Women Rights: Myth or Reality, With Special Reference to George Eliot’s Adam Bede and Toni Morrison’s Beloved (Published)
This paper focuses on the rights denied to women in the works of George Eliot’s Adam Bede and Toni Morrison’s Beloved. Both the writers belong to different times and social strata. The significant portion of this paper is related with female rights, marriage and oppression of women in the society. The paper also deals with the modifications and the outlook of women characters as they stand against the rules and regulations persisting during those times. Both the writers have used their works as a device to announce their distresses in relation to the women roles and gender clashes in the social community. As educated and well read women, both George Eliot and Toni Morrison have shaped woman characters in order to confirm that women are also gifted with intelligence and wisdom and are capable of being sensible and sound. Eventually, this paper shows that both the writers courageously confront and defy the culture and civilization and stand up for women in relation to marriage, school, profession and dedicate themselves to writing profession from the viewpoint of women with an endeavour to reveal their place in the society by focusing on their shortcomings, judgment and attitude against the ruthless norms and culture of male dominated society.
Keywords: Female, Marriage, Profession, Society, Women
Women as a Symbol of Israel in Nathan Shaham’s “Hand of Fate” (“Yad ha-Goral”) (Published)
Nathan Shaham (נתן שחם) – a biographical sketch[1].Shaham is an Israeli writer who was born in Tel-Aviv in 1925. He was a member of the youth movements Mahanot Ha-Olim and Ha-Shomer Ha-Tsa’ir and in 1945 joined the kibbutz of Beit Alpha.In the years 1942-1945 he served with the Palmach and rejoined it in 1947. Subsequently he worked in the Israel Broadcasting Service and wrote for the press. Shaham comes from a family with literary connections. Both his father and his brother were writers, although neither attained his fame. Initially he tried his hand at writing poetry, but his most prominent and important works are in prose, among them the story collections Grain and Lead (Dagan Ve-Oferet), The Gods Are Lazy (Ha-Elim Atzelim) and Veterans’ Housing (Shikun Vatikim), the latter containing the story “Hand of Fate” that is the subject of the present study. In addition, Shaham wrote novels and plays, for example the novel Always Us (Tamid Anahnu) and the plays A Field beyond the Border (Sade Me-Ever La-Gvul) and They’ll Arrive Tomorrow (Hem Yagi’u Mahar), originally written as a story entitled “Seven of Them” F(Shiv’a Mehem”) and later turned into a play.
[1] For more information on the writer see The Hebrew Encyclopedia, Tel-Aviv and Jerusalem, 1965, vol. 13, p. 701.
Keywords: Hand of Fate, Israel, Nathan Shaman, Women, Yad ha-Goral, symbol
A TRADITIONAL GHANAIAN PERSPECTIVE ON WOMEN AS COMPOSERS AND PERFORMERS OF ADZEWA AND ADZEBA MUSIC AND DANCE. (Published)
Adzewa and adzeba are occasional traditional musical types of the Fanti and Guan people along the Fanti Coast of Ghana. Through qualitative research approach, the study examined the impact of women as performers and composers of adzewa and adzeba music and dance. The research, which is part of a bigger work on a Corpus of traditional Ghanaian music, involved two traditional adzeba ensembles at Winneba and Mankoadze and a contemporary dance ensemble at Cape Coast, the Central Folkloric Dance Company, which performs a variety of traditional musical types including adzewa. The study showed that women express their collective and individual sentiments through compositions and performances of adzewa and adzeba. These musical types were seen as concepts within the framework of the sociological and anthropological theories of structural functionalism in explaining norms, customs, traditions and institutions of a society.
Keywords: Adzeba, Adzewa, Composers, Music and Dance, Performers, Women