Michelle Shi
June 11, 2007
June 14, 2007
Cover Letter
To Whom It May Concern:
To begin with, I would like to express my thankfulness to you for taking the time to read my portfolio containing my selected works. The five works which I show here can be basically divided into three parts -- an essay including its two drafts, my final timed-writing and a revised reading log. They have witnessed my pains and gains through the Academic Writing class. As the writer of them, I do feel proud of what I have accomplished during this semester.
Then I would like to acknowledge some persons who have given me valuable advices in my writing. In my essay's editing process, my peers played important roles by inspiring much confidence in me and taking time to discuss my fresh ideas. They were so kind to patiently read my essay again and again, helping correct mistakes that I myself would probably neglect. Besides, the very person I particularly would like to show my thankfulness to is my tutor, Ron Corio, an exchange teacher from VCU. Compared to the foreign teachers who have ever taught me, perhaps Mr. Corio is a relatively serious tutor who does not joke too often in class. Nevertheless, there is no denying the fact that Mr. Corio's serious appearance relates to his high standard of academic achivement as a precise scholar. During each class, I would harvest some new ideas in writing. "Study, try and harvest" has become my motto and also my very feeling of the course.
After taking the Academic Writing class, not only have I got used to reflecting upon my past writing experience and simultaneously learning from it, but I finally have realized that content is usually valued above skills in writing, especially to a learner, because profound content shocks us, touches us and enables deep reflection. Besides, paying too much attention on skills may distract a beginner from his/her original writing intention, which should always be avoided. Understanding this prior principle, I focused on the content instead of the skill in all my works. As is showed in my works, I tried to use as common words as possible so that most readers would not be interrupted during their looking through my works only because of several difficult but inessential words. The vocabulary barrier removed, it will be much easier to build a communication relationship between my readers and me.
When it comes to my essay, it features two aspects -- a logical order and a distinctive interpretation of The Grass-Eaters from a symbolic angle. Usually literary analyses on writing skills prefer a chronological order, which makes the interpretation easier to understand. However, my interpretation essay adopts a logical order instead. A simple chronological order may be able to cover the symbols appearing in the story completely, but also separately. In opposition, I prefer a logical order so that similar symbols can be combined together to illustrate the same meaning, which deepens the impression on readers. What makes my essay most different from others is my interpretative angle. Symbolism's function becomes my final thesis of The Grass-Eaters as a result of my several times' reading, each with a deep impression of the many symbols on me. As is interpreted in my essay, you can see in detail what these symbols stand for and how them help develop the theme of The Grass-Eaters.
The second part of my portfolio is my final timed-writing which shows my ability of composing a composition within a limited time. Because it is finished extempore without revision process, grammatical errors can possibly be found.
The third and final part of my portfolio is my reading log. The posted one is a careful selection from a total of four. I consider it the best one mainly because it is about my favorite character, Shadrach Cohen, among all those have been discussed in the Academic Writing class. Though revised, the posted reading log retains the most part of the origin for the intention of revealing my first impression of the story without embroidery. For this reason, there may seem to be absence of focal point sometimes, but this does reflect my flow of thoughts during my read. Readers can clearly see my thoughts and compare mine with themselves' when we come to the same part of the original text. I believe that this process will contribute to a better communication between readers and me.
This is the end of my cover letter. Thank you again for taking your precious time to read my papers. I hope you will enjoy reading each piece of my works. Discussion or comments based on a full read of the relative texts is warmly welcomed.
Sincerely,
Michelle Shi
Michelle Shi
June 1, 2007
Draft Three
Symbolism In The Grass-Eaters
For centuries, India has been a poor country, especially before 1947 when she was a colony of Britain. Because destiny usually draws an individual and his/her society together, most Indians had led a wretched existence during that period of time. However, those victims had got too adaptable to misery -- even ignoring their basic right of pursuing happiness.
Despite the silence of the lowest caste or the numbness of the local authority, a man named Krishnan Varma was brave enough to reveal the dark reality, waking up those ostriches. In his story The Grass-Eaters, Ajit Babu and his wife Swapna represent typical victims of Indian social tragedy resulting from the colonialism, the despotism and the caste system. They live a refugee's life though Babu is well educated to work as a school master, which usually ensures a relatively affluent life. The poor couple are unbelievably always in a condition of moving. A stationary home of their own is absolutely beyond extravagant hope. To create such a couple, and to mirror the dark reality behind those contradictions, Krishnan draws many extraordinary symbols. Those symbols including "home", "grass-eaters", "Babu" and many others can offer a distinctive angle of interpreting this short story.
As in most people's opinion, a good story usually has at least one key clue running through it, and The Grass-Eaters is of no exception. If we give a full read to the story, the several repeats of the word "home" will immediately catch our eye. At first, we are informed that the Babu couple once lived comfortably in a pipe. "A piece of sack cloth" serves as the door and the window of this weatherproof shelter, and even as the protective screen for its dwellers' privacy(56). Then "home" is mentioned in Swapna's desire for "a stationary home"(57), their former home in Dacca(57) and their last "home made of coal tar drums"(59). The images of those concrete objects play different roles in detailing the couple's living condition, but on the whole they share a relatively similar meaning in symbolizing the powerless control of one's own destiny, especially for the poor in a dark society.
To everyone of us, when it comes to home, we usually associate it with such words as stability, security, privacy, comfort and memory. However, in The Grass-Eaters, home does not look like this. It is variable since many times the couple "went to bed in Calcutta and woke up in another place"(57). It is insecure because spending one night at such place can even cost hurts like losing one ear if you unfortunately get too close to a strange opposite sex by mistake(56). Still, it is not private or comfortable because the places served as homes are often crowded, cold and communal, forcing one to share his/her home with strangers, which really sounds intolerable. What's worst, the homes are easy to get and easy to lose -- the everlasting memory of one's own home fades away easily along with the process of accepting a former one soon to be others'(57). Home has almost lost its common meanings only except love, which we can feel from the communication between Babu and Swapna. The complete love contrasts sharply with their incomplete homes. All this absence may arouse our curiosity of exploring the reason why Krishnan creates such an incomplete home. Does it symbolize something? In order to answer it, we had better explore Babu's home in several aspects.
The most common feature of Babu's homes is their identity of approaching railways. Though the first home, a footpath near an avenue, is an exception, its location in a sense expresses similarity in instability. What kind of a home will it be if near a railway or even over a railway (e.g. the freight wagon)? In poems, essays, pictures and also music, railway is more than once used to symbolize a vagrant life. Moreover, the shape of a rail often evokes a sense of eternity. Watching trains approaching and departing, readers are easy to be immersed into a thought of life, death, time, space or anything else that has something to do with eternity. In The Grass-Eaters, Babu and Swapna are Hindus. Hinduism is a religion holding a belief in reincarnation. Therefore we may infer that railway conveys the idea of reincarnation by connecting the present and the future, vicinity and distance. Babu and Swapna's moving non-stop all the way along railways perhaps symbolizes the process of their reincarnation which is believed in leading to a better destination.
Besides, all homes of the couple's are obtained by occupancy, even the last one with rent is also described as "the house I might occupy"(58). Here the use of "occupy" emphasizes the low social rank of the couple. Despite that these homes are communal and anyone has access to living in, Babu and Swapna long for one. Compared to the fact that thousands of refugees, locals and residents are even not able to squash into one, getting a place to live in, bad as it may be, is worthy of celebration.
Nowadays, endlessly growing desire for more houses providing more functions has been taken for granted by modern people. However, not long ago Babu's homes are so rudely constructed just to realize their simple dreams of lying low in a container with doors(57). From the footpath to the freight wagon only with a door and no roof, even the pipe "with a piece of sack cloth hung at either end"(56) or their Babylon home on the roof(58), each merely meets the basic needs of human beings while sometimes this is also beyond possibility.
Apart from those common features, a special home for Babu and Swapna cannot be neglected. This home is their eternal home -- their tombs. In The Grass-Eaters, Krishnan first indicates this when Babu at last is told why Swapna has insisted on a stationary home. Imformed of the coming baby, immediately Babu recalls death to mind instead of more logical birth, and defines the baby as someone to "do our funeral rites when we died" instead of a fresh and lovely life to bring them happiness(57). Here Babu's act clearly proves his despair of life and faint hope of death. Later this eternal home is repeated in the last paragraph for emphasis(58). It is not difficult to find out that only a tomb can serve as a stable, secure, private, comfortable (to one's remains) and everlasting home for Babu and Swapna. The realistic world cannot meet their poor requirements, so they resort to the reincarnation, hoping that the next round of life will be fair to them. Their ecstasy fully shows their value of death, which also hints that to the poor perhaps death is much better than struggling in this real world.
Now we are able to piece together the very home Krishnan intends to show to us. It badly lacks stability, security, privacy, comfort and everlasting memory. Moreover, living in such a home is worse than sleeping dead in a tomb. Moving from one home to occupying another is nothing but a continuous process leading to death and reincarnation. The description of this home evokes a sense of despair, which is exactly the feeling that Babu and Swapna lock to their mind. They lose the control of their own destinies because life abandons them. The home stands for their fate, vagrant and helpless.
Just as characterization, dialogue and plot work on the surface to move the story along, symbolism works under the surface to tie the story's external action to the theme. In The Grass-Eaters, symbolism plays an important role together with its ironic tone. Krishnan's wording, especially adjectives, is full of significance. Despite his intention of creating a symbol of home, he also trys to show the people, the society and the life of that time to readers in a similar way.
Babu and Swapna are representatives of poor people of that time. Their actions, talks, manners, feelings and thoughts piece together a typical Indian of that class living under certain historical background. For example, the "vague smile" of Swapna embodies her vague expectation of future(57). Specifically, the smile is vague partly because she is not sure herself why she insists on moving into a stationary home since their economic condition does not allow them to balance between eating and housing. However, on a symbolic level, this could mean that, this class of people are short of sense of security, which leads to their uncertainty of future. Moreover, Krishnan describes the Babu couple as "nightblind"(58). Basically "nightblind" refers to a disease called nyctalopia, which results from lack of certain necessary nutrition. Or we can understand this "nightblind" as a result of no electricity in their home. Both are brought about by their poor economic condition. However, if we turn it over, we will find it possible to interpret this word in another symbolic way -- this "nightblind" may mean being blind to night which stands for the dark reality. Because the only way to live in that realistic world is to be numb of the injustice, the grass eaters have to practise their ability of being "nightblind" even against their real will.
In India of that time, there are wide gaps between person and person. Babu and Swapna were numb at "looking at the passing scene: a tram burning, a man stabbing another man, a woman dropping her baby in a garbage bin"(59). We may discuss a verb in this sentence. Krishnan uses "look" instead of "see". By doing this, he stresses the flow of thoughts in the couple's mind rather than simply describe the shocking scenes. There is a line in the movie Princeton Girl said by Sam to Austin that "You're just looking but not really seeing". As she points out, the act of seeing needs more concentration than looking. If one looks at surroundings rather than see it, the act in a sense shows his/her loss of interest in what is happening around. When it comes to The Grass-Eaters, we may infer that the act of "looking" implies Babu and Swapna's indifference to the realistic world.
On the other hand, in the fifth paragraph of the story, Krishnan describes the background as "one cold morning"(56). The "cold" denotes the low temperature of the weather. However it also prefigures the unfriendly people, who are irritable and violent as described followed. "Cold" connotes people's numbness and the social environment's unfitness for the poor to live in.
In addition, people's lives of that time can be described as "eventful" and "passing"(59). The literal meaning for eventful is "full of interesting or exciting events"(59). But to Babu and Swapna, their life is not an interesting fairy tale. It is full of exciting tragedies. Those tragedies actually do not happen in one time or at one place. They happen throughout Babu and Swapna's life. That Babu and Swapna take them as passing and temporary scenes reflects their positive attitude towards the tribulation. Life moves on, and the couple will not let those barriers to rob of their happiness. Here "eventful" refers to its second literal meaning. Also "passing" is not used to express the couple's complaint about life. But why don't they blame the god for their piteous destiny? The answer may be that they understand complaints are useless in that dark society. Here, Krishnan's avoidance to use negative words in describing Babu and Swapna's attitude towards life has created an effect of black humor, which implies the lowest caste's compromise to destiny.
Now that we have run through the whole story, we cannot help wondering what the first obvious symbol, the grass eaters, tells about. It is set as the title of the story, so Krishnan must have his own reasons. In fact, the title does play a key role in the development of the story as well as the establishment of symbolism in it. Grass-eater is basically a type of animal rather than vegetarian. That Krishnan uses it to define a group of people conveys the idea that those people have been reduced into leading a dog's life rather than of human being's. Later in the novel, Swapna is described as "fang bared, claws out", which just responds to it(56).
Krishnan is good at showing the poorest people's life in his society through vivid detailed description. In his works, life of piteous people in India becomes lifelike. This time, in The Grass-Eaters, again, Krishnan shows the reality of Indian society to us, though a reality full of misery, by way of symbolism. It is not too difficult for a careful reader to discover that there is a dramatic coincidence in the story. In the dilapidated building lived two Babus -- one is Bijoy Babu while the other is Ajit Babu(59). The coincidence is deliberately arranged to suggest the caste system in India. At that time, "Babu" refers to a middle-class group of people who have received adequate education and thus know English well. If such a group of people lead a refugee's life, what will the real refugee's life be? It is hard for any of us to think over "Is there any hope in that society?"
Reflecting the dark reality and waking up the ostriches are not enough to Krishnan. He wants more. It is hope that Krishnan really wants to call upon through this novel. He wants the poor, Indian or not Indian, to face up to the misery in life, to have courage to conquer it, and then to start to fight with their own destiny. For this reason, he chooses English, instead of his mother tongue, to compose this novel. The choice itself obviously shows the author's aim of arousing a worldwide attention. (Although writing in English is not necessary to discussing a general topic of human beings, it is right considered a sufficient condition.) What he depicts may show a regionally limited life, but some elements of The Grass-Eaters are of all human beings, which should be paid enough reflection to by all of us.
Work Cited
Krishnan, Varma. "The Grass-Eaters." 1985. Rpt. In the International Story: An Anthology with Guidelines for Reading and Writing about Fiction. Ruth Spack. New York: St. Martin's, 1994. 6-8.
Michelle Shi
May 18, 2007
Draft Two
Symbols of Life
For centuries, India has been a poor country, especially before 1947 when she was a colony of Britain. Because destiny usually draws an individual and society together, most Indians had led a wretched existence during that period of time. However, those victims had got too adaptable to misery --- even ignoring their basic right of pursuing happiness.
Despite the silence of the lowest caste or the numbness of the local authority, a man named Krishnan Varma was brave enough to reveal the dark reality, waking up those ostriches. In his story the Grass-Eaters, Ajit Babu and his wife Swapna represented typical victims of Indian social tragedy resulting from the colonialism, the despotism and the caste system. They lived a refugee's life though Babu was well educated and worked as a school master, which usually ensures a relatively affluent life. The poor couple were unbelievably always in a condition of moving. A stationary home of their own was absolutely a luxury. To create such a couple, and to mirror the dark reality behind those contradictions, Varma used many unique symbols. Those symbols including "home", "grass-eaters", "Babu" and many others can offer a distinctive angle of interpreting this short story.
As in most people's opinion, a good story usually has at least one important clue running through it, and the Grass-Eaters is of no exception. If we give a full read to the story, we will easily find the several repeats of the word "home". They separately refer to different concrete objects and play different roles, but on the whole they share a relatively similar meaning, that is to symbolize the powerless control of one's destiny, especially for the poor in a dark society.
To everyone of us, when it comes to home, we usually associate it with such words as stability, security, privacy, comfort and everlasting memory. However, in the Grass-Eaters, home does not look like this. It is variable since many times they "went to bed in Calcutta and woke up in another place"(57); it is insecure since spending one night at such place can even cost "minus one ear"(56); still, it is not private or comfortable because the places served as homes are often crowded, cold and communal, thus one has to share his/her home with strangers, which really sounds intolerable; what's most important, the homes are easy to get and easy to lose --- the everlasting memory of home fades away along with the progress of accepting a former home being "no longer our home now"(57). "Home" has almost lost its common meanings except love, which we can infer from the dialogue and reaction between Babu and Swapna. All these absence may arouse our curiosity of exploring the reason why Varma creates such a conception of home. Does it symbolize something?
In order to answer it, we' d better build Babu's home from several features of it.
First, Babu's homes are always near a railway. (Though the first home, a footpath near an avenue, is an exception, its location expresses something common with the others.) What kind of a home will it be if its location is near a railway or even over a railway (e.g. the freight wagon)? In poets, essays, pictures and even musics, railway is not once used to create a vagrant life. Moreover, the shape of a rail often evokes a sense of eternity. Watching trains approaching and departing, won't those passing objects immerse you into a thought of life, death, time, space or anything else that has something to do with eternity? In the Grass-Eaters, Babu and Swapna are Hindus. Hinduism is a religion holding a belief in reincarnation. Therefore we may infer that railway conveys the idea of reincarnation by connecting now and future, vicinity and distance. That Babu and Swapna's moving along the railway perhaps symbolizes their process of reincarnation, leading to a better destination.
Second, all of their homes are obtained by occupancy, even the last one with rent is described as "the house I might occupy", too.(58) The use of "occupy" strengthens Babu and Swapna's low social rank. Despite that these homes are communal that anyone has access to living in, Babu and Swapna are long for one. Compared to the fact that thousands of refugees, locals and residents are even not able to have one, getting one place to live in, bad as it may be, is enough to be a most pleasant thing.
Third, their homes are all of basic structure. From the footpath with no complex structure, the freight wagon only with doors and walls, the pipe "with a piece of sack cloth hung at either end"(56) to the home "made of coal tar drums"(58). Each of those "homes" can merely meet the basic needs of human beings while sometimes this is even beyond possibility.
Apart from those common features, a special home to Babu and Swapna cannot be neglected. This home is their eternal home --- their tombs. In the Grass-Eaters, Varma first indicates this in "to do our funeral rites when we died"(57), and later repeats it in the last paragraph to emphasize such a home. It is not difficult to discover that only a tomb can serve as a stable, secure, private, comfort (to one's remains) and everlasting home for Babu and Swapna. The realistic world cannot meet their poor requirements, so they resort to the reincarnation, hoping that the next round of life will be fair to them. Their ecstasy fully shows their value of death, which also hints that to the poor, maybe death is much better than life in this real world.
Perhaps now we are able to piece together the very home Varma intended to show us. It badly lacks stability, security, privacy, comfort and everlasting memory. Moreover, living in such a home is worse than sleeping dead in a tomb. Moving from one home to occupying another is nothing but a continuing process leading to death and reincarnation. The description of this home evokes a sense of despair, which is exactly the feeling Babu and Swapna lock to their mind. They lose the control of their own destinies because life abandons them. The home stands for their fate, wondering and helpless.
Just as characterization, dialogue and plot work on the surface to move the story along, symbolism works under the surface to tie the story's external action to the theme. Symbolism is often produced through allegory, giving the literal event and its allegorical counterpart a one-to-one correspondence. In the Grass-Eaters, symbolism plays an important role together with its ironic tone. Its wording, especially adjectives, is full of significance. Despite of Varma's intention of creating a symbol of home, he also tried to show the people, the society and the life of that time to readers in a similar way.
Babu and Swapna are representatives of poor people of that time, their style of life standing for the common life style of that class in India. The couple's actions, talks, manners, feelings and thoughts piece together a typical Indian living under that historical background. For example, the "vague smile" of Swapna (57) embodies her vague expectation of future. Specifically, the smile is vague partly because she is not sure why she insists on moving into a stationary home since their economic condition doesn't allow them to balance between eating and housing. On a symbolic level, this could mean that, this class of people are short of sense of security, which leads to their uncertainty of future. Moreover, Varma described the Babu couple as "nightblind"(58). Basically "nightblind" refers to a disease called nyctalopia, which results from lack of certain necessary nutrition. Or we can interpret this "nightblind" as a result of no electricity in their home. Both are brought about by their poor economic condition. However, if we turn it over, we will find it possible to interpret this word in another symbolic way that this "nightblind" may mean being blind to night, standing for the dark reality. Because the only way to live in that realistic world is to be numb of the injustice, the grass-eaters have to practise their ability of being "nightblind" even against their real will.
In India of that time, there are wide gaps between person and person. Babu and Swapna were numb at "looking at the passing scene: a tram burning, a man stabbing another man, a woman dropping her baby in a garbage bin"(59). We may discuss the words in this sentence.[I don't really know if this paragraph is redundant.] Varma uses "look" instead of "see". There's a line in the movie Princeton Girl, Sam said that "You're just looking but not really seeing". As she said, the act of seeing needs more concentration than looking. If one looks at the surroundings rather than seeing it, it in a sense shows his/her loss of interest in what is happening around. When it comes to the Grass-Eaters, we may infer that the act of looking implies Babu and Swapna's indifference to the realistic world. In the fifth paragraph of the story, Varma describes the background as "one cold morning"(56). The "cold" in it denotes the low temperature of the weather. However it also prefigures the unfriendly people, who are irritable and violent as described followed. "Cold" connotes people's numbness and the social environment's unfitness for the poor to live in.
What is the life of that time like? It is "eventful"(59) and "passing"(59). The literal meaning for eventful is "full of interesting or exciting events". But to Babu and Swapna, their life is not an interesting fairy tale. It is full of "exciting" Tragedies. Those tragedies actually don't happen in one time or at one place. They happen throughout Babu and Swapna's life. That Babu and Swapna take them as "passing" ones temporarily torturing them reflects their positive attitude towards the tribulation. Life moves on, and they won't let those barriers to rob of their happiness. Here "eventful" refers to its second literal meaning. Also "passing" is not used to express the couple's complaint about life. Varma's avoidance to use negative words in describing Babu and Swapna's attitude towards life has created an effect of black humor, which here implies the lowest caste's compromise to life.
Now that we have run through the whole story, we cannot help wondering what does the first obvious symbol, the grass-eaters, tell? It is set as the title of the story, so Varma must have his own reasons. In my view, it does play a key role in the development of the story as well as the establishment of the symbolism in it. Grass-eater is basically a type of animal rather than vegetarian. That Varma used it to define a group of people conveys the idea that those people have been reduced into leading a dog's life rather than of human being's. Later in the novel, Swapna is described as "fang bared, claws out"(56), which just responds to it.
Varma is good at showing the poorest people's life in his society through realistic details, feelings and thoughts. In his description, life of piteous people in India becomes lifelike. This time, in the Grass-Eaters, again, Varma shows the reality to us, though a reality full of misery, by way of symbolism. It is not too difficult for a careful reader to discover that there is a dramatic coincidence in the story. In the dilapidated building lived two Babus. It immediately reminds me of the caste system in India. At that time, Babu refers to a middle-class group of people who have received adequate education. If such a group of people lead a refugee's life, what will the real refugee's life be? It hard for any of us to imagine. We cannot help wondering "Is there any hope in the society?"
Reflecting the dark reality and waking up the ostriches are not enough to Varma. He wants more. Hope is what Varma really wants to call upon through this novel. He wants the poor,Indian or not Indian, to face up to the misery in life, then to conquer it, and to start to fight for their own destiny. For this reason, he chose English, instead of his mother tongue, to compose this novel. This itself obviously shows the author's intention of arousing a worldwide thought.(Although writing in English is not necessary to discussing a general topic of human beings, it is right considered a sufficient condition.) What he depicts perhaps is a regionally limited life, but some elements of the Grass-Eaters are of all human beings, which should be paid enough thoughts to by all of us.
Michelle Shi
May 1, 2007
Draft 1
Title
For centuries, India is a poor country, especially before 1947 when she was under compulsion to be a colony of Britain. Because individual fortune is usually bound to one's own country, most Indians must have led a wretched existence during that period of time. In the Grass-Eaters by Krishnan Verma, Ajit Babu and his wife Swapna were typical victims of that social tragedy. They were always in a condition of moving without stationary home of their own. They lived a refugee's life though at Babu's income as a school master. Food and home (a stationary one with rent or not) were their alternatives. What's more, the grass-eaters' story takes place in Calcutta, one of the largest cities in India with an overpopulation. Commonly if an individual is put in an excessively giant group sharing too many similarities among its members, one is easy to drift with the tide. As a result, individual fortune seems to be more changeable than it is in another condition where characteristics are strongly emphasized. As I've mentioned above, the setting of the Grass-Eaters itself conveys a sense of powerless control of one's fortune, which inspires us to explore the cause of such phenomenon.
However, besides the meaningful setting, there's something more interesting about the writing style of the Grass-Eaters. That is symbolism. As is known to all, a good story often has at least one important clue running through it, and the Grass-Eaters is of no exception. If we give a full read to the story, we will easily find the several repeats of the word "home". They seperately refer to different objects and play different roles, but on the whole they share a relatively similar meaning, that is to symbolize the powerless control of one's fortune, especially in a dark society.
To everyone of us, when it comes to home, we usually asssociate it with such words as stability, security, privacy, comfort and everlasting memory. However, in the Grass-Eaters, home does not look like this. It is variable since many times they "went to bed in Calcutta and woke up in another place"(p57); It is insecure since spending one night at such place can even lead one to "minus one ear"(p56); Still, it is not private or comfortable because places served as homes are often crowded, cold and communal, thus one has to share his home with strangers, which really sounds bad; What's most important, the homes are easy to get and easy to lose--the everlasting memory of home fades away along with the progress of accepting a former home being "no longer our home now"(p57). Home has almost lost its common meanings except love, which we can see from the dialogue and reaction between Babu and Swapna. All these absence may arouse our curiosity of exploring the reason why Verma creates such a cenception of home. Does it symbolize something?
In order to answer it, we' d better piece together Babu's home from several features of it.
First, Babu's homes are always near a railway. (Though the first home, a footpath near an avenue, is an exception, its location expresses something common with the others.) What kind of a home will it be if its location is near a railway or even over a railway (eg. the fraight wagon) ? In poets, essays, pictures and even musics, railway is often used in creating an atmosphere in which one lead a vagrant life. Moreover, the shape of a rail often evokes a sense of space-time. Watching trains approaching and leaving, won't those passing objects immerse you into a thought of life, death, time, space and anything else has something to do with eternity? In the Grass-Eaters, Babu and Swapna are Hindus. Hinduism is a religion holding a belief in reincarnation. Therefore we may infer that railway conveys the idea of reincarnation by connecting now and future, vicinity and distance. That Babu and Swapna's moving along the railway perhaps symbolizes their process of reincarnation, getting a better fortune.
Second, all of their homes are obtained by occupancy, even the last one with rent is described as "the house I might occupy".(p58) The use of "occupy" strengthens Babu and Swapna's low social rank. Though these homes are communal that anyone has access to living in, Babu and Swapna are long for one. Compared to the fact that houndreds and thousands of refugees, locals and residents are not able to have one, having one place to live in, bad as it may be, is enough to be a most pleasant thing.
Third, their homes are all of basic structure. From the footpath with no structure, the freight wagon with doors, the pipe "with a piece of sack cloth hung at either end"(p56) to the home "made of coal tar drums".(p58)Each of those "homes" is just able to meet the basic needs of human beings while sometimes this is even beyond possibility.
Apart from those common features, a special home to Babu and Swapna cannot be neglected. This home is their etenal home--their tombs. In the Grass-Eaters, Verma first indicates this in "to do our funeral rites when we died"(p57) and later repeats it in the last paragraph to emphasizes such a home. It is easy for us to discover that only a tomb can serve as a stable, secure, private, comfort (to one's remains) and everlasting home for Babu and Swapna. The realistic world cannot meet their poor requirements, so they resort to the reincarnation, hoping that the next round of life will be fair to them. Their ecstasy fully shows their value of life after death, which also hints at the fact that to the poor, maybe death is much better than living in this real world.
Perhaps now we are able to piece together the very home Verma intended to show us. It is in lack of stability, security, privacy, comfort and everlasting memory. Moreover, living in such a home is worse than sleeping dead in a tomb. Moving from one home to occupying another is just a continuing process leading to death and reincarnation. The description of this home evokes a sense of despair, which is exactly what Babu and Swapna feel deeply in their mind. They lose the control of their own fortune because life abandons them. The home stands for their fate, wondering and helpless.
Just as characterization and dialogue and plot work on the surface to move the story along, symbolism works under the surface to tie the story's external action to the theme. Symbolism was often produced through allegory, giving the literal event and its allegorical counterpart a one-to-one correspondence. In the Grass-Eaters, symbolism plays an important role together with its ironic tone. Its wording, especially adjectives, is full of significance.
What are the prople like? Babu and Swapna are representatives of poor people of that times, their style of life standing for the common life style of that class in India. Their actions, talks, manners, feelings and thoughts piece together a typical Indian living under that history background. For example, the "vague smile" of Swapna (p57) embodies her vague tentative plan of future. Specifically, the smile is vague partly because she is not sure why she insists on moving into a stationary home since their economic condition doesn't allow them to balance between eating and housing. On a symbolic level, this could mean that, this class of people are short of sense of security, which leads to their uncertainty of future. Moreover, Verma describes the Babu couple as "nightblind". (p58) Basically it refers to a disease called nyctalopia, which results from lack of certain necessary nutrition. Or we can understand this "nightblind" as a result of no electricity in their home. Both are brought about by their poor economic condition. However we could still interpret it in another way that this "nightblind" may mean being blind to night, symbolizing the dark reality. Because the only way to live in that realistic world is to be numb of the injustice, the grass-eaters have to practise their "nightblindness" even against their real will.
What is the society like? There re gulfs between person and person. What Babu and Swapna are "looking at the passing scene: a tram burning, a man stabbing another man, a woman dropping her baby in a garbage bin" (p59), directly shows people's inhospitality. We may discuss the words in this sentence. Verma uses "look" instead of "see". There's a line in the movie Princeton Girl, Austin said that "You re looking but not really seeing". As he said, the act of seeing needs more concentration than looking. If one looks at the surroundings rather than seeing it, it in a sense shows his loss of interest in what's happening around. When it comes to the Grass-Eaters, we may infer that the act of looking implies Babu and Swapna's indifference to the realistic world. In the fifth paragraph of the story, Verma describes the time as "one cold morning" (p56). The "cold" in it denotes the low temperature of the weather. However it also prefigures the unfriendly people, who are irritable and violent as described followed. "Cold" connotes people's numbness and the social environment's infitness for poor people to live in.
What is the life like? It is "eventful"(p59) and "passing"(p59). The literal meaning for eventful is "full of interesting or exciting events". But to Babu and Swapna, their life is not an interesting fairy tale. It is full of "exciting" tragedies.Those tragedies actually don't happen in one time and not in one place. They happen throughout Babu and Swapna's life. That Babu and Swapna take them as "passing" ones affecting them temporarily reflects their positive attitude towards the miserable life. Life moves on, and they won't let those barriers to rob their happiness of life. Here "eventful" refers to its second literal meaning and "passing" is not used to complain about the misery. Verma's avoidance to use negative words in describing Babu and Swapna's attitude towards life has created an effect of black humor, which here implies the low class's compromise to life.
Symbolism contributes a lot to the establishment of the Indian people, the Indian society and the life.
Last but not least, what does the most obvious symbol "the grass-eaters" tell? It is set as the title of the story, so Verma must have his own reasons. In my view, it does play a key role in the development of the story as well as the establishment of the symbolism in it. Grass-eater is basically a type of animal instead of people who are vegetarian. That Verma uses it to define a group of people conveys the idea that those people have been reduced into leading a dog's life rather than of human's. Later in the novel, Swapna is described as "fang bared, claws out" (p56), which just responds the symbol of grass-eaters. This symbol, a grass-eater, really has a shocking impression on readers.
Verma is good at showing the poorest people's life in his society through realistic details, feelings and thoughts. In his description, life of petious people in India becomes lifelike. This time, in the Grass-Eaters, again, Verma shows the reality to us, though a reality full of misery, by way of symbolism. Moreover, a small detail is quite meaningful. Verma chooses Enligh which is not his mother tongue to compose this novel. This itself obviously shows the author's intention of arousing a worldwide thought.(Although writing in English is not necessary to discussing a general topic of human beings, it is right considered a sufficient condition.) What Verma depicts perhaps is a regionally limited life, but some elements of it are of all human beings, which should be paid enough thoughts to by all of us.
06300690122
Michelle Shi
June 21, 2007
Timed-writing Three
Directions: From The Necklace, what might have been the quality of Mme. Loisel’s life if she had not lost the necklace? Is her life better or worse now?
Life is a journey of a serious of unknowns. We cannot judge our current choices only on the basis of imagining their results in the mysterious future. No one can foresee the future, neither can Mme. Loisel. For this reason, Mme. Loisel’s life is not worse, instead, it is even better because it is right from the moment when she lost the “precious” necklace that she started to live in the present.
Dreams are wonderful things. They inspire us to pursue what we really want in life. However, dreams themselves are nothing. A dreamer must make efforts to realize them. To Mme. Loisel, she is no doubt a dreamer, but at the same time a dreamer without hard working. All of her beautiful fantasy is about the luxury that does not belong to her. Such kind of pursuit is harmful to a person, especially to a beautiful woman, because it may lead her to astray. Moreover, the strong desire for a luxurious life will blind Mme. Loisel’s eyes to the beauty in her own life, such as her husband’s deep love to her.
Although there is possibility that Mme. Loisel would have lived a happy life if only she had not lost the necklace, but the possibility is little. As long as Mme. Loisel has not realized what the most important pursuit in life is, she will not enjoy a happy ending. With the necklace safely returned to her friends, Mme. Loisel’s desires will expand. One night of luxury will not fascinate her, and thus she will long for more opportunities like that to build her imaginary wealthy life. Those unrealistic dreams will gradually weaken her power to live in the present as a poor woman. Besides, no one can guarantee that there will not be another night or morning when Mme. Loisel finds her loss of another precious necklace. On that day, she will finally have to face the reality. And on that moment she will suffer even much more in despair.
The trace of one’s life is usually determined just in a minute or two. The moment Mme. Loisel lost the necklace, her life totally changed. She has to face up to the realistic life from then on. Life is no longer a secret garden of numerous dreams of a naïve girl but a profound story composed by a mature woman. Mme. Loisel began to live in the present. This is the most important decision in her life, even more important than the loss of the necklace itself. Because it is this decision that actually transferred Mme. Loisel’s rest of life. She might be desperate and thus abandons herself. She might go to astray and then loses the power to survive. An expensive necklace like that is really something to the poor. However, Mme. Loisel does not abandon herself. Instead, she manages to conquer the difficult moment, and learns to enjoy the current moments of her life. Though these moments might not be as colorful as that wonderful night, they are real. They are what actually Mme. Loisel can touch and feel. And there is no denying that in these moments, happiness exists, too. The happiness even is more valuable since they are created by Mme. Loisel and her husband themselves. Therefore, Mme. Loisel’s life is not worse now. It becomes better.
Never Judge A Book by Its Cover
Shadrach Cohen is no doubt a typical Russian Jew according to his appearance and habits of life. However, as an old saying goes, we should never judge a book by its cover. Shadrach Cohen is not such a traditional person as he seems to be. In fact, he is much more Americanized than his two sons.
In my mind, The Amercianization of Shadrach Cohen, Bruno Lessing, is really an attractive short story. Its content is full of dramatic elements.Big changes almost happen on every characters.
After my first reading, I was totally confused. I guessed that in a sense it was not Shadrach but his two sons who at last are changed under the influence of their father. But in the meantime, I also had seen the changes happening on the Shadrach. Therefore, It was too difficult for me to reach a final conclusion that who was on the earth Americanized.
Reading it twice, I started to understand what actually Lessing wants to write about. It's about what is the real Americanization, which happens on the Shadrach rather than on his two sons. The sons disguise that they have been localized, however, inner character cannot be disguised so easily as appearance.
The real Americanization is about obtaining certain qualities highly appreciated by the whole world nowadays, such as aggressiveness, outgoing personality, shrewdness, passion, frankness, board mind, tolerance and adaptability. Shadrach grasps the most core qualities of true American spirits even though he himself may not realize it. His sons, on the other hand, do just start their process of Americanization right after their father's arrival in America and his decision to change his attitude toward Americanization. The most frequent words the sons use when they mention Americans or local people's characteristics are "they" or "their", which actually clearly shows the separation between them two and Americans.
In the last part of the story I saw Shadrach's sons' turning back to their original religion. It is not a symbol showing their re-Russianization but their gradual Americanization. At first they try their best to draw a line between Russian religion and themselves'. However they simply neglect the multiplicity of American culture. America is a complex society composed of different races and peoples. Different traditions and customs are both acceptable there. Reserving one's tradition does not mean that one is wondering outside the American society. No one in America is a single culture. Shadrach's two sons at last accept the fact that there is "flexibility in one's tenets", which is taught by their "out-of-date" father.
I always believe there can be a balance between tradition and modernity. On Shadrach, I have found the best sample of culture mixture.