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Tasmina Harda

On a hectic Monday evening
Towards the frightful end of September
Just as the clock struck 6
On my desktop computer
I prepared to shut down the system
Relishing the idea of being back home
Just as I lifted my tired body
And mind filled with worries of bills
My boss scurries towards my cubicle
“You have to stay. I messed up.
Help me and pay you extra I will.
Numbers and profits are your forte.Stay.
You have the required motivation and skill.
You will be paid double for your hour
Your expertise will help add to your till”
I was torn between going home to her and duty
The extra coins alluring
I could spend an hour or two working late
But is it worth knowing she would be waiting?
I look down to my desk and say I am sorry. I cant
I have made a promise that I should be keeping
I grab my coat before I change my mind
Blocking the temptation I keep walking
I reach my car and try to convince myself
She is more important than the bills impending
I open the door still immersed in my thoughts
Cant help but smile when I hear her laughing
I knew you wont be late to my tea party daddy
Ok..so you are the superman today and I am the barbie.

Motorcycle Diaries

Dan John Matthew

It was almost four in the morning in the month of January, my friend came to my house and we both left to go out. I see the city of Bangalore every single day. The traffic, the dust and smoke, a two lane road filled with two cars, one auto rickshaw and four bikes racing with each other to reach God knows where. But this was early in the morning when there was no light and it was freezing cold outside. We went through the roads that we had never been on before. We went through Kengeri and entered NICE Road. There was no trail of the sun even at six in the morning. The stars were shining bright in the sky and we felt it was getting colder as the time passed. Due to the chilly weather, we weren’t going fast, we kept an average speed of 60-70kmph. We covered around 40 kilometers between 4am and 6am before we stopped.

We saw the sky change colors from black to slightly orange. We were happy that the sun was on its way out. We took off from there and in 15 to 20 minutes the roads were clear and we could see without the headlights. It was then that we started enjoying the roads. It seemed as though the roads before us stretched on forever. There were hardly any other vehicles around us. When there was light on the roads our pace increased from 80kmph to almost 110kmph. The roads were crazy and the places were beautiful. But since we were flying we couldn’t concentrate much on the places but on the roads. In an hour or so we reached a place called Mandya. The traffic was starting there with cars and school buses and bikes. There were school children on the road too. We didn’t stop anywhere; we were just following the roads where it lead and in another half an hour or 45 minutes we were in Mysuru.

It was a national highway but surprisingly there weren’t many vehicles on that road. We slowed down in a junction with a huge board which gave directions to places like Kozhikode, Coimbatore, Hassan, Chickmangaluru, Ooty, Bandipur. We took a left from there which goes to Bandipur, Kozhikode, Ooty. But there was something that I noticed there: the other road on the opposite side also went towards Ooty. I wondered how this could be.

This road that we were in was so beautiful and there were absolutely no vehicles other than our own. The roads were clean and it was a 3-lane road on one side. We stopped there for some time and started again from there. Since there were no vehicles we drove quite recklessly. Like slithering snakes, we followed the white lines that divided the roads. There was a change in the culture and vegetation there. The fresh air that greeted our senses while we were there can be found nowhere in a city like Bangalore.

It was around 9 in the morning by this time; we stopped in a place called Nanjanagudu for around half an hour. It was a busy place when compared to the other places we had seen before. There were many tractors with sugar canes and hay passing through that road. After some time we left from there again and continued through the Kozhikode-Mysore-Kollegal Highway. My friend was roaring and flying on the road and then he was slowing down and was stopping in between. We absolutely had no idea about what was happening to him. He kept stopping on the road and by then there were buses and trucks and other vehicles on the road and it was dangerous for him to stop in the middle of the road. The roads there were also under construction and therefore it was even more dangerous. We reduced our speed and went in maximum of 60kmph and still he kept stopping in between. Somehow we went through Begur and Bendahalli and stopped at a petrol bunk near Gundlupete. After filling fuel, his engine did not start at all. It then started after some time and again stopped completely in the Gundlupete junction. One of the mechanics told us that it’s a problem with his battery and it will take time for him to recharge the battery. I waited with him for around one and a half hours and then continued on with my journey.

Now I was all alone on the road. I continued the journey to Bandipur, which was just 18 kilometers from the Gundlupete vehicle check post junction. The roads were getting more beautiful than ever. On both sides of the road there were huge banyan trees which had their branches shaped like arches welcoming the vehicles to their land. The place was so beautiful and clean and there was so much peace there. I reached Bandipur National Park by 11:45 am and the road became very narrow and two vehicles could not pass through it at the same time. It was a ride through the forest. There was deers grazing right after the entrance on the national park. I continued the journey and I saw common monkeys and another type of monkey, birds, small animals etc. it was so silent that I could hear my own thoughts echoing in my ears. I passed through Bandipur National Park and reached Mudumalai Tiger Reserve. All of these places were just absolutely mind blowing and I just flowed through those roads. But there were speed breakers every kilometer or so and therefore I couldn’t go fast. Almost at the end of the Mudumalai Reserve I saw a board that said 36 kilometers to Ooty. I did not think about anything else and just took off to Ooty.

Now these roads cannot be explained through words. There were ghats to be passed on the way. I climbed the first hair pin bend and a board said 36^th of the 36 hair pin bends. I kept climbing the mountain and as I was getting closer to the sun it was getting colder. I could see the beauty of Ooty while I was climbing the mountain through those roads. The road that I loved the most throughout the journey was that road that goes through Ooty. I saw huge trees with green barks and big branches so dense that they did not allow the sun pass the light through them. It was the best road that I have ever been through. I roamed around Ooty and explored the place for an hour or so. There were many horses, which decorated the road. I even took a picture with one of them.

Then it was time for me to go back and I left from there and went back to Gundlupete where my friend was waiting. He was all set and ready. It was around 5 in the evening when we left from Gundlupete, flying through the roads we came through without looking anywhere other than at the roads and the fellow vehicles. The traffic was too much when compared to the morning time but still we managed to zip through the roads. By 10 in the night we had reached Bangalore. We travelled approximately 650 kilometers that day. It was one hell of a ride!

And of course, I forgot to tell you about us. I am a Royal Enfield, Classic 350, Ash. And my friend is a Royal Enfield, Classic 350, Silver.

Contextualising the contemporariness of the classical text of Shakespeare: The Tragedy of Macbeth

Venkatraman Ravindra

            The Tragedy of Macbeth, has lived for four centuries and a decade since its birth. I don’t think that I’d be going too far if I said, that it will continue living, for another four (or more). Though too stretched the time might seem, given the rate of change humankind is going, but it’s no exaggeration really. As the amount of four hundred years is only infinitesimal in the fraction of our entire existence on this planet (and when I say our, I mean humankind’s).

Macbeth is one of Shakespeare’s darkest, murkiest, and goriest of plays, also the shortest and my most favourite of the ones of which I’ve read.

I suppose we would not still be interested in Shakespeare at all if his characters all seemed unrecognisably strange and alien to us. After all, Harold Bloom has famously claimed in Shakespeare and the Invention of the Human (1998) that Shakespeare invented humanity as we understand it, and he would surely never have been able to make such an assertion if it were not at least partly true that we can recognise Shakespeare’s characters as being like ourselves. [1]

High Middle-Age was the time when Macbeth, the Red King, ruled Scotland. Elizabethan was the age, when the play was dramatized from Holinshed’s Chronicles (1577) of Macbeth, but contemporary it is, in most, if not in all ways. And subtly modern is the nature of the whole play and if it were to be retold, today, and if there was a writer as gifted (talented), then I see no reason why the play would be changed in any way or written any different (other than the archaic language of course).

What’s ironic is that ‘Macbeth’ means ‘the son of life’, but what he does is take lives. And the cause for him to commit murder you ask? Well, it’s power of course. Power is the supreme motivator to cause such dreadful deeds. Power is also a pre-dominant and powerful theme that runs throughout the play. Shrewd Macbeth is with a shrew for a wife, who is not only a ‘companion’ just bound by the definition of the word, but also a partner in crime, his (not so) better half.  Seeming to outdo, outwit, outfox, outstrip, outmatch and outsmart all others than himself (and the Lady), in his blind passion for power, Macbeth, takes the immoral road, which by a series of fatalistic and deterministic events, led by the three witches, to the throne, and ultimately to his doom.

I’ll try to explain the contemporariness of the play with the word ‘Macbethism’, which I’ll define and apply for all the three methods, and also which I’ll elaborate. The threefold isomorphisms between the play and the modern world (id est, the political, psychological and the supernatural similarities).

Macbethism (n.)

1. A doctrine of sovereignty attained by consciously refusing to accept the principles of morality, or in simple terms, the immoral road taken to gain power.
2. A frenzied, sleepless delirium accompanied by wild and frightening hallucinations. (corybantism).
3. The quality of being attributed to power that seems to violate or go beyond natural forces.

Now that the word is defined, we come on agreeable terms, and now that we know many a people who fall under (any one of) this threefold philosophy of Macbethism. And when I say fall, yes, I mean fall, as in the fall of Rome, or perhaps the fall of Lucifer, or better still, the fall of man. Macbethism continues and continues to continue, either till, (as I mentioned in the abstract) our evolution, or our extinction.

On Political Isomorphisms

                                                                   Fair is foul and foul is fair.  [2]

Everything’s fair in the game of politics. Fair, as long as you’re on the winning side of the table. And vice-versa for foul.

From Napoleon Bonaparte to Napoleon of the Animal Farm, power has corrupted everyone alike, be it in a piece of fiction, or otherwise (real). It gets hold of our very nature of being human and turns us into something we’re not. Something dangerous. Danger to ourselves and to the others around us. The greatest of the political leaders we’ve come across in history, the people to have tasted the best flavours of the fruits, power had to offer, are examples of the drasticity of how powerful, power itself can be. The many matricides, patricides, sororicides, filicides, fratricides, avunculicides, perricides and mariticides that have happened in history, to gain power, are scenes seen too often a time. Power is one of the main aspects which defines Macbeth. It shows us how the search for power and the paths taken to attain it are often morally questionable, and oftener end up in insatiateness and unhappiness.

Politically, Macbeth is the story of a brave general, who heeds to a trio of some unreliable strangers (strange are the witches) who will prophesise of him gaining the highest power, the crown, though an irresistible temptation he has, his moral foundations will hold him back from doing an undoable deed and he’ll have his doubts. But Lady Macbeth is persuasive

Was the hope drunk
Wherein you dressed yourself? Hath it slept since?
And wakes it now to look so green and pale
At what it did so freely?
…Art thou afeared
To be the same in thine own act and valour
As thou art in desire
…When you durst do it, then you were a man;  [3]

         These are the lines she tells her husband, questioning his manliness, wanting the power of the throne, as she has already made up her mind to murder Duncan, disregarding or not bothering about the means to attain that power.

The play has sprung an innumerable number of movies, TV shows, poems and other works of literature. It wouldn’t have happened if it weren’t for the timelessness of the play. Retelling the story of Macbeth has never been too old. The many great examples of retellings and adaptations of the play, inspired by, similar to, or completely alike, Macbeth, with the political ramifications in modern account (from rising to power to the eventual and inevitable doom), include-

The House of Cards trilogy, the British political thriller television drama serial, which includes House of Cards, To Play the King, and The Final Cut, containing four episodes each, and which aired from 1990-1995, is the story of the antihero, Francis Urquhart, a fictional Chief Whip of the Conservative Party. The plot follows his amoral and manipulative scheme to become leader of the governing party and, thus, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. The story of House of Cards is adapted from a novel written by Michael Dobbs, a former Chief of Staff at Conservative Party headquarters. Political elements of Macbeth are quite evident in the series.

House of Cards (2013-Present), an American political drama television series. The series deals primarily with themes of ruthless pragmatism, manipulation and power. House of Cards is the story of Francis Underwood (whose character is in many ways similar to Macbeth), a Democrat from South Carolina’s 5th congressional district and House majority whip who, after being passed over for appointment as Secretary of State, initiates an elaborate plan to get himself into a position of greater power (which being the position of the president of the United States), aided by his wife, Claire Underwood (who’s pretty much like Lady Macbeth).

Maqbool is a 2003 Indian crime drama film directed by Vishal Bhardwaj, The film is based on William Shakespeare’s Macbeth and with Mumbai underworld as its backdrop. Maqbool is the right-hand man of Jahangir Khan (alias Abba Ji), a powerful underworld don. Maqbool is grateful and feels a close connection and personal indebtedness to Abba Ji. The movie gains pace with two corrupt police-men predicting that Maqbool would soon take over the reins of the Mumbai Underworld from Abba Ji. These two thus play a role akin to the three witches in the original play. [4]

Scotland, PA (2001). The tragedy is reworked into a dark comedy set in 1975, centered on “Duncan’s Cafe”, a fast-food restaurant in the small town of Scotland, Pennsylvania. The character of Macbeth is presented as “Joe ‘Mac’ McBeth”, Lady Macbeth as “Pat McBeth”, Duncan as cafe owner “Norm Duncan”, Macduff as “Lieutenant Ernie McDuff”, and Banquo as fry cook “Anthony ‘Banko’ Banconi”. The Three Witches are presented as a trio of bohemians. [5]

To me you speak not.
If you can look into the seeds of time,
And say which grain will grow and which will not,
Speak, then, to me, who neither beg nor fear
Your favors nor your hate.  [6]

       These are the lines of Banquo, right after hearing the three witches prophesising that Macbeth will become the Thane of Cawdor, and that shalt be King hereafter! Quite certainly apparent that he too was seeking a kind of solace in wanting to know of the future, he desired to know on his own future (of power), from the imperfect speakers.

Here are some names of hungry-for-power real people who are quite similar to Macbeth by means of attainment of that power and by the means of ruthless murders and genocides. The lust for power is startlingly, starkly and grimly evident in these “humans”.

 

 

• Crown Prince Dipendra of Nepal

• Kim Il-Sung

• De facto leader Kim Jong Il (N. Korea)

• North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un

• Soviet Union leader Joseph Stalin

• The Führer Adolph Hitler

• Ugandan dictator Idi Amin

• Libyan potentate Muammar al-Qaddafi

• Iranian subverter Ruhollah Khomeini

• Napoleon Bonaparte

• Fidel Castro of Cuba

• Che Guevara (Cuban Revolutionary)

• Robert Mugabe, Ruler of Zimbabwe

• Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran

• Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam

• Foday Sankoh, Leader and founder of the RUF, Sierra Leone

• Benito Mussolini

• Yahya Khan, Pakistan

• Mullah Omar, the spiritual leader of the Taliban

• Jonas Savimbi, Angolan political and military leader

• Tōjō Hideki, Japan

• Haji Muhammad Suharto, Indonesia

• Saddam Hussein, President of Iraq

• Jean Kambanda, Rwandan dictator

• Mao Ze Dong

• Leopold II of Belgium

 

• Augusto Pinochet, Chilean dictator

The list goes on and on… There are more Macbeths in reality than one can imagine. Macbethism is more prominent today than it ever was. But instead, there are adaptions and amendments to it, without the element of murder, in other subtler, illegal and immoral means all the same.

On Psychological Isomorphisms

Is this a dagger which I see before me,

The handle toward my hand?  [7]

The psychological disorders of the characters in the play elicits feelings in its readers and adds the interesting element to the play. As I feel we can relate to those feelings the characters are undergoing. Some moments in the play, is a play on our psyche, evoking thoughts on why a character would do or think that, or what we, ourselves would do, if in that situation.

The emotions and the personality itself of the characters of the play metamorphosizes drastically as the play is a short one, and it brings the thrilling shift in the minds of the readers as well.

In Macbeth (1606) Shakespeare took two different stories from Holinshed’s chronicle of Scotland (Donwald’s murder of King Duff and the career of Macbeth) and worked this somewhat primitive material into a profound dramatic presentation of progress of evil within a human personality. The tragedy is given power and scope by the poetic expansion of meaning through imagery as well as by the persuasive and moving projection of character. [8]

Conscious actions by Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, yield unconscious results. Their consciously thought out and executed murder of Duncan and later Banquo, results in them acquiring the fated psychological disorders. If Lady Macbeth, today, were to be examined by a psychiatrist, she would probably be diagnosed as a victim of manic-depressive psychosis, bipolar disorder, with post-traumatic stress disorder, and in the end, the gnawing guilt drives her insane, leading to her somnambulism and clinical depression. When she cannot take the guilt no more, she ultimately commits suicide.

She should have died hereafter; [9]

This is the reaction of Macbeth after hearing the death of his wife which suggests his perfunctoriness. Delusions of grandeur, megalomania, paranoia schizophrenia, whose symptoms include false beliefs, unclear or confused thinking, auditory hallucinations; and immortality and invincibility complex are some of the disorders that can be diagnosed with Macbeth. The second definition of Macbethism is applicable to both of them here.

Some of the famous people who had the similar mental illnesses as Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. Ludwig van Beethoven experienced bipolar disorder, so did Winston Churchill and Vincent van Gogh. Stephen Fry and Carrie fisher also have it. Diana, the princesses of Wales, experienced bouts of depression. Ernest Hemingway suffered from suicidal depression. John Nash, the Nobel Prize winner, had schizophrenia. Heath Ledger battled insomnia, drug abuse and depression. Issac Newton’s main symptoms were melancholia, or depression, with a desire to withdraw from contact with even good friends, apathy, insomnia, loss of appetite, a period of persecution when he suffered the delusion that his friends were turning against him, and possible loss of memory and amnesia. [10]

Hell! What is hell to one like me

Who pleasures never knew;

By friends consigned to misery,

By hope deserted too?  [11]

Macbeth can be a reminder of the dire effects on the psyche of a person and can lead to a whole lot of psychological disorders, or reactions that is a consequence of unscrupulous causes or actions.

On Supernatural Isomorphisms

 

A title so feared,

Cursed is the same

Then curse be endeared,

For Macbeth is the name.

The reality of witchcraft or enchantment, which, though not strictly the same, are confounded in this play, has in all ages and countries been credited by the common people, and in most, by the learned themselves. These phantoms have indeed appeared more frequently in proportion as the darkness of ignorance has been more gross; but it cannot be shown that the brightest gleams of knowledge have at any time been sufficient to drive them out of the world. [12]

The quality of being attributed to power that seems to violate or go beyond natural forces, the supernatural element in the play, is the modern equivalent to superstitions. And superstition can be defined as an irrational belief arising from ignorance or fear.

By the pricking of my thumbs,

Something wicked this way comes. [13]

          The use of the supernatural element in the play, increases the suspense of the readers, and after the decisions of Macbeth, taken by constantly relying on the prophecies of the three witches. Not unlike Macbeth believing in prophecies, the modern world too believes in pseudoscience, horoscopes, astrology and all sorts of other superstitious nonsensical disbeliefs.

The Forer effect (also called the Barnum effect after P. T. Barnum’s observation that “we’ve got something for everyone”) is the observation that individuals will give high accuracy ratings to descriptions of their personality that supposedly are tailored specifically for them, but are in fact vague and general enough to apply to a wide range of people. This effect can provide a partial explanation for the widespread acceptance of some beliefs and practices, such as astrology, fortune telling, graphology, religion, aura reading and some types of personality tests. [14]

Though not as explicit the witches prophesise the fate of Macbeth, or anything close, the Barnum effect is the closest thing that can hoodwink you to fatalism and determinism today. Many books too, such as The Secret of Rhonda Byrne, based on the superstitious law of attraction, can mislead people into believing the absurd and make them something they’re not. Here are some of the statements that are vague and general enough to most people, from Bertram’s test, the demonstration of psychologist Bertram R Forer his Effect.

• You have a great need for other people to like and admire you.
• You have a tendency to be critical of yourself.
• You have a great deal of unused capacity which you have not turned to your advantage.
• While you have some personality weaknesses, you are generally able to compensate for them.
• Disciplined and self-controlled outside, you tend to be worrisome and insecure inside.
• At times you have serious doubts as to whether you have made the right decision or done the right thing.
• You prefer a certain amount of change and variety and become dissatisfied when hemmed in by restrictions and limitations.
• You pride yourself as an independent thinker and do not accept others’ statements without satisfactory proof.
• You have found it unwise to be too frank in revealing yourself to others.
• At times you are extroverted, affable, and sociable, while at other times you are introverted, wary, reserved.
• Some of your aspirations tend to be pretty unrealistic.
• Security is one of your major goals in life.

Belief in the paranormal

There is evidence that having prior belief in the paranormal correlates with greater influence of the effect.  Subjects who, for example, believe in the accuracy of horoscopes have a greater tendency to believe that the vague generalities of the response apply specifically to them. This suggests that individuals who do not believe in astrology are possibly influenced less by the effect. [15]

I conclude by saying that all the three of the comparisons I made between the play and some of the aspects of the modern world, it can be agreeable that Macbeth is a sublime play of human character and cannot be agreeable that it isn’t contemporary.

 

Notes

 

Beginning Shakespeare (page 20)
The Tragedy of Macbeth (1.1.10)
The Tragedy of Macbeth (1.7.35-49)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maqbool
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scotland,_PA
The Tragedy of Macbeth (1.3.57-61)
The Tragedy of Macbeth (2.1.33)
A Critical History of English Literature volume two (page 280)
The Tragedy of Macbeth (5.5.16)
http://rsnr.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/62/3/289.full
The lines are from the poem “The Suicide’s Soliloquy.”  Abraham Lincoln is assumed to be the author of the poem published on August 25, 1838. And also believed he suffered from depression.
From Johnson’s Shakespeare (1765) [Shakespeare: Macbeth, casebook series].
The Tragedy of Macbeth (4.1.45)
& 15. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forer_effect

Bibliography
Shakespeare, William. Edited by- Wilks, Robert. Macbeth. Singapore, Pansing Distribution Pte Ltd, ISBN: 981 3030 038, 2006.
Hopkins, Lisa. Beginning Shakespeare. Chennai, Manchester University Press,                   ISBN: 0-7190-6423-6, 2007.
Daiches, David. A Critical History of English Literature. London, Secker & Warburg ISBN: 0-436-12105-0, 1994.
Wain, John. Shakespeare: Macbeth, A Casebook. Hong Kong, Macmillan Press Ltd, ISBN: 0-333-53356-9, 1994.
Shakespeare, William. Shakespeare: The Complete Works. Mumbai, Wilco Publishing House, ISBN: 978-81-8252-462-0, 2013.
Bloom, Harold. Bloom’s Shakespeare Through the Ages: Macbeth. New York, Bloom’s Literary Criticism, ISBN: 978-0-7910-9594-2, 2013

 

 

Structural Analysis of ‘Lunch atop a Skyscraper’

Rajalekshmi L S

            According to philosopher Simon Blackburn, structuralism is “the belief that phenomena of human life are not intelligible except through their interrelations. These relations constitute a structure, and behind local variations in the surface phenomena there are constant laws of abstract culture”. Structuralism is the theory where the elements of human culture are understood in terms of their relationship to a larger, overarching system or structure. It works to uncover the structures that underlie all the things that humans do, think, perceive, and feel.

This research paper will attempt to do a structural analysis of the famous photographer ‘Lunch atop a Skyscraper.’ The paper would go on to explain the class structures prevalent in the society and how this photo is a representation of it. It will also attempt to analysis the novella ‘A Christmas Carol’. The paper will also look into how the image is used a propaganda tool.

‘Lunch atop a Skyscraper’, is a famous photograph taken as a publicity stunt. ‘The photograph, showing eleven men side by side with their lunch pails on the 69th-floor skeleton of what would become the RCA Building at Rockefeller Centre, was taken on September 29, 1932, as a promotion for the development, and first appeared in The New York Herald Tribune a few days later.’ (nytimes.com n.p.)

If you see, the photo shows these men smiling and eating their lunch. One of them lighting a cigarette for another, others making small talk and enjoying the view from the top of the scraper while the New York City is in the backdrop. We always consider a photo as a representation of life, as a moment in life captured to be remembered forever. But this is a perfect example of how a photo can be manipulated to bring out a message. The workers are shown sharing the food, when they have no enough food to feed themselves. They are smiling in the photo hiding many emotions behind their eyes.

In the essay ‘Rhetoric of the Image’, Roland Barthes talks about how an image can be manipulated to construct meaning. He analyses an advertising image and uses it as a means of teasing out how different messages are conveyed by a system of signs. The central question of his essay – can images truly function as conveyers of meaning given that they are essentially imitations or direct analogical representations of something else. Similarly in this, the image is constructed to convey specific messages to the public and is trying to say something about the group.

Furthermore, the image shows how the workers are ‘on top of the world’, when they are from the lowest sections of society, dappling in hunger, surviving on the bare minimums and at the mercy of others. They are representative of many others who are suffering under the structure. In addition, they are made to sit on the scrapper, some hundred feet above, without any protection in the open. They are also hiding the fear of falling and losing their lives, which is symbolic of their lives. Yet the fact that the workers are still posing for the photo despite all the problems reminds us of the structure that is working behind it that has the power to instruct them what to do keeping away their individuality. That there is someone who is asking them to put up this show and hide there emotions and this someone hold power. Now what is this structure? How does it function?

The structure is the power relations present in the society. This power relation is manifested through the class distinctions. Class distinction is the division of the society on the basis socio-economic, political and cultural status that people hold – where those wielding power becomes the dominant class and the others under them become the lower class or labour class and they are all part of the structure. Other parts of structure are patriarchy, religion, caste system, government and many more. Now, the dominant class holds power because they are in control of the means of production – land, labour, capital and organisation. In a Capitalist society, according to Karl Marx the capitalist or the Bourgeois own the means of production, while the lower class forms the Proletariat, who are economically and culturally backward. The power here is the form of money and money is what defines power. The ones who have it are the ones who own the means of production.  The base of this society is the economy as Marx calls it and it is on this base that the entire society is built which forms the superstructure.

According to Structuralism, money or capital is what keeps the structure in place. The need for money is felt in all section of the society. The capitalist work towards profit by setting up factories while the working class work towards earning money and imitating the dominant class to moving up the social ladder. It is called the trickle down method where the profit the dominant class gained in a way determines how much money the lower class should get. The dominant class on one hand reaps the benefits of the hard work of the working class and also exploit them in the name of labour. In other ways, this capital is a tool to make sure that the structure remains where it is. The increasing cost of goods and services, the higher tax rates, unemployment, illiteracy, poverty are all consequences of this structure being in place. It is a vicious circle and we cannot break away from it.

According to Pierra Bourdieu, the economic capital influences the cultural capital and vice versa. The cultural capital is where the economic capital is embodied. Taking the example of India where caste system plays a major role in the lives of the individuals in the society. The people from the upper caste are in control of panchayat and other major religious and social institution. The economic hierarchy reflects in the cultural hierarchy. The dominant and the lower class are determined by the caste system, which is based on ones job. As long as the lower class continues to performs the menial jobs they are assigned to do and as long as the upper keeps the major institutions under their control, the caste system is going to remain in the same manner.

In addition, the heterogeneity of the caste system is never acknowledged. The diversity of the society is represented through the image where workers are clothed differently, but again they are taken as a homogenous section, and the same rules and laws are implemented. Their identities are determined by the work they do and the wage they are paid.  These economic practices reinforce the structure.

As mentioned earlier, power defines everything that is part of the society. The power is exercised either through consent or by coercion; it is usually both working together. In the picture, the workers are posing for the photo shows us how they have consented to it. But is it entirely true? This can be connected to what Marxist point out – the false consciousness, the idea that we are blind to our conditions. Louis Althusser, speaks about how the ‘Ideological State Apparatus’, distorts our view of the true nature of our conditions. The domination of certain ideas and beliefs which are put forward by – organised religion, the law, political system, education and so on forms a part of this apparatus and in a way shapes our thoughts and actions. Here the structure is concentrated upon. The workers are not acting out of ‘free will’, actually it the person behind the camera who is holding the will. The workers are paid for what they do. The hegemony is established through the capital they are paid for their labour.

In the play, Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens, we can clearly observe the points put above. The novella met with instant success and critical acclaim. A Christmas Carol tells the story of a bitter old miser named Ebenezer Scrooge and his transformation into a gentler, kindlier man after visitations by the ghost of his former business partner Jacob Marley and the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Yet to Come. We are shown how Ebenezer Scrooge holds the power because he owns means of production. While his overworked, underpaid clerk Bob Cratchit is seen toiling day and night to meet the ends of his family. Now, one might think as to why is Bob still working under Mr. Scourge even when he being paid less, not provided basic amenities or a holiday for Christmas. This is because he is aware of the situation in Victorian England – unemployment, disease, poverty etc. Between unemployment and restricted freedom, he chose the latter – to feed the stomach of his family. This same constraint to break away from the system is what makes us remain in the system. We are forced to consent even.

Coming back to the image, it was said how the image was used as a propaganda tool. This again is a part of the whole process of keeping the structure intact. The image is selling happiness to people when they avail to the services of the company; that is the promise the company makes. When we see the photo the first time we see as a bunch of worker enjoying their lunch. However, the fact that the image is manipulated tells us how the photos can create illusion in the minds of people. The emotional influence created by this photo is what determines its success. This same emotional appeal is what advertisement companies try to achieve even today.  Ads are supposed to play on our intuition, our conscious and subconscious desires. The idea is to sell as many products to the masses as possible.

The new Maruti Suzuki Ertiga (2015) is a TVC with the tagline ‘For the feeling called Love’. The commercial along with selling the product is selling a dream or aspiration. It adds value to the commercial. This attracts the audience to come and buy the product. Similarly, religious, education, political system propagate a certain idea of the structure that is followed by the people, which later becomes a set norm or standard. To survive in the society one needs to follow it.

This is what the Structuralist approach is about. It uncovers the structure for us and presents it to show us how we are part of this structure irrespective of who we are and were we are from. The structure is become an integral part of our lives and we do not question it. However, this scenario is changed and today we are questioning the air we were breathing all this while. The structure of society that was Euro-centric, patriarchal, capitalist is changing to give space to the unheard. The centre of the structure is shifting and is becoming inclusive. Deconstruction of the established ideas is a way to provide opportunity for others. Racism, casteism, communalism, capitalism are all questioned and social mobility of different classes are made possible. Anyway, we should also understand that we could not entirely function without this structure in place. The total deconstruction of this structure can lead to chaos and confusion. Therefore, the ultimate solution is to balance things out because we cannot imagine a life without the economic capital.

Works Cited

Barthes, Roland, and Stephen Heath. Image, Music, Text. New York: Hill and Wang, 1977.

Print.

Bertens, Johannes Willem. Literary Theory: The Basics. London: Routledge, 2001. Print.

Bourdieu, Pierre. Outline of a Theory of Practice. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge UP, 1977.            Print.

“Dickens Chronology.” Dickens Chronology. Web. 21 Jan. 2016.

Maruti Suzuki Ertiga. Maruti Suzuki Ertiga. Web. 21 Jan. 2016.

Pollak, Michael. “Answers to Questions About New York.” The New York Times.

The New York Times, 2012. Web. 21 Jan. 2016.

“The Rhetoric Of The Image – Roland Barthes (1964).” Traces Of The Real. 2009. Web. 21 Jan. 2016.

Derek Thompson. “Thinking vs. Feeling: The Psychology of Advertising.” The Atlantic. The Atlantic, 27 Oct. 2011. Web. 21 Jan. 2016.

 

 

My Merriest Christmas

Chinchu VJ

The 2015 Christmas vacation days were the most beautiful for my family and me, because a new member came into our home: My nephew, Joseph Henry. He made us all very happy. December 28^th was his baptism and I was waiting for that day. He was with my sister-in-law at her home and on the day of the baptism, my sister-in-law and her family members came to my parish and we celebrated his baptism. I was waiting to see him till that day. I couldn’t see him before because I was in Bangalore.

He is my first nephew, a first not only for me but also for my family. So, that was a beautiful day for us. I reached home on the 24^th and I didn’t waste any time because I was busy with the preparations for the baptism ceremony. Finally, the day of his baptism arrived. We went to parish in the morning and the moment I saw him I couldn’t control myself, I took him in my arms and I kissed him. I think that was the happiest moment of my life. My cousins scolded me telling that shouldn’t kiss the baby’s cheek. They were probably right, but he is my nephew, who else would kiss him? I was angry.

I understood how a mother cares for her child and how sweet it is being a mother. I could see a glimpse of motherhood. I could see the innocence in his eyes. I realized how special and difficult it was, to look after a child. I have attended many baptisms, but I was never this excited or happy.

This was the first time I experienced such joy attending a baptism. I clicked many photos with him. When he cried, I would carry him and soothe him and he would stop crying at once. This made me so happy, to think I could stop his tears. When people would talk, he would smile in an adorable way that captured the hearts of all people who saw his face. I never anticipated that I would be so happy when I would have a nephew. We waited for him for three years. He doesn’t understand what I say to him because he is just two months old. Although, whenever I talk to him, he smiles at me, and when I see that, I feel like he understands me.

I was never bothered about things like how a baby grows up or how much the parents suffer, but this vacation taught me that, too. The night of his baptism, he didn’t allow us to sleep, he was crying the whole time. He’d sleep the whole day and keep us up at night. He would sleep and within five minutes he would wake up. I couldn’t shut my eyes at all that night. Next morning, my mother took him to take bath, he was happy till the moment water was poured on him. When I saw him crying, I scolded my mother. My sister in law said that it was natural for babies like him to cry while being bathed, and it was not my mother’s mistake.

Every day, I prayed to God to not let the days pass by, because I would have to come back to Bangalore eventually, once vacations ended. Then I won’t be able to see my nephew. Till 3^rd January, I spent time with him. Whenever I spent time with him, I felt like I am the happiest person in the world. I miss him so much. Whenever I call, he makes some sweet noises and it makes me happy as well as sad. The 2015 Christmas vacation was the most beautiful and memorable vacation for my family and me. It was a first and a new experience, attending my nephew’s baptism and spending time with him. It was a vacation I will always cherish, the merriest Christmas I’d ever had…