having to wear thick glasses. Even my
hearing has weakened, though my voice is still quite good. People
in my village say that my voice still impress them. Sometimes
they ask me to sing. I sing some of my old compositions. It makes
them happy. I still invited to perform at public functions in Pakur
and Dumka and Ranchi.
But I keep putting together new troupes, though the members
constantly change. I have dancer today, tomorrow he is growing
potatoes for some Bengali Zamindar in Bardhaman. So I have to
replace the substitute. This is how my troupes work nowadays.
But it brings us some money. And when we are hosted in towns,
we are usually fed good food. So we perform.
Our music, our dance, our songs are sacred to us Santhals.
But hunger and poverty has driven us to sell what is sacred to us.
When my boys perform st s Diku wedding, I am so foolish, I
expect everyone pay attention. Which Diku pays attention to
our music? Even at those high- profile functions, most Diku just
wait for our performance to end. Yet, be it an athletic meet, some
inauguration , or any function organized by someone high and
mighty – in the name of Adivasi culture and Jharkhandi culture, it
is necessary to make Adivasis dance. Even Bihari and Bengali
and Odiya say that Jharkhand is theirs. Theycall their culture and
music and dance superior to those of us Adivasi. Why don’t they
get their women to sing and dance in open grounds in the name
of Jharkhandi culture? For every benefit, in job, in education, in
whatever, the Diku are quick to call Jharkhand their own- let the
Adivasi go to hell. But when it comes to displaying Jharkhandi
culture, the onus of singing and dancing is upon the Adivasi alone.
41
 So how did I land up in front of the President, you ask.
Some three months ago, an official letter came to my house in
Matiajore: a thick white envelope bearing the emblem of the
government of Jharkhand. The paper on which the letter was
typed in Hindi was equally thick and crisp. In fewer than five
sentences I was told that the government of Jharkhand sought to
pleasure of my musical performance at some vent, the identity
and venue of which would be told to me later, and that I should
gather a troupe for fifteen- twenty – minute performance, and
that all participants would be well paid. The letter was signed by
some high- ranking IAS officer in Ranchi.
What does a hungry man need?
Food. What does a poor man need? Money. So here I
was, needing both. And recognition too. We artistes are greedy
people. We are hungry for acceptance, some acknowledgement,
some remembrance. So, without thinking, I sent back a reply the
very next day saying that yes, I would be happy to perform. I
was so happy; I went to the big post office in Pakur, more than
twenty kilometers away, all by myself, to register that letter. I
went in Vikram, packed with many other Santhals like me, all
going to Pakur. Nearly all of us travelers were blackened by the
dust from theKoyla Road. Yet, I was so happy that I didn’t notice
itat all.
Around the time that I was preparing for our performance,
selecting young men and women for my troupe, digging up old
songs from memory, I was faced with strange situation.
I told you that the Mugli, my daughter, is married into a
family in the Godda district, didn’t i? Well, she began calling in
the Godda district, didn’t I? Well, she began calling me regularly
on my mobile phone. I couldn’t understand the situation clearly
at first but it seemed to me that I had something to do with their
land. Her husband was a farmer – they are a family of farmers –
as are all the Santhal families in the village. There are more villages
nearby, populated by Santhals, Paharis and low caste Hindus.
What had happened was that the district administration had
asked the inhabitants of all the villages to vacate their land – their
42
village, farms, everything. Eleven villages! Can you imagine? The
first question everyone asked was: what will the Sarkar do with
so much land?
Initially, I thought they were all rumours. And, I thought,
how can anyone force Santhals to vacate their land in the Santhal
Pargana? Didn’t we have the Tenancy Act to protect us?
Still, when the rumours floating, I went to Godda. We all
marched to the block office in a huge group. The officers there
assured us that they were all just rumours. The lands were safe.
The villages were safe.
Yet, later, police were sent to villages. They came with written
orders from the district administration. The villagers would have
to be vacated to make room for a thermal power plant.
The villagers were refused outright. Santhals, low- caste
Hindus, Paharis, everyone began fighting for their land.
The district administration fought back. The agitators were
all beaten up and thrown into police lock- ups. I called my
daughter and her small children to Matiajore after her husband
was jailed. Mugli arrived, her children and in-laws in tow. It was
strange: a village which annually empties itself every few months
suddenly providing shelter to immigrants.
How would I mange to provide all these people who were
dependent on me now?
How could the members of my troupe feed all those who
had come to seek refuge in their houses? We needed money.
And our current mysterious- assignment was our only hope.
Despite our troubles, we kept practicing.
In the meantime, some people arrived to help the villagers
facing displacement in Godda. They wrote letters to the
government, to people in Ranchi and Dilli. They even wrote letters
to the businessman who was planning to build that thermal power
plant in the Godda. We heard that he was a very rich and very
shrewd man. He was also heard that he liked polo – a game
played with horses – and that his horses were far better off than
all the Santhals of the whole of the Santhal Pargana.
43
 News about displacement taking place in Godda began to
come in newspapers and the TV after a few days. All of us tried
to concentrate on our practice, but how could we sing and dance
with such a storm looming ahead? In between, I received phone
call from several officers in Ranchi and Dumka and Pakur. They
asked me to keep working for the show. They never forgot to
remind me that this show was of the utmost importance that we
were going to perform before some very important people. Some
officers from Dumka and Pakur even came to Mitiajore to see if
we were really working hard, they were happy. They smiled and
encouraged us; they talked to us very sweetly. So sweetly that
we all wondered if they could really not see how troubled we
were feeling. Many times, I felt like asking them: How can all of
you be so indifferent? How can you expect us to sing and dance
when our families are being uprooted from their villages?
At other times, I felt like asking: which VIP is coming? The
President of India? The President of America? You are making
us Santhals dance in Pakur, and you are displacing Santhals from
their villages in Godda? Isn’t your VIP going to see that?
Doesn’t your VIP read the papers or watch news on TV?
We foolish Santhals can see what damage is happening around.
Doesn’t your VIP see all that?
But I stayed silent.
Reality started dawning on us three weeks before the date
of our performance. First as floating rumours which were,
gradually, confirmed by new paper reports.
The reality was that the businessman was certainly going to
set up a thermal power plant in Godda. That plant would run on
coal from the mines in Pakur and Sahebganji. If needed, coal
would be brought from other places. That businessman, in fact,
needed electricity for the iron and steel plants he was planning to
set up for his own selfish needs; but if he were to be believed, the
whole Jharkhand would receive electricity from his plant. Whole
towns would be lit up non- stop, factories would never stop
working for lack of power. There would be development and
44
jobs and happiness all over. And, finally, news also reached us
that the foundation stone of the plant would be laid by the
President of India. We would be performing for him.
Yes I was shocked. All of us were. Shocked and sad, but
also surprised and delighted. We couldn’t believe our luck. We
had performed before ministers, chief ministers and governors.
But never before the President of the country!
Then, we heard more news. People demonstrating and
agitating against the forceful acquisition of land were being beaten
up by the police, they were being thrown into lock –ups.
Paramilitary forces, the CRPF, had been called to control the
situation. Four villages out of eleven had already been razed to
the ground by bulldozers to make room for the foundation –
stone – laying ceremony.
But the papers carried glowing reports, along with pictures,
of the roads which were being repaired of rebuilt in Ranchi and
Dumka. Breathlessly, they reported that the President would stay
in Jharkhand for three days. He would spend day one in Ranchi.
On day two, he would preside over university convocation in
Dumka. On day three, he would visit Godda, lay the foundation
stone, and fly out of Jharkhand.
We received official intimation of the event a week before it
was to take place. One day before the event, we were taken to
Godda by bus. The entire district, the district headquarters, was
unrecognizable. A football ground had been converted into a
massive helipad. There were hundreds of policemen sand CRPF
jawans .And everywhere we turned our heads; all we could see
was a sea of people. I knew they had come to see the helicopter.
Tucked away in the papers had been reports that all protestors
had been detained and were being held somewhere. Perhaps
my son- in – law too was among them.
From where I stood, the stage looked massive, but still not
big enough for all people who had climbed upon it. Ministers
from Dilli and Ranchi, all dressed in their best neat clothes, laughing
and chatting among themselves. All very happy with the progress,
45
the development. The Santhal Pargana would now fly to the moon.
The Santhal Pargana would now turn into Dilli and Bombay. The
businessman was grinning widely. Patriotic songs in Hindi were
playing from the loudspeakers placed at all corners of the field.
‘Bharat Mahaan’, someone was shouting from the stage, trying
to rouse the audience, his voice amplified by numerous
loudspeakers. What mahaan? I wondered. Which great nation
displaces thousands of its people from their homes and livelihoods
to produce electricity for cities and factories? And Jobs? What
jobs? An Adivasi farmer’s job is to farm. Which other job should
he be made to do? Become a servant in some billionaire’s factory
built just a week earlier?
Reporters with cameras swarmed all over the place. Three
vans with huge disc antennae on their roofs were parked near
the venue. I identified the loge of a popular TV channel painted
on the sides of one of those vans. I wondered if any of its reporters
had visited the place where the villagers were being detained by
the police.
My troupe was waiting in an enclosure built especially for
the performers at the event. All the women were wearing red
blouses, blue rings and green panchhi, and huge, colourful plastic
flowers in their buns. They were carrying steel lotus with flowers
and leaves put inside them. All the men were wearing red football
jerseys and green kacha and had tied green gumchhas around
their heads. We all looked very good.
The helicopter arrived……..thud…..thudthudthud….The
rotors swirled dust from the playing field. The crowd was excited
and a slow roar began.
The President was accompanied by his security staff to the
stage. He was short, thoughtful man. All Bengali look learned
and thoughtful. Why should this Bengali President be any
different?
The festive began. The man who had been shouting ‘Bharat
mahaan’ announced how fortunate the land of Jharkhand was
that the iconic billionaire had deemed it suitable to set up a thermal
46
power plant here. He didn’t mention how fortunate the billionaire
was that he got to come to Jharkhand – a place rich with mineral
deposits beneath its earth; a naïve population upon it; and a bunch
of shrewd, greedy, thief leaders, officers and businessmen who
ran the state and controlled its land, people and resources.
The ‘Bharath mahaan’ man announced the welcome dance
and my troupe was ushered into the open space before the stage.
We entered with our tamak, tumdak, tiriyo and banam. The
President seemed impressed. The businessmen looked bored.
When we had taken our places before the stage, I took the
mic in my hand and bowed to the President. Then I tapped the
mike to check if it was working and began in Hindi, as good
Hindi as I could muster at the height of my emotions. Actually, it
was a miracle that I did not weep and choke up.
‘Johar, Rashtrapati- babu. We are very proud and happy
that you have come to our Santhal Pargana and we are also very
proud that we have been asked to sing and dance before you
and welcome you to our place. We will sing and dance before
you but tell us, do we have a reason to sing and dance? Do we
have a reason to be happy? You will now start building the power
plant , but this plant will be the end of us all, the end of all the
Adivasi. These men sitting beside you have told you that this
power plant will change our fortune, but these same men have
forced us out of our homes and villages. We have nowhere to
go, nowhere to grow our crops. How can this power plant be
good for us? And how can we Adivasis dance and be happy
?unless we are given back our homes and land, wewill not sing
and dance. We Adivasis will not dance. The Adivasi will not’.
1. What does the narrator use to relate the story of the Santhals?
The narrator uses the first person narrative with the personal
pronoun I. The story is narrated by a sixty year old Santhal.
This perspective and the empathetic tone manage to move
the hearts of the reader.
2. If you were living the lives of the Santhals what would you
find the most disturbing? How would you resist it?
47
 Living a life of a Santhal is a harrowing experience. To lose
one’s own land and the richess in its underbelly, to lose
one’s language and culture, only to be thrown out of their
homeland, rendering them as refugees or faceless names on
a government list is a near to death experience. The greatest
form of resistance in times of turbulence is unity, which the
Santhal community in the story lacks. Those in power have
always, in history, been terrorized by the might of the
underprivileged that flocked the streets.
3. Do you think the mode of resistance adopted by the
protagonist helps the cause of the Santhals?
The sixty year old Santhal protagonist who silenced his
disagreements with the capitalist system until the end of the
story emerges us a rebel when he refuses to dance in front
of the power wielders. The Adivasi will not dance thus
becomes a very political statement through a mighty negation
on the face of the state. This mode of protest finds parallels
in the short story “Loneliness of a long distance Runner”
by Allen Sillitoe, where the protagonist refuses to run in a
long distance race as a rebellion towards the authority.
This mode of resistance adopted by the Santhal hero will
fetch immediate media attention, which Santhals lacked until
then. It can draw the plight of the Adivasis to the attention
of the state, thus effecting a change.
4. What do the others in his community do to escape
oppression?
No evidences of resistance from the Santhals are indicated
by the story. The men swallowed their protest and
succumbed to the will of their state. They migrated in search
of work. Women are set to have resorted to prostitution on
the Koyla Road. Only when there is the risk of a mass
usurping of land that the Santhals resort to a massive protest,
which is immediately disbursed by the authority. History,
however is rich with stories of tribal resistance, The Santhals
rebelled against imposed authority in the 1850s, resulting in
48
 the passing of the Santhal Tenancy act, which is referred in
the story. The heroic stories of the Munda tribal chief,
BirsaMunda echo in the history which made the authorities
to name the International Air Port of Jharghand after the
Munda Chief.
5. Trace the ways in which power deprives the Santhals of
their most valued possessions: their land, art, language,
culture and identity.
. Power is omnipresent. Foucault’s position on power is that
even a dark room can exert power on a man inside. The
play of power renders the underprivileged economically
weak, devoid of resources and sometimes, homeless as in
the case of the Santhals. Those in power are backed by the
state in deep mining the coal, buried in the underbellies of
the land, which traditionally belonged to the Santhals who
had the legal document to prove their ownership. But with
onset of mining, the Santhals were outcaste and
geographically marginalized. Also their art and culture were
deemed uncivilized. Their religion was considered pagan
by the Christian Missionaries and they were forced to convert
and worship ‘Yesu and Marium’.
6. What are the ways in which power works in the story?
Denying a Santhal his land, language, art and culture is a
metaphorical ethnic genocide. His songs and dance are
however inevitable to market the ethnic diversity of the state.
The very existence of a Santhal gets capitalized through the
play of power.
7. How does power appear many- layered (economic, cultural,
social and psychological) and how do these layers act and
react in the context of the story?
Power functions in many layers in the story. Economically,
the play of power renders the poor poorer. The class gap is
widened by the exercise of power. Those in power steal
the financial recourses offered by the Santhal’s land. Coal
mining is monopolized by the powerful, denying the Santhals
49
 their right to‘re-steal’ what they rightfully own. Socially, the
Santhals are marginalized by being driven out of their land
and branding their religion as pagan. Culturally the Santhals
are deprived of their language, art, music and dance which
become necessary only to promote the ethnic heritage of
Jharghand. All these result in an accumulated psychological
trauma that emotionally incapacitates theSanthal.
See this passage from the story
While we were fighting,this political leader came, that political
leader came, this Kiristan sister came, that Kiristan father
came. Apparently to support us. But we lost. And after we
lost, everyone left the leaders went back to Ranchi and Dilli
or wherever they had to go. The Kiristans returned to their
missions .But our land did not come back to us. On the
other hand, a Kiristan sister was killed and our boys were
implicated in her murder. The papers, the media, everyone
blamed our boys. They reported that the Kiristan sister was
fighting fo our rights and yet our boys killed her. No one
bothered to see that our boys had been fighting for our land
and rights from even before that Kiristan sister came. Why
would they kill her? Just because our boys did not have
reporter friends, their fight went unseen; while the Kiristan
sister , with her network of missionaries and their friends ,
got attention. Now that our boys are in jail on false charges
of murder, who will fight for us? Where are the missionaries
and their friends now? If the missionaries are our well-
wishers and were fighting for us. Why did they run away?
Kill a well –known Kiristan sister, accuse a few unknown
Santhal boys fighting for their lands of her murder, move
both obstacles – the Kiristan sister and the Santhal boys
out of the way, grab as much land as possible , build as
many mines as possible and dig out all the coal. This is how
this coal company works. Is this scenario so difficult to
understand that the media does not get it?
8. What do you think the media doesn’t get it? Or does it?
50
 It is not that media fails to see the Santhal reality. But they
have other events and other perspectives of national interest
to focus their attention on. Tribal issues are probably the
last to find a space on the news, irrespective of their
locations.
9. Comment on the usual role of NGOs in sites of conflict in
the context of the intervention of the ‘Kristan’ missionaries.
NGOs play an important role in mobilizing the tribal
population. In the instance of the massive land usurp for the
thermal plant that rendered the Santhals homeless and their
protests sabotaged, the NGOs help to mobilize them, to
give them voice and file petitions on behalf of the unlettered
tribes. However, outside interventions such as that of the
missionaries also had an unintentional side that culturally
deprives the Santhals. The “ Kiristan” missionaries believed
the Santhals to be pagan and attempted to Baptize and
rename them. Also the conflicts between the “Kirstian”
sisters and the tribals further put the Santhal boys in danger.
Here is something for you to ponder over:
A thick and green wooded forest does not appear the same
to a businessmen, a carpenter and a poet. The businessman
can only see the huge logs of wood that he can sell. The
carpenter invariably imagines chairs, tables, cots and
cupboards. For a poet, it is his muse.
10. How do the Santhals and the mining company owners
perceive the land and its resources in the village of Matiajore?
Is there a difference? If there is, why?
The perceptions of the land vary from a Santhal to the mining
company. The Santhal lives in harmony with the land, without
taking ownership over it but considering himself as a tenant
and treating the land with reverence. The mining company
lacks any commitment towards land and nature. It recklessly
exploits the land for monitory benefit. This difference in
perspective of the old owners and the new owners of the
land terribly jeopardize the ecology and the tribal existence.
51
11. How do the powerful exercise their hegemony?
How are the Santhals interpellated? Explore the story
Those in powers have their own means to exercise their
hegemony over the powerless. They will always be backed
by the state. They find ways to oust the tribal out of their
land, socially, culturally and psychologically weaken them.
All their resistance gets sabotaged by those in power.
For every benefit, in job, in education, in whatever, the Diku
are quick to call Jharkhand their own – let the Adivasi go to
hell. But when it comes to displaying Jharkhandi culture,
the onus of singing and dancing is upon the Adivasi alone.
12. What does the writer use irony here?
Which point of view is fore grounded in the story?
The Irony in the story is that the culture that is perpetually
ignored by the state suddenly becomes the face of the state.
The state that was continuously attempting to silence and
cripple the Adivasi now wanted the Adivasi to sing and dance
for them.
Activity
Pick out the specific Santhal terms used to describe the
powerful Other and the world in which they operate.
For further reading;
Angelou , Maya. I know Why the Caged Birds Sings.
Bantam, 1971.
Roy, Arundhathy, The God of Small Things, Penguin,2017.
Shekhar HansdaSowendra, The Adivasi will not Dance:
Stories. Speaking Tiger Publishing Private Limited
Noys, Benjamin, Introducing Theory: A Practical Guide.
Continuum, 2007

52
 MODULE 4
PERSPECTIVES OF THE SUBALTERN

Introduction
This module will encourage the students to be sensitive to
perspectives from the margins such as those of female, Dalit,
child and sexual minorities and how these subaltern perspectives
figure in literature. Their engagement with such texts will help
them to identify and question the counter, privileged voices in the
mainstream texts.
Texts
1. Female : “No Name Woman” by Maxine Hong Kingston
2. Dalit
a) “Which language should I Speak” by Arun Kamble
b) “Habit” by FM Shinde
c) “Identity card” by S Joseph
3. Child
a) Selections from Calvin and Hobbes
b) Child (Singapore Drama short film)
4. Queer: The Letter Q: Ely Shipley
Terms /Concepts Discussed
Marginalized, gender, stereotype, class, subaltern, sexuality
While reading a text, a reader negotiates with the text and
infers new meanings out of it. The subject position of the writer is
very important in writing. Writer’s class and cultural values should
be reflected in the text. The writer can internalize the values of
dominant class of his/her own. By views of the dominant class
we usually mean the views which favour the upper class, the
upper caste, the male, the heterosexual, the white, the European,
and so on. But sometimes they disown such positions and gives
voices to the marginalized people.
We are said to be constructed by the value systems and
concepts of the dominant class. For instance, the concept like
53
‘white is beauty’, ‘man is more powerful than woman’, ‘Brahmins
are sacred people’, ‘tribes are uncivilized’, adults have more
power and higher status than children’ derogatory comments
about trans genders like ‘anumpennumkettavan’are widely
accepted by the society directly and indirectly. In a patriarchic
society woman is treated as a second sex. Though biologically
we are categorized as men and women, it is through socialization
we are gendered.
What is Gender?
Gender together with the term of masculinity and feminity,
is an ideology people use in modern societies to imagine the
existence of differences between men and women on the basis
of their sex. So it is clear that gender is a set of norms and
conditions are hold by people about each other in certain
contexts. As mentioned above, masculinity and feminity are a set
of preconceived norms and behavior which is enacted both man
and woman accordingly. Masculinity and feminity are not confined
in both male and female body instead both can be seen in male
and female body. If anybody violate the rules should be punished
or ostracized. If a man is having soft voice or features of woman
is often maltreated in Indian society. In Kerala, effeminate men
are abusively called “chanthupottu” that means the sticker or Bindi
is worn by women on their forehead.
Our society has a set of ideas about how we expect men
and women to dress, behave, and present themselves.
What are gender roles?
Gender roles in society means how we’re expected to act,
speak, dress, groom, and conduct ourselves based upon our
assigned sex. For example, girls and women are generally
expected to dress in typically feminine ways and be polite,
accommodating, and nurturing. Men are generally expected to
be strong, aggressive, and bold. These stereotypes
about gender can cause unequal and unfair treatment because
of a person’s gender. This is called sexism. You probably see
gender stereotypes all around you. For example, women are
54
often expected to be accommodating and emotional, while men
are usually expected to be self-confident and aggressive. Women
are expected to be thin and graceful, while men are expected to
be tall and muscular. Men and women are also expected to dress
and groom in ways that are stereotypical to their gender (men
wearing pants and short hairstyles, women wearing dresses and
make-up.)
There is perhaps a ready- made set of view of male and
female gender in in literary texts. These typical, fixed images are
called stereotypes. For instances, women in literature broadly
fall into two main categories that is the good angel, the virgin and
the bad seductress, the whore.
Here is another story written from the perspective of the
female. This story is a part of an autobiography by a first generation
Chinese – American, born of Chinese immigrants. This excerpt
brings alive a past memory related to Maxine Hong Kingston by
her mother and figures in the beginning of her remarkable
autobiography, The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood
among Ghosts
No Name Women
“You must not tell anyone”, my mother said, “what I am
about to tell you. In china your father had a sister who killed
herself. She jumped into the family well. We say that your father
has all brothers because it is as if she had never been born.
“ In 1924 just a few days after our village celebrated
seventeen hurry- up weddings- to make sure that every young
man who went ‘ out on the road’ would responsibly come home-
your father and his brothers and your aunt’s new husband sailed
for America , the Gold Mountain. It was your grandfather’s last
trip. Those lucky enough to get contracts waved goodbye from
the decks. They fed and guarded the stowaways and helped
them off in Cuba, New York, and Bali, Hawaii, ‘we’ll meet in
California next year, they said. All of them sent money home.
“I remember looking at your aunt one day when she and I
were dressing; I had noticed before that she had such protruding
55
melon of such of a stomach. But I did not think,’ she’s pregnant’,
until she began to look like other pregnant women, her shirt pulling
and the white tops of her black pants showing. She could not
have been pregnant, you see, because her husband had been
gone for years. No one said anything. We did not discuss it. In
early summer she was ready to have the child, long after the time
when it could have been possible.
“The village had also been counting. On the night the baby
was to be born the villagers raided our house. Some were crying.
Like a great saw, teeth strung with lights, files of people walked
zigzag across our land, tearing the rice. Their lanterns doubled in
the disturbed black water, which drained away through the broken
bunds. As the villagers closed in, we could see that some of
them, probably men and women we knew well, more white
masks. The people with long hair hung it over their faces. Women
with short hair made it stand up on end. Some had tied white
bands around their foreheads, arms, and legs.
“ At first they threw mud and rocks at the house. Then they
threw eggs and began slaughtering our stock. We could hear the
animals scream their deaths-the roosters, the pigs, a last great
roar from the ox. Familiar wild heads flared in our night windows;
the villagers encircled us. Some of the faces stopped to peer at
us, their eyes rushing like searchlights. The hands flattened against
the panes, framed heads, and left red prints.
“ The villagers broke in the front and the back doors at the
same time, even though we had not locked the doors against
them. Their knives dripped with the blood of our animals. They
smeared blood on the doors and walls. One women swung a
chicken, whose throat she had slit, splattering blood in red arcs
about her. We stood together in the middle of our house, in the
family hall with the pictures and tables of the ancestors around
us, and looked straight ahead.
At that time the house had only two wings. When the men
came back, we would build two more to enclose our courtyard
and a third one to begin a second courtyard. The villagers pushed
56
through both wings, even your grandparent’s rooms to find your
aunt’s, which was also mine until the men returned . From this
room a new wing for one of the younger families would grow.
They ripped up her clothes and shoes and broke her combs,
grinding them underfoot. They tore her work from the loom. They
scattered the cooking fire and rolled the new weaving in it. We
could hear them in the kitchen breaking our bowls and banging
the pots. They overturned the great waist-high earthenware jugs;
duck eggs, pickled fruits, vegetables burst out and mixed in acrid
torrents. The old women from the next field swept a broom
through the air and loosed the spirits-of-the broom over our
heads. ‘Pig’.‘Ghost’.’Pig’, they sobbed and scolded while they
ruined our house.
When they left, they took sugar and oranges to bless
themselves. They cut pieces from the dead animals. Some of
them took bowls that were not broken and clothes that were not
torn. Afterward we swept up the rice and sewed it back up into
sacks. But the smells from the spilled preserves lasted. Your aunt
gave birth in the pigsty that night. The next morning when I went
for the water, I found her and the baby plugging up the family
well.
“Don’t let your father know that I told you. He denies her.
Now that you have started to menstruate, what happened to her
could happen to you. Don’t humiliate us. You wouldn’t like to be
forgotten as if you had never been born.
The villagers are watchful”
Whenever she had to warn us about life, my mother told
stories that ran like this one, a story to grow up on.
Maxine Hong Kingston begins her search for a personal
identity with the story of an aunt, to whom this title “No name
Woman’ refers. Ironically, the first thing we read is Kingston’s
mother’s warning Kingston, “You must not tell anyone . . . what
I am about to tell you. In China your father had a sister who
killed herself. She jumped into the family well. We say that your
father has all brothers because it is as if she had never been
57
born”. As an American, Kingston uncovers just what this Chinese
cultural history is, and one way of doing so is by listening to, and
then altering, her mother’s stories about the family’s Chinese past.
Her mother’s story of ‘No Name Woman’ provides one
valuable inroad into Kingston’s discovering her cultural history.
Mother relates how on the night when Kingston’s aunt gave birth
to an illegitimate child, the people of the Chinese village in which
the aunt and her family lived ransacked the family’s house, killed
all of their livestock, and destroyed their crops. Shunned by her
family, the aunt gave birth in a pigsty, alone. The next morning,
mother went to gather water from the family’s well, where she
discovered that No Name Woman had committed suicide by
throwing herself and her child down into the well.
• Do you think tradition is a great driving force , a part of
the dominant ideology.
Yes, tradition plays an important role in gender discrimination.
For instance, In Indian tradition, widows are always alienated
from the mainstream society.
The widower says men are like ‘free birds’ and he has not
had to face any restrictions after his wife passed away. By contrast,
the widow woman must control her desires and abide by what
tradition has dictated for her. Such gender-based discrimination
is the function of the iron-grip of patriarchy in our lives.Honour
Killing in India is another example of the same. human rights
watch define “honour killing” as follows - Honour killings are
acts of vengeance, usually death, committed by male family
members against female family members, in response to a belief
that the women have offended a family’s honour and have brought
shame tothe family unit. A woman can be targeted by (individuals
within) her family for a variety of reasons, including: refusing to
enter into an arranged marriage, being the victim of asexual
assault, seeking a divorce even from an abusive husband or
(allegedly) committing adultery. This uncovers the core of
subjugation of women by a specifically male violence on which
the social order is dependent, an order that is shot through with
58
hypocrisy and cowardice. The mere perception that a woman
has behaved in a way that “dishonours” her family is sufficient to
trigger an attack on her life.
Apart from gender based stereotypes, we have racial,
ethnic and religious stereotypes - the Jews being depicted
as shrewd and ambitious, the Muslims as fanatics and terrorists,
the Indians as superstitious, the Africans as barbaric and so on.
It is the subalterns and the marginalized that often get
misrepresented in mainstream texts. The word, Subalterns refers
to any person or group of inferior rank or station, whether
because of race, class, gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity or
religion. In describing cultural hegemony as popular
history, Antonio Gramsci coined the term subaltern to identify
the social groups excluded and displaced from the socio-
economic institutions of society in order to deny their political
voices. In case of Dalits in India, the caste system is a discourse
that justifies and promotes the interests of the upper caste. The
Dalit s and the lower castes are made to believe that their
knowledge system is inferior and therefore they are not agents of
their lives. For instance, In Malayalam films, the lead characters
are almost always either from a middle class Nair family, or Syrian
Christian. Dalits, they have been stereotyped in many ways and
reduced to being sidekicks to villains or unskilled labourers having
no identity. They remained as instruments to idolize the hero, to
act as a contrast to the elite protagonist or as the poor helpless
victims who offer the protagonist an opportunity to display his
heroism.
The artistic expressions of the Dalits were seen as inferior
and dismissed as folk. It is recently that Dalit literature has been
made visible. SharankumarLimbale, one of the earliest Dalit
writers,defines Dalit literature as “Literature which artistically
portraysthe sorrows, tribulations, slavery, degradation, ridicule
and poverty endured by Dalits”(Limbale 30).
Let us .read the poem, Which Language Should I Speak?
by famous Marathi Dalit writer Arum Kamble (14 march 1953-
Dec. 2009)

59
 Arum Kamble
Which language should I speak?
Chewing trotters in the badlands
My grandpa
The permanent resident of my body,
The household of tradition heaped on his back,
Hollers at me,
“You whore-son, talk like we do,
Talk, I tell you!”
Picking through the Vedas
His top knot well-oiled with ghee,
My Brahmin teacher tells me,
‘You idiot, use the language correctly!’
Now I ask you,
Which language should I speak?
{Translated from Marathi by PriyaAdarkar}

1. What do the images- “Chewing trotters in the badlands”

and “His top knot well-oiled with ghee” evoke?
These images evoke two different ways of living of people
belonging to two different caste communities. While poverty
and birth in a lower caste community make one person chew
trotters (pig’s feet) in badlands as part of survival, being
born into a Brahmin community, the latter person can afford
to oil his knot with ghee, which becomes another marker of
caste superiority.
2. Do you think the stanza division conveys any meaning?
Yes. The stanza division conveys the division of upper and
lower caste communities in the society and the disparities in
the use of language which is based on the different ways of
living that casteism forces them into.
3. What meaning does the line “household of tradition heaped
on his back” convey? Can you spot a metaphor here?

60
 Yes. The line is a metaphorical description of how a tradition
of caste violence and discrimination burdens the existence
of the grandfather and shapes the language that he uses.
4. In which line in the poem, do you think, the poet brings in
the anguish of being a social outcast? Explain.
The line “Which language should I speak?” brings in the
anguish of being a social outcaste because the line expresses
the dilemma of a person born in a lower caste community
as to which is his language. Should he be using the language
of his own community, evolved as a language of resistance
against feudal and casteist violence or should he be using
the language of the Brahmin perpetuator of caste violence.
F. M Shinde
Habit
Once you’re used to it
You never afterwards
Feel anything;
Your blood nevermore
Congeals
Nor flows
For wet mud has been slapped
Over all your bones.
Once you’re used to it
Even the sorrow
That visits you
Sometimes, in dreams,
Melts away, embarrassed,
Habit isn’t used to breaking out
In feelings
(Translated from Marathi by PriyaAdarkar )
1. Who is speaking in the poem? How do you know?
The speaker of the poem is a person who has had to face
the discriminations of casteism. Generations of casteist
violence have made men used to their segregated existences
61
 in such a way that sorrow is embarrassed to express itself
even in dreams.
2. What do you notice about the length of the lines? Does it
convey any emotion? What do you think?
The lines are short and broken in keeping with the lives
broken by caste which is depicted in the poem. The Dalit
consciousness is conveyed through the form of the poem.
3. In what sense is the word habit used in the poem? Do
these habits, that the speaker’s community has developed,
help them? How? How not?
The word habit has been used to denote the way in which
generations of physical violence and emotional trauma
of casteism have led to a passivity in those who have had to
face them to such an extent that sorrow itself is embarrassed
to show itself. So, these developed habits do not help them
in anyway. It only helps the perpetuators of casteism.
S. Joseph
Identity Card
In my student days
a girl came laughing.
Our hands met kneading
her rice and fish curry.
On a bench we became
a Hindu-Christian family.
I whiled away my time
reading Neruda’s poetry;
and meanwhile I misplaced
my identity card.
I noticed, she said
returning my card:
the account of your stipend
is entered there in red.
These days I never look at

62
 A boy and a girl lost in themselves.
They will depart after a while.
I won’t be surprised even if they unite.
Their identity cards
won’t have scribbling in red.
( Translated from Malayalam by K. Sachidanandan )
S. Joseph: Identity Card
1. Do you think the Dalit in the poem above is made to feel
marginalized and isolated?
Yes. The dalit is made to feel marginalized and isolated in
the classroom because of how he is made conscious about
his lower caste identity by his classmate.
2. Why does the poet use the image of the identity card? How
does the identity card with “scribbling in red” define the
speaker? What are the other words that you think of with
the word “red”?
Identity card is a document meant to prove a person’s identity
as well as establish his/her relationship to a specific nation
or space. Here the identity card is the way in which a Dalit
student’s identity is revealed to his girl friend. The “scribbling
in red” denotes the red colour which is used to mark students
who require caste reservation. This marking in red prompts
the girl to rethink her love towards the boy who is a lower
caste. Red is often associated with productivity, creativity,
revolution, love etc. however here the scribbling in red leads
to the deserting of the boyfriend by the girl.
3. Are there words that evoke a sense of the place? Where
do you think the poet sets his poem? What significance does
the name Neruda have in the poem?
Words like student days, bench, stipend, identity cards
suggest that it is a classroom. Neruda’s concept of love is
revolutionary and esoteric, which asserts that love is secular
and democratic. However Identity Card critiques such a
romanticized concept of love. Here love is determined by
ones caste identity.
63
 Subject-position of Children in Contemporary Society
Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you
(Kahli Gibran , The Prophet).
The child is another marginalized figure in the society and
by extension in literature and culture.
Who is a child?
What marks a person as a child?
A child is seen only as a non – adult or an adult in the making,
rather than as an individual on her/his own terms. The concept of
a child varies from culture to culture. Power plays an important
role in the relationship between child and adult. We often treat
them as inferior and their interests, choices, values and attitudes,
particularly in the Indian context, are decided /shaped by the
adults. The absence of choices makes the relationship hierarchical.
In many literary texts the child is depicted as innocent,
angelic/devilish, unreasonable, uninformed, thereby essentializing
the person of a child. So The descriptions of children appear
homogenous in texts across cultures, nations and historical periods.
Therefore , the true voices of children are silenced and their
experiences erased. ( Watch “Kunjudaivam,amalayalamchildren
moviehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DiIrifXESi8)
• Can you think of instances in literature where children
are stereotyped?
Writers may also represent children as violent, insensitive
and exploitative beings.
Read the following passage from William Golding’s Lord
of Flies, a novel which portrays how the beastly instincts in
children come out in all their viciousness when they find
themselves stranded on an uninhabited Island
A procession had appeared, far down among the pink stones
that lay near the water’s edge. Some of the boys wore black
64
caps but otherwise they were almost naked. They lifted sticks in
the air together whenever they came to an easy patch. They were
chanting, something to do with the bundle that the errant twins
carried so carefully. Ralph picked out Jack easily, even at that
distance, tall red- haired, and inevitably leading the procession.
Simon looked now, from Ralph to Jack, as he had looked
from Ralph to the horizon, and what he saw seemed to make
him afraid. Ralph said nothing more, but waited while the
procession came nearer. The chant was audible but at that
distance still wordless. Behind Jack walked the twins, carrying a
great stake on their shoulders. The gutted carcass of a pig swung
from the stake, swinging heavily as the twins toiled over the uneven
ground. The pig’s head hung down with gaping neck and seemed
to search for something on the ground. At last the words of the
chant floated up to them, across the bowl of blackened wood
and ashes.
“kill the pig. Cut her throat. Spill her blood.”
Yet as the words became audible, the procession reached
the steepest part of the mountain, and in a minute or two the
chant had died away. Piggy sniveled and Simon shushed him
quickly as though he had spoken too loudly in church.
Jack, his face smeared with clays, reached the top first and
hailed Ralph excitedly, with lifted spear.
“Look! We’ve killed a pig- we stole up on them- we got in
a circle-”
Voices broke in from the hunters.
“We got in a circle-”
“We crept up”
“The pig squealed-”
The twins stood with the pig swinging between them,
dropping black gouts on the rock. They seemed to share one
wide, ecstatic grin. Jack had too many things to tell Ralph at
once. Instead he danced a step or two, then remembered his
dignity and stood still, grinning. He noticed blood on his hands

65
and grimaced distastefully, looked for something on which to
clean them, then wiped them on his shorts and laughed.
Ralph spoke.
“you let the fire go out.”
Jack checked, vaguely irritated by this irrelevance but too
happy tolet it worry him.
“We can light the fire again. You should have been with us,
Ralph. We had a smashing time. The twins got knocked over-”
“We hit the pig-”
“- I fell on top-”
“I cut the pig’s throat, “said Jack, proudly , and yet twitched
as he said it. “ can I borrow yours, Ralph, to make a nick in the
hilt?”
The boys chattered and danced. The twins continued to
grain.
“There was lashings of blood”, said Jack, laughing and
shuddering, “you should have seen it!”
“We’ll go hunting every day-”
The major theme of Lord of Flies is loss of innocence.
Usually children are represented as innocent and blameless. See
how in this text the pattern of stereotyping works reversely. A
text usually features children in the space of the home and school.
The home and the school are ideological sites, where children
are taught moral and social values.
Watch the short film Children by Redream, available at
www.viddsee.com/video/child/rchrk?locale=en . This film clearly
shows how adults often dominate the child. The desire and the
needs of the child may be overlooked in the adult’s well- meaning
acts of ‘educating’ the young.
Sexuality
Just like our subjectivity , our sexuality is also a socially
constructed one. We generally think of two sexes: the male and
the female. When you were born, the doctor or midwife assigned
you a sex based on your body’s physical characteristics. We
may have been taught that male and female are the only gender
66
identities. This is the ‘binary’ view of gender. But a person’s gender
identity may differ from the sex they were assigned at birth. Such
subjects are called transgender.
Sexuality is not just about ‘sex’, and certain body parts that
are associated with the male and the female body. Sexuality
includes sexual orientation, such as who a person is attracted
to and whether the person identifies as hetero sexual, homo
sexual, or bi sexual. People who identify their sexual orientation
as heterosexual typically feel attracted to people of a different
gender. Our society considers that this orientation is the normal
kind .people who identify as “lesbian’ or “gay” typically feel
attracted to people of the same gender as themselves. People
who identify as “bisexual” typically feel attracted to more than
one gender, such as being attracted to both women and
men.People who use the term ”queer” may use it to mean
lesbian, gay, bisexual, or pansexual, or they may use it because
other terms don’t quite describe their experiences. Social
prejudices towards these alternative groups still persist in our
society. They take the form of indifference ,hostility, revulsion,
contempt, scorn and even downright ostracization and violence .
this is what we understand as homophobia.
Do you think of people who identify their sexuality and
sexual orientation asother than the normative? Here is a Kannada
story (in translation) which captures the experience of a person
whose sexuality is different from the norm.Vasudhendra is a
celebrated Kannada writer. His collection of short stories titled
‘Mohanaswamy’ is one of its kind. He has been what seems to
be the only openly gay author in Kannada literature.
‘Mohanaswamy’ is about a gay man from rural Karnataka.
Vasudhendra’s attempt to write about homosexuality in a regional
language is a pioneering move on his part.
Vasudhendra
Mohanaswamy
If I learn to ride bicycle, I will turn from gay to straight.
When this thought flashed across twenty – one – year – old
67
Mohanaswamy’s mind, dark night had descended on the coastal
state of Goa. Huge waves crashing down on the seashore. As
Mohanaswamy tossed and turned on the bed in a hotel room in
that unfamiliar city, his friends tired of cycling and braving the hot
sun the whole day, were slipping into deep sleep one by one.
Elsewhere in the city, owners of wine and mutton shops were
downing their shutters.
It was just about two years ago that Mohanaswamy had
come across the word ‘gay’. He now identified himself with that
word, though he wasn’t sure whether it really described him.
For him, ‘straight’ mean every other creature on earth except
him and the people of his ilk. English dailies and magazines like
Debonaire often used the word ‘gay’. But he didn’t know what
gays were called in the vernacular. So far he had earned several
monikers in the local slang- each one filling him with pain, disgust,
humiliation and incredulity. But there was no equivalent word for
‘gay’ in Kannada. You wouldn’t even find it in dictionaries and
newpapers.
The first moniker Mohanaswamy got was ‘Gansu’, a short
form for ‘Gandusule’ which, in Kannada, referred to a male
prostitute. Shockingly, it was his sister, Janaki, who gave him the
horrendous nickname.
Translated from Kannada by Rashmi Terdal
1. How is the word, ‘shockingly’ appropriate in the last
sentence?
The family makes a person’s closest social circle. It is usually
expected that one’s distinctiveness and differences will be
accepted first by the family. Since Mohanaswamy confided
in his sister, he believed that his coming out as gay will not
provoke an insult from her. When she called him a male
prostitute, it struck him therefore as a very shocking address.
2. Do you think language plays a role in discriminating
sexualities? How?
Language fundamentally is a naming process. A human being
identifies the world around him or her by the names. When
68
 Mohanaswamy finds out that the word gay has no Kannada
equivalent, he feels he is spaced out of the immediate
community.
The following is a letter, a queer writer writes to his younger
self. It is a selection from The Letter Q(2012),a collection
of letters written by queer writers to their younger selves.
Ely Shipley
The letter Q
1 July 2012
Dear————,
I want to share one of my favourite poems with you:
“May be, Someday’ by Yannis Ritsos (Translated by
Edmund Keeley)
I want to show you these rose clouds in the night. But you
can’t see. It’s night – what can one see?
Now , I have no choice but to see with your eyes, he said,
So I’m not alone, so you are not alone. And really,
there is nothing over there where I pointed.
Only the stars crowded together in the night, tired, like those
people coming back in a truck from a picnic,
disappointed, hungry, nobody singing,
with wilted wild flowers in their sweaty palms.
But I am going to insist on seeing and showing you, he said,
Because if you too don’t see, it will be as if I hadn’t –
I’ll insist at least on not seeing with your eyes-
And maybe someday, from a different direction,
We’ll meet.
I refuse to lie to you; you already know that living in this
world is enormously difficult. But what you might not fully realize
just yet is that what makes this pain bearable is love. You will go
on seeking this love outside of yourself – from family, friends and
lovers. Through this process you will learn a lot. But what I need
you to know is that I love you, for who you are , just as you are,

69
absolutely and unconditionally, right now; there is nothing wrong
with you.
In fact you have become my muse. You are my creative
source. I didn’t always realize this. And sometimes, even now, I
forget it. So, if I was harsh with you along the way, I hope you
will forgive me. We’re working on this now.
Something I return to, for example, is the way that every
day of your young life, being perceived as a girl because of the
body you were born into, you imagined yourself each night before
you went to sleep as being recognized by the world as a boy.
You could see something about yourself that others couldn’t.
This is a gift. But it was hard to carry, this secret. You couldn’t
share your vision with anyone. Often you were picked on for not
conforming to your assigned gender role of female. We were
ashamed of our vision. And, so, at some point, I scolded you for
what I mistakenly felt was a frivolous fantasy. I remember us
thinking around age 14 or 15: why am I torturing myself with this
thought; it’s never going to happen. At the time, we didn’t know
that it was possible to live in this world and be recognized as
male. We were so happy to discover – much later on – that to
some degree it is.
But what’s even more valuable to me now than this realization
that one can transform one’s body is that your imagination
conceived it much earlier, before you had the language of society
and medicine to name it. Interestingly, around this time, you began
to read poems and write song lyrics and poems – a true kind of
language. Your poetic imagination gave you insight and joy in the
midst of misery. I still remember the first time we read Percy
Bysshe Shelley’s line “naught may endure but mutability”
from his poem, “mutability” . Its paradox was a kind of
revelation for you, though you wouldn’t understand why for years
to come.
Though we denied a part of our self and this creative source
for a while, we never lost faith. I am so grateful to you for this.
Through reading and writing poems you were able to reconnect
70
with this source. Reading and writing has been the antidote. Each
time I realize you are my muse, I fill up, become expensive,
spacious. I think of Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself”, and his
line: “I am large. I contain multitudes.” I remember Jack Spicer’s
imperative: “Poet, be like god.”
Recently I read a wonderful book by a Buddhist teacher,
Tara Brach, called Radical Acceptance. I was touched by an
anecdote she tells:
Several years ago, a small group of Buddhist teachers and
psychologists from the United States and Europe invited the Dalai
Lama to join them in a dialogue about emotions and health. During
one of their sessions, an American Vipassana teacher asked him
to talk about the suffering of self- hatred. A look of confusion
came over the Dalai Lama’s face. “What is self hatred?” he asked.
As the therapists and teachers in the room tried to explain, he
looked increasingly bewildered. “Was this mental state a mental
disorder?” he asked them. When those gathered confirmed that
self- hatred was not unusual but rather common experience for
their students and clients, the Dalai Lama was astonished. How
could they feel that way about themselves, he wondered, when
“everybody has Buddha nature”
Indeed, “self – hatred is not unusual,” especially for a queer
kid. But I’m so proud you’ve survived. I’m so grateful that you
found (and continue to find) the way to love yourself, to recognize
something like this “Buddha nature” by transforming your suffering
into something beautiful through poetry. It look reading and writing
poems to see your true nature, to return to the source, and to
realize there is nothing wrong with you. Your primary
transformation, which is ongoing, has to do with perception itself,
and nurturing your ability to see .Your resilience, as made evident
by our poetry, encourages me to go on.
With love,
Ely.
1. Analyse the line “I am large. I contain multitudes” from the
point of view of a queer.
71
 Whitman was a gay poet. His vision included the lives and
perspectives of marginalized sexualities. Not only did he
raise to the status of America’s national poet, but made
poetry a medium through which differences could be
transcended. When he sings “I contain multitudes”, he is
trying to bring to light how the experience of someone who
occupies the margins can sometimes become a wholesome
commentary of the way the world works.
2. Do you think the terms ‘heterosexual’ and ‘homosexual’
address the complexities of sexualities?
They address the complexities of sexualities after a fashion,
in that they provide categories that could satisfy the
requirements of governmental formats where alternate
sexuality is legally acknowledged. But a formal taxonomy
such as this is bound to fail at representing the range of
spectrum that human sexuality is spread upon. The neat
classification of sexual orientation into heterosexual and
homosexual is only an initial attempt to catch the variety of
sexual orientations that gender studies has brought for
analysis.
3. “Your primary transformation which is ongoing has to do
with perception itself, and nurturing your ability to see”. Does
this sentence signify that there is more to it than the physical
condition that determines sexualities?
Yes. The sentence suggests that the physicality of a person
is only one of the many variables around which one’s idea
of oneself is constituted. Sexual behavior is not a direct
product of a person’s biology, it is predicated upon a
complex set of variables ranging from sociological to
psychological. In that sense, the sentence tries to suggest
that including the primary transformation – that of the body
– every change is a process that takes many intermediate
phases

72
Activity.
Pick out sentences from the text to illustrate how sexuality
is more than a biological fact.
For further reading
Dasan , M et al ed. Oxford India Anthology of
Malayalam Dalit Writing OUP, India,2012
Seidman,Steven, Nancy Fischer and Chet Meeks.
Introducing the New Sexuality Studies. Routledge, 2011
Butler, Judith, Gender Trouble, Routledge, London,2006

73
 FIRST SEMESTER BA ENGLISH DEGREE
EXAMINATION
MODEL QUESTION PAPER
(CBCSSUG)
Core Course-English
Introducing Literature
Time:2.5Hours Maximum: 80 Marks
I. Answer the following questions in two or three
sentences:
1. Complete the given sentences with verb phrases that answer
the question when or where:
She ________
He ________
2. I will help you out if you confide in me – Identify the phrasal
verbs
3. Identify the paratactic and hypotactic sentences from the
given passage –
A jackal howled at the moon, a nightjar called from the
bushes, Biniya walked fast and her breath came in short,
sharp gasps. Bright moonlight bathed the hillside when she
reached her home to village
4. Replace the monotransitive verb with ditransitive verb:
She rode a bicycle.
5. Mark enjambment or caesura in the following stanzas:
Your eyes on me were as eyes that rove
Over tedious riddles of years ago;
And some words played between us to and fro
On which lost the more by our love
6. Mark the syllabic units in the following lines of poetry
Had a dream, which was not all a dream
The bright sun was extinguished, and the stars
7. What is the point of view in this passage? Identify any two
markers.
Mary gets up from her chair. The mowers are through for
the night and she has no fear that her son will be robbed of
his sleep. She will go out and run in the dark. Block by
block she can be gone ten minutes at a time, stopping back
74
 after each circuit to look in on him. He’s got to learn to be
alone and what better way to learn than in your sleep.
8. My love is like a red, red rose –Identify the figure of speech
and state how it enhances meaning.
9. Mark the sense groups in the following passage
Among the great leaders of India’s renaissance,
Jawaharlal Nehru stands out prominently. He was born
at Allahabad on November 14, 1889. He was educated
at home until the age of sixteen by English governesses
and tutors.
10. I remember, I remember
The fir trees dark and high;
I used to thin their slender tops
Were close against the sky:
It was a childish ignorance,
But not ‘tis little joy
To –now I’m farther off from heav’n
Than when I was a boy
How do you think the child is stereotyped in this passage?
11. Mohanaswamy loved to play house with the girls. He found
it more interesting than playing gilli-danda, top and marbles
with boys. Though the girls forced him to go and play with
boys, he wouldn’t listen. The boys always bullied him –
How do gender prejudices work here? Pick out two
expressions to justify your answer.
12. Bride wanted: Fair, slim, educated girl below 22 years from
a well-off family - What does the ad tell you about the
perceptions of our society?
13. As a young boy, Velutha would come with Vellya Paapen
to the back entrance of the Ayemenem house to deliver the
coconuts they had plucked from the trees in the compound.
Pappachi would not allow Paravans into the house. Nobody
would – Why were Paravans not allowed to enter the
house?
14. Which sentence in the earlier passage suggest that this
attitude is not the problem of an individual but a social evil.
15. ‘Tyger tyger burning bright
In the forests of the night’ – what mood does the trochaic
metre of this poem reflect? (Ceiling 25 marks)
75
II. Do as directed. Paragraph questions shall not exceed
75 words.
16. Do you think the treatment of the Dalit teacher in the passage
below is unjust? Why? Pick out at least four words/phrases/
sentences that will justify your answer.
The head master had chosen a room at the end of the school
building for me. May be he wanted to spare the upper caste
teachers the sin of passing in front of a Pulayateac-
her’sroom.Wonder whether that innocent of innocents
headmaster, Raman Menon had thought that far ahead.
The students looked at me not as though I was a strange
creature, but as one who had committed a grave sin. No
point in blaming them for that. Those were the circumstances
under which they had been raised…
When I returned after lunch in ammavan’s home, I got a
terrible shock. My blood boiled as never before. Were my
eyes growing dim,were my muscles and nerves failing, or
was I forgetting myself? I cannot explain my feelings at that
moment.
Someone had placed a spade across my desk
17. One is not born, but rather becomes a woman. Explain.
18. Fill in the blanks with the right collocations. Choose from
the words given in the brackets
(hard, great, show, pay, take, draw, big, evince, bid)
My father said “____ attention when I speak.” He was a
monster most of the time. He never ____ any interest in my
life. My mother was a ____working woman. I had _____
admiration for my mother. She _____ her role seriously.
19. Read the passage below.
Earlier, much earlier: me, saying to my father, Please, Father!
I want to go to Egypt or Iraq, I want to study at university
there. He grabbed me by the neck and barked at me. By
this beard of mine, I swear you are not leaving Oman. Do
you want to sink so low? To come back from Egypt or Iraq
with your beard shaven off? Smoking and drinking and I
don’t know what? Is that who you want to be? So instead,
immediately after finishing high school I went to work in his
business.
Imagine you are the son. Write a diary entry expressing
your feelings.
76
20. It was a long time ago,
I have almost forgotten my dream.
But it was there then,
In front of me,
Bright like a sun-
My dream.
And then the wall rose,
Rose slowly,
Slowly,
Between me and my dream.
Rose until it touched the sky-
The wall.
Shadow.
I am black.
I lie down in the shadow –
What are the figures of speech in the poem? How does the
poet convey his meaning through them?
21. Discuss the significance of the advice the mother gives to
the daughter at the end of the story No Name Woman.
22. In the text below whose do you think is the dominant voice?
Why? Substantiate your views with two examples from the
text.
Everyone agreed that my father, my Baba had built the most
beautiful house in the Wazir Akbar Khan district, a new and
affluent neighbourhood in the northern part of Kabul. Some
thought it was the prettiest house in all of Kabul. A broad
entry way flanked by rose bushes led to the sprawling house
of marble floors and wide windows….
On the south end of the garden, in the shadows of a loquat
tree was the servants’ home,a modest little mud hut where
Hassan lived with his father.
It was there in that little shack, that Hassan was born in the
winter of 1964, just one year after my mother died giving
birth to me.
23. Do you find viewpoints, silences, or gaps that are unfair to
a person or a group in the text below? Whose point of view
is represented in this text? How does Stevens respond to
this issue?

77
 Then he said: ‘I have been doing a great deal of thinking
Stevens. A great deal of thinking. And I’ve reached my
conclusion. We cannot have Jews on the staff here at
Darlington Hall.’
‘Sir?’
‘It’s for the good of this house, Stevens. In the interests of
the guests we have staying here. I’ve looked into this
carefully,Stevens,and I’m letting you know my conclusion.’
‘Very well, sir.
‘Tell me Stevens, we have a few on the staff at the moment,
don’t we? Jews, I mean.’
I believe two of the present staff members would fall into
that category, sir.’
‘Ah.’ His lordship paused for a moment, staring out of his
window. ‘Of course, you’ll have to let them go’
I beg your pardon, sir?’ (Remains of the Day)
(Ceiling 35 marks)
III. Answer any two out of the two questions in a short
essay of 150 words:
24. “I was quite sure that Hamlet had only one possible
interpretation, and that one universally obvious.” How is
the author proved wrong as he narrates Hamlet to the African
tribals?
25. Based on your reading of Adivasi will not Dance explain
how breaking a habit can be a form of resistance.
26. Read the text from a book published in 1877. Would you
say nineteenth century discourses were unfair to women?
What do you think of the word ‘holy’ that describes the
woman in the text? Compare the present day family with
that in the text below.
Coming home one day at his dinner hour, and finding that
the meal was not ready, he flew into a furious passion, and
began to upset and break the furniture in the dining room.
His wife-a holy woman- endeavoured to pacify him and
while urging the servants to hurry forward in their
preparations, she argued sweetly with her husband on the
unseemliness of such displays of anger and begged him to
read a book, while she would go to aid the cook. He flung
the book away from him and stalked back and forth in a
rage, while the lady hastened to the kitchen.
78
27. What function does the mother’s stories perform in shaping
the daughter’s consciousness as a woman in No Name
Woman?
(2 x 10=20 marks)
Please note;
• 3 chapters from module 2,3 and 4 namely Shakespeare in
the Bush, The Adivasi will not dance and No Name Woman
are meant for detailed study from which paragraph and essay
questions will be asked
• Students are expected to write short paragraphs of 75 words
and short essays of 150 words
Answer key:
1. She came home early
He spoke at the meeting
2. Help out, confide in
3. A jackal howled at the moon, a nightjar called from the
bushes, Biniya walked fast and her breath came in short,
sharp gasps – paratactic
Bright moonlight bathed the hillside when she reached her
home to village – hypotactic
4. She wrote him a letter
5. Your eyes on me were as eyes that rove Over tedious riddles
of years ago
And some words played between us to and fro On which
lost the more by our love.
6. Had a/ dream which/ was not/ all a/ dream
The bright/ sun was/ ex ti/ nguish’d and/ the stars
7. Third person. Markers – Mary, she
8. Simile - the reference to the rose adds the quality of grace
and beauty
9. Among the great leaders /of India’s renaissance/,
Jawaharlal Nehru stands out prominently/ He was born
at Allahabad/ on November 14, 1889/ He was educated
at home /until the age of sixteen /by English governesses
and tutors/
10. Ignorant and innocent
11. It is normal for the boys to play gillidanda, top and marbles
and for the girls to play house. The girls forced him- the
boys bullied him
79
12. It is normal for a man to expect his bride to be fair, slim,
young and from a well off family This normative societal
expectation is not applicable to the bridegroom (answer is
subjective)
13. Paravans were not allowed to enter the house because of
the prevailing system of untouchability.
14. Nobody would
15. Sombre mood
16. It is unjust because the Dalit teacher was not treated as a
human being by the headmaster, the other teachers and
students. Sin, strange creature, grave sin, spade
17. Hints – gender inequality, indoctrination, prescribed gender
roles
18. Pay, showed, hard, great, took
19. Answer is subjective
20. Bright like a sun – simile, Rose until it touched the sky-
hyperbole – the contrasting images to describe the dream
and the wall

21. Indoctrinating only the girl child on values of chastity and

morality
22. The narrator and his father – new and affluent
neighbourhood, prettiest house, modest little mud hut, little
shack
23. Yes. The point of view of the dominant class is represented
here. The hotel authorities do not want Jews on the staff in
the interest of the guests. Stevens is obliging and submissive
24. The ‘strange’ responses of the tribals to the incidents in the
story
25. Dancing is habitual for the adivasis - the adivasis’ adamant
decision not to dance – a political act
26. Yes. It is normal for the man to fly into a ‘furious passion’
and for the woman to put up with it and pacify him. The
answer for the last part is subjective
27. The girl child is warned of dire consequences if she violates
the social norms of chastity

80