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17.0 OBJECTIVES
The aim of this unit is to introduce you to the genre of the novel and trace its
aspects. We also aim to familiarize you with the rise of the Indian novel in
English. After studying this unit carefully and completing the exercises, you
will be able to :
outline the development of the novel and its types
recognize its different aspects
know the history of the Indian novel in English, and
trace its development.
17.1 INTRODUCTION
In this Block, we intend to introduce you to the genre of the novel, with
special reference to Shashi Deshpande's The Binding Vine, prescribed in your
course.
The Novel: The
Binding Vine This is an introductory Unit of the Block and we must lead you step by step.
We shall tell you briefly about the novel, its forms and aspects and provide
you the background of the Indian novel in English. The next four units of this
Block will prepare you to analyse Shashi Deshpande's The Binding Vine after
a thorough discussion of the topics related to it.
As we proceed with this unit, we give you suggestions, ask questions to check
your progress and provide answers wherever required. In this way, the block
opens up before you a new vista of a literary text. We suggest that as you read
you make notes, mark important paragraphs and select important stages in the
story. These will come handy at the time of revision.
So, here we go! Let us start with the first thing first and ask, "What is a
novel"?
The novel is a "story", a long, long story but, then it is not a sequence of
stories; it dramatizes life but it is not drama; it is written in prose form but it is
not prose. So how do we define a novel?
1. A novel is written in prose form, but novelists often handle the prose
so delicately that the language acquires lyrical beauty. That is the
reason why many novels are called "poetic".
Before we proceed further, we must also know that the novel is an extended
narrative and distinct from the short story. The short story is more
concentrated and does not have much scope to develop characters and
situations, but a novel has this scope because of its length. A "novelette" or a
"novella" is a narrative between the short story and the novel in length.
In most European literature the word "roman" is used for the novel. "Roman"
.
means "romance." The earlier narratives were associated with the romatic
adventures of the heroes and the heroines. The novel now has achieved a
wider scope and is no longer a "romance", though the term "roman" stays on.
The English name "novel" is derived from the Italian "novella" meaning "a
little new thing".
Let us now ask ourselves two questions: Why clo we read novels? Does the
novel have any relevance to our lived reality? Does it perform any function in
our life?
Primarily we read novels for entertainment and also to learn about life. Novels
provide us insight into the different aspects of human existence, human
psyche, social and familial wlationships and the philosophy of life. We share
the author's experiences and learn from them.
. .
To answer the second question, we turn to the fact that a novel is an artistic
creation of life. Art cannot be didactic, that is, it does not purport to teach
directly. It is for us to learn from it, to derive our lesson. The novel will lose
its charm if it becomes a sermon. It helps us indirectly by extending our
consciousness and making us aware of the immense possibilities of life.
Here are a few questions meant not to 'test you, but to help you check your
understanding of the lesson. Try and answer these in your own words in the
space provided:
......................................................................................
Now that we have defined the novel, let us consider'its aspects. We know that
the novel is a story about some event or person set in a particular place and
time, advanced by the narrative mode. That means the novel must be having
some important elements to keep the interest of the readers alive and, to make
the story appealing and real. What are they? How can we find them? What is
their significance?
Let us, first of all make it clear that an author writes his noveVstory intuitively.
For him or her, aspects as such are not important. As readers and scholars, we
find the aspects important to analyse a work. Secondly, aspects are ingrained
in a work and we can discuss them but we cannot divide a novel according tal
them; that will be like cutting it into pieces. We must look at a work as a General Introduction
whole to enjoy it. to the Indian English
Novel
If we have to enjoy a work as a whole, then why should we separate its
various components? This we do for the purpose of analysis. If we like a
novel, we appreciate it either for its theme or characters or maybe its'
narrative technique. That's why, it is necessary for us to familiarize ourselves
with: theme, plot, characterization, point of view, place and time, narrative
technique, style and structure.
17.3.1 Theme
The theme is the central idea of a novel. Every novel is based on a theme or
themes. The theme is an arjiyment or an issue on which the story revolves. It
is not plot, nor is it the story. A novelist does not, however, say, "this is my
theme and I am going to write a story." Instead, an idea comes to the mind, it
germinates like a seed, and a story with plot and characters is woven around it.
17.3.2 Plot
Plot is the framework of the story. It has a beginning, a middle and an end. It
advances with the help of characters, events and actions. A novel may have a
plot and sub-plot. But these two do not run separately. At some point, they are
inter-linked with the main theme. Let us take an example from drama. In
Shakespeare's King Lear the main plot is about King Lear and his three
daughters' behaviour and the sub-plot is about the Earl of Gloucester and his
two sons' attitude towards their father. At the thematic level, they are joined
because in both, the theme of filial love and filial ingratitude is at work. Now,
let us take an example from the novel The Binding Vine. The main plot is
about Urmi's grief at the death of her little daughter but the sub-plots are
about Mira and Kalpana and these are linked by the themes of human
relationships and death.
Thus, we see that the plot in a narrative work is the structure of its actions, as
these are ordered towards achieving an artistic effect. Since actions are
performed by a character or characters, plot and character are interdependent.
Let us remember, plot is not the summary of a work. When we summarize a
work, we give the story in a sequence but in a plot, the story is arranged and
re-arranged according to the mode of the narrative.
17.3.3 Characterization
Let us first understand that characters are the persons in a novel or a story who
are given some moral or dispositional qualities by the writer, which they
reveal through their actions. How these persons act, react, learn from their
life-situations and how they change, constitutes the art of characterization. If a
character moves us and remains inmour memory, we say that the
characterization is powerful. Oliver Twist in Charles Dicken's novel Oliver
Twist, or Hardy's Tess in Tess of the D'urbervilles are memorable characters.
A character grows slowly with the story and as we read on we start
understanding him or her. We even become one with them and participate at
an emotional level with the ups and downs of their fortunes. Herein lies the
su~cessof the art of characterization.
The Novel: The In Aspects of the Novel E.M. Forster gives us the new terms flat and round
Binding Vine characters. A flat character is built round a "single idea or quality" and is not
much individualized, whereas a round character is complex in temperament
and $rows like a real-life person. In characterization, a novelist may use the
method of "telling", or "showing". In "telling" the author describes the
character and evaluates hisher action. This is called authorial intrusion. In
"showing", the author only presents the character and lets himher reveal
hisher motives by actions, reactions, and dialogue.
This means the way a story is told. It is the perspective through which the
author presents hisher characters, controls their action and the events. There
are &any different ways of narrating the story. A character may tell his tale in
the first person. This is called first person narration. We must keep in mind
here that helshe is the fictional persona through whom the story is told. It is
not the author who is speaking; helshe is believed to be speaking. The first
person narrator recounts his experiences placing himself as "I". He is the main
witness to the events of his life. On the other hand, the third person narrator
provides an omniscient point of view. He knows everything that is to take
place in the story and he is the agent who describes and controls actions,
motives and thoughts.
Let us first think of the place. A novelist need not specifically mention the
name of the place but the setting, the background and such other details
provide ample clues to a generalized idea of place. In Shashi Deshpande's
novel The Binding Vine, the city or town is not described but it is mentioned
twice. R.K. Narayan's Malgudi has likeness to Mysore, in many ways. In
some novels, the author uses place to give cultural base to the story; in some
novels it acquires far-reaching significance; in some others it creates
atmosphere, and in still others place has its own character. In Khushwant
Singh's elh hi, the city is the protagonist, in R.K. Narayan's Malgudi novels,
the tradition and culture i s influenced through place. In the Gothic novels,
place is used to create the atmosphere of horror.
Time means two things: clock-time and psychological time. Clock-time is a General Introduction
measure to determine time in terms of duration-hours, days, weeks and to the Indian English
Novel
years. Psychological time has no relation to clock-time; it is experienced by
the individual and is subjective. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries,
!
the novelists preferred to set the story within a chronologically determined
, time. For example, the novel started with the childhood or the
girlhoodhoyhood of a character and ended at some particular stage in herhis
life. The time-sense was simple. But, with the emergence of the stream-of-
consciousness novel, the novelists started using psychological time.
Psychological time shifts constantly from the past to the present and to the
future. In Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things, time shifts so rapidly
that it is difficult to determine the sequence of events. In The Binding Vine
also the time cannot be fixed. Novelists who make use of the psychological
time to narrate their story take the help of techniques such as flashback,
dreams and fantasies.
17.3.7 Style
. A popular saying is "style is the man". It means, each writer has hisher own
style. What do we mean by style and how do we analyse the style of a
particular author? Style means the manner in which the author tells hisher
story in terms of language and expression. Thus, style is determined by
diction, or choice of words, sentence structure, syntax and the use of figurative
language. The characters, situations and events are revealed through the use of
language. An author has to be careful in hisher choice of language because it
k must suit the character. For example, in Nectar in a Sieve, Kamala
Markandaya sometimes gives high sounding philosophical language to
Rukrnani, the simple, semi-literate farmer woman, which critics find
unrealistic. The problem of style is more acute for the Indian writer in English.
While depicting the rural people, the workers and the farmers, they have to
use Indian expressions to give the characters a realistic touch. This sometimes
changes the English expression to particularly "native" expression. Mulk Raj
Anand used it freely and he called it "pigeon" English.
We now know what is a novel and also its various aspects. Let us understand
that the novel has many forms or types. T6e novel in England from which we
trace the beginning of the Indian novel has many types. We shall get to these
in brief because we might require this knowledge at some stage in our
discussion
The Historical novel takes its setting and some of its characters and events
from history. Sir Walter Scott brought this type into prominence with his
Ivanhoe (18 19). In Indian English fiction Manohar Malgonkar's The Devil's
Wind (1972), and Bhagwan S. Gidwani's The Sword of Tipu Sultan (1976)
are good examples of fiction based on Indian history. But, the historical novel
need not be set wholly in a particular period. A historical event of great
magnitude can be taken up to show its aftermath as in Midnight's Children by
Salman Rushdie.
The Regional novel is set in a particular geographical region and deals with
the life and society of that particular area. A regional novelist usually sets his
novel in a specific area like Thomas Hardy's 'Wessex' (a fictional name given
by him to the south-west area of England) or R.K.Narayan's Malgudi (an
imaginary town in South India).
We have discussed some of the common types of novels. There are many
more types and subtypes that have emerged with time like the diasporic novel,
feminist novel, existential or metaphysical novel. Besides, we have various
literary movements and theories that have given rise io different forms like
Post-modemism, Post-colonialism, naturalism, realism and so on. Let us be
clear, however, that a work of fiction has many influences working within or
without. A writer does not write keeping in mind any theory or "ism". We, the
readers, critics and scholars, group the works according to some particular
trend or setting, such as the literature written by the authors belonging to India
but being written in English is Indian English Literature. Moreover, we
cannot put a novel in any one frame and brand it as a psychological novel or
Meta-fiction or a feminist novel. A work of art transcends all limits and can be
interpreted from various angles. Shashi Deshpande's novel The Binding Vine .
has been studied by scholars as a feminist novel, as a sociological novel, as a
psychological novel and so on. Such interpretations give us a broad base and
show the strength of the writer's art.
The Novel: The Check Your Progress 3
Binding Vine
1. What do you understand by the Gothic novel? Outline some of its
major elements.
A B
(i) Virginia Woolf (a) R.K. Narayan
(ii) Picaresque novel (b) Stream-of-Consciousness Technique
(iii) Ann Radcliffe (c) Historical novel
(iv) Malgudi (d) Don Quixote
(v) The Devil's Wind (e) The Mysteries of Udolpho
When Indians started using the English language creatively there were critics
who felt that since English was not our native tongue, this writing did "not
belong to the soil." But, scholars like K.R. Srinivasa Iyengar and C.D.
Narasimhaiah spotted great potential in it. Iyenger's books Indo-Angliun
Literature, (1943) and The Indian Contribution to English Literature, (1945)
gave credibility to Indian writing in English. His Indian Writing in English
(1962) was the first comprehensive history of this literature. C.D.
Narasimhaiah categorically stated in his The Swan and the Eagle (1969),
"Indian writing in English is to me primarily part of the literature of India." General Introduction
According to him so long as the "operative sensibility" is Indian, the writing is to the Indian English
Novel
Indian writing.
Another important question was to give some name to this writing. In the early
decades it was called "Anglo-Indian" writing, to cover all writing in English
about India, whether by Indians or Europeans. This umbrella term did not fit
well to the Indian setting. K.R. Srinivasa Iyengar's book Indo-Anglian
Literature gave it a distinct name and the literature written in English by
Indians came to be known as Indo-Anglian Literature. Later, it was called
Indian Writing in English and now the popular term is Indian English
Literature. The Sahitya Akademi, which has published histories of Hindi
Literature, Malayalam Literature etc., has a History of Indian English
Literature (1980) written by M.K. Naik.
Similarly, dramas, epics, lyrics and poetry have existed here since centuries.
We know of Kalidasa and Bhavabhuti; we are aware of the Ramayana and the
Mahabharata; and we have enjoyed the lilting Sanskrit lyrics, and the regional
language poetry. All this forms the rich corpus of our literature. However, the
novel in India came in at a much later stage. In fact, it emerged only after the
introduction of English in the Indian educational pattern. Inspired by the
English novel, Indians too, experimented with this genre in the regional
languages. Some of these Indian novels were translated into English but later
some authors took to writing orighally in English.
..
The novel came into existence in India in the second half of the' nineteenth
century. Indians started writing fiction in the Indian regional languages as
well as in English. Members of the Dutt family (who published their poetry in
The Dutt Family Album, 1870) are credited with writing the earliest Indian
English fiction: Kylas Chunder Dutt's !'A Journal of Forty-Eight Hours of the
Year 1945" was published in the Calcutta Literary Gazette in 1835, while
Shoshee Chunder Dutt's "The Republic of Orissa: A Page from the Annals of
the 20" Century" was published in 1845. Bankim Chandra Chatterjee's first
novel, Rajmohan's Wife (1864), is the first full length Indian novel in English.
He then took up writing in his mother tongue, and all his other novels are
written in Bangla. Other early novels written in English include La1 Behari
Day's Govinda Samanta; or, The History of a Bengal Raiyat (1874) and
Shoshee Chunder Dutt's The Young Zemindar (1883). Tom Dutt, better
known as a poet, can be considered the first woman novelist - her $nfinished
novel, Bianca, or the Young Spanish Maiden was published after her death as
a serial in Bengal Magazine in 1879. Other early women novelists include
Krupabai Satthianadhan (1862-94), who authored two novels, Kamala (1894)
and Saguna (1895), and Shevantibai M. Nikambe (Ratanbai: A Sketch of a
Bombay High Caste Hindu Young Wife, 1895). A. Madhaviah was a bilingual
writer, credited with pioneering the novel in Tamil; Thillai Govindlin (1903),
The Novel: The the first of the four novels he wrote in English, has an autobiographical touch.
Binding Vine Mirza Moorad Ali Beg's Lulun, the Beragan, or, The Battle of Panipat (1884),
Joginder Singh's Nur Jehan (1909) and Madhaviah's Clarinda (1915) are
historical novels, while S. M. Mitra's Hindupore: A Peep Behind the Indian
Unrest (1909) and S.K. Ghosh's The Prince of Destiny (1909), focus on the
theme of east-west encounter.
In the early decades of the twentieth century, the number of those writing in
English increased rapidly. The children's writer Dhan Gopal Mukerji's only
novel for adults, My Brother's Face (1924), is the first expression in fiction of
the quest for identity, a theme that has concerned many later Indian novelists.
K.S. Venkataramani's Murugan the Tiller and Kandan the Patriot were
published in 1927 and 1932 respectively. Slowly, the Indian English novel
started taking root. However, it was only after the emergence of the Big Threle
that the Indian novel drew the attention of critics and scholars. The big three
were -Mulk Raj Anand, Raja Rao and R.K. Narayan.
The development of the Indian novel in English was initially weak arid
hesitant. It was not technically strong, nor innovative. According to
Meenakshi Mukherjee "Traces of both, the prescribed novels and the
Victorian pulp can be found in a curious amalgam in the early novels in tlhe
Indian languages." H.M. Williams, another critic felt that the history of the
Indian English novel was a "development from poetry to prose and from
romantic idealization to various kinds of realism and symbolism." In the
1920's up till the 1940's India was witness to a turbulent period in her
history. The novelists found different themes for their stories like the freedom
struggle, Gandhian ideology and its impact on society, need for social reforms,
eradication of social evils, India's modem destiny, the Partition, the
emergence of the new urban India, the problems of rural India and so on.
When we look at the novel from this angle, we find rich material having
socio-cultural relevance.
By the late 1950's and early 1960's the second-generation writers came up.
Writers like Nayantara Sahgal, Manohar Malgonkar, Khushwant Singh and
Bhabani Bhattacharya gave new direction to fiction. They started dealing with
new subjects. Nayantara Sahgal took up the political theme, while Malgonkar
gave a historical perspective. Arun Joshi and Anita Desai ushered in the era of
psychological fiction. By the 1980's the novel had matured sufficiently in
themes, use of language, style and technique. Now we have writers llike
Salman Rushdie, Rohinton Mistry, Arnitav Ghosh, Shashi Tharoor, Arundhati
Roy, Vikram Seth, Shashi Deshpande and many others who have earned name General Introduction
and fame. to the In& English
Novel
17.5.3 Women's Writing
I
Let us make it clear here that women writers usually object to being slotted
I under "women's writing". They feel that they should be considered
mainstream writers. Another point that needs clarification, is that all women
are not feminist writers. They write about women's issues because being
women they understand the problems of women which they project in their
works. Shashi Deshpande also says in her interviews that she does not see
herself as a "feminist". Writing is spontaneous and should not be segregated
on a male-female basis.
Shashi Deshpane
Shashi Deshpande started writing when she was almost in her forties. Her
short novels I f I Die Today and Come up and Be Dead are crime novels and
can be called fiction for teenagers. But, these two are not her representative
works. She is a serious writer. She selects her themes carefully, weaves her
plot around them and creates convincing characters. All her novels have
wonien protagonists. The male characters stand on the periphery though they
are iignificant for the story. Generally, she creates a family atmosphere to
show her characters' conflicts, anger and frustrations. A time comes when
they seem to be too unhappy to cope with life. And then somehow, they
unddrstand the deeper meaning of existence, they learn from life's
experiences, and finally tHey reconcile. This reconciliation gives optimism to
her novels. Her characters do not break away from the family, they maintain
family ties and feel secure. As readers we also realize how important it is to
live in a relationship. One cannot just break these ties that bind us to life. General Introduction
Shashi Deshpande portrays people from the educated, middle class of modem to the Indian English
Novel
urban areas. The novels are set in big towns. Sometimes the town is
mentioned; sometimes it is left to our imagination. Her works probe the
innermost workings of the human psyche; they also provide corn~~~entary on
the changing social norms and show the meaning of life.
Deshpande writes about the region and the regional culture she knows the
best. Her characters belong to Maharashtrian middle-class Brahmin culture
and some belong to the Kannada culture as in A Matter of Time. Without
commenting on the strength and weakness of any particular value-system,
Deshpande lays it thread-bare before us. It is for us, as readers. to see how the
individual man or woman suffers, falls and stands again, despite the problems.
. Who first used the name Indo-Anglian writing for Indian writing in
English? What was the title of the book?
.....................................................................................
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Give the full name of Toru Dutt's novel.
.....................................................................................
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Give the names of the two novels written by Krupabai Satthianadhan.
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Who were the Big Three? Write one line each on their specific style.
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Give the names of some of the contemporary Indian English women
novelists.
Name the novelist and the novel that won the Booker Prize in 1997.
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'Qe Novel: The 17.7 GLOSSARY
n w h g vine
diasporic Novel: it gets its name from the Greek word "diaspora"
meaning to scatter. Disaporic novel is the fiction
written by Immigrant Indians i.e. those settled abroad.
Salman Rushdie, Bharati Mukherjee, Gita Mehta are
diasporic novelists.
After going through the unit you may like to know more about the novel as a
genre or you may like to read some works. Here are a few that you may find
interesting.
-
Manohar Malgonkar. Devil's Wind. New Delhi: Penguin, 1985.
Meenakshi Mukherjee. Twice Bom Fiction. 2nd Edn. New Delhi: Pencraft
International 200 1.
1. You can look up 17.3.2 discussing Plot. This section is exhaustive and
you can base you answer on the points given there.
2. A story can be told in first person narration or in third person narration.
The first person narrator tells the story as 'I7. This 'I' is not the author.
Helshe is a distinct character and is called the "Persona". The third
person narrator can be "reliable" or "unreliable".
3. Clock-time is a measure of time in terms of duration-hours, days,
weeks months, years. Psychological time is not measured by its
duration but by individual experience. It is subjective. Anita Desai,
Shashi Deshpande, Arundhati Roy use psychological time.
4. It is Delhi by Khushwant Singh.
1. The Gothic novel takes its name from Goths, a Germanic tribe. This
style of novel has supernatural elements in it, with ghosts and haunted
houses and spirits. They evoke fear and horror.
2. Epistolary novel derives its name from "epistle" meaning a letter. This
type of novel is written i n m e form of letters. The story advances
through the exchange of letters between the main character and the
others. This type became popular with Samuel Richardsons' Pamela
and Clarissa.
3. Key (i)=b; (ii)=d; (iii)=e; (iv)=a; (v)=c