Professor Garret

Half a Life Half a Life is a novel written by V.S.Naipaul in 2001. The novel revolves around the story of Willie Somerset Chandran, whose father is a Brahmin from the Hindu caste system and his mother a Dalit. Willie's middle name 'Somerset comes from the name of an English writer called Somerset Maugham who had visited Willie's father in a temple once. Willie's has a strained relationship with his father and decides to leave India so as to go and study in London, England. He lives the life of a poor immigrant while in London but later writes a book and manages to publish it. The publishing of his book leads [to Willie receiving a letter from a fan called Ana, wh admires the book and wants to meet Willie. Ana and Willie fall in love and Willie goes back with Ana to her homeland in Africa. The novel ends with Willie leaving his 18-year stay in Africa and going to live with his sister in Berlin. The book was written by the author to explore the life of an immigran...

Ananse Ananse is a trickster spider, which often pranks and even takes human shapes, which is one of the primary characters in West African and Caribbean folklore The poem has been divided into two parts. In the first part, Ananse thinks and memorizes the native culture of his country which once existed but has been lost now In the second part, Ananse weaves and recreates the lost culture by binding past stories, cultures, words, songs of Africa and thus like God, he brings dead African culture to life. In every stanza, Ananse changes its form and presents something different In his poem "Ananse", Kamau Brathwaite has tried to challenge the canons of language set by colonialists He challenges these rules by breaking away from them He believes that the culture which had been destructed by the colonial powers can be regained only by rejecting the rules of language set by colonialists The very title of the poem "Ananse depicts this deviation The correct spelling of...

Postcolonial Reading of “Summer Lightning” Olive Senior is a Caribbean writer who was born in rural Jamaica. In the short story, the author metaphorically expresses her thoughts about the loss of pride in Caribbean culture by the people of Caribbean Island and the hegemonic magnetism towards western culture, which he thinks “Sodomy”. The story, in surface level, presents a narration about boy who lives with her guardians and his experience with a new comer to the house, an old man. A Postcolonial analysis would bring out the intention of the author and provide a different coloring to the story. The Old man represents the colonizers who “had been coming for Years”. The House/ Garden Room represent the “Caribbean Island” and the old man can be analogized with the colonizers of Caribbean Island. The secret room functions as a "Third Space" where the two cultures mingle. The Boy's race is not mentioned in the story, yet he may be assumed as being an african.Afro-...

Note: The title Indian denotes the native Canadian Red Indians. We call them, North American Indians. When the European settlers occupy America, they were driven to extreme north to live in cold places. The earliest settlers of Canada were French and English.  The Aboriginal Canadians can be categorized into three: The First Nations (Predominant aborigines), Inuit (aborigine Canadians especially from Arctic) and Métis (a mixed race – Children of First nations and European settlers). The aboriginal literature has a rich oral tradition. After the colonization they began to write in English, the settlers ‘language. George Ryga also talks about the plight of North American Indians in his play Ecstasy of Rita Joe . The word ‘Indian’ is often misunderstood as settlers from Indian Subcontinent. In the context of Canada, it denotes the aborigines. It can be easily summed up as “In the beginning there was Indian. The Indian was with Canadian and the Canadian was the Indian. That’s ...

                Almost fifty years after independence Parbatpuri had spread itself in all directions. Yet, it still had not been able to climb the elevations on which the members of the civil administration lived. The DC bungalow of Parbatpuri was a legacy of those days when the British had administered the district from residences-cum-offices perched on hillocks nearest the DC bungalow. Beyond him lived the Civil Surgeon and on a slightly lower elevation lived the District Forest Officer. The view from the hillock was marvelous. The DC bungalow was itself creaky but spacious. Every window opened to heart-stopping views of the surrounding landscapes. To the north red river was flowing and Mahatma Gandhi road on the other side attracted everybody in and around. The Parbatpuri market place was a bustling, busy and a crowded area. In those days MG road had been called the Kings Way. MG Road was different from the Kings Way of the twenties and thir...

American Literature - Seminar Topics – II Semester – I M.A 1.        Eco-Centric Reading of “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomed”.  2.       Symbolism in “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomed”.  3.       Thanatos in “Because I Could not stop for Death”. 4.       Character study of ‘Silas’ from "The Death of the Hired Man". 5.        Representation of New York City in “To Brooklyn Bridge”. 6.        Racism, Double Consciousness, and Resistance in the poems of Langston Hughes. 7.        Idea of Learning from Nature in "The American Scholar". 8.        Ideas of Transcendentalism in "The American Scholar". 9.        Emerson’s Advice to the scholars to become “Man Thinking”. 10.    Influe...

Desmond L Kharmawphlang is a poet and folklorist. He has published books of poetry and collections of theoretical essays on folkloristics pertaining to North East India. He is on the Executive Board of the Belief Narrative Network of the International Society for Folk Narrative Research and is the Vice President of the Indian Folklore Congress. He lives in Shillong, Meghalaya where he is Professor and Head at the Department of Cultural and Creative Studies of the North-Eastern Hill University, where he teaches folkloristics.   In the poem “Last night I dreamed” the poet, folklorist Desmond. L. Kharmawphlang delineates the poetic tradition of North-East literature. The history and evolution of north-east poetic tradition is explained by the poet. As a folklorist, Desmond attempts to give the chronology of events which maketh the evolution possible. The evolution of north-east literature from oral tradition to written is described in an emblematic way which makes the poem in...