READINGS ON KERALA Syllabus of Calicut University BA/B.Sc/B.Com Common Course English Second Semester Details

  ENG2A04 READINGS ON KERALA

MODULE 1:Formation

1.  “History” (Prose) excerpt from Malabar Manual – William Logan

2.“Tribal Tale of Kerala" (Prose) excerpt from Kerala Culture – Prof S Achutha Warrier

3. “Ghoshayatra” (Poem excerpt) – Kunchan Nambiar

MODULE 2: Evolution

1. Excerpt from Indulekha (Novel) -O. Chandu Menon

2. Excerpt from “Atmopadeshashathakam” (Poem) - Sree Narayana Guru

3. “Not an Alphabet in Sight” (Poem) – Poykayil Appachan

4.  “ Ayyankali: A Dalit Leader of Organic Protest” (Prose-excerpt) - M. Nisar,Meena Kandasamy

5. “Vakkom Moulavi: My Grandfather, the Rebel” (Prose) - Sabin Iqbal. Click here to read the article

MODULE 3: Stimulation

1. “Daughter of Humanity” (Story) - Lalithambika Antharjanam. Click here to read the story

2. “Kuttippuram Paalam"(Poem) – Edasseri. Click here to read/listen malayalam original

3.  “Christian Heritage” (Story) - Vaikom Muhammad Basheer

MODULE 4: Propagation

1. “Myth and Literature” (Speech) -M T Vasudhevan Nair

2.  “Rain at Heart” (Poem) –Sugathakumari

3.  “Fifty years of Malayalam Cinema” (Prose) - VC Harris

4.  “Malayalam’s Ghazal” (Poem) – Jeet Thayil. To read the text, please click here

5.  “Agni” (Story) - Sithara A. To read the text, please click here

6. "Pictures Drawn on Water"( poem) - K.Satchidanandan

READINGS FROM THE FRINGES Syllabus of Calicut University BA/B.Sc/B.Com Common Course English Second Semester Details

 ENG2A03 READINGS FROM THE FRINGES

MODULE 1: Constitution, Democracy and Freedom

1.“The Objectives Resolution”(Speech excerpt)- Jawaharlal Nehru

To read the text, please click here 

2.“How Many More Days, Democracy”(Poem) - Sameer Tanti

To read the text, please click here 

3. “When Salihan took on the Raj”(Article) - P. Sainath

To read the text, please click here 

MODULE 2: Ecology and Science

1.  "Knowledge is Power"(Excerpt from Chapter 14 of Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind)- Yuval Noah Harari

2.“A Heron”(Short story) - Sarah Orne Jewett

To read the text, please click here 

3. “The Fish”(poem) - Elizabeth Bishop

To read the text, please click here

4. “Everything I Need to Know I Learned in the Forest”(essay) - Vandana Shiva

To read the text, please click here

MODULE 3: Gender Equality

1. “Fire” - Nikita Gill - Poem

To read the text, please click here

2."Accept Me" from I am Vidya: A Transgender’s Journey - Living Smile Vidya

3. Dear Ijeawele (Letter-excerpt ) - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

MODULE 4: Human Rights

1.  "Entre-vous to Adulthood" from One Little Finger - Malini Chib

2. “The Body Politic” (Poem) - Hiromi Goto

3.  “Love- lines in the time of Chathurvarna” (Article) - Chandra Bhan Prasad

4. "The History Lesson "(Poem) - Jeanette Armstrong

To read the text, please click here

Litmosphere - Summary of Poetry by Marianne Moore

 Marianne Moor published the first version of 'Poetry' in 1919 and revised it many times for the next six decades. Employing the techniques of modernist poetry, Moore expands her idea of writing and reading poetry. In the poem, she differentiates genuine poetry from poetry produced by half poets and rejects existing ideas on poetic compositions and declares that genuine poetry can be produced on any mundane topics.

About the Author

Marianne Moore was born in 1887 in Kirkwood, Missouri, USA. Raised in the house of her Presbyterian grandfather, Moore published her early poems in popular literary journals like The Egoist, Poetry Magazine etc...She edited the American literary journal The Dial from 1925 to 1929. She brought out Collected Poetry in 1951 which won Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award.

Moore's poetry is known for linguistic precision, keen descriptions and acute observations of people, places, animals and art. She is a disciplined craftsman who advocates restraint, modesty and humour.

Outline of the Poem

The poem begins with the speaker joining a conversation on reading poetry. The poet shares the reader's dislike for poetry and feels that there are more important things to do than reading poems. It is clear that the speaker's dislike for poetry is only a lover's discord and when s/he starts reading, the contempt for reading gives way to genuine poetry. S/he then discovers in it genuine feelings and sensations and an appeal to the senses; thus poetry evokes sensual responses from readers such as making hands grasp, eyes dilate and hair rise. The poem becomes important because it is useful in getting touch with one's own feelings and not because it can be given high sounding interpretation by critics. When the poem becomes too derivative (not original) and it is not derived from personal experiences, it becomes unintelligible and reader can not appreciate it as the speaker says "we do not admire what we can not understand (line 9-11)".

In the following section, the speaker depicts the all encompassing nature of poetry and states that poetry can be made out of extremely ordinary experiences of the human and non human beings. Poetry can be produced out of the everyday activities of animals such as the bat in its upside down position, the pushing of elephants, rolling of wild horses, tireless wolf under a tree, quick movements of the skin of a critic engaged in study(hence immobile). The speaker continues to say that poetry can be made out of absolutely anything (living and non living objects) such as ball fan, the statistician, business documents and school books and there is no room for discrimination. The speaker warns that these things will not result in poetry if they are dragged (by force) into poetry by half poets.

In this section, the poet develops her concept of genuine poetry using oxymoronic and paradoxical phrases. She uses the phrase 'literalists of imagination' to refer to poets and the phrase is a combination of 'literal depiction' and imagination. This idea is made more explicit in the line "imaginary gardens with real toads in them" in which the poet asks to make a fine balance between the imaginative and real.

In the final section, the poet assures the readers that they are interested in poetry if they look for rawness of the raw materials of poetic composition i.e. genuine experiences,  imagination and linguistic expression.

Analysis

In the poem 'Poetry', Marianne Moore addresses the common distaste for poetry and clearly defines her idea of reading and writing poetry.  According to her, poetry can help readers to get in touch with their emotions and feelings. She lists instances of emotions evoked by poetry such as love, fear and wonder. She does not approve poetry that are not original and stresses that poetry should be original and useful.

As a celebrated American modernist poet, she does not romanticize poetry and states that anything (living and non-living) can be the subject matter of poetry. She then objectively lists diverse themes of poetry such as the rolling of wild horses to business documents and school books. She dispels all traditional concepts regarding the composition of poetry and finds poetry in the mundane and the trivial. 

She warns poets not to drag the topics into prominence by giving them undue importance and special treatments. She stands for linguistic precision and acute observation. Moore practice of poetry involves imparting moral and intellectual insights from the close and accurate observation of objective details.  

Moore uses modernist technical devices such as paradoxes to define her idea of good poetry. According to her, good poetry should combine the form and the substance, the real and the imaginative. Putting her own phrase in quotation, Moore states that poetry should create "imaginary gardens with real toads" in them. Quoting an oxymoronic expression from WB Yeats remark on William Blake, she defines a writer as a blend of literalism (portray something literally) and imagination. 

A reader is interested in poetry if he s/he looks for fresh raw materials in poetry. By raw material, the poet means authentic feeling and imaginative expression combined with genuine experiences.

Litmosphere - Text and Glossary of Poetry by Marianne Moore

 Poetry

Marianne Moore (1887-1972)

I too, dislike it: there are things that are important beyond all this fiddle.
   Reading it, however, with a perfect contempt for it, one discovers that there is in
   it after all, a place for the genuine.
      Hands that can grasp, eyes
      that can dilate, hair that can rise
         if it must, these things are important not because a

high-sounding interpretation can be put upon them but because they are
   useful; when they become so derivative as to become unintelligible, the
   same thing may be said for all of us—that we
      do not admire what
      we cannot understand. The bat,
         holding on upside down or in quest of something to

eat, elephants pushing, a wild horse taking a roll, a tireless wolf under
   a tree, the immovable critic twinkling his skin like a horse that feels a flea, the base—
   ball fan, the statistician—case after case
      could be cited did
      one wish it; nor is it valid
         to discriminate against “business documents and

school-books”; all these phenomena are important. One must make a distinction
   however: when dragged into prominence by half poets, the result is not poetry,
   nor till the autocrats among us can be
     “literalists of
      the imagination”—above
         insolence and triviality and can present

for inspection, imaginary gardens with real toads in them, shall we have
   it. In the meantime, if you demand on the one hand, in defiance of their opinion—
   the raw material of poetry in
      all its rawness, and
      that which is on the other hand,
         genuine, then you are interested in poetry.

Glossary

Fiddle: the noun fiddle has three implications here. The first is, fiddle is a musical instrument which evokes pleasure. Poetry too is like fiddle which pleases its readers. Second is, fiddle refers to fidgeting with something in a restless way. The process of writing a poem involves a lot of fidgeting. Thirdly, fiddle also refers to small sum; in this sense the speaker refers to poetry as something worthless.

Line 4-6: The speaker describes various physical responses poetry is capable of producing such as hands grasping, eyes dilating and hair rising.

high-sounding interpretation: this refers to criticism which often present literature in high sounding interpretation.

Line 11-19: the speaker offers a detailed list of raw materials which can poetry.

literalist of the imagination: this phrase is drawn from of W B Yeats' remarks about William Blakes. A literalist uses language to create a lifelike object in the readers imagination. Similarly. A poet is a literalist of imagination who stirs the imagination through precise, evocative imagery.

Imaginary gardens with real toads in them: the speaker states genuine poets are capable of creating imaginary gardens in the mind of readers with real -producing effects of the real-toads in it.

Line 26-30: the speaker of the poem reaffirms that the two ingredients for real poetry is genuine raw materials, that is genuine language and form.

Analysis of the Poem To Posterity by Louis MacNeice

Click here to listen the poem To Posterity

The poem 'To Posterity' is taken from the collection of poetry titled Visitations by Louis MacNeice published in 1957. Written six years before his death, the poem shares poet's thoughts on the future of books and the role of new media in shaping the perceptions of the future generations

About the Author

Louis MacNeice was born in 1907 in Belfast and he had a troubled childhood. His father, a bishop of Anglo-Irish church of Ireland, favored Home Rule and stood against the Protestant bigotry and violence in Northern Ireland. When he was six, his mother was taken to a nursing home due to severe depression and died there the next year. He found his days in English schools and colleges an escape from the miserable life with his puritan rector father and stepmother. Later, he abandoned his baptismal first name and his father's faith and lost his Irish accent.

In the 1930s, MacNeice became a member of the Auden group of poets. Though he provided the best critical statement of the poetic aim and achievements of his friends, he did not share the political commitment of the group. He wrote slower, relaxed and balanced verses in which long reasonable discussions on life, ethics and politics were held.

Outline of the Poem

The poem captures a moment in future in which books suddenly seize up (meaning stop moving) and some other less difficult media such as radio, tv or social media take their place. The speaker wonders how this would affect the way people look at the world around them. The poet acknowledges the role of books in creating the world view of his generation and wonders whether future generations would have similar sense of colour and taste created by the new media. He also wonders whether the new media would kindle imagination as the books did. As usual, the poet dose not provide any answer and leave the poem open for discussion.

Analysis

To Posterity is a near prophetic poem in which the poet predicts the disappearance of print culture and the emergence of technologically advanced media like radio, television and internet media. Written in 1950s, the poet was aware of the gaining presence of new media and resultant reframing of human perceptions. It is interesting to note that he has used the phrasal verb 'seize up' to describe the freezing/immobility of the books. This is usually used to describe the immobility/inactivity of machines. This shows that the poet considers books as a product of mechanical production and is open to the emergence of new less difficult media.

The central idea of the poem is to contrast the sense perceptions and imagination framed by the new media with that of the books. MacNeice is known for evading any political/ideological positions among the Auden group of poets and he does not come to any conclusion in the poem. He poses the question whether the new media would frame sense perceptions and imagination as good as the way books did.

The poem has gained attention over the years as the domination of electronic/internet media have reshaped the world view of generation after MacNeice and the poem portrays the musings of the poet. His selection of words like 'media', which was a less common word in the 1950s, gives the poem a technological air and the futuristic elements of the poem derive out of this.

 

Summary and Analysis of R Parthasarathy's Home Coming 1

    Homecoming 1 is taken from the collection of poetry titled Rough Passage by R Parthasarathy. The collection consists of three sections, namely Exile, Trial and Homecoming. In the first section, Parthasarathy portrays the condition of postcolonial subjects who gets disconnected from their homeland, runs after 'English gods' and leaves the country to live in the land of the colonizer. In Trial, they get disenchanted with the colonizer and searches for cultural roots and prepares to return. Homecoming narrates the return of the first generation of migrants from the former colonies and their disillusionment with the homecoming.

    The speaker of the poem Homecoming1 represents the first generation of Indians who have left for European powers as they were enchanted by the power and glory of the colonizer. The speaker confesses that his/her tongue is in English chains, and returns to the homeland. The realities of the life in the west have created a longing for the home s/he left behind. He feels estranged from the culture/language of home and struggles to identify with the culture of the home. The glory of native culture is represented by Tirukural, a Tamil classic text by Tiruvalluvar, and the speaker fails to use language to build relation with home.

    In the last stanza, the poet laments on the fall of Tamil culture out of grace by the process of colonization. He is disillusioned to see that the great Tamil language and cultural traditions have been appropriated by the film industry. As a modernist, he looks down at mass cultural products like cinema and feels he has no home to return.

Ecriture Feminine (Women's Writing)

The term 'Ecriture Feminine' (Women's Writing) was coined by the French feminist critic Helene Cixous in her essay The Laugh of Medusa published in 1975. In the essay, she puts forward the emergence of a distinctive writing called 'feminine writing'. According to Cixous, this form of writing has its origin in the mother-child relationship before the child acquires male-centered verbal language. Drawing heavily from the psychoanalytical model developed by Jacques Lacan, she locates feminine writing in the pre-linguistic (the Imaginary Order) stage of human child. In Lacanian psychoanalysis, a child identifies with the mother in the Imaginary Order and it feels the lack (separation) of the mother as it learns the language which is phallocentric. Cixous posits that the child maintains its unconscious character in the pre-linguistic stage which helps it to abolish all repressions. In this stage, the child undermines and subvert the fixed significations and the logic and closure of phallocentric language. This results in opening a joyous free play of meanings.

In her definition of Women's Writing, Luce Irigaray, the Belgian born French feminist, refuses the monopoly and appropriation of writing into existing systems. She considers the fluidity and diversity of female sexuality as the basis of writing; hence writing opens multiple possibilities.

Julia Kristeva, Bulgarian French philosopher and feminist, introduces the concept of "chora" as the source of feminine writing. 'Chora' is a pre-linguistic, pre-Oedipal unsystematic signification process centered on the mother which she calls 'semiotic' and it is repressed on the acquisition of the father controlled, syntactically ordered, logical language - the symbolic.

What is the Difference between Morpheme and Morph or Allomorph?

    In Morphology (study of morphemes or how morphemes join to form words) a morpheme is the minimal meaningful unit in a language. For example the word 'human', 'legal' 'mortal' are morphemes. A morph is a word segment that represents one morpheme. In another words, a morpheme is an abstract unit of meaning and a morph is formal unit with a physical shape. To make it more clear, morpheme is conceptual and it is the description of what a morph is or does to a word; on the other hand morph is the concrete form of a morpheme. 

    For example, the morpheme meaning 'negative forming' is represented in adjectives using different morphs such as 'in' as in inhuman, 'il' as in illegal, 'im' as immortal, 'ir' as irregular, 'non' as in non-existent, 'dis' as in dishonest, 'ig' as in ignoble

    As the examples above shows, the morpheme meaning 'negative forming' can be given shape by various morphs; though various morphs are used, each morph represents the morpheme 'negative meaning'

    Allomorphs are the phonetically variant forms of a morpheme. 

Example- 1. The plural morpheme -s/-es is phonologically realized in words cats, dogs and watches as /s/, /z/ and /iz/ respectively. The same morpheme has got different phonetic representation, hence they are the allomorphs of 'plural morpheme -s'

Example-2. The English past tense morpheme that we spell -ed has various phonetic representations. It is realized as /t/as in hiked (after voiceless /k/) realized as /d/in explained (after voiced /n/) realized as /id/in accepted (after either /t/ or /d/)

    

Summary and Analysis of Mascara by Meena Kandasamy

Meena Kandasamy is a poet, novelist and Dalit activist from Tamil Nadu, South India. She has brought out three collections of poetry and she usually writes about marginalised groups such as dalits, women etc… Her poems exclusively deals with issues of caste and gender discrimination. The poem ‘Mascara’ is taken for the collection Touch

The poem ‘Mascara’ begins with a call-girl applying mascara before she prepares to welcome the next client for sexual intercourse. The poet catches a nervous moment of the girl as she glances in the mirror and comments that her dyed eyes mourn her body’s sins. She ponders on the image reflected in the looking glass and realises that those long buried vague dreams of her youth too had dark outlines. She cries silently and the mascara filled tears are black like her body. 

In the following section, the poet reveals the reason for the distress of the call-girl as she was born into a matrilineal family of temple prostitutes in India. At this point, she turns out to be a representative of the devadasi women who were devoted to worship and serve the deities. Women from non-Brahmin and Dalit castes were forced to be devadasis and they were consoled by the weight of the age old tradition.

During the early period, ‘devadasis’ - servants of God- were respected by the kings and local patrons and later on their social position deteriorated; they were reduced to temple prostitutes. Describing the pitiable condition of these women, the poet ironically comments that their service to Gods (love making to the patrons as well ) is not counted as karma and they are not rewarded. According to karma theory, one is rewarded for the virtuous acts one did in the previous births.

The call-girl desperately prays to the Gods for liberation and her helplessness does not evoke any answers from them. The poet comments that the Gods too do not understand the depth of her dreams.

In the final part of the poem, the call-girl has an epiphanic realisation that the same body which was described as ‘sinful’ earlier can be an instrument of liberation. She transforms her body and its adornments (cosmetics) as a tool of resistance (war paints). By the time she completes donning mascara, she has transformed herself into a goddess of revenge, Kali and her waiting for deliverance ends.

Analysis of the Short Story Turumpu Mullaaniyude Hridayam by Shihabudheen Poythumkadavu Part-2

Click here to read a summary of the short story Turumpu Mullaaniyude Hridayam part-1

Turumpu Mullaaniyude Hridayam as a Marginalised Narrative

The short story titled Turumpu Mullaniyude Hridayam is based on the events in the life of a mukri and it presents the conflict between religion and art, homogeneity promoted by science and difference, and individual and society. The author has selected a character (mukri) from a socially marginalised community and within it a marginalised group of people and has effectively employed the linguistic and cultural resources of the community to narrate a story in which the crisis faced by the protagonist is both regional and universal.

i) Selection of Character

    The protagonist of the story is a mukri. The word ‘mukri’ refers to people who are employed in mosques to recite religious texts, call for prayer (adan) five times a day and general housekeeping. Mukris depend on the meagre income they get from the mosque committee for survival. Though mukris get gifts from believers for participating in various religious rituals, they are the lowest paid people employed in the mosque and they struggle to get both ends meet. An usthad (teacher) in the religious school is a slightly better position, though their salaries are disbursed from the offerings of the believers.

    Malayalam literature and film often present mukri/mollaka (used synonymously for mukri) as epitomes of orthodoxic religious practices among muslims of Kerala due to their presence in the social life of muslims. The lower positions of mukri are often unknown to outsiders as a result they are often misrepresented. For example, in Khasakkinte Ithihasam, Allapicha Mollakka is polygamous, illiterate and a stalwart of orthodoxic religious values. Shihabudheen Poythumkadavu’s story has brought out the real position of a mukri in the religious organisation as the writer has an insider's view of the community’s socio-cultural life. He compassionately portrays Mammu Mukri’s struggles and his helplessness to defend himself. This theme is effectively suggested in the title by referring to the mukri as ‘turumpu mullaani’ ( rusty stack). This selection of characters makes the story a narrative of the marginalised.

ii) Selection of language and cultural context

    The author has selected the linguistic variation (dialect) used by the muslims in their everyday life and the cultural conflict of the community is empathetically portrayed. This should be contrasted to the stereotypical presentation of muslims and their dialect in film and literature. The author is sensitive to the cultural nuances of the community as a result, his narrative offers a fresh perspective to understand the life of the community. The narrative also offers insights into the working of the community, its value systems and cultural differences. Thus, the story presents the lives of people of the margins whose stories are often untold or misrepresented in mainstream Malayalam literature.

iii) Victim of the Conflict between Religion and Arts/ Individual and Society.

    The story dramatises the conflict between religion and aesthetics as the mukri’s natural urge to draw pictures of living creatures is against the Islamic concept of arts. Though the head Usthad (Khateeb) treats arts as a creation of Jinn and Valiya Thangal understands the artist mukri’s predicament and consoles him by saying that he is ahead of his times, Mammu Mukri is a victim of this conflict and he loses his job and sanity. The author is on the one hand empathetic to the ethos of the community and on the other hand problematizes this conflict. The life of the mukri is made miserable not only by the religious instructions alone but also by the social practice of religion. It seems that the author is confident of God's acceptance of the artist as the quotation from The Quran testifies.


iv) Victim of the Conflict between Modern Medicine and Human Nature

    The narrator recounts instances of visiting the mukri in his cell in the mental hospital. Unemployed and hospitalised for madness, the mukri relieves himself by drawing pictures on the walls of the cell and the warden permits him to do so. Later, all the drawings on the wall are washed off and the doctor subjects him to take shock treatment. The narrator explains the reason behind the violent behaviour of the mukri as the denial of permission to draw pictures, but the doctor does not listen to his words and continues the treatment. The narrator realises that the heterogeneity of his usthad is not acceptable to the mental hospital as well. The narrator feels empathy for the inmates of the hospital as they are victims of society as well as the homogeneity imposed by science.

Summary of the Short Story Turumpu Mullaaniyude Hridayam by Shihabudheen Poythumkadavu Part-1

Hello all,

    This post is a summary and analysis of the short story titled Turumpu MullaaniyudeHridayam (The Heart of a Rusty Tack) by Shihabudheen Poythum kadavu.  This story is included in the syllabus of the course Literature of the Marginalised of BA English programme of the University of Calicut. I guess an English translation of the story is not available so far (though I'm told that J Devika is translating some of the stories of Poythumkadavu into English), hence this post is prepared after reading the Malayalam original of the story.

Outline of the Story

    The story begins with the narrator waking up from an early morning dream (which is believed to come true!) about Mammu mukri, a man in charge of adan, (call for prayer five times a day) and housekeeping in a Muslim mosque and a teacher (usthad) in the religious school called madrasa. In the dream, Mammu mukri is confined in a cell and he is breathing his last dragging himself through mud and faeces. Prompted by the dream, the narrator recollects his intimate relationship with Mammu mukri and reveals the complicated relationship between art and religion, difference and science and individual and society.

    Mammu mukri is a kind hearted teacher who makes new students admitted to the madrasa feel at home on their first day at the religious school. He gives away sweets to the kids and calms them down by drawing pictures on their slates. He draws funny pictures of various birds and animals such as crow, Indian cuckoo, camel etc on the slates of his students and this breaks the ice between the kids and their usthad. 

    

    The narrator fondly remembers the picture of Jesus Christ  drawn by the usthad on his slate in which the oppressed face of Jesus resembles that of the usthad himself. Triggered by the funny pictures, the children bring the house down which brings the head teacher - the Khateeb- to the class who forcefully silences them. Usthad erases all the pictures he drew on the slates before the kids leave the madrasa and promises them to draw more pictures in the coming days.

    Mammu mukri finds himself in a crisis as his talent for drawing pictures of living creatures is against the concept of art in Islam at the same time, he can not refuse the urge to draw. The fear of being caught haunts him every moment of his life but his restless fingers always draw spontaneous images everywhere. The Khateeb, the head usthad, notices the image of a buffalo drawn on the backside of a paper in which details of the food provided to teachers in the madrasa is recorded. 

    

    Enraged by the image in which the head of the buffalo resembles that of the Khateeb, the Khateeb convenes an informal meeting and demands to know the person who drew the picture. Though no one responds at the beginning, Mammu mukri confesses his crime and the khateeb removes him from the post of usthad. He is now restricted to the charge adan and housekeeping in the mosque. 

    Later, Khateeb confronts the mukri and charges him of doing irreligious activities such as drawing a minaret of a mosque and below it many donkeys. Mammu mukri agrees with the charge and expresses his helplessness to stop as he has an unconscious urge to draw them. Intrigued by the revelation, the Khateeb assumes that the pictures are not drawn by the mukri, but a jinn (being of flame or air who is capable of assuming human or animal form) which is neither good nor bad and can make humans do many things including drawing and dancing.

     He directed Mammu mukri to Valiya Thangal and asks him to wear a talisman prepared by the Thangal. Though the talisman provided by the compassionate religious head Valiya Thangal, who consoles Mammu mukri saying that he is far ahead of his own time, relieves him for the time being, the restriction imposed on his creativity intensifies his inner urge to express and he loses his job.

    The inner conflict between religious and artistic values and the hostile reactions of the people of his time turn Mammu mukri's life miserable and he gradually loses hold of himself and is taken to a mental hospital. The narrator gratefully recalls that his artistic talents were activated and nourished by the pictures drawn by the usthad. He feels that in his journey as an artist and the exhibitions and interviews he organises in major cities such as Madras, Bangalore and Delhi are attended by the disturbing presence of Mammu mukri, the usthad. 

    Pained by the turn of events, he recollects his meeting with usthad in his cell in the mental hospital. They have spoken for sometime and usthad informs him that he is happy in the prison as he is free to draw any number of pictures on the wall of the cell. The compassionate warden of the cell provides him with chokes with many colours. At the end of the visit, the artist narrator gives him drawing papers, painting tubes and brush and usthad accepts them with delight. In the meanwhile, the warden who supported usthad with colour chokes is transferred and the new warden finds drawings on the wall dirty and pumped water to the cell inorder to erase the drawings which has converted Mammu mukri a violent patient. 

    During the narrator's last attempt to visit the mukri in his cell, authorities deny entry to him and inform him that the mukri is violent and undergoing shock treatment. He meets the doctor in charge and tries to convince him that the usthad's violence is caused by the actions of the new warden. Offended, the doctor refuses to reconsider his diagnosis and asks the narrator to leave. The narrator returns feeling sorry for the inmates of the hospital.

Click here to read an anlysis of the short story Turumpu Mullaaniyude Jeevitham part-2

Summary of 'Hegemonic Masculinities: Rethinking the Concept' by R W Connel Part -3

Click here to read part -1 of the essay

Click here to read part-2 of the essay 

Significant Critiques

1. Tendency to dichotomize(divide into two) the experiences of men and men. Tendency  in the men's studies field to presume "separate spheres," to proceed as if women were not a relevant part of the analysis, and therefore to analyze masculinities by looking only at men and relations among men.

2. Ambiguity and overlap in defining hegemonic masculinity

3. The Problem of reductionism that occurs to hegemonic masculinity when applied into concrete situations(Reification). This means that HM constructs masculine power from the direct experience of women. In other words, hierarchy of masculinities constructed within gender relations should not be linked with  patriarchal subversion of women. 

4. hegemonic masculinity came to be associated solely with negative characteristics that depict men as unemotional, independent, non nurturing, aggressive, and dispassionate which are seen as the causes of criminal behavior.

Responses to significant critiques

1. Solution is to take  a consistently relational approach to gender. Abandoning the concept of masculinity or gender will not offer any solution.

2. Social power and  ideal forms of masculinity represent hegemonic masculinity. This problem arises because Hegemonic Masculinity is often mistakenly  thought as  a fixed and beyond historical model. Masculinity is a product of history but often the massive evidence of change in social definitions of masculinity is ignored. At the social level, there is a circulation of admired masculine conduct which distorts everyday social practices. Though Hegemonic masculinities do not correspond closely to the lives of any actual  man, they express widespread ideals, fantasies, and desires. They provide models of relations with women and solutions to problems of gender relations. They also articulate loosely with the practical constitution of masculinities as ways of living in every day local circumstances. In this process, they contribute to hegemony in the society-wide gender order as a whole.A degree of overlap or blurring between hegemonic and complicit masculinities is extremely likely if hegemony is effective.

3. The author agrees that masculinities are to be studied within the wider context of the institutionalisation of gender inequalities, the role of cultural constructions, and the interplay of gender dynamics with race, class and region. He also testifies that HM studies do bring out the hierarchies in masculinity and they are not solely relied on personal experience of women.

4. It is true that HM is associated with negative traits in its popular use and it is also valid that men use violence to exercise power over women. But in HM, masculinity is not always associated with negative traits which is a contribution of rigid trait theory of personality. The author asserts that if HM is purely domination with violence, it can not be described as hegemonic as hegemony requires consent and participation of the dominated. Boys’ and men’s practical relationship to collective images or models of masculinity is the key in understanding the gendered consequences in violence, health and education.

The Masculine Subject

Here are some other criticisms raised against Hegemonic masculinity theory.

1. One of the key contestations made against the theory of Hegemonic Masculinity is that it is based on an unsatisfactory theory of the subject. 

2. Discursive psychologists argue that HM can not be understood as the settled character type of any men, hence it is hard to believe that men conform to an ideal and turn to become resistant or subservient types to it without ever managing to embody that ideal.They also theorise HM as a discursive subject position which people embody at times and distance themselves strategically at other times. In this view, HM is not a character type, but discursive positions people assume in different contexts. 

3. Whitehead criticises that HM studies is reduced to structures and it has erased the subject.

4. The critique of Psychoanalysis is HM assumes a unitary subject whereas in reality, the subject is multilayered or divided.  

1. &2. Among the three criticisms made against HM, the second one, ie, the position taken by discursive psychologists is valid and it has been integrated into hegemonic Masculinity studies. Research in the field also testifies that masculinities are constructed and used in discourse. At the same time, HM is formulated within multidimensional understanding of gender, hence it can not be limited to a discursive/symbolic dimension. Acknowledging the role of non discursive practices in theorising masculinity limits the scope of discursive psychoanalysis.

• The authors flatly disagree with  Whitehead’s criticism that HM is reduced to    structuralist determinism and underscores the role of life history studies in exploring subjective variations in HM. Masculinity is defined as a configuration of practice organized in relation to the structure of gender relations. Human social practice creates gender relations in history. The concept of hegemonic masculinity embeds a historically dynamic view of gender in which it is impossible to erase the subject.

• The author reiterates that the theory of masculinity is formulated with a strong awareness of psychoanalytic argument about layered and contradictory character of personality, everyday contestation in social life and the  strategies required to sustain hegemony, hence the psychoanalyst criticism is not relevant especially the arguments raised by Jefferson is problematic.

The Pattern of Gender relations

The authors dismiss functionalism in HM studies, ie, seeing gender relations as a self-contained, self-reproducing system and explaining every element in terms of its function in reproducing the whole. The domination of men and the subordination of women constitute a historical process not a self reproducing system and masculine domination is open to challenge and requires considerable efforts to maintain.

Demetriou has pointed out two forms of hegemony - internal and external. The first one refers to the domination of one group of men over all other groups of men and the latter -External- refers to institutionalisation of men’s domination over women. He argues that the relation between the two is not well defined as a result, the dynamic relation between internal and external hegemony is not explored. He argues that hegemonic masculinity appropriates whatever practical resources available to it from other masculinities and this hybridisation ensures the continuity of hegemony. The authors agree with this point but is not fully convinced of how far hybridisation is hegemonic.

Review and Formulations

What is Retained?

1. The fundamental feature of the concept remains the combination of the plurality of masculinities and the hierarchy of masculinities.

2. Certain masculinities are more socially central, or more associated with authority and social power, than others.

3. The concept of hegemonic masculinity presumes the subordination of non hegemonic masculinities.

4. the hierarchy of masculinities is a pattern of hegemony, not a pattern of simple domination based on force

5. Cultural consent, discursive centrality, institutionalization, and the marginalization or delegitimation of alternatives are widely documented features of socially dominant masculinities

6. hegemonic masculinity need not be the commonest pattern in the everyday lives of boys and men. Rather, hegemony works in part through the production of exemplars of masculinity (e.g., professional sports stars), symbols that have authority despite the fact that most men and boys do not fully live up to them.

7. the dominant pattern of masculinity was open to challenge? from women's resistance to patriarchy, and from men as bearers of alternative masculinities.

8. f the historical construction and reconstruction of hegemonic masculinities and the situations in which masculinities were formed change over time.

9. These changes call forth new strategies in gender relations (e.g., companionate marriage) and result in redefinitions of socially admired masculinity.

What is dropped?

1. The formulation in Gender and Power attempted to locate all masculinities (and all femininities) in terms of a single pattern of power, the "global dominance" of men over women.

2. Early formulations of Hegemonic masculinity were supported by trait psychology which treat masculinity as fixed character type. This is view is to be rejected.

What Should be Reformulated?

Reformulation is needed in four areas

1. the nature of gender hierarchy

2. the geography of masculine configurations

3. the process of social embodiment 

4. the dynamics of masculinitie

the nature of gender hierarchy

Contemporary research has brought out the complexity among different constructions of masculinity and the role of local context in making certain versions of masculinity desirable. In addition, insights from the studies on masculinity by Demetriou points at the interaction between internal and external hegemony and HM may change by incorporating elements from others. Another development in the field is the recognition of the agency of subordinated and marginalised groups; protest masculinity is an example for this.

Research has also documented the durability or survivability of non hegemonic patterns of masculinity, which may represent well-crafted responses to race/ethnic marginalization, physical disability, class inequality, or stigmatized sexuality. Hegemony may be accomplished by the incorporation of such masculinities into a functioning gender order rather than by active oppression in the form of discredit or violence. 

HM studies emerged in contrast to emphasised femininity and later on this was dropped from HM studies. The role of femininity in the construction and practice of masculinity is to be incorporated into contemporary research. Gender can be only in relation to the historical interplay of femininities and masculinities.

The Geography of Masculinities

In the early stage, masculinity studies dealt with change in locally specific constructions of hegemonic masculinity. At present masculinity studies encompasses studies at the local, regional and global level. This is particularly relevant as the emergence of globalization and transnational relations have become crucial in the present order and they do influence regional and local varieties of masculinities.

Social Embodiment

Earlier, embodiment was understood as a process of social construction. In present research, embodiment is conceptualized as a participating agent in the construction of gender and the relation between embodiment and social context is worth analysing. It is also important to study the circuit of social practice linking bodily processes and social structures which add up to the historical process in which society is embodied.

The Dynamics of masculinities

Research in the present recognises the layering, the potential internal contradictions within all practices that construct masculinities. Another dynamics of masculinity is the structure of a project. Masculinities are configurations of practice that are constructed, unfold, and change through time. Though changes in masculinity emerge from internal contradictions, they may also be intentional. Hegemonic masculinity is open to contestation and may be challenged by various factors such as women’s movement, managerial masculinity etc...and there is possibility of democratisation of gender relations and abolishing power differentials. In this sense, HM is positive to reform, though it is hard to attain.