Q. With reference to the poems in your syllabus critically discuss Neruda’s poetic politics.

Q. With reference to the poems in your syllabus critically discuss Neruda’s poetic politics.

Pablo Neruda was a Chilean poet and politician. His poetry depicted the realities of 20^th century. He began his career as a love poet and ended it as an “outspoken advocate for engaged art and communist cause” says Erin Becker. Neruda reflected on politics after the outbreak of Spanish civil war, he was mostly advent of fascism and cold war tension. Spain’s destruction by civil war changed the whole life of Neruda. Neruda then emerged as a people’s poet where he twisted together lyrical intensity, epic imagination and political zeal. Neruda’s poetry became a matter of political discourse; his poem also brought the proletariat class into focus. Neruda identified with Spain as his mother country but he also had Chilean nationalist hidden inside him. Neruda’s source of passion was the communist party. He valued the communal over the individual and thus there is decline in sexual passion in his later poetry. Neruda turned to realism in order to portray the complexities of class struggle. Some poems which shoe the political state of mind f Pablo Neruda are ‘Ars Poetica (1933)’, ‘the way Spain was (1947)’, ‘discoverers of Chile (1946)’, and ‘Ode to Tomato (1954)’.

In Ars Poetica poet brings together “girls and garrisons” to force us into a realization of youth and freshness moving towards destruction that all battles cause. He compares his sentiments to a “widower’s grief” and “humiliated scullion”. Though this poem does not completely relate to war, it still describes the uncertainty and grief that will come after war. Hints of death are visible in “the wind that whacks my breast”. Neruda believes art is not created by beauty but it must be discovered through a perception which appears grim and destroyed and appears destroyed and appears from the hidden conscious of human. There is emphasis that poetry should come out of suffering. The poem breaks away from traditional form of surrealism by presenting disjoined images which were an emblem of 20^th century. The feel of the poem is not at peace but there is tension. The backdrop of the poem is war; war as a metaphor of struggle of poet’s mind and the war that would take place later in Spain. Poet is at the receiving end of war and has to move from objectivity to subjectivity. The poem was written at the time of uncertainty and it shows in the poem till the end. The time was when decisions and discourses relating to war were being made. The speaker’s mind is unsteady and the poetic psyche is in turmoil just like Spain was at the time of civil war.

The poet turns nostalgic in the poem ‘ The way Spain was’ and expresses his love for Spain as well as laments for its abjection at the hands of fascist forces. The poem written several years after the civil war and was a reaction to the war and mass murders in Spain. Spanish civil war was a turning point for Latin American writers. Neruda shows an image of Spain inflicted with pain and monotony. In stanza 2 he screams that he loves Spain but Spain has become “barren”. It has lost direction and is in confusion and chaos. The people along with the country are meant to be without any sense of direction after the war. The eagle is a symbol for imperial power which has now destroyed Spain. The drumming sound is of war, of disturbance, unhappiness and symbol of destruction over land. The barren soil makes Spain stagnant and shows that it has no future. Neruda is influenced by leftist ideology; he tries to revive Spanish people- “spirit of resilience”. He makes people remember who they were. Spain is now moving towards a modern age. Last stanza brings serious intention of Neruda as a people’s poet. He is not just an observer but an active part of struggle. He feels his poems should be life for people. The aim of the poem is to bring out something new by going out something new by going beyond politics.

Anjana Dutt says that Neruda starts with history of the Spanish settlers in Chile who were very impressed by talks of richness and wealth. In ‘Discoverers of Chile’, “Gold burns” and “silver illuminates” are images of wealth. Neruda describes the country in its physical form “my thin country”, “silence lies in its long time”. Because the natives couldn’t protect themselves against invaders they were compelled to merge their history and culture with that of invaders. “Neruda’s poetry raises mundane objects to sublime heights” says Susnigdha Dey. The Spanish conquerors were drawn towards Chile because of its wealth. The poem reflects Neruda’s political state in 1938 when he was drawn to Spain calling himself Spanish by race and language. This poem captures the entire history of the arrival of the discoverers of Chile from “north” from where “Almago brought his crushed ember”. Neruda explains how people were first oppressed and exploited by conquerors and dictators. The poem describes the destruction and violence unleashed by colonizers in 1938. Neruda said he needed to reach and touch “my true soil”. Poem shows a Eurocentric history that is replaced by myth of creation; Neruda’s description of physical form of country makes him return to his country. For Neruda there is never a conflict between Spain and Chile, Neruda is re-interpreting events with an outlook of history, he examines the land’s rich, natural heritage.

‘Ode to the Tomato’ explores the two hemispheres Chile and Spain presented through image of two tomato halves in the poem. The poem was published in 1954 which was an extremely important time for Neruda as he was in exile from his homeland for opposing fascist regime. Because of political unpredictability of Neruda he became people’s poet. He wrote about the problems of everyday life and by writing about a tomato he inverts the myth that there is nothing celebratory in everyday life. The tomato becomes an average Chilean who lives every day despite the gravity of civil strife and political crimes around him. The new abundant harvest of tomatoes becomes a symbol of celebrating native identity. The halving of tomato can be halving a Chilean into two parts or it can be “reminiscent of two hemispheres to which Chile and Spain belong” says Anjana Dutt. There was bloodshed in Chile because of civil strife and thus the lines “light is halved like a tomato”. The juice of tomato can symbolize bloodshed. Tomato which is personified first came from Latin America. It could mean “tomato invading the kitchen” is colonizers invading the land. The poet alternates between culinary delight and violence in the kitchen. Act of cutting tomatoes is equal to an actual murder. There are images of tomato invading every day aspect of a Chilean life. Tomato go well with onion; is Neruda talking of sexual union between Red Indian and white Europeans. The salad bowl is a mix of Chilean and Spanish culture, there is joy and celebration in his meal- “of ardent color, all embracing freshness”. Through tomato cultures are being joined. It also represents festivity and riotousness on one hand and majesty on other hand. One question that deals with the laws of that time is- why tomato is both a fruit and vegetable? According to the 1983 US Supreme Court rule “any plant or part thereof eaten during the main dish is a vegetable. If it is eaten at any other time it is a fruit”.

The literature of civil war was thus a great subject of mythologizing. Art and politics was fused together in a no. of works. The struggle between the republican and national forces in Spain became the source of imagination and conscience of many writers from around the world. Poetry of Pablo Neruda and other poets and novelists like Ernest Hemingway, Stephen spender and Federico Lorca explored the clash between political ideologies of socialism and fascism and between civilization and barbarism. The war was a central theme for Neruda’s poetry.

The poems reflect Neruda’s political state of mind before and after the civil war. In 1938 when Neruda returned to Chile he became more political in his poems and wrote reactions to civil war, about mundane things of life and the class struggle. Neruda’s poetic passion is more in politics rather than sexuality and so Neruda kept in expanding his political views through his poems. He examined the land’s rich natural heritage and described long defeat of Native Americans by Europe. ‘Ars Poetica’, ‘The way Spain was’, ‘Discoverers of Chile’, and ‘Ode to Tomato’ all describe Neruda’s political stand and how he reacted to the changes taking place in Spain and Chile.

Works cited

Becker, Erin. ‘Colored by Passion: The Political-Poetical Intersect in the Life and Work of Pablo Neruda’. PIT Journal. 2010. Print

Dey, Susnigdha. ‘Chilean Poetry: From the Epic to the Mundane’. Neruda, Walcott and Atwood: poets of Americas. Ed. By Anjana Dutt. Worldview publications. 2016. Print.

Dutt, Anjana. Introduction. Neruda, Walcott and Atwood: poets of Americas. Ed. By Anjana Dutt. Worldview publications. 2016. Print.

Spanish war, introduction. www.warpoets.org/conflicts/spanish-war.

Deepali Yadav

Contact me @ deepaliyadav2896@gmail.com

Please like, comment and share. Your valuable suggestions are always welcome. Happy readingJ

The Great Indian Novel A Post- Modernist Reading.

The Great Indian Novel

                                   A Post- Modernist Reading.

The paper explores the Post-Modernist genre of the ‘The Great Indian Novel’ which is an equal blend of epic, facts and fictions.

Post-modernist literature blends literary genres, cultural and stylistic levels, the serious and the playful and they also resist classification according to traditional literary rubrics. It has parallels with post- structuralism in literary theory says M.H Abrams in his book ‘a glossary of literary terms’. Shashi Tharoor’s novel ‘The Great Indian Novel’ (1989), was written when post-modernism was about to come to an end, to find the elements of post-modernism we will analyze the novel based on the following features; intertexuality, pastiche, paranoia, satire, hyper-reality, late capitalism, post-world war 2 and metafiction. Fredrick Jameson says that post-modernism is a sign of hollow world in which any sense of history has been lost and replaced with a stream of images. These fragmented images of history and epic compressed together can be seen in ‘The Great Indian Novel’.

Is the novel a parody of the epic form? Does it mock the ancient text of Mahabharata? No. the novel very creatively and brilliantly takes the plot and character of the epic and puts in them the very soul of the Indian independence movement. The term epic according to M.H Abrams “is a long verse narrative on a serious subject, told in formal elevated style and centered on heroic figure whose actions determine fate of the nation”. In the novel there is no fixed heroic figure, but the fate of nation does depend upon a certain few. The novel definitely imitates a grand narrative style of epic and starts in medias res but it does not mock the form. It celebrates the form and takes it ahead as something necessary for the story telling.

There is no exact date as to when post-modernism began, but artists because of the Holocaust and World War 2, began employing certain techniques and attitudes in their work and these later on became the criteria of post-modernist novel. So is the novel then modernist, proto- modernist or post- modernist? The novel was written in 1989 which is basically when post- modernism was coming to an end and contemporary novel was starting to make its place in literature. The time period depicted in the novel is however before during and sometime after the Indian independence. The novel also depicts Pandu (Subhash Chandra Bose) going to meet Hitler and Hitler in action. Pandu says “Do you know who I am? Herr Hitler’s best friend”. (P.249). Hitler is someone who is shown as didactic, Pandu wishes to indulge in non- violence like Hitler to get India’s freedom. “No more “truth- force” only yuddha. It’s time to learn from that chap Hitler”. Tharoor makes both of their attempts go in vain. There is a similarity between Hitler and Pandu; Pandu knew if he indulges in sexual act he would die. So was he committing suicide? “P…Pandu! What hath happened to you? (p.202). Hitler also commits suicide. Both give up their life after encountering failure. The novel is thus post-modernist since it was written in a time when the techniques of post-modernism were very well known to the writers as well as audience.

Late capitalism began after World War 2, it shows a world full of Mass Media (Arjun is representative of Mass Media in the novel), consumerism, globalism and big corporation. So, in the novel after India has attained its independence Arjun emerges as a journalist “I thought of Arjun with his paradoxical mixture of attributes, as the spirit of Indian people, to which he so ably gave voice as a journalist.” (p.459). After the independence there comes a time when Arjun is confused about his role, it is then Krishna, who tells him he should do his Karma without wishing for a reward. Their talk is equivalent to the Gita in Mahabharata. Journalism and Mass Media became very important in a capitalistic society. After the independence we see that the morals were getting pushed back by profit. The officials were more interested in earning profit than doing their work responsibly. Election funds were also seen in trouble; corruption had taken its place in the “world’s largest democracy “(p.562). Everyone was thinking of power and money. Different parties had different ways of running the country but the common thing was they both wanted profits and power. The showcasing of this society as capitalist is one of the features of post-modernism.

Pastiche is a work of art it imitates the style or character of work of one or more artists. It is different from parody since pastiche celebrates the work it imitates and doesn’t mock it.  Pastiche adopts the stylings of original but doesn’t comment or make fun of the material. But what is post-modernism doing then?  According to Plato’s theory of mimesis “art is twice removed from reality”. But in the case of post-modernism isn’t art thrice or even more removed from reality? Can we even consider an imitation a work of art or even more, a work of literature? Tharoor mixes and matches works and characters, he doesn’t really create anything. One is definitely overwhelmed seeing Draupadi as democracy, Bhisma as Gandhi ji, Dhritarashtra as Pt. Nehru, Priya Duryodhani as Indira Gandhi and Karna as Mohammed Ali Jinna. This combining of works as a celebration is what classifies the novel as post-modernist. But why is post-modernism even considered literature?? It’s just an imitation of works; wouldn’t it be equivalent to plagiarism? The novel adopts the plot line of Indian epic Mahabharata and also its characters but Tharoor replaces the names of those characters and important movements with the name of Indian Freedom Struggle. By combining Mahabharata and Indian Freedom Struggle ‘The Great Indian Novel’ qualifies for the category of pastiche making it a post-modernist novel.

 Paranoia believes that there is an ordering system behind chaos of the world. Having no control of what is happening currently. In the novel there are many instances of Paranoia, some people want something done but some don’t, everyone had different views and thus different actions take place which result in Paranoia. The most significant examples are firstly of Pandu’s actions, he goes to Berlin , Singapore and other foreign countries to accumulate military help but fate goes entirely against him and he commits suicide. The second is the partition of India. Mohammed Ali Karna wants a separate country “the party resolved unanimously to accept in principle the partition of the country. It was the first time we had ever gone against the expressed wishes of Ganga ji”. (p.311). Ganga ji who was not in favor of this, died soon after. “And he was gone, and the light as Dhritarashtra was to say, went out of our lives”. (p.327). Does paranoia lead to death? The third is when Yudhishtir is the deputy Prime Minister but Priya Duryodhani does not listen to him and Yudhishtir resigns; “he resigned” (p.493). Later on Duryodhani loses her position as the Prime Minister but soon she comes back to power and we see VV ji dreaming about the journey to afterlife of Pandavas and Draupadi. We see that this chaos that things are just not going your way was what happening in the real world. There were so many people of authority wanting more power and asserting their rule that the result was a chaos. In the process of trying to control everything nobody was able to control anything.

Hyper reality distinguishes reality from a simulation of reality. In this real and fiction are so seamlessly blended together that there’s no clear distinction between the beginning and end of each other. This feature of hyper reality perfectly describes the novel; the epic and the freedom struggle which are as real as they are fiction are blended into each other. The fact that the narrator calls the text a story indicates that it can be real as well as unreal. The truth validity of Mahabharata is also in doubts so we know that the text is definitely a combination of fiction/ real or real/real. But is the freedom struggle real? Is the inside information that we get real? It is Tharoor who is writing and he is someone with a position and perspective both. So is the text hyper real or the imagination of Tharoor? Isn’t the text a product of imagination? If it is it must be biased and if it is biased it can’t be completely real. So is the text entirely fictitious?

Fragmentation is quite popular as a feature; it was in Romanticism, Gothicism, and modernism and even stuck to post- modernism. The difference however is that Post- Modernists’ play with the idea of fragmentation and others only mourned in that way. To post-modernists the fragmentation is a tool they use to explore the chaos of the world. Is there fragmentation in the novel? Well the novel moves from theme to theme and character to character telling us the story but in between VV ji or the narrator tells Ganapathi that he forgot to tell about a certain character. He gets so engrossed in the character and what’s happening that he completely forgets about a character, he talked in the past. But is this even fragmentation? If we look at the literal meaning it means a break in the text or narrative, basically a non-linear narrative. The text is surely linear, it moves from what happened first then second and so on. But there are many breaks in the narrative. “Let us leave them there for a minute, Ganapathi and take a quick look at others” (p.205), “I can take story from here” (p.408) are some examples. The dreams that VV ji sees are also an element of fragmentation and magic realism since it takes us away from the reality. There are supernatural elements in the story which otherwise in the real epic were quite a part of the text. The dreams of ‘disrobing of Draupadi’ (p.551), ‘Arjun meeting Lord Shiva’ (p.577) and the ‘path to salvation of Pandavas with Draupadi’ (p.604-607) are all in the text to explore the features of fragmentation and magic realism.

Satire is used by Tharoor to ridicule the human or individual voices, follies, abuses and short comings. The purpose of satire is to show what the author disapproves of. But can satire tell us about morality since the author only satirizes of which he personally disapproves of. In book sixth ‘Forbidden fruit’, Dhritarashtra becomes the head of Kaurava party and Pandu deprived of his positions leaves the party. Ganga ji starts the Mango March (allusion to salt march) and dies in the middle before any of the major conflicts with national political parties starts. Mohammed Ali Karna wants a separate nation, Karnistan (Pakistan). In book eleven ‘Renunciation- or, the bed of arrows’ Tharoor tries to tell the trauma of partition by giving a clear picture of how the land was divided. “Congratulations, Mr. Nicholas! ...you have just succeeded in putting your international border through middle of the market, giving the rice fields to Karnistan and warehouses to India. Largest pig farm in Zilla to Islamic state and the Madrasah of the holy prophet to the country the Muslims are leaving…the schoolmaster will require a passport to go to the loo between classes.” (p.313).

Post modernism feminist strives for equality of all genders. It fights for race and sexuality as well as on the basis of gender post-modernist feminism thinks not just about white but any woman in need. The women bond not because of a victimhood but they focus on survival and health. Women work in a progressive way in this movement. Mary Joe Frug says that “sex is not something natural, nor is it something completely determinate and deniable. Sex is a part of a system of meaning, produced by language”. There are few female characters compared to all the males, Satyavati, Kunti, Madri, Sarah- Behn, Duryodhani, Draupadi and Subhadara. Only Duryodhani’s character challenges the norms of Ganga ji and his kind of politics. Is Tharoor uplifting women? Or because Duryodhani was a male in the original epic that he makes his character very empowering? Is he then making all other women seem inferior? Draupadi was a very fiery and majestic character in Mahabharata but here we see her fate depends on what her husbands and Priya Duryodhani do. In book sixteenth ‘the Bungle book- or, The Reign of Terror’, D.Mokrasi is seen having ill-effect on her health and finally “and Draupadi Mokrasi was diagnosed as asthmatic, her breath coming sometimes in short gasps, the dead air trapped in her bronchia struggling to expel itself, her chest heaving with the effort to breathe freely…”(p.507). The women characters have one or many incidents where they are sexually exposed. Kunti and Madri have affairs with other men to produce sons. Madri dies while indulging in a sexual act with Pandu, “she was gasping, ‘oh, yeth! Harder! Harder!’”. Sarah Behn becomes a victim to the self- control of Ganga ji. “Sarah Behn will sleep in my room from now on- and in my bed” (p.318). Draupadi is also unclad and robbed of her clothed in front of an assembly of men, “Draupadi’s breasts swung tantalizingly in and out of view as she turned and the sari continued to unravel and faces leapt off the walls to look at her in my dream”. (p.552). only Duryodhani is spared from any sexual contact. Why? Because she takes on the role of a man- a prime minister? Why was Duryodhani not commodified? Does Tharoor introduce equality of gender through this? Is he a good feminist or a bad one? Is he even a feminist? Or is he a misogynist?  He strips woman off of their clothes and presents them as some sort of sexual relief in the novel. Women in the novel are not represented as they were in the original epic, no one comes to take revenge for them neither do they speak up for themselves. Tharoor compares the dressing style of an Indian and Western woman. He says Indian Sari is better than western clothes, “if she had been wearing the skirts or dresses or even the trousers of western democratic woman, she might have been far more easily disrobed”. (p.557). like woman are deified as goddesses in India, Draupadi is equaled to Democracy. The reader doesn’t see Draupadi as a person but as a thing, a way to govern a nation. She does not have an identity but becomes a way to give identity to others around her.

Metafiction signals that a text emphasizes itself as a text. The text is aware that it’s a fiction. Post- modernism doesn’t hide what it actually is, it is self-aware. In metafiction attention is called to the process of writing and reading. This novel however falls into the category of Historiographic metafiction which basically means that a fictional text is mixed with history. History is not seen as a fact but it is put with fictional things. In this novel there are many instances when the narrator VV ji tells the reader that he is telling a story. He does so by incorporating his role in the novel and by indulging in talks with Ganapathi. The most prominent example of this is the ending of the novel, “I see the look of dismay on your face. I am sorry Ganapathi I shall have a word with my friend Brahm tomorrow. In the meantime let us begin again”. (p.607). The novel starts with the narrator asking for a writer to write the text. Throughout the novel we hear hi converse with Ganapathi explaining him what happened and how he should not judge, other times he weaves a story in a story through his dreams.

The most important feature of post modernism is intertexuality. Intertexuality is connection between texts and the author does so by quotes and direct references. It means when we read the text two relationships are formed, first between us and author and second between text and other text. The relation of one text with other text is known as intertexuality. The text is not in isolation but relates to other works of literature. But why does it do so? For fun? Post modernists made so many references because they wanted to show that individuals are not isolated creatures. Roland Barthes said that post modernism is a multi-dimensional space in which a variety of writings, none of them original, blend and clash. With so many references, is the author in control of the text? The challenging of conventional norms of structure of novel and the act of narration is also a feature of intertexuality known as fabulation. Tharoor comments on the use of language “if every Australian novelist had to set down the speech of his character to approximate the sounds they made rather than the words they spoke do you think there would a single readable Australian novel in the world?”. He then throws some big names of Tolstoy, Ruskin and Buddha at the reader along with Saint Joan. Madri compares herself with Helen of Troy “do you think I’m some thameleth Helen of Troy to trot off another man’th threed?” (p.260). He also talks about Virgil “Don’t worry about a thing, as Virgil put it, “expert credite”” and Horace “nescit vox missa reverti” (p.282). In between VV ji the narrator reminds the characters that they should have studied their Epics, “study your epics, young man” (p.274). Which Epic does he refer to? Mahabharata is also an epic so if the characters know Mahabharata then don’t they know what is happening? They should be aware of how destiny or Karma will affect their lives.  The narrator makes references to Puranas and Vedas (451, 469), so if the people have read the Mahabharata then they should know that they are one of the characters from the grand epic. Are they unaware of the story or simply choose to ignore it? There is a mention of Kama sutra in the novel, “to most foreigners who know nothing of India, the one Indian book they know anything about is Kamasutra. To them it is the great Indian novel” (p.595). Why is the Kama sutra seen as something taboo? The ancient people saw sex as a very natural process which existed among all other things. Human mind is concerned about money and survival only; sexual act is something which emerges from the need for survival. Why does Tharoor make the nakedness of body and sexual acts so eroticized? He shows them like he is transgressing by writing something like this. Why can sex never be accepted as something which is natural as hell? It will always have a prejudice clinging to it. Tharoor compares Priya Duryodhani to Joan of Arc (p.603) because she emerges as a savior of India. There are references to Ramayana, Gospel (p.572), Spenser (p.380) and Rudyard Kipling as well. Shashi Tharoor does not wish to make the text isolated and thus gives us many references to other texts which make this text highly Post- Modernist.

‘The Great Indian Novel’ which translates as Maha- Bharata is a Post-modernist novel according to theme of intertexuality, metafiction, fabulation, pastiche, paranoia, satire, feminism, late capitalism, and hyper reality. Tharoor smartly puts in the Indian freedom struggle in the ancient epic Mahabharata and creates a fantastic fictional text.

WORKS CITED

Abrams, M.H. ‘A Glossary of Literary Terms’. Cengage Learning. 2014. Print.

Jameson, Fredrick. ‘Post-Modernism and Cultural logic of late capitalism’. Rawat publications. 2012. Print.

Tharoor, Shashi. ‘The Great Indian Novel’. Penguin random house India. 2014. Print.

Deepali Yadav

Contact me @ deepaliyadav2896@gmail.com

Please like, comment and share. Your valuable suggestions are always welcome. Happy readingJ