CHAPTER 08 - CHALLENGES TO DEMOCRACY
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Question 1:
Explain the following:
(a) Social changes in Britain which led to an increase
in women readers
(b) What actions of Robinson Crusoe make us see him
as a typical coloniser.
(c) After 1740, the readership of novels began to
include poorer people.
(d) Novelists in colonial India wrote for a political
cause
Answer :
(a) As the middle classes became more affluent,
women got more leisure time to read and write novels.
Also, novels began to explore the world of women,
their emotions, identities, experiences and problems.
Domestic life became an essential subject of novels—a
field women had an authority to speak about.
(b) Robinson Crusoe’s actions that make us see him as
a typical coloniser are many. Shipwrecked on an island
inhabited by coloured people, Crusoe treats them as
inferior beings. He is portrayed as “rescuing” a native
and then making him a slave. He gives him the name
Friday, without even caring to ask for his name.
Colonised people were seen as barbaric and primitive,
and colonialism became their self-professed civiliser.
Crusoe was a direct representation of this ideology of
colonisers.
(c) After 1740, the readership of novels began to
include poorer people because of the introduction of
circulating libraries, low-priced books, and also
because of the system of hiring out of books by the
hour. This made books easily available to the poor
people, who could not afford books earlier due to
high costs and absence of lending libraries.
(d) Novelists in colonial India wrote for a political
cause because the novel was a powerful medium for
expressing social defects and suggesting remedies for
the same. It also helped establish a relationship with
the past. Since people from all walks of life could read
novels, it was an easy way to popularise anti-colonial
ideas. It also helped bring about a sense of national
unity among the people
Question 2:
Outline the changes in technology and society which
led to an increase in readers of the novel in
eighteenth-century Europe.
Answer :
The changes in technology and society which led to an
increase in readers of the novel in eighteenth century
Europe were manifold. The creation of libraries, cost-
cutting printing techniques and hiring out of books on
an hourly basis allowed readership to expand beyond
the aristocratic class. Socially, as the market for books
grew, novelists were freed of aristocratic patronage,
and could now explore different dimensions of the
society in their novels, for example, the lives of women
and the working class. All this led to an obvious
increase in the number of people who read books in
eighteenth-century Europe.
Question 3:
Write a note on:
(a) The Oriya novel
(b) Jane Austen’s portrayal of women
(c) The picture of the new middle class which the
novel Pariksha-Guru portrays.
Answer :
(a) In 1877-78, Ramashankar Ray started to serialise
the first Oriya novel, “Saudamini”; but it remained
incomplete. Orissa’s first major novelist was Fakir
Mohon Senapati. He wrote “Chaa Mana Atha Guntha”
that deals with land and its possession. This novel
illustrated that rural issues could be an important part
of urban concerns.
(b) Austen portrayed the lives of women of genteel
rural society in early nineteenth-century Britain. Her
novels explore the social norms that women had to
follow—predominantly, their duty was to marry
wealthy husbands who could offer them financial and
social security. The women in Jane Austen’s novels are
not always shown to conform to social convention.
Although her works do typify the society she lived in,
the protagonist in her novels is always an
independent-minded woman.
(c) The novel “Pariksha-Guru” portrays the difficulties
of the new middle class in adapting to colonised
society while preserving its cultural identity. It
emphasises that Western ideals must be inculcated,
but without sacrificing the traditional values of middle-
class households. The characters in this Hindi novel by
Srinivas Das are seen endeavouring to bridge the two
different worlds of modern education and traditional
ethics.
Discuss
Question 1:
Discuss some of the social changes in nineteenth-
century Britain which Thomas Hardy and Charles
Dickens wrote about.
Answer :
Thomas Hardy and Charles Dickens wrote mostly
about the effects of industrialisation. Dickens wrote
about industrial towns and the plight of the poor in
them—smoking chimneys, grim factories, pollution,
and identity-less and exploited workers. In his novel
"Hard Times", he criticises the greed for profits and
the reduction of human beings into tools of
production. In other works, he dwells on the sad
conditions of urban life under industrial capitalism.
Thomas Hardy, on the other hand, wrote about
traditional rural communities of England which were
vanishing in the face of rapid industrial growth. The
change from old agricultural practice of independent
farming to employment of labourers and machines on
large farms can be seen in Hardy’s famed work “The
Mayor of Casterbridge”. In this novel, through the
character of Michael Henchard, Hardy demonstrates
how he mourns the loss of the personalised world,
even though he knows its problems and understands
the advantages of the new order.
Question 2:
Summarise the concern in both nineteenth-century
Europe and India about women reading novels. What
does this suggest about how women were viewed?
Answer :
The concern in both nineteenth-century Europe and
India about women reading novels bore more or less
similar fears. Women were seen as easily corruptible
and an imaginary world that the novel provided was
seen as a dangerous opening for the imaginations of its
readers. In certain Indian communities, it was felt that
women who read novels would leave their domestic
environments and aspire to be part of the outside
world—the male domain.
This suggests that women were viewed as delicate and
incapable of being independent. They were merely
expected to marry a man who could take care of their
financial needs while they maintained his household
and remained subservient to him.
Question 3:
In what ways was the novel in colonial India useful for
both the colonisers as well as the nationalists?
Answer :
The novel in colonial India was useful for both the
colonisers as well as the nationalists on account of a
variety of reasons. Colonial rulers found “vernacular”
novels illuminating for the information they provided
on native customs and life. It was useful in the
governance of this diverse country. Indian nationalists
used the form of the novel to criticise colonial rule
and instill a sense of national pride and unity amongst
the people.
Question 4:
Describe how the issue of caste was included in novels
in India. By referring to any two novels, discuss the
ways in which they tried to make readers think about
existing social issues.
Answer :
Indians used the novel as a powerful medium to
criticise what they considered defects in their society
and to suggest remedies. The issue of caste was
included in Indian novels for this same purpose. O
Chandu Menon's "Indulekha", a love story based on
the lines of Benjamin Disraeli's novel "Henrietta
Temple", is a comment upon the marriage practices of
upper-caste Hindus in Kerala. Through the
characterisations of his main characters, the author
(himself a member of an "upper caste") pits the
ignorant and immoral Nambuthiri Brahmins against
the educated and modern Nayars.
While writers like Chandu Menon wished to bring
about reforms within their castes, there were others
who sought to reform the entire caste-based society.
In his novel “Saraswativijayam”, Potheri Kunjambu (a
"lower-caste" writer from Kerala) attacks caste
oppression. The novel shows a young “untouchable”
man flee his village to escape caste-based tyranny.
After converting to Christianity and receiving modern
education, he returns to his village as a judge in the
local court where the villagers had filed a case against
the local Brahmin bully for murdering this young man.
In the end, the judge reveals his identity and the
Nambuthiri repents and reforms his ways. Apart from
being critical of the upper castes, this novel also
stresses the importance of education for the
upliftment of the lower castes.
Question 5:
Describe the ways in which the novel in India
attempted to create a sense of pan-Indian belonging.
Answer :
The novel in India attempted to create a sense of pan-
Indian belonging by imagining the country to be full of
adventure, heroism, romance and sacrifice—
characteristics that could not be found in the offices
and streets of the nineteenth century world. It also
gave the colonised people a chance to give shape to
their desires. For example, the Bengali historical novels
of this time, dealing with Marathas and Rajputs, served
this purpose.
Another way in which the sense of belonging to a
common nation was popularised was by including
various classes in the novel so that they could be seen
to belong to a shared world. The novels of Premchand,
populated by powerful characters belonging to almost
all levels of society, exemplify this.
Tkn hlp
.
Question 1:
Explain the following:
(a) Social changes in Britain which led to an increase
in women readers
(b) What actions of Robinson Crusoe make us see him
as a typical coloniser.
(c) After 1740, the readership of novels began to
include poorer people.
(d) Novelists in colonial India wrote for a political
cause
Answer :
(a) As the middle classes became more affluent,
women got more leisure time to read and write novels.
Also, novels began to explore the world of women,
their emotions, identities, experiences and problems.
Domestic life became an essential subject of novels—a
field women had an authority to speak about.
(b) Robinson Crusoe’s actions that make us see him as
a typical coloniser are many. Shipwrecked on an island
inhabited by coloured people, Crusoe treats them as
inferior beings. He is portrayed as “rescuing” a native
and then making him a slave. He gives him the name
Friday, without even caring to ask for his name.
Colonised people were seen as barbaric and primitive,
and colonialism became their self-professed civiliser.
Crusoe was a direct representation of this ideology of
colonisers.
(c) After 1740, the readership of novels began to
include poorer people because of the introduction of
circulating libraries, low-priced books, and also
because of the system of hiring out of books by the
hour. This made books easily available to the poor
people, who could not afford books earlier due to
high costs and absence of lending libraries.
(d) Novelists in colonial India wrote for a political
cause because the novel was a powerful medium for
expressing social defects and suggesting remedies for
the same. It also helped establish a relationship with
the past. Since people from all walks of life could read
novels, it was an easy way to popularise anti-colonial
ideas. It also helped bring about a sense of national
unity among the people
Question 2:
Outline the changes in technology and society which
led to an increase in readers of the novel in
eighteenth-century Europe.
Answer :
The changes in technology and society which led to an
increase in readers of the novel in eighteenth century
Europe were manifold. The creation of libraries, cost-
cutting printing techniques and hiring out of books on
an hourly basis allowed readership to expand beyond
the aristocratic class. Socially, as the market for books
grew, novelists were freed of aristocratic patronage,
and could now explore different dimensions of the
society in their novels, for example, the lives of women
and the working class. All this led to an obvious
increase in the number of people who read books in
eighteenth-century Europe.
Question 3:
Write a note on:
(a) The Oriya novel
(b) Jane Austen’s portrayal of women
(c) The picture of the new middle class which the
novel Pariksha-Guru portrays.
Answer :
(a) In 1877-78, Ramashankar Ray started to serialise
the first Oriya novel, “Saudamini”; but it remained
incomplete. Orissa’s first major novelist was Fakir
Mohon Senapati. He wrote “Chaa Mana Atha Guntha”
that deals with land and its possession. This novel
illustrated that rural issues could be an important part
of urban concerns.
(b) Austen portrayed the lives of women of genteel
rural society in early nineteenth-century Britain. Her
novels explore the social norms that women had to
follow—predominantly, their duty was to marry
wealthy husbands who could offer them financial and
social security. The women in Jane Austen’s novels are
not always shown to conform to social convention.
Although her works do typify the society she lived in,
the protagonist in her novels is always an
independent-minded woman.
(c) The novel “Pariksha-Guru” portrays the difficulties
of the new middle class in adapting to colonised
society while preserving its cultural identity. It
emphasises that Western ideals must be inculcated,
but without sacrificing the traditional values of middle-
class households. The characters in this Hindi novel by
Srinivas Das are seen endeavouring to bridge the two
different worlds of modern education and traditional
ethics.
Discuss
Question 1:
Discuss some of the social changes in nineteenth-
century Britain which Thomas Hardy and Charles
Dickens wrote about.
Answer :
Thomas Hardy and Charles Dickens wrote mostly
about the effects of industrialisation. Dickens wrote
about industrial towns and the plight of the poor in
them—smoking chimneys, grim factories, pollution,
and identity-less and exploited workers. In his novel
"Hard Times", he criticises the greed for profits and
the reduction of human beings into tools of
production. In other works, he dwells on the sad
conditions of urban life under industrial capitalism.
Thomas Hardy, on the other hand, wrote about
traditional rural communities of England which were
vanishing in the face of rapid industrial growth. The
change from old agricultural practice of independent
farming to employment of labourers and machines on
large farms can be seen in Hardy’s famed work “The
Mayor of Casterbridge”. In this novel, through the
character of Michael Henchard, Hardy demonstrates
how he mourns the loss of the personalised world,
even though he knows its problems and understands
the advantages of the new order.
Question 2:
Summarise the concern in both nineteenth-century
Europe and India about women reading novels. What
does this suggest about how women were viewed?
Answer :
The concern in both nineteenth-century Europe and
India about women reading novels bore more or less
similar fears. Women were seen as easily corruptible
and an imaginary world that the novel provided was
seen as a dangerous opening for the imaginations of its
readers. In certain Indian communities, it was felt that
women who read novels would leave their domestic
environments and aspire to be part of the outside
world—the male domain.
This suggests that women were viewed as delicate and
incapable of being independent. They were merely
expected to marry a man who could take care of their
financial needs while they maintained his household
and remained subservient to him.
Question 3:
In what ways was the novel in colonial India useful for
both the colonisers as well as the nationalists?
Answer :
The novel in colonial India was useful for both the
colonisers as well as the nationalists on account of a
variety of reasons. Colonial rulers found “vernacular”
novels illuminating for the information they provided
on native customs and life. It was useful in the
governance of this diverse country. Indian nationalists
used the form of the novel to criticise colonial rule
and instill a sense of national pride and unity amongst
the people.
Question 4:
Describe how the issue of caste was included in novels
in India. By referring to any two novels, discuss the
ways in which they tried to make readers think about
existing social issues.
Answer :
Indians used the novel as a powerful medium to
criticise what they considered defects in their society
and to suggest remedies. The issue of caste was
included in Indian novels for this same purpose. O
Chandu Menon's "Indulekha", a love story based on
the lines of Benjamin Disraeli's novel "Henrietta
Temple", is a comment upon the marriage practices of
upper-caste Hindus in Kerala. Through the
characterisations of his main characters, the author
(himself a member of an "upper caste") pits the
ignorant and immoral Nambuthiri Brahmins against
the educated and modern Nayars.
While writers like Chandu Menon wished to bring
about reforms within their castes, there were others
who sought to reform the entire caste-based society.
In his novel “Saraswativijayam”, Potheri Kunjambu (a
"lower-caste" writer from Kerala) attacks caste
oppression. The novel shows a young “untouchable”
man flee his village to escape caste-based tyranny.
After converting to Christianity and receiving modern
education, he returns to his village as a judge in the
local court where the villagers had filed a case against
the local Brahmin bully for murdering this young man.
In the end, the judge reveals his identity and the
Nambuthiri repents and reforms his ways. Apart from
being critical of the upper castes, this novel also
stresses the importance of education for the
upliftment of the lower castes.
Question 5:
Describe the ways in which the novel in India
attempted to create a sense of pan-Indian belonging.
Answer :
The novel in India attempted to create a sense of pan-
Indian belonging by imagining the country to be full of
adventure, heroism, romance and sacrifice—
characteristics that could not be found in the offices
and streets of the nineteenth century world. It also
gave the colonised people a chance to give shape to
their desires. For example, the Bengali historical novels
of this time, dealing with Marathas and Rajputs, served
this purpose.
Another way in which the sense of belonging to a
common nation was popularised was by including
various classes in the novel so that they could be seen
to belong to a shared world. The novels of Premchand,
populated by powerful characters belonging to almost
all levels of society, exemplify this.
Tkn hlp
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