American Research Journal of English and Literature

Masaomi Kobayashi

 What does it mean to be human? In his best-known novel, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Philip K. Dick addresses this fundamental question through drawing parallels between natural and artificial beings. While conceiving humanity in relation to technology as an integral part of the posthuman condition embodied in human-machine relations, the novel sets in perspective the post-human condition under which post-modern technology actualizes viable machine-machine relations. Special attention is thus paid to the android characters, possibly including the bounty hunter protagonist, mass-produced by high-tech corporations as post-modern Prometheuses. With in mind the novel’s film adaptations that underscore its post-human aspects such as corporate personhood, this study affords insights into the author’s science fiction not only by providing an exploration of humanity, but also by expanding the universe of discourse of post-humanity

Neil L. R. Tate

 Although scholars are fully cognizant of the fact that twentieth century American writer Ernest Miller Hemingway (1899-1961) enjoyed the shooting sports throughout his life, it has never been comprehensively analyzed in the corpus of criticism how deeply the writer incorporated firearms into many areas of his persona and psyche. Hemingway demonstrates a connection with firearms that extends beyond the realm of the mundane activities of sport and military—venturing into erotic fantasy, sexual fetishism, and symbolism. This intriguing area of research has only been assessed tangentially by anecdotal references. Ultimately, firearms manifest as a key feature in the life and culture of Hemingway and remain deeply woven into the tapestry of his narrative and the idiom of his discourse.

Dr. Craig Doughty

This article presents an analytical insight into the characters of Marlowe in Joseph Conrad’s novella, ‘Heart of Darkness’ and Francis Ford Coppola’s appropriation of that character, Willard in the film, ‘Apocalypse Now’. Both characters are used to document and deal with concepts of colonialism and the impact of foreign interference in lands deemed harsh and unforgiving: the Congo and Mekong respectively. In doing so, Marlowe and Willard make relentless journeys during periods of heightened historical conflict that lead both characters down spirals of emotional suffering. Interwoven into the fabric of these journeys are the distresses and pains of their creators. As such, Marlowe and Willard act as vessels for autobiographical forays.Principally, however, Conrad and Coppola use Marlowe and Willard as reference points for concepts of human morality. They compel the reader and the viewer, respectively, to question to what extent common morality is shared by most or all human beings and furthermore, is accessible to, and binding upon, all rational beings.

Yahyaoui Hanane

This paper examines the silence and rebellion of the western female who is marginalised in the Afrikaner colonial and patriarchal culture in South Africa in the late 1970’s. Through an analysis of J.M. Coetzee’s, In the Heart of the Country (1977), I attempt to explore the gender dimension and therefore deconstruct patriarchal and colonial ideology. My aim is to interrogate the Afrikaner colonial culture through the point of view of a farmer’s daughter who is deemed as a subordinated woman within the Afrikaner colonial formation. In effect, I elucidate and unravel the way the main protagonist challenges the patriarchal colonial culture by engendering a specific feminine discourse of language which concentrates on plurality and attempts to represent what has been repressed by masculine modes of writings. The paper eventually demonstrates the failure of the liberal humanist subject to achieve reciprocity with the other and therefore transcends the colonial ideology between coloniser and colonised.

E. A. Gamini Fonseka, PhD

 Although the Moor of Venice in Giraldi Cinthio’s Gli Hecatommithi who serves as the Brigade Commander of the Venetian Army in Cyprus (Giraldi, 1565) undergoes a status transformation as the General of the overall Venetian Army Othello in Shakespeare’s intertextual exercise Othello (Shakespeare, 1622), his character and his destiny do not change. As in the sordid and melodramatic original tale of sexual jealousy, suspicious of his wife’s fidelity, he resorts to killing her for the sake of honour, and later commits suicide on realisation of his victim’s innocence. In terms of designation and authority, far superior to Shakespeare’s General Othello is the Bodhisattva King Chulla Paduma in “Jataka Story 193” in the Stories of the Buddha’s Former Births (circa 200 BC), which is annually dramatized in Sri Lanka during Buddhist festivals. Even though he had as a prince first-hand experience of his wife’s attempt to kill him for the sake of her paramour, the king, when he encounters them years after his survival, does not order to kill them but drives them out of his kingdom on dictating to them the provisions in the existing penal code relevant to the crimes of adultery, conspiracy, and murder. Although documented in the 5th Century CE (Cowell, 1895), King Chulla Paduma’s strategy still sounds modern, human, decent, and ethically and intellectually advanced, while the primitive and unethical behaviour of Shakespeare’s Othello that emerged in 1603 during the European Renaissance (Muir, 1968), has caused much concern among critics and scholars of dramaturgy as well as those of other various disciplines. On assessing the moral and didactic foundations of the two stories as plots for two theatrical exercises in two distinctive cultural settings, the paper attempts to carry out a comparative study of the cultural influences that may have urged to determine the actions and behaviours of the two protagonists. 

Sonia Sharmin

This paper deals with the concept of racism, which is considered as a dark chapter in the history of the world.Throughout history, racist ideology widespread throughout the world especially between blacks and white. Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness which is his experience in the Congo River during the 19th century dealt with the concept of racism, which was clear in this novel because of the conflicts that were between black and whites and it explained the real aims of colonialism and expansionism in Africa, which were for wealth and power. This paper shows Marlow’s limitations as a narrator, his ethnocentricity and color consciousness and inability to comprehend inscrutable Africa that lead him to side with the colonizers against the Africans and how his approach is shared by Conrad as well. A bitter irony lies in the fact that the people who look apparently civilized in the novel are most savage in reality. In fact, power, jealousy and greed for ivory or money have metamorphosed them into corrupt, monstrous, brutal animal. My point of argument is that Conrad in Heart of Darkness has biasness for European colonialism, though the biasness is not so much conspicuous but ostensible, covertly and allusively maintained throughout.

Prof. Dr. Luisa Maria Arvide Cambra

Ibn Khātima (c.1324-c.1369) is a noted writer of the Medieval Arab Spain. He was poet, historian and, over all, physician. His main work in the field of medicine is titled in Arabic Taḥṣīl garaḍ al-qāṣid fī-tafṣīl al maraḍ al wāfid (Succeeding in clarify pest disease), known simply as Taḥṣīl, which deals with the Black Death, the pandemic that devastated Asia, Africa and Europe in the 14th century. This paper focuses on this important book and includes the causes of this terrible plague described by Ibn Khātima according to the scientific knowledge of Islamic Middle Ages. Moreover, the article also discusses the connection of the Taḥṣīl to scientific discoveries of the 19th and the 20th centuries in relation to the contagion theory in the disease. And, ultimately, it contains the English translation of some fragments of the Taḥṣīl taking as reference the Arabic manuscript n.1785 from the Library of El Escorial at Madrid.

Udaya Raj Paudel

This research study tries to analyze the nature of violence represented in About Daddy (2000 AD) by Meeena Arora Nayak and Looking Through Glass (1995 AD) by MukulKesavan in terms of Priya Kumar’s book Limiting Secularism and the locus of the study is based primarily on the critique of partition historiography posited by Gynendra Pandey. Moreover, it tries to explicate what the postcolonial critique of partition historiography reveals the absence of the trauma of the violence and the subaltern perspective of the events. This study keeps into consideration all those critiques as it reads the secular discourse of violence in recent two novels of the partition violence of 1947-About Daddy and Looking Through Glass. By criticizing all kinds of identity markers (nationality, religion, gender…) created through nationalist discourse in history, the paper contends that the representation of Indian partition violence is painted by a secular rather than a communal standpoint in the novels.

Dr. Edirisingha Arachchige Gamini Fonseka

As the cricketer of British origin, Michael Colin Cowdrey,is unanimously appreciated as a role model in cricket, being invited to Lord’s to deliver the annual MCC Cowdrey Memorial Lecture is considered by many cricket aficionados an honour bestowed not only on the speaker himself but also the country he represents. Before Kumar Sangakkara, world renowned cricketers such as Martin Crowe from Australia, Sunil Gavaskar from India, and Imran Khan from Pakistan had been called upon to perform this task (www.lord’s). Thus, when Sangakkara received an invitation to deliver MCC Cowdrey Memorial Lecture in 2011 at Lords, he represented not only himself but also Sri Lanka, his homeland. While others in general strive to preserve the respect of their homelands in front of international audiences at such places, Sangakkara not only alienates himself from his community but also is unduly critical of the cricket in his homeland. His behaviour well-formulated to suit the practice of servile diplomacy - the hallmark for the opportunistic many that travel abroad from Sri Lanka, signifies a parody of sportsmanship. Whatever Sangakkara said in his speech is immaterial to the intellectual and professional community of Sri Lanka, but it causes concern as it has been unfortunately included in the 2015 GCE (O’ Level) syllabus for Appreciation of English Literary Texts prescribed by the Ministry of Education, Sri Lanka. Therefore this paper on the whole pragmatically analyses the interpersonal rhetoric in the text of his speech in an investigation into the implications of including it in a national curriculum that is meant to ensure a healthy linguistic and attitudinal development in the user.