LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 22:7 July 2022
ISSN 1930-2940

Editors:
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.
         T. Deivasigamani, Ph.D.
         Pammi Pavan Kumar, Ph.D.
         Soibam Rebika Devi, M.Sc., Ph.D.

Managing Editor & Publisher: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.

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An Analysis of Anand Math from Structuralist Perspective

Suresh Kumar


Courtesy: www.amazon.com

Abstract

Indian novelist, poet and journalist, Bankim Chandra Chatterjee (1838-1894) is commonly known as Sahitya Smrat [Emperor of Literature] in Bengali literature. Anand Math is considered one of his most significant novels in which he presents the heroic accomplishments of the ascetics under the leadership of Swami Satyanand who manages to hold the courage of his rebels even during the adverse circumstances against the Muslim ruler’s local army as well as in front of the strategic plans of the British commanders. This paper aims at analyzing Anand Math from the structuralist perspective. It shows that how a text cannot be understood in isolation, rather it has to be seen in the larger context of structures. It also shows that how meanings are attributed to the things by the human mind as not contained within them. It aims at analyzing the network of inter-textual connections and the narrative structure as a complex of recurrent patterns. While going through the structures of language, it views the systematic structuring of the western culture.

Keywords: Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, Anand Math, structuralist perspective, narrative structure, inter-textual connections.

Structuralism has been applied to linguistics, psychology, sociology, anthropology, folklore, mythology, and Biblical Studies - in fact to all social and cultural phenomena. Structuralism is considered scientific and objective. It identifies structures, systems of relationships, which endow signs (e.g. words) or items (e.g. clothes, cars, table manners, rituals) with identities and meanings, and shows us the ways we think (Guerin 368-369).

As an intellectual movement, structuralism had its inception in France in the work of the anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss and the literary critic Roland Barthes. It believes that things cannot be understood in isolation; rather they have to be seen in the context of larger structures they are part of. It believes that meaning is an attribute of things as meanings are attributed to the things by the human mind. Meaning is always outside, not contained within the things. (Barry 38)


Bankim Chandra Chatterjee (1838-1894)
Courtesy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bankim_Chandra_Chatterjee

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.

Suresh Kumar
Assistant Professor, SLET, UGC-NET
Department of English
Govt. College Indora, 176401
Kangra, Himachal Pradesh, India
vijaysuresh8890@gmail.com
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