Anita Desai

Table of Contents

• Introduction
• New Marxist Perspective
• The Concept of Materialism
• Literature and Ideology
• An Escape From Destititution
• Conclusion

Introduction

Anita Desai was born in Mussorie to a German mother and a Bengali father on June 24, 1937. She spent much of her life in New Delhi. She spoke German at home and Hindi to friends and neighbors. She first learned English when she went to Queen Mary’s School at Delhi. It is the language in which she first learned to read and write and so it became her literary language. When asked why English remains her literary language, she says “I think it had a tremendous effect that the first thing you saw written and the first thing you ever read were English. It seemed to me the language of books. I just went on writing it because I always wanted to belong to this world of books”  Anita Desai is a part of a new literary tradition of Indian writing in English, which dates back only to the 1930s or 1940s. Her new style of writing is also different from many Indian writers, as it is much less conservative than Indian literature has been in the past. For these reasons, she says that she is not widely read in India, mainly in Indian Universities. But the situation is quite different now. She is as popular with her Indian readers as she is with her overseas readers. In fact, Universities in India are prescribing her novels for students of English language and literature. Scholars of the world are carrying out extensive research work on Anita Desai’s fiction. Throughout her novels, children’s books and short stories, Anita Desai focuses on personal struggles and problems of contemporary life that her Indian characters must cope with. She maintains that her primary goal is to discover the truth. She portrays the cultural and social changes that India had undergone during the post-colonial era. 2 Anita Desai’s way of life is essentially western and the language barrier perhaps explains her almost total lack of awareness of the strength and beauty of writers. As regards, Indian English novel, Anita Desai considers that as compared with the best of English writing in the west. She herself reads Indian novel in English only to remain familiar with them. Anita Desai in her novel, The Village by The Sea craves the picture of Indians and their lifestyle. The overall theme of the novel is poverty of the lower classes. A picture of Hari’s house in the village Thul reflects paucity and poverty of the worst types: “The hut should have been rethathched years ago-the old palm leaves were dry and tattered and slipping off the beams. The earthen walls were crumbling. The windows gaped without any shutters. There was no smoke to be seen curling up from under a cooking pot on a fire as in other huts…”  The family’s land is sold to pay debts; they have a small patch of land to grow vegetables; animals are sold. Father is a workless drunkard, mother sick and bed-ridden, and children ill-fed and ill-dressed. The hero Hari’s food consists of dry chapattis, a pinch of salt and chilies. This is a faithful depiction of life in the villages. Hari and Lila’s education has stopped for lack of funds; there is no provision for the purchase of books for next year for Bela and Kamal. They hardly eat any anything but “dry bread, or dry rice, every day”. Their only income is from the occasional sale of bunches of coconuts from their palms to the Malabaris. Hari’s house represents other houses in the village with the added disadvantage of lack of a boat, a cow, a job and a fit-for- nothing drunkard of a father, a sick and invalid mother, sisters to be married of and no dowries. Cross lights are thrown on the theme of poverty and economic hardship from different angles. Ever increasing Indian population is worsening the situation. The cart driver’s words to Hari are enlightening on the point: “nothing is enough. We are too many on earth now. Not 3 enough fuel for all, not enough food, not enough jobs or schools, or hospitals, or trains, buses or houses. Too many people, not enough to go around”. This theme is further supplemented by the description of the Sri Krishna Eating House of Gowalia Tank, Bombay, the meanest and the shabbiest restaurant, frequented by beggars and coolies. The owner of the restaurant lives in a shack in one of the slums called zopadpattis in Bombay. During the monsoon these zopadpattis become uninhabitable because of leaky roofs, shaky walls and shabby and damp floors. People there live a precarious existence. In this novel, Desai stresses that hard labor is imperative for subsistence and survival. Hari works hard in the patch of land for growing vegetables, breaks and sells bunches of coconut, tries to catch fish by net on the sea-shore as long as he is at Thul, and works very hard in Jagu’s restaurant, cleaning pots, kneading dough, baking chaptis, serving the visitors with food and tea and lighting the stoves and hearths and keeping awake almost all through the night. In the spare time, he learns the art of watch-mending from Mr. Panwallah. His elder sister Lila works equally hard. She attends to her sick mother, looks after her drunken father and her younger sisters Bela and Kamal by working hard for the de Silvas and Sayyid Ali Sahib at Mon Repos. In fact, she manages her family with poise and grit during the absence of Hari and by her hard work, she gets the poor man’s plenty. The other most important theme in the novel is that of change in the nature, the virgin land and human life in the wake of industrialization, a modern disease. Violation of the virgin soil and the resultant devastation of flora and fauna are only anticipated, and have not yet occurred but they are terrible enough threatening the farmers, the fishermen and the shepherds living in the coastal belt of fourteen villages from Rewah to Alibagh. Even Bombay, which is fourteen kilometers away, will not be safe from the hazards of industrial pollution of the city and the sea. 4 The Village by The Sea has indeed received many criticisms from different readers since its publication. In fact there are variations in them as well. In course of time, an Indian critic, Hari Das states on the basis of his reading to The Village by The Sea: “Child characters in the novel do represent the working class people who are socially bound to get to the commercial world for economic gains” . As a matter of fact, Hari, the central child character leaves the school and gets committed to involving in the practical life which is too challenging to the person of his age. Similarly another prominent critic, Anna Clare asserts: “The Village by The Sea is a touching story of a poor Indian family, actors are the two oldest children Lila and Hari, and how they raise the whole family and live through the hard times”. Hence, she makes it crystal clear that the narrative moves around theses two characters and their sacrifice for the sake of family brings about the light in the gloomy and dark world of the family. Child characters are focused much since they pervade the novel and their actions determine the fate of the family which has ever been poverty-stricken. They bring about a dramatic change in the living standard of the family. Furthermore, Samatha Kenedy states: “It is a story of a poor Indian family who are being torn apart by illness and alcohol. The children of family work and fight to keep their family together” . The family problems cause children, who are not fully mature, to stand on their own, to earn money in order to support the family members and bring a sort of harmony over there. How parents are indifferent to the family problems and remain busy in unproductive activities is the matter of marvel. Teena Sen says: “The novel is an excellent book depicting the misery of children whose parents do not care for them. Really it creates scenery of the plot around the readers” . Sen shows the miserable plight of children Hari and Lila who suffer on the hands of socio-economic system in which they have been born. Despite their zeal and interest in study, they feel morally 5 obliged to drop school and start working for the sake of the family. In this way, Ebony Holland avers: “The Village by The Sea takes us through a journey to modernization and the introduction of factories and industrialization” . Hence his focus is on the transitional aspect of the life that has ever been rural and agrarian and now turns into commercial and industrial one. This change displays the fact the exploitation on the working class turns into a new form. It means feudalism is replaced with capitalism where capitalists overrule the workers in the industries and factories. In The Village by The Sea, a clear philosophy of optimism is brought out. In Hardy’s writings chance always goes against man. In this novel, chance always favors Hari. Whenever the family is beset with a financial crunch, de Silvas pay a visit to Mon Repos. When Hari desires to make it to Bombay, the procession helps him. Good luck and chance take him to Hira Lal, Jagu and Mr. Panwallah, and sends Sayyid Ali to Mon Repos in Thul to enable Lila to earn some money. This novel has a subtitle A Indian Family Story and it has been praised for its building up the Indian scene most successfully. Dr. R.K. Dhawan thus comments on this novel: It is entirely different setting and a different theme as compared to Desai’s other novels. Through the characters of Lila and Hari, who are brother and sister, and who take upon themselves the task of looking after their younger sisters owing to the ill-health of their mother and the unemployment and dipsomaniac of their father.  Dhawan talks about the family affair handled by the children Hari and Lila and their brave spirit and endless efforts which never seem tireless and rather they keep on making efforts to win the financial crisis of their family. Further his focus is on the plight of children who delegate the poor of India in general. 6 Dr. J.P. Tripathi points out that Anita Desai is an excellent painter of cities and city life. The gloomy haunting city of Bombay is well-pictured in her The Village by The Sea. In this novel, a brilliant and vivid picture of Bombay is presented. Bombay in Monsoon, the enchanted scenes of Chowpatty, “the great looming sides of steamships berthed at docks, cranes lifting and lowering huge bales, men bare-bodied and sweating” huge crowds thronged and moving in the streets, huge buildings and enigmatic life inspiring awe in Hari are brought almost the first time. Countryside is no mere picnic ground but vital part of India scintillating with destiny of human interests and problems. De Silvas come for repose to Thul and Sayyid Ali for serious bird- watching. Adatkar’s association of protest against the industrialization move is for rural welfare. There is no divide between the Haves and Have-nots; they lead a melodious life of mutual help and interdependence. The Village by The Sea achieves a happy fusion of the village and the city, the rural and the urban life, the rich and the poor. In the following chapter, I will mention distinct sorts of Marxism as well as the details of the lower strata in different aspects of society. Furthermore, the third chapter will centralize on the pose of Indian poor people who undergo different sorts of economic challenges. The reflection on plentiful hindrances in the path of poor people’s progress, prosperity, fame and dignity will be vitalized as well.

New Marxist Perspective

Marxist criticism, in its diverse forms, ground its theory of economic and cultural theory of Karl Marx and his fellow thinker Fredrick Engles on the three main points. The first is that the material production of the society largely determines the evolving history of humanity, of the social relation, of its institution, and of its way of thinking or its overall economic organization. Second, the historical change in the social class structure, establishing in each era dominant and 7 subordinate classes that engage in a struggle for economic, political and social advantages. And the third claim is the human consciousness is constituted by an ideology, the beliefs, values and ways of thinking and feeling through which human beings perceived and by recourse to which they explain what they take to be reality. An ideology is the product of the position and interest of the particular class. In any historical era, the dominant ideology, embodies and serves to legitimize the perpetuation, the interest of the dominant economic and social class of the time. Karl Marx was the most advanced economist, sociology and supreme ideologist who formulated the most revolutionary and scientific theory. His theories disprove the bourgeois economic, political and social system establishing the philosophy of proletariat. He imitiated the movement of the proletariat, i.e. the movement of those who do not posses material things but work against those who posses the abounding amounts wealth without labor. This emancipator movement was imitated by Marx at abolishing the concentration of wealth in the hands of tiny minority by seizing the political and legal power from the land of bourgeois class. Marxism as the political theory advocates class struggle of the proletariat against the ruling class until the political power is seized and socialist system is established. This brought a significant change in the bourgeois ideology. It challenged the old view point of philosophy itself. Marx himself stated clearly that philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways: the point is to change it, explained life and world from a quite different perspective, this theory aims at intensifying the inevitable process of change and brought considerate change in the concept of art and literature as well. We can find distinct classes in struggle for the economic, political as well as social advantages. So literature for Marxism should reflect this dialectical totality of a society and the value of literature is judged on the basis of how far it has done this function. Marxism is different from 8 the movement “Art for art’s sake”. It stresses the need that literature should be useful to life. It denounces the modern trend of writing which concentrates on minute subjective picture of the world. Disproving the early concept of art and literature has a social as well as political implication and it must be committed to people. It should aim for the betterment of society. Although Marx and Engels have not left any systematic works entirely centered on art and literature, they have raised some basic questions about them to their discussion about ‘base’ and ‘superstructure’. So,“The interpretation of the relevance of Marx’s theory to literature is a matter of dispute not merely between Marxists and non-Marxists ( Sociologist literature critics, philosophers) but have been and is still the subject of bitter controversy between those claiming to be Marxists”. Therefore we find contrary views about art and literature among the Marxist critics and theorists themselves. Lukacs treats literature as the reflection of outside reality. Adorno sees it as the negative knowledge of the actual world talks about revolutionizing the whole sphere of art and literature and puts all efforts on bringing newness in theoretical production. Even so they all agree on the point that “literature can properly be understood within a larger framework of social reality (Forgacs167). The distinction between Marxist non-Marxist sociological realistic criticisms is not so sharp. Till nineteenth century all criticisms were sociological. Therefore, criticism is often organized from quite earlier. Of courser, it is closely associated to biographical and historical criticism. Fundamental difference between them is that Marxist criticism examines how far a literary work embodies ability in changing human existence and lead it’s to the path of progress, prosperity and emancipation whereas others give emphasis on interpretive function and examine weather a work is successful in interpreting life and world appropriately. For this type of criticism is the primary function of art and literature. But Marxism, a living body of thought, aim at 9 revolutionizing the whole economic life establishing new political system led by proletarian Orthodox Marxist theory of literature strongly insist that a work of literature should reflect the class relation and be committed to the cause of working class people. A writer’s success or failure should be judge on the basis of his works which exhibit his insight on socio economic situation of the epoch that demands author to produce reality objectively with special attention to class divisions especially, the exploitation of the lower class by the upper. So literature instead of rendering outward superficial appearance of reality, should explore the inner causes. But it is not such an easy task. In order to capture reality successful, an author needs to have deep intellectual power and penetrating vision of the historical forces of the period. Outward superficial depiction of the things like that of naturalism and modernism which bracket off all the inner causes can never lead to reality. Literature for Marxist critics should be auxiliary ideology of working class. Rena Wellek known as the most influential critic of the twentieth century refuses to recognize any of the new trends in criticism as aboriginal. In his essay “The Main Trend of the twentieth century criticism”. Wellek says that “We are surrounded by survivals, leftover throwback to older stages in the history of criticism”. In the same essay, he argues that the new trends of criticism, of course, also have roots in the past, are not without antecedents, and are not absolute original”(115). According to him, Marxist criticism was rather unorthodox. Frans Mehring (1846-1916) and George Plekhanov (1856-1918) from Germany and Russia respectively were early less orthodox Marxist critics who recognize the autonomy of artistic creation to a certain extent. Wellek states: They were very unorthodox from the point of view of later Soviet dogma. Both Mehring and Plekhanov recognize certain autonomy of art and think of Marxist 10 criticism rather as the objective science of the social determinants of a literary work than as a doctrine which decides aesthetic questions prescribed subject matter and style of author. Wellek discusses the development of Marxist theories and states that even in Soviet Russia literature was not given certain autonomy to art till the “Socialist Realism” was imposed in 1932, and the authors were demanded to reproduce reality objectively i.e. accurately “Socialist Realism” not only prescribed the recipe but also asked the authors to be socialist realist literature was directly intervened in accordance with political interest. The writers were openly demanded to use their art for spearheading socialism. Similarly, Raymond Seldon, in his discussion about “Soviet Socialist Realism” states that “The doctrine expounded by the union of Soviet writers (1932-34) were a codification of Lenin’s pre-revolutionary statements as interpreted during the 1920”. Seldon is of the new view that the theory of art and literature propounded by Soviet Socialist writers against formalist theorists was founded upon the nineteenth century tradition of Russian realism. So it was not aboriginal. He explicitly states that the combination of the essential recipe of Soviet Theory” . After two success of Russian Revolution Marxism drew much attention to politics. It spread not only in Asia but in Europe and America as well. According to Wellek, American intellectual activities were much influenced Marxism during 1930. Granville Hichs and Bernard Smith were two early Marxist critics from America. Similarly Edmund Wilson and Kenneth Burke was Marxist for certain period of their development. Later especially after Second World War, Marxist political as well as intellectual activities were much discouraged in American and they gradually fell in shadow. 11 George Lukacs, having been attracted to revolutionary activities in his early life, joined a student’s club, Revolutionary socialist students of Budapest which was the beginning of his life long Marxist career. After reading several books by Marx and Engels, he was deeply impressed with the economic and political principal of Marxism. Hatred against capitalism grew him. Therefore, he rejected his father’s business to devote himself to the political and intellectual activities. His use of the term ‘reflection’ is characteristic of his work as a whole. Reflection of reality is the key of his theory of art he advocated the old realist view that the novel reflects reality, not by rendering its mere surface appearance, but by giving us a truer, clearer, more complete and dynamic reflection of reality. He did not believe literature as reflecting reality in the way mirror does. So, reality in literary works and the reality in the actual world need not have one to one correspondence. Artistic representation is no photographic as the artist is not a machine. A picture presented unliterary works like novels, dramas etc. passes through the active and sensitive mind of the author unlike a photographic machine which simply presents everything indifferently as can’t react. Perception experiences, moods and personal liking and disliking greatly effect while presenting reality in works of art. So, some degree of objective reality is mixed up with artistic subjective feeling and emotions; therefore ironical representation of reality is never possible. David Forgacs says Marxist Literary Theories “To be reflected in literature, reality has to pass through the creative from giving work of the writer. The result, in the case of correctly formed work, will be that the form of the literary work reflects the form of real world”. Literary creation is a process of putting selected matters together. During this process of selection, the artist may give priority to one aspect of reality neglecting the others. In the process of creating world of art, the objective reality which lies in the chaotic state is given form and arranged in sequence. He criticizes the modernists separated individual from social 12 process. The use of ‘stream of consciousness’ technique as a narrative device is unacceptable. The modernist unmediated type of reflection of reality is erroneous. By dynamic historical environment in the interest of rendering subjective dynamic historical environment in the interest of rendering impression, the modernist writers totally fail to present reality. They cut their characters away from the social, historical flux. Luckacs objects this kind of fragmentation and presentation if human being as a lonely being unaffected by the social and economic forces. So, the tremendous change brought by the modernist writers in technique, them and in treatment of time is unacceptable. Similarly, Theodor Adorno unlike Lukacs developed the negative knowledge model. He criticized Lukacs for appreciating only the dialectical totality in a classical realist work and criticized the formal laws of literature and argued that the reality in the real world in formless. He stated that Proust and Joyce made use of the interior monologue to expose the way reality is. Interior monologue or stream of consciousness technique was much criticized by Lukacs. But Adorno emphasized that “the interior monologue, for from cutting the literary work off from, reality can expose the way reality actually is (Forgacs 188) Adorno clearly stated “Art is the negative knowledge of the actual world” (Forgacs 189). However, according to David Forgacs by negative knowledge Adorno “Doesn’t mean non knowledge. It means knowledge which and undermine and negate a false or reified condition” (Forgacs 189). Adorno said that literary work does not give us neatly shaped reflection and knowledge of reality but works within reality to expose its contradictions. As stated by Forgacs Adorno “Open up modernist writing to Marxist theory by showing that a different kind of relationship between the text and reality is possible (Forages190). 13 Another prominent literary theoretician, Raymond Williams responded positively to the development and trend of the twentieth century art and literature. He thinks that literature has digressed from reality and the realists have ceased to appear. He stated, “It is not only that there is still a concentration of contemporary themes, in many ways, elements of everyday experience are more evident in the modern novel than in the nineteenth novel through the appearance of certain taboos” (William 277). He instead that the twentieth century novels still held to reality. He examined various aspects of literature in his The Long Revolution. In this way he wrote: No human experience is entirely subjective or objective. It is both because we can’t see things as they are apart from any reactions; it is inseparable process. So it is wrong to relate science to object or physical reality is the part of consciousness, in the whole process of our living organization.  He viewed there are many similarities between art and ordinary day to day communication. An artist perceives things and interprets this empirical information with the help of previous knowledge. So, Williams, while interpreting literature from Marxist point of view, saw art and experience as inseparable because the latter is the subject matter of the former in a particular ‘dialectical context’. Everyone learns by perceiving the interpreting experiences but the artist needs efforts to describe the new experiences after the procession of internalized sensory information with his previous knowledge in his mind. In his view, art is powerful expression of human experience and creative imagination “The capacity to find and organize new description of experience” (William, 26-32). That an artist’s work becomes art only by his extraordinary skill in transmission of this experience “The creative act of any artist in any case, the process of making a meaning a meaning active, by communicating an organized experience to others (William, 32). So it is the artist’s power to communicate on which the value of art depends. 14 The Long Revolution, William presented a valuable discussion regarding the contemporary novels. He divided the whole literary tradition into three phases. In the first phase, legendary subjects linked with invisible super natural power developed where the upper class comes in the top. With the rise of middle class, it shifts to contemporary ordinary, everyday activities, the second phase. Again the attention was gradually shifted to the ugly poor aspect of everyday “Simple reality” in the third phase.

The Concept of Materialism

Human beings can be distinguished from animals by consciousness, by religion anything else we like. They themselves are to distinguish themselves from animals as soon as they are to produce their means of subsistence, a step which is conditioned by their physical organization. By producing their means of subsistence human beings are indirectly producing their actual material life. The way in which human being produce their means of subsistence depends first of all on the nature of the actual means of subsistence they find in existence and have the reproduce. The mode of production must not be considered simply as being the reproduction of the physical existence of the individuals. Rather it is a definite from of activity of these individuals, a definite from of express their life, a definite mode of life on their part. As individuals express their life, so they are what they are, therefore, their expression coincide with their production, both with what they produce and with how they produce. The nature of individuals thus depends on the material conditions determining their production. Indeed their production only makes its appearance with the increase of population. In its turn this presupposes the intercourse of individuals with one another. The form of this intercourse is again determined by production. The definite individuals who are productively active in a definite way enter into definite social and political relation. Empirical observation must in each separate instance being and without any mystification and speculation, the connection of the social and political structure with production. The social structure and the state are continually evolving out of the life process of definite individuals, but of individuals, not as they may appear in their own or other people’s imagination, but as they really are; i.e., as they operate, produce materially, and hence as they work under definite material limits presuppositions and conditions independent of their will. 16 The production of ideas, of conceptions, of consciousness, is at first directly interwoven with the material activity and the material intercourse of men, the language of real life. Conceiving, thinking, the material intercourse of human beings, appears at this stage as the direct efflux of their material behavior. The same applies to the mental production as expressed in the language of politics, laws, morality, religion, metaphysics, etc. of people. Human beings are the producers of their conceptions, ideas etc. real, active human beings, as they are conditioned by a definite development of their productive forces and of the intercourse corresponding to these, up to its furthest forms. Consciousness can never be anything else than conscious existence, and the existence of human beings is their actual life process. If in all ideologies human beings and their circumstances appear upside down as in a camera obscure, this phenomenon arises just as much from their physical life-process they demonstrate the development of the ideological reflexes and echoes of this life process. The phantoms formed in the human brain are also necessarily, sail boats of their material premises. Morality, religion, metaphysics, all the rest of ideology and their corresponding forms of consciousness, thus no longer retain the semblance of independence. They have no history, no development, but men, developing their material production and their material intercourse, change, along with this their real existence, their thinking and the products of their thinking. Life is not determined by consciousness, but consciousness by life. In the first method of approach the starting point is consciousness taken as the living individual; in the second method, which conforms to real life it is the real living individuals themselves and consciousness is considered solely as their consciousness. Really this approach is not devoid of premises. It starts out from the real premises and does not abandon them for a moment. Its premises are human beings, not in any fantastic isolation and rigidity, but in their actual, empirically perceptible process of development under definite 17 conditions. As soon as this active life process is described, history ceases top be a collection of dead facts as it is with the empiricists, or an imagined activity of imagined subjects, as with the idealists. Where speculation ends in real life, there a real, positive science begins. The complete representation of the practical activity, of the practical process of development of human beings is obviously seen. Empty talk about consciousness cases and real knowledge has to take its place. When reality is depicted, philosophy as an independent branch of knowledge loses its medium of existence. At the best its place can only be taken by a summing up of the most general results, abstractions which arise from the observation of the historical development of human beings. Viewed apart from real history these abstractions have in themselves no value what so ever. They can only serve to facilitate the arrangement of historical material, to indicate the sequence of its separate strata. But they by no means afford, as does philosophy, for nearly trimming the epochs of history. On the contrary, difficulties begins only when materialists set about the observation and the arrangement- the real depiction-of their historical material, whether of a past epoch or of the present. The removal of these difficulties is governed by premises which it is quite impossible to state here, but which only the study of the actual life process and the activity of the individuals of each will make evident.

Literature and Ideology

An ideology is an organized collection of ideas. The word ideology was coined by Count Antoine Destutt de Tracy in the late 18th century to define a science of ideas. An ideology can be thought of as a comprehensive vision, as a way of looking at things, as in common sense and several philosophical tendencies, or a set of ideas proposed by the dominant class of a society to all members of this society. The main purpose behind an ideology is to offer change in society 18 through normative thought process. Ideologies are systems of abstract thought applied to public matters and thus make this concept central to politics. Implicitly every political tendency entails an ideology whether or not it is propounded as an explicit system of thought. Louis Althusser proposed a materialistic conception of ideology, which made the use a special type of discourse: the discourse. A number of propositions, which are never untrue, suggest a number of other propositions, which are. In this way, the essence of the discourse is what is not told but is suggested. He presented a statement ‘All are equal before the law’, which is a theoretical groundwork of current legal systems, suggests that all people may be of equal worth or have equal ‘opportunities’. This is not true, for the concept of private property over the means of production results in some people being able to own more than others, and their property brings power and influence. Althusser has also invented the concept of “Ideological State Apparatuses” to explain his theory of ideology. His first thesis was that “Ideology Has No History”: since the epistemological break is a continuous process, science and philosophy must always struggle against ideology, which is, according to Marx, defined as the reproduction of the possibilities of production. His second thesis, “Ideas are material “, explains his materialistic attitude, which he illustrated with the “scandalous advice” of Pascal toward unbehaviorism, as there may be, as Pierre Macherey put it, a “subjectivity without subject”; in other words, a form of non-personal liberty, as in Deleuze’s conception of becoming-other. Many political parties base their political action and programme on an ideology. In social studies, a political ideology is a certain ethical set of ideas, principles, doctrines, myths or symbols of a social movement, institution, class or large group that explains how society should work, and offers some political and cultural blueprint for a certain social order. A political 19 ideology largely concerns itself with how to allocate power and to what ends it should be used. Some parties follow a certain ideology very closely, while others may take broad inspiration from a group of related ideologies without specifically embracing any one of them. To Althusser art exists as a relatively unproblematic category. He has attacked these presuppositions, insisting instead on the work of art as essentially contradictory. Complicit with this ideology, it contains gaps and silences that, when explored, begin to unravel its overt claims and ultimately expose its more implicit ideological agenda. Althusser prefers to focus on works as creations of the genius of an author. His work has allowed him to utilize a highly politicized conception of the Lacanian unconscious, extending its application to an entire class. In his book The Political Unconscious, he argues that the political is “the absolute horizon of all reading and all interpretation.” The collective political unconscious,” the repository of the repression of history by ideology, can be brought to awareness through appropriately historicized and politicized readings that are aware of both current and previous historical ideological attempts to contain the meanings, implications, and contradictions of texts. To British Marxist Eagleton, Althusser has contributed the conception of Marxism as a “scientific theory of human societies and of the practice of transforming them,” though in recent years Eagleton, has also explored the theoretical assumptions of other, more humanistic theorists such as Benjamin and the German Marxist social philosopher Jurgen Habermas. Fredrick Engles remarks in Ludwig Forereach and the end of classical German philosophy (1888) that art is far richer and moves ‘opaque’ than political and economic theory because it is less purely ideological. It is important here to grasp the precise meaning for Marxism of ‘ideology: ideology is not in the first place a set of doctrines; it signifies the way men live out their roles in class society, the values, ideas and images which tie them to their social functions 20 and so prevent from a true knowledge of society as a whole. In this sense ‘The Waste Land’ is ideological: it shows a man making sense of this experience in ways that prohibit a true under standing of his society, ways that are consequently false. All art spring from an ideological conception of the world; there is no such thing, Plekhanov comments, as a work of entirely devoid of ideological content. But Engle’s remark suggests that art has a more complex relationship to ideology than law and political theory, which rather more transparently embody the interest of a ruling class. The question than, is what relationship art has to ideology. In fact, this is not as easy question to answer. Two extreme, opposite positions are possible here. One is that literature is nothing but ideology in a certain artistic from that works of literature is just expressions of the ideologies of their time. They are prisoners of false consciousness unable to reach beyond it to arrive at the truth. It is position characteristic of much ‘Vulgar Marxist’ criticism, which tend to see literary works merely as reflections of dominant ideologies. As such, it is unable to explain for one thing, The opposite case literature actually challenges the ideological assumptions of its time. The opposite case seizes on the fact that so much literature challenge the ideology (1969), always transcends the ideology hides from view. Both of these cases seem too simple. A more subtle account of the relationship between literature and ideology is provided by the French Marxist theorist Louis Althusser. Althusser argues that art can not reduce to ideology: it has, rather, a particular relationship to it. Ideology signifies the imaginary ways in which men experience the real world is, of course, the kind of experience literature gives us too- what it feels like to live in particular conditions, rather than a conceptual analysis of those conditions. However, art does more than just passively reflect that experience. It is held within ideology, but also manages to distance itself from it, to the point where it permits us to ‘feel’ and ‘perceive’ the ideology from which springs. In doing this, art 21 does not enable us to know the truth which ideology conceals, since for Althusser ‘knowledge in the strict sense means scientific knowledge, the kind of knowledge of say, capitalism which Marx’s capital rather than Disken’s ‘Hard Times’ allows us. The difference between science and art is not that they deal with different ways. Science gives us conceptual knowledge of a situation; art gives us the experience of that situation, which is equivalent to ideology. But by doing this, it allow us to ‘see’ the nature of that ideology, and thus begins to move us toward that full understanding of ideology which is scientific knowledge. Thus, what literature can do this is more fully developed by one of the Althusser’s colleagues, Pierre Macherey. In his ‘Pour Theories de la Production Literature’ (1966), Macherey distinguishes between what he term ‘illusion’ and ‘fiction’. Illusion, the ordinary ideological experience of men is the material on which the writer goes to work; but in working on it transforms into something different, and lend it a shape and structure. It is by giving ideology a determinate from, fixing it within certain fictional limits of that ideology. In doing this, Macherey claims, art contributes to our deliverance from the ideology illusion. Both Althusser and Macherey at crucial point are ambiguous and obscure; but the relation they purpose between literature and ideology is nonetheless deeply suggestive. Ideology for both critics is more than amorphous body of free-floating images and ideas; in any society it has a certain structural coherence. Because it possesses such relative coherence, it can be the object of scientific analysis. A scientific criticism would seek to explain the literary work in the term of the ideological structure of which it is part, yet which it transforms in its art: it would search out the principal which both ties the work to ideology and distances it from it. The finest Marxist criticism has indeed done precisely that; Marcherey’s starting-point is Lenin’s brilliant 22 analysis to Tolstoy . To do this, however means grasping the literary work as a formal structure; and it is to this question that we can now turn. Literary form is ideological. In a suggestive comment in Literature and Revolution, Leon Trotsky Maintains ‘ The relation between form and content is determined by the fact that the new form is discovered, proclaimed and evolved under the pressure of an inner need, of a collective psychological demand which, like everything else… has its social roots’. Significant developments in literary form, then, result from significant changes in ideology. They embody new ways of perceiving social reality and new relations between artist and audience. This is evident enough if we look at well-charted examples like the rise of the novel in the eighteenth century England. The novel The Village by The Sea carries up the dominant theme related with the class conflict. The entire novel moves around the common social problem i.e., the struggle of the poor for survival extant almost in all societies where there is the capitalistic system. In fact Desai stresses that hard labor is imperative for subsistence and survival. Hari works hard in the patch of land for growing vegetables, breaks and sells bunches of coconut, tries to catch fish by net on the sea-shore as long as he is at Thul, and works very hard in Jagu’s restaurant, cleaning pots, kneading dough, baking and others in order to save a little amount of money so that he can reach to the position for accomplishing his responsibility of a head of the family that has been undergoing the critical situation in regard to economy which has gone so poor due to irresponsible manner of his drinking father and the other social forces. His elder sister Lila works equally hard. In fact, she manages her family with poise and grit during the absence of Hari and by her hard work, she gets the poor man’s plenty. Hence it has become obvious that work is the best tool to resolve with. The poor do not have anything except labor. Those, who fail to sell it 23 on time, remain incapable of getting any favorable result .It is consciousness which awakens one to mind the business s/he has to deal with. Hari as a responsible member mentally wakes up in time and gets determined to earning money which is the most wanted thing in his family since only money can help him to fight against problems and difficulties. As the matter of fact Hari as an individual seems to have been fighting against the extant system which has drawn a line between the poor and the rich. The poor are forced to live doggy lives and serve the rich while the people having wealth enjoy living on the labor of the poor with any grace and kindness. In the capitalistic system the gap between haves and have-nots is getting wider and wider. Similarly it is equally prominent to state over here that some Marxists are not in the view point there is class struggle in the rural areas as well. Rather they appraise the life of the village and state that the village is domination-free. But the British Marxist, Raymond Williams is in the opinion of the fact that people in the rural areas undergo a number of problems and complications only due to poverty. Those having acres of land enslave the landless. In case they are left behind by the feudal lords, they get victims in the hands of selfish politicians and money-lenders. A very famous Indian Marxist Prem Rai opines on the novel, The Village by The Sea: “The struggle of Hari and Lila for survival in nature, and their hard work raises the family from abysmal poverty to subsistence level”. Speaking truly the plot of The Village by The Sea is based on substantial and solid human action namely the heroic struggles of Hari and Lila, which is serious and significant. In fact every conscious human being does the same what Hari has done in the novel in order to get rid of poverty. The entire novel deals with Hari seeking a release from Thul, his earning of money in Bombay and return and the possibility of future economic independence. The struggle done by Hari in Bomby is significant enough to be noted in the context of the class conflict prevailing in the capitalistic society. Hari, a helpless young boy, is 24 dangling in the world of experience. Before this he was unknown to difficulties of the city. In fact people are self-centered and money-minded in the city. Hari has a magnificent dream of earning money and supporting his family members who are undergoing a number of crises regarding food, lodge and clothing. The struggles Hari does in Bombay are very much adventurous and knowledge-oriented. His meeting with Jagu, the owner of the restaurant who pays a rupee a day to his workers as wage, opens Hari’s path of earning on his own. In this context a critic, Paul Andrew from America reflects on The Village by The Sea: “The theme of overall poverty of the lower classes and the general masses of India is further supplemented by the description of the Krishna Eating House of Gowalia Tank, Bombay, the meanest and the shabbiest restaurant, frequented by beggars and coolies” . Hence his commentary focuses the real situation of the poor in India. Furthermore, it carries up the Marxist tenets, which proves the fact The Village by The Sea is a good Indian text and indeed deals with the actual condition of the poverty-stricken people.

Conclusion

The Village by The Sea is Marxist-based novel that carries up the intact scenario of the class struggle existing in the Indian society. The novel centers on a family’s critical circumstance 42 that is too pitiable and tormenting. A picture of Hari’s house in the village Thul reflects paucity and poverty of the worst types. The family’s land is sold to pay debts; they have a tiny patch of land to grow vegetables; animals are sold. Father is a workless drunkard, mother sick and bedridden, and children ill-fed and ill-dressed. The hero Hari’s food consists of dry chapatis, a smidgen of salt and chilies. This is a faithful depiction of life in the villages. Hari and Lila’s education has been stopped for lack of funds; there is no stipulation for the purchase of books for next year for Bela and Kamala. They hardly eat any thing but “dry bread, or dry rice, every day”. Their only income is from the occasional sale of bunches of coconuts from their palms to the Malabaris. Hari’s house represents other houses in the village with the added shortcoming of lack of a boat, a cow, a job and a fit-for-nothing drunkard of a father, a sick and unacceptable mother, sisters to be married of and no dowries. As a matter of fact old women and girls usually go hungry in the village; wear saris of coarse cloth, as does Lila always. Hari’s young mind is troubled by the problem of his sisters’ marriages and dowry. He wants to get some regular job and earn money so that he can pay off the debts to be raised from the village moneylender all through his life, if need be. The villagers of Thul have no hospitals or doctors to take their sick to, and no money to buy medicines. Lila is troubled as to how to cure her mother’s chronic illness without the means to take her to Alibagh or buy medicines for her. So the villagers have to depend on quacks like the village medicine man that exploit their superstitions, religious sentiments, and ignorance. Lila finds his medicine useless and saves her mother’s life and cures her permanently by taking her to the hospital at Alibagh, thanks to the kind turn of Mr. de Silva. Stating truly cross lights are thrown on the theme of poverty and economic hardship from different angles. Ever increasing Indian population is worsening the situation. The cart driver’s 43 words to Hari highlight the problem: “nothing is enough. We are too many on earth now. Not enough fuel for all, not enough food, not enough jobs- or schools, or hospitals, or trains, buses or houses. Too many people,not enough to go around.” The theme of overall poverty of the lower classes and the general masses of India is further supplemented by the description of the Sri Krishna Eating House of Gowalia Tank, Bombay, the meanest and the shabbiest restaurant, frequented by beggars and coolies. It is black and grimy and stuffy from smoke. Jagu, the owner of the restaurant pays a rupee a day to his workers as wage. Even such a scanty wage is a blessing to the poor boys like Hari. Hari shares the lot of two Tamil-speaking orphans working in the eating-house. This poor restaurant caters to the poorest classes. Jagu lives in a shack in one of the slums called zopadpattis in Bombay. During the monsoon these zopadpattis become squalid because of leaky roofs, shaky walls and shabby and damp floors. People there live a precarious existence. Young ones are huddled under rags to keep the leaking water away. Even visitors and guests will be a burden on the inmates for want of space and food. On account of nagging poverty, the poor of Bombay tend to become criminals. The beggar at the Black Horse tells Hari that people can not make their way in Bombay by begging or selling coconuts. During the day they beg and during the night they The Village by The Sea indulge in criminal activities. Extreme poverty demoralizes them and makes them resort to crimes and become anti-social elements. But the case is entirely different in the novel The Village by The Sea since the fore grounded characters here do not involve them in any kind of unsocial acts which can demoralize their social status. Rather they do their level best to reform the family’s economic critical situation by involving themselves in all levels of the manual jobs easily accepted in the society. In fact they fight against all sorts of challenges to bring about innovative and drastic alterations in the entire life of the family members. It is the 44 matter of great adventure that children Hari and Lila committed to sacrificing their personal pleasure seeking desires in order to do much for the sake of other relatives such as bed-ridden mother, the drunkard and irresponsible father and other two sisters Bela and Kamala studying at the school. After all the children’s constant effortless attempts bring out the family from the economic crisis to the state of happiness and relief which is too much admirable and praiseworthy. Furthermore it conveys a very commendable message to all of us that the poor have hope, labor and confidence as their properties that help them to overcome all types of hazards. 45 Works Cited Rai, Prem. A Glimpse on Indian Novels. Delhi: S.K. Prakhasan, 2001. Andrew, Paul. Asian Novels. Chicago: East West Publication, 2004. Desai, Anita. “The Indian Writer’s Problems”. Language Forum. Vol. VII, No. 1-4 (April1981- March 1982), p. 223. Desai, Anita. “Replies to the Questionnaire”. Kakatiya Journal of English Studies. Vol. 3, No. I, 1978, p. 4. P. Machercy, Pour One Theories de la Production Literature (Paris, 1970). A Challenging and Original Application of the Marxist Theory of Louis Althusser to Literary CriticismGenuinely Innovating in its Break with ‘Neo- Hegelian’ Marxist Criticism. Now Translated as A Theory of Literature Production London: Browning Publishing Enterprises. 1978. Slaughter, Cliff. Marxism, Ideology and Literature. London: Macmillan. 1980. Williams, Raymond. The Long Revolution. London: Chalto and Windus, 1961. Abrahms, M. H. A Glossary of Literary Terms. Bangalore: Prism Book Pvt. Ltd.,1993. Forgacs, David, Marxist Literary Theory, Modern Literary Theory, Ed. Ann Jefferson and David Robey, London: Bast Ford Ltd. 1986. G. Plekhanov, French Dramatic Literature and French 18th Century Painting (London, 1953). A Collection of Plekhanov’s Major Essay on Literature. Marx, Karl. “The German Ideology”. Critical Theory since Plato. Ed. Hazard Adams, Harcourt Brace. 1971. 46