Education and Technology

We live in a world where nearly everything is ‘tech.’ We are glued to our mobile phones from morning to night - gaining knowledge through social media and websites. We download apps to learn new languages and watch YouTube videos to learn how to play musical instruments. Yet, when it comes to learning in the classroom, we’ve barely scratched the surface of what’s possible; many universities still require students to purchase print textbooks and we lecture at students as they sit passively. I’m encouraged by the innovative approaches I’ve seen some professors take, as they adopt more technology in the classroom and I think that will only accelerate as they learn and gain access to new and helpful tools.

Of course, what technology looks like in ten years may change pretty dramatically. Innovation in AI, for instance, is happening at a rapid pace. While I don’t think AI tutors and teaching assistants will ever replace teachers, I do think that machine learning algorithms will help educators on non-priority tasks - like reading directions out loud, grading standardized tests, taking attendance - so educators can focus on more 1-on-1 time with students and on the more thoughtful activities only a human can do, like forming arguments, writing critically, and initiating more interesting and compelling discussions.

Instructors have been working to create a more dynamic classroom experience for decades. This has taken shape in experiments with flipped classrooms, as well as a heavy emphasis on group work and peer collaboration.

At the same time, by incorporating digital quizzes and assessments, videos, simulations, and gamification elements into course content, educators can create a dynamic learning experience for each student on an individual level. By capitalizing on the digital habits of students, the classroom can be filled with interactivity regardless of the class size or topic.

However, in many ways, technology has profoundly changed education. For one, technology has greatly expanded access to education. In medieval times, books were rare and only an elite few had access to educational opportunities. Individuals had to travel to centers of learning to get an education. Today, massive amounts of information (books, audio, images, videos) are available at one’s fingertips through the Internet, and opportunities for formal learning are available online worldwide through the Khan Academy, MOOCs, podcasts, traditional online degree programs, and more. Access to learning opportunities today is unprecedented in scope thanks to technology.

Sugata Mitra shared his wish at TED2013. In November 2013, the first School in the Cloud learning lab — located inside a high school in Killingworth, England — opened its doors to students. Since then, six more learning labs have been built — one more in the UK and five across India.

Sugata Mitra has also launched the School in the Cloud platform which ensures that anyone, anywhere, can experiment with self-organized learning. As of 2016, more than 16,000 SOLE sessions have taken place globally, with partner learning labs and programs scatted across the world — including in Pakistan, Colombia and Greece. The platform debuted at TED2014, with Microsoft and their Skype Social Good team stepping in to provide core technology and connect a global community. Made By Many, the product design partners, and IDEO, the research design partners, co-created the experience. Newcastle University opened SOLE Central in 2014, as a global hub for research on self-organized learning. The platform is managed at the university's Culture Lab.

David Crystal has talked about the changes in English language after arriving of certain technologies. He has given example of printing, Telephone, broadcasting, and internet. He says that every time with new technology, new language also introduced to suit that technology. He also talked about the text messages and twitter. He refers to the short length of messages and tweet and says that has bring the abbreviation of the words in use. People tend to think that this abbreviation will ruin the English language but he says that it is not so. These abbreviation of is only 10 percent in the text. Other 90 percent remain the standard English or any English which is used by people. So he basically throws the light on how with the arrival of new technology, people also think and write in new way. Technology bring the new aspect of language, or new way of writing language.

No doubt, all education will continue to be valuable and necessary. Students and people will need to continue to adapt to technology, continue to want to learn, and continue to stay motivated in their own self-development.

Workshop on Quality and Authenticity of Web Resources

The department of English M.K. Bhavnagar University organized workshop on Quality and Authenticity of web resources.(20 November, 2019)

In this workshop we learn that how which parameters are used to check the authenticity of web resources.

The group task given to us by Dr.Dilip Barad was to analyse the web resources to frequently used by us to gain our knowledge related to study. 

I (Ashish Pithadiya) and Vishva Gajjar we analysed 4 different sites which we use frequently for study purpose.

We followed this chart for analysis and we got following average of the sites.

1. Gradesaver.com - 2.8

2. litcharts.com - 3

3. Nobelbiographoes.com -2.8

4. JSTOR.org - 4

1. Gradesaver.com 

Gradesaver was founded in April 1999. It is one of the top editing and good educational value and the most of the basic information is covered. It does not have information in depth. 

2. litcharts.com 

Thus site helps us in improving the close reading. They give the brief quotes. Information is all in very much detail. So that students can easily that the whole idea of the particular text.

3. Notablebiographies.com

Thus site is good for the Biographies. They give very much detailed information about the writer and the work they have done.

4. JSTOR.com

It is a digital library of academic journals books and primary sources. They have the best of the knowledge with the detailed information. It also provides a idea for a beginner to write a research paper and how to have appropriate title of topic.is also provide the best quality.

References and Adaptations :- 

https://classroom.google.com/c/NDczMDM2NDIzNTNa/a/NDc1NTg4NTM2MDNa/details

Representation of native by colonizer

          In this blog I would like to show the representation of native by colonizer. How the colonizer use to treat them, what were their thoughts about them etc etc with the help of two examples one of Friday in 'Robinson Crusoe' and the other in 'A Wheat of Grain'.


Robinson Crusoe:

          To know a brief overview click here. Character of Friday is given below.

          Friday is the first person Crusoe introduces into the social order of the island. His name, of course, isn't Friday by birth, but this is the name that Crusoe gives him after saving him from the hands of the cannibals. Crusoe also teaches Friday to speak English, encourages him to eat goat (you know, instead of human flesh), and aids in his conversion to Christianity.

          The first and most obvious point about Friday's relationship with Crusoe is that Friday is Crusoe's subordinate. Friday always calls Crusoe "master," for example. Crusoe also mentions that their relationship is much like that of "a Child to a Father" (176). Why does Crusoe not see Friday as his equal, even after Friday converts to Christianity?

         Crusoe's dominant relationship to Friday produces a pretty interesting dynamic between the two of them. See, for example, Crusoe's description of Friday as he is sleeping:

He was a comely handsome Fellow, perfectly well made; with straight strong Limbs, not too large; tall and well shap'd, and as I reckon, about twenty six Years of Age. He had a very good Countenance, not a fierce and surly Aspect; but seem'd to have something very manly in his Face, and yet he had all the Sweetness and Softness of an European in his Countenance too, especially when he smil'd. His Hair was long and black, not curl'd like Wool; his Forehaed very high, and large, and a great Vivacity and sparkling Sharpness in his Eyes. The Coulour of his Skin was not quite black, but very tawny; and yet not of an ugly yellow nauseous tawny, as the Brasilians, and Virginias, and other Natives of America are; but of bright kind of a dun olive Colour, that had in it something very agreeable; tho' not very easy to describe. (173)

          Crusoe spends a great deal of time describing Friday's body, to be sure, especially the ways in which he resembles a European.

A Grain of Wheat:

          A Grain of Wheat is a novel by Kenyan novelist James Ngugi (Ngũgĩ wa Thiong' o) first published as part of the influential Heinemann African Writers Series. The novel weaves together several stories set during the state of emergency in Kenya's struggle for independence (1952–59), focusing on the quiet Mugo, whose life is ruled by a dark secret. The plot revolves around his home village's preparations for Kenya's independence day celebration, Uhuru day. On that day, former resistance fighters General R and Koinandu plan on publicly executing the traitor who betrayed Kihika.

          Here, Britain’s colonization of Kenya is the context against which its characters are formed as well as the primary political tension of the book. Ngũgĩ Wa Thiong’o, himself a native Kenyan, uses this context and development of his characters to explore the moral aspect of colonization from both the perspective of the British and rural Kenyans. Ngũgĩ’s narrative argues that, although both the colonizer and the colonized feel morally justified in their pursuits, colonialism is ultimately an immoral and oppressive practice, justifying the colonized people’s struggle for freedom, even through violent means.

          The novel ends on the day of Kenya’s independence from Britain, thus resolving the conflict between colonizer and colonized. Even so, since the author observes that Britain remains imperialistic, the moral argument against such colonization by any country remains firm.

Importance of communication

          Communication is the foundation of all human relationship. At first, strangers start talking and getting to know each other, and then the relationships are formed when they have more interaction and communication. Communicating helps people to express their ideas and feelings, and it, at the same time, helps us to understand emotion and thoughts of the others. As a result, we will develop affection or hatred toward other people, and positive or negative relationships will be created.

          It is no doubt that communication plays a vital role in human life. It not only helps to facilitate the process of sharing information and knowledge, but also helps people to develop relationships with others. Therefore, the importance of communication cannot be underestimated. Every day, we communicate with a lot of people including our families, our friends, our colleagues, or even strangers.

           Communication is the process to express his thoughts, ideas, and messages, from one person to other person for the sake of personal interest or business interest. Communication is more effective if you receive the response from other person.

          Communication is a process of sending and receiving information among people. Humans communicate with others not only by face-to-face communication, but also by giving information via the Internet and printed products such as books and newspapers. Many people believe that the significance of communication is like the importance of breathing. Indeed, communication facilitates the spread of knowledge and forms relationships between people.

Modes of Communication:

• Verbal Communication
• Non-Verbal Communication
• Electronic or mass communication

Barrier of Communication:

• Cultural Barrier
• Languages Barrier
• Perceptual Barrier
• Physical Barrier

          According to my opinion I'm comfortable in verbal and electronic communication. 

Learning Through Attending and Observing

Name: Vishva Gajjar

Roll no.: 33

Paper: 12 (English Language Teaching-1)

Submit to: English Department (MKBU)

Learning through Attending and Observing

A teacher is teaching only when the children are learning and in order to learn children must attend. A teacher, therefore, must know not only the subject-matter he has to teach but also how to present it so that the pupils will attend to it. When children attend they adopt an attitude of alertness; they listen, watch, think, and ask questions. This attitude is accompanied by certain unmistakable bodily signs; alertness is expressed both in general posture and in facial expression; concentration is shown by an absence of fidgetiness, and, in fact, of any activity that would distract. When people are attending very intently, even their breathing is shallow, a fact that is reflected in the common phrase, "breathless attention". There are, however, individual differences in the bodily accompaniments of attention, and wise teachers will recognize this fact by allowing individuals to depart in minor ways from conventional postures when a class is showing rapt attention. Something can be done, however, to help children to attend by training them in habits of suitable bodily posture. It is, for example, sometimes advisable to start work with young children by very brief exhortations to sit up and look; with older children, the habit of sitting up when an oral lesson is about to begin should be established and exhortations should no longer be necessary. There are other occasions when it may be advisable to rely on the intrinsic interest of the lesson to catch and hold children’s attention; on these occasions, the lesson is started and the follow as a matter of course right bodily postures.

When, therefore, we appeal to instinctive interests in order to help children to pay attention to subjects that are not in themselves interesting it is desirable to avoid negative interests such as those arising from fear, and to use positive ones such as interests in construction, curiosity or self-assertion. Then not only shall we help children to attend to what is relatively uninteresting, but we shall also encourage the development of new interests. We shall extend the range of things to which children are ready to pay attention.

It is sometimes objected that if we give children interesting work, or if we present work so as to arouse interest, we are depriving them of valuable training, the discipline of hard work and the discipline of having to attend to what is not interesting Consider first the question of working hard. If it were really true' that children did not work hard when they were interested would be a very serious objection, but a moment's reflection Will assure us that this is not so. The child who tries and tries again is the one who is interested in what he is doing. By giving children interesting work we are making it possible for them to work hard at the job instead of working hard at keeping their minds off other more interesting matters. In interesting work the effort goes into the work; in uninteresting work the effort goes largely into the attending. It is important to remind ourselves that children are not interested in work that is too easy. In fact, the challenge of something difficult is often a good method of inciting them to attend. The second objection to interesting work was that the children were missing the excellent disciplinary value of having to attend to something that made no appeal to them. If this were true the objection would be a serious one, but the fact is that we cannot entirely cut out all uninteresting work. Even the most interesting job has its moments of drudgery. A girl may enjoy making a dress, but dislike the stage of putting on the fasteners. Her keenness to finish the dress will help her to attack this dull job wholeheartedly so that she will be getting practice in a very useful habit, the habit of attacking work, whatever it may be, with vigor. We see here one of the dangers of not presenting work to children in an interesting way. They are liable to develop a habit of attacking their work in a spiritless way and of never expecting that it will eventually become interesting.

·        Reasons for Attending:

In many books on psychology it is stated that there are different kinds of attention. Attention is, for example, sometimes classified as volitional and non-volitional, the distinction being whether the attention is sustained by an act of will or not. Other psychologists distinguish between voluntary, non-voluntary and involuntary attention. Voluntary attention corresponds to volitional attention, that is to say, it is sustained by an act of will. Non voluntary and involuntary attention are sub-divisions of non-volitional attention. Both types are sustained by direct interest, but an act of involuntary attention is in opposition to the person's dominant interest of the moment.

When, in any given situation, we consider why children are attending the following questions will be helpful:

(a) Are the children attending because they have a direct natural interest in the subject?

e.g., young children engrossed in making a self-chosen model.

(b) Are they attending because they have an indirect natural interest in the      subject?

      e.g., children working hard at arithmetic for competitive purposes.

(c) Are they attending because they have a direct acquired interest in the subject?

      e. g., children working hard at arithmetic for the sheer joy of the work.

(d) Are they attending because they have an indirect acquired interest in the subject?

e. g., children working hard at arithmetic because their self-respect  compels them.

In many situations it will be found that a child is attending for more than one of the above reasons. For instance, in a craft lesson a child attends to the work because of his direct natural interest in construction; because of his indirect natural interest in self-assertion; he may also attend because of his direct acquired interest in the craft which has resulted from previous experience of it and because of his indirect acquired interest in himself a person who produces good work.

·       The Effect of Distractions:

During oral lessons it is sometimes necessary to recall the attention of individuals who are attending to distracting stimuli, for example, to a fly on the window-pane or to their own daydreams. This recalling should be done unobtrusively and if possible without breaking the continuity of the instruction; a look or a question is often enough. Nothing is more likely to make children inattentive than teaching punctuated at frequent intervals by petty admonitions. Other distracting influences are one's own sensations. Thus a person in ill-health, or a person placed in an uncomfortable position will find it difficult to attend to anything else. The same is there to some extent when the position is luxuriously comfortable.

Children are more likely to be affected by distractions than adults are, but there are wide individual differences among both adults and children. Some people, not necessarily those who generally find it difficult to concentrate, are seriously handicapped.

·       Observing:

We have seen that attending depends on interest. A good observer needs an interest in his subject but for him knowledge is particularly important. A boy and his mother may both be intensely interested in a new locomotive, but the boy will observe much more about it than his mother does. Where she sees just a locomotive, he sees a locomotive of a particular class. He quickly observes the special features of this class, for he has, as it were, a ready-made plan to direct his observing. Compared with his mother he observes essentials in a systematic way. Where his mother sees a certain number of wheels, which she probably has to count, he sees a pattern of wheels and knows how many there are without counting. The boy attends to the engine in a more effective way than his mother because his previous knowledge helps him to observe groups of related facts instead of isolated ones. Not only is the mother observing these isolated facts unsystematically, but she is also trying to memorize them. The boy, however, is recognizing parts that he already knows; he is not memorizing them. In this recognition he is greatly helped by knowing the names for the parts. One word is enough to label a part for him while his mother has first to find the words to describe the part and then to rely on this more or less "wordy" description.

The ability to read meaning into an experience occasionally leads us into error. When we "see" a human figure where there is really only a coat hanging on the floor, we are interpreting wrongly. We are suffering from an illusion. In certain emotional states we are very prone to suffer from illusions. When we are afraid we are often uncritical and ready to jump to conclusions. When we are anxious not to observe a certain fact we are very likely to overlook it. As the proverb says, "None as blind as those who won't see". Trained observers are aware of these dangers.

·       Listening:

The term "observing" is usually applied to seeing a looking. Exactly the same principles operate when knowledge gained through any of the other senses. A child who uses his well is called a good observer, a child who uses his ears well called a good listener. In training good listeners we must apply the same principles as in training good observers. Training in listening is no less important than training in observing, and school life provides many opportunities. Children should be trained to listen to orders, to questions, to short lectures. A very useful exercise for training children to listen is dictation, and the reproduction may be either oral or written. Sentences, couplets verses should be dictated as wholes, and as children grow older and more proficient the exercises should be made more difficult so that an effort to listen and remember is required. If teachers want to train children to listen, they should be careful to develop a habit if speaking no more loudly than is necessary for children to hear. We do not turn a limelight on everything we wish children to observe; we ought not to shout everything to which we wish children to listen.

We can train listeners but not listening. Despite the common use of abstract nouns the same is psychologically true of "attention", "concentration" and "observation". They are not faculties that can be trained. As we have seen, the factor that determines in any given situation whether children attend, concentrate or observe is not their possession of well-trained faculties but the whole situation—the habits, attitudes, ideals, interests and previous knowledge of the children on the one hand, the nature of the subject-matter on the other.

Negritude - Nadine Gordimer's Major Novels

Name: Vishva Gajjar

Roll no.: 33

Paper: 11 (The Postcolonial Literature)

Submit to: English Department (MKBU)

NEGRITUDE - NADINE GORDIMER'S MAJOR NOVELS

Negritude was both a literary and ideological movement led by French-speaking black writers and intellectuals from France’s colonies in Africa and the Caribbean in the 1930s. The movement is marked by its rejection of European colonization and its role in the African diaspora, pride in “blackness” and traditional African values and culture, mixed with an undercurrent of Marxist ideals. Negritude was born from a shared experience of discrimination and oppression and an attempt to dispel stereotypes and create a new black consciousness.

The movement drew its inspiration from the Harlem Renaissance, which was beginning its decline. The Harlem Renaissance, which was alternatively called the “New Negro Renaissance,” fostered black artists and leaders who promoted a sense of pride and advocacy in the black community, and a refusal to submit to injustices. But as the glory days of the Harlem Renaissance came to an end, many African American intellectuals of the period moved to France, seeking a haven against racism and segregation. Among these artists were Langston Hughes, James Weldon Johnson, Richard Wright, and Claude McKay, who Sengalese poet and politician Léopold Sedar Senghor praised as the spiritual founder of Negritude.

The movement’s founders, Aime Cesaire, Senghor, and Léon-Gontran Damas, met while studying in Paris in 1931 and began to publish the first journal devoted to Negritude, L’Étudiant noir (The Black Student), in 1934.

The term “Negritude” was coined by Cesaire in his ‘Notebook of a Return to the Native Land’, (1939) and it means, in his words, “The simple recognition of the fact that one is black, the acceptance of this fact and of our destiny as blacks, of our history and culture.” Even in its beginnings Negritude was truly an international movement—it drew inspiration from the flowering of African American culture brought about by the Harlem Renaissance and found a home in the canon of French literature.

In Nadine Gordimer's sympathetic assessment of the black situation and the black people, the spirit of negritude gets emphatically revealed. In her novels, she presents Negro characters as noble, more sensitive, more given to the warmth of life. In the white and the black confrontation, Nadine Gordimer seems to take the side of the black, as she believes in the black as being unjustly treated by the white. Nadine Gordimer seems to plead for herself in Toby's and Steven's case, in the novel A World of Strangers. She has identified herself so naturally with the South African world that her version of the black life does not suffer from any European bias or prejudiced misinterpretation. Though a white writer, her presentation of racial discrimination nowhere falls short of sincere authenticity.

·       A World of Strangers :

Toby Hood comes from England to South Africa on assignment for his family's publishing house. He divides his time between the townships and white high society, he feels concerned about the black world of Johannesburg. He makes friends with Steven Sitole, his kindred black bachelor friend, similarly apolitical. Steven Sitole is destined to play a major part in Toby's African experience. Toby's relationship with Steven throughout the novel is a puzzling one. Steven tries to assert his separate identity in the novel. He talks with Toby about racial politics, serious art, about Tolstoy. On the other hand, fascinatedly watching the organ; movement of black dancers a t a party of Steven's, Toby registers for his own part only the absence of the same capacity in himself. He understands for the first time, as he puts it, "the fear, the sense of loss there can be under a white skin." In this connection Stephen Cling man (1986:53) says: "The possible converse, it appears, of a moment of white "Negritude', is quite literally one of self -denigration." As far as the assumptions of the 1950s are concerned, the novel offers its interracial socializing. For example, Toby remarks on the pitfalls of a white liberalism in which, 'it became 'an inevitable fashion' to mix with blacks, or even to have a 'pet African' whose name one could drop in company'. Some of the more glaring incongruities of this behavior are well documented in the novel. At one interracial party the white hostess feels so relieved at the way in which she has been 'accepted' by her guests that she remarks to Sam and Steven black men, 'I'm going to see if our black brothers in the kitchen cant rustle up some tinned soup for us'.

Toby has a counterpart in the black world because of his friendship with Steven, his best friend. Toby has never really had any social commitment, Steven, however, has rejected his. Having experienced, as a black man, only bitter frustration in all quarters, Steven instead finds, solace in reckless living, in a personal refusal to be beaten, in a personal refusal to care. He is 'sick of feeling half a man': "I don't want to be bothered with black men's troubles."

Toby's encounters with the African community began with a visit from Anna Louw, a Legal Aid lawyer. Anna Louw's marriage to an Indian has been broken up by the pressures of apartheid, and lives in a much harder world than the liberals. Yet, for all that, the novel shows a deep admire lion for her courage and clarity, and her unceasing attempt ever to widen the frontier zone and make it more genuinely habitable. As a black girl,' Anna asserts her separate identity in the novel. She is a disillusioned ex-communist. She became a social activist. She had made a trip to Russia in 1950, but she had not remained in the chronic slate of exhaustion, which prevented any new commitment. In short A World of Strangers is full of typical scenes and presents a great variety of South African types: among them She 'liberal, the Black intellectuals.

·       Occasion for Loving :

Nadine Gordimer's presentation of Negro characters in her novels as noble, more sensitive is quite truly reflected in the novel Occasion for Loving. In the novel, a white female character gets attracted towards a black man because of his noble qualities. The novel focuses on a cross-racial affair between the black artist and the young white English woman. Ann Davis is an opportunistic girl, who has come to South Africa with her husband Boaz. She gets attracted towards Gideon Shibalo, who was an African painter, and teacher with 'the moody lace of a man who pleases everybody but himself. Gideon takes her to the boxing matches and to other colorful affairs, and to parties at the homes of his friends, both white and black. Gideon was the man whose painting had attracted attention overseas and won him a scholarship to work in Italy. He was known and welcomed everywhere. Ann takes pride in his interest in her, recognizes and welcomes her sexual power, and likes showing other men that she finds a black man interesting, he had his own status and dignity in the society. Gideon has no contact with [he African musical heritage but he tries to acquire a lot of knowledge about it by asking the seminal questions to Boaz, who works on the African musical heritage. He had painted Ann's several portraits very beautifully. These paintings refer also to the creative energy she inspires in him. She is so much interested in the picture that she is frequently drawn to look at it, though she finds 'no surface likeness to provide reassurance', though "she knew i t was the likeness of what he found her to be', Gideon glorifies of everything i.e. African tradition and culture, African musical heritage etc. A brilliant dancer, Ann is increasingly drawn to Gideon through an attraction described as having 'the rhythm of a dance'. While describing their interracial relationship, Gideon remarks, 'every contact with whites was touched with intimacy was always easier —to have a love-affair than a friendship'. Throughout the novel Gideon Shibalo is presented as a tolerant, intellectual painter, who becomes very sensitive after the failure of their love relationship.

·       A Sport of Nature :

In A Sport of Nature, Gordimer describes the total dedication of blacks to the Liberation Movement. Whaila Kgomani, a black revolutionary, was a noble African. In the novel, a white Jewish girl, Hillela gets attracted towards Whaila because of his noble qualities. He is repeatedly described as godlike, 'the disguised god from the sea', 'the obsidian god from the waves'. He first meets Hillela in the sea, appearing from the waves to bring news of an assassination to Arnold, the commander in exile. Due to his inspiration for the revolutionary activities, Hillela undergoes a transformation, Hillela, constantly questions Whaila about his plans for South Africa.

When Hillela marries him, she seeks to find ' a sign in her marriage. She refuses merely to accept their different skin colors. Whaila is surprised to see the change in her mind. He is a very sensitive man. When she shows keen interest in his work, he tries to acknowledge his identity, he says: 'What am I to you, that you transform yourself?' Her love for Whaila leads her to become interested in his revolutionary work.

·       My Son's Story:

In the novel My Son's Story, Gordimer portrays a character of colored school teacher who later becomes a revolutionary activist. Here a young white women named Hannah Plowman gets attracted towards a colored man because of his noble qualities. Sonny is the 'pride of his people as he is the first person in his family to gain formal education. Initially he is not interested in joining the black struggle. Put, later on he participates in the-rally and he is banned from teaching. He leads a hectic life as a revolutionary. Amongst his several admires, Hannah is one of them. Sonny and Hannah first become acquainted with each other during his prison term when she writes encouraging letters to him. Their love for the cause draws them closer. She admires the courage of the prisoners. To Hannah the struggle against injustice is of prime importance. At the end of the novel, when Hannah leaves Sonny, not out of feeling of anger but simply because of her passion to serve the needy Africans, Sonny accepts her departure easily because he likes her temperament, her urge in working for the oppressed Africans. He is large-hearted man. As a colored man, his courage and hope for his people are remarkable which asserts his identity. His prominence as an orator and a revolutionary leader. He is, by all accounts, a good man who lives by his political convictions.

If we talk about other writers: Birago Diop from Senegal, whose poems explore the mystique of African life; David Diop, writer of revolutionary protest poetry; Jacques Rabemananjara, whose poems and plays glorify the history and culture of Madagascar; Cameroonians Mongo Beti and Ferdinand Oyono, who wrote anti-colonialist novels; and the Congolese poet Tchicaya U Tam’si, whose extremely personal poetry does not neglect the sufferings of the African peoples. The movement largely faded in the early 1960s when its political and cultural objectives had been achieved in most African countries.

Critical Analysis of "The Scarlet Letter"

Name: Vishva Gajjar

Roll no.: 33

Paper: 10 (The American Literature)

Submit to: English Department (MKBU)

Critical Analysis of “The Scarlet Letter”

·       About Author:

Born on July 4, 1804, in Salem Massachusetts, Nathaniel Hawthorne’s life was steeped in the Puritan legacy. An early ancestor, William Hathorne, first emigrated from England to America in 1630 and settled in Salem, Massachusetts, where he became a judge known for his harsh sentencing. William’s son, John Hathorne, was one of three judges during the Salem Witch Trials in the 1690s. Hawthorne later added a “w” to his name to distance himself from this side of the family.

Hawthorne was the only son of Nathaniel and Elizabeth Clark Hathorne (Manning). His father, a sea captain, died in 1808 of yellow fever while at sea. The family was left with meager financial support and moved in with Elizabeth’s wealthy brothers. A leg injury at an early age left Hawthrone immobile for several months during which time he developed a voracious appetite for reading and set his sights on becoming a writer.

After 1860, it was becoming apparent that Hawthorne was moving past his prime. Striving to rekindle his earlier productivity, he found little success. Drafts were mostly incoherent and left unfinished. Some even showed signs of psychic regression. His health began to fail and he seemed to age considerably, hair turning white and experiencing slowness of thought. For months, he refused to seek medical help and died in his sleep on May 19, 1864, in Plymouth, New Hampshire. 

Nathaniel Hawthorne was an American short story writer and novelist. His short stories include "My Kinsman, Major Molineux" (1832), "Roger Malvin's Burial" (1832), "Young Goodman Brown" (1835) and the collection Twice-Told Tales. He is best known for his novels The Scarlet Letter (1850) and The House of the Seven Gables (1851). His use of allegory and symbolism make Hawthorne one of the most studied writers. 

·       About Novel:

This novel is set in the theocratic and patriarchal Puritan society of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. The year is 1642, which means that this particular group of colonists settled in the area of Boston, and were part of a second wave of settlers that came from England in 1630 with the purpose of purifying the Church of England. 

Ø Character:

Aurthur Dimmesdale

General Miller

Governor Bellingham

Hester Prynne

Inspector

John Wilson

Mistress Hibbins

Pearl

Roger Chillingworth

·       Critical Analysis:

Although Hawthorne wrote to his friend Bridges that he thought ‘The House of the Seven Gables’ was a better book than ‘The Scarlet Letter’, most modern critics consider ‘The Scarlet Letter’ to be his masterpiece. In fact, evidence of the continued popularity of his works, even among people not usually concerned with literary works, appeared in two 1984 issues of the New England of Medicine.

Jemshed A. Khan a physician, suggested that Dimmesdale was a victim of atropine poisoning, administered by Chillingworth. He supports his claim by citing Hawthorne’s mention of plants which contains the poison and he concludes, the symptoms experienced by Dimmesdale-the hallucinations, the convulsions, the tremors and the red stigmata of guilt, which some witnesses describes as being chest at the close of the novel-are all consistent with the known symptoms of atropine poisoning. Three rnonths later the same journal carried a series of letters both in praise of critical of— Khan's views. 'I'hat such a furor could be generated among— arid present day readers by a novel written more than a hundred and thirty years ago is ample tcstimony to the power of T Hawthorne’s novel and its continuing popularity.

In an entirely different vein, yet one that is worth investigating one should consider a theory recently advanced by another scholar Hawthorne, as noted, was always concerned with his family history and with colonial history. His earliest American ancestor, William Hawthorne, arrived in this country with John Winthrop, later governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, in 1630. Hathorne became the Speaker of the House of Delegates and was also a major in the Salem militia. This "steeple-crowned progenitor" who 'had all the Puritanic traits, both good and evil," was remembered by the Quakers for an 'incident of his hard severity towards a woman of their sect." Even Hawthorne thought that the memory of his ancestor's severity toward the woman would "last longer, it is to be feared, than any record of his better deeds."

William's son, John, became even more famous —or infamous. He was one of the three judges in the Salem witchcraft trials of 1692. It is he who is mentioned in the "Custom House" section of The Scarlet Letter as having "made himself so conspicuous in the martyrdom of the witches, that their blood may fairly be said to have left a stain upon him." Hawthorne's reaction to the early history of these two ancestors may well have led him to declare that "I, the present writer as their representative, hereby take shame upon myself for their sakes and pray that any curse incurred by them . . . maybe now and hence forth removed."

For many readers, the shame which Hawthorne took upon himself, as a result of the actions of his paternal ancestors, has been enough to account for what he designates as one of the "many morals" which Dimmesdale's experience might provide for the reader. That moral is placed by Hawthorne in the final chapter of the novel where he writes, 'Be true! Be true! Show freely to the world, if not your worst, yet some trait where inferred" Interestingly, as mentioned earlier, a number of scholars have looked further into Hawthorne's family history, past the apparent "sins" of his paternal ancestors, believing that the witch-hunting fervor of these long-dead relatives was not a sufficient cause of Hawthorne's strong protest for us to "show… if not the worst, yet some trait whereby the worst may be inferred!" They have sought elsewhere for the possible explanation for the fevered moral which Hawthorne makes so impassionately.

For example, in 1984, the critic Philip Young published. Hawthorne’s Secret, arguing that Hawthorne quite probably uncovered a bit of startling information related to his maternal ancestors that would account for the impassioned moral in the last chapter of The Scarlet Letter.

In the "Quarterly Court Records" of Essex Country, Massachusetts, Hawthorne may well have found the records of a court case which took place on March 29, 1681. Two of Hawthorne's maternal ancestors, Anstis and Margaret Manning, were convicted of having committed incest with their brother, Nicholas. They were sentenced to be publicly whipped and to stand in the middle of the Salem meeting house with a paper on their heads revealing the nature of their crime. The substitution of an adulterous for an incestuous relationship could indeed be a case of showing "some trait whereby the worst may be inferred."

This sort of scholarly research can hardly be said to provide absolute proof that Hawthorne was aware of that particular aspect of his ancestors' history, but it does again demonstrate that there is still a great interest in The Scarlet Letter and in Hawthorne's motivations for writing it.

As one considers those two recent speculations, one should also consider more mundane, but certainly valuable aspects of Hawthorne's masterpiece. It is important, for example, to know that when Hawthorne finished The Scarlet Letter, he had already written most of the works that were to make him famous. Thus, many of the stylistic techniques and themes which are characteristic of a work by Hawthorne were already a habitual art of his style. Those elements include: (1) Hawthorne’s theory of the romance as a literary form; (2) Hawthorne's use of symbolism in the novel; (3) Hawthorne's style; (4) Hawthorne's use of historical materials and figures as part of the setting; and, finally, (5) Hawthorne's use of ambiguity.

Turning to The Scarlet Letter, one finds that Hawthorne continued to use this device of ambiguity to defuse the skeptical objections of his “common-sensible" readers. At the end of Chapter 8, while discussing the significance of Hester's conversation with Mistress Hibbins, Hawthorne inserts this qualifying phrase: ". . . if we suppose this interview betwixt Mistress Hibbins and Hester Prynne to be authentic, and not a parable." In Chapter 12, while describing the scarlet A which Dimmesdale (and according to the sexton and others as well) saw in the sky, Hawthorne remarks: "We it…solely to the disease in his own eye and heart, that the minister, looking upward to the zenith, beheld there the appearance of an immense letter, —the letter A-marked out in lines of dull red light.

In all of these cases, Hawthorne leaves the solution to the reader; the reader must decide what is "literally true." It seems as if Hawthorne wishes to make use of the supernatural or fantastic devices for symbols, but also offers an optional explanation for the literal-minded reader to whom the fantastic is not justified—not even for an artistic effect Actually, Hawthorne's method of narration gives him the best of two worlds. He is somewhat like the trial lawyer who withdraws a telling remark upon the judge's objection, but knows that the implications of his remark will remain in the minds of the jury members.

Hawthorne’s final touch of symbolism lies in the slate tombstone which serves for both graves. Hawthorne uses the language of heraldry to describe the letter A, which is engraved on it and which “might serve for a motto and a brief description of our now concluded legend”. He describes the tombstone as being somber and brightened only by one ever-glowing point of light, the scarlet letter A. A Herald’s description of the tombstone might read: “On a Field, Sable, the Letter A glues,” which is translated into modern English as, “On a black background, the scarlet letter A.