Shaik Shaheen Taj
Asst. Professor, NIST (Nimra)
Vijayawada
taj.mam@gmail.com
THE CHANGING ROLE OF THE ENGLISH TEACHER
Abstract
My paper discusses about the complicated role of English teacher in the contemporary era. It throws light upon the important steps, latest technologies and innovative methods to be adopted by the teachers while teaching English. Gone are the days where education was teacher-centered where students were just passive listeners. Now the teaching of English is learner-centered. Teachers are committed to their students and their learning. Teachers are responsible for managing and monitoring student learning. Though the importance of English is well known many still neglect learning English. A language is a systematic means of communication by the use of sounds or conventional symbols. It is the code we all use to express ourselves to communicate with others. As we all know English is very useful as it is a means of communication. Moreover a strong command of the English language will lead to higher paying jobs, more social mobility, and a great deal of social success. My paper tries to depict the role of English teacher not just as a guide, motivator and evaluator but also as a facilitator. English is a link language. English is the language of the latest business management in the world and Indian proficiency in English has brought laurels to many Indian business managers. English is a means not only for international commerce; it has become increasingly essential for inter-state commerce and communication. This paper also discusses about the importance of four skills Reading, Listening, Writing and Speaking. The role English plays in technical institution and the role of English teacher in technical field is also discussed.
My paper concludes discussing about the changing roles of English teacher and it also discusses about the importance of English in engineering colleges.
Introduction:
“When the teacher first meets his class, the matter of motivation must receive his primary attention. The success of the teacher depends on how well he can arouse the interests and motivation of pupils. He will manipulate the class-room situations in such a way that pupils are induced to pursue their goals vigorously and enthusiastically” (H. R. Bhatia).
India is a multilingual country. Each language in India claims the importance and hence language problems naturally arise. English reigned supreme in the pr-independent India. English is now a library language in India. Hence English should be taught well and a revolution has to be brought about in the methodology of teaching this important world language. Through English maximum knowledge can be imparted to students. Prof. Gurrey has rightly observed: “In teaching, it is highly desirable to know exactly what one is hoping to achieve, as it is in all great undertakings. If this can be clearly seen then the best way of getting to work usually becomes evident. We ought, therefore, to consider carefully what we are trying to do when we are teaching a language.” In the words of Prof. P. Gurrey “with careful thought, puzzling out precisely what he wants to achieve and what are the immediate needs of his pupils, a teacher of language can soon become expert in noting the objectives that he should strive for and once he is aware of the advantage, he very soon forms the habit of directing his efforts and those of his pupils on to selected objectives”.
The importance of the ability to speak or write English has recently increased significantly. English is a language that has become a standard not because it has been approved by any 'standards' organization but because it is widely used by many information and technology industries and recognized as being standard. The prevailing view seems to be that unless the students learn English, they can only work in limited jobs. Those who do not have basic knowledge of English cannot obtain good quality jobs. They cannot communicate efficiently with others, and cannot have the benefit of India's rich social and cultural life. Men and women, who cannot comprehend and interpret instructions in English, even if educated, are unemployable. The lack of effort in learning English and the general feeling of not being interested in learning the English language is a plague to the system. This abuse is what the English teachers should fight against. Those who recognize that learning English is their responsibility have plenty of opportunities to do so. Radio and television are good teachers. So are magazines. Students in their young age can pick up English quickly. They are the best fast learners, provided the preference to speak English at schools, colleges, universities, and what's more at home is made compulsory. Without a teacher or skilled language speaker who can present the knowledge to be experimented with in a structured, graduated, and comprehensible manner, and who can guide, observe, and correct errors in usage, such a process of discovery is often haphazard, and growth in knowledge a matter of accident. Apart from being a useful skill in itself, reading in a foreign language is known to be a very useful and relatively painless way to improve one's grasp of that language. Considering the growth of international relations of our society with other nations and the extended interest towards today’s growing technology and science throughout the world, learning English language as an international language has found a greater importance. Increase in the numbers of language institutes and their students also increasing interest of parents for their children to learn English can be a good evidence for the recent value of English language in our country. But unfortunately most of the students are not satisfied with their abilities in English after studying it for seven years in their schools. Teachers can improve their methods of teaching by considering the domain of motivation. A number of studies have consistently demonstrated that those who have an advanced knowledge of the English language are much more likely to advance their careers. In addition to this, these studies have also demonstrated that a strong command of the English language will lead to higher paying jobs, more social mobility, and a great deal of social success. No matter what career the students choose, whether it is Engineering or History, having a powerful command of the English language will greatly increase their odds of success. Many people have a poor command of the English language because they don't read. These people don't realize that they are destroying their chances of being economically successful. Not only does reading allow building up vocabulary, but it also allows to become more informed, learning things about the world around. In the teaching of English as a second or foreign language today, the approach is no longer teacher-centered, but is student-centered. In student-centered learning, students are active participants in their learning rather than passive recipients; students are more intrinsically than extrinsically motivated; learning is more individualized than standardized. Student-centered learning develops "learning how to learn" skills such as problem solving, critical thinking, and reflective thinking. Student-centered learning accounts for and adapts to different learning styles of students. The teacher in this approach facilitates the communicative activities of the students. In this model, communication plays an important role. This approach stresses the importance of learner autonomy and responsibility of the learner's process. It attributes greater value to the learner's experience and knowledge in the classroom.
Methods of Teaching English
Grammar translation method: Grammar Translation method is one of the popular methods of teaching English. The majority of teachers oppose a change for the better. They prefer to teach by old methods. This method saves both the teacher’s and the pupils’ time. The teacher’s only work is to give word for word meaning of English into the child’s mother-tongue. This method ignores the natural way of learning a language that is through listening, speaking, reading and writing. The students learn to keep the translation and kill the sense. The pupils may say; “The rain is falling” for “It is raining.” In this method the students are passive learners. The roles of the teacher are very traditional. The teacher is the authority in the class room. The students do as she says so they can learn what she knows.
The Direct Method: According to Webster’s New International Dictionary, “Direct Method is a method of teaching a foreign language, especially a modern language through conversation, discussion and reading in the language itself without use of the pupil’s language, without translation and without the study of formal grammar. The words are first taught by pointing to object or picture or by performing action” (K. K. Bhatia: 221). Here the students get many opportunities to listen to spoken English which is very important for language mastery. The student thinks in English and hence can strength his ability of self-expression. This method is the easy ground for written English. The teaching work becomes interesting. The Direct Method receives its name from the fact that meaning is to be conveyed directly in the target language through the use of demonstration and visual aids, with no recourse to the student’s native language. The native language should not be used in the class room. The purpose of language learning is communication. Students should be encouraged to speak as much as possible. Teachers who use the Direct Method intend that students learn how to communicate in the target language. In order to do this successfully students should learn to think in the target language. The students’ role in this method is less passive. The teacher and the student are more like partners in the teaching/learning process. Teachers should reflect on what they do and why they did and should be open to learning about the practices and research of others. They should interact with others and should try new practices in order to continually research for or devise the best method they can for who they are, who their students are and the conditions and context of their teaching.
The Structural Approach: According to Menon and Patel, “The Structural Approach is based on the belief that in the learning of a foreign language, mastery of Structures is more important than the acquisition of vocabulary.” This approach puts more emphasis on pupil’s activity than on the teacher’s. The student is the learner and hence he must actively involve in the teaching-learning process.
Four important Skills of English:
Listening: All language learning begins with the ear. So the teacher must aim at making his learners respond to the target language when it is spoken. The teacher must provide maximum opportunities to his students to listen to the spoken forms of English language. Different audio-aides such as tape-recorder, linguaphone, radio etc should be used by the teacher. Everything in language learning is based on good listening.
Speaking: All language learning begins with the ear. So the teacher must aim at making his learners respond to the target language when it is spoken. Language has to be achieved through practice. That has to be brushed up everyday. A good command of English is generally achieved more through hard work than through some mysterious "gift." Students should know the proper use of stress and intonation. They should be able to express themselves through short, simple sentence. They should be able to converse in English answer simple questions and ask simple questions. They should be able to talk in simple English about events, places, thing and persons. The teacher should become a good model of speech for the child. A good model will produce a good speaker. The teacher should make use of aids such as gramophone, tape-recorder, radio, etc., during the teaching hours.
Reading: Reading is an important mode of expression. Students should read well and with comprehension. Early expression in reading must be in the form of loud reading. Reading helps the students to get pleasure out of the language. While reading the words should be pronounced correctly and proper intonation and reasonable speed is essential. The teacher should help the pupils in understanding new words and sentence patterns.
Writing: Writing helps to develop good handwriting, spelling, structures, words of active use punctuation, etc. One can master over English if one has learnt the four basic skills:
(i) Understanding spoken English;
(ii) Speaking correct English;
(iii) Reading English; and
(iv) Writing simple and correct English for daily use.
The teacher should see to it that all abilities should be regarded as paramount and equal importance should be given to each. General objective of English is the ability to understand, the ability to speak, the ability to read and the ability to write.
Duties of a teacher: Teacher is one of the agents of transmission. Teacher is always a learner. Teachers learn best by studying, by doing and reflecting, by collaborating with other teachers, by looking closely at students and their work, and by sharing what they see.
1. Teachers are committed to their students and their learning.
2. Teachers know the subjects they teach and how to teach those subjects to students.
3. Teachers are responsible for managing and monitoring student learning.
4. Teachers think systematically about their practice and learn from experience.
5. Teachers are members of learning communities
Teacher is the depositor of knowledge. Teacher deposits knowledge to the students. Knowledge is transmitted from teacher to students. Education is not just transmitting what is known. But education is discovering what is not known. The teacher's duty is to observe, understand and to motivate the students. In language learning teacher plays main role. The teacher removes the biggest language learning obstacles from the learners and creates conditions conducive to language learning success. The style of teaching should be changed into the style of learning of the students. Teacher should motivate the students by introducing many activities such as group discussions, JAM, Self introduction etc. A good teacher should listen and understand the feelings of the students. Care and affection is essential to motivate the students. Teachers are responsible for the behavioral changes of the students. To be effective, teachers must not only be knowledgeable about the content area but must also have the skills and abilities to communicate that knowledge, which necessitates an understanding of student characteristics, pedagogy, and classroom management. To teach all students according to today's standards, teachers need to understand subject matter deeply and flexibly so they can help students create useful cognitive maps, relate one idea to another, and address misconceptions. Teachers employ a range of instructional strategies and resources to match the variety of student skills and to provide each student several ways of exploring important ideas, skills, and concepts. They understand how to work as facilitators, coaches, models, evaluators, managers, and advocates. They know how to utilize various forms of play, different strategies for grouping students, and different types of media and materials. Teachers observe and assess students in the context of ongoing classroom life. They are skilled in collecting and interpreting a variety of types of evidence to evaluate where each student is in a sequence or continuum of learning and development. They know how to move from assessment to decisions about curriculum, social support, and teaching strategies, to increase the prospects for successful learning. Teachers understand and respect the diverse cultures, values, languages, and family backgrounds of their students, use community people and settings as resources for learning, and involve parents and families as active partners in the students' total development.
The responsibility of the teacher: Teaching in any venue involves forming a lesson plan, presenting material to students, responding to students learning needs, and evaluating student progress. Teachers should communicate and relate well with students, enjoy working with them, and be able to motivate them. They should have inquiring and analytical minds, and a strong desire to pursue and disseminate knowledge. Additionally, they must be self-motivated and able to work in an environment in which they receive little direct supervision. Limited resources, frequent use of mother tongue makes the efforts of English abortive for want of creating congenial environment wherein the children may participate in general discussion in English other than mother tongue. A teacher that already has experience in teaching English as a Second Language (ESL) can exploit her background in language teaching. She should recognize the ways in which her teaching skills can be adapted for the teaching of English. Moreover, she will need to look for content specialists for help in designing appropriate lessons in the subject matter field she is teaching. A teacher must play many roles; organize courses, set learning objectives, establish a positive learning environment in the classroom, and evaluate students’ progress. The main reason is that learning English doesn't just involve gaining knowledge. An equally important part of learning English is developing skills, and skills can only be developed by practice. Just as a coach can't make someone a good runner just by explaining how to run, an English teacher can't make students good speakers (readers, writers, etc.) of English just by explaining English to them. Instead, like a coach, a teacher must help students learn how to practice effectively, and also encourage them to practice a lot - even when the teacher is not around. They need to make English study as interesting and attractive as possible, that students will want to feed themselves. They need to help students' develop their own plan for studying English, and help students keep their plans - and their interest - alive. Students need to know it is up to them to feed themselves - and not always wait for a teacher to stuff them. Teachers who have a good command of English will have more confidence to use English in class, and also have more confidence when answering students' questions. Students will also tend to have more confidence in teachers whose English is obviously good, and will tend to look up to them as role models.
The secret of successful teaching is to discover means of making the pupil like and want to do the things that the teacher wants to do. Motivation is no less important a factor in the reading classroom than in any other area of language learning. Once the class is motivated, more than half the battle is won. Motivation has been widely accepted by both teachers and researchers as one of the key factors that influence the rate and success of second/foreign language learning. One interesting and useful way of activating the motivational components in students is the use of a quotation a day in the classroom. The teacher who has to teach English language through some worth while content has no better resource for motivation than catchy quotable quotes. First, the teachers have to realize that these words of wisdom and inspiration have enough potential for exploitation in the classroom. Next, they have to implement this strategy as soon as possible. From informal interactions, it is learnt from colleagues that they find it an interesting and usable idea. It is hoped that many others will also adopt this technique to motivate themselves and their students for joyful and meaningful English classes. When they get some guidance, especially with moral values, for their life, they have intrinsic motivation. The teacher often ends up presenting language that the students already know. Teachers should make sure that they are adding something new. Prof. John J. Ryan rightly says, “Motivation to the very heart of the learning process. Adequate motivation not only sets in motion the activity which results in learning but also sustains and directs it” (K. K. Bhatia :114). The more one is exposed to the use of language, the better one learns. One interesting and useful way of activating the motivational components in students is the use of a quotation a day in the classroom. The teacher who has to teach English language through some worth while content has no better resource for motivation than catchy quotable quotes. Pre-listening tasks can also be extended to them doing a whole role-play or other long speaking task and then listening to a conversation in the same situation on the CD. The teacher should create an atmosphere in the language classroom which supports the students. Learners must be self-confident in order to communicate, and Teachers have the responsibility to help build the learner's confidence. The teacher is a resource that helps students identify their language learning problems and find solutions to them, find out the skills they need to focus on, and take responsibility for making choices which determine what and how to learn. To become a competent user of a second language, a student must partake of a linguistic inheritance different from her own. In the classroom it will be the teacher first of all who will play the part of inducting her into it. It is not enough merely to provide students with opportunities to speak in English, as teachers we need to encourage students to speak in a variety of different situations, and hence help them to learn to speak with confidence. The effective use of role-plays can add variety to the kinds of activities students are asked to perform. It encourages thinking and creativity; lets students develop and practice new language and behavioral skills in a relatively safe setting, and can create the motivation and involvement necessary for real learning to occur. Unlike skits, role plays shouldn't be scripted out in detail; instead Teachers should give the student a general scenario with different elements and suggested ideas for complications to occur. One of the most valuable gifts English teachers can share with students is their experience in language learning, and they should spend some class time sharing their experience with students. So the best kind of role model for students is often a teacher who has worked hard - and continues to work hard - to learn English as well as possible. It is not essential that the teacher's English be perfect; in fact, sometimes the best role model is a teacher who has obviously had to struggle to learn English, but who has persisted and made real progress. This is the kind of role model many students can identify with, and that will encourage them to work hard in their own English study. Teachers who have a good command of English will have more confidence to use English in class, and also have more confidence when answering students' questions. Students will also tend to have more confidence in teachers whose English is obviously good, and will tend to look up to them as role models.
Teachers in Engineering Colleges: I am teaching English in an Engineering College most of my students are from English medium school background, inspite of their exposure to the language they are not regular in using English language to communicate among them and I find it a continuous challenge to motivate them to use the language to gain greater fluency. As the first step I always prefer to talk to them only in English. Fluency in English is essential to get good jobs. Even for technical students with good percentage English is must. But very few are trying to improve their knowledge in English. English teachers in technical colleges must continually defend their subject’s importance and place in the Engineering Curriculum. Teachers in technical colleges can’t enjoy equal prestige with their colleagues in the technological departments who feel that science is the only pursuit worth the time and effort of students. English teachers should make English lively and interesting subject to be learnt by adopting new techniques and by motivating the students. They should prove its importance by illustrating real life experiences and by justifying its importance to their colleagues and to their students. A review of related literature shows that the area ‘English Education in Engineering Colleges’ has plenty of scope for development. We need to place more emphasis on the training and development of English language teachers in engineering colleges in India. There is a wide gap between the existing system of language teaching and the desired language skills of the students of Engineering and Technology. The students of Engineering and Technology need better language skills to understand their subjects and for their greater employability. Due to expansion of technological education in developed and developing countries, experts call for intense research into English for Science and Technology. Teachers should be able to choose appropriate methods / strategies for teaching EST like pair/peer work, role play, group discussion and so on. They should use the communicative learner-centered approach while teaching the EST material. To improve the speaking skills of the students Language teacher conducts role-playing activities like interviewing and being interviewed, explaining and convincing on Science and Technology topics and so on. A task-based activity, group work, and so on, generates discussion and provides learners with practice. Students improve their listening, speaking and overall communicative skills. Teachers should design and conduct several role play activities for students to practice and use English in a more meaningful way as a practical language so that the results of students’ learning are quite positive.
Teacher’s skills for communication and mediation create the classroom atmosphere. Students acquire language when they have opportunities to use the language in interaction with other speakers. Being their teacher, we may be the only English speaking person available to students, and although our time with any of them is limited, we can structure effective communication skills in the classroom. In order to do so, in our interactions with students we should try to listen carefully to what they are saying and give our understanding or misunderstanding back at them through our replies. Good language learners are also great risk-takers, since they must make many errors in order to succeed: however, in English classes, they are handicapped because they are unable to use their native language competence to present themselves as well-informed adults. That is why the teacher should create an atmosphere in the language classroom which supports the students. Learners must be self-confident in order to communicate, and we have the responsibility to help build the learner's confidence. In this context, the English teachers of Engineering colleges have a very crucial role to play. Besides teaching English as a subject for comprehension and expression, they have to act as facilitators in shaping the communication skills and personality traits of the Engineering students. The students of Engineering and Technology need better language skills to understand their subjects and for their greater employability. Due to expansion of technological education in developed and developing countries, experts call for intense research into English for Science and Technology.
Evaluating Students: The teacher is a resource that helps students identify their language learning problems and find solutions to them. We should find out the skills they need to focus on, and take responsibility for making choices which determine what and how to learn. We will serve as a source of information to the students about how they are progressing in their language learning. Students learn languages when they have opportunities to understand and work with language in a context that they comprehend and find interesting. Students' refusal to take responsibility for learning English does not affect only their own welfare but their family members, the dependents and others too. Planning group work activities in discussions, games and role-plays, preparing listening, reading and writing activities that connect meaningfully with students' felt needs and with pedagogical aims, as well as allowing more spontaneous conversations to take place. In all of these interactions students have opportunities to discover and fine-tune linguistic habits. They can experiment with these habits, undergo the consequences of their actions in the comprehension, incomprehension and corrections they receive from their interlocutors or readers, make adjustments in light of those consequences, and draw inferences about improved performance in future interactions.
Conclusion: Mental development pre-supposes a good command over language. Our mind develops through thinking, and is impossible without language .Language is a tool of both thinking and communication. It is a tool which has to be used effectively in acquiring knowledge and mastering facts in education. We develop the power to think and reason on a higher plane only through language. It is the basic tool for social communication. Language is in fact a potent means of personality development, which is the aim of education. Language helps in the mental development through listening; speaking, reading and writing. Self – expression, communication of idea, reasoning, and thinking all depend upon the facility with which an individual is in a position to use the tool of language. Therefore a good system of education must emphasize the teaching and learning of language. Teachers must ignore small acts of mischief of their pupils. They should treat his pupils kindly and sympathetically. They should help the emotionally disturbed pupil and should give him their confidence. Opportunities for self-expression are helpful in creating emotional stability. Through activities the teacher can help the students to express themselves. In the class-room, the teacher should create situations, where there is willing desire for healthy competitions, if the child is treated with love and affection; he feels secure and thus develops self-confidence. The child must be allowed to move about in a wider sphere, so that he develops in the art of self-expression and command over the language.
Prof. S.N.Rao rightly says: “In formal learning situations, motivation or motivating the pupil to learn is the principle par excellence.” Motivation concentrates the attention and energy of a person on the activity or knowledge to be learnt. Teacher must provide incentive to motivate students. The teacher must try to develop permanent interests in the pupils and at the same time he must motivate the students before teaching any particular person. Dr. Mohan has quoted R.C. Sweat (1966) who proved that “when students were told by the teacher how well they had done in their course and also encouraged to do better it resulted in more favourable attitudes and better performances”(K. K. Bhatia : 117). Teachers should enthuse, the learning spirit among students. Teacher’s guidance from time to time helps in reading only useful books and material. Finally, without a teacher or other skilled speaker who can serve as a linguistic exemplar, someone whose example can be followed, a learner is likely to miss out on important nuances in language that can only be communicated from person to person. Teaching requires the ability to communicate ideas well, motivate students, and be creative.
References
Bhatia, K.K. (2001): “Educational Psychology and Techniques of Teaching”: Arora Offset Press, New Delhi.
Wilga, M. Rivers. (1972): “Speaking in Many Tongues (Essays in foreign-language Teaching (3rd Edition)”: Cambridge University Press, London: 118.
Larsen, Diane Freeman. (2000): “Techniques and Principles in Language Teaching”: Radha Press, Delhi.
Showing posts with label PAPER PRESENTATION. Show all posts
Showing posts with label PAPER PRESENTATION. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
New Trends in Asian and African Literature
Shaik Shaheen Taj
Assistant Professor
Nimra Institute of Science and Technology
Nimra Nagar, Vijayawada
The Dialectic of Historical Struggle in Silko’s
Almanac of the Dead
History, in other words, is not a calculating machine.
it unfolds in the mind and the imagination, and it takes body
in the multifarious responses of a people’s culture, itself the
infinitely subtle mediation of material realities, of under-
pinning economic fact, of gritty objectivities.
(Quoted in, Edward W.Said’s, Culture and Imperialism, 1993: I).
People from Indian ancestry who are citizens of the United States are known as Indian Americans. Indian Citizenship Act of 1924 merged them with the American mainstream giving them United States Citizenship. This was because of the heroic service of many American Indian veterans in World War I. throughout the period of Indian displacement and Indian wars, Americans pondered Indian origins. Benjamin Smith Barton, in New Views of the Origins of the Tribes and Nations of America (1797) asserted that the Indians had originated in Persia and other parts of Asia. American Indian literature begins with the orally transmitted myths, legends, tales, and lyrics of Indian cultures. Among the richest set of Native American stories that survive are creation myths, descriptions of the beginnings of the universe and the world and of the origin of humankind. The earliest works of Indian literature are traditional oral tales, songs, and myths. They are found transcribed into English in anthologies such as American Indian Myths and Legends but are best understood in the specific cultural contexts where they were sung or enacted dramatically. A second early form of Indian literature is the captivity narrative, the best of which reveal much about Indian cultures before extensive contact with whites. In such narrative we have traditional Indian cultures before extensive contact with whites. In such narrative we have traditional Indian cultures and their relationships to the land. Autobiography has continued to be important in Indian literature, though the novel is currently the dominant literary form. Contemporary Native American authors and critics are retelling, reorganizing, and re-evaluating traditional tribal stories in order to assert a communally ascribed identity that accurately portrays today’s Indian. These new stories seek to breakdown the signs and artifacts of the white man’s Indian and replace them with signs of a vibrant and thriving culture. Contemporary, Native American texts rewrite Native American histories in order to reenter or empower their culture.
Leslie Marmon Silko is one of the foremost authors to emerge from the Native American literary renaissance of the 1970s. She blends Western Laguna Pueblo heritage to communicate Native American concepts concerning time, nature, and spirituality and their relevance in the contemporary world. Silko, born is 1948 in Albuquerque; New Mexico belongs to Laguna Indian, Mexican and Anglo American heritage. Her first novel Ceremony tells the story of a group of Indian World War II veterans in a way that both describes them and also expresses their own views of their situations. Her second novel of 763 pages, Almanac of the Dead, explores and critiques interlocking histories of oppression that inscribe the land, labor, and bodies of indigenous peoples. It recovers and recreates the submerged knowledge of oppressed peoples while affirming and strengthening vital, social, ecological and spiritual relationships. It depicts a detailed description of Native American traditional history. It includes the themes like Colonialism, Disease and Health, Human Worth, Institutionalization, Medical Ethics, Natural Experience, Native-American Medicine, Nature, Power Relations, Racism, Society, Survival, and War and Medicine. Silko portrays some 70 characters, most at various stages of corruption, disease and additionally a wide array of events spanning 500 years. The novel is peopled with addicts, alcoholics, politicians, unscrupulous and greedy land speculators, and a host of other unsavory characters. These characters tell the story of resistance to Euro-American oppression and a growing effort of indigene allies to retake the land and ultimately to become agents of it’s healing.
The title of the novel refers to a set of notebooks of Yoeme, a Yaqui Indian. She is the care taker of the “Almanac”. She later passes it on to her grandchildren, Zeta and Lecha. The novel begins with these elderly Native American twin sisters in Tucson. A section of the “Almanac” is accidentally lost. Yoeme wants Zeta to write down a replacement section. She warns Zeta to be very careful while replacing because nothing is supposed to be added newly to the novel. Zeta and Lecha are compiling the almanac, the pages of which are made from horse stomachs. Almanac tells the history of the Indians in their movement north from Mexico. Yoeme believes that she is the caretaker of the “Almanac”. Lecha says that the old almanacs tell not just when to plant or harvest, but also they tell about the days yet to come such as drought or flood, plague, Civil War or invasion. Yoeme and others believed that the power of the “Almanac” will bring all the tribal people of the America together to retain the land. The almanac is a document full of prophesies that foretell the European conquests of the indigenous peoples of Mexico and the American Southwest. Through it, Silko indicts the Europeans for their hundreds of years of crimes. The prophesy also tells a future in which the domination ends. Silko makes clear and undeniable links between past activities and present socio-political problems in the United States. By populating her text with ‘the dead’, Silko exposes the moral and political significance of memory, and the narrativity of history (Silko, 1991:424).
Almanac of the Dead takes place against the backdrop of the American Southwest and Central America. It follows the stories of dozens of major characters in somewhat non-linear narrative format. Much of the story takes place in the present day although lengthy flashbacks and occasional mythological story telling are also woven into the plot. The novel’s numerous characters are often separated by both time and place, and many seemingly have little to do with one another at first. A majority of these characters are involved in criminal or revolutionary organizations. We find arms dealers, drug kingpins, an elite assassin, communist revolutionaries, corrupt politicians and a black market organ dealer. Driving many of these individual storylines we have a general theme of total reclamation of Native American lands. This novel depicts the exploitation of both dead and living. It is concerned with the repercussions on modern America of the continuing and conscious repression of the voices of the past. It depicts violence, destruction and dehumanization. Apart from these themes, a relentless critique of the corruption in Anglo-European culture revolving around money, power, sexuality, and a phallocentric order are presented.
Many of Silko’s powerful and wealthy characters ill-treat their own people as lazy and destructive thieves. By doing so, they reject their own indigenous roots. They consider monitoring and controlling inferior people as their personal responsibility. For example, General J, part of a powerful Mexican cadre, is a powerful character who proposes to his friends that illegal refugees be “gunned down from the air like coyotes or wolves”
(Silko, Almanac of the Dead.1991:495). We find many such villainous characters in Almanac. The rejection from lovers, strangers, and everyday events, the extreme, even criminal, reactions that almost inevitably follow on the part of the disabled character are rightly attributed to deviate psychology. Trigs is one such character who embodies this psychology by being so obsessed with recording his own history that he becomes unable to substantively relate to the people around him. His journals focus single mindedly upon sexual exploits and failures. Actually he attributes all of these things to his disability. Silko has created this character as half a man. He is not the only disabled stereotype portrayed by Silko. Like Triggs we find two more characters Serlo and Beaufry. Beaufrey treats ordinary people as disposable pawns in his personal game of chess. Thriving on power and profit, Beaufrey produces and sells movies featuring real-life murders, fetal dissections, surgical fantasies, and ritual circumcision. For his amusement, he uses money, drugs, and social influence to entice and manipulate the people around him.
We have an important character Bartolomeo, a communist working with Indians in the mountains. He is trying to educate the Indians masses on communism. Angelita is ths best student. She knows that communism does not hold the secrets for Indians. The communists rewrite history and do not want the Indians to remember their own uprisings their own resistance. We have an African American character, Clinton whose messages would be a call to war. Clinton and his family are direct descendants of wealthy, slave owing Cherokee Indians. He believes that the spirits of their ancestors were still with them in the United States. He feels that when there was a Civil War the old spirits drank up the rivers of white man’s blood while the slaves ran free. Max Blue is one more murderous and powerful character created by Silko.
Silko’s characters remember the past, physically piecing together individual recollections to produce a more rounded and complete history that recognizes all those who have been denied and excluded. Silko suggests that the policies of remembering relate not merely to a re-visioning of the past but also to contemporary activism: to the desire and ability of the minority group to take control of, and to actively change, the future. Silko in addition to all these also exposes the influential economic, political and social roles traditionally played by women in Native American societies. Seen by Europeans as a threat to the tribal negotiations necessary for successful settlement, these powerful traditional female roles were undermined as quickly as possible as Euro-Americans established and imposed a tribal system that only recognized and , more strategically, only negotiated with male authority figures.
Silko also exposes the influential economic, political and social roles traditionally played by women in many Native American societies. Silko, in the opening lines of the text describes a seemingly innocuous domestic scene: a kitchen where an 'old woman stands at the stove stirring…simmering brown liquid' (Silko, 1991:19). This instantly recognizable and comfortable image of nurturing and nourishment is immediately exploded as the subsequent lines reveal that the old woman, Zeta, is in fact dyeing clothing to 'the color of old blood' for use in her business of gun and drug running, while her nephew Ferro is cleaning his arsenal of weapons at the kitchen table and her equally elderly twin Lecha is being helped by her 'nurse' to inject illegal drugs. The kitchen itself, we find is situated within a fortified ranch, protected by vicious guard dogs and isolated from community of any kind in the middle of the Tucson desert (Silko, 1991:19).
Male characters such as Beaufrey, Serlo, Max Blue, Batolomeo, and a whole variety of authoritative figures from the Mexican and US armies, Police, and judiciaries are highlighted in the text. At the same time great emphasis is nonetheless placed upon some very powerful female figures: for instance, the Euro Americans Leah Blue, who ruthlessly seduces influential men to further her own business ambitions, and Seese, who has the strength to survive drug abuse and the abduction and murder of her infant son; and the indigenous women Angelita La Escapia, and the Yaqui twins Lecha and Zeta, who prove themselves to be powerful forces for political and social change. All three indigenous histories, and Lecha and Zeta inherit their roles as keepers of the almanac through a long line of female guardians from their grandmother Yoeme. All three thus emphasize the links between memory, history, identity and education, and cultural roles traditionally undertaken by women in indigenous societies.
Mexican revolutionary, Angelita locates the dead within an active and present history. We simply wait for the earth’s natural forces already set losse, the exploding fierce energy of all the dead slaves and dead ancestors haunting the Americans…we wait for the tidal wave of history to sweep as along (Silko, 1991:518). Silko’s likening of the force of history to ‘the earth’s natural forces’. The comparison of history and nature is particularly evident in the highly visible and immediate interaction between past and present that the Yaqui smuggler Calabazas perceives in the very geography, or physical landscape, of the Americas: Right Now. Today I have seen it. Where the arroyo curves sharp, caught, washed up against the big boulders with broken branches and weeds. Human bones piled high. Skulls piled and stacked like melons (Silko, 1991: 216). Here history is clearly inscribed upon the land itself, and upon the bodies of the dead. In discussing the indigenous ‘People’s Army’ led by the Mayan revolutionary Angelita La Escapia, Silko emphasizes the Mayan belief in the living nature of remembrance, and of history, regardless of the passing of time: Generation after generation, individuals were born, then after eighty years, disappeared into dust, but in the stories, the people lived on in the imaginations and hearts of their descendants’. Whenever their stories were told, the spirits of the ancestors were presented their power was alive (Silko, 1991:520). Thus we see that memory transforms itself into history, which in turn ensures a perception of the continued and continual nature of the living dead. Angelita clearly recognizes the political of history: ‘History was the Sacred text. The most complete history was the most powerful force’ (Silko, 1991:316).
Menardo’s desperate need to distance himself from his indigenous origins, despite his childhood love of his grandfather’s histories is clearly depicted. Menardo claims his characteristically tribal ‘flat nose’ to be the result of a courageous boxing career, his marriage to Iliana is influenced by her family’s social status as direct descendants of the conquistador Gutierrez (Silko, 1991:260). The figure of Menardo illustrates his increasing distance-physical, social, political, emotional, and spiritual from his origins.
The more Menardo mixes with the oppressive cultures that are traced in the Euro-American worlds of the text, the more he becomes involved with, and thus implicated in state programs of abduction, torture, and murder. It is significant that Menardo becomes fixated with the power of the gift that will eventually destroy him: the bullet-proof vest presented to him by his Mafia associates from the US. In his fixed belief in the power of the vest, which is based entirely upon its technological merits, Menardo ironically emulates Euro-American beliefs-what Wilson Weasel Tail would interpret as cultural mistranslations-regarding the spirit shirts of the Ghost Dance. Persuading his Indian chauffeur Tach to shoot him to prove the vest’s power, Menardo invited his own death. Menardo dies not just because he denies his origins and identity, but because he embraces and emulates the ‘death culture’ of Euro-Americ that considers itself ‘invincible with the magic of high technology (Silko, 1991:503). Menardo quite literally dies because he rejects the power, and thus the protection, of the ancestral spirits at the heart or the idea of the spirit shirt/bulletproof vest; technology alone is not enough.
Roof is also a complex character created by Silko. He is born into a ‘white’ American family whose wealth derives from Indian wars of the Southwest and whose social status depends upon concealment of their mixed race. Irreparably brain damaged in a near fatal motorcycle accident, Root is both rejected by-and himself rejects- his comfortable history. Instead, Root chooses to embrace his mixed heritage by living and working with the Yaqui smuggler Calabazas. It is significant that Root decides to reject Euro-American values after he has been deemed disabled-‘damaged’- by Euro-American medicine. Inspite of his financial and social success, in choosing to forget, Menardo dies; inspite of his irreparable disability, in choosing to remember Root lives. Root’s survival underlines the significance of his name: embracing his genealogical and familial origins, Root lives because he chooses not to erase his identity, in her complicated analysis of the characters of Root and Menardo, Silko, illustrates the danger of willful forgetfulness, and the political power of remembrance. In actively remembering the past and those who have died, and that justice continues to be demanded for those who have died unjustly.
Thus we see the longest of Silko’s works, Almanac of the Dead represents the culmination of years of research, thought, and other efforts connected to the issue of justice for indigenous people. Throughout a long seires of characters that show moral and spiritual salvation social redemption. As she makes clear the horrors of society, she forces the reader to pass moral judgment, even if this means passing judgment of the self. Often bluntly, the novel defines and presents a choice, on the social and spiritual levels, between creation and destruction. Most significant of all, Silko – along with many other contemporary Native writers – actively demands not just a future, but also the control of that future. In the context of the development of the literary canon in the US, it is a clear challenge to exclusion and marginalization. In this sense, Silko concurs with Carlos Fuentes’ succinct comment on the active and activist nature of history. The knowledge of the ‘past is thus …the possibility of shaping an imperfect but reasonable future. If we understand that we made the past, we will not permit the future to be made without us or against us (Fuentes, 1986:346).
Works Cited
1. Coltelli, L. (1992–3) 'Almanac of the Dead: an Interview with Leslie Marmon Silko' Native American Literature, Pisa, Italy, 65–80.
2. Fuentes, C. (Fall 1985 Winter 1986) 'Remember the Future' Salmagundi, Vol. 68–9: 333–352.
3. Silko, L.M. (1991) Almanac of the Dead, New York: Penguin.
4. Said, Edward. Culture and Imperialism. New York: Knopf, 1993.
5. -----. Orientalism. New York: Penguin, 1995.
6. Feminist Review (2007) 85, 1–7.http://www.palgrav journals.com/fr/journal/v85/n1/full/9400315a.html
7. Michelle, Jarman. “Exploring the world of the different in Leslie Silkos Almanac of the Dead.” Melus, 2006.
8. Coltelli, Laura. "Almanac of the Dead: An Interview with Leslie Marmon Silko." Arnold 119-34.
9. Krupat, Arnold. Etnocriticism:Etnography, history, History, Literature. Berkeley: U of California P, 1992.
10. Lincoln, Kenneth. Native American Renaissance. Berkeley: U of California P, 1983.
11. Olmsted, Jane. “The Uses of Blood in Leslie Marmons Silko’s Almanac of the Dead”. CL.vol 40:3, Fall 1999, 464-489.
Assistant Professor
Nimra Institute of Science and Technology
Nimra Nagar, Vijayawada
The Dialectic of Historical Struggle in Silko’s
Almanac of the Dead
History, in other words, is not a calculating machine.
it unfolds in the mind and the imagination, and it takes body
in the multifarious responses of a people’s culture, itself the
infinitely subtle mediation of material realities, of under-
pinning economic fact, of gritty objectivities.
(Quoted in, Edward W.Said’s, Culture and Imperialism, 1993: I).
People from Indian ancestry who are citizens of the United States are known as Indian Americans. Indian Citizenship Act of 1924 merged them with the American mainstream giving them United States Citizenship. This was because of the heroic service of many American Indian veterans in World War I. throughout the period of Indian displacement and Indian wars, Americans pondered Indian origins. Benjamin Smith Barton, in New Views of the Origins of the Tribes and Nations of America (1797) asserted that the Indians had originated in Persia and other parts of Asia. American Indian literature begins with the orally transmitted myths, legends, tales, and lyrics of Indian cultures. Among the richest set of Native American stories that survive are creation myths, descriptions of the beginnings of the universe and the world and of the origin of humankind. The earliest works of Indian literature are traditional oral tales, songs, and myths. They are found transcribed into English in anthologies such as American Indian Myths and Legends but are best understood in the specific cultural contexts where they were sung or enacted dramatically. A second early form of Indian literature is the captivity narrative, the best of which reveal much about Indian cultures before extensive contact with whites. In such narrative we have traditional Indian cultures before extensive contact with whites. In such narrative we have traditional Indian cultures and their relationships to the land. Autobiography has continued to be important in Indian literature, though the novel is currently the dominant literary form. Contemporary Native American authors and critics are retelling, reorganizing, and re-evaluating traditional tribal stories in order to assert a communally ascribed identity that accurately portrays today’s Indian. These new stories seek to breakdown the signs and artifacts of the white man’s Indian and replace them with signs of a vibrant and thriving culture. Contemporary, Native American texts rewrite Native American histories in order to reenter or empower their culture.
Leslie Marmon Silko is one of the foremost authors to emerge from the Native American literary renaissance of the 1970s. She blends Western Laguna Pueblo heritage to communicate Native American concepts concerning time, nature, and spirituality and their relevance in the contemporary world. Silko, born is 1948 in Albuquerque; New Mexico belongs to Laguna Indian, Mexican and Anglo American heritage. Her first novel Ceremony tells the story of a group of Indian World War II veterans in a way that both describes them and also expresses their own views of their situations. Her second novel of 763 pages, Almanac of the Dead, explores and critiques interlocking histories of oppression that inscribe the land, labor, and bodies of indigenous peoples. It recovers and recreates the submerged knowledge of oppressed peoples while affirming and strengthening vital, social, ecological and spiritual relationships. It depicts a detailed description of Native American traditional history. It includes the themes like Colonialism, Disease and Health, Human Worth, Institutionalization, Medical Ethics, Natural Experience, Native-American Medicine, Nature, Power Relations, Racism, Society, Survival, and War and Medicine. Silko portrays some 70 characters, most at various stages of corruption, disease and additionally a wide array of events spanning 500 years. The novel is peopled with addicts, alcoholics, politicians, unscrupulous and greedy land speculators, and a host of other unsavory characters. These characters tell the story of resistance to Euro-American oppression and a growing effort of indigene allies to retake the land and ultimately to become agents of it’s healing.
The title of the novel refers to a set of notebooks of Yoeme, a Yaqui Indian. She is the care taker of the “Almanac”. She later passes it on to her grandchildren, Zeta and Lecha. The novel begins with these elderly Native American twin sisters in Tucson. A section of the “Almanac” is accidentally lost. Yoeme wants Zeta to write down a replacement section. She warns Zeta to be very careful while replacing because nothing is supposed to be added newly to the novel. Zeta and Lecha are compiling the almanac, the pages of which are made from horse stomachs. Almanac tells the history of the Indians in their movement north from Mexico. Yoeme believes that she is the caretaker of the “Almanac”. Lecha says that the old almanacs tell not just when to plant or harvest, but also they tell about the days yet to come such as drought or flood, plague, Civil War or invasion. Yoeme and others believed that the power of the “Almanac” will bring all the tribal people of the America together to retain the land. The almanac is a document full of prophesies that foretell the European conquests of the indigenous peoples of Mexico and the American Southwest. Through it, Silko indicts the Europeans for their hundreds of years of crimes. The prophesy also tells a future in which the domination ends. Silko makes clear and undeniable links between past activities and present socio-political problems in the United States. By populating her text with ‘the dead’, Silko exposes the moral and political significance of memory, and the narrativity of history (Silko, 1991:424).
Almanac of the Dead takes place against the backdrop of the American Southwest and Central America. It follows the stories of dozens of major characters in somewhat non-linear narrative format. Much of the story takes place in the present day although lengthy flashbacks and occasional mythological story telling are also woven into the plot. The novel’s numerous characters are often separated by both time and place, and many seemingly have little to do with one another at first. A majority of these characters are involved in criminal or revolutionary organizations. We find arms dealers, drug kingpins, an elite assassin, communist revolutionaries, corrupt politicians and a black market organ dealer. Driving many of these individual storylines we have a general theme of total reclamation of Native American lands. This novel depicts the exploitation of both dead and living. It is concerned with the repercussions on modern America of the continuing and conscious repression of the voices of the past. It depicts violence, destruction and dehumanization. Apart from these themes, a relentless critique of the corruption in Anglo-European culture revolving around money, power, sexuality, and a phallocentric order are presented.
Many of Silko’s powerful and wealthy characters ill-treat their own people as lazy and destructive thieves. By doing so, they reject their own indigenous roots. They consider monitoring and controlling inferior people as their personal responsibility. For example, General J, part of a powerful Mexican cadre, is a powerful character who proposes to his friends that illegal refugees be “gunned down from the air like coyotes or wolves”
(Silko, Almanac of the Dead.1991:495). We find many such villainous characters in Almanac. The rejection from lovers, strangers, and everyday events, the extreme, even criminal, reactions that almost inevitably follow on the part of the disabled character are rightly attributed to deviate psychology. Trigs is one such character who embodies this psychology by being so obsessed with recording his own history that he becomes unable to substantively relate to the people around him. His journals focus single mindedly upon sexual exploits and failures. Actually he attributes all of these things to his disability. Silko has created this character as half a man. He is not the only disabled stereotype portrayed by Silko. Like Triggs we find two more characters Serlo and Beaufry. Beaufrey treats ordinary people as disposable pawns in his personal game of chess. Thriving on power and profit, Beaufrey produces and sells movies featuring real-life murders, fetal dissections, surgical fantasies, and ritual circumcision. For his amusement, he uses money, drugs, and social influence to entice and manipulate the people around him.
We have an important character Bartolomeo, a communist working with Indians in the mountains. He is trying to educate the Indians masses on communism. Angelita is ths best student. She knows that communism does not hold the secrets for Indians. The communists rewrite history and do not want the Indians to remember their own uprisings their own resistance. We have an African American character, Clinton whose messages would be a call to war. Clinton and his family are direct descendants of wealthy, slave owing Cherokee Indians. He believes that the spirits of their ancestors were still with them in the United States. He feels that when there was a Civil War the old spirits drank up the rivers of white man’s blood while the slaves ran free. Max Blue is one more murderous and powerful character created by Silko.
Silko’s characters remember the past, physically piecing together individual recollections to produce a more rounded and complete history that recognizes all those who have been denied and excluded. Silko suggests that the policies of remembering relate not merely to a re-visioning of the past but also to contemporary activism: to the desire and ability of the minority group to take control of, and to actively change, the future. Silko in addition to all these also exposes the influential economic, political and social roles traditionally played by women in Native American societies. Seen by Europeans as a threat to the tribal negotiations necessary for successful settlement, these powerful traditional female roles were undermined as quickly as possible as Euro-Americans established and imposed a tribal system that only recognized and , more strategically, only negotiated with male authority figures.
Silko also exposes the influential economic, political and social roles traditionally played by women in many Native American societies. Silko, in the opening lines of the text describes a seemingly innocuous domestic scene: a kitchen where an 'old woman stands at the stove stirring…simmering brown liquid' (Silko, 1991:19). This instantly recognizable and comfortable image of nurturing and nourishment is immediately exploded as the subsequent lines reveal that the old woman, Zeta, is in fact dyeing clothing to 'the color of old blood' for use in her business of gun and drug running, while her nephew Ferro is cleaning his arsenal of weapons at the kitchen table and her equally elderly twin Lecha is being helped by her 'nurse' to inject illegal drugs. The kitchen itself, we find is situated within a fortified ranch, protected by vicious guard dogs and isolated from community of any kind in the middle of the Tucson desert (Silko, 1991:19).
Male characters such as Beaufrey, Serlo, Max Blue, Batolomeo, and a whole variety of authoritative figures from the Mexican and US armies, Police, and judiciaries are highlighted in the text. At the same time great emphasis is nonetheless placed upon some very powerful female figures: for instance, the Euro Americans Leah Blue, who ruthlessly seduces influential men to further her own business ambitions, and Seese, who has the strength to survive drug abuse and the abduction and murder of her infant son; and the indigenous women Angelita La Escapia, and the Yaqui twins Lecha and Zeta, who prove themselves to be powerful forces for political and social change. All three indigenous histories, and Lecha and Zeta inherit their roles as keepers of the almanac through a long line of female guardians from their grandmother Yoeme. All three thus emphasize the links between memory, history, identity and education, and cultural roles traditionally undertaken by women in indigenous societies.
Mexican revolutionary, Angelita locates the dead within an active and present history. We simply wait for the earth’s natural forces already set losse, the exploding fierce energy of all the dead slaves and dead ancestors haunting the Americans…we wait for the tidal wave of history to sweep as along (Silko, 1991:518). Silko’s likening of the force of history to ‘the earth’s natural forces’. The comparison of history and nature is particularly evident in the highly visible and immediate interaction between past and present that the Yaqui smuggler Calabazas perceives in the very geography, or physical landscape, of the Americas: Right Now. Today I have seen it. Where the arroyo curves sharp, caught, washed up against the big boulders with broken branches and weeds. Human bones piled high. Skulls piled and stacked like melons (Silko, 1991: 216). Here history is clearly inscribed upon the land itself, and upon the bodies of the dead. In discussing the indigenous ‘People’s Army’ led by the Mayan revolutionary Angelita La Escapia, Silko emphasizes the Mayan belief in the living nature of remembrance, and of history, regardless of the passing of time: Generation after generation, individuals were born, then after eighty years, disappeared into dust, but in the stories, the people lived on in the imaginations and hearts of their descendants’. Whenever their stories were told, the spirits of the ancestors were presented their power was alive (Silko, 1991:520). Thus we see that memory transforms itself into history, which in turn ensures a perception of the continued and continual nature of the living dead. Angelita clearly recognizes the political of history: ‘History was the Sacred text. The most complete history was the most powerful force’ (Silko, 1991:316).
Menardo’s desperate need to distance himself from his indigenous origins, despite his childhood love of his grandfather’s histories is clearly depicted. Menardo claims his characteristically tribal ‘flat nose’ to be the result of a courageous boxing career, his marriage to Iliana is influenced by her family’s social status as direct descendants of the conquistador Gutierrez (Silko, 1991:260). The figure of Menardo illustrates his increasing distance-physical, social, political, emotional, and spiritual from his origins.
The more Menardo mixes with the oppressive cultures that are traced in the Euro-American worlds of the text, the more he becomes involved with, and thus implicated in state programs of abduction, torture, and murder. It is significant that Menardo becomes fixated with the power of the gift that will eventually destroy him: the bullet-proof vest presented to him by his Mafia associates from the US. In his fixed belief in the power of the vest, which is based entirely upon its technological merits, Menardo ironically emulates Euro-American beliefs-what Wilson Weasel Tail would interpret as cultural mistranslations-regarding the spirit shirts of the Ghost Dance. Persuading his Indian chauffeur Tach to shoot him to prove the vest’s power, Menardo invited his own death. Menardo dies not just because he denies his origins and identity, but because he embraces and emulates the ‘death culture’ of Euro-Americ that considers itself ‘invincible with the magic of high technology (Silko, 1991:503). Menardo quite literally dies because he rejects the power, and thus the protection, of the ancestral spirits at the heart or the idea of the spirit shirt/bulletproof vest; technology alone is not enough.
Roof is also a complex character created by Silko. He is born into a ‘white’ American family whose wealth derives from Indian wars of the Southwest and whose social status depends upon concealment of their mixed race. Irreparably brain damaged in a near fatal motorcycle accident, Root is both rejected by-and himself rejects- his comfortable history. Instead, Root chooses to embrace his mixed heritage by living and working with the Yaqui smuggler Calabazas. It is significant that Root decides to reject Euro-American values after he has been deemed disabled-‘damaged’- by Euro-American medicine. Inspite of his financial and social success, in choosing to forget, Menardo dies; inspite of his irreparable disability, in choosing to remember Root lives. Root’s survival underlines the significance of his name: embracing his genealogical and familial origins, Root lives because he chooses not to erase his identity, in her complicated analysis of the characters of Root and Menardo, Silko, illustrates the danger of willful forgetfulness, and the political power of remembrance. In actively remembering the past and those who have died, and that justice continues to be demanded for those who have died unjustly.
Thus we see the longest of Silko’s works, Almanac of the Dead represents the culmination of years of research, thought, and other efforts connected to the issue of justice for indigenous people. Throughout a long seires of characters that show moral and spiritual salvation social redemption. As she makes clear the horrors of society, she forces the reader to pass moral judgment, even if this means passing judgment of the self. Often bluntly, the novel defines and presents a choice, on the social and spiritual levels, between creation and destruction. Most significant of all, Silko – along with many other contemporary Native writers – actively demands not just a future, but also the control of that future. In the context of the development of the literary canon in the US, it is a clear challenge to exclusion and marginalization. In this sense, Silko concurs with Carlos Fuentes’ succinct comment on the active and activist nature of history. The knowledge of the ‘past is thus …the possibility of shaping an imperfect but reasonable future. If we understand that we made the past, we will not permit the future to be made without us or against us (Fuentes, 1986:346).
Works Cited
1. Coltelli, L. (1992–3) 'Almanac of the Dead: an Interview with Leslie Marmon Silko' Native American Literature, Pisa, Italy, 65–80.
2. Fuentes, C. (Fall 1985 Winter 1986) 'Remember the Future' Salmagundi, Vol. 68–9: 333–352.
3. Silko, L.M. (1991) Almanac of the Dead, New York: Penguin.
4. Said, Edward. Culture and Imperialism. New York: Knopf, 1993.
5. -----. Orientalism. New York: Penguin, 1995.
6. Feminist Review (2007) 85, 1–7.http://www.palgrav journals.com/fr/journal/v85/n1/full/9400315a.html
7. Michelle, Jarman. “Exploring the world of the different in Leslie Silkos Almanac of the Dead.” Melus, 2006.
8. Coltelli, Laura. "Almanac of the Dead: An Interview with Leslie Marmon Silko." Arnold 119-34.
9. Krupat, Arnold. Etnocriticism:Etnography, history, History, Literature. Berkeley: U of California P, 1992.
10. Lincoln, Kenneth. Native American Renaissance. Berkeley: U of California P, 1983.
11. Olmsted, Jane. “The Uses of Blood in Leslie Marmons Silko’s Almanac of the Dead”. CL.vol 40:3, Fall 1999, 464-489.
Saturday, September 8, 2007
Relationship between English Language and Culture
Language has evolved as a cultural system of agreements in which words represent certain symbols or thoughts. Learning these agreements is part of learning the language. Language is created by people and it does not exist in isolation. Every symbol is attached to a particular thought or thing. There is a very close relationship between language and culture. The social rules for speaking can be different in each culture. In order to be able to communicate successfully it is necessary to understand the cultural context in which the language is used. This paper discusses the importance of English as a second language in India. To understand and follow the language one has to understand its culture well. It is hard to understand the beliefs, attitudes, values and world view of people without understanding their language.
English is a world language spoken and written by a vast majority of people around the world. It is handy and essential as it is the Lingua Franca in most of the developed countries and the fast developing countries like India. Hence, apart from discussing all these issues, my paper concludes proving that English language is important in gaining global knowledge. It is very essential to give importance to teaching English, moreover it proves that we cannot think of a language without its culture.
English is a world language spoken and written by a vast majority of people around the world. It is handy and essential as it is the Lingua Franca in most of the developed countries and the fast developing countries like India. Hence, apart from discussing all these issues, my paper concludes proving that English language is important in gaining global knowledge. It is very essential to give importance to teaching English, moreover it proves that we cannot think of a language without its culture.
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