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Novels, Society and History
Imagine that you are a historian in 3035 A.D. You have just located two novels which were written in the twentieth century. What do they tell you about society and customs of the time?
The first is a Bengali novel named Titash Ekti Nadir Naam.
It was a new type of novel. Infact from the 1920s in Bengal new type of novel emerge that depicted lives of peasant and low caste. Advaita Malla Burman’s (1914–51) Titash Ekti Nadir Naam (1956) is an epic about the Mallas, a community of fisherfolk who live off fishing in the river Titash. The novel is about three generations of the Mallas, about their recurring tragedies and the story of Ananta, a child born of parents who were tragically separated after their wedding night. Ananta leaves the community to get educated in the city. The novel describes the community life of the Mallas in great detail, their Holi and Kali Puja festivals, boat races, bhatiali songs, their relationships of friendship and animosity with the peasants and the oppression of the upper castes. Slowly the community breaks up and the Mallas start fighting amongst themselves.
The second novel is Hindi novel:
It is a work of Dhanpat Rai (Prem Chand). A new cultural influences from Godan (The Gift of Cow),published in 1936, remains Prem Chand’s best-known work. It is an epic of the Indian peasantry. The novel tells the moving story of Hori and his wife Dhania, a peasant couple. Landlords, moneylenders, priests and colonial bureaucrats-all those who hold power in society - form a network of oppression, rob their land and make them into landless labourers. Yet Hori and Dhania retain their dignity to the end.
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Novelists in colonial India wrote for a political cause.
Outline the changes in technology and society which led to an increase in the readers of the novel in the eighteenth century Europe.
Write a note on:
The Oriya novel
Write a note on:
Jane Austen's portrayal of women
Write a note on:
The picture of the new middle class which the novel Pariksha-Guru portrays.
Discuss some of the social changes in nineteenth-century Britain which Thomas Hardy and Charles Dickens wrote about.
Summarise the concern in both nineteenth-century Europe and India about women reading novels. What does this suggest about how women were viewed?
In what ways was the novel in colonial India useful for both the colonisers as well as the nationalists?
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.
Describe the ways in which the novel in India attempted to create a sense of pan-Indian belonging.
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