The SPL Journal of Literary Hermeneutics: A Biannual International Journal of Independent Critical Thinking

Echoes of the Disempowered: Representations of the Subaltern in M. T. Vasudevan Nair’s Bhima: Lone Warrior

Jyothy C. R — 2025-12-15

Aim: This article examines Bhima: Lone Warrior, Gita Krishnankutty’s English translation of M. T. Vasudevan Nair’s Malayalam novel Randamoozham, through Subaltern Studies, deconstruction, postcolonial hermeneutics, myth criticism, and translation theory. It argues that Nair’s retelling of the Mahabharata re-centres marginalised figures—Bhima, Karna, and Ghatotkacha—long silenced within Brahmanical–Kshatriya epic discourse. By engaging caste, lineage, tribal identity, emotional marginality, and constructions of dharma, the novel functions as a counter-epic.

Methodology and Approaches: The study employs a multidisciplinary approach. Subaltern critique draws on Gramsci, Guha, and Spivak; Derridean deconstruction unsettles epic binaries; Barthes informs myth criticism; and Venuti and Bassnett frame translation as a cultural and political practice. Close textual reading with theoretical analysis reveals how narrative voice reconfigures power structures in myth.

Outcome: Findings show that the novel disrupts epic hegemony through narrative re-centring. Bhima’s emotional marginality, Karna’s caste humiliation, and Ghatotkacha’s expendable tribal identity emerge as sites of ideological resistance. The English translation preserves cultural specificity while enhancing global accessibility.

Conclusion and Suggestions: The novel marks a significant moment in Indian mythic retellings, dismantling epic normativity and restoring dignity to silenced figures. Myth emerges as an ideological battleground open to ethical reinterpretation. Future research may pursue comparative retellings or examine translation’s role in mediating subaltern narratives.

Beyond Human Exceptionalism: A Critical Analysis of Amitav Ghosh’s The Living Mountain: A Fable for Our Times

Dinesh Kumar — 2025-12-15

Aim: This paper aims to critically examine and address the entanglements of cultural imagination, colonial exploitation, and the climate crisis. Drawing on the concept of imperialism and Renaissance humanism, this study critiques the role of the anthropocentric worldview in ecological collapse. It attempts to destabilise the notion of human exceptionalism by foregrounding the active presence of nonhuman agency.

Methodology and Approach: This study employs a qualitative, text-centred approach and adheres to the MLA 9 guidelines. Analysing the selected text, through the critical lenses of Anthropocene and Posthumanism, the study engages with Dipesh Chakrabarty’s notion of entangled histories and humans as geological agents, Donna Haraway’s idea of sympoiesis and multispecies kinship, and Bruno Latour’s concept of Gaia and the new climatic regime.

Outcome: Amitav Ghosh, through this intriguing fable, compels us to reimagine literature’s role in highlighting the gravity of the planetary crisis and calls for ecological consciousness. This paper, with a particular focus on challenging the paradigm of human exceptionalism, contributes to posthumanist ecocriticism by foregrounding the intertwined histories of colonialism, capitalism and environmental catastrophe.

Conclusion and Suggestions: The study concludes that recognising nonhuman agency and respecting ecological limits is essential for sustainable development. It suggests writing and promoting literary works that foreground nonhuman agency and reinforce the notion of coexistence.

A Feminist Analysis of Ardab Mutiyaran

Gurjit Singh — 2025-12-15

Aim: This paper aims to examine Ardab Mutiyaran (2019) through feminist film theory to explore how Punjabi popular cinema negotiates women’s agency and the possibility of a female gaze within the constraints of the masala genre.

Methodology and Approaches: The study adopts a qualitative, text-based analytical approach grounded in feminist film theory. Drawing on Laura Mulvey’s concept of the male gaze and postfeminist critiques by Angela McRobbie and Mary Ann Doane, the paper conducts a close reading of the film’s narrative structure, visual style, characterisation, and use of humour.

Outcome: The analysis demonstrates that while the film foregrounds assertive female protagonists and gestures toward women-centred storytelling, these moments of empowerment remain structurally limited by comedic framing, romantic resolution, and domestic reconciliation.

Conclusion and Suggestions: The paper concludes that Ardab Mutiyaran functions as a transitional text that signals change without fully dismantling patriarchal narrative conventions. Future research may examine similar trends across contemporary Punjabi cinema to assess whether symbolic visibility translates into sustained narrative agency for women.

Visual Semiotics and its Limitations in a Methodological Study of Damien Chazelle’s La La Land (2016)

Himanshu Balhara — 2025-12-15

Aim: The paper examines the prevalence of C. S. Peirce’s semiotics in the analysis of visual-based communication models, with a specific focus on film color systems. In the study of film colors through the semiotics of Peirce, the paper wishes to achieve two overarching objectives. It demonstrates the challenges in the application of Peirce’s triadic sign system of icon, index, and symbol to film color. The paper strives to express the nuanced elusiveness of the systems of film color and its defiance of being categorized through a conventional set of meanings.

Methodology: The argument employs a multifaceted methodology that combines aspects of semiotics, film theory, visual hermeneutics, initiating a closely led interrogation of Damien Chazelle’s La La Land (2016) as the primary text. The theoretical model revolves around the triadic system of Peirce – consisting of the Icon, Index and Symbol for the reading of the film, and observe its limitations as a by-product.

Outcome: The primary outcomes of the paper are derived through the mapping of Peirce’s semiotics, which do not always transpose directly upon film. Furthermore, it depicts the challenges in attesting color schemes such as warm-cool colors and complementary colors as conventional symbols, as their origins lie in index signs.

Conclusion: The argument references various films that meet the given conditions to illustrate the layered semiotic dynamics of film color. The paper highlights the solidity of Pierce’s semiotics for visual analysis. Simultaneously, it interrogates the susceptibility of color to be neatly categorized under this framework and questions the practical applicability of semiotics in tackling visual narratives.

The Interplay of Power, Love, and Freedom in Jibanananda Das’s “Tale of City and Village”

Tapas Sarkar — 2025-12-15

Aim: This paper examines the intricate interplay of power, love, and freedom in Jibanananda Das’s 1930s short story “Tale of City and Village.” Moving beyond a reductive gendered binary of oppressor and oppressed, the study argues that Das presents power as a diffuse and pervasive force shaping all individuals.

Methodology and Approaches: The study adopts a close textual and theoretical approach informed by feminist criticism, socio-historical reading, and Foucauldian concepts of power and biopolitics. Character analysis is used to examine how personal relationships intersect with institutional and ideological forces, revealing the tensions between liberal agency and structural constraint.

Outcome: The findings reveal that while the character’s exercise limited autonomy in intimate spaces, they remain deeply constrained by broader social systems. Shachi demonstrates a degree of agency within marriage yet remains bound to domestic identity. Prakash, though emotionally supportive, becomes a “docile body” within capitalist office hierarchies.

Conclusion and Suggestions: The study concludes that Das offers a nuanced critique of modern subjectivity in which freedom is fragile, partial, and constantly negotiated. True liberation exists only fleetingly between personal desire and social conformity, ultimately compromised by the socio-political panopticon. Future research may further explore Das’s fiction through biopolitical or affective frameworks to deepen understanding of power, memory, and human vulnerability in modern Bengali literature.

Jane Austen's Views on Marriage and Relationship as Depicted in Pride and Prejudice

Imran Ahmad Khan — 2025-12-15

Aim: This study examines Jane Austen’s views on love, marriage, and women’s autonomy in Pride and Prejudice, highlighting how the novel negotiates emotional compatibility, moral integrity, and financial security in marital choice. Focusing on Elizabeth Bennet’s relationships with Mr. Collins, Mr. Wickham, and Mr. Darcy, it argues that Austen rejects both marriages based solely on wealth and unions formed without economic prudence.

Methodology and Approach: The research adopts a qualitative, text-centered approach grounded in close reading of Pride and Prejudice (Austen, 1813/2005) and supported by relevant secondary criticism. Key moments of proposals, refusals, and shifting affections—Elizabeth’s responses to Collins and Darcy, her attraction to Wickham, and her eventual union with Darcy—are examined within their narrative and social contexts.

Outcome: The findings show that Elizabeth embodies Austen’s rational heroine, rejecting financial expediency without affection and romance without stability. Her marriage to Darcy becomes possible only after mutual moral growth, self-correction, and recognition of economic compatibility.

Conclusion and Suggestions: Austen’s Pride and Prejudice presents a pragmatic yet progressive model of marriage, where moral integrity and mutual esteem are central, financial security is necessary, and affection provides enduring cohesion. Elizabeth’s development underscores women’s agency through discernment and self-awareness within social constraints.

Language, Narrative and Cultural Identity in “Decolonising the Mind” and “The Novelist as Teacher”

Ruby Roshini — 2025-12-15

Aims: This paper critically analyses the ideas presented in Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s Decolonising the Mind and Chinua Achebe’s The Novelist as Teacher, which focuses on how both writers explore language and cultural identity to colonial influence. This clearly explains how colonial language policies affected African identity and how literature became a tool for the writers to reclaim cultural pride.

Methodology and Approaches: This study follows close reading of both essays, examining themes such as language, cultural preservation and resistance. It also includes comparative literary perspectives to understand how Achebe and Ngugi connect literature and language with cultural restoration and social responsibility.

Outcomes: This critical analysis deepens the understanding of the role of language and culture in shaping African identity during the postcolonial period. It emphasis on how reclaiming one’s native language contributes to psychological liberation and cultural continuity.

Conclusion and Suggestions: The study concludes that both Ngugi and Achebe view literature and language as a powerful tool for cultural resistance. While Ngugi focuses on linguistic decolonisation, Achebe uses the coloniser’s language to correct historical misrepresentations. Future researchers may extend their research on how modern African writers continue resisting cultural erasure through literature, films, media, and educational reforms.

An Analytical Study of the Bond between Women and Nature in the Select Short Stories of Rabindranath Tagore

Pooja Kohali — 2025-12-15

Aims: This paper examines Rabindranath Tagore’s portrayal of women and Nature in his short stories, highlighting the deep and symbolic bond between the two. It aims to explore how Tagore’s humanism and ecological consciousness anticipate ecofeminist ideas by presenting women as empathetic and ethically aligned with the natural world.

Methodology and Approaches: The study employs close textual and thematic analysis of selected short stories by Rabindranath Tagore. It adopts an ecofeminist critical framework, drawing upon concepts from ecocriticism and feminist theory to analyse the parallel oppression of women and Nature under patriarchal structures.

Outcomes: The analysis demonstrates that Tagore consistently associates women with care, empathy, and environmental sensitivity, suggesting a shared experience of marginalisation and exploitation. His narratives reveal an early ecological awareness that closely resonates with ecofeminist thought, particularly in critiquing patriarchal domination over both women and the natural world.

Conclusion and Suggestions: The study concludes that Tagore’s short stories offer a significant literary articulation of the interconnectedness of women and Nature, predating formal ecofeminist discourse. His work challenges patriarchal values and advocates a harmonious relationship between humanity and the environment. Future research may extend this ecofeminist reading to Tagore’s novels, poetry, or comparative studies with contemporary ecological writers.