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Tradition v/s Modernity in The Swamp Drellers from DharaVirani

The Black Cat

# SHORT-STORY

# THE BLACK CAT BY EDGAR ALLAN POE

"The Black Cat" is a short story by American writer Edgar Allan Poe. It was first published in the August 19, 1843, edition of The Saturday Evening Post. In the story, an unnamed narrator has a strong affection for pets until he perversely turns to abusing them. 

#About Author

Edgar Allan Poe was an American writer, poet, editor, and literary critic. Poe is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales of mystery and the macabre. He is also generally considered the inventor of the detective fiction genre and is further credited with contributing to the emerging genre of science fiction.Poe was the first well-known American writer to earn a living through writing alone, resulting in a financially difficult life and career.

# The Black Cat

     The Black Cat, short story by Edgar Allan Poe, first published in The Saturday Evening Post in August 1843 and included in the collection Tales by Edgar Allen Poe (1845). The story’s narrator is an animal lover who, as he descends into alcoholism and perverse violence, begins mistreating his wife and his black cat Pluto. When Pluto attacks him in self-defense one night, he seizes the cat in a fury, cuts out one of its eyes, and hangs it. That night a fire destroys his house, leaving him in dire poverty. He later adopts a one-eyed black cat that he finds at a low-life tavern, but after he nearly trips on the cat, he attempts to kill it too. When his wife intervenes, he kills her instead and calmly conceals her in a wall. In the end the black cat reveals the narrator’s crime to the police.

Thank you.... 

Reunion

 

#Reunion – W. St. John Tayleur

W. St. John Tayleur’s one act play ‘Reunion’ brings out successfully how a man changes himself according to the circumstances and become selfish.  In the hour crisis the well trained soldiers decided and promised among them that they should sacrifice their lives for the nation in the process of its rebuilding. Soon after the war, all their promises and moral values were kept aside for their personal growth and development. 

Four friends — George Carter, Reverend Philip Rowlands, Mark Tallis and Peter Ransome — meet in an exclusive West End Hotel to celebrate their ‘Reunion’.  They have come here to meet after ten years to honour their ‘promise’ that they had made to one another as soldiers fighting together in the war. Ten years ago, exactly on this particular day, they (seven soldiers) had fallen in a great risk being surrounded by enemy armies from all sides. There was no hope to escape from the attack of enemy armies. Defeat and death was almost imminent for them.  In that hour of crisis they made a pact: if they survived the war, they would all meet again after ten years to share their experiences and contributions to the society as citizens of the nation. 

The four friends share their experiences of the their intervening years and the audience learn that George Carter is now an important public figure, Mark Tallis has become London’s most successful playwright and Reverend Rowlands has risen in the church as a clergyman. These three persons are well settled except Ransome. Ransome, the youngest among four, is embittered and disheartened with his life, informs them that he is about emigrate to United States in search of an opportunity. In the course of their conversation they wonder whether their other comrades —Sergeant Smith and Colin Grayson have been able to pull through.

Reverend Rowlands recalls Colin Grayson’s sacrifice, after cutting the lowest value of cards according to their agreement, in venturing into enemy territory to save other’s lives. The situation has become very grim and serious when they recall how Grayson had received fatal wounds from the enemy’s bullets and how he had been taken away by them as a prisoner of war. At this juncture, a rather changed looking Grayson makes his entry. All four are startled at Grayson’s appearance. They thought that the Grayson’s appearance is an apparition. After a little while, they believe that Grayson is still alive against their belief of his death in the enemy camp.

Grayson enquires his friends about their lives after the war. His penetrating questions lay bare how their success is a sham, and how they have failed to live up to their ideals. He reveals the shocking truth that George Carter’s corrupt practices, unknown to Carter himself, have led to Sergeant Smith’s suicide. He also exposes how Mark Tallis has compromised his intellectual integrity to win easy fame and popularity. He shows how Reverend Rowlands has abandoned his East Mission and Ransome his motherland.

Finally, he proceeds to make the most startling revelation of all: that he is not Colin Grayson, but the brother of their dead friend. Before succumbing to his injuries in the enemy camp, Colin Grayson had written letter to his brother (John Grayson) about his comrades, their lives and future aspirations, and also directed him to attend the promised ‘Reunion’ in his stead.  The dead Colin Grayson’s brother John Grayson confronts with Colin Grayson’s friends about the futility of Colin’s sacrifice. They have survived the crisis of war on the sacrifice of their friend but dishonoured their friend’s heroism and sacrifice by forsaking their nobler goals for their personal ambitions. At this point John Grayson leaves, hoping that, at least in the future they would be true to their promises, by leaving their personal means and ends. 

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#SHORT-STORY

#THE TIGER SMILED BY JIM CORBETT

#About Author

James Edward "Jim" 'Corbett  (25 July 1875  – 19 April 1955) was a British-Indian hunter and tracker-turned-conservationist, author and naturalist, who hunted a large number of man-eating tigers and leopards in India.

Other famous works:

• Man-Eaters of Kumaon (1944)
• Jungle Stories, Privately published in (1935)
•  The Man-eating Leopard of  Rudraprayag. (1947)

The tiger smiled is a narrative short story of a hunter Jim Corbett. He was hunter and naturalist who had saved lots of villages by killing tigers and leopards. This story is one of his experience of killing one man eater tigress.

The story starts with Jim Corbett and other two companion following the tigress in ravine. He finds nest of nightjar bird. There were two eggs. He takes the eggs because nightjar eggs were missing in his collection.

They go further into ravine. His fellow tells him that did he heard tiger growling? Jim denies but suspect that tigress is following them. Soon they faced the tigress face to face. Jim thoughts it he should act instantly or should he make his move slowly that the tigress do not get alarmed. He points rifle toward tigress with difficulty. He pressed the trigger. The bullet had injured her spine and shattered the upper portion of her heart.

The tigress was killed. They recognises species of the tigress. It was Chowgarh tigress who had killed sixty four people.

They climb over the rocks and go out of ravine. In the party Jim decided to put the eggs in the nest again. He had kept these in his left hand. The story ends Jim describing the mother of the eggs sitting in nest.

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Othello

 OTHELLO BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Othello is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, probably written in 1603. The story revolves around two characters, Othello and Iago. Othello is a Moorish general in the Venetian army charged with the generalship of Venice on the eve of war with the Ottoman Turks over the island of Cyprus. 

#About author

William Shakespeare was an English playwright, poet, and actor, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's greatest dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon". 

#Othello

Iago is furious about being overlooked for promotion and plots to take revenge against his General; Othello, the Moor of Venice. Iago manipulates Othello into believing his wife Desdemona is unfaithful, stirring Othello's jealousy. Othello allows jealousy to consume him, murders Desdemona, and then kills himself.

#Theme of Jealously

Jealousy motivates the central conflicts of Othello: Iago’s resentment of Othello, and Othello’s suspicion of Desdemona. Iago is immediately revealed as a jealous character: in the first scene, he complains that Cassio has been promoted instead of him even though “I am worth no worse a place”. He also later implies that his hatred of Othello is rooted in jealousy, since there are rumors of Othello having slept with Emilia. As Iago explains, even the hint of this possibility enrages him: “I know not if’t be true / But I for mere suspicion in that kind / Will do as if for surety” . It seems that his jealousy is so intense that he does not need proof of this infidelity before punishing Othello for it. Appropriately, Iago decides to seek revenge by using jealousy as a weapon against Othello, “practicing upon his peace and quiet / Even to madness”.Iago knows, perhaps from his own experience, that jealousy is a form of psychological torture which will constantly torment Othello. By making Othello feel the torments of jealousy towards Desdemona and her supposed lover, Iago causes Othello to suffer as much as he does.

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The Hairy Ape

 # THE HAIRY APE

     BY EUGENE O'NEILL

The Hairy Ape is a 1922 expressionist play by American playwright Eugene O'Neill. It is about a beastly, unthinking laborer known as Yank, the protagonist of the play, as he searches for a sense of belonging in a world controlled by the rich.

# About Author

  Eugene O'Neill

Eugene Gladstone O'Neill (October 16, 1888 – November 27, 1953) was an American playwright and Nobel laureate in literature. His poetically titled plays were among the first to introduce into the U.S. the drama techniques of realism earlier associated with Russian playwright. 

#The Hairy Ape

# character Yank

Yank, the protagonist of the play The Hairy Ape, is a humble stoker whose business it is to shovel coal into the furnace of the ship’s engine. For long hours, he has to work in the cramped and low-roofed stokehole. He is beastly, filthy and coarse. He cannot think; he can use only physical force. But he has a sense of identity and sense of belonging to the ship. He is superior to the other stokers in the sense that he is physically more powerful than the rest. He has ape like physical strength and ape, like grossness. 

"I'm a busted Ingersoll, dat's what. Steel was me, and I owned de woild. Now I ain't steel, and de woild owns me. Aw, hell! I can't see—it's all dark, get me? It's all wrong!"

This quotation appears at the conclusion of Scene eight, immediately after Yank has been thrown out of the I.W.W. office. Yank, talking to himself, attempts to negotiate who he is and his personal importance even after being disgraced by The Secretary and the Wobblies. Yank realizes he is no longer as powerful as he once was. He no longer identifies himself as steel, the symbolic metal Yank equates with power, but rather thinks of himself as a busted machine. This quotation also reveals Yank's progression within the play. In Scene one, Yank boasts that he is steel, the muscles and punch behind the power of the ship. However, by the end of Scene Seven, Yank is stripped of this sense of strength and utility. Yank now sees himself as a machine that does not work, he has been exhausted by his efforts to find belonging and purpose and is left as a "busted Ingersoll." The "darkness" he describes is the result of confusion—now that Yank sees himself devoid of function, he cannot see the future or any hope for what's ahead.

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All my Sons

 #ALL MY SONS

    BY ARTHUR MILLER

Joe Keller, a successful businessman, lives comfortably with his wife, Kate, and son, Chris, in a suburban American neighborhood. They have only one sadness in their lives – the loss of their other son, Larry, who went missing in World War II. After three years, Kate still clings to the hope that her son is alive. Chris would like her to give up that hope because he wants to marry Ann, an old neighbor and Larry's former fiancée.

Ann arrives. Kate, sensing the reason for her visit, gets a little touchy. We learn that Ann's father is in prison for a crime he committed while working in Joe's factory. Faced with a batch of defective machine parts, he patched them and sent them out, causing the death of 21 pilots during the war. Turns out that Joe was also accused of this crime and convicted, but he was exonerated (set free) during the appeal. Steve went to prison; Joe returned home and made his business bigger and better.

Soon after Ann's arrival, her brother George follows, straight from visiting his father in prison. He knows what Chris has in mind and is totally against him marrying Ann. Joe and Kate do their best to charm George into submission, but finally it's Ann who sends him away. She wants to marry Chris no matter what.

The marriage of Chris and Ann is becoming a reality – and Kate can't handle it, because it means Larry is truly dead. And if Larry is dead, she tells Chris, it's because his own father killed him, since Larry was also a pilot. Chris finally confronts his father's guilt in shipping those defective parts.

But Chris won't do anything about it. He won't even ask his father to go to prison. Ann, who turned her back on her own father for the same reason, insists that Chris take a hard line. Joe Keller goes inside to get his things. A gunshot is heard. Joe is committed suicide. 

     Through this play, what Arthur Miller want to show us the situation of society in world War II, how corruption or selfishness harm our nation, society or even our own life. And also how the world is behind the World War, and also reflect the central the in title itself "All my sons" Who were die in crashing of plan.

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The Sense of an Ending

Thinking Activity

Hello readers! 

   Welcome to my blog, here I would like to write this blog based on the novel The Sense of an Ending this is also the part of my thinking activity, so let's discuss. 

# The Sense of an Ending

 The Sense of an Ending is a 2011 novel written by British author Julian Barnes. ... The Sense of an Ending is narrated by a retired man named Tony Webster, who recalls how he and his clique met Adrian Finn at school and vowed to remain friends for life.

# Julian Barnes

     Julian Patrick Barnes is an English writer. Barnes won the Man Booker Prize for his book The Sense of an Ending, and three of his earlier books had been shortlisted for the Booker Prize: Flaubert's Parrot, England, England, and Arthur & George. He has also written crime fiction under the pseudonym Dan Kavanagh. 

Do you see any missing block – some dot which is not getting connected with the whole or dot missing to get full sense of the novel - in the plot of this psychological thriller?

          Though this novel " The Sense of an Ending " Is considered as a psychological thriller and the title itself suggest by using the SENSE of an ENDING. So here throughout the novella fill with full of mystery or psychological thriller, as above the question, my answer is that yes there are some dot which is not getting connected with the whole, for instance in between Tony's conversation with Margaret he share his one of affairs type of experience with Annie. Here I have question that what is the significant role if it's not connected with any incident, what is the reason, so that Barnes mention this through Tony. And yes one another thing is that one dot to missing to get full sense of the novel is that getting full sense of the main reason to commit suicide of Adrian, we can't get main or fixed reason, we can only assume that why Adrian commit suicide, so here the dot is missing to get the full sense of the novel.  

         The light of new revelations, how do you read character of Veronica? Instinctive, manipulative, calculating, stubborn, haughty, sacrificial, trustworthy, good Samaritan?

         In this novel the character of Veronica play a vital role, though this character is quite complicated, no one can assume that what is going on inside her mind, I would read this character with the lens of manipulative, stubborn, haughty, sacrificial. From the very beginning of the novel when she is introduced by Tony at that time we can see her as a manipulative not an  instinctive, we can read as a stubborn and haughty, she is not same with everyone, whenever Tony tries to get answer from Veronica, she is not give the answer directly, even after a lot request she is gave the answer, she is haughty but at some point we can considered as sacrificial also because she knows all this things still she take care of his half-brother Adrian in this point we can considered her as sacrificial also. 

#Film adaptation:

Initial release: 10 March 2017 (USA)

Director: Ritesh Batra

Music by: Max Richter

Adapted from: The Sense of an Ending

Cast: Jim Broadbent, Charlotte Rampling, Michelle Dockery, Harriet Walter, Emily Mortimer, more

  After the reading of the original novel ' The Sense of an Ending' and then watching the film adaptation of this novel, I can differentiate in between, the film adaptation is not quite sufficient, because some of the original sense and philosophy, which is depicted by Barnes is not adapted by movie, so it's harms the very soul of the novel. 

Thank you.... 

Self-help culture and Harry Potter

 # Self-help culture and Harry Potter

      The series of this novel we can considered as self- help culture, of course it's considered as children's literature, but there is something, which is teach each and every age group for self-help, each and every character even villainous character also teach alot to develop our self. 

  "IT'S NOT OUR ABILITY WHAT WE ARE. IT IS OUR CHOICES"

                        - Elbus Dumbledore

     Though it's also considered as popular literature, but it's not shallow popular literature it's teach much more to develop and self-help. Here above mention quote teach us major things, by using this we can see that how Harry is different from Voldemort is his choice,it's explained that we have both side good as well as bad but we have to choose to what we have to be. 

Discourse on purity of blood and Harry Potter

 #Discourse on purity of blood and Harry Potter

      

In this novel series " Harry Potter " The concept of  purity of blood is a central, because what we can said is that the conflict between Voldemort and Harry's parents is based on this. In the Wizardry world the concept of purity of blood is central. The concept is generally associated with Salazar Slytherin, one of the founders of Hogwarts school of witchcraft and wizardry, whose aversion to teaching led to a breach with his  three fellow founders, and his resignation from the school. 

        The concept of purity of blood is actually based on, the wizard or witch who came from non magical family is called Mudblood  or Muggles or those who came from the family, parents know the magic is called pure blood. 

Tap on photo to know more about blood concept. 

Here Hermione face many problems because of she is muggle blood, so she is frequently insulted by Draco as he himself belongs from pure blood, and Bellatrix, who also tortured her because of blood concept. 

After the control of Voldemort in Ministery of magic the wizard and witch, who came from muggle family is more tortured and killed in day by day. He want to only remain pure blood in wizardry world. 

Feminist reading of Hermione's character in Harry Potter

 Feminist reading of Hermione's character in Harry Potter

      If we read the character of Hermione with feminist perspective then we can see both positive as well as negative aspects. The character of Hermione is not stereotype of female character she is much more than that, here J. K. Rowling portrait the character of Hermione as very important as well as she is display as very intelligent, brave, fierce and loyal friend. She has wide reading, when difficult time come she always help through her knowledge

     Feminist critics may find more to criticise. Hermione is more capable in 'knowing' things and is capable to repair Harry's specs which can be read as 'she being his eyes/vision, without her, he in not capable to accomplish great deeds.

 However, she is also abused by Draco for being Mudblood / Dirty blood. Even the moanings of Myrtle and her infatuations for Harry may not go well with feminist critics. Most of the children's literature are boy centric. 

the entire concept of Ball and the way pairing happened may give some points of contention. Especially, there is more stress on the physical beauty of girls and macho-image of boys. The dark skinned girls are the last ones to be taken by boys and that too do not carry any sense of pride. The gender and racism underplays very strongly in this sequence. Here Hermione represent as white beuty and Ron has doubt on her with her dance partner, here we can see female as an object. 

   

Harry Potter worksheet & webquest

#Webquest: Harry Potter: Think and Write

#worksheets of Harry Potter

Hello readers! 

Welcome to my blog, as you all know that Harry Potter series is very famous and we definitely watched this movie in our childhood, this movie is based on the novel by J. K. Rowling and this novel is part of my syllabus, and sir has given the task based on this novel and movie, click here to visit sir's blog. 

 

Harry Potter is a series of seven fantasy novels written by British author, J. K. Rowling. The novels chronicle the lives of a young wizard, Harry Potter, and his friends Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley, all of whom are students at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The main story arc concerns Harry's struggle against Lord Voldemort, a dark wizard who intends to become immortal, overthrow the wizard governing body known as the Ministry of Magic and subjugate all wizards and Muggles (non-magical people).

  #Harry Potter Films series

Harry Potter is a film series based on the eponymous novels by J. K. Rowling. The series is distributed by Warner Bros. and consists of eight fantasy films, beginning with Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (2001) and culminating with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 (2011).^[2][3] A spin-off prequel series that will consist of five films started with Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2016), marking the beginning of the Wizarding World shared media franchise.

About Author

J. K. Rowling

To know about J. K. Rowling click here

There are seven book as mention below. 

1) Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone

2) Harry Potter and Chamber of Secret

3) Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

4) Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

5) Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

6) Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

7) Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

   So, after studying and watching this movie we have one worksheet to fill up during and after watching this film, click here to visit my worksheet. 

  Click here to visit our group activity of Webquest 

# Feminist reading of Hermione's character in Harry Potter

# Discourse on Purity of blood and Harry Potter

# Self-help culture and Harry Potter