Midnight's Children

Hello readers:) This is response blog task given by Dr. Dilip Barad in this thinking activity is point ponder. 

Midnight's Children is a 1981 novel by British-Indian writer Salman Rushdie, published by Jonathan Cape with cover design by Bill Botten, about India's transition from British colonial rule to independence and partition. It is a postcolonial, postmodern and magical realist story told by its chief protagonist, Saleem Sinai, set in the context of historical events. The style of preserving history with fictional accounts is self-reflexive.

Movie Adaptation

Midnight's Children is a 2012 film adaptation of Salman Rushdie's 1981 novel of the same name. The film features an ensemble cast of Satya Bhabha, Shriya Saran, Siddharth Narayan, Ronit Roy, Anupam Kher, Shabana Azmi, Kulbhushan Kharbanda, Seema Biswas, Shahana Goswami, Samrat Chakrabarti, Rahul Bose, Soha Ali Khan, Anita Majumdar and Darsheel Safary. With a screenplay by Rushdie and directed by Deepa Mehta, the film began principal photography in Colombo, Sri Lanka, in February 2011 and wrapped in May 2011. Shooting was kept a secret as Mehta feared protests by Islamic fundamentalist groups. 

The film was shown at the Toronto International Film Festival, the Vancouver International Film Festival, and the BFI London Film Festival. The film was also a nominee for Best Picture and seven other categories at the 1st Canadian Screen Awards, winning two awards.

Salman Rushdie

Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie CH FRSL (born 19 June 1947) is an Indian-born British-American novelist.His work often combines magical realism with historical fiction and primarily deals with connections, disruptions, and migrations between Eastern and Western civilizations, typically set on the Indian subcontinent.

Rushdie's second novel, Midnight's Children (1981), won the Booker Prize in 1981 and was deemed to be "the best novel of all winners" on two occasions, marking the 25th and the 40th anniversary of the prize.

After his fourth novel, The Satanic Verses (1988), Rushdie became the subject of several assassination attempts and death threats, including a fatwa calling for his death issued by Ruhollah Khomeini, the supreme leader of Iran. Numerous killings and bombings have been carried out by extremists who cite the book as motivation, sparking a debate about censorship and religiously motivated violence. On 12 August 2022, a man stabbed Rushdie after rushing onto the stage where the novelist was scheduled to deliver a lecture at an event in Chautauqua, New York.

In 1983, Rushdie was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He was appointed a Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres of France in 1999.Rushdie was knighted in 2007 for his services to literature.In 2008, The Times ranked him thirteenth on its list of the 50 greatest British writers since 1945.Since 2000, Rushdie has lived in the United States. He was named Distinguished Writer in Residence at the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute of New York University in 2015. Earlier, he taught at Emory University. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 2012, he published Joseph Anton: A Memoir, an account of his life in the wake of the events following The Satanic Verses.

1.Narrative Technique

Salman Rushdie is undoubtedly one of the most Famous novelists in Present time His second novel Midnight's children received greater critical acclaim and made Rushdie a famous literary figure in the English speaking world. The Novel won for him Booker of Booker Prize in 1993. He uses First Person Narration, and different techniques from other contemporary writer.  Rushdie also uses tools like Magic Realism and cinematic elements use Bollywood as Indianized tools His use of Indian words like ekdym ,angrez, Firangee and especially I Like very much is Tickety-too. Also the Narration of Novel is like a Russian doll, Box in Box ,story within story. in movie flashbacks are used.

2 character

There are some characters which are left out in the film  adaptation. It is hard to describe every character in the film.

Character from movie

Satya Bhabha as Saleem Sinai

Shriya Saran as Parvati

Siddharth Narayan as Shiva

Darsheel Safary as Saleem Sinai (as a child)

Anupam Kher as Ghani

Shabana Azmi as Naseem

Neha Mahajan as Young Naseem

Seema Biswas as Mary

Charles Dance as William Methwold

Samrat Chakrabarti as Wee Willie Winkie

Rajat Kapoor as Aadam Aziz

Soha Ali Khan as Jamila

Rahul Bose as Zulfikar

Anita Majumdar as Emerald

Shahana Goswami as Amina

Chandan Roy Sanyal as Joseph D'Costa

Ronit Roy as Ahmed Sinai

Kulbhushan Kharbanda as Picture Singh

Shikha Talsania as Alia

Zaib Shaikh as Nadir Khan

Sarita Choudhury as Indira Gandhi

Vinay Pathak as Hardy

Kapila Jayawardena as Governor

Ranvir Shorey as Laurel

Suresh Menon as Field Marshal

G.R Perera as Astrologer

Rajesh Khera

Salman Rushdie, narrator

Here is the link for the characters in the novel.Click here

Here are the list of character from the novel who didn't appear in the film.

-Padma

-Sonny Ibrahim

-Commander Sabarmati

-Lila Sabarmati

-Homy Carrack

-Alice Pereira

-Nalikar Women

-Ramram Sheth

3.Themes and Symbol

Silver Spittoon

The silver spittoon given to Amina as part of her dowry by the Rani of Cooch Naheen is responsible for Saleem’s loss of memory. Even when he has amnesia, however, Saleem continues to cherish the spittoon as if he still understands its historical value. Following the destruction of his family, the silver spittoon is the only tangible remnant of Saleem’s former life, and yet it too is eventually destroyed when Saleem’s house in the ghetto is torn down. Spittoons, once used as part of a cherished game for both old and young, gradually fell out of use: the old men no longer spit their betel juice into the street as they tell stories, nor do the children dart in between the streams as they listen. The spittoon is the symbol of a vanishing era, which, in retrospect, seemed simpler and easier. And so, although Saleem may not be able to recall the specific association between the spittoon and his family, the spittoon maintains its symbolic quality as both a container of memory and source of amnesia.

Knees and Nose

Saleem Sinai’s large, bulbous nose is a symbol of his power as the leader of the Midnight Children’s Conference, which is comprised of all children born on the moment of India’s independence from British rule. His nose makes his power of telepathy possible, and this is how he communicates with the other children of midnight (who all have varied powers of their own). Saleem inherits his rather large, and perpetually congested, nose from his grandfather, Aadam Aziz, who also uses his nose to sniff out trouble. Saleem’s nasal powers begin after an accident in his mother’s washing-chest, in which he sniffs a rogue pajama string up his nose, resulting in a deafening sneeze and the instant arrival of the voices in his head. Saleem’s power of telepathy remains until a sinus surgery clears out his nose “goo.” After his surgery, Saleem is unable to further commune with the other children. Ironically, after Saleem’s nasal congestion is gone, he gains the ability to smell emotions, and he spends much time categorizing all the smells he frequently encounters.One of Midnight's Children and many important character in Novel and movie Shiva represent power of Knees all midnight children have various power Shiva have power of powerful knees he is able to kill anyone he was used his power to control others in movie he was many times hit Saleem by their power also he was used his power killed several slams who are lived in Delhi and try to killed saleem for the powerful rulers. 

Pickle:

Saleem largely manages to preserve his life through storytelling, offering a bit of immortality to a dying man, and he also labels and stores each chapter he writes in a pickle jar, so that they may be read later, by his son for example. This connection between pickles and the preservation of stories endures until the very end of the book, when Saleem ceremoniously labels his very last pickle jar as a way of closing out his story and his life as a whole.Sometimes Rushdie trying to give all chapter are jar of pickle and one by one it is open  you can smell the history. Saleem was manager of a pickle factory. It is like preserving and destroying history. 

Perforated sheet:

In the movie we have seen two times The perforated sheet through which Aadam Aziz falls in love with his future wife performs several different symbolic functions throughout the novel. Unable to see his future wife as a whole, Aadam falls in love with her in pieces. As a result, their love never has a cohesive unit that holds them together. The second use we see while the performance of singing by Jamila.

4.And the fourth point is the texture of the novel.

We see the good attempt by Salman Rushdie and Deepa Mehta. The film is not told in chronological order, but it is told in flashback. When Saleem remembered something he told the audience and listener. And then come back to real life from that flashback. Whole story is told by Saleem. And he described the things that he felt. This is my interpretation of the novel and film adaptation. 

 

Well some symbols are used very closely in some movies, like Taj Mahal. But Salman Rushdie and Deepa Mehta haven't took very close up scene of Taj Mahal. That we can see in the movie,Tajmahal central to periphery. 

 

5.We had a screening of the movie . The initial impression is impressive. Salam Rushdie as the narrator and writer tried to capture it very well in the film. To cover everything in one movie is hard to maintain. When we read a novel it takes a lot of time, but we can watch a movie in 2 or 3 hours. But when we read the whole novel it describes the deep ideas, but the movie can not present everything in comparison to the novel. And Rushdie's novel is the novel which can be presented in web series. But the film adaptation is good. All Characters acted like real life incidents. Their dialogues are also well knighted and have interconnection with each other.Reading Novel is like peel off the petal of onion when watch movie is clear cut significant of scene. Rushdie novel is story within story but movie go with only flash back. 

An Introduction

Hello reader :) This is a response blog task given by my teacher Post independent Indian English literature with a poem by Kamala Das-An Introduction. My teacher's task is to pick any one line/word/phrase/thought/idea from that and write your own version of it in the form of poetry, excerpt, paragraph (prose), story, or any literary piece. 

Kamala Das

Kamala Surayya (born Kamala; 31 March 1934 – 31 May 2009), popularly known by her one-time pen name Madhavikutty and married name Kamala Das, was an Indian poet in English as well as an author in Malayalam from Kerala, India. Her popularity in Kerala is based chiefly on her short stories and autobiography, while her oeuvre in English, written under the name Kamala Das, is noted for the poems and explicit autobiography. She was also a widely read columnist and wrote on diverse topics including women's issues, child care, politics, etc. Her liberal treatment of female sexuality, marked her as an iconoclast in popular culture of her generation. On 31 May 2009, aged 75, she died at Jehangir Hospital in Pune.

Original poem line. 

I was child, and later they

Told me I grew, for I became tall, my limbs

Swelled and one or two places sprouted hair.

 This line from Original poem now I try to write one Small Paragraph of My Thinking.

I was child and later they told me i grew…This line is very significant For teenagers who lived in India and Indian culture Society over Parents are treated us like that or not only parents but others Like relatives neighbors Such people If we take decision they told as You are child and if they are wants to take us like we take our decision with our own way they told us now You are grow to take your decision. If we behave like child they told see your age you are grow don't behave like that (example: you like lollipop, you laugh front of any one any situation, you seen your favorite things you can't control yourself, you eat food like child) in those situation you are grown but if told go to trip with friends, you wants relationship, you want your favorite course, taking your career decision then you are child. When You take. Personal decision about life: you are a child no Matter your age. If they want you to agree with their decision then they are told now you can grow up a child of this society always feeling like a sandwich. Rollercoaster with parents and own life decision and this is the big problem of indian generation. 

Curse of Karna

Hello reader :) This is a response blog task given by my teacher. We have the paper of Pre Independence Indian English literature unit 2 The Curse of Karna. I am given three answers. 

Thyagaraja paramasiva kailasam-hailed as a great humourist and one of the doyens of kannada literature

 T P Kailasam (1884 to 1946), begins in southern Karnataka, where he was born (in the then Mysore state) on 29th July, in a Tamil speaking family. He spent part of his schooling days in Chennai. In college, he secured the first rank in BA and won the Cromarty Prize. Awarded the Damodaras Scholarship by the Mysore Government, he travelled to London in 1909 for higher studies in Geology. Returning to India in 1915 as a gold medallist in Geology from the Royal Geological Society, London, he gave up his job at the Government Geology Department in Mysore. In his own words, Kailasam remained ‘unemployed and unemployable’ for the rest of his life, dedicating it instead to his passion, creating literary works in Kannada. He also chaired the Kannada Sahitya Sammelana held in Madras in 1945.

1.Interpret the end of all Acts and Scenes.

In play there are five acts in the real text Line First page with title one line An in impression of Sophocles in five Acts

Act-1

Starts with Ragma's Aasrama

POOR karna ! Poor, Poor, karna All the Act and with this line.

This line is very significant with the Life Of karna he have Curse  with no mistake he was victim by Many people also he has doing nothing then by birth living in sootha family he was Suffered. 

Karna was Marginalised by gurus, warriors, princess, kings Many people he was only able speak  "A Brahmin's Curse"

In his life he was having his great Teacher curse

Ramaa

IF EVER YOU SHOULD HENCEFORTH 

SORELY NEED THE USE OF ARMS 

YOU’VE LEARNT OF ME.......THE BAREST 

TALK, THE MEREST THOUGHT OF THY 

SUPPOSED SOOTHA BIRTH CROSSING THY 

MIND...WILL SWELL THY HEART TO 

SENSE OF SHAME, WILL DULL THINE EYES AND MIND, NUMB AND PARALYSE 

THY LIMBS BEYOND THEIR PO’WR_ TO 

HELE. THER. MAKEN THES SLIGHTEST, 

SMALLEST USE OF KNOWLEDGE THAT 

YOU’VE LEARNT OF ME! AVAUNT! 

AVAUNT!, ERE I INFLICT A FURTHER 

CURSE ON THEE! 

2.Karna-The voice of subaltern

It is said that whatever is not described in the Mahabharata does not exist, even the Ramayana and all the 

Puraanas are summarized in this epic. The greatest of all Puraanas, the Srimad Bhagavata Maha Puraana are 

present there in Mahabharata. There are so many characters in the great epic Mahabharata but Karna comes 

across as the most evocative one. One cannot but be awed by his towering personality and sheer strength of 

character, and at the same time help to identify oneself with the moments of frailty in his tragic life. It is the 

realistic mix of nuances that makes Karna such a credible and lifelike character. The intriguing story of a hero 

who despite being born to royalty was brought up lovingly by a lowly charioteer and his wife, his whole life was 

one great struggle against cruel destiny and all the odds placed in his way by the inequities of his time.

The story of Karna begins with the misfortune of his secret birth and unfolds itself amidst the unremitting 

gloom of injustice and insult. A long time ago, a beautiful young princess named Kunti lived with her Uncle, 

King Kuntibhoj, in a lovely palace along the banks of a wide river. One day Maharishi Durvasa visited the palace 

of Kuntibhoja. He stayed there for almost a year. During his stay Kunti was given the responsibility of attending 

to his needs. Kunti served the Maharishi with great reverence without caring for her own comfort. The sage had a 

very peaceful and happy stay and wanted to reward Kunti for her services. Maharishi said, “Child, one day you 

will need the help of the Gods. I am going to teach you a secret mantra for inviting the Gods into your life. Be 

very careful with this mantra! Use it wisely.” (Sperling, 5) Early the next morning Kunti was playing by herself 

in the royal garden. The sun had risen and Kunti watched its rays touched a flower here, a leaf there. She felt its 

warmth on her skin. She thought about the Sun God waking up the whole world. Forgetting her promise to 

Durvasa, she began to recite the mantra. She closed her eyes and concentrated the way she had been taught to 

summon the Sun-God Surya who is compelled to give her a child, fearful that a child conceived before marriage 

may ruin her reputation, Kunti places the child- born with natural armour and divine earrings- in a wicker basket. 

She coated the basket with the wax to make it waterproof, and lined it with layers of the silk to make it soft and 

warm. She placed the baby carefully in his new bed and carried the basket to the river. Then she kissed him good-

bye and set the basket afloat and whispered, “May the Sun-God watch over you always and keep you safe. May 

you find parents who will love you and care for you.” 

Downstream, Adhiratha was sitting on a rock, hoping to catch a fish for the midday meal. He was a 

gentleman, a charioteer by trade, and his wife Radha was a gentle and good woman. They were often sad, 

however, for they were unable to have children. Adhiratha cast the line out over the river and sighed again, he 

waded out into the current and caught hold of the basket. His surprise knew no bounds when he discovered the 

sleeping newborn baby inside the boat. When Radha saw the tiny baby lying peacefully asleep, she was 

overjoyed and said to her husband, “Swamy, it seems that our prayers have been answered. We will keep this 

baby and bring him up as our own” (Zutushi, 60). He replied I agree with you. He is a gift from God in answer to 

our prayers. In fact, he himself is Godlike with these divine earrings and armor. After consultation with the 

Brahmins, he was named Vasushena since he was wearing a Vasu Varma (signifying rich armor; the signification 

of ‘wealth’ in his name was further validated by his legendary generosity later in adult life). He also came to be 

known as Radheya or the son of Radha, and more famously as Karna (signifying ear, because he was born with 

the divine earrings). Radheya was outgrowing like every other young boy of his age in the village. With hisspecial features and personality, anybody could see that the boy did not quite belong to the category of ordinary 

village lads. Because of his strength and skills at any kind of game, nobody would mess up with him and he 

became a natural leader in the village. Although he soon lose interest in the games that other boys played, while 

at home he would shape beautiful clay toys. Outside the home he would be interested in wrestling or cut stout 

branches of trees, shaping them into bows and arrows and shooting them at imaginary targets. Seeing his son in 

such getup Adhiratha decided to provide him a formal education. Adhiratha was particularly tense, as he recalled 

how Dronacharya had initially refused to do anything with a Suta Putra (charioteer’s son), and how he had to 

seek the intervention of King Dhritarashtra himself. Even after the royal intercession, Guru Dronacharya had only 

agreed to impart basic education and training in arms to his son. In due course both father and son entered the hut 

of Guru Dronacharya and touched his feet with due reverence. Karna was lodged in the section reserved for 

ordinary pupils and away from the section reserved for princes and other high caste students. After a few days 

when Adhiratha visited his son in his lodgings, he found him tense and somewhat angry as well. Before entering 

the room he had assured him that his son was very bright and a quick learner. But on entering the room he found 

him in a different frame of mind which made him apprehensive. On being asked, Karna started asking all sorts of 

questions with his father. He asked, “Baba is it a crime to be a Suta-Putra? Why do scriptures sanction this class-

based discrimination? Why the princes and other so-called upper-class students should be given better food, 

better lodgings, and better education as compared to students like me, who seem to have an inborn stigma 

attached to their names? Where does my fault lie in all this?” (Zutushi, 68) Similarly, this scenario is also denoted 

by the term ‘subaltern’ conventionally denotes an inferior military rank, it is more generally used as ‘a name for 

the general attribute of subordination in South Asian society’ often expressed in terms of caste and gender as it is 

being acquired at birth and is non-changeable. The term ‘Subaltern’ was coined by Ranjit Guha and later it 

was adopted by Marxist Antonio Gramsci and further it was discussed by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak in her 

essay ‘Can the Subaltern Speak?’ People consider Subaltern as the unrepresented group of people in the 

society, people of inferior race, not fit for making any real contribution to the society and therefore they cannot 

speak, but in reality subaltern can speak but others do not have the patience to listen to them and same can be 

seen with Karna, he is capable but he ultimately he is Suta Putra. 

In real life he was Kshatriya, son of Princess Kunti and Sun. He was known as a Radhey sootha putra by birth his suffering is start he was innocent but for the caste he was victimized by others he was very brave and skilled soldiers but first Dronacharya denied to teach for his caste then he made fake identity as a brahmin for taking all the vidya from Ramaa(Parshuram) after taking Shiksha one day Ramaa know the truth they gave him curse he was forget this vidya on the time of battle then karna survive his life only Suyodhana was soft corner or friend of karna he give his one kingdom. Draupadi Swayamvaar was also able to win the competition but Draupadi refused to marry sootha putra. For any human this is very terrible judging by caste not by abilities. He was rusticated by Pandavas in the battlefield performance of kings and their vidyas. In the time of Draupadi's Chirharan he was the only man who was against those things he forgot he was the friend of Suyodhana and Draupadi denied to marry him then his care for a woman. 

If we see karna voice of subaltern in his whole life he was speak only one thing "A Brahmin's Curse" If we seen as colonial aspect the life colonized people also like curse they have curse on humanity like suffering by their color, culture, language, name of civilization and other many things in one line he was speak about whole subaltern people this is curse. 

3.Interpretation of Myths- Deconstruction

In the text which we are studying by T. P. Kailasam The curse of Karna he was Deconstruction Myth four times. 

Guru of Karna in the Mahabharat he was known as Parshuram in this text his name was Ramaa. 

Sometimes Ramaa felt the guilt to curse karna in myth there was no guilt. 

In the myth Draupadi has some soft corner for karna but in the text she was a bit arrogant princess. 

In the myth karnas most important friend known as a Duryodhan in text he was Suyodhana. 

Thinking skill workshop

Hello :) reader this is the response blog task given by Dr. Dilip Barad we have two days workshop on 13&14 August  Thinking skills by Mr. Milan Pandya due to some personal issues I am not able to attend both day workshop. 

Mr. Milan Pandya

Milan Pandya is a teacher, trainer and educator in the field of Thinking Skills i.e. Critical, Creative and Design Thinking, English Language Teaching & Communication Skills. With more than 12 years of teaching experience, Mr. Pandya has authored 02 books, and presented and published a number of research papers in national and international conferences and journals. He has taught/trained in numerous Universities/Institutions training more than 30,000 people in Thinking Skills across the world. Mr. Pandya has BA & MA in English Literature, M.Phil in English Language Teaching (ELT) & his Ph.D involves study into Online Teaching, Communicative Competence & Critical Thinking. He currently holds a position of Vice President of Advancement at Critical Thinking Solutions company in Ontario,

Canada, and teaches at multiple colleges such as Conestoga and Sheridan college in Ontario, Canada.

Workshops

On the very first day Pandya sir gave us their introduction of interest in thinking skills, criticism and their Ph. D subject and start over thinking development lesson by very unique and day to day life related example. 

Criticism is the skill of life also in the life thinking is important to taking and decision and context is everything, fact not change people belief as a thinker how you make an argument conceptualize or logical with evidence. No question is bad question. 

They give the first example about LUX soap and actor Karina Kapoor Khan their family is very rich but on the ad she was describe 3rs less in one soap a very rich family 3rs is very small amount this thinking is work on the ad or as a literary thinkers are thinking about small things with evidence. 

Second example about the hindi T. V serial actress are fully make up gorgeous hairstyle she have her one hand was fracture her husband due to hand injury helps to playing saree if her hand injured then how can she makeup and make beautiful hairstyle

Third example Thinking is very important how over favorite actor favor the political power or by innocence they made mistake but as a follower we made same mistake

Fourth example how the emotion of Army and solider are work in human mind without fact check we blindly follow the any news related with Military as a innocence or emotional fools we are viral those things and as a role model of many people first we have think about those things. 

this is not Indian soldiers but they are Russian soldiers. 

Some key lines

You are not the master of your emotion. 

Criticism is life skill as a human being. 

Thinking about thinking in order to improve thinking. 

It something is true who else has to be true. 

If am left something important then comment I improve my blog. Thank you. 

Deconstruction T. V ad

Hello reader:) This blog is about thinking activity and thinking activity  task which is given by Dilip Barad sir

Jacques Derrida  born Jackie Élie Derrida;15 July 1930 – 9 October 2004) was an Algerian-born French philosopher best known for developing a form of semiotic analysis known as deconstruction, which he analyzed in numerous texts, and developed in the context of phenomenology.He is one of the major figures associated with post-structuralism and postmodern philosophy.

The term Deconstruction is very hard to define. 

Derrida is different and difficult to understand because deconstruction is a very difficult idea to define. 

very simple example that word is  interest very common word and you open the dictionary and you see that Word interest is written and just  along with it, is given it meaning now if you look at what is meaning so I Open it want to know the meaning Of the word in interest what does the dictionary say? Dictionary says interest is a noun which means one thing to know more Attraction another meaning. Third meaning Hobby Fourth meaning that is gives is money Firth meaning Advantage Derrida Says share in business also interest then he says Connection is also interest them interest also means group of people what I came to know is that word Interest has this meaning and I Understand it what Derrida question what do you mean by understand and he draws attention to the fact that what we looked in dictionary and what we is not its meaning but group of other words for example word Intereset means hobby group of people оr share in business so there words like word interest meaning are of one word set of another word we feel that we have understood but the question is it meaning of word Like interest is a group of other words then what is the meaning of those words As Derrida himself denies to define this term by saying that all other terms we use in philosophy or literary criticism even deconstruction can not be once and finally defined. Deconstruction is not destructive activity, but it is an inquiry into the foundation of everything. Deconstruction is not a totally negative term. By it does not mean destructive activity or breaking down anything. He says that “Deconstruction is not destructive activity but an inquiry into the foundations, causes of the intellectual system. The concept of Decentering the Centre becomes important. Derrida is trying to prove that one word leads us to another word rather than towards the meaning of the word. It never allows to come at the centre of meaning. We just assume that we understand the thing but in actuality it never happens, it is always postponed. 

Binary Opposition

As for deconstruction, Jacques Derrida argued that a careful examination of seemingly basic principles will show that

they can always be dismantled since they are the product of a particular system of meaning. These principles, one of the main ones of which is the array of binary oppositions, are defined by exclusion - for example, in patriarchal society the man is the primary, central side, and the woman is the excluded contrast, the negative side defined by the lack of masculine qualities in her. According to Derrida, however, the definition of man cannot exist without the existence of the woman, who carries everything that is "not a man." This dependence and emphasis on the border and the difference between the two sides of the opposition hint at the possibility that the border may not be as impenetrable as one side presents it.(White-Black,Good-Evil).

In this ad they use court as weapon like nowadays all controversy are going to court and some simple things are making big issue as a court case and court judge statement is very important in ad a men change some kitchen appliances and her wife making court case in such small issue and judge statement is very important but in this ad… you see:) 

Derrida Deconstruction

Hello reader:) This blog is about thinking activity and flipped learning task which is given by Dilip Barad sir

First of all what is flipped learning 

This flipped learning about Structuralism and Derrida's Deconstruction About this Blog

Jacques Derrida:

“Structure Sign and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences”

(from The Structuralist Controversy, ed. Richard Macksey and Donato E. Baltimore: The John Hopkins Uni Press 1970)

Define deconstruction:

Deconstruction, as applied in the criticism of literature, designates a theory and practice of reading which questions and claims to "subvert" or "undermine" the assumption that the system of language provides grounds that are adequate to establish the boundaries, the coherence or unity, and the determinate meanings of a literary text. Typically, a deconstructive reading sets out to show that conflicting forces within the text itself serve to dissipate the seeming definiteness of its structure and meanings into an indefinite array of incompatible and undecidable possibilities.

Video-1

One very much important question Derrida asking throughout his entire career he is whether it is possible to define Something once and for all rigorously and whether and what are its limits to what extent can you define something basic question Derrida Deconstruction is cannont be once for all finally define Derida is different and difficult to understand reason Why deconstruction is very difficult idea to define Derrida says that it's not a destructive activity it's not something breaking down something for sake of destruction but what Derrida is doing is inquiring  into the condition or what causes a philosophical system to stand up On its Feet and fall down what are the conditions which. makes philosophical or in election System possible so he is inquiring to the foundation and also inquiring in the condition of why something cannot be defined or a System. 

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Heidegger along with Freud and Nietzschie are three important thinkers which Derrida acknowledges in lys. very famous as a structure sign and play as the ideas in these Philosophers are in many way continuted by Derriada. Heidegger and his philosophy deals with some very important theme which Derrida continues in his own philosophy one of the theme is question of deconstruction when the term destruction in German is translated as deconstruction into French so that is direct connection between Heidegger and Derrida 

 Heidegger's philosophy  pointed out that the western tradition of philosophy avoided or repressed or neglected the question of being of beings now this is again very abstract but beings he implies entities like this for this Mic or table or Person but the western philosophy refused look at the mode Of their existence mode of their existence mode of their being the way these things are so it avoids question of being of beings and so Heidegger Want to destroy our dismantle entire tradition of western philosophy by pursuing the question of being Of being his very famous book Called being time he says that he has taken up a project of transforming the way Westerns think  he is trying to transform but he is at tying to transform but he is trying to transform the way western people think right so  that's a very ambitious project which had occur has taken up and Derrida in many ways continues this project of deconstruction. 

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Ferdinand Saussure Writing that relationship between word and meaning is not natural but it's conventional. Metaphysics of Presence is again a term  that is taken from Heidegger and that is the connecting link between Heidegges and Derrida; what Heideggen pointed out by metaphysics of presents is that when we consider being of something. Saussure says there are no positive elements in language but only negative ones Presence of something can only be understood as absence of Something else and that bias is built into western philosophy. 

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Saussurean idea that meaning is something that is in the mind is what he challenge here he seems to imply that the meaning Of one signifier is not one simified but another signifier which leads to another signifier and till infinity it never stops so this is the chain of significations of signifiers this is a chain of signifiers which never stops now this not how we look at the meaning and dictionary  but Derrida is drawing attention to the fact that we take for granted we assume that we have understood thing while what we have actually done is we have stopped asking the question What is the meaning of this word. 

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Paper structure, sign and Play is very important. document of contemporary literary theory. inaugurates what is known as post structuralism in 1967 by post structuralism we mean not out rejection or criticism Of structuralism but going beyond by critiquing structuralism. Structuralism when it began it began as a cincism or attack on metaphysics on one hand and Science on another science was the predominant way of getting knowledge in the west. structuralism Falls prey to what it wants to prey upon that is science and Metaphysics. 

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Yale School and university play a very important role in propagation of Derrida's ideas in America Paul, J. Hillis Miller,Harold Bloom, Geoffrey Hautman, made Deconstruction very popular or unpopular. People called them the yale hermeneutic mafia because of yale deconstruction becoming a new literary criticism earlier it was largely in the domain of Philosophy. 

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Yale School was primarily preoccupied with the Rhetorical and figurative analysis of literary texts and demonstrating that literally text has multiple range of meaning was one of the most important preoccupation Of Yale School as against critical approaches like cultural  Materalism or Feminism gender theory Post colonial studies all them influenced by Derrida's writing for post colonial theory fascinated by its ability to show that the texts Or the discourse of Colonizers can be deconstructed from within the narratives. 

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In this lecture on Derrida and the origins of deconstruction, Professor Paul Fry explores two central Derridian works: "Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of Human Sciences" and "Différance." Derrida's critique of structuralism and semiotics, particularly the work of Levi-Strauss and Saussure, is articulated. Deconstruction's central assertions that language is by nature arbitrary and that meaning is indeterminate are examined. Key concepts, such as the nature of the text, discourse, différance, and supplementarity are explored. The idea is that Deconstruction is,as a thought process, precisely a kind of evasive dance whereby one doesn't settle For distinct positions for any sort of idea that can be understood as governed this is what structure, sign and play is all about as governed by a blanket term, what Derrida often calls a transcendental signified. Derrida is quoting Levi Strauss on the Nature Of Myth Levi's analysis Of the Oedipus  Myth and shows  you how it is that Derrida is both benefiting from what Levi Strauss has said and ultimately able to criticize Levi 'strauss' position. In this second lecture on deconstruction, Professor Paul Fry concludes his consideration of Derrida and begins to explore the work of Paul de Man. Derrida's affinity for and departure from Levi-Strauss's distinction between nature and culture are outlined. De Man's relationship with Derrida, their similarities and differences--particularly de Man's insistence on "self-deconstruction" and his reliance on Jakobson--are discussed. The difference between rhetoric and grammar, particularly the rhetoricization of grammar and the grammaticization of rhetoric, is elucidated through de Man's own examples taken from "All in the Family," Yeats' "Among School Children," and the novels of Proust. Derrida and Levi Strauss the essay relly seems to stage itself critique of Levi Strauss to a remarkable degree confessed or unconfessed it stands on the Shoulders of Levi Strauss Derrida's distinction between writing and speech-writing ecriture He just insisting that we cannot understand writing to be derivative. speech in order to reproduce, imitate, or transcribe Speech. Video is a debate about the concept of Communication for Shorthand Purpose and set of assumptions about language and discourse that post structuralism wants to Challenge for those who may already be familiar with some Of these issues.This is the first entry in an introduction to Poststructuralism. Focusing especially on the concept of communication and its constituent metaphors, this video (in 3 parts) is designed to introduce students and others to some aspects of continental critical theory, especially those that tend to appear in graduate and undergraduate curricula in the humanities.

Wide Sargasso sea

Hello reader :)  This is a response blog task given by my teacher on Wide Sargasso Sea written by Jean Rhys about  Post colonialism. 

Jean Rhys

Jean Rhys, CBE  born Ella Gwendolyn Rees Williams; 24 August 1890 – 14 May 1979) was a British novelist who was born and grew up in the Caribbean island of Dominica. From the age of 16, she was mainly resident in England, where she was sent for her education. She is best known for her novel Wide Sargasso Sea (1966), written as a prequel to Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre. In 1978, she was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for her writing.

"Wide Sargasso Sea" Summary

Below is a summary of "Wide Sargasso Sea" broken down into three sections based on those within the story.

Part One

Part one of "Wide Sargasso Sea" begins in early nineteenth-century Jamaica. A young white girl named Antoinette, the daughter of former slave owners, lives on Coulibri Estate, her family's run-down plantation with her mother, her sickly younger brother, Pierre, and a handful of servants. Moneyless due to the Emancipation Act of 1833 which freed the slaves, Antoinette's father supposedly drank himself to death, leaving behind his wife and children. Antoinette spends most of her days alone on the estate. Her mother, a beautiful young woman who has been ostracized by the community, spends her days aimlessly pacing out on their covered balcony. Antoinette's only friend is a young girl named Tia, the daughter of one of the servants, who one day turns against Antoinette unexpectedly.

One day, a group of well-dressed visitors comes to Coulibri. Among them is a wealthy Englishman named Mr. Mason. After a brief courtship, Annette and Mr. Mason are married. For the first time in years, Annette seems happy. Mr. Mason restores Coulibri to its former glory and brings in new servants, but discontent rises among the freed black servants and one night, during a protest, the house is set on fire. Antoinette's mother saves Pierre and the family flees from their home.

Six weeks later Antoinette wakes up and learns that she has been ill since the incident. Cora tells her that Pierre died and her mother had gone mad following the trauma of that night, so Mr. Mason sent her to the country to recover. Christophine takes Antoinette to visit her mother, but the once beautiful woman is unrecognizable and she becomes upset when she realizes that Pierre has died. Antoinette goes to her, but her mother violently flings her away.

For the next several years, Antoinette lives at the convent school. Cora moves back to England for a year and Mr. Mason travels for months at a time, visiting Antoinette occasionally but always bringing her gifts. During this time, Antoinette's mother dies. When Antoinette is seventeen, Mr. Mason tells her that he will have friends visiting from England and indicates that he hopes to present her as a young woman fit for marriage. At the end of part one, Antoinette wakes up from a nightmare and reflects on the death of her mother and the nightmare.

Part Two

Part two is narrated by Antoinette's new husband. It begins with their arrival at Granbois, a small estate on one of the Windward Islands owned by Antoinette's mother where they intend to spend a few weeks for their honeymoon. He admits to knowing very little about his wife, having agreed to marry her out of desperation when her stepbrother, Richard Mason, offered him 30,000 pounds to propose. He feels increasingly uncomfortable at the estate and begins to feel as though he was taken advantage of.

Soon after their arrival, the man receives a letter from Daniel Cosway, one of Antoinette's father's illegitimate children. Daniel warns the man of the insanity that runs in his wife's blood. Antoinette begins to sense that her husband hates her, so she begs Christophine for her help. Christophine tells Antoinette to leave the man, but she refuses. That night, Antoinette returns home and tells her husband about her past. They talk late into the night and when he wakes, he believes he was poisoned. Afraid Antoinette will wake up, he runs out of the house and into the woods. He sleeps in the woods for several hours and when he wakes again, he returns to Granbois where Amélie, one of the servants, brings him wine and food. He sleeps with Amélie while Antoinette sits in the next room, able to hear everything.

The next morning, Antoinette goes to Christophine's home. When she returns, she is drunk and goes straight to her bedroom. When Antoinette calls for more to drink, her husband keeps the servants from taking her more, forcing her to come out of her bedroom. Antoinette is drunk and mad and when her husband refuses to give her the bottle, she bites him. Christophine comforts her and takes her back to her room, then returns to yell at the man for his cruelty. It is that night that he decides to return to England and to take Antoinette with him.

Part Three

In the third and final part of the story, Antoinette is the narrator. Her husband has brought her back to England where she lives locked in the attic under the care of a servant named Grace Poole. Now violent and deranged, Antoinette has lost all sense of time and believes that they never made it to England. When her stepbrother, Richard, comes to see her, she attacks him with a knife, though she has no recollection of this incident when Grace tells her about it later. Antoinette has a recurring dream about stealing Grace's keys and exploring the house, but she never makes it to the end. The third time she has the dream it ends with her setting the house on fire. Believing that she has to fulfill her dream, she grabs a candle and exits the attic.

Women, Slavery, and the Problem of Freedom in Wide Sargasso Sea

Jean Rhys's presentation of the post-Emancipation Jamaican setting of Wide Sargasso Sea as one of despair subverts a conventional, progressive conception of history: that the end of slavery marked a triumph of good will over vicious greed and a spiritual and ethical advance for mankind. In the novel, the locus of despondency is Antoinette, for whom the Abolition of Slavery Act means the deaths of her immediate family members. As the Imperial Abolition of Slavery changes the political status of the West Indies from British protectorates to colonies, Antoinette suffers a child hood without protection and an adulthood of cultural and gender oppres sion. From Antoinette's perspective, the liberation the New English bring both rips away safety and imposes new, repressive social controls. While laying out the psychic costs for Antoinette, Rhys wages a broader, anti Enlightenment critique of European, masculinist rationalism, objectivism, and liberalism. In Rhys's defiant vision, sex and violence drive human be havior, and women's profound differences from men further defy the basic assumptions of humanism. Sexual difference marks a radically alternate relationship to power, language, and meaning. Rhys's experiments to forge a new discourse to accommodate this relationship are fierce. The resulting troubled and troubling narrative world challenges readers to accept truly disturbing and widely offensive extended metaphors of femininity and the primitive, of Africa and unbridled sexuality, of sadomasochism and historical slavery, of black-on-white rape and emancipation, and of vio lence and sexual liberation. Through these difficult analogies, Rhys plays with the meanings of "slavery" and "freedom" to suggest, audaciously, that the Abolition of Slavery was emblematic of a civilizing force the world was better off without.

European women as bonded slaves is one of the most pivotal of these metaphors. Protesting not a lack of women's rights but a set of European expectations for Creoles, Rhys ironically borrows the Enlightenment analogy of women's subjugation and chattel slavery. In its revision of Jane Eyre, Wide Sargasso Sea highlights Charlotte Brontë's use of the eighteenth-century, bourgeois, feminist, woman/slave analogy that Mary Wollstonecraft made famous. As Wollstonecraft frames the comparison, women "may be convenient slaves, but slavery will have its constant effect, degrading the master and the abject dependent" (5). In contrast to Brontë's heroine, Jane, Rhys's Antoinette is "slave-like" for the very reasons Woll stonecraft isolates; vanity, sexual proclivity, uncultivated reason, inadequate education, and undeveloped virtue. Wollstonecraft opines, "An immoder ate fondness for dress, for pleasure, for sway, are the passions of savages; the passions that occupy those uncivilized beings who have not yet extended the dominion of the mind, or even learned to think with the energy necessary to concatenate that abstract train of thought which produces principles" (187). In her unbridled sexuality, propensity for gazing in the mirror, disregard for facts and abstract principles, and fetishization of her red dress, Antoinette is virtually a composite of the women Wollstonecraft warns against and against whom Brontë created her plain, independent, morally-virtuous heroine. Rhys changes none of the terms of Brontë's madwoman. She remains beautiful, "intemperate and unchaste" (Brontë 334, Rhys 110), and homicidal-suicidal. Wide Sargasso Sea privileges the very qualities that Brontë-and Wollstonecraft-denigrates.

Antoinette's enactment of the slave metaphor insinuates a view of master-slave dynamics as more raw, natural, authentic, empowering, and erotically-charged than abstract, intellectualized, liberal equality is. Antoi nette stores an erotic power, something similar to what Nietzsche coins the "Eternally-and-Necessarily Feminine," a concept that Wollstonecraft and Brontë, as well as their twentieth- and twenty-first-century feminist heirs, categorically reject in order to achieve the rights of men. Arguing against the "dream" of "equal rights, equal education, equal claims, obligations" between the sexes, Nietzsche's description of the power women wield from a subordinate position mirrors Rhys's presentation of Antoinette as connected to nature, beautiful, vain, poorly-educated, melancholic, and love-starved: "What inspires respect for woman, and often enough even fear, is her nature, which is more natural than man's, the genuine, cunning suppleness of a beast of prey, the tiger's claw under the glove, the naïveté of her egotism, her uneducability [sic] and inner wildness, the incomprehensibility, scope and movement of her desires and virtues" (Beyond 168). Consequently, Antoinette's "slave" qualities create a dependence on men that puts her in a precarious but erotically potent position. The novel champions what Marianna Torgovnick calls "unconscious taboo urges, of the violence and sexuality repressed by the Victorians but encoded in the primitive and exposed by the modern" (Making). Wide Sargasso Sea posits gender and cultural difference as giving the lie to legalistic conceptions of social equality.