Rudali By Mahashweta Devi

Rudali By Mahashweta Devi:
Feminism and Marxism in the context of Subaltern literature

The incontrovertible connection between society and literature has always been an assiduous field of hot discussion in the modem world. It is generally postulated that the literature of a society should reflect its problems. Literary writing in a wider perspective, is a social activity. Social aspect is a crucial dimension of all human activities including writing. Admittedly, in India, most of the contemporary writings are marked by an eschewal of the social content for artistic fineness. The question is significant why the contemporary Indian writers are so unconcerned about the stark issues of the society, such as the continuing exploitation and marginalization of the tribals and Dalits by the dominant classes. t aims to examine, among other things, the problematic of subaltern representation in the works of selected Indian writers, with special reference to the works of Mahasweta Devi, which provide a perfect dialogic plane upon which the politics of representation can be examined. Dalit literature is a branch of subaltern literature that stands for the writings on Dalit by Dalits from an insider perspective. It is also literature about Dalits by outsiders. In the modem context, the latter is questioned and its authenticity is contested. 

 Feminism and Marxism in the context of Subaltern literature

 As a postcolonial nativist movement, Dalit Literature voices the concerns of various subaltern castes and communities in India, oppressed and marginalized for centuries within the Hindu caste hierarchy. It has become a defiant generic presence in most of the regional languages. The different and distracting Dalit voice has always been muted within the contextual confinements of Humanism. In the post colonial scenario , the term Subaltern gets wider perspective as it refers to the third world countries and marginalized groups in the society. The issue of survival is nowhere dealt with such deep insight from the perspective of Subaltern to follow in an unreceptive world, where they experience continuous ostracization and subjugation at the hands of the dominant classes. Spivak has become an authoritative voice of the post-colonial period since the   publication of her essay “Can the Subaltern Speak?” She has extended her discourse to a large variety of topics such as Marxism, Feminism and Deconstruction. Her critical discourse raises the issues of marginal subjects such as the place of the subaltern women in the society and their empowerment. Spivak borrows the term "subaltern" from Gramsci, to refer to the unrepresented group of people in the society (Gramsci 55). In the Indian cultural context, the term "subaltern" acquires more significance as the people have struggled hard for Indian independence. She prefers the term "subaltern" as it encompasses the exact picture of the lower class people. , Gramsci found himself in a position of “subalternity” which gives his notes an often indicative and fragmentary perspective, though containing relevant intuitions. Needless to say, Subaltern Studies has encountered sharp debates in India and abroad since the inception of its career. Indian Marxist historians were among the first who bitterly criticized the project during the 1980s. They mainly highlighted the points of difference between Subaltern Studies and Marxism. To put it another way, the in-between lines came out on the treatment of Marx and Gramsci for an understanding of Indian history.

 In “A Literary Representation of the Subaltern”, Spivak analyses Jashoda‟s story from a subaltern perspective. Jashoda lives for her husband, children and Halder family. In Marxist feminist perspective, the logic of production-distribution values can be applied in the case of Jashoda. To her, the logic of sexual production is her production: Women are being treated as the „other‟ since they are subordinated to their men. The condition of the Third World Women is even more pathetic. They are doubly segregated; first of all from their men and also from the white upper class. The third world women are discriminated on the basis of gender, color and caste. The concept of the "other" comprises not only of the women of the third world but all the unwanted people like mentally retarded, mentally derailed and people with homosexual activities. The „other‟ always occupies a position outside the main-stream of life and they are treated as marginal who do not contribute anything to the welfare of the society. 

 In the post Independence India, especially in the past two or three decades women writers have a shunned all inhibitions and bravely projected and discussed the real status of contemporary Indian women. Mahashweta Devi shares her thoughts and ideas on the tribal people through works and speaks of how they are living in the forest and how they are closely connected with the nature, because nature is the mother of them. In the maker of shifting paradigms which is a Continuous process the women’s Subaltern is getting exposed through the influence of education, economic freedom, and western culture. The groundwork objective of the present study had been analysis Mahashweta Devi's radical as pioneering role in repairing the last of the Subalterns, rehabilitating their lives for a better future and approaching the germ of marginalization in India. As a champion of the cause of the tribal communities of India, Mahashweta is determined to correct the fabrication of history by revisiting elite history, resurrecting the power of orality, and hence creating a Subaltern history by listening to the subalterns. As a formidable voice of the marginalized communities , she has apprehended the system of caste that has been an instrument of the elite to suppress the Subaltern. Devi's shows her care on tribals and they became her primary subject; she observes the tribal people as representative of social oppression in India. Devi has used journalism as a media for verbalizing her social care and for social organizing. She is the one of the pioneers of the de-notified and Notified Tribal Rights Action Group (DNT-RAG), which works to enhanced situation for India's tribal people through services, education, legal agency, and community activism. Mahashweta Devi's works indicate her sincere obligation to the tribal, the deprived and the dispossessed. Of course, inhabitant writers like Munshi Prem Chand, Raja Ram Mohan Roy, and Mulk Raj Anand

Description of cast oppression and material violence are present throughout the narrative. The barbaric treatment of the superior and feudal lords along with class oppression and material economic misery become endless, especially the gendered subaltern. Individuals without power are dominated by those with power examples the ruling class and are to take orders every time without questioning their masters. Even the death of the feudal lords the occasion for establishing caste honor and supremacy. The upper caste lament not for death, losing caste distinctions and privileges. The Rajput clans and their caste center worldview. The themselves were mere footmen in the army of king and later acquired social and political power through materialization. Even the burial of the dead becomes a ceremonial occasion for the exhibition of the caste affiliation of the death person in such a content. 

The caste patriarch’s ultimate perversion could be identified in the forced custom of making the low caste women weep over the body of the dead upper caste male. This humiliating and mutilating assault over the material and emotional domains of the gendered subaltern could be read as the historically fetishistic , and core of Brahmanic patriarchy . 

Rudali testifies Mahashweta Devi’s thematic engagement with the less privileged constituencies of Indian society. The text traces the metamorphosis of Sanichari, the untouchable protagonist , exhibiting how her initial vulnerability and defenselessness gradually gave way to  unremitting attitude and a successful manipulation of the system of her end. Sanichari encounters a series of predicament after the death of her close relatives, including her husband.

The opening para of the story placed Sanichari in her socio-economic milieu and makes it obvious that Sanichari is one of her social and religious community members with whom she shared the condition of poverty and miseries of untouchable. The description of the village is like 

“The Tahad village , gangas and dushals were in the majority. Sanichari was a ganju by caste . Like the other villagers , her life too was lives in desperate poverty. Her mother in law use to day it was because Sanichari was born and inauspicious Saturday, that her destiny was full of suffering”.Sanichari is names because she was born on the unlucky day of the week. Her presence in the family considered to be ominous portending some danger or misfortune. She is cursed and is doomed to suffer. Here the plot of the novel is set in Tahad village of Rajasthan, where central character Sanichari suffers for generation together because of desperate poverty and stigma of low caste. Sanichari is born immediately after there father’s death . She is abandoned by her mother , who elopes with her wealthy lover. On growing up , she married to a man names Ganji who lived with his ill mother. Sanichari gives birth to a boy. She goes by her ethics and commitment towards her husband and mother in law. She losses her mother in low, her busy, her son year after year the death in the family have  turned Sanichari numb and insensitive towards miseries.

Rudali , becomes a sharply mocking take of abuse and struggle , and above all , of endurance. It seems that in country like India on one hand, women are considered as incarnation of Goddess and one the other hand they come victim of violence perpetrated by the dominant groups. The heart-rending scenes of oppression and material violence have been depicted in the novel with a motif to underline the inhuman attitude of religious and social structures in power. The way torturous and horrifying death of a low cadre woman is explained is quit touching .  “Her mother in law died in great pain  of dropsy, crying out , over and over, food give me food ,It was pouring that night”. One finds two reasons for Sanichari''s marginalization , one is that she is a female and other is that she is untouchable. Her life story is a distressing take of exploitation and  struggle for survival. Her mother in law was harsh to her when she was alive. When she died Sanichari's husband and her brother were put into jail by Maharaj Singh. The Tahad village is governed by tyrannical feudal lords, upholding the cause of tribal in India, Mahashweta Devi has always been devoted to winning them the political , financial and social security. The Rajput Malik’s literary forced the tag of whores on to the low caste women and constructed a descent of prostitute Wailers . The Brahmanic Hindu system survives on the labor potential of the Bahujan and on the bio power of the gendered subaltern. Such in degradation Condition in which the low caste is destined to live. It is the women who are ruined by the Malik Mahajan who turn into whores.Nonsense they are separate caster. But Sanichari rises to the occasion and  seizes the opportunity by making it an act of revenge and expression of historical dissent Sanichari thought that perhaps her years had been reserved for the time when she would have to feed herself by selling them .

 When Budhua dies and Sanichari is isolated by her daughter in law, with an infant grandson to bring up. Character of Bhikni , which also illustrates the situation of subaltern women in Brahmin society. Though Sanichari and Bhikni are not relatives to each other ,yet their elderly looks , isolation, anxiety , torments of fate and cruel feudal system connect them together . A new down comes in the life of Sanichari who needs the moral support very badly. To 9 her new Women, Mahashweta had used a significant means of narration i.e. the character of Dulan who belongs to the grassroots level. Sanichari told her about and everything .Dulan an old rague, but he has a sharp mind. Dulan  persuades Sanichari and Bhikni to take up professional mourning as their livelihood. He teaches them to turn grief into a stable commodity. Initially, Sanichari expresses her uneasiness about this profession. He says “ Budhua Ma , I am not asking you to shed the tears , There are you livelihood you will see” so here Devi has presented the lives of subaltern women that how , they are forced to sell their tears for their livelihood.

 Sanichari becomes thoughtful and got convinced by the practical arguments of Dulan. She thinks that perhaps her tears have been set aside for the time when she would have to feed herself by selling them. Devi says 

 “Among  us , when someone dies , we all mourn. Amongst the rich , family members are too busy trying to find , the key to the safe. They forget all about the tears. They have got hold to two whores. On the day krivya ceremony , you will get clothes and food , you will get money and rice”. (Mahasweta Devi)

As being a revolution for Sanichari and Bhikni , Dulan tries to put in great courage and audacity in Bhikni and Sanichari through telling various historical tales. He discusses with them the heroism of tribal leaders Harda and Donk Munda who lead down their tribal lives for the tribal cause. He succeeds in diverting their mind and makes them powerful women as they learn the tactic of survival by fighting with the despairing situation. In the first instance, the two women do their job well as Rudali. He exhorts them to organize a group of professional mourners nu hiring Eulalia from the market of prostitutes so that they able to exploit the corrupt Malik Mahajan who are pretentious and can do anything for the sale of fake morality. In Rudali, this subversion of exploitation attains a new height when it creates solidarity among the women of this community without any discrimination against the prostitutes. In fact, after Bhikni’s death, Sanichari’s social awareness increases and she starts empathizing with her daughter-in-law who left her house and turned into a prostitute because of sheer hunger. As a strategic and conscious endeavor to create women’s solidarity and power over the Malik Mahajan’s she collects the prostitutes who would wail over the death of a person who ‘turned them into whores’.Thus through the act of ‘crying’, the marginalized women of the society subvert the sheer hypocrisy  particular occasion which can be read as a symbol of a patriarchal tortuous system. They create ‘a sense of unified selfhood, a rational, coherent, effective identity’. 

It is seen that , Postcolonial feminism, also dubbed third-world feminism, contends that third-world women are subjected to both colonial domination of empire and male dominance patriarchy. It is an investigation of and at the intersections of colonialism and neocolonialism with gender, nation, class, race, and sexualities in the different contexts of women’s lives, their subjectivities, work, sexuality, and rights. In this approach, the emphasis is on the collusion of patriarchy and colonialism. However, it is a question of gender, in relation to race and class in the context of global population, articulated in postcolonial feminism. The major postcolonial feminism works move around themes such as monitory and combative addresses to First World feminists, the repudiation of the roles and places routinely assigned to women and feminists of the Third World, the formation of alliances, and the introduction of nuance and complexity into the politics of feminism.

Devi has highlighted the courage and strength of Sanichari and Bhikni in turning the professional mourning into a regular business . The interest of the story is that how Sanichari and Bhikni cash the chance to exploit their masters by turning a social ritual into a profession. In the feudal society, the death of a family member is the important for establishing caste superiority and honor. So, the feudal lords spend some money on death ceremonies just to increase their social status.

 Now Sanichari is conscious about the fact that the every day’s struggle for survival , the realism of injustice and double standards that disgrace and dehumanize women when she says :

  “ Their grief must have hardened like the storn into them. It is possible to feed so many mouths on the meager scraping they bring home after laboring on the Malik's field. Tow dead, just as well. At least their own stomachs would be full”

                                                ( Sanichari from Rudali)

Sanichari is totally traumatized with her son Budhua's death. Her daughter in law abandons her leaving her baby crying om the floor. This touching scene of death and alienation could move anyone but it didn’t move the heart of Sanichari . Sanichari knows well hoe to grab a situation to meet her own objective. Even after the death of Bhikni , Sanichari doesn’t stop her profession and keeps herself stable on her work. It makes her stubborn . All her inhibitions are removes and she becomes self assured. She invites two girls pratibha and Gulbadadan and encourage them to join the team, and narrate all the future plans in open manner. In this sense Sanichari is like Tess of Hardy fighting a lost battle as like loaded against her.

All these minuscule information regarding tribal life in her writings provide a genuine touch to her writings. Her touch with the tribal folks has also given her sufficient knowledge and resources for her stories. Her experience is accomplished and not lived as is the case of the tribal. Mahashweta admits that there is a lot to be done for the tribal folks. Mahashweta Devi's writings are to be considered as literature of protest portraying her annoyance against the current system. The assignment highlights the significant of combined resistance. In this case, the attention is placed on barbarian movements along with the Wahhabi and the Naxalite movements.

It is a concluding of the socio-feminist affairs that the author advocates so clearly through her writings and movements. Their concernment in the current picture is painted. The chapter creates her as a honest and powerful socially dedicated writer absolutely recognizing with  the victims of harshness and marginalization and dealing with the misfortune of common man. Mahashweta Devi, thus, voices to those misfortune multitudes, weakly caught in the whirlwind of feudalism. She speaks for these victims of horrible national rudeness, whose cries of depression and revolt go unheard. Her activist writings are a opinion on the way man has corrupted himself and society. The everyday language spoken by common people, which has not been given enough attention, is a powerful tool for Mahasweta Devi. The silent tears of the  relentless, ruthless struggle are presented in the startling rawness of language. At the same time she also makes use of literary language. Her writing is a collage of literary expressions used by intelligentsia, street language, and the language of the tribals. This is an effective medium for presenting the social set-up with binary oppositions.

Viewed from this perspective, it can be seen that, subalternity is a social residuum, necessarily misrepresented in that the subaltern does not access the social structures of representation. Subaltern is either non-existent or forcibly accommodated in the peripheries by the dominant classes/castes. It is a condition of relative inferiority within a social order, structured according to the rules of hegemony which perpetually reinforces the condition of marginality. All those groups that, for whatever reason, remain outside representation are, then, subaltern. Women, for instance, are subalterns according to this conceptualization in so far as they comply with the ideology of femininity which implants them in a position of relative social  subordination. Subalternity is the central locale around which the literary representations in the selected texts are perused in the present thesis. Mahasweta Devi states: Rudali is about . . . 'how to survive' . . . 'bread and mouth. It is very important in my story. The whole system is exposed through this, says Mahasweta Devi'. The text explicates the various strategies of survival employed by the subaltern individually and as a community." Mahasweta Devi's works such as Imaginary Maps, Chotti Munda and his Arrow, Book of the Hunter revolve around the lives of the tribals who are a small nation within nation with their own culture, sets of beliefs, values, language, songs  and legends.  

Conclusion

            Mahasweta Devi reconstructs the various histories of subaltern insurgency,  which were distinct from mainstream nationalist independence movement. The spirit of resistance along with the support of the community makes these female subalterns empowered. Rudali is a perfect example of this. The story depicts the survival and evolution of Sanichari from a simpleton to an empowered woman. The main thrust in her writings is on the double marginalization of female subalterns on account of caste-class-gender nexus. She brings to the fore the connection between feudalism and patriarchy which aggravates the oppression of female subalterns. This nexus has become an integral part of India's social formation. Acting in consonance, it is the basic infra-structural basis of Indian society, division of labour and inter-personal relations. The off-shoot of this is the emergence of new power elite in the country and numerous problems related to economic domination and subjugation, privileges and deprivation, conspicuous waste and bare survival. 

Ralf Ellison’s : Invisible Man

Ralf Ellison’s : Invisible Man

Representation of Black people in South America and the Failed American Dream

The conflict between individual and society has remained a fundamental concept in Literature for centuries. The individual is born into a society that had an established and defined social order. African American focuses on the struggle and triumph of blacks, whether it be fiction or nonfiction.

The notion of identify has been a focal point in postcolonial studies, nation’s that have been formally colonizes were required to revisit as well as reconstructed the distorted identify . Most often, African American writers pushed, identify as the central theme for their artistic works and novels. Blacks were the most to safer from this marginalization mainly because of their skin color which is very distinctive and easily spotted in the crowds. As Franz Fanon asserted “ The Negro enslaved by his inferiority, the white man enslaved by his superiority alike behave in accordance with a neurotic orientation”. Black identify, especially at the wake of the 20^th century has been the main, concern. Identity is a dynamic concept. The So-called Afro American identity is embedded primarily in the black experience. In defining blackness , Henry Louis Gates, a theorist of black Literature underpins it’s signifying systems that reside in the black tradition.

Ralph Ellison, the most significant African-American writer to emerge after Richard Wright, published his novel Invisible Man in 1952, the most comprehensive one-volume symbolic treatment of the history of the American Negro in the 20th century.' The work, the only published novel of the author to date, is still considered to be one of the classics of American literature. It is significant that even critics who were unsympathetic to black causes showered encomiums on Ellison's portrayal of a nameless protagonist's search for identity and his attempt to escape from the programming influences of the society in the novel.

Invisible Man is set during the 1920s and 30s, narrated by a nameless African-American protagonist who wishes to be seen and acknowledged in an America governed by white power structures. Opting for these two novels in a discussion of the American Dream allows me to discuss and analyze the Dream across racial and social lines as one novel is set among affluent white Americans and the other narrated by an African-American from the South journeying through the country trying to claim visibility in a society which does not acknowledge him. The narrator in Invisible Man is a black man who lives in South America. As we know, the blacks are not slaves now, but they are still poisoned by the ideology of slavery. In their mind, the white are their lord. They have to serve white men without any hesitation. In the period when he was studying in college, the narrator suffered a lot. He was obedient to the arrangement of the teachers in the school and the rule of whites in whites club. When he began to understand the world and himself step by step, American Racism and apartheid policies of the United States make the boy’s growth alienation. Invisible  Man is a novel woven on the fabric of American culture and it revolves around the relationships between black and white.

Threaded on the first person narrative, it is a story of an unnamed African American Southern protagonist who encounters various attacks, usually for bad reasons. After being humiliated in Battle Royal, he is awarded a scholarship to the university. Invisible Man begins with what appears to be a material and social definition of identity: “I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone,” invisible only “because people refuse to see me” (3), but if we go deep into its understanding, the word substance alludes to more than a material. The narrator wants to say that he deserves value and importance and need to be given an identity and recognition. Though Invisible Man is set against the background of a nameless black protagonist’s life, Ellison undertakes the effort to make it a common ground for man. The way things are exposed in invisible Man may be called realistic for its attempts to offer expressions adequate to the experience of people. Ellison uses the technique of image presentation and the idea of the mask. The nightmare and hallucinations of the narrator in the Prologue also has surrealistic touch. The people bump into the narrator and evoke him to his existence and to his reality that he is too black to be seen. Similarly the night of the Harlem riots is full of the mysteries of the order, revealed and unrevealed, as they fall to the lot of the narrator. The evening of the Harlem riots is handled by Ellison with authority and macabre humor.

In my estimation . Ellison describes the undermining forces with such detachment that it is justified that in the processes of mastering his rage, Ellison has also mastered his art. The narrator who goes there full of hope is again expelled from the college in disgrace and is forced to move to New York in search of a job. The narrator is handed over sealed letters of reference from Doctor Bledsoe, President of his former university. The letters are later revealed to contain character defamations. The narrator nonetheless obtains employment with Liberty Paints, a company that creates white paint to be used in the bleaching of national monuments. As the narrator mixes into the paint a little other dope that looks and smells the same, the paint turns gray. As a result he is sent to another department under Luscious Brockway who thinks himself as an indispensable man in the Liberty Paints. The narrator under Brockway is treated shoddily and is held responsible for mistakes he has not committed. Eventually an accident is caused and the narrator is hospitalized where he receives a form of electric shock therapy intended to reproduce the effects of a lobotomy. Although desensitized, he vividly recalls the folklore of his Southern boyhood. He emerges with a new sense of racial pride, while the superficiality of his previous experience is erased. For the first time he is unashamed of his background. He asserts his disdain for servile blacks by dumping a spittoon on a man whom he mistakes for Doctor Bledsoe. While passing through the streets, the narrator happens to see that an elderly couple has been evicted from their home. He, on impulse, delivers an impromptu speech which attracts the attention of the Brotherhood, an organization that works for the welfare of the African American people. The narrator after briefly embracing the Brotherhood’s false ideals discovers that the Brotherhood merely feigns interest in civil rights while actually working to repress African Americans and deny their individuality. The chaos that ensues in the African American community following the frenzied exhortations of a fanatic, develops into a hallucinatory treatment of the Harlem race riots of the 1940s and culminates in the narrator’s final rejection of false identities.

As I observed, throughout the novel, there is a substantial use of symbolism. The nude dancer’s motions which arouse both desire and guilt; Mr. Norton, the white philanthropist and trustee’s views about his daughter; the iron bank that the narrator carries: young Emerson’s museum like office with the description of an iron pot, an ancient bell, a set of ankle-irons and links of chain and others: Todd Clifton’s Sambo Doll and all such vivid descriptions reflect the true picture of American history and reality. Ellison’s technique echoes the agony of the human experience. Invisible Man has a kaleidoscopic vision of myriad number of themes ranging from search for identity, alienation, betrayal, struggle, racial issues, protest, violence, reality and others. All varied themes encompassed in a single novel need great artistic handling and Ellison has successfully shown it in his monumental piece.

The treatment by the whites is paradoxical. They are ordered to watch the dancer and when they do so they are shouted at. If they do not stare at the blonde, again they are shouted at. Whatever they do, they are termed wrong. The whites behave like animals at their peak. The narrator describes the scene of this horrid experience, and it was as if these whites were not human beings, but beasts who leered at the blonde wildly: I noticed a certain merchant who followed her hungrily; his lips loose and drooling. He was a large man who wore diamonds studs in a shirtfront which swelled with the ample paunch underneath, and each time the blonde swayed her undulating hips he ran his hand through the thin hair of his bald head and, with his arms upheld, his posture clumsy like that of an intoxicated panda, wound his belly in a slow and obscene grind (20).Almost all the whites acted beastly and „they ran laughing and howling after her‟ like the hungry wolves wanting the meat. The narrator also observes the blonde’s response to their behavior through her expressions, “above her red, fixed-smiling lips, I saw the terror and disgust in her eyes, almost like my own terror and that which I saw in some of the other boys… her legs flung wildly as she spun” (20). The girl is objectified as sex pleasure and not as a human being. Her fully bruised red lips symbolize her anger and disgust towards the men; while the fixed smile indicates her static nature bearing a false happiness.

In Invisible Man, Ellison employs a "jazz" style in which an improvisation of rhetorical forms is played against a central theme. Letters, speeches, sermons, songs, nursery rhymes, and dreams are used throughout the novel, and the novel's style adjusts itself to match the changing consciousness and circumstances of the protagonist. In the early chapters, Ellison employs a direct, didactic style similar to that of the social realist protest novels of the 1930's and 1940's. In the middle portions of the novel, after the narrator moves to New York City, Ellison's prose becomes more expressionistic, reflecting the narrator's introspection. In the last section of the novel, as the narrator moves toward the apocalyptic race riot in Harlem with which the novel concludes, the prose becomes surreal, emphasizing the darkly comic absurdities of the African Americans existence. All sections of the book are enriched by Ellison's versatile use of symbols that focus attention on his major themes while underscoring the ambiguous nature of experience.

The production of identity in the context of Invisible Man is directly linked to the black Invisible Man takes a detour in identifying the location of culture in it’s relation to what underlines as the stories of Subjectivity melting the narrative history. In confronting the history of Subjectivity and violence, the protagonist of Invisible Man explores his identity in the oral tradition of the Afro-American community and in black music. This process culminates in moving backdoor and re identifying identity.

The work of Ralph Ellison represents a middle ground between the ontological essentialism of Afrocentric and the anti essentialism of diaspora as hybridity. Many African American writers have been to the notion of hybridity . Another ironic treatment is given to Dr. Bledsoe, the ruthless President of the narrator’s college. The narrator’s experience begins after he gets a scholarship to the college. He wishes to become a good leader. He tries to identify with and mould himself on the role of Dr. Bledsoe. The narrator wonders as to what makes Bledsoe such a powerful and prestigious person in both the societies, white and African American: To us he was more than just a president of a college. He was a leader, a “statesman” who carried out our problems to those above us, even unto the   White House; and in days past he had conducted the President himself about the campus. He was our leader and our magic, who kept the endowment high, the funds for scholarships plentiful and publicity moving through the channels of the press. He was our coal-black daddy of whom we were afraid.)”.The novel is a battle between the external and internal conflict. As external society imposes racial prejudices and stereotypes on the narrator. He tries to follow society's standard and expectation of his role as a black man. On the internal level, the narrator seems to recognize it with his individual identity, which he also struggles to define.

It can be assumed that, Ellison himself, like the protagonist of his novel, remains whole and optimistic v, a man calm in the face of human dilemma. A central metaphor in the novel concerns the blindness of the Invisible man to his many experiences for he must come to terms and understand the culmination and summary of the experiences narrated in the novel. Theban goes through the process of initiation only to prepare himself for reinventing his identity as a black man having learnt his lessons about black cultural life. The identity , the Invisible man discovers is camouflage in invisible that tells as about his World, his complex feelings. The novel narrates life experience, while the prologue and epilogue give us his conclusions and philosophy.

Invisible man’s desire for leadership and money that prompt him to join the Brotherhood and accept the identity offered by them. He leaves it when the invisibility of the blacks to the members of the Brotherhood, and their resultant lack of interest in the welfare of the blacks become evident to him. Invisible man's awareness of the reality behind the African nationalism of Rac and his dislike of its violence, compel him to reject it wholly. He learns how blacks like he and Rac are manipulate  by the powers. In order to escape from Rac's men , once Invisible Man wears a mask which exposes before him the possibilities of Rinchartism. He learns that Rinchartism multiple identities can help him to manipulate the surface, by escaping to the different identities on different occasion. In this way, Ellison’s hero finds all the available ideologies in sufficient to solve the identity problem of the bluesman. In spite of his dim awareness of the practical power and wisdom of black folk tradition , symbolic and by his grandfather , True blood , vet and Mary, he becomes fit enough to embrace it only towards the end of his initial experience in life. As a literary artist, he celebrates the value of his black heritage at the end by writing about it. So Invisible man has been called an extended blues performance. Ellison writes “The narrator of Invisible Man sings his own Blue in telling his tale and but singing the Blue he discovers the meaning of his reality. It is a take that tells of the growth of an Invisible consciousness and the growth of perception”. Through the blues performance of writing about his life, he tries to involve a pattern out of his chaotic experiences. The putting of his story of Invisibility down in black and white , is in other words , his attempt to find why he is 'black and blue '. In the whole , he reflects on his past, becomes conscious of his Invisibility to others. As to himself , and gains the realization ' I am what I am'.

As an Invisible black man the values that might appear that might appear obvious to these, to the protagonist seems to be focusing. His desire to be fit and strong is primarily an individualistic impulse. He recounts nearly killing a man, who saw him only as the phantom nigger, a vision of a racist mind-set. But learning that he is Invisible gives him a  kind of Power over these who do no see him. This understanding gives him an Identity, others probably do not have with this identity, he can defeat his soul sickness and assert that life is to be lived. Thus the narrator not only begins to write it down. As a writer and a sensitive critic, he is aware that there is an area where 'a man’s feeling are more rational than his mind”.

Ellison gave foreshadowing hints to give readers a sense of what would happen to his characters. The narratives first job in New York was to create liberty paintd. But in order to make the pure white country in this time period, but it needed the black toner to make it functional. The narrator’s “manhole” his present time home, I’d underground and fixed with several light bulbs. He spends a majority of his time listening to Louis Armstrong, deciphering the meaning of his songs. This is where he lives after Ras riot breaks out , in the beginning and ending of the novel. His “manhole” is not actually a hole bit abandoned notes basement . What is more interesting for the Invisible man is that , it trying to bridge the cultural gap, he also comes face to face with the problem of the generation gap with his father and grandfather .

His dilemma arises from misunderstanding a seasoned advice offered by his grandfather

“ Son often  I am gone!  I want you to keep up the good fight…. Live with your head in the lion's mouth. I want you to overcome with yesses , undermine with grins, agree to death and destruction”.

This the part of the grandfather's deathbed speech. These words relate to the novel because the protagonist dealt with many people that didn’t particularly like him or think highly of him. Unlike the protagonist’s father, whose sight is linear and fixed, the grandfather possesses a mobile, multidimensional insight. He does not see the choice before him in terms of absolute life or death, suffering  of bliss. For he has some how managed to reconcile being with 'not being'. Indeed of a clear cut situation in which life is either war or peace , he has been able to live in peace even while fighting with his own battle. Invisible Man foregrounds the theorizing of diaspora as a problem of politics and identity. In order to make this point clear, it is useful to distinguish two interpretations of diaspora , as a conceptual tool or referential term denoting a specific group of people.

Analysis of who belongs to the African American diaspora cannot ignore race, but must investigate processes of identity formation , analyzing forms of realized classification and subordinations as through such system to formulate and revaluate their own sense of the self. In Identity of the Invisible Man is formed and transformed in relation to other identity constructions.

This Bildungsroman style novel , the tone changed from dark pessimistic notion to the optimistic notion. The narrator is motivated to meet expectations of a certain social group. This is a struggle because it opposed social norms surrounding his race. After being expelled from the college.   Southern whites: In this novel, Southern Whites were assume to be racist , discriminant and completely against of racial equality. On the other hand in this novel, northern whites were assumed to be advocated of racial equality . Willing to help blacks form the south and not racist for discrimination. The treatment of women are given in a secondary position. ………

“They have tried to dispossessed us of our manhood and womanhood and of our childhood.

You heard the sister's statistics on our infant mortality rate. Don’t you know you are pouch to be uncommonly born ? Why ? they ever tried to dispossess us of our dislike if being dispossessed.”

As it seems to me that Power is held by the white during this novel. The narrator realizes this through out the novel and understands that he does not have any power because of his race.” I am Invisible understand simply. The white folk everywhere what to think”.   Since the Invisible Man exist in an inauthentic state, he is unable to recognize and understand bring living in an authentic state. While driving for Mr. Norton , he accidentally comes to the area of the slave quarter where they meet him Trueblood , a share cropper. Who has committed incest with is daughter in a state. Trueblood remains true to himself while other black look at himself while other black look at him with contempt. He reveals both the courage to be and the desire for being with others. When his wife keeps him our of house and the Preacher considers him most wicked. He tales Mr. Norton “ I ant nobody but myself …”.

When the narrator takes Mr Norton to the Golden Day to get him some  whisky as humbucker sick after listening to Trueblood's  story of incest because he is guilty of his own feeling towards his daughter.

From the historical point of view, this racial injustice was more common and had a brutal shape in the Southern parts of America, where even after emancipation , Negroes were stil lynched. Langton Hughes, the most acclaimed poet of  America has written a poem called 'The South in which he gives the account of the tribulation of Black people in South America

“ The Sunny faced South,

Beast strong

Idiot, brained

The child minded South.

“The South”

                                            (Langston Hughes)

From my perspective, Ellison‟s nameless narrator is prodded by the junk man to acknowledge his roots as a Southern Negro and though he has been trained to look down his nose at the country people and their culture, he has nevertheless intimations that there is something rich and valuable in their expression. The combination of blues and folk speech appears in several other sequences where the same point is made. The Jim True blood episode, which is one of the best drawn scenes, moves along similar line. Trueblood literally meaning true to one’s blood is a stereotype of African American “blood” as beastly. He has nothing but the blues, who being a good tenor singer was brought up along with members of a county to sing

what the officials called „their primitive spirituals‟. But Trueblood’s crime of incest, linked through his dream with transgressions of racial as well as family taboo, threatens to undermine his family, and to spread chaos at the root of the community.

Ellison's  handling of the situation reveals how well he can utilize the materials of folk tradition to expose the full range of their ideological and technical meaning. To begin with, it gives him a chance to undercut the conventional image of the Negro folk character whose major reference for most readers is the kindly Uncle Remus. Ellison inherits this artistic implication of folklore from writers such as Eliot and Joyce: I use folklore in my work not because I am a Negro, but because writers like Eliot and Joyce made me conscious of the literary value of my folk inheritance. My cultural background, like that of most Americans is dual. (my middle name, sadly enough, is Waldo). The narrator refers to inner eyes to comment on their thoughts on race. Since the narrator is a black-skinned man, he feels he is overlooked. People just see through him and neglect him as he is an African American. He complains that the Whites are also blind to spiritual truths. The narrator expresses his desire of listening to Armstrong’s music like to hear five recordings of Louis Armstrong playing and singing

“What Did I Do to be so Black and Blue”- all at the same time…. Perhaps I like Louis because he’s made poetry out of being invisible. I think it must be because he’s unaware that he is invisible. And my own grasp of invisibility aids me understand his music. (8) The narrator, after listening to the song, feels that the words fit his life where he had encountered various problems when he was not given the self respect and value he deserved. He feels as if he did nothing exist at a Throughout the novel the stress is on words, incidents and characters that suggest the clarity, distortion, obstruction or absence of the double vision of African American .

Conclusion -

In this blog, I have discussed the Ellison’s representation of Black people in South America ,with the intention of highlighting the failings of the Dream and the damaging ideology associated with it. I have analyzed the Ralph Ellison’s protagonist who has shown that he desires to be acknowledged in a society defined by racist structures which restrict him. n the essay, I have argued that how  Invisible Man’s protagonist being born in South America wakes up from his disillusion in time to reflect on the failing American Dream. I have also mainly focused on Southern part of America where the black people had to suffer more as compared to white people I have argued that the narrative style of the novel influences the perception which the protagonist has of the Dream and of his own identity: the Invisible Man narrates the American Dream from his own perspective, the experiences of the protagonists portray the often-valorized American Dream and its influence on American society in a very negative light. Thus W.H. Hudson the greatest critic has emphasized this novel in his book History of English Literature.

Adaptation of To Kill A Mocking Bird

 Adaptation of To Kill A Mocking Bird

To Kill a Mockingbird is primarily a novel written by Harper Lee about growing up under extraordinary circumstances in the 1930s in the Southern United States. The story covers a span of three years, during which the main characters undergo significant changes. Scout Finch lives with her brother Jem and their father Atticus in the fictitious town of Maycomb, Alabama. Maycomb is a small, close-knit town, and every family has its social station depending on where they live, who their parents are, and how long their ancestors have lived in Maycomb. A widower, Atticus raises his children by himself, with the help of kindly neighbors and a black housekeeper named Calpurnia. Scout and Jem almost instinctively understand the complexities and machinations of their neighborhood and town. The only neighbor who puzzles them is the mysterious Arthur Radley, nicknamed Boo, who never comes outside. Scout is a tomboy who prefers the company of boys and generally solves her differences with her fists. She tries to make sense of a world that demands that she act like a lady, a brother who criticizes her for acting like a girl, and a father who accepts her just as she is. Not quite midway through the story, Scout and Jem discover that their father is going to represent a black man named Tom Robinson, who is accused of raping and beating a white woman. Suddenly, Scout and Jem have to tolerate a barrage of racial slurs and insults.

             To Kill a Mockingbird is a film in which there is a great interplay of past and present, justice and injustice, innocence and experience, progress and tradition, old people and young people, male and female characteristics and so on. There are certain irrelevant scenes which were avoided by the creators of the movie in order to meet the financial and technical requirements. Unlike film, the novel has no rigid framework and authors have taken full advantage of this freedom and represent the life with its entirety. But in film the makers should confront various conundrums and troubles to bring the story to the screen.

                The novel and the film have many similarities and a few differences. But we can claim that these minute alterations never mitigated the beauty of the novel while adapting to the film. In general, the film is a faithful adaptation of the book with only a few subtle changes most of which were forced upon Mulligan by time constraints and the voice over narration which smoothest over the cracks left by material deleted from the book.

Book into Film:-

           It is difficult to turn a novel into a film. The film and the novel have many similarities and some disparities. Ideally, a novel and its film version complements each other, as in this case. A film can accomplish elements that novels can't and vice versa. Likewise, film has limitations that a novel doesn't. By its nature, film is a visual medium, which makes a first person story difficult to tell. To have Scout narrating throughout the film as she does in the book would have become digressing, so Scout as narrator sets the mood of the scenes in the film. So there is no depiction of Scout as first person narrator in the movie as in the book. In the movie, there is childlike perception presented flawlessly.

 Some Similarities and Dissimilarities:-

            The film uses music to reinforce the child's perspective. The film has Scout as an important character but it also expands on her brother, Jem's personality too like Jem finds the whole things in the tree, he accompanies Atticus to inform Helen about her husband's demise and he was also left to solely nurse her sister which is absent in the book. A film has a rigid structure and therefore, it concentrates on certain characters unlike books. For instance, Miss Stephanie Crawford and Cecil Jacob's, not Francis Hancock, compels Scout to break her promise to Atticus regarding combat. Aunt Alexandra is not mentioned in the movie at all, so the question of Scout behaving like a lady was removed. Here, the gender bias and prejudices which was obvious in the novel was kept less relevant or mild by the film makers. For the sake of explicit narration, films introduce new characters and expand existing ones. In the film, the heartfelt conversation between Scout and Jem details her persona whereas the novel had a single paragraph devoted to her. Viewers also see Tom Robinson's father and children in the movie, father Robinson is absent in the book and his kids are a passing reference only. Many people enjoy the advantage of being able to visualize a character, however, viewers can be thrown out of the story if the actor playing the part doesn't fit the reader's vision of the character. For instance, the actress who plays Maudie is thin , much younger, and more conventional than the one in book. On the other hand, Gregory Peck, by Lee's own assertion, is the perfect embodiment of Atticus Finch, which gives the character a far greater depth than the book. There are many striking similarities between the film and the novel, To Kill a Mockingbird. Both the versions presented the flashback narration by the old Scout. The macabre life of Boo Radley was portrayed bereft any omissions or additions. All the relevant actions and conundrums unraveled in the novel were presented with authenticity. The trials and tribulations encountered by Tom Robinson, racism and its brutal facets, white supremacy, racial prejudices all are portrayed in an infallible manner.

Adopting a literary is a task:-

               The novel as well as the film reveals the stark realities to humorous pleasing moments brilliantly. Certain sequences were avoided to adhere to the time and space limits of movie such as the children's school and classroom shots, church scene etc. These are irrelevant but the truncated depiction of Calpurnia, the maid in Atticus household was unfair as Calpurnia was the motherly figure for Scout and Jim. We can't blatantly upbraid the director for these minute omissions as the novel is not bounded to time but the film is. Lee's novel is a coming-of- age story influenced by a major event in the community and within one family. The film is a courtroom drama that happens to include something about the lead attorney's home life. The implied incest between Bob and Mayella Ewell is never discussed during the course of the trial. The movie never displays the realities behind Maycomb's caste system and the viewers remain oblivious to the fact that Ewells are considered to be trash. These eliminations may have done to avoid the actions of fanatics and conservatives. The courtroom scenes are condensed in the film. Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch delivers a shortened version of Atticus arguing to the jury. The lines he does say are verbatim, but several points from the speech are excluded. Neither does the film explores the aftermath of the trial or exhibits the conversations, Atticus has with his children, aids them to comprehend the situation. The film addresses the heart-wrenching plight of the African-Americans only through the trial. Calpurnia was treated with dignity as the Finch family is a progressive one. The mockingbird is an innocuous creature which only sings to bring music to the garden. The sin of killing the bird is evident, but it is a metaphor for inculpating and avenging in noxious minorities. There are two characters who are in semblance with the bird, ie, the black, Tom Robinson and the outcast among the whites, Boo Radley. This symbolic usage of mockingbird is infallible in both the versions, as, filmic as well as written. A long episodic novel can easily lose its way; but Lee has an unequivocal organic sense of a single story with a unifying theme of Mockingbird. The first part of the novel which is an account of Scout's early

years, primarily in search of comprehending the mystery of Boo Radley was perfectly adapted into the visual medium. Both the director and the novelist successfully, brought the two conflicting narratives together. To Kill a Mockingbird is a film in which there is a great interplay of past and present, justice and injustice, innocence and experience, progress and tradition, old people and young people, male and female characteristics and so on. There are certain irrelevant scenes which were avoided by the creators of the movie in order to meet the financial and technical requirements. Unlike film, the novel has no rigid framework and authors have taken full advantage of this freedom and represent the life with its entirety. But in film the makers should confront various conundrums and troubles to bring the story to the screen.

                The novel and the film have many similarities and a few differences. But we can claim that these minute alterations never mitigated the beauty of the novel while adapting to the film. In general, the film is a faithful adaptation of the book with only a few subtle changes most of which were forced upon Mulligan by time constraints and the voice over narration which smoothest over the cracks left by material deleted from the book.

Novel – Society- Film:-

             In the this film, the function of hero enters social group is depicted by a man-cub from Meridian approached Scout and Jem. Based on the intertextual, it is a mode of modification. The reason is the film To Kill a Mockingbird has changed but not completely from the depiction of the hero enters the social group. In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird, Dill swearing at the garden, who pay attention to scout and Jem. Dill is not directly approached Scout and Jem.

Dill Harris : I am Charles Baker Harris, call me Dill. I am from Meridian,

Mississippi and I am spending two weeks next door with my aunt Stephanie.

          This scene tells about Dill Harris is trying to be closer to Scout and Jem.He told to Jem and Scout if each summer to spend time with his aunt Rachel. He said many have seen the movie. Dill is very creative and always had a great idea. The appeal of Dill with Radley's house at the start. The road passes near Radley we play them will do and follow Radley headed home. They noticed her always deserted, and the public does not know the whereabouts of his son. The Hero Is Unknown to the Society. The scene in film of To Kill a Mockingbird which indicates that the hero is unknown to the society is depicted by Boo Radley. Based on the intertextuality, this scene is a made of haplology. It is because the film of To Kill a Mockingbird was cut a little story in the depiction of the of the hero is unknown to the society. Therefore in the film the hero is unknown to the society.

  

Conclusion:-

           Thus, The film portrays the basic essence of novel, properly. Robert Mulligan not only relocated and translated the elements of novel but also enriched the filmic version with new utterances and unique creativities. The minutest eliminations and additions are essential to augment the beauty of the film. It is mandated that a film should not lose the essence underpinning the source work. The notion of racism, patriarchy, foisting nature of power prevalent in the so-called sophisticated American society and even the atmosphere of the novel was flawlessly imaged in the film, bounding to the film's time limits and rigid framework.