M Ali's English Literature Notes

Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness is one of the most discussed and controversial texts in postcolonial study. It shows the nature and effect of European colonialism in Africa . At the same time, it attacks the colonizers as well, though Conrad can not escape the attack of some post colonial critics like Chinua Achebe for his “dehumanizing” the Africans. Almost all the characters in Marlow's tale take part in the colonialist enterprise for selfish purposes. The narrator expresses that the target of the colonial expedition in different times has been Congo , the heart of darkness which has been the mission for many Europeans “bearing the sword, and often the torch, messengers of the might within the land, bearers of a spark from the sacred fire” Here the symbols "the sword" and "the torch” refer to brutal forces colonial enterprise and to the negation of the native culture by the so called light of civilization.           Marlow's a...

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man tells the story of Stephen Dedalus, a boy growing up in Ireland at the end of the nineteenth century, as he gradually decides to cast off all his social, familial, and religious constraints to live a life devoted to the art of writing. Thus Stephen develops, as Gerald Doherty states, from “finite to infinite, creature to creator, earthly to heavenly (or hellish) domains”. Stephen’s maturity comes through his bitter experiences of life; his rebellion is directed against all constituted authority in different forms: family, school, custom, race etc. In his early age, he fears the authority in the domestic atmosphere.           “He hid under the table.” The only way to escape punishment is to submit or to “apologize”. He finds the “ conscience of [his] race” as corrupt and brutal. He also finds the social customs rigid and ready-made which he must conform. In his school he is “caught ...

"Why can't we be friends now?" said the other, holding him affectionately. … But {the horses…the earth…the temples, the tank, the jail, the palace, the birds, the carrion, the Guest House… didn't want it,} they said in their hundred voices, "No, not yet," and the sky said, "No, not there." This extract is from the ending part of A Passage to India where meet two of the representatives of the British and the Indians who were friends early in the novel. The British one wants to reconcile but the whole situation opposes it. Thus it clarifies how evident the racial conflict was. E.M. Forster's A Passage to India was written at a time when the end of the British colonial presence in India was becoming a very real possibility. And as a result, racial conflict between the British and the Indians was a recurrent happening in India. As part of the ideology of colonialism, throughout the novel, the English demonstrate their belief t...