SPECTRUM

Volume 12, 2016

Editor
Tahmina Ahmed

Associate Editor
Nazmeen Haq

Editorial Board
Ahmed Bashir
Afrin Zeenat
Md. Elias Uddin
Zaynul Abedin

Cover Design
Afrin Zeenat

ISSN
1562-7195

Printed at
Natundhara Printing Press
 About Spectrum
Spectrum: Journal of the Department of English is a refereed journal published by the
Department of English, University of Dhaka. Spectrum welcomes essays on any literary
period and any aspect of literature and language, book reviews, short stories and poems.
Submissions should not have been previously published, or be under consideration for
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Submissions should conform to the MLA/APA Style Manual and range from 2,000 to
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author (100-150 words), institutional affiliation, contact number and email address with
the manuscripts. Please provide two paper copies and one electronic copy for every
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Submissions should be addressed to:

The Editor
Spectrum: Journal of the Department of English
University of Dhaka, Dhaka 1000
Email: spectrum.ed.du@gmail.com
 Contents

Literature
“Are the Green Fields Gone? What Do They Here?”: Herman Melville 1
and Ecological Consciousness
Fakrul Alam

Beyond Nation: Glimpses of Global Imagination in Bernard Shaw’s John 9

Bull’s Other Island, Sean O’Casey’s The Plough and the Stars and Brian
Friel’s Translations
Ashim Dutta

Machines of the Roaring Twenties and Their Effects on Flappers’ 21

Individualism in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby
Sanjeeda Hossain

Katherine Mansfield: Feminist Self and "Cry against Corruption" 29

Mohammad Shahidul Islam Chowdhury

When the Woman Speaks: A Reading of Christina Rossetti’s “Repining” 39

and “Autumn”
Sohana Manzoor

Kaiser Haq’s Voice against the Eurocentric Tradition: A Reflection from 47

the Poems Published in the Streets of Dhaka
Nahid Afroz and Farhana Yeasmin

An Ecocritical Reading of Syed Manzoorul Islam’s “The Two Assassins” 55

and “The Merman’s Prayer”
Md. Elias Uddin

Nature: A Warrior or a Victim of War? Reading Midnight’s Children in 65

the Light of the Liberation War of Bangladesh (1971)
Khandakar Ashraful Islam

Creative Writing
Stone Age 75
Syed Manzoorul Islam
Santahar 85
Kaiser Haq

Rabindranath Tagore 87
Chitto Jetha Bhoyshunyo

Because Zero Stopped By 88

By Shamsad Mortuza

Inspiration 90
Batool Sarwar

English Department: In Memoriam 91

Batool Sarwar

Lost in Space 93
Rumana Siddique

Applied Linguistics & ELT

Reading Strategy Use and Gender Differences among Undergraduate 99

EFL/ESL Students
Ahmed Bashir

3 C's of Student Writers' Identity Formation Using Personal Language 129

Anjuman Ara

Banglish: Code-switching and Contact Induced Language Change in a 143

Spoken Variety of Bangla
Tanzina Tahereen

Role of Word Association in a Bangladeshi Child’s First Language 165

Acquisition
Sabreena Ahmed and Naushin Nazifa Islam

Book Review

Under the Banyan Tree and Other Stories: ‘A Miniature of Human 183
Experience in all its Opulence’
Zaynul Abedin
 “Are the Green Fields Gone? What Do They Here?”:
Herman Melville and Ecological Consciousness
Fakrul Alam*

Abstract
It will be the argument of this paper that in this novel and in many of his other
works, Melville is very percipient about the degradation of the environment in the
world that he lived in, and the threats nature as well as men and women faced,
because of the way the environment was being degraded due to encroaching
urbanization and industrialism, and the insatiable maw of capitalism. I will try to
argue that Melville was quite aware even at that point of time of the crisis the world
would face because of mankind’s relentless assault on nature, and will attempt to
show that he was a pioneer in contributing to the thinking through his fiction and
poetry that has led to our present eco-consciousness, and that led to the birth of the
environmental humanities.
Keywords: Melville, eco-consciousness, urbanization, whaling, pastures, percipient,
Moby-Dick

As any Moby-Dick aficionado knows, the opening chapter of Herman Melville’s fifth and
most famous 1851 novel has Ishmael in mid-nineteenth century Manhattan; there is a
“damp drizzly November” in his soul then; the land seems synonymous with
confinement; the “deadly warehouses” of the commerce-saturated city appears soul-
destroying; by contrast, the ocean beckons to him with its openness and endless
meditative possibilities. The journey that will take him there though must necessarily
begin in Manhattan, for men have incarcerated themselves in ugly, soulless cities and
crucified themselves in their landscapes—mental or otherwise— with the stake of
commerce. This city induces the “hypos” in Ishmael; when he looks at it he can’t but
exclaim, “Are the green fields gone? What do they here?”(Norton, 12-13).
Now people who have read Moby-Dick might be not a little skeptical of the claims I have
made above. After all, isn’t it a novel about whaling and isn’t Melville writing this novel
as a kind of narrative paean, as the title of Chapter 82 of the novel has it, to “the honor
and glory of whaling”? But as Elizabeth Schultz has shown in her excellent and detailed
recent analysis of the subject, “Melville’s Environmental Vision in Moby-Dick,” while
Melville underscores the importance of whaling for the many uses whales had for men in
those times, he is in no way celebrating the mindless destruction of whales in his
masterpiece. On the contrary, Schultz argues, Melville is extremely sensitive to the issue
of man in nature and of people ravaging the physical environment; he seems to be
working out a position from which he can show them the importance of co-existing
harmoniously. In other words, while Melville is a chronicler of the romance of whaling,
he “reveals an environmental conscience” as well as “an environmental position…

*
Professor, Department of English, University of Dhaka
2 Spectrum, Volume 12, 2016

whereby nature and culture might co-exist” (98). Not for Ahab the whale paranoia of
Ahab, or the mindless destruction of the magnificent mammal carried out by senseless
whalers; indeed, Moby-Dick is as much a celebration of the whale and through it nature’s
glories, as it is a romance about “the honor and glory of whaling.” In other words, human
beings and whales are tied to each other in “an intrinsic and irresistible interdependence”
(100); the relationship exists in contradistinction to that of say, men and sharks, human or
otherwise; that is to say, a relationship that is not mutually destructive and cannibalistic.
This is why in chapter after chapter Melville evokes admiration, expresses amazement,
and reveals commiseration for the whales. Certainly, he is alert to what Schultz calls “the
horrors of the whaling trade” (104) and etches scenes of the mindlessness and “mayhem”
(ibid) evident in the practices of some whalers. Schultz also details in her analysis the
“profound anxiety” Melville exhibits at the possibility of the “demise of the species” as
well as “for all life [forms]” because of the ferocity and cannibalistic tendencies that
some animals—which of course include mankind—harbors (106).
In her paper on environmental vision in Moby-Dick Schultz is particularly percipient in
her comments on how Melville’s ecological consciousness extends beyond his concern
for whales to his alarm at the loss of pastoral areas in America due to over farming,
construction of structures such as the Erie Canal, and the consequent disappearance of
animals from stretches of North America. She observes how Moby-Dick contains
reflections on the way buffalo herds have been facing threats to its environment and
draws our attention to a passage in the novel where he points out that “the hunted whale
cannot now escape speedy extinction” (qtd by Schultz, 107). She links this passage to
another one in Pierre where Melville had declared: “Say, are not the fierce things of this
earth daily, hourly going out? Where now are your wolves of Britain? Where in Virginia
now, find you the panther and the pard?” (qtd by Schultz, 108). In other words, wherever
mankind has been settling all over the world, the animal kingdom has been languishing—
a matter of alarm and anxiety for anyone who knows that it is the interrelationship and
mutual dependency of species that must be treasured.
While whale hunting was something that Melville saw as necessary for the nineteenth-
century American economy, Melville was critical of killing of the whale and other
predatory animals that was causeless and beyond limits. In Chapter 105 of Moby-Dick,
titled “Does the Whale’s Magnitude Diminish?—Will He Perish?” Melville makes us
aware that he has thought of the possibility that even “Leviathan” may not “long endure
so wide a chase and so remorseless a havoc” as men have been guilty of, but concludes
that till his time human ability had not come to the point where whale hunting would
make us doubt the “immortality” of whales (Norton Moby-Dick, 383, 385). As Schultz
suggests, Melville pinned his hopes on “a dynamic environmental vision” (108) where
“human greed and abuse of technology” (ibid) could be contained and humanity’s needs
met without destroying other life forms unnecessarily.
For most people, Melville’s reputation as a writer depends on Moby-Dick and some of his
short fiction, but his later fiction is worth looking at in any accounting of his work.
Certainly, they provide us further insights in gauging his eco-consciousness and in
highlighting his intense awareness of the way human beings have been degrading the
world in which they eke out their existence. For instance, in the next major work of
Fakrul Alam 3

fiction that Melville wrote in 1852, Pierre, an enigmatic and darkly ironic novel that he
subtitled “The Ambiguities,” he makes his protagonist leave the pastoral world of upstate
New York where he had been brought up in quasi-Edenic contentment, and where he had
savored “the country’s clarion air” (Pierre, 61) blissfully to enter chaotic New York city,
where he encounters “the dirty unwashed face perpetually worn by the town” (13).
Although this complex novel sets up the conventional beautiful countryside-ugly city
binary to ultimately subvert it, in the latter part of the work Melville sets up a position
consistent with his overall perspective on environmental degradation by human beings in
viewing the countryside as the world of innocence that mankind will inevitably sully.
This is because of humanity’s constitutional inability to treasure the prelapsarian world
that he had been born into, and his innate disposition towards doing dirt on his heritage.
Thus in the novel the narrator emphasizes soon after it begins that “it had been the choice
fate of Pierre to have been born and bred in the city” (13) (Melville’s emphasis), and we
have him later open up the English draughtsman and artist’s John Flaxman’s translation
of Dante and come to a passage of the Inferno where he reads about passing “into the
City of Woe” and joining people in “eternal pain” who have “all abandoned hope” (57).
Later, Pierre enters New York which turns out to be his inferno.
In other words, it seems to be the peculiar destiny of mankind to desecrate the
environment and to turn Eden into what Melville, borrowing a trope from Dante,
habitually characterized as the City of Dis, that is to say, the infernal urban world. In A
Journal of a Visit to London and the Continent 1849-50 that Melville kept before he
wrote Moby-Dick and Pierre he wrote at one point:
the thought struck me again that a fine thing might be written about a Blue
Monday in November London—city of Dis (Dante’s) –clouds of smoke---the
damned &c.---coal barges—coaly waters, cast-iron Duke &c.—its marks are
left upon you &c. &c.(Journal, (25)
Nine years after he had penned these lines in his journal, he shows in his 1855 novel
Israel Potter his protagonist entering the city on a day very much like the one he had
recorded above. Chapter 24 of the novel, indeed, is titled, if you haven’t guessed it
already, “City of Dis”. Weary, down-trodden Israel enters a city that images the
degradation and exhaustion that he is feeling to his bones at this point of the narrative.
The London Israel enters is a complete contrast to the New England that he was born
into, for that was “a virgin clime where the only antiquities are the forever youthful
heavens and the earth” (207). Instead of the green fields of Eden, London is one polluted
mess; the Thames here is no longer the green-banked river it was in Berkshire but a water
body “polluted by continual vicinity to man, curdled on between rotten wharves, one
murky sheet of sewerage” (207). Its bridges are crowded, traffic on it—much like
Dhaka’s let me interject at this point— is stalled or “spasmodic in its surges” (ibid). The
green fields are all gone and in this intensely felt depiction of urban desolation created by
denizens of the city who care not at all about the environment. So much so that
“whichever way the eye turned, no tree, no speck of any green thing” could be viewed
(208). In this polluted place, “the sun was hidden; the air darkened”. One can only
categorize this London created by industrialization and urbanization as a descendant of
the Biblical cities doomed for destruction, or mythical cities that had been consumed by
4 Spectrum, Volume 12, 2016

vengeful Nature—“Herculaneum, Pompeii, or the Cities of the Plain” (208). One thing is
sure for Melville; in such a soul-destroying, lung-choking, apocalyptic city, all things
green, good and great are bound to be destroyed. Or as Melville puts it: “Not marble, nor
flesh, nor the sad spirit of man, may in this cindery City of Dis abide white” (208).
Those of us who know T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land intimately can only marvel at the
way Melville’s 1855 London anticipates T. S. Eliot’s dirty, decaying, degraded and
distressing London in his apocalyptic 1922 masterpiece The Wasteland.
Melville’s fiction, then, is remarkable in its omniscience about urban environmental
degradation. He has apprehended the threats industrializing and urbanizing westerners
have posed to other parts of the world and to other species and to their own green world
and rivers well ahead of his time. He seems to indicate prophetically in a number of
significant works that he senses a crisis is looming for mankind that will pose problems
for their survival in the future if they go on polluting their environment in this reckless
and heartless manner. In his superb 1853 story, “Bartleby the Scrivener: A Story of Wall
Street” Melville suggests through his subtitle and the crassness of his attorney-narrator
that it is capital that is the ultimate villain in defiling cityscapes, fouling landscapes and
ultimately callusing soulscapes. Although New York is not explicitly named in the story,
the narrator deftly depicts in it a Wall Street office environment where anomie and
alienation appear to be pervasive and where humanity is expendable and at the mercy of
efficiency and bureaucratic programming. As the obtuse attorney-narrator says at the
beginning of the story, the view from his office block is “deficient in what landscape
painters call ‘life’ ” (60). A little later in the story we have a view of the world outside
Bartleby’s room: “certain grimy back-yards and bricks…which, owing to subsequent
erections, commanded at present no view at all, though it gave some light” (67).
Confined and constricted by such masonry, Bartleby seems to have given up on society
and the business world of Wall Street in what is a grim and dark parable of one
representative of mankind opting out of an unlovely, uncaring world where all the green
things have gone and where nothing life-affirming has a place.
I will take one more example from Melville’s short fiction of his extraordinary sensitivity
to an environment being denuded by the insatiable maws of industrialism and
urbanization at the instigation of capitalism. The story I want to focus on is actually the
second part of what one critic has dubbed as one of his diptych fictions, “The Paradise of
Bachelor and the Tartarus of Maids.” The first part of the 1855 story describes some
boisterous hedonistic bachelors living it up in London, but it is the second part that is of
interest to my presentation, for it depicts a New England paper mill where young girls—
not unlike those working in our garment factories— work themselves to death in a hellish
environment. Melville implies that the hedonism of the London bachelors appear to be at
the expense of the “Tartarus of the Maids,” for the girls work in infernal conditions.
Indeed, the local people call the factory the “Devil’s Dungeon” (211); here is Melville
describing a world denuded of life for its young and virgin workers: “At rows of blank-
looking counters sat rows of blank-looking girls, with blank, white folders in their blank
hands, all blankly folding blank paper” (215). To the narrator, there is a drastic inversion
of the principle of existence here: the machines are not serving humanity but it is the
human beings who are slaving at the feet of the machine. Moreover, the environment in
Fakrul Alam 5

which the girls work is a thoroughly polluted one. As the narrator puts it, “The air swam
with the fine, poisonous particles, which from all sides darted, subtilely as motes in
sunbeams, into the lungs” (216). It is no surprise, then, for him to be told by the boy who
is showing him around the factory premises that “The Devil’s Dungeon is no place for
flowers” (217). In other words, the green things must necessarily disappear from
industrializing landscapes, and human as well as environmental degradation will be
inevitable because of capitalism’s encroachment, even though this state of things will
ensure that the bachelors can be merry even if the maids keep blankly slaving on. The
narrator is glued, not unlike Marlow in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness who first coined the
phrase the “fascination of the abomination” to characterize obsessions with things
abhorrent, by the operations of “the inflexible iron animal” (221) and the overall scene:
as he puts it, he is glued “to the pallid incipience of the pulp, the yet more pallid faces of
all the pallid girls I had eyed that day” (221).
Melville, then, was preternaturally sensitive to the ravages wrought by humankind on
external nature as well as human nature by human insensitivity, science, urbanization,
industrialism, notions of progress—and to apply the rubric under the one word in which
we can perhaps subsume everything—capitalism. But before I conclude my paper I
would like to make three quick points: a) Melville’s depiction of an impending
environmental crisis consequent to the way westerners were modernizing themselves is
something that he presents with the vision of a green, Edenic world before him. It is a
world that he seemed to have first glimpsed in upstate New York as a boy or in his youth,
and later rediscovered when he was a young sailor in the South Seas. But he later came to
realize that it is precisely such a green world that mankind had exiled itself from since
Adam and Eve. To him, then, this world had become by the mid-nineteenth century for a
New Yorker like him more of an ideal to be pursued through the visionary imagination
than a possibility; that is to say, something to be aimed at but with the knowledge that
there will never be a going back to that pristine world; b) he is in the tradition of
American romanticism in his yearning for the green world and his distaste for
civilization’s desecration of such a world; and c) he deserves to be given more credit than
he has been given till now in our contemporary movements for his stance on
environmental justice and his presaging the tenets of ecocriticism.
The first point can be easily made through D. H. Lawrence’s classic pages on Melville’s
first two South Sea novels Typee and Omo. These pages were published in his brilliant
and characteristically idiosyncratic work of criticism, Studies in Classic American
Literature. In Chapter 10 of the book Lawrence describes Melville’s early fictional work
on the South Sea islanders with admiration but also awareness of their unique nature.
Melville, he says, was attracted to their elemental, aboriginal existence and found them
especially admirable in his recoil from a hateful materialistic west. But Typee is not a
green Eden of some Golden Age, though it might have appeared that way initially to
Melville’s protagonist in his 1846 novel Typee. Initially to the protagonist the island
seems to be like paradise, but he eventually realizes that it is not, and also that paradise is
never to be regained, for as Lawrence puts it in his study, “one cannot go back” (4/16) for
one is doomed to be perpetually in Purgatory. The challenge then is to make the best of a
6 Spectrum, Volume 12, 2016

bad deal, and not to think of reverting to a pastoral world. That is also why Melville
include in Pierre an indictment of artists who would provide an idealistic portrait of the
countryside, and would emphasize the “picturesque” at the expense of what he dubs in
this novel as “the povertiresque” (54). And if nature has unspoiled greenery in Typee, it
has “dark clefts and caves,” as in the island of the South Pacific about which he wrote a
series of sketches called “the Encantadas” (112) in 1955. Here in these sketches he
depicts the hostile terrain along with its colony of tortoises that show signs of “lasting
sorrow and penal hopelessness” (99-102). In his last and monumental but little read
narrative in verse Clarel, Melville even sees the City of Dis in “the lifeless hills” of
Palestine (29-34).
The second point to be emphasized by way of concluding is that Melville’s ecological
consciousness was not an isolated phenomenon but part of the developing awareness, in
Western intellectuals of the period, of the importance of preserving the green world and
of focusing attention on the threats posed on it by industrialism and unplanned
urbanization. Such awareness can be first seen in the Romantic Movement in Europe. All
of us schooled in Wordsworth’s “Tintern Abbey” or the Prelude and even his “Preface to
the Lyrical Ballads,” as well as Coleridge’s amazing verse parable of the consequences of
destroying animal life, The Rime of the Mariner, will realize that Melville owes a large
debt to the romantic movement which by the time he had started to write had already
depicted impressively the consequences of environmental degradation on human
perceptions and other life forms. We can also note in this context that Charles Dickens
had already begun to depict city squalor and its impact on the people living in them in his
novels some years before Melville. Dickens’ Hard Times anticipates something of the
tone Melville adopts in describing the city, and the industrial degradation of the green
world in Pierre, stories like “Bartleby” and “The Tartarus of the Maids.” It is also
pertinent to link Melville to his American contemporary Henry David Thoreau, in whom
quite rightfully the ecocritics of our time and those in the environmental justice
movement have found the major fount of inspiration of environmental thinking.
But this brings me to my concluding point. Among Melville’s many claims to relevance
as well as fame, in addition to his extraordinary percipience and sensitivity to evil in the
world, is his depiction of the desecration we can do to ourselves in our obsession with
making money and mastering the world, and the damage we can do to our environment,
and by extension ourselves and other life forms, through our acquisitive tendencies and
aggressiveness. Surely, in any history of the evolution of ecological consciousness in the
west he must be given a place of honor as a pioneer of the American environment
movement for such percipience, and for his artistic depiction of the havoc wrought by
rampant industrialization and urbanization on the environment. Surely, for this reason too
he is well worth reading in our time and from our own location, in a world where the
environment is being destroyed relentlessly, and where ecoconsciousness needs to be
cultivated urgently.
Fakrul Alam 7

Works Cited
Lawrence, D. H. Studies in Classic American Literature. Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin
Books, 1990.
Melville, Herman. Moby-Dick or the White Whale. Ed. Harold Beaver. New York: W. W. Norton
& Company, Inc., 1967.
---. Pierre or the Ambiguities. Ed. Harrison Hayford, et al. Evanston and Chicago: Northwestern
University Press and the Newberry Library, 1971.
---. Israel Potter: His Fifty Years of Exile. New York: Russel and Russel, Inc., (rpt. 1963).
---. Great Short Works of Herman Melville. Ed, Warner Berthoff. New York: Harper & Row,
Publishers, 1966.
---. Clarel: A Poem and Pilgrimage in the Holy Land. Ed. Walter E. Bezanson. New York:
Hendricks House, Inc., 1960.
---. Journal of a Visit to London and the Levant, October 11, 1849-1850. Ed. Elanor Melville
Metcalf. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1948.
Schultz, Elizabeth. “Melville’s Environmental Vision in Moby-Dick.” Interdisciplinary Studies in
Literature and the Environment. 7: 1 (2000). Accessed at http://isle.oxfordjournals.org at
University of Dhaka on 21/12/2016.
 Beyond Nation: Glimpses of Global Imagination in
Bernard Shaw’s John Bull’s Other Island, Sean O’Casey’s
The Plough and the Stars and Brian Friel’s Translations
Ashim Dutta*

Abstract
The birth of modern Irish drama coincides with the birth of the national theatre
movement in Ireland. Consequently, the Irish theatre of the twentieth century
more often than not embraces the cultural-nationalist causes of the country.
Despite the abundance of national or nationalist concerns in the works of
modern Irish playwrights, they contain widely varying responses to those
concerns and make room for transnational or global tendencies. This paper looks
at three plays by three different playwrights—George Bernard Shaw’s John
Bull’s Other Island (1904), Sean O’Casey’s The Plough and the Stars (1926)
and Brian Friel’s Translations (1980)—in order to argue that these seminal
works of Irish theatre collate national and global considerations in their different
contexts. While Shaw’s play was written in the colonial period, O’Casey’s one a
few years after the establishment of Irish Free State and the Civil War, Friel
wrote long afterwards in the context of post-independence or “postcolonial”
Ireland. Notwithstanding the temporal and contextual gaps between these plays,
all three of them exhibit similar patterns: they question and complicate the
representation of national/nationalist/colonial issues while at the same time
transcending them and introducing wider aspects of global interests.
Keywords: nationhood, Irish drama, Bernard Shaw, Sean O’Casey, imagination,
Brian Friel, colonial concerns

Coinciding with the political fate of the nation, modern Irish drama has been, in one form
or other, informed by nationalist concerns. The distinction between art and politics
notwithstanding, the concept of nation remains at the center of modern Irish theater with
its history fraught with debates (even riots) over theatrical representations of “Irishness”.
However, rather than limiting themselves to nationalist ideology, modern Irish dramatists
across the twentieth century have also been interested in transnational concerns. This
paper traces the glimpses of global imaginations in George Bernard Shaw’s John Bull’s
Other Island (1904), Sean O’Casey’s The Plough and the Stars (1926) and Brian Friel’s
Translations (1980). Each of these three plays engages in a dialogue with nationalist
thoughts or concerns. While Shaw and Friel address typical English/Irish polarities,
O’Casey chooses as his context the Easter Rising of 1916 and its immediate background.
But all three of them, in individually different but essentially similar ways, involve
nationalist issues or concerns in order only to reach beyond them. While they
geographically restrict their characters to Ireland and England, their plays are imbued
with a larger world-vision which is transnational and global in its scope.

*
Assistant Professor, Department of English, University of Dhaka
10 Spectrum, Volume 12, 2016

In Globalization and Irish Theatre, Patrick Lonergan defines “globalization” as “a social

process . . . that is radically altering our perception of space, and therefore of many other
things: time, speed, employment, power, nationality – and theatre.” He also notes “a
relocation of power from a physical to a conceptual space, or a deterritorialization of
power” and claims that “[the] redefinition of Irish nationality is a deterritorialization of
political sovereignty” (21-22). In what follows, we will see how each of the three plays
attempts in its theatrical space some sort of “redefinition of Irish nationality,” either by
offering a critique of nationalist polarities and homogeneity, or by alluding to extra-
national mobility (physical or conceptual), or by incorporating in their textures the global
concerns of international business and communication (Lonergan 17). By doing so, these
plays represent the tension between the national and the transnational, the local and the
global in the Irish theatre of both the pre- and post-independence periods.
Despite being written in 1904, seven years after the launch of the “national dramatic
movement” in 1897 (Harrington ix) and only a couple of years after W. B. Yeats and
Lady Gregory’s rather straightforwardly nationalist play Cathleen Ni Houlihan (1902),
Shaw’s John Bull’s Other Island deals with a reality more complicated than the
nationalist or colonial one. Claiming that the play is “political” but not “nationalist,”
Norma Jenckes writes: “Nationalism is a simple creed with simple slogans—‘A nation
once again’ and ‘Ireland her own’—but Shaw’s politics, as dramatized in John Bull’s
Other Island, were more complex” (486). With England and Ireland as its settings, and an
Englishman (Thomas Broadbent) and an Irishman (Larry Doyle) as its protagonists, the
play both nuances and questions the typical English-Irish colonial or nationalist binaries.
Unfolding in the Westminster office of Broadbent and Doyle, who are civil engineers
working for the Land Development Syndicate, the setting of the play shifts to Ireland at
the beginning of act 2 when these characters move to rural Rosscullen with an estate-
developing project in mind. Although their modernizing mission comes into conflict with
the partly mystic and partly socialist vision of Father Keegan, the play ends with
Broadbent asking Larry to “help [him] to choose the site for the hotel” (196; act 4).
Meanwhile, we watch a plethora of internal conflicts and schisms, plaguing any
possibility of imagining an ideal, homogenous community.
In act 1, Doyle appears to be Shaw’s spokesman in subverting the clichéd
Irishman/Englishman binary-relationship. When an Irish visitor Tim Haffigan calls on
their office and Broadbent finds him behaving “like an Irishman,” Doyle strongly
opposes such a notion:
Like an Irishman!!. . . . No Irishman ever talks like that in Ireland, or ever
did, or ever will. But when a thoroughly worthless Irishman comes to
England, and finds the whole place full of romantic duffers like you, who
will let him loaf and drink and sponge and brag as long as he flatters your
sense of moral superiority by playing the fool and degrading himself and his
country, he soon learns the antics that take you in. He picks them up at the
theatre or the music hall. (122; act 1)
This is a very eloquent questioning of what Shaw elsewhere termed the “Stage Irishman”
or “the imaginary Irishman of romance” (qtd. in Meisel 487, 489) that serves the purpose
of boosting the superior self-image of the Englishman. That such stereotypical
Ashim Dutta 11

constructions are said to be picked up “at the theatre or the music hall” implies the de-
stereotyping intentions of the present play.
Much like its attack on the “Stage Irishman” image, John Bull’s Other Island also seems
to offer a critique of the romantic nationalism of the Irish national theater. When
Broadbent mentions “the melancholy of the Keltic race” that he identifies in Doyle, the
latter reacts vehemently: “When people talk about the Celtic race, I feel as if I could burn
down London. That sort of rot does more harm than ten Coercion Acts1” (123; act 1).
Doyle goes on to articulate his opinion that an Irishman “can’t be intelligently political. . .
. If you want to interest him in Ireland youve got to call the unfortunate island Kathleen
in Hoolihan and pretend she’s a little old woman. It saves thinking. It saves working. It
saves everything except imagination, imagination, imagination” (125; act 1). Given to
Doyle, this powerful speech seems to represent Shaw’s position with regards to a
romantic idealism—often of a nationalist kind—typical of the Irish national theater. A
collaborative work by Yeats and Gregory, Cathleen Ni Houlihan was one of the key
productions of that theater. Set against the background of the Irish rebellion of 1798, the
play dramatizes the transformation of a “Poor Old Woman” into “a young girl” with “the
walk of a queen,” made possible by the youthful sacrifice of Michael Gillane (Yeats and
Gregory 9, 11). This imaginative idealization of Ireland as a woman was so dear to Irish
nationalist politics that Patrick Pearse, one of the central figures of the 1916 Easter
Rising, appreciated the imaginative force of Cathleen Ni Houlihan in an essay written in
the year of the Rising (Grene 70). By downplaying that nationalist allegory as
thoughtless, idle “imagination,” Shaw’s play foreshadows O’Casey’s The Plough and the
Stars which, as we will see, diminishes the centrality of Pearce’s rhetoric. Shaw’s
realistic or socialist vision problematizes the idealistic vision of independence dramatized
by Yeats and Gregory. The presence of the poor laborer, Pasty Farrell, in the play implies
that internal class divisions will undercut real independence which, for the socialist Shaw,
must mean equality of all. What is more, as Nicholas Grene keenly observes in The
Politics of Irish Drama, Shaw in this play “prophesies the neo-colonial era of global
capitalism which will render the long-contested issue of national independence obsolete
and irrelevant” (32).
In response to Larry’s complaints about the foreclosure of the mortgage of Nick
Lestrange’s home, a land “I was brought up on,” Broadbent simply replies: “But he
wouldn’t pay the interest. I had to foreclose on behalf of the Syndicate” (122; act 1). In
such instances, there seems to be more than a mere allegory of colonial appropriation of
native land; the politics involved here appears to be global-capitalistic, represented by the
“Land Development Syndicate of Anglicized Irishmen and Gladstonized Englishmen”
(194; act 4). Without sentimentalizing the usurpation of “land,” as Cathleen Ni Houlihan
does (“four beautiful green fields” [Yeats and Gregory 7]), Shaw realistically portrays the
politics around land, both the transnational politics represented by the Syndicate and the
internal Irish one represented by “Matt’s farm n Barney’s mill” (156; act 3). As Declan

1
The Coercion Acts refer to a long sequence of Acts starting from 1833 and continuing up to the
Anglo-Irish War, passed with a view to suppressing revolts and seditions in Ireland (Connolly
101-02).
12 Spectrum, Volume 12, 2016

Kiberd notes in his essay on Shaw’s play in Inventing Ireland, “presenting a romantic
Englishman and an empirical Irishman John Bull’s Other Island mocks the ancient
stereotype” (54). The coupling of Broadbent and Doyle suggests more than mere national
opposites and could be read as pointing towards a future where greater inter- or
transnational issues and concerns will gain in priority.
When Doyle says to Broadbent that “it is by living with you and working in double
harness with you that I have learnt to live in a real world and not in an imaginary one,”
one might tend to read it in terms of the age-old colonial dichotomy, privileging English
rationality over Irish imagination (126; act 1). But almost immediately before the above
speech, we hear Doyle telling Broadbent, “youve no more common sense than a gander.
No Englishman has any common sense, or ever had, or ever will have” (126; act 1). Thus
the “real world” with which Broadbent is identified seems to have global-capitalist—
rather than national or nationalist—implications. That is why, talking about the essential
differences between his father and himself, Doyle says: “He’s a Nationalist and a
Separatist. I’m a metallurgical chemist turned civil engineer. Now whatever else
metallurgical chemistry may be, it’s not national. It’s international. And my business and
yours as civil engineers is to join countries, not to separate them” (127; act 1). However,
if it is not a separatist concern, nor does it seem to be a Unionist one either. It is rather the
global or multinational “business” that concerns Doyle and Braodbent. Unlike Ireland, as
it is represented in this play by the rural Rosscullen, England represents a real and matter-
of-fact attitude conducive to the global-capitalist discourse. All Doyle’s friends, as he
claims himself, “are either Englishmen or men of the big world that belongs to the big
Powers” (127; act 1). In act 3, seemingly referring to the shift in landlordism by the 1903
Land Act,2 he contends that, in absence of “men of honor” or “of ability,” the land should
belong to “men with capital” (158). Upholding “the modern industrial purposes” over
anything else, Doyle says: “Youre all children: the big world that I belong to has gone
past you and left you” (158; act 3). This he says to a group of Irishmen squabbling over
their individual self-interests. People like Matthew, Cornelius, Doran and Father
Dempsey do not seem to understand the merit of the industrial modernity that Doyle is
proposing for Ireland: “Is Ireland never to have a chance?” (158; act 3). Doyle’s notion of
“the big world” thus transcends the concept of nation and gravitates towards global-
capitalist prospects.
The character that confronts this new world vision is Keegan, who considers Ireland to be
“the island of the saints” and is naturally skeptical about the future envisioned by the
Syndicate, full of “the bustle of a great hotel, and the sight of the little children carrying
the golf clubs of your tourists as a preparation for the life to come” (188-89; act 4).
Keegan’s mysticism apparently incorporates the socialism of his author in foreseeing that
when at last this poor desolate countryside becomes a busy mint in which we
shall all slave to make money for you, with our Polytechnic to teach us how
to do it efficiently . . . then no doubt your English and American shareholders

2
The Land Act of 1903 was one of a series of Land Acts passed between 1860 and 1923 that
caused major transformation of the Irish landholding system, shifting the landowning power from
the landlords to the tenants (Hickey and Doherty 286-90).
Ashim Dutta 13

will spend all the money we make for them very efficiently . . . and you will
devote what they save to fresh land development schemes. (193; act 4)
The ironic overtones of the business-world diction in this excerpt make clear the anti-
capitalist thrust of the speech. Nevertheless, Keegan is wise enough to understand that he
is, as Broadbent puts it, “a poet” and “not a man of business” (189; act 4). Hence, he
decides that “perhaps I had better vote for an efficient devil that knows his own mind and
his own business than for a foolish patriot who has no mind and no business” (191; act 4).
Despite all its ironic gestures, this speech of Keegan implies the harsh truth of the time
when nationalism and patriotism have to give way to the bigger world vision Doyle
reiterates throughout the play.
This global imagination of a “big world” is also represented in the play by references to
different places and to the migration or movement of people across borders. Doyle
informs us that Tim Haffigan, who seems an authentic Irishman to Braodbent, was
“[b]orn in Glasgow” and “[n]ever was in Ireland in his life” (122; act 1). Doyle also
refers to South Africa in talking about the issues that cause his difference from his father
(128; act 1). And we come to know that, when he was eighteen years and six months of
age, he went to Dublin to study (129; act 1); and that he has visited “America and a few
other remote and inferior spots” (126; act 1). We further learn about Keegan’s traveling
widely across the world: Salamanca, Rome, Sorbonne, Oxford, Jerusalem, Patmos and
Mount Athos (136; act 2). Doyle also makes an oblique reference to the migrating
millions when he asks his friend: “How many of all those millions that have left Ireland
have ever come back or wanted to come back?” (123; act 1). In a different context,
Broadbent alludes to “the modern hybrids that now monopolize England [:] Hypocrites,
humbugs, Germans, Jews, Yankees, foreigners, Park Laners, cosmopolitan riffraff. Dont
call them English” (124; act 1). Thus we are given the vision of a world that is hybridized
and not racially pure enough to fit in the colonial or nationalist paradigms. It is, rather, a
globalized world, in the light of Lonergan’s theorization of globalization as “the
increasing mobility of people across borders: the wealthy tourists taking package
holidays, the business people with investments in several countries, and the refugees,
asylum seekers, and economic migrants” (17). Thus, in Shaw’s play, the bigger world
emerges in the form of the physical spaces characters like Keegan and Doyle have
traveled, the ideological or intellectual space associated with other lands, and, most
prominently, the global or international business Syndicate of Doyle and Broadbent.
While John Bull uses the settings of England and Ireland as well as English and Irish
characters in order to interrogate the nationalist or colonial paradigm, O’Casey’s The
Plough and the Stars, set in Dublin, responds to nationalist politics by giving an ironic
treatment to a highly sensitive phase of the Irish nationalist movement: the Easter Rising
of 1916. While in Shaw’s play national concern overlaps with international ones,
O’Casey’s play seems to be offering a more vehement attack on nationalist ideals by
theatrically marginalizing a key event in Ireland’s nationalist history. Keeping the Rising
off-stage, O’Casey fills the stage with a heterogeneous motley of characters, thereby
challenging the idea of one nation, or, as Grene puts it, “the unifying, harmonising and
the idealising thrust of the narrative of the Rising as national icon” (150). In The Plough,
nationalism is rendered obsolete by the perspective of the stark poverty of its tenement
characters with their various forms of pettiness.
14 Spectrum, Volume 12, 2016

The whole play is punctuated by the distant, shadowy presence of Patrick Pearse, one of
the key leaders of the Easter Rising. He is not mentioned in the play by his own name,
but is referred to as “Voice of Speaker” or “Voice of the Man” and is always heard from
a distance (169, 178; act 2). Moreover, undercutting the homogeneity of the nationalist
cause, the stage is full of discordant characters. On the one hand, we have Peter with his
idle nationalism and Clitheroe with his selfish nationalism (Nora reminds him of his
leaving the Citizen Army3 out of disappointment at not being made Captain [153; act 1]).
On the other, we have anti-nationalist characters like Bessie Burgess and the Covey.
Bessie, a Protestant and Unionist, introduces the tone of controversy in the text. She
refers in act 1 to Nora’s complaints about the Protestant hymn she sings at night, and
throughout the play keeps degrading and demeaning the nationalist cause in her speech.
The Covey with his theoretical communism acts both as a representative and a parody of
socialist ideas at once. He cannot endorse a bourgeois nationalist revolution. He therefore
considers Pearse’s speech to be “dope” (170; act 2) and later in the play maintains, while
talking to Corporal Stoddart, that “Th’ only dooty of a Socialist is th’ emancipation of th’
workers” (208; act 4). When Fluther asks him, “We’re all Irishmen, anyhow; aren’t we?”
the Covey jokingly replies: “Look here, comrade, there’s no such thing as an Irishman, or
an Englishman, or a German or a Turk; we’re all only human bein’s. Scientifically
speakin’, it’s all a question of the accidental gatherin’ together of mollycewels an’ atoms”
(143; act 1). The mention of different nations in this speech, despite its melodramatic
half-serious tone, reinforces the skepticism about any unifying concept of nationalism. As
Grene has suggested, by its heterogeneous characters as well as its use of the two flags of
Ireland—the Plough and the Stars and the Tricolour—the play “throws” a “challenge” to
the nationalist “revolution” of Ireland (represented by the 1916 Rising), the challenge to
“Make a nation of that lot” (150).
While in Shaw’s play socialist concepts act almost like an undercurrent, The Plough
voices them with a remarkable frankness. Throughout the play—whether literally or
ironically—the socialist perspective persists to criticize the nationalist ideas and attitudes.
The Covey’s dialogue is strewn with socialist jargons like “Boorzwawzee,” “comrade,”
“th’ economic emancipation of th’ proletariat” (170, 174; act 2). He asks Fluther, “What
does Karl Marx say about th’ Relation of Value to th’ Cost o’ Production?” (175; act 2).
He also mentions “Jenersky’s Thesis on the Origin, Development, an’ Consolidation of
th’ Evolutionary Idea of the Proletariat” (209; act 4). These references, coupled with the
urban, working-class characters, add a new dimension to modern Irish theater. In
“Plumbing the Depths: Irish Realism and the Working Class from Shaw to O’Casey,”
Ben Levitas maintains that “the role of the Irish working class play should be recognized
as engaged in a political battle over where and which Ireland was represented.” Levitas
gives O’Casey the credit of “garrulously contemplat[ing]” the gulf between the socialist
“rhetoric for change” and “its political grounding” in Ireland, caused by the intervention
of the Irish War of Independence (147). Thus the play questions the elitist thrust of the
bourgeois nationalist politics and problematizes it by bringing in the international wave

3
Irish Citizen Army was set up by the trade unionist James Larkin, during the 1913 Dublin Lock-
Out, in order to defend the workers from the tyranny of the police and the employers. Sean
O’Casey was its general secretary (Hickey and Doherty 241-42, 296-97).
Ashim Dutta 15

of socialist thoughts and ideas. What is more important for our purpose is that the
references to socialist thoughts make greater Europe the most significant extra-national
space in the play, causing a conceptual “deterritorialization” of Ireland (to use
Lonergan’s word, quoted earlier).
Another deterritorializing trope in the play is the concept of home. Bessie’s son, we are
informed, is fighting for England in the First World War. Insulted by Clitheroe, she
obliquely mentions her son: “If me son was home from th’ threnches he’d see me
righted” (150; act 1). One is reminded, once again, of Cathleen Ni Houlihan which
dramatizes the notion of sacrifice to be made by heroic young men in order to protect the
right of their motherland. But this seemingly deliberate, albeit implicit, reference is rather
ironic. If Bessie’s son is fighting away from home, so are the British soldiers in Ireland.
Things are further complicated when, in response to Corporal Stoddart’s statement that a
man has to fight for his country, Fluther significantly asks: “You’re not fightin’ for your
counthry here, are you?” (209; act 4). In the final scene, Corporal Stoddard and Sergeant
Tinley of the Wiltshire Regiment of the British Army end the play with a song that
problematizes the concept of “home.” While drinking tea, they sing in unison with the
“voices of soldiers at a barricade outside the house”:
Keep the ’owme fires burning,
While your ’earts are yearning;
Though your lads are far away
They dream of ’owme. (218; act 4)
These references to the soldiers fighting away from “home” add to the international or
global dimension of the play. The concept of nation or home thus seems to be fluid due to
the influx of international thoughts and ideas as well as the geographical mobility of
characters across national borders. On this note, let us move on to the third and final play
of this essay.
Launched as the inaugural production of the Field Day Theatre Company in 1980
(Richards 609), Friel’s Translations participates in part in the tradition of Shaw and
O’Casey by complicating and nuancing the nationalist or colonialist paradigm as well as
by implying a global consciousness. The general plot-outline of the play seems to fit
nicely into a nationalist paradigm: a traditional Irish-speaking community revolving
around a hedge school is disrupted by the intervention of a colonial project, the
Ordinance Survey, attempting to translate Irish place names into their nearest English
equivalents. This mapping or re-mapping of Ireland by the colonial English authority—
coinciding with the replacement of the traditional hedge schools by the new National
School system4—gains in the play the status of a well-wrought colonial hegemonic

4
Hedge schools spread widely in Ireland in the early eighteenth century in response to the penal
laws that made Catholic education illegal. Forced by the situation, the peripatetic Catholic teachers
started to teach their students secretively, often in temporary, “makeshift” locales, known as
“hedge schools.” By 1824, there were as many as 9,000 of such schools in Ireland. They were
gradually superseded by the establishment of the National Education system in 1831 (Connolly
237-38, 384). Written in 1980, Friel’s play is set in 1833.
16 Spectrum, Volume 12, 2016

venture aimed at the cultural bankruptcy of the colonized community. That said, the play
definitely does much more than merely stage a nationalistic drama. Like Broadbent and
Doyle in Shaw’s John Bull, here, too, we have Irish and English characters who
challenge—if not subvert—the stereotypical representations of such characters. On the
one hand, we have Yolland who, much like Broadbent, seems to be enchanted by the
idealized Irishness he finds reflected everywhere in Baile Beag. On the other, Owen is the
Anglicized Irishman living in metropolitan Dublin, like Larry Doyle in Shaw’s play.
While Owen seems to be lacking in political wisdom when he tells Yolland that he does
not see anything “sinister” in “making a six-inch map of the country” and that “we’re
taking place-names that are riddled with confusion,” it is Yolland who answers in the
tone of a radical nationalist: “Who’s confused? Are the people confused?” (286; act 2).
Despite being an Englishman, Yolland here upholds the cause of the vernacular in
Ireland, while Owen sees the standardization of the Irish place names, proposed by the
Ordinance Survey, as part of the prospective globalization or modernization of Baile
Beag. If he, like Doyle in Shaw’s play, seems a “traitor,” it is only from the nationalist
standpoint. From a global perspective, his apathetic, matter-of-fact attitude towards the
cultural heritage transmitted through the traditional place names is symptomatic of the
new global world order which envisions a more fluid and less orthodox concept of
“nation” than does the nationalist order.
Besides the Anglicized Owen, there are other Irish characters who do not seem to be
committed to the cause of their native tongue. Maire and Bridget, for example, seem
happy enough at the prospect of learning English at the New National School. Even
Master Hugh appears to embrace the possibilities it offers, as we hear that he has already
applied for the post of a master at the national school. Although in act 1 he tells the
Ordinance Survey engineer Captain Lancey that “English . . . couldn’t really express us”
(269), later in the play he sounds less reactionary and more open to change. Reflecting on
the idea that the people of a nation are “shape[d]” by the “images of the past embodied in
language,” he maintains that “we must never cease renewing those images; because once
we do, we fossilize” (306-07; act 3). This notion of a de-fossilizing mobility of cultural
images problematizes any simplistically nationalist conceptualization of cultures.
Talking about the “shift” from Irish to English, which was “already well established” by
the time of the 1800 Act of Union, Gearoid Ó Tuathaigh observes in her essay
“Language, Ideology and National Identity” that “the language shift to English, the
language of power and of all the avenues to advancement, soon gathered momentum
among those who aspire to improve their condition or to progress and participate fully in
the life of the country under the new order” (42). This “new order” that English promises,
like Larry’s “big world” in John Bull’s, is modern, international and global,
notwithstanding the status of English as the colonizer’s language for the Irish. Such a
reading is corroborated by Maire’s references to America. Even before the play
introduces us to the Ordinance Survey map, we hear Maire mention the “Map of
America”—which she has been consulting at the hedge school—in relation to the
“passage money [that] came last Friday” (265; act 1). After some time, she makes her
motive more explicit: “I want to be able to speak English because I’m going to America
as soon as the harvest’s all saved” (270; act 1). This reference to another map—that of
Ashim Dutta 17

America—mentioned in connection with another English—that is international—

certainly underscores a global vision. To quote Tuathaigh once again:
[T]he geocultural location of Ireland in the twentieth century, right in the
middle of the Anglo-American highway of communications and
entertainment, increasingly the main artery of a global technology whose
dominant language was English, made the challenge of achieving any viable
form of bilingualism—to say nothing of a reverse language “shift”—
especially daunting. (51)
Although Friel’s play is set in 1833, being composed in 1980, it seems to have
incorporated the global perspectives of a later age. The phenomenon of migration to
America that Maire introduces in the play, of course, was not uncommon at the time the
play is set in. As Mary J. Hickman informs us in “Migration and Diaspora,” the
“[n]ineteenth-century migration from Ireland to the United States of America is seen as
fulfilling the criteria of a classic ‘diaspora’” (122). English is thus not only the language
of the colonizers, but also the language of diaspora, full of promises and possibilities.
While America offers one alternative to colonial polarities, another European alternative
is embedded in the hedge school. Throughout the play, the traditional hedge school
brings in associations of the Classical world of Greece and Rome, epitomized by Greek
and Latin languages. As we know from P. J. Dowlin’s The Hedge Schools of Ireland, in a
typical hedge school, among other subjects, Latin and Greek, mostly Latin, were almost
consistently taught (43). Accordingly, we see in the play that Jimmy, a senior hedge-
school student, is almost half-dwelling in the Classical world: he, as the stage direction
has it, “is fluent in Latin and Greek but is in no way pedantic—to him it is perfectly
normal to speak these tongues” (256; act 1). Grene notes in this phenomenon “a broader
appeal to the idea of a pan-European culture . . . than merely a one-upping exercise for
the Irish over the English” (39). Thus the hedge school itself introduces in the play a
greater European context than that of a colonial or anti-colonial nationalism.
There are, of course, moments when Translations seems to relapse into colonial or
nationalist concerns. Rather than limiting its scope to Europe and America, the play also
refers to Asia, but not in the connection of any global diaspora, but in that of colonialism.
Yolland tells Owen that his father got him “a job with the East India Company,” that, had
he not “missed the boat,” he would have been in “Bombay instead of Ballybeg” (282-83;
act 2). This alliterative juxtaposition of Bombay and Baile Beag as well as the passing
reference to the East India Company is very significant. So far as Yolland is concerned,
serving the East India Company is as good as serving the British army in Ireland, these
being but alternative career opportunities for him. At another level, this allusion to British
India, by implying a comparison with Irish colonial condition, emphasizes the colonialist
or nationalist aspects of the play. The play thus offers, to use the words of Shaun
Richards, “a multi-faceted and nuanced reading of colonial relations” (612).
However, as The Plough keeps Pearse’s revolutionary speech off the stage and gives
Pearse a shadowy or silhouetted reality, Translations also pushes to the periphery the
revolutionary politics represented by the Donnelly twins who are not properly introduced
in the play. The few references to them we come across are all fragmentary and doomed
18 Spectrum, Volume 12, 2016

to a mysterious silence or an abrupt halt. That they are associated with a nationalist
resistance movement, however, is suggested less ambiguously in those references, the
most prominent of which is the following dialogue in act 3:
DOALTY. If we’d all stick together. If we knew how to defend ourselves.
OWEN. Against a trained army.
DOALTY. The Donnelly twins know how.
OWEN. If they could be found.
DOALTY. If they could be found. (304)
Although they are never found, the play ends with this note of anxiety and uncertainty
due to the possibility of an attack by the British army, triggered by the sudden
disappearance of Yolland.
In sum, in all of these three plays, we can find elements of a global consciousness
existing alongside, and often demystifying, the national consciousness. The global
imaginations of playwrights like Shaw, O’Casey and Friel diversify the world of modern
Irish drama. Taking up “the Anglo-Irish antithesis so beloved of the Victorians and of
many Irish revivalists” (Kiberd 54), these plays transcend this antithesis and suggest a
more complex and pluralist vision of reality. The negotiation between the national and
the international, the local and the global accounts for the universal appeal of these plays.

Works Cited
Cleary, Joe, and Claire Connolly, eds. The Cambridge Companion to Modern Irish Culture.
Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2005. Print.
Connolly, S. J., ed. The Oxford Companion to Irish History. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1998. Print.
Dowling, P. J. The Hedge Schools of Ireland. Cork: Mercier, 1968. Print.
Friel, Brian. Translations. Harrington 255-308.
Grene, Nicholas. The Politics of Irish Drama: Plays in Context from Boucicault to Friel.
Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1999. Print.
Harrington, John P., ed. Modern and Contemporary Irish Drama. 2nd ed. New York: Norton,
2009. Print.
Hickey, D. J., and J. E. Doherty. A Dictionary of Irish History 1800-1980. Dublin: Gill and
Macmillan, 1980. Print.
Hickman, Mary J. “Migration and Diaspora.” Cleary and Connolly 117-36.
Jenckes, Norma. “The Rejection of Shaw’s Irish Play: John Bull’s Other Island.” 1975.
Harrington 481-86.
Kiberd, Declan. “John Bull’s Other Islander—Bernard Shaw.” Inventing Ireland. London:
Jonathan Cape, 1995. 51-63. Print.
Levitas, Ben. “Plumbing the Depths: Irish Realism and the Working Class from Shaw to
O’Casey.” Irish University Review 33.1 (2003): 133-49. JSTOR. Web. 7 April 2016.
Lonergan, Patrick. Theatre and Globalization: Irish Drama in the Celtic Tiger Era. New York:
Palgrave, 2010. Print.
Ashim Dutta 19

Meisel, Martin. “Irish Romance.” 1991. Harrington 486-91.

O’Casey, Sean. The Plough and the Stars. Three Plays. New York: St Martin’s P, 1957. 131-218.
Print.
Richards, Shaun. “Throwing Theory at Ireland? The Field Day Theatre Company and Postcolonial
Theatre Criticism.” Modern Drama 47.4 (Winter 2004): 607-23. Print.
Shaw, Bernard. John Bull’s Other Island. Harrington 113-96.
Tuathaigh, Gearoid Ó. “Language, Ideology and National Identity.” Cleary and Connolly 42-58.
Yeats, W. B. and Lady Gregory. Cathleen Ni Houlihan. Harrington 3-11.
 Machines of the Roaring Twenties and Their Effects on
Flappers’ Individualism in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The
Great Gatsby
Sanjeeda Hossain*

Abstract
During the Roaring Twenties of the last century, the invention and operation of new
technologies empowered American women to operate various mechanical
instruments. As an aftermath of The Great War, socio-political environment
underwent a massive reformation. This made women traverse outside their familiar
abode. In addition to that, advent of new technologies facilitated them to transcend
contemporary social conducts. The whole idea of womanhood transformed as these
women started emerging as a new breed of women, namely ‘flappers’, as they
redefined individualism. Flappers’ individualism flourished under an unavoidable
influence of the machine culture. Machines developed these women’s forte,
confidence and prowess; also by hastening social progress, they initiated a massive
change in their overall identity. In light of Realo et al.’s “The Components of
Individualism”, F. Scott Fitzgerald in his novel The Great Gatsby portrays three
different components of flappers’ individualism in three female characters as he
depicts Daisy Buchanan as autonomous, Jordan Baker as self responsible and Myrtle
Wilson as unique individuals. Considering Herbert Marcuse’s ideas on “Social
Implications of Technology” this paper examines both the beneficial and harmful
roles of automation upon flappers’ individuality.
Keywords: flappers, machines, technology, individualism, autonomy, change

As an aftermath of the Great War, a new generation of American women emerged. They
began to burgeon in a new cultural, political and economic atmosphere. Moreover,
extensive use of new machines and technologies helped them to assert their social,
professional and sexual independence from men. As a result, a new breed of women
known as the flappers proliferates amid this climate of social changes. Flappers are
fiercely independent, liberated women; they are the epitomes of feminine individualism.
According to Realo et al. this individualism has three basic components and, these
components are reflected in the characters of Daisy Buchanan, Jordan Baker and Myrtle
Wilson: the flappers in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby. Nevertheless,
according to Herbert Marcuse’s “Social Implications of Technology”, due to substantive
use of machines, their individualism goes through an immense transformation. As these
flappers continue to be dominated by automations, they become transfigured as
incorrigible, irresponsible and pugnacious human beings— utterly heedless towards
social duties and obligations; eventually, they convert into thoughtless consumers of
modern amenities. However, though technology constricts their individuality, it is also
necessary for the full realization of their individuality as it opens up a space for them to
*
Lecturer, Department of English, University of Dhaka
22 Spectrum, Volume 12, 2016

explore their self-dignity and integrity. In The Great Gatsby Daisy Buchanan, Jordan
Baker and Myrtle Wilson embody the remarkable journey of the flappers through their
use of the components of individualism in a society ruled by machines and, their legacy
contributes in making the modern American women today.
Prior to the Jazz age, American women felt a change in their public role as they began to
embrace components of individualism, and shortly within the next decade, they emerged
as a new breed of autonomous, self-responsible, unique individuals. These new women
are called the flappers. There were several factors involved behind flappers’ remarkable
individuality. First of all, The Great War helped women to be financially independent. As
men went to the war, many women joined the work posts left vacant by men. This aided
them to earn their own financial stability. Secondly, The Nineteenth Amendment to the
Constitution in 1920 granted women the power to vote so that women could earn their
freedom of expression and be more active in politics and society. Thirdly, the Feminist
movements, during the same decade, propel women to pursue their aims and be more
concerned about their rights. Finally, a revolt against the Puritan orthodox culture assisted
them to be free from social and cultural restrictions. To be more precise, it can be said
that the socio-political-economic changes during the Jazz age largely contributed in the
making of Flappers’ Individualism but, flappers might never have achieved the freedom
necessary to develop their exclusive lifestyle without mechanical advancement. As
technological developments play a major part in their sexual revolution, the machine
culture transforms them into a distinct group with common interests. By using new
technologies, on one hand, flappers gained their authority, prestige and cultural value; on
the other hand, they emerged as capable, strong and assertive social agents. Dependence
on machines saved their time and energy; it aided them to adapt all means, anticipate
consequences, maintain a secured environment around them (Marcuse 66) and above all,
it supported them in making individual choices and decisions. As a result, women were
released from the older generation’s authoritarian code of conduct; they gradually
transformed into powerful individuals. Earlier, when American males adopted
individualism, they defined it as a masculine conception by excluding women from it.
Later, the enormous strength and courage, achieved from these social, political and
economic changes, guided flappers to earn their own individuality. For Americans,
individualism defines Americanism and as a cultural icon, it emphasizes individual
liberty as well as belief in the primary importance of the individual, the ‘virtues of self
reliance’ and ‘personal independence’ (Marcuse 64) and consequently, flappers
developed all these features. As rational beings these individual women became
individual entities through their own thinking (Marcuse 64). They had certain
fundamental features or components that could not be encroached upon them by any
external authority. These features were an integral part behind their existence and
conscience as they supported them to mould their personal faculties and abilities.
According to Realo et al., autonomy, self-responsibility and uniqueness are the three
basic components of flappers’ individuality. The flappers of the Jazz Age are best
depicted in the characters of Daisy Buchanan, Jordan Baker and Myrtle Wilson (Mirza
137) and each of these women feature one of these components of individuality.
Sanjeeda Hossain 23

At first, if Daisy Buchanan’s character is analyzed in light of this framework, it will be

found that autonomy and Daisy are synonymous. Autonomy refers to a person’s capacity
for independent thinking, judgment and survival and as an autonomous person, Daisy
gives priority to her own aims, decisions and choices (Realo et al. 167). When she
pursues her personal goals and interests, she does not intervene in other people’s lives
and does not like others to intervene in her life (Realo et al. 170). At the age of eighteen,
Daisy, the central heroine of the novel, behaves in a revolutionary manner by loving the
main protagonist or titular hero Gatsby— a man much beneath her station. Gatsby was
charmed by Daisy’s autonomy. As a result, he puts his faith in her, and she determines
his destiny (Levitt 262). Later, when Gatsby does not return from the war, she chooses to
marry the wealthy Tom Buchanan. Daisy clutches to her autonomy even after her
marriage as Nick perceives her with “an excitement in her voice that men who had cared
for her found difficult to forget” (Fitzgerald 11). Though she seems to be moved by
Gatsby’s monumental efforts to regain her, in the end, she elects to stay with her socially
respectable husband (Korenman 577) by following her autonomous nature. Her
demonstration of autonomy assists Daisy to gain what she wants.
On the other hand, Jordan Baker resembles the second component of individuality or self-
responsibility. Jordan is Daisy’s girlhood friend from Louisville. Since she is a
professional golfer, her golf career allows her the ‘public mobility’ and ‘economic
independence’ to travel. Besides, she, as a public figure, is always under the spotlight.
She maintains her confidence whenever she poses for magazines (Froehlich and Hazleton
99). When Nick encounters her for the first time in Tom and Daisy Buchanan’s house,
she is seen “with her chin raised a little, as if she were balancing something on it which
was quite likely to fall” (Fitzgerald 10). In this way, she develops a strong, upright
personality through such exhibitions “of complete self-sufficiency” (Fitzgerald 11). She
liberates herself from ‘a patriarchal capitalist economy’ (Froehlich and Hazleton 91). She
is athletic and self-sufficient like a man, and she always takes the lead in her relationships
with men. Jordan’s body is described by Nick as hard and muscular— similar to the body
of a young cadet and she intentionally exhibits masculine features— she is devoid of
feminine compassion (Froehlich and Hazleton 83). She is a prosperous woman who has
her own plans for her life. She maintains her own affairs properly (Realo et al. 170) and
as a self-responsible person, Jordan Baker has an immense self-esteem to take all
responsibilities for her own actions; she is only accountable to herself (Realo et al. 167).
Finally, the aspect of individualism that Myrtle features lays emphasis on a person’s
awareness of being unique or the ‘only one of its kind’, and in this way she embodies the
third and final component of individualism. As an individual she never perceives herself
through other people’s eyes; she is quite assured that she is distinct from others (Realo et
al. 167). Though in relation to her family and friends she seems to be similar to them, she
basically has a unique identity apart from them (Realo et al. 170). Myrtle is born into
poverty but she constantly feels an urgent need to ascend the social ladder. Her ambition
propels her to form a relationship with Tom Buchanan in order to be a part of the East
Egg society to follow the grace and sophistication of the upper class (Samkanashvili 48).
As her husband George Wilson does not have a steady income, she wants to leave him
and his garage for a better life (Levitt 261). Tom in his violent fits often misbehaves with
24 Spectrum, Volume 12, 2016

Myrtle but she protests conveniently against his rough behavior for her desire to belong
to the class of the old rich (Mirza 138). Myrtle is unique in her struggle to achieve an
identity of her own.
Nevertheless, use of machines leads to the violation of their individualism and it
transfigures them as incorrigible, irresponsible and pugnacious beings utterly heedless
towards social duties and obligations. According to Marcus, when machines become an
integral part of survival in a mechanized world, individuals get rid of their noble
individuality. Certain illustrations can provide a wonderful insight to this phenomenon,
for example, as automobiles of the Roaring Twenties increase the mobility of the younger
generation, cars allow young men and women to go on long drives – away from their
homes to enjoy dates in most private and romantic settings. This constructs individual
freedom (Mirza 139) for sure but it also fosters negligence towards ethics and customs. In
addition to that, an “urban night life” enables young people to access new modes of
entertainment. Furthermore, flappers love to go to the movies but they are often lured by
the contorted portrayal of the American society. Movies are generally used as tools to
deliver important socio-political messages to the general mass but, instead of being a
healthy form of amusement, movies based on the flapper culture reflect their lower taste.
Likewise, the invention of radio is considered as a revolution in the field of
communication even today, for it brings the world closer. It keeps people informed about
the latest occurrences; it entertains and it also spreads knowledge. In contrast to the
positive images of radio broadcasting, flappers use it from a negative perspective. They
get the latest information of new products or trends by tuning the radio on. Radio
advertisements intended for flappers contain little intellectual content and irritating
pronouncements. False advertising makes the flappers close-minded and disillusioned for
it creates a sense of ignorance towards anything unpleasant. In this way, machines mark
progress and improvement in the lifestyle of these flappers but, over dependence on the
machine culture create certain harmful impacts on their social and family lives.
There has also been an unavoidable influence of Jazz music in flappers’ lives. It has a
remarkably distinct rhythm, style and melody of its own, but the flappers get attracted to
Jazz for all the wrong reasons. Flappers use it as a tool of liberation. Due to its offbeat
and strange rhythm, it was already been given the image of being immoral or against all
old values. It was also considered as a bad influence as it was primarily heard in dance
halls and brothels. It was often accompanied by indecent dance movements. These
notions captivate Flappers. In Gatsby’s party it is seen that:
There was dancing now on the canvas in the garden; old men pushing young
girls backward in eternal graceless circles, superior couples holding each
other tortuously, fashionably, and keeping in the corners- and a great number
of single girls dancing individualistically… When the ‘Jazz History of the
World’ was over, girls were putting their heads on men’s shoulders in a
puppyish, convivial way, girls were swooning backward playfully into men’s
arms, even into groups (Fitzgerald 48-49, 52)
Jazz dancing often took an informal turn and, change of partners among flappers is
frequently seen on dance floors; this issue is eventually reflected on their private lives.
Jazz dancing is another name of liberty for them. The dancer gets bold and reckless by
Sanjeeda Hossain 25

the noisy, wild and tantalizing beat of the jazz music. It is accompanied by slang,
immodest dress and general lowering of moral standard (Hilderbrant 300). Flappers were
immensely influenced by the jazz culture.
During the Jazz Age, mass production of commodity constructed individualistic
rationality but Reason and Humanity get lost under the standardized control of production
and consumption (Marcuse 66). Though it cannot be directly felt by the users and
consumers, when human beings apply and utilize machines, they automatically get
changed and controlled by them (Marcuse 63). Through the mode of production and
distribution, machine affects all of those whom it serves (Marcuse 64) and inside a
mechanized culture of this period, it becomes impossible to remain unaffected by
machines.
Since everyone got under the giant enterprises of machine industry, only those who are
the most mechanized tend to be the most favored (Marcuse 65); as a result, under the
harmful effects of machines, Daisy Buchanan, Jordan Baker and Myrtle Wilson’s
individuality get transformed. Accordingly, when Daisy learns about her husband’s
infidelity, she becomes immensely involved in her social life to get rid of the problems in
her domestic life. As she continues to be busy with telephone calls, car rides and jazz
parties, she becomes a symbol of sexual inequality for dependence on her men for luxury
and shelter. Paul Levitt in his essay “The Great Gatsby and Revolution, in Theme and
Style” states:
Her voice is full of money-is a statement that refers to Daisy’s tastes; she is
so imbued with wealth that her voice has transmogrified into money. Her
voice and money are synonymous; they are virtual correlatives. So
accustomed is daisy to affluence that she exudes it in her voice- a voice that
tells that she could be won only by money. (Fitzgerald 264)
Thus, Daisy’s survival rests on her ability to seduce and hold her men; sex becomes her
economic way of life (Stefanovici 636). Daisy loses the integrity of individualism as she
stops being a free economic object (Marcuse 63). She willingly lets herself become an
object of desire for the men around her (Samkanashvili 47). Perpetually, she becomes
cynical not only about the world she lives in but also about her idea of women in the
world. She believes that women have no place in this world to be intelligent; she can only
be beautiful and stupid. Since Gatsby’s economic affluence cannot always be guaranteed,
she returns to her brute husband because she is comfortable with her wealthy lifestyle.
Daisy is detached from her daughter and she is utterly careless and unfaithful towards her
family (Samkanashvili 47). Thus, Daisy does not lose her autonomy but she certainly
starts to misuse it.
Similarly, as time goes by, Jordan starts exploiting her accountability as she becomes
arrogant and unemotional with media attention, magazines and popularity (Samkanashvili
47). She has a rich aunt and seems to live parasitically off of any man who will keep her.
“She moves along with whichever rich man will pay the bills” (Levitt 262). Fitzgerald’s
use of the expression “sporting life” to describe the magazines in which Nick sees her
photograph creates a double entendre linking her professional athleticism with a kind of
recreational sexuality as she becomes a representative of “the mannish woman”
(Froehlich and Hazleton 84); she transcends traditional gender barriers. Her confidence
26 Spectrum, Volume 12, 2016

gets distorted under her fame; many critical and unpleasant stories get spread about
Jordan (Fitzgerald 21) and her career. She no longer remains loyal to her profession or
social position as she cheats in one of her golf matches. Under the influence of the
machine culture, Jordan stops being self-responsible.
Myrtle also starts losing her individuality. She is already an inhabitant of the valley of
ashes; she struggles to live amidst an ‘unprosperous and bare’, dust-covered wreck
(Fitzgerald 25-26). She moves closer to Tom in her husband’s presence and makes a fool
of him as she secretly plans to meet Tom in the name of visiting her sister (Fitzgerald 28).
She gradually becomes a pet dog for Tom. Her affair with Tom is disclosed as a way to
receive materialistic gifts and a solution for her poverty. Tom takes it as a game where
Myrtle is just a sex object kept on a leash of luxurious bestowments (Samkanashvili 48).
Her language marks her as unschooled and her execrable taste is reflected on her clothes,
perfume, apartment furnishings, mongrel dogs and magazines that she reads (Levitt 261).
Tom buys an apartment in New York in order to have a relaxed extra-marital affair with
Myrtle and, Myrtle in a yearning to belong to the East Egg aristocracy, gives up her
dignity. She fails to realize that she cannot enter the world of the old rich by her false
sophistication; she can never become a part of the class she covets simply by buying a
puppy from Rockefeller or by wearing chiffon dresses. Eventually, she throws herself
into a life from which there is no coming back (Mirza 138), as she becomes almost
identical to any ordinary poor woman desiring wealth through dishonesty and deceit.
Therfore, Myrtle stops being unique.
Here it is important to note that under the influence of machines and technologies, from
strong and courageous individuals the flappers become homogenous; they lose their
individuality by turning into a crowd. Crowd and individual are contradictory concepts
and incompatible facts: though crowds are composed of individuals, these individuals
cease to function as strong, independent and responsible social agents (Marcuse 70).
When dinner is announced at the Buchanan’s, Nick observes Daisy and Jordan having a
languid conversation. Daisy complains:
“I always watch for the longest day in the year and then miss it.’
‘We ought to plan something,’ yawned Miss Baker, sitting down at the table as if
she were getting into bed.
‘All right,’ said Daisy. ‘What’ll we plan?’ She turned to me helplessly: ‘What do
people plan?’” (Fitzgerald 14).
It seems like they are tired of their lives as they do not have anything else to do. Since
machines have made their lives easy, they are now lazy, self-consumed creatures, devoid
of human emotions—reduced to the level of lifeless objects. Inertia has grabbed them;
they have ceased to function and have almost lost the sense of time, for machines now do
all the work for them. Consequently, after machine does its effect, their individuality
reduces to the concept of self-preservation (Marcuse 71) and from individuals, these
women in Fitzgerald’s novel turn into a crowd. At this stage of evolution, Flappers can be
easily handled like the crowds; for they share the same thoughts, feelings and interests as
they become members of a decided pattern. They no longer crave for a new order; they
just want a larger share in the prevailing one. Their uniformity lies in the competitive
self-interest (Marcuse 71), for example, when Myrtle intervenes in Tom and Daisy’s
married life quite openly with a phone call during the dinner time, Nick notices that
Jordan gets “unashamed, trying to hear” the conversation between the couple (Fitzgerald
Sanjeeda Hossain 27

17). As she overhears their words, she tries to collect as much elements of gossip about
Tom and Daisy’s marriage so that she can use them later for entertainment purpose.
Myrtle misuses the telecommunication technology willingly to exert her position as a
mistress in Daisy’s presence. She knows that Daisy will be there when she will call Tom
at dinner. She wants to flag her interests without any care for ethic or morality; she is too
preoccupied with her self-interest. Consequently, these stories of Tom’s mistresses leave
Daisy “cynical about everything” (Fitzgerald 19). She gets disloyal to her husband.
Eventually, under these circumstances, all of these women change into a unit of
adjustment (Marcuse 71); they become indistinguishable (Froehlich and Hazleton 85) by
neglecting the old moral values. Furthermore, they become ordinary as many women start
following the flapper trend. They convert themselves into beautiful fools— being
everywhere, seeing everything, doing everything (Fitzgerald 20). Daisy acclaims that this
is the best thing “a girl can be in this world” (Fitzgerald 21) full of machines. In a time
where “people disappeared, reappeared, made plans to go somewhere, and then lost each
other, searched for each other, found each other a few feet away” (Fitzgerald 39), Nick
observes flappers as “creatures blurred by the aimless round of parties and vacuous
relationships”(Froehlich and Hazleton 84). All the flappers at Gatsby’s parties look alike
and there remain “only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy and the tired’” (Fitzgerald 82).
Finally, flappers become a unit of aimlessness and boredom in this world ruled by
machines.
However, though machine and technology let the flappers turn into thoughtless
consumers of modern amenities, they basically aid them to transform the idea of freedom.
Technology, though it constricts individuality, is also necessary for the full realization of
individuality; it saves women some extra time to ponder over the issues of independence,
self-dignity and integrity. Women start to develop an openness to change in themselves
and the society around them, by watching the flappers around. Three components of
individualism or women’s autonomy, self-esteem and uniqueness are interrelated because
they all emphasize self-direction, stimulation and achievement (Realo et al. 174) and,
arguably the greatest success of the flappers has been their ability to spread these
components to every woman during that period. Following their trends and style,
American women came a long way regarding the issues of self-enhancements, power and
achievement. Flappers often get tired of their superficial lives, as Daisy complains,
“‘What’ll we do with ourselves this afternoon? … and the day after that, and the next
thirty years?’ but Jordan assures her by saying, “Don’t be morbid … Life starts all over
again when it gets crisp in the fall’” (Fitzgerald 120). Flappers transform themselves into
the hope of the new era as they struggle with the inevitable changes in the contemporary
American society. They epitomize “… the youth and mystery that wealth imprisons and
preserves, of the freshness of many clothes … gleaming like silver, safe and proud above
the hot struggles of the poor” (Fitzgerald 152). Flappers are magnificent; their luster is
inexorable. Even when Myrtle dies by getting stamped under the ‘death car’, she chokes a
little to give up her “tremendous vitality” (Fitzgerald 140). Therefore, the contribution of
these exciting new breed of women, towards women’s independence, is remarkable.
The individualism of the Flappers flourished under the influence of machine culture as
machines altered their view of life. Along with their wondrous individuality, they adhere
to common fashion styles and behavior modes dictated by the machine culture.
28 Spectrum, Volume 12, 2016

Technology makes them independent, self-reliant and exceptional; it also sets new
examples of liberty by changing their overall status.

Acknowledgements
This essay is a moderated outcome of a presentation I made at a conference (The
Machine in the Garden: Literature, Language and Technology in English Studies)
organized by the Department of English, Daffodil International University on 19
September, 2015. The title of my presentation was “Technologies of the Roaring
Twenties and the New Women: the Flapper, the Virago and the Renegade in F. Scott
Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby.”
I am immensely grateful to Professor Zerin Alam for her classes on The Great Gatsby,
American Jazz Age and the flappers. Without participating in her wonderful lectures, it
would have been impossible for me to write this essay. I have incorporated some of her
views and ideas in this essay.

Works Cited
Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. Nova Press and Publications. January 2011. Print.
Froehlich, Maggie Gordon. and Penn State Hazleton. “Jordan Baker, Gender Dissent, and
Homosexual Passing in The Great Gatsby ”. The Space Between. 1(2010): 81-101. Web.
October 31, 2014
Gholipour, Mojtaba. and Mina Sanahmadi. “A Psychoanalytic Attitude to the Great Gatsby ”.
International Journal of Humanities and Management Sciences (IJHMS). 1.1 (2013): 51-
53. Web. October 31, 2014
Gunn, Giles. “F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Gatsby and the Imagination of Wonder”. Journal of the
American Academy of Religion. 41. 2 (June 1973): 171-183. Web. October 31, 2014
Hilderbrant, Edith L. "Music Memory Contests." The School Review 30.4 (1922): 300-06. Web.
Issues and Controversies in American History-Flappers. 2 June, 2013. 1-11. Web. September 6,
2015
Korenman, Joan S. ““Only Her Hairdresser…”: Another Look at Daisy Buchanan”. American
Literature. 46.4 (Jan 1975): 574-578. Web. August 31, 2015
Levitt, Paul M. “The Great Gatsby and Revolution, in Theme and Style”. International Journal of
Humanities and Social Sciences. 1. 17 (November 2011): 260-266. Web. November 5,
2014
Marcuse, Herbert. “Social Implications of Technology”. New York University. 63-79.Web.
September 6, 2015
Mirza, Rupali. “F. Scott Fitzgerald: The Jazz Age and The Great Gatsby”. 2.5 (May 2014) 127-
141. Web. November 5, 2014
Realo, Anu., Kati Koido, Eva Ceulemans and Jűri Allik. “The Components of Individualism”.
European Journal of Personality. 16 (8 May 2002): 163-184. Web. September 6, 2015
Samkanashvili, Maia. “The Role of Women in the Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald”. Journal
in Humanities. (2013): 47-48. Web. November 5, 2014
Stefanovici, Smardana. “Gender and Individualsim in American Culture”. 632-643. Web.
September 6, 2015
World War One And The Great War Film Studies Essay. nd. Web. September 6, 2015
 Katherine Mansfield: Feminist Self and "Cry against
Corruption"
Mohammad Shahidul Islam Chowdhury*

Abstract
This paper focuses on Katherine Mansfield’s promulgation of female characters at
multifarious levels of individual attainment. Mansfield (1888 – 1923), the central
modernist author besides Virginia Woolf, expresses an articulate feminist ideology in
her short stories. The term "feminist" speaks of the realization of how women are
deprived of their voice and identity, and their fight for promoting it within their
culture, leading to the establishment of individual awareness. Mansfield
distinguishes between the outside world and the interior of a character, and explores
that character's self as it faces numerous ambiguities in that external world. She
creates space within the individual, and expands this inner spatial world focusing on
memory and consciousness, a process which is not limited within one time-frame.
By creating two worlds, she brings the inside out, and nurtures it within the liminal
space of the short story. Many of her stories manifest the issue of gender
consciousness from a feminist point of view. Characters here suffer from a crisis of
the self within patriarchal hegemony, which belittles their individuality. Her female
characters are repressed by their male companions, and their unheard and subjugated
voices point at that repression, and show their helplessness in their male-dominated
surroundings. In these stories, Mansfield echoes and expands the concern of female
individuality. In other words, these stories express her idea of the feminist self. This
paper aims at finding how Mansfield uses that consciousness in embedding the sense
of a feminist self.
Keywords: feminist self, patriarchy, Katherine Mansfield, the Other, identity,
awareness

At an early stage of life, Mansfield wrote in her journal in 1908, "It is the hopelessly
insipid doctrine that love is the only thing in the world, taught, hammered into women,
from generation to generation, which hampers us so cruelly. We must get rid of that
bogey – and then, then comes the opportunity of happiness and freedom" (Journal 37).
Many of her stories illustrate the impression on feminism as such. Patriarchy captivates
women in many ways, and when they become conscious of that socio-cultural
confinement, they can attempt to attain their freedom. I have chosen three stories ("Je ne
parle pas français", "Bliss", and "The Daughters of the Late Colonel"), which focus on
how women face oppression by the deprivation of their voice and identity. By reviving
this awareness in the characters of her stories, Mansfield gives voice to the awakened yet
suppressed voice of these women. This awareness, then, can lead to the establishment of
a feminist self.
Oppression on women is justified with the explanations that women are associated with
the private, domestic sphere and men with the public sphere; human societies value

*
Associate Professor, Department of English, East Delta University, Chittagong
30 Spectrum, Volume 12, 2016

culture above nature and associate women with nature, and this eventually leads to
women's subordination due to a devalued perception of women and their work (Charles
and Hughes-Freeland 3). This oppression, then, has two edges: first, women are bestowed
with feminine qualities and expected to behave within those norms, and secondly, they
are ignored and cornered as a result of those feminine attributes. Being able to come to an
inner awareness, which is constructed within a society against that society, formulates a
conscious self in an individual. This formulation is processed as a result of the interaction
between regulation and individuation. The self, in this way, develops two entities: one is
itself, the other is beyond itself, which Judith Butler calls "Other." Butler says that the
self only becomes a self when it suffers a separation, a loss which is suspended and
provisionally resolved through a melancholic incorporation of some "Other." This "other"
in the self establishes a disruption towards that self's self-identity; this disruption is the
very condition of the self's possibility (Salih and Butler 133). The self's potential, in this
sense, depends on the interruption that originates from societal and cultural imposition.
A feminist self may come into being when, according to Butler, the strategies of
subversive repetition can be located and the local possibilities of intervention can be
affirmed (Butler 201). So, identification of the other and its function within the self can
expound a feminist self that can stand on its own to voice the oppression it faces. The
liminal function of that constructed self is to be aware of the extent to which it can
withstand the challenge of being subverted. This awareness and power comes through
performance within a set social structure. Thus, it is again the performance of gender that
eventually assembles a feminist self through the threat of subversion and with the help of
that self's potential.
Fullbrook says that Mansfield is one of the first writers in the twentieth century to
address women’s anger at the injustice of their treatment in a straightforward manner, and
express it in a prose that refuses to soften the accounts of the varieties of women's
emotional response to their subjection (Fullbrook 54). Many of Mansfield's late stories
voice this anger in the form of a "cry against corruption" (Letters 2: 54) against women.
It is a social corruption that deprives women of their rights to voice their feelings, their
needs and demands. As an outsider in the mainstream English literary world, Mansfield
has been able to realize that concave space of women. Consequently, she lends her voice
to bring out the voice and sensitivity of these deserted women. She boosts the feminist
self that may rise through an awareness among the women in her stories.
Set in Paris, "Je ne parle pas français" (1918) presents its narrator's life and an English
girl's fate. It can be seen as a transitive story between feminine consciousness and
feminist self. The male narrator makes comments about himself and other characters and
features around him. The story's authority lies more in its narrative than in its plot. Raoul
Duquette, the Parisian writer and narrator, continues as a self-conscious confessor. His
fragmented narrative becomes ironic with the use of his frequent comments about people
or events. A prototype of the modern period, the narrator brings his forgotten past for the
continuity of his unending present, where he reveals himself as a cynical, uncaring, and
egocentric person. He presents part of the life of an English lady who, being deserted in
Paris by her lover, is forced to live an uncertain life in a place where her voice requires
transformation.
Mohammad Shahidul Islam Chowdhury 31

Like its paradoxical title – "one cannot say it without being able to do so" – the story
commences with an opportunity of implementing paradoxical elements in one's life.
Duquette begins it with the intention of introducing uncertainty through certainty. He has
an unexplained fantasy "for this little café" (Selected Stories 142), where he comes
regularly, and works consciously in his subconscious mind. It is his world. His
observation and silent comments about people enable him to judge them, although it is
mingled with his emotion. He is not impartial but cynical. He says that he has forgotten
his past, but gives a corruptive description of it, where abuse rules. Instead of making
himself free from it, he sips on it leisurely. That is why he says that he likes this place of
his first abuse. Duquette is a binary character in the sense that he performs masculinity by
choosing his place in society, and assumes femininity in his physical appearance when he
says, "I confess, without my clothes I am rather charming. Plump, almost like a girl, with
smooth shoulders, and I wear a thin gold bracelet above my left elbow." His homosexual
attachment with his English friend Dick seems pseudo-heterosexual where he plays the
role of a woman when Dick is about to leave, "I felt hurt. I felt as a woman must feel
when a man takes out his watch and remembers an appointment that cannot possibly
concern her, except that its claim is the stronger" (Selected Stories 148, 152). He feels
forsaken and abused by Dick, who acts like an abuser. As a boy and as a grown-up man,
Duquette is doubly disadvantaged. But being alone, there is none for him to tell it. His
self-alienation within the society and its pressure on him make him vulnerable. Thus,
being a male, he performs feminine actions.
The contrast in Duquette is that being a vulnerable character, he can execute masculinity
and can become an oppressor himself. After losing his childhood innocence, he has
gained experience, which empowers him to take advantage of his situation, "I became
very languid, very caressing, and greedy beyond measure. And so quickened, so
sharpened, I seemed to understand everybody and be able to do what I liked with
everybody" (Selected Stories 147). He plays at his ease because he knows his capability.
He has imbibed from his childhood experience a perverted fancy for his own pleasure and
a sense of artistic aesthetics by manipulating others. He is artistic, and sadistic. Mary
Burgan states that Duquette is motivated by his early discovery that his somatic
indoctrination could help him to rule people through his own sharp knowledge of their
weaknesses (Burgan 136). His creative mind puts him in touch with Dick, but his vicious
mind finds an opportunity to become like Dick, who has mercilessly yet helplessly
forsaken his beloved Mouse in Paris.
Mouse is a double victim of male authority. Dick knows what he is going to do with her.
She also anticipates her destiny. Dick, being Oedipal-loyal to his mother, has arranged to
leave Mouse in Paris with the hope that Duquette is there to take care of her, at least
momentarily. Though Duquette has been loyal to him, Dick misjudges his Parisian friend.
The story presents all these characters as parallels. Both Dick and Mouse realize, without
disclosing their inner thoughts to the other, the end of their relationship. Both Duquette
and Mouse are abandoned by Dick. But it is in the finale that Duquette plays the role of
Dick against Mouse. Duquette preys upon her mind. He is the only person on whom she
can rely because she lacks the proper voice for communication as she tells him before his
departure, "je ne parle pas français" (Selected Stories 166). For the second time she has
32 Spectrum, Volume 12, 2016

uttered this, and has intended to miss the opportunity of living a traditional life. Before
leaving England, she creates a falsity that she is married to Dick. Thus, she has blocked
her return path. She has to choose an alternate way in life, which is hindered by the lack
of her voice. Thus, Mouse is doubly disadvantaged by both people and place. Both these
elements force her to begin life anew.
Duquette remains elusive about why he does not meet her the next day. He feels, but does
not explicate that Dick and Mouse are "really suffering. I have seen two people suffer as I
don't suppose I ever shall again . . ." (Selected Stories 166). This is the very asset of that
artistic mind that feeds on the suffering of people. Duquette, "sceptical about the stability
and individuality of personality" (Bennett 74), enjoys to see Mouse suffer, and so refrains
from going to help her. Moreover, he feels that they are equal now, because both are
derelicts. Hence, each can be called the shadow of the other. Everyone suffers, but Mouse
suffers the most. Mansfield uses the first person narrative on purpose. Duquette's self-
narration is necessary, explains Sylvia Berkman, to sharpen exactly the genuine suffering
of Dick and Mouse and to convey the extremity of Mouse's betrayal, since she is left
alone in Paris except for his depraved interest (Berkman 168). Left alone, and betrayed
again, Mouse must learn how to depend on herself, must think and start in a new way.
Duquette has to continue the way he has uptaken as a promising writer. The perversion of
his human quality has been amalgamated with his artistic mentality. He is,
simultaneously, a sufferer and an afflicter. Now that Dick is gone, being left in the hands
of Duquette, Mouse becomes a victim of an inseparable alliance of "human and aesthetic
values" (Michel and Dupuis 105). Mansfield uses Duquette as a ploy for bringing out two
facts: the distorted writer who admits but boasts of his feelings, and the victimized self
that realizes the whole process, and must look forward on her own. Mouse cries, but
moves on to live in an alien environment. Her acceptance of this challenge is the author's
"cry against corruption."
"Bliss" (1918) presents its protagonist Bertha Young who believes that her life is blissful,
but the reality she passes through tells a different story. It is a story of homosexual
attachment, discovery, rediscovery, betrayal, and sorrow. "Bliss" is set in London, and
narrates one day in the life of a rich family. The third person narrative, primarily from
Bertha's point of view, depicts a static evening when people are invited to a dinner party
in the Young house. With the guests' departure arrives the moment when she realizes the
reality of what she has been living through, and how finally her bliss becomes elusive.
Mansfield uses a number of symbols – Bertha's excitement, cat, moon, pear tree – to
reveal her illusions about that bliss. "By importing symbolist devices into realistic
fiction," states Kaplan, "Mansfield exemplifies how the male-bonded nineteenth-century
aesthetes became absorbed into the twentieth-century feminist consciousness" (Kaplan
64). Once Bertha's fantasy dissolves into reality, she realizes how she has been beguiled,
and looks at an ambiguous future.
The story proposes a difference between regulation and individuation. Bertha, married,
thirty, feels like running or dancing instead of walking because of an unexplained inner
happiness, which persuades her to look in the mirror to find a woman expectant of
something inexplicably divine. Though she fails to measure her bliss, she relies on it the
whole evening. The story is divided, thematically, into two parts. The opening words –
Mohammad Shahidul Islam Chowdhury 33

"Although Bertha Young was thirty . . ." (Selected Stories 174) – control the first part.
She cannot express her feeling properly or flow with her emotion because she is thirty.
Mother of one child, she fantasizes that bliss controls her, that she is elated in her family
and society. Whatever she feels, her age stands, because of that family and society, as the
controller of her action. That is why, she wants to run or dance but cannot. Her repression
comes from her caution of being thirty, and from the fact that there are some invisible
regulations to express oneself. She is aware of it, "How idiotic civilization is! Why be
given a body if you have to keep it shut up in a case like a rare, rare fiddle?" (Selected
Stories 174). She wants liberty of expression, which is as vague as her bliss. The way she
feels bliss makes her aware of a binary situation. On the one hand she wants to run, dance
and not walk, on the other, she wants to stand still. Expression fails her. Bertha's bliss is
inexplicable, because she does not know its origin, and it creates duality in her. Yet,
flowing along with her feeling shows that her world is that of a dream.
Mansfield expands Bertha's separation from the real world further as she wants to caress
her baby. She is separated from the baby by the nurse, who even controls the mother's
movement. Bertha wants to go near her baby, but "did not dare to. She stood watching
them, her hands by her side, like the poor little girl in front of the rich little girl with the
doll" (Selected Stories 175). The underlying tension in Bertha's position echoes her
pathetic innerness stated at the beginning of the story. Her freedom of expression of
feeling is threatened further by the fact that she lacks the knowledge of controlling and
expressing it properly. "In the presence of a real child," says Mary Burgan, "Bertha
actually seems the more vulnerable of the two" (Burgan 64). Thus, Bertha is caught in
between two truths in life: the suppressed urge for the liberation of her bliss so that she
can fully comprehend it, and the knowledge that she does not know how to attain that
liberation. But like in the mirror, she anticipates that something might happen.
The second part of the story is controlled by Bertha's epiphany. Mansfield totalizes this
moment in her life at three levels. These three revelations complete Bertha's image in the
mirror, and help her understand the true extent of this momentary euphoria. The first one
is her sexual relish. Like her dual role so far, she bears homosexual elements. As is her
nature, she likes the mysterious Pearl Fulton, and awaits a signal from her so that they
can share some intimate moments. She believes, it "does happen very, very rarely
between women" (Selected Stories 182). She compares Pearl with the silvery moon; this
primary realization engulfs her in front of the pear tree. The presence of Pearl beside her,
her tender voice and touch, and the mysterious light work together as an awakening
agency for Bertha. She thinks instantaneously that her attraction is for a female
companion. Her passion for Pearl shows Bertha's "neurotic, unconscious camouflage,
displacement, disavowal, division . . ." (Mortimer 46). In truth, it is her dormant sexual
desire that wants to come out. Pearl, the moon, and the pear tree open a triangular
passage through which she approaches the second awareness, "For the first time in her
life Bertha Young desired her husband" (Selected Stories 184). She is momentarily
liberated from her sexual frigidity. Once she identifies her suppressed desire, she returns
to her heterosexuality. But like the day's experience, this one cannot be met immediately.
Being repressed with this euphoria helplessly, she turns to the piano for self-distraction
despite the fact that her hidden desire has already flowered, just like the pear tree. Pamela
34 Spectrum, Volume 12, 2016

Dunbar argues that Bertha's shift of focus from Pearl to her husband marks the final stage
in that sequence of events which traces her unfolding desire, which is enlivened through
the image of the beautiful and inviolate pear tree (Dunbar 108-9). She becomes the grey
cat that longs for the black cat.
"In the short stories of Katherine Mansfield," states Elaine Showalter, "the moment of
self-awareness is also the moment of self-betrayal. Typically, a woman in her fiction who
steps across the threshold into a new understanding of womanhood is humiliated, or
destroyed" (Showalter 246). Mansfield brings Bertha to her moment of epiphany as the
guests are about to depart, and this revelation destroys her bliss entirely. The moment she
rediscovers herself, the moment, to her absolute shock, she discovers that Pearl, and not
she, is the grey cat that the black cat follows. In the sex-game, Pearl is not just the rival;
she is the winner. Bertha cries, "Oh, what is going to happen now?" (Selected Stories
185). This is not only the cry of a devastated heart, of a woman who finds herself
betrayed by the very person whom she loves and depends on, but also the cry of one who
faces deception and the challenge of an uncertain future where one must venture for one's
existence, the "cry against corruption."
Thus, Mansfield demonstrates how middle-class women are domesticated, treated and
cheated in the family, and how their naïveté is abused by the patriarchal authority.
Harry's adultery leaves Bertha battered. Being doubly deceived by Pearl and Harry, and
being uncertain of her fate, she turns to the pear tree, which remains "as lovely as ever
and as full of flower and as still" (Selected Stories 185). Answer to her question lies in
these final words of the story. Bertha may find a way out if she looks deeply at the tree, at
herself, from where she stands now. At the beginning of the story, she was forced a
duality of identity. Now, she is offered the same duality. It is not Bertha's sexuality that is
trampled, but her very self has been demolished. She is left with one choice only. The
cats can shift places, the moon moves, but the pear tree must be rooted there. Like the
tree, she also has to remain in the house, because her familial and social liabilities do not
offer her any other opportunity. So, all she can do is to maintain her lovely presence all
through her participation, and she can be flowery, being which does not guarantee any
fruit. But most importantly, she has to remain still. Dismayed, she is now filled with a
new consciousness that, like the uncertainty of the beautiful pear flower, she has to return
to her integrated frigidity. Her bliss points at an unwanted stillness at its beginning.
Finally, she embraces that stillness at the cost her bliss.
The image of women's helplessness and their suppressed voice matures in "The
Daughters of the Late Colonel" (1921). Mansfield wrote about this story in a letter to
Dorothy Brett in 1921, "I put my all into that story & hardly anyone saw what I was
getting at. Even dear old Hardy told me to write more about those sisters. As if there was
any more to say!" (Letters 4: 316). It is a story of dominance, struggle, uncertainty, and
failure in front of patriarchy. Like her other stories, Mansfield frequently mingles the past
with the present, and the narrative stumbles on an indecisive, static moment in the lives
of the daughters. Comic elements are abundant, but are juxtaposed with underlying
pathos, making the story a third person narrative of dark comedy. The elderly unmarried
daughters pass their lives, after their father's death, through a strong presence of the dead
father. Their encounter with the late father's psychic presence makes them more
Mohammad Shahidul Islam Chowdhury 35

vulnerable than the servant in the house. They struggle, but fail to establish themselves
authoritatively in the house. Caught within the patriarchal dominion, the daughters
represent repressed women who cannot be liberated.
Divided into twelve sections, the story starts with the consequence of the Colonel's death,
and presents the sisters as not mournful but indecisive about what to do with their father's
hat. Characteristically, Josephine appears more logical than her younger sister Constantia,
but their action and power in the house do not differentiate them much. Their indecision
continues in the story at two more stages: whether to eat fish boiled or fried – their
biological ambiguity, and whether to keep Kate for their service – their psychological
weakness. One of the key components of the story is this indecision, which is
determinately related with their father's demise. Not that their sorrow for the loss makes
them so; it is the loss of one who has so far controlled all their actions and thoughts, and
now they find themselves beyond that controlling shade, which has incapacitated their
self-reliance. They cannot return to their former state, nor can they accept the new
position of being pseudo-liberated. As Rhoda Nathan says, "Liberated from parental
control and thrust into adult roles late in life, the sisters are unable to cope with the
unprecedented challenge of their new freedom, and, in effect, fade out" (Nathan 97-98).
The story portrays two women who are virtually withered under a shadow that suffocates
their individual existence every moment.
"Thematically central to the narrative, and determining its psychological complexity,"
explicates C. A. Hankin, "are the ambivalent feelings of the two middle-aged daughters
about the death of their father" (Hankin 200). Mansfield foreshadows a synopsis of the
story in its opening section, where the two sisters, before sleeping, converse about how to
proceed with the aftermath of the death. She symbolically portrays the sisters' situation.
Both of them are compared to a mouse that crawls in the dark in search of crumbs.
Though Jug does not want to believe its presence, Con logically explains that it is a
mouse in search of food, "But it doesn't know there aren't," and then she ponders, "I can't
think how they manage to live at all" (Selected Stories 231). Con subconsciously reveals
how they are living in the house at this moment. The sisters do not seem to comprehend
that their father is dead. The dead father's presumed anger towards them for burying him
– in part five, closeting him in the chest of drawers – in part six, and the daughters'
attempt to persuade the barrel-organ player to go away so that father is not disturbed – in
the last part show that they are always haunted by the fact that the dead father has been
transformed into a ubiquitous authority in their lives, though they never realize it. They
act and react as if in the very presence of their father. Like the mouse's nightly venture,
they do not realize that they are now free, and so, being fantasized, they carry on their
everyday life with the hope that they will not be bullied by their father for their doings or
misdoings. Con wonders about the existence of the mice, but does not understand the
parallel situation. They dwell in duality, not in reality. They live physically in the world
of the postman or Nurse Andrews or Kate or others, but more significantly, they live in
their father's realm, where not the physical father, but his death rules.
Mansfield brings the typical servant issue to illustrate further the sisters' vulnerability.
The maid Kate helps in the kitchen, but maintains rather a dominant figure because of
their pusillanimity. There is a continual power struggle between Kate and the sisters, and
36 Spectrum, Volume 12, 2016

it is always the maid that seems to win. Their inability to establish individual voice has
crippled them enough even to decide whether to keep her in the service, as Con says,
"just on this one subject I've never been able to quite make up my mind" (Selected Stories
245). They cannot decide many things, and try to avoid her while discussing familial
issues. The problem lies not only with the sisters, but with Kate as well. As Giles says,
"Middle-class women's anxieties about servants centred on . . . a need to exercise
authority and the right to certain standards of comfort. But they also focused on the
invasion of privacy that employing servants occasioned. Servants were characterised as
rude, resentful, spiteful . . ." (Giles 72-73). From the question of keeping her, the sisters
turn to decide whether to trust her or not. Fish, which Kate chooses as their dinner, is not
the subject; the point is how these spinsters feel insecure because their freedom of
thinking has been buried with their father. Kate only behaves authoritatively.
The moment of the father's death has been momentous for the daughters. Standing beside
him, they expect him to look at them. The sisters muse, "Oh, what a difference it would
have made, what a difference to their memory of him, how much easier to tell people
about it, if he had only opened both! But no – one eye only. It glared at them a moment
and then . . . went out" (Selected Stories 234). This has been the final burden on them
from the alive father. He has not been able to look at them freely, with an open mind.
Being the head of the family, he has treated his daughters – rather as subordinates to a
Colonel – to serve him. The image he leaves behind is not that of a loving father, but that
of an omnipercipient tyrant who bashes every expectation one has in mind. With that
single eye closing, the curtain falls on them also; their eyes have also been sealed never
to be opened again. The bleak memory makes time impaired for them. They do not need
father's watch, because they live in a motionless world from where they cannot think of
escaping. This is the only realization they have, and understandably Jug can decide for
once, "Yes, I shall send Cyril the watch" (Selected Stories 244).
Mansfield packs the story with many actions, most of which are psychological
reverberations. One week after the father's death, the two sisters try to contemplate on
their situation, starting with their mother's memory. The mother, parallel to them, is
vaguely mentioned, like her framed, faded image, and they are preoccupied with their
father's image. All through their lives, they have performed feminine attributes within the
patriarchal concordance without ever realizing themselves. The sunlight, the moonlight,
and the Buddha evoke something in them, but they cannot grasp it properly. The sun
disappears, voice and memory fail them; they cannot communicate with each other. The
epiphany is not in the characters’ words or actions but in the narrative: they have
forgotten to share that with the father's death, they have been dead too. They have lost
their psychological existence; ironically, it is the father who is psychologically alive.
Fullbrook says that the daughters continue as victims of a father who denied them the
right to live. This theme of helplessness and lifelessness of women's lives is the dominant
impression of Mansfield's late fiction (Fullbrook 125). It is a story of three deaths, the last
two being the symbol of how women are deprived of their rights, voice, individuality.
About this story, Mansfield wrote in a letter to William Gerhardi in 1921, "All was
meant, of course, to lead up to that last paragraph, when my two flowerless ones turned
with that timid gesture, to the sun. 'Perhaps now.' And after that, it seemed to me, they
Mohammad Shahidul Islam Chowdhury 37

died as truly as Father was dead" (Letters 4: 249). Jug and Con carry on their soulless
bodies, which are ever dominated by the dead father's soul. Comic though it is, pathos
ornaments the story, thus pointing to the loss of the daughters' selves.
Peter Childs says that for a woman in the 1920s, putting pen to paper was, consciously or
not, a feminist act. He describes Mansfield’s stories as a conventional guideline for
women: how women ought to behave and what consequences such behaviour has for
their inner selves as much as their social freedom (Childs 92). These three stories show
their central female characters as defeated by the patriarchal force which encircles them.
Their defeat comes from the persons on whom they lean the most. Mouse, Bertha and the
daughters are betrayed by patriarchy to such an extent that they have lost both their inner
voices and their identities within that patriarchy. They have become maimed as a result of
the cynical, self-centred masculinity that abuses them for its own interest. The sufferings
of Mouse, Bertha Young, and the elderly daughters are homogenous. Patriarchy confines
them, and forces them to dissolve within it. Unfortunately, these women cannot fight
back because by that time they become too disintegrated to stand on their own. All they
can do is to flow with time, which ironically becomes static for them.
Mansfield portrays the pitiful condition of women with a view to unearthing how women
are made to suffer, and how they are denied their rights in an unjust environment. Justice
is not there, but an urge for it, a "cry against corruption" is prevalent. Mansfield’s
women do not fight but rather admit defeat. Through their helpless surrender to that
oppression, they are in the path of creating an awareness that may speak for themselves.
Thus, this rebelling voice can formulate the concept of a feminist self. Mansfield does not
directly speak for it, but presents the situation as it is so that the realization can surface in
the minds of the readers. Though in her journal she mentions defeat, she remains
triumphant as a fighter for the distressed women. Her stories succeed here. Meanwhile,
individual life in the stories continues paradoxically, through prolongation and abeyance.
She offers these deprived women the voice that they cannot find anywhere. Construction
of a feminist self in Mansfield’s stories can be viewed from this angle.

Works Cited
Bennett, Andrew. Katherine Mansfield. Devon: Northcote House, 2004. Print.
Berkman, Sylvia. Katherine Mansfield: A Critical Study. New Haven: Yale UP, 1951. Print.
Burgan, Mary. Illness, Gender, and Writing: The Case of Katherine Mansfield. Baltimore and
London: The Johns Hopkins UP, 1994. Print.
Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. 1990. London and New
York: Routledge, 2006. Print.
Charles, Nickie, and Felicia Hughes-Freeland, eds. Practising Feminism: Identity, Difference,
Power. London and New York: Routledge, 1996. Print.
Childs, Peter. Modernism. London: Routledge, 2000. Print.
Dunbar, Pamela. Radical Mansfield: Double Discourse in Katherine Mansfield's ShortStories.
Basingstoke and London: Macmillan, 1997. Print.
Fullbrook, Kate. Katherine Mansfield. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana UP, 1986. Print.
Giles, Judy. The Parlour and the Suburb: Domestic Identities, Class, Femininity and Modernity.
New York and Oxford: Berg, 2004. Print.
38 Spectrum, Volume 12, 2016

Hankin, C. A. Katherine Mansfield and Her Confessional Stories. Basingstoke and London:
Macmillan, 1983. Print.
Kaplan, Sydney Janet. Katherine Mansfield and the Origins of Modernist Fiction. Ithaca and
London: Cornell UP, 1991. Print.
Mansfield, Katherine. The Collected Letters of Katherine Mansfield. Ed. Vincent O'Sullivan and
Margaret Scott. 5 vols. Oxford: Clarendon, 1984-2008. Print.
---. Journal of Katherine Mansfield. Ed. J. Middleton Murry. London: Constable and Company,
1962. Print.
---. Katherine Mansfield: Selected Stories. Ed. Angela Smith. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2002. Print.
Michel, Paulette, and Michel Dupuis, eds. The Fine Instrument: Essays on Katherine Mansfield.
Sydney: Dangaroo, 1989. Print.
Mortimer, Armine Kotin. "Fortifications of Desire: Reading the Second Story in Katherine
Mansfield's 'Bliss'." Narrative 2.1 (1994): 41-52. JSTOR. Web. 12 Aug. 2012.
Nathan, Rhoda B. Katherine Mansfield. New York: Continuum, 1988. Print.
Salih, Sara, and Judith Butler, eds. The Judith Butler Reader. Oxford: Blackwell, 2004. Print.
Showalter, Elaine. A Literature of Their Own: British Women Novelists from Brontë to Lessing.
1977. London: Virago, 1978. Print.
 When the Woman Speaks: A Reading of Christina
Rossetti’s “Repining” and “Autumn”
Sohana Manzoor*

Abstract
Known to most as the author of The Goblin Market, only in the last two decades has
Christina Georgina Rossetti come to be regarded as a poet writing from a feminist
perspective. For this article I have chosen two Rossetti poems “Repining” and the
lesser known “Autumn” to examine a woman’s response to Tennyson’s reputed
piece “The Lady of Shalott.” While critics have often identified the escape of
Tennyson’s heroine from the tower as a symbol of feminine empowerment, I argue
that it is still very much a man’s view of freedom for women. This paper aims to
show how Rossetti, who claimed in one of her letters to be committed to poetic
vocation, aspires to write a woman’s story and gain the power to look, claim and
speak. Tennyson’s Lady of Shalott dies in her journey to claim her love, while
Rossetti’s women speakers may not have love, but indeed they aim to rise on their
own terms.
Keywords: Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, Rossetti, romantic, feminist responses,
Tennyson, Victorian, ideology

In Grimm’s fairytale, Rapunzel is imprisoned by a witch and rescued by a prince.

Tennyson’s “The Lady of Shalott” has at its center a Rapunzel, who comes out of prison
on her own and attempts to make a name for herself in the world. Christine Poulson
describes the Lady of Shalott’s escape from her tower as an “act of defiance, a symbol of
feminine empowerment” (184). Based on Poulson’s assessment Shuli Barzilai points out
that most critics see Tennyson’s Lady of Shalott as a figure who “disregards the Law of
the Father and turns to see, through a forbidden opening, what has been expressly denied
to her. The punishment of curiosity in women (like Eve and Lot’s wife, too), is hard labor
and/ or death” (245). Yet, critics like James Kincaid have wondered at what he calls the
“most general irony of the poem . . . that the Lady simply exchanges one kind of
imprisonment for another; her presumed freedom is her death” (Kincaid 32). It is perhaps
not surprising that Christina Georgina Rossetti, a woman poet closely associated with the
Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, responds to Tennyson’s poem in a manner very different
from that of the well-known male artists of her time. The obvious elements that Rossetti
borrows from Tennyson are a maiden imprisoned in a tower, her working away at a loom,
her frustration with an unfulfilled life, and the painfully slow pacing of time while
waiting for deliverance. From Keats too, Rossetti takes on some of his romantic
enchantment in portraying the background and atmosphere of her poems. While she takes
ideas from male forerunners like Tennyson and Keats, she still depicts her protagonists
with distinct voices and thoughts of their own that reflect a very feminist streak.

*
Assistant Professor, Department of English & Humanities, University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh
40 Spectrum, Volume 12, 2016

Even though Tennyson allows his lady to come out of the castle without any direct
assistance from her knight, she has little autonomy over her story because she does not
get to relate it. Moreover, since Lancelot utters an epitaph after her death, even her
courage to defy her situation is taken away from her. In “Repining” and “Autumn,”
Rossetti explores the dreams and possibilities of a woman artist, and the sorrow and
frustration when those are not realized. But instead of a male artist giving voice to her
tragedy, or a male figure attempting to give a meaning to her existence, the female
protagonist actually lashes out when the world refuses to comply. This paper argues how
these two poems stand out as feminist responses to Tennyson’s “Lady of Shalott,” the
woman waking up and refusing to be the object of male gaze, and asserting herself even
if there is little or no consolation in that awakening. Rossetti’s perspective is not merely a
woman’s story being told from a woman’s perspective, but more about a woman telling
her story.
Before delving into Rossetti’s viewpoint, we should note that the figure of the Lady of
Shalott deeply fascinated Pre-Raphaelite poets and artists who painted the Arthurian
maiden in different postures. She appears on the canvas of a number of Pre-Raphaelite
painters, the most renowned being William Holman Hunt, John William Waterhouse, and
Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Some of them have more than one painting or engraving of the
famous lady. Her mien varies from artist to artist, but a close examination will reveal that
some similar traits follow them all. However, rather than focusing on Malory’s tale of the
Arthurian legend concerning Sir Lancelot and the Lady of Shalott, or Eileen, all these
artists draw inspiration from Tennyson’s poem entitled “The Lady of Shalott.”
Waterhouse’s Lady at the loom even whispers a line from Tennyson, “I am half sick of
shadows.” His other painting shows a lady in virginal white sitting upright on a boat in
the stream with a forlorn look on her face, even though her boat is decked with finery.
Her long wheat gold hair hangs loose with a circlet, indicating her unmarried status in a
medieval world. Hunt’s Lady of Shalott depicts a lady with a mass of red hair gathered
like a cloud atop her head while she herself is entangled in her loom. Her face is bent
down, evidently looking at the mirror showing the shadow of a knight riding away.
Hunt’s portrayal is probably the most famous Lady of Shalott even though it deviates
from Tennyson’s virginal lady. The facial expression of the entangled lady shows strong
emotion and perhaps sexual awareness, traits missing in Tennyson’s poem. Ann Thwite
records that the poet and his family were disturbed about the artist’s license as “there is
for the most part some departure from the story” (322). Gabriel Rossetti’s engraving of
the Lady of Shalott for the collection of Tennyson’s poems published by Edward Moxon
in 1857 was created especially for the last scene of Tennyson’s poem, where on looking
on the dead body of the maiden, Lancelot comments, “She had a lovely face;/God in her
mercy lend her grace,/ The Lady of Shalott” (169-71). The engraving focuses on the
Knight who leans forward looking at the maiden. At the center of all these paintings is
the story of a beautiful woman whose life wastes away because of unrequited love. The
two most notable aspects of Tennyson’s poem are: first, the epitaph for the repining or
the dead woman is given by a man who probably did not even know of her feelings for
him while she was alive; and second, the suggestion that his acknowledgement of her
beauty and virtue supposedly provides consolation and redemption for her tragedy. All
the Pre-Raphaelite painters seem possessed by the typically male fascination with the
Sohana Manzoor 41

lonely, enchanted woman who follows her Knight out of her tower and dies for her love
for him, and then is redeemed by his recognition of her virtue and beauty. Both Tennyson
and the bevy of Pre-Raphaelite painters emphasize the romantic element of a lady
imprisoned in her tower, but also a new kind of spirit in women trying to act for
themselves. Christina Rossetti takes on from them to indicate other possibilities for
women who venture out of their towers into the real world.
Rossetti’s “Repining” is a poem that begins very much in the manner of the Lady of
Shalott poem by Tennyson, depicting a woman spending her days spinning away. Her
work seems to be never-ending, and she does not appear to have anything else to do,
which invariably suggests that she is a high-born lady for whom working at the loom is
the only mode of occupation. However, the moment the speaker whispers wistfully,
“Come, that I be no more alone” (“Repining” 4), the poet seems to be moving away from
Tennyson in some crucial ways. “I am half sick of shadows,” says Tennyson’s Lady of
Shalott. Rather than making oblique references to loneliness like his Lady does,
Rosssetti’s speaker sighs at the sight of the merry world and the newly wed couple, and
actually voices what she wants. Being the subject of a curse, Tennyson’s Lady never
looks directly through the window; nor does she say anything about being lonely.
Rosetti’s Lady, however, does not look at shadows, she takes stealthy glances at the
twittering swallows and the “gentle turtle-dove,” and she realizes that “None lived alone
save only she” (“Repining” 15). Like her speaker, Rosetti, too, tells her audience what
ails the Lady, “Day followed day and she still sighed/ For love, and was not satisfied”
(19-20). Tennyson, on the other hand, does not say what bothers the Lady of Shalott after
she sees Lancelot, but cries out, “The curse is come upon me” (“The Lady of Shalott”
116). Whereas in Tennyson’s piece, both the poet and the Lady use vague terms, and
often speaks in riddles, Rossetti and her speaker are very open and direct about the
problems in the weaving lady’s life.
The Lady of Tennyson turns to look at the real world after observing the image of the
Arthurian Knight Lancelot in her mirror, but immediately afterwards the mirror cracks.
The enchanted world that had protected her dissolves as soon as she steps beyond its
boundary by looking directly at Lancelot, forgetting the curse of transgression. Until that
moment she had been the object of onlookers—people who commented on her song and
acknowledged her existence as the “fairy/ Lady of Shalott” (35-36). First, by looking at
the outside world, and then stepping outside her enchanted tower, she jeopardizes her
very existence in a society that denies autonomy to women. Critics have often seen the
writing of her name on the boat as an act proclaiming autonomy. While I agree that it
might be so, I would also point out its limitations. Contrary to the tale of Rapunzel, the
Lady of Shalott does not wait for her deliverer, but chooses to pursue her prince in the
real world. But one might wonder what she would have done if she had actually faced
Lancelot at the end of her journey. Would she have dared tell him of her feelings for him?
When she writes her name “round about the prow” (125), Tennyson makes her reveal
herself in the same way Thomas Hardy’s heroine of Tess of the D’Urberville tells her
husband that her real name is Tess D’Urberville. She could not tell the shameful story of
her past because society would condemn her, but she insinuates it through her name,
because the very name “D’Urberville was largely responsible for her ruin. Similarly,
42 Spectrum, Volume 12, 2016

when the Lady of Shalott writes her name, it contains the history of her futile love for the
man who never knew her. Like Tess, she too, is bound by an unspeakable thought (her
love for Lancelot) and deed (to look and act, rather than waiting for him to come). In a
male oriented medieval society she does not have the freedom to express her feelings for
a man she barely knows, pursue him, and retain her honor at the same time. Only a man
has the power to do so—to look, to want, and to claim. In his poem Tennyson does not
allow his heroine freedom even though he saves her from pining away to death in her
solitary tower. Therefore, his Lady of Shalott dies after having written her name. When
Lancelot praises her lovely face, her story of unrequited love is vindicated because he
recognizes the loss and pities her. In this context it is worthwhile to quote Edgar Allan
Poe who observes that death of a beautiful woman “is unquestionably the most poetical
topic in the world, and equally is it beyond doubt that the lips best suited for such topic
are those of the bereaved lover.” From the perspective of the male protagonist and
readers that might be the case, but in her poems Christina Rossetti questions this
convention.
Rossetti is realistic in her approach of treating the romantic dilemma of Tennyson’s poem
on the Lady of Shalott. Even at the beginning of “Repining” her protagonist does not look
at mere shadows, but at actual mating of birds. She yearns for a lover so that she would
not be alone any more. After the subtle hint that her lady is not as coy as the Tennysonian
one, Rossetti moves on to bring about a Keatsean ambiance in the next lines through
reference to the song of nightingale. Like Keats’s Porphyro (“The Eve of St. Agnes”), her
lover appears on a silvery night, but there once again the resemble ends. Unlike Porphyro
this lover does not seek to gaze upon his beloved in moonlight, nor does he wear the
emblem of the Red-Cross Knight (for ever kneel’d/ To a lady in his shield) like
Tennyson’s Lancelot, or sing in a distracting way to entice her. Rossetti’s description of
the lover reminds one more of a Christ-figure than an ardent lover:
‘Damsel, rise up; be not afraid;
For I am come at last,’ it said.
She trembled, tho the voice was mild;
She trembled like a frightened child;--
....
He seemed a fair young man, his eyes
Beaming with serious charities
His cheek was white but hardly pale;
And a dim glory like a veil
Hovered about his head, and shone
Thro’ the whole room till night was gone. (L- 31-42)
Dolores Rosenblum identifies the lover as “Christ, or bridegroom Death, or the angel
Gabriel with a new annunciation” (178). She further suggests that since she cannot go
hunting for a mate, for the repining woman the only two choices left are either to die or to
become a nun. “For women in the Romantic and Victorian Age, the crucial aspect of their
life was the ability to influence and gain power through their ‘looks,’” says Rosenblum
(112). As long as they allowed themselves to be looked at and admired, they could be a
Sohana Manzoor 43

part of the tradition, even if it meant their symbolic death. They could not dare to voice
their own aspirations but acted as collaborators in the background, hoping to be
recognized like Dorothy Wordsworth in “Tintern Abbey” in whom William Wordsworth
wants to behold “what I was once” (Rosenblum 112). With that I would like to add that
through her response to Tennyson’s crafting of the Lady of Shalott Christina Rossetti
wields a double-edged sword, which on the one hand, gives voice to the mute speaker
who was unable to tell her story, but on the other, muffles her voice to sing like the Lady
of Shalott. In many ways, she is reminiscent of the mythical Lilith who lost all by gaining
her freedom. Rossetti’s protagonist loses her feminine charm of enticing men and the
possibility of entering the domain of love. She earns the ability to gaze, but in the
process, loses the capacity to attract, or be the object of gaze.
The woman in the poem “Repining” is initially reluctant to venture out into the night with
the young man, but then she glows with anticipation for a future with him. She binds her
long hair and goes out holding his hand. Together they pass through unknown lands and
come upon a village full of life. She is thrilled with the prospect of settling down with her
lover, but he takes her a little further near a mountain from where they watch that same
village being engulfed by an avalanche. She is horrified at this devastation and pleads the
man to take her away from the disastrous landscape. At her request he takes her to the
sea-shore to watch a terrible storm rising and wrecking a ship full of people. Those on
board cry and pray but to no avail as “the strong timbers rent asunder” (146). The lady
weeps as she cannot fathom the import of such a tragedy. The lover then leads her
through a gloomy, chilly night to a burning city. She watches in horror at the predicament
of people praying for their own lives, their friends, families and possession. Once again
she feels immense pity, and cannot understand why all those people died and why they,
she and her lover, were still alive. She turns from the ashes of the city and her companion
takes her to observe a battle-field where dead bodies are heaped atop one another. She
looks at the “cold limbs and putrifying flesh,” and the choking agony of those who were
dying. Unable to take any more, the lady kneels down and begs her deliverer to return her
to the place she came from:
‘My heart’s prayer putteth me to shame;
Let me return to whence I came.
Thou for who love’s sake didst reprove,
Forgive me for the sake of love.’ (249-52)
On the one hand, Rossetti shows that the man actually brings deliverance for the woman,
just as society expected him to do. On the other, however, she suggests that the offerings
of the man may not be acceptable to the woman. The protagonist of “Repining” has been
hoping for a new, meaningful life, one full of love, laughter and happiness. And yet there
are subtle suggestions for the readers from the beginning that she probably has a different
fate waiting for her. For example, why does Rossetti use swallows to fly past her
window? Swallows are important in her poem “Autumn” as well. If it is a Tennysonian
device, we should remember that in The Princess the “swallow song is an invitation to
erotic involvement, sung by a man dressed as a woman in order to insure that a woman
take part in an erotic plot” (Psomiades 191). Moreover, because of her deeply rooted
interest in literature, Rossetti could not have been unaware of the mythical significance of
44 Spectrum, Volume 12, 2016

the swallow and the nightingale, the two bird symbols she uses. In Greek mythology, the
gods turn Philomela and Procne, the two unfortunate Athenian princesses, into a swallow
and a nightingale to save them from the cruel king Tereus. Philomela is raped by her
sister’s husband Tereus who also cuts off her tongue so that she would not reveal her
story to anyone. But Procne learns about the incident through a tapestry woven by
Philomela, and an angry Procne kills her own son by Tereus and feeds him the flesh. The
story is a heart-rending one, but if these are the two birds that hover about Rossetti’s
speakers, we have good reasons to be suspicious about the prospect of these women in
the terrain of love.
It seems that through her portrayal of the lady in “Repining” Rossetti questions the very
notion of forging a romantic and social bond between a man and a woman. The romantic
conception of marriage makes a woman hopeful for a new life, partnership, love,
happiness, children, a home etc. But Rossetti even twists the chivalric convention of a
knight kneeling before the lady as the heroine in “Repining” is asked by her lover to rise
from her kneeling position and follow him out into the dark world. She suggests that the
romantic tradition might want the audience to feel that the knight kneeling before his lady
is submitting himself to her, the reality is the other way round, because the woman is
expected to dance to the tune the man plays. Right after being saved from a precarious
situation, the woman is expected to surrender herself to her savior. In all chivalric tales of
the Middle Ages a lady saved from monstrous villains invariably falls in love with the
knight in shining armor. Then she is expected to follow him through adverse conditions
and make him happy, even at the cost of self-denial. Actually, a woman is expected to be
happy through her sacrifices. When the lady of “Repining” pleads to return to her old
home, she is actually reversing the situation in romance because the bleak, unknown
world she sees stretched out before her hardly matches her dream world, or for that
matter, the world she had occupied all these years. Moreover, unlike traditional romance
heroes, her savior does not fulfill the heroic roll and fails to deliver the promised roll.
Rossetti’s other poem “Autumn” portrays another woman speaker who keeps waiting for
her prince charming who never shows up. The very title of the poem suggests a waning
and languid mood, a stark reminder of Tennyson’s “The Lotos-Eaters.” The introductory
lines, too, reflect a slow pace of time. The speaker, most probably another lady at a loom,
talks about her secluded life and seems to be imprisoned in long stretches of afternoons.
Like the lady of “Repining,” she too listens to love songs “gurgling from a hundred
throats” (5), but unlike Tennyson’s Lady of Shalott, she herself cannot sing. Even though
the songs from other maidens gliding in boats echo in the vaults of her mind, she can only
moan in silence, even though nobody gets to hear her moaning. One last swallow flies
past her window, as if reminding her of her loneliness. She wonders if that bird will be
able to catch up with its flock, or will perish in the sea. The swallow definitely
symbolizes her lonely self—“With no kind eyes/ To watch it while it dies” (22-23).
Concurrently, the same loneliness will set the self on the path to freedom. Even though
the swallow is a direct reference to Tennyson’s The Princess, Rossetti twists it as a
rejection of erotic life over loneliness and autonomy.
To a great extent her story is like that of mythic Philomela-- she may have lost her
singing voice, but very much like Philomela she can weave the story of her own life. Her
Sohana Manzoor 45

world is deep in the forest and far from the flowing river where other maidens sing, and
“spider’s web blocks” all her paths, but she comments, “I will not mar the web” (39). The
only problem with her assertion is that whereas the spider traps innocent flies in its web,
her web has managed to imprison her very self. She observes the small insects ebb away
in the web of the spider, just as she realizes that her own life is ebbing away. She muses
on how others view her, and the poem ends on a note of abject loneliness:
My trees are not in flower,
I have no bower
And gusty creaks my tower,
And lonesome, very lonesome, is my stand. (60-63)
By the end of the poem the speaker has become the antithesis of Tennyson’s Lady of
Shalott. She cannot join the lady who will die on the boat singing and dreaming of love,
but she can live on without loving, or be loved, and she has a story to tell.
Under the circumstances, however, the idea of her having a story to tell may seem
strange, because traditionally a woman is not supposed to have any story of her own. As
Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar elaborate about Goethe’s representation of “noblest
femininity,” the ideal woman “has no story of her own but gives ‘advice and consolation’
to others, listens, smiles, sympathizes. . . .” (599). She is also Patmore’s “angel in the
house,” the ideal woman whose story gets to be told by others, usually a male narrator
who romanticizes her predicament, or she has no story at all. Moreover, her story can
only become meaningful when her life is fulfilled through the acknowledgement of a
male gaze, as it happens in Tennyson’s “Lady of Shalott.” As Rosenblum notes that the
traditional Victorian ideology gave women power through their looks, but denied them
the ability to look out for themselves (Rosenblum 112). In “Autumn” Rossetti’s speaker,
however, does not even attempt to establish herself as the traditional woman and an
object of male gaze, but as someone who watches and hears other women sailing by. The
most significant aspect of her story is that she gains autonomy in identifying herself with
the weaver, or the artist. She may not fulfill herself in the arms of a lover, but she does
get to tell her own story, even if that story is one of denial. In her choice of not marring
the web, she recognizes the tragic aspect of her life. Unlike Tennyson’s Lady of Shalott
she also gives her own epitaph by imagining what other maidens say about her, “ ‘She
grieves,/Uplifted like a beacon, on her tower’” (52-53). This is an image she hopes to
create of herself, even though she admits the wretched loneliness of her situation.
Apart from presenting the contradictions in man-woman relationship, Christina Rossetti
also addresses an important issue of her time in these poems, one that was central to the
Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood—the problem of using beautiful women as an image of the
intropection of the artist:
Women can be used to represent artistic subjectivity because of an analogy Victorian
culture sets up between the privacy of artists and the privacy of middle-class women.
Just as middle-class women are separated from the public sphere of politics and
economics and preside over the private spaces of domesticity, so artists are separated
from the world of factory, marketplace, and parliament, and engage in an activity
that hardly seems to count as masculine labor. (Psomiades, 187)
46 Spectrum, Volume 12, 2016

For Pre-Raphaelite male artists and painters the Lady of Shalott came to represent an
artistic self that is separate from the everyday activities. The weaving lady in seclusion
thus becomes a symbol of the artist, and her predicament—the problems an artist faces in
putting together his two worlds. It is, however, important to observe that in addition to
what Kathy Psomiades says, Christina Rossetti’s weaving ladies are in a dilemma, being
artists and women at the same time. The crisis they face are manifold, and unlike the
male artists their imprisonment is dictated more by their surroundings rather than being
self-imposed. The male artist can move in and out of his sphere, but on top of the typical
anxieties of being an artist and retaining autonomy, the woman’s position is further
complicated by her gender. Therefore, Rossetti’s ladies cannot afford to give up their
lonely existence to sing and embrace their lovers at the cost of losing their autonomy, the
power to speak and express their dilemma. The female protagonists of Rossetti thus stand
both in and out of a tradition of the long list of women who have been gazed upon by the
male artists, writers and readers. They stand within the tradition because they long to be
loved and embraced by knights and princes. And yet they are more out of it as they are
not willing to pay the price of losing their autonomy at not being able to speak or act.
According to Jerome McGann, Christina Rossetti examined the relationship between man
and woman and “saw the piteous networks of destruction in which they were all, fatally
as it were, involved” (McGann 246). In her poetic world a woman is allowed to save
another woman from danger, as it happens in “The Goblin Market,” an occurrence not
observed in the works of male poets of her time. Both “Repining” and “Autumn” are thus
poems questioning the traditional ways that society has been carrying on for ages. Unlike
Tennyson, and unlike the male artists of her time, Rossetti declines to banish her female
protagonists to preserve their identity and autonomy. She would rather have them refuse
the patriarchal mode of fulfillment than have them lose their selves, independence and
own voices. For her it is also a kind of retaining of their artistic selves over becoming an
object of art.

Works Cited
Barzilai, Shuli. “‘Say That I Had a Lovely Face’: The Grimms’ ‘Rapunzel,’ ‘Tennyson’s Lady of
Shalott,’ and Atwood’s Lady Oracle.” Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature 19.2 (Autumn
2000): 231-54. 30 April. Web.
Gilbert, Sandra M., and Susan Gubar. The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the
Nineteenth Century Literary Imagination. 2nd ed. New Haven: Yale UP. 2000. Print.
Kincaid, James. Tennyson’s Major Poems: The Comic and Ironic Patterns. New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1975. p. 32. Print.
McGann, Jerome J. “Christina Rossetti's Poems: A New Edition and a Revaluation.” Victorian
Studies 23.2 (Winter, 1980): 237-54. Print.
Poe, Edgar Allan. “The Philosophy of Composition” (1846). http://xrods.virginia.edu.
Poulson, Christine. “Death and the Maiden: The Lady of Shalott and the Pre-Raphaelites.”
Reframing the Pre-Raphaelites: Historical and Theoretical Essays. Ellen Harding, ed.
Bournemouth: Scholar Press, 1996. Print.
Psomiades, Kathy Alexis. “Feminine and Poetic Privacy in Christina Rossatti’s ‘Autumn’ and ‘A
Royal Princess.’” Victorian Poetry 31.2 (Summer 1993): 187-202. Print.
Rosenblum, Dolores. Christina Rossetti: the Poetry of Endurance. Carbondale & Edwardsville:
Southern Illinois University Press, 1986. Print.
Thwaite, Ann. Emily Tennyson: the Poet’s Wife. London: Faber and Faber, 1996. Print.
 Kaiser Haq’s Voice against the Eurocentric Tradition:
A Reflection from the Poems Published in the
Streets of Dhaka
Nahid Afroz* and Farhana Yeasmin**

Abstract
Both the East and the West have their unique traditions: own histories, cultures,
languages, dresses, and customs. However, the West stereotypes the East with
peculiar customs, images, doctrines, superstitions etc. to legalize the universal
acceptance of the Eurocentric tradition and its colonial bureaucracies. European
countries propagate the idea that non-European countries are inferior to them, and
ironically, take on the divine task of rescuing these substandard cultures. They carry
out this mission through ontological and epistemological violence. Kaiser Hamidul
Haq (1950- ), whose poetry is deeply grounded in socio-cultural issues of the East,
resists the marginalization of non-European cultures and the world-wide
internalization of Eurocentric assumptions. He presents the East as it is ─with its
values, beliefs, rituals, and myths. Moreover, he sarcastically portrays the absurdities
of the binary opposition between the East and the West (the dominated and the
dominant, the brute and the civilized) to attain equal status for the Eastern tradition.
This paper attempts to trace how Kaiser Haq’s poems in Published in the Streets of
Dhaka, especially “Grishma, Barsha,” “Six Shared Seasons,” “Durga Puga,” and
“Welcome, Tourist Shahib!” “Ode On The Lungi,” “East and West,” question the
hegemony of Eurocentric tradition offering a counter discourse of a world of
mutuality.
Keywords: stereotypes, Eurocentrism, Kaiser Haq, Dhaka, egalitarian, Walt
Whitman, epistemological violence

The Eurocentric tradition, one of the political strategies of the Western colonizers, tries to
suppress the formation of intellectual spaces for the non-European subalterns to present
themselves in their own languages, voices, dresses, and produce an alternative cultural
discourse. The hegemonic ideologies of the European tradition perpetuate the binary
relationship, and in a calculative way, compel the Eastern people to adopt European
perspectives of the world and adapt to it. Revisiting the East, Kaiser Haq attempts to
deconstruct the universal acceptability of the Eurocentric tradition. He talks about the
beauty and vitality of the East in his poems like “Grishma, Barsha,” “Six Shared
Seasons,” “Durga Puga,” and “Welcome, Tourist Shahib!” His poems titled “Ode On The
Lungi” and “East and West” are pioneering endeavours to blur the dichotomy between
the East and the West and create an egalitarian world where both the East and the West
will exist enjoying the same power, dominance and right.

*
Assistant Professor, Department of English, Khulna University
**
Student, Department of English, Khulna University
48 Spectrum, Volume 12, 2016

Kaiser Haq reclaims and rejuvenates the rich cultural heritage and legitimacy of the East.
He explicitly describes the Eastern religious beliefs and the emotional attachment with
them, the six seasons and their beauties, and different rituals and their impact on life. He
also offers the archives of Indian history, food, monuments, as well as the natural sites to
challenge and destabilize the European concept of Orientalism─“the unwritten ideology
of the colonial state apparatus, set in motion a large number of stereotypes, myths and
fantasies about the ‘East’ and invested them with the stamp of official truth through the
machinery of political power” (Ramakrishnan 7). In “Grishma, Barsha” he draws a
picture of the Eastern people’s pleas for rain. The Eastern people perform several
religious rituals to get rain. In hot summer the scorching weather makes rain essential for
the tropical people. But,
Everything’s late
All the frogs in Rajasthan
married off─
and still no rain. (12)
The Hindus sing the Radha-Krishna to catch the attention of the god of rain. All the
attempts go in vain. People become hopeless. Suddenly a miracle happens: “[b]ut the
walking up’s/ miraculous-/ the monsoon’s upon us” (13). The “eastern sky” (12)
responds to the ardent prayer of the people of the East. The beliefs and the rituals are so
strong that nature itself cannot deny their appeal. This representation of the emblematic
Eastern beliefs can also be found in Nissim Ezekiel’s “Night of the Scorpion.” A
scorpion stings a mother and the countrymen do several rites to save her. In this poem,
Ezekiel evokes the countrymen’s belief of sin, rebirth and life after death. He focuses on
the superstitions of the Indians who think that the stinging of the scorpion is the
punishment for the past sins. The villagers believe that the pains that the mother endures
redeem her sins. According to Eurocentric tradition these sorts of activities may be
categorized irrational but the Easterners have these beliefs rooted in their blood. They
believe them throughout their lives and recall gods and goddesses in every sphere. When
rain comes a month late accompanied with gusty wind, the Muslim muezzins as well as
the Hindus begin to pray in their own ways to get rid of this furious natural force:
a month late─
and desperate
to make up
for lost time,
wind and water
playing furioso-
azan soaring
over rain clouds-
and Krishna’s flute calling
Radha, Radha, Radha… (13)
Nahid Afroz and FarhanaYeasmin 49

In this way, Haq presents the East in its own colour and pays his homage to the typical
beliefs that the Eastern people pursue as if these were part of their existence.
In “Six Shared Seasons,” Haq focuses on the regional and “civilizational unity” (19). The
“Southasian” (18) people share the same seasonal experiences in spite of the “barbed
wire/ watchtower and searchlight/ keep neighbours apart” (18). In grishma, “Southasia”
feels the “furnace heat,” barsha comes with “monsoon floods,” sarat is a “mellow”
season of mist and, hemanta is endowed with “fresh harvest,/ mist over the fields,/ dew
underfoot” (18). Winter is full of “snow” and “fog” (19). Basanta is a season of joy:
then every girl a beauty
in basanta’s vibrant amber
& flowers with humid lips
Kissing the passionate bee. (19)
Kaiser Haq’s effort for presenting the vitality of the East also gets expression in “Durga
Puja” and “Welcome, Tourist Sahib.” In “Durga Puja” he draws a vivid picture of the
Durga Puja and the feelings associated with it. During the Puja, people of the Hindu
community believe “[m]other Durga descends upon the earth/ [w]ith ten arms to collect
her annual dues” (105). Women make sweets, brahmins chant mantras. It is a ceremony
of utmost joy:
But where the festival earns its name, shehnais and dhols
go into orgies, boys for once can jostle girls
with impunity, and every year there are more children
sporting the unchanging smile of the unconcerned goddess. (105)
In “Welcome, Tourist Sahib!” Haq offers Bangladeshi histories, cultures, foods and
natural beauties for the tourist of the West who may misunderstand and misjudge the
Bangladeshi rich heritage while propagating through Eurocentric codes. He invites the
Western sahibs:
. . . Welcome to Bangladesh
and give our history, philosophy, economics, culture,
hotel list, places of interest,
foods of local delicacy, etc, etc. (159)
Bangladesh is an emerging country “with very ancient history-heritage” (159). The
economy of Bangladesh is developing gradually. Its culture is “rich like television,
cinema, dances and song” (159). For the tourists it has “Intercontinental/ or international”
hotels which have “modern bathroom and bar for drunkenness” (160). It has congenial
climate unlike “Arctic or Sahara” (160). During summer, the tourist sahibs can wear “thin
cloth” and winter is not a problem to them as “our winter is your summer, so no problem”
(160). Multidimensional delicious food items are available in Bangladesh. The tourists
can have Western food here. Moreover, they can try “local Moghul dishes ─ biriani,
chicken –pilau, dahi-barra/ and sweetmeats ─ rashgolia, shandesh, chom-chom/ and
many more to name a few” (160). This country is also endowed with natural beauties:
50 Spectrum, Volume 12, 2016

Many are the places of interest

like natural sceneries, rivers,
forest with Royal Bengal Tiger and deers
(also monkeys) and longest sea beach.(160)
In addition to offering “history, culture, sceneries,” the speaker informs about “the moral
life” (160) of this country. The country can offer pleasures for the tourist except “night-
clubs, cabaret, sex as such” because these things are contrary to the codes of the
Easterners who are not willing to forsake the ethics for foreign money.
Europe considers that Eastern people are unfit in the world and so are unable to present
them to the Western world. Propagating its civilizing mission, the West tries to convince
the Eastern natives of their inferior class. In this regard, Aimeé Césaire postulates, “that
the colonizers’ sense of superiority, their sense of mission as the world’s civilizers,
depends on turning the [o]ther into a Barbarian” (qtd in Kelly 9). Again, Edward Said, the
critic of Orientalism, said that the relation of the East and West is of “power, of
domination, of varying degree of a complex hegemony” (Said 5) and the “relation
between western writing (and its consequences) and Oriental silence” signifies the
Western “cultural strength and its will to power over the Orient” (94). Rudyard Kipling’s
“The White Man’s Burden” is an emblem of the Western hegemony where Kipling
proposes that the West has to perform their responsibility of civilizing the uncivilized and
the primitive people who are inept in self-determination and independence. This
misrepresented knowledge about the East shapes the power relations between them and
strengthens the Western exploitation, expansion, and settlement. Kaiser Haq through his
poem “Ode On The Lungi” crosses out all these snobbish ideologies of the Western
people. He, on one hand, celebrates the uniqueness of the Eastern culture, and on the
other voices for an equal world resisting the European cultural imperialism that expands
in the process of stereotyping the Eastern people as peculiar, bizarre, dark, and evil.
Here, he promotes the Eastern culture by articulating the equity between the East and the
West. He also tells that he might be mocked at that he is living “in an Ivory Tower” (Haq
30) but he is not going to acclaim that so called superiority of the West. Haq’s views may
be compared with Wole Soyinka’s The Lion and the Jewel (1963) which shows the
conflict between native and European culture and the victory of the African culture over
the Eurocentric hegemony. In this play, Baroka, Sidi and Sadiku relentlessly struggle for
maintaining the native cultural distinctiveness. Being a traditional African girl, Sidi is not
enchanted by Lakunle, the upholder of the European values. Her sense of pride is deeply
rooted in African culture and so, she denounces his Westernized thoughts. Her decision
to marry the village Bale Baroka indicates the triumph of native culture and its
approaches to life over the civilized culture which has no place in the traditional African
society.
Kaiser Haq tries to erase the arbitrary binary relationship between “us” and “them” (Said
43). He questions the authenticity of the line drawn between the Orient and Occident as
the “geographical sectors as ‘Orient’ and ‘Occident’ are man-made” (5). He disputes
what Rudyard Kipling said at the very beginning of The Ballad of East and West: “East is
East and West is West, and never the twain shall met” (qtd in Haq 35). In “Ode On The
Nahid Afroz and FarhanaYeasmin 51

Lungi” Kaiser Haq voices his concerns for the marginalized subaltern people using lungi
as a symbol. In this poem, the poet expresses his proposition for a democratic discourse.
The lungi is a piece of rectangular cloth commonly worn by “[h]undred of millions/ of
men and women,/ from the Pacific to Africa” (28). It is a popular and comfortable piece
of stitched cloth and people of different regions names it differently, such as “the sarong,
munda, htamain, saram,/ pion, ma’awaiis, kitenge, kanga, kaiki,/ or the variant dhoti”
(28). Haq invokes Walt Whitman, the “laureate of democracy” to try a lungi “to a White
House appointment─” (28). He is aware that Whitman would ask “what is this thing?”
(31) and not wear it rather he would unquestioningly wear a kilt. He, therefore, tries to
deconstruct the validity of the Western supremacy in all affairs and so, poses a question
whether this is the outcome of cultural hegemony.
But why? ─ this is the question
I ask all to ponder
Is it a clash of civilization?
The sheer absurdity of it─
the kilt is with ‘us’
but the lungi is with ‘them’! (29)
Haq is not against any particular culture. He can accept “the jacket and tie/ required in
certain places─” (28), but cannot understand why the most comfortable male dress lungi
is abhorred by the West. His basic concern is “sartorial equality” (27) because “being a
familiar dress among people more than the population of the USA at any time, the lungi,
though a costume basically subaltern, must be given equal status and regard like any
other popular costumes in the West” (Choudhury 2). He explores the underlying
hypocrisy of the “democratic ideal” that propagates, “[a]ll clothes have equal rights”
(Haq27) concealing the truth, “yet, some obviously are more equal than others” (27).
Here, lungi is a representative symbol of the subaltern community who are ruled by the
hegemonic power structures: “an emblem of egalitarianism/ symbol of global left-outs”
(33). The subalterns “are excluded socially, politically, economically and geographically
from a society’s centre-stage” (Choudhury 3). Being an insignia of the deprived group,
the lungi is also a means for resisting “sartorial hegemony” as well as all types of
hegemony─“[t]he lungi, as a symbol of the excluded and marginalized people in the
society, or in the words of the poet, ‘global left-outs,’ genuinely articulates its claim for
equality, dignity and position in the global society” (Choudhury 7). Haq argues “it’s the
subaltern speaking” (33) that lungi can compete with any other Western dress due to its
multiple uses in variegated weather as well as situations. It is an effective dress and its
particular size “fits all” (31). It can be used as a napkin, “it has its uses─/ as dish rag or
floor wipe/ or material for a kantha quilt” (32). It is a necessary thing for the ordinary
people who can possibly “lead a descent life/ with only a couple of lungis” (32). One can
swim in a lungi in the summer and make “Arab-style headgear/ or Sikh-style turban” (32)
with it. In the winter, it can be turned into a “poncho” (32). Wearing it “as G-string” one
can wrestle or take part in kabaddi. Hence, “[i]n short/ the lungi is a complete wardrobe/
for anyone interested” (32). It is not at all inferior: thinking so is merely a matter of
hegemonic perspective; likewise, the Eastern culture is not backward, downtrodden, or
52 Spectrum, Volume 12, 2016

bizarre. Using the lungi as a true symbol for the subjugated Easterners, the poet proudly
claims the vitality of the East and demands equal status: “I’ll proudly proclaim/ I AM A
LUNGI ACTIVIST” (30).
While protesting against the Western hegemony, Haq vehemently criticizes the
internalization of the Western ideology by the native people who are overwhelmed by the
Western modernity and blindly follow the Western propaganda. Basically, the European
world, through abundant media resources, Western education and aggressive
globalization, wants to create intellectual hybrids who would follow the prescribed norms
and tenets of conduct of European hegemony, and project European perspectives in the
Eastern culture that will eventually lose its roots. Delineating “…the English tradition
and the emergence of the modern west is the central root of our consciousness and
cultural heritage. Africa becomes an extension of the west” (Ngugi et al 2094), Ngugi
waThiong’o, Taban Lo Liyong, and Henry Owuor-Anymumba (1968) show how the
Eastern culture is conceptualized and suppressed by the Western education. These hybrid
people, considering them so called elite and educated, make a particular class among the
natives and dominate their own natives to fulfill Western colonial mission. For example,
in Wole Soyinka’s The Lion and the Jewel, Lakunle is a hybrid and an agent of European
culture who takes the charge of establishing white culture in native Africa. He considers
native culture so uncivilized that it should better be replaced by a civilized Western
culture. “Ode on the Lungi” also projects the same picture of Eurocentric hegemony in
private spaces. Modern urban and educated group may consider the lungi inappropriate,
informal and “ridiculous ethnic attire” (30). This class, in their pointless aspiration to be a
part of the foreign culture, paves the way to new imperialism:
Think too of neo-imperialism
and sartorial hegemony,
how brown and yellow sahibs
in natty suits crinkle their noses
at compatriots
(even close relations)
in modest lungis: (29)
Only in Srilanka and Myanmar lungi receives its due dignity. However, the poet is
conscious that these countries are still untouched by the globalization and when they will
be globalised, “[s]avile Row will acquire/ a fresh crop of patrons” (29). The poet cannot
digest the depressing condition of the East. So, he desperately proposes to organize lungi
parties and asserts:
let us lobby Hallmark and Archies
to introduce an international Lungi Day
when the UN Chief will wear a lungi
and address the world. (30)
Again, Haq in “East and West” sarcastically exposes all the trivialities “of all binary
oppositions” (35). He talks about different “styles of cleanliness” (35) in different
Nahid Afroz and FarhanaYeasmin 53

cultures. Whatever the styles are, the ultimate purpose is similar in both East and West
─the cleaning of “genitals or bottoms” (35). So, everyone should “[r]espect each other’s
bottoms!” (36). He, in this poem, asks to forget all the disparities among nations “to have
a better world by far” (38). Mutual respect can deconstruct all the enmities, hatred and
conflict. The poet urges:
Let world leaders gathering
to talk peace
Generate mutual goodwill
...
Mahatma Gandhi from high heaven
will pipe in:
‘Stop all this hungamma!
Come and have an enema!’ (38)
To conclude, Kaiser Haq is conscious of the Eastern cultures, religions, beliefs as well as
the Western cultural aggression over the native cultures. He revisits and represents the
Eastern tradition ─its glory, heritage and history. His respect for the Eastern tradition
does not permit him to surrender to the hegemonic superiority of the West and so he
attempts to raise the Eastern cultural consciousness to destabilize the Eurocentric cultural
hegemony by building up a mutual world between the East and the West ─a world where
both the cultures will maintain their uniqueness and reciprocate each other.

Works Cited
Choudhury, Kafeel Ahmed. “Subaltern Speaks: A Theoretical Analysis of Kaiser Haq’s “Ode on
the Lungi”.” Journal of Higher Education and Research Society 1.1 (2013): 1-7. PDF File.
Haq, Kaiser. Published in the Streets of Dhaka: Collected Poems. Dhaka: The University Press
Limited, 2012. Print.
Kelley, Robin D.G. “A Poetics of Anticolonialism.” Trans. Joan Pinkham.Discourse on
Colonialism.Aime´ Ce´saire. New Delhi: Aakar Books, 2010. 7-28. Print.
Liton, Hussain Ahmed. “Towards a Critique of Cultural Hegemony and Nationalist Resistance: A
Reading of Wole Soyinka’s The Lion and the Jewel.”Language in India 12.2 (2012): 418-
32. PDF File.
Thiong’o, NgugiWa, Taban Lo Liyong and Henry Owuor-Anyumba. “On the Abolition of the
English Department.” Trans. Richard Nice. The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism.
Ed. Vincent B. Leitch. New York: Norton, 2001. 2092-2097. Print.
Ramakrishan, E. V. Locating Indian Literature: Texts, Traditions, Translations. New Delhi:
Orient Blackswan Private Limited, 2011. Print.
Said, Edward W. Orientalism: Western Conceptions of the Orient. New York: Penguin, 1978.
PDF File.
 An Ecocritical Reading of Syed Manzoorul Islam’s
“The Two Assassins” and “The Merman’s Prayer”
Md. Elias Uddin*

Abstract
Ecocriticism is the study of the relationship between literary texts and the physical
environment or nature. It addresses environmental issues like pollution, ecological
degradation and their impact on humans in a bio-social context of unbridled
capitalism, industrialism, development and inconsiderate exploitation of nature.
Ecocritics aim to raise consciousness among the people through a theoretically
informed reading of literary and cultural texts. Additionally, ecocriticism investigates
the construction of nature in a cultural context. This paper explores two short stories,
“The Two Assassins” and “The Merman’s Prayer,” by a Bangladeshi writer Syed
Manzoorul Islam from an ecocritical point of view. “The Two Assassins” depicts
nature as it impacts on the imagination, mood and behaviour of two female
characters; however, the writer’s incorporation of immense humour in the depiction
of nature’s influence on humans simply underscores his not-so-serious attitude to the
issue. In contrast, “The Merman’s Prayer” presents a serious account of human-
nature interaction, highlighting industry-sponsored contamination of the physical
environment and the resultant bio-disaster as well as human sufferings inflicted by
the disharmonious and chaotic natural forces. Islam ironically undercuts the
capitalists’ unrestrained industrial endeavour with fullest indifference to the natural
environment resulting in the devastation of the marine ecology; and in doing so, he
employs magic realism with the help of mermaid-myth. This paper also investigates
the construction of nature in the two stories from (anti)pastoral, aesthetic, post-
equilibrium shift or new ecology and place-theory perspectives. Unlike in “The Two
Assassins,” Islam’s concerns over environmental hazards in “The Merman’s Prayer”
are grave, deep-rooted and well grounded.
Keywords: ecocriticism, nature, pollution, place, post-equilibrium shift or new
ecology, The Two Assassins, The Merman’s Prayer

Ecocriticism – also known as “environmental criticism,” “literature and environmental

studies” or “green studies” – investigates the portrayals of nature or physical environment
as well as human-nature interactions in literary and/or cultural texts. Although its home
discipline is literature, ecocriticism also investigates environmental issues raised across
disciplines, including the media. As Slovic (2000) puts it, ecocriticism is “the study of
explicitly environmental texts from any scholarly approach or, conversely, the scrutiny of
ecological implications and human-nature relationships in any literary text [or other
artistic text], even texts that seem, at first glance, oblivious of the nonhuman world” (p.
160). Gomides (2006) defines ecocriticism from an activist point of view as “the field of
enquiry that analyses and promotes works of art which raise moral questions about
human interactions with nature, while also motivating audiences to live within a limit that
*
Lecturer, Department of English, University of Dhaka
56 Spectrum, Volume 12, 2016

will be binding over generations” (p. 16). According to Estok (2005), ecocriticism is
more than “simply the study of nature or natural things in literature; rather, it is any
theory that is committed to effecting change by analyzing the function — thematic,
artistic, social, historical, ideological, theoretical, or otherwise, of the natural
environment, or aspects of it, represented in documents (literary or other) that contribute
to material practices in material worlds” (p. 16-17; cited in Farooq and Chandra, 2012, p.
117). Ecocriticism works at two levels: discourse and praxis. At the level of discourse, it
draws together the ecological approaches/problems and texts of a culture, and at the level
of praxis, it contributes to promoting consciousness about environmental crises (Nayar,
2010). In other words, an ecocritical study involves “a spirit of commitment to
environmental praxis” (Buell, 1995, p. 430).
The world we inhabit is increasingly being afflicted with environmental hazards such as
multiple forms of pollution, industry-sponsored bio-disaster, ecocide, loss of bio-
diversity, and so on. At the backdrop of unbridled capitalism, industrialism, economic
development and inconsiderate exploitation of nature, ecocriticism seeks to explore the
politics of development through theoretically informed readings of texts with a view to
raising awareness about the planet’s environmental future. It first emerged as an activist
political approach to texts, not as a theoretical one. In fact, “ecocriticism as a theory
arrived much after the emergence of the activists and the legal cases about pollution and
development all over the world” (Nayar, 2010, p. 242). The activist movement started
“from the conviction that the arts of imagination and the study thereof—by virtue of their
grasp of the power of word, story, and image to reinforce, enliven, and direct
environmental concern—can contribute significantly to the understanding of
environmental problems: the multiple forms of ecodegradation that afflict planet Earth
today” (Buell, et al. 2011, p. 418). The creative portrayal of humans’ suicidal treatment
of the physical environment resulting in large-scale pollution, destabilization of
ecological balance, loss of flora and fauna, and so on might not be able to play a very
active and direct role in eradicating the problems; however, it might intensify our
concerns about the environmental hazards and their consequences to convince us to
handle the environmental phenomena in a befitting, considerate and conducive manner.
This paper presents an ecocritical analysis of two short stories —“The Two Assassins”
and “The Merman’s Prayer”— by a Bangladeshi writer Syed Manzoorul Islam. It puts
light, first, on how the construct of nature is represented, and second, on how pollution
has led to a radical transformation in elements of an aquatic ecosystem.
Ecocriticism holds that “nature really exists, out there beyond ourselves, … actually
present as an entity which affects us, and which can affect, perhaps fatally, if we mistreat
it” (Barry, 2013, p. 243). It repudiates the subjective construction of nature and considers
it as an objective entity which influences and is influenced by human lifestyles. Not only
that humans cause nature to undergo destabilization, lack of harmony and order, and
radical transformations in its internal as well as external systems/processes, but also the
latter’s influence on the shaping of the former’s way of thinking and behaving as well as
future destiny is evident. Besides, nature’s cruel vagaries engender immense afflictions
for humans. In Syed Manzoorul Islam’s two short stories, “The Two Assassins” and “The
Merman’s Prayer,” nature appears to be an objective entity influencing humanity as well
Md. Elias Uddin 57

as being a victim of human activities. The portrayal of nature-human dualism in these

two short stories marks a mutually influencing relationship. Nature is seen to shape the
imagination, behaviour and even the future destiny of human beings, as human beings in
turn engage with nature and impact the way it exists and functions.
An anti-pastoral representation of nature is evident in Islam’s two short stories where it
emerges as a destructive force in operation. The inherent peace, order and harmony
attributed to nature by the pastoral tradition are also called into question. In “The Two
Assassins,” the scorching heat of the sun exacerbates the already deteriorated relationship
between Kobori and Zebunnessa, the former being the daughter-in-law of the latter. The
extremely hot and suffocating atmosphere of a midday in the Bangla month of Bhadra
makes both women desperate, and out of their long-time mutual hatred, they expect each
other to die out of exhaustion. They even forget about the seriousness of the situation that
makes them venture into the journey to Noahata, Mirzaganj where Kobori’s husband
Nazib is hospitalized in a critical condition some 13 miles to the north of their village
Noldha. The relationship between Kobori and Zebunnessa is a tense one, often turning
spiteful: they are very often engaged in skirmishes with one another over trifling matters,
call one another “a witch” and expect one another’s death every now and then. Half a
mile to Mirzaganj, the “unbearably hot” sun is found to make Kobori and Zebunnessa
lose their temper and they get involved in a conflict: “ [Zebunnessa was] about to
collapse …[Kobori] led her to a rain tree that spread quite a thick shade… [but
Zebunnessa] viciously punched at the bundle of puffed rice Kobori offered her, spilling
the content… Zebunnessa also threw away the tin-cup of water in disgust.” Thus, the
negative impact of the excessive heat of the sun on the temperament of Zebunnessa and
Kobori becomes conspicuous: both of them fly into a paroxysm of anger.
In “The Merman’s Prayer,” “the river [Meghna] devoured the whole village…[in] hours”
putting the history of Shekul, the protagonist’s family upside down replacing a stable
peaceful one with “one of unredeemed suffering and grinding poverty.” Robbed of his
father and all possessions - “a sprawling homestead and agricultural land” - by the
erosion of the Meghna, Shekul along with “his mother and four siblings,” all the
inhabitants of the idyllic landscape on the bank of the river Meghna, finds “shelter in a
slum” in Dhaka. But soon the abduction followed by detention for five days of his
younger sister Tuktuki, by Morsalin, the “one-eared” “terror of Donia,” comes as the last
blow in their tragedy. Shekul Arefin hides himself in a hotel room in Cox’s Bazar, a
seaside resort town after having embezzled 725000 takas of the company he works for.
Shekul has been honest throughout his life except on this occasion. He compromises his
integrity only to eradicate the miseries of Tukumoni, his beloved sister and the victim of
Morsalin’s terror.
In “The Merman’s Prayer,” the nature-human interaction is marked by their lack of
mutual understanding, intelligibility and sensitivity. The narrator attributes “greed” to the
river that makes it “devour the village one night in the space of a few hours,” and thus
nature appears insensitive to human interest. The narrator further accentuates the river’s
insensitivity to human interest by mentioning the wise saw: “For those who live by the
river, the kinsfolk and the stranger are all alike.” The riverside ecology lacks coherence
and stability and its human component suffers from continuous uncertainty and risks of
58 Spectrum, Volume 12, 2016

reversal of fortune. The bonding of human-nature relationship is very fragile, and nature-
human communication often fails owing to mutual unintelligibility. Shekul’s father meets
a watery grave when he “decided to go back and retrieve his matriculation certificate and
his wife’s wedding ornaments from the clutches of the Meghna.” The river, however, is
not convinced to rein in its “greedy tongues.” The narrator sheds light on nature’s non-
chalance to human interest through his pronounced questions: “but what does a river care
about someone’s achievement or the sentimental value attached to wedding gifts?”
At the end of “The Two Assassins,” the moon, albeit ironically and humorously, sides
with Zebunessa when she is contriving a plot to kill Kobori by pushing her into the deep
pond at the bend near the Morol house. The moon’s complicity with the plotting
Zebunnessa, who has meanwhile clenched her fist visualizing the imminent fatal plunge,
into the depth of the pond, of Kobori who had rescued her at the risk of her own life when
she was drowning in the river Methli, simply adds to the humour of the story and
unravels its ironic entanglements.
Of different ecocritical approaches to nature, the one that “ascribes value to nature for its
beauty, complexity, or wildness” (Farooq and Chandra, 2012, p. 117) is the aesthetic
construction. Aesthetic value is part of nature’s intrinsic value, i. e. the value, as deep
ecologists claim, nature has in and of itself. This aesthetic value enables nature to exert
an overall soothing impact on human mind. In “The Two Assassins,” the ‘quieter’
atmosphere of Mirzaganj leads to reconciliation between Kobori and Zebunnessa.
Zebunnessa accepts Kobori’s offer of food and water and sees some “logic” in Kobori’s
words, digests the ignominy of having been proved “inconsequential” by Kobori once
again. Thus, the calm and quiescent atmosphere leads to peace and harmony between the
two women, although for a short while. Again, the scenic natural beauty of dusk when the
van dumped them at Putidaha filled Kobori with cheerfulness: “Darkness shrouded the
fields and the bamboo groves. The roadside bushes lay in dusky lumps. The ditches
reflected the gloom above, outlined by the faint orange of the departed sun. Fireflies had
begun their nightly patrol, their glow punctuating the gathering darkness. Kobori felt
cheerful.” “The Merman’s Prayer” also presents a similar portrayal of the soothing
powers of nature. “[T]he spectacle of infinity that the sea and the sky unfolded” has a
recuperative effect on Sekul’s mind: the worries that unnerve Shekul all morning
disappears at the sight of the panoramic beauty of the seascape. However, the vision of
the “stunningly beautiful face” belonging to “a stunningly beautiful maiden,” i.e. the
mermaid engenders a mixed feeling in Shekul: he is astonished, pleased, relieved of
anxiety, and at the same time, seized with apprehension as well. The beauty of the
mermaid evokes a feeling of ecstasy in Shekul’s mind; simultaneously, her beckoning
renders him “apprehensive”: he thinks that “the girl might be some spirit, some phantom
in human shape from another world. Or some soul who had perished in the sea, waiting
for revenge.” Surprisingly, immediately afterwards, Shekul is relieved of the
apprehension and “his spirit lifted” at the sight of the “mermaid’s shining eyes.” Again, at
the end of their conversation before he enters the sea putting his arms around the
mermaid, “Rehana’s laughter drove away all the gloom in Shekul’s heart which had
settled like coal-dust over the last few months, choking him.”
Md. Elias Uddin 59

Analogous to Shekul’s experience of an amalgam of joy and fear along with a recovery
of worries and gloom during his interaction with the mermaid is William Wordsworth’s
transformative imagination. Just as Shekul’s imagination transforms the mermaid into
“some spirit, some phantom in human shape … waiting for revenge,” “Wordsworth’s
imagination … similarly transformed the natural scene[s], investing it [them] with terror
and delight” (Durrant, 1979, p. 3). During the formative years when “Fair seedtime had
my [his] soul” (The Prelude, Book 1, l. 301), Wordsworth’s poetic mind was “Fostered
alike by beauty and by fear” (The Prelude, Book 1, l. 302). The milder discipline of
beauty informs such lines as those composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey where the
“beauteous forms” (l. 23) like “these waters, rolling from this mountain-springs / With a
soft inland murmur” (ll. 3-4) possess “the power / Of harmony, and the deep power of
joy” (ll. 48-49) which enable the poet to recuperate from “the fretful stir” (l. 54) and “the
fever of the world” (l. 55). Again, similarly informed by the discipline of beauty are the
lines, in The Prelude, Book 1, on the river Derwent, which flows in a zigzag course
through its “grassy holms” (l. 75), creating unrelenting calm, quiescent and soothing
music like a lullaby. By contrast, the trap-robbing and boat-stealing episodes in The
Prelude, Book 1 embody the discipline of fear: “The boy, troubled in conscience, seemed
to hear low breathing coming after him in the woods; [and] from a thwart of the stolen
rowboat, he watched horror-struck the huge looming of the black peak from beyond the
sheltering grove by the lakeside” (Baker, 1954, intro. xv).
Both the stories thus highlight nature’s malevolent aspects alongside the benevolent ones.
The way natural elements like the scorching heat of the sun and the river erosion wreak
havoc on human life, disrupt their faculty of imagination and inflict limitless suffering to
them by displacing and/or destroying their habitat can be interpreted from the “new
ecology” or “post-equilibrium shift” perspectives. To the new ecologists, constant
mutability, instability and lack of order are fundamental characteristic traits of natural
systems; they also lay emphasis on complexity and variability in all natural systems
(Mentz, 2010, p. 139). The systems of nature represent not only harmony and order but
also chaos and disorder. For instance, at the end of “The Two Assassins” the scenic
natural beauty of the dusk makes Kobori cheerful; however, it leaves no positive impact
on Zebunnessa. As soon as Kobori asks her to speed up, they engage in a fresh skirmish
as usual. What is worse, the moon, albeit ironically, appears complicit with Zebunnessa’s
plot to kill Kobori. Just the same way, in the storm scenes of William Shakespeare’s
“King Lear,” Lear, in his continually and bewilderingly shifting mood, calls the elements,
i.e. winds, thunder, lightning and rain, “servile ministers’ (3.2.20) (slavish tools) for
joining with his “two pernicious daughters” (3.2.21) (Goneril and Regan) to wage their
“high-engendered battles” (3.2.22) against him. Just as nature appears as a fully
disharmonious, capricious and destabilizing force in the river-erosion scene in “The
Merman’s Prayer,” its destructive forces in the storm scenes of “King Lear” “invades
[invade] us [them] to the skin” (3.2.7) to subject the body of Lear to indescribable
sufferings, and chaos and disorder prevail in the natural systems.
“The Two Assassins,” however, simply benefits from the ironic portrayal of the construct
of nature as it attempts to carry out an autopsy of the innate evil and degeneracy in
humans. The way nature plays its role in the story embodies exuberant humour that
60 Spectrum, Volume 12, 2016

mostly results from the ironies strewn all over the story. Nature acts as a catalyst in the
vicissitudes of the temperament of Kobori and Zebunnessa: it remains the same as the
two exhibits unpredictable volatility of disposition. The two women have no love lost
between them, and their mutual intolerance is confined within verbal acrimony. In the
story, we see that the extreme heat of the simmering and suffocating Bhadra noon simply
adds more fuel to the fire of hatred and bitterness they nourished for each other although
they probably did not mean any harm to come to their adversary. That is why we find
Kobori shouting for her “Ma” (“Where are you, Ma?”, “Please Ma, don’t go!”) and
crying when the boat they take capsizes in the river Methli, and Zebunnesa is about to
drown. Kobori rescues Zebunnessa risking her own life. The ascerbic verbal exchanges
between Kobori and Zebunnessa never come to pass in reality. The social crises and
perhaps lack of proper education and cultural orientation have probably rendered their
relationship acrimonious, spiteful and bitter. We find nature dancing attendance upon the
two: the heat and humidity of Bhadra turn out to be an abetting accomplice during the
angry verbal duels; again, the calm and quiescence of nature brings the apparently lost
peace back. The flippant ironies in the treatment of nature are light and not serious, and
as such exude profuse humour; however, despite all lack of seriousness in the treatment
of human-nonhuman interaction, nature’s role in shaping the momentary temperament of
humans becomes evident.
Pollution is another significant trope in ecocriticism. This construct is concerned with the
multifarious forms of environmental megahazards, the various types and sources of
pollution/ pollutants, and their impact on both humans and nonhumans. Advancement in
science and technology and industrialization has enabled humans to establish greater
control over nature and eventually overexploit it with the fullest indifference to the dire
consequences their practices might lead to. The litany of ever-proliferating culprits
behind pollution comprises excessive use of pesticides, herbicides, insecticides and
chemical fertilizers in agriculture, dumping of domestic as well as industrial waste into
water bodies, chemical and toxic waste dumped anywhere, radioactive emissions from
nuclear plants as well as explosion of nuclear weapons, seeping of oil from engines into
water, high decibel noise from technological appliances creating a turmoil in the rather
stable state of nature, and so on. The corollaries to the relentless maltreatment of the
nonhuman environment by humans include pervasive pollution of land, air and sea,
disruptions of ecologies, ecocide, radical transformations in ecological components, and
the like. One of the dominant themes in Syed Manzoorul Islam’s “The Merman’s Prayer”
is pollution. The story depicts pollution, in graphic detail, as it adversely affects the
physical environment.
“The Merman’s Prayer” presents a portrayal of how pollution of different dimensions
impinges on the seascape to the colossal detriment of life-forms in the marine ecology, on
the one hand, and how nature retaliates against human excesses, on the other. The
conversations between Shekul and the mermaid at times become a dialogue on the
discourse of pollution. In his first encounter with the mermaid, Shekul invites her to sit
under the acacia tree on the beach for the conversation, but she readily rejects, arguing
that “the upper part of my [her] body is a woman’s torso, but I don’t [she doesn’t] have
any clothes on as mermaids don’t wear any clothes.” Recollecting illustrations of
Md. Elias Uddin 61

mermaids in story books, Shekul asks the mermaid, “Mermaids cover their breasts, their
nakedness, with their hair, right?” The mermaid retorts by providing a correction, “They
used to…when they used to have very long and thick hair.” To his utter bewilderment,
Shekul asks her why she says “mermaids used to have long hair.” The mermaid explains:
“It is because of the wholesale pollution and chemical wastes that are destroying the seas.
You won’t believe how polluted these waters are. Just the other day, a European ship
dumped a load of nuclear waste in this sea.” The pervasive pollution occasions gradual
devastation of the seas. The mermaid enumerates three levels of contamination: “the
wholesale pollution,” “chemical wastes” and “nuclear wastes.” All these forms of
pollution are responsible for total disruption in the marine ecology.
The most visible pernicious impact of the multiple forms of pollution on the mermaid
species is a depilatory one: the anatomy of mermaids has undergone radical changes; they
have lost their long and thick hair with which they “used to” cover the upper part of their
body; and now they cannot do so any more. Moreover, pollution has rendered the
seascape insecure for mermaids. In other words, the endangered species is on the verge of
displacement from the seascape in the Bay of Bengal. Higher levels of contamination
preclude their free and unhindered movement, and perhaps, even their normal
procreation. The mermaid informs Shekul that “because of the pollution that has recently
gone nuclear…mother has forbid me [her] to venture into these waters. But last week I
[she] came here after a long time.” A sharp decline in mermaid population caused by
pollution of the sea-water is further confirmed by the owner of Urmila Hotel, where
Shekul now lives, who finds it hard to believe that the latter has met a mermaid on the
beach because “no mermaid has been sighted here in the last forty years.” Again, in their
last conversation, when they plan for Shekul’s transformation into a merman for a
successful translation of their love-relationship into reality, their subsequent entrance into
the sea to start their journey to their destination, probably the mermaid’s residence, and
the route they are likely to follow, the mermaid refers to the massive pollution en route to
the Saint Martin’s island: “the maritime traffic between Chittagong and Singapore uses
the Channel that lies to the west of the island, which makes it quite polluted and
dangerous too.”
Just as the erosion of the Meghna has changed the history of Shekul’s family by effacing
the riverside landscape, the large-scale pollution of the bay-water has changed the history
of mermaids by causing havoc to their anatomy and habitat, the upshot being an alarming
decrease in mermaid population along with displacement of the species from one sea
region and restricting their life-style to some other regions. Now mermaids have become
“things of the past.” At the sight of Shekul entering the sea with a “shadowy figure” that
takes after a mermaid, the police inspector Nitai Burman reflects that “mermaids were not
supposed to be here and they might be visible towards Teknaf down below where the
water was deeper and topaz blue.” Even in Hatiya Island, from where Nitai is, mermaids
are now mere “things of the past.” Not only that mermaids have undergone anatomical
changes and a decrease in population but also they have been compelled to shift their
habitat somewhere away from the contaminated waters. Also, the ecology sees a radical
change in the distribution of the mermaid population.
62 Spectrum, Volume 12, 2016

Unlike “The Two Assassins,” “The Merman’s Prayer” embodies a labyrinthine array of
bitter ironies. Shekul is now actually a fugitive. The erosion of the Meghna has changed
the history of his life. Victimized, first, by nature’s destructive powers, and second, by
societal evils, Shekul has to compromise his honesty: to ensure “a new lease on
Tukumoni’s life,” he, in dire desperation, avails himself of the chance of embezzling the
company fund, as there is no other alternative, and takes refuge in Hotel Urmila at Cox’s
Bazar, signing his name in the hotel register as Deen Mohammad Khan and mentioning
his occupation as an NGO worker. Ironically, this very victim of nature’s subversive
capabilities as well as socio-political evil structure is now, as the narrator claims, at Cox’s
Bazar “to investigate the loss of biodiversity caused by pollution from organic and
chemical wastes that littered the beach and the shoreline.” More ironically, the hotelier is
quite convinced that the work of this fugitive in the guise of an NGO worker “might help
preserve the fragile biodiversity of the place which would certainly help in the
development of the resort town and in boosting tourism.”
To project his thought and ideas regarding environmental hazards in “The Merman’s
Prayer,” Syed Manzoorul Islam exploits the technique of magic realism by introducing
Shekul’s encounter with a mermaid, an imaginary creature in the plot of the story.
Ironically, the coincidental encounter makes Shekul, the pseudo-environmental activist,
and the mermaid, the magical realistic component, engage in an in-depth realistic
discussion on the adverse effect of pollution on the mermaid species in particular, entire
marine ecosystem in general, and the levels as well as the sources of the contamination.
The categorization of pollution, the latest update about the dumping of nuclear waste in
the sea, interconnection between the local as well as the global dimensions of
environmental phenomena, dangers that waylay particular routes, causes behind the
nuisance, loss of mermaid’s long and thick hair, human-like nomenclature of the
mermaids, the history of mermaid population and such like—are so vividly and
realistically reflected on in the story that they simply lend credence to every detail of the
story. The events in the mermaid episode have been so realistically rendered that the
readers are tempted to willingly suspend their disbelief in the existence of the imaginary
creature and look through the surrealistic windows to fully comprehend the
environmental phenomena: pollution as it disrupts the marine ecosystem.
The mermaid episode in “The Merman’s Prayer,” however, appears to be an episodic
allegory which allows multiple interpretations. The mermaid actually stands for all life
forms in the ecosystem of the bay, and the pernicious impact of pollution on the mermaid
species is symbolic of the catastrophic disruptions in the ecosystemic network in the sea.
Shekul’s emotional relationship with the mermaid which eventually enables him to evade
imminent apprehension by the police can be construed from the deep ecological
viewpoint that humans have to ensure an emotional relation with and response to nature
rather than a merely rational intellectual one (Arne Naess, 1995; cited in Nayar, 2010).
This relationship might also account for the deep ecologists’ belief in “the fundamental
interconnectedness of all life-forms and natural features” (Nayar, 2010. p. 246). In other
words, the mermaid episode accounts for ecocentrism, instead of anthropocentrism, so
long as it is not misanthropic. In addition, the mermaids’ “doing terrible things” to those
who make them cry symbolizes the myriad of problems, inconveniences and afflictions
Md. Elias Uddin 63

humans have meanwhile brought for themselves by mistreating nature. Jamal Khan
Bacchu attacks the mermaid Urmila Akhter whom Nurul Afsar, with evil design in his
mind, is carrying on his left shoulder. The mermaid retaliated by causing immediate
death of Bacchu and the paralysis of Nurul Afsar’s left hand. The maltreatment of the
mermaid by Bacchu and Nurul Afsar, despite their cognizance of the fact that mermaids
do terrible things if somebody makes them cry, and the resultant punishment they receive
stand for humans’ deliberate suicidal enterprises with fullest disregard for the physical
environment.
The concept of place as a critical category in environmental discourse has a very crucial
role in ecocritrical thought. The place theory in ecocriticism attributes immense value to
place-sense at a local or regional as well as global or transnational scale. It lays emphasis
on the “interdependences between one’s particular ecosystem and its wider world”
(Buell, et al. 2011, p. 420). The theory highlights the global interconnectedness of
environmental phenomena. To put it another way, it tends to discard the notion of a local
environmental problem because all such problems form part of a network of global
processes and issues (Buell, et al. 2011, p. 421). In “The Merman’s Prayer,” the
mermaid’s experience of the large-scale contamination of the bay-water betrays her
perception of the risk shared across the national borders as she claims that “the wholesale
pollution and chemical wastes that are destroying the seas,” i.e. the entirety of the marine
ecologies and/or ecosystems on the planet, not those in the Bay of Bengal only. In the
similar vein, the mermaid’s mention of the dumping of “a load of nuclear waste in this
sea” by a “European ship” gives away a post-colonial consciousness of “the tensions and
disruptions between local and global frameworks of experiences” (Buell, et al. 2011, p.
422).
To sum up, the environmental view represented in “The Two Assassins” and “The
Merman’s Prayer” is neither anthropocentric nor ecocentric in toto: here we encounter an
objective construction of nature that not only suffers due to inconsiderate maltreatment
by humans but also makes the latter suffer either by exercising its own caprices or by
retaliating against human intervention. Besides highlighting the pastoral harmony and
order in nature, the two stories also put light on the antipastoral and/or new ecological
view of nature with inherent disharmony and chaos. Furthermore, the humans and the
non-humans are depicted to inflict sufferings on one another. The portrayal of the human-
nature interaction in “The Two Assassins” is suffused with irony and humor. The innate
evil in human beings has been ironically highlighted through the portrayal of the
relationship between Kobori and Zebunnessa with an instrumental exploitation of the
construct of nature as it exerts its influence upon them. “The Merman’s Prayer”
showcases nature, on the one hand, as a devastating force as it wipes out the homestead
of the protagonist’s family to shape its tragic destiny, and as a victim of human excesses,
on the other. Massive pollution renders the seascape unsafe for the mermaids, causing a
sharp decline in their population, along with radical corporeal changes; and
simultaneously, there lurk chances of retaliation against the agents of such wrongs on the
part of the mermaids. However, contrary to the humorous and flippant treatment of the
nature-human relationship in “The Two Assassins,” “The Merman’s Prayer” articulates
words of caution against humans’ maltreatment of the physical environment: “Mermaids
64 Spectrum, Volume 12, 2016

can’t cry, and because they can’t, they do terrible things.” Alongside making the readers
conscious about the environmental megahazards, “The Merman’s Prayer” exhibits a
commitment to effectuating changes in their material practices as it outlines a roadmap
for immediate action: a compromise with nature, as if transforming themselves into
mermen just as Shekul does to enter the sea embraced by the mermaid ready to respect
the rules therein.

References
Baker, C. (1954). Introduction. William Wordsworth: The Prelude, Selected poems and Sonnets.
Ed. Carlos Baker. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc.
Barry, P. (2009). Beginning theory: An introduction to literary and cultural theory. Manchester:
Manchester UP.
Buell, L. (1995). The Environmental Imagination. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Buell, L. , Heise, U. K. and Thornber, K. (2011). “Literature and Environment.” The Annual
Review of Environment and Resources, 36. pp. 417-440.
Durrant, G. (1979). William Wordsworth. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Farooq, M. A. A. and Chandra, N. D. R. (2012). “Ecocriticism: Relevance of William
Wordsworth’s “Tintern Abbey” and “The World is too Much with Us.” ” Journal of
Literature, Culture and Media Studies, 4(7-8). pp. 112-123.
Gomides, C. (2006). “Putting a new definition of ecocriticism to the test: The case of The Burning
Season, a film (mal)adaptation.” ISLE, 13.1 (Winter 2006). pp. 13-23.
Garrard, G. 2004. Ecocriticism. London: Routledge.
Islam, S. M. (2013). The Merman’s Prayer and Other Stories. Dhaka: Daily Star Books.
Mentz, S. (2010). “Strange weather in King Lear.” Shakespeare, 6(2). pp. 139-152.
Nayar, P. K. (2010). Contemporary Literary and Cultural Theory: From Structuralism to
Ecocriticism. Pearson: New Delhi.
Shakespeare, W. (1997). The Tragedy of King Lear. ed. J. L. Halio. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Wordsworth, W. (1979). The Prelude, 1850. In The Prelude 1799, 1805,1850: A Norton critical
edition. eds. Jonathan Wordsworth, M. H. Abrams and Stephen Gill. New York: W. W.
Norton& Company, Inc.
… (1954). Tintern Abbey. In William Wordsworth: The Prelude, selected poems and sonnets. ed.
Carlos Baker. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc.
Slovic, S. (2000). “Ecocriticism: Containing multitudes, practising doctrine.” The Green Studies
Reader: From Romanticism to Ecocriticism. Ed. Laurence Coupe. London: Routledge.
 Nature: A Warrior or a Victim of War?
Reading Midnight’s Children in the Light of the
Liberation War of Bangladesh (1971)
Khandakar Ashraful Islam*

Abstract
Since the dawn of civilization, the world has been at wars. Much blood has been
shed and countless battles have been fought between ruthless monarchs or
statesmen, either to champion their idiosyncratic (political/religious) ideologies
or to establish empires. To legitimate their bloody enterprises, the warmongers
always attempted to associate heroic, religious, political, or nationalistic causes
to these wars. In fact, these delusive persuasions had no effect on hiding the
brutal consequences of war that inevitably results in indiscriminate destruction
of both human life and the natural world. In a war, ‘nature’—a living entity—
endures the same decisive consequences of the ruthless use of the weapons of
mass destruction as do humans. However, so far, in war literature, very little
attention has been paid to articulate the actual interplay between war and nature,
and if ever any attempt is taken that presented nature only as a victimized entity.
Therefore, considering Salman Rushdie’s Booker winning novel Midnight’s
Children as a breakthrough in the literary tradition, this paper is an attempt to
reread the novel against the backdrop of the liberation war of Bangladesh and
declare nature a combative, vindictive, and strategic warrior instead of a passive
victim of war.
Keywords: Liberation War, Bangladesh, nature, Salman Rushdie, warrior,
ecocriticism, guerrilla, the Sundarbans

I
“The earth we abuse and the living things we
kill will, in the end, take their revenge.”
—Marya Mannes

John F. Kennedy—the 35th President of the United States of America—on September 25,
1961 in his Address to the UN General Assembly expressed his greatest fear and anxiety
about ‘war’, saying “Mankind must put an end to war--or war will put an end to
mankind” (1). The prime cause behind this cautionary remark was the horror—massive
death toll, inestimable casualties and extensive environmental destruction—of the two
world wars, World War I (1914-1918) and World War II (1939-1945), and the impending
cold war. While “[u]ntil the sixteenth century the ecological impacts of wars were largely
limited to areas of conflict,” (Archer 459) in modern warfare, because of the extensive
use of advanced military weapons, the consequences of wars had become disastrous. In
*
PhD Researcher, Osmania University, Hyderabad, India
66 Spectrum, Volume 12, 2016

fact, “[m]odern war is ecocide, genocide, and ethnocide and… [t]he costs of war are
enormous, not just financial but social, ecological and global” (Judge). These wars not
only devastate the biodiversity of the surrounding environment but also transform “fields
and forests within the relatively narrow war zone into a wasteland” (Keller 3). Although
several anti-war organizations and environmentalists are relentlessly working to make
warmongers realize that “[t]he future existence of our planet depends upon ending war,”
(Tiffany) unfortunately, they are not so concerned. Therefore, in different regions of the
world still wars either civil or communal keep breaking out. In the literature of war, while
most novels focus primarily on portraying the predicaments of war and its ensuing
psychological conflicts, physiological sufferings, socio-economic struggles and trauma of
the protagonist and the other characters, ‘the victimized natural world’ in such narratives,
literally gets very little attention. In a war, since the natural environment experiences the
same decisive consequences of the ruthless use of the weapons of mass destruction as
humans do, I think, in this regard, a typical way of viewing nature only as a victim or
‘voiceless casualty’ of war is insufficient to understand the complex interplay between
environment and war. Whereas most history books and war novels depict the
environment as a backdrop or victim of war, Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children
(1981) is a breakaway from this tradition. Instead of being a mere observer of the
devastation of war, in Rushdie’s depiction, ‘nature’ is a reactionary entity that
consciously resists its perpetrators. Focusing on Rushdie’s distinctive portrayal of the
‘natural environment,’ this paper is an attempt to re-read Midnight’s Children against the
backdrop of the liberation war of Bangladesh (1971) and reintroduce ‘nature’ as a
warrior.
II
Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children is a milestone of English literature. It is well-acclaimed
not only for its outstanding literary achievements—Booker Prize (1981), Booker of
Bookers Prize (1993), The Best of the Booker (2008)—but also for its grandeur. The
novel portrays the history of British-India and post-partitioned India and Pakistan so
precisely that it has become a microcosm of “every major event in the subcontinent’s past
30 years” (1947-1977) (Blaise 18). Whereas the prime focus of this award-winning novel
rests on the partition of British-India, post-partition upheavals, post-colonial
predicaments and many other aspects including postmodern, this paper will analyse
Rushdie’s unique depiction of the reactionary ‘natural environment’ as an agent of the
liberation war of Bangladesh (1971).
In order to argue on the interconnectivity of the liberation war of Bangladesh and its
natural environment, I think, a brief overview of this war is pivotal. In The Blood
Telegram: Nixon, Kissinger, and a Forgotten Genocide Gary J. Bass mentions that unlike
any other military carnage, Pakistan’s massacre of the innocent Bengalis in the liberation
war of Bangladesh was strikingly different because:
Here the United States was allied with the killers…[t]hey allowed the army
to sweep aside the results of Pakistan’s first truly free and fair democratic
election…They did not ask that Pakistan refrain from using U.S. weaponry to
slaughter civilians. (Intro)
Khandaker Ashraful Islam 67

In the face of such naked support and indulgence from the U.S. government, in this war
of nine months, the Pakistan army massacred unarmed Bengalis in such a brutal manner
that in terms of atrocities and war casualties the liberation war of Bangladesh is often
categorized as “one of the most terrible humanitarian crises of the twentieth century”
(Blood xvi). In this military carnage nearly three million people were brutally killed,
approximately five lakh women were raped, and ten million people were displaced from
their homeland. Moreover, this war witnessed an indefinite number of casualties and
immeasurable destruction of natural environment.
In 1947, with the vast land of India in between its two territories, “Pakistan was born as a
cartographic oddity: a unitary state whose two territories did not connect,” (Bass 30) the
Bengalis of the region (now Bangladesh) were economically exploited and politically
deprived of all rights. Apart from such depravations, the deliberate denial of the
representation of the Bengalis in the mainstream of the central government, the main
military institutions, and the established bureaucracy, not only made East Pakistan
economically feeble but also geopolitically vulnerable. In comparison to its population
and territory, East Pakistan had neither a regular military nor enough weaponry to resist
the attack of any enemy. Therefore, in the midnight of 25th March, 1971 when the West
Pakistan army launched the crackdown—to usurp the Bengalis’ electoral mandate as well
as the dream of an independent state—literally they did not have the weapons to resist the
attack of military troops equipped with “U.S.-supplied M-24 tanks...machine
guns...mortars or heavy weapons” (Choudhury 184). Hence, many innocent civilians of
Dhaka and its adjacent areas were brutally massacred on that night. On the stroke of the
midnight, on March 26, 1971, before his arrest by the Pakistan Army, Bangabandhu
Sheikh Mujibur Rahman proclaimed the independence of Bangladesh. His ‘Declaration
of Independence’ is usually seen as the official inception of the liberation war.
Having no weapon and training to resist one of the most advanced armies of the world—
the Pakistan army—for the Bengalis it was like fighting a war without weapons. The
shock of the heinous atrocities of Operation Searchlight1 and the dream of an independent
state made the Bengalis join the liberation war of Bangladesh in wave after wave. In
comparison to the highly trained and equipped Pakistan army, in the beginning, the
Bengali civilians were relatively unarmed; however, the insufficiency of weapons did not
deter their spirit. Hiding in the bushes and taking camouflage in jungles, the soldiers of
the Mukti Bahini2 launched guerrilla attacks on the Pakistani armies. In fact, to tackle the
attacks of modern military weaponry, initially the only environmental advantage they had
was the vital weapon for Bangladeshi freedom fighters. Therefore, using the topography
of this deltaic region—the crisscrossing rivers, canals, the hills, and the flora and the
fauna—the Mukti Bahini executed myriad guerrilla attacks with the highest impact. Since
the soldiers of Pakistani army had little sense of the local territory, the landscape, flora,
fauna, and monsoonal climate of Bangladesh, they found it impossible either to predict or
to resist these attacks. In this way, the ‘natural environment’ not only played a
rudimentary role but also changed the course of this war.
In the beginning, these infrequent guerrilla attacks could hardly affect the Pakistan army
adversely. However, things started to change when the then “Prime Minister of India
Mrs. Indira Gandhi expressed full support of her government to the freedom struggle of
68 Spectrum, Volume 12, 2016

the Bengalis” and allowed the freedom fighters to receive training to learn “tactics and
the use of arms and explosives” (Sheren, par.10). After having training and getting
weapons in several phases, the trained soldiers formed regular forces to combat the
Pakistan army face to face. Moreover, taking environmental advantage and adopting
different maneuvers they intensified the frequency of these guerrilla attacks. Gradually,
these attacks became a major threat to the survival of the Pakistani army. In Midnight’s
Children, Rushdie depicts that in this unjust war the freedom fighters were not alone. The
natural environment they were born and brought up with was on their side. In fact, in this
unjust war with the soldiers of the Mukti Bahini the environment was fighting a quasi-
war.
IV
While in most war novels the environment or its elements are portrayed either as passive
victims or as silent observers of war, Rushdie depicts them as valiant warriors. Against
the backdrop of the liberation war of Bangladesh, he narrates how the environment could
become hostile to the aggressor (Pakistan army) and fight on the side of the victimized
(people of Bangladesh). In this novel, the vivacity of the environment comes to light
when four Pakistani soldiers—Ayooba, Shaheed, Farooq and Saleem—enter the
Sundarbans, chasing the soldiers of Mukti Bahini. Locating the enemy—the way the
soldiers take their positions to attack their opponents, the ‘natural environment’ of the
Sundarbans, assuming the infiltration of the Pakistani soldiers, starts to gain ‘power and
ferocity’ to avenge the martyrs. Before the soldiers entered the jungle, even in their
wildest imagination they had never realized that the jungle itself would be an enemy in
camouflage. In order to confine the Pakistani soldiers in its territory, at first the jungle
raises the water level and grows in size. Then, the great nipa palm trees, spreading their
leaves “until the entire forest seemed to be thatched,” (Rushdie 504) make the entire
forest an inescapable custodian. Giving no chance to the soldiers to escape, “the nipa-
fruits began to fall” on the soldiers suddenly. Although nipa fruits are not so big in size,
here in this jungle they become larger than any coconut on earth. While falling from
dizzying heights, these nipa fruits “gathered speed alarmingly…to explode like bombs in
the water” (Rushdie 505). These bombarding nipa palms created such a huge turbulence
in the water that the soldiers could hardly escape from drowning. Narrowly escaping
death from the bombarding nipa, the soldiers step in the land, only to be attacked by “a
million insects, including giant flies… too, reddened” (Rushdie 505). In fact, the blood of
the innocent people indiscriminately killed and buried in their native land reddens the
insects and the fruits—usually white in color. In this novel, the frequent use of the color
red symbolizes the blood of the martyrs and the innocent millions who were brutally
killed in one of the most heinous military carnages of the last century. It seems that in the
wilderness of the jungle, being nurtured inside the nipa fruit, in the form of insects and
giant flies, the blood of million innocents had come out to take their revenge. Noteworthy
Indian poet Sahir Ludhianvi’s poem ‘Blood is But Blood’—written as a reaction to “the
CIA instigated assassination of Patrice Lumumba, the first legally elected prime minister
of the Democratic Republic of Congo and the hero of the Congolese independence”
(Manwani 187)—expresses the indomitable spirit of the suppressed blood:
Khandaker Ashraful Islam 69

“The blood you sought to suppress in abattoir

Today that blood moves out into street
Here an ember, there a slogan, there a stone
Once blood comes to flows
Bayonets are no avail
Head, once it is raised
Is not downed by law's hail.” (SL 5. 21-27)
Like the rebellious blood mentioned in the poem, it was as if the crazy blood of the
innocent civilians had become thirsty for vengeance in the Sundarbans. Once the assault
of the insects and giant flies was over, it was turn for the “pale pink scorpions and a
seething mass of dun-colored earthworms” (Rushdie 505). These attacks were so frequent
and sporadic that the soldiers got no time to resist or fight back. In fact, portraying the
natural elements—the air, the water, the land—antagonistic to the Pakistan army
Rushdie, in this novel, emphasizes on the all-out rejection of the illegitimate authority of
the West Pakistan over the East (now Bangladesh by all the divisions of the regions
including natural ones). Here, the vengeance of the Sundarbans is actually the microcosm
of the war as a whole. In attacking the highly equipped and trained Pakistani soldiers, the
use of the environmental elements—the nipa fruit, insects, and giant flies, scorpions,
earthworms—in fact metaphorically focuses on the strategic inaptness and insufficiency
of weapons of the Mukti Bahini. However, in spite of these deficiencies among the
soldiers of the Mukti Bahini there was no lack of confidence. They were dauntless and in
every moment were ready to die for their motherland.
Like spirited freedom fighters, in the Sundarbans, every tiny particle of nature acts as
though they were following the dictum of the supreme commander of the liberation war
of Bangladesh—Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman3. On March 3, 1971 when Yahya
Khan4 postponed the national assembly in an authoritative gesture, predicting the
hypocrisy of Yahya and Bhutto5, on March 7, 1971 in the Ramna Race Course Maidan,
the beloved leader of Bangladesh—Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, delivered a historic speech
before nearly two million people. In fact, it was the clarion call for the liberation war. In
that monumental speech, he exhorted the Bengalis asking to remain ready for anything,
and if attacked to “face the enemy with whatever [they] have” (The Historic 7th March
Speech). In this speech, Sheikh Mujib threatened the Pakistani soldiers, urging them to
remain in their barracks and restrain from shooting innocent Bengalis. He warned these
soldiers saying, if they crossed limits and proved to be hostile to Bengalis, Bengalis
would “starve them to death…make them go out of water and choke them to death” (The
Historic 7th March Speech). In Rushdie’s depiction, we see, in this jungle, every element
of the environment is ardently following the dictum of its beloved leader. To materialize
the orders, utilizing its every element as weapons, nature unleashed its fury on the
Pakistani soldiers. Running for life from the incessant attacks of the ‘giant flies’ and
‘scorpions,’ the four soldiers became exhausted enough to feel they would die without
water; they then drank the rain water-poured in the leaves of the nipa tree. This act turns
nightmarish for them. Instead of getting any relief, after drinking this water the soldiers
are gripped with such hallucinations that drive them “deeper and deeper into the thraldom
of that livid green world” (Rushdie 505). After much psychological struggle, the soldiers
70 Spectrum, Volume 12, 2016

are able to rid themselves of the hallucination; however, they still fail to overcome
hunger. For survival, the soldiers had no choice rather than taking the “combination of
nipa-fruits and mashed earthworms” as their meal. This terrible choice resulted in severe
diarrhea, and they were forced to “examine the excrement in case their intestines had
fallen out in the mess” (Rushdie 505). While outside the jungle, with all the power of
modern weaponry, these soldiers had created an aura of terror both for the Mukti Bahini
and the general mass, in this jungle they are gripped by the wrath of the nature.
V
In the foreword of Treasury for the Free World Ernest Hemingway says “[a]n aggressive
war is the greatest crime against everything good in the world (ix)…in fact, “[w]ar is the
worst act of terrorism and among the greatest causes of human suffering and death and
ecological degradation” (qtd. in Roland). In modern warfare because of the usage of
weapons of mass destruction, apart from the massive loss of human life and many
casualties, the environment of the combating country becomes the worst sufferer where
after war the land becomes sterile, and everything appears corpselike. The picture of
death and destruction depicted is not anyway different in the novel. Unable to resist the
guerrilla attacks, the Pakistan army unleashed their fury on the innocent civilians or the
villagers in retaliation. Accusing them for assisting or “harboring Mukti Bahini,”
(Rushdie 499) the Pakistani soldiers either burnt their households or indiscriminately
killed them in retribution. In this manner, so many killings and mass burial of the
innocent civilians took place in different parts of the country that in this nine-month war,
the earth became “full of rottenness”; literally everywhere, there were dead bodies,
[w]here there are no dead…the earth itself is corpselike” (Barbusse 138).
In this war of mass destruction, having lost near and dear ones, those who survived or
could escape the military carnage were traumatized. Their life turned horrible because
had no hope for living. Their never-ending howls and screams filled the environment till
the persisting gloominess of the Sundarbans resulted in an unending psychological
affliction for the prime movers. The killing of the innocent unarmed mass rendered the
psyche of the soldiers so troubled that in the jungle the soldiers could hardly sleep
without nightmares. One night Ayooba felt visited by a “translucent figure of a peasant
with a bullet-hole in his heart and a scythe in his hand” who in retaliation of his undue
killing “leaked a colorless fluid...on to Ayooba’s gun arm.” Waking up Ayooba could not
figure out whether it was a nightmare or a real encounter he was experiencing, however,
he discovers that his “right arm refused to move…the arm was held immovably in the
invisible fluid of the ghost” (Rushdie 506). The gum paralyses Ayooba’s right hand. We
see that with the passage of time, the jungle becomes sterner in its revenge. Even in the
day in the ‘livid green world,’ it became difficult for the soldiers to distinguish between
the real and the surreal. After the horrible experience of Ayooba, the other soldiers realize
that the jungle is alive and to avenge the dead the forest was capable of doing anything.
Each night they were visited by “the accusing eyes of the wives of men they had tracked
down and seized”; their ears are deafened by “the screaming and monkey-gibbering of
children left fatherless by their work” (Rushdie 507). Moreover, every night they felt like
“the forest [was] closing in upon [them] like a vice, so… [they] felt unable to breathe”
(Rushdie 507). In this way, apart from the physical afflictions, the jungle traumatized the
soldiers with all its force.
Khandaker Ashraful Islam 71

Aside from the ‘natural environment,’ even the animals of the forests make the soldiers
weak. The endless rain lead to a huge rise in the water level, making the group of
Pakistani soldiers enter the heart of the jungle. In the centre, the retribution of the jungle
continues with the celebration of the monkeys about the eminent victory of the Mukti
Bahini. Every night a group of ghostly monkeys “gathered in the trees and sang the words
of “Our Golden Bengal… O Mother, I am poor, but what little I have, I lay at thy feet”
(Rushdie 510). Being incapable of tolerating ‘the unceasing voices’ and ‘burden of
shame’ the three soldiers—Shaheed, Ayooba and Farooq—take the desperate measure to
get rid of the hallucinations by pouring mud into their ears. Unfortunately, this does not
give them any relief. Instead, they become deaf forever. In fact, in this jungle their
survival became impossible because nature had turned extremely hostile to them. Instead
of killing the soldiers or making them realize what the environment of this jungle was
capable of doing, it let them escape only to convey warning to their fellow soldiers about
the empowered environment.
VI
In the war of 1971, the Pakistani regime was responsible for inhuman atrocities, and
violence; however, the Pakistani government attempted to conceal “as much as possible,
the atrocities from the outside world” (Blood 15). In fact, in spite of these heinous
attempts, they failed to hide the evidences of the massacre from its own native
environment. The sky, the land, the water and the wind are all victims as well as
eyewitnesses of the mass killing. The land is soaked with the blood of the killed. The air
is filthy with the smell of the rotten corpses. There are floating dead bodies in the rivers
and canals. The screams of the wounded echoed all around. Actually, there was no way to
erase the evidences of the massacre. The environment bore the evidences of Pakistani
brutalities and in the wilderness of the Sundarbans there was no escape of the perpetrators
from the consequences of the crimes committed. Therefore, in the forest the four soldiers
had to endure hell-like torments both physically and psychologically. When the victory of
Mukti Bahini and the birth of an independent Bangladesh were imminent, the forest
unleashed upon the soldiers “its last and most terrifying trick” and ejected them
“unceremoniously from its territory” (Rushdie 513). Returning alive from the Sundarbans
the Pakistani soldiers discover that the perpetuated atrocities and massacre of the Pakistan
army instead of deterring the spirit of the Mukti Bahini made them resolute enough to
fight till the last drop of their blood. In the face of such a massive resistance of the Mukti
Bahini, the Pakistani army was forced to retreat and surrender. Discovering the table
turned upside down, the four soldiers decided to move to Dacca (now Dhaka) to rejoin
the surrendering West Wing forces. However, except Saleem the other three soldiers
“failed to stay alive long enough” to see the impending doom of the occupying forces of
the Pakistan army. While heading towards Dhaka, Ayooba and Farooq were killed by the
buzzing bullets of the snipers (of Mukti Bahini) and Shaheed died by a grenade attack. In
the end, among the four soldiers, Saleem was left alive only to be reclaimed by his past.
In an interview with John Haffenden, Rushdie explains that the chapter “In the
Sundarbans” allows him to perform “a descent into hell” (Reder 37). In fact, the ruthless
and vindictive ambiance of the Sundarbans coincides with many of the religious
interpretations of hell. To see deeply, the severe punishment—both physical and
72 Spectrum, Volume 12, 2016

psychological—that the four Pakistani soldiers endured in this jungle is not so different
from the punishment of hell. However, no logic is supportive to depict the biggest
mangrove forest of the world—the Sundarbans hell-like because since time immemorial
this jungle had been a great abode both for the peoples and animals living in this deltaic
region. In fact, the Sundarbans is like an Eden for them who live in and with it. The
Pakistani soldiers who—warring an unjust war and shedding blood of millions of
innocent people—sinned against humanity for them the Eden like jungle has turned into
an uninhabitable and punishing hell. Portraying the motherly nature of the jungle as
vindictive, Rushdie, here, personifies nature as a reactionary entity, which not only
avenges the martyrs of the liberation war but also champions the supremacy of this land
over its perpetrators (Pakistan army). Moreover, by ousting the soldiers from the forest
the Sundarbans declares that this land rightfully belongs to the people of Bangladesh and
in this territory there is no place for the unlawful intruders—the Pakistani soldiers.
VII
In Midnight’s Children, Rushdie’s portrayal of a retributive ‘natural environment’ of a
war torn country, motivates us to rethink the impact of war and its consequences from an
environmental perspective. After every war, the landscape of a country, becoming
‘charred, ashen in color’...robbed of its beauty and charm, in fact, challenges the fake
promises that “war creates justice, solves problems, improves security, and enables
peace” (Shetterly 7). Through its protest, ‘nature’ wants to make the soldiers realize that
war or violence does not resolve problems; rather it exacerbates them. Creating fear,
hatred, anger, and a spirit of retribution one war culminates in another, sometime even
more violent, and destructive. In this connection, Rushdie’s depiction of an ‘avenging
nature,’ in Midnight’s Children, can be seen as a protest against the violence of the
Pakistani army and the novelist’s stark abhorrence to all wars and their consequences. In
addition to that, his portrayal of an ‘empowered environment,’ not only breaks the
traditional ways of viewing nature as a victim but also reintroduces it as a valiant warrior
against injustices and brutality.

End Notes
1. A planned military carnage carried out by the Pakistan Army on March 25, 1971 to curb the
Bengali nationalist movement and to eliminate all opposition, political or military, within one
month.
2. The freedom fighters of Bangladesh.
3. The founding leader and the Father of the Nation of Bangladesh.
4. The 3rd President of Pakistan from 1969 until East Pakistan’s secession to Bangladesh in
1971.
5. The founder of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and the 4th President of Pakistan from
1971 to 1973.

Works Cited
Archer, Christon I. et. al., “The West Conquers the World.” World History of Warfare. Lincoln:
University of Nebraska Press, 2002. Print.
Barbusse, Henri. Under Fire, trans. Robin Buss. New York: Penguin Putnam Inc., 2003. Print.
Khandaker Ashraful Islam 73

Bass, Gary J. The Blood Telegram: Nixon, Kissinger, and a Forgotten Genocide. United States:
Alfred A. Knopf, 2013. Print.
Blaise, Clark. “A Novel of India's Coming of Age.” Rev. of Midnight’s Children, by Salman
Rushdie. New York Times Apr 19, 1981. Spe rd.: 18. Web.
Choudhury, G.W. The Last Days of United Pakistan. Bloomington: Indiana University Press,
1974. Print.
Hemingway, Ernest. Introduction. Treasury for the Free World, By Raeburn Ben. New York:
Arco Publishing Company. 1946. ix. Print.
Judge, John. “A People’s Movement to End All War.” Worldbeyondwar.org. N.p. n.d. Web. 20
Mar. 2016.
Keller, Tait. “Destruction of the Ecosystem.” International Encyclopaedia of the First World War.
Web.
Ludhianvi, Sahir. “Blood is But Blood.” PoemHunter.com. N.p. n.d. Web. 15 Mar. 2016.
Manwani, Akshay. Sahir Ludhianvi The Poet’s Poet. India: Harper, 2013. Print.
Rahman, Sheikh Mujibur. “The Historic 7th March Speech of the Father of the Nation
Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.” Ramna Race Course. 7 Mar. 1971. Address.
Reder, Michael. Conversations with Salman Rushdie. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi,
2000. Print.
Roland, Allen. “Give Peace a Chance.” Veterans Today: Journal for the Clandestine Community.
N.p. n.p. Web. 20 Mar. 2016
Rushdie, Salman. Midnights Children. Great Britain: Vintage, 1981. Print.
Sheren, Syeda Momtaz. “The War of Liberation.” Banglapedia: National Encyclopedia of
Bangladesh. N.p. 9 Dec. 2015. Web. 25 Feb. 2016.
Shetterly, Robert. “A People’s Movement to End All War.” Worldbeyondwar.org. N.p. n.d. Web.
20 Mar. 2016.
Tiffany, Ann. “A People’s Movement to End All War.” Worldbeyondwar.org. N.p. n.d. Web. 20
Mar. 2016.
United States. Office of the White House Press Secretary. Address to the United Nations. 25 Sep.
1961: 1. Print.

1
2
3
4
5
 Stone Age
Syed Manzoorul Islam*

As he scanned the classified page of the morning’s newspaper Azam’s eyes settled
on a tiny, one inch-one-column ad, nearly squeezed out by the run of matrimonial and
real estate ads. It read:
Well placed childless couple willing to adopt child, of either sex, preferably
three months to a year. Terms negotiable. Please phone, between 6 and 8
p.m. . . .
A cell phone number was given, which Azam promptly wrote down. His interest
had been piqued by the wording of the ad – as if the advertiser had drafted it with some
reluctance, unsure if it would really work. Azam could even feel his anguish and hurt that
the carefully chosen words couldn’t hide. He knew the type: a childless parent in his early
forties, his wife a few years younger, both angry with fate for creating an insuperable
void in their lives that they were now so uncertainly trying to fill.
He read the ad a few times, and tried to imagine how the couple looked. They
certainly had good jobs and good education and probably had reached the age when
childlessness begins to haunt like a bad dream. Azam had seen it happening to couples
well-placed or ill, but why at that stage of their lives, he didn’t know. May be something
to do with the quirkiness of genes, or a sudden eruption of a primitive desire to see the
imprint of one’s face in a child’s face. Azam smiled, as he remembered his Shakespeare
classes in undergraduate years and his struggle with the seventeen sonnets where the
Bard urges his friend to marry and beget a son.
Was Shakespeare gay? Somehow his professor never talked about it: he was clearly
uncomfortable about gay matters. Has the childless advertiser read the sonnets? Azam
decided to use his Shakespeare to score some points with the couple. People usually trust
someone who can quote from Hamlet or the sonnets, he has seen. Trust is important in his
trade – it can raise the ante. A successful deal, like the one he now anticipated, could take
care of three months’ expenses.
What did Azam do for a living, you ask? Well, after he passed out from the
university, he took a job with an NGO – a non-government organization – which
rehabilitated drug addicts and sex workers. There he learnt how to use them to set up
connections with people with money and power. The drug users gave him information
about dealers, hoping to see an end of them, but Azam, instead of going to the police,
sought the dealers out. Connections again. The NGO sacked him when some of his
connections became public. He then started a lucrative business of selling drugs, mostly
Yaba tablets, the latest craze among teenagers – which the dealers sent him from time to
time. Azam had to give up the business though, when a drug lord ratted on him, and he
landed in jail for six months.

*
Professor, Department of English, University of Dhaka
76 Spectrum, Volume 12, 2016

After his release, he picked up a new trade – selling motor parts, and began
supplementing it by running a one-man adoption agency.
Where did he get the children for adoption, you ask? Have you forgotten the poor
sex workers? Some of them ended up with unwanted pregnancies.
Cruel world.
Azam felt cheerful. The day had certainly begun with a promise: at least a couple
of hundred thousands, by the looks of the ad. If the couple happened to be higher than
highly placed, may be some more. Don’t forget the time, he told himself, preferably 6
when darkness descends, and the night begins its uncertain journey. That’s when a
feeling of emptiness – a sense of dread – begins to set in, stifling all laughter and hope.
Azam had seen that happening plenty of times.
Happening to whom, you ask? Well, to people who can’t beget a son, or a daughter
(was Shakespeare a misogynist?) and you may also count Azam among them. This is one
reason why he liked to rip off wealthy customers. As he handed over a little bundle of joy
to them, he couldn’t stop feeling a pang in his heart. Although he was some years below
forty, didn’t he also have a void in his life like those unfortunate couples? Wasn’t he too
a stranger to the laughter and squeals of children?
Oh well, let the truth be told. Azam had married twice, the first time a girl of his
parents’ choice. The girl, Arjumand Banu practiced her religion with the innocence of a
nun. He loved her innocence but wished she were more understanding of his ways. She
never liked his drinking. One midnight, tanked and tottering, he hit her hard, when she
told him hell was waiting for him. The next morning Arjumand left for her parents’
house, never to return. After three years of living a tormented life alone, Azam married
again. This time, the bride was a research officer of his NGO, Fahmida Nipa. Quiet and
forgiving in temper Nipa set her mind to raising a family, and ignored Azam’s lapses. But
when she came to know what he did with the rehabilitated sex workers, she confronted
him, and after leaving an imprint of her fake Gucci sandal on his face, marched out of his
house. Nipa changed her job, and relocated to Khulna, which meant the end of story.
Humiliated and broken, Azam decided he had enough of wedded life. A bachelor’s life
was what he needed – no complications, no pains. A third marriage was out of the
question. Besides, he was consumed by the memory of Arjumand. He had heard that she
herself was no better off. She had married an Assistant Commissioner of Bhomra land
port, a well-heeled man named Manik who had literally wrapped her in gold. But in the
seven years of their marriage, he couldn’t give her the taste of motherhood.
In fact, when Azam, for the first time, made a forty-something woman a mother –
oh no! Azam hadn’t taken advantage of the poor woman (or any childless mother, for that
matter); he simply found her a child – the face that looked at him with a world of
happiness was not that of the woman, Mrs. Howlader; it was Arjumand’s – delicate and
dappled with beads of perspiration. To Azam the beads looked like dews sitting on rose
petals (she might have been an autumn rose in some other life, Azam thought).
Alas!
Azam never gave up on Arjumand: he made it a point to go and see her wherever
Manik was posted. The task was not easy, since Arjumand didn’t do a job, and stayed
Syed Manzoorul Islam 77

home most of the time. Except, of course, when she went shopping, usually on weekends.
So Azam had to plan his trips around weekends.
When Azam started his money-spinning venture with poor sex workers, one thing
he learnt was to read the minds of his customers. Even those whose voice he heard over
phone he could visualize, often correctly, and could tell how they looked, what they did
and what they liked or didn’t like, as if he had trained a biometric scanner on them 24/7.
After reading the ad in Daily Ittefaq, Azam had a fairly clear idea about the childless
couple: they were surely well read, they listened to Tagore songs in the morning while
they dressed for office, watched BBC in the evening, visited art galleries on weekends,
bought wedding gifts from Aarong, took vitamin supplements in the morning and drove a
Toyota Premio Sedan. With his eyes closed he could see the household: neat and trim
with pricey paintings hanging from living room walls. He felt a surge of sympathy for the
couple – especially for the act they had to put on in public every so often, appearing
nonchalant in the face of brazen queries about their ‘barren’ lives. ‘That’s not the end of
the world, is it?’ they would shoot back, sometimes with a practiced smile. ‘Besides, isn’t
adding a new face (‘begetting’ again!) to the frightening freaking population an act of
charity?’ But when the night thickened and only drowsy sounds resonated in their house,
the pain revived like an old and persistent wound, forcing Mr. Childless to rise quietly
from bed and peek into the dark room they had so carefully laid out after their marriage,
complete with a tiny bed and a matching chest and toys sitting on a ghostly cubbard, and
stare at the frozen emptiness within. Wasn’t the room supposed to breathe to the rhythm
of a child’s sleep, Mr. Childless would ask himself, her tiny fists clutching the end of a
slipping quilt, her face shining like a moon reflected in the quiet surface of a pond? As
his eyes moistened and a numbing pain began to rise deep inside him, Mr. Childless
would feel the presence of Mrs. Childless behind him, who, placing a soft hand on his
shoulder, whispered, more as a consolation than a plea, ‘Come, you need some sleep.’
2. Azam met the childless couple in Haritaki restaurant in Gulshan one gloomy
afternoon. They had arrived earlier and were sitting facing each other, the man with his
back to the entrance. As Azam entered, his eyes met the woman’s. The table they were
sitting had pendant lights above whose soft glow painted her face white. Azam was
startled. It looked like a face he had seen in another life, or in October this year, in Mimi
Shopping Mall in Chittagong. She was wearing wire-rimmed glasses, her forehead
glistening with tiny beads of perspiration. Was she nervous? As he looked at her, he
understood how like a seasoned lapidary she could tell the fake from the genuine. He
suddenly felt small, and braced himself for a stinging reproach, ‘Did you really have to
plan this rip-off, Mr. Azam? Didn’t your religion teach you anything?’
Religion, indeed, Azam thought. He had no qualms about religion, from which he
had parted ways in his teens, when his father, after a long illness and a couple of blotched
surgeries, died, leaving behind his wife and two children whose tears and prayers
couldn’t add an extra hour to his wretched life. When Arjumand was trying to return him
to religion, he felt a stiffness in him. ‘Your ways should be honest,’ she said to him one
day, and Azam curtly replied, ‘Yes, my father’s ways were honest too. But what good did
it do to him?’ For no reason, she reminded him of the doctor who told Azam’s mother,
who was pleading with him to give them some time for raising the money needed for her
husband’s second surgery, ‘First the full fees, then the surgery.’
78 Spectrum, Volume 12, 2016

Looking at the woman from the entrance, Azam blamed himself for being too hasty
with Arjumand. Before hitting her, he should’ve broken his own hand. He took a quick
decision: he wouldn’t allow his ways to be dishonest, just this once. He scuttled the
rickety sex worker’s child (along with Shakespeare) from his plan and decided to find the
couple a healthy child. Deep down though, the humanist in him believed every child was
equally precious. Haritaki stereo was playing a baul song by Farida Parvin: ‘In the city of
mirrors nearby my neighbor lives.’ The man was tapping his fingers on the table to the
song’s beat. He asked Azam point blank, ‘Can you do it?’ On another day, with another
customer Azam would have smiled broadly and obligingly and nodded. But today he
grew serious. ‘Yes, I can.’
‘Without a hiccup, I mean without a hitch?’
‘Sure.’
A customer’s ring tone chimed, ‘Boss, pick up the phone’. The customer was busy
talking with a young woman and seemed to ignore the persistent ring. He was probably
not the boss, Azam thought, or he had hearing problems . . . .
‘What I plan to do, boss . . .’ Azam said.
‘I am nobody’s boss,’ the man cut him short, ‘I am Associate Professor Ahsan
Zaman’ and reached out his hand to shake.
The man’s hand felt soft and warm, the kind of hand in which a three month old
child would feel perfectly safe and snug. ‘I am Ali Azam,’ he said. ‘What subject do you
teach?’
‘English, at Western University,’ the man said, putting an extra stress on English.
‘Well, Mr. Azam, first things first. Let’s begin with a vow of secrecy. Whatever I tell you
today, whatever we decide, stays between the three of us. Not even that gecko has to
know,’ he said pointing at the house lizard darting across Haritaki’s wall.
‘Ok.’
‘Do you promise?’
‘I do, except two other persons have to know – the parents of the child,’ Azam said
with a smile. He was beginning to feel relaxed. His ways were honest, for sure.
‘Fair enough,’ said Zaman, and smiled back.
Azam looked at Mrs. Zaman. She had taken off her glasses and was wiping away
perspiration from her cheeks with a handkerchief, which gave off a whiff of perfume –
Jasmine? Lilies? – Azam wondered. His mind drifted to an evening filled with fragrance,
and a woman sitting in a corner of a balcony smiling, the afternoon sun igniting her
dancing hair.
If only I could step back in time and live the moment, sighed Azam.
Farida Parvin sang: ‘In what name should I call him . . .’
‘Coffee or tea?’ asked Mrs. Zaman.
3. The evening in Haritaki began to haunt Azam. He had decided, before that
evening, that he’d ask Moyna to part with her fourth child, which had clearly become a
Syed Manzoorul Islam 79

burden for her. ‘Take this wretch, Sir,’ she had told him the last time they had met, ‘she
deserves better. Please, Sir.’ What he liked about the child were her prominent brown
eyes that seemed to have a smile permanently etched in them. But after Haritaki, Azam
had written her off. All four men who could claim to be her father were dirty. Moyna had
told him horror stories about them. He rather thought about Alif Mia of his village. Mia, a
sharecropper had taken a bad fall while climbing a tree and was lying nearly crippled. He
needed money and had hinted he was willing to part with his last born, fifth or sixth. That
boy fitted all the bills, he was pleased to recall. Associate Professor Zaman had fallen
silent after his wife had joined the conversation, returning to finger tapping. Azam felt
relaxed. Mrs. Zaman now introduced herself. She was Mukta, architect by profession.
Her latest venture, a commissioned work for an office building in Dubai, fetched her an
enormous amount of money. She was willing to pay Azam as much as half a million
takas for a healthy child, preferably – and here she appeared clearly embarrassed – a boy,
although a girl should do as well.
Azam peered into Mukta’s eyes, which now smiled contentedly at the prospect of
holding a child in her hands – her own. How two different persons could smile the same
smile, he wondered. ‘Do you have any relationship with Arjumand Banu?’ he asked, not
sure why.
‘Who?’ she asked, not following what Azam meant. ‘Is Arjumand the mother of
the child?’
‘Not really,’ he said, beating an uneasy retreat. ‘Never mind. Arjumand is nobody.’
Is she? Azam asked himself, and felt a strange longing for her. But now, thanks to
Mukta, she was also holding a child – her own.
‘Our child,’ Azam sighed.
4. Azam had never seen a film hero, but Alif Mia could easily double up as one.
The brief conversation he had with the man could be the stuff of a Dhalywood film like Is
Money Everything or The Father. Mia listened silently to Azam’s proposal, then replied,
weighing each world carefully. ‘You heard me wrong Sir, my son is not for sale, not even
for a million. Now leave.’
Azam was forced to retreat and look for a replacement. He could easily have saved
the trouble, though, and told Zaman he was sorry he couldn’t find a child and that the
deal was off. The Zamans in their turn would have little to say, except showing their
frustration, or anger – which was unlikely. Azam however, thought differently, as he felt
a tug of affection for them. He remembered Mukta’s luminous eyes, her/Arjumand’s
sweat lined face and her/ Arjumand’s sparkling smile. He felt a pressure building inside
him, as if someone was telling him to get them a child. He wasn’t sure whose voice it
was.
So, he contacted an old acquaintance, Milan, whose help he took from time to time
to locate children for adoption. They bought a bottle of Bangla Deluxe from a bootlegger
in old Dhaka and sat at Kismat’s restaurant eating Pagla’s goulash. Milan asked for a
couple of hundred thousand takas. ‘If the money is right,’ he said ‘I can pull it off, Boss.’
80 Spectrum, Volume 12, 2016

Azam said, ‘Money is no problem, Milan, but the child has to be first-rate.’
‘Like I said, if the money is right.’
Azam smiled. His smile was more reassuring than a Mercedes-Benz car warranty.
Five days later Zaman picked up a four month old cackling baby from Azam in
front of Kismat’s restaurant, handed him a packet containing half a million takas and
drove away in his Toyota Premio. Mukta was sitting inside the car. She never came out.
But when Zaman handed her the boy, the eagerness with which she pressed his body
against her told Azam of her happiness. Mukta’s gold bangles glinted off the afternoon
light, slicing the pale darkness inside the car. End of void.
Azam felt pure. He had no hesitation about facing Arjumand now. But later, after
Zaman had left, his car audio blaring out Kalim Sharafi’s Tagore song ‘Allow me to sit
beside you for a moment’ and Milan had given him a bear hug, and the two had imbibed
pegs of Bangla Deluxe, Azam felt unsure of himself. He had told the Zamans the child
was from an orphanage in Comilla and showed them the papers. Was that an honest thing
to do?
Kismat’s restaurant was buzzing with voices. An FM radio brayed from an audio
speaker, rising over the noise. A talk show was on. The anchor asked the sociologist Dr.
Nabi about the evolution of family. ‘Family as a unit didn’t exist in the stone age,’ he
said. Azam felt drowsy. ‘What is the man saying?’ asked Milan. ‘Weak members of the
family were eliminated.’ Dr. Nabi said. ‘What is eliminate?’ Milan asked ‘To waste,
liquidate,’ Azam explained.
Milan too was woozy. ‘You know what Boss, if I feel like eliminating that debauch
Munna . . .’
Azam reached across the table and slapped Milan hard. ‘Have you lost all your
marbles? Munna can eliminate you with his little finger. Now go home and sleep it off.’
Stone age, indeed. Every Homo Habilis was out hunting with a flint axe.
5. After dinner Zaman liked to listen to BBC for a while, then switched to a Bangla
channel for the ten o’clock news.
Mukta sat beside him with her iPad. After returning from her recent trip to Spain to
see Alhambra, she had been fascinated by its architectural richness. She admired the
ethereal beauty of its muqaranas and stilted arches. ‘The porticoes rest on columns with
cubic capitals, which have seven semicircular arches decorated with firework rhombuses
and inscriptions praising God,’ Google had told her, and she believed Google like an
oracle, ‘Imagine,’ she told herself ‘what labour the artisans had to put up designing those
firework rhombuses!’
After the arrival of the boy, however Mukta could hardly spend time on Alhambra.
Whatever Google told her now was about rearing a child. She searched child rearing
practices, parenting pains and mostly what Dr. Benjamin Spock had to say about feeding,
burping and SIDS. She enthusiastically noted down each advice the good doctor gave
her.
Syed Manzoorul Islam 81

In only two days, Mukta had realized that rearing up a child was way more difficult
than fashioning those firework rhombuses. Or the whole of Alhambra.
God knows she was right.
Tonight Zaman was thinking of helping his wife feed the boy. They had given him
a name, Adar, which literally means affection, which was what they had been showering
on him for the last three days. And the boy too seemed to be enjoying their attention.
When he was fed, he made a gurgling sound and cooed happily after each burp. Poor
boy! His mother obviously didn’t have enough milk in her breasts. Besides, her hands
were rough and calloused. Not much comfort there too.
That the hands of Adar’s mom were indeed calloused was something the TV
showed Zaman. As Mukta was late preparing the infant formula, he switched on to a
Bangla news channel. The news presenter said ‘Child trafficking gang nabbed in
Kamrangir Char, seven children recovered.’ The accompanying visuals showed parents
thronging the police station, hoping to find their children. One of the grieving mothers
was saying again and again, ‘Give me back my child,’ and thrust her hands at the camera.
Rough and calloused, Zaman noticed. His ears pricked and he listened to the details
with mounting anxiety. Was Adar one of the stolen Kamrangir Char children? He felt
utterly lost and betrayed. He wanted to phone Azam, but decided to postpone it till the
next day.
The TV said Camel brand corrugated tin sheet lasts long, doesn’t rust. Zaman felt a
sudden burst of fury. He kicked the TV off.
In the morning Mukta woke him up and threw the day’s newspaper at him. ‘Read
it,’ she said, and picked up Adar. He slept between them.
As he read the story again at the breakfast table, he felt the ground beneath him
slipping away. Mukta sat in glum silence. They had no doubt Adar was one of the stolen
children.
Adar said, gaga, dada, kaw ku.
Mukta struggled to hold her tears. God! You made me a mother only for three days.
Four, in our reckoning.
‘What have you done, Mr. Azam.’ Zaman shouted on the phone. ‘You stole the
child. He is not from that orphanage.’
On the other end of the phone, Azam listened in silence. He really didn’t have any
excuse. He knew what had happened – how Milan, after Azam had given him the money
he owed, had gone straight to Kismat’s and after some boozing, began to boast about the
deal. A police source sitting nearby got the smell.
Azam could only offer apologies, genuine apologies. ‘I’ll give you the money back.
Every taka, I promise,’ he said.
‘It’s not about money, you idiot’ Zaman shouted. ‘Don’t you see what you’ve
done?’
82 Spectrum, Volume 12, 2016

To Mukta his words sounded like a wail. She took the phone from Zaman. ‘Listen
Mr. Azam, we’d like to return the child to his mother. The mother you’ve robbed.’
6. Meeting Milan at the jail wasn’t easy. But Azam was helped by a friend at the
police department.
Milan felt relieved to see Azam as he thought he was there to arrange for his
release. But soon he realized that was not the case. After a short burst of weeping and
cursing he gave Azam a Kamrangir Char address. Azam was grateful that Milan hadn’t
implicated him in the child lifting business.
Azam gave Zaman the address and the money he had taken from him. He felt like a
new person. He decided to live the life of the new person for some time, and headed for
Sylhet. Sylhet was where Manik was posted now.
7. Zaman got into a motor scooter with Mukta, who was holding Adar. The place
they were going to, in the outskirts of Dhaka, had alleys too narrow for his Toyota
Premio to enter.
Adar was delighted to be out of the house. He began to enjoy the ride, cooing and
smiling at Mukta. But she was in no mood to reciprocate. Her eyes gathered monsoon
clouds and she looked away. Zaman too was feeling the gloom. Just when a void in their
lives was beginning to fill, fate took a sinister turn. The motor scooter made a huge racket
as it gathered speed. But Adar’s cooing rose over the racket. The surprised driver turned
to see the child. He couldn’t understand why the parents of the happy child looked so
miserable.
None of his business, though, he thought.
Kamrangir Char is not an easy place; its alleys, lanes and bylanes weave through
slums like lines on one’s palm. It took nearly a half hour for the couple to reach the
parent’s shack. The scooter driver had stopped at a grocery store and told Zaman to take
the owner’s help. The owner was selling Alam’s Pocha soap to a customer. His FM radio
crackled, ‘Glamour Girl Mehrubin has been blessed with a child—a boy. Pray for her.’
Zaman showed him the morning’s paper. The man’s face lighted up. ‘Oh yah, she’s been
on TV, she is Taifur’s wife.’ He asked his assistant, a boy, to take them to Taifur’s house.
‘The man is distraught,’ he told Zaman, ‘his son’s been stolen.’
As Zaman and Mukta followed the boy through a labyrinth of narrow lanes, a
crowd began to form behind them. They kept pace with them, jostling and shoving. They
had already got the wind that the couple had rescued Taifur’s son. They were grateful for
the kind act, but some were also curious: Why should an elegantly dressed couple come
all the way down here just to return the child? They asked each other. Why didn’t they let
the police do it? But for most, it was certainly a rare entertainment.
A mike fitted on a slow moving rickshaw boomed: ‘An obituary announcement, an
obituary announcement.’
Taifur was not home when the news reached him. He ran all the way to meet the
kind couple. He was panting heavily. His wife Hanufa was getting ready to cook the
evening’s meal. As she saw Adar in Mukta’s hands, she shrieked and ran to grab him.
Syed Manzoorul Islam 83

Zaman saw the calloused hands. Rougher than what the TV had shown. They were like
blotting paper, like pockmarked grinding boards. She hugged the boy, and cried.
The family took half an hour to gather itself, then they invited the couple in. Zaman
had no intention to enter their shack. It was getting dark. He had no idea how the place
would be after evening, so he wanted to leave. But Adar’s mother had grabbed Mukta’s
hand and was gently pushing her inside the shack. Mukta too was not keen to go in but
she was unable to stop, as if fate was pushing her. Adar’s mother had told her the boy’s
name was Dipu. She had another boy, much older, who worked in a hardware store.
There were three girls in between.
‘How many children have you raised?’ asked Dipu’s mother when she began to
feel at ease. Mukta was struck by the abruptness of the question. But, instead of rebuffing
her with her silence, she heard herself saying, ‘None.’
‘Don’t you like to raise one?’ Dipu’s mother asked hesitantly, after a pause.
‘I’d be lying if I said no,’ said Mukta, succumbing to the warmth of her voice. She
was feeling a deep sympathy for Dipu’s mother. Poverty hadn’t taken away her fellow
feeling.
Zaman too was moved to see the family’s stark poverty. He decided to give them
some money. After all it was because of them that they had been through hell the past
few days.
As Mukta entered the shack, she was greeted by a pungent, steamy darkness that
unnerved her. As her eyes adjusted to the gloom, she could make out the shapes of a bed,
a desk and a clothes horse. A cane mat had been spread on the floor. A child lay
motionless on the mat, tended by an army of singing mosquitoes. Hanufa bent, placed
Dipu on the mat, and picked up the child with one arm. Mukta was startled to see the girl
looking at her with a pair of white, ghostly eyes, as if sizing her up, the dim lights of the
evening playing with the white of her eyes. The eyes seemed to be mocking the life
around, the sordid everydayness of the slum, its two conscientious visitors.
A nearby mosque sounded the call for evening prayer. Zaman gently tugged at
Mukta’s hands, but Hanufa was pressing against her, blocking her way. She thrust the
child closer to Mukta’s face and said ‘Her name is Kakoli. Didn’t you say you wanted a
child? Take her.’
‘Take her, your child?’ Mukta asked, surprised.
‘Yes,’ Taifur now stepped in. ‘Yes Madam.’
To Zaman the man looked like a supplicant or a speculator. Or an insurance
salesman. Salesman! That’s it, Zaman thought.
‘How much?’ he asked.
‘Fifty thousand,’ said Taifur, but immediately corrected himself, ‘No, sixty. .
..seventy. . . Whatever you’re willing to give.’
Mukta was stunned. What was Zaman doing? What was the man thinking?
‘Are you crazy?’ she shouted. ‘Have you lost your mind?’
84 Spectrum, Volume 12, 2016

Dipu’s mother now grabbed Mukta, and shouted over the voice of her husband.
‘This girl deserves to live. Take her. Why are they talking over money?’
Mukta jerked her hand free and stepped out of the shack. She had to get out of the
place. She called Zaman, ‘Are you coming?’
There was no reply.
A woman in a nearby shack was shouting, ‘There’s no rice in the house. What can I
give on your plate? My pussy?’
Someone gave her a whack. She let out a loud wail.
‘Are you coming?’ Mukta called again.
The woman’s wail turned into whimper, then steadied into a sob.
Santahar
Kaiser Haq*

No, I’ve never been to Santa Fe.

And I haven’t been to Santahar either.
Two hallowed syllables in common,
and a gently curved line
twelve thousand miles long
to link and set them apart.
Santa Fe conjures up
Wild West reveries
on muggy monsoon afternoons,
ghost towns, rattlesnakes,
rustlers, barroom brawls,
gunfights at sundown,
raiders on horseback
ambushing a train,
the sheriff’s glittering tin star,
all in Cinemascope and Technicolor.
And Santahar?
Not a name to conjure with.
Perhaps my fascination
is just a private vice.
All I know is that Santahar,
a small-town around
a railway junction,
its braided steel
forged in the furnace
of the Raj, and stained
with the blood of history,
is just another place
where everyday life goes on,
people get off and get on
and go off in another direction.
Santahar, I sigh,
yielding to the magic
of “ah”, the primal vowel,
repeated three times
between delicately poised consonants,
why, it’s only fifty miles,
and I’ll need no visa to visit.

*
Professor, Department of English, University of Dhaka
86 Spectrum, Volume 12, 2016

I must go there one of these days,

I say to myself, and lazily
Google it on Youtube
and find an amateur video:
trees, rough roads, jerry-built
offices, schools, homes,
hospital, ponds, railway station,
bazaar, crowds in lungis,
just what one would expect,
with a sentimental tune playing
and an abrupt end
with the scrawled legend:
“We love it, miss it,
& wanna die in it…”
Unawares,
a catch
in my throat.
Now I know what Santahar means:
it’s any place you want to go back to
so you can die in peace.
Spectrum, Volume 12, 2016 87

Rabindranath Tagore
Chitto Jetha Bhoyshunyo

Where the mind is valiant and the head held high

Where knowledge flows; where walls of homes
Won't create fences and split the world into enclaves,
Confining people to cubicles in their backyards;
Where words stream from the depths of the heart
Where currents reach their channels naturally
Where in realm after realm, here and everywhere,
Incessant endeavor leads to attainment of goals-

Where the sand dunes of petty rituals

Won't block paths of justice permanently
And split one's manhood into smithereens;
Where you always guide thought and action
And lead all into the realm of happiness;

O Lord, striking fiercely with your hand-

Let India wake up to such a heavenly land!

(Naibedyo, 72)

Translated by Fakrul Alam*

*
Professor, Department of English, University of Dhaka
88 Spectrum, Volume 12, 2016

Because Zero Stopped By

By Shamsad Mortuza*

Zeroes zeroing in on us
When he got it
We laughed at his zero
'See, nothing comes out of nothing
You believed nothing
You became nothing
Look what has happened
To your blogs now
Ha ha ha
Who writes them
Who rights them'
And I listened to 'The Doors':
'There's a killer on the road...'
And explained how Jim Morrison
Got his band's name from Blake's
'The doors of perception.'
And I updated my status
And I joined a human chain
And I brewed storms over teacups
And I sighed
And I sighted
Conspiracy, distractions, politics,
Ideology, tactics, insanity
And I sang: 'there's a killer on the road...'
And then Fizz came along
And I marveled at his cutter (secretly)
And I raised myself on a moral high ground (publicly)
And looked at those virtual minions
Who appeared on my news feed:
'How can you forget Tanu, Rana Plaza, Cyber Heist, Biometrics...the Indian Plate and
The fault line; the tremor looming large?'
I scrolled down their updates
While eating at a fancy restaurant
I ordered a good looking meal and a colorful drink
I took pictures and ran them through makeover apps
I uploaded them counting on likes.
The newsfeed kept on shrieking.
'God didn't stir--

*
Professor, Department of English, University of Dhaka
Spectrum, Volume 12, 2016 89

Why should I --a mere mortal?'

I kept on munching.
Then another zero bleeds
One of my kind
It's a clean slit
Cleaner than Fizz's maiden over
The blood comes out like the
Onrush of de-Villier's runs--
The man who used to play sitar
The man who used to teach poetry
Lies near the bus stop
That used to take him to his work
Well zero stopped by
Because he needed to
Become another zero
Another zero...
Don't count your numbers yet
One day there will be one
Who will stand before all the zeroes
And make all these zeroes count!

(Dedicated to Prof. A F M Rezaul Karim, Rajshahi University)

90 Spectrum, Volume 12, 2016

Inspiration
Batool Sarwar*

Poetry pours out of the pores of my being

I’m ablaze and will burn
If I do not write;
I sing ageless sexless songs
I fit no comfortable equation
I seek no sylvan glade,
I invoke no Hellenic Muse,
Nor quibble about Truth and Beauty
Gazing at a Grecian Urn
I appropriate an alien language
To construct chronicles of counter resistance.

I rove far across different pastures

I gaze for inspiration to the dawn of the Hijaz,
I drink from Jaami’s purest spring,
I sip the nectar from Saadi’s Garden,
I pay homage at Khusrau’s feet,
I drink from the fountain of Shiraz,
I long with Nazrul to be buried by the house of God
I learn secrets of self and unself from Iqbal;
Rumi’s reed pipe will be my pen
I will tell tales of secrets primordial and passion divine
Of love’s yearning and soul’s burning:

Today my heart scattered in the wind

Which brought me your fragrance.
I will follow in your footsteps
Lay my small puny feet
In the grooves if your giant footsteps,
Lean on you when weariness shakes
My mortal frame,
Cover myself with your robes
And extinguish self in intoxication’s delight.

*
Associate Professor, Department of English, University of Dhaka
Spectrum, Volume 12, 2016 91

English Department: In Memoriam

Batool Sarwar

Some memories like unexploded grenades

Need to be carefully skirted
When negotiating the minefield of the mind
To avoid an explosion
Of the crimson pellets of heart blood stopping images
Too painful to behold
In the full bright light of day,
But others echo like musical streams
In meandering motion in the dappled sunlit
Corridors of the mind:

Careless conversations in communal halls of learning,

Earnest effort in endless exams,
Silent focus at lectures stretching
The boundaries of imagination;
The gradual germination of carefully planted seeds
Unfurling to reveal the bird flower self
Contemplating the silent mysteries of the eternal
In the mystic microcosmic
Chambers of the mind.
 Lost in Space
Rumana Siddique*

I
“My youngest brother in-law has to finish his meal with two brimming bowls of thick
lentil soup laced with lemon or else he will complain that his stomach is only half-full.
My son Alvin is learning to copy his uncle and of course the maids will sulk and sulk if
they do not get their share of daal with their meal! Can you imagine then how much daal
has to be cooked in my family of eight members, three maids and two drivers?” the
woman sitting beside Yasmeen prattled on loudly. “Every month I have to buy almost as
much lentils as people ordinarily buy rice,” she went on and on. Yasmeen tried
desperately to shut her off by concentrating on the Jagjit Singh ghazals that were playing
on the salon’s music system. Now he was singing a nostalgic song about the lost
pleasures of childhood, of sailing paper boats on rainy days and chasing butterflies.
Yasmeen sighed at the images of carefree abandonment that the lyrics evoked. Like the
singer she too would happily forsake wealth and status to regain, even fleetingly, that
freedom and innocence.
This was Yasmeen’s first day to herself in the five weeks. She was bone tired. Leading
up to the last fortnight, she had been taking on extra duty at the hospital so that she could
take two weeks off. Not for a holiday but because her daughter’s O’level exams were
scheduled be held at different hours at various locations all over Dhaka. With Dhaka
traffic it was impossible to reach from one exam venue to the next on time, let alone get
to work and back. To add to her troubles, there had been full-day strikes called by the
opposition so two exams were held late at night and finished after midnight. They had got
home well after 1am. The unbearable heat, tension, fatigue and to top it off the tougher
set B questions had resulted in a tired and tearful daughter crying in her arms all the way
home. Most days, after she got home or before she left, Yasmeen had been frantically
helping her eleven year old son with revision for his term finals which coincided with his
sister’s exams. Thank God it was over!
From tomorrow she would be back at the hospital and the round of night duties would
start again, but today, she had planned a day of small pleasures at the beauty salon. A de-
stressing hot oil head massage, a manicure and pedicure and to finish it off, a soothing
body spa treatment, basically the full works. The liberty of just half a day of not having to
be on duty, either as Dr. Yasmeen Ali, or the ever worrying mother, or the model wife
and daughter in-law. But this babbling woman at her side was ruining it all thought
Yasmeen with resentful irritation. How could this woman so volubly impose her
domestic monotony on everyone within audible range and what was more intriguing, why
was she telling the poor girl who was massaging her head all this? Yasmeen hoped the
lady would leave soon but noted with dismay that she had the parlour robe on which
meant she too was probably going to have a number of treatments.
*
Associate Professor, Department of English, University of Dhaka
94 Spectrum, Volume 12, 2016

The woman beside her was now talking about her children and mother in-law. “She
always spoils them by letting them sleep in her room when they should be doing
homework or sending them out with their aunt when their tutor is due. I have to keep
quiet because I am not like the other daughter in-laws who talk back and insult their
elders. My children will learn by watching me after all. Ammaji is from the olden days
and her way of thinking is traditional, besides you know the saying, ‘when two pots live
together they are bound to bang and make noise.’ Since we all live together we must
accept each other’s differences.” Yasmeen suddenly felt a surge of sympathy for this
garrulous woman.
Accept and adjust, wasn’t that what they were all continuously doing?
Accommodating others in our adult lives is a process of letting go of spaces that were
once solely ours, physical space, mental space and time. Our relationships invade our
hearts and minds, our bodies and then eventually we find ourselves squeezed out from
even from the last split second of time that is solely ours in our lives. Jagjit Singh’s
melodic plea to return him his lost childhood petered off forlornly. Yasmeen was startled
out of her reverie by a screech from her neighbour, “Ooh the water is too hot, my feet
nearly got burnt!”
She was starting a pedicure and had just soaked her feet into the footbath with lemon
slices and frangipani floating on soapy water which obviously was too hot. The woman
was continuing in a high-pitch,” My feet are too dark and wrinkly enough as it is, I don’t
need to burn them to add to their drabness. My husband is always telling me that my feet
are like a peacock’s feet, do you know what a peacock’s legs look like?” In answer to the
nervous shake of the head of the girl doing her pedicure, “Ugly, very ugly,” she went on.
“The first time my husband told me this, I didn’t understand what he was talking about
but then I looked it up on the internet. It is shocking how such a beautiful bird’s legs can
be so ugly. God must have intentionally made them like this to stop the birds from
becoming too proud though I am not sure if animals can be proud like people. Anyway
you should really check it up on the internet. Thank God my daughter Aronee hasn’t
inherited feet like mine; she has lovely milky white feet like her grandmother.”
Yasmeen turned to look at the reflection of the woman in the mirror for the first time.
She was not what one could term beautiful but she was not unattractive either. She was
probably in her forties like Yasmeen, but unlike Yasmeen the woman looked rested and
obviously took good care of herself despite her apparent domestic duties. She probably
didn’t work so she didn’t have to juggle her time and energy between work and home
thought Yasmeen tiredly and not without a touch of envy, “If only I had space and time
enough.”
II
It was Friday, and though Yasmeen had had the morning off it had been a really hectic
one. Her two brother in-laws and sister in-law had come for lunch with their families.
Yasmeen had rushed around to ensure everything was cooked on time and served as soon
as the men arrived home from the mosque so that she could serve dessert and tea before
she needed to head for the hospital. She had night duty tonight too. Hopefully it would be
a relatively quiet night.
Rumana Siddique 95

It was a little after 11pm. Yasmeen had finished a final round of her ward about an
hour ago and was having a cup of tea to keep herself alert. There was another junior
intern sharing charge of the female ward with her. The young doctor didn’t look like she
was feeling too well and, after a few inquiries, Yasmeen confirmed her guess that the girl
was pregnant and in the queasy stage of the first trimester. Welcome to the juggler’s
world Yasmeen thought, remembering her own difficult time as a pregnant intern many
years ago. The phone call came through from the emergency ward around 11.30pm. The
police had sent for a doctor to verify an attempted suicide case, female. Yasmeen was
reluctant but had little choice but to go, there were no other lady doctors on duty in the
emergency ward that night.
The woman was stretched out at an awkward angle on the narrow bed in emergency,
head thrown back. The police seemed to have been so reluctant to handle her body that
they had not even bothered to set her lolling head straight. Someone had however,
covered the woman’s frame with a ridiculously gaudy coloured shawl that was now half-
draped over her body and face. Yasmeen leaned forward to set the head straight and
examine the patient. Instinctively her eyes went first to the woman’s face. She jolted back
upright with sudden shock. She knew this woman. It was the same woman who had sat
beside her and talked incessantly about her family for two hours yesterday morning.
What had led to this woman’s attempt to kill herself, a tiff with her husband, an
unfulfilled desire for some new ornament? Yasmeen looked around for the expected
crowd of concerned and curious relatives but saw no one.
The medical check up confirmed the cause of unconsciousness as an overdose taken
sometime earlier that day. The pathology results would yield more accurate details.
Yasmeen completed the necessary medical interventions in a dazed and confused state of
mind. The woman had survived but just barely. Yesterday morning this woman had been
animatedly narrating a busy and contented life and yet that same evening, she had
decided to end her life, why? Yasmeen tried to rein in the tumult of shock and
astonishment that was threatening to overwhelm her.
All night the woman oscillated between restless sleep and incoherent banter. In the
early hours of the morning Yasmeen was awoken from a state of half slumber by the
sound of soft sobbing. The woman was finally out of danger but an intravenous drip and
catheter were still administered to ensure flushing out of the drug from her system. “It’s
alright you are fine now”, Yasmeen said softly. The woman clutched her hand tightly, “I
want to go home please, please come with me. I....I don’t want to be alone, please.”
Yasmeen was a bit taken aback by the request. Amazingly no one from this woman’s
family had arrived till now. Yasmeen was now convinced that something had occurred to
create a sudden rift between this woman and her family. That was probably the reason for
this suicide attempt. But surely this was enough to merit their presence. In the end,
Yasmeen decided to accompany the woman home; at least to satisfy her sense of
curiosity if nothing else. She had the morning after night duty off and could go home
from the woman’s house. The policewoman from the previous night was still there. She
had stayed back in case the patient died overnight and would now interrogate her to make
sure that it wasn’t a case of attempted murder.
96 Spectrum, Volume 12, 2016

III
The apartment block was not too far from the hospital. It was not one of the new
characterless apartments with perfunctory balconies and flat unappealing windows that
seemed to have colonised Dhaka city in recent years. It was a fairly old, white and brown
building with an arched driveway that was covered by bougainvillea and had substantial
sized verandas on each floor. There were tiled brown sunshades that hooded the windows
giving them a homely inviting appearance. There was no lift and Yasmin trooped up to
the third floor behind the stretcher bearers and the policewoman who had escorted them
here.
The apartment was surprisingly quiet. Yasmeen again looked around for members of
the large family that the woman had been talking about the previous day. On the way in
she saw two women getting up uneasily from the armchairs they were sitting on. This
must be the mother in-law and sister in-law thought Yasmeen. Another woman, probably
the maid, was sitting on the carpet near them. “Please come this way doctor and make
sure the patient is okay,” the policewoman called out. Following her, Yasmeen went
through a long hallway lined on both sides by slim bookshelves filled neatly with books
towards the bedroom where the woman had been taken to by the ambulance attendants.
The woman was comfortably settled on a huge bed. Beside it was a door leading to a
spacious veranda where Yasmeen saw a cane recliner. This was where, Yasmeen would
later learn, the maid and neighbour had found her. A mingling of sweet and putrid smells
was coming from the dimly lit veranda. Stepping out she noticed a number of bird cages,
a huge fish tank and an abundance of well looked after potted plants. The branches of a
Madhabilata tree growing upwards from the garden below were secured to the railing.
The delicate sweet smelling blooms could hardly hope to compete with the rancid odour
of bird droppings.
After making sure the woman’s blood pressure was stable and the intravenous drip and
catheter were properly set, Yasmeen headed for the living room. Curiously, the three
women in the house had not followed her into the bedroom. So much for concerned
relatives! And where was the husband, surely he must have got the news by now?
Yasmeen needed answers to the questions that were resolutely rotating in her head.
The two women introduced themselves as Nina’s tenant Jeetu and her mother in-law.
The patient’s name was Nina. The part-time maid had called the neighbours to open the
door because Nina had not opened the door either in the morning or at night. “I know she
always stays at home on Friday mornings when I come to clean. I thought that she was
oversleeping so I left after ringing the bell many times. I didn’t want to disturb her. I
usually come back every evening to watch television with apa and also to feed all her
animals, she has two mynahs, two budgies, two cats and a lot of fish in the aquarium,”
the maid said in a wobbly voice. “Tonight I came late because I went to the bazaar. I am
going home tomorrow for Eid and I wanted to collect my pay and take leave. Apa didn’t
open the door and I could hear the birds and cats calling out like they do when they get
hungry. That’s why I called Jeetu apa, she has an extra key and lets me in every morning
when Nina apa is out. When we came we found apa...” the maid trailed off and began
sobbing loudly.
Rumana Siddique 97

All three women looked at Yasmeen strangely when she asked where Nina’s husband,
two children, Aronee and Alvin, her mother in-law, brother in-law and sister in-law
were? Why weren’t they home? Nina had also mentioned two maids. Where were all
these people? Their answer left Yasmeen stunned. Nina was not married, never had
been, she didn’t even have any permanent maids, she lived completely alone with her
pets. “She used to look after her mother who died four years ago after a painful struggle
with cancer. Her mother told us that she has two sons who live in Australia but we have
never seen them. Nina’s brothers didn’t even come for their mother’s funeral, I don’t
think they kept any contact with her,” Jeetu’s mother in-law said.
“Nina apa was a very nice, very caring and sensible lady, but from about a year after
her mother’s death, she became a bit strange. Before her mother fell ill, apa used to work.
She gave up her job to take care of her mother but after her death she never went back.
There was a man from her old office who used to come to visit her during that year, they
were quite close. We were all sure they would marry but it turned out he was already
married; it was shocking! That was when she bought all these animals and became
obsessed with her appearance. She addressed the mynah birds as Ammaji and Abbaji, she
always called the budgies bhaiya and apu, and the cats are called what you thought were
her children’s names, Aronee and Alvin. She went out every morning and spent the
whole day out, in beauty parlours mostly, but also in shops, bookstores, Wi-Fi cafes or
restaurants. She never had home-cooked food, she ate out or brought home take-aways,”
this was Jeetu’s contribution to the account. The maid interrupted to add, “Apa always
talked to her animals and plants or watched television or movies with them, I watched
many nice films with her too. The rest of the time she sat with her computer or read
books, but I think that was bad for her because they made her cry. It must be one of those
awful books that made her do this terrible thing.”
The policewoman came in and after informing the women that Nina was awake and
had given her testimony, she took her leave. The three other women headed for the
bedroom. Yasmeen looked around the house for a little while before leaving, more out of
a sense of baffled curiosity than anything else. The rooms were large and spacious and
decorated simply but tastefully. There were several shelves of neatly arranged English
and Bengali books of fiction and non-fiction. Scanning the titles Yasmeen thought that so
many of them were books that she would have loved to read herself. But when was the
last time she had been able to settle down with a book, she sighed. There were books on
poetry, philosophy, politics, gardening guides and pet-care manuals. Yasmeen wondered
if all these were Nina’s books. Another room had an enormous leather sofa, a large LCD
television and two glass shelves stacked with movie cds which were arranged according
to the little labels on each shelf specifying their category, romance, science fiction,
murder mystery and so on. Obviously the work of someone with much time to spare.
On a side table beside one of the armchairs lay a tiny book of poems. It was from a
series of great American poets, this slim volume was a selection of Emily Dickinson’s
poems. A tiny yellow post-it label peeked out from one of the pages. Yasmeen guessed
that this page probably had Nina’ favourite poem printed on it. She opened the book to
the bookmarked page. Some lines were underlined.
98 Spectrum, Volume 12, 2016

The last night that she lived,

It was a common night,
Except the dying; this to us made nature different
We noticed smallest things,-
Things overlooked before,
There were beautiful paintings and indoor plants in appropriate corners but none of
the walls displayed any family photographs. No nook or corner of the house showed any
evidence of the paraphernalia that a family unavoidably collects over the years; albums,
yearbooks, photo frames, holiday souvenirs, gifts acquired for birthdays and
anniversaries, games equipment and toys. Every corner of Yasmeen’s own house
accommodated items that innocuously chronicled the history of her family. How different
this house was from her own home, Yasmeen pondered. It represented a life that was a
complete contrast to her own, so much freedom to pursue leisure, so much time to
oneself, so much space. Yet the sole inhabitant of this house had been engulfed by the
desperate need to fill her life and house with the necessary invasion of other people’s
demands. It was unbelievable but the woman living in this house had actually been
suffocating as a consequence of having to herself too much space and too much time.
 Reading Strategy Use and Gender Differences among
Undergraduate EFL/ESL Students
Ahmed Bashir*

Abstract
The paper reports on a study which investigated the use of reading strategies by
undergraduate EFL/ESL students. The main objectives of the study were to identify
the strategies that undergraduate learners most frequently use while reading
academic texts and to examine any significant differences between male and female
students’ use of these reading strategies. This study was based on a questionnaire
survey. The subjects in this study were 145 first year undergraduate English major
students of a public university in Bangladesh. The results revealed students’ more
frequent use of cognitive strategies than metacognitive strategies. Of all types of
reading strategies, students reported using the retrieval strategies most frequently
while planning strategies least frequently. Independent-samples t test results
indicated no significant differences between male and female students’ use of
reading strategies although females scored higher than males in overall reading
strategy use.
Keywords: reading strategies; cognitive and metacognitive reading strategies;
EFL/ESL students

Introduction
Reading is an important basic language skill. It seems to be the most important skill for
EFL (English as a Foreign Language) and ESL (English as a Second Language) students
(Grabe, 1991). Besides other skills, reading ability in English helps learners attain
success in their course of study (Anderson, 1999). Though reading in English is an
important tool for students of all levels, researchers (Levine, Ferez & Reves, 2002)
consider it to be more important for university students as they need academic reading
skills and strategies while reading academic texts.
An efficient reader is considered to be a strategic reader, that is, he/she uses a number of
reading strategies. In ESL academic reading, students deliberately use a number of
reading strategies (Shuyum & Munby, 1996). Reading strategies help learners
comprehend a text better and overcome their reading problems. If learners apply right
strategies in their reading, they can become effective readers. It is important especially
for non-native readers to know how to use reading strategies appropriately. It can help
them overcome language deficiency and obtain better reading achievement (Zhang,
2008). Therefore, teachers need to explore and know the types of reading strategies their
students use.
Research shows that the use of reading strategies is influenced by many factors including
students’ gender and language proficiency. Many studies (e.g. Monos, 2005; Poole,

*
Associate Professor, Department of English, University of Dhaka
100 Spectrum, Volume 12, 2016

2005a, 2009; Weiying, 2006; Sheorey & Baboczky, 2008) show that females are higher
level strategy users than males. If teachers are aware of any differences in reading
strategy use between male and female students, they can take better decisions about
students’ learning needs and modify their teaching accordingly (Cohen, 1998; Macaro,
2001). As Chavez (2001) pointed out, understanding gender differences in using reading
strategies is important because it helps teachers find ways to minimize the differences
and maximize the opportunities of L2 reading proficiency for both genders and
encourages further research into the role of gender in EFL reading.
In Bangladesh, students study English as a compulsory subject from class one. Though
students enter the university with twelve years of experiences of studying English, studies
in Bangladesh context (e.g. Rahman, 2008; Saha & Talukdar, 2008; Chaudhury, 2009;
Rahman, 2007) show that undergraduate students’ English language proficiency is poor
and their reading skills are either poor or average. Rahman’s (2007) comment also
reflects this problem, “a large majority of students at the undergraduate level in our
country cannot access English textbooks prescribed in their syllabus” (p. 4).
Research shows that strategic reading instruction improves learners’ reading skills (Kern,
1989; Ikeda & Takeuchi, 2003). If reading strategies are taught in class and students are
trained on how to use strategies effectively, they can understand texts better and improve
their reading skills. Therefore, research is needed to see undergraduate learners’ use of
reading strategies. If teachers have a clear understanding of students’ problems in
reading, the nature of students’ use of reading strategies and any differences among
students in their perceptions and use of reading strategies, teachers would be able to plan
and implement better strategic reading instruction to improve students’ reading skills.
Moreover, there is paucity in research on L2 reading strategy use and the relationship
between gender and strategy use in Bangladesh context. The present study fills this gap in
reading strategy literature in an EFL/ESL context. This study aims at investigating
Bangladeshi undergraduate students’ use of strategies in reading academic texts. The
main purposes of this study are to identify the most frequently used academic reading
strategies and to examine any significant differences in students’ use of reading strategies
based on gender. In order to fulfil the objectives the study addresses the following
research questions:
1. What are the most frequently used reading strategies among undergraduate EFL
students in Bangladesh?
2. Are there any significant differences between male and female students’ use of
reading strategies?
Literature Review
Reading
Reading is generally thought to be the ability of recognizing and uttering written words.
It is a simple process of receiving information from a text and as a receptive skill reading
is often considered a passive skill (Nunan, 1999). But according to Grabe (1991) reading
is not merely a receptive process; it is rather an active process of constructing meaning
from a text (Anderson, 1999; Brantmeier, 2003). Harmer (2001) also mentioned that
reading is not a passive skill as the reader is actively involved with the text through using
Ahmed Bashir 101

his/her relevant background knowledge, experiences and reading strategies in order to get
the meaning out of it. Therefore, reading is a complex process of meaning construction
(Allan & Bruton, 1997).
In this study the term ‘reading’ is not used to refer to the ability of recognizing and
uttering written words; rather ‘reading’ refers to ‘reading with comprehension’ which is
“the ability to construct meaning from a given written text” (Lems, Miller, & Soro, 2010,
p. 170). Reading comprehension is seen as “the result of complex interactions between
text, setting, reader, reader background, reading strategies, the L1 and the L2, and reader
decision making (Erler & Finkbeiner, 2007, p. 188).” In these interactions, the reader
uses a set of techniques known as reading strategies and thus he/she processes meaning
out of the text.
Reading Strategies
Strategies generally mean certain techniques or actions taken for a particular purpose.
Readers always use certain actions and techniques in order to process meaning of a text.
These actions are generally known as reading strategies. Reading strategies are part of
language learning strategies which are considered as specific behaviours, thoughts or
actions which learners use in order to facilitate their learning (Chamot, 1987; Oxford,
1989, 1990). Therefore by ‘reading strategies’ we understand certain techniques and
actions used by readers while reading in order to comprehend a text. Reading strategies
are defined in many ways by authors and researchers. For example, reading strategies are
considered as comprehension processes (Brantmeier, 2002), mental processes or mental
activities (Cohen, 1990; Aebersold & Filed, 1997) which readers use to comprehend a
text and do reading tasks. Many researchers (e.g. Afflerbach, Pearson, & Paris, 2008;
Erler & Finkbeiner, 2007; Lems, Miller, & Soro, 2010) consider reading strategies as
deliberate or conscious actions or steps which readers select and use to recognize words
and construct meanings out of a text. Although reading strategies are considered by many
as deliberate actions, there is a controversy whether strategies have to be conscious
always or they can be subconscious or unintentional. Researchers argue that strategies
can be ‘subconscious’ when students learn and use them to such an extent that they
become ‘automatic’ to them (Faerch & Kasper, 1983). But according to Ellis (1994) if
strategies are so automatic that they are not available for discussion, strategies lose their
importance as strategies. So strategies used by learners in learning a language or in
reading need to be conscious (Phakiti, 2003a). Oxford (1990) also considers strategies as
observable while others (e.g. Purpura, 1999; Weinstein, & Mayer, 1986) consider
strategies as both observable and unobservable.
From all definitions, reading strategies can be characterized with three core elements:
“deliberate, goal/problem oriented, and reader-initiated/controlled” (Koda, 2005, p. 205).
In this study, “reading strategies” are used as conscious and deliberate actions, operations
or activities that readers choose and use at different levels of processing reading in order
to obtain, store, retrieve and use information to understand and enhance comprehension
of a text they are reading. Reading strategies are used here as conscious strategies
because this study investigated the use of undergraduate students’ use of reading
strategies based on a questionnaire survey. If students were not aware of the strategies
they used while reading academic texts, it would be difficult for them to choose strategy
102 Spectrum, Volume 12, 2016

items in the survey. Moreover, the study did not use any measurement to identify
students’ unconscious use of readings strategies.
Types of Reading Strategies
Reading strategies are classified in various ways by researchers. Depending on the time
of use they may be pre-reading, while reading and post reading strategies (Shih, 1992).
There are some binary divisions of reading strategies. For example, global and local
strategies (Young & Oxford, 1997); text-level and word-level (Barnett, 1988). Though
these categories use various terms, the divisions are primarily based on the two (bottom-
up and top-down) reading processing models.
Reading strategies are also classified into three categories in different ways by many
researchers. For example, cognitive, metacognitive and support strategies (Sheorey &
Mokhtari, 2001); global strategies, problem-solving strategies and support strategies
(Mokhtari & Sheorey, 2002; Mokhtari & Reichard, 2002); text-initiated strategies e.g.
summarizing, rereading; interactive strategies e.g. questioning, predicting; and reader-
initiated strategies e.g. creating mental image, evaluating etc (Jemenez, Garcia &
Pearson, 1996). Reading strategies are also classified into cognitive, metacognitive, and
social and affective strategies by Chamot and O’Malley (1994) based on their earlier
classification of language learning strategies (O’Malley & Chamot, 1990).
The above divisions of reading strategies show diversity in reading strategy classification.
But reading strategies can be divided into two broad categories: cognitive and
metacognitive strategies (Anderson, 1999; Phakiti, 2003a, 2006a) which together may
encompass strategies from all types of reading strategies. “Cognitive strategies are the
actions and procedures readers use while working directly with the text” (Sheorey &
Mokhtari, 2001, 436). According to Rubin (1987) cognitive strategies are the steps or
operations which readers use directly to process information from a text. Cognitive
strategies include making predictions, translating, summarizing, linking with prior
knowledge or experience, applying grammar rules, and guessing meaning from contexts
(O’Malley & Chamot, 1990; Oxford, 1990).
Metacognitive strategies are based on the concept of metacognition which is “the notion
of thinking about thinking” (Phakiti, 2003a, p. 29). It is “conscious awareness of our own
thinking and learning process” (Lems, Miller, & Soro, 2010, p. 181). According to
Sheorey and Mokhtari (2001), metacognitive strategies are the intentional and carefully
planned techniques which learners use to monitor and manage their reading. These
strategies are used to control the processing of cognitive strategies for better
understanding of a text (Phakiti, 2003a). Therefore metacognitive strategies are called
higher level strategies. Metacognitive strategies help readers prepare for a reading task,
monitor the task as they continue the task, and finally evaluate the task after completion
(Grabe & Stroller, 2002).
In this study cognitive and metacognitive types of reading strategies are used because
these strategies are directly related to the reading processes (e.g. cognitive strategies to
bottom-up and metacognitive to top-down models) and these are also known as reading
comprehension strategies. These strategies are more pertinent because this study uses
Ahmed Bashir 103

reading in the sense of reading comprehension and so other classifications of reading

strategies do not fit in this study.
Studies on the use of reading strategies among university EFL/ESL students
Hamdan, Ghafar, Sihes, and Sohaila (2010) investigated the use of cognitive and
metacognitive reading strategies among Malaysian university students majoring in
English in reading academic texts. The researchers found the participants using cognitive
strategies more frequently than the metacognitive strategies. Among the individual
reading strategies rereading, guessing word meanings, contextualizing, visualizing and
using dictionaries were most frequently exploited by the participants. Another study by
Nurazila et al. (2011) in the same context also found similar results. Malaysian ESL
learners reported to use problem-solving strategies most frequently while using the
strategies of rereading, detecting main ideas, analyzing meaning using context at a higher
level. Both studies used self-report questionnaires to investigate students’ use of reading
strategies. Though it is difficult to confirm whether the students practically used the
strategies they reported to use, the results may indicate students’ awareness of their
reading problems in comprehending a text. The nature of their most frequently used
strategies also indicates that Malaysian learners are prone to using more cognitive
strategies to solve their reading problems.
Other studies by Baker and Boonkit (2004) with Thai undergraduate students,
Tercanlioglu (2004) with ESL students in a UK university, Sheorey and Mokhtari (2001)
with ESL students in a US university, and Cheng (2009) with Taiwanese EFL students
also reported their participants’ more frequent use of cognitive strategies than
metacognitive strategies in reading academic materials in English. Another study by
Jusoh & Liza (2015) with Malaysian university students also reported that the
participants used reading strategies frequently while reading online materials.
The above studies used self-report questionnaires only, but Songsiengchai (2010) used
Think Aloud Sessions with the participants in addition to a self-report questionnaire
while investigating the English major students’ use of reading strategies in a Thai
university. Nevertheless, the results of this study were also consistent with other studies
that is, the students reported using cognitive strategies more frequently than
metacognitive strategies. About the subcategories of cognitive strategies they used
retrieval strategies at a high frequency level, but the comprehending and memory
strategies at the medium frequency level. In contrast with the results of the above
studies, Shang (2011) and Hsu (2007) found the Taiwanese EFL English major students
employing metacognitive strategies more frequently than cognitive strategies in reading
academic materials.
The findings of the above studies may indicate that the EFL/ESL learners in general are
more concerned about comprehension tasks and therefore they are more involved in the
cognitive strategies which are directly related to the reading tasks (Phakiti 2003b). They
seem to be relatively less concerned about the stages of planning, monitoring and
evaluating of comprehension while reading academic materials.
104 Spectrum, Volume 12, 2016

Studies on the use of reading strategies and gender differences

Many studies on reading strategy use found significant differences between male and
female EFL/ESL students’ use of strategies in reading academic materials. For example,
Poole’s (2005a) study with Chinese EFL students found a significant difference between
male and female students’ use of all categories of reading strategies investigated. Park’s
(2010) study with Korean EFL university students also found significant differences
between male and female students in their overall use of reading strategies and in the use
of ten individual strategies (e.g. ‘setting purpose for reading’, ‘taking notes while
reading’, ‘reading aloud’, ‘noting text characteristics’, ‘underlining information in text’,
and ‘using context clues’). Other studies (e.g. Monos, 2005; Sheorey & Baboczky, 2008;
Sheorey, 2006; Pool, 2009) also reported significant differences between males and
females’ use of reading strategies. In all these studies female students reported using
reading strategies significantly higher than their male counterparts.
On the other hand, some studies (e.g. Sheorey & Mokhtari, 2001; Cheng, 2009; Weiying,
2006; Kuo, 2003; Hsu, 2007; Asgarabadi, Rouhi & Manouchehr, 2015) did not find any
significant differences between male and female students’ use of reading strategies. But
these studies also reported females as higher strategy users than males.
Although most studies showed females as higher strategy users, one study by Poole
(2005b) with 248 ESL students in some US universities reported that males scored higher
than females on the categories of global and problem-solving strategies and on 18 out of
30 individual strategies. Similarly Phakiti’s (2003b) study with 384 Thai university EFL
students found male students reporting to use metacognitive strategies significantly
higher than their female counterparts. But the study did not find any significant
differences between males and females in their use of cognitive strategies.
As most studies in different EFL/ESL contexts showed females scoring higher than
males, the findings may suggest an existence of a gender gap in L2 reading strategy use.
This gap needs to be addressed by EFL/ESL teachers though Brantmeier (2000), and
Young and Oxford (1997) suggested that in reading a second language, readers’ gender
does not influence their use of reading strategies.

Methodology
Samples
The subjects in this study were 145 undergraduate students of English Department of a
public university in Bangladesh. The participants consisted of 66 male (45.52%) and 79
female (54.48%) students. They belonged to the same age group. The age range was from
18 to 25 with only two participants of 22 and 25 years of age. Both the Mean and Median
age was 19. The subjects in this study were selected using convenience sampling method.
Reading strategy questionnaire
According to Ellis (1994) the use of questionnaires and structured interviews can
effectively elicit responses from students about the strategies they use. Self-report
questionnaires are typically used to understand the nature of strategies (Phakiti, 2006b)
and it is now a common practice to use questionnaires in reading strategy research
(Cheng, 2009). The usefulness of Likert scale self-report questionnaires is also supported
Ahmed Bashir 105

by many strategy researchers (e.g., O’Malley & Chamot, 1990; Oxford, 1996; Purpura,
1999). Therefore, the researcher used a Likert scale self-report reading strategy
questionnaire for data collection in this study.
The questionnaire (See appendix for the questionnaire) used in this study consisted of
two sections: section one contained some demographic questions on the general
background of the participants including gender, age, year, semester and academic
sessions while section two contained 36 reading strategy items which were divided into
two categories: cognitive strategies and metacognitive strategies. Cognitive strategies
were divided into three subcategories: comprehending strategies, memory strategies, and
retrieval strategies. Metacognitive strategies were also divided into three subcategories:
planning strategies, monitoring strategies, and evaluating strategies.
The reading strategy items were adopted from Phakiti’s (2006a) taxonomy of reading
strategies. The questionnaire items were designed on a five-point Likert Scale and the
students were asked to indicate the frequency with which they used the reading strategy
implied in the statement by using the five-point Likert Scale ranging from always to
never given after each statement. The responses were rated as always=5, usually=4,
sometimes=3, occasionally=2, and never=1.
Of the thirty six reading strategy items, equal number (eighteen) of cognitive and
metacognitive strategies were used. Under cognitive strategies seven strategy items (5, 8,
12, 14, 23, 31, and 34) belonged to comprehending strategies; six strategy items (9, 13,
15, 19, 22, and 25) belonged to memory strategies while the rest (2, 7, 17, 29, and 33)
were used for retrieval strategies.
Under the metacognitive strategies seven strategy items (1, 3, 4, 6, 10, 16, and 26)
belonged to planning strategies; six strategy items (11, 18, 21, 24, 28, and 32) belonged
to monitoring strategies while the rest (20, 27, 30, 35, and 36) were used for evaluating
strategies.
Validity and Reliability of the Instrument
Validity and reliability of instruments are important in research in order to generate
reliable data which would produce valid results. The validity and reliability of the
questionnaire were examined carefully in order to get valid and reliable data which could
increase the chance of generalizing the potential findings. In order to ensure the validity
(content, construct and face validity), the questionnaire was reviewed by an expert in
English language teaching.
In order to ensure reliability of the questionnaire a pilot study was conducted. Internal
consistency of the items for the questionnaire and the two scales was tested which
showed Cronbach alpha coefficient of 0.83 for the questionnaire; Cronbach alpha
coefficient of 0.72 for the cognitive strategy scale and Cronbach alpha coefficient of 0.79
for the metacognitive strategy scale. These are good reliability scores as according to De
Vellis (2003) the ideal Cronbach alpha coefficient of a scale should be above 0.70.
Procedures of Data Collection and Data Analysis
The data generated from the questionnaire survey were analyzed using the Statistical
Package for Social Sciences (SPSS version 16.0). Statistical analyses and interpretations
106 Spectrum, Volume 12, 2016

were done following Pallant (2007). Descriptive statistics (frequencies, means and
standard deviations) were calculated for responses of each variable in order to find out
the most frequently used reading strategies among the participants.
Independent-samples t tests were employed to identify any significant differences
(p<0.05) between male and female students. T tests were employed for each category,
subcategory and overall reading strategy use to determine significant gender differences
at the category level and overall use of reading strategies. Independent-samples t tests
were also calculated for the use of individual reading strategies.
In order to describe the reading strategy use as reported in the questionnaire, three levels
(High, Moderate, and Low) of reading strategy usage (as shown in Table 1) were
identified based on Oxford & Burry-Stock’s (1995) suggestions for strategy use in
language learning. The means of students’ response scores for individual reading strategy
items were used to indicate the frequencies of perceived use of academic reading
strategies (Mokhtari & Sheorey, 2002).

Table 1: Range of Means and Level of Strategy Use

Range of Mean scores Levels of use

Mean of 3.5 or higher High

Mean of 2.5 to 3.49 Moderate
Mean of 2.49 or lower Low

Results and Discussion

Most frequently used reading strategies (Research question 1)
In order to identify the most frequently used strategies while reading academic texts
descriptive statistics were employed on each category, subcategory and individual
reading strategy items. The results are presented below (Table 2 -7) according to these
categories and sub-categories of reading strategy items.

Table 2: Overall and Categories of Reading Strategy Use

Reading strategy categories M SD Level of use
Cognitive strategies 3.77 .457 High
Metacognitive strategies 3.58 .602 High
Overall strategies 3.68 .479 High
The results as in Table 2 showed that the level of use of both categories of reading
strategies was high with the mean for cognitive strategies (M=3.77) being greater than
that for metacognitive strategies (M=3.58). The results indicated that the respondents
used cognitive strategies more frequently than metacognitive strategies.
Ahmed Bashir 107

Table 3: Subcategories of Reading Strategy Use (in descending order)

Reading strategies M SD Level of use
Retrieval strategies 3.94 .644 High
Monitoring strategies 3.85 .681 High
Comprehending strategies 3.81 .558 High
Memory strategies 3.57 .607 High
Evaluating strategies 3.45 .816 Moderate
Planning strategies 3.44 .732 Moderate

The descriptive statistics results as in Table 3 showed the highest means (M=3.94) for the
retrieval strategies while the lowest means was for planning strategies (M=3.44) among
all subcategories of reading strategies. The results also revealed students’ use of
evaluating and planning strategies at a moderate level while the rest at a high level.

Table 4: Use of Individual Reading Strategies under Cognitive Category (responses

are shown in percentages and Means in descending order)
Item Cognitive strategies 5 4 3 2 1 M SD Level of use
no
Comprehending strategies
5 Guessing the meaning of 51.7 22.1 10.3 14.5 1.4 4.08 1.15 High
unknown words or
phrases.
12 Using reference materials 48.3 24.1 10.3 16.6 0.7 4.03 1.14 High
(e.g. dictionaries).
8 Translating to native 41.4 25.5 11.0 17.2 4.8 3.81 1.27 High
language.
14 Thinking about 36.6 29.7 14.5 15.2 4.1 3.79 1.20 High
information both in
English and native
language.
34 Summarizing the main 37.9 26.2 16.6 15.2 4.1 3.79 1.22 High
ideas for better
understanding.
23 Using skimming and 31.7 37.9 10.3 15.2 4.8 3.77 1.19 High
scanning to find main
ideas and specific
information.
31 Paying more attention to 33.8 16.6 17.9 17.2 12.4 3.44 1.42 Moderate
the meanings of individual
words.
108 Spectrum, Volume 12, 2016

Memory strategies
15 Highlighting or 46.9 27.6 13.1 10.3 2.1 4.07 1.09 High
underlining key words in
the text.
22 Rereading the text for 47.6 24.8 13.8 10.3 3.4 4.03 1.16 High
better understanding.
25 Paraphrasing for better 34.5 32.4 15.9 16.6 0.7 3.83 1.09 High
understanding.
13 Taking notes while 30.3 29.7 18.6 17.2 4.1 3.65 1.19 High
reading.
19 Reading aloud to help 25.5 13.1 13.1 25.5 22.8 2.93 1.52 Moderate
remember information.
9 Using text features (e.g. 15.2 19.3 23.4 26.9 15.2 2.92 1.29 Moderate
tables, figures).
Retrieval strategies
7 Using knowledge of 60.7 26.2 8.3 4.1 0.7 4.42 .86 High
English language.
2 Using background 48.3 24.1 16.6 10.3 0.7 4.09 1.06 High
knowledge and relevant
experiences.
33 Looking back and forth in 36.6 31.0 16.6 13.1 2.8 3.86 1.13 High
the text to find
relationships among ideas.
29 Remembering the 44.1 22.8 12.4 12.4 8.3 3.82 1.33 High
purposes while reading.
17 Using knowledge of word 31.7 22.1 18.6 22.1 5.5 3.52 1.29 High
structure, prefixes and
suffixes.
5=always, 4= usually, 3= sometimes, 2=occasionally, 1= never, M= mean, SD= standard deviation

The results as in Table 4 showed the descriptive statistics along with percentages of
individual strategy use under subcategories of cognitive strategies. The results as shown,
all cognitive strategies were used with high level of frequencies except one
comprehending strategy in item 31 (“paying more attention to the meanings of individual
words”) and two memory strategies in item 9 and 19 ( “using text features” and “reading
aloud”) with moderate level of frequencies. Of all the cognitive strategies, the strategy in
item 7 (“using knowledge of English language”) had the highest means (M=4.42) while
the strategy in item 9 (“using text features”) had the lowest means (M=2.92). The results
also revealed that the majority (60.7%) of the respondents always used their knowledge
of English language while only 15.2% of the respondents reported to always use the text
features e.g. tables, figures while reading academic texts in English.
Ahmed Bashir 109

Table 5: Use of Individual Reading Strategies under Metacognitive Category

(responses are shown in percentages and Means in descending order)
No Metacognitive 5 4 3 2 1 M SD Level of
strategies Use

Planning strategies

1 Looking at the title and 54.5 28.3 9.0 7.6 0.7 4.28 .96 High
guessing the text
content.
16 Identifying reading 31.0 37.9 13.8 11.7 5.5 3.77 1.17 High
problems and planning
actions to solve them.
4 Planning how to 35.2 23.4 13.8 22.1 5.5 3.61 1.31 High
complete the text and
do the reading tasks.
26 Previewing the reading 29.0 24.8 13.8 22.1 10.3 3.40 1.37 Moderate
tasks before reading the
text.
6 Deciding what to read 20.0 26.9 12.4 21.4 19.3 3.07 1.43 Moderate
closely and what to
ignore.
10 Checking the genre and 17.9 20.7 19.3 29.0 13.1 3.01 1.32 Moderate
organization of the text.

3 Setting reading goals 19.3 20.7 17.9 24.8 17.2 3.00 1.38 Moderate
and purposes for
reading.

Monitoring strategies

18 Double checking 51.0 24.8 11.0 11.0 2.1 4.12 1.11 High
understanding of
confusing information.
32 Paying more attention 51.0 24.1 12.4 9.7 2.8 4.11 1.12 High
to the overall meaning
of the text.
24 Checking 43.4 24.8 17.9 10.3 3.4 3.94 1.15 High
understanding of new
information.
28 Checking concentration 41.4 24.1 17.9 13.1 3.4 3.87 1.19 High
and paying closer
attention to reading.
110 Spectrum, Volume 12, 2016

11 Verifying guesses of 38.6 23.4 16.6 18.6 2.8 3.77 1.22 High
word meanings.
21 Pausing and thinking 24.1 27.6 13.8 25.5 9.0 3.32 1.32 Moderate
about what is read.

Evaluating strategies

30 Evaluating overall 35.9 29.0 20.0 10.3 4.8 3.81 1.17 High
understanding of the
text.
27 Evaluating difficulty 31.7 26.2 16.6 20.0 5.5 3.59 1.27 High
level of the text and
adjusting reading speed
accordingly.
36 Evaluating overall 24.8 30.3 15.9 22.8 6.2 3.45 1.25 Moderate
performances of the
reading tasks.
35 Evaluating the 23.4 25.5 21.4 21.4 8.3 3.34 1.27 Moderate
effectiveness of
strategies used while
reading.
20 Asking oneself 22.1 22.1 14.5 26.9 14.5 3.10 1.39 Moderate
questions to be
answered in the text.

5=always, 4= usually, 3= sometimes, 2=occasionally, 1= never, M= mean, SD= standard deviation

The results as in Table 5 demonstrated the descriptive statistics along with percentages of
individual strategy use under subcategories of metacognitive strategies. The results as
revealed, out of 18 metacognitive strategies, 8 strategies were used with moderate level
of frequencies while the rest with high level of frequencies. Planning strategy items had
lower means comparing to monitoring and evaluating strategies as four out of seven
planning strategies were reported to use with moderate level of frequencies. Of all
metacognitive strategies, item 1 (“looking at the title and guessing the text content”) had
the highest means (M= 4.28) which was always used by the majority (54.5%) of the
respondents while item 20 (“asking oneself questions to be answered in the text”) had the
lowest means (M=3.10).
Ahmed Bashir 111

Table 6: Five Most Frequently Used Reading Strategies (in descending order)
Reading strategies Item no Type of M SD Level
strategies of Use

Using knowledge of English language. 7 Retrieving 4.42 .863 High

Looking at the title and guessing the 1 Planning 4.28 .963 High
text content.
Double checking understanding of 18 Monitoring 4.12 4.12 High
confusing information.
Paying more attention to the overall 32 Monitoring 4.11 1.12 High
meaning of the text.
Using background knowledge and 2 Retrieving 4.09 1.06 High
relevant experiences.

The results as in Table 6 showed, of the five most frequently used reading strategies, two
(item 7 and 2) belonged to cognitive strategies while the rest (item 1, 18, 32) belonged to
metacognitive strategies. The results as shown, all top five strategies had high level of
use. The strategy of “using knowledge of English language” had the highest means
(M=4.42) followed by “looking at the title and guessing the text content” (M= 4.28) and
“double checking understanding” (M=4.12).

Table 7: Five Least Frequently Used Reading Strategies (in ascending order)
Reading strategies Item no Type of M SD Level of Use
strategies

Using text features (e.g. 9 Memory 2.92 1.297 Moderate

tables, figures).
Reading aloud to help 19 Memory 2.93 1.526 Moderate
remember information.

Reading strategies Item no Type of M SD Level of Use

strategies
Setting reading goals and 3 Planning 3.00 1.389 Moderate
purposes for reading.
Checking the genre and 10 Planning 3.01 1.323 Moderate
organization of the text.
Deciding what to read 6 Planning 3.07 1.437 Moderate
closely and what to ignore.
112 Spectrum, Volume 12, 2016

The results as in Table 7 displayed, of the five least frequently used reading strategies,
three items (item 3, 10, 6) belonged to metacognitive strategy category while the rest
(item 9 and 19) belonged to cognitive strategies. As shown in Table 13, all bottom five
strategies had moderate level of use with the memory strategies of “using text features
e.g. tables, figures” (item 9) having the lowest means (M= 2.92) followed by “reading
aloud” (M=2.93).

Gender Differences in the Use of Reading Strategies (Research question 2)

In order to identify significant differences between male and female students’ use of
strategies, independent-samples t tests were employed on each category, subcategory and
individual reading strategy items.

Table 8: Differences in Categories and Subcategories of Strategy Use between Males

and Females
Males Females
(N=66) (N=79)
Reading strategies M SD M SD t value p

Comprehending strategies 3.76 .559 3.85 .557 -1.01 .31

Memory strategies 3.49 .616 3.63 .595 -1.45 .14
Retrieval strategies 3.91 .714 3.96 .582 -.51 .61
Planning strategies 3.46 .731 3.43 .737 .176 .86
Monitoring 3.76 .676 3.93 .680 -1.46 .14
Evaluating 3.42 .775 3.48 .853 -.453 .65

Cognitive strategies 3.72 .492 3.82 .424 -1.29 .19

Metacognitive strategies 3.55 .601 3.61 .605 -.68 .49
Overall strategies 3.63 .490 3.72 .469 -1.04 .29

The results as in Table 8 showed no significant differences between males and females in
their overall and any category of reading strategy use. But the results as shown, indicated
that the mean scores of females were higher than males’ in all categories except in the
planning strategies in which males had a slightly higher mean (M=3.46) than females’
(M=3.43).
Ahmed Bashir 113

Table 9: Significant Differences in Individual Reading Strategy Use between Males

and Females
Males Females
(N=66) (N=79)
Item Reading strategies Type M SD M SD t value p

7 Using knowledge of Retrieval 4.18 0.91 4.62 0.77 -3.09 .00*

English language.

8 Translating English Comprehen 3.53 1.32 4.05 1.18 -2.46 .01*

to native language. ding
19 Reading aloud to help Memory 2.65 1.53 3.16 1.48 -2.03 .04*
remember
information.

* The mean difference is significant at the 0.05 level

The independent-samples t tests results of individual reading strategy use as shown in

Table 9 revealed significant differences between males and females’ responses in relation
to three reading strategies only. In “using knowledge of English language” (item 7), the
mean score of females (M=4.62, SD= 0.77) was significantly higher than that of males
(M= 4.18, SD= 0.91): t (143) =-3.09; p =.00(two-tailed). The 95% confidence interval of
the difference was [-.715, -.162]. In using the strategy of “translating English to native
language” (item 8), the mean score of females (M=4.05, SD= 1.18) was also significantly
higher than that of males (M=3.53, SD= 1.32): t (143) =-2.46; p =.01(two-tailed). The
95% confidence interval of the difference was [-.933, -.108]. Finally, in using the strategy
“reading aloud to help remember information” (item 19), the mean score of females
(M=3.16, SD= 1.48) was also significantly higher than that of males (M= 2.65, SD=
1.53): t (143) =-2.03; p =.04(two-tailed). The 95% confidence interval of the difference
was [-1.011, -.015]. Although significant differences were not shown in other (33 out of
36) items, females had higher mean scores than males’ in 27 items while in the rest (9
items) males’ scores were higher than females’.
Top five and bottom five strategies used by males and females

Table 10: Top Five Strategies Used by Male and Female Students in General
Top five strategies used by males M SD Type Level of use

Looking at the title and guessing the text 4.24 0.91 Planning High
content. (item 1)
Using knowledge of English language. (item 4.18 0.91 Retrieval High
7)
Using background knowledge and relevant 4.14 1.12 Retrieval High
114 Spectrum, Volume 12, 2016

Top five strategies used by males M SD Type Level of use

experiences. (item 2)
Highlighting or underlining key words in the 4.05 1.04 Memory High
text. (item 15)
Paying more attention to the overall meaning 4.05 1.15 Monitor High
of the text. (item 32)

Top five strategies used by females

Using knowledge of English language. 4.62 0.77 Retrieval High
(item 7)
Looking at the title and guessing the text 4.32 1.00 Planning High
content. (item 1)
Double checking understanding of confusing 4.22 1.08 Monitor High
information. (item 18)
Guessing the meaning of unknown words or 4.20 1.06 Comprehend High
phrases from the context. (item 5)
Paying more attention to the overall meaning 4.16 1.10 Monitor High
of the text. (item 32)

The results as in Table 10 showed five reading strategies most frequently used by males
and females separately. The results as shown, males used a planning strategy (item 1)
with the highest frequency (M= 4.24) followed by two retrieval strategies (item 7 and 2).
On the other hand, females used a retrieval strategy (item 7) with the highest frequency
(M= 4.62). Results also revealed that of the top five strategies used by males and females,
three strategies (item 1, 7 and 32) were common for both groups.

Table 11: Bottom Five Strategies Used by Male and Female Students in General
M SD Type Level of use
Bottom five strategies used by males
Reading aloud to help remember information. 2.65 1.53 Memory Moderate
(item 19)
Using text features (e.g. tables, figures). 2.76 1.27 Memory Moderate
(item 9)
Checking the genre and organization of the 3.02 1.25 Planning Moderate
text. (item 10)
Setting reading goals and purposes for 3.12 1.39 Planning Moderate
reading. (item 3)
Deciding what to read closely and what to 3.20 1.43 Planning Moderate
ignore. (item 6)
Ahmed Bashir 115

M SD Type Level of use

Bottom five strategies used
by females

Setting reading goals and purposes for 2.90 1.38 Planning Moderate
reading. (item 3)
Deciding what to read closely and what to 2.96 1.43 Planning Moderate
ignore. (item 6)
Asking oneself questions to be answered in 2.99 1.42 Evaluation Moderate
the text. (item 20)
Checking the genre and organization of the 3.01 1.38 Planning Moderate
text. (item 10)
Using text features (e.g. tables, figures). 3.06 1.30 Memory Moderate
(item 9)

The results as in Table 11 showed five reading strategies least frequently used by males
and females separately. The results as shown, the bottom two strategies (item 19 and 9)
used by males were memory strategies followed by three planning strategies (item 10, 3
and 6) while the bottom two strategies (item 3 and 6) used by females were planning
strategies. Results also revealed that of the bottom five strategies used by males and
females, four strategies (item 3, 6, 9 and 32) were common for both groups.

Discussion on the Findings

Use of reading strategies (Research Question 1)
The results showed the means of cognitive strategies as higher than that of metacognitive
strategies which indicated that the students used cognitive strategies more frequently than
metacognitive strategies. The finding is consistent with that of many studies (e.g.
Hamdan et al., 2010; Nurazila et al., 2011; Songsiengchai, 2010; Baker & Boonkit, 2004;
Tercanlioglu, 2004; Sheorey & Mokhtari, 2001; Monos, 2005; Cheng, 2009). One of the
possible reasons for this consistency may be the similar nature of learning objectives of
EFL/ESL students irrespective of countries. Students are more concerned about doing the
learning tasks rather than thinking and reflecting on what they are doing. Cognitive
strategies are directly related to the learning tasks (Sheorey & Mokhtari, 2001) which are
used to process information out of a text (Phakiti, 2003a) and do a specific task during
reading (Chamot & O’Malley, 1994). Therefore, students use cognitive strategies more
often to facilitate their learning tasks.
In Bangladesh, teaching is generally viewed as teacher-centred (Choudhury, 2006) and
students are basically directed and controlled by teachers for doing different tasks in the
class. In reading classes, students are asked to read the texts and do the exercises and the
teacher checks the answers. Students use more cognitive strategies like skimming and
scanning (see Rahman, 2007). Students have least opportunities in the class to get
involved in planning, monitoring and evaluating their own reading performances. So the
116 Spectrum, Volume 12, 2016

classroom instructions may have an influence in students’ choosing and using cognitive
strategies more often while reading a text.
The results showed that the students used retrieval strategies most frequently. This
finding is similar with that of Songsiengchai (2010). Retrieval strategies are used to
recall information from current or long term memory. It is common for students to use
strategies to remember information while reading which helps them comprehend the text
and do the reading tasks.
The results also showed that the students reported to pay more attention to overall
meaning of the text. This finding is consistent with that of Quaderi, Bashir & Ferdousy
(2006) who found that the students used more top-down approach while reading texts as
they did not focus much on the meaning of individual words. A possible reason for
similarity in this finding may be that the subjects in both studies were English major
students and their experiences of reading more English texts may have influenced their
approaches to reading in English.
The students in this study were also found to use their background knowledge including
their knowledge of English language and relevant experiences most frequently. This
finding is supported by other studies (e.g. Sheorey & Mokhtari, 2001; Monos, 2005).
Using background knowledge is important for better understanding of a text. According
to Nunan (1985) learners’ background knowledge is a more significant factor than
grammatical complexity in understanding a reading text. If readers have background
knowledge and if they are familiar with the topic, it is easier for them to comprehend the
text (Carrell, 1987; Brantimeier, 2003) because there is an interaction between the
reader’s background knowledge and the text itself (Carrell & Eisterhold, 1983). As the
subjects in this study were English major students, they had a wide range of experiences
in reading English texts which might have helped them develop good background
knowledge of English language.
Students were also found to use the strategies of guessing the text content, meaning of
unknown words and double checking understanding of ambiguous information most
often. Some studies (e.g.Hamdan et al., 2010; Nurazila et al., 2011; Sheorey & Mokhtari,
2001; Monos, 2005) support the findings. In addition, these studies reported ‘rereading’
as one of the most frequently used strategies. In fact, the use of strategies in reading a text
depends on many factors including text difficulty, learner’s ability, topics involved and
above all the purposes of reading. Therefore it is common that students in different
settings may use different types of strategies.
The results also revealed that the students used more than two-thirds of the strategies
investigated with high frequency and the rest with moderate frequency. No strategies
were reported to be used at a low frequency level. The findings indicate that the students
are generally high level strategy users. The findings are not unlikely because the subjects
in this study were usually better students in context of Bangladesh who enrolled in the
English Department through a competitive admission test. English major students were
also found to be high level of strategy users in other studies (e.g. Hamdan et al., 2010;
Monos, 2005; Songsiengchai, 2010).
Ahmed Bashir 117

Although the results indicated the students as high level strategy users, a striking point to
note that they can be specifically called high level of ‘cognitive strategy users’ as they
reported using more cognitive strategies at a high frequency level than metacognitive
strategies. Therefore, the findings suggest a need for teaching more metacognitive
strategies to the undergraduate students.

Gender differences in reading strategy use (Research Question 2)

The independent-samples t test results showed no significant differences in the overall
strategy use between male and female students. No significant differences were also
found in relation to any type of cognitive and metacognitive strategy use. The findings
are consistent with that of some studies (e.g. Sheorey & Mokhtari, 2001; Cheng, 2009;
Weiying, 2006; Kuo, 2003; Hsu, 2007) which also did not find any significant differences
between males and females in their use of reading strategies. The finding may indicate
that gender does not have an influence on students’ use of reading strategies and both
males and females use strategies with similar frequencies. One possible reason for this
similarity in strategy use may be students’ level of language proficiency because English
major students are usually high scoring students. Poole (2005b) suggested that gender
differences in strategy use might exist at lower proficiency level but for advanced
learners the differences could be ‘neutralized’. Again as university students, their strong
interests and motivations may weaken “sex differences” in strategy use (Moriam, 2005,
p. 56).
On the other hand, the finding contradicts with that of many studies (e.g. Poole, 2005a;
Park, 2010; Monos, 2005; Sheorey & Baboczky, 2008; Sheorey, 2006; Pool, 2009) which
reported significant differences between males and females’ use of different types of
reading strategies with females scoring higher than males. Though this study did not find
any significant gender differences in overall and any types of reading strategy use, in the
use of individual reading strategies, the results revealed significant differences in three
strategies (“using knowledge of English language”; “translating English to native
language”; “reading aloud to help remember information”) which indicated that females
reported using these strategies significantly more frequently than males did. The findings
are similar with Park’s (2010) who reported females used the strategy “reading aloud”
significantly more frequently than males. Other studies (e.g. Poole, 2005a; Monos, 2005;
Pool, 2009) also reported significant differences in using individual strategies.
The use of individual reading strategies actually depends on the purposes of reading,
genre of texts, difficulty level of texts and many other factors including level of
proficiency of the reader. Using knowledge of English language in reading also depends
on the readers’ level of proficiency. Maybe the female students had good knowledge of
English which helped them use this knowledge more frequently. It is interesting to find
that females also reported to use ‘translating’ more frequently than males. Translating is a
compensation strategy which readers use to understand meanings of any difficult words
or expressions which they fail to comprehend directly in English. Usually students with
lower level of proficiency use this strategy. So the finding may indicate a contradiction
that the females use both knowledge of English and translating into native language with
a high frequency level. This may also indicate over reporting tendency of females.
118 Spectrum, Volume 12, 2016

Overall, the results indicate that male and female students do not differ significantly in
overall and category level reading strategy use except in some individual strategies.
Differences in the use of a few individual strategies between males and females may not
warrant a big gender gap in reading strategy use. But as females scored higher than males
in almost all strategies, teachers need to take this issue seriously and try to explore the
reasons why male students do not use reading strategies more frequently than females
and take measures in order to minimize any gender gap in using reading strategies.

Conclusion
This study investigated Bangladeshi undergraduate learners’ use of strategies in reading
academic materials in English. The purposes of this study were to investigate the most
frequently used reading strategies and identify any significant differences between male
and female students’ use of reading strategies.
The results of the survey data showed the students as high level reading strategy users
who reported using cognitive strategies more frequently than metacognitive strategies.
The most frequently used strategies included using knowledge of English language,
guessing the meaning of words and text content, double checking understanding of
ambiguous information, paying more attention to overall meaning and using background
knowledge and relevant experiences. The results also showed that the students used the
planning strategies least frequently.
Regarding gender differences in reading strategy use, the results revealed no significant
differences between males and females in general in their use of overall and any type of
reading strategies. Significant differences were found only in the use of three individual
strategies in which females scored significantly higher than males.

Implications of the findings

The findings of this study have important pedagogical implications for teachers, students,
material developers, curriculum designers and policy makers as well. This study provides
teachers with important insights into undergraduate English major learners’ perceived use
of academic reading strategies. The findings would help teachers develop a better
understanding of students’ reading strategy use and take necessary measures in order to
enhance students’ reading skills in English.
The results reveal that students used cognitive strategies more frequently than
metacognitive reading strategies. Planning and evaluating strategies were the least
frequently used strategies. Therefore this finding suggests that teachers consider teaching
of more metacognitive strategies because “students without metacognitive approaches are
essentially learners without direction or opportunity to review their progress,
accomplishments, and future directions” (O’Malley et al., 1985, p. 561). Besides, the use
of metacognitive strategies is strongly correlated with learners’ reading success
(Kangzhou & Zhifa, 2007). Carrell, Pharis, and Liberto (1989) also found that
metacognitive strategy training improved ESL students’ reading comprehension skills.
Understanding gender differences in reading strategies is important (see Chavez, 2001).
The findings of this study would enhance teachers’ understanding of male and female
Ahmed Bashir 119

students’ use of reading strategies. Although results showed no significant differences

between male and female students’ use of overall and categories of reading strategies,
females in general scored higher than males in all types of strategy use. This might
indicate a slight gender gap in reading strategy use. This finding suggests that teachers be
aware of gender differences in strategy use and identify the causes and take measures to
provide necessary opportunities for both genders in their classes. For example, teachers
should be aware of the contents of reading materials before using them in class, because
gender specific content influences readers’ comprehension of the texts (Brantimeier,
2003).
Based on the findings of this study, it can be recommended that reading strategy
instruction as supported by many researchers (e.g. Cohen 1998, 2000; McDonough 1999;
Nunan 1997, 1999; Carrell, 1998; Drucker, 2003; Karizak & Laleh, 2016) can be
implemented at the undergraduate level. It is sometimes assumed that if students can read
they should know how to read and gradually they can develop their reading skills and
therefore they do not need to teach the strategies of reading. But as Veraprasad (2006)
pointed out “while some reading skills can be caught, there are strategies that need to be
explicitly taught” (p. 78), it is important for teachers to teach certain strategies to
students. If students do not know a strategy they cannot use it. Even only knowing a
strategy does not help them; students need to know when and how to use it. In teaching
reading strategies, it is important for teachers to keep in mind that strategies should not be
taught separately. Strategies should be integrated into the process of reading lessons;
otherwise it will be difficult for students to use them during reading processes (Nunan,
1999).
On the other hand, the study could help students enhance their awareness of reading
strategies and improve reading comprehension skills. Because of increased awareness of
reading strategies, students can apply strategies skilfully while reading academic
materials and develop their reading skills and academic achievement as well (see
Mokhtari & Sheorey, 2002).
Again the findings of this study have important implications for material developers. In
Bangladesh undergraduate students suffer from lack of proper reading materials. As
Bashir (2005) comments that no universities in Bangladesh has developed reading
materials for their own students considering their needs and interests; a few universities
have compiled reading materials which are basically based on foreign sources. As a
result, students are faced with difficulties and lose interest in reading. The findings of this
study suggest that materials developers be aware of the content of materials and ensure
equal gender representation; otherwise this might affect students’ reading comprehension
and performances (see Brantimeier, 2003). Besides, they should consider the culture,
background knowledge and experiences of students. Moreover, the material developers
should consider the proficiency level of the target learners while developing materials.
Finally, the policy makers and curriculum designers can set the overall goals and
purposes of reading courses. If the target is to develop students as independent and
effective readers, it should be clearly pointed out in the course objectives and
implemented by teachers in their reading lessons. Students need to be involved in
planning, monitoring and evaluating of their reading performances which, as the results
120 Spectrum, Volume 12, 2016

of this study have revealed, was absent from the language classes of the participants.
Therefore, besides classroom teaching, extensive reading programmes can be organized
allowing students to choose reading materials of their own interests, monitor their reading
progresses and evaluate their own performances. Thus students can develop as
independent and effective readers.

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126 Spectrum, Volume 12, 2016

Appendix
The Questionnaire

Instructions
Please read the following statements about your reading of academic materials (such as
textbooks, reading comprehension passages, not newspapers or magazines). Put a tick
(√) mark in one box only for your answer of each statement. While answering keep these
in mind:
‘Always’ means that ‘I always or almost always do this’.
‘Usually’ means that ‘I usually do this.’
‘Sometimes’ means that ‘I sometimes do this.’
‘Occasionally’ means that ‘I do this only occasionally.’
‘Never’ means that ‘I never or almost never do this.’

Remember, this is not a test and there are no right or wrong answers. Answer according
to what you think you do while reading academic materials in English.

No Statements Al Usuall Ofte Some Never

ways y n times
1 Before reading, I look at the title and try
to guess what the text might be about.
2 I use my background knowledge and
relevant experiences to help understand
the reading materials.
3 I set my reading goals and purposes
before I read a text in English.
4 I make a plan how to complete the text
and how to do the reading tasks.
5 While reading, I guess the meaning of
unknown words or phrases from the
context.
6 While reading, I decide what to read
closely and what to ignore.
7 I use my knowledge of English
language and grammar to help
understand the text better.
8 When I read I translate from English
into Bangla for better understanding.
Ahmed Bashir 127

9 I use tables, figures, or pictures in the

text for better understanding.
10 I check the type (genre) and
organization of the text for better
comprehension.
11 I check to see if my guesses about the
text are right or wrong.
12 I use reference materials (e.g.
dictionaries, grammar books etc.) to
help me understand what I read.
13 I take notes of the important
expressions and ideas while reading to
help me understand what I read.
14 When reading, I think about
information in both English and Bangla.
15 I highlight (e.g. underline, circle) key
words and important information in the
text to help remember them.
16 I try to identify my reading problems
and plan various actions to solve them.
17 I use my knowledge of word structure,
prefixes and suffixes to understand the
meaning of words.
18 I double check my understanding when
I find any confusing and unclear
information.
19 I read the text loudly to help me
remember what I read.
20 I ask myself questions I like to have
answered in the text.
21 I stop from time to time and think about
what I am reading.
22 I reread the text to understand it better.
23 I try to find specific information and
main ideas by scanning and skimming.
24 I check my understanding when I come
across new information.
25 I paraphrase and make difficult words
and ideas easier in my own words to
better understand the text.
128 Spectrum, Volume 12, 2016

26 Before reading the text, I take a look at

the reading tasks.
27 I evaluate the difficulty level of the text
and change my reading speed
accordingly.
28 I check my concentration during
reading and try to give closer attention
when I lose concentration.
29 While reading, I remember the purposes
of reading the text.
30 I evaluate my overall understanding of
the text.
31 While reading, I pay more attention to
the meaning of each individual word.
32 When reading, I pay more attention to
the overall meaning of the text.
33 I look back and forward in the text to
find relationships among ideas in it.
34 I summarize the main ideas to better
understand the content of the text.
35 I evaluate the effectiveness of my
strategies I use while reading.
36 I evaluate my overall performances of
the reading tasks.
 3 C's of Student Writers' Identity Formation
Using Personal Language
Anjuman Ara*

Abstract
Personal language is commonly used in formal writing contexts such as written
examinations, in particular when student writers want to present their argument and
personal opinions, suggesting their perspective, voice and identity. A poor
management of using personal language, however, may affect the relevance,
consistency and clarity of students' composition, making it difficult for a reader, that
is, the examiner, to follow their position as a writer. The analysis of 181 examination
scripts of the Second and Eighth semester students of the Department of English in
the University of Dhaka revealed that student writers often overlook three important
principles or aspects of identity formation using personal language, namely context,
consistency and clarity, which I term 3 C's of writers' identity formation. Because of
the poor management of the 3 C's by the students, both their identity and
composition become very incoherent and incohesive to the required tasks. This
paper, therefore, draws implications for students, teachers and concerned book
writers to be aware of the potential problems and follow certain techniques to help
students maintain their writer perspective and identity using personal language.
Keywords: personal language; identity; perspective; restricted, personal analytic and
formal analytic writing tasks; context, consistency and clarity.

Introduction
For long identity has been perceived as a given and fixed entity of human beings. But the
constructivists (e.g. Street, 1983; Butler, 1990; Kidd, 2002; Ivanič, 2006) argue that
identity is rather formed and performed by the self and that the construction of identity is
a continuous process. Following this constructivist viewpoint, I use identity and
perspective in this paper synonymously to refer to the voice, stand, position or point of
view that the writer expresses in his/her writing. For example, when the writer takes a
side of an argument and expresses ideas and opinions, the writer expresses his/her
perspective, thus, performing his/her identity.
The establishment of a perspective, forming writer identity, can be both subjective and
objective, according to the use of resources – linguistic and conceptual. The linguistic
resources, as the name suggests, include the use of language such as personal reference,
active and passive expressions, and so on. The conceptual resources are concerned with
the content of the text, including a writer’s personal and/or generally perceived values,
experiences and observations. In this respect, a perspective becomes subjective when the
writer uses personal language including personal pronouns (e.g. 'I', 'we'), possessive
determiners (e.g. 'my', 'our') and possessive pronouns (e.g. 'mine', 'ours') and personal

*
Assistant Professor, Department of English, University of Dhaka
130 Spectrum, Volume 12, 2016

concepts including individual and/or collective perceptions. On the other hand, if the
writer uses impersonal language including impersonal pronouns (e.g. 'it'), passive
expressions and generalized collective beliefs, hiding the writer's personal voice, the
writer expresses an objective perspective, performing an objective identity.
For a long time the subjective expression of writer perspective in formal writing has been
discouraged by arguing that it reduces the degree of formality of the composition and
gives readers little space for their independent thinking. Williams (2006: 710), for
example, notes that effective academic writing has been perceived for long as “objective,
analytical and impersonal” so that readers are not “influenced or biased by the identity of
the writer”. The constructivist view of identity, however, eventually changed the notion
and opined that formal or academic writing should not be necessarily objective.
Following this view, Gemmell (2008: 64) suggests encouraging students' voice in literary
essays by providing their personal opinions and ideas instead of reproducing notebooks
and lectures because otherwise their writing becomes "robot writing" and loses its
liveliness. Williams (2006: 710) has argued about similar points that academic writing
does not mean hiding the writer self "behind the curtain". In his opinion, academic
writers cannot help being subjective and emotional because knowledge is a "cultural
construction" by which he means that knowledge is developed in and varies according to
cultural contexts such as gender, age and so on (ibid. 711). Both Gemmell and Williams
have focused on a very important point that academic writing should not be seen as
detached and cold, and that writers should be straightforward and willing to express their
personal ideas whenever necessary.
As far as the use of language is concerned with expressing writer voice, perspective and
identity, scholars following the constructivist viewpoint have emphasized using personal
language in academic writing. Williams (2006: 713), however, cautions that using
subjective language, performing subjective identity in academic writing, does not merely
mean using personal pronouns such as rhetorical 'I'. According to Williams (2006) and
Gemmell (2008), writer's choice of expressing viewpoints is a matter of contextual
relevance. In other words, the topics or foci of the concerned writing task determine the
use of language and the expression of writer's identity. Gemmell (2008: 64), for example,
noticed in her study that students used subjective elements when they were required to
react to literary texts and author's ideas. In her words (ibid.: 64):
I got more passionate and convincing arguments from students when I asked
them to write about their connections and reactions to texts and their themes
rather than when I asked them to write about character analysis, tone, and
symbolism, for example.
While both subjective and objective elements of language and concepts are expected in
students’ writing to establish their identity, studies carried out among students in different
contexts (e.g. Williams 2006; Gemmell 2008; Brisk 2012) showed that students often
face problems when using personal language and concepts to establish their perspective
and identity. On the one hand, most students perceive academic writing as detached and
dry, and hence avoid using personal language and concepts, thus hiding their voice; on
the other hand, some students become so passionate to express their voice that they
overlook important points such as appropriacy and relevance of using personal language
Anjuman Ara 131

and concepts in academic writing. As an examiner of English Department in the

University of Dhaka, I have observed similar problems among many of our students. In
particular, I have noticed three such important areas of problems, namely context,
consistency and clarity of language use, which I term 3 C's principles of writers' identity
formation, and a poor management of which suggests an incoherent and incohesive
identity construction of our student writers. The discussion includes implications for
teachers, students and book writers to recognize the principles of identity formation using
personal language and adopt strategies for effective management of students' writer
identity. Although I focus primarily on the students of English Department, University of
Dhaka, I believe that (English language) teachers and students of other institutions will
find the discussion useful because my teaching experiences in other departments and
universities in Bangladesh and the studies on EFL/ESL learners in other cultural contexts
(e.g. Brisk 2012) have reflected similar problems.

Writing tasks and student writer's identity

Both Marshall (1987) and Gemmell (2008) have found in their studies that student
writers’ choice of linguistic and conceptual resources, performing their identity, largely
depends on the types of writing tasks that the students are required to do. Following
Marshall (1987: 30), I have categorized the writing tasks given in our teaching context
into three major types: “restricted”, “personal analytic” and “formal analytic”. For
illustrations, I have drawn on the Bachelor of Arts syllabus followed at the Department of
English in the University of Dhaka.
Restricted writing tasks
These tasks require students to respond to the textual information they have studied.
Marshall (1987) categorized restricted writing tasks into three types: descriptive,
interpretive and generalized. Descriptive tasks are those which ask students, for example,
to describe the setting of a play or the features of human language, to compare the
features of stylistics and traditional literary criticism, among others. For interpretive
tasks, (e.g. “What do you think led Tess to kill Alec in Thomas Hardy’s novel Tess of the
D'Urbervilles?”) students draw inferences about the textual information. The generalized
tasks (e.g. “Do you think Tess was right to kill Alec?”) ask students to make judgements
of the information in the text.
It is notable that both interpretive and generalized tasks may require using subjective
elements because making inferences and judgements may be personal and vary by
students' culture, knowledge, personal beliefs, etc. Nevertheless, the expected perspective
is mostly objective because students depend on the textual evidence, rather than their
personal anecdotal experiences, for their interpretations and generalizations. In other
words, while these tasks may involve using subjective linguistic resources, the conceptual
resources are mainly objective.
Personal analytic writing tasks
The personal writing tasks include critical questions which require students to respond to
an author’s ideas and arguments from their individual and/or collective subjective
viewpoints. In other words, students here not only recall the information and facts
132 Spectrum, Volume 12, 2016

provided in the text or theory, but analyze the textual information by drawing on their
experiential, observational and cultural knowledge and information. As far as the use of
language is concerned, these writing tasks are involved with using personal language
such as personal pronouns. The following questions, for example, ask for more critical
and explicit personal responses from students about the themes and arguments of the
texts and theories in question:
a) How did you feel after reading the story ‘Shooting an Elephant’ by George Orwell?
b) Between Behavourist and Innatist theories of language learning, which theory do
you find more convincing for your language teaching context? Explain with
reference to your language learning experiences.
c) Describe your favourite place.
All of the tasks above ask students to make connections between what they have read or
what they are familiar with and what contextual or situational experiences they have. As
a result, both the presentations of conceptual and linguistic perspectives are subjective.
Formal analytic writing tasks
These writing tasks are also concerned with responding critically to the text; however,
these are more explanatory and exploratory for which students use evidence from the
text, and not personal experience, to support their argument. For example, the following
writing task requires students to critically respond to the author’s ideas by using two
reading texts as evidence.
a) Comment on Adrienne Rich’s portrayal of women’s lives in the two poems you
have read.
In brief, the main differences among the three types of writing tasks are one of degree or
quantity: how much space students have for using personal language and anecdotal
examples in their writing. Unlike personal analytic writing tasks which are subjective in
terms of both linguistic and conceptual resources, restricted and formal analytic tasks are
mostly objective. Nonetheless, students may use some subjective elements, personal
language in particular, in their restricted and formal analytic tasks according to the
context. For example, when evaluating Tess’s murder of Alec or making comments on
Rich’s portrayal of women’s lives, students can personalize their answers by using
personal language (e.g. “I think”, “I assume”, “like/unlike our women in Bangladesh”
and so on). It is notable that the writing tasks which are given to the students in my
teaching context often include two or all of the three types of writing tasks at a time for
one composition. For example,
a) Write an essay on the behaviourist view of language learning. What are the major
criticisms against this view? Which theoretical concepts do you think were
followed for teaching and learning of English in your school and college?
This question has three parts focusing on three different writing tasks: (i) restricted, (ii)
formal analytic, and (iii) personal analytic respectively. An answer to this question,
therefore, will combine both subjective and objective elements.
Anjuman Ara 133

Background to the study

I explored how the students of our department used personal linguistic and conceptual
expressions to present their argument in writing and how, if there was any, their use of
personal language and concepts influenced the performance of their identity. In brief, I
focused on the students' management of the correlations between language and identity in
their writing. The purpose was threefold: (i) recognizing the challenges that students face
about using personal language and forming identity, (ii) identifying important features or
principles of identity and language use, and (iii) drawing implications for teaching and
learning about language and identity.
I worked on two sets of data: examination scripts and respective question papers. The
examination scripts, which formed the main data, included respectively 26 Mid-Term
Examination scripts of the 2nd semester and 155 scripts of the 8th semester B. A. Honours
students (181 scripts in total). The courses were respectively Eng 104 (Advanced
Composition, currently titled Developing Writing Skills) and Eng 408 (Language through
Literature). The Eng 104 course aims to develop students’ understanding and skills of
writing well-structured essays and the Eng 408 to develop students’ awareness of the
language-based approaches to using literature in ELT.
The examination scripts were produced in response to the questions given in the Mid-
Term Examinations held in 2014. The second set of my data, therefore, included the
question papers of the respective courses. The Eng 104 paper asked for four types of
writing tasks in the examination: (i) correcting informal features of individual sentences,
(ii) writing a topic sentence and a concluding sentence based on a given topic “Good
movies”, (iii) writing four supporting sentences based on a given topic sentence, and (iv)
writing a five-paragraph descriptive essay on either “A rickshaw puller” or “Your
favourite place in the University of Dhaka”. From Eng 104, I analyzed only the essays
because the other writing tasks were concerned with writing individual sentences. From
Eng 408, however, I focused on all answers by the students because they wrote short
answers on any three of the given five questions.
Data analysis
Data analysis involved two steps. In the first place, following Marshall’s (1987)
categorization of writing tasks, I labeled the questions of the Mid-Term Examinations as
restricted, personal analytic and formal analytic questions.

Table 1: Eng 104 Questions

Write a descriptive essay on any one of the following topics:
a) A rickshaw puller
b) Your favourite place in the University of Dhaka

The first topic, which asked the students to describe and give readers an image of a
rickshaw puller, falls into the category of a restricted writing task. The description was
supposed to be based on the students’ general observations as well as their Bangladeshi
cultural knowledge. The second topic, however, was a personal analytic task because the
134 Spectrum, Volume 12, 2016

students were required to relate to their personal experiences and observations about the
place of the university they would write about.

Table 2: Eng 408 Questions

Write short answers to any three of the following:
a) Between stylistics and traditional literary criticism, which approach do you
think facilitates learner autonomy more? Explain with examples.
b) How is stylistics related to structuralism?
c) Briefly define with examples ‘foregrounding’ and ‘deviation’. How are these
two terms related to stylistics?
d) What are the general steps of stylistic analysis? Explain with examples.
e) By following a stylistic approach, briefly analyze the following lines taken
from a play:
Listen, Torvald, from what I've heard, when a wife leaves her husband's house
as I am doing now, he is absolved by law of all responsibility for her. I can at
any rate free you from all responsibility. You must not feel in any way bound,
any more than I shall. There must be full freedom on both sides. Look, here's
your ring back. Give me mine.

In Eng 408, the first four questions were restricted. The first question was primarily a
generalized writing task in which students had scopes to be personal to some extent by
drawing on their experiences and/or by using personal language. Then both the second
and third questions involved interpreting certain information that the students had studied
about stylistics. The fourth question asked students to describe (with illustrations for
evidence) the steps of stylistic analysis. Finally, the last question was a formal analytic
task because students were required to think, draw on their knowledge of language and
stylistics and analyze a given text from a particular approach, namely stylistics.
After labeling the questions, in the second step of my data analysis, I analyzed student
answers produced in response to the questions. Some of the major points I looked into the
writing for analysis were as follows:
i. How did the students begin and finish their answers? Were they consistent?
ii. How did they develop the middle part of their answers? Did the answer make a
unified whole?
iii. What linguistic and conceptual resources did they use and when? Were these
relevant, appropriate and clearly explained?
iv. Did they shift their position/viewpoint from objectivity to subjectivity and vice
versa? When and how? Was it appropriate to and necessary for the required
tasks?
In brief, I analyzed both linguistic and conceptual resources used in the students' answers.
For the former, I looked at the linguistic markers at lexical, syntactic and discourse
Anjuman Ara 135

levels, including transition between paragraphs. For the latter, I looked at the use of the
students’ anecdotal and cultural experiences and observations. Accordingly, I labeled
their writing as subjective and objective. Then I categorized the writing into three groups,
namely contextually relevant, consistent and clear, and sorted out those scripts in which I
noticed problems in the presentation of perspective. From 181 scripts of the 2nd and 8th
semesters, I found respectively eight and forty five scripts, that had some problems with
the expression of writer perspective, which is discussed in the following section.

Personal language and identity: 3 C's challenges for student writers

The analysis of student writing offers important data about the challenges of expressing
writer perspective using personal language, suggesting the principles of maintaining
appropriate correlations between language and identity. I have grouped the challenges
into 3 C's principles: context, consistency and clarity.
Challenge 1: Maintaining context
By context, I refer to the required foci of the writing tasks. For example, personal analytic
topics such as “Your favourite place in the University of Dhaka” make subjective identity
formation appropriate and relevant while restricted and formal analytic tasks require a
more objective approach, making the subjective approach relevant for illustrations and
explanations, if necessary. Bernstein's (1971 in Mladenova 2003: 12) distinction between
context-independent and context-dependent language use is notable here. The former
refers to those uses which are anaphoric and/or shared in common knowledge and hence
can be understood without any knowledge of the context of the situation. The latter, on
the other hand, refers to those which are exophoric and cannot be understood without
clear knowledge of the context. In the latter case, writers should relate their discussion to
the context by following the relevance of the topic and by not leaving things for readers
to assume.
The present study reveals that students face challenges to identify the context of
relevance of the foci in questions and use (personal) language accordingly. For example,
students became completely objective when they were required to be subjective and vice
versa. When writing a five-paragraph essay on a personal topic such as “Your favourite
place in the University of Dhaka”, some of the Second semester students adopted an
objective approach and avoided using personal language in their entire essay. One of the
students, for example, wrote an introduction in the following way:
Dhaka University is one of the reputed universities in Bangladesh. There are
many beautiful places in this university. Among them Teacher-Student
Centre (TSC) is a wonderful place. TSC is a wonderful place because it is an
important meeting place of the students, and it has a nice auditorium and a
cafeteria.
In this introduction, the contextual relevance of the topic was entirely overlooked because
it was not clearly mentioned if the choice of the place as 'favourite' was the writer's own
or if the place was/is generally considered popular by most of the students and people of
the university. The absence of personal language and concepts made the composition
very objective, detached and inappropriate for this particular topic because the word
136 Spectrum, Volume 12, 2016

'your' in the topic explicitly asked for the student’s personal opinion, making it a personal
analytic task. If the topic had been formulated as "A popular place in the University of
Dhaka", an objective perspective as above would have been appropriate. A major
problem I found with such introduction was that in order to be consistent in the rest of the
essay, the writer had deliberately avoided the use of personal reference, mostly the first
person reference such as 'I' and 'my', which was essential for the essay. One of the body
paragraphs by the same writer was as follows:
Firstly, TSC is the most crucial place for the students. When students face
any problems with their studies, they come here and discuss their problems.
They also discuss new ideas and information. Therefore, TSC is an important
meeting place for the students.
From this body paragraph, it was not clear if the writer was a student of the university
who visited TSC now and then or a reporter who as a catalyst gave information about
TSC. The identity of the writer was thus made objective, but obscure, detached and
contextually inappropriate. Also, the writer did not depict pictures of where in TSC
students used to go and how the place looked or sounded like when students gathered to
study or discuss issues. The visual and auditory images, which were supposed to be
drawn from the student's personal experiences and which were vital to enhance the
description, were absent in this writing. As a result, the entire essay lacked the relevance
of topic. This particular student seems to believe in the traditional teaching of academic
writing as purely objective, impersonal and detached. Williams (2006: 713) observed this
attitude among many students and teachers and claimed, "we more often teach them
(students) to believe that intellectual and academic work is dry, cold, and detached from
emotion and identity."
Although emotion is connected with writer's identity formation, its expression should be
relevant and appropriate to the required task. For example, some Eng 104 students
answered even the restricted question very subjectively and emotionally, overlooking the
relevance of context for using personal language and information. It has been already
mentioned that the use of personal language is not exclusive to personal question items
since students can provide their personal comments and judgements when answering to
restricted and formal analytic questions. Nevertheless, too many references to personal
experiences may move the writer away from his/her focus. For example, the writing task
like describing a rickshaw puller was a restricted and context-independent type of
question which required students to base their description on their knowledge, not
necessarily on their personal anecdotal experiences, about rickshaw pullers. If a writer
wished to mention any incidents from his/her experience for creating an image of the
rickshaw puller, s/he could do so very briefly and if only relevant. But some students
wrote so much about their personal experiences that their descriptive essay turned into a
narrative one.
Again, a number of the eighth semester students used phrases such as "I think" to start
their answer which was unnecessary for the question as follows:
Anjuman Ara 137

Question:
Between traditional literary criticism and stylistics, which approach do you think
facilitates learner autonomy more? Explain with examples.
Student response:
I think stylistics facilitates learner autonomy most.
The use of the phrase "I think" seems unnecessary for this question because this was a
restricted and context-independent writing task which did not require overt use of first
person pronouns. However, as mentioned earlier, students might use personal language
for illustrations, if only relevant. It is notable here that among the questions of Eng 408,
only this question stated above used the phrase "do you think". The students who started
their answer with "I think" seem to be influenced by the explicit mention of the phrase
"do you think". Although the phrase "do you think" required writer's opinion, the writer
was mainly asked to provide arguments in favour of any of the two approaches or may be
both. Unlike the topic "Your favourite place", an absence of first person reference was
not essential for this restricted question because the content would be sufficient for the
argument, expressing writer's identity and position. Using first person references would
be relevant when illustrating from personal experiences such as the influence of the
approach followed in school or college. Moreover, the statement (i.e. the student
response) functions as the writer's thesis by addressing the focus of the question and
clarifying the writer's position. Hence, formulating the thesis with "I think" was
unnecessary. Moreover, the use of "I think" as an opener of a thesis statement makes the
writing colloquial and spoken-like. The statement would have been more precise and
straightforward without the phrase. Regarding overt and explicit use of personal
language, Williams (2006: 712-713) argues that "identity is always (italics original)
present in academic writing" and that "identity in writing in academic settings is about
more than whether the writer uses a personal pronoun" because of the conceptual
expressions used by the writer. In this respect, even if the students (of Eng 408) did not
use any explicit personal expressions such as “I think”, it was possible for them to
perform their identity by choosing between stylistics and traditional critics and providing
explanations and examples accordingly as evidence to support their answer.
Challenge 2: Maintaining consistency
Coherence and cohesion are distinctive markers of formal or academic writing.
Consistency in using language and forming identity, therefore, is important for producing
a unified text. However, the present study reveals that maintaining consistency can be a
big challenge for students. Many student writers were inconsistent in expressing their
perspective because they started and developed their composition from an objective
viewpoint, but finished from a subjective personal viewpoint and vice versa. I have
already mentioned that the writing tasks given in my teaching context often include two
or all of the three types of tasks at a time. Moreover, an answer to the restricted and the
formal analytic questions may include both objective and subjective elements according
to the context. For example, in response to the Eng 408 question on "traditional literary
criticism and stylistics", the students who adopted either an objective or a subjective
approach throughout their answer successfully maintained consistency in terms of both
138 Spectrum, Volume 12, 2016

content and language. However, the students who tried to use both subjective and
objective language elements became inconsistent in their shift between the approaches.
These students made writer’s subjective voice explicit by using phrases such as "I think"
at the very beginning of their essays. But the subjective voice was missing in the
supporting paragraphs and/or in the conclusion, thus making their perspective
inconsistent. In some of the other students’ writing, their personal individual voice
appeared suddenly in the middle of their essay, and then disappeared entirely or appeared
too late only in the last sentence of their conclusion. Thus, most of the students failed to
be consistent in using linguistic and conceptual resources to form their identity.
A major problem with an inconsistent presentation of perspective is that readers are too
often lost and have to struggle to find connections and follow the writer's viewpoint. For
example, when the reader finds personal language in the introduction, s/he becomes
prepared to find the same, including personal experiences, in the rest of the essay.
Similarly, when the introduction excludes personal language, the reader becomes
prepared for an objective response, and expects any personal experiential response in the
body paragraphs of the essay if only relevant. But this expectation is hampered when the
writer does not continue using personal language and/or when the writer uses personal
language again only at the end in the conclusion.
Challenge 3: Maintaining clarity
Maintaining clarity of personal pronouns is very crucial in formal writing to form and
perform the identity of the writer and of the audience/readers. Brisk (2012) argues that an
explicit use of grammatical person (e.g. first person) helps writers clarify their content
because unlike face-to-face interactions writers do not have the privilege of direct contact
with the readers to explain their points. But maintaining clarity was another challenge for
a number of students who very often failed to clarify their choices between the first
person pronouns 'I' and 'we' when expressing a subjective viewpoint. Although the
singular pronoun 'I' clearly identifies the writer himself/herself, the pronoun 'we' is often
difficult for a reader to understand which group of people the writer identifies
himself/herself with. To answer a question like comparing the characteristics of human
and animal language, if the writer uses 'we' in the composition, readers can understand
with the help of their world schema that the writer refers to the human race in general
rather than the animal species. The readers also understand that the writer is expressing a
common human perspective towards animal communication system. However,
sometimes it is difficult for a reader to follow writer perspective and understand whether
the experiences mentioned in the text are personal (individual) or general (collective)
because the use of the pronouns is highly context-bound, exophoric and
ambiguous. Take, for instance, the following responses of three students:
Student response 1:
Tiger is a symbol of power and energy which we know from our world schema.
Student response 2:
We can conclude that. ....
Student response 3:
Anjuman Ara 139

Stylistics focuses on the language provided in the text. For example, we can
explain it.
Student response 4:
A rickshaw puller is poor, so we should help him.

In the first two responses, it is easy to identify the context of the use of the first person
plural pronoun 'we': the writer refers to human race in general, including her readers, who
share a common view. But in the third and the fourth sentences, it is ambiguous and
difficult to understand who the pronoun 'we' refers to. Also, the clause "We can conclude
that" seems unnecessary to write because there are many formal cohesive devices such as
"in conclusion", "to conclude", and so on to mark a formal end of writing. In the case
above, the writer could have started the concluding sentence with any of the formal
cohesive devices and restated the thesis statement.

Implications
The analysis of student answers reveals that identity formation using personal language is
connected with the required writing tasks and that context, consistency and clarity of
(personal) language use function as three important aspects of forming and performing
identity in formal writing. These three features which I term 3 C's can be a big challenge
for our students to follow because while some of the students are influenced by the
traditional view of avoiding personal language and hiding personal voice and identity,
some others are very keen to an emotional and personal response regardless of the
required writing tasks; again, some others seem to integrate personal and impersonal
language elements and concepts whimsically and inconsistently disregarding the topic or
context of writing. It seems that many of our students are not aware or well informed
about the correlations between language and identity in writing. Teachers, students and
book writers, therefore, have a role to play for developing the students’ awareness and
management of their identity and perspective in writing.
Teachers should draw students' attention to the correlation between the types of writing
tasks and the choice of linguistic and conceptual resources. Brisk (2012) argues that one
of the reasons why students fail to maintain using language according to the genre is that
they are given instructions mostly about organization of content, but very little about the
choice of language. Brisk (ibid.) opines that teachers should inform students about the
use of grammatical person. For example, to help students with forming identity through
personal and impersonal language according to the given writing tasks, teachers can
illustrate techniques for prewriting, namely identifying key words or phrases,
categorizing questions as restricted, personal analytic and formal analytic. For practice,
the teacher and the students may bring sample question papers of previous years or
semesters and practice analyzing them. If this is a writing class or course such as Eng 104
(Developing Writing Skills), teachers may give students an assignment to answer one of
those questions. Students will eventually be aware of the inseparable connection between
language and identity. In addition to discussions, teachers can give students feedback on
their presentation of perspective in writing including assignments, examination scripts
and so on. It is generally agreed that constructive and corrective feedback are very
140 Spectrum, Volume 12, 2016

helpful for students to become aware and take care of their problems (Schmidt 1990;
Nassaji and Swain 2000; Hedge 2000). A rubric may be helpful in this respect to
illustrate the areas of students' strengths and weaknesses. As part of both class
discussions and feedback, teachers should suggest students some strategies for relevant,
consistent and clear presentations of perspective and thus performing their identity with
clarity in writing. Teachers can inform students about the following techniques in this
regard.
First, students should analyze the types of questions before writing so that they know
to what extent they have to be subjective and objective. This is the prewriting session
in which they think, generate ideas and take decisions about their perspective. For
this, they can underline the key words, phrases and clauses of the questions.
Secondly, the writers should be relevant and consistent in expressing their
perspective so that the reader is not lost, but finds links throughout the essay.
Students should be aware of when and where to use personal language and draw on
their experiences in their writing.
Thirdly, when using 'we', the writers should clarify the identity of the concerned
group of people. For this, they can rephrase their expressions. For example, instead of
an ambiguous expression of 'we', the writer can rephrase it as "readers", "students",
"visitors", and so on according to the context of reference. Using appositives is also
effective because these immediately clarify the identity of the person(s) involved. For
example, "We, the students, find this place very wonderful".
Finally, students should develop a habit of extensive reading and writing. Extensive
reading is very effective because students get exposure to different types of language
use according to different contexts. If students remain aware during reading, they
may notice variation in language use in terms of word choice, syntax, etc and may
apply the same in their own writing. In this respect, practicing writing is equally
essential. A person cannot be a good writer unless s/he practices writing a lot.

In brief, while teachers need to inform students about the importance of a contextually
relevant, consistent and unambiguous use of language elements and concepts for a clear
and reader-friendly formation of writer identity, students should remain careful about the
correlations between language and identity and apply strategies effectively according to
the context and foci of the required writing tasks.
In addition to the implications for explicit instructions, (in-house or local) book writers
should target at raising students' language awareness about the correlations between
language and identity. Book writers should discuss with illustrations and exercises what
language elements are related to the different types of writing tasks such as description,
comparison, narration, persuasion, and so on and how the choice of language impacts the
identity of the writer in formal writing. Some of the exercises might include filling in the
gaps, matching, completing sentences, editing and evaluating sample written texts, all
asking students to work exclusively on the use of personal language.
Anjuman Ara 141

Conclusion
According to the types of writing tasks such as restricted, personal analytic and formal
analytic questions, student writers express their perspective by following a subjective
and/or objective approach. The expressions become different according to the writer’s
use of language and his/her individual, collective and general experiences and
observations.
Based on my analysis of 181 Mid-Term examination scripts of the 2nd and 8th semester
students of the English Department, I found three major problems in students’ writing
with expressing their perspective and identity: (i) lack of contextual relevance of the foci
required in the questions, (ii) inconsistent expressions of subjective and objective
perspectives, and (iii) ambiguous and irrelevant expressions of personal pronouns. The
analysis of the problems emphasize three important principles, namely context,
consistency and clarity termed 3 C's of using language and forming identity as writers.
Some of the techniques that may help the students maintain their perspective and identity
in writing are as follows: (i) analyzing and labeling writing tasks as restricted, personal
analytic and formal analytic to know if and to what extent the required focus should be
subjective or objective; (ii) expressing perspective with a consistent, relevant and focused
use of personal and impersonal language and concepts; (iii) using appositives and
rephrasing expressions; and (iv) practicing extensive reading and writing. The role of the
teacher and book writers should be to make students aware of the correlations between
language and identity and help them adopt strategies for maintaining perspective and
forming identity in writing.

References
Bernstein, B. (1971). Class, Codes and Control. Vol 1: Theoretical Studies towards a Sociology of
Language. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Brisk, M. E. (2012). Young Bilingual Writers' Control of Grammatical Person in Different Genres.
The Elementary School Journal , 112(3), 445-468.
Butler, J. (1990). Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York:
Routledge.
Gemmell, R. (2008). Encouraging Student Voice in Academic Writing. The English Journal, 98
(2), 64-68.
Hedge, T. (2000). Teaching and Learning in the Language Classroom. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Ivanič, R. (2006). Language, learning and identification. In R. Kiely, P. Rea-Dickins, H.
Woodfield & G. Clibbon. (eds.) Language, Culture and Identity in Applied Linguistics.
London: Equinox Publishing, 7-29.
Kidd, W. (2002). Culture and Identity. New York: Palgrave.
Marshall, J. D. (1987). The effects of writing on students’ understanding of literary texts.
Research in the Teaching of English, 21(1), 30-63.
Mladenova, O. M. (2003). Language Use and Enforcement of Cultural Values. Canadian Slavonic
Papers / Revue Canadienne des Slavistes, 45(1/2), 11-45.
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Nassaji, H. and Swain, M. (2000). A Vygotskian Perspective on Corrective Feedback in L2: The
Effect of Random Versus Negotiated Help on the Learning of English Articles. Language
Awareness, 9(1), 34-51.
Schmidt, R. W. (1990). The Role of Consciousness in Second Language Learning. Applied
Linguistics, 11(2), 129-158.
Street, B. (1983). Culture is a verb: Anthropological aspects of language and cultural process. In
D. Geaddol, L. Thompson & M. Bryam. (eds.) Language and Culture. Clevedon: BAAL
and Multilingual Matters, 23-43.
Williams, B. T. (2006). Pay Attention to the Man behind the Curtain: The Importance of Identity
in Academic Writing. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 49(8), 710-715.
Banglish: Code-switching and Contact Induced Language
Change in a Spoken Variety of Bangla
Tanzina Tahereen*

Abstract
Banglish, mixing of Bangla-English, is a newly emerged spoken variety of Bangla
mostly used by the urban people in Bangladesh. Due to historical, political and
economic reasons, the presence of English induces a situation of code-switching
here. Based on the literatures of established connection between code-switching and
borrowing, this paper tries to indicate this popular tendency of Bangla-English code-
switching has given a new shape to the spoken variety of Bangla. In Banglish,
English origin single items are inserted in Bangla matrix after going through the
process of noun modification, pluralization, compound and conjunct verb
constructions, and phonological integration. Therefore, within the limited scope of
this paper , it attempts to identify the status of these English origin items in Bangla-
English mixed context in order to answer the question whether all these English
origin items are code switched or borrowed elements. Correspondingly, the degree of
morphological, syntactical and phonological integration of these items is applied as
diagnostics for verification. Finding this answer may help us to identify the status of
Banglish as a changed variety of Bangla as well. Only qualitative method is used to
analyze these spoken data collected from RJ talks of FM radio channels representing
the urban spoken variety.
Keyword: code-switching, borrowing, language change, Banglish

Introduction
Contact with other languages is a prominent factor to cause language situations of code
switching, borrowing and convergence to occur. Alternation between languages in
bilingual discourse is an obvious phenomenon which has been a significant and
interesting issue in bilingualism study during last decades (Samar & Meechan, 1998).
The processes in which these languages are being combined or alternated are also of an
important concern. Moreover, various manifestations of language alternations or
combinations are a way to language change in turn (Roseano, 2013). The intensity of the
contacts between two languages always ensures the possibility of contact induced
language change (Thomason-Kaufman, 1988). However, to find out the distinction
between different manifestations of language contact in particular has always been a
major problem (Samar & Meechan, 1998).
Bangla is an Indo Aryan language which descended from Sanskrit. It ranks 5th in terms of
the number of speakers among the world languages (Thompson, 2012). Bangla is the
native language in Bangladesh, and West Bengal in India. Its vocabulary is mostly
derived from Sanskrit, but it has a big portion of vocabulary borrowed from many other

*
Senior Lecturer, Department of English, East West University
144 Spectrum, Volume 12, 2016

languages such as, English, Dutch, Persian, Arabic, and Portuguese. But, after the British
colonization, English has been the most influential language for Bangla due to socio-
economical, educational and political reasons (Banu & Sussex, 2001). Not only a number
of vocabularies are incorporated in Bangla vocabulary summing up the Bangla tongue
set, but also various chunks and expressions are spontaneously integrated in daily
conversation. Moreover, English is a second language in Bangladesh, and its social status
is high. Because of its high prestige value, English is widespread in society, especially in
urban areas. During last decades, this spread is highly noticeable everywhere in the urban
society, and thus there emerges a new urban variety of Bangla i.e. Banglish, a mixture of
Bangla and English. Some questions arise: ‘What is Banglish’? ‘Is it a new variety of
English’? , or ‘Is it a blending language’? To be specific to answer, Banglish is a mixture
(not blend) of English and Bangla in which purely English words or phrases or clauses
are used within Bangla Matrix. Banglish is not blending as it refers to the process of
forming a word by shortening and combining various parts of different words (for
example, smoke+fog=smog) (Gries, 2004). Banglish does not include that process.
Moreover, Banglish is a spoken variety used by urban people who are usually bilingual;
however, the degree of bilingualism varies from person to person. As the media are
mostly responsible for spreading this variety and making it popular, it has become a
prevalent urban dialect even among the monolinguals; however, the social attitudes
towards it are mixed. The most significant feature of Banglish is code switching. A lot of
researches are done on this issue. Furthermore, it engages a number of English origin
words within its boundary. Along with ‘listed’or ‘attested’ (enlist in Bangla dictionary)
English words which are borrowed, there are some other ‘unlisted’ or ‘unattested’ (not
enlisted in Bangla dictionary) English origin words found in Banglish frequently.
Consequently, the focus of this paper is not to analyze the code switching patterns in
Banglish, but to identify the status of the ‘unlisted’ English origin single words which
have been addressed as code mixing in most of the studies (Alam, 2006; Hosain, 2014).
This paper analyzes these various English origin items, listed or unlisted, in Banglish to
find out the answer of this complicated question. However, most of the features of
Banglish overlap various forms of code-switching occurred in Bangla. Consequently, this
paper shows how some unattested (not enlisted in Bangla dictionary) English origin
single words can be reanalyzed and considered as borrowed items.
Moreover, though there arises a noteworthy question whether Banglish is an established
term or not, this paper does not address that question, rather it deals with the idea of how
code-switching contributes to language change or emergence of a new variety. Therefore,
the aim of this paper is to concentrate on the issue whether these English origin single
items are code-switched or borrowed items. Furthermore, to find out the answer, this
paper involves the diagnostics to distinguish between code-switching and borrowing in
order to identify the status of the English origin items in Banglish. As the limited scope
of this paper does not allow presenting the quantitative analysis/study, it engages the
strategies to identify the degree of integration of English origin words into Bangla in
order to exhibit the qualitative analysis. Thus, the study tries to show the level of
integration of these English origin items into Bangla mixed contexts by comparing those
with various cases in different situations. Therefore, the main quest in this paper is to
identify the status of ‘unattested’ or ‘unlisted’ English origin words in Banglish.
Tanzina Tahereen 145

In order to show a qualitative analysis by using some diagnostics, the paper uses the
obtained data in four contexts for drawing comparisons. First, the data in Banglish
represent the use of ‘listed’ or ‘attested’ English origin words with specific features.
Second, use of the ‘unlisted’ or ‘unattested’ English origin words with the same feature
are also shown in Banglish. The comparison between the function and the position of the
‘listed’ and ‘unlisted’ word is a significant factor to identify the status of English origin
items in utterances. Third, the same feature is shown by using the Bangla items in
unmixed Bangla contexts to realize the level of integration of the lone English words into
Banglish. Fourth, the same feature is shown in English unmixed context which helps to
identify how alienated behaviour these foreign items show to their own languages.

Theoretical Framework
The theoretical foundation of this paper establishes on the concept of borrowing and code
switching. Though both the terms are very close to each other in terms of functions and
roles, they are clearly distinct from each other in many respects. Setting an exact criterion
to distinguish between code-switching and borrowing have never been easy. Therefore, a
number of researches are done by using the variationist framework in order to show how
code switching is qualitatively and quantitatively different from borrowing (Meechan &
Poplack, 1995). But, the debates have not been resolved yet. The identity of single
foreign items in discourse still remains “ambiguous” (Samar & Meechan, 1998, p. 204).
However, it is uncontroversial that the inclusion of lexical item from one language into
another language occurs either in the form of borrowing or in the form of code switching.
According to Samar & Meechan (1998),
Lone items from one language may appear in another language without any
inflectional affixes and in syntactic positions consistent with either language,
making their identification as code-switching or borrowing even more
complicated (p. 205).
Borrowing and Code-switching
According to Haugen (1950), borrowing means adoption of an element from a second
language into a speaker’s language (cited in Poplack & Dion, 2012). In other words,
borrowing is a process in which speakers use linguistic elements from another language
and then, gradually transfer that element into their own language. Borrowing occurs when
a speaker, who is not necessarily bilingual, uses a single word of foreign origin within a
sentence in his own language. Such a word, though originally taken from a donor
language, is perceived as a part of the mental lexicon of the speaker’s own language
(Roseano, 2013). When certain linguistic elements are transferred, it is called lexical
borrowing or material borrowing, and the transfer of rules or grammatical structure refers
to structural borrowing. High intensity of language contact is required for structural
borrowing to take place than lexical borrowing (Thomason and Kaufman 1988; Myers-
Scotton1993;Haspelmath 2009) though some linguists think that structural borrowing
happens as a result of lexical borrowing (Haspelmath, 2009), and some think it is a result
of code switching (Myers-Scotton, 1992).
Moreover, code-switching has been variously defined as “the juxtaposition within the
same speech exchange of passages of speech belonging to two different grammatical
146 Spectrum, Volume 12, 2016

systems or subsystems” (Gumperz 1982, cited in Menfreidi, Senelle, & Tosco, 2015).
Matras, for his part, simply defines CSW (code-switching) as “the alternation of
languages within a conversation” (Matras 2009, cited in Menfreidi et al, 2015).
Moreover, Manfredi et al. (2015) define code-switching as “the presence of lexical or
sentential material belonging to different linguistic systems, provided that its different
origin is still transparent in the speaker’s output in one or more grammatical domains”
(2015, p. 4). This definition is clear enough to draw a distinction between code-switching
and borrowing. In addition, insertional or intra-sentential code-switching occurs at word
level in a sentence, or alternational or inter-sentential code switching occurs at sentence
or clause level.
Identifying differences between borrowing and code-switching
The context of Banglish, a new variety of Bangla, is completely consistent with MLF
(Matrix Language Framework) model in Mayer-Scotton research (1993). They try to
show in a code switching context, EL (Embedded Language) and ML (Matrix Language)
are mixed together, but the syntactic pattern is selected from ML, and the morphological
items are taken from EL in ML+ EL context. They also talk about secluded ML context
and EL context. Banglish is the perfect context from code-switching analysis that leads to
some contact induced language changes.
Before we start analyzing whether or not such inclusion of foreign items in Bangla is
code switching or borrowing, we have to analyze what the differences and likeness
between these two terms are. There are two different approaches regarding this
connection. First, a group of linguists consider that borrowing and code-switching are
two different phenomena (Poplack & Meechan, 1998), and the other group considers that
these are the part of one continuum where code-switching leads to borrowing, and plays
the role of incorporating new words into the recipient language (Myers-Scotton, 1993).
Though these two different approaches apparently seem to be opposite to each other, they
are basically parallel counterparts of the same issue.
In contrary to others, Matras (2009, cited in Manfredi et al., 2015) shows a bidirectional
continuum of code-switching (CSW) and borrowing (BORR) through a model
representing the relationship between two. Through this model, he argues that these two
notions are not different from each other theoretically. Rather, considering them as two
complete distinct phenomena is arbitrary (Mahootian, 1993, cited in Samar & Meechan,
1998). Nevertheless, Manfredi et al. (2011) illustrate some distinguishing criteria based
on theoretical and heuristic ground.
Moreover, Haspelmath (2009) says, the difference between code-switching and
borrowing is not a practical but a theoretical one. He mentions two possible approaches
through which these two terms can be distinguished, and these are ‘frequency of use’ and
‘degree of integration or adaptation’. The modification of the incompatible features of the
element from donor language in order to be assorted in the recipient language is called
integration or adaptation. A borrowed item can have various ‘degrees of adaptation’
which are determined by the duration of the use of loan words, the frequency of the usage
and the degree of bilingualism (Haspelmath, 2009). In other words, Poplack & Sankoff
(1984, cited in Stammars & Deuchar, 2012) explain the linguistic criteria referring to the
Tanzina Tahereen 147

level of morphological, phonological and syntactic integration of the foreign lone items,
and usage-based criteria referring to the rate of the usage of those terms in recipient
language. All of them also accept that these criteria are not applicable to all classes of
loan words, and applicability of these does not always prove the status of the items.
Furthermore, the Null Theory of Code switching (NTCS) which does not believe that
there are any grammatical constraints to code-switching (Mahootian, 1993, cited in
Samar & Meechan, 1998), does not find it necessary to distinguish between code-
switching and borrowing as long as they do not behave in a different way (Samar &
Meechan, 1998). Though this concept opposes the theoretical belief of Nonce Borrowing
(occurrence of foreign items once by one or two speakers), it does not want to distinguish
between code switching and borrowing based on the criterion how much widespread and
frequent they are in the recipient language. Rather, considering them two complete
distinct phenomena is arbitrary (Mahootian, 1993, p. 57, cited in Samar & Meechan,
1998). Also, many linguists argue that there is no need to have a concept like nonce
borrowing, and this concept is unnecessary to them (Stammers & Deuchar, 2012) because
it is not logical to distinguish between borrowing and code switching based on one
example (Samar & Meechan, 1998). However, at one point, both NBH (Nonce
Borrowing Hypothesis) and NTCS (Null Theory of Code-switching) agree, and that is on
the occurrence of the lone item as noun. Lone nouns and original nouns appear in the
same structure in the recipient language though NBH (Nonce Borrowing Hypothesis)
also mentions the rate of occurrence (Samar & Meechan, 1998).
All these theoretical investigations provide with qualitative and quantitative factors which
can be used as probable diagnostics of differentiating between code switching and
borrowing.
First, morphological integration is a significant factor. The definition of code-switching
that Malfredi et al. (2015) provide with, expresses that borrowing and code switching are
different in terms of their level of morphological integration of the foreign elements in
the recipient language. They add, the origin of donor language item in recipient language
is not the determiner of code switching or borrowing, rather their condition in the
recipient language decides whether these are borrowed or code switched. Every borrowed
item may not have the same degree of integration; it may be lower or higher. As
Mahootian notes (cited in Samar & Meechan, 1998), borrowed items are easily integrated
into the grammatical structure of the host language, and disembodied from their own
grammar (1993, cited in Samar & Meechan, 1998).
Second, borrowed items are usually phonologically different. These items in recipient
language carry some modified phonological features distinct from the original items in
donor language. Moreover, phonological integration is a noteworthy diagnostic to
identify the status of a foreign lone item in recipient language because some level of
phonological change is necessary, but it is not necessary for code switching to happen.
However, many linguists do not consider phonological integration a reliable criterion to
distinguish between borrowing and code switching because there remains a possibility for
the code-switched elements to be influenced by the phonology of native language as well
(Poplack, 2012; Poplack & Dion, 2012; Melfredi. et al. 2011).
148 Spectrum, Volume 12, 2016

Nevertheless, there still remains a setback with morphological and phonological

integration because intra-sentential code-switching may also have phonological and
morphological integration in the recipient language. “The individual outcomes of intra-
sentential code-switching and borrowing may appear similar on the surface, particularly
when the other language items are single word ‘lone items’” (Samar & Meechan, 1998).
Third, for code switching, the speakers need to have knowledge of two languages though
it is not necessary to be equally proficient in both. At least, some knowledge of two
languages is necessary. However, for borrowing it is not essential. Contact between two
languages is surely required to cause borrowing, but monolinguals can easily necessitate
lexical borrowing without knowing the donor language at all (Manfredi et al 2011;
Haspelmath, 2009). According to Poplack (2001), “The stock of established loanwords is
available to monolingual speakers of the recipient language, who access them normally
along with the remained of the recipient-language lexicon” (p. 3). However, if there is
much possibility of language contact in a community, the borrowing is quick and
magnitude there (Roseano, 2013).
Fourth, pragmatic factors are also significant. According to Malfredi et al. (2015), a
noteworthy factor to differentiate between code switching and borrowing is a pragmatic
factor which refers to the choice of the speakers for specific item reflecting the social and
psychological values shared in the same community. This factor does not work for
borrowing since it does not require the bilingual community, and is not the result of the
choice of the speakers influenced by social and psychological issues. However, it does
not mean that borrowing does not occur with bilingualism.
Fifth, Muysken (2000, cited in Stammers & Deuchar, 2012, p. 632) proposes the notion
of ‘listedness’, that “refers to the degree to which a particular element or structure is part
of a memorized list which has gained acceptance within a particular speech community”.
In many studies, ‘listedness’ works as a significant variable to differentiate between
borrowed and code-switched elements. Many oppose the idea of ‘listedness’ saying that
there are many unlisted borrowed items which are perfectly integrated and frequently
used in the recipient languages (Stammer & Deuchar, 2012 , Samar and Meechan, 1998),
however, they agree it is difficult to identify which unlisted foreign single word is
borrowed. They term them as ‘ambiguous’ (Samar & Meechan, 1998, p. 204).
Sixth, though there are many debates considering ‘the use of frequency’ as a diagnostic,
many studies apply this criterion to distinguish between borrowed and code-switched
items. However, it was not the only criterion to do so. According to Stammers & Deuchar
(2012), the degree of integration of an item and the use of frequency are connected to the
level of integration that increases gradually with the rate of frequency of the usage. They
deny the concept of nonce borrowing as it claims to have the same level of integration for
frequent and non-frequent words (2012). It can be a significant criterion but cannot work
as the sole criterion for identifying the real status.
Tanzina Tahereen 149

The Study
Research Question
This study is mainly based on one basic research question:
“Are the ‘unattested’ or ‘unlisted’ English origin lone words in Banglish borrowed or
code-switched?”
The quest for identifying the status of English lone words in Banglish may lead to the
edge of establishing the impact of contact induced language change. An intense
continuous contact of English with Bangla has given a rise to a new spoken variety
Banglish. However, the question does not arise with the ‘listed’ English origin lone
words as they are already attested with Bangla. The uncertain position of ‘unlisted’
English origin lone words is the key to identify the impact of this contact induced
language change though there are lots of controversies. In spite of having all these
debates, this paper tries to come up with a temporary answer of the research question
based on the limited obtained data.
Data Collection Procedure
The data are mostly the recordings of some FM shows (RJ talk and listeners talk)
representing the urban society in Bangladesh. As the young generation mostly uses this
variety, these RJ talks and FM shows reflect that, too. These recordings contain the
Banglish variety perfectly. The duration of the total recordings is 5 hours, and in order to
analyze the written transcripts most of these recordings are prepared. Sentences
containing English-origin words, attested/listed and unattested/unlisted, are randomly
selected from those transcripts/recordings for the comparisons. To confirm the
‘listedness’ of English-origin words, the Bangla Academy dictionary has been used.
Criteria for Identification
As it is already mentioned, the paper does not show any quantitative analysis, it does not
present any percentage or rate of the occurrence of the listed and unlisted items in
recipient language. Besides, presenting any numerical information based on such a small
amount of data does not contribute significantly to the analysis while the investigation is
qualitative. Therefore, it focuses on the qualitative analysis only by identifying the degree
of integration of the English origin items in the obtained data. In order to identify this, the
method of Samar and Meechan (1998), and that of Poplack and Dion (2012) are partially
adopted. So, among all the diagnostics, this paper applies the morphological and
phonological integration as the prime diagnostics to identify the status of the English
origin lone items in Bangla. This analysis focuses on the morphological integration of
noun and verbs in the variety, and the phonological integration of those items. Like all
other studies, this also concentrates on the noun which is the highest borrowable item in
the ‘hierarchy of borrowibility’ (Poplack, Sankoff & Miller, 1988). It also focuses on the
combination of verbs in compound verb and conjunct verb constructions as this
integration creates a distinctive feature in Banglish. Banglish: Bangla-English mixed
situation provides a perfect conflict situation for these analyses. Both Bangla and English
are different in word order, noun modification, and verb constructions; therefore, these
data provide a clear position to illustrate the code-switching and borrowing distinction,
and to classify the items by showing a comparison. The comparisons are shown in terms
150 Spectrum, Volume 12, 2016

of noun modification, compound verb construction, and nativization of phonological

aspects. Based on these three diagnostics, this paper attempts to identify the status of the
English origin lone items in this new variation. The inquiries to identify are: (a) whether
or not the unattested ambiguous English origin lone items behave like attested English
origin lone items in various contexts in Banglish; (b) whether or not the unattested items
in mixed situation and original Bangla words in unmixed Bangla context behave
similarly; (c) whether or not the unattested English origin items follow the grammar of
English in unmixed context. Therefore, if the unattested English origin lone items behave
like the attested English origin lone items in mixed situations, they are borrowed items. If
they behave differently, then the unattested ambiguous items are considered as code-
switched items. So, every data on unattested lone items is presented in comparison with
three other counterparts in three different contexts. It is not easy to identify the degree of
integration. Therefore, comparing targeted items with different recognized items in mixed
and unmixed situations can be a convincing strategy to identify them. According to
Poplack and Dion (2012),
To the extent that a lone other language item assumes features associated
with one but not the other of the contact languages (e.g. absence of inflection
in a context where the other language inflects), we can infer whether donor
language or recipient-language grammar is operating (p. 10).
This comparative study on the obtained data is presented in the following patterns already
showed in Samar & Meechan study (1998):
i. The integration level of unattested English origin items in Banglish: Bangla-
English mixed context;
ii. The integration level of attested English origin items in Banglish: Bangla-English
mixed context;
iii. The modification of Bangla items in unmixed Bangla context.
iv. The modification of English items in unmixed English context.
Limitations of the Study
Though this study tries to address a predominant issue in the study of language varieties
of Bangla, the result does not claim an established fact. This paper has some limitations:
first, this study is not based on a wide variety of practical data. The data does not include
the spoken sample of people from all ranges. This study does not address the language
spoken by all ages of people. As it is already mentioned, Banglish is mostly an urban
spoken variety, this paper does not look for the rural variety. In addition, only young
generation has been targeted. Therefore, these features cannot be claimed as
representative of the whole generation. Moreover, the term Banglish is not an established
or widely accepted term in Bangladesh though some studies have been found on working
on this. There exist lots of controversies regarding the term Banglish. However, the
significance of this study cannot be denied. This study is believed to add an important
feature to the study of language variety in Bangla.
Therefore, because of the limited scope of this paper and limited set of data, this paper
does not intend to present any generalization or any axiomatic feature of language variety
Tanzina Tahereen 151

Banglish. For providing such generalization, a wide range of data needs to be dealt with.
In addition, this investigation needs to be extended to other group of people in order to
verify their spoken features as well. Nevertheless, this study, at least, takes an initiative to
present a rudimentary picture of contact induced language change in Bangla which is
believed to open a new phase for the study of Banglish.

Coding, Analysis & Results

These analyses are done on three significant features: noun modification, compound verb
construction and phonological modification.
Noun Modification
Various nominal structures are coded from the obtained data. These structures include
various features: reference marking, pluralization, word order, case marking, etc.
Reference Marking
In English, the reference marking includes the feature of marking definiteness of noun,
and so variety of markers are used for indicating indefinite and definite references
(Givon, 1993, cited in Samar & Meechan, 1998). Moreover, all these markers usually
precede nouns in English utterances. On the other hand, as Bangla and English have
distinct syntactic pattern, the determiners ta or ti in Bangla, termed as classifiers, are
preceded by the noun, and these can also be added to numbers, quantifiers, deictic noun
phrase in the same way which precede the noun (Thompson, 2012). Other reference
marking, such as indefinite articles, distributives, demonstratives, possessives and
indefinites usually precede nouns. Nouns are also found without any reference marking.
Therefore, the attested English origin nouns usually take Bangla reference marking in
mixed context, and follow the syntactic rule of Bangla. Therefore, if the unattested
English origin nouns go through the same noun modification process by taking the
Bangla reference marking, they are perfectly integrated, and can be considered borrowed
nouns. For example:
i. Attested English origin noun in mixed context of Banglish-mixed context:
1. tumi keno class ta faki dile? (Radio Foorti, 2014)
you.2S. why class the miss do.2.Pst
‘Why did you miss the class?’
ii. Unattested English origin noun in Banglish-mixed context:
2. a. uni oi letter ta likhen ni, na? (Radio Aamar, 2014)
you.2S.Hon. that letter. the.Art write.2.Pst.Hon.Neg. no
‘He did not write that letter, did he?’
b. amr sms ta ki pora jay na? (Radio Aamar, 2014)
my.1.Gen sms the what read.Perf. go.. no
‘Isn’t it possible to read my sms?’
c. Accha sothik option ti pathate hobe. (Radio Foorti, 2014)
152 Spectrum, Volume 12, 2016

Ok. right option the.Art. send.Inf be.2.Fut

‘Ok. You have to send the right option’.
iii. Bangla noun modification in unmixed context:
3. a. gaan ta bhalo lage na tomar? (Radio Aamar, 2014)
song. the.Art good feel.Inf no you.Dat
‘Don’t you like the song?’
b. tomar bondhuti kothay ekhon?(Radio Today, 2014)
you.2.Gen friend the.Art where now
‘Where is your friend now?’
c. English noun in unmixed English context:
4. The lady has arrived.

In the sentences in (1) & (2), the Bangla grammar of noun modification by using
reference marking is followed for both the attested/listed and unattested/unlisted English
origin nouns in mixed contexts. Moreover, the same grammar is followed in case of
Bangla noun in unmixed Bangla context (3). In addition, the utterance in (4) shows the
pattern of reference marking in English which is not followed in any of the contexts in
Bangla. We can consider this to be an indication that all these lone English-origin nouns,
attested or unattested, which follow the Bangla reference system, should be considered
borrowed nouns. This shows clear evidence of morphological integration of English
origin nouns in Bangla-English mixed context: Banglish.
Case Marking
The case system refers to the marking system of the nominal phrases in order to reflect
their relation to the head (Blake, 1994), cited in Lahiri, 2011). In English, there is no
specific case marker; actually English almost has lost its case marking system. Except the
three statuses of pronouns and possessive case marker, there is hardly any marking.
Whereas in Bangla, there are extensive case markers in order to indicate different kinds
of relation of the nouns to the other parts of the sentence. In Bangla, case markers
distinguish between animate and inanimate objects by using distinct markers for both
classes. There are some specific markers to show the different cases, such as accusative,
genitive, locative and instrumental case (Thompson, 2012).
i. Attested English origin nouns in Banglish context.
5. a. classer pore amake phone dio. (Genetive case) (Radio Today, 2014)
class.Gen after me.Acc phone give
‘Call me after the class is over’.
b. ei muhurte amader studior ghorite somoy bela barota.(Radio Foorti, 2014)
this moment.Loc our.Gen studio.Gen clock.Loc time day twelve.
‘At this moment, the clock at the studio shows it’s twelve in the noon’.
ii. Unattested English origin noun in Banglish.
Tanzina Tahereen 153

6. a. ekta gaan o royeche amader playlist e. (Locative case) (Radio Foorti, 2014)
One.the song.Emp stay our.Gen playlist.Loc
‘There is also a song in our playlist’.
b. eta ekta movier gaan. (Genitive case) (Radio Today, 2014)
this one.the movie.Gen song.
‘This is a song from a movie’.
c. tomar friend ke dako. (Accusative case) (Radio Foorti, 2014)
your.Gen friend.Acc call.
‘Call your friend’.
d. Bangla noun in unmixed context
7. a. maa -ke dakte parbe? (Accusative case) (Radio Foorti, 2014)
Mother.Acc call.Inf can.2.Fut
‘Can you call mother?’
b. eta amar babar boi.(Radio Foorti, 2014)
this my.Gen baba.Gen book.
‘This is my father’s book’.
e. English noun in English context
8. a. I hate your friends. (Possessive case)
b. This is Kate’s book. (Possessive case)

In the sentences in (5) & (6), we notice that the listed and unlisted English words are
perfectly marked by the case markers in every situation according to the case marking
system in Bangla. There is no exception in any single noun which has followed English
case marking. Bangla has different accusative case markers for animate and inanimate
object: –ke for animate or human, and –ta for inanimate object. The use of –ke is shown
in (6.c). So, these sentences in (6) show the perfect integration of unattested English
origin nouns like all other attested English origin nouns in (5). The same grammar is also
followed in (7) in unmixed Bangla context. So, this perfect integration of
unattested/unlisted English origin nouns can justify their status as borrowed nouns. Those
ambiguous English origin items which are not integrated like are considered code-
switched elements. For example:
9. Ami wish korte chai tinjon ke: amar mom, Farhad’s mom and my baby’s mom.
I wish do.Inf want three pople.Acc: my mom, Farhad’s mother, and my baby’s mom.
‘I want to wish three people: my mom, Farhad’s mom and my baby’s mom’. (Radio
Aamar, 2014)
In example (9), the use of English grammar can be seen though it is an English Bangla
mixed context. So, it is code-switching not borrowing.
154 Spectrum, Volume 12, 2016

Word Order
Samar and Meechan (1998) use word order as a criterion to distinguish between these
borrowed items and code switched items. Bangla has a different word order than that
English has. Bangla follows SOV pattern whereas English follows SVO. In English
utterances, VP is head initial (Lahiri, 2011), on the other hand, in Bangla it is head final.
Therefore, while using the English origin noun, attested or unattested, speakers do not use
English word order pattern, rather they follow Bangla syntactic pattern with appropriate
case markers. Except the inter-sentential code-switching, every single English origin
word follows the Bangla (ML) syntactic pattern. Bangla allows this kind of integration
perfectly as it is a flexible language (flexible word order), and as the nouns go through
the appropriate modification process. There is no single evidence found where English
word order is followed while using unattested English origin words. This criterion is only
applicable to single English origin word not for phrase or clause. For example:
i. Attested English origin word in Banglish: mixed situation:
10. tahole uni kon mobile theke amader ke sms korchen? (Sub + obj+verb) (Radio
Foorti, 2015)
So he.3.Hon which mobile from us.Acc. sms do.3.Hon. Pres.Perf
‘Then from which mobile did he send us sms’?
ii. Unattested English origin word in Banglish: mixed situation:
11. eta amar collection e ache. (Object + Location+ Verb) (Radio Aamar, 2014)
this my.Gen collection.Loc has
‘I have it in my collection’.
iii. Bangla word in unmixed condition:
12. eta amar shongrohe ache. (Object +Location+ Verb) (Radio Aamar, 2014)
this my.1S.Gen collection.Loc has
‘I have it in my collection’.
iv. English word in English unmixed context:
13. He kept the book on the table. (Subject+ verb+ object+ Location)
The sentence in (10) shows how the attested English origin word follows Bangla word
order, and (11) shows the same level of integration with the word order of Bangla even
though the English origin noun is unattested here. The sentences in (12) and (13)
represent Bangla and English word order in unmixed conditions respectively. So, the
adaptability of the English origin words with the word order of Bangla is perfectly
consistent. These English origin word, attested or unattested, are completely used in
Bangla syntactic pattern in Banglish as Bangla is ML (Matrix Language) in this variety.
Therefore, this consistency of the word order of the unattested items with the two other
Bangla contexts can evidence their new status as borrowed items.
Tanzina Tahereen 155

Pluralization
The next diagnostic criterion is plural marking. There are limited numbers of strategies
for pluralizing borrowed nouns in the languages which have pluralization marking at
morphological level (Matras, 2009; cited in Roseano, 2013). Roseano categorizes three
groups of strategies which pluralize nouns: oikomorphological solutions,
xenomorphological and allomorphological solutions (2013). He adds, oikomorphological
strategy which involves the highest level of morphological integration, refers to the
strategy of pluralization of borrowed nouns by using the same morphemes which are used
for the unmixed Bangla item. In the xenomorphological pluralization which has the
lowest level of morphological integration, the lone noun takes the inflectional
morphology of its own language, and forms a new morphological class. And the third
strategy, allomorphological one has intermediate level of integration, and forms plural
forms of the lone words by involving different other processes, except the morphological
inflection of the recipient and donor languages (2013).
Therefore, the level of integration of English origin nouns can be understood through the
strategy of pluralization in Bangla. Both oikomorphological and xenomorphological
pluralization are found in the data where English origin nouns take both English plural
morpheme ‘s’ and Bangla plural morpheme “ra” or “der”. In order to distinguish between
code-switching and borrowing, these two pluralization strategies can be significant
criteria Therefore, the unattested English origin words which go through the
oikomorphological process are considered to have the highest level of integration, and
thus these can be borrowed items. On the other hand, unattested words which go through
the xenomorphological process are considered to have the lowest level of integration.
Therefore, these are code-switched items.
i. Attested English origin nouns in Banglish-mixed context:
14. a. tomader classgulo keno hocche na jani na. (Radio Aamar, 2014)
you.2.Gen class.Pl why happen.Inf no know no.
‘I don’t know why your classes are not being held’.
b. numbergulo tomader mobile e chole jabe. (Radio Aamar, 2014)
number.Pl you.2.Gen mobile.Loc go.Inf go.2.Fut
‘The numbers will be sent to your mobile’.
d. sobar passport gulo kere nite hobe. (Radio Aamar, 2014)
all.Gen passport.Pl snatch.Inf take be.Fut
‘Everybody’s passport should be snatched away’.
ii.Unattested English origin words in Banglish-mixed context:
15. a. e deshe bhalo bhalo company ache. (Radio Aamar, 2014)
this country.Loc good good company be.Pre.
‘There are many good companies in this country’.
b. awkward situation e porte hoy student der. (Radio Today, 2014)
156 Spectrum, Volume 12, 2016

awkward situation.Loc fall.Inf. be.Pres. student.der

‘Students are pushed into awkward condition’.
iii. Bangla plual nouns in unmixed situation:
16. a. ami eke eke naam gulo pore jai. (Radio Today, 2014)
I.1S. one one name.Pl read.Inf go.
‘I am reading the names one by one’.
b. onek onek dhonnobad apnake. (Radio Aamar, 2014)
many many thank you.2.Hon
‘Many thanks to you’.
iv. Unattested English origin words following xenomorphological strategy in
Bangla
17. ami apnader janabo amar ki ki plans ki ki hopes
I you.2P. HON know.Caus.Fut my.Poss. what what plan.PL what what hope.Pl ar
ki ki dreams royeche. (Radio Today, 2014)
and what what dream.pl. have.1.Pres.Perf
‘I will let you know how many plans, hopes and dreams I have’.
v. English words in English unmixed context
18. These are the pictures of that day.

So, the sentences in (14) shows how attested English origin nouns ‘class’, ‘number’ and
‘passport’ are deeply incorporated in Bangla context by following oikomorphological
strategy. Similarly, the sentences in (15) show the same level of integration of unattested
English origin words ‘country’ and ‘student’ in Bangla-English mixed context through
the oikomorphological pluralization. Moreover, the sentence in (16) is an example of
pluralization of other Bangla words in unmixed Bangla context which has the similar
pattern. On the other hand, in (17), all the unattested English origin nouns ‘plan’,
‘dream’, ‘hope’ take English plural marker, like the word ‘picture’ in the sentence (18)
that shows English pluralization in unmixed English context. Thus, the sentence (17)
shows the lowest level of integration. Therefore, the unattested English origin words
which show the same level of integration like the attested English origin words in mixed
situation can be considered borrowed items, and the unattested English origin words that
show the lowest level of integration are considered code-switched items.
Verb Constructions
Though Bangla has single verb construction, there exist compound and conjunct verb
constructions which are frequent as well. In these two kinds of verb constructions, there
are two significant parts: pole and vector. The main item is called pole, and the attached
item is vector, but they always refer to one single meaning together. The polar part
always constructs the semantics of the verb (Bhattacharja, 2010). In Banglish, English
origin words are inserted in these constructions. Conjunct verbs consist of a verb in
vector position along with another category of words except a verb in polar position.
Tanzina Tahereen 157

Moreover, compound verbs consist of two or three verbs together (Bhattacharja, 2010).
Mysken (2000) suggests four ways of how a new verb from one language can be
integrated in another language: (i) insertion of a new verb into a position corresponding
to a native verb; (ii) adjoining of a new verb to a helping verb; (iii) inclusion of a new
verb as a nominalized complement to a causative helping verb; and (iv) incorporation of a
verb as an infinitive and complement of a native auxiliary (cited in Stammers & Deuchar,
2011, p. 635-636).
Conjunct Verb Constructions
The pole in a conjunct verb of Banglish is taken from English origin words (noun,
adjective, adverb, preposition), and the vector is a Bangla verb chosen from a closed set
of verbs, such as kora (to do), howa (to be), deya (to give), neya (to take), etc
(Bhattacharja, 2010). For example:
i. Attested English origin word in Belglish-mixed context:
19. tumi kal office korbe? (Radio Today, 2014)
you.2S tomorrow office do.Fut
‘Will you work tomorrow?’
ii. Unattested English origin words in Banglish-mixed context:
20. a. tumi jano amar bhaiyer kalke accident hoyeche? (Radio Foorti, 2014)
you.2S know my.Pos brother.Gen. yesterday accident be.Pres.Perf
‘Do you know my brother had an accident yesterday?’
b. tomra group kore kotha bolte chao? (Radio Foorti, 2014)
you.Pl group do.Inf word talk.Inf want
‘Do you want to talk in group?’
iii. Bangla word in unmixed Bangla context:
21. a. sobai ekhane durniti kore. (Radio Today, 2014)
all here.Loc corruption do.3.Pres
‘All are involved in corruption here’.
b. kara puro soptaho dhore opekkha korechen? (Radio Foorti, 2014)
who.Pl. whole week hold wait do.Pres.Perf
‘Who have waited for the whole week?’
c. se kukur ke lathi marlo. (Radio Aamar, 2014)
he dog.Acc kick give.Pst
‘He kicked the dog’.
iv. English words in unmixed English context:
22. a. He feeds the buffalos.
b. He is talking about it.
158 Spectrum, Volume 12, 2016

In the above sentences in (19) and (20), the attested (office) and unattested English origin
words (accident, group) are used as the pole of the conjunct verbs, and the inflected
korbe, hoyeche, kore, korechen, marlo, selected from the closed set, are combined with
the poles as vector verbs. These examples show that both attested and unattested words
behave in the same way in Banglish context, and there is no exception observed in the
data. They are equally integrated in the conjunct verb to act like a single verb, and the
meaning is mainly contributed by the poles (English origin words). In fact, the conjunct
verb construction in unmixed Bangla context is same in (21). This shows how consistent
their integration is. The English origin words in conjunct verb, attested and unattested,
perfectly perform their syntactic and semantic functions of the poles. Moreover, the
English verb construction which is shown in (22) is not similar to any of the
constructions presented above.
Furthermore, as it is already mentioned, Bangla is a head final language and English is a
head initial, in the utterances (19, 20), all these Banglish verbs manifest the head final
syntactic pattern not the head initial (Bhattacharja, 2010). In addition, the level of
integration can also be explained through the case marking system involved in these
sentences. The case marker -er which refers to genitive case in Bangla, is added to a noun
here to refer to the connection with ‘accident’.
Compound Verb (CV) Constructions
Compound verb construction usually consists of two verbs: polar verb (V1) and vector
verb (V2) which can also be termed as light verb and full verb respectively. V1 is chosen
from a wide range of verb groups that take either conjunctive participle –e or the
infinitive form-te, and V2 is chosen from a selected closed set of verbs that carries
inflections (Bhattacharja, 2010). Significantly, all the vector verbs are not compatible
with all the polar verbs in CV constructions. Both of the verbs combined together
construct one single compound verb which takes the meaning of the polar verb, and
vector verb does not contribute to the semantics of CV, rather contributes to the
construction and carries the syntactic information (Chatterjee, 2012). Moreover, in
Banglish, a new feature is observed in CV construction. The English origin words are
combined with those two verbs but still behave like one verb. There are two kinds of
compound verbs found in Banglish: (a) compound verb with V1 (polar) as English origin
verb, and V2 as Bangla verb chosen from a closed group of verbs; (b) compound verb
with V1 (polar) as English origin verb, both V2 and V3 from closed group of Bangla
verbs. V3 acts like a vector verb, and V2 takes the participles or infinitives. These three
verbs which are combined together to form a single verb, actually have specific single
function (Chatterjee, 2012) in the syntactic pattern and semantic meaning construction
(Chatterjee, 2012)
i. Attested English origin verb in Banglish-mixed context:
23. amra ebar bhot dite parlam na. (Radio Today, 2014)
we.1Pl this time vote give can.Pst no
‘We couldn’t vote this time’.
ii. Unattested English origin word in Banglish-mixed context:
Tanzina Tahereen 159

24. a. apnake ekhoni ekta sms send korte hobe. (Radio Today, 2014)
you.2.Hon now.Emp. one sms send do.Inf . be.2.Fut
‘You have to send an sms right now’.
b. janle ami ekkhoni play kore ditam. (Radio Foorti, 2014)
know.Prt I now.Emp play do.Prt. give.1.Pst
‘If I know, I could play it right now’.
c. tomake type korte hobe. (Radio Foorti, 2014)
you.2.ACC.CM type do.Inf. be.2.Fut
‘You have to type’.
d. ganer jonno request koro taratari. (Radio Foorti, 2014)
Song.Gen for request do.Pre. quick
‘Request for a song quickly’.
iii. Bangla compound verb in unmixed Bangla context:
25. a. ekhane tader oneker naam bheshe utheche. (Radio Today, 2014)
here.Loc their.Poss. many.Gen appear.Prt up.Pres.Perf
‘The names of many of them have appeared here’.
b. kara puro soptaho dhore opekkha korechen? (Radio Foorti, 2014)
who.Pl. whole week hold wait do.Pres.Perf
‘Who have waited for the whole week?’
iv. English compound verb in unmixed English context:
26. He will give away all his books to someone poor.

In (30), bhot dite parlam na is a compound verb with attested English origin verb (vote),
and in (31) send korte hobe, play kore ditam, type korte hobe and request koro show how
unattested English origin verbs are perfectly inserted into the compound verb
construction by maintaining the original Bangla syntactic pattern. In fact, an English
origin verb in the polar position plays its assigned role perfectly. This integration
evidences that the unattested English origin verbs integrated in compound verbs in
Banglish are borrowed items like attested English origin verbs. Moreover, the sentences
(32) in unmixed Bangla context present a good ground to draw a comparison between the
compound verb constructions with and without English origin verbs. This comparison
shows how perfectly the unattested English origin verbs are integrated. Therefore, these
can be categorized as borrowed items not code-switched.
Phonological Integration
Though phonological integration is not a strong criterion to identify the status of an
English origin word in Banglish, listed and unlisted English origin items run through
these phonological changes. Even the code-switched words often are pronounced in
modified pronunciation similar to first language pronunciation. In this spoken variety of
160 Spectrum, Volume 12, 2016

Bangla, many English origin words are pronounced in a modified nativized sound, and
some sounds are pronounced carefully with the original pronunciation. So, the modified
sounds can be identified as unlisted borrowing, and the more originally pronounced
words can be identified as code switched. However, this criterion is also not considered
as a reliable factor as influence of first language on pronunciation of second language is
frequent. For example:
i. Attested English origin words in Banglish:
27. a. sob pulishder ke thik pothe ante hobe. (Radio Aamar, 2014)
all police.Pl.Accu. right way.Loc bring.Inf be.Fut
‘We have to bring in all the police to the right path’.
b. tebiler upor boshe koto kotha tader. (Radio Foorti, 2014)
table.Gen on sit.Prt a lot words they.Gen
‘Sitting on the table, they were talking about many things’.
ii. Unattested English origin words in Banglish-mixed context:
28. a. tini darun darun shob gaan /kᴐmpᴐz/ korechen amader jonno.
he.3S.Hon wonderful wonderful all song compose do.3.Hon.Pres.perf us.Gen for
‘He has composed many wonderful songs for us’. (Radio, Foorti, 2014)
b. ektu pore apnar gaan ta /ple/ hoye jabe. (Radio Foorti, 2014)
while after you.2.Hon.Gen song.the play be.Prt go.Fut
‘You song will be played after a while’.
c. tar /bebi/r maa she nijei.(Radio Aamar, 2014)
her baby.Gen mother she herself.Emp
‘She herself is the mother of her baby’.

In (34), the listed borrowed words pulish (/puliʃ/), tebil (/tebil/) are English origin words
but the pronunciation is slightly modified and nativized, and included in Bangla
vocabulary. In (30), vote (/vƏut/) has been pronounced as /bhᴐt/. In (35), the unlisted
English origin words are also slightly modified, and pronounced according to Bangla
phonology. In (31), compose (/kəmˈpəʊz/) is pronounced as / kᴐmpᴐz/, play (/plei/) as
/ple/ and baby (/beibi/) as /bebi/ which are close to Bangla sounds. Bangla does not have
/Ə/ sound, and so this sound is easily pronounced as Bangla /o/ sound. Moreover,
diphthong /ei/ is easily influenced by /e/ sound in Bangla. So, based on this phonological
integration some unattested items can be considered borrowed words.
On the other hand, an opposite scenario is also observed in Banglish. In some cases, the
speakers try to pronounce the Bangla i (/r/) as retroflex /r/ in English and j (/l/) as dark
/l/ in English whereas these two sounds are absent in Bangla.
Tanzina Tahereen 161

Discussion
From the analyzed data, unattested English origin words in Banglish context are found
completely integrated like the listed English origin words in Bangla or Banglish.
Moreover, it is found that English origin words are behaving more like Bangla words
rather than English words in English context. They follow Bangla morphological,
syntactical, and phonological patterns perfectly. However, in terms of phonological and
morphological factors, English influences are also found in some words which can be
considered as code-switching.
In terms of attaching reference marking, all the unattested and attested English origin
nouns behave in the same way in otherwise Bangla contexts, and this feature is also
similar with the Bangla noun modification through reference marking in unmixed
context. If we consider the word order, the same consistency is observed. Though English
and Bangla have distinct word order, English origin words are compatibility inserted into
Bangla syntactic patterns after going through the necessary modification. As code
switching is an indispensible part of Banglish, and intra- sentential code-switching is
frequent in it, a variety of unattested English origin words are found which behave
perfectly like any other attested English origin words or Bangla words in unmixed
contexts. Though this version of language is emerging with Bangla-English code-
switching situation, some English origin words are found highly integrated into Bangla
morphological and syntactic patterns, and behaved like an integrated part of Bangla.
Consequently, borrowing occurs as well.
Furthermore, the process of pluralization reflected in the English origin words
modification shows the status of those words in Bangla-English mixed context. As long
as the items are not highly integrated into the language, these are considered code-
switched. The highest level of integration showed by the unattested English origin items
turns their status into borrowed items.
In addition, the distinct nature of CV construction shows a complex syntactic feature of
Bangla verb. An English origin verb being integrated into such complex CV construction
corresponding to a native verb (Mysken, 2000, cited in Stammers & Deuchar, 2011) is
undisputedly a significant criterion to identify the status of attested and unattested
English origin items. Taking position of a pole in conjunct or compound verb
constructions, performing the role of a head of the CV and contributing to the semantics
indicate their level of integration in Banglish. So, explaining these patterns as code-
mixing is not the best explanation anymore for Banglish.

Conclusion
Considering the degree of integration of English origin single items, attested or
unattested, as a principle to identify the status of these ambiguous items, and to deny the
general interpretation of these items as code-mixing are the main focus of this study.
Though the data is not enough to claim a sustained actuality about the status of these
unattested English origin items, these analyses, at least, should contribute to the study of
code-switching and borrowing. Banglish, this urban spoken variety of Bangla, provides a
perfect context for conducting such contact language study. The short span of this paper
and limited scope of collecting extensive data do not allow an appropriate stance for
162 Spectrum, Volume 12, 2016

conducting a quantitative analysis of this issue. As a result, it has not become possible to
show how frequent these unattested English origin lone items are in comparison to
attested English origin items in Banglish. However, through the obtained data and limited
analysis, the status of unattested English origin items is attempted to identify by
comparing their level of integration in Banglish context with that of attested English
origin items. Moreover, in order to confirm the perfect integration, the use of the same
features is also shown in unmixed Bangla and English contexts. Almost in all cases, the
unattested English origin words are found behaving in the same way the attested English
origin words in mixed contexts and Bangla words in unmixed context behave. Whenever
the unattested English origin items are found perfectly integrated in Bangla context, they
show the similar patterns of attested English origin items. This comparison is always
extended by showing the use of the same features in unmixed Bangla contexts and
English contexts which has made the comparison more authentic and supportive to draw
a result that these unattested English origin items are borrowed, not code-switched
anymore. Finally, the result mainly shows how the level of morphological, syntactical
and phonological integration helps to distinguish between borrowed items and code-
switched items. Moreover, claiming these unattested English origin items as borrowed
items in Banglish has advanced the stance of Banglish in the study of contact induced
language change.

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Myers-Scotton, C. (1993). Duelling languages: Grammatical structure in codeswitching. Oxford:

Clarendon Press.
Poplack, S. (2001). Code-switching (linguistic). International encyclopedia of the social and
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Poplack, S. (2012). What does the Nonce Borrowing Hypothesis hypothesize?
Bilingualism:Language and Cognition 15(3), 644-648
Poplack, S., & Meechan, M. (1998). How languages fit together in code-mixing. International
Journal of Bilingualism,2 (2), 127–138.
Poplack, S., Sankoff, D., & Miller, C. (1988). The social correlates and linguistic processes of
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the inflectional morphology of borrowed nouns in Friulian. Probus, 26(1), 1-57.
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164 Spectrum, Volume 12, 2016

Appendix 1
Abbreviation
Adv Adverb
Art Article
Acc Accusative case
CV Compound verb
Cl Classifier
Dat Dative case
Emp Emphatic
Fut Future tense
Gen Genitive
Hon Honorific
Inf Infinitive
Loc Locative case
Neg Negative
PP Perfect participle
Pst Past tense
Pres Present tense
Pres.Perf Present perfect tense
Prt Participle
S Singular
SVO Subject-Verb-Object
SOV Subject-Object-Verb
V2 Light verb in CV
V1 Full verb in CV
1 1st Person
2 2nd Person
3 3rd Person
 Role of Word Association in a Bangladeshi Child’s
First Language Acquisition
Sabreena Ahmed*
Naushin Nazifa Islam**

Abstract
Word association and object recognition is one of the first steps of first language
acquisition for any child. This paper reports on a study which explored how a 14-
month-old Bangladeshi child's process of word association and object recognition
helped his first language acquisition at phonological, lexical and semantic level. A
series of eight video recordings were used by the researchers to observe his skill of
word-object association at the day care centre and at home. In addition, the
researchers used anecdotal observation notes and asked the child’s mother to keep a
journal of his activities and utterances. The study found that the scaffolding
technique used at both the daycare centre and home, helped the child to associate
words with specific concepts easily. He displayed a tendency to overgeneralize a
newly learned lexical item for inappropriate object and/or situation.
Keywords: first language acquisition, word association, Bangladeshi child.

Introduction
Any child comes into this world with an outburst of cry. That is the first utterance of the
child, the first means of interacting with its mother. Gradually, the child hears familiar
sounds which were muffled while it was in the womb. By responding to these sounds and
sights, the child gradually completes the first steps of language acquisition. The
researchers of this case study aimed to explore how word association and object
recognition influenced a 14 month old Bangladeshi child’s first language acquisition at
the phonological, lexical and semantic level.

Literature Review
Retrospect of Theories
Cognitive Aspects of Language Learning
Jean Piaget (1970) is one of the most influential theorists of cognitive development. He
believed that a child is a “little scientist” or miniature replica of adults who learns by
exploring the environment. His theory of cognitive development was based on four basic
principles such as schema, assimilation, accommodation and equilibration (cited in
Oakley, 2004, p.14). Hummel (1998) explains the first principle, schema, as a strategy
that helps a newborn make mental images of the actions and things around him. The
second principle, assimilation, refers to adding new experience into already existing

*
Senior Lecturer, Dept. of English and Humanities, BRAC University
**
Lecturer, Department of English, East West University
166 Spectrum, Volume 12, 2016

mental structure (schema). The third principle, accommodation is revising the existing
schema due to new experience. The last principle, equilibration is the process that helps
to create cognitive balance through assimilation and accommodation (cited in Oakley,
2004, p. 14). Piaget further explained his stage theory that shows how a child develops
biologically at different ages. He named the stages as below:
 Sensorimotor Stage (0 to 2 years): At this stage a child grows rapidly from a
newborn to a walking and talking toddler. He learns from playing with different
objects, and from 8 months onwards learns about “object permanence”, which
means that an object is still there even if it is temporarily gone. It helps the child to
look for the object around and be active.
 Pre-Operational Stage (2 to 7 years): At this stage, mental ordering of events takes
place. A child is driven by egocentrism for which he does not accept any view
other than his own. Animism is another feature of this stage where a child adds
action to inanimate objects such as “Teddy is sad” (Oakley, 2004, p. 18).
 Concrete Operational Stage (7 to 12 years): The third stage of development is a
turning point for a child as he learns to think logically by now. His egocentrism
decreases and he learns about conservation which refers to the idea that an object’s
mass and volume remains the same even if it is poured into a different shaped pot
(e.g. water) (cited in Mcleod, 2010).
 Formal Operational Stage (12 years onwards): At about 11 years onwards, a child
can think about objects in his head. He does not require any concrete manipulation
of object to think about something and understands abstract matters. From this
stage, he moves towards thinking as the adults in the coming years (Mcleod, 2010).
Interactive Aspect of Language Learning
Social interaction and stimulus received from the surroundings can be considered as the
most crucial elements of children’s language development. The importance of social
interaction was emphasised by psychologist Lev Vygotsky, who argued that language
develops primarily from social interaction. As a result, in a supportive environment
where interaction can take place easily and frequently, children are able to advance to a
higher level of knowledge and performance. He referred to this place as “Zone of
Proximal Development” (ZPD) where children can enhance their linguistic level more
than what they can do on their own independently (cited in Lightbown & Spada, 2006,
p.20). Therefore, according to the social interactionist approach to language development,
children acquire language through ongoing interactions with conversational partners in
everyday contexts.
Furthermore, even the connectionists argue that what children need to learn is essentially
available to them in the language they are exposed to in their surroundings. According to
Lightbown and Spada (2006), Jeffery Elman and his colleagues explained language
acquisition in terms of how children acquire links or ‘connections’ between words and
phrases, and the context in which they fit in. They gave emphasis on this idea of
connectionism because it helps the children to connect the word or phrase and its
meaning to a specific event or object (p.23-24).
Sabreena Ahmed and Naushin Nazifa Islam 167

As an extension of Piaget and Vygotsky’s theory, Jerome Bruner proposed three stages
such as enactive, iconic and symbolic of infant skill development.
 Enactive Stage: Like many adults, children need to be actively engaged in playing
with their toys or imitating the actions of adults. The firsthand experience is a way
for them to learn and experience real life around them.
 Iconic Stage: Knowledge is stored primarily as the form of visual images. A child
finds it easier to understand when something is shown to him in reality.
 Symbolic stage: Knowledge is primarily stored as “words, mathematical symbols or
other symbol systems”. This stage is rather arbitrary than the previous stages (cited in
Meggit, 2006, p.19).

Bruner mentions “scaffolding” to be a very effective process supporting a child while he

learns a new concept. An adult can gradually remove scaffolding once the child is
accustomed to the concept (cited in Meggit, 2006, p.19).

Influence of Day Care on Children’s Social and Cognitive Development

Nowadays a growing number of children spend their childhood in daycare centres, and
there has also been a debate among the researchers whether the time spent in daycare
centers has negative or positive impact on children’s language and communication
development (Feinberg, 2007, p.1). Many scholars were initially worried about the fact
that non-parental childcare might be risky and uncertain for children. Therefore, they
tried to find out whether children in childcare were as well adapted psychologically and
behaviorally as children cared for by parents at home. Later, researchers started exploring
the advantages and potentials of good-quality care for children. They noted that childcare
centers offer opportunities for extensive social contacts with peers and adults. Thus, they
open extended social worlds for children. Positive childcare experiences also ensure
future educational opportunities for children such as children experiencing early non-
parental care are better able to benefit from education, adjust to routines, and resist
conflicts (Anhert & Lamb, 2011, p.3).
There are contradictions among the researchers and scholars regarding the effect of
childcare centers on children’s cognitive development. However, more recent studies
have consistently acknowledged the persistent and positive effects of high-quality
childcare even on children’s cognitive ability and also on their school performance.
These studies suggest that children who attend better quality childcare demonstrate better
cognitive and social skills (Feinberg, 2007, p.3). As children in childcare centres get the
opportunities to interact and mingle with other children and adults, they learn to establish
social connections and maintain social interactions better than other children. They learn
to differentiate between different contexts and appropriate contextual behaviors.
Cognition is not an individual or solipsistic achievement, but a process of shared learning
in an environment with the help of other people, objects, and culturally structured events.
This holistic process of peer interactions contribute largely to children’s cognitive as well
as linguistic development (Deak, 2014, p.289).
168 Spectrum, Volume 12, 2016

Stimulus and Response Theory

In addition to the above mentioned theories, we can also talk about the theory of
behaviorism which is the theory of learning that was influential in 1940’s and 1950’s and
was introduced by B.F. Skinner. According to the behaviorism theory, imitation and
repetition are important and play the significant role in the development of children’s
language. This theory gives importance to the environment as the source of knowledge
the child needs to learn. Children’s attempts to imitate the word that they hear, help them
to acquire linguistic knowledge. This approach puts its emphasis on the role of parental
and social approval (cited in Cruttenden, 1979, p. 97-98).
Moreover, the study of memory is an important aspect of cognitive psychology as well.
The leading view is the “stage theory” which is based on the work of Atkinson and
Shiffrin (1968). The Atkinson-Shiffrin model is a proposal for the structure of memory. It
proposes that human memory involves a sequence of three stages, which are sensory
memory, short-term memory and long-term memory. A human being gets external
stimuli from the environment through his five sense organs (e.g. hands, nose, eyes, lips
and ears). The initial information stays in the short term memory for about 15 to 20
seconds and connects thoughts to the stimuli. The experience then either goes to the long
term memory for future reproduction or gets lost or forgotten. As a result of the stimuli
comes a response which is a combination of thinking and associations. The stimuli that a
child gets from the caregivers around him helps him to come up with appropriate
response either through utterances or body language (“Learning”, n.d., p. 114-115).
Judith Hudson, an associate professor of psychology at Rutgers University states that
toddlers remember “things that interest, frighten, or excite them for as long as ten months
after their first exposure” (cited in Hyot, 2015, para. 9). As they tend to generalize
everything, they seem to think that any place that looks like the entrance of the doctor’s
chamber would check them with a stethoscope. Following a more or less predictable
routine everyday, can help a child remember regular tasks he/she has to do as it is being
repeated at the same time every day. Children can remember things better when they do it
on their own (e.g. taking a piece of biscuit from the jar himself) (cited in Hyot, 2015).
Building up memory is important in word association and language acquisition of any
child.
Children’s Phonological Development
Children’s recognition of intonation can be considered as one of the most interesting
features of early childhood language development. The very first evidence of children’s
prosodic variation in pitch can be noticed in their crying. It can be said that crying is the
origin of intonation. In this regard, Deak (2014) states , “By midway through the first
year, infants are sensitive to a variety of native-language speech patterns. These include
native phonemes (consonants and vowels), sequences of phonemes, patterns of word
stress, and prosodic markers of speech boundaries” (p.285).
So, it is obvious that the phonological acquisition of a child’s first language begins in the
first year of his life.
When it comes to understanding others’ intonation, Kaplan asserts that children usually
do not respond to varying degrees of intonation till four months. However, at eight
Sabreena Ahmed and Naushin Nazifa Islam 169

months, children start responding to different intonations but it should not be taken for
granted that they do it like the adults by differentiating between forms and functions
(cited in Cruttenden, 1979, p.6).
As mentioned by Cruttenden (1979), the first meaningful expressions can be uttered by
children towards the end of the first year but these should be considered as expressions
other than words because most of the time they do not contain the adult like meanings.
These expressions represent mostly three kinds of phonetic types:
i) reduplication or partial-reduplication
ii) single consonant-vowel syllables
iii) sequence without a vowel
Some of these expressions can be related to the adult words like ‘car’ or ‘shoes’ while
some are simply onomatopoeic expressions, such as “yum-yum” or “ga-ga” which is
referred to “sleep” or as a comfort sound/expression. Children use these expressions
demanding, indicating or expressing something (p. 9-12). There are few features of
children’s phonological development which can be considered universal irrespective of
children’s first language. On the other hand, some of them vary from different linguistic
context to context.
Substitution, vocalization and simplification are processes of phonological development
in language acquisition as well. Fletcher and Garman (1997) mentions vocalization as a
way of a child’s substituting a syllabic consonant sound with vowel sound. e.g. apple
becomes /ɑppo/. (p.226). On the other hand, Stampe (1969) says that a child’s simplified
or reduced productions are the result of “applying an innate phonological system to the
phonological representation. An innate phonological system consists of a set of universal
phonological processes which simplify phonological representation” (cited in Ingram,
1999, p.387).
Children’s Lexical Development
There has always been a contentious question regarding whether children have
specialized word-learning biases. There were claims in the 1980s and 1990s that children
and even infants have such biases. These claims were strengthened by findings that
young children learn words significantly faster than other kinds of information. However,
more recent evidence has contradicted the idea because it has been found that children
from 1 to 4 years of age learn novel spoken words from very few exposures, but they also
learn novel gestures, melodic patterns, facts, and pictograms from few exposures (Deak,
2014, p. 288).
However, it is believed that children acquire the words which are most frequently used in
front of them and that is why exposure to the target language plays an important role
during child language development. Moreover, context or contextualized exposure to the
language is significant in confirming children’s successful learning of the meaning of
new words. The most frequently used groups of lexical items used by children during
their one-word stage are: i) Recurrence: “More” (pointing to meat), ii) Negation: “No”
(struggling to escape being held), iii) Location: “Garden” (holding plants that belong to
the garden but now is in indoors) , iv)Possession: “John” (pointing to John’s hat),
170 Spectrum, Volume 12, 2016

v)Agent: “Mummy” (asking mummy to push a ball through a hole), vi) Action: “Eat”
(wanting to eat something), vii) Affected object: “Drain” (pointing to the men in the road
cleaning out a drain) (Cruttenden, 1979, p.14).
Children can learn better and faster when the association between objects and words are
taught in a more interactive context. It is because it helps children to build a connection
between the objects and words and this experience also minimizes the practice of
memorization of word-meanings. Woodword, Markman and Fitzsimmons argued that the
words association and object recognition of children as young as 13 months can take
place in a more “contextually rich, interactive setting” (cited in Werker, Cohen, Lloyd,
Casasola and Stager, 1998, p.1290). This kind of interactive setting also assists children
to guess the meaning of a new word and associate the newly learned word with other
related objects other than the only object which was used during the learning. It has been
reported by Kol’tsova that children aged one year and eight months learned the meaning
of the Russian word for “doll” successfully when the word was presented in sentences
which gave clues of this kind and also through the sentences which provide children the
opportunities of active engagement with the object (doll). As a result, children who learnt
the word with sentences like “Rock the doll” or “Feed the doll” were able to generalize
the use of the word for all kinds of dolls. On the contrary, using sentences like “Here is
the doll” or “Give me the doll” minimizes children’s learning and use of the word ‘doll’
with that particular doll used for the experiment (cited in Cruttenden, 1979, p.85).
Children’s Semantic Development
One strategy used by children while picking up the meaning of words is tracking the way
the word is used over many different contextual scenes, or what has been called cross-
situational observation. Over time, the variation in the scenes would eventually allow the
child to identify the particular referent for each word. However, children acquire word
meanings extremely rapidly and they simply cannot wait for the exact situations to settle
on a meaning (Wagner, 2010, p.2). As a result, overgeneralization takes place and it can
be considered as an indispensable part of children’s semantic development. As it has been
mentioned earlier that children sometimes use one word to refer to different objects, for
example their concept of the fruit ‘apple’ can also include ‘orange’ as well. Rescorla
(1980) calls these overgeneralisations overextensions which can be divided into three
types:
a) Categorical: A word that is used to point out other objects of the same category. e.g.
a child uses ‘apple’ to label other fruits.
b) Analogical: A word is used to show another object of a different category. e.g. Using
‘cat’ for a soft scarf or hat for a hairbrush.
c) Statements: These are one word sentences where children connect a relationship
between objects. e.g. ‘Dolly’ upon seeing empty bed of the doll (cited in Peccei,
2000, p. 11).
Children usually go through four stages of semantic development:
i) It has been argued by Cruttenden (1979) that at the very beginning children use
meaning of word for just one specific object or situation and this can be considered
as generalization and it is mostly learnt through item-learning, such as “bird” is
Sabreena Ahmed and Naushin Nazifa Islam 171

being used for one specific toy that s/he has or ‘shoes’ are only meant for a
particular pair of shoes worn by his/her mother.
ii) Then comes the overgeneralization which continues for quite a long period and it
starts with some “loose and experiential type” where most of the time the objects
connected to a particular word do not share any feature. He also mentioned that
overgeneralization soon turns into a more perceptual concept when some
perceptual features of shapes, sounds, tastes are present within the objects or
persons. That is why, goggy becomes an overgeneralized term for all four legged
animals or ‘daddy’ refers to all men sharing the characteristics like wearing
trousers, tall, having big feet and so on.
iii) With the course of time, the use of overgeneralized words become less frequent as
their vocabulary get enriched and other words are incorporated into the same
semantic field. For example, as they learn the words and meanings of ‘cat’ and
‘horse’, the use of ‘goggy’ (doggy) for all four-legged animals becomes limited.
Therefore, ‘goggy’ becomes a dustbin word for other four-legged animals which
have not been labeled by the children yet.
iv) At a much later stage, the syntagmatic-paradigmatic shift takes place where
children start learning features of different group of words which help them
categories specific things together. They can distinguish between ‘animate’ and
‘inanimate’ things. This development might continue up to 17 or 18 years of age.
Word Association and Object Recognition
Children’s acquisition and learning of new words and their meanings have always been a
concern of the psychologists. It is quite difficult to predict whether children learn new
words and meanings from general to specific use or vice versa. A set of studies in the
1990s found out that words selectively draw infants’ attention to objects or categories of
objects, and infants preferentially expect words to refer to categories. Infants, by 18
months, start assuming that whatever an adult looks at when he or she says a word is the
referent of that specific word (Deak, 2014, p. 288).
Cruttenden (1979) remarks that children’s word association and object recognition can be
analysed from two semantic feature terms. One is horizontal development and the other is
vertical development. The first one is very common among the children because it refers
to the idea when children’s learning is not complete in terms of semantic features, such as
when children cannot distinguish “flower” from “leaf” which has different entities. In
addition, overgeneralization also takes place in this stage. For example, “garden” can be
referred to an open space where children play. Children gradually learn all the features of
a certain word by adding precise specifications to the word. The latter resembles adult-
like learning that adds on words to the mental dictionary and is complete with all
semantic features. However, this type of development does not occur during the early
stages of language development (p. 87).
Whitehurst, Kedesdy and White (1982) found that two year olds learn new nouns better
when the object and the name are presented simultaneously. They noticed that even 10
second’s interval hampered the acquisition of word. Motion is very eye catching and thus
“ostensive definition” or concurrent naming and pointing is not enough. The object has to
172 Spectrum, Volume 12, 2016

be shown through actions (cited in Griffiths, 1997, p. 290). Carter (1979) discusses how
between 12 and 16 months, a child gestures becomes obligatory part of communication
with the adults at the initial stage. Later, it becomes an optional part. Before even
pronouncing a meaningful world, children of this age communicate with the adults with
sign language, cries or intonations to show their desire or emotions (cited in Griffiths,
1997, p. 290).

Research Methodology
Objective
The aim of this study is to explore the role of word association and object recognition in
first language acquisition of a 14 month old Bangladeshi child at the phonological, lexical
and sematic level.
Research Questions
i. To what extent, word association and idea or object recognition contribute to the
participant’s first language acquisition at the phonological, lexical and semantic
level?
ii. Which phonological patterns and lexical items of first language are acquired by the
participant through the practice of word association and object recognition?
iii. How does word association and object recognition affect the participant’s first
language acquisition at the sematic level?
The participants
For this research, a 14 month old Bangladeshi child named Shehwar (pseudonym has
been used by the researchers to protect privacy of the child) was observed at both his day
care centre and home. The other participants of the research were Shehwar’s mother, his
caregiver at home and his caregivers at the day care centre.
The settings
Before analysing Shehwar’s speech, the setting of his surrounding must be explained.
Shehwar lives with his parents and a caregiver called Khala. Occasionally his
grandparents come to visit him from the village or other part of the town. Only Bengali
channels are played on television at home. Even though his parents are fluent in English,
they mostly speak in Bengali with him. He began going to the day care centre near his
house from the age of five months where only one caregiver took care of him till he was
10 months old and with whom he was much attached.
Instruments
i. Video recording transcription grid: The researchers transcribed different video clips
recorded at home and at the day care centre on a transcription grid (see appendix 1)
to identify Shehwar’s word association skills.
ii. Child observation form: The researchers used an anecdotal observation form (see
appendix 2) to note Shehwar’s responses at home. They wrote unguided field notes
for their observation.
Sabreena Ahmed and Naushin Nazifa Islam 173

iii. Journal writing: Shehwar’s mother was asked to keep a journal of her child’s
language development and share with the researchers. This journal will help to find
out how Shehwar’s daily activities at home contributed to language acquisition.
Data Collection
Procedure: The recorded video clips, anecdotal observation, field notes and journal of
the mother were analysed by the researchers to see if word association and object
recognition contributes in the child’s first language acquisition at phonological, lexical
and semantic level.
Method of analysis: The transcribed data from the video recordings and Narrative
analysis of qualitative research was employed by the researchers to present data collected
from the child’s responses. The phonological patterns of the child’s responses were
displayed by using International Phonetic Alphabet Symbol (IPA). The data collected
from the video clips, observation and journal entries of the mother helped to achieve
triangulation and credibility of the research.
Significance of the study: Parents and early childhood educators should be aware of the
fact that richer language input from parents, relatives and day care centers can help a
child acquire a language quickly. The study can serve as a model for the parents and early
childhood educators to see how scaffolding techniques and repetitions of tasks can help a
child to know the names of the objects around him and build his phonological and lexical
repertoire to support his ability to comprehend his first language at the sematic level.

Analysis of Collected Data

The collected data has been analysed by the researcher on the basis of the timeline of
Shehwar’s age and his language development at the phonological, lexical and semantic
level :
Language Development from Birth to four months
Shehwar’s mother wrote in her journal that his response to any question or statement
from parents or anyone was /umm/ or / ɑ: ɑ: / till three months of age. Around fourth
month, his pleasure sound was /ageu:/ which shows prominence of the phoneme /g/.
Whenever his mother cuddled him, he made this sound. His babbling stage consisted of
following sounds: / ɑ ɑ ɑ:, /, /t ɑ, t ɑ, t ɑ,/, /bɑ bɑ bɑ/, /grrrr/, /drrrrr, /dddd/. He laughed
aloud when seeing his parents and cried when felt hungry or sleepy. It was observed in
the phonological pattern that the child had used ended mostly with open back unrounded
vowel sounds such as / ɑ /.
Language Development from Five to ten months of age
Phonological Development
His first word “abba” (/ɑ:bbɑ:/) came out around six months of age. He also uttered /
ɑ:mmɑ:/. But definitely, these self-acquiesced words did not have meanings at that stage
yet. It was the result of babbling a few months earlier.
174 Spectrum, Volume 12, 2016

Lexical Development
The journal log stated that Shehwar could sit with a little help around seven months and
completely by himself around 10 months. This motor skill helped to gain a different view
of the world as till now he had to wait for anyone else to help him sit up and see around.
He started pointing out to objects he wanted easily from this sitting position, which is the
initial sign language for any baby.
Around eight months he was able to show “tata” by waving hands. The caregiver also
practiced “give and take” by exchanging toys with Shehwar and introduced him to the
phrase “thank you”. He was also accustomed to hear the word “sorry” from other kids
who were taught by the centre to utter the word if they did any mischief. He was able to
show a few objects around the room at home and at the day care centre as his memory
sharpened a bit. For him, it was a high time of separation anxiety like any other children.
He cried to let go off his mother while being dropped off at the centre and did not want to
let go off the primary care-giver at the centre as well. He found an alternative to his
mother in the caregiver while he was at the centre.
He was introduced to the word “dhuppu” by the caregiver at home with the gesture of
sleeping on a pillow. After uttering it for a few times, he started to find a pillow and rest
his head on it whenever the word “dhuppu” was uttered. The caregiver showed pictures
of his parents and other relatives such as /d ɑ: d ɑ: /, /n ɑ: n ɑ: / (grandfather), /mɑmɑ/,
/mɑmi/ (uncle/aunt), /dɑdi/, /nɑni/ (grandmother) etc. through photos hung on the wall.
He was able to recognize these people on photos very well. Though he could not
pronounce those words, he was able to associate the utterances with the people’s faces.
Semantic Development
According to his mother’s journal entry, she made sure that all of his relatives and
visitors call Shehwar by his name. That is the first instance for the child to associate his
own name with himself. Shehwar began to stay at the day care centre from the age of five
months from 8am to 4pm. To make his transition from home to day care easy, his mother
used to send a piece of cloth that was being used to wipe his face at home. This is the first
instance of object recognition that gave him comfort at the centre. He was sent his
mother’s used dupatta as well that made him feel that his mother is with him while he
slept at the centre. His mother also used utterances like “tel malish tel malish” in a high
pitch while massaging oil before bath and telling him “gosu gosu gosu” before putting
him in the bowl of water. The primary caregiver at the centre was taught these signals so
that he knew that someone close is giving him bath. This way of using the same signal in
both places helped him associate these specific words with the action of oil massage and
bath.
Every morning the older kids of pre-school level at the day care centre began their day
with the national anthem and physical exercise. At that time, Shehwar was always taken
to the anthem room. This was an exposure for him to understand that the tune of national
anthem will make everyone stand up and stay quiet.
The caregiver at the centre played a few games which were helpful for his sensorimotor
skills and cognitive development. For example, “what is that?” is a game where the child
is taken to different places of the room to show different objects and introduced to that
Sabreena Ahmed and Naushin Nazifa Islam 175

object. Another such activity is putting any object on the baby’s stomach (e.g. silk, or
cotton, or a pen etc.) and made him feel that. Holding a piece of cloth a bit higher than
his reach is another activity that helped to make him active to fetch the cloth and be
active. Sometimes he was taken to the older kids’ room while they were doing their
learning activities such as drawing or having their meals. Such practice exposed Shehwar
to the idea of eating and playing together early on. He also observed how other kids were
told “no no” by the teachers while doing any misconduct. Such signaling for stopping a
mischief was introduced early on. The signaling went on with a proper explanation as
without it, children start to imitate the signal themselves. It served as a great tool to
correct his wrong behaviors at home later on.
Language development after ten months
Phonological Development and overgeneralization
Shehwar expressed his opinion by screaming / ɑ: ɑ: eeee/ at the age of ten months. He
could now pronounce the word /mɑm/ by which he meant the water pot from where he
would drink between meals. He was able to show his and others’ body parts (e.g. head,
ear, eyes, hands and leg etc.) if asked “where is your head?” It was taught at the day care
centre as a part of a learning exercise. He was able to point out objects if the caregiver
pronounced the names, e.g. If the caregiver asked “show me where is the cat? ; he would
point out at the calendar on the wall the show the cat’s picture. Similarly, he recognised
pictures of palki, crane or parrot or farmer on paintings at home. He was able to brush
his own teeth by imitating his parents.
He was able to ride the plastic horse at the centre and made ecstatic sounds like /eeeaah/
like older kids playing with him in the same room. The poem “Aam pata jora jora, marbo
chabuk cholbe ghora” worked as a stimulus for him to ride the toy horse at the day care
centre spontaneously. This is an example of word association and object recognition as
well. Along with the previous babbling sounds /tata/, /aa aa/ was added a new tune /uli
luli l ɑ: h/. His pronunciation displayed that he was now able to utter close front and mid
vowel sounds such as /i/ and /e/.
He called his mother /ma/ or ɑmm ɑ: /, often with the suffix /i/ such as /ammai/ to
practice the front vowel sound. He called his father /bɑ:bɑ:/ or / ɑbbɑ:/ This is an
example of reduplication. Shehwar used the sound /drrrrɑ:h/ to play with any toy car.
Whenever he saw a vehicle with wheels on the way to day care centre or home, he uttered
the sound. This overgeneralization extended to calling a suitcase with wheels /drrrrɑ:h/.
The other older kids make the sound “pip pip” while playing with toy cars which was not
imitated by Shehwar. The instructor at the centre encouraged to teach the proper name
for car and asked Shehwar to utter /gɑ:ri:/ rather than /drrrrɑ:h/. In three days, he picked
up the word and after waking up from sleep the first word he uttered is /gari/. Again, the
overgeneralization phase began where he called everything with wheels (e.g. oxygen
carrying trolley at the vaccination centre or his pram with four wheels) /g ɑ: ri:/ which
means “car” in English.
Shehwar was fascinated to see the onions, garlic and potatoes stacked in a rack in the
kitchen. He took potatoes from the rack and pronounced / ɑɑuu/ when someone told him
that its /alu/. Later on, analogical overextension was seen when he found a packet of
176 Spectrum, Volume 12, 2016

peanuts and called them /aauu/ as well. Even carrots and other vegetables were / ɑɑuu/ to
him. Here he is acquiring the skill of uttering close back rounded vowel sound such as
/u/.
Lexical Development and Overgeneralisation
Around 10 months, he was able to stand up by holding on to any furniture. Introducing a
walker was a great way to add motion to his curiosity. He could now walk to different
parts of the centre and see what other children were doing or saying. His eating of meals
were done with other kids in the same room where he now ate by himself by taking food
from the plate. This is an evidence of self-independence of a child as he asked for a spoon
and plate and ate like others both at the centre and home. Even if he did not have the
word for these objects, he used his body language to ask for those items.
Shehwar’s mother had an aloevera plant in the balcony that fascinated the 11 month old.
As the prickly thorns of the leaves might hurt him, she named the plant /keu/. Whenever
he wanted to touch it, she uttered the sound /keu/ in high tone and said “Na na dhora jabe
na” (No, no you can’t touch it). Shehwar imitated the gesture and said /k ɑ: u/, /Nɑ nɑ: /
whenever he saw any plant of the same size of the aloevera plant. For example, keeping
the top green part of a pineapple at the entrance of the kitchen prevented him from going
in the kitchen. He thought that was /keu/ as well. This sound later one was shortened by
him to /kɑ: / or added suffix to as /kɑkkɑli: /. He took a sweet potato with a few small
leaves on and made a gesture of making his parents scared by saying /kakali: /. His
mother took this opportunity to curb his curiosity to go into any darkroom by saying:
“There is “keu” there, don’t go.”
Another analogical overextension was seen between two objects which were not similar.
For example, Shehwar put his hand into a running table fan by mistake and was not hurt
fortunately. But the reaction of caution he got from others made him understand that he
cannot touch table fans. He was pointing to the fan and said “/kakali: /, /n ɑ: ɑ: / /n ɑ:
ɑ: /.” His pitch and tone was cautionary as others as well. Anything he thought was scary
was either /ka/ or /kɑkkɑli: / to him.
Semantic Development and Overgeneralisation
When Shehwar was 11 months old, his primary caregiver left the job at the day care
centre. It was transition for him to adjust to other caregivers as he was very attached to
the primary caregiver. He adjusted well within one week and became accustomed to play
with all the older kids and caregivers. This change in his routine opened up a new
dimension in learning newer vocabulary. When anyone asked him “where is Shehwar?”
he pointed to himself. It happened as the older kids used to call him by that name. To the
question “where is Babu”, he showed himself again, which showed that he knew Babu
means a small child like him. He learnt to give salam by putting his hand on the forehead
by observing the other kids.
Shehwar learnt to walk around 13 month and discovered the joy of going around seeing
different objects and actions of people. He imitated the gesture of cleaning the floor with
a broom, or wearing a bigger shoe. He imitates adults’ sneezing by shaking his head
from back to front and uttering /haθu/. Objects used by adults fascinated him. He called
umbrella or chata (/tʃhɑtɑ/) /kɑg ɑ: /. This example shows substitution of /tʃh/ sound with
Sabreena Ahmed and Naushin Nazifa Islam 177

voiceless velar stop /k/. He used animism with a soft toy bird. The toy was named Kukku
by his mother which he brought with him to sleep every night. He offered food to this toy
as well. Ball was pronounced as /bɑu/ by him and he overgeneralised it to show anything
round (e.g. any round vegetable). If he fell on hard surface, his mother uttered the sound
/tut tut/ and beat up that surface. He repeated the action by saying /tɑt tɑt/, being unable
to reproduce /u/ sound.

Discussion
It is obvious from the above case study that Shehwar is right on track for physical and
language developments as per Piaget’s (1970) stages of development (cited in Oakley,
2004, p.14). From 0 to 4 months his sounds /bɑbɑbɑ/, /tɑtɑtɑ/, /e ɑ: e ɑ:/ shows
reduplication. His pleasure sound was / ɑgeu:/ which shows prominence of the phoneme
/g/ (Cruttenden, 1979, p..9-12).
At this sensorimotor stage, he is honing his skills to imitate adult actions. He is following
a routine at home and the day care centre which provides plenty of opportunity to imitate
others, repeat and rehearse his actions and new learning (cited in Cruttenden, 1979, p. 97-
98). Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development is achieved by him through interaction
and group tasks like eating /playing with others at the day care centre (cited in Lightbown
& Spada, 2006, p. 20). Moreover, repetition of routines helps him gather stimuli from his
environment and respond to any question easily. The caregivers at home and day care
centre have shown him how to show happiness through clapping his hands which is
called “tai tai tai” in Bengali (“Learning”, n.d.).
As per Rescorla (1980), Shehwar has a tendency to use categorical and analogical
overextensions while learning the word /gɑri:/ and / ɑɑuu:/ or potato (cited in Peccei,
2000, p. 11). Signal word like “no no” gives him a sense of right or wrong action at this
very tender age which he abides by both at home and outside. A downside of this action
is that he often answers to casual questions with /na na/ which means “no” in Bengali. It
might have been an effect of this negative signal given to him. He uses animism to make
her toy Kukku eat/sleep with him even though he cannot pronounce his name (Oakley,
2004, p. 18). This practice of animism displays how the child has associated the idea of
regular human actions of eating and sleeping with his toy. Simple instructions like “bring
the remote”, or “wipe your face” in Bengali instantly makes him take the action (cited in
Griffiths, 1997, p. 290). It helps him build his memory around the object and the action
associated with it (“Learning”, n.d., p. 114-115). It also reflects that he is at the enactive
and iconic stage of Bruner’s theory. In the first one, actions are imitated and in the second
one, knowledge is created through visuals (cited in Meggit, 2006, p.19). Scaffolding at
home and at the day care centre helps him to learn many words and things around him
easily (cited in Meggit, 2006, p.19).
It is notable that he finds it easier to add front vowels such as / ɑ: / or /i/ to any word
rather than phoneme back vowels such as /u: /. The way he shows sneezing by uttering
/hɑθu: /, shows easy access to alveopalatal /h/. Fletcher and Garman (1997) points out
that a syllabic consonant can be substituted by a vowel sound. We see that Shehwar
substitutes /l/ phoneme of /ɑlu:/ with /ɑɑuu/. This shows the process of vocalization. In
addition, he uses /kɑg ɑ: / to name an umbrella or chata (/tʃhɑtɑ/). Here, trace of Stampe’s
178 Spectrum, Volume 12, 2016

(1969) simplification of innate phonological system is found as he uses a familiar sound

of voiceless velar stop /k/ instead of /tʃh/ which is not available in his repertoire of
phonemes yet. He will be able to pronounce the phoneme after going through more
practice (p. 224).
Moreover, he adds high toned /i: / with /gari: / or /ammai/ as a sound of playing with
pleasure. He uses coinages like /drrrɑh/ with English retroflex /r/, while making the
sound of a car engine being started which he observed in the streets.

Conclusion
Language acquisition takes place naturally with the biological development of a child. It
is amazing how human beings add words to their mental dictionary and learn a whole
system of communication step by step. However, the acquisition of first language
becomes faster and easier for a child if his parents and care providers help him to
associate words or names of objects and ideas. A regular practice of word association and
object recognition leads to significant development of a child’s language at the
phonological, lexical and semantic level. Such language development later on contributes
in his overall cognitive development.

References
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180 Spectrum, Volume 12, 2016

Appendices
Appendix 1:
A Sample of Video Transcription Grid

Interpreting Video 1
Setting: Day care centre
Aim: Teaching Shehwar names of body parts
Discourse Conversation Body language of Comment of
Unit Shehwar in response researchers

DU 1 Q.Kaan kothai baba kaan?
(Where is your ear?)
DU2 Shehwar shows his ears with
hands
DU3 Q. Ei je Shehwar, haat
kothai baba haath? Haath
baba haath (Where is you
hand baba? Hand your hand
baba)
DU4 Haath kothai baba, dekhao
to (Shehwar, where is your
hand, please show me that).
DU5 Yee ya (responds Shehwar)
Shehwar shows his ears Scaffoding technique
to teach object names.
The child shows body
parts as a response.
He responds a bit late to
show his hand
Another teacher is
talking here to
encourage him. He is
too awed by the video
recording process.

DU6 Eito Haath (Here is your

hand good).

DU7 Q. Pa kothai tomar? Pa? Shehwar immediately

(Where are your feet?) shows his feet

DU8 Eito pa (here is you feet).

DU9 Q. Chokh kothai tomar, Shehwar shows his eyes
chokh chokh? (Where are
your eyes?)

DU10 Matha (Head, where is your He shows his head after

head, your head, baba) asking thrice, with a
delay

DU11 Haath kothai (where is your He shows his fingers

hand?) and arms
Sabreena Ahmed and Naushin Nazifa Islam 181

Appendix 2: A Sample of Anecdotal Observation Notes

Child Observation Form

Date : November 2nd 2014

Time: 2pm
Observer: Sabreena Ahmed
Child: Shehwar
Age: 7 months

What the child and adults say and do:

Shehwar’s caregiver at home is Meherun. She is asking him to give “dhuppu”. Shehwar
finds a pillow nearby and rests his head as if he will sleep.

Comment: His action shows that the word “dhuppu” is associated with sleeping for him.
 Book Review
Under the Banyan Tree and Other Stories: ‘A Miniature
of Human Experience in all its Opulence’
Zaynul Abedin*

Published by Indian Thought Publications in 2001

(First published by Penguin Classics in 1985)
Paperback, 192 pages
ISBN 139788185986142

The very first story R K Narayan wrote was about a one-armed beggar who stood in front
of a restaurant on a Madras street and sallied forth with his upheld palm every time he
spotted someone emerging from within. He titled it “The One-Armed Giant” and had it
published in The Hindu in Madras sometime in the late 1930s. Even though, later in his
life, he could not salvage the story from oblivion, except for its plot and its impressive
initial line, the publication gave him an indefatigable impetus to write two stories a
month and then to become a regular writer for the newspaper. About four decades later,
in 1985, when one of his most celebrated short story collections Under the Banyan Tree
and Other Stories came out, R K Narayan in its preface recalled that most of its stories
were born out of desperation to meet deadlines on every other Thursdays for the Sunday
column of the newspaper. And yet in the collection he was able to create a miniature of
the quintessential Indian experience in all its opulence, which transcends the four-decade
span of its germination.
For one thing, Under the Banyan Tree and Other Stories shows an astonishing breadth of
comprehensiveness for so slim a book, one of only 192 pages. It traverses such eclectic
themes as a sacred vow, a wrong archaeological breakthrough, a miscarriage of justice, a
favor and the far-reaching repercussions of the 1947 partition. Similarly, if one character
is too young to understand the complexities of life, another is too old to wish to know any
more; yet another too exhilarated in the prime to care for anything at all; and still another
too blasé with practically everything in the world. Others are, by contrast, full of
effervescence, conviviality and always living life to the fullest. As a matter of fact,
twenty-eight stories—though mostly set in the same open air, marketplace and streets of
Mysore, where R K Narayan enjoyed his adolescent respite, ‘reading little’, ‘dabbling at

*
Lecturer, Department of English, University of Dhaka
184 Spectrum, Volume 12, 2016

writing’ and above all taking long walks along tanks, parks and hills—hold so divergent
opinions on life that each one easily stands out of the rest.
For another, most stories of the collection have as diverse origins—whether in a personal
experience, or an observation or an incident— as their themes. “A Breath of Lucifer”, for
example, was dictated by R K Narayan into a cassette when he had to spend as many as
ten days in a hospital bed, with his eyes bandaged, after a cataract operation. The bitter
experience he had with a male attendant, whom he describes as ‘crazy’, suffuses the
story. On the other hand, “Annamalai” developed out of his close observation of a strange
man serving as a watchman in his bungalow for about fifteen years. Its eponymous
protagonist is so faithful to the watchman that R K Narayan, in the preface, describes the
story as ‘almost a documentary’. And the idea of writing “A Horse and Two Goats”
occurred to him when an American friend of his came to visit his house one evening in a
station wagon crammed with an enormous clay horse which he had bought at a high price
at some distant village on a sightseeing tour of India. One story “The Shelter” even grew
out of a whispered conversation, he had overheard, between a newlywed couple during a
bus journey. Indeed, the incidents that have been a precursor to some of the most
variegated stories are in themselves no less diverse, either.
A common thread, however, puts in perfect harmony most of the stories, for all their
diversities of themes and origins: R K Narayan tested his material in the short stories that
preceded the best of his novels. For example, the gestation of the themes and characters
of The Guide can readily be observed in “The Roman Image” and “A Career”. As Marco
Polo in the novel hires Raju for his glib explanations for everything about India, so does
the archaeologist recruit the Talkative Man in both stories, only to be disenchanted later
by his disappointingly wrong archaeological breakthrough. Similarly, Swami in “A Hero”
owes a lot for his existence to, and is a vestige of, the eponymous character in his novel
Swami and Friends. Just as The Great Gatsby, during its three-year process of evolution
when Fitzgerald tested his material in a number of his stories, developed through the
layers of drafts, so did Under the Banyan Tree and Other Stories act as a works-in-
progress manuscript for R K Narayan. That is probably why, in the preface, he concludes
that “the short story is the best medium for utilizing the wealth of subjects available…and
can cover a wide field by presenting concentrated miniatures of human experience in all
its opulence.”
Another thread piercing through the varied collection is R K Narayan’s abiding
fascination with the police. Devoted to the exploration of the fascination, which he
developed early in his life, “A Horse and Two Goats” captures Madras at a critical
juncture of time when the state witnessed the introduction of India’s first village policing,
its fiasco and its renewed comeback in bouts of terrorizing visitations. “Another
Community” offers a poignant spectacle of how some Indians, intoxicated with jingoistic
zeal, used the police to orchestrate a systematic ethnic cleansing immediately after the
British had left India in 1947. “Nitya”, “The Evening Gift” and “The Roman Image”
humorously depict a financial quagmire in which litigious Indians are bogged down as
they act in collusion with the police, jealously seeking destruction of their neighbors. In
other words, R K Narayan turns his adolescent piquant fascination with the police into a
sustained critique of the formidable state apparatus, delineating its contours in the
Zaynul Abedin 185

maintenance and defense of an empire whose vestiges still endure years after the
empire’s conspicuous hegemony has been terminated.
Perhaps the most interesting thing about the collection is that R K Narayan develops most
of his characters in a style that is all his own. In portraying characters in many of his
stories, he exhibits a dry sense of humor. For example, the two characters’ mutual
ignorance of each other’s language and their wild groping for the right implications in “A
Horse and Two Goats”; a young boy’s adventitious surprising of a housebreaker by biting
into his flesh in “A Hero”; and another young boy’s sudden darting out of the temple and
far into the field immediately before a sacred tonsure in “Nitya”—all occasion a lot of
fun, typical of R K Narayan’s literary style. In other stories, by contrast, he very
poignantly reflects upon life caught up in its inescapable complexities. In the title story,
“Under the Banyan Tree”, for instance, he portrays the old-fashioned story-teller Nambi
who embodies mythic dimensions and evokes the Old World charm of oral storytelling.
One fateful night when he founders on his usual story-telling style, he suffers agonies of
inability over what he foresees will happen to him. R K Narayan also lends a similar
haunting poignancy to the accused in “Flavor of Coconut” and to the insurance company
agent in “Another Community”: they both undergo afflictions of existential crises. Thus
the characters he creates run the whole gamut of human emotions, from happiness to
sorrow.
That R K Narayan intended Under the Banyan Tree and Other Stories to be a
comprehensive picture of human experience can also be observed from his striking
arrangement of the stories. Because he had faith in their ‘datelessness’, he did not
organize them into a chronological order. Instead, his impulse was to place “Nitya”, a
story of ‘a sparkling young mind, with rebellion at heart, at the head of the collection’
and to put at the end Nambi, the old story-teller, “who concludes his career by taking a
vow of silence for the rest of his life, realizing that a story-teller must have the sense to
know when to stop, and not wait for others to tell him”. Therefore, unless you have
actually read the book in its entirety, you would never be able to put it down.