HELP! everyone

[literaria]

i am doing a paper on the portrayal of India in the 19th and 20th century world literarture. So just for curiosity sake, i would like to know what all of you think/know about India (as in literature and generally also). i would appreciate your honest views and thanks in advance to everybody who replies.




(i didn't know which category to post this thread in so i posted it here)

PLZZZZ do reply...

[TheFifthElement]

Hi literaria - have you read much literature along these lines? I'd recommend you read 'A Passage to India' by E M Forster (or if you don't want to read it rent the movie!). It's an interesting potrayal of simple prejudice, and how it could so easily ruin the existence of a good person.

I'm sure there is lots of other literature which covers the subject you're looking into, but that was the first one which sprang to mind for me.

Good luck with your paper.

[barbara0207]

I was quite impressed by two novels:

1. Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things (An Indian family in the 20th century)

2. Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, Heat and Dust (Hope I got the name right) It's about the relationship of Indian people and British officers/administrators during the last century

[Scheherazade]

i would like to know what all of you think/know about India (as in literature and generally also). My impression based on the books I have read:

- Hot

- Socially compicated and prone to severe class distinctions

- Over-populated

- Remained under the British rule for too long

[MaryLupin]

i am doing a paper on the portrayal of India in the 19th and 20th century world literarture

I think if I were to do a paper like this I would pick one novel written from a non-Indian perspective (probably British) and one written by an Indian then look at specific things in the text and how they are represented. Whatever jumps out, but things like gender, potency of landscape, the presence and meaning of symbolic icons (like temples, significant prayer sites, etc), allusions to historical/political events and how they are used to explicate the text. I would probably just pick one and really focus on that one thing and how they differ between the texts.