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Who is Dopdi? (in Mahasweta Devi’s Bengali short story, Draupadi)

Dopdi Mejhen is the female protagonist of Mahasweta Devi’s Bengali short story, Draupadi, which was translated in English by Gayatri Chakravorty. The name Dopdi (actually pronounced Draupadi) is given intentionally, by the author as an allusion to the mythological female character Draupadi, the wife of the Pandava brothers in the epic, Mahabharata. The story also alludes to the heinous act of the disrobing of Draupadi, a shameful incident that occurred in front of wise men and valiant warriors.Dopdi is a santhal widow of 27 years.Her husband, Dulna Majhi was shot dead by the soldiers.She is the resident of Cherakhan, Bankrahjarh. Dopdi is a tribal woman who belongs to the group of rebels whom the government attempts to subjugate by apprehending, torturing, encounter killing, and rape by the soldiers. She is one of the most wanted rebels, according to the soldiers. A handsome reward of hundred rupees will be awarded to whoever provides any information or assistance in the arrest of Dopd

Differences Between Hemingway’s Hero and Code Hero

Hemingway’s hero possesses some characteristics which define the character of the hero in most of Hemingway’s literary work. Most essential characteristics of such a hero are courage, confidence, resilience, fearlessness and introspection. His heroes are exceptional, maybe young or old and each of them is introduced differently along with their heroic qualities. Unlike conventional heroes, Hemingway’s hero remains resilient and graceful in misfortune and adversity. Hemingway’s code hero is the epitome of stoicism. A unique example of such a hero is Santiago, from The Old Man and the Sea. The word code implies a code of conduct. These codes include ideals like honour, courage, resilience in a violent, chaotic, topsy turvy world of the hero. The hero acts with honour and grace grasping only his will power and finally emerges as a winner. He proves his worth by defeating destiny sometimes by challenging or accepting it. His predicament can be best described with the phrase ‘grace under

Draupadi by Mahasweta Devi

  Translation Project:  The mythological character of Draupadi is reinvented to produce a counter-narrative by deploying the female body and sexuality as the locus of resistance. While translating this piece written by Mahasweta Devi, Gayatri Spivak Chakraborty may have been influenced by her own subaltern discourse in her groundbreaking essay, Can a Subaltern Speak?  In her essay, Spivak substantiates her answer to the question using Marxist theory and Derrida’s deconstructionist methods. Spivak’s essay challenges the notion of colonial subject and exemplifies the boundaries of the capability of Western discourse, in order to interrelate with incongruent cultures. Spivak justifies the fact that this project is destined to fail, not because the subaltern cannot speak words or produce sentences. The subaltern cannot speak because her speech lacks authority, and it is not heard or accepted politically and socially. In the translator’s forewords, she declares, that it appears to her tha

Mamang Dai and Identity Politics

Introduction: The issue of identity in the postcolonial context is a problematic concept which has been further complicated by continuous inclusion of ideas like hybrid nation, constitution of countries with various cultural diversities, migration, transculturation, and other ramifications of the postcolonial phenomenon..The question of identity in the postcolonial world emerged obviously due to the sense of urgency felt on the part of the postcolonial writers to construct their own identity and share experiences from their perspective. Often times their identity appears to be instrumental in accentuating their discourse. In Mamang Dai’s creative writings, the politics of identity has been manifested in myriads of ways. Post colonialism: The term postcolonial refers to the era when colonies of European countries were emancipated from the long colonial rule. Bill Ashcroft and et al in The Empire Writes Back, defines, ‘ more than three quarter of the people living in the world today ha

The Development of English Drama during the Romantic Age (1800-180

The Development of English Drama during the Romantic Age (1800-1850) The Romantic era was not fertile for the production of stage drama. Why? That is a matter of conjecture .Some critics believe that drama was neglected during this period due to the dearth of ideas among the contemporary dramatists. A new genre of Drama evolved mainly from the trend of romantic poetry which was popularly known as the Closet Drama .A Closet Drama is written in a dramatic form, with dialogue indicating stage direction and settings. The author writes it with the intention that people should read it rather than seeing the performance. Lord Byron’s Manfred (1817), Shelley’s Prometheus Unbound (1820) are some honourable mentions in this context. It will be surprising to know that Shelley, Byron and Keats also wrote for stage but were later discouraged by the lukewarm response of the audience. Among all the works done during the age, perhaps Shelley’s The Cenci is the best produced work. Apart from Closet

Gothic Romanticism

Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in Europe by the end of the 18th century. Romantic literature was characterized by features like, shift in sensibility and feeling, love for nature, primitive and uncivilized way of life, more like vast, untamed, disorderly manifestations of nature, affinity towards expressing intense subjective feelings and the emerging concepts of the Sublime and the Noble Savage. Romanticism exhibits interest in the exotic, distant land. It has a nostalgia for the idealized past, commitment to political and social freedom and yearning to return to nature, use intuition and imagination to express intensely personal feelings. During the Romantic period, the concept of the Sublime was used to connote a surpassing excellence. Edmund Burke’s A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and the Beautiful (1757) contributed to thinking on the subject of the Sublime. The distinction between the beautiful

Gothic Romance

Romanticism exhibits interest in the exotic, distant land. It has a nostalgia for the idealized past, commitment to political and social freedom and yearning to return to nature, use intuition and imagination to express intensely personal feelings. During the Romantic period, the concept of Sublime was used to connote a surpassing excellence. Edmund Burke’s A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and the Beautiful (1757) contributed to thinking on the subject of Sublime. The distinction between the beautiful and the sublime is ,as Burke puts it, The former is associated with brightness, smoothness and smallness, the later with the infinite, solitude, emptiness, darkness and terror. The sublime is associated with powerful emotions, along with spiritual and religious awe, with vastness and immensity, with the natural order of its grander manifestations. Whatever Burke said about terror and the inspiration of terror had a considerable influence on the Gothic n