A Critical Analysis Of Bakha, An Untouchable

In Yusef Komunyakaa’s “Blackberries,” a youthful speaker seems to be living past the boundaries of city life and exhibits qualities of rural living. The poem tells of the speaker’s adventure of picking blackberries from a thicket and encountering the duality of urban society. Readers of “Blackberries” might at first be puzzled by the speaker’s youthful memory of picking berries, but a closer analysis of the poem allows readers to recognize that the speaker’s internal conflict originates from strict societal boundaries and the loss of his childhood innocence.

Blake continues to use the setting and language to further describe a forbidding sense of apathy that has taken with it the human like qualities of the inhabitants. In this city of desecration it is the “hapless Soldiers sigh” that ”Runs in blood down Palace walls.” A soldier whose function to obey orders without thought echoes that of a machine. It is his apathy in the face of perceived predetermined failure ,and disregard for authority however that is characteristic of a society concerned only with the amassment of wealth is the most damaging. The “chartered street” and a “chartered Thames” create a setting that in itself is structured and designed much like the blueprints of factories. Blake’s “mind-forged manacles” are the barriers created in the minds of those who inhabit the city that further cement their entrapment.

As the main protagonist of the story, it is important to examine Dicky’s relationship to his environment, and the related ideas of poverty and responsibility. Dicky isn’t able to exercise any control over the terrible slum environment. He is a subject, rather than an active agent, in his own life due to the overwhelming depravity of his setting and the futility of his attempts to escape it. The poverty of the slum environment proves stifling for Dicky – a contemporary critic wrote that “the novel, as a story of the career of a child of the slums, does not give enough space to the principal character” (Cubitt 170), forcing the reader to look more closely at the space of the Jago as one of poverty, and only realise the degradation and loss of innocence in the protagonist when it is too late. Furthermore, Morrison’s physical description of the child is limited to discussion of his poverty, as his only noticeable characteristic is that he is wearing a “ragged jacket” (Morrison 14) – these rags relate him to other presentations of street children but strip him of his individuality. Dicky is presented as a ‘type’, one of many other children living in this destructive environment of poverty and crime. However, Dicky starts the text with a clear knowledge of the Jago environment and the role that he will be forced to play as a child of poverty. He is well-suited to the slum environment as he knows no different, and his mother’s attempts to prevent him from entering a life of crime

It is shown in the novel how the lives of the characters were imprisoned in this system. It dictates who can love whom, who is better than whom, and what kind of occupations one can get. On the part where the family of Ammu and Velutha learned about their secret affair, it is shown how Ammu’s relatives went in rage because she is having an affair with an untouchable. Since untouchables were excluded from the caste system, no one in the other caste should be affiliated to them. They were treated like the lowest and dirtiest individuals, which are the reasons why only difficult and dirty jobs were assigned to them. Thus, giving an explanation why Velutha, even being a very skilled person, can never have a higher position in his work.

Growing up during a time of violent political upheaval in Sri Lanka, Arjie travels an especially bittersweet journey into maturation in Shyam Selvadurai’s Funny Boy. The adults in Arjie’s extended family mostly belong to an older, more conservative generation that attempts to fit Arjie into society’s norms. The adults that Arjie meets in the community through his family are individuals who prompt him to see past the confines of his childhood, and it is Arjie’s peers who give him the extra push to understanding himself. With guidance from his extended family, his adult friends, and his peers, Arjie is able to discover his identity through understanding the impact of race

Balram does not think he’ll ever become more than that, and his family is proud that he finds a job outside of the village. “‘Well it’s up to me, then, isn’t it?’ [...] ‘It’ll be Balram. You know who Balram was, don’t you?’ ‘No, sir.’ ‘He was the sidekick of the god Krishna,’” (Adiga, 11). The origin of the name Balram is from a servant of a god, therefore Balram is then destined to be a servant. This name foreshadows the fact that the narrator will be a servant, a very loyal one to Ashok. When Ashok’s wife, Pinky Madam, hits a child while driving under the influence, Balram was ready to go to jail in place of Pinky or Ashok. Although he saw the injustice in it, he knew how the world worked and that it was his destiny to serve his master. Balram then gives insight into the corrupt justice system;“Doesn’t the driver’s family protest? Far from it.They would actually go about bragging. Their boy Balram had taken the fall, gone to Tihar Jail for their employer. [...] He was the perfect servant,” (Adiga, 145). One would think that the driver’s family would be ashamed if their son was put in jail, but it’s the opposite if it was for their master. Families from lower castes believed that they were meant to serve those in higher castes, and if they were so loyal that they would go to jail for their master, it was

this information about Abdul helps us understand him and to set up the rest of the excerpt. A very real image of his neighborhood is created, not just physically but also the attitude and the kind of people here, Abdul’s fear of running is reinforced by his fear of being seen by neighbors who wish his family harm because of either hindu-muslim animosity or economic jealousy stemming from the fact that Abdul’s trash work has been not only able to support his large family but to make them somewhat affluent; in comparison, despite being seen as “contemptible”. The description of his fear’s source is one of importance; it serves not only as a description but also as an explanation, the open lot know as the “maidan” is described as a “bedlam” usually full of life: partying, cooking, playing games or gathering water and even waiting for a turn at the brothel and as a place where “the pressure that built up” can escape in the form of fights, and tonight the burning of the one legged

In Rabindranath Tagore’s play, Raktakarabi (Red Oleanders, 1924), set in an imaginary town called Yakshapuri ruled under capitalism, minorities are dehumanized and exploited into becoming a source of gold digging machines by a brutal King whose ever growing obsession with wealth had turned him despicable until salvation became apparent in the hands of a woman named Nandini. Nandini is the protagonist and the King is the antagonist of the play. Yakshapuri in Hindu mythology is referred to as the abode of the god of its hoard of treasure. In the play, the King symbolizes the oppressor of both humans and nature by fear and power and Nandini symbolizes the nature that restores its equilibrium by shaking everything into its righteous place by beauty, love and strong character. What’s left in between are the oppressed: the miners along with their families who are undoubtedly and hopelessly stuck in a rollercoaster where their freedom is nowhere to be apparent. Tagore shows his concern over the materialistic industry-oriented mentality of men and the lust of controlling the resources of the earth as well as the inhabitants by exploiting, estranging and circumscribing the underdogs.

The main theme of gender inequality towards women in this novel reminded me of how modern society and certain cultures restrict the rights of women. Vaani recalls of a time which she was in a relationship with Brian. Vaani is oppressed by her father when he finds out about their interracial relationship, he abuses her both physically and verbally to pressure her to leave Brian and to punish her for doing it in the first place. “...he wouldn’t let me be myself and who I once was”. After her marriage, Vaani describes the limitations of a woman after marriage. Having grown up around Indian culture and people, this isn’t surprising that the wife isn’t given equal authority in a family because if any mistakes are made in the household, as the wife, she cannot argue with the husband, as the women get less rights then the men in a household. In my opinion, women should have equal rights. This is based on me living in a western country

However, the characters are what make this book a cutting edge masterpiece.The story is about starts with Amir, a Pashtun kid who is carving for his father’s love and respect , but instead his father pours all of his love towards a child servant named Hassan, who soon resembles later in the story to be siblings to Amir. “Amidst this historical backdrop are questions of guilt and redemption, courage and cowardice, friendship and betrayal. The relationship between father and son, with both its love and its tension, forms the basis of the plot, irreparably defining Amir’s character” (Narelle). Told from Amir's point of view, the book completes his entangled interactions and patterns with his dad and Hassan. He soon tries to avoid his problems by figuring out how to get rid of Hassan so he wouldn't feel the guilt of seeing him everyday. Amir was able to do this successfully by planting a sin upon Hassan. “"Good," Baba said, but his eyes wondered. "Now, no matter what the mullah teaches, there is only one sin, only one. And that is theft. Every other sin is a variation of theft. Do you understand that?"” (Hosseini 29). Amir made it look like that Hassan stole his watch and this caught the attention of Baba. Baba soon confronted Hassan ultimately forgiving him but Ali couldn’t stay with Amir and Baba anymore after this disastrous stunt. This

His plight as an untouchable captivated me. Bakha’s abuse, tenuous relationship with his father, and the sexual exploitation attempts on his sister Sohini are key elements that will be explored in this diary entry. In the text, he is depicted as a naïve and unassuming character who tragically

It also brings to notice the ever ongoing tussle between the will of heart and the will of the society, specially in the case of women who are forced by the society and by the already laid norms to defy what they actually want and be satisfied with what their family or the society want. The aspect of human selfishness, jealousy and greed are also depicted in the book.

Vedi, its title taken from Mehta`s childhood nick name, is a rare powerful book with description of a very unusual childhood in the era of the past from the innocent fantastic eyes of a child. It opens a window to the working of the mind of a child-his fears, his traumas, his thinking, and his way of coping with the situation. The reader travels with Vedi to Dadar School for blind in Bombay and realizes (faces) the experiences of child from when he was almost five to the age of nine. He is a normal child despite his blindness. Though his prospects as a normal child were bleak, he had the fatalistic Indian attitude towards blindness. Unlike George orwell`s bitter memoir of his boarding school days, Vedi, the innocent ignorant child, accepts the terrible, monstrous events in his life with composure and surprisingly with a kind of gaiety. He is a high-spirited, strong willed, eager little boy. He is so intent on exercising his child`s prerogative of enjoyment that he seems almost unaware of the cruelty and difficult predicament. The situation is much worse than the child is able to comprehend.

Social Injustices & Realism: The social injustices that have been portrayed in the novel are that of sexual exploitation, sexual harassment, substandard living conditions, poor wages not enough to survive which means that the laborers could never leave the plantation as they would never have enough money in their hands to do so, poor sanitary conditions which led to the breeding of all types of infectious disease and very substandard living conditions. The fact that there was a cholera epidemic from which Gangu’s wife dies showed that the contagious nature of the diseases was serious. The realism in the novel is the is the first hand observation of Mulk Raj Anand and his observations of the tea garden laborers when he lived for a time in Assam.

Balram’s thoughts of family keep him grounded while is in search of a job as a driver for a master to break him out of the Darkness. In his search, he finds a man who immediately does not want to accept him as a driver. Justifying his qualifications, Balram declares, “I don’t disrespect God, I don’t disrespect my family” (Adiga 51). In this quote, Balram equivocates disrespecting one's family to disrespecting God. Even if he does not truly believe this himself, it shows that words like this will have an effect on those around him because religion and family are very important to people. Moreover, this quote demonstrates that family grounds Balram’s thinking in the beginning on the novel, something that drastically changes as time passes. Later in the novel, Balram makes a pro versus con list of his spit to decide what to do and how he should continue his life. One puddle of spit says to him, “Your father wanted you to be a man” (Adiga 210). Balram explains early in the novel that his father was a good man and this quote shows that Balram’s father did not tie him down to a particular path in life. All he wanted was for him to have the strength and skills stereotypically associated with being a man. These two instances sharply contrast with the rest of his family’s views of him that restrict his freedom.