Limitation of cultural studies

 Name: Panchasara Jignesh k.​

Roll no: 8​

Enrollment No: 3069206420200013​

 Paper No: 205  Cultural Studies

Batch: 2020-2022​

Email: jigneshpanchasara5758@gmail.com

Submitted To: S.B. Gardi Department of English MKBU

​

What is cultural studies?

Cultural studies is a relatively new interdisciplinary field of study, which came into being in the UK in the post-war years. It emerged out of a perceived necessity on the part of two of its founding figures, Raymond Williams and Richard Hoggart. It came to fruition, however, in circumstances that, as its third founding figure Stuart Hall often acknowledged, contested its legitimacy.

Black-and-white image of a long empty street with houses stretching into the horizon. In the shadows of the buildings, a row of women are scrubbing the doorsteps of their homes.

Housewives scrubbing their front doorsteps in Liverpool, from 'The Best And The Worst Of British Cities', published in 1954. Photo by John Chillingworth / Getty Images Why did it seem necessary to give an academic label to the kind of research Williams, Hoggart and then Hall were engaged in? Each of these thinkers knew there was a minor tradition of studying culture ‘from below’; that is, the cultural practices and rituals of everyday life associated with ordinary people, or with groups and populations who did not belong to the powerful social classes or to the political elites. All three figures were trained in English Literature. Williams looked to writers like D H Lawrence and Thomas Hardy, whose work drew on experiences of poor mining or farming communities as they were undergoing transitions and displacement brought about by urban modernity. Richard Hoggart grew up in a working-class neighbourhood in Leeds and went on to become a ‘scholarship boy’. He produced what quickly came to be seen as a classic work, puzzlingly titled The Uses of Literacy, which was based partly on his personal memory of the habits, rituals and everyday lives of the people who lived in his own neighbourhood from the interwar period through to the post-war years. He documented how women clean their front doorsteps and gossiped over the fences as they hung out the washing. The popular women’s magazines they read, often with lurid covers, brought some glamour and excitement amidst the hardship. These lives did not appear in official histories and Hoggart aimed to show their richness and solidarity. Stuart Hall came from Jamaica in 1951 as a Rhodes Scholar to Oxford. His intellectual formation took place in the heightened atmosphere of the CND movement, the ‘New Left’ and the anti-colonialist struggles of the 1960s.

‘Culture’ itself is hard to define.

‘Cultural Studies’ is loosely a group of tendencies, issues and questions arising from a social turmoil of the 1960s.

It is composed of elements of Marxism,Poststructuralism,Postmodernism, Feminism,Gender studies,Anthropology,Race,

Sociology,Ethnic Studies,Film theory,Urban Studies,Public Policy,Post-Colonial Studies, Popular Cultural Studies and those fields which concentrate on social and cultural forces that either create community or cause division or alienation.

Later on the discipline of Psychology has also arrived in Cultural Studies. It is to erase boundaries between 1. High-Low, 2. Classic-Popular literary texts and 3. Literature-Other Cultural Discourses. As we know that Cultural Study refers to many of the disciplines, it is natural that it will have limitations. We know that if we concentrate on more than one work at a time, we could not give every work the same importance and attention.

Limitation of cultural studies?

1. Diversity of approach and subject-matter

          The weakness of Cultural Studies lies in its strengths, particularly its emphasis upon diversity of approach and subject matter. Cultural Studies can at times seem merely an intellectual smorgasbord in which the critic blithely combines artful helping of texts and objects and then “finds” deep connections between them, without adequately researching what a culture means or how cultures have interacted.

2. Not fueled by hard research

          Cultural Studies are not always fueled by hard research.

i.e., Historians have traditionally practiced to analyze ‘culture’. Which includes scientifically collected data.

3.Lack of Knowledge

Cultural Study practitioners often know a lot of interesting things and possess the intellectual ability to play them off interestingly against each other, but they sometimes lack adequate knowledge of “deep play” of meanings or “thick description” of a culture that ethnographer Clifford Geertz identified in his studies of the Balinese.

In the essay Geertz uses the word “deep play” for the ‘cockfight’ which is illegal in his society. He explains as a context of British philosopher Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832), who defines “deep play” as a game with risks high that no rational person would engage in it. The amount of money involved in the cockfight makes Balinese cockfight “deep play”.

And another word “thick description” is used in the field of anthropology, sociology, religious studies and human and organizational development. The “thick description” of culture means it’s not just explaining what culture is but also refers to the context in which the meaning is developed.

4. Necessity of reading the classics

          Sometimes students complain that professors who overemphasize cultural studies tend to downplay the necessity of reading the classics, and that they sometimes coerce students into “politically correct” views.

5. Whatever is happening at the moment

            David Richterdescribes culture as “-about whatever is happening at the moment, rather than about a body of texts created in the past.

            ‘Happening’ topics, generally speaking, are the mass media themselves, which, in a postmodern culture, dominate the culture lives on its inhabitants, or topics that have been valorized by the mass media.”

          But he goes on to observe that if this seems trivial, the strength of cultural studies its “relentlessly critical attitude toward journalism, publishing, cinema, television, and other forms of mass media, whose seemingly transparent windows through which we view ‘reality’ probably constitute the most blatant and pervasive mode of false consciousness of our era” (Richter 1218).

6. Tempted to dismiss popular culture

            If we are tempted to dismiss popular culture, it is also worth remembering that when the works like Hamlet or Huckleberry Finn were written, they were not intended for elite discussions in English classrooms, but exactly for popular consumption.

7. ‘Culture Wars’ of academia

          Defenders of tradition and advocates of cultural studies are waging what is sometimes called the “culture wars”of academia.

On the one hand are offered impassioned defenses of humanism as the foundation, since the time of the ancient Greeks, of Western civilization and modern democracy.

On the other hand, as Marxist theorist Terry Eagleton has written, the current “crises” in the humanities can be seen as failure of the humanities; this “body of discourses” about “imperishable” values has demonstrably negated(cancelled) those very values in its practices.

                                    Thanks

Works cited 

Guerin, Wilfred L. (1966). A handbook of critical approaches to literature. Oxford University Press, 2005.

The British Academy. 2021. What is cultural studies?. [online] Available at: <https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/blog/what-is-cultural-studies/>

People.bu.edu. 2021. Academic Animadversions: Interview: The limitations of Cultural Studies approaches. [online] Available at: <https://people.bu.edu/rcarney/acad/artmleigh.shtml>

 

Derrida and Deconstruction

  Name: Panchasara Jignesh k.​

Roll no: 8​

Enrollment No: 3069206420200013​

 Paper No: 204 contemporary western Theories and Film studies  

Batch: 2020-2022​

Email: jigneshpanchasara5758@gmail.com

Submitted To: S.B. Gardi Department of English MKBU​

Introduction

 

                

 

Jacques Derrida, was born on July 15, 1930 into a Sephardic Jewish family living in El Biar, in French Algeria. At the age of 10 he was expelled from school after being told by a teacher that “French culture is not made for little Jews”. He then attended a Jewish lycee. At the age of 19 Derrida moved to Paris to study at the Ecole Normale  Superieure under the great Hegelian scholar Jean Hyppolite. He met Sartre, but in the long run it was his early encounters not with Sartre but with Nietzsche and Heidegger which had the greatest impact upon him.  During the late 1950s he worked on a doctoral thesis on Husserl, but this project was never completed and in the meantime he was beginning to explore the ambiguous nature of all, even philosophical, writing. Derrida received a degree in philosophy from Ecole Normale Superieure, an elite university in Paris. He later taught in France at the Sorbonne University and the Ecole des Hautes Etude en Sciences Sociales. He also taught in the United States: at Yale, Johns Hopkins and the University of California at Irvine.

 Derrida was a prolific writer, with more than 40 books to his credit. His writings include Of Grammatology, Writing and Difference, Speech and Phenomena, Margins of Philosophy, Disseminationand Positions. A number of important tendencies underlie Derrida’s approach to philosophy, and more specifically to the western tradition of thought. Through the approach called ‘Deconstruction’ Derrida has begun a fundamental investigation into the nature of the western metaphysical tradition.

               

 What is Deconstruction  ?

    Deconstruction is a method of critical analysis of philosophical and literary language. Deconstruction is a strategy of critical questioning directed towards exposing :

       1. Unquestionable metaphysical assumptions

    2. Internal contradictions in philosophical

        3. Literary language

 

 Definition of deconstruction

Deconstruction is an approach to understanding the relationship between text and meaning...... Deconstruction also inspired  deconstructivism in architecture and remains important within art , music ,and literary criticism .

 "Deconstruction seems to center around the idea that language and meaning are often inadequate in trying to convey the message or idea a communicator is trying to express. Since the confusion stems from the language and not the object then one should break down or deconstruct the language to see if we can better understand where the confusion stems".

Derrida

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Deconstructive reading of the Sonnet 18 by Shakespeare 

    The very famous concept of "Deconstruction " was given by Jacques Derrida and said that the language bears within itself the necessity of its own meaning.  The Derridian idea about Deconstruction revolves around Free Play /Undecidability  of meanings. Very famously it revolves around Binaries, opposition, Hegemony and Subjectivity.  We will see these all things in the Sonnet by William Shakespeare, " Shall I Compare thee to a Summer's day?" How do these all things operate? The main problem becomes when it comes to applying this idea in the work of literature. It's become equally difficult. Many times people fail to read literature Deconstructively. In the very first stanza of the poem there is Beloved  because the poem is addressed to the beloved. Now let us see how the binaries create. 

 

           When we try to generalize Beloved, what we find is that Beloved represents Human beings and Summer's day representsNature. When we try to see the concept of The language bears within itself the necessity of its own meaning, what we see in the very first line of the poem we can find that the poem is decentering nature. Most people find that it is a nature poem but in reality it is not a nature poem. Nature is the underprivileged side of the poem. At that time human beings are at the centre and Nature becomes at the periphery that is one part of the reading poem. When we read further this poem what we find is thatLines/writing/Poem or Sonnet are at the centre. We can say that the poem celebrates self when beloved achieve immortality or beauty. But still there is the possibility of making a critique of this poem. When the Lines/writing/poem becomes at the centre at the same time Beloved ( human being) and Summer's day ( Nature) comes at the periphery. They both are at the same side now. If we are trying to see further in the poem what we find out is that when "I"(lover, poet)  comes at the centre at that time lines/writing/poems all become at the periphery. In short the poem dramatizes the Power Struggle. 

Thanks😊

 Works cited

Courses.nus.edu.sg. 2021. Derrida and Deconstruction. [online] Available at: <https://courses.nus.edu.sg/course/elljwp/deconstruction.htm>

 Critical Legal Thinking. 2021. Jacques Derrida: Deconstruction. [online] Available at: <https://criticallegalthinking.com/2016/05/27/jacques-derrida-deconstruction/>

2021. [online] Available at: <https://scholar.google.co.in/scholar?q=derrida+and+deconstruction&hl=en&as_sdt=0&as_vis=1&oi=scholart>

 

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Globalisation through a post-colonialist lens

 Name: Panchasara Jignesh k.​

Roll no: 8​

Enrollment No: 3069206420200013​

 Paper No: 203 Post colonial studies 

Batch: 2020-2022​

Email: jigneshpanchasara5758@gmail.com

Submitted To: S.B. Gardi Department of English MKBU​

 Globalisation through a post-colonialist lens: understanding our past is key to our present

What exactly is globalisation and how does it work? Globalisation is best understood as a process by which people and societies become increasingly integrated or interconnected. Technology is at the heart of this process but so are imaginaries, the unexamined ways through which people make sense of their changing world, establish their values and tell their stories. As a result, globalisation is characterised by both frictions and flows, new sensitivities to risks, and changing understandings of home. The development of the internet, portable communication devices (phones and tablets) and the twentieth century development of air travel have enabled significant changes to the ways we connect. A vital part of this relates to speed. Applications such as Skype have the potential to transform the experiences of immigrants: a loved one living thousands of miles away can be contacted as easily as someone living in the same town. It is as participants of such processes that we find Professor Diana Brydon’s contributions so illuminating; throughout her academic career she has challenged the notion that globalisation is solely a homogenising and economic force. Her research goals are to evaluate and advance the study of globalisation and cultural practices in order to broaden trans-cultural understanding, challenging all the time the Eurocentrism and methodological nationalism of many disciplinary practices which have until this point excluded and marginalised women, cultural and ethnic minorities and Indigenous Peoples.

 

The role of the imagination in contemporary life

Professor Brydon’s belief that the history and continuing impact of colonialism show us the many ways in which the research imagination has shaped the daily lives of people throughout the world is at the root of her work. She looks to literature, in particular, for insights into the ways individuals and communities negotiate belonging during times of change. Since her early research on the nature of Australian expatriate fiction, Brydon’s work has studied the mobilities of people and ideas across borders of various kinds. Research into Canadian settler colonialism is involving her in a very current dialogue about Canadian culture, history, and possible futures. Her country is rethinking its colonial past and her city is the home of a new national centre of learning, the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, established in Winnipeg in 2014, with its mission statement to ‘build […] a new era of global human rights leadership’ and take visitors ‘on a journey to erase barriers and create meaningful, lasting change.’

This suggests a sea change in thought and a desire to not just bring people together now, but to make sense of how existing cultural rifts came to be, and how they might be healed.

“ Indigenous voices have been silenced in the historical record [and] Indigenous groups are woefully under-represented by scholars in academic institutions”

Much of Brydon’s research which has aimed to penetrate the entanglement of Canada’s colonialist history within global systems has been done through collaboration with scholars, creators and students, highlighting the importance of an interdisciplinary approach to post-colonial studies. By shining a light on the literature of colonised peoples, she presents the world with a new resource by which to better understand – and learn to respect – the perspectives of others. In placing Canadian literature in settler colonial, post-colonial and international contexts, Brydon has also advocated for the study of Canadian literature with postcolonial reading strategies and decolonising imperatives. Her current research examines how speculative fictions from around the world enable readers to imagine a future beyond the limits of the present.

 

Colonialism and research practices

The forces that led to globalisation may be reaching their limits. By its act of ‘shrinking’ the world, colonialism has since the fifteenth century oppressed and eradicated minority cultural practices and groups while also preserving records that may be consulted with new sets of questions posed from the perspectives of the previously colonised. The legacies of such globalising processes in the twenty-first century include institutionalised misogyny and racism, a dearth of opportunities for young people and a widespread societal ignorance of Indigenous culture. There has been positive action more recently; active resistance to such oppression led to the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in 2007, which not only affirms that any doctrine advocating the superiority of any peoples based on culture or ethnicity is socially unjust but acknowledges that the suffering of Indigenous Peoples historically has prevented themselves and their cultures from developing in accordance with their own needs and interests. It is time to listen to their stories and attend to their visions of the future.

 

Following the Bowman ceremony, Dr Brydon delivered a lecture: “Canada in the World Today: Insights from the Humanities”.

Indigenous voices have been silenced in the historical record. In addition, Indigenous groups are woefully under-represented by scholars in academic institutions. As Brydon’s research has pointed out though, it is these voices that are critical to coming to terms with what it means to be, for example ‘Canadian’, today. Indigenous story-telling is changing the literary landscape and shifting understandings of land. Brydon’s research has consistently advocated for increased transnational and trans-cultural engagement in cultural studies, arguing that Indigenous resurgence, multiculturalism and globalisation can best be understood through contextualisation of their entanglements at local, national and global scales.

 Her work is highly relevant in a world that is becoming increasingly uncomfortable with its past and anxious about its future 

Imagining otherwise

Professor Diana Brydon has been a force in post-colonial studies of globalisation and Canadian and international culture, grappling throughout her career with the idea that our understanding of history and the world today can only be improved by acknowledging and considering previously (and often still) marginalised perspectives. Her work is highly relevant in a world that is becoming increasingly uncomfortable with its past and anxious about its future. Our best chance at co-existing in our progressively integrated society is tied up with our willingness to reflect on our past and listen to the stories we have been previously unable to hear.

                                                  Thanks

Works cited 

Core.ac.uk. 2021. [online] Available at: <https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/16468414.pdf>

Digitalcommons.kennesaw.edu. 2021. [online] Available at: <https://digitalcommons.kennesaw.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=1046&context=jgi>

Research Outreach. 2021. Globalisation through a post-colonialist lens: understanding our past is key to our present. [online] Available at: <https://researchoutreach.org/articles/globalisation-through-post-colonialist-lens/>

 

 

Name: Panchasara Jignesh k.​

Roll no: 8​

Enrollment No: 3069206420200013​

 Paper No: 202 Indian English Literature – Post-Independence

Batch: 2020-2022​

Email: jigneshpanchasara5758@gmail.com

Submitted To: S.B. Gardi Department of English MKBU​

Post-Feminists analysis of female characters in Mahesh Dattani’s Final Solutions

Mahesh Dattani is an Indian director, actor, playwright and writer. He wrote such plays as Final Solutions, Dance Like a Man, Bravely Fought the Queen, On a Muggy Night in Mumbai, Tara, Thirty Days in September and The Big Fat City. He is the first playwright in English to be awarded the Sahitya Akademi award.

Final Solutions

 

Mahesh Dattani writes about the society and surroundings in which he lives. His creativity is a faithful and authentic expression of the first hand experience and knowledge of the socio-cultural environment. He holds a mirror to make reality visible to the audience. The play Final Solutions critically intervenes in the post independence era which has a communally vitiated socio-political scenario. The main character, Dakhsa also known as Hardika in the play fuses past and present. The theme of communal tension is given historical depth through flashbacks featuring Hardika at the age of fifteen in 1948 and her experience in the aftermath of the partition returns to her memory at different points of the play. The play explores the theme of communalism The play took Dattani over a year to research and Dattani consulted books such as Freedom at Midnight (1975) by Larry Collins and Dominique Lapiers and Lankesh Patrike, a Kannada weekly magazine. He

also conducted a number of interviews with survivors of  communal riots in Gujarat and Karnataka. One of the riots that Dattani researched that particularly caught his attention was the 1985 Rath Yatra riot in Ahmedabad. This would have had become his inspiration for the riot that brings Javed and Bobby to the Gandhi family inFinal Solutions.

Post-Feminists analysis of female characters in Mahesh Dattani’s Final Solutions

In Final Solutions, Dattani represents the female characters like Hardika, Smita and Aruna. They realize that women are not a shadow of male. Today a woman is making her spaces. She has a better understanding of realization of identity both inside and outside the family. A woman of liberal ideology views the situation as an individual and constructs the image of life beyond the specified ideology of religious and community-based prejudices. She retains the power to change conventional thinking and to make better realization of her hidden potentials. She wants to make a decision for herself and if it is right she can protest against those agencies who are responsible for her sublimation.

         The post-modern ideology suggested the way of interpreting the life condition beyond the set patterns of ideologies. It accepts that human experiences are persistently in a state of flux and it’s set pattern of ideologies becomes a burden for the free growth of the individual. In this new method of literary investigation, the feminist ideologies have also undergone a drastic change. It is not confined only to defend the cause of female emancipation and the spaces for the economic and social security of women. The post-feminist interrogations of the female identity and female roles aim at the deconstruction of the constructed patriarchal structure. It has provided a wider canvas to construct the voice of women in family, society, professional life and personal relationships.

In the post-feminists phase of feminism, female identity and female consciousness to assert their voice has been reflected in diverse ways. Her individual strength helps her to express her potential in social, patriarchal and personal spaces.

Carden, who is one of the members of national organization of women presents her views:

I want to create a new society … I want women to have something to say in their own lives … I have never reached my potential because of social conditions. I am going to get the reward. I have been crippled. I want to see the kind of system that facilitates the use of potential. (Maren : 12)

 

Feminine consciousness focusing to restore a position in the process of social justice. According to Mahesh Dattani a woman has the equal sensibility and better realization of feelings.

In the realism of Indian English drama, the theme of communal violence has successfully been presented by two eminent dramatists – Asif Currimbhoy in Refugee (1971) and Mahesh Dattani in Final Solutions (2005). In Final Solutions, Dattani uses his pen to present the insecurity and mental crisis of the victims of partition. In this play, his intention is not to construct the dark pages of Indian history like that of Karnad’s Tuglaq but to deconstruct the lingering effect of the communal prejudices on the survivors of both the communities, Hindus and Muslims. He explores the psyche of discontent, exile, contempt, homelessness and alienation often affecting the sensibility of Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims. The communal animosity between the Hindus and Muslims have turned into a fatal disease affecting the peaceful existence of individuals in the Indian subcontinent.

At the time of the creation of Final Solutions, Dattani was in search of a new theme representing Indian soil. In one of his talk delivered on 11th Feb. 2011 at Ravindra Kalakshetra as a part of Krishi Festival plays to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Bengali Theatre in Bangalore, he observed:

Man has created a very complex language called theatre. A language that has the ability to redefine the natural concepts of time, place and movements. A language that goes beyond the verbal, a movement that goes beyond physical. (Dattani: 2001, 1)

 

In Final Solutions, beyond the contentions of traditional language, he constructs the language of wounded psyche sharing the burden of communal hatred. Alyque Padmasee as a director of the play tried to investigate the hidden motive of the play and comments:

As I see it, this is a play about transferred resentment. About looking for a scope goal to hit out when we feel let down humiliated. Taking your anger on your wife, children, or servants is an old Indian custom. This is above all a play about a family with its simmering undercurrents.” 

 

This idea of anger justifies that Dattani was not motivated to make Final Solutions a political or an historical play. In her analysis of the play, Deepali Agarwal observes:

Mahesh Dattani puts the eternal question with his play Final Solutions that every now and then our consciousness – are the human beings real humane. It propels us to perennial problems as to what we should have priorities – our religion, our perennial ideals or our compassion for other human beings. (Agarwal, Deepali)

 

In the play Final Solutions, Dattani represents the three female characters – Hardika, Smita and Aruna. He adopts an innovative narrative technique and the major dramatic events float through the consciousness of Hardika, the grandmother in the Gandhian family. The dramatic conflict springs and develops through the reflection of Hardika whose consciousness remains rooted in the horrible events of partition that took place forty years back. The dramatic narration shifts between the present to 31st March 1948 when Hardika, the grandmother, was a young girl of 14, known as Daksha and in her reflections she concludes that nothing has changed and prejudices of communalism are haunting their consciousness continuously. In her diary entry, she mentions:

After forty years … I opened my diary again. And I wrote a dozen pages before. A dozen pages now. A young girl's childish scribble. An oldman’s shaky scrawl, yes the things have not changed that much. (Act I)

 

She also makes mention of her father’s dream of independent India. In Final Solutions, Dattani projects a multilevel stage to represent multiple layers of context involved in the issue of communal violence. In Daksha’s reflections and recollections of Diaries, Dattani exposes the inner world of individuals encountering tensions and conflicts of personal relationships. She recollects the memories of her husband Hari and the friend Zarine. She also feels nostalgic for the melodious songs of Noor Jahan. In Final Solutions, Dattani uses two time spaces to indicate the construction of collective consciousness. Disrupting, Hardika’s flow of consciousness, Smita appears with the rumours of bombing the Muslim Hostel where her Muslim friend Tasneem live. The violence erupted after the sabotage of Hindu Rath Yatra. Curfew was clamped in the city. Ramnik, the father, tries to divert the attention by a casual remark, “Wait a minute. That wasn’t a bomb.

Smita, Gandhi’s daughter, talks to her friend Tasneem whose hostel was the centre of the blast. Smita, a girl of liberal ideology views the whole situation as an individual and constructs an ideology beyond the ideology of religious and racial prejudices. She reveals her feeling to her mother:

It stifles me! yes! Maybe I am prejudiced because I do not belong. But not belonging makes things so clear. I can see so clearly how wrong you are. You accuse me of running away from my religion. Maybe I am embraced, Mummy. (Act III, 57)

 

Through this observation of Smita, Dattani presents how the communal prejudices are constructed and how these lead to anger and hostility. Aruna, the mother and Smita, the daughter. Smita trifles that out of personal insecurity Javed left his home.

In Final Solution, the real anger and prejudice born out of communal frenzy, is rooted in her collective consciousness, Hardika who is a monument of both the times past as well as present. Communal prejudices are rooted in her collective unconscious and it governs and guides her responses.

In Final Solutions, Dattani tries to investigate that the reactions to communal prejudices are closely associated with gender differences. Women like Hardika, Smita and Aruna even in their feminine grace and silence can better retaliate to their oppressors. It shows women can think beyond their physical conscience on matters like communal violence. Aruna and Hardika are no longer interested in their sympathies, Smita too subsequently develops suspicion and resentment for Javed and Bobby. Through the anger of these three women, Dattani suggests that at mental level women are more closely related to communal and religious identities and have a deeper realization of the humiliations done in the name of religious fanaticism. The anger of these three women is an example of independent thinking. The history of horrors of partition that implies the loss of family and personal relationships have deep impressions on the mind and sensibility of women. It is said:

The history of partition was a history of deep violation – physical and mental for the women who experienced it through women were very much a part of millions who witnessed partition. They seldom figure as the ‘subject’ in the master / male narratives. Women as ‘victims’ are also mentioned but no specific attention is given to their traumatic experiences. (Malik : 40)

 

It signifies that feminine psyche is more sensitive to the issue of partition. In the second Act, Dattani within the texture of Final Solutions, constructs the psychology of prejudice, contempt, anger and rescue that is an integral aspect of community consciousness. Javed took revenge upon neighbours by dropping pieces of meat in his backyard. The incident robbed him of his own insecurity of life conditions. The individual's anger becomes a part of the anger of the community as a whole and its cumulative effects can become a burden to the solidarity of the nation.

         Ramnik and Javed confess their actions, the hesitation of Javed and Ramnik suggest that each individual survives with a human identity that is beyond externally imposed communal identity. Like Javed and Ramnik, Smita also feels suffocated and wants to escape in the company of Babban defying the conditions of religion. The love relationship of Smita and Bobby becomes an interlude to find out the ultimate solution to the problem. The relationship of Smita and Bobby shows how Smita being a woman is ready to accept the challenges of Inter-community relationship. The three friends share light moments when they go to fetch water from the well. Smita makes Javed touch the sacred pot to prove that human touch cannot contaminate the sacred water. Hardika as a foil to Smita is not ready to come out of anger how under the pressure of communal violence, she was forced to lose her family responsibility. Dattani accepts that rational grounds for religious prejudice is the only mechanism to make society free from communal riots and to ensure internal security to every individual.

The third act of the play Final Solutions brings a climax to the play. It witnesses revelations and confessions of character and it provides an insight into the psyche of the characters. Here Dattani through self-revelation technique provides opportunity to characters to seek transformation of their ideologies. After intense psychological pressure and resistance, the characters construct their human identity. In the opening of the III Act, most of the characters indicating the members of the chorus put themselves through the state of identity crisis. Dattani, through the confession of different characters, assert that they might sacrifice their communal identity. Ramnik fails to see Javed as a sensitive youth turned into a rioter by ill luck till Bobby gives him the truthful account of Javed. In his dramatic narration, Bobby unfolds the past of Javed. Besides presenting the psychology of Javed and Bobby, Mahesh Dattani in expressing religious fanaticism constructs mob psychology also. Mob has its own cruel psychology and cannot discriminate right and wrong. So far mob psychology concerned, there is no difference between Hindu and Muslim mob. Finally, Bobby succeeds in convincing Javed and ultimately to take shelter in the house of Ramnik. Even Aruna has a realization of her weakness and there is drastic change in her attitudes and ideologies. Aruna’s consciousness moves in the direction of the positive acceptance of religious differences. The rational arguments of Smita and Javed make her speechless. Smita, no longer cares for the group and community identity. She accuses her mother and makes her realize her responsibility towards society. As soon as the play Final Solutions moves in the direction of settlement, Javed’s anger subsides, Aruna’s prejudice gets a release. Mob! Chorus also shouts, “Our future is threatened. There is so much that is fading away. We cannot be complimented about the glorious past seeing us safely through.” (Act III) The mob sinks into silence.

Hardika realizes her guilt and it suggests that Hardika’s animosity for the community of Muslim was a self-conceived ideal and therefore the modifications are likely to be introduced. In Final Solutions, Dattani successfully suggests the redressal and elevation of the human psyche against the obscurities of social ideals.

In the character of Hardika and Javed the unexpressed anger accumulated out of the bitter experiences of the past suggests that communal prejudice becomes part of the collective unconscious and therefore, they become integral part of human personality.

In the character of Smita, Hardika and Aruna, Dattani admits that women have greater consciousness and deeper realization of communal and religious identities.

• Women are not a shadow of male. They have their own individual identity.

• Women can think beyond their physical conscience on matters like communal Even she has the better realization than male in every aspect of life.

• They retain their awareness in society. Now they are very much aware about their position, their desires and their dreams.

• Women have the quest for the improvement of social status.

• Women are ready to accept the challenges of Inter-community. Smita who is a young girl represents the dynamism of the new generation.

• Anger of the women in the play is the representation of independent thinking.

                                                             Thanks 😊

Works cited

Ashvamegh Indian Journal of English Literature. 2021. Final Solutions by Mahesh Dattani, A Post-Feminist Analysis | Ashvamegh. [online] Available at: <https://ashvamegh.net/post-feminist-analysis-final-solutions-mahesh-dattani/>

Ijhssi.org. 2021. [online] Available at: <https://www.ijhssi.org/papers/vol8(8)/Series-2/E0808024954.pdf>