Feminism : Elaine Showalter and Gayatri spivak

Hello readers!

Elaine Showalter and Gayatri Spivak play a vital role in feminism. Here is am going to write about her views on feminism. What exactly they think about feminism . How they differ from others. This movement feminism is started by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, The first gathering devoted to women's rights in the United States was held July 1848, in Seneca Falls, New York. The principal organizers of the Seneca Falls Convention were Elizabeth Cady Stanton, a mother of four from upstate New York, and the Quaker abolitionist Lucretia Mott.

So let's think and Know about Showalter and Gayatri Spivak about feminism. Let's take one by one.

• Elaine Showalter :

 Who has better known as American literary critic, Feminist and writer on cultural and social issues. And also known for Gynocriticism. Showalter has been a television critic for people magazine and a commentator on BBC radio and television. She had faced many problems , easily did not get this position, and fought with her parents.A school of feminist criticism concerned with “woman as writer…with the history, themes, genres, and structures of literature by women.”

• Her works :

- Literature of Their Own: British Women Novelists from Brontë to Lessing (1977),

- The Female Malady (1985)

- Towards a feminist Poetics (1979)

- Sexual Anarchy: Gender and Culture at the Fin de Siècle (1990)

- Sister’s Choice: Tradition and Change in American Women’s Writing (1991)

- Hystories: Historical Epidemics and Modern Culture (1997),

- Inventing Herself: Claiming a Feminist Intellectual Heritage (2001),

 - A Jury of Her Peers (2009),

- The Civil Wars of Julia Ward Howe (2016)

This Toward a Feminist Poetics Showalter best known work. It is divides feminist criticism into two sections:

• The Woman as Reader or Feminist Critique :

So in the first part we find that the women as a reader. Male writers written and the women who just go through the reading. So we can say that male writers can't express female thinking , female psychology. One of the problems of the feminist critique is that it is male–orientated. How women are manipulating and exploiting. in literary work. If we study stereotypes of women, the sexism of male critics. Writers are not learning what women have felt and experienced, but only what men thought women should be.

They used women as a sign. As many popular literature and add. Women show work in the house , to care for their children. Unconsciously women also believe that idea, women are for doing household work. She also treats her girl as the same ideas. In many advertisements we saw that mother and daughter work together at home instead of the boy who goes outside and plays. So in this way think about feminist critique.

Here one proverd and related that one story is here. In which the narration is very problematic. Here we can see that how male writer think about woman's psychology and thinking.

• The Woman as Writer or Gynocritics : 

Gynocriticism attempts to construct a female framework for the analysis of women’s literature and focus on female subjectivity, female language and female literary career. She says that gynocritics may never succeed in understanding the special differences of women’s writing, or realize a distinct female literary tradition.

"Gynocritics begins at the point when we free ourselves from the linear absolutes of male literary history, stop trying to fit women between the lines of the male tradition, and focus instead on the newly visible world of female culture."

So that through bwe understand that the Gynocritics main aim is to understand the specificity of writing not as a product of sexism but as a fundamental aspect of female reality. Language  and the theories all are man dominated. There is a concept like the otherness of language.Many female writer like Meena kandaswami, Maya Angelou's poem "Still I Rise" written in her way.

• Three phases :

1)    The ‘feminine phase’ 

It dates from about 1840-1880. Women, in this stage, wrote to level standards of intellectual achievements with that of male culture. Use of male pseudonyms on the part of female writers is one of the most unique aspects of this stage. For example women like George Eliot who started writing with pennames

2)      The ‘feminist phase’  :

 It ranged from 1882 to 1920.  It followed the efforts to win rights for women. The New Women Movement had become quite strong and women had won the right to vote. During this stage, women writers expressed their feelings regarding sufferings of women in the society.

3)      The ‘female phases:

The Female phases has been continuing since 1920.  Showalter considers imitation and protest to symbolize the dependence of females on male. Thus, women rejected both these ideas. Here women depend on their own attitude and experiences to participate in the literary process. Writers like  Dorothy Richardson, Virginia Woolf, Jane Austen and Mary Shelley who represent this stage, also identified the uniqueness of female experience. They went to the extent of identifying differences between male and female sentences.Women, in general, began to be more aware about forms and techniques of art and literature.

• Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak :

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (24 February 1942) is an Indian scholar, literary theorist, and feminist critic. She is a University Professor at Columbia University and a founding member of the establishment's Institute for Comparative Literature and Society.

Her famous essay is "Can the subaltern speak ?Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, in her essay “Feminism and Critical Theory”, describes the relationship between feminism, Marxism, psychoanalysis, and deconstruction through her own thoughts, critical literary works of others and a image of the present state of these areas of thought.

Her essay is divided into four parts :

 “The first section of the essay is a version of a talk I gave several years ago.  The second section represents a reflection on that earlier work. The third section is an intermediate moment.  The fourth section inhabits something like the present.”

In the second part she says that :

“In a matter of race-sensitive analyses, the chief problem of American feminist criticism is its identification of racism as such with the constitution of racism in America.” 

Thank you.....

Thinking activity on Cultural studies unit :1

Hello readers !

Welcome to my world. 

Each and every society have their own culture. Every society followed some kind of rules and regulations. Like how to live life, what to eat, what to wear, how to wear, how to behave etc: We also mentioned one thing is that cultural studies is not about praising particular Culture but it is thinking critically towards Culture.

In a way culture is bounding us for various things like you don't eat this food, you don't think in this way, don't wear particular type of clothes, follow the rules made by culture. Among all the things Culture are interesting and beautiful thing or ritual. Sometimes culture became helpful for humanity. If we think about what is the thing ? that make a difference between human being and animal. Then we can say that human being have culture and that is the superiority of human being. And that is the difference between Man and animal.

★ What is Culture ?

https://images.app.goo.gl/Exh9aQF76Kgfwa6u5

The word "culture" derives from a French term, which in turn derives from the Latin "colere," which means to tend to the earth and grow, or cultivation and nurture. "It shares its etymology with a number of other words related to actively fostering growth," De Rossi said.

Culture is the characteristic and knowledge of a particular group of people encompassing language, social habits,arts and music. "Culture encompasses religion, food, what we wear, how we wear it, our language, our marriage system, music, what we believe is right or wrong, how we sit at the table, how we greet visitors, how we behave with loved ones, and many more things,". 

In simple words we can say that Culture is a word for the 'way of life' of groups of people, meaning the way they do things.

★ What is Cultural studies :

     To define " cultural studies" is very hard. In the summer of 1983, the Jamaican scholar Stuart Hall, who lived and taught in England, travelled to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, to deliver a series of lectures on something called “Cultural Studies.” This way cultural studies started.

As Patrick Brantlinger has pointed out , cultural studies is not ' a tightly coherent, unified movement with fixed agenda' but a ' loosely coherent group of tendencies, issues and questions'.

If we look at for main aims and characteristic of the culture studies are here : In the book "Introducing Cultural studies" by Ziauddin Sardar (1994)

In this book we find five characteristics of cultural studies. That is given below :

• The aim of cultural studies is to examine cultural practices and their relation to power.

• The objective of cultural studies includes understanding culture in all its complex forms and analyzing the social and political context in which culture manifests.

• Cultural studies is a site of both study/analysis and political criticism/action.

• Cultural studies attempts to expose and reconcile constructed divisions of knowledge that purport to be grounded in nature.

• Cultural studies has a commitment to an ethical evaluation of modern society and to a radical line of political action.

★ Four Goals of Cultural studies :

How is understanding " power " at the center of cultural studies ?

There are connections between power and culture. Cultural issues and the themes are mediated through with the question of profit ( economic) and power ( politics). Culture is therefore about power.

Power plays a vital role in democracy, that through the definition of the power is changed. There are six types of Civic force of power.

Physical force, Wealth, State action, Social power,deals and Number.

If these six elements mingling then those who get powerful positions,  who feel like a king.

There is a noticeable thing that power is always changing, not static. It keeps shifting. Power is like water. Another thing is that power compound. 

So that all the things through we can read the power properly. Just read the power that is not important but how you interpret it the opposite way that is major things. After reading to write about it that is also needed. For example if one person who got the power and then increases the power more and more then that is highly problematic for democracy. Because that is the situation that brings us in dangerous parts of the time.

If we look at our democracy's definition then we find : democracy means of the people , for the people and by the people. But that is not in reality. In reality the words are slightly changed.

Of - cut off the people

For - that is only for four people who support the power.

By - In reality not 'by' the people but that is 'buy' the people.

For the reference of this concept I would recall here the quote from George Orwell. In the 'Animal Farm'. That is

" All are equal but some are more equal than others"

This sentence is fairly connected with the concept of power.

Thank you ….

Ecocriticism and Ecofeminism

George Eliot and Charles Dickens

Hello readers !

Welcome

Mary Ann Evans George  ( 1819 - 1880) Eliot and Charles Dickens ( 1812 - 1870)  both writer belongs to the Victorian period. Both known for his or her novel. And also here I am mentioned one thing is that both writer's life has shaped by their family, friends and environment. This three play a vital role. And however, it is individual that eventually had to make initiative upon themselves that finally make the difference.

Let's discuss one by one this important writer.

Charles Dickens :

Dickens is a poor obscure and suffering child. He was helping to support a shiftless family by pasting labels on blacking bottles,sleeping under a counter like a homeless cat. In 1836 his Pickwick was published and his life is changed.

" Suffering has been stronger than all other teaching, and has taught me to understand what your heart used to be. I have been bent and broken, but I hope into a better shape. "

So in this quotation through we get the idea about his suffering. As a boy he worked in cellar blacking factory. Dickens was a marvelously keen observer, with an active imagination which made stories out of incidents and character acters that ordinary men would have hardly noticed.

No.	Famous work	Publication date
1.	Pickwick	( 1836-1837)
2.	American Notes	1842
3.	Martin Chuzzlewit	1843-1844
4.	A Christmas Carol	1843
5.	David and Copperfield	1850
6.	Bleak House	1853
7.	Oliver twist	1838
8.	Great Expectations	1861

★ Dickens novel :

If we look at on his novel then and then we find that the subject matter and all the things. Like in his first novel  Pickwick and n which we find that each chapter have cartoon by Seymour, so this novel through Dickens labeled a humorist.

In the Oliver twist we got the real picture of the poor people. How they suffering throughout the novel. It's hero is poor child and he was the unfortunate victim of society.

In his every novel he portrayed child character as hero and also the poor people. So in his next work like Nicholas Nickleby  in which vww find that the giving us mirth on the one hand, injustice and suffering on the other,, mingling humor band pathos, teat and laughter.

Also in his novel we find that the real picture of Victorian period and that people and society.  He was highlighted the factory system and it's illness.

David Copperfield is masterpiece big him. That is not only famous for unusual interest of the story, but also for the glimpse it gives us of the author's own boyhood and family

• His style of writing :

Dickens written in picturesque style.  That through reveals his usual imaginative outlook on life and his fondness for fine sentiment band dramatic episodes.

George Eliot : 

Mary Ann Evans  that is her real name . George Eliot is her pen name.

" It is never too late to be what

you might have been "

So in her sentence through we find that her characteristic. As a woman what type of thought she have and what is the mentality of society in those days, but how she is fighting against that tradition of patriarchal society. Here she including women's identity.

In her work through we got the idea and also analyze the problems of life and on the other tendency to teach  problems may be solved.

Adam bede - 1859

The Mill on the Floss

Middlemarch -( 1871-1872)

Daniel Deronda - 1876

Romola (1862- 1863)

The Spanish Gypsy -1868

Felix Holt - 1866

Collection of miscellaneous Essays called The Impression of Theophrastus Such (1879)

 If look at in her works then we got ideas that How she thinks about people and various types of situations. What is the importance of women in Victorian period.  In her work  Romola, we find that  mingling of moral Philosophy, against the background of the mighty Renaissance movement. In which she was writing of things of which she had no personal knowledge. In which she discussed Italian life.

In her novel Middlemarch we find that less spontaneous and more laboured and pedantic than her early novel.

General characteristic of her novel :

In the words of D. H. Lawrence, “It all started with George Eliot; it was she who put the action on the inside,” thus giving impetus to the rise of the psychological novel, where the most significant actions derive from the motives of the characters rather than from external events.

Thank you.....🙂

Culture and Anarchy : Matthew Arnold

Hello readers !

 This blog is part of our academic thinking activity. Blog is about Culture and Anarchy written by Victorian writer Matthew Arnold. 

What is Culture ?

 Key points :  study of perfection, harmonious expansion

How do you understand :
Matthew Arnold mentioned that the study of Culture is the study of perfection. In culture everything should be perfect. Matthew Arnold mentioned one example about American society, that is not perfect but the English people who followed American that's why he said that best which has been thought and said in the world '. In which we understand that not resting and having but growing and becoming is the character perfection convince
It coincides with religion.

Chapter 1

 Sweetness and light

Key points : Sense of beauty

How do you understand : This term is borrowed from Jonathan Swift's The battle in the book. So that through Matthew Arnold makes a point that the sweetness is moral righteousness and the light is intellectual power and truth. That through we understand that how the ancient writer and the modern writer who think and which type of writing is producing by them.

Chapter 2 

Doing as one' s like Anarchy

Key points : personal Liberty  / Freedom, our best self

How do you understand :  so in the second chapter we got understanding of danger of doing one who likes anarchy. If a cruel Man who doing like he wants then that is problematic, like one who doing coarse action ,ill- treated action and cultured action , action with insufficient light is curse for the society. So the very light and happiness leads people towards anarchy. Matthew Arnold give two examples that is working class and middle class people, and Hide park protesters and dissenters. So this example through he tries to explain us that the ' doing as one like that is the step forward to anarchy. 

In the last part he mentioned hat one sentence that is :

Firstly, never go against the best light you have;

Secondly , take care that your light be not darkness;

Chapter 3

Barbarians, Philistines, populace

Key points : working class, middle class, aristocratic

How do you understand : Here Arnold put three classes of that times society have. According to Arnold three classes are  Barbarians, Philistines, populace. 

Barbarians -  Aristocratic,

 Philistines - middle class, 

populace - working class.

But the meaning of barbarian is we know but this word used for aristocratic. That though we understand the thoughts of Matthew Arnold. This class characteristic through we understand the similarity and the difficulty of them. The barbarian who have richness, liberty, civilization, free to live and high thinking. The Philistines who are the money maker,tee - meeting, idea for business. And the last populace who are hard worker, narrow minded, poverty and firmness. Arnold's main intention that whole the people of England gain love, feeling, happiness, respect, desire and dreams. But the society can't gain these elements.

Chapter 4

Hebraism and Hellenism

Key points : Renaissance and Reformation, Aim, Renaissance and Reformation

How do you understand : 

To see things as they really are that is called Hellenism. And then Hebraism is conduct in obedience. Main idea of Hellenism is spontaneity of consciousness, that of Hebraism, strictness or conscience. 

Hellenism ~ Renaissance

Hebraism ~ Christianity

Hebraism is a great movement is Christianity and Hellenism is great movement of Renaissance. In which also we find that Hebraism follows the Biblical ideas and the Hellenism follows the Platonic ideas. Arnold distinguished from the mental energy to know Hebraism and Hellenism these two points of influence moves our world. At one time it feels more powerfully the attraction of one of them, at another time of the other; and it ought to be, though it never is, evenly and happily balanced between them.

Chapter 5

Porro unum est Necessarium

Key points :  Malaise of the age, Deplores the age, Diffuse Directness and light

How do you understand :

The meaning of the 'Porro unum est Necessarium ' but one thing is necessary '. Now in culture infiltrate sweetness , light, fire, religion and strength. Arnold don't like this mingling. Here also we find that the reference of Hellenism and Hebraism. In which Arnold tried to make a point that Malaise of the age. Hebraism  means the knowledge of the Bible and the word of God. And then Arnold defence the culture a say that " No man who knows nothing else Knows Even his Bible". 

And also Arnold Deplores the confusion of thought and of practice in his age among all classes of people in England. So Arnold said that we all have fight with the ill thoughts and also diseased spirit of cultivated time.

Thank you......