2009-10 AM Fictions of India - Expert Group on Narration

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Mulk Raj Anand "Untouchable": Narration (Group: Impersonal narration and the ideology of the text: The representation of India and Bakha's consciousness)


1.1 Modernism

Any of various movements in art, architecture, literature, etc., generally characterized by a deliberate break with classical and traditional forms or methods of expression; the work or ideas of the adherents of such a movement.


1.2 Stream of consciousness

1.Psychol. An individual's thoughts and conscious reaction to external events experienced subjectively as a continuous flow. Also loosely, an uncontrolled train of thought or association.

2.Literary Criticism. A method of narration which depicts events through this flow in the mind of a character; an instance of this. → cf. p. 51/52


1.3 Epiphany

1. A manifestation or appearance of some divine or superhuman being.

2. a) A sudden manifestation of the essence or meaning of something. b) A comprehension or perception of reality by means of a sudden intuitive realization → cf. p. 52


1.4 Shifts in perspective & narrator's visibility

Dominant focalization on Bakha, but: several shifts of perspective (→ cf. p. 22-26) which show us thoughts and feelings of characters other than Bakha which include even minor characters such as Havildar’s cook or the little babu brother in these shifts of perspective. → cf. p. 29

Describing the setting, commenting (→ cf. p.58), reporting what characters do not know, do not say (→ cf. p. 102/103)

telling = guide reader's response to fiction showing = reader experiences fiction on his/ her own → “critical distance”


1.5 Personal & impersonal narration

neutral - restricted (impersonal): The narrator takes no figure‘s perspective. personal - limited: The narrator takes the perspective of one or several figures. → cf. p. 29; 102/103