The Dialectic of Historicity in Modernist Fiction: a Study Based on Select Works of O V Vijayan and M Mukundan

By Swapna Gopinath

Modernism when viewed through the spectacles of Marxian aesthetics emerges as a problematic artistic movement, especially when placed within the context of social structures that define the cultural practices at any given point in time. The much discussed debate within the Marxist canon regarding the dialectic relationship between society and art in the context of modernism had stalwarts of Marxist criticism deliberating this relationship between art and society. From Europe, modernism spread to other parts of the world, including India where it captured the imagination of the writers of regional languages as well. In Kerala, with its staunch Marxian perspectives and its supporters including a faithful political network of leaders and followers, modernism invited heated debates of a similar nature. A debate was triggered off challenging the ideological frameworks of modernist aesthetics with a large part of the intelligentsia actively participating in it. Kerala Kaumudi magazine published these arguments as a series, leading to further discussions in the cultural and political discourses that shaped the sensibility of the times. This book is an attempt to explore this relationship with these debates and discussions as referral points. To substantiate the arguments, four texts that emerged as iconic texts are studied - O V Vijayan's The Legends of Khasak (1969)and The Saga of Dharmapuri (1985)and M Mukundan's On the Banks of Mayyazhi (1974) and God's Mischief (1989).

• Language: English
• Publisher: Partridge Publishing India
• Release date: Dec 15, 2017
• ISBN: 9781543700718

Swapna Gopinath

Dr Swapna Gopinath is an Associate Professor of English Literature presently doing Postdoctoral research on Public Urban Spaces. She has an M Phil and a PhD in English Literature and has several articles in the area of Cultural Studies and Film Studies to her credit.

Book preview

Copyright © 2017 by Swapna Gopinath.

ISBN:                  Softcover                  978-1-5437-0072-5

                            eBook                        978-1-5437-0071-8

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

www.partridgepublishing.com/india

CONTENTS

Preface

Chapter I      Introduction

Chapter II     Historical Discourses in Modernist Fiction

Chapter III   Vijayan’s Narratives: A Journey through History

Chapter IV   History in Transition: Mukundan, Mayyazhi and Modernism

Chapter V     Conclusion

Works Cited

43843.png

PREFACE

Modernism as a movement spread through Europe during the early twentieth century and effected radical changes in the world of creative art and cultural discourse. It reached Kerala in the 1960s and led to the development of a new sensibility in creativity. This movement brought into focus, the alienated and discontented individual, trapped in a fragmented and apocalyptical world. The artist felt this anguish and sought to give expression to his anxieties and dilemmas through artistic means. Hence modernist art required new narrative strategies to express the thought processes of modern man. Modernism therefore experimented with form and content, often taking the reader on a journey into the consciousness of man. So critics began to question modernist art - does it portray social reality?

A study relating to the history-fiction relationship in modernist fiction is attempted in this work. Modernism was said to be unfaithful to social reality and was criticized for turning away from society to look within the self. Does Modernism negate history? This work attempts to look at this debate that had raged through Europe and other countries at one time or the other in the last century.

In the introductory chapter, the various aspects of Modernism are briefly touched upon and Modernism as it developed through Europe and in Kerala is also mentioned. While tracing the growth of Modernism, we see it developing in different geographical regions by absorbing the distinct features of that particular region. The dialectical relationship between social history and art, especially fiction is also dealt with in this chapter

The second chapter, Historical Discourses in Modernist Fiction deals with the evolution of modernist thought in European fiction and Malayalam fiction. An attempt is made to look into the various debates on the history-fiction relationship regarding modernist literature. In Europe the debate started with critics like Lukacs and Bloch, while in Kerala it was political thinkers like E.M.S. Namboothirippad and critics like KP. Appan and Narendra Prasad who were actively involved in this debate. The third chapter Vijayan’s Narratives: A Journey through History is on O.V.Vijayan’s novels that have been studied for their veracity to social reality. The novels selected for detailed study are The Legends of Khasak (1969) and The Saga of Dharmapuri (1985). These novels signify the rapidly shifting priorities for the common man in a fast-changing society.

The fourth chapter History in Transition: Mukundan, Mayyazhi and Modernism on M. Mukundan places him in the right perspective as a chronicler of social history. The novels selected are On the Banks of the Mayyazhi (1972) and God’s Mischief (1989). With the beautiful Mayyazhi as the backdrop, we can see the social and political history of Mayyazhi unfolding in these novels.

The concluding chapter is an attempt to summarize the features of Modernism as a movement that portrayed a radically altering social reality. The movement took on a distinct flavor depending upon the society in which it flourished. By looking through the modernist works in two places as diverse as Europe and Kerala, it can be seen that Modernism like any other literary movement is born out of the forces that mould society.

43858.png

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

Literature, like any other art form, can hardly remain immune to the ripples caused in the social, political and economic scenario of its time. No matter how subjective the art form might appear, the discerning eye can certainly catch a reflection of history in it. Literature may not recreate reality as it appears to a casual observer or dissipate historical information in a factual sense. But literary works certainly represent the historical conditions from which they originate and often this happens in a very subtle way, as seen in the works of modernist writers. Modernism was a movement which triggered many controversies in its innovative representations of reality. A movement composite in nature, Modernism is often denounced by critics as art negating history. Marxist critics have spoken about the movement as lacking in reality. It has been criticized as a movement which fails to see the reality, turns a blind eye towards the social evils and tries to create a Utopia. Georg Lukacs, one of the prominent critics who attacked Modernism and considered it inferior to Realism, said; A work becomes impressive and universal according to how much it presents the essential element - man and his social practice - not as an artificial product of the artist’s virtuosity but as something that emerges and grows naturally as something not invented, but simply discovered. (Writer and Critic 126)

In this context it would be apt to focus our attention on the relation between a work of art and the society which has shaped it. Man, as a social being, is in an organic relationship with the society of which he is a part. For the artist with a heightened perception and sensibility, this awareness of the world around him is stronger. He is disturbed by the slightest vibrations in his environment, which trigger off a reaction in his mind in turn felt by the receptive reader of his works, and thereby the society. This helps in shaping and conditioning the history of that particular group. The writer and the society, therefore, influence each other and thus the continuum of history is created.

To comprehend this relationship better, we need to know the basic character traits of individuals within a society as well as the process by which these traits are formed. Alfred Adler has remarked on the manner in which man builds up his character traits.

It is in the first four or five years of life that the individual establishes the unity of his mind. He takes his hereditary material and the impressions he receives from the environment and adapts them to his pursuit of superiority. By the end of the fifth year his personality has crystallized. The meaning he gives to life, the goal he pursues, his style of approach and his emotional disposition are all fixed. In the first four or five years of life the child unifies its mental strivings and establishes the root relationships. A fixed style of life is adopted, with a corresponding emotional and physical habitus.(Mind and Body, par. 20) The young child, through several processes like role playing and observation, takes the initial steps in the formation of his personality. The social group, of which the family forms an integral part, moulds the child equipping him for adult life. It is the environment that plays a vital role in shaping a person’s character. Since a person shares his environment with other members of his social group, his character traits might have some elements which result from the basic experiences and modes of life common to the members of that group. Life experiences might alter the character of a person but certain basic traits are shared by the members of any particular social group. The sociological study of man cannot be attempted scientifically without a clear statement of the relationship between man and society, as seen in the primary collectivity - the family, the play or instruction group, the production team and other types of formal or informal collectivities. Human existence in social collectivities demand from the individual, several behavior patterns, conforming to norms and cultural practices. The first experience of community happens in families and a child learns the fundamental lessons that result in a social conditioning process. Families thus owe their allegiance to the collectivities, be it social, political or economic, rather than to the individual. Marriage and family emerge as crucial mechanisms playing a decisive role in moulding a child into a human being, a citizen.

Individuals form vital components in a group with specific functions and their personal identities emerge out of the dialectic interactions with social groups. They bear the imprint of social actions, norms and values imbibed by them from the past. As essential links in social networks, the individual succeeds in retaining his self, unique and distinct from others in that society.

Man and society share the knowledge of collective living, handed over through generations manifest in cultural articulations of myriad forms. This intricate relationship sustains them both and remains dynamic at all times. This relationship between man and society is therefore a reciprocal one where each influences the other and each helps in shaping the other’s destiny. Regarding this relationship Spirkin has commented thus: Citation done

Just as society is not the sum-total of the people whom it includes, social consciousness is not just the sum-total of individual’s consciousness. Just as the general will by no means expresses the will of every member of society. Social consciousness is a qualitatively specific intellectual system, with a relatively independent existence. Historically evolved standards of consciousness become the personal convictions of the individual, the source of moral rules, aesthetic feelings and ideas. In their turn, personal ideas and beliefs, thanks to the creativity of those who have them, acquire social value, become socially significant and merge in the general ocean of the social consciousness. Important ideas are thus recorded in words and deeds. (Dialectical Materialism, par. 10)

This brings us to the question of the relationship between society and creative works of creative minds. Art may not be as central as the four great instrumental pillars of society, namely religion, family, law and the state. But it certainly embodies the conscience of the society to which it belongs. Fokkema and Ibsch have quoted Jacob Burckardt in this context. Burckardt, while interpreting Renaissance as the birth of modern man, spoke about this relationship:

In the Middle Ages both sides of human consciousness – that which turned within as that which was turned without – lay dreaming or held awake beneath a common veil. The veil was woven of faith, illusion, and childish prepossession, through which the world and history were seen clad in strange hues. Man was conscious of himself only as a member of a race, people, party, family, or corporation - only through some general. category. In Italy, this veil first melted into air: an objective treatment and consideration of the state and of all the things of this world became possible. The subjective side at the same time asserted itself with corresponding emphasis: man became a spiritual individual, and recognized himself as such. (Theories of Literature 6)

The Renaissance explains this relationship between art and society in great detail. The mutual influence helped in taking man from an era of darkness to an era of resurrection from past ignorance. It was an age where people went to foreign lands, broadened the horizons of science, and created masterpieces of art which boasted of technical perfection. This kind of mindscape was built with the help of various art forms of Greece, Rome and other countries of the east about which the western world was till then largely ignorant. New ideas or adaptations of old ideas are not constructed in a vacuum. They are fashioned out of real historical circumstances that are again molded by the thoughts and ideas of the intellectuals of the time. These thoughts and ideas, whether scientific, moral, religious, economic or artistic get manifested in society in different forms, artistic creations being one of them. Similar is the case of the French Revolution.

The revolutionary spirit was fanned by writers like Rousseau and people were inspired and guided by their works. The Revolution, in turn, kindled new thoughts in artistic minds. Artists were captivated by the ideals of liberty, equality and fraternity. Shelley, Wordsworth and other Romantic poets glorified the Revolution and the noble thoughts it ignited in their minds. This, in turn, influenced the people of Europe to think about the democratic ideals.

Man thus has a relationship of reciprocity with the society in which he lives. The society, in turn, has a similar relation with the creative works of the social entity. The relationship can best be described as dialectic. In ancient times, dialectics was the art of arriving at the truth by disclosing contradictions in the argument of an opponent and overcoming these contradictions. To paraphrase Stalin’s words, dialectics does not regard nature as an accidental agglomeration of things, of phenomena, unconnected with, isolated from, and independent of, each other, but as a connected and integral whole, in which things, phenomena are organically connected with, dependent on, determined by, each other. The dialectical method, therefore, holds that no phenomenon in nature can be understood if taken by itself, isolated from the surrounding phenomena, in as much as any phenomenon in any realm of nature may become meaningless to us if it is not considered in connection with the surrounding conditions; and that, vice versa, any phenomenon can be understood and explained if considered in its inseparable connection with surrounding phenomena. Dialectics holds that nature is not a state of rest and immobility, stagnation and immutability, but a state of continuous movement and change, of continuous renewal and development, where something is always arising and developing, and something always disintegrating and dying away. Dialectics does not regard the process of development as a simple process of growth, where quantitative changes do not lead to qualitative changes, but as a development which passes from insignificant and imperceptible quantitative changes to open fundamental and qualitative changes; a development in which the qualitative changes occur not gradually, but rapidly and abruptly, taking the form of a leap from one state to another; they occur not accidentally but as the natural result of an accumulation of imperceptible and gradual quantitative changes. (Dialectical and Historical Materialism)

This idea of dialectics has remained a prevailing idea throughout the history of the development of human thought. Dialectical thought was expressed by Kant and Hegel and it was later expounded by Marxism. Commenting on his borrowing the rational kernel of Hegelian dialectics, Marx said:

My dialectic method is not only different from the Hegelian, but is its direct opposite. To Hegel, ... the process of thinking which, under the name of ‘the Idea,’ he even transforms into an independent subject, is the demiurgos (creator) of the real world, and the real world is only the external, phenomenal form of ‘the Idea.’ With me, on the contrary, the ideal is nothing else than the material world reflected by the human mind and translated into forms of thought. (Basic Writings 186)

In dialectics, man is able to arrive at the truth by expressing conflicting opinions and disclosing diverse thoughts. This is akin to the development of an argument through thesis, antithesis, and the outcome, the synthesis which helps mankind to reach higher in the realm of thoughts.

With Marxism, dialectics gained currency and began to be related to materialism. Marx extended the principle of dialectics to nature and society. He regarded the relationship between base or infrastructure and superstructure as dialectic, the infrastructure being the economic relations and the superstructure being the culture, ideology, legal system and the political structure of that particular society. He explained this in terms of historical naturalism which classified society into different categories like feudal society, capitalist society and so on. In his words, as translated and quoted by Fokkema and Ibsch:

The mode of production of material life determines altogether the