IGNOU SOLVED ASSIGNMENTS & STUDY NOTES: July 2020

Monday, July 20, 2020

Anand’s use of imagery in his novel Untouchable.

MEG – 07: INDIAN ENGLISH LITERATURE

ASSIGNMENT 2019 - 2020

Max. Marks: 100

2. Examine Anand’s use of imagery in his novel Untouchable.

Answer.: Untouchable opens with a shot of the outcaste’s colony. Anand gives us a thick description of the home of Bulashah’s outcastes by describing not only the visual appearance of the colony, but also the types of people that live there and their living conditions. For example, besides the sweepers, the colony is also home to “the scavengers, the leather-workers, the washermen, the barbers,” etc. They live in “mud-walled” houses near a fetid, rank brook filled with the filth of the public latrines.

The smells of the colony are also described in explicit details. The air is polluted by “the odour of the hides and skins of dead carcasses left to dry,” the dung of various livestock “heaped up to be made into fuel cakes,” and human waste. As the reader reads on it's as if the “biting, choking, pungent fumes ooz[ing]” from the colony is constricting their breathing in addition to the characters'.

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Theme of ‘Dawn at Puri’

MEG – 07: INDIAN ENGLISH LITERATURE

ASSIGNMENT 2019 - 2020

Max. Marks: 100

d) Theme of ‘Dawn at Puri’

Answer.: Dawn at Puri” is taken from the collection A Rain of Rites . The poem is set in Puri in Orissa which is the holy city of Lord Jagannath. A Rain of Rites is a collection of poems which Jayanta Mahapatra wrote in the middle phase of his poetic career and is shaped by the cultural heritage of Orissa in particular and India in general. The rain, as suggested by the title is the dominant metaphor in this volume of poetry. The rites and rituals here are concerned with priests and temples, widows, cremations, even the fate of Indian women is symbolized here through various images. Jayanta Mahapatra, like Arun Kolatkar in Jejuri, is disappointed with the hollowness of traditional practices and customs. Here in this poem Mahapatra depicts the holy city Puri which is famous as one of the most revered pilgrimage towns for Hindus.

Narrative techniques in Gajar Halwa

MEG – 07: INDIAN ENGLISH LITERATURE

ASSIGNMENT 2019 - 2020

Max. Marks: 100

c) Narrative techniques in Gajar Halwa

Answer.: The story ‘gajar halwa’is taken from Gita Hariharan’s collection ‘The Art of Dying.’ It portrays the travails of a sixteen year old village girl. Perumayee , who arrives in Delhi in search of a livelihood. . As she getting accustomed to her life, she reminisces her past wistfully.

Perumayee’s mother who has been working as a construction laborer and providing for her family, suddenly finds herself with no means of living when the bridge construction is complete. Her father a drunkard abandons the family ..

Bini Tara relationship

MEG – 07: INDIAN ENGLISH LITERATURE

ASSIGNMENT 2019 - 2020

Max. Marks: 100

b) Bini Tara relationship

Answer.: Bim and Tara are completely opposite in their thoughts, feelings, and perceptions of the world, and each serves as a foil for the other’s lack of a critically reflexive self-image. The novel chronicles the sisters’ history of competition in a number of ways. Their childhood rivalry for adult attention is surpassed by each woman’s desire to earn Raja’s respect. For Tara, this means playing the role of a competent and gracious diplomat’s wife, wiping out the memory of an emotionally needy and naive child whose marriage conveniently unburdened her family.

Form of Hind Swaraj

MEG – 07: INDIAN ENGLISH LITERATURE

ASSIGNMENT 2019 - 2020

Max. Marks: 100

1. Write short note on:

a) Form of Hind Swaraj

Answer.: Gandhi wrote Hind Swaraj while on a boat from London to South Africa in 1909. In this tract, written in Gujarati, Gandhi lays out the argument for Indian home rule as a dialogue between an editor and reader. The editor, who is the voice of Gandhi, says that he wants home rule that is not the same as simply adopting an English style of government.

‘When Lilacs Last in the Doorway Bloomed’ by Walt Whiteman is as much a poem about life affirmation as it is a poem about death.

MEG – 06: AMERICAN LITERATURE

ASSIGNMENT 2019 - 2020

Max. Marks: 100

5. ‘When Lilacs Last in the Doorway Bloomed’ by Walt Whiteman is as much a poem about life affirmation as it is a poem about death. Do you agree? Give a reasoned answer.

Answer.: I definitely agree. If you read this excellent poem lamenting the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln carefully, you will see, apart from the many instances of images and words that convey the poet’s shock and sorrow about the death of the President, many images that also celebrate the rebirth of life and nature’s natural cycle. Note first of all that the poem is set in spring, an obvious time of rebirth and a celebration of the cycle of nature as life emerges. Note the following quote from the first stanza: O ever-returing spring! rinity sure to me you bring; Lilac blooming perennial, and drooping star in the west, And thought of him I love. It is as if the meditation on death that this poem represents places our lives in the scheme of the natural cycle of life. As we read through the poem we see many more such examples that celebrate life and the rebirth inherent in nature. Every leaf of the lilac plant is said to be a “miracle” as it grows and blossoms, just as the poet mourns the death of his friend.

Death of a Salesman as a realist tragedy.

MEG – 06: AMERICAN LITERATURE

ASSIGNMENT 2019 - 2020

Max. Marks: 100

4. Critically examine Death of a Salesman as a realist tragedy.

Answer.: Death of a Salesman is a tragedy play based on middle class salesman called Willy Loman. He lives in an old house middle of developed city with his wife Linda and two sons, Biff and Happy. In a tragedy, the story details the downfall of the protagonist. The character fails as a result of tragic flaw in his/her personality. In Death of a Salesman, tragedy is shown by Willy, who is plagued by his American Dream that is unrealistic and impractical. He is obsessed with glitz and fascination, wanting success through recognition. However, he struggles to fulfil his dream as he makes a mistake of being travelling salesman without realising what is the most important to him. He gets caught in his own spiritual redemption of being salesman.

Black literary expression in nineteenth century America.

MEG – 06: AMERICAN LITERATURE

ASSIGNMENT 2019 - 2020

Max. Marks: 100

3. Write a note on Black literary expression in nineteenth century America.

Answer.: The presence of slavery cast a major shadow on Black writers and the literary canon of the 1800s. This makes sense because America, itself, was wrestling with the issue that the Framers lacked courage in addressing. As the nation grew from farms to industry with the emergence of the Industrial Revolution, America never quite had a hold of the slavery issue. This topic was explored in the literary expression of Black identity in the 1800's. African-American literature attempts to locate and analyze contribution of the Black writers to it and explores the role of African-Americans within the larger American society. It highlights the themes such as African-American culture, racism, slavery and equality.

African-American literature is the creation of diverse worlds, cross-cultural customs and mixed creeds. It portrays personal experiences and history of African-American culture. It presents experiences and memories of Black people and the brutal treatment of white community against them. It is described as a docu-mentation of the multi-faceted nature of oppression in the multi-racial community. The condition of African-Americans struggling for freedom and equality is the main concern of African-American authors. As a result, they share the experiences of Black women in a racist and sexist community.

The Scarlet Letter as an open-ended novel.

MEG – 06: AMERICAN LITERATURE

ASSIGNMENT 2019 - 2020

Max. Marks: 100

2. Examine The Scarlet Letter as an open-ended novel.

Answer.: The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne wrote during the Romantic Period in American literature which lasted from 1830 to 1865. Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Herman Melville, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Edgar Allen Poe, and Walt Whitman were his literary contemporaries. The Scarlet Letter is considered a piece of American Romantic literature because it is set in a remote past, the Puritan era 200 years prior to Hawthorne's time, and because it deals with the interior psychology of individual characters.

Hawthorne wrote during the Romantic Period in American literature which lasted from 1830 to 1865. Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Herman Melville, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Edgar Allen Poe, and Walt Whitman were his literary contemporaries. The Scarlet Letter is considered a piece of American Romantic literature because it is set in a remote past, the Puritan era 200 years prior to Hawthorne’s time, and because it deals with the interior psychology of individual characters.

The narrative strategies used by the writer in The Bluest Eye

MEG – 06: AMERICAN LITERATURE

ASSIGNMENT 2019 - 2020

Max. Marks: 100

1. Discuss the narrative strategies used by the writer in The Bluest Eye.

Answer.: Noble prize winner Toni Morrison has achieved a place in the annals of world literature. One of her best-known novels The Bluest Eye has always surprised the critics. The innovation in terms of narrative using different techniques that can be defined as blended narrative has been the concern for her major critics.

The book “The Bluest Eye” by Toni Morrison has various techniques that make the text rich and a perfect example of a role model for all narrative text to come. A lot of what makes The Bluest eye really exemplary is that is has a large variety of techniques that help capture the audience attention as if it they were flies suck in adhesive paper. This text although structured with an exposition, rising action climax and a conclusion to the climax it jumps around between time frames and character perspective giving the audience bits of info little by little just like jigsaw puzzle. For example like every Greek tragedy The Bluest Eye gives the tragedy away in the very beginning without giving the ending away it’s as if the book where to start in the climax jumping back to the exposition continuedly to all the parts of the story; it also intensifies this effect jumping between character narratives.

Freud’s ideas about the interpretation of dreams.

MEG – 05: Literary Criticism & Theory

ASSIGNMENT 2019 - 2020

Max. Marks: 100

5. Briefly sum up Freud’s ideas about the interpretation of dreams.

Answer.: Freud's discovery that the dream is the means by which the unconscious can be explored is undoubtedly the most revolutionary step forward in the entire history of psychology. Dreams, according to his theory, represent the hidden fulfilment of our unconscious wishes. The Interpretation of Dreams is the classic text on dream analysis and interpretation. Freud introduces many key concepts that would later become central to the theory of psychoanalysis.

The development of Marxism from Hegel to Althusser.

MEG – 05: Literary Criticism & Theory

ASSIGNMENT 2019 - 2020

Max. Marks: 100

4. Trace the development of Marxism from Hegel to Althusser.

Answer.: The post-war years in France saw a great swing towards Marxism. After the defeat of Germany the reactionary governments of country after country collapsed and were swept aside. Everywhere socialism was on the ascendant. In Western Europe too the tide of socialist thought flowed strongly and there was a great upsurge of Marxist writings. This was greatly influenced by the philosophical theories of those central-European Marxists who had rediscovered the Hegelian basis of M arx’s thought, notably Lukacs and Korsch. The hitherto unknown texts of the M arx of 1844 which had first appeared in the thirties but were lost sight of during the W ar were being translated and eagerly read and studied. Such works as Sartre’s Existential Marxism became popular with its emphasis on commitment as the realisation of the “authentic” person. M ounier’s “personalism” represented a parallel movement of a humanist kind which found support in the notion of alienation, which Lukacs emphasised as part of the essential Hegelianism of Marx.

New Criticism and the main proponents of New Criticism and their contribution to literary theory.

MEG – 05: Literary Criticism & Theory

ASSIGNMENT 2019 - 2020

Max. Marks: 100

3. What is New Criticism? Who were the main proponents of New Criticism and what was their contribution to literary theory?

Answer.: New Criticism was a formalist movement in literary theory that dominated American literary criticism in the middle decades of the 20th century. It emphasized close reading, particularly of poetry, to discover how a work of literature functioned as a self-contained, self- referential aesthetic object. The movement derived its name from John Crowe Ransom’s 1941 book The New Criticism. Also very influential were the critical essays of T. S. Eliot, such as “Tradition and the Individual Talent” and “Hamlet and His Problems,” in which Eliot developed his notion of the “objective correlative.” Eliot’s evaluative judgments, such as his condemnation of Milton and Shelley, his liking for the so-called metaphysical poets and his insistence that poetry must be impersonal, greatly influenced the formation of the New Critical canon.

A brief analysis of the contributions of Wordsworth (Preface to the Lyrical Ballads), Coleridge (Biographia Literaria) and Shelley (A Defence of Poetry) on English Literature

MEG – 05: Literary Criticism & Theory

ASSIGNMENT 2019 - 2020

Max. Marks: 100

2. Attempt a brief analysis of the contributions of Wordsworth (Preface to the Lyrical Ballads), Coleridge (Biographia Literaria) and Shelley (A Defence of Poetry) on English Literature?

Answer.: Much before William Wordsworth started writing, the early Romantic poets like James Thomson (1700-48),Oliver Goldsmith (1728-74),Thomas Chatterton (1752-70),Thomas Gray (1716-71),William Collins-59),William Cowper (1731- 1800),George Crabbe (1754- 1832),Robert Burns (1759-95), and William Blake (1757-1827) deviated from the neo-classic insistence on rules. Wordsworth is perhaps the only romantic poet who made his poetic experiences the locus of his critical discourse. Unlike Coleridge, he was not a theorist. Instead he unravelled before us the workings of the mind of the poet, and therefore, Wordsworth’s literary criticism ceases to be criticism in its most literal sense. It comes out as the matrix where the poet’s mind generates emotions and feelings with that much of intensity and passion required for transmitting them into poetic experience which forms the basis of poetic composition. From this perspective, Wordsworth’s Preface to the second edition of Lyrical Ballads in 1800 can be seen as a poetic "manifesto," or “statement of revolutionary aims.”

The six elements of tragedy according to Aristotle and its relevance with regards to a contemporary play

MEG – 05: Literary Criticism & Theory

ASSIGNMENT 2019 - 2020

Max. Marks: 100

1. Explain the six elements of tragedy according to Aristotle and discuss whether it bears any relevance with regards to a contemporary play you may have read or watched.

Answer.: In the Poetics, Aristotle's famous study of Greek dramatic art, Aristotle (384-322 B.C.) compares tragedy to such other metrical forms as comedy and epic. He determines that tragedy, like all poetry, is a kind of imitation (mimesis), but adds that it has a serious purpose and uses direct action rather than narrative to achieve its ends. He says that poetic mimesis is imitation of things as they could be, not as they are — for example, of universals and ideals — thus poetry is a more philosophical and exalted medium than history, which merely records what has actually happened.

Saturday, July 18, 2020

The rise of American English and its chief characteristics

MEG – 04: Aspects of Language

ASSIGNMENT 2019 - 2020

Max. Marks: 100

5. Historically discuss the rise of American English and its chief characteristics.

Answer.: In many ways, compared to British English, American English is conservative in its phonology. Dialects in North America are most distinctive on the East Coast of the continent partly because these areas were in contact with England, and imitated prestigious varieties of British English at a time when those varieties were undergoing changes, and partly merely because many speech communities on the East Coast have existed in their present locations longer than others. The interior of the country was settled by people who were not closely connected to England, as they had no access to the ocean during a time when journeys to Britain were always by sea. As such, the inland speech is much more homogeneous than the East Coast speech and did not imitate the changes in speech from England.

Four different approaches of looking at language and society (Unit 1, Block 6).

MEG – 04: Aspects of Language

ASSIGNMENT 2019 - 2020

Max. Marks: 100

4. Discuss in detail four different approaches of looking at language and society (Unit 1, Block 6).

Highlight the differences between all these approaches.

Answer: Language is both a system of communication between individuals and a social phenomenon. The area of language and society – sociolinguistics – is intended to show how our use of language is governed by such factors as class, gender, race, etc. A subsection of this area is anthropological linguistics which is concerned with form and use of language in different cultures and to what extent the development of language has been influenced by cultural environment.

What is Theta theory? Which parts of grammar does it affect?

MEG – 04: Aspects of Language

ASSIGNMENT 2019 - 2020

Max. Marks: 100

3. What is Theta theory? Which parts of grammar does it affect? Discuss with examples of your own.

Answer.: Thematic theory, or theta theory, is a sub-theory of universal Grammar, which deals with the valency requirements of verbs. As I mentioned in the previous section, it incorporates a set of principles regulating the assignment of thematic roles. In this way, Riemsdijk (1986) defines theta theory as the basic logical notion “argument of”, a notion that any theory of Grammar must account for. He goes on to add that the aim of this theory is to determine which NP can be an argument of a verb. That’s why to designate arguments of a verb, terms as agent, goal, patient ...are commonly used.

IGNOU SOLVED ASSIGNMENTS & STUDY NOTES

snow

Monday, July 20, 2020

Anand’s use of imagery in his novel Untouchable.

Theme of ‘Dawn at Puri’

Narrative techniques in Gajar Halwa

Bini Tara relationship

Form of Hind Swaraj

‘When Lilacs Last in the Doorway Bloomed’ by Walt Whiteman is as much a poem about life affirmation as it is a poem about death.

Death of a Salesman as a realist tragedy.

Black literary expression in nineteenth century America.

The Scarlet Letter as an open-ended novel.

The narrative strategies used by the writer in The Bluest Eye

Freud’s ideas about the interpretation of dreams.

The development of Marxism from Hegel to Althusser.

New Criticism and the main proponents of New Criticism and their contribution to literary theory.

A brief analysis of the contributions of Wordsworth (Preface to the Lyrical Ballads), Coleridge (Biographia Literaria) and Shelley (A Defence of Poetry) on English Literature

The six elements of tragedy according to Aristotle and its relevance with regards to a contemporary play

Saturday, July 18, 2020

The rise of American English and its chief characteristics

Four different approaches of looking at language and society (Unit 1, Block 6).

What is Theta theory? Which parts of grammar does it affect?

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Monday, July 20, 2020

Saturday, July 18, 2020

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