Wednesday 31 August 2011

Novels, Chap-8, History, Class X

In this chapter, we shall study about an important form of literature, which is the novel as it developed in the West and in India. Tracing the circumstances and movements that gave rise to modern society, the different facets of an evolving global order, nothing represents this process of development better than the rise of the novel. Aim of this chapter is to present the novel primarily as a historical process that played a major role in the development of society, in which literacy played a large part.
The novel evolved through a series of evolutionary stages, each one preparing the ground as it were for the one that has to follow. Novels are valuable sources for scholars of later ages. The future scholars will try and understand the forces and undercurrents that shaped our times, by studying the novels written during our era.
We have seen how the emergence of print culture and transformation wrought by the industrial and agricultural revolutions, moderns form of communications, transportation and the impact of colonialism- all contributed to globalization and the coming of a post industrial society. We have studied the various threads and patterns that constitute and appreciate the interconnectedness of the overall construction of modern society as we know it.

A: THE ENABLING FACTORS
1: The Popularisation of the Printed Matter & the Role of Print Technology
·         The novel emerged as a result of socio-economic developments. Novels could never have achieved either popularity or prominence without the willing acceptance of its target audience-“the readers”.
·         The coming of the modern printing processes paved way for the emergence of the novel. Before the printing press, books had to be written laboriously by hand.
·         Since knowledge of reading and writing was mostly confined to the clerics and the nobility, medieval books were either religious texts or commentaries on governance.
·         The mechanization of print processes liberated the book from the narrow confines of manual production and allowed it to diffuse into a wider arena of human experience. Books were devoted to poetry, ballads, fairy tales, nursery rhymes, folk tales, travelogues and philosophical or moral texts.
·         The “penny” and “shilling” publications were single handedly responsible for taking the printed matter to the masses and easily accessible to the common man.
·         Lending libraries, collections of books at bargain prices, travelling salesman and exhibitions spread the habit of reading over a rapidly widening and literate audience. As literacy increased so did the demand for books.
·         With the democratization of the printed matter, vast body of literature spewed forth, some neither edifying nor educative.
·         But the amount of printed material that began to flow from printing presses, initially in Europe and later across the globe- whetted the appetite of readers, both men and women for more printed material.
·         The humble “Penny Publications”, the rudimentary newspapers and the publicity material that represented the sudden expansion of the newly industrialized society, all paved way for the development of the reading habit.
2: The Role of the Gas Light
·         If the press led to the development of the reading habit, the invention of gaslight that gave the novel a major impetus.
·         Novels were an inexpensive and readily available escape from the drudgery of a mechanized and rapidly dehumanizing society. It temporarily allowed its reader to escape the burdens and harshness of reality by providing entertainment and even education.
·         Novels were read only during leisure hours which usually meant late evenings or nights, better lighting than candle light was desirable. The Gas light (Pall Mall was the first London Street to be lit by gaslight on 28-01-1807) and the resources soon penetrated offices and homes.
·         24 hour availability of light bright enough to read comfortable gave a big boost to the reading habit and to the novel as a popular reading material.
3: Better Communication and Transport Facilities:
·         The Vast improvements that took place in communication and transport, the Penny Post, roadways and railways revolutionized society and encouraged the proliferation of novels.
·         A shrinking world expanded the market for novels.
·         Better marketing increased the possibility of catering to a rapidly widening and increasingly accessible audience. As readership expanded so did the sales.
·         Publishing novels soon became a serious part of the printing domain.
4: Professional Novelist, Literary Genres:
·         As the demand for novels increased and readership increased, it accelerated the development of professional novelists whose sole vocation was writing novels, as opposed to earlier times when people wrote books in their spare time.
·         It also gave rise to publishing houses that produced novels exclusively.
·         Rising sales, and rising incomes, larger revenues allowed writers to asserts their independence and manage without the support of wealthy patrons.
·         This also gave them the freedom to experiment at the same time, and it encouraged a body of writers to stick to one theme or specialize in writing novels only on one genre.
·         Literary Genres: is a way of classifying literature. A genre is a loose set of criteria for a category of literary composition, depending on its literary technique, tone or content.
The most common genres in literature are (chronologically):


Ø  Epic
Ø  Tragedy
Ø  Comedy
Ø  Novel
Ø  Novella(a shorter version of a novel)
Ø  Short stories
Ø  Additionally a sub-genre like satire, allegory or pastoral might appear in any of the above.
Ø  They are often defined by the general cultural movement of the historical period in which they were written.


5: The Role of Critics:
·         The growing popularity of novels gave rise to a breed of men and women who came to be known as “literary critics”
·         This learned set of individuals took it upon them to comment on various aspects of novels which came into the market.
·         Many of these professional commentators wrote highly critical and disparaging terms.
·         These critics acquired the power to preserve, boost or destroy a writer’s reputation and such men were greatly instrumental in shaping the course of the novel.
·         A large number of these were pedantic conservatives. Some of these critics were true visionaries, whose favourable remarks hastened the evolution of the novel into several forms it subsequently emerged.
6: The Need for Recreation:
·         A society that is changing rapidly, always feels the need for mental stimulation. Such as England after the Industrial Revolution, or India during the 19th century.
·         English knowing India craved for books on western patterns that would stimulate their minds. This was especially true of all Residency towns.
·         The recreative reading and creative writing took a turn in favour of nationalistic literature, therefore these presidency towns, the heart of the British Empire soon became hotbeds of nationalistic feeling and of revolutionary activity.
B: THE FORERUNNERS OF THE NOVEL
Story telling is as old as oral communication. Before the invention of writing, oral traditions carried on the process of transferring knowledge.
In the middle ages, there were professional “balladeers”, “jongleurs”, professional minstrels and story tellers who entertained the masses in every society across the globe. They travelled from place to place reciting the epics such as Homer’s Iliad or Odyssey, while in India the Ramayana and Mahabharata were retold endlessly.
Some works as Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales or Boccaccio’s Decameron were published in Manuscript forms, although the expense and the rarity of hand-written books were serious impediments to their capturing a wider audience. Therefore, these tales were mostly recited orally.
With the invention of printing, the stage was set for appearance of printed books and novels.

C: THE NOVEL
What is a Novel?
·      A novel is commonly thought of as a piece of imaginative prose, a narrative of considerable length that varies somewhere between and a certain complexity that deals imaginatively with human experience, usually through a connected sequence of events involving a group of persons in a specific setting.
·      Within its broad framework, the genre of the novel has encompassed an extensive range of types and styles: picaresque, epistolary, gothic, romantic, realist, historical to name some of the important ones.
o    Picaresque: involving clever rogues or adventurers.
o    Epistolary: associated with letters or the writing of letters, Being in the form of a letter: epistolary exchanges, Carried on by or composed of letters: an epistolary friendship.
o    Gothic-relating to the middle Ages; medieval, relating to a style of fiction that emphasizes the grotesque, mysterious, and desolate. Gothic: Barbarous; crude.
·      Length is one of the determining criteria of a novel. When a piece of fiction is long enough to constitute a whole book, about 100,000 words or more, as opposed to the a mere part of a book, it may be described as a novel. A short novel is termed novella and even a shorter one a novelette, while a very long one is called a “roman-fleuve” or a river novel, a long novel, often in many volumes, chronicling the history of several generations of a family, community, or other group and often presenting an overall view of society during a particular epoch. Also called saga novel.

The novel as a Literature:
In its highest sense, literature may be taken to mean not merely the entire body of writings produced by a culture, but only those whose primary appeal in to the imagination and the emotions through variety and elegance of plot, characterization and language, stories that are true to life and human feelings. They compromise folktales, stories, poems and plays.
Author’s had to stick to the best vehicle then available for conveying their works to as wide as an audience possible.
For Eg: Shakespeare had to stick to drama, had he lived in a post print culture he might have produced novels. Most of his drama is linked to the tragic comedy of the human conditions, this is one of the benefits of literature it exemplifies the human condition of that era. Watching a tragedy can act as an outlet for the release of repressed energy or emotions and by pointing out man follies comedy can help him attain the balance in life.
The biggest literary achievement of the 19th century Europe is “fiction” and   poetry, poetry is considered much superior as geniuses are involved in writing inspired poetry. For E.g.: Lord Tennyson’s “Locksley Hall”.
Many stories and fables were produced earlier. Until the 18th century the word referred to those forms of writing which were short fictions of love and intrigue. Novels today are considered to be an imaginative prose of 60,000 to 200,000 words, 300-1300 pages in length. By the 18th Cent The novel veered away from the old form of romance as in heroic tales of love, sacrifice and high adventure and became a major literary genre. It has been defined as the modern middle class epic.
The term in derived from the Italian word “novella”, a short narrative tale, esp. a popular story having a moral or satirical point, such as those in Boccaccio's Decameron. The 1001 Arabian Nights comprise of many stories on a common theme brought together, each of which are novelties & innovative diversions. Some novels lacked in substance or moral earnestness, the novel often suffered from this image of a frivolous and light form of entertainment, in spite of novelists like, Leo Tolstoy, Virginia Wolfe and Henry James, who were serious novelists.
Developed societies, traditional societies, eastern societies, discouraged their young women from reading novels. They feared that exposure to novels would corrupt them or encourage to think of themselves in term other than sanctioned by a patriarchal society.
The novel in its present form appeared in England and in France, started to written from the 17th century and reached maturity in the 18th century. The readership from the beginning of the 19th century witnessed a new readership class. These new readership classes comprised of the lower middle class, the old aristocracy, and the new gentlemanly educated class that emerged in England and France after the Industrial Revolution.

D: THE WORLD OF THE NOVEL:
The world of the novel was any story created for the audience that craved the thrills provided by its spectacular incidents and romances.
The history of the novel is a debatable matter because of different critical opinions as to what exactly a novel is, and also because the form did not develop in a straightforward way.
·         Those who define novel simply as a prose fiction that contains human characters in a realistic setting claim that “Don Quixote”, as the first novel.  Don Quixote (kihote) fully titled The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha, is a novel written by Spanish author Miguel de Cervantes. Published in two volumes a decade apart (in 1605 and 1615), Don Quixote is considered the most influential work of literature from the Spanish Golden Age in the Spanish literary canon. As a founding work of modern Western literature, and one of the earliest canonical novels, it regularly appears high on lists of the greatest works of fiction ever published.
·         Critics insist that besides being realistic, a novel must have a satisfying formal structure. The romances of Mademoiselle de Scudery (1607-1701), the 10 volume Artemene ou Le Grand Cyrus (1649-53), did not meet this definition. This epic contains about 2.1 million words, ranks as one of the longest novels ever written. These stories derive their length from endless conversations and, as far as incidents go, successive abductions of the heroines, conceived and told decorously. Contemporary readers also enjoyed these novels because they gave a glimpse into the life of important society figures.[2] These figures were often disguised as Persian, Greek, Roman warriors and maidens.[2]
·         La Princesse de Cleves (1678) by Mademoiselle de La Fayette is regarded by some the first modern novel, a psychological study of infatuation.
·         The Pilgrim's Progress from This World to That Which Is to Come is a Christian allegory written by John Bunyan and published in February, 1678. It is regarded as one of the most significant works of religious English literature, has been translated into more than 200 languages, and has never been out of print. Some see this as the first novel.
·         Literary traditions were adopted by 19th century writers with their own creative additions, most of them being based on social or historical events, cultural afflictions. The shift of focus from all embracing themes to ones with narrower, humbler focus, those concerned with ordinary people. No longer did the authors concentrate solely on the lives of great people or actions, but portrayed the everyday lives of common people. This democratization brought novels closer to the common people. The novels of “Charles Dickens” would be the best examples, which revolved around the tragedies and petty triumphs of ordinary people. The 19th century waves of industrialization in Europe under-valued the lives of workers. Deeply critical of these developments, Charles Dickens wrote about the terrible dehumanizing effect of industrialization on people’s lives and characters.
·         Dickens Novels:
Ø  Were outstanding works of social commentary, he was a strong critic of poverty and social stratification of Victorian Society.
Ø  Dickens second novel “Oliver Twist” shocked its readers with its stark images of poverty and crime and was responsible for the clearing of the actual London slum that was the basis of the story of Jacob’s Island. In addition, by portraying the tragic character of the tragic fallen woman “Nancy” in such sympathetic light, Dickens humanized such women for the reading public-women who were regarded as unfortunates, inherent immoral casualties of the Victorian Class/ economic system.
Ø  Bleak House and Little Dorrit elaborated expansive critiques of the Victorian institutional apparatus: the interminable lawsuits of the court of Chancery that destroyed people’s lives in Bleak House. It also launched a dual attack on inefficient corrupt patent offices and on unregulated market speculation.
Ø  When Britain was the major economic and political power of the world, Dickens highlighted the life of the forgotten poor and disadvantaged at the heart of the Empire. Through his prolific work he campaigned on certain specific issues such as sanitation and the workhouse, but his fiction was probably all the more powerful in changing public opinion in regard to class inequalities. He often depicted the exploitation and repression of the poor and condemned the public officials that allowed such abuses to exist. His most strident indictment of this condition is in Hard Times (1854), Dickens only full length novel on woes of the industrial working class. He uses both satire and antagonism to illustrate how his marginalized social stratum was termed “hands” by the factory owners, not really people merely appendages of the machines they operated.
Ø  His writing inspired others, especially journalists and political figures, to address such problems of class oppression. The Prison scenes in The Pickwick Papers were prime movers in having the Marshal sea and Fleet Prisons shut down.
Ø  The exceptional popularity of his novels created unforgettable characters, compelling storylines and ensured that the “Victorian” public confronted issues of social justice that had commonly been ignored.
Ø  The time period 1770’s to the 1860’s is often referred to as Dickensian: it refers to the period covered by Charles Dickens' books – i.e. mid-Victorian - and also, the fact that Charles Dickens wrote extensively and vividly in his novels about poverty and conditions of the poor. So, when people talk about (for instance) children living in 'Dickensian conditions' they mean children living in extreme poverty and/or roaming the streets
·      Victorian Novelist- Thomas Hardy(1840-1928)
Ø Was undoubtedly influenced by Dickens, but his works displayed a greater willingness to confront and challenge the Victorian society and the institution of Religion.
Ø He also portrayed characters caught up by social forces (primarily, lower class conditions) but which usually steer them to tragic ends beyond their control.
·      Emily Zola’s- Germinal (1885) It was written on the life of a young miner in France, lived in grim conditions of the mine. This novel ends on a note of despair: the strike the hero leads fails, his co-workers turn against him and hopes are shattered. This novel traces in harsh detail the grim conditions of miners’ lives.
E: COMMUNITY, SOCIETY AND THE NOVEL:
·      The vast majority of readers of the novel lived in the city, and novels gave its readers a sense of connection with the fate of the rural communities. In Britain Thomas Hardy, William Morris( 1834-1896) and John Ruskin(1819-1900), followed the tradition of realism in fiction, were writing about the disintegration of the rural society, the ugliness of industrialized cities and the ruination of the handicrafts. Big landlords in Britain fenced in large tracts of land in the countryside. Small and independent farmers had to give up their lands, due to fencing of land.
·         We can trace the scene of this change in Hardy’s –‘Mayor of Casterbridge (1886)’.
·         It is about Michael Henchanard, a successful grain merchant, who becomes the mayor of the
farming town of Casterbridge.
·         He is an independent – minded man who follows his own style in conducting business.
·         He was both unpredictable generous and cruel with his employees.
·         On the other hand, his manager –Donald Farfrae, runs his business on efficient managerial
lines and is well regarded for smooth and even tempered with everyone.
·         Hardy mourns the loss of the more personalized world that is disappearing.
Novels thus draw not only on settings but different styles of language peculiar to those settings. In fact, the novel is the confluence of various languages through which people of different communities share common sentiments. The novel has the power to bring together many cultures.
  • What is meant by Vernacular ? Or ‘The novel bring together many cultures’ Explain.Or
          How did the novel produce the sense of a shared world ?
Ans.    1.  The novels uses the vernacular , the language that is spoken by common people.
          2.  It brings people closer to each other either they spoke different language.
          3.  Vernacular novels produces the sense of a shared world between diverse people in a                       nation.
          4.  Novels also draw from different style of language like a novel can take a classical                language and combine it with the language of the streets and make them all a  part of the         vernacular that it uses.
          5.  Like the nation the novel brings together many cultures.


F: THE NEW WOMEN
·         18TH century novels attracted a new section of society, as readers and also as writers- Women.
·         Usually middle-class often had the time to read and write.
·         It was inevitable that novels explored the world of women, their emotions, identity crises, their social problems, and their experiences as being a woman.
·         Women authors wrote many novels, revealing details about their status in a patriarchal society and their travails of everyday life.
·         Status of women:
o    There was no scope for an independent minded young woman of genteel birth to strike out on her own and be self supporting.
o    The professions, universities, colleges etc, were not open to women.
o    Most genteel women had no access to money except by marrying, for the right of inheritance to property did not vest in daughters, as the eldest son generally inherited the bulk of the estate. A woman could only be heiress if she had no brothers.
o    Only a small no. of women had a recognized career, who through their own efforts earned sufficient income to make them independent.
o    Unmarried women had to live with their families, even if she happened to be an heiress.
o    If a young woman happened to leaver her family, it amounted to a breach of social mores.
o    A woman with no funds, relations or employers was in danger.
o    Giving all this, women were willing to marry just because marriage offered security.
·         Jane Austen:
o    Especially her pride and prejudice spoke of the world of women in early 19th century rural Britain, and shows how women compromised by marrying propertied husbands in return for security and social standing.
o    The novel of Jane Austen give us a glimpse of the world of women in genteel rural Society in early 19th century Britain.  It gives a picture of society which encouraged women to look for ‘good’ marriages and find wealthy or propertied husbands.  The characters of the novel are pre-occupied with money and marriage
·         Charlotte Bronte’s: Jane Eyre 1874
o    Young Jane is shown as an assertive and independent woman. Jane abhorred tradition and suppression of her own identity.
o    At the age of 10 she revolted against hypocrisy of the elders with bluntness in her family/ Girls of this age were expected to be quiet and well behaved. She calls her aunt who was unkind to her deceitful and refuses to address her as aunt ever again.
·         Women novelists tried to raise a voice against the humiliating compromises that women were forced to make in the course of their lives. Their novels usually dealt with themes related to the oppression of women in a man’s world, and portrayed heroines who responded to such challenges with courage. Women characters were seen going against the stream before adjusting to it. Such stories gave great satisfaction to women readers, who voraciously enjoyed a freedom of action not available to them in the real world.
G: THE YOUNG READERS
·         Novelists made an effort to understand the young people of society with a view to portraying the essence of a youthful life.
·         They idealized a new type of man one who was daring, powerful, assertive and independent.
·         These novels were full of adventure and were set in places remote from Europe.
·         The colonial powers were represented in a heroic way, shown as superior to native people. Stories about white-men colonizing the natives and adapting to the strange surroundings appealed to the young boys.
·         Treasure Island- R L Stevenson (1883) and Rudyard Kipling’s Jungle Book are examples of such novels and stories for boys which   involved great historical events , battles etc.
·         G.A. Henty’s-Won by the Sword, was a historical adventure novels for boys, it conveyed the glamour and excitement associated with exploring and conquering strange new lands. Set in Siberia, Alexandria, Mexico and other exotic locations. He wrote about young boys who witness grand historical events get involved in in military actions and show ‘English courage’ in face of danger. The French version on “savoir-faire”.
·         19th century love and romance became the central point of many successful novels. Love stories written for adolescent girls gradually became popular. Many novels were written on this and other related themes, including Ramona by Helen Hunt Jackson, What Katy Did? Adventure series for girls by Sarah Chauncey Woosley(pen name- Susan Coolidge)
H: COLONIALISM AND POST COLONIALISM-HISTORICAL OVERVIEW
Colonialism is the dominance of a stronger nation over another weaker one. This happens when a strong nation sees that its material interests and affluence require that it expand outside its borders. It is acquisition by the colonialist by brute force, of extra markets; resources of raw materials and manpower form the colonies. While committing these atrocities against the natives and territories of the colonies, convince themselves that they stand on higher moral grounds and their basic assumptions in defence of their actions are:
      i.        The colonies are savages in need for education and rehabilitation.
     ii.        The culture is not up to the standards of the colonizer and it’s the moral duty to polish them.
    iii.        It is unable to manage and run itself properly; and needs the wisdom and expertise of the colonizer.
   iv.        The natives embrace religious beliefs incongruent and incompatible with those of the colonizer and consequently, it is God’s given duty of the colonizer to bring those stray people to the right path.
    v.        The natives pose a threat to themselves and to the civilized world if left alone; and it is in the interest of the civilized world to bring those people under control.
As a result, the Europeans ventured adventurously into so-called underdeveloped countries in Africa and Asia and dominated a lot of Geographical areas. They subjugated the native and imposed their will on them. They eroded the natives’ culture, language, wealth, destroyed their economies and established authority based on military supremacy.
1:  THE EFFECT OF COLONIALISM
·         Oppression is the base of colonialism which dehumanizes both the oppressor and the oppressed.
·         National movements radical and violent in their approaches encountered the aggression of colonialism.
·         Natives realized that the settlers were just exploiting without any reward. Thus they resorted to violence and non violence to rid the colonizers.
·         In spite of the ugly face of colonialism, it did a lot of good too:
                      i.        Brought a new vision of life, modern, western and advanced.
                     ii.        Fostered a strong sense of national unity.
                    iii.        Brought industrialization and modern economy.
                   iv.        It developed and advanced cultural life
·         Results and effects of colonialism:
                      i.        Total partial erosion of natives culture
                     ii.        Mediation of the identity and subjectivity of the colonized.
                    iii.        Total rejection by some natives of everything western as a form of reaction and protest against the colonizer.
                   iv.        Categorization of the world into ranks- first world, second world and third world. Stereotyping and prototyping, like “west and the rest”, etc.
                    v.        Emergence of different forms of fundamentalist that aim of purifying their local cultures from the residues of the colonial past.
                   vi.        Emergence of the bourgeois class in the colonies, who endeavor to maintain their status quo by getting closer to the western culture.
                  vii.        Emergence of societies with a lot of contradictions and spilt loyalties.
Novels & colonialism:
·         Hero of Daniel Dafoe’s Robinson Crusoe is an adventurer and slave trader. Many of his actions can be seen as a typical colonizer:
                  i.      He treats colonial people not as human beings equal to him, but as inferior creatures.
                 ii.      When he rescues a native and makes him his slave, he does not ask his name but arrogantly gives him the name of Friday, as if he is a lifeless creature.
                iii.      He sees colonialism as a natural phenomenon, like all colonial rulers.
               iv.      He regarded all natives as primitives and barbaric, less than humans.
                v.      He is in the opinion that colonialism is necessary to civilize the natives to make them fully human.
·         Passage to India By EM Forester and Round the world in 80 days are novels where colonization is the theme
2: POST COLONIALISM:
·         The Pioneers of post colonialism concerned themselves with the social and cultural effect of colonization, asserting that no culture is better or worse than other cultures, they nullified the logic of the colonialists. For E.g.: Chinua Achebe’s ( a well known post colonialists) book Things Fall Apart describes the devastation caused by colonial rule in Africa
I:THE NOVEL IN INDIA:
·         Examples of prose writings done in ancient and  medieval India, Banabhatta’s Kadambari was written in Sanskrit in 7th century .Panchatantra stories. Dastan in Persian and Urdu prose tales of adventures and heroism.
·         The modern novel forms developed in India in the 19th century, the latter half of the 19th century and the early half of the 20th century are very crucial in the history of the Indian novel. The result of cross fertilization of two very different cultures, it was a significant outcome of the Indo European contact.
·         Development of vernacular languages and print culture.
·         Accelerated publishing activity and the growth of literate public, accentuated the process.
·         Several great novelists like: Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay, Mirza Qalick Beg, and Hari Narayan Apte.
·         Witnessed the emergence of novels in several languages including Hindi, Malayalam, Oriya, Kannada, Punjabi.
  • Indian novelist wrote to develop a modern literature of the country that could produce a sense of national belonging and cultural equality with their colonial masters.
·         End of 19th cent. Chandu Menon, Fakir Mohan Senapati, Bhai Vir Singh emerged as nationalist writers, served to infuse national pride and respect for Indian culture and tradition. Translations of these novels into various regional languages made them extremely popular.
·         The earliest novels were written in Marathi and Bengali
o    Marathi-Yamuna Paryatan(1857) by Baba Padmanji, theme was plight of young widows. Muktamala(1861) by Lakshman Moreswar Halbe, a romantic novel with a moral purpose.

1:NOVELS IN SOUTH INDIA
·         Novels began appearing in South Indian Languages during the period of colonial rule.
·         Early novels were English novels translated into a south Indian language.
·         Chandu Menon tried to translate an English novel called Henrietta Temple (Written by Benjamin Disraeli) into Malayalam.
·         Kandukuri Virasalingam (1848-1919) began translating Oliver Goldsmith’s Vicar of Wakefield’ into Telugu.
·         But Chandu and Virasalingam realized that their readers in were not familiar with the way in which the characters in English novels lived: their clothes, ways of speaking and manners were unknown to them.
·         Then they gave up their idea because direct translation of an English novel makes them boring.
·         The original Telugu novel written by Virasalingam-Rajasekhara Caritamu in 1878.
·         Chandu  Menon’s Indulekha- Published in 1889, the first modern novel in Malayalam.
·         Characters of  Chandu Menon’s  Indulekha: Chandu Menon portrayed Indulekha as a woman of breathtaking beauty, high intellectual abilities, artistic talent with an education in English & Sanskrit. Madhavan, the hero of the novel , was also presented in ideal colours.  He was a member of the newly English – Educated class of Nayars from the university of Madras.  He was a first-rate Sanskrit Scholar.  He dressed in western clothes.  At the same, he kept a long hair according to the Nayar custom. Characters like Indulekha and Madhavan showed readers how Indian and foreign lifestyles could be brought together in an ideal combination.
·         The issues raised by novel Indulekha written in Malayalam: India was facing the onslaught  of the western culture, western ideas, life style appealed to the English educated class in India but they faced the dilemma of losing their own traditional values.  Characters like Indulekha and Madhavan showed the reader how the two lifestyles could be brought together. An important issue is the marriage practices of upper-caste Hindus in Kerala, especially Nambuthiri Brahmins and Nayars.  Caste seems to be an important factor while forming marriage alliances. Suri Nambuthiri, a foolish landlord comes to marry Indulekha who is intelligent.  She exercises her choice, rejects him and marries madhavan, an educated civil servant.  It shows that education began to be valued as an asset. The novel is critical of alliances based on caste, ignorance and immortality among high caste. Suri Nambuthiri , who was desperate to find a partner for himself finally marries a poorer relation from the same family and goes away pretending that he has married Indulekha.

2: NOVELS IN HINDI
·         Bharatendu Harishchandra was the pioneer of modern Hindi literature, he encouraged many members of his circle of poets and writers to recreate and translate novel from other languages.
·         The first proper modern novel was written by Srinivas Das of Delhi.
          It was published in 1882, was titled ‘Pariksha – Guru’ ( The Master Examiner)
          a. Theme: It cautioned young men of well to do families against the dangerous influences of bad
               Company and consequent loose morals.
b.    This novel reflects the inner and outer world of the newly emerging middle classes.
c.    The characters in the novel are caught in the difficulty of adapting to colonized society and at the same time preserving their own cultural identity.
d.    The world of colonial modernity seems to be both frightening and irresistible to the characters.
e.    The novel tries to teach the reader the ‘right way’ to live and expect all ‘sensible men’ to be worldly wise and practical, to remain rooted in the values of their own tradition and culture , and to live with dignity and honour.
·         The characters of Pariksha-Guru attempt to bridge between two different worlds through their actions, they take to new  agricultural technology, modernize trading practices, change the use of        Indian languages, make them capable of transmitting both Western Sciences and Indian     wisdom. The young are urged to cultivate the ‘healthy habit’ of reading the newspapers. Novels also emphasized that all this must be achieved without sacrificing the traditional values               of the middle class household.
·         Pariksha-Gurau could not win many readers because it was too moralizing in its style.
·         The writings of Devaki Nandan Khatri created a novel reading public in Hindi. His best seller novel was Chandrakanta- a romance with dazzling elements of fantasy.It was written purely for the pleasure of reading. This novel gives some interesting insights into the fears and desires of its reading public.
·         Munshi Premchand 1880-1936, emerged as one of the greatest litereay figures of Hindi and urdu literature. He wrote about 300 stories, a dozen novels and 2 plasy. His works reflect the social conditions of Indian society in the early 20th century. Some of his best known novels are Sewasadan, Godan, Rangbhoomi, Mazdoor. He drew powerful characters linked with all the sections of the society. There are aristocrats, landlords, middle class professionals, priests, peasasnts and landless labourrers and even beggers. Some women characters are strong individuals with their likes and dislikes and courageous enough to face the oppressive customs and the hostile society. The hero of his novel Rangbhoomi surda is a poor man from the untouchable class. He is shown struggling the forcible takeover of his land for establishing a tobacco factory. In spite of all odds he struggles continuously and is successful in the end. This novel is a reflection on the baneful effects of Industrialization. Premchand’s novel Godan depicts a peasant couple, Hori and Dhania, who in spite of all oppression by powerful sections of society retain their dignity to the end.
·         Many critics regard his Sevasadan as his best, it lifted the Hindi novel from the realm of fantasy, moralizing and simple entertainment to a serious reflection on the lives of ordinary people and social issues. He dealt with social issues specially the condition of women in Indian society e.g- Sewasadan. Issues like child marriage and dowry system are woven in into the story of the novel-Sewasadan’. It also tells us about the ways in which the Indian upper classes used whatever opportunities they got from colonial authorities to govern themselves. He drew on the traditional art of Kissa-goi (story telling).

3: NOVELS IN BENGAL
·         Many of Bengali novels were located in the past, their characters, events and love stories based on historical events.
·         Another group depicted the inner world of domestic life in the contemporary settings.  Domestic novels frequently dealt with the social problems anf romantic relationships between men and women.
·         The readers of the Bengali novels were the old merchant’s elite of Calcutta patronized public forms of entertainments such as ‘Kabirlarai (poetry contest), musical stories and dance performances. The new  bhadralok found himself at home in the more private world of reading novels. Novels were read individually.  They could also be read in select groups.
·         Readers belonging to Bhadralok, the great Bangla novelist Bankim Chandra Chattopadhya  host a ‘Jatra’ in the courtyard, where members of the family would be gathered. In Bankim’s room, a group of literary friends would collect to read, discuss and judge literary works. Bankim read out ‘Durgesbhandini (1865) - His first novels, to such a gathering of people who stunned to realize that the Bengali novel had achieved excellence so quickly.
·         Different style s of novels became popular in Bengal.The prose style- It became a new object of entertainment. In the earlier Bengali novel, a colloquial style of language was used.  It was associated with urban life. Earlier they also used ‘Meyeli’ , the language associated with women’s speech.  In the later period, it was quickly replaced by Bankim’s prose which was sanskritised but also contained a more vernacular style.
·         Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay (1876-1938) was the most popular novelist in Bengal and                   probably in the rest of India. He became popular with his power of telling stories in simple language.
·         The first oriya novel-  Saudamani by Ramashankar Ray (1877-78) Fakir Mohon Senapati (1843-1918) wrote a novel-Chaa Mana Atha Guntha- It was a new kind of novel that will deal with the question of land and its possession.  It is the story of Ramchandra Mangaraj, a landlord’s manager who cheats his idle and drunken master and then eyes the plot of fertile land owned by Bhagia and Shariya, a childless weaver couple.  Mangaraj fool this couple and puts them into his debt so that he can take over their land.  These novels dealt with rural issues
4: NOVELS IN THE COLONIAL WORLD
·         Colonial administrators found ‘vernacular’ novels a valuable source of information on native life and customs.
Ø Knowledge about the native life and customs was useful for them in governing Indian society, with its large variety of communities and castes.
Ø The new novels in Indian languages often had descriptions of domestic life, they showed how people dressed, their forms of religious worship, their beliefs and practices and so on.
Ø Some of the Indian novels were translated into English by British administrators or Christian missionaries.
·         Indian used the novel as a powerful medium to criticize what they considered defects in their society and to suggest remedies.
Ø   Writers like Virasalingam used the novel mainly to propagate their ideas about society among a wider readership.
Ø   Novels also helped in establishing a relationship with the past.
Ø   Many novels told thrilling stories of adventures and intrigues set in the past.
Ø   Glorified account of the past in these novels helped in creating a sense of national pride among their readers.
Ø   People from all walks of life could read novels so long as they shared a common language.  This helped in creating a sense of collective belonging on the basis of one’s language.
Ø   The people living in different regions speak the same language in different ways, sometimes they use different words for the same thing, sometimes the same word is pronounced differently.  With the coming of novels-the way characters spoke in a novel began to indicate their region, class or caste.  Thus novels made their readers familiar with the ways in which people in other pars of their land spoke their language.
·         Novels gave ‘Pleasure of reading like-
Ø   Among the middle class, the novels became a popular medium of entertainment.
Ø   The circulation of printed books allowed people to amuse themselves in ways.
Ø   Picture books, translations from other languages, popular songs, sometimes composed on contemporary events, stories in newspapers and magazines- all these offered new forms of entertainment.
Ø   Within this new culture of print, novels soon became immensely popular.
Ø   In Tamil- Detective and mystery novels often had to be printed again and again to meet the demand of readers.
Ø   The novels also assisted in the spread of silent reading, individual sitting at home or traveling in trains enjoyed novel reading.
Ø   Even in crowded room, the novel offered a special world of imagination.
Ø   Reading a novel was like daydreaming.
WOMEN AND THE NOVEL
·         List the effects of novel on readers. People got worried about the effects of the novel on readers because-
a.    Novels took away the readers from their real surrounding into an imaginary world where anything could happen.
b.    People wrote in newspapers and magazines, advising people to stay away from the immoral influences of novels.
c.    Women and children were often singled out for such advice as they were seen as easily corruptible.
d.    Parents kept novels in the lofts in their houses, out of their  children’s reach .
e.    Young people often read them in secret, even older women who could not read- listened with attention to popular novels by their grandchildren.
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·         Women did not remain mere readers of stories written by men , they also began to write like men.
a.    The early creations of women were poems, essays or autobiographical pieces.
b.    Women in South India began writing novels and short stories .
c.    Rokeya Hossein, a reformer, wrote a satiric fantasy in English called ‘Sultana’s Dream’.
·         Novels became popular among women
          a.  Novels became popular among women because it allowed for a new conception of womanhood, b.  Stories of love-which was staple theme of many novels- showed women who could choose or                        refuses their partners and relationships.
d.    Novels showed women, who could control their lives.
e.    Some women authors wrote about women who changed the world of both men and women.
f.     E.g-  Rokeya Hossein – She was a reformers,  after she was widowed, started a girl’s school in Calcutta.  She wrote a Satiric ( A form of representation through writing, drawing, painting etc, that provides a criticism of society in a manner that is witty and clever) fantasy in English called “Sultana’s Dream- Which shows a world in which women take the place of men.  Her novel ‘Padmarag’ also showed the need for women to reform their condition by their own actions.
·         Many men were suspicious of women writing novels or reading   them
o    Hannah Mullens, a Christian missionary ,the author of ‘Karuna o Phulmonir Bibaran (the first            novel in Bengali) , tells  her reader that she wrote in secret.
o    Sailabala Ghosh Jaya, a popular novelist, could only write because her husband  protected her.
o    In South- women and girls were often discouraged from reading novels.
·         The novels included the issue of caste practices /minorities. INDULEKHA
ISSUE :- An issue that was hotly debated in the novel was the marriage practices of upper caste  Hindus in Kerala especially the Nambuthiri Brahmins and the Nayars.
a.    The Nambuthiri  were major landlords in Kerala at that time; and a large section of the Nayars were their tenants.
b.    In the late 19th century Kerala, a younger generation of English educated Nayar men, who had acquired property and wealth on their won, began  arguing strongly against Nambuthiri alliances with Nayar women.
c.    Nayar wanted  new laws regarding marriage and property.
          STORY :-
a.    Suri Nambuthiri, the foolish landlord who comes to marry Indulekha, the intelligent heroine rejects him and chooses Madhavan, the educated and handsome Nayar as her husband, and the young couple move to Madras, where Madhavan joins the civil service.
b.    Suri Nambuthiri, desperate to find a partner for himself, finally marries a poorer relation from the same family and goes away pretending that he has married Indulekh.
c.    Chandu Menon clearly wanted his readers to appreciate the new values of his hero and heroine and criticize the ignorance and immortality of Suri Nambuthiri.
SARASWATIVIJAYAM
a.    Potheri Kunjambu, a lower caste writer from north Kerala . wrote  this novel, in 1892,
b.    It mounted a strong attack on caste oppression..
c.    This novel shows a you man from an ‘untouchable caste, leaving his village to escape the cruelty  of his Brahmin landlord.
d.    He converts to christianity, obtain modern  education, and return  as the judge in the local court.
e.    Meanwhile , the villagers, thinking that the landlord’s men and killed him, file a case.
f.     At the conclusion of the trial, the judge reveal his true identity, and the Nambuthiri repents and reforms his ways.
g.    Saraswativijayam stresses the importance of education for the upliftment of the lower castes.
TITASH EKTI NADIR NAAM (1956)
a.            It was written by Advaita Malla Burman.
b.            It is an epic about the Mallas, a community of fisherfolk who life off fishing in the river Titash.
c.            The Novel is about three generations of the Mallas, about their recurring tragedies and the story of Ananta, a child born of parent who were tragically separated after their wedding night.
d.            Ananta leaves the community to get educated in the city .
e.            The novel describes the community life of the Mallas like their Holi and Kali Puja festivals, boat races, bhatiali songs, their relationship of friendship and the oppression of the upper caste.
f.             Slowly the community breaks up and the Mallas start fighting amongst themselves as new cultural influences from the city start penetrating their lives.
·               ‘Novel become room for the experiences of communities’, The medium of the novel made room for the experiences of communities that had not received much space in the literary scene earlier. e.g; Vaikkom Muhammad Basheer-one of the early Muslim writer gained wide renowned as novelist in Malayalam.
·               Contribution made by Basheer to Malayalam literature.
          a.  Basheer had little formal education.
b.    His works were based on his own rich personal experience rather than on books from the past.
c.    When he was in class five at school, he left home to take part in Salt Satyagraha.
d.    He spent years, wandering in different parts of India and traveling even to Arabia, working in a ship, living with Sufis and Hindu Sanyasis, and training as a wrestler.
e.    He wrote short novels and stories in the ordinary language of conversation.
f.     With wonderful humour, Basheer’s novels spoke about details from the everyday life of Muslim households.
g.    He wrote about poverty, insanity and life in prison.



THE NATION AND ITS HISTORY
·         Writing in the recent times differ from works written by British & Puranic writing.
Ø  Colonial historians :- The history written by colonial historians tended to depict Indians as wek,         divided and dependent on the British.  These histories could satisfy the tastes of the new Indian       administrators and intellectuals.
Ø  Puranic Stories :- In traditional puranic stories , people were described as gods and demons, filled with the fantastic and supernatural did not satisfy education people.
Ø  Recent Time :- Educated and those working under English system wanted a new view of the past that would show that Indians could be independent minded and had been so in history.
Novels produce a ‘Sense of Pan-Indian belonging’
Bengal :-  In Bengal , many historical novels were about Marathas and Rajputs.  These novels         produced a sense of a pan-Indian belonging.  They imagined the nation to be full of adventure,    heroism, romance and sacrifice- qualities that could not be found  in the offices and streets of the     19th Century.
E.g.1:a.  Bhudeb Mukhopadhyay’s ‘Anguriya Binimoy’ was the first historical novel written in Bengal.
          b.  Its hero Shivaji engages in many battle against a clever Auragzeb.
c.  Man Singh persuaded Shivaji to make peace with Aurangzeb.  Realising that Aurangzeb   
     intended to confine him as a house prisoner, Shivaji escapes and return to battle.
d.    What gives him courage and tenacity is his belief that he is a nationalist fighting for the                    
freedom of Hindus.
E.g(2) a.  Inclusion of various classes in the novel also brought a feeling of belonging to a shared world.
          b.  Premchand’s novels are filled with all kinds of powerful characters drawn from all levels of                          society.
          c.  In Premchand’s novel, you meet aristocrats and landlords, middle level peasants and landless                      labourers, middle class professionals and people from the margins of society. E.g-Rangbhoomi        
     Godan.
          d.  Premchand’s novels look towards the future without  forgetting the importance of the past.
E.g(3) a.  Bankim’s  ‘Anandmath (1882) is a novel about a secret Hindu militia that fights Muslims to                         establish a Hindu Kingdom.
          b.  It was a novel that inspired many kinds of freedom fighters.

Rangbhoomi :-
a.    The central character of this novel- Surdas- is visually impaired beggar from a so-called untouchable caste.
b.    This novel shows the lives of the most oppressed section of society with the hero like ‘Surdas’.
c.    We see Surdas struggling against the forcible takeover of his  land for establishing a tobacco factory.
d.    The story of Surdas was inspired by Gandhi’s personality and ideas.
Godan :-
a.    It was published in 1936.
b.    It is an epic of the Indian peasantry.
c.    The novel tells the moving story of Hori and his wife Dhania, a peasant couple.
d.    Landlords, moneylenders, priests and colonial bureaucrats- all those who hold power in society- form a network of oppression, rob their land and make them into landless labourers.
e.    Yet Hori and Dhania retain their dignity to the end.

Importance of Novels in the history of both west and India.
          a.  The novels became part of the lives of different sections of people.
a.    Development in print technology allowed the novel to break out of its small circle of readers and introduced fresh ways of reading.
b.    Through stories, novels have also shown a lives of those who were not often known to literate and middle class circles.
c.    Bringing together people from varied background produces a sense of shared community.
d.    By bringing in both the powerful and the marginal people and cultures, the novel throws up many questions about the nature of these communities.
e.    Novels produce a sense of sharing and promotes an understanding of different people, different communities.