ENGLISH LEGAL LANG.

ASSIGNMENT

TOPIC:-
SUMMARY:
POST COLONIAL CRITICISM
FEMINIST CRITICISM
IN THE COURT

ABDUL KARIM ANSARI

BA.LLB (1st SEM-REG)
JAMIA MILLIA ISLAMIA TEACHER’S SIGNATURE
 POST COLONIAL CRITICISM:

Summary:
Postcolonial criticism analyzes and critiques the literature, poetry, drama, and prose
fiction of writers who are subjects of countries that were governed by or that were
colonies of other nations, primarily England and France, and, to a lesser extent, the
United States. Postcolonial criticism deals mainly with the literatures of Africa, Asia,
and the Caribbean by analyzing the interactions between the culture, customs, and
history of indigenous peoples and of the colonial power that governs. Postcolonial
criticism is part of a larger field called cultural studies, or race and ethnicity studies.

To understand the importance of postcolonial literature, a reader should understand

the scope of European involvement in the lives of people around the world. Between
the fifteenth and nineteenth centuries, European countries conquered, governed, and
otherwise had interests in the majority of nations around the world. Colonialism had
begun principally through mercantilism and the protection of mercantile companies,
such as the British East India Company, by the British navy and the navies of other
trading countries. By the mid-twentieth century, however, domination by Europe
began to end, as colonized countries staged successful independence movements. By
1980, Britain had lost all but a few of its colonial holdings; Hong Kong remained
British until 1997 and Australia remained British until 1999.

Postcolonial literary criticism is a recent development. Formerly known as

commonwealth studies, postcolonial literary studies includes examinations of works
by authors from colonized nations. After nationalism, indigenous novelists and poets
finally were able to express freely their own thoughts and feelings about the effects of
the long-term conquest of their peoples, their traditions, and their customs. Although
some literature from the East originated in these early days of colonial rule, the great
mass of postcolonial literature began as colonies gained their independence.

Edward Said

A list of the most influential postcolonial critics would have to begin with Edward W.
Said (1935-2003), whose Orientalism (1978) is considered a foundational work in
postcolonial studies. Said has a special place in postcolonial studies in part because of
the uniqueness of his birth and education. He was born in Jerusalem while it was still
a British…

 FEMINIST CRITICISM SUMMARY:

History:

Although individuals throughout the twentieth century have read from feminist
perspectives—such as Virginia Woolf in A Room of One’s Own (1928) and Simone
de Beauvoir in Le Deuxième Sexe (1949; The Second Sex, 1953)—feminist literary
criticism in the United States, having its roots in the second wave of the women’s
movement, did not develop until the late 1960’s. As women discovered that they were
alienated from sources of political and economic power, those among them who were
students of literature turned to their discipline and found in literary history another
story of woman’s marginalization. English professor Sandra M. Gilbert has explained
that when she and Susan Gubar, the authors of The Madwoman in the Attic: The
Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination (1979), began
reading from a feminist perspective, they discovered that literary history was filled
with assumptions about the sexes, a “sexual poetics” that judged women’s writing
inferior to men’s.

From the beginning, feminist scholarship has been intensely personal and political. In
an article for College English entitled “When We Dead Awaken” (1972), poet
Adrienne Rich established the tone for feminist criticism when she called it a “radical
critique of literature” which was for women “an act of survival.” A few years later,
Judith Fetterley, author of The Resisting Reader: A Feminist Approach to American
Fiction (1978), said that the aim of feminist…

 IN THE COURT SUMMARY:

Briefly: The Circuit Court is in session, but for all members on this day – and one
expects every day – it’s a mundane and lethargic affair. Even the case of peasant
Nikolay Harlamov, who is charged with the murder of his wife, fails to raise the
interest of the court to any level other than mild disinterest.

Afterthoughts: I found this story from Chekhov to be rather dull and and not all that
interesting, which I guess fits in perfectly with the mood of the story even though it
doesn’t really make for entertaining reading. The saving grace i.e. why this tale scores
a three and nothing less, all comes down to the ending and a rather slight but genius
twist in the tale. All in all though, a largely forgettable effort from Chekhov.

Notable Quote: At first the prisoner turned pale and coughed nervously into his
sleeve, but soon the stillness, the general monotony and boredom infected him too. He
looked with dull-witted respectfulness at the judges’ uniforms, at the weary faces of
the jurymen, and blinked calmly. The surroundings and procedure of the court, the
expectation of which had so weighed on his soul while he was awaiting them in
prison, now had the most soothing effect on him. What he met here was not at all
what he could have expected. The charge of murder hung over him, and yet here he
met with neither threatening faces nor indignant looks nor loud phrases about
retribution nor sympathy for his extraordinary fate; not one of those who were judging
him looked at him with interest or for long. . . . The dingy windows and walls, the
voice of the secretary, the attitude of the prosecutor were all saturated with official
indifference and produced an atmosphere of frigidity, as though the murderer were
simply an official property, or as though he were not being judged by living men, but
by some unseen machine, set going, goodness knows how or by whom. . . .