"In Martin’s World, Heroes can Die Without Warning! Heroism doesn’t Guarantee Survival"❤️

Meet George R. R. Martin

The American John R. R. Tolkien or the American Tolkien!

#onhisbirthdaytoday

20th September

[The World of Westeros, The Game of Thrones, Gritty Realism, Eucatastrophe, Moral Ambiguity, American Tolkien, Anti-Tolkien]

George R. R. Martin’s epic fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire, has highly influenced and redefined the fantasy genre – with a narrative structure that subverts traditional fantasy tropes.

His characters are morally ambiguous. They are flawed, make questionable decisions, and their motivations are often a mix of noble and selfish desires.

And unlike J. R. R. Tolkien, he subverts and de-emphasizes magic and fantastical creatures in favour of political intrigue, character development, and realistic consequences. Hence, in his world, heroism doesn’t guarantee survival, and good deeds often have terrible, unforeseen outcomes. He creates a world where the “hero’s journey” is not a given and anyone, even a central character, can be killed, adding a sense of genuine danger and suspense.

His meticulous and detailed world-building, with a myriad setting, a deep history with complex cultures, religions, and social structures - the world of Westeros feels alive, with its own rich lore, ancient conflicts, and a sense of history!

This solidity of specification, and attention to detail, from the food characters eat to the specific dialects they use, makes the world feel incredibly believable and lived-in.

Well, similarities galore between both George R. R. Martin and J. R. R. Tolkien!

Both authors are credited with defining and revitalizing epic fantasy in their respective eras. While Tolkien is considered the undisputed “father of modern fantasy,” whose work created the blueprint for the genre, Martin is seen as the one who broke that mould, pushing fantasy into a new, grittier realism.

Both authors are known for creating vast, detailed, and intricate fantasy worlds with deep histories, complex political systems, and a large cast of characters.

Both The Lord of the Rings and A Song of Ice and Fire became massive cultural phenomena, first through their books and then through highly successful film and television adaptations that brought fantasy to a global audience.

At the same time differences far outsmart the similarities!

Tolkien’s work is often seen as a fundamentally moral and mythological in its scope. It’s a clear-cut struggle between good and evil, with a sense of hope and “eucatastrophe” (a sudden, joyous turn of events).

In contrast, Martin’s work is cynical, realistic, and morally gray.

In Tolkien’s world, the lines are clearly drawn between noble heroes and incorrigible villains. However, in Martin’s world, heroes can die without warning, and even the most seemingly evil characters are given humanizing backstories and motivations, making the moral landscape ambiguous.

Interestingly, Game of Thrones – the hugely successful fantasy television series on HBO, is an adaptation of the book series A Song of Ice and Fire by George R. R. Martin. The show premiered in 2011 and ran for eight seasons, becoming a global cultural phenomenon.

To conclude, then, it would be quite apt to call him as an “Anti-Tolkien,” rather than an “American Tolkien”, 😊 for his ability and his prowess in deliberately deconstructing the tropes established by Tolkien. 

Lieutenant William Golding | "Man produces evil as a bee produces honey." ❤️

William Golding

Winner of the Booker Prize (1980) and Nobel Prize for Literature (1983)

#onhisbirthdaytoday

19th September

A campus cult favourite!

Famous for his statement - Man (sic) produces evil as a bee produces honey.

Lieutenant William Golding won the Booker Prize for literature in 1980 for Rites of Passage.

He is an allegorist who uses his novels as a canvas to paint portraits of man’s constant struggle between his civilized self and his hidden, darker nature.

After graduating from Oxford, Golding perpetuated family tradition by becoming a schoolmaster in Salisbury, Wiltshire. His teaching career was interrupted in 1940, however, when World War II found “Schoolie,” as he was called, serving five years in the Royal Navy.

Lieutenant Golding saw active duty in the North Atlantic, commanding a rocket-launching craft. Present at the sinking of the Bismarck and participating in the D-Day invasion of France by Allied forces, Golding later told Joseph Wershba of the New York Post –

World War Two was the turning point for me. I began to see what people were capable of doing.

Indeed, the author’s anxieties about both nuclear war and the potential savagery of humankind were the basis of the novel Lord of the Flies.

One reason why Lieutenant Golding’s writing is characterized by a “dark and morose view of society and human nature.”

After witnessing the events of World War II, he believed that humans are inherently capable of evil, and hence famously stated –

Man produces evil as a bee produces honey.

While the story of Lord of the Flies has been compared to such previous works as Robinson Crusoe and High Wind in Jamaica, Golding’s novel Lord of the Flies is actually the author’s ‘‘answer’’ to nineteenth-century writer R. M. Ballantyne’s children’s classic The Coral Island: A Tale of the Pacific Ocean.

[Sources: Gale’s Encyclopedia of World Literature / Britannica]

Ideation Repository @ MCC | Think Tank❤️

 

Think Tank - 17th September 2025 - Highlights

Regions and Translations in Indian Writing❤️

Queen Mary’s College (Autonomous)

PG & Research, Department of English

Invites you to The Fortnightly Online Symposia of In Tandem, Research Club

THEME FOR THE ACADEMIC YEAR 2025 - 2026 : REGIONS AND TRANSLATIONS IN INDIAN WRITING

SESSION 1 -TITLE:  ADIVASIS

Keynote speaker

Dr. Shreya Bhattacharji,

Professor in central university of Jharkhand.

Topic: Celebrating Green Ethics: Sarhul and the Tribal cosmos of Jharkhand.

SESSION 2 - TITLE: ISLAND REGIONS

Keynote speaker

Prof. K. A. Geetha

Professor in Birla Institute of Technology and Science,

Goa Campus.

Topic: Analysis of Srilankan Tamil Dalit Literature.

Dr. Bibhuti Bhusan Biswas,

Assistant Professor in the Department of International Relations,

Central university of Jharkhand, Ranchi.

Topic: Linguistic Diversity and Cultural practices: A study of Indigenous and Migrant Communities in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

Paper Presenter

Miss. Sai Shri. R,

PG student in English and Foreign Languages University,

Hyderabad.

Topic: The Last Wave - An Island Novel, by Pankaj Sekhsaria from the lenses of different perspectives.

Friday, 19th September 2025 at 6 pm

Platform: Google meet : https://meet.google.com/rkv-iuvr-wch 

Please come prepared with your reading on the subject and contribute to the discussion. 

HOD & Faculty, Department of English

Meet the ‘‘Great Cham (sovereign or monarch) of Literature" ❤️ #onhisbirthdaytoday

Samuel Johnson

The ‘‘Great Cham (Sovereign or Monarch) of Literature”

#onhisbirthdaytoday

18th September 2025

A Man! A Plan! A Lexicon!

An exceptional and multifaceted writer!

A poet, lexicographer, translator, journalist, essayist, travel writer, biographer, editor, and critic!

One of the pioneering lexicographers!

Meet Samuel Johnson on his birthday today, ladies and gentlemen.

Gale’s Encyclopedia describes him as –

Perhaps the best-known and most often-quoted English writer after William Shakespeare, Samuel Johnson ranks as England’s major literary figure of the second half of the eighteenth century.

He is remembered as a witty conversationalist who dominated the literary scene of London and the man immortalized by James Boswell in The Life of Samuel Johnson (1791).

He was known in his day as the ‘‘Great Cham (sovereign or monarch) of Literature,” and the the entry adds to say –

Johnson - poet, dramatist, journalist, satirist, biographer, essayist, lexicographer, editor, translator, critic, parliamentary reporter, political writer, story writer, sermon writer, travel writer, social anthropologist, prose stylist, conversationalist, Christian - dominates the eighteenth century English literary scene as his contemporary, the equally versatile and prolific Voltaire, dominates that of France.

When Johnson’s name began to be known, not long after the deaths of Jonathan Swift and Alexander Pope, no challenger arose during the next forty years for the title of preeminent English man of letters. His work encompassed many ideas and themes, including the choice of life.

Well, his landmark achievement is his monumental work, A Dictionary of the English Language (1755). It was the first English dictionary to clearly aspire to literary distinction and to use quotations from other authors to illustrate word usage.

He is also known for his lasting contributions to literary criticism, particularly with his Lives of the Poets series. He believed that the best poetry used contemporary language and disliked archaic or decorative language.

On an aside, on his fascination for books, again from Gale’s Encyclopedia -

Johnson was the son of Michael Johnson, a bookseller, and his wife, Sarah Ford. The family lived above the bookstore, and Johnson literally grew up among books. He loved to read from an early age and often neglected to help with the shop so he could read.

Thus, Johnson grew up with an access to books greater than nearly anyone else at his time in Great Britain, as there were no public libraries in the modern, open, free sense of the word, and book collecting was the milieu of the wealthy.

A Man! A Plan! A Lexicon - Samuel Johnson! ❤️

Cordially Inviting You... ❤️

 

Anna Adarsh College for Women (Autonomous)

PG & Research Department of English

Organizes

A Seminar on

Textual Praxis: Gender, Justice and Resistance in Literature

9.30 am, Monday, 22 September 2025

Venue: Conference Hall

Happy Hindi Diwas | Ani Ilakkanam | Rashtrakavi - National Poet ❤️

DD Educational Telecasts 😊 [Our 90s Version of YouTube and TedTalks]

14th September 1995

[This day, 30 years ago, from my personal diary entry]

Happy Hindi Diwas ❤️

#memoriesfromdiaries

This day, also happens to be Hindi Diwas, the day when the Constituent Assembly of India officially adopted Hindi, written in the Devanagari script, as the official language of the Union in the year 1949.

Interestingly, Ramdhari Singh “Dinkar”, a revered Hindi poet was born today.

He is also called the “Rashtrakavi” or “National Poet” of India for his powerful nationalist poems.

His powerful and inspiring poetry played a significant role during the Indian independence struggle. It’s such a sheer coincidence that, his birthday today, also has an interesting connection to Hindi Diwas (Hindi Day) in India.

Added, on this particular day, in the year 1995, the jumbo cabinet of Mr. Narasimha Rao was further expanded to 67, with the addition of 13 more ministers.

We had Kalvi Oliparappu – Educational telecast on Doordarshan – where I watched the lecture on the topic of Ani Ilakkanam – [Rhetoric and Figures of Speech] our own version and only version of YouTube and TedTalks back then! 😉

So what pray, is Ani Ilakkanam?

Ani (அணி) means “beauty” or “decoration.” Hence, Ani Ilakkanam is the part of Tamil grammar that deals with the decorative and beautiful aspects of language, specifically the rules and principles governing the use of figures of speech to enhance the meaning and aesthetic appeal of a text, particularly in poetry.

"It takes place probably 600 years ago, but the characters in the novel are the ones you see on a daily basis – they are highly relatable" ❤️❤️❤️

“I Found Out that Literature was My Home”

An exciting, freewheeling discussion with Mr. Insoll, II BA English

On Books & Reading

12th September 2025

This week (Tuesday, 9th September) in my II BA English Literature class, I had given the students a challenge - 

How many of you in class can list out 20 books that you’ve read in the past one year? (Apart from the prescribed books that are part of your syllabus) 😊

The question found quite a few takers from the audience, and I was quite happy about it as well.

However, there was one student who personally met with me after class, with an entire list of books that he had read in the last one year, written down in his note book, with the month and year of reading them.

The list had more than 20 books with the month and year neatly mentioned against each book. I was so happy to read through the entire list.

Then I asked him if we could meet up in my office for a freewheeling discussion on his tryst with reading, this Friday, 12th September at 10.20 am. (today). He gladly agreed. And today I was so delighted to see him turn up at our Office on time.  

We then started spontaneously on our freewheeling discussion.

Meet Mr. Insoll, from II BA English, ladies and gentlemen.

Well, Insoll, I’m so happy to see a passionate reader in you. Who, pray, inspired you to become such a passionate reader?

My dad is a very avid reader. In his spare time, he used to have this habit of reading books a lot. I guess I take after him on that. I’ve been reading since age five.

I was really into literature from a very young age. In my higher secondary days, when I was given the task of choosing my career, I contemplated on a host of options, including JEE, but then found out that literature was my home.

I feel very close to this course at a spiritual level. At the same time, by my ninth grade, I had started watching world cinema, and I found that, literature kind of compliments films as well.

Initially I was just consuming these scripts, but from my eleventh grade I started to critically evaluate films, like ‘Why is this scene here?’ etc.

Thus, I was able to develop my own way of analysing films, and that really helped me in writing my scripts as well.

So you are into script writing as well?

Yes. I’ve been writing scripts on a daily basis. I keep working on the script again and again.

Interesting. How long have you been writing these scripts?

Almost for a year now, sir. Since in my school days I couldn’t do much because of my studies. College life kind of complimented my time well.

The script writing you do – is it for short films or movies?

Well, I wish to do that later maybe. And I wish to show them to producers. But now I have written a script for a short film. We were almost about to begin the shoot this March, but then it was held up. But right now I am trying to better this short film script.

I am taking a complicated way of writing a film script. It has got multiple layers to it. It’s really an exciting experience.

The writing process for me begins with a 40-page summary, then I try writing the scenes. I then bridge the scenes, experimenting with the linearity, transposing scenes at places. That way, the idea per se is complete. I like reading Tamil literature a lot.

What made you interested in Tamil literature?

Dad was very particular that I do my education in Tamil medium up until my eighth grade, to have an immersive experience in the language. Then in my ninth grade when I felt I was confident with my Tamil language skills, I turned to English medium from my ninth grade.

However, in my fifth grade, I took a basic course in English skills with British Council.

So it was a well-meaning strategy on the part of your dad to give you a cultural grounding in Tamil.

Yes, not only that! There’s this strangeness you find in English. Obviously we can master it. But it feels very accessible if it is in Tamil.

So how many writers have you read in Tamil literature?

I have read Puthumaipithan, Ashokamitran, B. Jeyamohan, Sundara Ramaswamy, Ku. Alagirisami,  Ki. Rajanarayanan, Vanna Nilavan, G. Nagarajan…

If you’ve read Ki Ra then you must have read Es Ra also…

I haven’t started on Es Ra. I’ve read Charu Nivedita…

So who’s your favourite among them?

Obviously B. Jeyamohan!

Great! So happy to note that, his daughter did her UG in English here in MCC. She was one of our best students. What makes you choose Jeyamohan?

Well, writers generally have specific boundaries to themselves. They only operate on a specific region or on a specific subject. But Jeyamohan is like – if you tell me a particular story line, he would have already written on it. He doesn’t set a limit. 

He has the range. He has also written such voluminous works. Sundara Ramasamy is also a great writer. But he has written only three novels in his lifetime, whereas Jeyamohan has written a 26-volume, modern Tamil retelling of the Mahabharata titled Venmurasu (The White Drum) which is a great achievement, and to top that, he has also written the voluminous and critically acclaimed Vishnupuram which explores Indian philosophy, mythology, and history through a fantasy narrative.

Have you read his Kaadu?

Yes I’ve read Kaadu, and I am reading it again now. I read it first time when I was in my first year. I recently went to Idukki. It was a beautiful forest, and so I tried reading it there. And the experience was quite different there.

As regards Jeyamohan, his range is immense. Added, I feel that, he is very close to heart. His words directly touch the heart. I don’t have to intellectualise him in order to understand him.

Any examples that you can cite from any of his novels?

Well, there is Vishnupuram where you find almost three books packed in a single word. Vishnupuram is a very imaginary world. When writers create imaginary worlds, there are very few writers who make you not feel that alienation or strangeness – who have the capability to present the world to you as you have seen that before in your life – in some point of time. Jeyamohan creates this world.

It takes place probably 600 years ago, but the characters in the novel are the ones you see on a daily basis – they are highly relatable. All their suffering, and their ideals, have not changed even now, even after 600 years. This understanding of history – of how people have changed the way they live, but their ideals haven’t changed. That’s why it is close to my heart, because I can feel it rather than just observe it as mere information. In short, I can feel his works.

How often do you read?

I read on a daily basis. At times, I start at 7 pm and it goes on till sometimes late into the night. However, as I said earlier, the book decides the pacing. 

When I don’t read for a week or something, it is very hard for me to get back into reading mode again. The focus and the concentration is not there. I again have to struggle to build that practice.

What book have you been reading lately?

I just finished re-reading Kaadu. Now I’ve started reading this postmodern novel titled, V. by Thomas Pynchon, an American novelist. He is yet another writer I love reading.

Do you buy hard copies of the books or do you read them on your digital screens?

I buy books! I don’t like reading them on my digital device. I’m more of the old school person, who buys a book and reads it.

That’s interesting. Where do you buy these books from?

Mostly from Amazon. Jeyamohan has his own website, from which I can order copies. I also go to these annual book exhibitions and so I dedicate a large amount of my budget for books. I buy a lot of books in such book exhibitions to read throughout the year.

Apart from Pynchon, Kerouac is my favourite. Allen Ginsberg is also my favourite. I also like Hemingway.

What makes you like Hemingway?

I like his simplicity. I feel like you can just pick a Hemingway book any day without having to emotionally prepare yourself for it. You just pick it up and start reading. The diction is quite easy.

So do you have a regular routine for reading? And do you get encouragement from home?

Yes, I have a regular routine for my reading. And yes, my parents have been encouraging me in reading ever since the age of five. I stopped watching TV at a very young age, except for TV Shows.

How many books do you read a month?

Probably two or three books per month. I save up for buying the books. I also do part-time work. I write scripts for people. I also edit books. I get paid for that as well. Crime and Punishment is one book that took me a lot of time to read. In fact, I didn’t want the book to end...

What made you love Crime and Punishment?

Well, Tamil novels mostly foreground the Tamil Nadu landscape. I love the Petersburg landscape. I also felt at home there. Very strange it might seem though, but I didn’t want to escape that landscape. I kind of want to live inside that book for long.

So happy talking to you, Insoll. And your name is so beautiful. It strikes a chord. It means ‘beautiful word’, right?

It means ‘sweet word’.

Your parents’ choice?

No. It was my grandfather’s choice.

So you’re into reading, writing, and you also find time to do balance your priorities with a part-time job, and at the same time you are able to attend your classes also… Best wishes for you, Insoll. May all your dreams come true.

Thank you sir.

Our rewarding time of discussion was followed by a photograph, taken by Ms. Anarsha, Intern with Office of International Programmes.

We are so proud of you dear Insoll. Keep shining. Blessings.

Cordially Inviting You... ❤️ “Climate Epistemology and the Region: Trajectories in Bioregional Literary Studies”

Reading Re-Reading and Reconstructing (RRR) Lecture Series

N. S. S. College, Pandalam

7.30 pm | 12 September 2025

The PG Department of English, N. S. S. College, Pandalam, Kerala, cordially invites you to the online lecture “Climate Epistemology and the Region: Trajectories in Bioregional Literary Studies” to be conducted as part of the Reading Re-Reading and Reconstructing (RRR) Lecture Series at 7.30 p.m. on Friday, 12 September 2025.

About the Speaker

Dr. Samuel Rufus is Associate Professor of English at Madras Christian College, Chennai. He specializes in areas including literary theory, postcolonial studies, English language teaching, and bioregional literary criticism. Dr. Rufus has published widely in reputed journals, delivered lectures across India, and is recognized for his scholarship on the intersections of ecology, region, and literature.

Time: 7.30 p.m.

Date: 12 Sept 2025

Google Meet Link: https://meet.google.com/rvi-ceiv-rsp

"The modern Western world, especially the United States, was founded on a cataclysmic system driven by slavery, white supremacy, and capitalism" 💜

The “Glorious Revolution” of 1688: Not So Glorious for Africans and the Indigenous

A Critical Analysis 

Introduction: This essay titled, “The “Glorious Revolution” of 1688: Not So Glorious for Africans and the Indigenous”, is taken from the book titled, Apocalypse of Settler Colonialism by eminent historian and scholar Gerald Horne. 

Horne argues that the rise of the modern Western world was not a story of progress and liberty but a global catastrophe built on the “three horsemen of the apocalypse” - slavery, white supremacy, and capitalism. The book focuses on the 17th century, a pivotal period during which England emerged as a dominant global power.

The Intertwined Origins of Western Dominance: Horne’s central thesis is that these three forces were not separate but were fundamentally connected and co-dependent from the very beginning. 

He shows how the expansion of capitalism through global trade and colonialism required a massive labor (sic) force, which was obtained through the brutal enslavement of Africans and the genocidal displacement and extermination of Indigenous peoples.

The Creation of “Whiteness”: A crucial part of Horne’s argument is that the concept of “whiteness” was not a pre-existing identity but was a social and political construct created during this period. Laws were passed to prevent interracial relationships and limit the rights of free Black people, solidifying a racial caste system. 

This shift from a society based on religious or national identity to one based on ‘race’ helped secure land for settlers and provide a labour force for the colonies. This cross-class alliance was a strategic tool to prevent them from siding with enslaved Africans and Indigenous peoples in uprisings, thereby securing the colonial project and its immense profits.

A “Counter-Revolution” that Secured Property Rights of the Merchant Class: Horne reframes pivotal events, like the English Civil War and the Glorious Revolution, not as steps toward modern democracy, but as a “counter-revolution” that secured the property rights of a rising merchant class. 

These merchants then used their newfound power to intensify the slave trade and the dispossession of land from Native Americans. The book challenges the traditional, celebratory narrative of Western history, arguing that it was a horrific “apocalypse” for the peoples whose lands were stolen and whose lives were commodified.

The Glorious Revolution and the Slave Trade: The Glorious Revolution of 1688, which deposed King James II and brought William III and Mary II to the throne, weakened the monarchy’s control over the Royal African Company. 

This was a campaign by the English merchant class to gain complete control of the transatlantic slave trade from the monarchy, which was only made possible by the brutal exploitation of enslaved Africans and the violent dispossession of Indigenous peoples. 

This deregulation led to a massive acceleration of the African slave trade, enriching private merchants and planters while simultaneously devastating Africa through impoverishment.

Expansion of Slavery and Colonial Instability: As the number of enslaved Africans increased, so did their resistance and the violence used against them. 

The author highlights examples from Barbados and Jamaica, where slave revolts and arson were common. Colonial authorities responded with increasingly harsh laws, brutal executions, and a deliberate strategy to create a racial hierarchy by bribing poor Europeans to monitor enslaved Africans.

Connection to American Secession: The author argues that the economic and social changes initiated by the Glorious Revolution laid the groundwork for the American Revolution in 1776. 

The merchants and planters who gained power in 1688 continued to challenge the authority of London, culminating in their revolt against Parliament, which was now the new center (sic) of power. The essay even describes the 1776 revolution as a ‘Royalist Revolution’ dominated by figures from Virginia, a state that embodied a mix of ‘feudalism, capitalism - and slavery’.

The Glorious Revolution – Its Role in Expanding the Institution of Slavery: The essay presents a provocative and critical reinterpretation of the Glorious Revolution, shifting the focus from its traditional narrative of democratic progress to its role in expanding and entrenching the institution of slavery. 

Gerald Horne asserts that the “modern” Western world, especially the United States, was founded on a cataclysmic system driven by slavery, white supremacy, and capitalism.

Conclusion: The book’s conclusion serves as a powerful call to action, suggesting that understanding these historical roots is essential for confronting the lingering issues of white supremacy and racial inequality today. 

Horne emphasizes that for true justice to be achieved, the people who were unmade by this system must be “compensated and made whole (somehow).”

Myths As "Timeless Structures" and “Machines for the Suppression of Time” | Women as "Messages" | Claude Lévi-Strauss ❤️

LINGUISTICS AND ANTHROPOLOGY

From Structuralism and Semiotics by Terence Hawkes

The Traditional World View

Ferdinand de Saussure, was a Swiss linguist whose work forms the ground base on which most contemporary structuralist thinking now rests. 

Saussure inherited the traditional view that the world consists of independently existing objects, capable of precise objective observation and classification. 

The Cours presents the argument that language should be studied, not only in terms of its individual parts, but also in terms of the relationship between those parts. In short, he proposed that a language should be studied as a unified ‘field’, a self-sufficient system, as we actually experience it now!

Langue and Parole: Language and Speech

Saussure begins with a consideration of the whole phenomenon of language in terms of two fundamental dimensions which it exhibits: that of langue and that of parole. The distinction between langue and parole is more or less that which pertains between the abstract language-system which in English we call simply ‘language’, and the individual utterances made by speakers of the language in concrete everyday situations which we call ‘speech’. Saussure’s own analogy is the distinction between the abstract set of rules and conventions called ‘chess’, and the actual concrete games of chess played by people in the real world. Man can be described as the animal who characteristically devises and invests in language.

Sign = Concept & Sound-Image [Signified & Signifier]

The linguistic sign can be characterized in terms of the relationship which pertains between its dual aspects of ‘concept’ and of ‘sound-image’ – or, to use the terms which Saussure’s work has made famous – signified and signifier. The structural relationship between the concept of a tree (i.e. the signified) and the sound-image made by the word ‘tree’ (i.e. the signifier) thus constitutes a linguistic sign, and a language is made up of these: it is ‘a system of signs that express ideas’. The relationship between Concept & Sound-Image [Signified & Signifier] is arbitrary.

Language as a Product of Its Total Environment

Thus, the value of any linguistic ‘item’ is finally and wholly determined by its total environment: ‘it is impossible to fix even the value of the word signifying “sun” without first considering its surroundings: in some languages it is not possible to say “sit in the sun”. Ultimately, it seems that the very concepts a language expresses are also defined and determined by its structure, its total environment.

The Way of Life of a Community Structured by that Culture’s Language

And indeed, when Sapir, and later the influential B. L. Whorf, made their initial extensions of linguistic structuring into other fields of social behaviour, they quickly reached the conclusion that the ‘shape’ of a culture, or total way of life of a community, was in fact determined by – or at any rate clearly ‘structured’ in the same way as – that culture’s language. There is therefore, concluded Sapir in a classic statement, no such thing as an objective, unchanging ‘real world’.

The Real World built up on the Language Habits of the Group: ‘Mercy of Language’

Human beings do not live in the objective world alone, nor alone in the world of social activity as ordinarily understood, but are very much at the mercy of the particular language which has become the medium of expression for their society.

It is quite an illusion to imagine that one adjusts to reality essentially without the use of language and that language is merely an incidental means of solving specific problems of communication or reflection. The fact of the matter is that the ‘real world’ is to a large extent built up on the language habits of the group.

A Member of a Society Grasps Reality Only through the Given Code

As Dorothy Lee, noted American anthropologist expresses it, . . . a member of a given society – who, of course, codifies experienced reality through the use of the specific language and other patterned behaviour characteristic of his (sic) culture – can actually grasp reality only as it is presented to him (sic) in this code. In short, a culture comes to terms with nature by means of ‘encoding’, through language.

Structuralist Analysis of Culture by Claude Lévi-Strauss

Claude Lévi-Strauss's structuralist analysis of culture, influenced by structural linguistics, posits that all human societies share universal, unconscious mental structures. All societies have ‘kinship’ systems: that is, sets of ‘rules’ concerning who may – and more often who may not – marry whom and prescribing the nature of familial relationships at large. (A good example is the ‘Table of Kindred and Affinity’ in the Church of England’s Book of Common Prayer.)

Levi-Strauss Challenges the Prevailing View of Kinship: Women as “Messages”

In his seminal work, The Elementary Structures of Kinship, (1949), Lévi-Strauss challenged the prevailing view that kinship was primarily based on blood ties. He introduced alliance theory, arguing that the fundamental purpose of kinship is the creation of alliances between different groups through the reciprocal exchange of women in marriage. The incest taboo is central to this theory, as it forces families to seek marriage partners outside of their own group, thereby creating social bonds and alliances. Lévi-Strauss saw kinship as a system of communication where "women" are the "messages" exchanged between "men," creating a network of social relationships.

The ‘Totemic Illusion’ Argument by Claude Levi-Strauss

Claude Lévi-Strauss's views on totemism, as articulated in his book Totemism Today, (1962) radically depart from earlier anthropological theories. He argues that totemism is not a primitive religion, a form of ancestor worship, or a crude attempt to understand nature. Instead, he views it as a logical, intellectual and cognitive process that reflects the universal, underlying structures of the human mind. Calling it the ‘totemic illusion’, he says that, practices previously labelled as totemic are just one way that human societies, driven by the structural logic of the mind, create a bridge between the natural and social worlds.

Totemism as a Sophisticated Cognitive Tool

In this way, Lévi-Strauss saw totemism not as a primitive religious belief, but as a sophisticated cognitive tool and a form of symbolic language. A group might identify with a particular animal or plant because the difference between that species and another species in nature is analogous to the difference between their own social group and another social group. This process of using distinctions in nature to organise and understand society is a fundamental way the human mind structures reality.

Anthropology is traditionally distinguished from history as the study of societies which have no written documents.

As Edmund Leach, British social anthropologist and academic points out, “It is a fact of empirical observation that human beings everywhere adopt ritual attitudes towards the animals and plants in their vicinity. Consider, for example, the separate, and often bizarre, rules which govern the behaviour of Englishmen (sic) towards the creatures which they classify as -

(i) wild animals, (ii) foxes, (iii) game, (iv) farm animals, (v) pets, (vi) vermin.

Notice further that if we take the sequence of words;

(ia) strangers, (iia) enemies, (iiia) friends, (iva) neighbours, (va) companions, (via) criminals, the two sets of terms are in some degree homologous!

Myths – “Machines for the Suppression of Time”

In short, it confirms that totemism, or ‘savage’ ways of thinking, far from being the preserve, or the burden, of ‘primitive’ man, in fact lie dormant in all men. The definitive shape of that universal ‘human mind’ which locates itself in ‘savage’ as well as in ‘civilized’ carriers, and is borne indiscriminately by all of us, regardless of time, place or history, emerges clearly in its fictive acts, in its stories, its myths and, it follows, in their ‘civilized’ counterparts: novels, plays and poems. In his structuralist analysis, Claude Lévi-Strauss famously described myths as “machines for the suppression of time”, by creating a timeless, synchronic structure.

Myths as Timeless Structures

For Lévi-Strauss, myths resolve contradictions that are too difficult for a society to confront directly. By organizing these contradictions into a structured narrative, myths "suppress" the irreversible flow of time. They don't simply describe events that happened in the past; they establish a permanent, repeatable, and universal logic that transcends a specific historical moment.

An analogy would be a piece of music. While a musical performance takes place over time (diachrony), the underlying structure of the composition, with its harmonies, motifs, and rhythms, exists as a unified whole (synchrony). As a result, both music and mythology, as aural/oral, ‘nonliterate’ modes of art have the status, in Lévi-Strauss’s later work, of highly efficient ‘machines for the suppression of time’, and as ‘timeless structures’.

Conclusion

Terence Hawkes concludes by foregrounding its implications for literary art. Any view of novels, poems, and to a lesser extent plays, which wishes to respond to them as ‘machines for the suppression of time’ will ultimately have to concern itself with those aspects of a work which, although rooted in time, have another, prior, ‘timeless’ level of existence, he observes.

The Total Lunar Eclipse | @ Chennai ❤️

The Total Lunar Eclipse | @ Chennai

Blessed Darshan of the Blood Moon Today

7th September 2025

A one-of-its-kind celestial occurrence occurred on the night of 7th September 2025 in Chennai.

It was a total lunar eclipse, that was fully visible from Chennai.

The Penumbral Eclipse began sharp at 8:58 PM on 7th September 2025, followed by the Partial Eclipse at 9:57 PM.

We were all busy exchanging night sky photos with sky gazers of our ilk. Some from Nungambakkam complained that, the night sky was quite cloudy, hiding the celestial occurrence from view.

However, we were able to catch a beautiful glimpse of the total lunar eclipse right from the penumbral to the maximal – that occurred at 11.41 pm.

Well, a total lunar eclipse is often referred to as a Blood Moon because the Moon takes on a deep reddish hue during totality. And this happens when sunlight is filtered through Earth’s atmosphere, scattering the blue light and allowing only the longer, red wavelengths to reach the Moon.

On the whole – a lovely celestial darshan in a long time! 😊

Photos © this blogger 😊