Assignment paper :- 13 new literature

Feminist study of Dan brown novel " The Da Vinci code" 

Name :- Hitixa Goswami 

Class :- M. A. Sem 4

Roll No :- 9

Beach :- 2019-21 

Enrollment No :- 2069108420200013

Subject :- The new literature 

Assignment Topic :- feministic study of " The Da Vinci code" 

Email :- hitixagoswami28@gamil 

Submitted to :- S.B.GARDI Department of English Bhavnagar University 

Word :- 1997

Feminist study of Dan brown novel " The Da Vinci code" 

Introduction :- The Da Vinci Code is a 2003 mystery thriller novel by Dan Brown. It follows "symbologist" Robert Langdon and cryptologist Sophie Neveu after a murder in the Louvre Museum in Paris causes them to become involved in a battle between the Priory of Sion and Opus Dei over the possibility of Jesus Christ having been a companion to Mary Magdalene.

                   Public memory plays a vital role to construct, Deconstruct and reconstruct the memory. The needs and interests of a particular community dictate narrative frameworks that structure memory-making into the collective memories that define that community, such as the Church. Exposing how representations of historical women like Magdalene are constructed and maintained in public memory offers a rich site of inquiry. Furthermore, drawing on Michel Foucault's (1969) theories about the power/knowledge relationship, powerful people created the memory of Magdalene as a prostitute. Magdalene as an historical and biblical figure has captured the imagination of people throughout history, from New Testament Gospels and Gnostic sources to Christian storytellers, medieval legends, and popular culture.

            Dan Brown’s intention is to celebrate the sacred feminine, which is lost in the course of time. From the very beginning of the novel he tried to remain faithful to his intention by saying that,

And finally, in a novel drawing so heavily on the sacred feminine, I would be remiss if I did not mention the two extraordinary women who have touched my life. First, my mother, Connie Brown—fellow scribe, nurturer, musician, and role model. And my wife, Blythe—art historian, I painter, front-line editor, and without a doubt the most astonishingly talented woman I have ever known.

                  In the novels, Dan Brown challenges the Christian ideas of feminine, by favoring the pagan ideas. Before the Christianity, people believed in paganism. Pagan religion believed in both gender, it emphasized equality of both gender and sometimes revered feminine leadership and divinity too. Followers of pagan religion believed in worshiping Goddesses. But as Christianity took over, as a part of the Vatican’s campaign to eradicate pagan religions and convert the masses to Christianity, the church launched a smear campaign against the pagan gods and goddesses, recasting their divine symbols as evil. This unfair and perverse treatment of divinity is strikingly similar to the way that the Church also removed any instance of female power or divinity in the predominantly male faith.

                    The central argument in Brown's plot is the claim that Jesus and Magdalene were married. Pregnant at the Crucifixion, Magdalene later escaped to France, known then as Gaul, in order to bear his child. Thus, Mary Magdalene is Holy Grail because she carried the royal bloodline. According to Brown's thesis, the Catholic Church has spent the last 2,000 years trying to cover up these facts in order to diminish the role of women in the early Church "the lost sacred feminine" and to deny that the bloodline still exists in France today. Brown tried to prove that Jesus was Divine as well as human being. Brown also obliterates one of the most prominent images of Magdalene in public memory, that of the repentant whore. As one character says in the 2006 movie version of the novel, "What if the world discovers that the greatest story ever told is actually a lie?"  

                 Brown paints the new and pure image of Mary Magdalene. That generates debate and discussion among the readers. However the book is labeled as ‘Fiction’ but he included real characters and events. it raised the question about history itself, as Brown himself said : “How historically accurate is history itself?”

              Dan Brown has challenged the Christian ideas of feminism by fevering Pagan ideas. Before Christianity there was the existence of ‘Paganism’. Followers of paganism believed in equality thus they worshiped both God and Goddesses. Sometimes they revered feminine leadership too. Therefore Brown attempted to restore that ‘Sacred Feminism’ in his novel. Dan Brown gave the example to prove feminine leadership;

            Dan Brown to show feminine sacredness, comes with evidence that Mary Magdalene was married to Jesus and she was the favorite disciple of Jesus, Brown quotes from the Gospel of Phillip,

“……and the companion of the savior is Mary Magdalene. Christ loved her more than all the disciples and used to kiss her often on her mouth. The rest of the disciples were offended by it and expressed disapproval. They said him, ‘why do you love her more that all of us?”’

                  Here, he shows that Jesus was more closer to Mary Magdalene and he wanted her to be the leader of Church, but as follower started feeling that if women will be on power position they will lose their power and dignity, and to protect their own power and dignity, they started blaming women that women are impure and lower to man. They worship God but refuse to worship the goddesses.

                  So until now women have been seen as pure, divine and sacred but as Christianity came into existence, it challenged the sacredness of feminine. Before it, women have been praised as being able to give birth to new life with the Christianity, idea of sacredness questioned and they started believing it’s not woman but man who is divine and able to create new life. Now women are treated as second or lower to man, her ability to create new life is not considered as something divine but as something impure and unclean.

                   In the novel Dan Brown celebrates the sacred feminine. His main intention of the novel is to bring the lost sacredness of feminine back. And for that he shows Mary Magdalene in a positive way, he proves that Mary was one of the pure disciples of Jesus. She was married to Jesus and then they traveled to France. They had their girl child Sarah too.

                    In the movie “The Da Vinci Code”, when Sir Leigh Teabing and Robert Langdon were talking about history of the paganism and the mysteries about the Holy Grail, Robert Langdon speaks these lines during the talk: “Sex begot new life – the ultimate miracle and miracles could be performed by a God. Those women who were thinking freely and having some intelligence in comparison to males it was hardly impossible to explain the truth. Religious people have killed many women in this wrong belief because they were not ready to give rights to speak to women and they marginalized them. Voice of women became mute or unknowingly unheard to religiosity.

                    The Neo Pagan groups have referred to the feminine sacredness as well as female worship in their religion. In the new literature we can say that there are debates regarding feministic reading of the text and a narrowed way of looking at the new literature. Here Dan Brown focuses on feminine sacredness and also gives hints about the past wars about Paganism and Christianity. Generally religion, science, super power or super naturalism of humans has many issues and it can be presented with the help of fictional or imaginational characters. Thus Dan Brown indirectly has emphasized on the present days issues regarding religion and position of females and its importance in the society.

                   Brown is trying to prove that Mary Magdalene was the favorite of all the disciples. What Brown is trying to prove is obviously very profound, and his use of ancient texts makes his argument very convincing. There are other things that he says about Mary Magdalene, “the Priory of Scion, to this day, still worships Mary Magdalene as the Goddess, the Holy Grail, The Rose and the Divine Mother ''. Brown also writes that Mary Magdalene traveled to France after Jesus Christ’s resurrection and bore his child, Sarah.   

               Christianity spreads rumors that Mary Magdalene was a prostitute. But Brown proves that Mary was not a prostitute; her family was very healthy so there was no need to be a prostitute for her. InThe Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown commonly attributes Mary Magdalene to be a symbol of the lost goddess tradition before Christianity took over. Although Brown never refutes the history of Mary Magdalene as a disciple of Jesus, making her a devotee to the faith, he merely suggests that the way that the Church spread horrible rumors about Mary Magdalene and removing texts from the Bible that portrayed her in a favorable light is interestingly similar to how the Church eradicated the Pagan tradition which incorporated both genders into its worship and emphasized the equality of both and sometimes revered feminine leadership and divinity. Because of this analogy, Brown ties the two ideas together, suggesting that Mary Magdalene was intended to be the founder of Jesus’ church instead of Peter, placing the Church as a potentially female-led institution, much like ancient Paganism.

               To undermine the appeal to Mary of Magdala as a warrant for women’s leadership. So it is clear to see that Mary Magdalene’s role was deliberately downplayed and cast in a negative light for the purpose of eradicating any female leadership in the male Christian Church. Since the find at Nag Hammadi, the Gnostic Gospels have revealed that Mary Magdalene was intended to be the leader of the Christian movement, and suddenly people are faced with “one tradition where Peter plays a role of tremendous significance and Mary is on the margins, while in another tradition, Mary is the significant figure and Peter is the suspect”. It is the tradition that emphasizes Peter also known as orthodox Christianity, which people are most accustomed today. It is unfortunate that Mary Magdalene’s reputation suffered so greatly over so many centuries. Although having Mary Magdalene as a part of fictional and non-fictional literature is not relatively new. 

                      Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code most certainly shows how Mary Magdalene’s role in the Bible was deliberately downplayed and cast in a negative light by limiting the mention of her name in the Biblical Canon as opposed to the exclusivity that she plays in the Gnostic Gospels. Brown also uses the written history of Mary Magdalene to represent the feminine leadership that was lost after Christianity took over the masses by showing how the Gnostic and Coptic texts hold Mary Magdalene in a high regard compared to the orthodox texts. Mary Magdalene has not been completely exonerated of the accusations that she has weathered throughout the ages, though on a large scale, many people have set the rumor to rest in their hearts and minds, and have accepted Mary Magdalene as “apostle to the apostles. 

Conclusion :- Feministic reading of the text “The Da Vinci Code””, that Mary Magdalene and Sophie Neveau are the real feministic heroes. We know that we have a need to relate to the feminine, to be nourished by her inner and outer presence. Without the feminine nothing new can be born. We all need to reclaim the living power and trans formative potential of the feminine, to feel her connection to the soul and the earth. Only through working together with the feminine can we heal and transform the world. And this means to honor her presence within our bodies and our soul, in the ground we walk on and the air we breathe.

 Work cited 

A.Reyes, Crysti. "Mary Magdalene and The Da Vinci Code: How Brown interprets feminine Leadership in Religion." (n.d.).

Giannini, John. "The Sacred Secret: The Real Mystery in The Da Vinci Code." Jung Journal: Culture & Psych 2 (2008): 63-84 .

Kennedy, Tammie M. "Mary Magdalene and the Politics of Public Memory: Interrogating "The Da Vinci Code"." Feminist Formations 24 (n.d.): 120-139.

Brown, Dan. The Da Vinci Code: A Novel. New York: Doubleday, 2003. Print.

Brown, Dan, 1964-. The Da Vinci Code : a Novel. New York :Random House Audio, 2003

                             Thank you… 

Thinking Activity on Things fall Apart

 Hello readers!

                                  Here I am going to wrote about Things fall apart is written by Chinua Achebe. This blog is my academic work. This was given by Heenaba zala Ma'am from Department of English Bhavnagar University. Here some questions given by medam and I wrote there answer. So let's see.

Q :- 1 what is Historical context of Things Fall Apart?

Ans:- Things Fall Apart is set in the 1890s and portrays the clash between Nigeria’s white colonial government and the traditional culture of the indigenous Igbo people. Achebe’s novel shatters the stereotypical European portraits of native Africans. He is careful to portray the complex, advanced social institutions and artistic traditions of Igbo culture prior to its contact with Europeans. Yet he is just as careful not to stereotype the Europeans; he offers varying depictions of the white man, such as the mostly benevolent Mr. Brown, the zealous Reverend Smith, and the ruthlessly calculating District Commissioner.

The  historical and cultural context of the publication of Things Fall Apart (1958) by Chinua Achebe. Before the release of this work by Achebe, the vast majority of literary writings on Africa and its inhabitants were produced by Western writers who offered a distorted view of the black continent and of its inhabitants. In response to this misrepresentation of Africa and Africans in colonial novels, Chinua Achebe and other African writers stood out as the voice of a self-centered narrative of Africa and its inhabitants, narrated from an African perspective. These committed African nationalist writers committed themselves to the deconstruction of the primal, ape image of Africa and Africans. This analysis aims to show that by presenting a false image of Africa, the colonial novels had the merit of making Africans aware of the need to write their own history, thus triggering the publication of Things Fall Apart and the other literary productions of the time that started the fight for real recognition of African culture and traditions in the rest of the world. In a critical postcolonial approach, the study positions an unsatisfied Chinua Achebe at the heart of the battle for the acknowledgement of Igbo / African culture and traditions. It interprets Things Fall Apart as an Afro-centric image offered to the European reader for a change of outlook on African culture and traditions.

Achebe’s education in English and exposure to European customs have allowed him to capture both the European and the African perspectives on colonial expansion, religion, race, and culture. His decision to write Things Fall Apart in English is an important one. Achebe wanted this novel to respond to earlier colonial accounts of Africa; his choice of language was thus political.

Unlike some later African authors who chose to revitalize native languages as a form of resistance to colonial culture, Achebe wanted to achieve cultural revitalization within and through English. Nevertheless, he manages to capture the rhythm of the Igbo language and he integrates Igbo vocabulary into the narrative.Achebe has become renowned throughout the world as a father of modern African literature, essayist, and professor of English literature at Bard College in New York. But Achebe’s achievements are most concretely reflected by his prominence in Nigeria’s academic culture and in its literary and political institutions. He worked for the Nigerian Broadcasting Company for over a decade and later became an English professor at the University of Nigeria. He has also been quite influential in the publication of new Nigerian writers. In 1967, he co-founded a publishing company with a Nigerian poet named Christopher Okigbo and in 1971, he began editing Okike, a respected journal of Nigerian writing. In 1984, he founded Uwa ndi Igbo, a bilingual magazine containing a great deal of information about Igbo culture. He has been active in Nigerian politics since the 1960s, and many of his novels address the post-colonial social and political problems that Nigeria still faces.

Q:- 2 what is the significant of the title?

Ans :- Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe is a novel whose title bears the central massage of the work. The very title ‘Things Fall Apart’ foreshadows the tragedy which takes place at the end of the novel. The novel depicts the tragedy of an individual as well as the tragedy of a society. The protagonist of the novel Okonkwo who was rich and respectable at the beginning of the novel meets a tragic fate at the end of the novel. Achebe portrays how an ambitious, well known, and respected African Okonkwo’s life falls apart. But when he suffers, his whole tribe also suffers. At the beginning of the novel, the Ibo society was a peaceful, organic society, but at the end of the novel it falls into pieces. Thus, the novel records not only falling apart of Okonkwo’s life but also his whole society.The phrase "things fall apart" is taken from the poem, “The Second Coming” by W.B Yeats, which Achebe quotes more extensively in the epigraph. Achebe’s literary allusion to Yeats’ poem might deepen or extend by comparison and/or contrast the meaning of Achebe’s title and his novel. The beginning four lines of the poem are referred to as a preface of the novel.

Things fall apart" can be said when something we believed would last forever, comes to an end. The title Things Fall Apart refers to the fact that without proper balance, things do fall apart. The notion of balance in the novel is an important theme throughout the book. Beginning with the excerpt from Yeats' poem, the concept of balance is stressed as important; for without balance, order is lost. In the novel, there is a system of balance, which the Igbo culture seems but at the end of the novel the society people can not listen to the leader, so a chaotic situation is created.At the beginning of the novel we see Okonkwo as a prosperous leader of the Igbo people. But the novel ends with his tragic end. Thus, we can say that the novel Things Fall Apart  depicts how Okonkwo’s life falls apart. Okonkwo is definitely a man of importance for his society. He is a well-known person throughout the nine villages and beyond. He is a warrior and wrestler who gains respect through his athletics. He is a fierce-free individual. He hasn’t lost one fight or any battles. And for this the people of the village love him. He is also respected because of his wealth.

Q :- 3 write a brief not on the concept of 'chi' in Things fall Apart?

Ans :- Okonkwo's shifting beliefs about the chi are important in understanding the end of the novel. Okonkwo at various times blames his chi for bad luck, but at other times he claims personal credit for his good luck. When Okonkwo commits suicide at the end of Things Fall Apart, his bad chi could be faulted.The Igbo believe that an individual's fate and abilities for the coming life are assigned to the chi, and each individual is given a chi by the Creator (Chukwu) at the moment of conception.Interpret this proverb, spoken of Okonkwo: “When a man says yes his chi says yes also. ” What role does Okonkwo's chi play in shaping his destiny? ... There is an African proverb that says, “When a man says yes his chi says yes also.The concept of chi is that it is the basic component of all things that exists. Chi provides energy or power similar to a fresh breath of air which is considered as life in all living things. Qi or chi is the main reason for the existence of human life and a proponent that dictates the quality of health of the human body.The ideology of Chi originated in ancient China.

Chi is referred to the flow of energy which pertains to all living things such as trees, plants, humans and animals. Relatively synonymous to ‘life force’ is the ultimate principle being carried out in ancient Chinese traditional medicine and in Martial Arts. Another interpretation of the word “qi” or “chi” is breath or air which is the literal meaning of the word.The concept of chi is that it is the basic component of all things that exists. Chi provides energy or power similar to a fresh breath of air which is considered as life in all living things. Qi or chi is the main reason for the existence of human life and a proponent that dictates the quality of health of the human body. It is believed that there is a healthy balance of chi in every one of us and health is determined by harmonious flow of chi.

The concept of chi is discussed at various points throughout the novel and is important to our understanding of Okonkwo as a tragic hero. The chi is an individual’s personal god, whose merit is determined by the individual’s good fortune or lack thereof. Along the lines of this interpretation, one can explain Okonkwo’s tragic fate as the result of a problematic chi a thought that occurs to Okonkwo at several points in the novel. For the clan believes, as the narrator tells us in Chapter 14, a “man could not rise beyond the destiny of his chi.”

Q:- 4 what do you think about the incident of lkemefuna? How does it help to understand the lbo culture in more specific ways?

Ans :- Ikemefuna comes to Umuofia early in the book, as settlement for a dispute with a nearby village. Not knowing what else to do with him, Okonkwo lets Ikemefuna live with his first wife. Ikemefuna quickly becomes a well-loved member of the family. He serves as a role model for Okonkwo’s eldest son, Nwoye, and over time he also earns Okonkwo’s respect. But more important than the role he plays in Okonkwo’s family is the effect his death has on the unfolding events of the novel.

When the village elders decide the time has come to kill Ikemefuna and finally settle the dispute with the neighboring village, Okonkwo insists on taking part in the execution, despite the fact that the boy calls him “father.” Okonkwo ends up killing Ikemefuna himself out of fear that his failure to take responsibility would make him look weak. Ikefuma’s death irreversibly harms the relationship between Okonkwo and Nwoye. His death is also a bad omen that has a symbolic connection to Okonkwo’s later exiled from Umuofia. In this sense, the death of Ikemefuna signals the start of things falling apart.Ikemefuna's death irreversibly harms the relationship between Okonkwo and Nwoye. His death is also a bad omen that has a symbolic connection to Okonkwo's later exile from Umuofia. In this sense, the death of Ikemefuna signals the start of things falling apart.

Q :- 5 write a brief not on Ibo people's in word spirit. 

Ans :- Throughout the book Achebe gives his characters names with hidden meanings; for example, Okonkwo's name implies male pride and stubbornness. When Achebe adds British characters, he gives two of them common and unremarkable British names, Brown and Smith. His third British character, the District Commissioner, is known only by his title. The choice of names, and lack thereof, is in itself a commentary by Achebe on the incoming faceless strangers.

Achebe portrays Mr. Smith as a stereotype of the inflexible Christian missionary in Africa. He is a fire-and-brimstone type of preacher, who likens Igbo religion to the pagan prophets of Baal of the Old Testament and brands traditional Igbo beliefs as the work of the devil. Achebe suggests that the issue between Mr. Smith and the local people may be more than one of religion: "[Mr. Smith] saw things as black and white. And black was evil."

Mr. Smith preaches an uncompromising interpretation of the scriptures. He suspends a woman convert who allows an old Igbo belief about the ogbanje to contaminate her new Christian way of life. He labels this incident as "pouring new wine into old bottles," an act prohibited in the New Testament of the Christian Bible "Neither do men put new wine into old bottles"The reference to the Mother of Spirits is another foreshadowing of the decline of the Umuofians. Her wailing and crying signals the death of "the very soul of the tribe." Enoch's unmasking of the egwugwu and the subsequent destruction of the church by the Igbo represent the climax of confrontation between traditional Igbo religious beliefs and British colonial Christianity, and, to a great extent, these events symbolize the broader cultural confrontation. Even the egwugwu leader acknowledges the cultural standoff between them: "We say he [Mr. Smith] is foolish because he does not know our ways, and perhaps he says we are foolish because we do not know him." Such an acknowledgment seems an indication that the Igbo are becoming resigned to their "new dispensation" that they are moving toward a collective surrender to becoming civilized under the onslaught of forces far more organized and powerful than themselves.

Q :- 6 How is the difference between the father land and the mother land is described in Things fall Apart?

Ans :- Things Fall Apart takes place sometime in the final decade of the nineteenth century in Igboland, which occupies the southeastern portion of what is now known as Nigeria. Most of the action unfolds prior to the arrival of European missionaries. Accordingly, the geography of the novel is dictated by pre colonial norms of political and social organization. In Igboland, clusters of villages band together to protect each other and guarantee their own safety. The action of Things Fall Apart centers on the fictional village of Umuofia, which is part of a larger political entity made up by the so-called “nine villages.”

In Igboland, geography takes on gendered aspects depending on where a person’s parents were born. For instance, Umuofia is Okonkwo’s father’s home village, which makes it Okonkwo’s fatherland. When Okonkwo gets exiled for the crime of manslaughter, he and his family travel to another of the nine villages, Mbanta, which is Okonkwo’s motherland, that is, the village where his mother was born. The gendering of geography plays an important symbolic role in the novel, since Okonkwo sees his seven-year exile in the motherland as an emasculating threat to his reputation.

Just as geography has meaning in Things Fall Apart, so too does time. The novel is set in the 1890s, at the beginning of the British colonial incursion into Igboland. The story takes place in a moment of rupture, as the old ways of the precolonial period come under threat from and eventually buckle under the weight of pressure from Europeans. The novel dramatizes the very beginnings of British imperialism in the region, which started not with guns but with Bibles. As Achebe depicts in the book, it was missionaries who arrived first, paving the way for the civil servants who would eventually wrest political control at the point of a pen or, if need be, a gun.

Although Achebe shows very little direct violence being perpetrated against the Igbo people, he implies the violence to come at the novel’s end, when the District Commissioner contemplates his book in progress, titled The Pacification of the Tribes of the Lower Niger. As any reader with a knowledge of Nigerian history will know, this “pacification” would be achieved with a great deal of bloodshed and heartache.

Q :- 7 write a brief not on the concept of nativism and native identity in Things Fall Apart?

Ans :- Nativism is the political policy of promoting the interests of native inhabitants against those of immigrants including the support of immigration-restriction measures.

In scholarly studies, nativism is a standard technical term, although those who hold this political view do not typically accept the label. Oezguer Dindar wrote, "do not consider themselves [to be] nativists. For them it is a negative term and they rather consider themselves as 'Patriots'.

Q:- 8 Point out the important points of Things Fall Apart which can be compared with Kanthapura by Raja Rao.

Ans :- Raja Rao and Chinua Achebe through the depiction of the respective philosophies in their novels Kanthapura and '' Things Fall Apart brings out the perception of social, cultural and traditional aspects of Nigerian village Umuofiaand Indian village of Kanthapura. Moreover, both the authors through these philosophies put light on the issue of colonization which the African natives and Indian natives suffered at the hands of white missionaries andBritishers. Rao who was an ardent follower of Mahatma Gandhi, paid respect to him by writing and adopting about the Civil Disobedience Movement and Non Violence Movement that Gandhi implemented against the ruling colonial government in his novel Kanthapura. Similarly, Achebe also adopted the philosophy of Igbo culture, their traditions, their festivals and folklores. He as a true religious believer of his culture and social practices wrote about the Igbo community and cosmological dimensions of the Nigerian lives in his novel Things Fall Apart. Both The author wrote for their respective nations and highlighted the major issues in the novel through these thematic philosophy of Gandhian Ideology treasured by Rao in Kanthapura and Igbo life philosophy by Achebe in Things Fall Apart.The centrality and the plot of the novel Kanthapura revolves around the Gandhian Philosophy which illustrate the commencement of Indian Freedom Struggle by Mahatma Gandhi in the early 20th century which left a great impact on the people of India and Rao is one of them who used it to aware its reader worldwide.

Gandhian Philosophy is very well depicted in the novel which in reality impacted and affected many villages and parts ofIndia. Similarly, Achebe in his first novel Things Fall Apart portrayed the cosmological and cultural philosophy ofIgbo life. He wanted to emphasize in his novel mainly about the homegrown people of Umaro who caught themselves in the clutches of high functioning of the western culture, who not only captured their religious beliefs but also being in the minority they somehow dominated the majority natives of Africa. As Edward said quotes,“what I left out of Orientalism was that response to western dominance which culminated in the great movement of decolonization all across the Third World'' Therefore, things started to fall when the westernculture through their ways of life forced the lives of Igbo hence distorted their cultural and religious belief altogether which created the major destruction within the community by ruining their peace.

So, the commonality in both the novels lies with the dominance of the western world over the eastern world which is portrayed by adapting the major issues of philosophy by both Rao and Achebe intelligently in the respective novels.Mahatma Gandhi through his ideology of non-violence, non-cooperation, peace, truth and love inspired many writers like Sigmund Freud and Karl Marx as well as Indian writers. And all these writers through their immense inspiration and passion made their readers think persistently about the issues and protest that Gandhi made in real life during Indian Freedom Struggle. He aroused the devotion and belief of many Indians for the independence through his ideologies to fight for freedom not with a war but with a protest.

A well-known criticK.R. Srinivasa Iyengar declared this period of freedom struggle against Britishers as the “Gandhian Age”. Not onlyThat writer, Munshi Premchand, left his job to join hands with Mahatma in his protest of Non-Violence. Inin many novels, Gandhiji is projected as an individual or as a mysterious presence. In Rao’s Kanthapura, the presence of Gandhiji is seen in the character of Moorthy, he is considered as his replica who in the village ofKanthapura performed satyagraha and motivated other villagers to follow the path of freedom struggle against the Britishers.

Conclusion :- Gandhi in Kanthapura is also seen as the presence of God for the village kanthapura where not only he is the replica of Moorthy but many other characters as well displayed through philosophy of life and political struggle. Gandhi is also seen as an embodiment of The Epic Ramayan’s characters of Ram, Sita and Ravanthat is, Lord Rama as the one who is sent for the protection of the nation India which is “sita” from the rule ofBritish slavery which is regarded as Ravana. Moreover Gandhi in the whole novel, felt like an invisible presencewho poured his thought of ideologies throughout the entire book.

Pepar :- 13 The New Literature

 

Paper 13 from Hitixa Goswami

Pepar :-15 mass midia communication study

 

Paper 15 mass media from Hitixa Goswami

pepar :- 14 The African Literature

 

Paper 14 from Hitixa Goswami

Thinking Activity : Sense of an Ending

 Hello readers!

                              Here I am going to wrote about the famous novel The sense of an Ending is written by Julian Barnes. This blog is my academic task given by Dr Dilip barad sir from Department of English Bhavnagar University. Click here

   1. How do we understand the concept of suicide with reference to your reading of literature ranging from Renaissance play Hamlet, 20th century Existentialist philosophy and this 21st century novel Sense of an Ending?

Ans :-  "Once suicide was accepted as a common fact of society not as a noble Roman alternative, nor as the mortal sin it had been in the Middle Ages, nor as a special cause to be pleaded or warned against but simply as something people did, often and without much hesitation, like committing adultery, then it automatically became a common property of art" - Duaz 1971

                 People have different concept about suicide, rational thinkers like literary writers look suicide as an art and religious people look as a sin. Suicide is very interesting element in literature, for other people like doctors and businessman suicide is like failure of life and escaping from terrible experiences. While for literary writers suicide is Philosophical answer of life. If we see the Saussure's sign, signifier and signified then we come to know that it is all about language which create different meaning of death and suicide. 

            Suicide is beyond the death, it is transcendental idea of writers. From the age of enlightenment the idea of suicide came into the canon of literary work. There are many suicidal events in the work of William Shakespeare, for instance 'Hamlet' in which Prince Hamlet's soliloquy "To be or not to be" was very significant about suicide. He did not committed suicide because he had faith in the divinity but somehow Hamlet also thought about philosophical answer of the life. In twentieth Century After the world wars and scientific theories cause of spiritual degradation in people's life.

                     In addition, theory of Existentialism asked the question about existence and meaning of life. Albert Camus, Jean Paul Sartre, the theorists of Existentialism gave the philosophical idea of suicide and said that suicide is beyond the death, it is not about failure in the life and escaping but it is all about transcendental idea of death, meaninglessness of life and absurdism. Further, in 21st century's 'Sense of an Ending' by Julian Barnes also have two episodes of suicide. There are two characters who committed suicide but it is not reliable facts that why they done suicide because it is said by other people, so we can say that Adrian's suicide is somehow seems philosophical but not reliable. However, psychologists say that it is all about Thanatos and Eros which are drive us into the life and death. 

2. How do you understand memory and history with reference to your reading of this novel

Ans :- At the end we come to know that memory has record something which is good or which we think it's a good and its preserved by us and when we think it's good about us then we preserve but one more thing is that memory is not perfect memory is in perfect so we cannot rely on some of the thing is perfectly clear in our mind in our memory also but something is not clear and after letter on its mixing so we cannot rely that what exactly happened in past

Same way we find in history that history is written by historian and its base on the someone's memory and its deal with the evidence but we can find that history is always problematic just because whenever that accident or event happened at that time how we remember then give interpretation or language used its depend upon that if that accident or event is good for us then we preserve different way but when that event or accident husband memory then we will do different kind of interpretation.

                       

Thinking Activity :- Harry Potter

 Hello readers!

   Click here see my Webquest Table 1

      Click Here see my  Table 2

   Here I am going to wrote about the Harry Potter Series. We know that the Harry Potter is famous book series worldwide written by J. K. Rowling. This book takes us into a world full of fantasy, horror, mystery, magic. This book is not limited to children only but it goes beyond that if we study this book from the lens of literature. This blog is part of my classroom Activity that is given by Dilip barad sir from Department of English Bhavnagar University. This is the blog link of Activity Click here.

Feminist reading of Harmione’s character in Harry Potter

                Hermione Granger, a good, loyal friend of Harry Potter. She is a manifestation of the author herself within the text. “Hermione is me,” Rowling has said in several interviews, “A caricature of me when I was younger”. She is not only as a strong female character, an essential part of Harry's life, but also as a feminist protagonist in her own right. Hermione represents the bookish knowledge, she knows the spells very well and also knows how to apply it. In the first and second part she represents the good virtues like, friendship, loyalty. In any kind of situation she stands for Harry.  

Hermione is the perfect example when examining the feminist principles in the novels. Throughout the series she has many strengths and weaknesses, but she is mostly criticized about her weaknesses as a character. At some time she becomes concious about her look, which becomes very problematic from feminine perspective. Other female characters like Mrs. Weasley, who represents motherhood, caring nature. Ginny, Luna, ProMcGonagall, all has significant role, though they remains shallow under the patriarchal power.

Sometimes common patriarchal gender roles have been reversed and Hermione is given the power to take control of the situation, while harry just follows her. McGonagall holds powerful position in Hogwarts against professor . Tom Riddle uses Ginny for power , Rowling criticising the immorality of society where men feel free to victimize women. nowadays fight against patriarchy in real world for own identities and empowerment.

Discourse on the purity of Blood and Harry Potter

Pure blood for Wizards and Witches who have no muggle blood or muggle born They are supremacists, weasly, potter and lang bottoms.Half-blood for those Wizards and Witches who have magical and muggle ancestors in their family trees.Half-blood inferior to pure blood.The malfoy family, Voldemort and Severus snape belong to it. Harry is himself a Half-blood, his father married to Muggle born Lily.Muggle is born Malfoy used the term Murdoch to insult Hermione.

Confronting reality by reading fantasy

            We know that the Fantasy story could be the reality of our own world. In this series we can find author tells many problems of racism, class conflict, in the form of fantasy. But the characters are very much realistic which represents the universal emotions, moral values and so on. Through the fantasy author shows the reality of contemporary time. May be it speaks of, the racial issues, class discrimination. As the issue of blood described in the series. Harry Potter is a fantasy story, but it is not stereotype. Harry who is protagonist, he is presented as a orphan, wearing glasses, which breaks the stereotype of great hero. Writer presented 21st century’s mind, modern ideas, Rationality well though it is fantasy.

Self - help culture and Harry Potter 

        A self-help book is one that is written with the intention to instruct its readers on solving personal problems. It can also called 'self improvement'. In the novel Harry himself find his own way. In the whole novel he and his friends do self learning in Philosopher's Stone, chamber of secrets, and in order of phoenix they chooses practical education and practice with great effort. Hermione, leaps and bounds ahead of her classmates in wizard knowledge, potions and spells. This great intellect was both gifted to her, but also the result of hard work and intense studying. At times her skills  was off-putting to others, but she never felt she needed to hide just how capable she was. So, characters finds their own way.

The Discourse of power and politics in Harry Potter 

          Harry Potter very deeply making statement on power and politics Foucault's power and knowledge Knowledge is always a power of power and power is always a function of knowledge and knowledge created by those who are in power position. In Harry Potter the Ministry of Magic is the power and rules over the Hogwarts school. Prof. Dolores Umbridge declares theoretical education rather than practical Voldemort and his death eaters have the ultimate power and practices on the mudbloods and Muggles. Role of Ministry of magic, considered as the power, ministers like Dolores Umbridge who seeks the power of their own rules. Author very well observed the talk of power and apply in the novel.

Children's literature and Harry Potter 

                 Harry Potter was written as children literature because it deals with fantasy world, mystery story, school story, adventure novel, humorous story, and epic after four books it does not remain as a children's literature. Along with children's literature It includes some aspect of adolescent literature as well. It takes children to the reality that if you know magic then also After fifth and sixth part it does not stay as much of it. Harry deals with power and politics, the dark lord The different perspective of this novel like racism, ministry, politics, which is more than children's literature.

Speculative literature and Harry Potter

                  Speculative writing is defined as a photo or reading a short scenario and then writing a fictional story about what will happen next This novel has aspects of speculative fiction. Speculative means do not exist in real world, often in the context of the supernatural, futuristic or other imaginative themes. It includes science fiction, fantasy, superhero, horror and supernatural fiction. 'Harry Potter' is also considered as speculative fiction, it has the supernatural powers, the magical world, horror, mystery. The novel refers to the imaginative kind of animals, places, which we never listen. Like, Basilisk, nicknamed the King of Snakes by wizards, fluffy- three headed dog. 

The Theme of love and Death 

                   Love and death are the major themes in J. k. Rowling's fantasy novel and she also said that these series all about death and love. She justifies her point by presenting the characters of Ron and Hermione who are in love from the very beginning even they are fighting with each other. Further, the love between Harry and Dumbledore, Lily's love for Harry, harry's love for his friends, etc. In the other death also a crucial element in the novel. At the very beginning of the story we heart that Harry's parents have died, and in due course both we and Harry learn that they were murdered. The Shadow of death hangs over Harry; he learns that he, too, was intended to be a victim, but spared in a way no-one can explain. He narrowly escapes death again at the close of the first two books, and third is concerned with his pursuit by an escaped murderer. At the end of the fourth book, a school friend is killed before his eyes, and he himself barely escapes again. In the fifth book he loses his newly regained godfather, and in the sixth even his great and seemingly indestructible mentor, Dumbledore. Yes, death is a constant visitor to Harry's world.

The Theme of choice and chance 

                     Harry Potter novel says that in life chances and our choices both are important. First, it was only chance that Harry lived. When he needed help, help is always there. He gets invisibility cloak when needed. In Chamber of Secret Phoenix comes to hlep Harry. There are fortune portion alos. When Harry can't find way the fortune potion works. But choices have given same importance. Sorting hat puts Harry in Gryffinder because he wanted. Harry doubts that sorting hat may have put him in wrong house but in answer Dumbledore tells him that it is not our abilities that make us, it is our abilities who define us. Sirius Black also says same things. There are good and bad inside us but what path we choose determine us. In the final part, king cross station chapter when harry meet Dumbledore, Dumbledore says Harry that it is your choice to return or not. So both choice and chance are important in life. 

Moral and philosophical reading of Harry Potter 

           Harry and Voldemort, different morality values. Harry's moral values ​​becomes the Voldemort In his acceptance of his mortality, "the boy who lived" is able to be more fully and wholly to live. Voldemort in the quest to be immortal he loses his morals. In the end of many books Dumbuldore give love, choices, friendship Throughout the Harry Potter series there are two distinct types of characters, morally good and bad. On the good side there are characters such as, Harry, Hermione, Ron, Dumbledore. While on the bad side Draco, Umbridge, Voldemort Who are in the favour of good moral values. 

Christianity and Harry Potter Series 

                        Harry Potter series directly have no relation with Christianity. Many critics say that the novel is anti-christianity because there are many thing in the fiction are ant Christian like magic. Magic js abondon in Christianity so Rowling written an anti christian work. In addition, there is not any kind of church for prayer even the good fights with powerful evil force though they do not pray to God for survival. All the characters fights and save themselves without any divinity power. But there are couple of scenes which somehow connected with Christianity like Christmas celebration and after the death of Albus Dambledor we see the view like heaven. So, at last we can say that Harry Potter is ant Christian fiction.

What is your Opinion on this 

          As per the Mitchel Foucault's theory "Power and Knowledge. J. K. Rowling similarly conveys the message that question the power because what is written is not always true in the post truth era. These lines by Rowling is also relevant in the present era, we see in many political leaders and media who keep on speaking lies for remaining in the power and also there are many speeches or write fake history. So, we have to cross check everything rather than follow blindly.Harry Potter, the novel conveys the message which is not liked by reader and many who watched the movie. Because the protagonist, the half blood wins over the pure blood, which can not digest And what can be assume about media and press.

      

                               Thank you...