To put on their clothes made one a sahib too: Mimicry and the Carnivale

To put on their clothes make whizz a sahib too Mimicry and the Carnivalesque in Mulk Raj Anands impregnableThe character of Bakha, in Anands Untouchable, is drawn from the lowest club in Indian gild, that of sweeper, or cleaner of human ordure. Despite his unpromising localize in life, the central figure in the novel operates at a variety of levels in order to critique the status quo of caste in India. Well aware of his position at the nadir of Indian society, Bakha is able-via his untouchability-to query issues well above his station in life, such(prenominal) as caste and its inequities, economics and the role of the colonizer. Due to the very characteristics of the characters position, Anand is able to examine issues such as societys revulsion at untouchablility some local, inherent societal sympathy for Bakhas plight, and the fact that in the 1930s Gandhi used his Harijans-untouchables-as a symbol for change in Indian society. This essay examines the modes by which Anand de ploys mimicry and the carnivalesque to critique Indian society in the 1930s. The author has constructed a mimic-man, basically carnivalesque in the Bakhtinian sense, who is simultaneously parodic and subversive. Indeed, the linguistic similarity Bakha/Bakhtin is in itself superficial nevertheless tempting. For Bakhtin, Carnivalesque literature uses elements of parody, mimicry, bodily humour and grotesque display to achieve the ends of carnival, that is, to jostle from below the univocal, elevated language of high art and decorous society. During the course of his day, Bakha causes widespread unease, not merely at his physical presence. Although he is aware of the six thousand years of racial and class favorable position(16) that bears down on him, as he... ...remarkable breadth of issues, and it is only to be hoped that one day this text will be regarded as a multipurpose tool in a past campaign, rather than as per centum of a continuing and unfinished project.Useful linksDal it Liberation nurture Trust http//www.pcsadvt.com/dletThe Imperial Archive. http//www.qub.ac.uk/english/imperial/imperial.htmIndia Survey, Biography http//www.indiasurvey.com/biodata/mulkrajanand.htmLiterature in English of the Indian Subcontinent in the Postcolonial Web http//landow.stg.brown.edu/post/india/anand/anandov.html BibliographyAnand, Mulk Raj Untouchable capital of the United Kingdom Penguin Books, 1940 Ashcroft, Bill, Griffiths, Gareth, and Tiffin, Helen. Key Concepts in Post-Colonial Studies. London Routledge, 1998.Ashcroft, Bill, Griffiths, Gareth, and Tiffin, Helen. The Post-Colonial Studies Reader. London Routledge, 1995.