Dept.of English

Baumgartner's Bombay (1988) by Anita Desai is based on letters written from concentration camp in Nazi Germany by a mother to her son. It presents the struggles of a German Jewish war time refugee in establishing himself in India. The letters present an obvious repetitive message of well-being in a bid to shroud the actual message of suffering due to the censorship of letters (Judie Newman). All of the collection of novellas, 'The Museum of Final Journeys', 'Translator, Translated', 'The Artist of Disappearance' (2011), by Anita Desai present a front-ambitiousness, as an obvious reason for her characters' unhappiness. In all the novellas the protagonists demonstrate a great desire to succeed in their specific situation in life. In all four of the stories the obvious front present is often taken up as a subconscious reason for the characters' identity crisis. Yet, the literature review is absent when it comes to specific underlying issues of assimilation which runs constant in the selected stories of Anita Desai. Hence, this paper aims to analyse Anita Desai's selected texts associating the issues of assimilation to the identity crisis her characters suffer. Postcolonial power struggle and the struggle to assimilate not just in the new social order, but also into contrasting values, the researcher argues is instrumental to the identity crisis portrayed by Anita Desai. Therefore, this paper depends on various psychoanalytic theories to link the concept of assimilation to individual search for identity. The characters' decision to deviate from certain established norms dictates their particular alienation.

Anita Desai in her attempts to capture the essence of a character who moves away from society and lives in a sort of exile portrays the struggles such an individual faces before they arrive at a reclusive solution. Their solitude is often either forced or voluntary. Her protagonists are primarily female and they struggle with a tremendous inner tension. Cry, The Peacock is the story of a young girl Maya trapped in a loveless marriage. Having lost her mother at a young age she looks for affection in other sources and becomes extremely sensitive. Brought up by a doting, over-protective father she believes in romance and love. Maya suffers from ‘Electra Complex’ which is partly the reason why she marries a man much older than her. But her husband Gautama turns out to be nothing like her father. He seems to be a cold, unfeeling intellectual who considers Maya a stubborn, spoilt child who needs to be disciplined and taught the meaning of real life. Their marriage shows visible ...

This paper aims to critically analyse the selected novels of Anita Desai (Cry, the Peacock, Fire
on the Mountain, Fasting, Feasting, and The Zigzag Way) from a feminist perspective. Desai is a
noteworthy writer of Indian origin who captures the development of feminism in society in her
novels. She addresses the economic, social and psychological implications of objectionable
patriarchal norms and suppressed femininity via the thought process and action of her characters.
This article strives to trace the gradual development of feminism and the consciousness it
generated in society towards the issues of suppressed femininity. Through Anita Desai's novels,
we can progressively determine the noticeable changes in society from a feminist point of view.
Desai captures the inner turmoil an individual endures due to suppression of self-expression and
marks the changes in their psyche in her writing. The importance of self-identity is prominent in
each of her novels.

It has been observed in various studies conducted in clinical research that social stability is congruent with reduced mental illness and depressive symptoms (German and Latkin). This phenomenon points towards the question of a person's mental state when social stability is disturbed. In this article, the researcher proposes that social upheaval leaves indelible psychological scars on an individual which is reflected in their unstable relationships which overtime shapes their individual identity. To address the connection between social upheaval and individual identity the researcher uses social psychology theories. The researcher suggests that the protagonist of the selected novel, Hugo Baumgartner suffers from an identity crisis due to the volatile social situation he faced growing up. This inability to form a secure identity is reflected in his relationships with other human beings.

Alienation: an inseparable part of an immigrant existence as seen in Mirror City by Chitrita Banerji Abstract: Mirror City is a story of a young Indian Bengali girl married to a Bangladeshi Muslim University Professor trying to find her feet in the newly independent Bangladesh. Uma, the protagonist's trials and tribulations (based on her author's experiences in Bangladesh) make her feel rejected though her past home and her new one share many commonalities like language, history, culture and even food. Her life as an immigrant turns out to be miserable one in spite of her enthusiasm till she feels like a caged bird yearning for the flight of freedom. From the study of Uma's life we can conclude that the isolation and marginalization suffered by immigrants are not limited to the Western context. Difficulties in assimilation are an integral part of immigrant life and in most cases make an exile of the new comer.

Alienation: an inseparable part of an immigrant existence as seen in Mirror City by Chitrita Banerji Abstract: Mirror City is a story of a young Indian Bengali girl married to a Bangladeshi Muslim University Professor trying to find her feet in the newly independent Bangladesh. Uma, the protagonist's trials and tribulations (based on her author's experiences in Bangladesh) make her feel rejected though her past home and her new one share many commonalities like language, history, culture and even food. Her life as an immigrant turns out to be miserable one in spite of her enthusiasm till she feels like a caged bird yearning for the flight of freedom. From the study of Uma's life we can conclude that the isolation and marginalization suffered by immigrants are not limited to the Western context. Difficulties in assimilation are an integral part of immigrant life and in most cases make an exile of the new comer.

Ruth Prawer Jhabvala is one of the well-known women novelists of India. She belongs to a group of fiction-writers who could neither accept the country and its ways as her own nor get over her complicated, complex relationship with it. She visited and revisited India nostalgically in her fiction written in America.

Ruth Prawer Jhabvala is one of the well-known women novelists of India. She belongs to a group of fiction-writers who could neither accept the country and its ways as her own nor get over her complicated, complex relationship with it. She visited and revisited India nostalgically in her fiction written in America. Set in India, Heat and Dust focuses on European women trudging through the process of adjusting to a foreign rhythm of life, of living through estrangement, alienation and painful misunderstanding. The story of Olivia Rivers(during the Raj) and the unnamed step-granddaughter, the Narrator (in the post-colonial period) underline the marginalisation women faced whenever they attempted to express their individuality. Jhabvala's inability to create radically self-reliant women characters that can confidently defy and contest patriarchal traditions does not declare her as an anti-feminist. Her stand is actually a compromise between patriarchy and feminism.

The first Indian novel was written in Bengali and amazingly by an English woman in Renaissance Bengal. Hannah Catherine Mullens, one of the missionary wives who supported the educative zeal of the Protestant missionaries during the Raj wrote Phulmani O Karunar Bibaran  for the converted Christian women as a handbook to lead good Christian lives. Published in 1852 it became the first literary work written in prose in India.

Brick and mortar libraries are facing the onslaught of digitisation and the need for their very existence is being questioned in the 21st C. The death knell of libraries, however, cannot be rung in a hurry as they serve a greater purpose than just providing books. Libraries help us to fulfil our roles as active citizen by providing the ‘third place’ to congregate, exchange ideas and get exposure to different cultures. Innovative libraries of the digital age even allow their patrons a pulpit from which new era art, literature and technological creations can find audience and appreciation.

The present paper aims to study the animation movie scriptwriter’s intention of using flouting of maxims as a way to create an entertaining animated movie Kung Fu Panda 1. The present study is a work, directed by Grice’s theory of Implicature and built upon its main principle (The Cooperative Principle, which contains four maxims: Quantity, Quality, Relation, and Manner) and tries to show how flouting of maxims can add to the thematic and entertainment value of the movie. The paper shows how flouting of maxims can be beneficial in making an entertaining movie and why the scriptwriters use flouting of the maxim in their movies. Select dialogues have been chosen from the script of Kung Fu Panda movie for the analysis of flouting of maxims. The paper includes four sections: The first section deals with the introduction which states cooperative principle, conversational maxims, flouting maxims and conversation. The second section presents an overview of the selected animated movie and the criteria for selection of data. The third section contains the methodology used for analyzing and interpreting selected data. The fourth section shows the result of the present study and shows how flouting of maxims is essential to the interlocutors and attracts the audience’s attention.

In communication, there are a set of rules applied to make a successful conversation. The rules help both the speaker and the hearer in delivering their messages and conveying the meanings of their messages. Grice (1975) introduced the Cooperative Principle to throw light on how people use language. It acts as a device for the speaker and the hearer in their communication. The Cooperative Principle (CP) contains four sub-principles, called maxims: Maxim of quality, quantity, relevance, and manner. The interlocutors in order to achieve a successful conversation adhere to those maxims. For sustained and healthy relationship they should not violate or flout the four maxims. Speakers usually obey them to reach the purpose of conversation so that they can avoid any miscommunication. Flouting of maxims is a situation wherein a speaker manipulates a particular maxim that results in a conversational implicature. Ideally, the speaker and the hearer need to cooperate to convey and to understand each other’s speech clearly in each turn. Hence, the speaker can deliver his/her massage in an understandable fashion and the hearer can understand the speaker’s intended massage. Otherwise, the speaker and hearer might misunderstand each other and finally fall into a breakdown in their communication. However, one should be aware that there are layers of meanings to a speech.

Manju Kapur’s internationally applauded novel, The Immigrant (2008) deals with variant themes predominantly cultural identity, culture clash and shift in ethnoscapes. The novel principally illustrates ethnic, racial and cultural hurdles that Diaspora subjects confront in the foreign land, and how they tackle these difficulties in an attempt to create their comfort zones in the host society. Manju Kapur skillfully puts immigrants in the diasporic environment and allows them to constitute their ethnoscapes. The present paper examines the reasons for migration, the diasporic
contexts which necessitate immigrants to formulate ethnoscapes, their shift in ethnoscapes, and the endeavours to create a niche homeland in Canada.In the narrative, Diaspora subjects attempt to assimilate with the foreign ethnoscape but at another point, they also try to retain their native ethnoscape in the foreign land. Manju Kapur, in the narrative, offers practical solutions to overcome the Diaspora glitches instead of portraying characters indulged into repenting over the cultural and ethnic
loss. Thus, the author’s perception of immigrant lives seems rather radical and modern.

Diaspora literature explores the lives of immigrants torn between the two
worlds of belonging and settlement. It explicitly delineates expatriate lives that struggle to break through the diasporic anomalies in the host nation. In attempts to survive in the diasporic adversities and settle in the hostland, immigrants formulate their ethnic space which is termed as ‘Ethnoscape’ in Neo-Diaspora Studies. Ethnoscape provides security, belonging, warmth of love and affection to the dispersed and nostalgic minds of the immigrants. Hence, it serves as the comfort zone for immigrants living in the host society. Expatriates acquire this ethnic space not only by ghettoizing in the host nation but also by physically and virtually revisiting the left homelands. Diaspora writers deal with the attempts of ethnoscape formation meticulously alongside other diasporic issues and explore the diasporic lives to the populace of both the worlds. Jhumpa Lahiri, a pioneer writer of India Diaspora Literature, skillfully portrays the Diaspora subjects indulged in ethnoscape formation to
maintain their ethnic associations while rehabilitating in the host nation. The present research paper throws light upon how the immigrant characters of the novel, The Lowland constitute their ethnoscapes in Rhode Island and California through memory, nostalgia, relocation and rethinking of the homeland and project them as their niche homeland.