colonial non fiction prose and essays

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Colonial writing in north america.

• John Gatta John Gatta Sewanee: The University of the South
• https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190201098.013.553
• Published online: 26 September 2017
• This version: 25 June 2018
• Previous version

No longer viewed as mere prologue to the emergence of authentic American literature, colonial writing displays a fertile diversity of literary styles, genres, and linguistic traditions. Yet its array of expressive forms differs markedly from that which latter-day readers of short stories, novels, and plays usually expect “literature” to look like. Colonial writers, not motivated by ambition to create art for art’s sake, penned instead a multitude of sermons, treatises, chronicles, histories, letters, conversion narratives, political pronouncements, slave and captivity narratives, travel reports, and promotional tracts. Such works of creative nonfiction continue to deserve attention today—not only for what they reveal about the formative cultural mythology of the American nation but also because of the rhetorical artistry invested in compositions as varied as William Bradford’s History of Plymouth Plantation , Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiography , or Thomas Jefferson’s draft version of the Declaration of Independence. The imaginative intensity of writing by colonial New Englanders such as Jonathan Edwards, together with those symbols and modes of discourse made mythic by leading Massachusetts Puritans, have left an enduring imprint on American consciousness.

In one traditional genre of literature, that of poetry, the output of colonial New Englanders was impressively prolific. Especially noteworthy is the corpus of devotional poems left us by Anne Bradstreet and Edward Taylor. Taylor’s poetic meditations, unpublished until the modern era, display remarkable wit, exuberance, and artistry. And Bradstreet’s long verse-reflection titled “Contemplations” warrants recognition as the first poem to record a sustained, appreciative response to outdoor experience in British North America.

Yet even within the context of British-dominated settlements, the sensibility of colonial writing was scarcely monolithic. It reflects the expression not only of Puritan New Englanders but also of Anglicans, Pennsylvania Quakers, Deists, Southern planters, political revolutionaries, traders, explorers, and worldly adventurers. Increasingly, too, scholarship has begun to recognize that North America’s pluralistic literary heritage from this period includes writing in languages other than English, from New Spain and New France, as well as mediated transcripts of indigenous oral traditions. Moreover, in the light of present-day interest in “green” and gender-linked themes, works such as William Bartram’s nature-suffused Travels through Southern climes, or Mary Rowlandson’s Narrative of her captivity and restoration, have drawn renewed attention.

• colonial devotional poetry
• nature writing in colonial America
• political writing on the verge of Revolution
• William Bradford
• Thomas Morton
• Edward Taylor
• Anne Bradstreet
• William Bartram
• Ben Franklin
• Thomas Jefferson

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date: 27 June 2024

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Sara D. Luttfring

Associate professor of english, english 434: american nonfiction prose, pre-1945.

History of English and American Literature

Thursday, may 15, 2014, colonial (iida, jasmin, ella).

Importanc e Today

• http://www2.uncp.edu/home/canada/work/allam/16071783/history/history.htm
• http://www.americaslibrary.gov/jb/colonial/jb_colonial_subj.html
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonial_history_of_the_United_States
• http://www.let.rug.nl/usa/outlines/history-1954/the-colonial-period.php
• http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/American_Literature/Colonial_Period_(1620s-1776)
• http://www2.uncp.edu/home/canada/work/allam/16071783/lit/
• http://www.ehow.com/list_7866574_characteristics-colonial-american-literature.html
• https://www3.nd.edu/~rbarger/www7/puritans.html
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salem_witch_trials
• http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-3401800644.html
• http://www.earlyamerica.com/earlyamerica/firsts/newspaper/
• http://www.colonialwarsct.org/1637.htm
• http://historyofmassachusetts.org/slavery-in-massachusetts/
• http://www.fi.edu/franklin/
• http://www.history.com/topics/native-american-history/king-philips-war
• http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-love-letter-to-her-husband/
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Great_Awakening#American_colonies
• http://www.kellscraft.com/EventsBoston/EventsBoston16.html
• http://history.state.gov/milestones/1750-1775/french-indian-war
• http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_and_Indian_War
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Tea_Party
• http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Declaration_of_Independence
• http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Revolutionary_War
• http://www.northescambia.com/2012/06/flag-day-a-betsy-ross-history-lesson
• http://annebradstreet.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/anne-cover-citizen060.jpg
• http://tmgdigitalmarketingsolutions.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/357px-Boston_News-Letter_first_issue1.jpeg

6 comments:

Text is very blog like and the tone is nicely cheerful which makes it more interesting and easy to process. Great information but the use of bullet points is a bit too formal. Nice pictures and nice layout. :) - Rita, Sandra and BORBALA

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YFauyUkExnT7CNv7E4rGqby_OFILB2Dnnp6SnKpMj5U/edit Here is a link to the notes I had of the historical context. -Jasmin

Can this be added to the actual post?

We really like this post! Its clear and has sufficient information, is well structured, and has nice pictures! Well done!<3 With love: Saga & Déjà

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ENG 231 - American Literature I: Colonial Literature

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Salem Witch Trials

Colonial america.

The Colonial Period covers a time period beginning with the foundation of the colonies, the first being Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607, and ends with the beginning of the Revolutionary War. Thirteen British colonies were established and could be divided into three geographic areas: New England, Middle, and Southern. Each colony had specific economic, social, and political developments that were unique to the regions.  However, all colonies were governed by the British and there was little diviation from European literary styles until the early Americans began to become their owe people. 

Major Themes:

• will and work
• relationship between humans and nature
• differences between European and Native American culture
• spiritual feelings
• entertainment

• Web Resources for Early American Literature: A Beginning
• American-Literature: Colonial Period Infoplease
• Early American and Colonial Period to 1776
• The Colonial Period The Literature Network
• American Literature Colonial to 1800 Libguide

• "Cases of Conscience Concerning Evil Spirits Personating Men" Written in 1692 by Cotton Mather's father, Increase Mather, In "Cases of Conscience concerning Evil Spirits Personating Men," Mather calls into doubt spectral evidence (the visions of witches seen by victims during their torments). The next year the sermon was printed in book form, and the preface reproduced below bore the signatures of no fewer than fourteen prominent Boston ministers.
• Confession before Joseph Herrick The following document is the confession of Tituba, the slave woman of Reverend Samuel Parris. She is eternally linked with the story of the Salem witch trials as her testimony is the foundation of the hysteria that spread like wildfire throughout Salem and the neighboring areas. Although she maintained she was not harmed by the authorities, it later turned out that Parris had beaten the confession out of her.
• Jury Apology in the Salem Witch Trials After the Salem witch trials wound down in late 1692, many expressed a sense that the "witch hunt" had gotten out of hand. The jury in the trials published a signed letter of apology asking forgiveness for its role in the affair. Following is a transcript of that letter:
• Accused Witch Margaret Jacobs Recants Her Confession to Being a Witch (Excerpt) Accused witches who confessed and testified against other accused witches were spared execution during the Salem witch trials of 1692. One such person who chose to confess was Margaret Jacobs, who also testified that her grandfather, George Jacobs Sr., was a witch. Jacobs later tried to recant her confession and her testimony about her grandfather.
• Salem Arrest Warrant Arrest warrant dated April 4, 1692, for Elizabeth Proctor and Sarah Cloyce, both accused of witchcraft during the Salem witch trials.
• Reverend Hale's Modest Enquiry into Why the Witchcraft Trials Went so Far (Excerpt) In 1697, Reverend John Hale published A Modest Enquiry into the Nature of Witchcraft, in which he concluded that the 1692 Salem witch trials had been conducted in error. In the following excerpt, he sought to answer the question, "How doth it appear that there was a going too far in this affair?":
• Letters of Governor Phips Two letters written by Sir William Phips, royal governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony during the Salem witch trials.

Anne Bradstreet

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The 17th century

• The new nation
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This history of American literature begins with the arrival of English-speaking Europeans in what would become the United States. At first American literature was naturally a colonial literature, by authors who were Englishmen and who thought and wrote as such. John Smith , a soldier of fortune, is credited with initiating American literature. His chief books included A True Relation of…Virginia… (1608) and The Generall Historie of Virginia, New England, and the Summer Isles (1624). Although these volumes often glorified their author , they were avowedly written to explain colonizing opportunities to Englishmen. In time, each colony was similarly described: Daniel Denton’s Brief Description of New York (1670), William Penn ’s Brief Account of the Province of Pennsylvania (1682), and Thomas Ashe’s Carolina (1682) were only a few of many works praising America as a land of economic promise.

Such writers acknowledged British allegiance , but others stressed the differences of opinion that spurred the colonists to leave their homeland. More important, they argued questions of government involving the relationship between church and state . The attitude that most authors attacked was jauntily set forth by Nathaniel Ward of Massachusetts Bay in The Simple Cobler of Aggawam in America (1647). Ward amusingly defended the status quo and railed at colonists who sponsored newfangled notions. A variety of counterarguments to such a conservative view were published. John Winthrop ’s Journal (written 1630–49) told sympathetically of the attempt of Massachusetts Bay Colony to form a theocracy—a state with God at its head and with its laws based upon the Bible . Later defenders of the theocratic ideal were Increase Mather and his son Cotton . William Bradford ’s History of Plymouth Plantation (through 1646) showed how his pilgrim Separatists broke completely with Anglicanism. Even more radical than Bradford was Roger Williams , who, in a series of controversial pamphlets, advocated not only the separation of church and state but also the vesting of power in the people and the tolerance of different religious beliefs.

The utilitarian writings of the 17th century included biographies, treatises , accounts of voyages, and sermons. There were few achievements in drama or fiction , since there was a widespread prejudice against these forms. Bad but popular poetry appeared in the Bay Psalm Book of 1640 and in Michael Wigglesworth ’s summary in doggerel verse of Calvinistic belief, The Day of Doom (1662). There was some poetry, at least, of a higher order. Anne Bradstreet of Massachusetts wrote some lyrics published in The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America (1650), which movingly conveyed her feelings concerning religion and her family. Ranked still higher by modern critics is a poet whose works were not discovered and published until 1939: Edward Taylor , an English-born minister and physician who lived in Boston and Westfield, Massachusetts. Less touched by gloom than the typical Puritan, Taylor wrote lyrics that showed his delight in Christian belief and experience.

All 17th-century American writings were in the manner of British writings of the same period. John Smith wrote in the tradition of geographic literature, Bradford echoed the cadences of the King James Bible , while the Mathers and Roger Williams wrote bejeweled prose typical of the day. Anne Bradstreet’s poetic style derived from a long line of British poets, including Spenser and Sidney, while Taylor was in the tradition of such Metaphysical poet s as George Herbert and John Donne . Both the content and form of the literature of this first century in America were thus markedly English.

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• > The Cambridge Companion to Native American Literature
• > Non-fiction prose

Book contents

• Frontmatter
• Introduction
• Part I Historical and cultural contexts
• Part II Genre contexts
• 4 Non-fiction prose
• 5 Native American life writing
• 6 America’s indigenous poetry
• 7 Pre-1968 fiction
• 9 American Indian theatre
• Part III Individual authors
• Bio-bibliographies
• Further reading
• Series List

4 - Non-fiction prose

from Part II - Genre contexts

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 May 2006

Much of what has been written about American Indian literature so far generates the false impression that its beginnings date back to the 1960s and that poetry and fiction are its predominant genres. The literary potential of American Indian “legendary materials” has been recognized since the publication of Henry Rowe Schoolcraft's Algic Researches (1839) and Longfellow's Hiawatha (1855). Consequently, Euro-American readers have been more inclined to welcome the fusion of traditional storytelling and creative writing than to give up the common belief that there is an unbridgeable gap between expository writing and orally transmitted knowledge. English non-fiction prose produced by American Indians has received relatively little critical attention so far because “the keeping of written records” ( Webster's ) continues to be regarded as the essential distinction between civilization and primal oral societies. We are obviously much more familiar with the farewell orations attributed to Logan and Seattle than the countless letters, petitions, and tracts penned by acculturated Indian leaders seeking to affirm native rights to a prosperous future in America. Nonetheless, non-fiction prose has fully dominated American Indian letters since at least the second half of the eighteenth century. If one is also prepared to accept newspapers as a legitimate forum for literary production, then it continues to do so today. This essay focuses on the following fluid categories of non-fiction prose literature: evangelist, council, periodical, political, humorous, historical, and contemplative (see also the separate section on autobiographies in this book).

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• Non-fiction prose
• By Bernd Peyer
• Edited by Joy Porter , University of Wales, Swansea , Kenneth M. Roemer , University of Texas, Arlington
• Book: The Cambridge Companion to Native American Literature
• Online publication: 28 May 2006
• Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CCOL0521822831.005

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ENGL 347 A: Studies in Non-Fiction Prose

If you have confirmed or suspected COVID-19: please notify the UW Environmental Health & Safety COVID-19 Response Team at  [email protected] , or call 206.616.3344. Then please contact me by email so we can get a plan in place.

If owing to quarantine you have to miss meeting classes in person,

1. Please contact a class member by email or carrier pigeon to get notes for the classes. Each of you may be called on to share your notes with others. Thank you in advance for establishing and honoring community.

2. You will need to do a viva voce for the missed material, in order to demonstrate your engagement with the material; this will count toward the "Discussion" element of the course grade. See "How to do a Viva Voce " i n "Files."

Face coverings are required indoors at UW. In keeping with the official “University of Washington Face Covering Policy” (updated 22 Sept 2021), fully vaccinated faculty may remove face coverings while lecturing, in the service of audibility. As required by this policy I will at these times maintain 6’ distance from others; please assist me in so doing.

Professor Burstein [email protected]

Engl 347A Nonfiction Prose: The Essay          Autumn 2021        T/Th 2:30-4:20. Loew 106.

Office hours: Fridays 8-10 am, Zoom, link TBA.

The course reader is now available at Rams Copy Center on The Ave. Note its new address: 

The class will be reading material containing explicit sexual language; explicit references to violence and self-harm; the use of racially demeaning terms; and misogynist language. Alongside a commitment to anti-racist pedagogy, I adopt Dr. Koritha Mitchell’s pedagogical practice: “The N-word is not uttered in my classes, even if it appears in the reading. We simply say N or N ’s when reading passages aloud.”   http://www.korithamitchell.com/teaching-and-the-n-word/ (Links to an external site.) https://soundcloud.com/c19podcast/nword

Week One Start

Thursday 30 October Introduction, Introductions

Week Two Examples

Tuesday 5 October

1) Donna Steiner, “Elements of the Wind” (2009) (8 pages).* Instructions are found in the first “comment” in the PDF.

2) Zadie Smith, “North West London Blues”* (5 pp)

3) O’Farrell, “All Hail the Holy Bone”* (2018) (14 pp)

Thursday 7 October Single paragraph #1 due

4) Namwali Serpell, “Unbothered: On Black Nonchalance” (23 pp). Here's the link , supplying images and videos.  [The eversion  in Files also has some notes]

And here's a link to the piece by Ashon Crawley that Serpell refers to on Serpell, p. 60: It has links to the Clark Sisters' (wonderful) work and performances--and it's important to continue to see [and hear] what "style" looks like for Serpell. https://www.npr.org/2020/09/10/911043651/twinkie-clark-sisters-gospel-church-women-black-lives

5) Alaine Locke, “Enter the New Negro”* (1925) (6 pp)

Week Three “ Notes”

Tuesday 12 Oct 

Namwali Serpell, “Unbothered: On Black Nonchalance” (23 pp). Here's the link , supplying images and videos.  [The eversion  in Files also has some notes]

6) Sontag, “Notes On Camp”* (1964) (15 pp.)

Now moved to Tuesday 19 October: 7) Carson, “Every Exit is an Entrance (A Praise of Sleep)”* (17 pp)

Thursday 14 Oct 

8) Serpell, “Notes on Shade”* (2021) 29 pp. There’s a hard copy version (and one in Canvas/Files) but supplement it with the e-version for embedded videos: https://post45.org/2021/01/serpell-notes-on-shade/

Week Four On Writing

Tuesday 19 Oct Single paragraph # 2 due

7) Carson, “Every Exit is an Entrance (A Praise of Sleep)”* (17 pp)

9) Davis, “Revising One Sentence”* (7 pp.)

10) Didion “Why I Write” (1976)* (4 pp) 

11) Didion, “On Keeping a Notebook”* (6 pp)

12) Hilton Als, “Forward” from Didion, Let Me Tell You What I Mean (2021)* (34 pp.)

13) Didion, “On Being Unchosen By the College of One’s Choice” from Didion, Let Me Tell You What I Mean* (2021; 1968)

Thursday 21 Oct: On the writing of others (i.e. reviews):

14) Galchen, “A Mystery to Itself: What is a Brain?”* (8 pp.)

15) Stevens, “Yo Ho Hum”* (1 pg)

16) Wolcott, “Smugged By Reality”*  (5 pp) (2007)

Week Five   Theory

Tuesday 26 Oct Single paragraph #3 due on Adorno

17) Adorno, “The Essay as Form”* (1958, trans. 1984) (22 pp.) Read instructions in the comment I posted on page one of the Eversion in Canvas “Files”: they include how to read it. This is the toughest thing you’ll read in this class, so please don’t panic, or do so only briefly. Today we will focus on the first half: pp. 151-161 (through to the section break).

Thursday 28 Oct [Halloween class]   Adorno, con’t (2 nd half: pp. 161- end). Boo.

Week Six  Theories

Tuesday 2 Nov: Adorno, con't

Thursday 4 Nov

18) David Foster Wallace, first 2 pages of syllabus for creative nonfiction class.* (1.5 pp.)

19) Margo Jefferson, “The Life of the Mind in Close Up”* (1 p)

20) D’Ambrosio, “By Way of a Preface” (4 pages)*

21) Shields, from Reality Hunger: A Manifesto (2010)* “ “Reality,” **and “Appendix” (13 pp)

Week Seven  

Tuesday 9 Nov In class soi-disant midterm

  Single paragraph #4 due on Malcolm.

22) Malcolm, “The Journalist and the Murderer”* (44 pp)

Thursday 11 Nov. Veteran's Day. No class.

Week Eight: Flâneurie and Travel 

Tuesday 16 Nov Single paragraph #5 d ue on Wallace or Woolf. It cannot be about the role of footnotes in Wallace.

23) Virginia Woolf, “Street Haunting” (12 pp)*

24) D’Ambrosio, “Loitering,” (9 pages), from Loitering: New and Collected Essays. * Originally published in the Stranger. N ote that the PDF is of the entire section of CD’A’s book; read only the assigned stuff.

25) D’Ambrosio, “Seattle, 1974”* (6 pages) from Loitering: New and Collected Essays. N ote that the PDF is of the entire section of CD’A’s book.

25.5) NB: Cobain committed suicide, a fact referenced in this piece:

Azzerad, “My Time with Kurt Cobain” (22 Sept 2021). (24 pp.)

26) David Foster Wallace, “Shipping Out” (1996)* 24 pages. This piece will take 4-5 hours to read carefully.

Thursday 18 Nov Wallace, con’t

Week Nine: Other People

Tuesday 23 Nov

27) Mitchell, “Joe Gould’s Secret: I” (29 pp)*

Thursday 25 Nov No class

Week Ten St/art

Tuesday 30 Nov Single paragraph #6 due

28) Janet Malcolm, “41 False Starts” * (37 pp) JB will supplement with some visuals, via the interweb.

29) Ali Smith, “Green” (2010).* 6 pp. Here is the painting. https://www.wikiart.org/en/paul-cezanne/the-etang-des-soeurs-at-osny-1875

Thursday 2 Dec

30) Rachel Kushner, “The Hard Crowd”*  (2021) (16 pp.)

31) Didion, “Goodbye to All That”* (9 pp)

Week Eleven

Tuesday 7 Dec  

32) Roupenian, “Cat Person” (2017)*

33) Nowicki, “’Cat Person’ and Me” (2021)*

Thursday 9 Dec. Conclusion.

Exam: Tuesday, Dec. 14, 2021 4:30-6:20 p.m (PST). Identification, short answer, multiple choice.

Single Paragraphs: 25 %

Midterm: 25%

Classwork and discussion: 25%

Assignments

A Single Paragraph. Due in hard copy at the start of the class sessions indicated above.

Each week’s Single Paragraph will get a letter grade ranging from A to F. The letter grades will be converted to the 4.0 rating scale according to the UW’s official “Standard Grading System” and then averaged. That averaged, cumulative grade will be the “Single Paragraphs Grade” (see above) that is part of the overall course grade.

Late incurs penalty. Very late risks a D or below. Write me a reasonable email ahead of time if you foresee an issue with timing.

While this class doesn’t count as a “W” course, it is impossible to study literature seriously without writing. Thus on the days indicated you’ll turn in a single, composed paragraph. This assignment rhymes with the essay as a short form genre, so you’ll be honing form (the force of brevity) as well as function (thinking analytically). Brevity is hard.

"In itself every sound paragraph has unity: it deals with one aspect of the subject or serves one function. It is coherent: that is, it hangs together; it is not a jumble. Finally, it often has its own emphasis or high point -- it peaks at some point of stress. In sum, the paragraph resembles an essay in miniature."

--[Cleanth] Brooks and [Robert] Warren, as quoted in Levenson, Modernism and the Fate of Individuality )

Instructions. Write a paragraph. It will be one critical-analytic idea that is directly connected to that week’s reading. You might but need not write a paragraph about multiple essays from the same week; feel free to focus on a single essay, or to examine how the paragraph works qua form in an essay you’re reading.

• It will refer directly to one or more of the essays.
• It will not use the first person.
• It will be 150 – 250 words. Put the word count at the bottom of the page.

You can use an epigraph from another source. See “How to Write an Epigraph” file in Canvas. The epigraph does not figure into the word count. Since an epigraph should not be longer than the work it is epigraph-ing, your epigraphs should not be longer than one or 2 sentences. One sentence is sleek. Three at most, but it better be worth that extra sentence.

Spelling mistakes and grammatical errors and ickiness-es (sic) will figure into the grade awarded the Single Paragraph.

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Finally—and there are 2 places to pay especial attention to in any prose: the opening and the closing—if you do not know what something means look it up.*** This ranges from the definition of a word to a reference that the essay is running with. If you don’t know what it means, you won’t know what it means. That means you’re not doing the work that at least two people want you to do. The author was hoping; I’m factoring it into participation. And obviously I don’t mean you look everything up, but if you repeatedly don’t have an informed clue, the chances of success in this class diminish accordingly.

*** Make sure the source is scholarly, or at least not insane. Googling randomly is inevitable, but you’re paying money to be part of an expensive research library that has readily accessed sources. Bookmark the UW library’s link to the OED on your machinery.

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STUDY OF POST-COLONIAL AND NON-FICTIONAL ESSAY

Arundhati Roy occupies a significant place in the Indian literary creative ability as an impassioned social and environmental activist, and as an essayist who won Booker Prize for her presentation novel The God of Small Things in 1997. Roy's consequent literary yield comprises essentially of politically arranged non-fiction. Her compositions, in fact, attract our thoughtfulness regarding and welcome comparison with the works of a portion of the best writers in English literature who have cut out a specialty for themselves as literary activists battling for a reason. In conclusion, by using postcolonial ecofeminism as a framework to outline the lineages of ecofeminism, I have argued that women's relationship to the environment is ambivalent. This disputes the dualism of nature/culture, and yet straddles the grey area between the two binaries. Such a stance is particularly highlighted by women writing Indian fiction in English. A complex relationship exists between women and the environment, where aspects such as power, gender and caste discrimination and the larger sphere of politics and neo-colonialism have to be taken into account.

Related Papers

SMART M O V E S J O U R N A L IJELLH

Abstract The God of Small Things, which Arundhati Roy took four years to write, took the world by storm and received unparalleled praise from reviewers and readers. Being a contemporary writer, it is interesting to observe Roy’s skeptical approach towards traditional values and practices many of which encourage social inequality. Her literary work is known to make the readers contemplate about the pitiable situation of the downtrodden especially women. The projects in the name of development in postcolonial societies affect people and more specifically women. This effect needs to be studied from an ecofeminist viewpoint. The issues related to nature in The God of Small Things provide a basis to study the connections between subjugated human beings and nature. However the novel is mostly taken as a repertoire of environment related issues but there are instances which substantiate the ecofeminist theory. Keywords: Ecofeminist, Inequality, Environme

LITERARY QUEST An International, Peer-Reviewed, Open Access, Monthly, Online Journal of English Language and Literature

Sarita Pandey

The central idea of Cultural ecofeminism lies in its rebellion against the regressive force of patriarchy. It analyses the value of the culture that has the hypodermic effect, keeping its cadres hooked in aggressively instrumentalizing the women and ecology. It seeks to (re) store and retrieve the fragmented history of women and (re) write their past. Cultural ecofeminism encourages the association of women and nature that are based on gender roles and biology. It draws its root from nature-based religion and goddess-worshipping. The critical oxygen came from cultural ecofeminists believes that such associations allow women more sensitivity and affinity towards nature. India is known for its rich cultural heritage. It bears multiculturalism. The country has witnessed various colonial invasions. The cultural chutnification of post-colonial India is affecting the natives both directly and indirectly. The conventional practice of cultures has compulsive orderliness, easily acceptable and normative. The paper examines Arundhati Roy’s “The God of Small Things” (1997), focusing on cultural ecofeminism in India with special reference to women and ecology. The critical study of the characters and natural settings of the novel will point out the current situation of Indian women and nature. Keywords: Ecofeminism, Culture, Religion, Women, Ecology, Arundhati Roy

sunaina jain

The present paper seeks to explore and analyse The God of Small Things through the lens of ecofeminist theory and practice. The novel addresses different forms of inequities, which transcend the peripheries of locality, region and nation, to emerge in the global scenario, thus not limited by temporal or spatial constraints.This study is also an exploration into the ways nature has been commodified and exploited to serve the needs of the growing tourism industry-an indication of the adverse impact of rapid globalization. There has been an attempt to unmask layers of hierarchies which perpetuate dualisms as white/black, male/female, upper caste/untouchables, culture/nature, adults/children, where one term is privileged over the other. The marginalized characters in the novel are enmeshed in various discursive and social formations that shape their identity. However, despite the oppression faced by these characters, some have the nerve to articulate resistance, discernible in the form of transgression of the codified accepted behaviour and values imposed by the dominant classes.

Abstract: Since the inception of the civilization humans had commenced to imitate or depict nature in their art and literary forms. Many of the cave paintings save the proof for their fascination for the nature and the elements of nature. Nature or environment or ecology even we call it many a names, all of the humanity agrees that it is quintessential for the existence of life in the planet earth. Ecofeminism is the critical movement that propounds the idea that women have an innate connection to ecology. This theory equates the ecology and femininehood in terms of exploitation and degradation of the natural world with the subordination and oppression of women. Arundhathi Roy uses her debut novel The God of Small Things, as a medium to convey her ecological concern. Her female characters are the silent victims of patriarchy like the ever exploited Meenachal River, the pinned up butterflies and the horror striking moths in the fiction. Keywords: Ecofeminism, Animals, Meenachal River, Entomology, Nature, Ecological,

International Journal For Multidisciplinary Research

Gaurav Mishra

In the contemporary world physical, social and cultural environmental issues are growing and prevailing everywhere. In such a scenario India is also witnessing huge degeneration in its physical, social and cultural environments. Hence, it becomes imperative to observe how much awareness regarding the continuous above-mentioned issues has been spread among the masses. The present study aims to investigate whether Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things is acting as a vehicle to raise awareness concerning physical, social and cultural environmental issues. The critical tool applied in the paper is postcolonial ecocriticism.

Indo-Asian Journal of Multidisciplinary Research IAJMR

In Indian sub-continent, growing protests against environmental destruction and struggles for survival and existence have highlighted the interconnections of feminist perspectives along with nature. Women have always been undervalued due to patriarchal assumptions. They have been tutored that their greatness lies in their sufferings and therefore, happiness of others is always prioritized to their own. This paper seeks to outline postcolonial ecofeminism in Arundhathi Roy's The God of Small Things. I also argue that women's relationship to the environment is ambivalent, thus disputing the dualism of nature/culture and yet straddling the grey area between these two binaries.

Blessen Tom

Abstract: Ecocriticism is the study of the relationship between literature and the physical environment. Just as feminist criticism examines language and literature from gender conscious perspective, and Marxist criticism brings an awareness of modes of production and economic class to its reading of texts, Ecocriticism takes an earth cantered approach to literary studies (Glotfelty 14). It is the study of the relationship between literature and environment. Arundhati Roy won the Booker Prize for her novel 'The God of Small Things'. She wrote this novel in a particular way that nature and the characters complement one another. In her novel she portrayed the ecological exploitation of human beings in the name of modernization. She has dealt with nature in present and in the past that is twenty three years earlier in the novel .in this paper the researcher attempts to trace out the changes in the nature that took place because of urbanization.

Supriya Mandal

The growing interest behind the affinity between human and nature is the result of increasing environmental dangers. The emergent Ecocritical study presents the connection between ecological concern and literature. Literature functions as a manifesto to create environmental consciousness in human beings. Arundhati Roy's fictional and non-fictional works are projected as the manifesto of environmentalism in Indian socioeconomic matrix. The present paper deals with Roy's eco-consciousness in The Ministry of Utmost Happiness and The God of Small Things. This paper draws out the issues of the wiping out of endanger species, the impact of dam on environment and human life, the shrunken condition of river Meenachal due to toxic waste, unplanned urbanization, excessive scientific manifestation that have harmed animals, birds and fishes, the abolition of forest for the steel and mining factories and the uselessness of nuclear testing. Roy unswaddles Euro-American 'development' policy which is a disguised form of neo-colonialism. The objective of this paper is to amplify Roy's ecological concern from postcolonial perspectives.s

DR.MOHAMMAD EKRAMUL HASSAN

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