Monday, March 1, 2010
The Subaltern in American Culture
In many ways, especially in Western Culture, we like our heroes to be strong, so that we can better identify with them. However, in this novel, the real heroes, not in the traditional sense, are the underdogs, the underclass, those who we do not usually associate with power or heroism. We also mentioned in class that the book could be seen as an experiment in and of itself. How do you think the casting of the subalterns as the "heroes" or the "discoverers" lend to the unfolding of the novel and its overall suspense?
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I believe as a reader, or as a person in general, I tend to underestimate or belittle people who show characteristics of a subaltern. It's not done consciously but rather out of instinct. I believe the technique used by Ghosh was meant to play on that very instinct of subaltern belittlement. In a book about science, one would expect that any scientific break through made would be accredited to a stereotypical scientist. By making subalterns the main people responsible for scientific advancement, Ghosh, in a way, is literally taking the power out of 'un-subalterns', the scientists, and giving that power to subaltern characters. They are switching roles if you will.
ReplyDeleteAnother idea I have is that if scientists or 'un-subalterns' are supposedly working towards discovery, it would then make sense that if there was a group of people working against discovery, they would be the opposite of what scientists are completely. Maybe what Ghosh was trying to do was create the antiscientist. A group of people the complete opposite of a scientist in the way they look, the way they act, what they believed and even their social class.
Either one of these ideas could be an answer behind Ghosh's logic of the 'heroic' subalterns.
I am very similar with Corey on this one. I tend to put subaltern characters out of the way in books. I tend to only focus on the bigger characters because i think they have more power. In this book though the role is switched the subalterns have the power and the main scientist do not. It turned out to really surprise me in the book to find this out. This book gives the subalterns the power to change history. It was unlike any other book that i have read. By people in general just ignoring the subalterns he could really make a twist of an ending.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Corey and Kevin. I found this book to be very interesting how the usually more important characters were not focused on as much. The subalterns wielded all the power in the book. I think the Ghosh was trying to switch the roles of the "stereotypical scientist" with the subalterns like Corry said. Overall I think this kind of style and switching the characters in this way made for a pretty good novel.
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