Cultural Studies-Assignment

byAsha Dhedhi - 2 Comments
Assignment
Postmodernism in
 Indian English poems

Name: Asha R. Dhedhi
Roll no: 02 (Two)
Semester: 02 (Part-1)
Year: 2019-2020
Paper No.: 8
Paper: Cultural Studies
Topic: Postmodernism in Indian English poems
Enrollment No: 2069108420200010
Email ID: ashadhedhi1806@gmail.com
Submitted to: Smt. S.B.Gardi
                        Department of English
                                   (MKBU)

Introduction

There are no hard distinctions between what is real and what is unreal, nor between what is true and what is false. A thing is not necessarily either true or false; it can be both true and false.
- Harold Pinter

The following lines are very suitable for what we called postmodernism. Before drift into postmodernism let's understand what Modernism is. As Binary Opposition emphasizes that before understanding one thing there is to understand the exact opposite thing of that particular thing. So here also first, it becomes necessary to know What is Modernism? There is a very slight difference between Modernism and Postmodernism.

Modernism is a movement which started around 1910 which denotes the fragmentation. Matthew Arnold, T.S. Eliot and I.A. Richard are some of the major thinkers of Modernism. Modernism can be defined as totally unreliability on anything. With the emergence of Modernism slowly and steadily people started losing their faith in…

  • God
  • King
  • Individual
  • Democracy
  • Science

During the Victorian and Romantic period people believed in the power of God.The major reason behind the lost faith in God is Charles Darwin's Theory of Evolution. It clearly said that there is no god involved in Human evolution. Friedrich Nietzsche is another philosopher who also insists that "God Is Dead" So, because of that people's faith in god is shaken. 



There is a general belief that the King is appointed on behalf of God to rule on Human beings. And people's faith in the King is also extreme that they can't challenge authority. But during the period of Marxism, it is the period when Karl Marx came up with "The Communist Manifesto." It suggests that there is a hierarchy of 1) Upper Class, 2) Middle class and 3) Lower class. And it was the king and aristocratic people who ruled over the middle class and lower class and exploited them for their own wealth. At that time people lost their faith in the King because they found out that it was the king and aristocrat who were responsible for their miseries.

Faith on our own potential, our own power and our own mind is also broken down with Sigmund Freud's theory of "Interpretation of our Dreams" Here, he connecting our consciousness with Iceberg which we can see only 10% of part. There are a lot of things which remain in our subconscious or unconscious mind which we can't see. So, all our actions are based on 10% of our consciousness. And on the other 90% we don't have control over it. So, our faith in the human mind and individual is also shaken.

Another Institution on which people believe is Democracy. But during the first World War which fought between 1914 to 1918, all over the world we can notice people are fighting for Democracy. There were many people killed and a lot of bloodshed all over the world. This World War 1 which fought on the name of Democracy which came out with no result, no Conclusion. So people's faith in Democracy also lost. Before that people thought that it was a Democracy which made them free, liberated, and also gave them the right to speak. But after World War people started questioning Democracy. 

And Finally there was a time when lot's of scientific inventions took place and people's faith in science increased. But when the atomic bomb is created from the same  technology which destroys the whole city in a few minutes. Then people started to look at another negative side of technology and science. So, People's belief in science also collapsed with time. So when we look at some of the pillars of Strength, then we can see people's faith on every pillar started shaken. And it was the emergence of Modernism during 1910, which follows the basic principle called the Fragmented Universe, there is nothing on which we can rely and put trust. And there is nothing which is going to help us to come out from problems. This is Modernism and this socio-economic condition which helps us to understand the work of Modern writers like…

  • The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot
  • Ulysses by James. Joyce
  • To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf

So, the major difference between Modernism and Postmodernism is that Modernism tries to look for solutions while the Postmodernist writer problematise the problem and doesn't even bother for a solution. Both worlds are fragmented but Postmodernism celebrated the fragmentation and tried to live happily in that fragmented world. So let's have a look at some of the characteristics of postmodernism writing.

Characteristics of Postmodern Literature

Postmodern literature can be characterised as Fragmentation, use of paradox and unreliable narrator. Postmodernism refers to the historical period after World War second and it is an array of social and historical phenomenon which shaped our contemporary world such as advanced capitalism, globalization and rapid development in technology. Postmodernism texts are usually written in a very clear and everyday life, but sometimes it becomes complex. The best example…

Calvino's 'If on a Winter’s Night a Traveller,' this book contains 10 different beginnings, which are connected by adventure of readers. Reading this book may be frustrating because there are fragmented ideas written in a crystal clear way but still we are in a swimming boat not getting the proper idea what the writer wants to say. The meaning of the text can be interpreted by an individual separately.

Irony, Playfulness and Black Humour: Postmodern literature can be characterised as Ironical literature which used to make satire in an indirect way. Irony along with black humour creates a kind of playfulness. As Derrida said that There is no direct meaning of work it a jump from one meaning to another meaning and another group of words which are alternative for word, but we can't get ultimate meaning. So It is playfulness of words which is also celebrated in postmodernism.

Intertextuality: Postmodernism represents the decentered concept of universe. There is not any center, and the center is changing time and again. So, In postmodernism there is also not an individual stand isolated. There is a deep connection between different texts. There is a relationship between one text to another text. And one text can also be used as reference or sometimes parallel to the other text. The relationship between one text to another can be achieved through quoting, mentioning or using reference of other text in one text. 
Challenging Hegemonic Values: Postmodernist writers in their work try to challenge the hegemonic values such as heteronormativity, Imperialism and traditional conception about femininity and Masculinity. It gave voice to minorities and people with no power. Earlier people who are not visible, started coming in limelight because of postmodernism. For example…

  • Ethnic Minorities
  • Women (Feminism and Postfeminism)
  • LGBTQ (Sexual Liberation)

Pastiche: This is also something related to intertextuality. Pastiche means to combine many elements in one. Multiplicity is the basic cannon on which all literature produced in Postmodernism. It is a combination of multiple genres or styles to create a single unique narrative.

Metafiction: Metafiction is a kind of fiction in which the author self consciously tries to go beyond conventional ways of presenting things and put more emphasis on unreal or artificial world. Avoid naturalism and challenge the traditional techniques of narratives.

Fabulation: Fabulation is also a term which is connected with Metafiction, Pastiche or Magic Realism. It avoids realism, the basic notion of literature. So, Fabulation challenged some basic notion of realism, traditional way of writing, and conventional way to narrative. It creates its own style and in which it tries to include myth, Fantasy, magicality and also a popular genre called Science fiction.

Magic Realism: The use of magic realism found still in literary tradition but what makes it different is its different time. Magic Realism is the representation of even in surrealistic manner. The themes are imaginative, fantasies of the world and also most of the things occur in dreams which are far away from reality. It is a kind of fiction in which we can find the juxtaposition between realistic and Fantastic world.

Technoculture and Hyperreality: 

"Cultural logic of late capitalism"

As Frederick Jameson remarked, here Late Capitalism stands for Information Age, Age of intense Technology and Industrial Age. So it is a shift from culture to Technoculture. Jean Baudrillard also coined the term 'Hyperreality', According to it we are living in a world where things look more real than what is real. So, in Postmodernism literature people are surrounded by information, technology and Hyperreality which became the central theme for literature.

Fragmentation: Fragmentation is the common theme which can be found in Modernism as well as in Postmodern writing. Various parts of writing like plot, themes, events, ideas, characters and factual references are also sometimes fragmented, and one common narrative going through it. It is very hard to connect all the dots and also understand the indirect messages which are not presented in a straightforward manner. It can also occur in Language or sometimes incomplete sentences.

Postmodernism in Indian English poems

Postmodernism in English literature is entitled "New Literature" which began to emerge after the 1980s. But there are some great writers after the 1930s whose works are also included in Postmodern writing. But According to Bijay Kumar Das, in his book Postmodern Indian English literature he stated that….

The substantial body of Indian English 
Literature - be it poetry, fiction, short story, autobiography, and drama - was written in the post-1930 era.

The great trio of Mulkraj Anand, R.K. Narayan and Raja Rao wrote great novels and stories during the 1930s. And poets like Nissim Ezekiel, Kamla Das, and A.K. Ramanujan who wrote poetry during the 1960s and their contribution in New Literature is remarkable.

Kamala Das collection came when Indian women moved towards writing about personal experiences rather than colonial or nationalist themes. She used to write in everyday conversation English which is easy to understand and throughout the poem there are some fragmented ideas which we can collect by the striking ending line. So these are the postmodernist characteristics that can be noticed in Kamala Das' poems. For example…

We left that old ungainly house
When my dog died there, after
The burial, after the rose
Flowered twice, pulling it by its
Roots and carting it with our books,
Clothes and chairs in a hurry.
We live in a new house now,
And, the roofs do not leak, but, when
It rains here, I see the rain drench
That empty house, I hear it fall
Where my puppy now lies,
Alone..

[From Only The Soul Knows How To Sing]

- by Kamala Das

It is a poem written about rain. But there are so many references like Old home, new home, dog, flower, books, roofs etc. But the core idea which is far away from all these symbolism is poets talking about loneliness, solitude which can be only noticed in the end by the word 'Alone.' So, throughout the poem there is a shifting of settings from old house to New home and new to Old house and from there to the rainy season and all. So, multiple settings with intertextuality can be found in the poem remains as the example of postmodern poem.

Nizzim Ezekiel is one remarkable name in Indian English poetry. With the Publication of his work 'A time to change' a new period started in Indian English writing. The use of Indianized English, idioms, phrases, devices and structure heightened the Indian English poetry. The close reading of Ezekiel's poetry shows the use of pun, irony and satire highlight the social issues in its postmodern way. His poetry is a mixture of humanism, liberalism, socialism, deep human concern and sense of social justice. For example his poem 'A Morning Walk' which ironically highlighted that we are an economically developed nation but still there are slum dwellers who are in very bad condition…

“Barbaric city sick with slumps,
 Deprived of seasons, blessed with rains,
 Its hawkers, beggars, iron-lunged,
 A million purgatorial lanes
 And child like masses, many tongued
 Whose wages are in words and crumbs?”
 (From 'A Morning Walk')

Ezekiel as a postmodern critic shows the Indian way of speaking English. By that he wants to point out how Indian people used the English with silly grammatical errors. Hereis one party going on, Miss Pushpa is going foreign and her friends are giving her a goodbye party. So here, Ezekiel pointed out the postmodern behavioural pattern and their way of living life especially in India. And also ridiculed the errors of idioms, phrases when Indian people used English. The opening lines of the poem are….

“Friends,
 Our dear sister
 Is departing for foreign.” 
(Goodbye Party For Miss Pushpa T.S)

The next poem 'Night of the Scorpion' is a kind of personalized poem, which is narrated by the poet himself and it also shows the unconditional love of mothers for their children. As usual the end of the poem is striking which shows motherly concern for her child. So, it is a kind of postmodern poem in which the writer tries to ridicule the way the Indian people used to believe in Superstitions. In this we can find some of the glimpse of the Hyperreal world which shows that yes, we are living in an unreal world…

"May the sum of all evil
balanced in this unreal world"
(From The Night of the Scorpion)

Conclusion

So, Postmodernism is an era in which the style of narrative, character portraying and the genre of writing all fragmented because the life in the Era of Technology itself is unreal and unnatural. People have no faith, no reliance and no hope for a solution. THey only used to highlight the problems and problematise that problem itself. And search for a solution is almost blind because they know that the solution for the problem is the problem itself. On the other hand postmodernism gave voice to voiceless, it questions the power structure and it is all about highlighting social approaches, social issues and also about realism. There are also some examples of Indian English poems which make irony and satire on the traditional indian and convention of Indian society.

Work Cited

  • Das, Bijay Kumar. (2006:1-14), Postmodern Indian English Literature, New Delhi, Atlantic Publishers & Distributors
  • Karmakar, Goutam. “Re Reading Nissim Ezekiel: A Postmodern Critic.” American International Journal of Research Humanities, Arts of Social Sciences, Dec. 2014, pp. 174–177.
  • Matteo, Virginia. “What's the Difference Between Modernism and Postmodernism in Literature?” Owlcation, 28 May 2018, owlcation.com/humanities/Whats-The-Difference-Between-Modernism-and-Postmodernism.
  • Mishra, Raj Kumar. “Nissim Ezekiel: Foreshadowing Postmodernism.” International Journal of English Literature and Culture, vol. 2, no. 5, May 2014, pp. 55–60.
  • Nicol, Bran, The Cambridge Introduction to Postmodern Fiction (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009).
  • Tehrani, Angela Sadeghi. “Kamala Das as a Postmodern Indian English Poet.” Asian Journal on Multidisciplinary Studies, vol. 2, no. 3, Mar. 2014, pp. 106–109.

Thank you

Asha Dhedhi

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