Dead waters

  Edward Said was right in pointing out that literature is the symptomatology of society . E.M. Forster has  covered nearly every social intricacy  of a common man’s life  in his essay.  Critiquing the social institutions such as religion, power, relationships and governance, E.M. Forster  has depicted that human reliance on  these institutions  is an inevitable paradox.  These institutions have a profound influence on human existence, making the dependence both indispensable and problematic.  Religion  fosters stagnancy, depicts Forster.  Faith ignores evidence and hence hinders the intellectual progress.  But having faith is unavoidable for man. In the end of his essay, he hints how man has himself failed religion.  Average human being is in a constant need of faith; it  can either be on an individual, who he calls ‘Savior of future’ or  religion itself.  Even when having meaningful relationships is i...

  Past informs  the present  or rather vice versa .  The  preservation of tradition , transcending the individual needs, facilitates th e shared experiences.  T.S. Eliot, a writer who  spent all his life crafting  literature and experimenting with form and structure, invalidated his own tumultuous  struggle  by writing the essay, “Tradition and the Individual Talent”.  The past is always open to various interpretations and understandings. The dynamic property of the past indicates that nothing is really absolute, even something that is already known.  But the dynamism does not exist in isolation.  Edward Said, in his travelling theory depicts that  ideas require a temporal dimension, rooted in the past  in order  to achieve a meaningful trajectory in the present.  Eliot contradicts himself in the later part of the essay where he presents his model for ‘canon poetry’. He asserts that an exceptional piece...

 The categorization of knowledge as meaningful or abstract is an ambiguous endeavor that Bacon posits in his essay, “Of Studies”. Bacon, the name known to the flag-bearers of empiricism, scientifically depicts the preservation and application of knowledge. Rationalizing the concept of knowledge, its acquisition and its application, Bacon gives a timeless quality and universality to his essay.  Francis claims that like a plant needs to be pruned, knowledge has a similar disposition, if one is left to their own devices when gaining knowledge and not productively applying it the gained knowledge would be rendered useless and a hodgepodge of facts and information. However, there is a void left in his idea of importance of knowledge. If the importance of knowledge is to be individualized and not universally decided by certain merits and traditions, then the reader would be in potential danger of coming in contact with unsavory knowledge that they may consider vital but in reality i...

  “Sell your child’s flesh before it rots”, a proposal of uncommon modesty that sums up the deplorable condition of 21st century corporate laborer. Implying that humanity is back in the state of nature, as state has been failed by the ones on the thrones, Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal” holds an uncanny relevance with the neoliberal world. Being a subtle satire on the exploitation of the lower class and their inevitable social death, this piece glorifies the human vices along with grotesque imagery. Along with critiquing institutionalized injustice and colonialism, he depicts the deploring moral standards existing social hierarchies as well. As Swift delves into the imageries and details of the cannibalism and its benefits to the capitalist market or the elites, he slightly hints at the systemic problems of capitalism as well. Disguised in the shades of irony, he paints a vicious cycle of suffering for the subalterns. He equates the intensity of grief attached with selling the...