NEW ACADEMIA: An International Journal of English Language, Literature and Literary Theory

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Authors: Deanna Rodriguez

From Cat’s Cradle to Breakfast of Champions, Kurt Vonnegut’s work is full of philosophical musings that can be read as existentialism. One of the more obvious existential dilemmas Vonnegut struggles with is the notion of suicide. Albert Camus in his collection of essays entitled The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays explores the notion of the absurdity of suicide– absurdity being used in the philosophical sense, meaning the conflict between the human tendency to seek inherent value and meaning inlife and the human inability to find any,and on what leads a man to think about suicide and ultimately how one can make the decision life is not worth living anymore. Camus explains what can spur on suicidal thoughts as¬¬– “A world that can be explained even with bad reason is a familiar world. But, on the other hand, man feels analien, a stranger. His exile is without remedy since he is deprivedof the memory of a lost home or the hope of a promised land. Thisdivorce between man and this life, the actor and his setting, isproperly the feeling of absurdity” (Camus 6). It’s a common trend in Vonnegut’s writing, the loss of home as well as the hope of a promised land, or more particular in Vonnegut’s case, the nostalgia of a better time and as well, the yearning for an Edenic existence. Vonnegut places so much of himself into his writing, and he even goes so far as to insert himself as a character. Particularly in Breakfast of Champions, he talks to himself as a character. It is through his writing that Vonnegut can truly work out his existential dilemma, and it is seen most clearly in the novel Breakfast of Champions. By looking at the solutions reached by not only Vonnegut himself, but also by the characters in the novel, which are clearly presenting issues of mental anguish, it’s clear to see how Vonnegut is an absurd creator, in the existential sense presented by Camus.

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Authors: Kousik Adhikari

Girish Karnad’s ‘Hayabadana’ (1975) marks a grand resurgence of Indian theatre with its various nuances, characteristic styles, techniques and motifs that attempts to reclaim the glory of Indian theatre in European psyche who were lost in the exuberant and almost pastoral panorama of Kalidas’s ‘Avhiganyam Sakuntalam’. Folktale, myth undoubtedly reserves its basic source in ‘Hayabadana’, but it has also a rich multiplicity of texture and multiple layers of meaning with its various re-interpretations. With each telling, the story changes and gains a new permutation and momentum. The dictionary definition of ‘absurd’ is ‘something that is completely stupid and unreasonable’. In a musical context it means ‘out of harmony’. However the definition of ‘absurd’ derives into the literature from the mid 20th century essay ‘Myth of Sisyphus’ by the French author and philosopher Albert Camus. In 1962, Martin Esslin wrote his book on the topic entitled simply ‘The Theatre of the Absurd’. In this book Esslin mentions the Romanian Eugen Ionesco’s definition for the ‘absurd’,

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Authors: Dr. Santosh Kumari

Walker's fiction strongly affirms that true revolution enlightens the inner self and it is through respect for life and generous way of living that freedom is attained. An individual has to confront egocentric self concerns to establish democratic pattern in society. Her novel Meridian gravely ponders over a series of barbaric acts and violent lynching of blacks. The painful picture of social and cultural degeneration and hypocrisy is indeed stirring and thought provoking. Mutual hatred often darkens social scenario resulting in hair raising incidents of bloodshed, rape, robbery, and merciless killing. Celie's father in The Color Purple is brutally killed simply because the white master's soul could not compromise with his hardworking spirit and prosperity. A confrontation between individual and society with a vigorous demand for justice and integrity has been well crystallized by Walker's pen. Most of Walker's protagonists are equipped with intelligence, acute sensitivity and cosmic vision of life. With an unyielding courage and confidence, Walker calls to counter the ruthless forces which deem to pressurize and lower down common men's lot. Walker's strong conviction is that "man only truly lives by knowing." Walker rejects cowardly submission of a man "who simply performs, coping the daily habits of others, but conceiving nothing of his creative possibilities as a man and accepting someone else's superiority and his own misery"(Gardens 121-122). Walker's commitment to support the principle of democratic set up is highlighted through her protagonist Meridian who is dedicated to the values of humanity, equality and dignity. Walker is firmly resolved to discard all those circumscriptive and stilling precepts which may impede the growth of one's autonomy and identity. Walker rejects the conventional religion that encourages passive acceptance of the overlapping constraints with an escapist and conformist coincidence. Meridian, the protagonist in the novel, challenges the rationality of her mother's Christian belief of relinquishing all her responsibilities to God. Meridian defies by keeping silence and refuses to submit to the strangulating hold of traditional adherence to hypocrisy and self-deceptive codes that may only add to one's surrender and failure. Silence is a legitimate mode of protest and it empowers Meridian to defiantly challenge the system that denies her individuality. Her self determination, elevation and transformation, strongly stir the human beings around her.

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Authors: Md Abdul Momen Sarker &Tusar Talukder &Debdas Biswas

It is quite relevant to say something regarding Expressionism before going to browse the expressionistic vision prevailing in O’Neill’s dramas. The movement of Expressionism seems to have arisen as a kind of revolt against the mutual exclusiveness of romanticism and realism. It is a revolt, on the one hand, against the tendency of realism and naturalism and, on the other, against the tendency of realism or naturalism to satisfy itself with a scrupulous representation of the surfaces of life, the speech, manners, emotions and ideas of one or another class in society. The expressionists cry for a “real” reality. This reality indicates the inner world of thought and vision. They are profoundly interested in psychology and they celebrate the supremacy of spirit over matter. They deal with the subjective, with ‘inner’ realities of human mind. Man becomes a key figure in their works. The expressionists undertake the study of human passion in lieu of the history of persons and their achievements. In the words of N. S. Wilson: “it attempts, in a word, to dramatize the inner life of a man, to represent what is passing in his soul.”

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Authors: Esther Daimari

Mamang Dai is a well-known figure in literature from Northeast, India. She has to her credit a book of poetry called River Poems and other works of fiction like The Legends of Pensam, Arunachal Pradesh:The Hidden Land and Stupid Cupid. Mamang Dai’s poetry and prose are mostly about Arunachal Pradesh, her birth place. While most other writers from Northeasti write about the distinctive problems of Northeast like the insurgency movements, marginalization of the Northeastern states of India, the struggle of the region to seek separation and sovereignty from the centre, etc., Mamang Dai’s writings are neo-romantic in nature and she often projects Northeast as an exotic land, different from the rest of India. It is also interesting to note that in the few works of fiction that she has written, she has penned down varied and interesting images of tribal women of Northeast and voiced out the unique problems of these women. By the phrase “tribal women of Northeast”, I specifically refer to the women of hilldwelling communities of Northeast India, with roots in Southeast Asia. This paper is thereby, an attempt to read the varied images of women in Mamang Dai’s fiction like Stupid Cupid and The Legends of Pensam.

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Authors: Ali Asghar Rahimi

During the Final decades of the 19th century and the first decades of the 20th century, human beliefs-remaining unchanged from the time knowledge-based, moral and religious norms had first emerged- were most challenged. Classic or traditional beliefs of the era were challenged by scholars of different fields. Although natural scientists like Copernicus and Galileo had already attacked traditional beliefs, but new scientific and philosophical movements occurred at the turn of the 20th century. At the time, Darwin and Darwinism were well-known throughout Europe. As far as natural sciences are concerned, Europeans were acquainted with Sigmund Freud and his theories of “Unconscious Mind” and “Psychological Determinism”. In physics, Heisenberg and Einstein had undermined the most dogmatic common beliefs concerning time and space. In philosophy, Nietzsche and Schopenhauer were at work. In his works, Nietzsche challenged all idolized concepts of human mind. This article casts a furtive glance at the vitality and dynamics of language and literature, correspondent with developments in the other fields.

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Authors: Dr. Leena Pundir

Bodily Harm is Margaret Atwood’s profoundly moral and religious work which emphasizes the need for mercy, pity and love in our power-mad world. Its heroine Rennie’s painful and terrifying experiences make her realize that her cherished marginality and dis-involvement has all along prevented her from living her life as a ‘human being’ in the truest sense of the term. The narrative structure of Bodily Harm follows a pattern familiar in Atwood’s fiction. As the action of the plot unfolds, memory and association trigger flashback sequences. Revelations from earlier years help the reader understand the central character’s actions and responses in the present. Rennie is another of Atwood’s powerless heroines. And once again, it is a woman, Rennie’s grandmother, who embodies the archetypal paternalistic patterns of repression and domination that account for Rennie’s ingrained passivity and subservience.

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Authors: Dr. Kaustav Chakraborty

Religion forms a significant institution in Indian society in particular and in almost every society in general, in shaping attitudes and outlooks regarding sexuality. This paper is an attempt to trace the trajectory of change in response towards the non-heterosexuals in Indian society by discussing the religious prescriptions laid down by spokesperson/testimonials of Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Islam and Christianity. The aim of this venture is to highlight how the concept of an imported/borrowed/Westernized queer identity, as often projected by the nationalist (not only the Muslim fundamentalists but more often the Hindutva-vadis) critics of queer liberty in India, is a flawed and motivated one—rather it is the infiltration of the Victorian Christian concept of sex in totality as a sin and the same-sex as a deadlier one in particular that had resulted in intensification of the stigma associated with the Indian LGBT group. The method adopted here is mainly the documentation mode of citing the portions of classical religious treatises that deal with sexuality (i.e. the way people act/fantasize) and gender.

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Authors: Ogechukwu A. Ikediugwu

This essay analyzes the feminist inclinations of Chimamanda Adichie in Half of a Yellow Sun and Purple Hibiscus. The essay highlights the main characters in the texts and assesses the author’s presentations of the female characters in contrast with the male characters. The sharp contrasts that exist in the developments of both sexes make the essay conclude that Adichie is a feminist and that her feminism does not deviate from the African point of view.