War of Power

Critical Discourse Analysis of a Section from Rookmangud Katawal's Autobiography

Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) is an act of explaining and interpreting any kind of text – both written and oral – and similar discourses, in order to understand what meaning is created in the text, how and by whom. In a CDA activity, the researcher analyses how the text means what it means in the given social context. As context is a broader term that implies a variety of backgrounds; such analysis attempts to identify how power relationships affect the discourse. Teun A van Dijk, one of the most important theorists of the CDA, defines, "Critical discourse analysis (CDA) is a type of discourse analytical research that primarily studies the way social power abuse, dominance, and inequality are enacted, reproduced, and resisted by text and talk in the social and political context" (352). Van Dijk's definition hence apparently urges analysts to look into aspects of power relationships including social power abuse, dominance, and inequality.

            A couple of weeks back, former Chief of Nepal Army Rookmangud Katawal launched his autobiography titled after his name and written in Nepali language. Published by Nepa~laya, the book, penned by the General assisted by skilled journalist Kiran Bhandari, is a talk of the town in Nepali literary and intellectual circle today.

Critical Discourse Analysis: A Multidimensional Perspective

Defining at the simplest level, Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) is an act of explaining and interpreting any kind of text – both written and oral – and similar discourses that carry a certain message. It is a study of the ways in which language is used in various texts and contexts. In analysing discourses, the discipline pursues to incorporate various perspectives in order to get the richest meaning of the discourses possible. Further, the CDA adopts an in-depth study of play of power and role of socio-cultural, economic and cultural contexts in which texts and discourses are created. The discursive nature of language further necessitates the CDA to interplay among various facets of understanding. Hence, the Critical Discourse Analysis is not a single theoretical framework; rather a combination of a number of multidimensional approaches, for a good CDA necessarily involves as many approaches as feasible.       

What if Stronger Women: Retelling The Winter's Tale

A scene from the Utah Shakespeare Festival's 2004 production of The Winter's Tale. (Copyright Utah Shakespeare Festival. Photo by Karl Hugh.) Courtesy: http://www.bard.org/

In The Winter's Tale by William Shakespeare, Queen Hermione is one of the most important characters. Her importance is not only limited to the context of this play in particular; rather Hermione is perhaps one among few strongest women characters Shakespeare has ever created for/ in his plays. Paulina of this very play can also be categorised as similar to Hermione. Yet, the overall development of the play is not presented from her perspective. Although being strong and heroic, the Queen's role is made subordinate, and the role of the King Leontes is highlighted. From a feminist perspective, the point of view which the Shakespearean drama is presented through thus can be called patriarchal, for it presents women in submissive roles who always accept decisions of their male counterparts. If the story is retold with the feminist lens, the plot of the play will go to a completely different direction in which women characters are decisive in themselves for their life.   

Decision Making Right of Women in Pericles

The eight-member cast of California Shakespeare Theater’s Pericles puts on a jousting pageant on stage at the Bruns Memorial Amphitheater in Orinda. Photo by Kevin Berne.  Courtesy: http://www.theaterdogs.net/

Pericles, Prince of Tyre, a romantic play by William Shakespeare revolves around various women characters from diverse family backgrounds. These women have significant roles in movement of the plot, for without them the play would be different. But, their role in decision making moments that actually determine the plot movement is different from character to character. While some characters are not allowed to speak during crucial decision making moments, some other even enjoy it to the extent that they are misused. In some cases, the decision making right awarded to women in the play is not much strong as women generally had in the sixteenth century Shakespearean English society.  But, some women are able to make their voices heard in decision making processes. In overall, the decision making right that women characters in the play can enjoy is not uniform, but different from case to case and person to person.

Censure against Certitude: Lyotard and Derrida

Postmodernism and poststructuralism can be taken as the theories that question modernism and structuralism respectively. Developed in the twentieth century, both of the theories try to undermine authority of what were considered central (establishment) before them. Postmodernism challenges modernism – search for purposes in whatever human beings do – and poststructuralism in the similar fashion poses an encounter against structuralism – the theory that believes words and languages do have meanings. Since it is language that human beings are able to experience anything through, questioning the power of language is also question against meanings of human activities too. In this regard, both 'post-' theories come together in questioning the presence and confidence of a central power or a central meaning. Such questions to certitude of the established authority can be seen very vocal in writings of Jean-François Lyotard, a pioneer of postmodernism and Jacques Derrida, who developed the theory of deconstruction, which is one of the inevitable ingredients of poststructuralism.

Constitution of Human Beings and Behaviours for Marx, Freud and Lacan

Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan, all three are among few most important scholars of the modern era who delved into what constitutes beings and behaviours of human race. The essays "Preface (to a Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy)" by Marx, "A Note on the Unconscious in Psychoanalysis" by Freud and "The Mirror Stage as Formative of the Function of the I as Revealed in Psychoanalytic Experience" by Lacan also present their ideas on what actually forms human personalities and behaviours. Founding fathers of Marxism and two prominent schools of modern psychoanalysis respectively, the scholars have respectively attributed to economy, the unconscious and the Mirror Stage as formative elements of human consciousness, activities and life as a whole.     

Value Judgement of Literatures under Questions

Literary studies in almost all parts of the world involve a system of valuation of literary texts and authors. Consequently, some texts and authors are canonised and established as "standards" in every literature on suppression of rest of "non-standard" texts.  Traditionally, some qualities like test of time, aesthetic standard and representation of real life are regarded as benchmarks of value judgement of literary texts and authors. Nevertheless, such systems of judgements are most of the times suspected to be false as they apparently exclude many of texts with different qualities and they base the judgements upon few select critics. Due to exclusion of many texts and authors as decided by few critics, value judgements in literature are under the questions of accuracy and credibility.

Author's Presence in a Text

           Though Roland Barthes has already declared that the author is "dead" in a text, there are many theories that believe authorship cannot be separated from any writing. Despite many theoretical attacks on presence of the author in a literary creation in the modern era, many other theories believe that author cannot help representing him/herself in his/her writing; thus any writing is expression of its author and his/her feelings, emotions, thoughts and ideas. These theories can be collectively called "the theory of expressivity". Since these theories originate and develop most in Romantic writings, they can also be called "the Romantic theory of authorship" or "the Romantic-expressive theory".

Role of Family in Personality: A Psychoanalytic Reading of 'I Stand Here Ironing'

'I Stand Here Ironing' is a short story by American writer Tillie Olsen. The story is about struggle of a mother – who is also narrator of the story – to bring up and console her psychologically problematic child, Emily. Emily is projected as one with various psychological core issues; namely low self esteem, fear of intimacy, and sibling rivalry. As the story progresses, she is gradually healed. In this process of problematisation and healing, the mother is seen always with her. Besides, the unnamed mother too shares those core issues. In fact, it is the mother (and indirectly the father) who incorporated the psychological problems into the daughter. Thus, the story shows that parents' treatment to children during childhood in the family directly influences their personality formation.

The Battle Royal: A Story of Realisation of Individual Limitations

While reading 'The Battle Royal' by Ralph Ellison, I find the event in which the narrator is called to redeliver his speech most disturbing. The event that he is called by some people to deliver his graduation speech again at a gathering reminds me of an experience that I myself passed through more than a decade ago. Since that experience was not so good for me, I find this call in the story equally disturbing and I can predict the problems that the narrator will face later. Further, that event makes me highlight innocence of the narrator to prove that the story is depiction of an individual's limitations. Then, for me, the story is an expression of individual weaknesses and their realisation, more than the voice for racial equality. 

Introduction to Major Feminists: from Woolf to Cixous

Background

            Feminism is an academic and political movement that attempts to establish women as equal to men in the world. Though mainstream political and literary history of feminism began in the nineteenth and twentieth century; struggles against patriarchy in literature can be seen earlier too. Mary Wollstonecraft's resistance against patriarchal ideology in 1792 with her 'A Vindication of the Rights of Woman' is an example (Tyson 93).

            Feminism's history is generally divided into three phases – as the first, second and third waves. Each of the waves involves some academic pioneers whose ideas led other activists. Below are introductions to few of those theorists who led development of the first and second wave feminisms.   

Development and Assumptions of New Critical Thought

New Criticism began in mid twentieth century. However, it is influenced by some nineteenth century thinkers, especially by Matthew Arnold, the British poet and literary and cultural critic. Arnold's central idea that New Criticism brought was "philosophy and religion would be replaced by poetry in modern society" (qtd. in Selden et al 25), where the existence of god is already questioned. He believed that literature is in deed culture, because for him, culture represents the best that has been known and thought in the world, and it can be a humanistic defense against destructive anarchy of the modern world.