Moby Dick by Herman Melville

 Moby Dick by Herman Melville 

        Moby-Dick, written in 1851, recounts the adventures of the narrator Ishmael as he sails on the whaling ship Pequod under the command of Captain Ahab.

Ishmael believes he has signed onto a routine commission aboard a normal whaling vessel, but he soon learns that Captain Ahab is not guiding the Pequod in the simple pursuit of commerce but is seeking one specific whale, Moby-Dick, a great while whale infamous for his giant size and his ability to destroy the whalers that seek him. Captain Ahab's wooden leg is the result of his first encounter with the whale, when he lost both leg and ship. After the ship sails it becomes clear that Captain Ahab is bent on revenge and he intends to get Moby-Dick.

Ahab demonstrates erratic behavior from the very beginning and his eccentricities magnify as the voyage progresses. As the novel draws to a conclusion, the Pequod encounters the whaling ship Rachel. The Rachel's captain asks Ahab to help him in a search and rescue effort for his whaling-crew that went missing the day before -- and the captain's son is among the missing. But when Ahab learns that the crew disappeared while tangling with Moby-Dick he refuses the call to aid in the rescue so that he may hunt Moby-Dick instead.

The encounter with Moby-Dick brings a tragic end to the affair. Ishmael alone survives, using his friend Queequeg's coffin as a flotation device until he is ironically rescued by the Rachel which has continued to search for its missing crew.

Readers, teachers and students should also take note of a peculiar historical curiosity. After enjoying some success in the 1840s, the publication of Moby-Dick marked Melville's decline as a popular writer. He was unable to support himself as a writer and accepted a job at the New York Customs House. He continued to write, even as he faded into obscurity, turning to poetry in his later years. He published his poems but they were ignored and went unread. Like his novel about the great white whale, his poems are also esteemed by modern critics and scholars.

Moby-Dick’s explosion of narrative conventions was so revolutionary in its time that it perplexed Melville’s contemporaries and passed quickly into obscurity.

Ishmael turns out to be less a character than a conduit for other voices and perspectives. This is either a daring experiment in omniscient first-person narration, or a sign that Ishmael is utterly unreliable.

The whales in this novel are silent: Melville did not know about whale-song, and in any case sperm whales do not sing, though the music of the prose conveys a sense of their awesome vitality.

All My Sons by Arthur Miller

 All My Sons by Arthur Miller

 

              All My Sons, Arthur Miller's first commercially successful play, opened at the Coronet Theatre in New York on January 29, 1947. It ran for 328 performances and garnered important critical acclaim for the dramatist, winning the prestigious New York Drama Critics' Circle Award.

              Miller's earlier play, The Man Who Had All the Luck (1944), had not done well and had quickly closed; therefore, at the time All My Sons opened, Miller's reputation as a writer was based almost solely on Focus (1945), his lauded novel about anti-Semitism.

              Miller is a social dramatist, and his plays deal chiefly with social themes like the one related to the relationship between the individual and the society or the family. He tries to bring out the conflict between the individual and society, and the efforts of the individual to gain 'his rightful position in his society' or his family which forms an important component of society. Miller’s first major success, All My Sons is one of the greatest classics of the American stage. 

              In the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, Joe and Kate Keller are living a comfortable suburban life. But the Keller’s son Larry, a pilot, is missing in action and for Kate questions about his disappearance just won’t go away. When Ann Deever, his former fiancée, comes to visit, the shadows of the past and its dark secret threaten to destroy their future happiness. All My Sons is a gripping family drama and a searching critique of the American dream.

Far From the Madding Crowd

                 Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy 

        Far From the Madding Crowd comes from Thomas Gray's famous 18th-century poem "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard": "Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife, Their sober wishes never learned to stray; Along the cool sequestered vale of life They kept the noiseless tenor of their way." By alluding to Gray's poem.

              In novel Gabriel Oak is a small-scale farmer, but his honesty, integrity, and ability win him the respect of all of his neighbors. When he hears that a young woman named Bathsheba Everdene has moved into the neighborhood, he goes out of his way to see her and falls immediately in love. Gabriel is the kind of man who looks only once to know that he has found the right woman. 

               Bathsheba is a good manager, and Weatherbury Farm prospers; but she has her caprices. One of these is to send an anonymous valentine to William Boldwood, a conservative, serious man who is her neighbor. Boldwood is upset by the valentine, especially after he learns that Gabriel recognized Bathsheba’s handwriting. The more Boldwood sees of Bathsheba, however, the more deeply he falls in love with her.

              Bathsheba is attracted to him at once. Gabriel knows enough of Troy’s character to know that he is not the man for Bathsheba, and he tells her so. Not knowing the story of Fanny, Bathsheba is furious at Gabriel’s presumption. 

The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri

The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri

                 Lahiri is barely more than three decades old herself, and won a Pulitzer prize for her short-story collection Interpreter of Maladies. It's easy to see why. She has a talent - magical, sly, cumulative - that most writers would kill for. Peer closely at any single sentence, and nothing about it stands out. But step back and look at the whole and you're knocked out.

                  The Namesake opens, Ashima Ganguli is a young bride who is about to deliver her first child in a hospital in Massachusetts. Her husband, Ashoke, is an engineering student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Ashoke had traveled back to Calcutta to find a wife. Ashima, who comes from a traditional Bengali/Indian family, had little choice in the matter. As she prepares to give birth, she realizes how isolated she has become. If she were still in Calcutta, she would have her baby at home, surrounded by all the women in her family who would administer all the proper Bengali ceremonies and would tell her what to expect. 

           Moushumi and Gogol are attracted to one another and eventually are married. However, by the end of their first year of marriage, Moushumi becomes restless. She feels tied down by marriage and begins to regret it. He also feels like a poor substitute for Graham. Eventually, Moushumi has an affair with Dimitri, an old acquaintance, the revelation of which leads to the end of their marriage. With Sonia preparing to marry her fiance, an American named Ben, Gogol is once again alone. He is nonetheless comforted by the fact that Ashoke, prior to his death, finally told his son why he had chosen that name for him. Gogol comes to accept his name and picks up a collection of the Russian

Othello by William Shakespeare

        Along with Hamlet, King Lear, and Macbeth, Othello is one of Shakespeare's four great tragedies and thus a pillar of what most critics take to be the apex of Shakespeare's dramatic art. Othello is unique among Shakespeare's great tragedies. 

       Othello’s villainous ensign Iago plots against Othello and sends Roderigo to tell Senator Brabantio that Othello has seduced Brabantio’s daughter Desdemona.

       After convincing the Senate that he has won Desdemona’s love fair and square, Othello is sent to Cyprus for a military command, new bride in tow.

     Iago plants a handkerchief that Othello gave to Desdemona on Cassio, the man who received the promotion Iago wanted, and convinces Othello that Cassio and Desdemona are having an affair.

       Iago convinces Roderigo to make an attempt on Cassio’s life, and when it only maims him, frames the courtesan Bianca and quietly murders Roderigo.

        In the bed chamber, while Othello ponders Desdemona’s beauty and innocence, she awakens, and Othello commands her to pray before she dies. In spite of her supplications, he suffocates her with a pillow. Emilia enters, and Othello justifies his revenge by claiming the handkerchief as proof of her infidelity. Appalled at this act, Emilia reveals Iago’s guilt. Iago enters, kills Emilia, and is arrested. Othello tries to kill Iago, and despite demands for an explanation, Iago remains silent and is led off. Before Othello is led off, he draws a concealed weapon, stabs himself, and kisses Desdemona as he dies.

Ozymandias BY PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY

Ozymandias

BY PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY

         

       

I met a traveller from an antique land,

Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,

Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,

And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;

And on the pedestal, these words appear:

My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;

Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

"Ozymandias" is a fourteen-line, iambic pentameter sonnet. It is not a traditional one, however. Although it is neither a Petrarchan sonnet nor a Shakespearean sonnet, the rhyming scheme and style resemble a Petrarchan sonnet more, particularly with its 8-6 structure rather than 4-4-4-2.

The traveler describes the great work of the sculptor, who was able to capture the king’s “passions” and give meaningful expression to the stone, an otherwise “lifeless thing.” The “mocking hand” in line 8 is that of the sculptor, who had the artistic ability to “mock” the passions of the king. The “heart” is first of all the king’s, which “fed” the sculptor’s passions, and in turn the sculptor’s, sympathetically recapturing the king’s passions in the stone.

The final five lines mock the inscription hammered into the pedestal of the statue. The original inscription read “I am Ozymandias, King of Kings; if anyone wishes to know what I am and where I lie, let him surpass me in some of my exploits.” The idea was that he was too powerful for even the common king to relate to him; even a mighty king should despair at matching his power. That principle may well remain valid, but it is undercut by the plain fact that even an empire is a human creation that will one day pass away. 

Unlike many of his poems, “Ozymandias” does not end on a note of hope. There is no extra stanza or concluding couplet to honor the fleeting joys of knowledge or to hope in human progress. Instead, the traveler has nothing more to say, and the persona draws no conclusions of his own.

The White Tiger

            The White Tiger

              "The White Tiger " tells the story of Balram Halwai.  I am agree with  India represented in the novel The White Tiger. As Adiga says that India is two countries in one ; an India of Light and an India of Darkness. So we can say that The rural or the village is called as Dark India and urban or city is called as the India of Light. Light become a multifaceted symbol of time,  wealth,  and obligations. When Darkness represents the past, poverty, rural India and most importantly locality to family and master.

                 The centre figure  Balram satirizes on the religion and also the makes fun on the God and Goddesses of India. So we can say it is about old morality vs New morality. We can see satirical tone in everything like education, religion, politics, etc. The White Tiger is the discussion of the India caste system highly and lower social classes. The caste system still remains in rural India. 

      

         Balram gives his own breakdown of the caste system in India, describing that it was a

                 ".... clean, well kept orderly Zoo" .

 He tells the story of how India still has a caste system and political as well as economic corruption is still present. So this novel it represents the reality of India. Adiga also taunts on secularism on India where a Muslim change his name as Rampersad in order to get job. Adiga mention the river Ganga that has become a black river. The White Tiger voices funny describing  social injustice of Modern India with balanced humour and fury. In novel the character of Pinky Madam that symblize the Modern women of dark India who has nothing to do with Social,  moral of family values. 

             I believed that Balram’s story is the archetype of all stories of “rages to riches”. For example the movie “Slumdog millionaire” same story like the white tiger. In movie the centre figure Jamal is a poor man and at last he was rich. So in same way in the White Tiger we can say that Jamal and Balram Halwai as a man of ‘rags of riches’. Balram begins life in a poor village but murders his boss and steals a large sum of money to become a self-made entrepreneur. We can also say is referred to persons like Dhirubhai Ambani, Narendra Modi etc... 

            Deconstruction reading of  Adiga's “The white Tiger” Here in this novel we see  that Balaram Halwai's character  that it is the 'autobiography of half-baked Indian’. Because in the novel Arvind Adiga present reality of life or India.Text itself gives hint to deconstruct the text. we can say that the use of language itself the deconstruct the text.

Review on Reluctant Fundamentalist as study of Post Colonial aspects

Views on film “The Reluctant Fundamentalist”

            Novel  “The Reluctant Fundamentalist”  by Mohsin Hamid, directed by Mira Nair This whole story about 9/ 11 attack, a movie about the impact on one man of the Al Qaida attacks and the American reaction to them. "The Reluctant Fundamentalist" follows the transformations of the wide eyed Pakistani Changez Khan, who arrives in the US with great professional ambitions.

                It is a political thriller Dramatic movie. Here Changez Khan  narrates his story, seen in flashback, while meeting in the House in Lahore with American journalist Bobby, and a fairly clear-cut relationship with the American government: he’s seeking information about a kidnapped American. The other meaning of “fundamentalist” refers to Changez’s prior life in the states, where, as a young man, he was paid big bucks to fix broken companies, coolly evaluating — and, if necessary, streamlining — a business’s “fundamentals.”

                     This all things is about power and superiority, here in Changez Khan’s case, he is becoming the part of circumstances, there is also other things that why all wrong things happened with him because belongs to Muslim Community? And so what his fault as Muslim. American look at him as he is part of ‘ Terrorist’ .