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Chetas Title-Merged

Chetas: A Journal of Literature and Cultural Studies is a peer-reviewed online journal published bi-annually by the Department of English at Punjabi University, Patiala, featuring a range of scholarly contributions including essays, interviews, and book reviews. The journal aims to explore literature and cultural studies through various thematic lenses and includes works from both established and emerging scholars. The first issue, published in December 2023, includes articles on topics such as nature writing and the philosophical connections between humans and the natural world.

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0% found this document useful (0 votes)
38 views82 pages

Chetas Title-Merged

Chetas: A Journal of Literature and Cultural Studies is a peer-reviewed online journal published bi-annually by the Department of English at Punjabi University, Patiala, featuring a range of scholarly contributions including essays, interviews, and book reviews. The journal aims to explore literature and cultural studies through various thematic lenses and includes works from both established and emerging scholars. The first issue, published in December 2023, includes articles on topics such as nature writing and the philosophical connections between humans and the natural world.

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mannsisaini2606
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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ABOUT THE JOURNAL

Chetas: A Journal of Literature and Cultural Studies is an


online journal of the Department of English, Punjabi University,
Patiala. It is a peer-reviewed interdisciplinary journal published
bi-annually. The journal publishes original contributions in the
form of scholarly papers, literary and critical essays, interviews,
book reviews, photo essays, commentaries, reports, etc.

Chetas is a Sanskrit word that can be tentatively translated as


consciousness, intellect, reason, mind, or perception.

The Department of English was established, with the founding


of the University, in 1962. The Department runs a wide range of
courses for Masters and Doctoral degrees; it has recently started
a Five Year Integrated Programme in Languages. The courses
include beginning with Introduction to Poetry: Medieval and
Renaissance, Classical and Elizabethan Drama, English
Phonetics and Phonology, William Shakespeare: From Stage to
Screen, Beginnings of the Novel Literary Criticism, Poetry
from Neoclassical to Victorian Age, Contemporary Essay and
others in M.A. Part I. In Part II, the core courses offered are
Literature and Modernity, Literary and Cultural Theory, Modern
Indian Literature in Translation, Literature and Politics, and
Literature and Gender. The optional courses are Literature and
Postcoloniality, Creative Writing, and Language and Linguistics.
In Ph.D. Course Work, the courses offered are Research
Methodology, Interdisciplinary Perspectives, Literature, Exile
and Diaspora, Modern World Poetry, Film Studies, etc.

1 : CHETAS
CHETAS: A JOURNAL OF LITERATURE AND CULTURAL
STUDIES
VOL. 1 ISSUE 1,
Contents
DECEMBER 2023
ISBN NO. 978-81-302-0552-6 Editoral 3

COVER IMAGE
Cover Photo by Andrew Neel on Unsplash Articles
Nature as Human Experience in Annie Dillard’s Pilgrim at Tinker
ADVISORY BOARD
PROF. BHIM SINGH DAHIYA, KURUKUSHETRA UNIVERSITY Creek
PROF. M.L. RAINA, PANJAB UNIVERSITY Kamaldeep Kaur 11
PROF. GURUPDESH SINGH, GURU NANAK DEV UNIVERSITY
DR. SADHU BINNING, THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA The Ontologies from Human to the Post-Human
PROF. ANURADHA GHOSH, JAMIA MILIA ISLAMIA Brahamjeet Singh 26
EDITORIAL BOARD Ecological Exploitation of Dalitsin Mahasweta Devi’s Play Water:
PROF. RAJESH KUMAR SHARMA EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Crumbling Ecology and Postcolonial Dalit Identity
DR. JYOTI PURI
DR. DHARAMJEET SINGH Vaibhav Pathak 41
DR. NAVJOT KHOSLA The Mysterious in Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince
DR. MONICA SABHARWAL
Navjot Khosla 60
EDITORIAL ASSISTANCE Thematic Threads in Hisham Matar’s In the Country of Men and
SAHAJMEET, SATWINDER SINGH,
JATINDER KUMAR, KULVEER KAUR The Return
Harpreet Kaur 82
WRITE TO: DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH, ARTS BLOCK NO. 4,
PUNJABI UNIVERSITY, PATIALA, PUNJAB, 147002 Some ‘Apples’ for Analysts: Micheline Aharonian Marcom’s Three
PHONE: +91 98725 16664, 0175-5136246 Apples Fell from Heaven
[email protected] Harvir Singh 98
[email protected]
PUBLISHED BIANNUALLY BY DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH, Allen Ginsberg’s Poetry: A Zizekian Psychoanalysis
PUNJABI UNIVERSITY, PATIALA Deepinder Kaur 120
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

2 : CHETAS 3 : CHETAS
Translations
Heer’s Peerless Beauty: A Translation from Waris Shah’s Heer
Sakoon Singh 132
Sukhvinder Amrit’s Poems in Translation
Editor’s Note
Harpreet Kathuria 136

Interviews Are the days of negative – pernickety, paranoid, politically correct –


criticism over? Is criticism finally taking an aesthetic turn? Will the
Alison Moore in an Online Conversation
renascence of style reform a discourse that has been notoriously – or
Sukhpal Sharma 148
famously, depending on where your feelings are – angry, moralising
and jargon-packed? In a recent issue, The Point Magazine says, with
Reports guarded optimism, yes.
A Report on the 5-Day International Capacity Building Program
on Poetry, Pedagogy, and Profession Organized by Rajiv Gandhi But what does an aesthetic turn, or return, mean today? Of course,
National University of Law, Punjab: August 20-25, 2022 the free tribe never succumbed to the temptations of angry, opaque
Navleen Multani 155 writing that mushroomed under cover of criticism for decades (I
can any day revisit Rita Felski, Amit Chaudhuri, James Wood, Peter
Brooks, Joseph Epstein, Lydia Davis, Martin Amis, indeed anyone
of the tribe, for pleasure and insight). And there are others who fre-
quently off-roaded to write luminous essays, which were not always
about books. But whenever they did criticism, they were producing
literature.

But the story is not simple nor linear. Neither politics nor ethics have
become redundant: indeed the world is in greater need of repair than
ever before. Bullying, bullshit and carbon are piling up. Injustice and
inequity haven’t gone away. Freedom is precarious. Fear comes on a
microchip.

4 : CHETAS 5 : CHETAS
ment – would keep running on and on, sometimes in loops. You have
If the moralising, politically inspired, angry criticism doesn’t any there not one pole star but a constellation of them, if only you would
longer draw many readers (except some academics who have a mis- set sail to navigate the seas for adventures not to be forgotten.
placed ideal of academic parlance), one reason is it has stagnated. It
has become repetitive, formulaic and uninspiring – in short, unorig- The end of negative criticism has been coming for quite some time.
inal and beautyless. Its practitioners, including many hostile to the The second golden age of the essay, through which we are happily
corporate production models, wear their fingers to the bone strum- living, is a historical articulation of expressive possibilities not avail-
ming away on the publication bandwagon. But they don’t please, they able in a geography of divided and excessively determined genres.
don’t even entertain. A few are read, but very few. And not with plea- Between literature and criticism also, the essay does not see, as Sam-
sure. And not for insight. uel Johnson’s and Matthew Arnold’s did not, any wall. The post-
genre literature, such as Annie Ernaux’s, Philippe Jaccottet’s and
Politics doesn’t have to be cold to beauty. Even the best of political Pascal Quignard’s, recasts the writerly logic as a playful adventure.
tracts and manifestos have been written with elegance and power. Aristotle’s rhetorical trio of logic, pathos and ethos no longer sounds
Literary and art criticism cannot not be literary and artistic and yet archaic. As do not rasa and dhvani. Literature exceeds, life refuses
remain criticism. Anger can be tastefully expressed, whatever the containment.
class associations of taste for a sociologist. And if elegance is felt
to be constraining, let anger have a searing charm. Who is stopping? The sensitive critic tries living in the writer’s skin, flowing in his
Art and literature have never seen pain, grief, rage and squalor as bloodstream, and aims to be what he studies. He seeks to gather his
unsuitable for, or unworthy of, aesthetic treatment. The suicidal error gaze to the point where it will self-destruct to illuminate from inside
of most negative criticism is it dos not offer any enchantments ex- the life of what it contemplates. What Keats called ‘negative capabil-
cept the consolations of self-righteous resentment. And a lot of that is ity’ is a subtle re-creative force necessary as much for the critic and
programmed noise, which drowns, when it does not kill, innovation. reader as for the writer. The loud moralising speakers who preach
care for the other need to wake up to their self-contradiction: they
For criticism to be read, it has to mirror what it reads – literature. blow up their darling project when they work up an implacable hos-
Literary criticism has to be literary: not merely as pertaining to litera- tility to literary works and crave to tear them apart in a ritual of eman-
ture but as possessed of literariness. Frank Kermode, Harold Bloom, cipation. But literary works are not just the ideological worlds they
Terry Eagleton, T.S. Eliot, Edmund Wilson, Lionel Trilling, William inhabit; they are not even ideologically one-dimensional.
Carlos Williams, Wallace Stevens, V.S. Pritchett, Toni Morrison,
Christopher Hitchens, Franco Fortini, Norman Mailer, Susan Sontag, The refusal of a work’s complex life, with its peculiar aesthetic phys-
Stefan Zweig, Virginia Woolf, Oscar Wilde: the name-checking line iology – of which politics and ethics are natural parts – probably con-
– an achronological tangle of styles that resists evolutionary emplot- ceals a displaced ideological hostility. Perhaps this hostility masks a
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sublime dread – a dread of the work’s overwhelming power. But liter- himself to make space for it – for that way alone can the object live
ature does, it has to, overwhelm; after all, it works on the edge of lan- its life unhampered and uninvaded.
guage and consciousness. Which makes it inexhaustible – strangely
able to never refuse another reading. It opens whirling abysses of light The aesthetic return cannot be just a return. The idea of beauty has
and music. But it takes courage and perseverance and a sort of sec- evolved and become more complicated than it was a century or half
ular reverence to descend into those abysses, to ascend those peaks. ago. The aesthetic implies the political as well as the ethical. You
The easier way is to tag them and put them away, and bury oneself in cannot create beauty without freedom and love.
chatter.
Criticism has to have, in our day, literature’s inclusiveness and ex-
And so the smug critical gaze that judges and condemns the notorious- pansiveness. It has to have its deviousness, candour and clarity, its
ly ‘objectifying’ gaze doesn’t put itself in the frame, but stands apart, starkness and flamboyancy, its wandering ascetic freedom, its faith
claiming some godly aloofness. It keeps things simple, manageable. in freedom and in scepticism, in the inexhaustible abundance that is
But Aristotle too, who fancied God as the supreme contemplator (and life, in its reality and truth, in seeing and understanding, in imagining,
so the poet’s model), could not refrain from advising the aspiring po- in dreaming.
ets to feel into the characters imagined and understand from inside
how they lived and felt, suffered and celebrated. Yet the inclination Criticism has to dream literature’s dream.
among those who, knowingly or not, take their inspiration from Ar-
istotle is to overlook this paradox – which he probably unpacked in It has to be, if it is to be itself, literature.
his lectures – in which contemplation and participation, study and
empathy meet. Rajesh Sharma
September 14, 2023
A long Indian tradition, flowing through logic as well as poetics, em-
phasises the necessity of dialectical progression in which you move
from the study of the object to that of the method to that of oneself,
until the triangle of the three becomes a wheel. As for the objectify-
ing gaze, Virginia Woolf knew better than most feminists that it sees
only its owner (the subject of the gaze), turning the other into a mere
mirror, so that the other is reduced to an instrument and extension.
For Rajashekhara, the author of Kāvya Mīmānsā who lived more than
ten centuries ago, a prerequisite for the writer is that he make his
consciousness a mirror for the object of his attention, that he remove
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Nature as Human Experience in Annie Dillard’s
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

Kamaldeep Kaur
Abstract
The present paper intends to analyse Annie Dillard’s ap-
proach towards nature in Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (1974). It
will make an attempt to explore how Dillard, through her
meditative essays, experiences nature and probe its myster-
ies. Since she writes on nature and the natural world, the pa-
per shall try to comprehend her idea of nature in the book
and how it contributes to the genre of nature writing. Philo-
sophical lens is indispensable to any critical writing and Dil-
lard’s text is no exception. Keeping this in view, Dillard’s
philosophy of nature would also be studied. The relevance of
the paper lies in its proposal to put forth a consistent connec-
tion between the author’s understanding of nature and that of
the celebrated authors like Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry
David Thoreau, who are considered classics in the American
nature writing. The paper will foreground the significance of
the natural phenomena and proposes how human beings can
learn to lead their lives in a better way by staying connected
with nature.
Keywords: Nature, Transcendentalism, Experience, Mystery,
Religion

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physical universe or the natural world surrounding human beings that
Annie Dillard is an American writer who has earned a the word has been used by Dillard. Broadly, the word ‘nature’ is used
popular acclaim for her contemplative essays on the natural world. to refer to all those forces that are present throughout the universe. It
She is famous for her poetic-prose style, subject matter and vivid has been derived from the Latin word natura which is the translation
description of episodes. In praise of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, Mary of the Greek word physis indicating the intrinsic properties that
Cantwell writes that Dillard has often been compared to: “Virginia plants, animals, and other creatures “develop of their own accord”
Woolf, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Emily Dickinson, William Blake, (New World Encyclopedia).
John Donne” for her writing style (The New York Times Magazine). Transcendentalism, a philosophical movement, developed in
Her philosophical insights into nature make her a part of the tradition the 1820s in which the transcendentalists believed that there is an
of thinkers like Jean Jacques Rousseau, Immanuel Kant and the indispensable connection between spiritual unity and nature. In this
Romantic poets. Her writings, the way she prefers solitary walks, movement, nature is represented as a repository of religious as well
are similar to a Genevan philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s The as spiritual ideas. In tracing the background of nature writing as a
Reveries of the Solitary Walker (1782) in which he wrote about his genre, it is important to reflect on the transcendentalist tradition in
solitary walks in the natural world. Like Rousseau, Dillard also uses America which began with Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David
the ‘I’ persona, recounts her journey in Virginia and reflects on how Thoreau. Later, it also included Walt Whitman. The tradition has been
nature works. carried forward by the authors like John Muir and Annie Dillard.
Dillard’s Pulitzer Prize winning non-fictional work Pilgrim Dillard shares some of the characteristics with the
at Tinker Creek is about her reflections on nature, science and transcendentalists who believed in pantheism, which means nature and
religion. She writes about similar themes in her other works Holy the humans along with other creatures are pervaded by the divine spirit.
Firm (1977), Teaching a Stone to Talk: Expeditions and Encounters They viewed the physical world as a doorway to the spiritual world but
(1982) and For the Time Being (1999) as well. These works deal with kept the latter as superior. In the same way, Dillard also considers that
the meaning and nature of birth, suffering, death and God. Dillard’s there is a connection between the material world of the Tinker Creek
literary writings also include collections of poetry and novels. Her and the transcendental world. She writes of what Cheryll Glotfelty
use of the literary techniques and figurative language help her convey has mentioned in The Ecocriticism Reader, “literature does not float
thoughts on natural environment. above the material world in some aesthetic ether, but, rather, plays a
The word ‘nature’ has various meanings, including an part in an immensely complex global system, in which energy, matter,
essential character of a thing or person; it is in the context of the and ideas interact” (xix). Dillard’s experiences of the natural world

12 : CHETAS 13 : CHETAS
are full of bewilderment. She comes to terms with the “real world, of an infinite cone” (25). On the other hand, they are invited to go
not the world gilded and pearled” (Pilgrim at Tinker Creek 229). But “down to molecular structures...to atoms airy and balanced” (113).
what does Dillard mean by ‘real’? Her views of both the ‘real’ and She provides a glimpse of nature which William James describes as
the ‘spiritual’ can be understood by considering Mikhail Bakhtin’s “operative in the universe outside” of one’s rational thinking (The
idea of “double voiced discourse” (The Dialogic Imagination 330). Varieties of Religious Experience 385). Dillard’s belief that the divine
Bakhtin proposed that the voices of one’s predecessors are necessary has created the universe never falters during the course of the book.
to “create the background” so that the writer’s voice can be heard For her, nature is very much like “now-you-don’t-see-it, now-you-
(278). Dillard’s emphasis on reality requires an understanding of two do” (Pilgrim at Tinker Creek 20), thus, presenting the unpredictable
important voices to appreciate it: Emerson’s romantic idealism in nature of the world.
which he identifies spirit as the only reality and Dillard’s insistence The book begins as the narrator recounts an incident that
on the ‘real’ in which she believes that the material world is a part of happened while she was asleep in which an old tomcat leapt through
reality where the presence of God can be felt. an open window of her room. She wakes up and notices, he [tomcat]
Before turning to the study, it is important to know the kneaded my bare chest with his front paws, powerfully, arching his
meaning of the word ‘Pilgrim’ in the title of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. back, as if sharpening his claws, or pummelling a mother for milk.
The word is often used for a religious traveller who goes on a journey And some mornings I’d wake in daylight to find my body covered
to a holy site. For Dillard, travelling experience of the Tinker Creek is with paw prints in blood; I looked as though I’d been painted with
equivalent to a pilgrimage. Similar to Thoreau, who built a cabin in roses (8). During a year that she spent at Virginia’s densely forested
Walden, Dillard also lives near the Tinker Creek; but like a hermit, Roanoke Valley; blood emerges as an important symbol. The first
she does not develop a sense of belonging to her home. half of the quote presents cruel nature of the cat; and the second half
‘Mystery’ is an appropriate word if we have to define what presents beauty of nature in which blood on paw prints of the cat
Dillard thinks nature is! She appreciates the mysteries of creation, is seen as roses. The narrator romanticises the idea of having been
“the uncertainty of vision, the horror of the fixed, the dissolution of printed with the paw prints. Next morning, the incident of the cat
the present, the intricacy of beauty, the pressure of fecundity, the reminds her of “something powerful playing” over her (9). She
elusiveness of the free, and the flawed nature of perfection” (Pilgrim suggests that this something powerful is nature.
at Tinker Creek 9). The quote unfolds her philosophical concerns. Dillard’s dialectical vision can be witnessed in Pilgrim
On the one hand, Dillard takes readers to experience the cosmos; at Tinker Creek when she writes that the first half of the book is
to “see stars, deep stars giving way to deeper stars...at the crown characterised by the Christian idea of via positiva, which means

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“God is omnipotent, omniscient, etc; that God possesses all positive their offspring and the young ones devour their parents. The narrator
attributes” (241); and the second half of the book focuses on via recalls how once her science teacher kept a mantis’ egg in a jar to
negativa, which affirms the idea of “God’s unknowability” (241). observe its hatching. When it hatched, the newborn mantises began to
Dillard captures beauty of birds in the chapter “Winter” that is set kill one another because they had no one to attack. The mantis drags
in the month of February. She describes a historical event in which himself unsuccessfully to get out of a man-made jar. The incident
hundreds of starlings invaded the Virginia, US. The narrator does not shows humans’ cruelty towards mantises where they are kept in a jar
reveal her sentimental attachment to the starlings but praises their for experimentation. Dillard uses Mason jar as a metaphor to explain
beauty when they arrive at the sunset. For her, their lyrical tones her idea of the cosmos. Humans are mantises here who have been
weave the tales of life that are full of beauties. Similarly, the chapter trapped in the Mason jar that stands for the natural world. Humans
“Spring” presents charms of nature in which the narrator tries to harm nature for their benefits; and in turn, nature through calamities
“look spring in the eye” and observes the actions of trees, insects and destroys their pride and reminds them that ultimate truth of life is to
birds (109). She wishes to migrate like insects and birds. To specify live and die. Somewhat similar theme is presented in Barry Lopez’s
one incident, Dillard describes the migration of the Monarch butterfly Of Wolves and Men. It celebrates the interaction between humans and
from the North U.S. and Canada to the South Western Mexico in wolves. The book shatters the myths that wolves are demonic and
the chapter titled “Northing”. The narrator does not want to go on makes readers understand their significance in the human civilisation.
a journey towards the northern latitudes to see places, but wishes to Representation of humankind’s relationship with wolves is presented
take this expedition as a metaphor for “a shedding, a sloughing off” in the same way as Dillard has highlighted the relationship of humans
her older self (222). with mantises. Both mantises and wolves are captivated by humans.
After describing the beautiful side of nature in the Lopez believes that it is due to “lack of humility” that every animal
aforementioned chapters, Dillard, in the following chapters, dies at the hands of humans (30). The phrase suggests that humility is
records her observations of the cruel side of it. In the chapter titled the sole survival in building a symbiotic relationship between humans
“Fecundity”, the narrator describes violent creatures and dreams of and nature.
a Luna moth mating with its partner and how moth eggs hatch on a In another chapter titled, “The Horns of the Altar”, Dillard
bed. These dreams become a metaphor as they bring her face to face writes about snakes, particularly, the venomous copperhead snakes.
with the reality of birth and death. Dillard describes how creatures She observes a mosquito which, at first, sits on her and when she
like wasps, termites and fish give birth to new lives in unimaginable brushes it away, it sits on a snake which is unable to shoo it off.
profusion. To satisfy their hunger, they eat one another; parents eat The apparently miniature mosquito effortlessly sucks the dangerous

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snake’s blood. The incident reminds readers of the cycle of nature powers to create, preserve and destroy.
in which every creature is dependent on one another. Dillard uses After observing the hostile material world of the Tinker
a word ‘parasitism’, which suggests that all creatures are surviving Creek, Dillard turns to religion to understand the mystery of the
on the consumption of one another and would go back when called phenomena. She quotes Master Eckhart who writes, “God is at home.
by the Creator (Pilgrim at Tinker Creek 207). While observing the We are in the far country” (Holy the Firm 62). It indicates whatever
struggles that creatures face on earth, Dillard writes, “the faster death happens in the world is not outside of God’s purview. This is exactly
goes, the faster evolution goes” (154). She observes grasshoppers what Dillard tries to explain in her book. Her religious faith is reflected
without antennae and spiders without legs; proving that everything as she searches for the creator in the material world: “come on out, I
is incomplete, torn or pierced by some other thing. She views that a know you’re there!” (Pilgrim at Tinker Creek 181). Since Dillard is a
sight of “power and beauty” is always gracefully “tangled in a rap­ Christian; she believes in its fundamental tenet that God has created
ture with violence” which presents one of the central themes of the the world. She struggles to understand how a benevolent God could
book that nature cannot exist free from the intricacies of birth, chaos be responsible for so much misery in the world!
and death (14). Reflecting on a quote by Wallace Stevens, “death is Dillard’s experience at the Tinker Creek has made her observe
the mother of beauty” (“Sunday Morning”), Dillard writes that the that nature bears both the “spangling marks of a grace like beauty,”
world “has signed a pact with the devil; it had to” (Pilgrim at Tinker and “the blotched assaults and quarryings of time” (211). Her views
Creek 160). Further, she writes that the “terms are clear: if you want that it is with the help of the body that humans get connected to nature
to live, you have to die” (160). The quotation refers to the irresolvable are in contrast to that of Emerson’s, who sees body as an obstacle in
mystery of the world. communing with nature. Robert Detweiler writes in Breaking the Fall
Dillard finds nature as both paralyzing as well as energizing that Dillard has “learned to write with her body” and readers “read
force. After reflecting on her experiences of the Tinker Creek, she her as a text” (131). She portrays her body as a site where nature
affirms, “[o]ur life is a faint tracing on the surface of mystery” (14). engraves her mysterious messages. The dark side of nature serves as
She shares how nature demonstrates creation, preservation and a sign for Dillard and compels her to write, “we are all going to die”
destruction to be the cogs of the same wheel. She explores how nature (Pilgrim at Tinker Creek 143). And further she writes,
acts as a creator, preserver and destroyer at the same time. It is an Evolution loves death more than it loves you or
allusion to a famous line by P. B. Shelley, who describes the powerful me. This is easy to write, easy to read, and hard to
West Wind as a “Destroyer and Preserver” (“Ode to the West Wind”). believe. The words are simple, the concept clear—but
For Dillard, not only the West Wind but the entire nature possesses you don’t believe it, do you? Nor do I. How could I,

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when we’re both so lovable? Are my values then so one of the major tensions in Dillard’s theology. In Holy the Firm,
diametrically opposed to those that nature preserves? Dillard writes, “[t]his one God is a brute and traitor abandoning us
(155) to time, to necessity, and to the engines of matter unhinged” (23).
The questions raised in the above quotation remain unanswered. A Similarly, while grappling with the issues pertaining to the world
mystery is called mysterious because it is impossible to understand full of uncertainties, Dillard writes, “if we describe a world...that is a
and decipher it. Nature and the presence of God in the natural world long, brute game, then we bump against another mystery: the inrush
is mysterious for Dillard; she envisions God as someone who “comes of power and light” (Pilgrim at Tinker Creek 13). Dillard persistently
and goes, mostly goes, but I [Dillard] live for it, for the moment when talks about an unkind force in her writings and asks, “[w]hat kind of
the mountains open and a new light roars in spate through the crack” a world is this, anyway?....Are we dealing in life, or in death?” (154).
(35). She embraces a Thoreauvian delight even in the disgusting and She sees how beauty and horror result from the same mysterious
insists on lifting up the veil to see what squirming horrors she could power that created the world and is also running it.
find underneath. Dillard has been influenced by her predecessors like There is always a trace of non-Thoreauvian fear in Dillard’s
John Burroughs, John Muir, Rachel Carson and Peter Matthiessen, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek; what lies underneath beauty and what forces
who wrote about the impact of human intervention on landscapes parasites to eat on one another. To make her point clear, she quotes
and ecosystems. But Dillard differs from these writers in her spiritual the German physicist Werner Heisenberg who believed, “there is a
sensibility. Her book is a combination of religious meditations, natural higher power, not influenced by our wishes, which finally decides
history, science writing and intellectual insights that constitute to the and judges” (180). Broadly, the purpose of observing nature, life and
non-linear episodes compiled in fifteen chapters. universe is to gain wisdom. Dillard realises that as she cannot avoid
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek can also be read as a dialectic tension the patterned beauty of nature, she can also not avoid participating in
between the natural and the transcendent, but the dialectic between the mysterious and sacrificial rite which is at play within violence in
beauty and horror is equally at play in the book. All stereotyped the world.
meanings of Nature [with capital N; which is considered all good The vistas of mountains at Roanoke Valley let Dillard
without anything negative about it] get shattered in the book. After appreciate the beauties of nature. Her views on sublime appear to
reflecting on the natural world that she has experienced for a year at be identical to the Kantian sublime. Her obsession with violence in
the Tinker Creek, Dillard realises that no one can know the secrets of nature owes much to the sense of sublime which in literature refers
the creation. to the description of emotions and thoughts that take an individual
The image of God as someone monstrous encapsulates beyond the usual experience. Dillard describes the workings of nature

20 : CHETAS 21 : CHETAS
at a smaller level and presents microscopic view of the phenomena universal and wishes to leave self ‘empty’ in order to experience
where she could easily experience the presence of the divine. Her the divine. Although Dillard fits in the role of a mystic, yet her
quest to find epistemological answers reminds readers of John attention is focussed on the details of particular objects. She reflects
Milton’s Paradise Lost in which he wrote: “justify the ways of God to on both the living and the higher world [the world of God] equally.
men” (18); the ways which cannot be justified because no one knows Her observations range from the details of the physical, historical,
the mysteries of nature. scientific to the metaphysical speculations. She quotes Einstein who
There are certain religious allusions in Pilgrim at Tinker said: “nature conceals her mystery by means of her essential grandeur,
Creek, such as of flood during the summer solstice in the chapter not by her cunning” (Pilgrim at Tinker Creek 13). She understands
titled “Flood”, in which Dillard shares how Hurricane Agnes hit “the mystery of the continuous creation” and writes, “[w]ho are we to
America in 1972 and affected the Tinker Creek. The chapter is less demand explanations of God” (Holy the Firm 30)?
about beauty, but more about chaos; as it highlights the destructive In the final chapter titled “The Waters of Separation”, the
side of nature. It is not a coincidence that Dillard recalls the great narrator says, “today is the winter solstice” which indicates the pagan
flood which swept the world once; it has a religious significance. Yule holiday and Christmas; representing death and rebirth (Pilgrim
She feels as if she has been baptized into a new world where she is at Tinker Creek 230). Dillard finds it the appropriate moment to end
both united and separated from it by acquiring transcendence over her pilgrimage. Later, she exclaims, “my God what a world. There is
it. She writes, “[f]or if God is in one sense the igniter, a fireball that no accounting for one second of it” (231). Her quest to know mystery
spins over the ground of continents, God is also in another sense the of the creation leads Dillard to consider herself “a fugitive and a
destroyer, lightning, blind power, impartial as the atmosphere” (81). vagabond” (236).
It is where Dillard reminds readers of Thoreau who writes, “[t]alk Dillard admits that “[b]eauty itself is the fruit of the creator’s
of mysteries!–Think of our life in nature.... rocks, trees, wind on our exuberance that grew such a tangle, and the grotesques and horrors
cheeks! the solid earth! the actual world! the common sense! Contact! bloom from that same free growth” (Pilgrim at Tinker Creek 130).
Contact! Who are we? where are we?” (A Week on the Concord and Dillard’s view resonates what William Blake asks in the poem “The
Merrimack Rivers; Walden, Or, Life in the Woods; The Maine Woods; Tyger”, “Did he who made Lamb make thee?” (Poetry Foundation).
Cape Cod 646). Dillard seems to answer this by writing, “the Lord Nature must contain the reflection of the creator. The ‘tyger’ is
God of gods, he knoweth” (Pilgrim at Tinker Creek 129). beautiful, but horrific at the same time. Blake wonders how a ‘tyger’
A close observation of Dillard’s experiences suggests and a lamb could have been created by the same God. Similarly,
that she is a mystic who wishes to move from the particular to the Dillard feels amazed by the inscrutability of the divine will.

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In a nutshell, it can be said that Pilgrim at Tinker Creek Glotfelty, Cheryll and Harold Fromm. The Ecocriticism Reader. The
presents Dillard’s experiences of the natural world. She explores the University of Georgia Press, 1996.
material world of the Tinker Creek and witnesses a struggle between James, William The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in
the creatures on earth, including humans and tries to make a sense of Human Nature. The University of Adelaide Library, 2009.
this world. Although she takes refuge in the religion, yet she is unable Lopez, Barry. Of Wolves and Men. Macmillan Publishing Company,
to find answers pertaining to the existence of the natural world. 1978.
Throughout the book, Dillard hopes to get answers from God but Milton, John. Paradise Lost. Penguin Books, 2000.
towards the end, she surrenders, “we know now for sure that there is “Nature.” New World Encyclopedia. https://www.
no knowing” (Pilgrim at Tinker Creek 179). Meaning of existence of newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Nature.
the natural and human world cannot be known. Dillard’s experiences Shelley, P. B. “Ode to the West Wind.” Poetry Foundation, https://
of Roanoke Valley in Virginia, make readers aware that acceptance of www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45134/ode-to-the-west-
chaos in life is important to provide meaning to the human existence. wind.
Stevens, Wallace. “Sunday Morning.” Poetry Foundation, https://
www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/13261/
Works Cited sunday-morning.
Bakhtin, Mikhail. The Dialogic Imagination: For Essays. Edited by Thoreau, Henry David. A Week on the Concord and Merrimack
Michael Holquist, translated by Caryl Emerson and Michael Rivers; Walden, Or, Life in the Woods; The Maine Woods;
Holquist, University of Texas Press, 1981. Cape Cod. Literary Classics of the United States, Inc., 1985.
Blake, William “The Tyger.” Poetry Foundation, https://www.
poetryfoundation.org/poems/43687/the-tyger. About the Author
Cantwell, Mary. “A Pilgrim’s Progress:” The New York Times Kamaldeep Kaur, is a research scholar at the Department of English,
Punjabi University, Patiala.
Magazine, April 26, 1992, https://www.nytimes.
com/1992/04/26/magazine/a-pilgrim-s-progress:html.
Detweiler, Robert. Breaking the Fall: Religious Readings of
Contemporary Fiction. The Macmillan Press Ltd., 1989.
Dillard, Annie. Holy the Firm. Harper Collins Publishers Inc., 1997.
---. Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 1974.

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technology, we have managed to emerge as a force that has initiated
unnatural and serious transformations at planetary levels, so much
so, that our age is now being referred to as the age of the ‘Anthropo-
The Ontologies from Human to the Post-Human
cene’1. It appears that human beings have in fact become the dictating
Brahamjeet Singh agents of this planet’s course in the sense that they virtually hold the
key to life on it. But at the same time this alleged absolute agency
Abstract is making us increasingly conscious of our inter-dependence with
This paper aims at undertaking a critical examination of the everything that is outside of us, be it biological, ecological, techno-
notion of ‘human’, the way it has been theorised, qualified logical or otherwise. The radical technologies of our age, though em-
and used, and the manner in which it has come under criti- powering, have unfolded the possibilities of non-human rationality
cal scrutiny after the second half of the twentieth century. It and knowledge production. It, at the same time, implies the possible
will investigate the transformations that have taken place in existence of non-human subjectivities.
our understanding of the ‘human subject’ with the emergence The question then rises thus: if non-human entities can pro-
of post-humanism. Further, it will discuss the philosophical duce knowledge, are they capable of producing thought as well? If
and historical conditions that necessitate a shift in the way so, then is there a possibility in A.I.2 to develop consciousness? This
‘human subjectivity’ and the notion of ‘human’ need to be seems highly unlikely for two reasons. Firstly, even the most advance
thought. It will go on to highlight the inevitable inclusion A.I. that we currently have is only as good as the data and the algo-
of subject’s structural others (technology, animal, and earth rithms it is provided with; which is to say, if we are to compare the
others) into the question concerning the ‘human subjectivi- brain of an A.I. with that of a human, the A.I. brain would be only
ty’. Finally, it will address the issues of ethical accountability as good as an earthworm’s. Secondly, it is impossible if knowledge
and sustainability when it comes to techno-mediated capital- production and complex thought are understood to be separate pro-
ist society that commodifies and profits from everything that cesses altogether. Thought can only exist in a space where there is
lives. a possibility of its reciprocation: an essential non-linearity. Martin
Keywords: Humanism, Post-human, subjectivity, agency, ontology Heidegger in What is Called Thinking? (1968) claims: “[t]hought has

1 The term ‘anthropocene’ is used to refer to our present age, where


In 4.5 billion years of history of Earth, humans appeared only humans have become a significant geological force affecting all life
about 200,000 years ago. It amounts to a mere blink of an eye if on the planet.
2 The abbreviation A.I. will be used for Artificial Intelligence through-
we equate it to a twenty-four-hour long day. Through science and out in this paper.
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a gift of thinking back ... [o]nly when we are so inclined toward what Rosi Braidotti, a noted philosopher of posthumanism, in her book
in itself is to be thought about, only then are we capable of thinking” The Posthuman (2013), states that “there is an agreement that con-
(4). Knowledge, on the other hand, can be produced by mere accu- temporary science and biotechnologies ... have altered dramatically
mulation of data without requiring the former. Thought can arise out our understanding of what counts as the basic frame of reference for
of knowledge only if the agent concerned is self-conscious. The ques- the human today (40). The questions that then emerge are: What does
tion of machine consciousness, therefore, becomes a contested area it really mean to be human in our contemporary world? How are we
amounting to a near impossibility in the practical domain. But the to define what categorically counts as a human? What kind of ethical
claims about rational machines remain intact as even with the brain as subjects will we emerge as?
good as an earthworm’s, which produces knowledge about its given Any critical engagement with posthumanism should neces-
surroundings through receptors, they too are capable of producing sarily begin with humanism as its historical and philosophical back-
knowledge with the help of algorithms fed to them. ground. Humanism emerged in Europe as a response against the ex-
Technologies such as xenotransplantation, genetic engineer- cesses of religious structures during fifteenth century. Divine agency
ing, germ-line editing, stem cell engineering, cloning and 3D bio stood questioned and the Enlightenment ideal was born. It went on
printing have proven the manipulability of the human subject and to assert that ‘human beings’ must take hold of their thought and ac-
its embodied form. Memory implantation, for example, has already tion, an idea that later resonated in Descartes’ proclamation “cogi-
become a real possibility. Elizabeth F. Loftus, known for her research to ergo sum” and Nietzsche declaring the god dead. The European
on the nature and creation of false memories, claimed in an interview philosophers started defining human beings as rational, autonomous,
with the Business Insider, “it’s pretty easy to distort memories for self-regulating, and unique. This definition was fortuitously consol-
the details of what they actually saw, by supplying them with sug- idated in the sphere of science and technology as can be seen in the
gestive information” (Dodgson 2017). The National Centre for Sci- rise of the printing press, the steam engine, the telescope and mod-
entific Research, France, conducted an experiment in March 2015 in ern medicine. These inventions, underpinned by the assumptions of
which they stimulated the brains of five sleeping mice and managed Enlightenment, enabled humans to become masters of their spiritual
to create a positive feeling for a certain location in their minds. The world and finally of this physical world. Jean-Paul Sartre, for exam-
impression was so strong that they started searching for the location ple, in his lecture Existentialism Is a Humanism (1946) claimed that
on waking up (Devlin 2015). These technological interventions prob- human existence precedes its essence. “Man simply is” and there is
lematize the conventionally understood notion of human subject by no ‘other’ cause of his actions (6). Man, he argued, “… is what he
foregrounding the flexible and malleable character of human body. wills, and as he conceives himself after already existing – as he wills

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to be after that leap towards existence” (6). Such approaches encour- scientific and philosophical horizons. Posthumanism therefore, as a
aged the growth of socio-cultural structures and politico-economic philosophical framework, attempts to radically re-define the ontolog-
institutions that assumed the centrality of the human. The sense of ical grounding of the human subject. N. Katherine Hayles, in How
subject thus formed, claimed: agency, transparency, an ability to We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics Literature and
make choices, and a sense of moral superiority. In the process, human Informatics (1999), suggests that posthumanism has triggered a “sig-
beings came to see themselves as the supreme life form of this planet. nificant shift in [the] underlying assumptions about subjectivity” (3).
This allegedly self-proclaimed status of humans as transpar- This shift, however, was initially in no way an absolute departure
ent, rational and autonomous subjects, nonetheless, stood questioned from humanistic notions of subjectivity. It’s initial tendencies of pre-
in the middle of the twentieth century and was shattered by horrors of serving Humanism in some residual form could be seen in the wake
the two world wars. The generation of theorists that came after was of cybernetics which was closely aligned with Transhumanism. It en-
completely disillusioned, with their minds trying to comprehend the visioned an entire race of mechanically enhanced individuals which
state of rupture. The period resonated with the slogan: ‘death of the was named humanity plus (H+). It tended to re-inscribe the tradition-
subject’. Foucault, in his works, presented ‘man’ as an effect of dis- al assumptions while “articulat[ing] something new” (6).
courses rather than a sovereign, self-regulating entity. In The Order Within the framework of Cybernetic theory, ‘human beings’
of Things (1994), he famously argues that “[m]an is an invention of are situated in a constantly ongoing feedback loop of information.
recent date … [and] one perhaps nearing its end” (387). The human Like intelligent machines, the basic function of humans is to process
subject now stood decentred. The postmodernists’ claim that the sub- information: “Indeed, the essential function of the universe,” Hayles
ject is under constant erasure further placed it into a state of an onto- says “as a whole is processing information” (239). Subscribing to
logical uncertainty. The outcome of this brief demise of the subject, this view human subject can be understood as “an amalgam … of
however, was a realisation that the ‘subject’ simply cannot be done heterogeneous components, a material-informational entity whose
away with. boundaries undergo continuous construction and reconstruction” (3).
Posthumanism developed as a settling of the turmoil generat- The human subject, thus, always exists and functions in a symbiotic
ed by nearly five centuries of exclusionary practices of European hu- relationship with the environment, receiving information from it and
manism that led to genocides, slavery, and eventually the two world feeding back to it in processes. The humanist notion of an exclusive
wars. The upheaval caused by these events, coupled with the political unitary agent, belonging to a distinct ‘self’, stands challenged in this
and philosophical movements of late 20th century, opened up new vis- scenario as the feedback loop involves application of “distributed
tas for re-thinking the ‘human’ in the light of contemporary political, cognition” which implies the involvement of a multitude of agents

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interacting in order to facilitate information processing. N. Katherine not follow some effect there would necessarily (by
Hayles defines her critical engagement with the posthuman in terms P12)4 be an idea in our mind of some effect of it. But
of studying: (by A5)5 there is no idea of it. Therefore, the object
… how information lost its body … how the cyborg of our mind is the existing body and nothing else ...
was created as a technological artifact and cultural From these [propositions] we understand not only
icon … [and] how a historically specific construction that the human mind is united to the body, but also
called the human is giving way to a different con- what should be understood by the union of mind and
struction called the posthuman. (2) body. (40)
Cybernetic theorists including Hayles have at length talked about The central idea in Spinozist monism, therefore, focuses on overcom-
the erasure embodiment of the subject which is an indirect return to ing the dialectical schemas and formulating a unitary understanding
Cartesian mind body distinction. In this context, Hayles states, “post- of matter. This active engagement with monism, allows matter to
human constructs embodiment as the instantiation of thought/infor- be defined as self-organizing and vital. Contemporary French phi-
mation, it continues the liberal tradition rather than disrupts it” (5). losophy terms this approach as “vital materialism.” Monism, notes
This continuation of the liberalist tradition is one of the limitations of Rosi Braidotti, “results in relocating difference outside the dialectical
Cybernetic theory. Such practice causes it to regress back into what scheme, as a complex process of differing which is framed by both
it was initially trying to escape. The kind of Posthuman theory that is internal and external forces and is based on the centrality of the re-
intended to be advocated here is based on Spinozist monistic ontolo- lation to multiple others” (56). The kind of Posthuman philosophy
gy and therefore it rejects the Cartesian dualism as flawed because it that is being advocated here is a method that inevitably rejects hu-
theorizes the mind-body interactions as causal; taking place between man centrality altogether. Bradiotti argues that human subject, in this
two separate essences, one being the intellect and the other, an exten- thought, is envisioned as “freed from his delusions of grandeur … no
sion in physical space. Spinoza, in his Ethics (1996), demonstrates: longer allegedly in charge of historical progress” (23). It tries to move
[T]he object of the idea which constitutes the human
4 P12 (Proposition 12): “Whatever happens in the object of the idea
mind is the body, and it (by P11)3 actually exists.
constituting the human mind must be perceived by the human mind,
Next, if the object of the mind were something else or there will necessarily be an idea of that thing in the mind; that is,
if the object of the idea constituting a human mind is a body, nothing
also then since nothing exists from which there does
can happen in that body which is not perceived by the mind” (Ethics
39).
3 P11 (Proposition 11): “The first thing that constitutes the actual being 5 A5 (Axiom 5): “We neither nor perceive any singular things [NS: or
of a human Mind is nothing but the idea of a singular thing which anything of Natura naturata], except bodies and modes of thinking”
actually exists” (Ethics 38). (Ethics 32).
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away from the postmodern crisis of reality escaping into an eternal concerning ‘earth-others’ in the wake of technological mediation.
postponement triggered by a supposed demise of the subject and calls Finally, the becoming-machine dimension explores “the division
for a firmly grounded subject that is both embodied and embedded. between humans and technological circuits, introducing bio techno-
Braidotti considers posthuman theory, “a generative tool logically mediated relations as foundational for the constitution of
to help us re-think the basic unit of reference for the human” (5). the subject” (67). This triadic process shapes the embodiment of the
She forms a case for re-conceptualizing the human subjectivity in posthuman subject, placed in a world that actively dilutes our under-
a manner that has a grounded accountability towards its structural standing of the bodily boundaries.
others and is inclusionary. It accounts for the post-war and postmod- This notion of the fluid embodiment is best exhibited in
ern critique of humanism, ‘life’ commodifying practices of advanced Cyborgs. The Cyborg operates in the realm of the imaginary and so
capitalism, bio-politics and necropolitical aspects of the post-human. holds immense potential for “contestation” of the bodily boundaries
Posthumanism lays stress on “an embodied and embedded … form that have historically “marked class, ethnic, and cultural differences”
of accountability, based on a strong sense of collectivity, relational- (85). Posthumanism, according to Katherine Hayles, envisages body
ity and hence community building” (49). Thus, moving away from as an “original prosthesis” and turns it into an assemblage when we
the unitary humanist subject, it proposes a non-unitary “nomadic” learn to manipulate it (3). She, nonetheless, is of the view that the
subject. This posthumanist subject suggests “an enlarged sense of in- problem of embodiment needs to be re-considered as an integral tool
ter-connection between self and others, including the non-human or of lived experience. “There is a limit,” she vehemently argues, “to
‘earth’ others” (49). The subject, therefore, is defined within a system how seamlessly humans can be articulated with intelligent machines,
of multiple belongings and inter-relations among human and non-hu- which remain distinctively different from humans in their embodi-
man agents. ments” (284). Thought, in order to be enacted, necessarily needs an
Braidotti envisions the ‘becoming’ of posthuman taking embodied form.
place through three processes: “becoming-animal, becoming-earth The problem concerning ethics becomes extremely complex
and becoming-machine” (66). ‘Becoming-animal’ aspect of the when it comes to our technologically mediated advance capitalist
transformation works on “the displacement of anthropocentrism and society. What kind of ethics then, are we to affiliate with this new
the recognition of trans-species solidarity on the basis of our being becoming of ours? If our ‘becoming’ is to occur amid a multitude of
… embodied, embedded and in symbiosis with other species” (67). others, then we need to rethink and resituate the subject in a world that
Becoming-earth, on the other hand, is geared towards questions of is entangled and interdependent at all levels of life. Braidotti, in her
“environmental and social sustainability” (67). It addresses the issues spring 2017 lecture at Yale, titled “Memoirs of a Posthumanist,” says

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that “… ethics is about interacting affirmatively in the world, together It is not ‘agency’ and ‘responsibility’ per se that needs to be critically
with a multitude of human and non-human others” (24). Commenting examined and re-thought; rather, it is the nature of ‘agency’ that we as
upon the nature of moral and ethical dilemma one faces when one human beings have and correspondingly the kind of ‘responsibility’
confronts the non-human other, Derrida, while analysing D. H. Law- that we need to assume that requires urgent philosophical and politi-
rence’s poem “Snake” in The Beast and the Sovereign (2009), writes: cal attention. In so doing, we may have to re-define the basic princi-
There is the first comer, the first comer is the snake ples of right and wrong in a way that is in tune with our contemporary
and one has to say, naturally, that morality, ethics, predicament.
the relation to the other, is not only coming after the Braidotti, in Transpositions: On Nomadic Ethics (2006), pro-
other, helping oneself after the other, but after the poses a zoe6 driven ethics of affirmation for the emergent nomadic
other whoever it be, before even knowing who he is subject and discusses the ethical implications of such ‘nomadic sub-
or what is his dignity, his price, his social standing, jectivity’. Contesting the popular belief that only a liberal humanist
in other words, the first comer. I must respect the first view of the subject can guarantee moral and ethical agency, she ar-
comer. (239) gues in her Tanner Lectures at Yale University:
Derrida here refers to an ‘other’ that existed before the human. This [The] traditional ethical formula of humanist subjects
already existing state of the ‘other’ presents a moral dilemma as to the was the contemplation of their own mortality, bal-
reception of the “first comer.” The ‘other’ that existed before the hu- anced by the prospect of the eternity of their rational
man subject holds a superior position in the planetary hierarchy. The soul. The ethical formula of postmodern subjects, on
existence of the human is indebted to the already existing condition the other hand, was deep skepticism about the foun-
of this non-human other. Should it then be respected as the “first com- dational robustness of any category, including that of
er” or is it a potential threat to the position of the human in ecological subjectivity itself. The post-nuclear subjects’ ethical
power relations? So, what really should be the nature of our moral formula focused on extinction of their and other spe-
judgements and actions? In On the Origin of Species (2008), Darwin cies as a distinct possibility… (Braidotti, 2017: 26)
demonstrated that the human species “… had not been independently In other words, the ethical formula for the posthuman subject should
created, but had descended, like varieties, from other species” (6). be based on recognizing the ‘difference’ and the possibility of the end
Moreover, the acknowledgment of numerous life-forms and entities of all life. It should be a framework that is geared towards the re-in-
as our non-human other broadens the spectrum of ethical exploration vention of connections between human and non-human others. The
by involving matter, ecologies, and the technological into the picture.
6 The Greek word ‘zoe’ means life. In this case, every life form that
constitutes the non-human ‘other’.
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posthuman condition, Braidotti suggests, is a state of collective exis- Works Cited
tence. She sees ‘nomadic ethics’ as a force that assures the possibility Braidotti, Rosi. The Posthuman. Polity P, 2013.
of an affirmative becoming. ---. “Posthuman, All too Human: The Memoirs and Aspirations of a
We are heading towards what Slavoj Žižek in his work, Like Posthumanist.” The 2017 Tanner Lectures. Yale U, 1-2 Mar.
a Thief in the Broad Daylight, calls “the end of nature” (32). “Nature” 2017, Yale U, New Heaven. Lecture.
he says, “is to be understood” as “the reliable background of human ---. Transpositions: On Nomadic Ethics. Polity P, 2006.
history, something which we can count on always being here” (32). Darwin, Charles. On the Origin of Species. Oxford UP, 2008.
As an already present point of reference to our existence on this plan- Derrida, Jacques. The Beast and the Sovereign, vol. 1. Translated by
et, nature holds a mirror to both our ‘sense of self’ and the ethical Geoffrey Bennington. U of Chicago P, 2009.
universe. Devlin, Hannah. “Rodent Recall: False But Happy Memories Im
With five hundred years of humanism coming to an end, it planted in Sleeping Mice.” The Guardian, 9 Mar.
is no longer possible to continue using available frameworks of in- 2015, www.theguardian.com/science/2015/mar/09/rodent-
quiry for they would arguably be incomplete and irrelevant in our recall-false-but-happy memories-implanted-in-sleep
contemporary scenario. The gradual disintegration of the humanist ing-mice
universe, however, should be seen as the unfolding of “unexpected Dodgson, Lindsay. “Our Brains Sometimes Create ‘False Memories’
possibilities for the recomposition of communities, for the very idea - But Science Suggests We Could Be Better Off This Way.”
of humanity and for ethical forms of belonging” (Braidotti, 2013: Buisness Insider, 19 Dec. 2017, 02:06:08 p.m.,
103). Consequently, it is not only our sense of self (i.e., subjectivity) www.businessinsider.in/Our-brains-sometimes-create-false
that has to be rethought but our relationship with our structural others memories-but-science-suggests-we-could-be-better-off-this
also needs to be re-defined. The resulting emergence thus will then way/articleshow/62132822.cms
certainly calls for a necessary restructuring of our ethical and moral Foucault, Michel. The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Hu
universe. Hu(man)s, as a result, can no longer be considered to be the man Sciences. Vintage Books, 1994.
‘measure of all things’. Human-centric ontological systems therefore Hayles, N. Katherine. How We became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies
must die if we are to develop new thought systems that are sustain- in Cybernetics, Literature, and Informatics. U of Chicago P
able, inclusionary, and align with the post-human subjects that we are Ltd., 1999.
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Sartre, Jean-Paul. “Existentialism is a Humanism.” Existentialism
from Dostoyevsky to Sartre. Meridian Publishing Company,
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Spinoza, Benedict De. Ethics. Penguin Books, 1996. Play Water: Crumbling Ecology and
Žižek, Slavoj. Like a Thief in Broad Daylight. Penguin Random Postcolonial Dalit Identity
House, 2018.
Vaibhav Pathak

About the Author


Brahamjeet Singh is a research scholar in the Department of Abstract
English, Punjabi University, Patiala. The topic of his research
Mahasweta Devi’s Water problematizes the issues of caste
is “Interrogating the (Post) Human: A Study of Subjectivity and
exploitation and ecological hegemony. The paper aims to
Ethics in Select twentieth Science Fiction.” He is undertaking
critically engage with the intersection of issues of water
his research through the study of two Post-humanist thinkers:
scarcity, gender relations and postcolonial Dalit identity. The
Rosi Braidotti and N. Katherine Hayles.
faultlines in the post-independence rural Bengali society, the
landlord-tenant relationship, and the ecological injustice met-
ed out at Dalits are the issues that Devi takes up. The paper
analyses the caste oppression faced by Dalits as individuals
as well as a community. Postcolonial representation of op-
pression, issues of ambiguous referentiality, and limitations
of language are the issues that the paper takes up during the
course of analysis. The paper explores the use of tradition-
al ecological knowledge, the realisation of exploitation and
awareness of trauma as a means of liberation.
Keywords: Ecology, Caste trauma, Postcolonial, Dalit Identity, Lit-
erature and Ecology

The dramatic integration of issues of water scarcity, caste op-


pression, ecological hegemony, and gender is portrayed in Mahasweta
Devi’s play Water (1976). This paper attempts to critically engage

40 : CHETAS 41 : CHETAS
with these issues and the intersectionality of postcolonialism, Dalit of our population. Throughout her five-decade-long career as a writ-
identity, and deprivation of natural resources. The faultlines in the er-activist, she strived to raise the curtain so that some light might
post-independence rural Bengali society, the landlord-tenant relation- peep inside the deep dark underbelly of the nation. Her works have
ship, and the ecological injustice meted out to Dalits are the issues- put forth the struggle and trauma of the people that make up the most
that Devi takes up. under-represented part of the country. Talking about her inspiration,
Mahasweta Devi can speak the unspeakable and play is the she said,
perfect genreto do so. She has written tales of oppression, conflict, I have always believed that real history is made by
and trauma of the most marginalised communities of India. The- ordinary people. I constantly come across the re-
atre and drama provide an excellent medium for representation of appearance, in various forms, of folklore, ballads,
exploitation and Mahasweta Devi makes full use of it in her plays myths and legends, carried by ordinary people across
Mother of 1084 (1973), Aajir (1976), Urvashi and Johny (1977), generations. The reason and inspiration for my writ-
Bayen (1976), and Water. Devi’s works focus on divisions within the ing are those people who are exploited and used and
Indian society and tell the tales of those searching endlessly for their yet do not accept defeat. For me, the endless source
identities along the faultlines of these divisions. Her work is commit- of ingredients for writing is in these amazingly no-
ted to the dispossessed and the disadvantaged – the slum dwellers, ble, suffering human beings. Why should I look for
the untouchables, and the tribal. Her work strives to portray the lives my raw material elsewhere? (Bardhan 24)
of those who continue to live in servitude in an independent India.
As an activist, she worked for the Lodha and the Shabar
She was a writer, a political and social activist, and a recipient of the
tribes of West Bengal. The trauma of having seen around sixty tribes-
8
Padma Shri, the Padma Vibhushan, and the Sahitya Akademi Award7.
men of Lodha and Shabar communities put to death on charges of ei-
She received the Ramon Magsaysay Award in 1977 for “her compas-
ther theft or dacoity and the exploitation faced by these communities
sionate crusade through art and activism to claim for tribal peoples a
is penned down in works like Hajar Churashir Ma (1974), Aranyer
just and honourable place in India’s national life” (Johri 150). Devi’s
Adhikar (1979), Stanyadayani (1980), and Chotti Munda Ebong Tar
work provides us with an opportunity to examine caste divisions and
Tir (1980) among many others. Apart from novels and short stories,
the ecological exploitation of Dalits critically.
she also wrote a number of plays like Aajir, Urvashi and Johny, and
Accepting her Ramon Magsaysay Award, Devi said that
Waterin which she dramatised the trauma and exploitation of the sub-
much of our country still resides in a darkness that deprives a part
altern. While Hajar Churashir Ma depicts the individual trauma of
7 Mahasweta Devi was awarded the SahityaAkademi Award in 1979 for a mother and her family, AranyerAdhikar, Stanyadayani, and Water
AranyerAdhikar(1979). She was awarded Padma Shri in 1986 and Padma
Vibhushan in 2006. She won the Jnanpith Award in 1996 and the Ramon 8 Settled predominantly in West Medinipur district and parts of Orissa, the
Magsaysay Award in 1997. She was shortlisted for the Man Booker Interna- Lodhas are a scheduled tribe of West Bengal with a population of around
tional Prize in 2009 and was nominated for the Nobel Prize for Literature in 84966. Sabars are ethnically a Munda tribe with populations in west Bengal,
2012. Chattisgarh, Jharkhand, Orissa, and Madhya Pradesh.
42 : CHETAS 43 : CHETAS
depict the collective trauma of various groups and communities. In ploitation of the Dalits of Bengal and the Doms and Chandals in par-
her short stories, she takes the aid of imagery to represent human ticular, in the play Jal. Along with theatrical tools, Devi makes use of
suffering and in her plays , she employs folksongs, folktales and even mythology, folksongs and invocations. She directs her didactic thes-
mythology to tell various aspects of the different tales of suffering. pian effort at highlighting the exploitation faced by landless labourers
In AranyerAdhikarand Water we see the portrayal of ecological ex- of a post-independence West-Bengal village.
ploitation of tribal communities and Dalits. Agriculture is the largest source of livelihood in India, with
Devi is known predominantly as a storyteller than a play- around 70 per cent of the rural households depending primarily
wright unlike her husband Bijon Bhattacharya, who was the founding on their small landholdings.11 The plot of the play Water is set in a
member of the Indian People’s Theatre Association (IPTA). Devi is post-independence rural village of West Bengal by the river Char-
adept at telling the tales of oppression and exploitation and wanted a sa. The Permanent Settlement Act of 1793 recognised the Zamindars
more reaching medium to spread her word. Theatre provided her with as the owners of the land in exchange for payment of land revenue.
an effective medium for the same. The latter half of the twentieth cen- These Zamindars usually sold their proprietary rights to middlemen
tury saw the rise of people’s theatre in India. Theatre established itself at various levels. With the increasing levels of intermediaries, there
as a voice of conscience for the common masses. Devi adapted her was a considerable increase in land revenue which was extracted
short stories Jal, Bayen, Aajir, and Urvashi and Johnny in 1966-67. from the tillers or the farmworkers. The Bengal Rent Act of 1859
She not only converted these into plays but also added rituals, songs, sought to limit the power of landlords by placing limits on rent incre-
and evocations of the tribal communities. Theatre has the unique abil- ment and land evictions but only the fixed-rent tenants, which were
ity to bring emotions to life. Pain, suffering, oppression, and the trau- a minority, came under its purview. The majority “burgadars”or ag-
ma thereof resonates intensely via the theatrical medium. Talking of ricultural labourers were unabatedly exploited. The Bengal Tenancy
the impact of depicting violence on stage, Antonin Artaud writes,“I Act of 1885 too protected only the settled labourers and therefore,
propose then a theater in which violent physical images crush and was similarly futile. The Tebhaga Movement in the 1940s did see
hypnotise the sensibility of the spectator seized by the theater as by some positive results, but its impact was limited. Post-independence,
a whirlwind of higher forces” (83). Principles of Theatre of Cruelty9 the situation did not change much for the farm tillers. Even after In-
and Grotesque Theatre10 shed some more light on the relationship dependence, not much changedfor farm workers under the Zamindari
between violent and brutal imagery on stage and its psychological system. There were a large number of intermediaries who were a new
impact on the audience. Devi portrays on stage the trauma and ex- class of zamindars. Sharecroppers used to cultivate small portions of
land and were usually impoverished and were continuously indebted
9 Theatre of Cruelty advocates use of primitive life force and experience to set
to the zamindars who doubled up as money lenders too. The journey
free our subconscious and to bring us closer to our self. Initially propounded
by Antonin Artaud, it influenced many avant-garde playwrights. from being a sharecropper to a landless labourer was a short but har-
10 Developing from the Grotesque Art movement in the eighteenth century,
Grotesque Theatre aimed at taking down various conventional standards of 11 Data from the India at a Glance section of the Food and Agricultural Organi-
aesthetics and decorum. sation. http://www.fao.org/india/fao-in-india/india-at-a-glance/en/
44 : CHETAS 45 : CHETAS
rowingly traumatic one. The efficiency of the West Bengal Bargadar twice removed or doubly colonised. It is at these margins that the var-
Act (1950), the West Bengal Estate Acquisition Act (1952), and the ious chains of discourses break down, and the people are left without
West Bengal Land Reforms Act (1955) was portrayed well on paper, any social or political agency. Those at the margins are subjected to
and the inefficiency of the state machinery in implementing these acts exploitation, and notwithstanding a lack of agency, they come togeth-
was characterised well by the unfortunate fate of farmers like Maghai er to seek a collective identity and face cultural trauma.
Dome and Dhura, the protagonists of Devi’s play12. In such an exploitative administrative setup, access to vari-
The postcolonial hangover of the administrationis well rep- ous resources is also flawed. The deliberately faulty distribution of
resented by Devi in the play. After independence, the district magis- resources ensures the hegemony of the exploiters. The Suvarna land-
trates were the new “laat sahibs”, a colloquial equivalent of the “lord- lord Santosh, along with the SDO create a false deficit of resources
ship” of the erstwhile era. While the official titles were abolished by by not giving the villagers their rightful share. The villagers, most-
the Indian Constitution, the unofficial power of these titles remained. ly Doms, Chandals, Keots, and Tiors are not allowed to draw water
It is in this hangover of colonial power that the newly appointed mag- from the public wells. Explaining the situation to a young man, Dhura
istrates ruled over their small fiefs. The condition of the landlords was says:
quite similar too. Despite the abolishment of the Zamindari System, DHURA. My father (raises his hands to his head),
the Zamindars or the landlords ruled with impunity. As these land- Maghai Dome, knows all about water. Ev-
lords were in cohorts with the magistrates, no one could question ery year he spots the place, and Santosh
their power. Devi portrays this power in Water, describing Santosh digs, and there’s a new well.
– the landlord’s relationship with the SDO, “now he is all vicious,
ONE. Then what’s the problem?
establishing in his very manner the power that the rural rich wield-
ed in 1971 over the SDO and the police administration in several DHURA. They wouldn’t allow us to touch it. Even at
areas”(112). Talking about the landlord, Maghai’s son Dhura says, the government wells, we aren’t allowed to
“He goes to the town, collects money for relief, and wouldn’t spend draw water. That’s why we have to go and
a paisa for the stricken village itself. Look at his house, rising from dig at the sands of Charsa. (107-08)
height to height. There are twenty villages bound to him in debt for
Despite the abolishment of titles, despite the abolishment of
ever. He’ll leave nobody in peace” (107). This presents to us a case
untouchability, it seems that at the underbelly of the nation, exploita-
of “other within the other”. While the colonisers colonised the native
tion is business is as usual,
population, landlords like Santosh colonised the rural Dalit and tribal
DHURA. When we go to distribute the prasad from
population. These communities at the margins of the society were
the Dharam Puja, in the village, they
wouldn’t let us stand under the ledges of
12 For a comprehensive understanding on the Land Reforms of West Bengal,
do read “Land Reforms in West Bengal” by Ratan Ghosh and K Nagraj, pub- their huts – we’re untouchables.
lished in the Social Scientist, 1978,vol. 6.
46 : CHETAS 47 : CHETAS
ONE.We’ve gone over all that, Dhura. The castes, up- In the case of Doms of Charsa, this agency is used to exploit them.
per and lower, don’t mean a thing. They are Lamenting the fate of the Dalits, Dhura says, “What a shame for us
labels designed by men. The Constitution’s to burn our hearts to cinder to divine water, then to raise it from the
clear on that. But who cares to uphold the bowels of the Earth, and then they’d refuse us a drop of water, not a
Constitution? (108) drop of water for the Domes and Chandals. I spit upon fate, if that’s
It’s not just the access to resources that is stolen from the villagers by our fate” (Devi 124). The altercation between Dhura and Santosh re-
Santosh. By colluding with the SDO and the police machinery, San- veals a lot about caste exploitation.
tosh also steals the villager’s access to Constitutional remedies and DHURA. You don’t give us water, yet you ask, Don’t
the justice system. Cycles after cycles of exploitation are faced by the you get water? That’s good enough to shut
villagers, because of their Dalit identity as the ones who are supposed him up. We never get water, you never give
to “uphold the constitution”are themselves involved in flagrantly vi- us water. Why talk rubbish, thakur?
olating it. It would be an injustice to say that it is their Dalit identity SANTOSH. Whom have I refused water?
that creates trouble for them. The Dalit identity of the villagers is an
ambivalent phenomenon, and it requires a more in-depth analysis. DHURA. The Domes, the Chamars, the Chandals go
Maghai is a water diviner and belongs to the Dom caste. The without water.
issue of caste and exploitation is central to Devi’s play. Santosh Babu, SANTOSH. The smallest insect needs water to sur-
the Suvarna landlord, acts as the sole source of all power in the vil- vive. But it seems you can do without wa-
lage. He is the de-facto head of the village, the representative of the ter, Dhura!
village to the authorities and the sole recipient of all aid and supplies
meant for the whole village. Caste discrimination and untouchability DHURA. No. We scrape holes in the sandy bed of
are practised rampantly, and the Doms, Chandals, Keots, Tiors and the Charsa in the night, and by the early
other untouchables are not even allowed to draw water from the wells dawn it gathers a little water. At the slight-
for drinking, even during the famine. Santosh and his family own all est delay in collecting it, it evaporates. The
these wells, and they have made it their duty to ensure that not a sin- Panchayat wells are supposed to be for the
gle drop should come in contact with the untouchables. Whenever a public, yet we’re denied access to them. In
new well is sanctioned for the village, it is dug in the fields of Santosh the daytime, they’re for washing your cat-
or his compound. Commenting on the role of water in the region of tle, in the night we try to steal water, and
Bengal, Kuntala Lahiri-Dutt writes that water is,”subjectively con- you set your dogs loose on us. It’s the gov-
structed, or ‘produced’ like any other element of nature; a part of the ernment’s well, yet stealing’s the only way
cultural landscape, rooted in history, both the producer and product of we can get water from it. It was my father
the material culture through which human agency is enacted” (404). who had located every one of them. (129)
48 : CHETAS 49 : CHETAS
Notwithstanding the exploitation and inhumane treatment meted out PHULMANI. All the wells were dug with money
to Dalits of the village, Santosh cannot dig a well without their aid. from the government for drought relief. If
The Dom community’s Maghai is a gifted water diviner, and not even you go by the law, all the public wells be-
the babus from the hydrological department can do what he can. Aid- long to the public. But there’s Santosh. The
ed by traditional knowledge, handed down from one generation to an- great Santosh-Babu. (135)
other in the form of folklore, rituals and songs, Maghai helps Santosh
Discrimination, humiliation and penury are the everyday truth of their
dig wells from which he and his brethren will not be allowed to drink
ugly existence. As individuals and as a community, on the whole, they
as they are untouchables. Just being from the “lower caste”is enough
are subjected to continual and incessant oppression. SurajYengde, in
for the administration and the police to view them as troublemakers
his recent critically acclaimed work, Caste Matters (2019) writes,
just as being from the “upper caste” is enough for them to grant all
the privileges to Santosh. During famines, Santosh Babu receives the Caste is understood through various prisms, thus
aid for the entire village and seldom does anything reach the villagers making it the most misunderstood topic of dialogue
as Suvarna owner of the village must have his share first. Violence on/in India. Caste is thought of as synonymous with
meets the rebellious villagers who have the option either of starva- reservations, Dalits, Adivasis, manual scavenging,
tion and thirst or rebel. The yoke of caste oppression and violence is poverty, Dalit capitalism, daily wage labourers, hei-
passed on from one generation to the other, just like the folk songs of nous violence, criminality, imprisonment, Rajputs,
the Doms. Dalit women suffer the worst kind of exploitation. Their Brahmins, Baniyas, Kayasthas, OBCs, etc. These
trauma is unspoken, perennial and collective. Women being twice are some of the many variations that bear witness to
subalternised, are twice removed from the mainstream and have to the everyday nakedness of caste. However, what re-
face the worst.Through the character of Phulamani, Maghai’swife, mains undiscussed and therefore invisible is the mul-
Devi, takes up the case of Dalit women. tiple forms in which the caste maintains its sanctity
and pushes its agenda through every aspect of human
PHULMANI. For water. Evening’s the time when
life in India. (3)
women gather at the river and dig holes in
the sand with their bare hands. In the night Yengde’stake on the hidden sanctity of the caste system and
water trickles into the holes, and we have its agency to exploit resonates in Devi’s work. The comradery ex-
to fetch it before the sun rises, for then the hibited by the landlord Santosh Pujari, his contractor brother-in-law,
hole will dry up. and the SDO to exploit the Dalit villagers is remarkable. It serves as
a telling example of Caste-capital ownership of resources in cohort
JITEN. But why? The Panchayati well belongs to you
with administrative corruption that leads to deprivation in the case of
all.
Dalits.

50 : CHETAS 51 : CHETAS
Santosh Pujari, the exploitative landlord, identifies himself feels to be free to drink as much water as you’d like
as a saviour of the villagers. He presents to us a typical case of the to, till your thirst is really quenched? When I lost the
Jehovah complex13 according to Jungian analysis. The Swiss psychi- child I had after Dhura, you the great water-diviner
atrist Carl Jung laid down the principles of analytical psychology and had to pour sand on the burning pyre for you had no
Jehovah complex is one of its components which describes a condi- water to wash it down. (122-23)
tion of self inflation combined with neurotic egotism. While talking
When the Charsa river floods every monsoon, it overflows its banks
to Phulmani, he says, “The government knows that you do not know
and floods the fields and houses of these Dalits living on the periph-
what’s good for you. And that’s why they entrust me with all the ra-
ery. While the river cannot even provide the villagers with drinking
tions and relief.”Santosh or “the devil eater”as Phulmani calls him,
water during the summer droughts, it does flood their homes every
despite being the exploiter of the whole village, thinks of himself as
rainy season. The landlords and their ilk are comfortably safe in their
their saviour. While Santosh identifies himself as the saviour, the Dal-
palatial bungalows, but it is the Dalit on the banks of Charsa who face
it villagers continually face acrisis of identity. Their identity is linked
the river’s might.The psychological burden faced by the Dalit villag-
to Santosh’s. As long as he is the saviour, the villagers have to be
ers shapes their individual and cultural identity, and the same finds
the exploited lot so that he can save them. The Dalits do not identify
its voice in this thespian effort of Mahasweta Devi. Their traumatic
themselves as Santosh’s fellow villagers but as landless labour who
experiences distort their everyday reality and rupture the narratives
are bound to work at Santosh’s farm, who are forced to beg Santosh
of the ruling classes. Devi provides the villagers with a narrative rep-
for water, and who are dependent on alms from Santosh. Santosh ex-
resentation that is otherwise fragmented by the oppression faced by
ists to exploit the Dalit villagers – the Dalits exist to be exploited by
them as an individual as well as a class:Prolonged exploitation due
Santosh – Santosh exists to play the role of their saviour. Such is the
to exclusionforces them to reconcile with their everyday reality in
never-ending cycle of identity crisisand caste exploitation.
different manners. While Maghai and Phulmani silently accept their
While the Dalits are the last beneficiaries of natural resourc-
fate, Dhura chooses to rebel against the oppression. Every now and
es, they are the first victims of natural calamities. Due to their so-
then Maghai falls on mythology to rationalise his trauma.
cio-economic position, they face starvation every year. Drought is the
The political machinery not only enables the antagonists to
way of their miserable life and starvation due to food shortages is the
inflict trauma which is aggravated by the apathy and the inability
order of the day. Phulmani’srant for Maghai is apt for illustration. She
of the system but also alienates the Dalits from the state machinery.
says,
Apart from using the administrative machinery to alienate the Dal-
And I’ve never had the simple pleasure of feeling the
its, Santosh also coerces the Dalit villagers economically, politically,
water pouring down my body till it went cool. Will
and socially. Still, if some rebel soul like Dhuradares raise his voice
you tell me, for I’ve never known it myself, how it
against injustice, it will not be long before Santosh brands him as a
13 According to Jungian Psychoanalysis, Jehovah Complex is a form of mega-
lomania in with a delusional individual acts out a made-up reality of grandeur Naxal. All Dalits are viewed as troublemakers, and those who ask for
and feels oneself to be all powerful.
52 : CHETAS 53 : CHETAS
what is theirs are quickly branded as Naxals14. Water becomes the with Santosh over the wages. And I had to
medium to suppress dissent by denying ecological citizenship and pay for that, scorching in the sun. With the
by branding the dissenters as Naxals. In times of drought, these wells drought and the heat and an empty stomach,
are used by the upper caste men to exploit the Dalits strategically and my head went reeling. (137)
to force them to accept their diktats. At the slightest hint of disobe-
Maghai Dom tries to rationalise his oppression due to subjugation, by
dience, Santosh “will run to the town and the police that the lower
the administrative machinery, by falling back to mythology and by
castes of Charsa have all turned Naxals”(116-17). Keep them hungry,
trying to link himself with the mythological figure of “Bhagirath” or
keep them thirsty, keep them frightened – seems to be the motto of
the harbinger of water. He says,
the ruling class to make sure the Dalits live in continuous trauma.
Santosh extorts labour from the helpless villages at the rates of his The work we were born to may not provide us with
choosing as a refusal will mean being branded as a Naxal. food, but was left to us by our ancestors, my grand-
MAGHAI. It’s from 1971 that he raised the plea that father, his father, his father, for ages it has been our
all the Domes and low castes of Charsa are work. When the King Bhagirath brought the holy
treacherous. This year it was we cast the Ganga down from the heavens, Basumati, the moth-
first seeds. But he warned, no fifty paise per er Earth, asked Ganga: Give me little bit of it, sister,
head for you people. Thirty paise would be to keep hidden in my bowels…So the nether ganga
more than enough for you. Take it or leave flowed into the secret depths of the mother Earth. My
it. I’ll bring in dawals to work in my fields. earliest ancestor had come all prepared to offer puja
to the holy river at her advent. (124-25).
PHULMANI. Dawal!
It is not just Maghai Dom who uses mythology to rationalise the sit-
MAGHAI. Once the people penetrated into the inner
uation. Santosh uses mythology to his benefit to ensure compliance
villages in the Naxalitedays, people fled the
from Maghai. More often than not he invokes Bhagirath and reminds
villages in terror, and ever since then, like
Maghai that it is his duty to divine water for him without asking for
unwelcome pests they go about offering to
anything in return and that the Dalits have themselves to blame for
work at a pittance. Can’t you see how it hap-
the natural calamities as they have given up the old religion and old
pens, Dhura’s mother? And this drought!
rituals. The ancient rituals entail that the Doms and Chandals work
There’ll be swarms of labourers for fifteen
gratis on the Thakurs land. While Maghai uses mythology and folk-
paise a day and a snack. We had an argument
lore to rationalise the psychological trauma inflicted upon him, San-
14 The Naxalite Movement(1996) by former IPS officer Prakash Singh is suitable
tosh uses them to justify his atrocities. It seems that mythology exists
for understanding the history of the Naxal movement, its beginnings and the
history of time period discussed in this paper. This book is however, not up- to aid the Suvarna exploitation of Dalits.
to-date with the current situation of the movement.
54 : CHETAS 55 : CHETAS
The economic exploitation of the farmers is magnified by I’ve kept the water hidden deep under,
ecological exploitation. A village serves as a perfect example of a
You’ve to scratch at my breasts
socio-ecological unit with its various components and integrated hi-
erarchies. Maghai Dom and his fellow villagers are entirely depen- Before I let it loose,
dent on the wells of Santosh Babu, the landlord. River Charsa that
Not to you,
passes through the village is not a perennial river. It floods during the
rains and its banks run dry in the summer season. Overexploitation But to your wife and daughters. (141)
of natural resources and their unequal distribution causes frequent
Such romanticising provides the Doms with a coping mechanism to
famines in the region. Tensions rise when this Socio-Ecological Unit
deal with ecological exploitation. They use these folk songs, along
is faced with a famine. The political ecology of this unit is worth
with mythology to rationalise the ecological trauma due to a fragile
studying for its violent ramifications in the play. Traditional Ecolog-
ecosystem of which they are at a periphery. While Dalits are the first
ical Knowledge (TEK) is a power wielded by the Dom community
ones to bear the brunt of natural calamity, at the same time, nature
in general and Maghai Dom in particular but is hegemonically used
also acts as a liberator for them.
against them. The idea of “native knowledge for native ecosystems”
as used by Robin Wall Kimmerer states that the use of the age-old When the Dalits make up their mind to end their dependence
handed-down knowledge of the ecosystem and the surrounding is on the wells controlled by Santosh, they decide to make a check dam
essential for not only sustainable use of resources but also for the to store some water from the flooding river. Motivated by the vision
survival of all species.15 Defending Maghai’s traditional knowledge of Jiten, the school teacher, the villagers come together to pile up
of water diving, Jiten the school teacher says to the officer from the boulders to block the flow of water. Maghai Dom, the human reposi-
hydrological department, “You blast the Earth to divine water. He tory of the traditional knowledge of water divining, finds a new way
draws on the knowledge that he has inherited from his ancestors to to honour the profession of his forefathers. Once the Dalits choose to
divine water. Why should it be mumbo-jumbo in his case and knowl- end their problem using a native approach to the native ecosystem,
edge in yours” (132)? the same river that unleashed natural calamities on them becomes
Traditional knowledge has been passed to Maghai Dom in their liberator. Liberation for the Dalits of Charsa comes from the
the form of folk songs and folklores which romanticise the relation of conventional use of natural resources in tandem with native knowl-
the Dom with the river in songs like these: edge when the subaltern rise to the occasion, realising their role in
their subjugation. Natural calamities have a long term impact on the
The water won’t be easy to get,
human psyche. Senseless exploitation of the ecosystem inadvertently
15 Robin Wall Kimmerer in her book Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, results in environmental calamities, natural or otherwise. Recurrent
Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants(2020), talks about the use calamities like chronic drought and floods adversely affect the psyche
of traditional knowledge in tandem with scientific knowledge for a sustain-
of the victims. The long-term exploitation of the entire community
able use of resources.
56 : CHETAS 57 : CHETAS
and its impact on their collective identity is visible on the Dalits of Caruth, Cathy.Unclaimed Experience: Trauma, Narrative and Histo-
Charsa. Striving for liberation does come at a price for the Dalits. As ry. The Johns Hopkins University Press,1996.
soon as the dam is built, the villagers rejoice at the sight of abundant
Devi, Mahasweta. Five Plays. Translated by Samik Bandopadhyay,-
water as many of them had never seen so much water. Santosh and
Seagull Books, 1986.
the SDO declare that the villagers are Naxals who are disrupting the
peace of the region and are rebelling against the nation. The SDO or- Goloy, Angelina G, et al. Great Men and Women of Asia: Ramon
ders the police to open fire at the unarmed villagers and to tear down Magsaysay Awardees from South Asia, 1987-2005. Anvil Pub-
the dam Maghai is killed, the dam breaks and the overflowing Charsa lishing, 2006.
leaps and snatches his body and carries it away.
Johri, Meera. Greatness of Spirit: Profiles of Indian Magsaysay
The subaltern’s realisation of their role in their subjugation Award Winners. Rajpal and Sons, 2010.
forms the pivotal point of this play. It is when the Dalits realise that
Lahiri-Dutt, K. “Women of the Rural Communities in the Bengal
they have “nothing to lose but their chains” that they rise against the
Delta”. Fluid bonds: Views on Gender and Water. Stree, 2006,
oppression. The revolutionary ending of the play is characteristic of
pp. 387-408.
Mahasweta Devi and opens to analysis the treatment of exploitation
and oppression by authors in their work. India, with its diverse prob- Tal, Kali. Worlds of Hurt: Reading the Literatures of Trauma. Cam-
lems, never-ending conflicts, crumbling ecology, and fragmented bridge University Press, 1996.
identities might be home to the largest exploitation-suffering popu-
Yengde, Suraj. Caste Matters. Penguin Random House India, 2019.
lation, and their tale needs to be told for there are many such tales in
India. Just like Devi said, “My country, Torn, Tattered, Proud, Beau-
tiful, Hot, Humid, Cold, Sandy, Shining India. My country.” About the Author
Vaibhav Pathak is a Doctoral Researcher at the Indian Institute of
Science Education and Research, Mohali. He is a scholar of the De-
Works Cited partment of Humanities and Social Sciences. He works in the multi-
disciplinary field of Literature and Science. He is currently looking
Artaud, Antonin. The Theater and Its Double. Grove Press, 1958
at the representation of authority and dissent in science plays. He has
Alexander,Jeffrey C, et al. Cultural Trauma and Collective Identity. been a member of numerous theatrical productions for the past seven
University of California Press, 2004. years. He is presently undertaking multiple projects on performance
studies and the philosophy of science.
Bardhan, Kalpana, editor. Of Women, Outcastes, Peasants, and Reb-
els: A Selection of Bengali Short Stories. University of Califor-
nia Press, 1990.

58 : CHETAS 59 : CHETAS
children’s stories. Writers of children’s books play with words and
plot lines that create a certain aura of mystery. This paper attempts
to explore the element of the mysterious as depicted in Antoine de
The Mysterious in Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s The Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince (1943).
Little Prince In literature, the genre of mystery has largely graduated from
mystery plays in the late medieval period to detective mysteries,
Navjot Khosla post-industrialisation. Edgar Allan Poe is usually considered among
the first to bring mystery as a genre to readers followed by other cel-
Abstract
ebrated writers such as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie.
The present paper attempts to explore the element of the
For children, this genre opened up when Edward Stratemeyer created
mysterious as depicted in Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s The
the Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys series around 1930s.
Little Prince (1943). The little prince’s insights are an anti-
Adrienne Gavin and Christopher Routledge in the Introduc-
dote to the scourge that afflicts humankind. Saint-Exupéry’s
tion to their edited anthology, Mystery in Children’s Literature: From
stance against the growing materialistic mood of the twenti-
the Rational to the Supernatural (2001), categorise mystery writing
eth century works as a counter-narrative to the pragmatic ap-
into two parts – the rational and the supernatural (2). The former is
proach of grown-ups, obsessed as it is with facts and figures.
where mystery is solved as per “the satisfaction of a character’s and/
The paper argues that in our rush to explain things in a clear,
or reader’s intellect, causing the mystery to disappear,” whereas in
concise and transparent manner, we fail, at times, to realise
the latter, “mysteries are generally resolved to the satisfaction of a
that certain elemental features of life still remain mysterious.
character’s or reader’s instincts and in which the mystery remains”
One must learn to celebrate the mysterious, inexplicable and
(2). ‘Rational’ mystery attempts to explain events that are beyond
unpredictable aspects of life also rather than attempting to
comprehension while ‘supernatural’ mystery prompts one to accept
demystify them every time.
that mysteries are an incomprehensible part of our lives. The use of
Keywords: Mystery, Mysterious, Logic, Pragmatic.
mystery in children’s literature has seen an almost progressive shift
from certainty to uncertainty. Earlier, the ‘rational’ mysteries in chil-
Noted physicist Albert Einstein once called the “mysterious”
dren’s tales generally ended with a positive assurance and a sense of
as the “most beautiful experience” akin to “the fundamental emo-
security as “clear boundaries and rational explanations in early fan-
tion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science” and “[w]
tasy for children were conscious or unconscious compromises with
hoever does not know it and can no longer wonder, no longer mar-
prevailing educational views. To leave a child reader in uncertain-
vel, is as good as dead, and his eyes are dimmed” (11). Books meant
ty was pedagogically wrong” (Nikolajeva 71). Mysteries in stories/
for children are among the first to stir their imagination. This could
novels such as the Nancy Drew series, the Famous Five series and
be one of the reasons why mystery plays such an important role in
books by writers like Frances Hodgson Burnett and Erich Kästner
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were tidily packaged with solutions, though these works were regard- that is present in a children’s story can be termed as religious when
ed as detective fiction. The element of mystery in these stories was the “reader realizes that there is no natural explanation for the events
addressed using logic and rationality. which occur” [sic] (18). Here, an example would be the description
However, the present day mystery series like Goosebumps of Aslan, the lion, in Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and
and the Point Horror books by R.L. Stine differ from the previous the Wardrobe (1950) by C.S. Lewis. Lewis introduces Aslan, one of
ones in the sense that these contemporary stories incorporate less of the most important characters in the series, not ‘in person’ but rather
certainty and resolution of problems, thereby making the transition through the reactions of other characters, giving rise to a feeling of
from ‘rational’ mysteries to ‘supernatural’ mysteries. Commenting on mystery as well as awe among readers.
the significance of mystery to a plot, E.M. Forster writes: “[m]ystery Another mode in which mystery unravels itself in a story is
is essential to a plot, and cannot be appreciated without intelligence. through coincidence as seen in Black Beauty (1877) by Anna Sewell.
To the curious it is just another ‘and then—’. To appreciate a mystery,
Towards the end of the book, after years of hardship, Black Beauty
part of the mind must be left behind, brooding, while the other part
finally finds owners who are kind. The idea that hard work, trials
goes marching on” [sic] (87). It appears almost as if more iconic a
and tribulations are rewarded in mysterious ways is integral to the
children’s book, more elements of mystery it would contain. Accord-
ing to Gavin and Routledge, “[a]lthough mystery appears most ob- plot in many children’s tales. Such stories remind young readers
viously in genres such as detective, horror, or supernatural fiction, it that there exists a balance in the universe between forces of good
also finds a presence, in some form or another, in almost all children’s and evil. Indeed, this aspect has attracted writers for long. Authors
literature” (3). Thus, the lure of ‘what comes next’ is what drives the such as C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien have been known to tap into
reader to continue with the story. the huge reservoirs of Judaeo-Christian and Nordic beliefs. Using
Prior to the mid-nineteenth century, children’s literature was
religious motifs and imagery from such beliefs, a large number of
largely didactic in nature, leaving little room for mystery. However,
writers have crafted stories of good versus evil in a host of ways that
the canon has since stayed away from blatant moralising. In fact,
illustrate that goodness not only wins but also produces a sense of
Gavin and Routledge opine that as the “loss of moral and religious
certainties that characterised the twentieth century exposed the uni- awe. Thus, mystery is either shown as the unknown, inexplicable and
verse as inherently mysterious and inexplicable”, truths began to be indecipherable or it is represented in the form of a symbol.
woven into the plots and made ‘discoverable’ independently by read- Edward Stratemeyer, during the 1930s, gave young readers
ers (Introduction 3). For authors to evoke a sense of mystery and awe mystery series with characters such as Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys
in a story, they “must make readers aware of their incomprehension, who were self-assured, adept, bold, daring and unafraid in their quest
while at the same time creating a sense that what is being conveyed to uncover the truth. Things would always resolve themselves in the
is greater than the understanding of either the characters in the book end with villains being punished for their dastardliness, and fortunes
or its readers” (Pinsent 15). Many times, Pinsent argues, the mystery being restored to the innocent. Stratemeyer and his team framed the

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stories around certain predictability with villains having character ness of the human mind to comprehend the physical and the existen-
flaws such as avarice and conceit. This ability to ‘know’ what to ex- tial, with a particular emphasis on the moral universe; in the absence
pect next brings the reader back to the series: “[k]nowing already’ of religious and metaphysical certainties.
precludes having to find out … and it is for this reason that knowing- Children’s literature in different parts of the world is marked
ness is a defensive posture. We adopt this stance to protect ourselves by simplicity in language and content. However, children’s literature
from something we cannot know; in this case, what we cannot know
in France distinctly stands out as well known French writers have had
is that human reason will not save us” (Coats 186-7). Contemporary
a history of penning fewer, but more meaningful, works of children’s
writers of children’s mystery stories such as R.L. Stine tend to have
fiction that are either political or philosophical in nature, though
a different take on ‘knowing’ and being able to predict things. The
mystery tales do not attempt to set things right or bring everything the story itself remains appealing to children (Bell 1483). Among
to an apple-pie order. As these stories come to a close, neither their notable French writers writing for children is Antoine de Saint-
characters nor the young readers are any wiser regarding either the Exupéry (1900-1944) who wrote the children’s classic, The Little
mystery or about themselves than they did before the stories began. Prince. He was a pilot whose plane mysteriously disappeared while
Mystery, it can be said, is the apprehension of something on a reconnaissance mission for the Allied forces during the Second
beyond human logic, perception and reason. The existence of black
World War.
holes, white holes, dark energy and dark matter in the field of phys-
Saint-Exupéry wrote Le Petit Prince (The Little Prince) in
ics would be a case in point. They might be considered a mystery
1943. It was published in the U.S. in the same year whereas in France,
because they can neither be seen by the naked eye nor felt. Yet, the
fact remains that they do exist; just as something being invisible does the book saw the light of day after World War II. The book begins
not mean that it is a figment of one’s imagination for “[e]mpty space with the narrator, a pilot, stranded in the middle of the Sahara Desert.
isn’t really empty – it holds a mysterious energy that can explain the He meets a golden-haired child-man whom he calls the little prince.
cosmos. The problem … is that our brains might not be able to com- The narrator learns that the little prince has travelled through six
prehend it” (Rees). Research in theoretical physics would certainly different asteroids before reaching the Earth. The friendship between
attest to the fact. Thus, mystery, arguably, is akin to the unknown.
the little prince and the pilot-narrator helps the narrator learn valuable
The journey of mystery from Edgar Allan Poe to contempo-
lessons that transform his life. In the end, when it is time for the little
rary times appears heavily enmeshed with religious and supernatural
prince to return to his planet, the pilot-narrator is unable to reconcile
imagery. However, with changing times and the growth of reason and
rationality, mystery became the means to comprehend the unknown with the thought of his friend’s departure. However, he eventually
through the use of human reason and logic. The religious element of learns to live with the loss.
mystery seems to have waned in children’s literature being produced In The Little Prince, the first creature that the little prince
in modern times. The reason for this has been the ability and willing- comes across on Earth is a snake. The little prince is so innocent
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that he pities the snake because it is “no thicker than a finger”, it come in close contact with the reptile (Isbell Introduction 3). Further
has no “feet” and it “cannot even travel” (56). The snake, however, in her Introduction, Isbell writes that this fear is not a learned response
remarks: “I am more powerful than the finger of a king…. I can carry as “this singular fear of snakes goes way back, even farther back than
you farther than any ship could take you…. Whomever I touch, I six million years when our hominin line first appeared” (4). The co-
send back to the earth from whence he came…. But you are innocent evolution of primates and venomous snakes, spanning millions of
and true, and you come from a star…. You move me to pity–you years, has had a “long antagonistic history” as primates have, over
are so weak on this Earth made of granite…. I can help you, some this period, fallen prey to snakes (Isbell Preface x-xi). In response,
day, if you grow too homesick for your own planet” (56). The little primates developed certain characteristics that aided their chances
prince asks the snake if it always speaks “in riddles”, to which the of survival including sharper vision for the detection of snakes and
snake emphatically responds, “I solve them all” (58). To be rid of better developed brains for a quicker response. Thus, it would appear
all anxieties would be akin to solving all problems one faces on the that the inherent fear of snakes has been hardwired into our brains
Earth. and can be traced in most cultures across the globe.
Snakes have generally been associated with mystery and dark In the classical Greco-Roman world, however, the serpent
magic through the centuries. Myths and folktales are replete with was looked upon more positively. It seems unlikely that a poisonous
instances where the serpent is often cast as the evildoer. In some tales, snake could also provide therapeutic relief. But that is the myth
the serpent appears as a monster with many heads at the entrance of surrounding Asclepius, son of Apollo and Coronis, the Greek god
a sacred cave guarding a treasure. The hero must slay the serpent of medicine. He is often depicted as carrying a staff upon which is
before he can move on to rescue whatever treasure it was guarding. entwined a serpent. According to this myth, Asclepius was tutored
James Frazer, in his book The Golden Bough (1890), refers to many by Centaur Chiron, who was a master in different forms of medicine.
interesting tribal rituals where snakes are either looked at with dread Also, Goddess Athena taught Asclepius skills to heal as well as to
or are revered and regarded as guardians. Even Indian mythology is harm people. With time, he became so skilled at healing that he could
full of such serpent-characters from the Sheshnag, the Ichchadhari bring people back from the dead. Asclepius eventually also realised
Nag to Vasuki, the serpent-god coiled around Lord Shiva’s neck. that snakes are often depicted as guards at the entrances of temples.
In this context, primate behavioural ecologist Lynne Isbell’s Consequently, he came to the understanding that snakes must also
Snake Detection theory also comes to mind. She is of the view that be keepers of all mysterious knowledge of the gods, the temples,
ophidiophobia, that is, the fear of snakes is the most commonly the priests as well as the laypeople. Asclepius, therefore, decided
prevalent fear among people despite the fact that they have never to rear a snake. Since then, the serpent has closely been associated

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with Asclepius, with healing and with medicine (Tsoucalas and more towards human camaraderie and fellow feeling rather than
Androutsos 55). Moreover, as per serpent physiology, ‘sloughing’, a religious doctrines.
stage wherein the snake sheds its skin, has come to be associated with In fact, Saint-Exupéry was once stranded in the Sahara with
fertility, renewal and rebirth. ten of his pilot-comrades, exactly at the spot where a year prior,
Even so, the fear of the serpent is a relatively recent two of their fellow-pilots had been murdered by tribesmen of the
phenomenon, one created by the Western mythos. The most famous desert. Apprehensive of the three hundred-odd armed Moors in the
serpent in the history of humankind is the one that tempted Eve with vicinity, the crew built a makeshift camp to pass the night. While
the forbidden fruit. The serpent has long been regarded as deceitful keeping an overnight vigil, Saint-Exupéry recalls how the “handful
and evil, an agent of Satan, if not Satan himself. Even tales from of men who possessed nothing in the world but their memories were
The Panchatantra portray snakes in a similar manner. For instance, sharing invisible riches” by way of jokes and stories (Wind 32).
a story in Kākolūkīya, the third book, “Frogs Go For a Ride on the About brotherhood amongst pilots, and by extension, all men, Saint-
Back of a Snake”, has an almost Machiavellian quality to it wherein Exupéry further writes: “[m]en travel side by side for years, each
a “[w]eak-venomed” wily cobra, Mandavisa, craftily devours all the locked up in his own silence or exchanging those words which carry
frogs in a pond by offering them piggy-back rides (Olivelle 137). no freight—till danger comes. Then they stand shoulder to shoulder.
In The Little Prince, the reader comes across a yellow- They discover that they belong to the same family. They wax and
coloured poisonous snake whose poison is so potent that with one bloom in the recognition of fellow beings. They look at one another
sting, it can send a being ‘back to the earth from whence he came’. and smile” [sic] (32). These are sentiments that would best describe
It is important to analyse why Saint-Exupéry depicted the snake the French writer. His religion was doing one’s duty, universal
positively whereas as per Christian doctrines, a serpent is construed brotherhood and love for humanity. That is perhaps the reason the
as the devil incarnate. The answer to this conundrum partly lies in snake aids the little prince in sending him back to his planet, though
the fact that Saint-Exupéry stayed away from Christianity throughout it might appear otherwise.
his life. In fact, Dermot O’Donoghue observes that Saint-Exupéry Another element of mystery in The Little Prince is the
was disinclined towards religion since “… his thought sheered away appearance of the water-well. Since the stranded pilot-narrator runs
instinctively from the sharp edges of dogma” (416). Saint-Exupéry out of water and the little prince too is thirsty, both begin to search
was much too independent-minded in his thoughts to surrender for a well in the Sahara desert even though the pilot-narrator finds it
completely to the Church. Had he accepted the Church, he would “absurd to look for a well … in the immensity of the desert” (73). As
ultimately not have heeded to its doctrines. His beliefs gravitated they appreciate the splendour of the desert, the little prince remarks:

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“[w]hat makes the desert beautiful … is that somewhere it hides a world is composed of one or more of these five elements”, or the
well” (73). He is delighted to hear the narrator’s reply: “[y]es…. the “Pañcabhūtas”, namely, “Pṛthvī (earth), Ap (water), Tejas (fire), Vāyu
stars, the desert – what gives them their beauty is something that is (air) and Ākāśa (ether)”, observes Vettam Mani (“PAÑCABHŪTA”
invisible!” (74). Eventually, the pilot-narrator does find a well. To 547). This is further labelled as the “Pāñcabhautikasiddhānta” or the
his surprise, the well is not one of the general hole-like wells found “doctrine of five elements” (547). Water is an essential source of
in the Sahara, but a village well even though there is no village in nutrients and is therefore regarded as most vital for the well being of
sight. This prompts him to observe: “[i]t is strange…. Everything is the body. It rejuvenates and revitalises life. Indeed, water drawn from
ready for use: the pulley, the bucket, the rope” (76). The little prince the well by the narrator is termed ‘sweet’ because it not only quenches
is, of course, jubilant to see the well. As he sets the pulley in motion, thirst but also provides sustenance to the soul. The water alchemises
he remarks: “[d]o you hear…. We have wakened the well, and it is into an elixir, replenishing the soul previously parched of love,
singing” (76). When the narrator raises the bucket of water for the friendship, kindness and warmth. Thus, the inexplicable presence of
little prince to drink, he notes: “[i]t was as sweet as some special a well in the middle of a desert is no less than a mysterious miracle.
festival treat. This water was indeed a different thing from ordinary The mystery of what happens to us after death has been a
nourishment. Its sweetness was born of the walk under the stars, the matter of much deliberation for centuries. Philosophers, scholars and
song of the pulley, the effort of my arms. It was good for the heart, writers have been grappling with this eternal question. The fear of life
like a present” (76-77). after death has been most aptly expressed by William Shakespeare in
Water is regarded as one of the essential elements of Nature Hamlet: “Who would fardels bear/To grunt and sweat under a weary
in most cultures. According to Patricia Curd, in ancient Greece, it was life/But that the dread of something after death/(The undiscovered
the Presocratic philosopher Empedocles who, around the fifth century, country from whose bourn/No traveller returns) puzzles the will/And
carried forward the idea of a “cosmos” comprising the four “roots” makes us bear those ills we have/Than fly to others that we know not
found in nature – earth, water, air and fire (“Presocratic Philosophy”). of” (3.1.75-81). Though death is the inevitable end of life, not many
It was Aristotle (384-322 B.C.E.) who subsequently came up with wish to dwell much upon it.
the fifth element, “aether” [sic], which was “inaccessible to earthly Death has been a part of many children’s texts such as Harriet
beings”, and thus, played “no part in the constitution of mundane Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852), A Little Princess (1905)
matter” (Ball 10). In this context, the ancient Indian tradition also and The Secret Garden (1911) by Frances Hodgson Burnett to name
speaks of the Pancha Tatva or the Panchabhuta, that is, the five a few. However, life-after-death is seldom depicted in children’s
elements that the physical world is composed of. “The whole visible literature. For this reason, the manner in which death and life-after-

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death have been explored in The Little Prince deserves special visible in life and very rarely evident in literary writings.
attention. Despite his own apprehensions, the little prince’s approach Stars have traditionally played an important role in many
towards preparing the narrator for his eventual death is rather unique. ancient cultures. Maritime history documents how sailors used the
A short while prior to his death, the little prince shares with the position of stars, especially the position of the Polaris or the Pole Star,
narrator his need to return home that very night since: “[t]onight, it to navigate the high seas. It was the North Star that guided the Magi
will be a year… My star, then, can be found right above the place to Baby Jesus. Centuries later, the same North Star helped Black
where I came to the Earth, a year ago” (82). The little prince explains slaves escape to freedom through the Underground Railroad. In this
to the narrator of his impending death via the analogy of gazing at context, referring to the significance of stars in the ancient world, Toby
stars. He states that looking at the stars could mean different things Wilkinson observes in The Rise and Fall of Ancient Egypt (2010) that
to different people but they would have a unique meaning for the the pyramids in Egypt were uniquely designed, each pointing to the
narrator because “[y]ou−you alone−will have the stars as no one else north. Wilkinson cites the example of the Great Pyramid of Giza,
has them…. In one of the stars I shall be living. In one of them I shall also called the Pyramid of Khufu, constructed around circa 2550
be laughing. And so it will be as if all the stars were laughing, when B.C. The narrow passages above the burial chamber led “to the outer
you look at the sky at night … You−only you−will have stars that can edge of the pyramid, stopping just short of the world beyond” (69).
laugh!” [sic] (83). Wisely, he consoles the narrator: These openings “had a purpose that was altogether loftier and more
And when your sorrow is comforted (time transcendent, for they pointed to the stars—more specifically to the
soothes all sorrows) you will be content that culminations of Sirius (the dog star), a star in the constellation Orion,
you have known me. You will always be my and two of the circumpolar stars that rotate around the celestial north
friend. You will want to laugh with me. And you pole” (69). The expertise of the ancient Egyptians in astronomy is
will sometimes open your window, so, for that well established. “[S]tars played an important part in state religion,
pleasure…And your friends will be properly especially in beliefs about the king’s afterlife”, writes Wilkinson
astonished to see you laughing as you look up (69). Of special interest were the “circumpolar stars” as they “alone
at the sky! (83) remained permanently visible in the night sky, never setting, and
Laughingly, the little prince continues: “[i]t will be as if, in place were thus the perfect metaphor for the king’s eternal destiny—a place
of the stars, I had given you a great number of little bells that knew in the great cosmic order of the universe that would endure forever”
how to laugh…” (83). To infuse the other’s consciousness with such (69). Therefore, the pyramid meant for Khufu “was nothing less than
positive thoughts in the face of one’s own imminent death is seldom a way of uniting heaven and earth for the everlasting well-being of

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the king” (69). The star in The Little Prince also holds a peculiar correct. He still feels the loss of his friend dearly and considers an
meaning for the narrator. It refers to a mysterious and specialised individual fortunate to have found a true friend. However, the manner
connection that the stranded pilot-narrator shall, henceforth, share in which he handles his friend’s death and the resultant loss is truly
with stars in the sky. commendable.
At the end, there is no air of despondency or of melancholy Saint-Exupéry’s personal experiences regarding friendship
as the narrator recounts how the little prince died when bitten by the are remarkably similar to those of the narrator in The Little Prince.
snake: “[t]here was nothing there but a flash of yellow close to his The author writes that “hope of joy” can be found only in “human
ankle. He remained motionless for an instant. He did not cry out. He relations” for: “[i]f I draw up the balance sheet of the hours in my
fell as gently as a tree falls. There was not even any sound, because life that have truly counted, surely I find only those that no wealth
of the sand” (87). After his death, the narrator surmises that the little could have procured me. True riches cannot be bought. One cannot
prince is finally able to return to his planet since he does not “find buy…friendship…of a companion to whom one is bound forever by
his body at daybreak…. [and] [i]t was not such a heavy body” (87). ordeals suffered in common” (Wind 30-31). Thus, to think that death
Painful memories of losing loved ones appear to have seeped into is the end of life would not really be correct. Life and death are but
Saint-Exupéry’s life as also into his writings. It is, therefore, with two sides of the same coin – one beginning where the other ends and
bittersweet nostalgia that the narrator remembers the now-departed vice versa.
little prince: “[a]nd at night I love to listen to the stars. It is like The idea of the modern world rests upon man’s ability to
five hundred million little bells…” (87). And just as the little prince reason and to use logic in order to solve problems. However, in our
wished, the narrator learns to look past his bereavement even though rush to explain things in a clear, concise and transparent manner,
he misses his friend very much. we fail, at times, to realise that certain elemental features of life
In this context, Anne Dodd makes an interesting observation: still remain mysterious. This aspect is evocatively highlighted in
“[d]eath here is not final as far as the narrator is concerned…. Perhaps William Wordsworth’s poem The Prelude, Book One: “There is a
there is a hint here of a life after death, for the little prince does return dark/Invisible Workmanship that reconciles/Discordant elements,
to his planet and his rose; would that not be heaven for him?” [sic] and makes them move/In one society” (lines 340-345). It is this
(774-775). After all, to be home and near his beloved ‘rose’ would ‘Invisible Workmanship’, in addition to reason and rationality, which
indeed be a blessing, like being in heaven, for the little prince. This gives meaning to life. Harold Bloom, in reference to this poem,
was the only way the little prince thought he could reach his planet. rightly observes that “[i]f the human heart, in its common, everyday
To say that the narrator finally gets over his grief would not be condition, will love and trust the phenomenal world, then that world

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will never betray it” (Introduction 4). Thus, acknowledgement, and aspects of life rather than attempting to demystify them every time.
acceptance, of such mysteries could certainly help enhance our In a way, Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince can be regarded as
understanding of life. It can be argued that the preponderance of a clarion call for humankind to reconnect with the ongoing primordial
reason has led to a distrust of things that are beyond the realm of elements of nature that form the continuum of life. Unless we develop
logic, coherence and comprehension. While reflecting upon the task a deeper connection with these primal elements that operate through
of thinking, Martin Heidegger, in his essay “The End of Philosophy the mystery of life, we will remain highly superficial creatures caught
and the Task of Thinking”, borrows Aristotle’s line of thought from in the pragmatics of life. Although being practical is an important
Metaphysics, Book IV (1006 a): “For it is uneducated not to have part of life, yet it should not be allowed to overpower or rationalise
an eye for when it is necessary to look for a proof and when this those elements that enrich human life. A pragmatic approach cannot
is not necessary” (324). In other words, one needs to develop the ever access the kernel of life. The core, therefore, remains connected
discerning eye for knowing when to ask questions and when to trust with the mysterious flow of life and everything in it that we seldom
the cosmic energies working in the universe. For instance, when it focus upon. Commenting on the ebbs and flows of life’s experiences,
comes to nature, it is important to trust the flower and the way in John Harris states: “[f]or all of us, life has its deserts as well as its
which it reveals itself rather than getting caught up in discovering oases; and for most of us, the dry expanses must simply be endured,
its scientific composition. Here, the use of logic and intellect would not necessarily without complaint, only without surrender. The blind,
diminish the experience of appreciating the beauty of the flower in all bare act of faith in something beyond the horizon sustains us” (141-
its splendour. In The Little Prince, when the stranded pilot-narrator 142). However, “[f]or zealots of Saint-Exupéry’s stamp”, Harris
chances upon the little prince in the middle of Sahara, he remarks: writes, “such faith is not enough” as “[t]hey do not endure the ordeal
“[w]hen a mystery is too overpowering, one dare not disobey” (8). but revel in it, and their vision of the beyond resounds with spring
Attempting to rationalise the mysterious appearance of the little water and dances with houris” [sic] (142). Thus, as the book shows,
prince in the middle of the desert, miles away from human habitation, it is imperative that we do not get dissociated from the eternal flux of
would take away from the beauty of the tale. Further, in this context, life since there are bound to be junctures in life where reason and logic
Lama Anagarika Govinda, scholar and teacher of Tibetan Buddhism become insufficient instruments to deal with its vagaries. The Little
writes: “[a] mystery can be experienced and yet remain inexplicable. Prince is a reminder that we tune ourselves with those mysterious
It is not a mystery because it is something hidden and unknowable, elements of life that continue to remain an enigma.
but because it is too great for words” (208). Therefore, one must also
learn to celebrate the mysterious, inexplicable and unpredictable

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Works Cited Forster, E. M. Aspects of the Novel. Harvest Books, 1955.
Aristotle. Martin Heidegger: Basic Writings [from “Being and Gavin, Adrienne E, and Christopher Routledge, editors. “Mystery in
Time” (1927) to “The Task of Thinking” (1964]). By Martin Children’s Literature from the Rational to the Supernatural.”
Heidegger, edited by David Farrell Krell, Routledge, 2012. Mystery in Children’s Literature: From the Rational to the
Ball, Philip. The Elements: A Very Short Introduction. OUP, 2002. Supernatural, Palgrave Publishers Ltd., 2001, pp. 1-13.
Bell, Anthea. “Children’s Books in Translation.” Twentieth-Century Govinda, Lama Anagarika. Creative Meditation and Multi-
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pp. 184-201. Mani, Vettam “PAÑCABHŪTA”. PURĀNIC ENCYCLOPAEDIA:
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Pinsent, Pat. “so great and beautiful that I cannot write them’: School Time.” The Prelude Or Growth of a Poet’s Mind, by
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Children’s Literature: From the Rational to the Supernatural,
edited by Gavin and Routledge, Palgrave Publishers Ltd., About the Author
2001, pp. 14-31. Navjot Khosla is working as an Assistant Professor at the Depart-
Rees, Martin. “We May Have to Wait for Post-Humans to Under- ment of English, Punjabi University, Patiala. Having graduated from
stand Universe, Says Astrophysicist Martin Rees.” The University of Illinois at Chicago, Illinois in the U.S., she went on to
Independent, Independent Digital News and Media, 22 complete her M. Phil. and PhD from the Department of English at
Aug. 2018, www.independent.co.uk/news/science/uni- Punjabi University. Khosla has authored a book, A Song of Freedom:
verse-quantum-string-theory-dark-energy-galaxies-phys- Journeying from Slavery to Love in Maya Angelou’s Poetry (2015).
ics-human-brain-martin-rees-a8494881.html. Accessed 6 Her research interests range from African American literature to chil-
Jan. 2019. dren’s literature, with special focus on Indian children’s literature.
She has also been associated with the 1947 Partition Archive Project.
Saint-Exupéry, Antoine de. The Little Prince. Translated by Katherine
Woods. Mammoth, 1996. (Further quotations are from this
edition and have been cited parenthetically in the text).
---. Wind, Sand and Stars. Translated by Lewis Galantière. Harbrace
Paperbound Library, [1967].
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Taylor, Bloomsbury Arden Shakespeare, an Imprint of
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC, 2017.
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Snake as Toxicological Symbols in Ancient Greece and
Rome.” History of Toxicology and Environmental Health:
Toxicology in Antiquity, edited by Philip Wexler, vol. 2,
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Wilkinson, Toby. The Rise and Fall of Ancient Egypt. Random House,
2010.
Wordsworth, William “Book First - Introduction: Childhood and

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also delve into the questions: how the Libyans learnt to live
without their family members who had been abducted by the
Thematic Threads in Hisham Matar’s In the Country
regime and how the universal experience of suffering under
of Men and The Return torturous dictatorial regimes handicap people physically and
mentally.
Harpreet Kaur
Keywords: Dictatorship, Torture, Suffering, Loyalty, Abduction
Abstract
Freedom is one’s ability to move freely and act independent- Dictatorship is one of the forms of government where only
ly, but a powerful dictator in a country limits this freedom. one person or a very small group has absolute control or power in
He has absolute control over the private and the public sec- state. The term has been derived from the Latin word dictator which
tor of life. The suppression of the voice of artists, poets and in the “Roman Republic” was referred to a person or magistrate who
writers who make people aware of their rights results in the was given absolute powers to deal with the crisis that the country was
life of exile for these people. Consequently, the growth of facing (Britannica). But the dictator in the works under study is the
the person in exile becomes incomplete as he hangs between person who himself has put the country in crisis. Here the reference is
his native land and the country of exile; people face mental being made to Muammar Qaddafi, the dictator of Libya. He had taken
trauma when they recall the memory of their country which power in his hands in 1969 by overthrowing King Idris, but his dic-
always haunts them. They try to come to terms with this trau- tatorship put people only in worse conditions. It took their freedom
ma by writing it down on the pages. Such person uses his to speak and move freely. Qaddafi was not only the first person to
writing for two purposes: to relieve himself from his trau- suppress social and political opinions of the Libyans; the country was
ma and to oppose the state that forced him to spend his life previously occupied by the Phoenicians, the Greeks, the Romans, the
in exile. In this context, the paper will make an attempt to Ottomans, and the Italians. Qaddafi followed the footsteps of the Ital-
prove how Hisham Matar’s novel In the Country of Men and ians and executed people in public. It was for the fear of the state only
memoir The Return: Fathers, Sons and the Land in Between that some people shifted their loyalties towards it. Consequently, they
construct interplay of variety of themes, such as exile and betrayed their friends and family members to save their own lives.
identity, loyalty and betrayal, justice and injustice, innocence But there were some people who remained loyal to their country and
and corruption, and the nature of truth. How Matar amalgam- opposed the state and had spent their lives in the notorious places
ates the fictional and the factual, and the personal and the like El-Agheila and Abu Salim prison. The worse conditions of these
political in his works shall also be under scrutiny. Through places and of Libya under Muammar Qaddafi’s regime has been ef-
the thematic study of both the works, this paper will bring ficiently depicted by Hisham Matar, a British-Libyan writer, in his
out how the dictatorship ruined the childhood and the youth novel In the Country of Men (2006) and in his memoir The Return:
of innocent Suleiman and many other people like him. It will Fathers, Sons and the Land in Between (2016).
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Mario Vargas Llosa writes that themes choose the novelist; he does torture that Najwa faced in her childhood when she was seen with
not choose them. Like “catoblepas” which consumes its own self, a a boy. She was locked in a room and beaten badly. She was even
novelist “scavenges” his life experiences to get the rough ideas for refused education and was married at the age of fourteen. On the
his stories (Letters to a Young Novelist 17). Similarly, Hisham Matar
very first night of her marriage, she felt as if she had been raped
has not chosen those themes deliberately; rather themes emerge from
by a stranger. In the novel, readers are introduced to the feminist
the stories presented in his works. He has used his life experiences as
perspective through Najwa’s character. Although she was punished
material for his novels.
for her actions, yet she tries to resist her marriage by getting drunk
A theme is an idea that usually recurs in a work of literature.
and remaining away from her husband. The condition of women in
Human relationships, love-hatred, hope-disappointment, faith-
Libya was quite different from the whole world. In other progressive
betrayal, suffering, suppression of women, surrender to the regime,
countries like France and America, women became versatile in every
power, memory, incomplete catharsis, exile, human rights violations
profession. But women in Libya faced suppression only. Through
and violence are some of the important themes that are prevalent in
the story of A Thousand and One Nights, different facets of Najwa’s
literature from the ancient to the present times. Many novels and
personality come out, who hates its protagonist Scheherazade. Najwa
memoirs present complex human relationships and sufferings that
considers her a coward for choosing slavery over death. The irony
result from the political and social ambience of a country. Aleksandr
here is that Najwa herself submits to the regime in order to save her
Solzhenitsyn’s One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (1962),
husband. David Dabydeen’s viewpoint is quite accurate here, who in
Nadine Gordimer’s My Son’s Story (1990), Hisham Matar’s In the
the review of the novel says that Najwa’s biography is intertwined
Country of Men (2006), and Anatomy of a Disappearance (2011) and
with the allusions to Scheherazade’s situation under the tyranny of
Nadeem Aslam’s The Blind Man’s Garden (2013) are epitome of such
King Shahryar. This classical tale puts light on the “modern Arab life”
experiences. Memoirs like Wladyslaw Szpilman’s The Pianist (1946),
(Independent). It is not Najwa but her parents who win at the end and
Primo Levi’s Survival in Auschwitz (1947) and Hisham Matar’s The
are successful in their efforts to prove her virgin. She feels betrayed
Return (2016) present the human suffering inflicted upon people by
by her husband when he is arrested by the regime, leaving Najwa
different dictators.
and Suleiman directionless A woman’s fate in a patriarchal society
Dictatorship suppresses the opposition through tortures and
is manifested through the betrayals Najwa has faced. In public life,
by taking away its freedom. It is not only a state that is ruled by a
there is a torture that stems out from the opposition of the Qaddafi’s
dictator but at times some families are also ruled by dictatorial heads
regime. Ustath Rashid is a suitable example, who is taken from his
who make others suffer. The novel is full of incidents where torture
house in front of his family by the members of the Revolutionary
is being inflicted upon the innocent people. First, there is a domestic

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Committee. His wife stands behind like “an invisible string” attached trusted with their parents’ secrets. In Gordimer’s novel, the son has
to her husband (In the Country of Men 186). Ustath is interrogated at kept his father’s secret of having an extramarital affair and in Matar’s
the National Basketball Stadium and people cheer his interrogation novel; the son is trusted with mother’s secret of being an alcoholic.
with the words like “Hang the traitor” (86). He pleads like a guilty Najwa manifests her love for Faraj when she approaches the agents of
child before the committee for mercy but is not successful. Finally, regime to save her husband. She swallows her pride for him. Ustath
he is hanged after a lot of torture and harassment. Faraj’s deteriorated Rashid’s love for Faraj can be seen when Ustath did not reveal his
condition after he is captured by the Revolutionary Committee is name as his accomplice to the men of the Revolutionary Committee.
another example of torture. He could not stand on his own and his Faraj and Ustath’s love for Libya is intense as they try to oppose the
appearance is so bad that Suleiman fails to recognize him. dictatorship by hiding their identity. They also make people aware
The novel presents the life in Libya under Qaddafi’s regime of the regime’s deeds through pamphlets. Najwa loves to be free but
from the perspective of a nine-year old boy Suleiman. Unaware of the her freedom was taken away by her parents and husband. In this way,
political ambience around him, he was entrapped by the agents of the every character in the novel has the feeling of love, either for his
dictator and thus, had to submit to the regime. country or for his family.
Love has various facets in the novel, i.e., children-parents’ Some characters manifest their love for power which is
love, husband-wife’s love, love in friendship, love for one’s country also an important theme in the novel. Suleiman reflects his lust for
and one’s love for freedom in his homeland. Suleiman’s love for his power when he plays “My Land, Your Land” with Kareem and seizes
father Faraj and mother Najwa is pure. He always wanted to protect Kareem’s property (In the Country of Men 106). This incident presents
his parents and was the sole listener of his mother’s problems that the basic level of children’s political knowledge. They try to imitate
she faced before and after marriage. In his father’s absence, only he in their games the ways of state in which it organises the repression
was the responsible person and the head of the house as his mother of citizens. The game also signifies the savage attitude of Qaddafi’s
usually got drunk. He was so devoted to his mother that as a child, regime. Like the “Big Brother” of George Orwell’s novel Nineteen
he could hardly take his eyes off in order to save her from the perils Eighty Four: A Novel, Muammar Qaddafi, the dictator of Libya,
that might approach her any time. Such responsibility of a child can wanted to control every aspect of citizens’ lives (167). He could not
be seen in Nadine Gordimer’s novel My Son’s Story. In this novel, bear his criticism, thus wanted to finish his opponents. Consequently,
Will remains at home with his mother until she gets arrested whereas he created the Revolutionary Committees that abducted the dissidents
his father was busy in his extramarital and political affairs. In both and interrogated them. The dissidents were extremely tortured during
the novels [My Son’s Story and In the Country of Men], the sons are the interrogation and it was telecasted on television as well. This

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happens with Ustath Rashid in the novel. The submission to the regime contributes to the progression
There is no doubt if one loves his family, friends or country, of the novel. In the story, Faraj submits to the regime and his
he is also loyal towards them. To be loyal is quite difficult and Faraj relationship with Najwa takes a new turn and they become a loving
rejected this title by submitting to Qaddafi’s regime. Ustath Rashid, on couple. But after Faraj’s surrender, Sulieman’s life changes. In order
the other hand, was loyal as he does not tell names of his accomplices to save him from the clutches of regime, Suleiman’s parents send
to the men of the Revolutionary Committee. Suleiman is loyal to his him to Cairo. His family submits to the regime in order to save their
father as he rescues his book Democracy Now from burning. He is loyal lives. The state did not leave any difference between the public
to his mother as well and does not tell her secret of being an alcoholic and the private life. It could easily enter in the households and the
to anyone. Loyalty and betrayal are interconnected; it is because of same happens in Suleiman’s household when Faraj’s photograph is
the fear of the dictatorship that characters betray one another in the replaced by a huge photograph of the dictator Muammar Qaddafi,
novel. Ustath Rashid is arrested because someone has betrayed him. who becomes the central figure in the house. Another way of keeping
Faraj betrays Ustath by surrendering to Qaddafi’s regime. Najwa’s an eye on the activities of the natives was through eavesdropping on
act of saving her husband from the clutches of the regime is betrayal phone. Incomplete catharsis is another important theme in the novel.
of the ideas for which Ustath and Nasser had sacrificed their lives. Suleiman’s catharsis for his father’s death is incomplete as he was not
Suleiman betrays his friend Kareem when he tells his secrets to other with him during his last time and for his last rites. His absence during
boys. He is ashamed of his betrayal and does not even go to meet the last rites of his father continues to haunt Suleiman and his life
Kareem as he is leaving the country with his mother after his father of exile has also impacted his psyche. Memory is another important
Ustath Rashid’s death. Suleiman betrays his family as well by telling theme of the novel. Suleiman’s memory and his way of recounting
some important secrets of his father to the man of the Revolutionary the events through the medium of stream of consciousness make
Committee. He thinks that this would help his family but the result the novel memorable. He goes back into his memory to describe the
is chaos. Suleiman is confused by the incidents that are happening important events that happened in his family and the country he was
around him. Towards the end of the novel, Suleiman feels betrayed by living in.
his parents when they send him away to Egypt without providing any The novel deals at length with the violation of human rights.
reason. Throughout the story, his parents avoid telling him the truth People were refused their basic human rights during Qaddafi’s
about the political ambience of Libya and his father’s involvement in regime. The opposition was executed publicly and the dissidents’
it. Betrayal is witnessed throughout the study of the novel either for families were followed by the men of the Revolutionary Committee.
the selfish reasons or for the wellbeing of one’s family. This happens with Suleiman and Najwa. Students were hanged in

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the public for opposing the dictator. People could not talk freely on blindfolding, public executions, handcuffing and censorship on art,
phone and the practice of eavesdropping led to the arrests of many literature, media and judiciary form the discussion on human rights
dissidents. In this way, the regime controlled the lives of Libyan in the memoir. The dissidents were targeted and were abducted from
people. Some of the above mentioned important themes in the novel their houses. The same happened with Hisham Matar’s father Jaballa
bring out the mental and physical torture that characters go through. Matar who was a prominent leader of the opposition. The Egyptian
After discussing the important themes in the novel In the police arrested him to deliver to Qaddafi in 1990. There was no news
Country of Men, now the paper shall make an attempt to discuss from his side except two letters that he managed to send out of the
themes in the memoir The Return. These include: human rights infamous Abu Salim. The savage treatment in the prison caused
violation, disappearance, exile, identity crisis, memory, incomplete physical and mental disabilities to the prisoners. The instances of the
catharsis, search for father, and consolation through art. It is mentioned inhuman practices include the handcuffs with the plastic wire that
earlier that Matar has amalgamated the personal and the political in caused pain in the head and loud speakers in each cell that played
his works and it becomes clearer through the reading of his memoir Qaddafi’s speeches from the morning to the midnight. The captives
The Return. The communication of harrowing experiences into a were tortured physically and mentally for unlimited times. They were
personal narrative is a double torture and Matar has faced this torture even refused medical care and were brutally treated when found with a
by writing about his father’s disappearance in his memoir. He falls book or letter. This happened with Jaballa who fell into a “bottomless
under the category of such persons who grapples with the question abyss” when the regime found about the letters he had sent to his
what a person does when he cannot “leave and cannot return” (The family (The Return 175). The prisoners suffered to this extent that
Return 2). His father’s abduction by Muammar Qaddafi’s regime and they did not get proper food and water. Their suffering does not end
the dictator’s refusal to provide any information of his father’s being here. On 29th June, 1996, a massacre took place in Abu Salim. This
alive made Matar write about dictator’s atrocities in his books. The massacre reminds one of the Holocausts during the Second World
dictator tried to silence him by banning his books in Libya but the War. There was a loud explosion and 1270 prisoners were shot dead
matter gained international attention. The publication of his memoir with pistols and machine guns. The dead were not even provided a
unveiled the misdeeds of the dictator. The memoir represents the respectable funeral. The poets and writers were also not tolerated and
history and politics of Libya as experienced by those who have been had been arrested by the regime. The Italians, during their seizure of
the testimonies to his father’s disappearance and the human rights Libya, hanged people in public and a half century later, Qaddafi did
violation in Libya. the same by hanging the students in public. The memoir is a witness
Disappearances, kidnappings, massacres, arrests, to how the prisoners became unrecognizable for their families when

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they came out of the abyss and extreme suffering. on him. Matar’s growth is incomplete as he was distanced from
Jaballa Matar, Hisham’s father, was an important leader of the his family’s name, home, music and language. The confiscation of
opposition and thus, was abducted. The subject of his disappearance identity and the things of “personal value” was a traumatic thing for
plays a major role in the formation of the memoir. He was kidnapped Matar (The Return 21). Changez of Mohsin Hamid’s The Reluctant
from Egypt in 1990 and it was only through his letters that the family Fundamentalist, who was from Pakistan, also faced the identity crisis
came to know about his abduction. He was kept in the infamous Abu in America, especially after the 9/11 attacks.
Salim that was called “The Last Stop”, a metaphor for a place from A person in exile tries to assert his identity by writing about
where no one had come alive (The Return 10). Unsure about her the atrocities and the experiences he has gone through. He revisits his
husband’s fate, Matar’s mother addressed him as “Absent-Present” memory for this purpose. Writing personal narratives for the author
(39). The dissidents including Jaballa were threat to the regime. as a survivor is a kind of emotional struggle. Geography, history and
Consequently, they were abducted under mysterious circumstances. politics constitute a major part of Matar’s writings. In the memoir, he
Disappearance of the dissidents further lead to the life revisits his memory to tell about his childhood and his parents. He
of exile for their families. The political conditions of Libya were describes his father Jaballa Matar as someone who helped everyone
responsible for Matar’s life of exile. He, along with his family had and was an author as well. Matar recalls the time when his father
spent their exile in the cities like Manhattan, Nairobi, Cairo, Rome, told Ziad and him about the period when Qaddafi had taken control
London and Paris. During these years, he faced identity crisis and of Libya. Further, Matar recalls his father’s abduction and the time
felt that a part of him had stopped developing since the family left afterwards when each friend from the family refused to help them.
Libya. Joseph Brodsky in his essay “The Condition We Call Exile” He looks back on the day of massacre in Abu Salim prison in 1996
talks about “Gastarbeiter” and a writer in exile. The common thing when he could not get out of his bed. He shivered on the thought
between both of them is that they both run towards a better condition that his father might have been among those prisoners who lost their
from the worse (1). Matar also ran away from the political ambience lives in the massacre. Matar used to visit the National Gallery to see
of Libya that had taken his father’s life. The family had left Libya in the paintings. Unintentionally, on the day of massacre he shifted to
1979 and exile changed their whole life. Édouard Manet’s The Execution of Maximilian, a painting of political
Identity crisis that Matar and his family face results from execution. Uncle Mahmoud, even after spending twenty-one years
exile. Matar and his brother developed this sense of crisis when they in the notorious Abu Salim, still has a sharp memory. He tells Matar
joined schools in Europe under false identities. Their father could about the day he was kidnapped and how the dissidents were treated
not travel with his real passport as the regime always had its eyes in the prison. Matar recalls the day when he met Seif el-Islam, son

92 : CHETAS 93 : CHETAS
of the man who had kidnapped his father. That time was torturous an article to help Matar. Matar and Ziad met Qaddafi’s son to know
for Matar but Seif did not tell him anything about his father. Matar about their father’s fate. Instead of helping them, he tried to buy them
successfully describes the time from his memory when he visited off but was not successful. Matar gave interviews to many channels
Libya and had met his uncles and their families. and his campaign to find his father gained international attention but
Although Matar tries to compensate his loss by meeting the results were not fruitful.
his uncles but he suffers from incomplete catharsis. Aristotle writes Matar did not leave any stone unturned to search his father,
that the incidents in a tragedy give birth to the feelings of “pity and but findings were not positive. Then he had turned to art and achieved
fear” (Poetics 8). The catharsis and purification of these emotions the consolation for his father’s death through it. The year he lost his
is necessary to relieve the author and audience from the burden of father, his fascination for the pictures changed. Spending time before
tragedy. Many authors achieve the cathartic effect of the tragedies of the paintings overwhelmed him. He felt himself surrounded by the
their lives by writing them down on the pages in the form of a story or sounds and images of his father’s final moments when he was looking
memoir. Kay Schaffer and Sidonie Smith in their book Human Rights at Titian’s The Martyrdom of Saint Lawrence. He shifted to Édouard
and Narrated Lives: The Ethics of Recognition consider writing of Manet’s painting The Execution of Maximilian on the day of massacre
memoir as author’s effort to gain some audience who helped him to in Abu Salim prison. For Matar, this picture of political execution
unburden himself from his past. Matar relieves himself from his grief evokes the indeterminate fate of his father and other prisoners who
by writing memoir. His catharsis is incomplete as he does not know lost their lives in Abu Salim. He was disheartened about the fact
what actually has happened to his father. But he has found solace in that he was unknowingly guided to this painting on the same day on
writing like his father who created and recited poems at night in Abu which the massacre happened. This had changed his relationship with
Salim. all works of Manet. Titian and Manet’s paintings give insight into
Matar has actually taken the help of writing to search his Matar’s grief and quest for his father.
father and to bring into the notice of international high authorities the The above written study of the themes of Hisham Matar’s
matter of his father’s abduction by the dictator of Libya. To know the novel In the Country of Men and memoir The Return: Fathers, Sons
facts behind his father’s disappearance, Matar started a campaign in and the Land in Between has proved that the dictatorship in Libya
which he appealed various diplomats, poets, writers, journalists, and ruined the childhood and youth of many children like Suleiman. The
human rights activists to help him to find his father’s whereabouts. most important incident of Matar’s life is his father’s abduction and
The Nobel Peace Prize winner Desmond Tutu addressed a statement uncertainty of his fate. So, he has dealt with this incident directly in
to Muammar Qaddafi about Jaballa Matar. Kamila Shamsie wrote his memoir and indirectly in his novel through his persona Suleiman.

94 : CHETAS 95 : CHETAS
The themes that came out of his works clearly highlight what it means tainment/books/reviews/in-the-country-of-men-by-hisham-
to be a human under the savage and torturous rule of the dictator like matar-6095437.html.
“Dictatorship.” Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/topic/dicta-
Muammar Qaddafi. Further, the study of both the works suggests that
torship.
In the Country of Men is an autobiographical novel. Though Matar
“Freedom.” Merriam Webster, https://www.merriam webster.com/
has clearly refused this fact, yet the novel clearly presents some dictionary/freedom#:~:text=freedom%2C%20liberty%2C%20
important aspects of his life through Suleiman’s character and political license%20mean%20the,being%20unduly%20hampered%20
ambience of Libya. There is difference between Suleiman’s grief of or%20frustrated.
his father’s death and Matar’s grief of his father’s disappearance. The “Hisham Matar.” Barnard, https://barnard.edu/profiles/hish-
former knows that his father is no more but the latter does not know am-matar.
whether to count his father among the living or the dead. In Sophocles’ Matar, Hisham. In the Country of Men. Penguin Books, 2006.
---. The Return: Fathers, Sons and the Land in Between. Penguin
Oedipus Rex, Oedipus had found the truth about his father’s death
Books, 2016.
towards the end but Matar fails to get any information regarding his
Orwell, George. Nineteen Eighty Four. William Collins, 2021.
father’s disappearance and death. As compared to Sophocles’ work, “Review of Anatomy of a Disappearance by Hisham Matar.” Water-
there is deferral of closure in Matar’s The Return. Oedipus found the stones, https://www.waterstones.com/book/anatomy-of-a-dis-
closure but it became impossible for Matar. In fact, his The Return is appearance/hisham-matar/9780141027500.
a search for this closure. Consequently, literature has helped Hisham Wimmer, Natasha, trans. Letters to a Young Novelist. By Mario
Matar to give a way to his pent up feelings. Vargas Llosa, Picador, 2002.
Worth, Robert F. “A Libyan Author Writes of Exile and a Van-
ished Father.” The New York Times, https://www.nytimes.
Works Cited com/2011/09/11/books/review/anatomy-of-a-disappearance-
Brodsky, Joseph. “The Condition We Call Exile.” https://www.bisla. by-hisham-matar-book-review.html.
sk/ english/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Joseph-Brodsky-
The-Condition-We-Call-Exile.pdf. About the Author
Butcher, S. H., trans. Poetics. By Aristotle, Gutenberg, 2008, Harpreet Kaur is a research scholar at the Department of English,
https://www.amherst.edu /system/files/media/1812/ Punjabi University, Patiala.
The%252520Poetics%252520of%252520Aristot-
le%25252C%252520by%252520Aristotle.pdf.
Dabydeen, David. “In the Country of Men by Hisham Matar.”
Independent, https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-enter-

96 : CHETAS 97 : CHETAS
the Armenian genocide through a fictional account. The aes-
thetic and literary treatment adheres to history, but exceeds
Some ‘Apples’ for Analysts: Micheline Aharonian it with the aid of imagination. The novelist thus offers some
‘apples’ to the readers who have the courage to immerse
Marcom’s Three Apples Fell from Heaven themselves in Three Apples Fell from Heaven.
Harvir Singh Keywords : Genocide, History, Literary Imagination, Novels.

Micheline Aharonian Marcom, an American citizen, is of Ar-


Abstract menian-Lebanese origin. She was born in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia in
The objective of this paper is to examine the treatment of the
1968. During her childhood she lived in Los Angeles, and now lives
Armenian genocide in Micheline Aharonian Marcom’s novel
in northern California. She has written seven novels, including Three
Three Apples Fell from the Heaven (2001). The Armenian
Apples Fell from Heaven (2001), adjudged the best book of the year
genocide is now viewed as the first genocide of the twentieth
century. It took place from 1915 to 1917, during World War I. by the Washington Post and Los Angeles Times. The prominent sub-
Ottoman Turkey accused the Christian Armenian population jects of her novels are history, genocide and war.
of supporting the enemies who were monolithically identi- Marcom’s Three Apples Fell from Heaven uses imagination
fied Turkey as “Christians”. As a result, around 1.5 million to lay bare the reality of the Armenian genocide. The novel employs
Armenian people were slaughtered by the Ottoman militia. literary imagination as a mode of representation to understand and
The paper focuses on the way the novel under study faces up
represent genocide in a way that depicts its terrifying experiential
to and lays bare in its peculiar way the reality of genocide.
reality in many nuances and dimensions. As Imre Kertesz states in
For this purpose, it relies substantially on the insights giv-
support of this novelistic strategy, “We may form a realistic view of
en by Wallace stevens in his theory of imagination. Steven
argues that imagination is not a counterpoint to reality; he the Holocaust, this incomprehensible and confused reality, with the
rejects the binary polarization of reality and imagination as help of our aesthetic imagination” (“Who Owns” 268).
vulgar, proposing that the two be seen as existing on a contin- The Armenian genocide is seen as the first genocide of the
uum. In fact, imagination is indispensable to grasp the mul- twentieth century. It took place from 1915 to 1917, during World War
tidimensionality of reality. The paper argues that the novel I. Ottoman Turkey accused the Armenian population of supporting
employs literary imagination as a mode of representation to
the Christian enemies (Fisk 393). As a result, around 1.5 million Ar-
understand and represent genocide in a way that depicts the
menian people were killed by the Ottoman militia. Robert Fisk, in
multidimensional reality of the genocide. With the detached
“The First Holocaust,” vividly presents the catastrophic picture. He
sense of an outsider, Marcom unveils the gruesome reality of
writes:
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There were no men of between sixteen and sixty population. The genocide remained unknown for a long time: it is
among them, they had all been massacred on leaving often referred to as “the forgotten genocide,” the “unremembered
their homes, and these the remainder, old men, wom- genocide,” “the hidden-holocaust,” or “the secret genocide” (Bala-
kian, The Burning xvii). Ellie Wiesel considers denying genocide, in
en and children were dying like flies from starvation
particular the Armenian genocide, a “double killing,” because it kills
and disease, having been on the road from their vil-
also the memory of the event (xxiii). Deborah Lipstadt argues, “Deni-
lages to this, the bare desert, with no means of sub-
al of the genocide strives to reshape history in order to demonize the
sistence, for anything from three to six months. (Fisk victims and rehabilitate the perpetrators” (Balakian, Armenian xx).
402) Literary imagination has a significant role to play in rep-
The Syrian desert, where some Turkish Armenian villages were sit- resenting a lived/historical reality so as to deepen and enhance our
uated, thus became “the Auschwitz of the Armenian people” (390). understanding of it in terms of experience. Alan R. White, in Lan-
A witness to the Armenian genocide, Grigoris Balakian tells us how guage of Imagination (1990), remarks that imagination is not only
the event started with killing of reputed leaders and ended with the an articulation of memory but also a discovery. A writer discovers
massacre of ordinary people. He depicts the arrest and deportation those possibilities through imagination which might not be available
of two hundred and fifty Armenian cultural leaders on April 24 with in other narratives. Imagination is an act of concretely bringing out,
such vivid detail and texture that of bodying forth, often through invention, aspects of reality that have
we see how well planned and orchestrated the whole been overlooked or not sufficiently heeded. White says:
scheme was. We also recognize the importance that Imagination is linked to discovery, invention and
the CUP (Committee of Union and Progress Party) originality because it is a thought of the possible
placed on killing off the intellectuals, first in Con- rather than of the actual, of what might or could be
stantinople and then throughout the country (thou- so rather than of what is or must be so, even when
sands of cultural leaders were killed), so as to mute what is possible happens, unknown to the thinker, to
the potential outcry and to silence the voice of the be actual. (186)
culture. (Armenian xv) Employing his imagination, a writer searches for possibilities
Balakian gives a list of prominent names, including Daniel Varou-
that would lead the reader to vividly and tangibly enter other lives
jan, the poet and Krikor Zohrab, the novelist and Ottoman parliament
and events. In terms of Aristotle’s idea of probability and possibility,
member, who were killed by the Ottoman militia. The only objective
a writer, dealing with the brutal reality of genocide, may create a co-
of the Turkish reign of terror was to destroy the Armenian race, while
everything was presented as an attempt to “resettle” the Armenian hesive whole that embodies a poetic truth which is of a higher order

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than a historical truth. Fiction, thus, is more than fact, not less: The The faculty of imagination synthesizes discordant elements into an
poet, as Aristotle says, aims “not only to say what has happened, but organic whole and harmonizes “sameness with difference; the gener-
to say the kind of thing that would happen, i.e., what is possible in ac- al with the concrete; the idea with the image; the individual with the
cordance with probability and necessity” (Aristotle 16). Continuing representative” (Biographia 67). Coleridge’s conception of imagina-
the argument, White further writes: tion goes a long way in indicating the usefulness of imagination for
The imaginative writer not only himself thinks of representing something as unimaginable as a genocide.
possibilities unthought of by his inferior colleagues, Three Apples Fell from Heaven narrates the fate of several
he also by mentioning them, leads us to imagine the Armenians who suffered persecution and extermination at the hands
scene, characters and the events more vividly; to of the Turkish regime during the World War I. The novel covers a
think like him, of these possibilities. The very imagi- period of two years from 1915 to 1917 during which the Armenian
native child not only thinks of and treats the chair as genocide happened. Marcom shows “how past might be reconstituted
a fortress, but fills it, in word and deed, with a wealth by the imagination into a form of elegiac empathy” (Terry). The two
of possible details. (186) epigraphs of the novel “Not to have seen it yet inheriting it” (Myung
Thus, imagination helps the writer to free himself or herself from the Mi Kim) and “At the edge of love, there we stand” (Clarice Lispec-
dull and unproductive cycle of the actual and leads him on the path of tor) suggest that though Marcom has not directly experienced the
new possibilities. White links imagination to discovery, invention and genocide, she re-enacts the event through imagination, yet not slack-
originality because it gives space to the possible and the unknown. ening her grasp on reality. The novel is drawn from the life of her
Imagination often works retrospectively also, in the sense maternal grandmother, a survivor of the Armenian genocide. This is
that it imbues memory with some detail that might not have been an instance of bearing witness but indirectly. As Mane Khachibabyan
there, or removes some detail, or changes it. In this way there is vital writes, “Armenian-American writers showcase, retell and transfer the
link between imagination and memory. Imagination, in other words, history of their nation without seeing it, yet the saved documents and
not only builds; it also transforms. Samuel Taylor Coleridge has ex- eyewitnesses are a firm foundation for depiction” (17).
plained the nature and power of imagination in Biographia Literaria. The title of the novel calls to mind ending of many Armenian
He argues that imagination is the “synthetic” power that “dissolves, folk tales. These tales end with the sentence: “And three Apples fell
diffuses, dissipates, in order to re-create.” He does not consider imag- from Heaven, one for the storyteller, one for the listener, and one for
ination as a mechanical process; rather, distinguishing imagination the eavesdropper” (Morcom 97). In these tales, “the apple is associat-
from fancy, he emphasizes that it is an organic faculty of the mind. ed with love, fertility, and immortality” (Avakian 95). The storyteller,

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the listener and the eavesdropper each deserves an apple because they but also delineates the situation of the writer who takes the risk of
would share the tales with the world that has still not heard them. In confronting the “unremembered genocide” (Balakian, xvii). Hence,
the same vein, the novelist uses the metaphor of an “apple” as the the narrator points out, right at the beginning, that whosoever tried to
reward received by those who are trying to unravel the story of “the reveal the event has been considered a liar. Marcom herself has also
hidden genocide” before those who are still ignorant of it. This is the not been spared. The narrator says:
reason the novelist ends three significant chapters (“Mardiros,” “The Rumor tells stories, this is the story she writes. Don’t
History of Bozmashen as Iterated by the Local Dogs” and “As to believe her. She’s a liar of the first order. A menda-
Where are the Bootmakers and the Town of Kharphert”) in the same cious tatterdemalion. A middle of the night whisper-
manner: “And three Apples fell from Heaven, one for the storyteller, er. She follows you and circle your head like stinging
one for the listener, and one for the eavesdropper” (97, 145,184 re- bees in the late summer. She is disjointed, disorderly,
spectively). Explaining the novelist’s chosen strategy, Elena Lucine malapropos. She begins in the middle, she stops and
LeFevre observes, “Aharonian Marcom manipulates the phrasing and starts; she is a wanderer. (1)
placing of folkloric conventions throughout her narrative. Ultimately, The metaliterary element in the novel works to uncover the
the author employs the terms of traditional Armenian storytelling in historical events in a non-linear mode. The chapters are titled, but
order to tell a non-traditional, subversive set of Armenian stories” not numbered, to emphasize each particularity. Divergent accounts of
(39). Marcom’s is an attempt to give to the genocide a lasting home events by characters belonging to different age groups, genders and
in folk memory. This is part of her personal battle against the suppres- callings, follow; however, genocide is the common thread connect-
sion and erasure of the horrifying events. Janice Dzovinar Okoomian ing them. The novel thus looks like a collection of many thematical-
has aptly captured Marcom’s motivation: “The Armenian Genocide ly connected Armenian folk tales. The phrases “there was and there
raises for us not only the matter of the genocide itself, which was as was not” and “and so, and so on” invoke “the traditional orality and
horrific as genocide always is, but the problem of the ongoing active structure of Armenian storytelling practices” (LeFevre 42). The story
denial by Turkey, and by some of its allies” (n.p). does not remain bound to a single, particular and restricted narrative
Marcom departs from the traditional form of narrative when frame; it uses multiple and heterogeneous but intersecting frames.
she decides to begin Three Apples fell from Heaven with a sentence in These frames become independent entities which break the tradition-
which, the writer and the reader are both present: “She writes it late al model of the beginning, the middle and the end of a conventional
at night, while you are dozing” (1). The omniscient narrator’s voice narrative. Patricia Waugh writes about the function of this device in
goes on to offer not only the horrific accounts of the Armenian people metafiction:

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Contemporary metafiction draws attention to the fact Mamouret-ul-Aziz (Harput), Turkey
that life, as well as novels, is constructed through July 11, 1915
frames, and that it is finally impossible to know Honorable Henry H. Morgenthau,
where one frame ends and another begins. Erving American Ambassador
Goffman in “Frame Analysis” has suggested that Constantinople.
there is no simple dichotomy ‘reality/fiction. (29)
The different frames used by Marcom facilitate action and Sir,
also enhance reader’s involvement. It not only helps to variedly rep- I have the honor to supplement my report of June
resent the events of the genocide, but also illuminates how they are 30th (File No. 840.1) in regard to the expulsion of the
reinterpreted from generation to generation. Armenians from this region, as follows:
The plot of the novel neither begins nor ends with any partic- On July 1st a great many people left and on July 3rd
ular event. On the contrary, the novelist shows the events through two several thousand more started from here…. If it were
types of frame: a) historical b) fictional and imaginative. These two simply a matter of being obliged to leave here to go
frames cannot, however, be dissociated from each other. The former somewhere else it would not be so bad, but everyone
provides authenticity and legitimacy to the latter; the latter adds con- knows it is a case of going to one’s death…. Women
creteness and experiential richness The presence of Leslie Davis (an and children were also killed. Many died, of course,
American diplomat) as a wartime consul to Harput and the Ottoman from sickness and exhaustion on the way and there
Empire from 1914-1917, Henry Morgenthau, an American lawyer, have been here. (82)
(businessman and prominent American ambassador to the Ottoman Wherever Marcom depicts the genocidal events, she prefers
Empire during the genocide) occupies a pivotal position in the nar- giving a deadpan account in the form of reports couched in officia-
rative. The personal letters and official reports they send to America lese; yet she ends the narrative with her fictional characters. This pro-
broaden the scope of the narrative. Eight chapters namely, “Mamo- duces a productive juxtaposition of historical and imaginative char-
uret-ul-Aziz (Harput)” “Turkey” “File no. 820” “Page 3” “Ameri- acters. The coming together of the two modes of narration gives a
can Consulate” “Offical Proclamation” “11 February” and “My Final peculiarly revealing to the imaginatively enriched accounts, which
Report”, contain factual reporting about the genocide as a historical enable the novelist to explore what remains unexplored. No doubt,
event. The novelist corroborates the imaginative account with a testi- historical facts seem to present the definitive view of an event. But
monial exchange between Davis and Henry Morgenthau. She writes an event as terrible as the genocide has to be also lived through the
in one of her dispatches:
106 : CHETAS 107 : CHETAS
imagination. This is where fiction as a mode of truth-telling steps in. I’m melancholic today. A man has his melancholy
Fiction can deeply disclose and dwell on a trauma undergone by a moments.
person or group, whereas history may offer general though essential Lucine is reminded of Miss Robertson, the first
accounts supplemented with fragments of testimonial narrative. As American lady she knew at the missionary-run ele-
Richard Slotkin notes, “The novel imaginatively recovers the inde- mentary school where she studied as a girl. She re-
terminacy of past time; the form allows the writer and the reader to calls the young Miss saying, Good morning, girls,
explore those alternatives, possibilities for belief, action and political today is a glorious day for God’s work. The class
change, unrealized by history, which existed in the past” (221). repeating dutifully and in unison: Good morning,
Furthermore, Henry Morgenthau and Mr. Davis, two charac- Miss Robertson, yes indeed! She never understood
ters from history, do not appear out of the blue. They send reports of this word indeed and she does not know his word:
the atrocities being perpetrated on the Armenian people. The novelist melancholy. She waits, and David laughs. (58)
obviously understands that the overwhelming presence of historical Whenever Davis feels despondent on confronting the killing of inno-
documents may distort and even ruin a literary narrative; consequent- cent people, he chooses to share his grief with Lucy. English is the
language they share; however, they try to understand the situation
ly, she brings in an imaginative character to accompany the histori-
through silence.
cal figures. There is evidently no substantial role for this character
At first sight, such historical references do not subtract from
named Lucy except than her conversation with Mr. Davis brings in
the literary merit and power of the novel. The novelist enhances his-
the reality as imagined. Beyond the rigmarole of historical reports,
torical characters and reports with literary imagination. Thus, fiction-
data and figures, the conversation captures a personal response to the
al and non-fictional accounts become complementary to each other.
genocide. Similarly, the presence of Cavass Garabed forges a link
Marcom presents the geography of the Turkish land, the accounts of
between the historical characters and the plot of the novel. In fact,
the genocide, the brutal killing of the people through the letters writ-
every history-based chapter concludes with the personal reactions of
ten by Davis, the American Consul. Davis feels lonely and wants to
fictional characters. For instance, after sending his report to Henry
call his wife Catherine to the town. Davis’s letters give an account of
Morgenthau, Davis tries to get rid of his melancholic situation by
how Harput, an ancient Turkish town inhabited by Turks, Kurds and
spending some time with his young assistant, Lucy. Marcom writes:
Armenians, during the reign of the Ottoman Empire, fell under Mam-
Davis places his hand on the nape of her neck.
muret-ul-Aziz Vilayet, “The landscape of Asiatic Turkey is often des-
You’re a good girl…
olate, and the road traversing the mountains is steep and narrow and
Lucine counts the rosettes on the white field of
sometimes treacherous” (41).
knoted wool.
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Marcom unravels the range of suffering of the victims are being arrested by the Turkish gendarmes. His mother locks him
through the use of fictional accounts and characters. She thus emo- up in an attic and makes him dress like a woman to conceal his iden-
tionally maps the contours of the Armenian genocide onto the read- tity. A brilliant, creative man’s life thus takes a tragic turn. Sitting in
the attic, he often muses remorsefully, “Dressed like a woman, can
er’s consciousness The reader does not remain a passive witness to
you imagine it? And sitting here in the pitch-black darkness like some
the suffering; rather, he/she is able to empathize with the characters.
mewling schoolgirl” (11). He cannot go out; a crack in the room’s
In this context, Terry observes, “Through the poetic re-imagining of
window allows him to see the outside world. His neighbor, Najarian,
the lives of a few individuals, Marcom suggests the inconceivable is a professor of History and Philology in Euphrates College and is
scale of the estimated two and a half million Armenians killed or living a peaceful life with his family. All of a sudden, Turkish soldiers
deported” (n.p.). It is significant that Orhan Pamuk, in The Naive and come and drag him away for interrogation. Najarian and his friend
the Sentimental Novelist, makes out a case for reading novels as “sec- Mussig Agha are later released. They are out of the group of detained
ond lives.” For him, fiction is a mode of reality: intellectuals and prominent leaders arrested in March. Late nights be-
come unbearable for all the inhabitants of the town the day after the
Novels are second lives. Like the dreams that the
professor is released. Najarian has lost his mind under the pressure
French poet Gerard de Nerval speaks of, novels re-
of interrogation and wanders naked in the streets. Sargis looks at him
veal the colors and complexities of our lives and are
through the window, “I saw him; I always heard his screeching cries
full of people, faces, and objects we feel we recog- as he ran through the dark night yelling at the top of his lungs. Mairig
nize. Just as in dreams, when we read novels we are said the neighbors listened in the fear but did nothing as the Professor
sometimes so powerfully struck by the extraordinary ran naked up and down the street” (15). His daughters and wife run
nature of the things we encounter that we forget after him carrying a big coverlet. However, the scene keeps repeat-
where we are and envision ourselves in the midst of ing for eleven days. The sight frightens Sargis, and he cannot sleep.
Finally, Sargis’s mother comes with the news that the Professor has
the imaginary events and people we are witnessing.
died. Everyone is thankful that the suffering man has been released
At such times, we feel that the fictional world we en-
from the excruciating pain and that peace will prevail in the streets.
counter and enjoy is more real than the real world it-
However, this peace now becomes unbearable for Sargis. Trapped in
self. That these second lives can appear more real to the void of silence, he too goes insane.
us than reality often means that we substitute novels for When adolescent Turkish boys start spitting on Armenian
reality, or at least that we confuse them with real life. (3) women, Sargis is forced to think what compels a person to become
Terzian Sargis, another character in the novel, wishes to be a writer
a fanatic. He wonders how “those nine and ten-year-olds believed
but his life takes a turn in an entirely different direction when he no-
wholeheartedly in their ideas?” (46). How does a monomaniac pre-
tices that Armenian teachers, doctors, businessmen, priests and others
110 : CHETAS 111 : CHETAS
occupation with an ideology make a man blind so that he starts killing Give praise to your excrement,
fellow human beings? He recalls the old peaceful days when he was Madden droppings ─
trying to learn a new language, English. However, the memories of They open wide their mouths to me.
the horrific wailing of professor Najarian force him back to the unre- Ala! Ala! They say
solved questions about human nature. He ponders on his likely fate: We shall rescue you.
It has been seventeen weeks, three days, five hours, Praise the doo! (169)
and a certain amount of minutes and seconds and Gradually, Sargis loses the ability to read and write. Words do not
seconds and measures smaller than seconds. I’ve make any sense to him; rather, meaningless signs keep crowding his
mind. The attic appears to him as an infinite hole from where he feels
lived here in this attic where the heat melts the hairs
he can never go out. Loneliness starts haunting him and he keeps
off my arms, and constant perspiration on my skin
lying on the floor like a corpse. “I’m stuck here, in this lonely place,
has brought on mutiny of red-pus sores. I am like a
with these black marks. Is there any man lonelier than me, Sargis,
dog, like the bitches who live behind the hamam who writer of the Caca poems?” (169) He starts losing his mind as the
burn to nothing and who die but still go again and horrific last moments of professor Najarian come back to harrow him.
again to the hamam in search of comfort. My death He begins talking to himself, “Professor Najarian, you saw the dark
will be like a dog’s, like a hamam-dog’s dying day in in your last tortured days, you showed me the horrible truth; you un-
the heat of the ashes. (137) covered the lunatic place with your nakedness, its Chaos and Hate.”
(171) He puts his index finger into his nostrils and then sucks the
Overwhelmed by grief, Sargis begins writing verses in which
mucus. He dresses like a girl for months and begins forgetting his
he tries to see his plight face to face. This is his only hope.
gender identity. He remembers his childhood Turkish friend, Hakan
Praise the doo!
and addresses him in his absence, “A man-woman in an attic writing
You deliver the weak a letter to his lover who never was his lover. We stood there together
From their hoary pit. at the edge of love – Turk and Armenian. For centuries. We stood by
But as for me, when I was sick that terrible, black place. Hakan, my dear, are you killing? Are you
I wore a woman’s dress, being killed?” (211). Marcom does not make it clear whether Sargis
I afflicted myself with books. dies or lives, though there is a hint. He says, “I sign this letter fitfully
in the darkness Goodbye, darling…Insallah” (213), which suggests
And looked on the glee,
that Sargis probably drew his last breath in his tiny dark attic. Sargis
They gathered against me;
does not appear again in the novel except once when his voice is
How long will you look on?
heard in a letter written by him. This kind of ending suggests that

112 : CHETAS 113 : CHETAS


the novelist is extending the meaning of death. Sargis’s death cannot of the terrible situation of Armenian women who suffer doubly. On
be limited to his last breath. His letter is captioned: “I HAVE SEEN the one hand, the Turkish gendarmes hurl abuses at them, “Armenian
GOD IN THE FACES OF MEN.” He complains that God is violent infidel whores, you’ll soon feel the glory of our nation between your
as obviously seen in the faces of people. Alone in the claustrophobic
legs” (110). On the other hand, these women are deprived of food
attic, he screams repeatedly, “Fuck you, cur.” Turkish soldiers come
and shelter in the absence of any male breadwinner. Moreover, Mar-
to his house, suspecting that there is a male person inside the house.
com does not offer a romantic picture of the pre-genocidal period,
Marcom “reports”:
but looks at it critically. When Anaguil recalls her childhood, certain
When the soldiers pushed the trapdoor to the attic
bizarre incidents come to her mind. She realizes that life of a woman
open? I sing Fuck you cur! Was there any poetry
is in itself a curse. Marcom traces her journey to sexual maturity and
then? Were his agonies a word or vibration, a change
the pressure of patriarchal norms restricting her freedom:
of garment, were they language at all? they pull his
Anaguil remembers how hard it was to lose free-
arms behind his back, they beat him around the head
doms; every year as she got older more things were
and shoulders, blood spills from his ears like water
taken away, until finally eleven descended with her
from a cupped rose, what is Reason? He asks them.
menses and she could never again climb the trees and
And what is Love? And what is Life.
make ugly faces at her brothers. Her brothers played
And to die is different from what anyone supposed.
on without her: in the garden, in the attic, and in the
(243, Italics in Original)
The words in italics reveal the brutality of life and death with equal cellar. Boys’ games for boys only. Anaguil learned to
force. Sargis’s corpse also discloses his suffering during the period he embroider, and to spin wool in the winter, to make
was locked in the attic. Sargis is not just a dead Armenian; his death baklava and to bring her baba his slippers and empty
raises fundamental questions about the human nature and about the his ashtrays. (133)
conflict between cultures as also about the significance of life against There is another Turkish character, Martisa, but her situation is also
the flight of time. not in any way different from the Armenian women’s. She is thirteen
Anaguil, a fourteen-year old girl, is another important char- years old when her parents arrange her wedding with a thirty-five
acter in the novel. Her father, Hagop Demirdjian, is arrested by the years old man, named Mustafa, who looks the age of her father. She is
Turkish gendarmes. Out of shock, Yughaper, her mother falls ill and obliged to do domestic chores and the early years of marriage pass as
she gives birth to children. Taking care of them, cooking meals for the
is bedridden. She is desperate to see her husband. In order to meet
family and fulfilling Mustafa’s desires is her only destiny. Marcom
him, mother and daughter go to the town jail where a crowd of Arme-
suggests that common fate awaits most women, irrespective of the
nian women is already waiting. Anaguil emerges as a representative
114 : CHETAS 115 : CHETAS
differences of community, race or culture. Whether a woman is Turk- who wishes to express himself through writing, finds himself unable
ish or Kurdish or Armenian, her social status is the same. And then a to make sense of language, “I have lost the ability to read. It’s as
gruesome event like the genocide takes its toll. The Armenian women if the words no longer make sense in my mind, no longer take me
have to flee the country, and in their long and arduous journeys many
with them to the places that they travel. They’re signs without mean-
die while others survive. Without food, water and shelter, obliged to
ing, black slashes and crosses and curled up slants” (169). Marcom
spend nights under the open sky. Young girls are often beaten and
thus tries to include both the objective and the subjective view of the
raped by Turkish soldiers. Anaguil tries to change her identity by
changing her name. Marcom considers it as a subtle form of violence genocide by examining the possibilities and limitations of language
when a woman has to live under a new name. The wound remains in the face of extreme dehumanization.
unhealed all her life, as in Anaguil’s case. Though she chooses a new With the detached sense of an outsider, Micheline Aharoni-
identity, yet whenever she is addressed by her new name she feels her an Marcom unveils the gruesome reality of the Armenian genocide
wound is bleeding again. She says, “I look and look for the girl I was through a fictional account. The aesthetic and literary treatment ad-
and I can no longer find her. I cannot bear her name.” (256) She has
heres to history, but exceeds it with the aid of imagination. The nov-
become a stranger to herself. The memory of who she was torments
elist thus offers some ‘apples’ to the readers who have the courage to
her the more for this reason.
immerse themselves in Three Apples Fell from Heaven.
The question of language is an important aspect of the novel.
Taylor Davis-Van Atta considers Marcom’s novels to be an experi-
Works Cited
ment. About her books, Marcom says in one of the interviews, “They
Akcam, Taner. Akcam: Talat Pasha Has Been Avenged. The Arme-
are seeking often to make space for the unsaid and the silences of
nian Weekly. 8 February 2012.
language and history” (Marcom, “A Conversation”). This becomes
Aristotle. Poetics. Edited by, Amlan Das Gupta. Pearson Longman,
possible through the use of imagination and the extensive use of the
2007.
historical reports and witness statements in the novel. It is to be not-
Avakian Anne M. “Three Apples Fell from Heaven.” Folklore, 1987,
ed that while the novel gives voice to the silences of history, it also
Vol. 98, No. 1 (1987), pp. 95-98. JSTOR, www.jstor.com/sta-
acknowledges the limitations of the language. There are many in-
ble/1259405.
stances where language fails the victims. Anaguil expresses the pain
Balakian, Peter. The Burning Tigris: The Armenian Genocide and
of this silence in these words: “There are days I cannot speak. Each
America’s Response. Harper
word is a weight, and there are pounds of flesh, the heft of diction. I
Perennial, 2003.
say good morning and I am wearied. Good morning pulled from the
Balakian, Grigoris. Armenian Golgotha: A Memoir of the Armenian
body, from my mouth, like opaque stones” (237). Similarly, Sargis,

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Translated by Peter Balakian and Aris Sevag.Vintage Books, 2009. theos, 27 Apr. 2015, https://www.patheos.com/blogs/monkey-
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. Biographia Literaria. Okitoks Press, 2017. mind/2015/04/three-apples-fell-from-heaven-a-meditation-
Fisk, Robert. The Great War for Civilization: The Conquest of the on-the-centenary-of-the-armenian-genocide.html
Middle East. Harper Perennial, 2006. Pamuk, Orhan. The Naïve and The Sentimental Novelist. Translated
Kertész, Imre. “Who Owns Auschwitz?” The Yale Journal of Criti- by Dibkas Nazim, Penguin Books, 2009.
cism. Vol.14, no. 1, Spring 2001, Pp. 267-272. www.muse.jhu. Sandra Dijkstra “A middle-aged survivor of Turkey’s Armenian.”
edu/article/36875/pdf https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-57322-264-8.
Khachibabyan, Mane. “Non-Verbal Communication and Cues in Ar- 04/19/2004.
menian-American Literary Discourse.” American University Slotkin, Richard. “Fiction for the Purpose of History”. Rethinking
of Armenia, 2016. https://baec.aua.am/files/2017/09/Mane_ History, Vol. 9, No. 2/3. June/September 2005, Pp. 221-236.
Khachibabyan_Nonverbal-Communication-and-Cues-in-Ar- Terry. “Eavesdropping on history: Micheline Aharonian Marcom.”
Vertigo,September 13,2013.
menian-American-Literary-Discourse_Presentation.pdf
Waugh, Patricia. Metafiction: the Theory and Practice of Self-Con-
LeFevre, Elena Lucine. Speaking the Unspeakable: Armenian Wom-
scious Fiction. Routledge New York and London, 1984.
en’s Fiction After Genocide. 2018. Senior Projects Spring
White, Alan R. The Language of Imagination. Basil Blackwell, Ox-
https://digitalcommons.bard.edu/senproj_s2018/332. ford and Cambridge, 1990.
Marcom Ahronian Micheline. Three Apples Fell from Heaven. River-
head Books, 2001. About the Author
---. “A Conversation with Marcom Ahronian Micheline.” In- Harvir Singh, is doing his PhD at the Department of English, Punjabi
terview by Taylor Davis-Van Atta. Music & Literature, University, Patiala. His research topic is titled as “Armenian and Ger-
man Genocides in the Literary Imagination:A Critical Study of Selected
21 Aug. 2012, https://www.musicandliterature.org/ex-
Fiction.”
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an-marcom
---. The Day Dreaming Boy. Riverhead Books, April 2014.
Morrison, Toni. Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary
Imagination. First Vintage Books Edition, 1992.
Okoomian, Janice Dzovinar. “Three Apples Fell From Heaven: A

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He opines that Jacques Lacan’s return to Sigmund Freud
marks a paradigm shift in the domain of psychoanalysis. It is note-
Allen Ginsberg’s Poetry: A Zizekian Psychoanalysis worthy that Lacan had revisited the writings of Freud to comprehend
the workings of the unconscious through an analysis of the structure
Deepinder Kaur
and functioning of language. So he tried to introduce the study of
Abstract:
The present paper aims to understand the psychoanalytic language into psychoanalytic theory. Zizek in How to Read Lacan
framework of Slavoj Zizek. Further, it will investigate how (2006) has asserted that “the unconscious is structured as language”
linguistic dimension of Lacanian psychoanalysis and Lacan’s (2). One of the main themes of Zizek’s project has been the problem
model of subjectivity helps Zizek to study the cultural crit- of subjectivity. What Lacan offers Zizek is the model of subjectivity
icism and political theory. Finally, Zizek’s ideas will be ap- in which primary organising force is desire. For Lacan desire is what
plied on Ginsberg’s poetry to see the practical implications of links the subject to an object. The medium of this is language, it is
his theory. Here Zizek’s ideas are pertinent, since they theo-
through language that the subject captures the object in a network of
rize human life, its nature and culture. Thus Zizekian insights
meanings. This linguistic intervention allows Zizek to study the pop-
help in the comprehension of psychoanalytic aspects of Gins-
berg’s poems. This revisiting of Ginsberg’s poetry through ular culture and politics through the lens of psychoanalytic approach.
Zizekian framework will unravel the efficacy and versatility Out of the triad of ‘the real’, ‘the symbolic’ and ‘the imagi-
of Zizek’s concepts as it will help elucidate plethora of issues nary’, for Lacan language is of the symbolic order and it is this sym-
and concerns that Ginsberg is dealing with. bolic order vis- à-vis language that shapes our subjectivity and aids
Keywords: Lacanian Psychoanalysis, Popular Culture, Politics, in providing meaning to the world around us. Lacan opined the real is
Jouissance, Ideology inexpressible since we cannot make sense of the real without it being
mediated through the symbolic order of language.
Discussing Slavoj Zizek’s idea on psychoanalysis we can say Zizek uses such insights from Lacanian psychoanalysis to expatriate
he is one of the prominent exponents of Lacanian Psychoanalysis16 upon current events in the domains of art, politics and culture. He
also explains how people navigate through this fast-paced world and
16 Lacanian Psychoanalysis – Lacan introduced the innovative method
of reading Freud under the light of structuralism which was some- the manner in which ideology helps people to cope- up with reality.
times accompanied by Hegelian, Marxian or Heideggerian twists. He
Thus, Zizek has re-established the relevance of psychoanalytic criti-
saw it essential to “return to Freud”. He advise to all the psychoanal-
ysists that “we can do no better than to return to Freud’s work” (2006, cism for comprehending the complex networks of events in the era of
228). This return to Freud was a linguistic return. He started to read
Global Capitalism. This is explained by Mathew Sharpe in Zizek and
between the lines and restructured the edifice Freud had built in a
unique way in order to make it fit his own understanding.
120 : CHETAS 121 : CHETAS
Politics, (2010): positions emerge out of his personal endeavours. Here Zizek’s ideas
Zizek revived psychoanalytic criticism by making are pertinent, since they theorize human life, its nature and culture.
it more political, more philosophical and ultimately Zizekian insights will be of immense help in the comprehension of
more popular: and he achieved all this by shifting the psychoanalytic aspects of Ginsberg’s poems.
emphasis from analysis of imaginary and symbolic
representations to an engagement with that which re- Zizek’s understanding of political framework is based on his
sists representation: the real. (12) Lacanian reading of psychoanalysis. He asserts, prior political philos-
Therefore, Zizek’s combining psychoanalysis with Marxism helped ophy has placed too little emphasis, on communities’ cultural practic-
to make Lacan more palatable to contemporary critical issues by es that involve what he calls “inherent transgression”. These are prac-
demonstrating how it offers less an account of the individual than of tices sanctioned by a culture that nevertheless allow subjects some
society. Jouissance17 is an important concept in Lacanian Psychoanal- experience of what is usually exceptional to or prohibited in their
ysis. Zizek elaborates upon this idea to comprehend the functioning everyday lives as civilized political subjects—things like sex, death,
of ideology vis-à-vis the people affected by it. He goes on to redefine defecation, drugs or violence. Such experiences involve what Žižek
the theories of subjectivity and ideology to deploy them for his grand calls jouissance, term he takes from Lacanian psychoanalysis. Jouis-
project of political emancipation. Notably, such psychoanalytic un- sance is usually translated from the French as “enjoyment.” As opposed
derstanding of language, subjectivity and Jouissance will be applied to what we talk of in English as “pleasure”, though, jouissance is an
on Ginsberg’s poetry further in this paper. always sexualized, always transgressive enjoyment, at the limits of
what subjects can experience or talk about in public. Žižek argues
Ginsberg transmutes his personal experiences to be used as
that subjects’ experiences of the events and practices wherein their
the subject matter for his poems. These first hand experiences provide
political culture organizes its specific relations to jouissance (in first
authenticity to his poems, widen his mental horizon, since the com-
world nations, for example, specific sports, types of alcohol or drugs,
music, festivals, films) are as close as they will get to knowing the
17 According to Lacan there is a Jouissance beyond “pleasure principle”
that compels transgress prohibitions imposed on enjoyment. Thus, deeper truth intimated for them by their regime’s master signifiers:
transgressing pleasure principle is not morepleasure but pain. There
“nation”, “God”, “our way of life,” and so forth.
is certain amount of pleasure that a subject can bear beyond that it is
pain and that ‘painful principle’ is called Jouissance. Zizek tends to Zizek explains that political orientation of subject is deter-
alternate between ‘jouissance’ and ‘enjoyment’ but the connotations
mined by the master signifiers like freedom and democracy. These
of the French word should still be understood even if it is translated in
English. signifiers align subjects with a particular ideology. A change in them

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can lead to the altering of the political orientation of subjects of par- the working of ideology and then politics. This will help analyse the
ticular political community. Thus, ideology is an important category political angle in the poetry of Allen Ginsberg. Which means the po-
in Zizek’s political theories. But he does not subscribe to traditional litical scenario of 1950’s in his poems.
Marxist understanding of ideology as ‘false consciousness’. Sharpe Zizek is also a famous cultural critic and theorist. He has
explains this fact in his work Zizek and Politics: made Lacan indispensable to cultural studies just like Juliet Mitchell
As a Marxist thinker, Zizek approaches human con- and Jacqueline Rose who a decade earlier made Lacan’s idea import-
dition with the concept of ‘ideology.’ He has not ant for a rigorous understanding of feminist theory. Zizek is able to
used this in the sense of ‘false consciousness’ that explain sundry manifestations of cultural phenomena with his un-
derstanding of Lacan. He himself has explained that his blending of
supposedly distorts the truth of material conditions.
Hegelian Marxism, with Lacanian Psychoanalysis provides a critical
The Zizekian use of ideology stresses that ideology
perspective for cultural matters which makes aesthetic an important
is always a spectral support to human life and there is part of the schema. Beat generation, for instance, affected popular
nothing like post-ideological human existence. Here, culture by combining literature, lifestyle, music and the freedom of
reality is not contrasted with illusion, whether illu- the press Thus, popular culture transformed through the radical views
sion is perceived as a necessary support to reality. and bold approach of the Beats. Zizek’s cultural theory will help in
(12) understanding the influence on popular culture by the beat generation
Though Zizek argues that a shift in master signifiers can lead to a shift and Ginsberg’s poems.

in the ideology which can further lead to a shift in political orienta- Zizekian insights helps to study the poems of Irwin Allen

tion, he asserts that there is sometimes an inertia that does not allow Ginsberg. Ginsberg belonged to the ‘Beat Generation’, which was

a subject to change its ideology even if subject is disenchanted with a literary, social, and political movement that flourished in US after

adopted ideology. Even if he changes it, it will not become a part of the World War II. Its objectives were liberation of sex, rejection of

his political inertia of inaction. According to Zizek this is because of materialism and experimenting with drugs. John Clellon Holmes in

jouissance or enjoyment. his article “This is the Beat” states:


More than mere weariness, it implies the feeling of
So Zizek’s claim to have theorized ‘enjoyment as a political
having been used, of being raw. It involves a sort of
factor’ is not just a claim to have noticed something interesting about
nakedness of mind, and, ultimately of soul; a feel-
political ideologies. It is claim about how the most basic element in
ing of being reduced to the bedrock of consciousness
human nature affects political communities. It is this psychoanalyt-
In short it means being ungrammatically pushed up
ic understanding of the subject that shapes Zizek’s understanding of
against the wall of oneself. (New York Times, 1952).
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We can better understand the above discussed ideas of Zizek by ed not by fantasmic representations but by directly
taking few instances from Ginsberg’s poems and applying Zizeki- attacking our neuronal pleasure centers. It is in this
an frame work on it.Ginsberg’s first notable poem “Howl” discusses precise sense that drugs involve the suspension of
drugs and the associated hallucinations: symbolic castration, whose most elementary mean-
Peyote solidities of hall, backyard green tree cem- ing is precisely that “jouissance is accessible only
etery dawns, Wine drunkenness over the rooftops, through the medium of… symbolic representation.
storefront boroughs of teahead joyride neon blinking This brutal Real of jouissance is the obverse of in-
traffic light, sun and moon and tree vibrations in the finite plasticity of imagining, no longer constrained
roaring winter dusks of Brooklyn, ashcan ratings and the by rules of reality. (190)
kind king light of mind. (13) Since drug reduces the feeling of alienation felt earlier by the subject,
In the above-mentioned poem, poet has named the places visited in removing the feeling of lack and the person feels complete and expe-
connection with the consumption of drugs. Beat poets used to be high riences a sensation as if floating in the air. The demoralizing feeling
on drugs almost everywhere whether it is a street, a cemetery or a of ‘castrated subject of desire’ is momentarily removed from the con-
rooftop. Peyote mentioned in the above lines was a hallucinogenic sciousness of the drugged person and he is possessed by the feeling
drug, originally used in Native American religious rituals. Its con- as if he is a ‘de – subjectivised body of desire’. Thus, Ginsberg’s
sumption produced strange visions and hallucinations which the Beat personal experiences the Zizekian jouissance.
Generation poets explained as a spiritual state. Even Ginsberg once This feeling of being ecstatic was further lengthened by the
said that consumption of drugs enhanced his concentration. Zizek poet’s persona by using LSD, marijuana, benzedrine, mescaline,
analyses such experiences, calling them a state of Jouissance (enjoy- philocybin, morphins, nitrous oxide, ether and laughing gas. In fact,
ment). This concept of enjoyment is explained by Zizek as playing a Ginsberg wrote a number of poems in drugged state that Zizek in
key role in thinking about the subject and his relation to society and Parallax View (2006) explained as the subject’s entry in an “autistic
ideology. Thus, Zizek’s explanation is particularly suited to our com- masturbatory and ‘asocial’ jouissance” (311). He even explained that
prehension of drug addiction and consumption. He elaborates upon it is this state of mind in which the real manifests itself at the level of
the concept in Parallax View (2006). He says: individual subject.
What drugs promise is a purely autistic jouissance, Ginsberg in his poem ‘America’ discusses the life of Ameri-
a jouissance accessible without a detour through the can individuals. He writes: “when can I go into the supermarket and
Other (of the symbolic order) – jouissance generat- buy what I need with my good looks?” (15) .The phrase “good looks”

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used here underlines racial austerecism and apartheid between the bodies the truth of the failure of our society to constitute itself as a
American whites and blacks. Ginsberg criticizes the former as he complete. Zizek enjoins people to come together in the solidarity of
was the spokesperson of the latter. It also reveals his sensitivity and a common struggle and writes in The Ticklish Subject (1999) “[when
comprehensive sympathy towards the other. The American dream en- we] discover that the deadlock which hampers [us] is also the dead-
visaged that any American can succeed and gain a good job through lock which hampers other” (220).
hard work and risk, irrespective of the colour of his skin. Ginsberg re- Ginsberg, a little further in the poem America says, “America
pudiates racism that exists in America. The dream had begun to turn I am the Scottsboro boys.” The incident alluded to carried feelings of
awry as opportunities and jobs were much more easily available for deep antipathy in the minds of American blacks, since it reminded
the whites than blacks. Zizek explains that, in reality, racism always them of a terrible event that took place in Scottsboro. Nine black boys
existed and the subject of racism is a fantasy figure as it merely en- were subjected to coercion and harassment since they were indicted
visions that such a harmonious society is possible because in reality, of dishonouring (raping) white women. The boys were not listened
according to Zizek, the society is always already divided. The fantasy to and they received scant sympathy because the whites believed that
racist figure merely attempts to cover up the impossibility of a whole those dark-skinned boys could indulge in such horrendous acts. Much
society or an organic symbolic order that is self-sufficient. Zizek ex- later it came to light that there was no truth in the story and the boys
plains these ideas in Tarrying With the Negative (1993). He says: were prosecuted because of their coloured skin. It is in Tarrying With
What is the cause for our hatred of him, for our ha- the Negative that Zizek explained the phenomena of racism. He said:
tred of him in his very being? It is hatred of the en- “To the racist, the ‘other’ is either a workaholic stealing our jobs or an
joyment in the other. This would be the most general idler living on our labour, and it is quite amusing to notice the haste
formula of the modern racism we are witnessing to- with which one passes from reproaching the other with a refusal to
day: a hatred of the particular way the other enjoys... work to reproaching him for the theft of work” (109).
(109) Herein Zizek finds political correctness problematic. He con-
Zizek also elaborates upon the concept of racist fantasy. First type siders it inadequate since it is not helping in diminishing inequality
of racist fantasy revolves around the fear that the other desires our and racism. He advocates a number of methods to fight racism. First,
enjoyment and he want to loot us of the specific of our fantasy. The we must not try not to intrude on the fantasy space of other individ-
second racist fantasy that Zizek explains is that the ethnic ‘other’ has uals whenever possible. Second Zizek proposes that we continue to
entry in same strange jouissance that we are having. Thus, by trans- use the state as a buffer against the fantasies of civil society. Third he
versing the fantasy, we come to know that the figure of racism em- talks about the practice of traversing or going through the fantasy, to

128 : CHETAS 129 : CHETAS


show that, on the other side of fantasy, there is nothing here. Work Cited
Ginsberg in the poem “Howl” also says: “Who balled in the
morning in the evenings in rose gardens and the grass of public parks Ginsberg, Allen. Howl, Kaddish and Other Poems. Penguin Books
and cemeteries scattering their semen freely to whomever come who Limited, 1961.
may go” (38). Thus, Ginsberg asserts that printed text (his poem Holmes, John Clellon. “This is the Beat”. New York Times, 16 Nov.
‘Howl’) will not permit his country to deny what everybody knew 1952.
was natural. We humans are divers in our desires. Even Zizek asserts Merrill, Thomas F. Allen Ginsberg. Twayne Publishers, 1969.
that he agrees with everyone that all talk about toilets, sado- mas- Parker, Ian. Slavoj Zizek: A Critical Introduction. Pluto P, 2004.
ochism and erections is utterly obscene, nevertheless, it is incumbent Sharpe, Matthew, and Geoff Boucher. Zizek and Politics. Edinburgh
upon us to theorize all aspects of life . These lines exhibit that poet University Press, 2010.
is at odds with prevailing American norms. Such outpourings were Zizek, Slavoj. The Sublime Object of Ideology. Nauayana,1989.
considered inappropriate and he was accused of dealing with titles in ---. Tarrying With the Negative. Duke U P, 1993.
obscene. Zizek talks about obscene which is influenced by psycho- ---. The Plague of Fantasis. Verso, 1997.
analytic theory of Jaques Lacan. Lacan says tension arises because ---. The Ticklish Subject. Verso, 1999.
the moral ideals are often different from practical actions taken by ---. The Parallax View. MIT P, 2006.
government. Lacan thinks that contradictions arise when they place ---.How to Read Lacan. Granta Books. 2006.
demands upon us, abetted to the Freudian id. Such tensions lead to
repressed urges that are considered by society as taboo. Zizek says About the Author
for every moral behaviour in the society or any law there exists an Deepinder Kaur is pursuing her PhD from the Department of English,
Punjabi University, Patiala. Her doctoral research revolves around
offence or transgression in the society that is deemed immoral. This
the exploration of “Poetry of Allen Ginsberg: A Zizekian Study” as
suggests that Beats didn’t want to keep it hidden but rather howl it out
the central theme of her thesis.
in the world i.e. to articulate at the top of their voice. By effacing the
line between Id and superego Zizek implies in the darkest desire.

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Heer’s Peerless Beauty: A Translation from
What fitting praise can the poet possibly sing for Heer,
Waris Shah’s Heer On her youthful forehead gleams the splendour of the moon.
And the luminous moon, surrounded by the night skies of her tresses,
Sakoon Singh
Flaming, like the scarlet of the red wine.
A Note on Translated Passage She prances around with her friends,
These verses (59-60) from Heer Waris Shah describe Heer’s Flapping about, like the wings of a swallow.
beauty. The description, which is for the most part, about her Delicate eyes, innocent like the fawn’s,
physical traits- her eyes, cheeks, breasts, teeth, nose, fore- And on her cheeks, full roses quiver.
head, eyebrows etc at, borders on the mildly erotic. This is Her eyebrows, arched like the vaults of city Lahore,
further characterised by leaps of imagination used to draw
Is there, really, an end to her beauty?
several oblique comparisons. The extensive description of
Dark kohl gleams in the rims of her eyes and gliding off the edges,
physical beauty is skilfully conjoined with the political and
architectural space of Medieval Punjab that was fraught with Rising, like the battalions of Punjab taking on Hind.
battles and unrest. The use of hyperbole accentuated by fan- She walks with abandon,
tastic metaphors and similies, is reminiscent of Metaphysical swaying on sides, like the aristocrat’s unhinged elephant.
poets like Donne and Marvel. This passage attests to the po- Those who wish to catch a glimpse of her,
et’s highly sophisticated idiom, underlining why this qissa Must brace themselves for the sight.
is accorded a place in the pantheon of World Literature. It On her exquisite face, fine expressions glide,
being a commemorative year of Waris Shah (1722-99), this
Like flourishes of calligraphy in a master’s book.
is a nudge for readers to engage more comprehensively with
A glimpse of her is to witness the celestial Lailatul Qadar*, the night
his sterling poetry, whether through music (renderings by, in-
ter alia, Pathanay Khan, Abida Parveen, Ghulam Ali, Gurdas of revelation,
Maan, Madan Gopal Singh ) translation, performance or pri- It indeed, is a noble deed.
vate/community readings.
Keywords: Waris Shah, Heer, Translation. Red, luscious lips, like crimson rubies
Chin, like apple, from far off lands
Pearly whites of her teeth,

132 : CHETAS 133 : CHETAS


Whose turn is it today?
Waris Shah, the one who comes with beseeching eyes, falls down in
Set like rows of smooth pomegranate beads. this game of dice.
Nose, aquiline, like the sharp edge of a heritage sword,
Tresses, like serpents guarding treasures. About the Author
Neck slender like a crane’s, fingers tapering like bean pods, Sakoon Singh teaches Indian Writing and Cultural Studies in Chan-
digarh. Her research interests include Translation Studies, Sufi liter-
hands are smooth like budding leaves of Chinar.
ature and Indian Writing. In the Land of the Lovers (Rupa 2020) is
Her lips stained with twigs slay many,
her debut novel.
The men then go combing through the bazaar, looking for the noto-
rious murderer.
Her arms, like buttery dough,
her fair chest like marble, peeping from under the Ganges.
She’s the fairy Queen’s sister, she stands out in thousands
She dallies with her friends, the conceited one,
and runs amuck, like an impish fawn.
She seems sculpted to perfection, having stolen the beams from the
moon.
She ambles in and out, slaying many,
And then flies away, like the crane, that dithers out of the line
Separating from her flying companions.
Is she a Princess from Lanka or one from the court of Indra,
A fairy emerging out of moonlight?
Love oozes out of her every pore,
Like a raga from vibrating strings of an instrument.
She walks with a renewed zest, Like advancing bands from Kandhar.
The suitors who come like moths, crash at the sword’s razor edge
And dressed to the nines, this undertaker saunters through the bazaar,

134 : CHETAS 135 : CHETAS


to fragrance, light and
soul.
Sukhvinder Amrit’s Poems in Translation
Salvation
Harpreet Kathuria

I have yet to discover


Flower, flame and flesh
If I am
submerged
There dies a worm
in your eyes
imprisoned in the warm scent
or
of the flower
crumbled in your hands
and burns there though I perceive
a moth a strange sense
that throws itself of liberation
into the flames of light from
the self.
so I spend myself
in your embrace Mirage
o dear
to dissolve thus the banks dried away
with your soul lingering
pining
flower, flame and flesh
for an even ardent
isn’t the destiny
thirst of lips
but journey oh!
that brings and the streams wore
me to you, after perennial wait
their sandy shrouds

136 : CHETAS 137 : CHETAS


often on those
deserts now Famished
an amorous mirage
haunts I might have had
the travellers. troubled a tear
deep down
Dust or
stolen some warmth
Love
from your trance
is free
from the entrails
forgive me
of ceremonies
my friend
nor does it seek
I may have
a grammar
blanched your life
of
relationships
………………….

Look here
oh Lord!
I have come
let there be
shaking the dust
of impious bonds
none so famished

with my pious soul


none so thirsty
as this soul in me.
sans rituals
sans intrusions

oh, my beloved!

138 : CHETAS 139 : CHETAS


Oyster he cut the thread, therefore

To embrace I tumbled down


the pearl midway through the azure
of your drop to his grasp
I became
an oyster he is happy
now
I too was to find me
once safe
an expanse in his arms.
spread across
the horizons afar. Kiss of Light

Flight this is the ray of the sun


the kiss of light
he was it will not die
troubled with your windy breath
to see me nor with your fiery shots
fly
this is the shaft of
so high the sun
it will become rubble in
and tasted danger the eyes of dark fears
in letting and it will butcher
his paper kite the darkest of the nights
touch the sky

140 : CHETAS 141 : CHETAS


ask dark fears I strove against petty scheming
that they forget their vain desire which rocked me to my grave
to kill the light against those that would butcher
and warn those fiery guns my smiles
to stop shooting the rays and laugh at my tears
this is the ray of the sun I gushed
the kiss of light on the ambers which
and it will never die. took my piece of earth
from me
You too can I trampled helplessness
which drew in whispers
I too was once to my ear
a slave the vagaries of death
of those moments
when suicide my courage challenged death
seemed the only solution and he fled
I lived thereon
but I rose my heart breathed
against my fears I frolicked

and a cowardly stance as I walked


the shackles in my feet melted
tore down those walls vulnerability shook away
that encased my soul hard walls dampened
smashed the boundaries ambers went cold
that restricted the flow of my dreams and sprung
from the sterile soils

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waters of life like a flaming tree –
the nectars for me as Gautama
and for my poetry in a trance

I did not commit suicide the thought of Gautama


stirred the Sujata in me
I did not commit suicide
I vied with death founts of
you too can choose love
as I did of tenderness
between life and death and mercy
whenever it is hard on you sprung within me
when you think randomly
that death redresses all wrongs I rose
and life is a mere play. pining for him
and walked towards
the solitary wilderness
where he sat
That night

That night I the daughter of


a milk man
I saw him I do not know
in a dream the wares of wisdom
meditation
in the recesses light
of loneliness and
he had shone salvation

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the Vedas whose leaves were as soft
scriptures as the leaves of the shrub
and growing in the veranda
philosophy and its shade
are as unfamiliar to me was the shade of
the Gaya tree.
I just filled
a bowl with milk About the Author
and placed that in obeisance Harpreet Kathuria is serving as Assistant. Professor in the Department
before him, the suffering of English, Govt. College for Girls, Patiala. Her poetry has appeared in
Gautama South Asian Ensemble and various other platforms

oh! he seemed to me
a baby longing for his mother
a heated desert
a lover sick in separation

but the moment


he touched his lips
to the bowl
there sprouted
from his burning body
soft petals of green
and he became
a green fulsome tree

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He Wants.
Alison Moore (abbreviated as AM)
Alison Moore in an Online Conversation Sukhpal Sharma (abbreviated as SS)

Sukhpal Sharma
SS: You wrote The Lighthouse after the demise of your mother in
1995. In this novel, characters Futh and Ester both remember their
An English novelist and short story writer Alison Moore (hereafter
mothers. Is there any impact of your personal life on this writing?
AM) was born in 1971 at Manchester, England. Presently, Moore
AM: Not intentionally, but I certainly did begin writing more after
lives with her husband Dan and her son Arthur in a village named
my mum died – writing is no doubt a way for me to process and
Wymesworld which is situated on the border of Leicestershire-
handle things. It was only after the publication of The Lighthouse and
Nottinghamshire in England. She, so far, has written five novels and
my collection The Pre-War House and Other Stories that I realised
one book of short stories, which are published by Salt Publications.
the extent to which my work deals with absent mother figures.
Her novels are The Lighthouse (2012), He Wants (2014), Death and
SS: Do your surroundings affect your writing? Are your settings,
the Seaside (2016), Missing (2018) and Sunny and the Ghosts (2018).
characters and situations affected by your immediate surroundings or
Her short story collection is titled The Pre-War and Other Stories
by British milieu?
(2013). Her first novel won McKitterick Prize of 2013 and was
AM. The landscape of the Midlands (the broad area in which I grew
shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2012, the National Book Awards
up and live now) does appear in my writing, and I’m equally inspired
2012, the Sydney J. Bounds Award 2013, the East Midlands Book
by travelling, e.g. The Lighthouse was greatly influenced by a circular
Award 2013 and the Athens Prize for Literature 2014. Moore’s short
Rhineland walk I’d done, and key elements of my third novel Death
story collection was shortlisted for East Midlands Book Award 2014
and the Seaside were inspired by a seaside town I happened to be
and the title story had won the New Writer Novella Prize 2009. He
visiting.
Wants was the Observer book of the year 2014. In Moore’s writings,
SS. How would you describe your writing process?
past has a significant role. Her characters wander in their past events.
AM: I only start writing when I have certain ideas/characters/themes/
Not surprisingly, in her novels and stories, there are a number of
situations I want to explore, and I don’t know the full story when I
themes such as isolation, grief, loneliness and disconnection. Moore
begin. I write fairly chronologically but I edit a lot as I go along, so
delves into these aspects in very well-knit structures.
I go back to the beginning quite a lot to comb through again as I get
This conversation was collected during the research work
to know the story.
which has been done with her two novels titled The Lighthouse and

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SS: Is writing deliberate or spontaneous for you? roles of protagonists’ wives not elaborated in these writings?
AM: A mixture of the two – I’m aware of trying to build something, AM: Only because in these novels the protagonists are male, and
and making conscious decisions, but at the same time I’m very much they’re male because of the nature of the stories: in The Lighthouse,
‘in the zone’, trying to follow the story, discovering it by writing it. I’m exploring a fairly Freudian son to mother obsession, and He
SS: Do you think someone could be a writer if he/she does not Wants explores a man’s homosexual desire – so they both had to be
respond to emotions? male and the story is largely about them. In my most recent novel,
AM: Writers generally need to be open to the world, observant, Missing, the protagonist is female, and the figure of her husband is
responsive, but there’s a balance between responding emotionally to minor.
the world and being able to process and translate that into fiction. SS: Are your characters real or imaginary?
SS: What kind of research did you carry out before writing the novels AM: They are imaginary – I never deliberately write about real
The Lighthouse and He Wants? people – but my fictional characters will have traits or occupations
AM: I did the circular Rhineland walk that Futh does, but not as I’m familiar with or have observed, e.g. the rather quiet, private male
research – at that point I hadn’t conceived of The Lighthouse. I did figure in both of these novels.
keep a diary though, which was very helpful in writing the novel. SS: In the concluding lines of He Wants “They speed down the long,
After writing the first draft, I made a further journey by ferry, paying dark country lane with their headlights on full beam and it makes
close attention to the details of the ferry and the crossing. He Wants Lewis think of flying, of what flying might be like, and of how you
has a fictional setting, but the nursing home element draws on a would be fine, you would be safe, up there in the air.” Do you not
period in my life – before and during my time at university – when I feel that it is a kind of compromise of Lewis’ with his life, because in
worked in a nursing home. the entire novel he wants so many things that he was not able to get.
SS: Do you see writing as a kind of spiritual practice or some kind of What do you think of these lines? Should we compromise with our
a solace to a bruised heart? lives and make do with what we have and continue our life as it is?
AM: I am aware that writing is something that helps me mentally AM: I think Lewis had to make choices, and we all do. It’s important
and emotionally. I also think it’s just the way my brain is wired; it’s to me that he does not regret his choice as such: he had a good
to do with the way I see and translate the world and is just something marriage, a good companion; it’s more that there was an alternative
I need to do. possible life and he wonders about that, and wonders if he can still
SS: In The Lighthouse Futh remembers his wife who left him and make that choice now. These lines echo an earlier line: ‘You’re safest
in He Wants Lewis remembers his wife Edie who died. Why are the of all in the air,’ which is followed by, ‘although at some point you

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would have to come down.’ At the end of the novel, I can leave Lewis It’s all creative and it’s all writing.
having got, to some extent, what he wanted, but, beyond the novel, SS: In He Wants why did you choose a topic of homosexuality?
he would have to make a decision about the life he wants, or Sydney AM: The themes and stories suggest themselves to me – I don’t feel
might not want what Lewis wants. We do have to make choices and that I choose them as such. I never really know where these ideas
compromises in life. come from, only that something has struck me that I would like to
SS: Why are your characters emotionally weak, always need explore. With He Wants, homosexuality was a way of exploring the
sympathy, and always in search of something? Where do your idea of the path not taken.
characters get inspiration from? SS: In the recent years there is on-going debate regarding the
AM: Futh was emotionally damaged in childhood by his mother objectification of women’s writings. Where the works of women
rejecting and abandoning him, but although the way a reader sees writers are often claimed to be confessional, what are your views
a character is always true in its own way, I personally don’t see over this debate?
my characters in general as being emotionally weak. Lewis was AM: I’m aware of a number of women writers who have been
becoming aware of his homosexual feelings for Sydney at a time pressured to rework their novels in order that they can be marketed as
when homosexuality was illegal in Britain, a criminal act, and many ‘women’s writing’, which I think is terribly damaging. I see no need
homosexual men hid their homosexuality, even from themselves. for such a category. Being with an independent publisher, I’m free to
These two characters might be considered lonely figures but they’re write what I like and not feel shoehorned into such a corner. It has
not seeking sympathy. The fact that they are seeking something is been said that women often write about the domestic sphere, and that
an essential element in storytelling – the classic quest, the journey is true of me, because the area of relationship dynamics interests me,
into the woods to find what has been lost or taken. And read your whether I’m writing ‘literary fiction’ or horror, so again, I feel free to
secondary question about inspiration, I would say that I do like writing write what interests me. I think that freedom is key.
about a fairly quiet, steady character into whose life comes what I SS: According to you what is the connection between frustration,
call a disrupter, someone who is going to shake things up, press their desire and past?
buttons: in The Lighthouse it’s Ester, in He Wants it’s Sydney. AM: In The Lighthouse and He Wants, and Missing too, the
SS: What do you think about creative writing? protagonist experiences a loss either in childhood or during the
AM: I wouldn’t really try to define it – people write creatively in so transition from childhood to adulthood. They are in a sense trying
many different ways. I enjoy shaping stories, but plenty of writers to recover that loss, but rather than the classic quest, I’m interested
enjoy describing e.g. the view from the window, just capturing that. in situations in which what (who) has been lost perhaps cannot be

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recovered: Futh seeks substitute mother figures, Lewis wants to undo
time and explore the option that was on the table when he was young, A Report on the 5-Day International Capacity Build-
and Jessie (in Missing) is seeking a lost child, but none of them can ing Program on Poetry, Pedagogy, and Profession
truly reclaim what has been lost to the past: people leave; time passes.
Organized by Rajiv Gandhi National University of
In Missing, I use imagery comparing this loss with ejection from the
Garden of Eden, and being unable to get back in.
Law, Punjab: August 20-25, 2022

Navleen Multani
About the Author Public Relations and Department of English, Rajiv Gandhi
Sukhpal Sharma is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in the Department of
National University of Law, Punjab (RGNUL), Punjab in collabo-
English at Punjabi University, Patiala. His research focuses on diverse
ration with Mary Immaculate College (MIC), University of Limer-
areas such as fiction, science fiction, music, folklore, and philosophy.
With an M.Phil. in English, his dissertation titled “Memory and ick, Ireland, Intercultural Poetry and Performance Library (IPPL),
Desire Loop: Analyzing Alison Moore’s The Lighthouse and He Kolkata, State Bank of India, Patiala and Manipal University, Jaipur
Wants” reflects his academic expertise and interests. organised 5-day International Capacity Building Program (CBP) on
“Poetry, Pedagogy and Profession: Understanding Rhyme and Rea-
son across Cultures” from 20th - 25th August, 2022. This unique pro-
gram was organized with the objective to promote reading, writing
and teaching of poetry. The 5-day program advanced National Educa-
tion Policy (NEP) 2020 mandate regarding building of competencies.
Mr Sudeep Sen, an internationally acclaimed poet and contemporary
voice of Indian Poetry, was Chief Guest for the inaugural session.
Prof. G.S. Bajpai, Vice-Chancellor, RGNUL welcomed the
guests. Citing Dylan Thomas, Prof. Bajpai remarked, “A good poem
is a contribution to reality. It helps to change the shape of universe.”
While addressing academicians, researchers, students and profession-
als, he observed that poetry immensely maximized talent and critical
abilities. Voicing concern regarding artificial intelligence and impact
of new technologies, Prof. Bajpai said that the knack of interpreting

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poetry and understanding complex issues can fortify competencies. knowledge and truth. Poetry accesses the realm of repressed emo-
Mr. Sudeep Sen read poems from his books, Anthropocene: tions, unconscious desires and prejudices,” observed Prof. Brien.
Climate Change, Contagion and Consolation and Fractals (2021). In Elucidating the conceptualizations of Martin Heidegger, Jacques
a conversation with Dr Navleen Multani, Assistant Professor in En- Derrida, Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, Prof. Eugene O’ Brien
glish and Public Relation Officer, RGNUL and Dr Jhilam Chattaraj, said, “Poetry deconstructs binaries, allows interaction of rational/ir-
Assistant Professor, RBVRR Women’s College Hyderabad, poet rational and makes space for philosophy.” Prof. Brien focused on the
Sudeep Sen spoke about creative process, artistic defamiliarization poetry of Seamus Heaney. Prof. Sanjukta Dasgupta deliberated on
and language usage in poetry. Sen also referred to his recently edit- poetry as a learning experience. Dr. Anjana Neira Dev, Dr. Navleen
ed anthology Converse (2022) and contemplated on Indian writings. Multani and Dr. Basudhara Roy responded to the presentations.
While responding to question regarding challenges in writing poems Dr Jaydeep Sarangi expanded on new poets in Indian English
on social and cultural issues, Mr Sudeep Sen alluded to poet’s sub- poetry. Dr Nishi Pulugurtha delved into poetry and activism. She also
tle blurring of semiotic boundaries that explore promises, perils and raised a concern for dementia and recited her poems on this issue. Dr
create an alternative discourse. He also delved into the kind of poetry Nabanita Sengupta responded to the presentations on the second day
prominently figuring on Facebook in the present times. of the program. Dr Anjana Neira Dev elaborated on the geometry of
Prof Eugene O’ Brien, Director, Mary Immaculate Insti- poetry. Prof Desmond read a few of his compositions on folklore and
tute of Irish Studies; Prof. Sanjukta Dasgupta, Convenor, Advisory alluded to poetry as identity. Distinguished Poet, Dinesh Devghariya,
Board, Sahitya Akademi, New Delhi; Dr Anjana Neira Dev, Gargi presented poems on freedom fighters and epics during the RGNUL
College, Delhi and Dr Basudhara Roy, Karim City College, Jamshed- and SBI Poetry session on the third day. RGNUL students, faculty
pur; Dr Jaydeep Sarangi, Vice-President IPPL; Dr Nishi Pulugurtha, members and members of teaching staff presented self-composed po-
Secretary, IPPL; Dr Nabanita Sengupta, University of Calcutta; Prof ems.
Desmond L Kharmawphlang, NEHU, Shillong; Dr Manju, CU; Dr Dr Sunaina Jain delineated pathway of holistic growth
Sunaina Jain, MCM Chandigarh; Prof Prasannanshu, NLU Delhi, through reading and understanding of poetry. Poetry workshop was
Prof Pramod Kumar, IGNOU and Prof Bootheina Majoul, University conducted by Prof Prasannanshu. Multilingual poetry session in col-
of Carthage were resource persons for the technical sessions. laboration with P3 group was also held on the fourth day of the pro-
Prof. Eugene O’ Brien delivered a discourse on “Poetic gram.
Thinking: Towards an Understanding of Language of the Uncon- Prof Parmod Kumar dwelled on poetry as world literature.
scious” during the first technical session. “Poetic thinking is all about Prof Majoul talked about the paramount importance of poetry in the

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digital era. Prof Eugene O’ Brien made observations on bog bod-
ies and The Northern Irish Troubles with reference to the poetry of
Seamus Heaney. Dr S Chitra, Assistant Professor, Sherubtse College,
Royal University of Bhutan, presented concluding remarks during
the last session of the event. She eulogised the significant academic
endeavour of RGNUL to promote study of poetry for the holistic de-
velopment of teachers and learners.
Prof. Anand Pawar, Registrar, RGNUL, faculty members,
research scholars, research associates, students and academicians
from various institutes, India and abroad, were also present during
the deliberations. Dr Navleen Multani, Coordinator, extended a vote
of thanks.
A total of 60 participants from Adamas University; Hansraj
College, University of Delhi; Hislop College Nagpur; B.N.P.G.Col-
lege, Udaipur; Panjab University, Chandigarh; Delhi University;
MCM DAV College for Women, Chandigarh; IASE, Pune, Maha-
rashtra; Department of English, University of Delhi; Sri Sathya Sai
Institute of Higher Learning; National Law University, Delhi; Govt.
Degree College for Women, Pulwama ; Symbiosis Law School, Pune;
Xavier Business School Sxuk, Kolkata; IGNOU; Sherubtse College,
Bhutan; St. Stephens’ College, DU and RGNUL, Punjab attended the
5 day program.

About the Author


Navleen Multani is the Head of the School of Languages and Director
of the Public Relations Cell at Jagat Guru Nanak Dev Punjab State
Open University, Patiala. Additionally, she holds the position of Area
Editor at Oxford Online Bibliographies.

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