Essay - ”Karma”
“I am with my master” (p.179 l. 27) that was the words that came out of Sir Mohan Lal’s wife’s mouth. The British disdained the Indians around time where Kushwant Singh wrote the short story “Karma” in 1950. Sir Mohal Lal treats his wife like a servant, for the reason that she is not an educated woman. Will Mohan Lal meet the consequences of his actions? Will he get a dose of karma?
“’You are so very much like everything else in this country, inefficient, dirty, indifferent,’ he murmured”. (P. 178 l. 6-7). Sir Mohan Lal is the protagonist in Singh’s short story “Karma”. He appears very selfish; he likes to look himself in the mirror, and praise himself. He is a well-educated man, with a tie from the University of Oxford. He makes sure that there is a copy of ‘The Times’ next to him, so if passers should doubt that he is British, the English paper will surely convince them. He is determined to be as clean as possible, by using both soap and eau de cologne. He is not a man, who wants to smell like the rest of the mob. He is yearning for the British to come to him, so they can realize that he is as articulated as them. He is certain that he resembles a true English-man, and can see no difference between him and them. As a graduate from Oxford, he must be in their league, so he assumes that whomever he meets will accept him, and take him as an educated man. Sir Mohan Lal have been to England for five years, and in that time, he attended the University of Oxford. He has grown very fond of England; he sees it as a more sophisticated country than India. He identify India with filth, and feels pity towards the country, due to lack of elegance and finesse.
Since Sir Mohan Lal sees himself as greater than other Indians t...
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..., we will face humiliation and failure.
“’Get the nigger out’, he muttered to his companion” (p. 182 l. 2). The way Sir Mohan treats his wife, by not giving her the attention and respect she deserve, shows that he generally does not care for her. His reputation and presentation of himself is more important than his wife’s happiness and well-being. When the two British soldiers spots Sir Mohan, they see him for what he is. An Indian man. They does not care that he has been studying on Oxford. The only thing they see is a black Indian who has taken their coupe. Karma comes back and smacks him in the face. Now he gets a taste of his own medicine, by the soldiers treating him as he treats all other Indians. Like nothing.
Grammar focus:
My grammar focus will be concord, since in the last paper; I had some faults in that area. Moreover, focus on not writing in passive.
In a letter from Gandhi to Lord Irwin addressed as “Dear Friend,” he stated, “ Whilst therefore I hold the British rule to be a curse, I do not intend harm to a single Englishmen or to any legitimate interest he may have in India…. And why do I regard the British rule a curse? ...Even the salt [the peasant] must use to live is so taxed as to make burden fall heaviest on him…” (Document A). Gandhi refers to Lord Irwin as “Friend” so that as he reads the letter he is not seeing himself as a higher power. Gandhi was opposed to the British rule because they placed a high tax on the salt that the poor men and/or women need to
Mohandas Gandhi was born into a Hindu family of the Vaisya caste. This was the third ranking caste in the class structure of Hinduism. This class was for farmers and merchants. The whole system was so complex that in Gandhi’s lifetime it had begun to disintegrate. Gandhi’s father and grandfather were not farmers or merchants. They were prime ministers of the tiny principality of Porbandar in Gujarat. Mohandas was extremely shy. He rushed to and from school, too nervous to talk to any of his classmates. Then a pretty and strong-willed girl was married to him by an arranged marriage at the age of 13. Her name was Kasturbai. A marriage at this age was typical in Hindu custom. He was a strict husband and kept control over actions. Kasturbai disliked this. They didn’t spend more than the first five years of their marriage together, since it was typical for the girl to visit her family. At this point in his life, he was very depressed. He was little and suffered fears that didn’t bother his wife. An athletic and older boy who was Muslim fascinated him. He told Mohandas to eat meat if he wanted to become bigger and stronger. He said the Indians were weak and small people, because they didn’t eat meat, and this is why the British, who did, had the strength to rule over them. This was against his religion, but he tried anyway. He ate the meat in secrecy, but after a few meals he stopped. He didn’t like the taste of meat and fe...
A narcissist is one who believes “he or she is ‘special’ and unique and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special” people. They exploit others for their own advantage, lack empathy, and are “preoccupied with fantasies” or ideals that can be unrealistic. They believe they are the “primary importance in everybody’s life”. (“Narcissistic Personality”) Henry James’ theme in his short story, “The Beast in the Jungle”, is about a man, who is so egotistical and self-absorbed that he misses what life has to offer him, in particular, love, because of the narcissistic behavior he is doomed to live a life of loneliness and misery. John Marcher, the protagonist of “The Beast in the Jungle”, is about a narcissistic upper-class man who believes his life is to be defined by some unforetold event. He focuses only on himself and as a result, he neglects everything and everyone in his life. Marcher meets May Bartram, a woman who knows his secret, and instead of pursuing a romantic relationship with her, or even a genuine friendship, he uses her for his own benefit. Henry James utilizes a variety of literary devices to convey this theme in his story, such as the title, symbolism, dialogue, and the use of a limited third-person narrative. Henry James leaves us our first clue to the theme in the title, “The Beast in the Jungle”. When one thinks of a beast, they typically imagine something big and ferocious; Marcher’s ego was just that.
As human beings we long for a connection with other human beings and hope that the connection is positive and helps us overcome our fears and struggles. A very first step to connect with one another is to overcome the anxiety about our self-shame and start daring greatly.
Edit the following paragraph. The main flaw is the usage of passive voice. During the subsequent readings spot other oversights as well:
...such that individuals disregard the desires of others, even those who are supposedly close to them, in order to advance their own goals. The combination of subthemes allows her to easily juxtapose Velutha with those who aim to ruin his life. Roy also emphasizes the importance of caste and maintaining social status through her depiction of Velutha’s father’s reaction to his son’s affair with a woman of a higher social class. Roy’s political beliefs can be seen interspersed throughout the story and she repeatedly comments on the post-colonial situation in India through the actions of her characters. The amalgamation of Roy’s views on the moral quality of human beings and the political character of 20th century India come together to support her assertion that those who are overly selfless and spend no time trying to get ahead in life ultimately lose in the long-term.
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During his middle school years, Malcolm X was employed as a dish washer. Saving up his money, he bought his first suit. Much like him, Gandhi wore English clothing when he was younger as well. These ‘English clothes’ symbolize the hold that w...
The short story "Lispeth" is a particularly rich field from which to examine notions of alterity. Kipling’s narrator points out that "It takes a great deal of Christianity to wipe out uncivilized Eastern instincts"(4). It would be tempting, given the author’s reputation as a right-wing apologist for empire, to take this comment at face value. However, I believe that "Lispeth", as a text, is centrally critical of the British in India. The missionaries and the young Briton that Lispeth idolises are repeatedly shown as being racially arrogant and duplicitous. Witness the Chaplain’s wife’s description of Lispeth’s love as a "barbarous and indelicate folly", while maintaining that the deceitful "Englishman,… was of a superior clay". Similarly, after the Chaplain’s wife says that "There is no law w...
social status is important because it has powerful ramifications about the colonial power-dynamics within a particular historical milieu. The Hindu caste system and various stereotypes also play an important role in Kipling’s story. For example, every person Kim encounters is immediately identified as either a member of a certain caste, religion, or race. Kipling depicts these stereotypes as...
Gandhi is motivated by religious means; he believes that everyone is equal in God’s eyes. He gets involved in several movements for equality, and he stresses non-violence very strongly. The Indians are very mad because British rule continues to limit their rights. They are supposed to all get fingerprinted, and their marriage laws are invalid. Gandhi’s followers vow to fight their oppressors to the death, but he discourages them from violence.
The quest for identity in Indo-English writing has emerged as a recurrent theme, as it is in much of modern literature (Pathak preface). Indeed, often the individual's identity and his quest for it becomes so bound up in the national quest for identity, that the individual's search for his identity becomes allegorical of the national search (Pathak pr...
The measured dialogue between Reader and Editor serves as the framework through which Gandhi seeks to discredit accepted terms of civilization and denounce the English. These principle characters amply assist in the development o...
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