THE NOVELIST AS TEACHER Chinua Achebe, Nigerian novelist, thinker, poet and a very important figure in African literature, is the author of great novels like Things Fall Apart and No Longer at Ease. This is a speech that was given by Achebe at Leeds University in 1965. Achebe begins his famous essay The Novelist as Teacher by saying that writing novels in Nigeria, in Africa is a new phenomenon. Unlike Europe and America, where novels have been written and read for a very long time, novels were written in African literature only in the twentieth century. So the history of the novel in African literature is relatively recent. Achebe also says that the relationship between readers and writers in Africa is complex and cannot be as easily defined as it is in Europe. Chinua Achebe says that his purpose in writing this essay is to explain society’s ...
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I Love my Lavie🤩🤩🤩
Handbags and purses are very important accessories for women. Most of us carry purses and bags for their utility value. Brand consciousness and brand identity are usually secondary for ordinary Indian women. Most brands are expensive and do not meet our requirements. Most of us look for bags into which we can fit in just about everything under the sun. The same goes for purses also. These are indispensable objects for most women. I, for one, am not very brand conscious. But my personal experience with the Lavie handbag made me want to share this piece. This is not intended as a marketing piece or a brand support piece. This is recommendation of a brand that has really delivered the service that we paid for it and it has not disappointed us. I swear by the Lavie handbag that my husband bought for me four years ago. We bought it from an upscale mall in Trivandrum and I was skeptical about its durability and its lasting potential. But I am happy to say that my doubts have been prove...
Tribute to a Gentleman
A Gentleman Passes Away Tribute to a Gentleman Sometimes we don't realise how much we love someone, until that person leaves us forever. The passing away of my father's elder cousin, Madhavan Kutty Valliachan has left me bereft. Never realised that he meant so much to me. He was a veterinary doctor who was passionate about books, people, corals and the Padmanabhaswamy temple. I first got to know him properly when I landed in Trivandrum to do my degree in English in one of the city colleges. I was one of the many country bumpkins who had arrived in old world Trivandrum, from a small town in Odisha, sometime in the 1990s. College was intimidating, bus travel was terrifying, and I was very lonely. I stayed with my grandmother and my family was far away in erstwhile Orissa. Life in a co-educational college was terrible for someone as shy and self-conscious as me. Ragging in ...
ARCHETYPAL APPROACH SIMPLIFIED It is an approach of literary criticism that attempts to understand a text by focusing attention on the myths and archetypes that keep recurring in the narrative. There may be certain symbols, images and types of characters who keep reappearing again and again in the literary texts. An archetype is a statement, a type of behaviour, a prototype or a model that others emulate, imitate or copy. Archetypal criticism became very popular in the 140s and 1950s. The most important critic associated with archetypal criticism is the Canadian literary critic Northrop Frye (1912-1991). Archetypal criticism is also known as “the totemic, mythological or ritualistic” and it involves a very close reading of the text under consideration. More than a mere appreciation of the language and the way it is used to create the text, archetypal criticism focuses on the psychological effect of the work on the minds of the readers. It is sociologica...
SOCIOLOGICAL APPROACH
SOCIOLOGICAL APPROACH OF LITERATURE - WILBUR SCOTT Sociological criticism firmly believes that the relationship between art and society is very important. The examination of this relationship between art and society is essential for a better and much more suitable understanding of art. It also plays a very important role in shaping our response to a work of art or a work of literature. Art and literature are always influenced and shaped by the society and the time in which the creator of that particular work of art or work of literature lives. The author is an important person because the author is someone who can express or communicate effectively. The critic who approaches a novel or a text from a sociological point of view or perspective is deeply interested in examining and understanding the social background described in the novel. The critic closely examines the effect of that particular social background on the author and also studies the response of the wri...
THE REFUGEE - ASIF CURRIMBHOY Asif Currimbhoy is an Indian playwright who wrote exclusively in English. His plays have contemporary relevance as they deal with the complexities of life in modern post-Independence India. The Refugee is a one act play that deals with the influx or arrival of refugees from erstwhile East Pakistan or modern day Bangladesh into West Bengal in India in the aftermath of the 1971 Indo-Pakistan war. East Pakistan was carved out of Bengal and became a part of Pakistan when undivided India was partitioned by the British in 1947. East Pakistan was predominantly Bengali speaking. They resented the domination of Pakistan which comprise...
Tribute to a Great Teacher Great teachers must have empathy. They may never win awards, accolades, foreign scholarships or even have awards named after them. But they live on, for years, in the hearts of the students whom they have taught and helped to recover faith in themselves. I myself am a teacher, but I must admit that I too do not have the empathy quotient in adequate quantity. The country’s highest award for sports coaches- the Dronacharya or Drona Award is named after a man who lacked empathy, was arrogant and biased in his attitude. After all, he asked Ekalavya, the ardent tribal boy for his thumb. Drona foresaw that Ekalavya was an excellent archer, who if encouraged, had the capability to supersede Arjuna. Ekalavya was a poor tribal boy who aspired to learn archery from the greatest Gur...