LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 12 : 10 October 2012
ISSN 1930-2940

Managing Editor: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.
Editors: B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. A. Sharada, Ph.D.
         A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
         Lakhan Gusain, Ph.D.
         Jennifer Marie Bayer, Ph.D.
         S. M. Ravichandran, Ph.D.
         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.
         L. Ramamoorthy, Ph.D.
Assistant Managing Editor: Swarna Thirumalai, M.A.

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M. S. Thirumalai
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When Body “Speaks”: Re-defining Violence

Anwesha Das, Ph.D. (English Literature)

Abstract

Questioning Spivak’s argument that the subaltern cannot speak (in her celebrated essay “Can the Subaltern Speak?”), Tabish Khair gives importance to the body, and writes: “One has to leave space for the body to ‘speak’ in action and noise—shouting, smashing—and in order to do that one has to leave space for the body to exist outside grammatical language” (“Can the Subaltern Shout (and Smash?)” 14).

In this article I want to show how the Nigerian novelist Festus Iyayi in his novel Violence, emphasizes the importance of the body, and highlights the actions of resistance of the working class, who are exploited by corrupt political leaders and upper class people, in post-independent Nigeria. He makes excellent use of the technique of introducing a play-act session to re-define his notion of violence. There is a questioning of the denial of these basic rights to people. This article also directs one’s attention to a few essays and two short stories by Chinua Achebe, where he questions the corrupted state of post-independent Nigeria, and highlights the voices of resistance of the common mass. Taking into consideration Iyayi’s notion of violence, the article aims to highlight how common men become victims of violence, in the two short stories of Achebe taken up here.

Key words: Body speaks, violence, subaltern, resistance, corruption.

Introduction

There have been numerous writings highlighting the fact that Africa stands as much in need of change today, as has been during the colonial era. Corruption among political leaders and upper class people has submerged the continent into a mire of misrule. The working class continues to remain in the suffering end. The social, political, individual rights of the common mass lose space, and they are subjected to denigrated living conditions. These issues have been repeatedly dealt with by African as well as non-African writers. They highlight how, after the struggle to gain freedom from European domination, African countries have fallen into the folds of corruption, getting re-colonized by its own men, men endowed with power:

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

Anwesha Das, Ph.D. (English Literature)
The English and Foreign Languages University
Hyderabad- 500605
Andhra Pradesh
India
anwesha.english@gmail.com
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