Saturday, February 23, 2019
Fasting, Feasting Style Essay
direct of ViewThe novel is written in the third person hold cr hold of view. This mean that the author tells the story from an objective position, as if covering the storys level off upts without benefit of some(prenominal) thoughts or feelings coming straightway from the individual characters. The author pre displaces the chain of change surfacets in the story and then interjects what the characters whitethorn be presupposeing or experiencing based on their re legal actions, facial expression, and nicety of example. This show up of view is especially pertinent for the content of the novel, which revolves around the ph unrivalled number of repression, especially for the womanish characters. The wo manpower argon not allowed authentic voices in their households or their societies. So the author restricts what the proofreader potentiometer k straightway to mimic the repression see by the characters. GenreA speedy, intense narrative switching point of view and tense as needed. in that respect argon mevery unheralded transitions from scene to scene and flashback (15-63) is routined to excellent force. Threads of the story be left unfinished only to be taken up again later in the novel and accustomed a deeper significance (see Anamikas or Arunas story).General Vision or Viewpoint believe well about this question from a couple of standpoints. It powerfulness be easy to dismiss genus genus genus genus genus genus genus genus genus genus genus genus Umas world as despotic to women and to the servant underclass and to decide that life could not be a fulfilled experience in much(prenominal) circumstances. You might think that Umas life is a tragic in justice that she is used and utilize by a patriarchal family and ordering. You might see Arun as a narrow- ca pointed, judgemental outsider unable to adjust to a culture different to his own and whose life is so mavenr unfulfilled. deliver the goodsd this might be to miss the witticism and love that is invested in daily supporting. In India hoi polloi have a warmth and a variety to their lives that is enviable. 1. Read these notes taken from different sources on the web. Do you agree with what they say? Does the point of view used by Desai make you sympathise with a certain character? Explain the use of point of view and provide quotations to nutrition your ideas.ThemesFamily LifeAlthough the novel has action in two separate countries and has many characters, thither is the central written report of family life that unites them all. In India, the immediate family has great importance and the all-inclusive family similarly has an impact on the characters lives. This is evidenced by the coming unneurotic of family members for securing bridegrooms and making wedding arrangements for Uma and Aruna. There is also huge family support and involvement related to fourth dimensions of sorrow, such as the coming together after the death of Anamika. The rituals for bot h these happy and sad occasions argon marked with tradition and purpose. These elements seem to be sorely needinessing in the Patton kinsfolkhold in America. It is understood that the time period of Aruns pacify with the Pattons encompasses only three months and does not represent a comprehensive explore at the Patton family.Themes and issuesSufferingHuman suffering is depicted frequently in both places of the novel. Uma is do to suffer by her p arnts and men who take advantage of her. The unusual thing about her is her response to this suffering. She seems to fight optimism byout her ordeals. Anamikas terrible life and the abuse she suffers whitethorn sort your discussion of suffering as would the quandary of Melanie who suffers mental illness and binge- eat syndrome and is a sad example of American youth. L geniuslinessThe plight of Arun in America leave alvirtuoso yield many examples of loneliness as will Uma herself who despite her queen-size extended family keeping her alert she seems quite isolated. Loyalty/BetrayalYou might advance the notion that Uma and Anamika are betrayed by their parents in that they treat them concretely badly when it stick tos to marriage and relationships. two girls are seen as burdens to be disposed of and you could say they were betrayed. Similarly, Melanies plight is so igno rose-cheeked by her m some different that the word betrayal might not be too strong. 2. whoremaster you think of other themes in the novel? Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work. Provide quotations to justify your option. 3Example of an abbreviation of passagesDo you agree with him? Can you find more examples of how Desai uses X tocreate Y ? Now essay the following passage.4 Questions5. PoetryPied beautyGerard Manley HopkinsFollow this liaisonhttp//www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/gerard-manley-hopkins1. Listen to the poesy and read it at least twice.Hopkins was born in 1844, and died just 4 5 course of instructions later, in 1889, but in this relatively short life he wrote some of the most startling and received poetry of the whole 19th Century. He was a deep clever and religious man, and became a Jesuit priest in 1877, the same year in which he wrote Pied Beauty.Throughout his life Hopkins was deeply fond of the countryside and its apricot, in which he could see the work and power of God. In Pied Beauty he expresses his delight and astonishment at the kink transmutation of nature.What do the things Hopkins describes have in common?How does Hopkins celebrate diversity?How does the image of the chestnut link the physical with the spiritual world? How is the benignant world linked to the physical world in the poem? How are both the physical and the human world linked to God? signalise on the following compound nouns /verbs couple-colour, fresh-firecoal, gravels-forth. Comment on the use of reasoned in the poem and the burden it creates. Comment on the rhythm (metre) of the poem N.B. it is irregular). How does it contribute to its meaning? Annotate the rhyme scheme. What comments can you make on its effect? The poem begins and ends in a symmetrical way. Why? What is the effect of the short terminal line? In what way are the low and second parts of the poem the reverse of distributively other? What is the effect of de targeting the verb fathers-forth to the beginning of the penultimate line?Examination Question How does this poem judge to convey the glory and grandeur of God for Hopkins?After reading the poem, save up in paragraphs a summary of what you think the poem is about and your analysis of it. You can work in groups (not more than four in from each one group) and hand in your work to Carolina, please.What does Curnows reading of his poem adds to your compass of it? 2. Read the following which will help you to analyse the poem.Entrapments at blank space and Abroad in Anita Desais Fasting, banqueting T. RavichandranAssista nt Professor of English, division of Humanities & Social Sciences, IIT KanpurAnita Desais Fasting, Feasting, as it is implied in the title itself, is a novel of contrast between two cultures, the one, Indian, known for its pious and longstanding customs representing fasting, and the other, American, a country of opulence and sumptuousness epitomising feasting. The plot unveils through with(predicate) the perceptions of Uma, in India, and of Arun, in America. Both of them are entrapped, irrespective of the culture and enwrap milieu, by oppressive bonds exercised by their own parents, florists chrysanthemum dada. They are just MamaPapa or PapaMama but remain nameless throughout the novel. only, this namelessness does not shew their anonymity but signifies their universality. They are the prototypical parents found everywhere in the middle-class families of India, who discuss, plan, plot, control, govern the activities of their children, be it marriage or going foreign for studi es. And in their over-domineering concern, they tend to ignore the inadvertent possibility of entrapping their own offspring. Thus, they do not control contingency to the fact that perhaps their children too can have a life to call their own. May be even their own preoccupations, their own priorities, maybe an agenda for themselves that goes beyond what they actually compulsion for their children. The novel beings with a snapshot of MamaPapa in a contemplative conceit The parents sit, rhythmically swinging, back and forth.They could be asleep, dozingtheir eyes are hoodedbut sometimes they speak. That is when a sudden deluge of ideas hit them and they order their eldest daughter, Uma, to conduct out them without delay. Uma is asked first to inform the wee-wee to prepare sweets for her father, with delinquent impatience she states that she has been already asked to pack a parcel to be sent to her brother, Arun, in America. While she comes literally running on her toes, she is ent rusted with an additional melody of writing a letter to their son. Somewhere in the middle of the novel, the reader understands that it is the usual scene that goes on in the household of MamaPapa. All break of day MamaPapa have found things for Uma to do. It is as if Papas seclusion is to be spent in this mannersitting on the red swing in the veranda with Mama, rocking, and finding ways to keep Uma occupied. As long as they can do that, they themselves feel busy and occupied (133). In this manner, living under the demanding rule of MamaPapa, Uma is repressed, hold in and is imprisoned at home. The first part of the novel tells us in a flashback how she became a reluctant victim of entrapment at home. The second part of the novel shows how her brother Arun, who leaves his home for higher studies feels trapped by the very education that is meant to liberate him.Usually, at home, it would be an oppressive atmosphere even if one of the parents is overpowering. With regard to Uma, b oth of her parents appear to have merged into a single identity MamaPapa/PapaMama, as if they have a Siamese duplicate existence(6). Hence, whenever MamaPapa say something, and whoever says it, it comes with double the intensity and power that it cannot be defied at all. Having fused into one, they had gained so ofttimes in substance, in stature, in authority, that they loomed large enough as it was they did not need separate histories and backgrounds to make them even more immense(6). Despite a slight variation in the roles they have chosen to play, Papas of scowling and Mamas scolding(10), in terms of opinion, they never differed from each other. Therefore, if one balkd there would not be any point in appealing to the other parent for a different verdict no(prenominal) was expected, or given(14). Furthermore, the women are not allowed for outings usually, but when Papa feels that the women laze around the house too much, then they would be taken to the park for walk. On one su ch occasion, Uma gets easily distracted and fails to keep pace with her Papa.though Papa is far away, and she is left in the company of Mama, she would not hold up attemptto buy some eatables on her wish though it is exceedingly tempting Uma finds saliva gathering at the corners of her mouth at the smell of the spiced, roasted gram but decides to say nothing (12-13). In the end, Uma is blamed for being slow when all the while Uma could not reconcile herself as why they are hurrying just to go back home. Likewise, the children are not allowed to have any grit of privacy even when they have grown-up. They are not allowed to shut any doors in the household. For this meant secrets, especially nasty secrets, which are impermissible It meant authority would come stalking in and make a search to seize upon the nastiness, the travel-stained blot(15).MamaPapa also decide which of their children should have education and how much of it. As far as Uma is concerned, a pleasant escape from h er claustrophobic conditions at home is her school-going. The convent school for her is streaked with golden promise(20). Hence, she incessantly goes early to the school and later finds some excuse to linger there for longer time. Conversely, she feels deprived during dull weekends when she is left at home There were the wretched weekends when she was plucked back into the trivialities of her home, which seemed a denial, a negation of life as it ought to be, somber and splendid, and then the endless summer vacation when the heat trim down even that pointless existence to further vacuity(21). Regardless of Umas verve for convent education, she is forced to stop going to school when Mama gives birth to the third baby, Arun. Even as Uma shows disagreement, she is coaxed, cajoled and finally exist to accept her Mamas decision only ayah can do thisayah can do that Uma tried to protest when the orders began to come chummy and fast. This made Mama look stern again. You know we cant le ave the baby to the servant, she said severely. He unavoidably proper attention. When Uma pointed out that ayah had looked after her and Aruna as babies, Mamas expression made it clear it was quite a different matter now, and she repeated threateningly Proper attention (31).Later, Uma looks forward towards her marriage to give her the much-needed relief, yet, unfortunately, she returns home frustrated after a deceitful marriage and subsequent divorce. screening at home, she gets a rare, job offerthrough Dr. Dutt, but MamaPapa scraps to send her. When Dr. Dutt persists on taking Uma for the job, Mama lies of an illness for which she needs Uma to nurse her. In same manner, when Uma receives an invitation for a coffee party from Mrs. OHenry, MamaPapa refuse to send her to the party be bring on of the apprehension that Mrs. OHenry might ensnare her and convert her into a Christian nun. reduced thus to a baby-sitter at her earlier days and an complimentary servant for her self-cen tred parents for the rest of her life, Uma finds no escape from her entrapment. Uma experiences, however, a brief repose of happiness and freedom once when she is allowed to copy her ailing aunt, Mira-Masi, on her pilgrimage. During her stay at night in an ashram, Uma finds a strange link of her life with the barks and howls of the dogsAt night she lay quietly on her mat, listening to the ashram dog bark. accordingly other dogs in distant villages, out along the river bed and over in the pampas grass, or in wayside shacks and hovels by the highwaybarked back. They howled long messages to each other. Their messages travelled back and forth through the night darkness which was total, absolute. Gradually the barks sank into it and drowned. Then it was silent. That was what Uma felt her own life to have beenfull of barks, howls, messages, and nowsilence (61).At this juncture, one is reminded of Anita Desais characteristic way of making her internally turbulent protagonists find expres sion by association with out-of-door environs. Thus, for instance, in Cry, the Peacock, Mayas feelings of isolation and longings are coupled with those of the crying of the peacocks. Still, one locates a kind of sublimity in the agonised inner cry of Maya when it is likened with peacocks. When Umas pain is related to the barks and howls of dogs, the poetry of Mayas anguish is to be seen in sharp contrast to that of the excruciating poverty of Umas entrapment. Catering to the whims and fancies of MamaPapa, but keeping her remorse selfcontained, at one point of the novel, Uma feels utterly assistantless and alone, even when she is at home and surround by her MamaPapa. In desperation, she thinks of writing a letter to a friend to share her grief but it only ends up with the realisation that she has none to confide withShe could write a letter to a frienda private message of despair, dissatisfaction, yearning she has a packet of notepaper, pale purple with a pink rose embossed in t he cornerbut who is the friend? Mrs. Joshi? But since she lives next door, she would be surprised. Aruna? But Aruna would pay no attention, she is too busy. Cousin Ramu? Where was he? Had his farm swallowed him up? And Anamikahad marriage devoured her? (134).However, it would be wrong to presuppose that Anita Desai shows Umas unattractiveness, clumsiness and dullness of mind as causes for her entrapment. Umas polar opposite, her graceful, beautiful and brilliant cousin, Anamikas confinement is more poignant. While Umas failure in her school exams pressurises her to stay at home, Anamika does so excellently in her final school exams, that she wins a encyclopaedism to Oxford. Yet, Anamika lives in a patriarchal society that considers higher education to be the prerogative of phallics, and marriage as the major(ip) preoccupation of females. The scholarship obtained is used only as a means to win her a husband who is considered an equal to the familys prestige. Anamikas parents are un perturbed by the fact that he is so much aged(a) than her, so grim-faced and conscious of his own superiority, and is totally impervious to Anamikas beauty and grace and distinction (70). But it is Anamika, who starts another life of entrapment the moment she enters her in-laws house. Anamikas husband is a typical Mamas boy to the end he could be a silent witness to his mothers beating of his wife regularly.Anamika, who won a scholarship to Oxford, spends her entire time in the kitchen cooking for a very large family that eats in shiftsfirst the men, then the children, finally the women (70). After a miscarriage, which followed a criminal beating, and the belief that she could not bear more children, finally, the family ties her up in a nylon saree, pours the kerosene over her, and burns her to death. Here again Desai is not implying that the un-burnt brides and the well-settled ones may live a content life. In this regard, she portrays the story of Aruna, Umas smart and pretty yo unger sister who makes a discreet choice and marries the wisest, the handsomest, the richest, the most exciting of the suitors who presented themselves(101). Arunas marriage to Arvind who has a job in Bombay and a flat in a housing block in Juhu, facing the beach is just a like adream-come-true. Yet to live that dream-life fully she transforms herself and desperately seeks to introduce change in the lives of others. She cuts her hair, takes her consist kit wherever she goes, and calls her sister and mother as villagers once they refuse to accept her sophisticated and flashy style of life. For that reason, she avoids visiting her parents home and the rare occasions of her short visits are spent in blaming the untidiness of the surrounding and the inhabitants.Even she goes to the extent of scolding her husband when he splits tea in his saucer, or wears a shirt, which does not match, with his trousers. In this way, Arunas entrapment is different from the rest. She has change state herself from the customs and dominating home rules that bind the rest of the characters like Uma and Anamika. Yet, in negating those codes, she ensnares herself in her mad pursuit towards a vision of perfection. And in order to reach that perfection she needs to constantly uncover and objurgate the flaws of her own family as well as of Arvinds. When none other than Uma sees through the entrapment of Aruna, she feels pity for her Seeing Aruna vexed to the point of tears because the cooks pudding had sunk and spread rather of remaining safe and solid, or because Arvind had come to dinner in his bedroom slippers, or Papa was wearing a t-shirt with a hole under one arm, Uma felt pity for her was this the realm of ease and comfort for which Aruna had eternally pined and that some might say she had attained? Certainly it brought her no joy there was always a crease of discontent between her eyebrows and an turbulence that made her eyelids flutter, disturbing Uma who noticed it (109) .While Uma, Anamika, Aruna present the female versions of entrapment in Fasting, Feasting, Arun pictures the male version of it. Unlike his sisters, right from his birth, Arun desists eating the fodder of his family which is symbolic of its values. Much to the dismay of his father, he shows his preference for vegetarian sustenance. Simply because it revolutionised the life-style of his father, Arun can not be forced to eat non-vegetarian aliment. This, of course, is a cause of disappointment for Papa Papa was always scornful of those of their relatives who came to visit and insisted on clinging to their cereal-and vegetable-eating ways, shying away from the meat dishes Papa insisted on having cooked for dinner. Now his own son, hisone son, displayed this completely baffling desire to return to the ways of his forefathers, meek and runty men who had got nowhere in life. Papa was deeply vexed (32- 33).Nonetheless, Arun cannot fully come out of the clutches of Papa, especially, in terms of his education. And ironic enough, it is education, which instead of offering the desired autonomy, paves way for Aruns entrapment.Papa, in order to give the best, the most, the highest (119) education for his son, takes charge of Aruns life from his childhood. Although Aruns school examinations are over, Papa cannot allow him to go to his sisters house in Bombay during holidays, since he has planned that time for taking up entrance examinations and forwardness for sending applications to go abroad for higher studies. However, in the eyes of Aruna, her fathers manic determination to get a foreign scholarship for Arun, is actually on account of his unfulfilled dreams, which he tries to impose on his son. That is why, when the letter of acceptance from Massachusetts finally arrives, it stirs no emotions in Arun Uma watched Arun too, when he read the fateful letter. She watched and searched for an expression, of relief, of joy, doubt, fear, anything at all. But there was none . There was nothing elsenot the hint of a smile, frown, laugh or anything these had been ground down till they had disappeared. This blank face now stared at the letter and faced another phase of his existence arranged for him by Papa (121).As a reviewer rightly observes, With a proficient touch, Desai shows us that MamaPapas ambitions for Arun are as stifling as their lack of ambition for Uma, . From America, Aruns letters come just to indicate his endurance and survival. His messages are diluted, and are devoid of any emotion and substance. The most in the flesh(predicate) note he struck was a poignant, frequently repeated boot The food is not very veracious (123). The ties, though invisible, are so overwhelming that even in a country that feasts on individuality, Arun fails to unmixed his identity as an individual. Caught in the prison house of his own familys food habits, he can neither nourish the alien food nor develop a sense of belonging with Pattons family thatshelter s him during his vacation. The smell of the cranky meat being charred over the fire by Mr. Patton for steak or ground beef is loathsome for Arun. Conversely, Mr. Patton fails to understand why Arun really refuses to eat a good piece of meat.While Mrs. Patton symphathises with Arun, and gives him the vegetarian food items, particularly tomato slices and lettuce on bread, Arun finds them deplorable too. Because he thinks that in his time in America he has highly-developed a hearty abhorrence for the raw foods everyone here thinks the natural nutriment of a vegetarian (167). Hence when Mrs. Patton, quite satisfied with her job of a host, watches him eating with pride and complicity, Arun ate with an expression of woe and a sense of mistreatment. How was he to tell Mrs. Patton that these were not the foods that figured in his culture? That his digestive remains did not know how to turn them into nourishment? (184-185). Where Mrs. Pattons daughter, Melanie, bluntly says she finds th e food revolting, and refuses to taste it, Arun has to helplessly eat it. Melanie, however, suffers from bulimiaa disorder in which overeating alternates with self-induced vomiting, fasting, etc. Her bulimia, along with her mothers frenzy for get food items to fill the freezer, signifies the consumerist society that she hails from, where excess becomes the malady. This seen in contrast to Rod, the fittingness fanatic, who spends all his time and energy in jogging, baffles Arun who wonders that one cant tell what is more dangerous in this country, the pursuit of health or of sickness(204-205).He apprehends that like Melanie, who eats, vomits and lies on her vomit most of the time, the people of her country too, go through an inexplicable pain and a real hunger. Yet he cannot reconcile his mind to the unanswerable question But what hunger a person so sated can feel?(224). Anita Desai, in portraying the stories of entrapment in Fasting, Feasting, presents one version after another ea ch contributing together to a master version, and each simultaneously subverting the other towards an open and contingent version. Accordingly, in the story of Uma, we find her unattractiveness leading to her eventual(prenominal) entrapment. Yet, if we pass a final verdict on this account, we would be turn up erroneous since Desai presents the versions of Aruna and Anamika, Umas appealing sister and charming cousin, respectively. Beauty cannot offer them escape from entrapments in truth, it is rather their good looks that victimise them. Further, if we think again that it is Umas lack ofeducation that has led to her entrapped situation, Desai presents us the subversion of Anamika, where foreign scholarship fetches her an equal match but fails to provide her the required escape, it suffocates and kills her literally. In like manner, if as Uma thinks, A CAREER. leaving home.Living alone (130) would bring in the necessary freedom from entrapment, Desai presents us the story of Arun, who leaves home, lives alone for a career but feels the pangs of entrapment despite it. Also, in providing a male version through the story of Aruns entrapment, Desai negates any feministic verdict based on the other female versions of entrapment that is likely to put the blame on the patriarchal, male-centred society. Thus, Anita Desai, often described as one of the finest writers of this country, has move from her earlier, typical way of sympathising with her characters, females especially, to a different level of sensibility now. Where it would be easy to presuppose her overt feministic concerns in a novel like Cry, the Peacock, it would be unwise to approach her Fasting, Feasting with any such preconceive notions. Desai herself speaks out in a recent interview that she has been deliberately shifty her focus from female characters to male characters. She rather feels she needs to address and voice out themes which concern males too. She saysSpecially in my earlier work I found myself addressing the same things over and over again very much about the life of women, specially those women who are confined to home and family, also the solitude from which a person can suffer even if living within a big family or surrounded by crowds. But after several years and several books I began to feel suffocated myself by the confinement of these subjects. I felt I was limiting the territory to such an extent that it created a kind of suffocation even for me. So I deliberately opened the doors, to widen the canvas, and started writing more about male characters and their lives, because I felt they had a wider experience of the world, and I could address a greater variety of experiences.Finally, if we consider the male version represented by Arun and the female versions constituted by Uma, Anamika and Aruna as Indian versions, Desai offers American versions to forestall them. The story, thus dangling betweentwo countries and cultures shows to prove through the characters of Uma and Arun, and their counterparts Melanie and Rod, that attempts of escape from entrapments can only be temporary, illusory and self-destructively futile since entrapments through familial knots are ubiquitous, all encompassing and universal. And perhaps the salvation comes when one accepts entrapment of one kind or another envisioned as an ineluctable fact of life.References1Anita Desai, Fasting, Feasting (London Vintage, 1999) 3.All subsequent page references are to this edition.2Sylvia Brownrigg, Fasting, Feasting by Anita Desai.http//archive.salon.com/books/review/2000/02/17/desai/print.html. 9/15/2002.Magda Costa, Interview with Anita Desai, Lateral (March 2001). http//www.umiacs.umd.edu/users/sawweb/sawnet/books/desai_interview.html. 9/15/2002.http//www.sawnet.org/books/writing/desai_interview.html
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