Balzac and the little Chinese seamstress by Dai Sijie_hia

Balzac and the little Chinese seamstress by Dai Sijie

Dai Sijie(1954) – a Chinese-French author, novelist and filmmaker. He participates in “Up to the Mountain and Down to the Countryside”- a program for re-education with rural peasant in Sichuan, China province during Cultural Movement in 1966, Chaired by Mao Zedon. After this he teaches at high school and learns art history at Sichuan University till he gets a scholarship in 1984 for Study Film in France. He lives in Paris, primarily writes in French though he has a Chinese passport.

Films: Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, released in 2002.

Balzac and the little Chinese seamstress (2000) (Scar Literature)– A Semi Autobiography. It is his first novel, translated into 25 languages as of 2017. He is inspired to write this novel from his re-education with rural peasants at rural Sichuan. It wins five Literary France Award.

Summary

The novel is about two teenagers Luo and the unnamed narrator during the Chinese Cultural Revolution. Luo is a good storyteller and the narrator is a good musician. They are Tibet for re-education in rural China. enemies of the state by the government. The two boys love the Little Seamstress who is a daughter of the local tailor. The people of rural China are delighted by the stories when the two boys share reading of classic literature and movies. They are even relieved from work to watch films

The two boysUrsule Mirouët by Honoré de Balzac for once reading. Luo reads the book whole night and gives to the narrator and leaves to tell the story to the Little Seamstress. Luo comes back with a leaves after having sex with the girl.

The village headman has had a dental issue. He threatens to arrest Luo and the narrator for their The Count of Monte Cristo if they do not find a healings of his dental issue. They assure a solution and turn the drill slowly as to punish him.  The headman once allows Luo to go home to take care of his sick mother. After Luo’s

The Little Seamstress develops a passion for the outside world after reading the foreign books Lou helpwd in. She suddenly leaves the mountain to start a new life in the city. Luo finds detest for the foreign books "in

The Color Purple _Alice Walker_hia

The Color Purple : Alice Walker

Alice Malsenior Tallulah kate Walker (1944) – a African- American writer, poet, novelist, social activist.

• ·         A feminist, coined the term ‘womanist’ in 1983 for a Black Feminist or Feminist in color and Editor of Ms Magazine in 1973, First novel : The Third Life of Grange Copeland (1970).
• ·         Meridian (1976) is a novel about worker in South during the Civil Right Movement, shows her own experiences also.
• ·         The Color Purple (1982) is about a young, black woman troubled not only  by white racist but also patrarcal black culture. It wins  National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize in 1983.

THE COLOR PURPLE

Celie is a poor, uneducated, fourteen-year-old rural Georgian black girl.  Celie writes letters to God as Alphonso, her father beats and rapes her. She gave birth to a girl, whom her father probably killed in the woods. Celie, second time gives a boy, whom he again steals. Celie’s mother dies from illness. Alphonso re marries but continues rapping her. Mr. __ wants to marry Nettie- younger sister of Celie. Mr. __ loves Shug Avery, an attractive bar singer. But Alphonso offers Mr. __ the “ugly” Celie. Mr. __ eventually accepts and takes Celie into an unhappy married life. Nettie scapes  from Alphonso and goes Celie’s house. But Mr. __ had lust for Nettie and she left for her own safety. Celie assumes she is dead.

Mr. __’s sister Kate sympathically encourages Celie to stand against Mr. __’s torture. Harpo, Mr. __’s son, loves a spunky girl  Sofia. Celie is attracted by Shug Avery but never allowed her to meet her.  Sofia becomes pregnant and marries Harpo. But Mr. __ treats Sofia as an inferior. Harpo also tries to harrass physically but fails  as Sofia is stronger than him.

Mr. __ brings Shug to his house for her illness. Shug seems rough to Celie, but later the both  become friends as Celie keeps nursing. Celie becomes infatuated to her sexually. Sofia moves out with her children for ill treat by Harpo. Few months later, Harpo opens a juke joint where Shug sings nightly. Shug learns that Mr. __ beats Celie in absence of her. So she decides to stay and the lustful relationship grows intimate in them. In her return, Sofia fights with Harpo’s new girlfriend  Squeak. In town, the mayor’s wife, Miss Millie, asks Sofia to work as her maid and answered with a sassy “Hell no.” The mayor slaps for her refusal and sent to jail. Squeak tried to save Sofia  but is sentenced for twelve years  maid.

Shug marries Grady but keeps a sexual relationship with Celie. One night Shug asks Celie about Nettie. She assumes her dead as she never writes to her. Shug reavels that  Mr. __ hides few letters  arrived in the mail. Shug rescues the letters and finds these from Nettie. The letters indicate that Nettie is with a missionary couple, Samuel and Corrine, at a travelling  to Africa to do ministry work. They have two adopted children, Olivia and Adam. Nettie and Corrine are close friends. Corrine  notices her adopted children resemble Nettie and doubts whether  Nettie and Samuel has a secret past and limits Nettie’s role within her family.

Nettie experiences despondency learning Africans self-centered and obstinate. Nettie asks Samuel about Olivia and Adam. Based on his story, Nettie confirms that the two children are actually Celie’s biological children. Nettie also learns that Alphonso is their step-father. Their real father was a storeowner . The white men were jealous of his success and lynched. Alphonso pretends to be  real father because of inherit their mother’s house and property. Nettie tells the couple about the actual fact of the children. Corrine refuses to believe but accepts Nettie’s story before her death. Meanwhile, Celie goes to Alphonso and confirms Nettie’s story. Celie’s faith in God begins to lose but Shug tries to keep stronger.

The mayor releases Sofia from her servitude six months early. At dinner once , Celie expresses her distraction and curses Mr. __ for his years of abuse and moved to Tennessee with Shug and Squeak also joined them. In Tennessee, Celie begins a business of tailoring. Celie returns to Georgia and finds Mr. __ reformed and Alphonso died, his house and land are owned by Celie.

Meanwhile, Nettie marries Samuel. Adam marries Tashi, a native African girl following African tradition. Tashi undergoes the painful rituals of female circumcision and facial scarring. Adam also undergoes the same facial scarring ritual.

Celie and Mr. __ reconcile and begin a happy life. Sofia remarries Harpo and works in Celie’s clothing store. Nettie finally returns to America with Samuel and the children and reunions  with her sister, Celie notes that though she and Nettie are now old, she has never in her life felt younger.

 

Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis As A campus Novel

“Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis” As A campus Novel

A campus novel is a novel whose main action is set in and around the campus of a university. In English campus novel‖ is a term used to designate a work of fiction whose action takes place mainly in a college or university, and which is mainly concerned with the lives of university professors and junior teachers and somewhat with their students, both undergraduate and postgraduate. In the campus novel students are usually objects perceived by the academic staff, rather than subjects from whose point of view the story is told. This emphasis on the teachers rather than on their students is a distinctive feature of the campus novel, which emerged in the second half of the twentieth century. An alternative name for the campus novel is ― academic novel,‖ and some critics who write on the subject prefer it, but ―campus novel‖ is more expressive of the unity of place which characterises the genre.

In the novel, Jim is a probationary junior lecturer in medieval history — a subject that he detests, in the cloistered academic world. Dixon secures a temporary adjunct position at an unnamed provincial redbrick university. Like the other angry young working class men who struggle to find acceptance and self‑sufficiency in the groves of academe. Dixon hungers for job security. Professor Welch serves as Dixon’s  fortune controller in this novel. For Dixon, Welch represents everything that he finds troubling about academic life. Dixon finds himself equally confused by the disparity between Welch’s academic standing and his vague qualifications. Although Welch possesses the power to decide Dixon’s ultimate fate at the university. For this reason, he accedes to all of the professor’s demands for his service. In addition to agreeing to attend Welch’s ―Arty Weekend‖ of madrigal songs and chamber music—activities which the working‑class Dixon finds utterly detestable—Dixon conducts his senior colleague’s research activities and provides Welch with notes for a lecture that the professor intends to deliver. Despite all of his efforts ,he fails to gain Welch’s favor. For which, Welch frequently refers to him as ― Faulkner,‖ the name of a previous temporary assistant lecturer.

On the other hand, Bertrand and Dixon’s differences in social class and personal ethics. A pompous, self‑important artist, Bertrand adopts a variety of measures expressly intended to establish distance between himself and the inferior beings that he sees around him. As Bertrand slowly discovers that Dixon’s potential intimacy with Christine Callaghan. He begins threatening to use his relationship with his father to get Dixon dismissed from job , Bertrand cutions Dixon about the powerful range of his influence.Christine, the niece of the wealthy London art collector, Julius Gore‑Urquhart, is an object over which to establish the rivalry between Dixon and Bertrand. To Dixon, Christine initially appears to serve as a mere ornament for Bertrand’s social excursions. She seems to confirm this belief after openly referring to Gore‑Urquhart as ―Uncle‖ during their first meeting the ―Arty Weekend‖. Christine provides Dixon with a true colleague in every sense of the word, a trusted confidante who shares in his mischievous attacks on the academy. As well as she agrees to depart with him from the Summer Ball that she originally attended as Bertrand’s date, and later, after she agrees to meet with him secretly at the local pub. Christine along with Gore‑Urquhart, affords Dixon with vital means for leaving the university community. Gore‑Urquhart affords Dixon with the opportunity of well-paid job in London. On the other hand,Welch Counsels that an effective public lecture on behalf of the department might save his job at the university. However, Dixon delivers a protracted and forceful parody of the academy, scholarship, and his senior colleagues. During his ―Merrie England‖ speech, Dixon replaces his inventory of faces with drunken imitations of the voices of Welch, the university Principal, and, finally, a Nazi stormtrooper. In this way, he argues his final, blistering attack upon the indefensible foundations of the academic world of his experience.

The job offered by Gore‑Urquhart surprises Dixon. He believed that Bertrand would receive the coveted position in Gore‑Urquhart’s office. After Dixon recognizes the role of chance and the possibility of good fortune in his future—forces at work in his life, ironically, only hours after his dismissal from the university—he fashions a new philosophy for governing his newly discovered personal ethos. When Christine misses her train to London, allowing Dixon to meet her at the station and tell her about his upcoming job in the city, he recognizes the degree to which his previous outlook lacked the capacity to express feelings of jubilation. Dixon establishes his ultimate connection with the human community beyond academe when he and Christine encounter Professor Welch and Bertrand as they leave the train station.

From the above discussion it can be said that the novel Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis is,undoubtly, a campus novels. The story concerns with the university as Jim Dixon is a junior lecturer of medieval history at a provincial university and struggles to keep his job. The paradox is that Jim, in fact, hates his job. There is nothing of interest in the subject for Jim. He is keener on drinking beer and picking up pretty girls at the university. The object of Jim’s hatred and ridicule is the head of the department, Professor Welch. As this is the person who will decide whether or not Jim will be unemployed the next year. Jim tries to make a good impression on him, although he hates the Professor. He is unwillingly pushed into pretentious behaviour in relationships with the Welches and his neurotic colleague Margaret. Jim is involved in many embarrassing events during the year and is sacked because of his scandalous public lecture. As the title suggests, Jim is lucky and happy in the end, when he gets a well-paid job in London and the girl he is in love with Christine.

Going Places_A R Barton_Idea_Summary_hia

Going Places 

Introduction : ‘Going Places’- a short story is  written by A.R. Barton. He emphasizes the teenager’s dreams and their mind set. He says that adolescent period propagates fantasy and leads to a dreamy  world. In this age, they tranquilizes their  role model and  worships them as their hero.

Main Characters

Jansie : Jansie belonged to a middle class family. She was a sensible and a practical girl. She did not have high ambitions in life as she is aware of the realities of her life. She does not believe in fantasies, unlike Sophie. She already knew that she has to work in a biscuit factory after completing school.
Geoff :  Geoff was a soft-spoken person and an introvert. He preferred to live in reality and was very  hardworking.
Sophie :  Sophie was an outspoken and a daydreamer. She had various dreams and fantasies. She refused to accept the realities of life. Belonging to a middle class family, her fantasies were very far away from her reach.

Summary

Sophie is a school girl who wants to own a boutique after her school. She is  from a lower-middle class family. To reach her goal, she wishes to be an actress or a fashion designer. Her friend Jansie tells her that a huge money and experience are required for such dreams. Jansie practically believes that they are earmarked to work in a biscuit factory due to their family status. Sophie lives in  very small house with her father, mother, little Derek and her elder  brother Geoff. Her family members do not believe her stories as she is a daydreamer. Geoff is a strong, handsome,tall and introvert, who does not  share his life with anyone. Sophie likes him most and also jealous of his silence.

Sophie is fascinated by Danny Casey who is a famous  Irish football player. She tells her brother about close meeting with him at the arcade. Geoff does not believe her as he knows her a daydreamer.  But she again  tells that Danny Casey has promised to meet her once again some other place.

Sophie continues to develop the story within herself such a way that she is unable to recognise the reality and the fantasy. She walks on her neighbourhood path where she grew playing in her childhood. She waits for long time on the wooden bench under the elm tree for Danny Casey but he never comes. She then goes back home unhappily, not because Danny Casey did not come, but her family will prove her wrong or false. Unfortunately, she never gets rid of her fantasy and believes that certainly Danny Casey will  meet her again.

Christabel_Supernatural_Symbol_Ballad_Sir Leoline,Christabel-the characters_BA examBased_hia

Q1.    Discuss the treatment of the supernatural in the poem Christabel.

Ans.- Coleridge stands for his distinguished poetic strains and noticeably romantic traits and highly signified incorporation of supernaturalism. The unusual ability of Coleridge to employ supernaturalism in order to serve his romantic purposes gets critics to regard him as the poet of supernaturalism. However, supernaturalism is one of the elements in the romantic poetry and used by the romantic poets in one way or another, the way Coleridge manages to control this element in his poems is amazingly distinguished.

The poem “Christabel” by Coleridge was initially intended to be a long poem consisting of five parts . But  It consists only of two parts. In part one, the descriptions of the landscapes are meant to create a suitable setting for the story. There is a deliberate undecidedness and vagueness about them which increases the sense of mystery and horror being woven by the poet. The first part tells us abut Sir Leoline, who was a rich Baron and who lived in a castle. He had an old, toothless bitch of a strong breed. This bitch was in the habit of uttering short and not very loud howls in answer to the castle clock. She howled once when the clock struck a quarter and twelve times when it struck an hour. It was believed that she could see the coffin in which Christabel’s dead mother was wrapped at her death. Then the focus shifts to a cold midnight. It was a full moon night but moon was hidden behind a thin cloud. Sir Leoline’s young and lovely daughter Christabel goes to the forest at midnight.  All of a sudden, she hears a low moaning sound from the other side of the oak tree. Christabel gets scared and her heart starts beating fast and she goes to the other side of the tree to see what it was . There she sees a beautiful young lady dressed in magnificent clothes. This lady, then, is clothed in white, traditionally the colour of chastity and purity, and she appears gracious, ‘stately’, but there are also hints of a darker side to her in this description; her dress is ‘shadowy’, her jewels shine ‘wildly’. Christabel, at any rate, is completely duped by her and takes her home, to fall under her wicked spell.

The use of the supernatural in ’Christabel’ lends it an intriguing air, all the more so as the poem remains unfinished, and Geraldine’s exact nature and purpose is ultimately not disclosed. As with ‘Kubla Khan’ and ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’, the poem’s overall sense of strangeness is its most memorable aspect. The poem “Christabel” is a prime example of his supernatural work. It contains quintessential gothic characteristics, such as dark scenery, damsels in distress, and a hint of the supernatural.

Q2.    Discuss the symbols used by Coleridge in the poem.

Ans : Coleridge is a highly symbolic poet and his poetry is rich in symbols and allusions. A symbol is an object which stands for something else as dove symbolizes peace. Similarly, Blake‘s tiger symbolizes creative energy; Shelley‘s wind symbolizes inspiration; Ted Hughes‘s Hawk symbolizes terrible destructiveness at the heart of nature. The poem “Christabel” by Coleridge is the finest gothic ballad of long two parts. It has its own wave of situational and symbolic presentation. In the poem, the Light-dark, Bells, Serpent and  white dove stand for some significant of  symbolic arrangement of the poem.

Light-Dark : The first and most obvious, symbol is that of light and dark. Light symbolizes good and dark evil. The lamp helps the reader see this. Christabel lights the lamp, and Geraldine cowers from it.

Bells : The Bell also plays an impotant role of symbolic presentaion in the poem. Bells are traditionally a symbol of communication. In the poem, it is sometime seen that both good news and bad news communicate together. For instance, as Christabel’s mother lies upon her death- bed, she expresses the wish that the castle bells ring twelve times on her daughter’s wedding day. This way she will hear about Christabel’s happiness from all the way up from theheaven. Bells are associated here with the communication of happy news. But as Christabel’s mother made the request on her death-bed, the story that Christabel communicates to Geraldine is also a sad one.

Serpent : The symbol of the serpent functions much like the serpent in the biblical Garden of Eden in that it represents temptation—and presumably sin—for Christabel. The most overt reference occurs in Bracy the bard's vision wherein a dove clearly represents Christabel. The attackers in the poem are described as having "reptile souls". This Serpent symbol is also a Biblical allusion to the serpent and evil.

White dove : The symbol of the white dove is one of major elements in this symbolic point of view. It appears in the bard's vision. The poet  clearly states that the dove represents Christabel. In speaking to Sir Leoline, the bard refers to "that gentle bird, whom thou dost love, / And call'st by thy own daughter's name." The dove, like the serpent, is a common symbol. It represents innocence and peace. Much as the symbol of the serpent suggests that Geraldine is not trustworthy, the use of the dove represents Christabel as a gentle, innocent young woman.

From the above discussion, it can be clearly said that the poem Christabel by Coleridge is a symbolic gothic ballad. Coleridge's symbols are integrated seamlessly into his work. His symbols are as important as his plot. 

Q3.    Write short notes on  : (a) Ballad   (b) Sir Leoline    (c) Christabel

Ans :   (a) Ballad   : A Ballad is a narrative poem which tells a story in simple and colloquial language. It is a folk song, communicated orally among illiterate or party literate people. It narrates a historical incidents, myths and legends in a noticeable musical way to the rhythm of the lines. Ballads are generally written in quatrains with a regular rhyme scheme of ABCB. The term Ballad originates from french word  “chanson balladee” which means “dancing song”. Ballad is the oldest form of English poetry, first created in medieval France. However, this form of poetry represents one of the earliest stages in the evolution of poetic Art. The subject matter of Ballad is usually tragic and often violent. The story is told through dialogue and action with sudden transitions from point to point in the narrative. The popular Ballad is dramatic and impersonal. It is told without expressing speaker’s personal attitudes and feelings.

(b) Sir Leoline : Sir Leoline is Christabel’s father.  He is a rich baron who is wealthy enough to afford his own castle and a private poet.  He is old and also weak in health.  He seems to be a fairly broken man due to the death of his wife during childbirth.  This grief is reflected in his relationship with Christabel in the poem, as it is suggested that Sir Leoline may feel some resentment towards Christabel for being the cause of her mother’s death.  He is the doting father of Christabel. He still mourns the death of his wife. When Geraldine arrives in his castle, he learns her father is Lord Roland, an old friend of his from whom he has become estranged. He becomes infatuated with Geraldine in the poem in both a fatherly and romantic way.  He appears to begin favoring the new woman over his own daughter, perhaps as a way of filling some of the emptiness he has felt living without a wife. Sir Leoline sees protecting and returning Geraldine to Lord Roland as a way to resolve old disputes with his one-time friend.

(c) Christabel : Christabel is the central character in the poem. It plays the role of the  protagonist of the poem, as the events center around the night she finds Geraldine in her garden.  The lovely lady is unable to sleep, being awoken by a dream of her lover, a knight who is “far away” . So, she leaves her father’s castle and ventures into their garden where she comes across a young woman named Geraldine.  Being the pious woman that she is, Christabel offers to help Geraldine.  Christabel becomes increasingly wary of Geraldine, especially after they sleep with one another.  Christabel’s character is fairly consistant throughout the poem, showing no major changes by the poem's end. Christabel is an innocent maiden who is devoted to her father. She is bespelled by Geraldine and therefore unable to speak of what transpires on the night when she finds Geraldine outside in the woods and then brings her into her bedchamber.