International Journal of Humanities and Cultural Studies

300 Pages·2017·12.32 MB·English

J -M 2017
ANUARY ARCH

International Journal of
Humanities and Cultural
Studies
ISSN 2356-5926
Editor-in-Chief: Dr. Hassen ZRIBA
Volume 3
Issue 4

W W W . I J HCS. COM
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF HUMANITIES AND
Volume 3 Issue 4
CULTURAL STUDIES ISSN 2356-5926
March 2017

Editorial Board

Editor-in-Chief Managing Editor
Dr. Hassen Zriba Najoua Chalbi

*Emeritus Professor Ralph Grillo *Dr. Syed Zamanat Abbas
University of Sussex, UK Salman Bin Abdulaziz University, Saudi
Arabia
*Professor Muhammad Asif *Dr. Santosh Kumar Behera
Riphah International University, Pakistan Sidho-Kanho-Birsha University, India
*Professor Sadok Bouhlila *Dr. P. Prayer Elmo Raj
Northern Borders University, Saudi Arabia Pachaiyappa's College, India
*Professor Pacha Malyadri *Omid Akhavan
Osmania University, Andhra Pradesh, India Imam Ali University, Iran
*Haron Bouras *Loredana Terec-Vlad
Mohamed Cherif Messadia University, Souk- Ștefan cel Mare University, Romania
Ahras Algeria
*Professor Jason L. Powell *Dr. Shama Adams
University of Chester, UK Curtin University, Australia

*Professor Ali H. Raddaoui *Mansour Amini
University of Wyoming, USA The Gulf College, Oman

*Dr. Mohamed El-Kamel Bakari *Mohd AB Malek Bin MD Shah
University of King Abdulaziz, Saudi Arabia Universiti Teknologi Mara, Malaysia
*Dr. Solange Barros *Mark B. Ulla
Federal University of Mato Grosso, Brazil Father Saturnino Urios University,
Philipinnes
*Dr. Salah Belhassen * Anouar Bennani
University of Gafsa, Tunisia University of Sfax, Tunisia
*Dr. Nodhar Hammami Ben Fradj *Shuv Raj Rana Bhat
University of Kairouan, Tunisia Central Department of English Kirtipur,
Kathmandu, Nepal
*Dr. Arbind Kumar Choudhary *Erika Ashley Couto
Rangachahi College, Majuli ,Assam, India University of Concordia, Canada
*Dr. Amitabh Vikram Dwivedi *Md. Amir Hossain
University of Shri Mata Vaishno Devi, India IBAIS University, Bangladesh

*Dr. Baliram Namdev Gaikwad * Dr. Elvan Mutlu
University of Mumbai, India University of Kent, UK

*Dr. Abdullah Gharbavi *Syed S. Uddin-Ahmed
Payame Noor University, Iran St. John's University, USA
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*Dr. Al Sayed Mohamed Aly Ismail * Mansour Amini
Bin Abdualziz University, Saudi Arabia The Gulf College, Oman

*Dr. Nidhi Kesari * Nick J. Sciullo
University of Delhi, India Georgia State University, USA

*Dr. Raghvendra Kumar * Nizar Zouidi
LNCT Group of College Jabalpur, India University of Mannouba, Tunisia
*Dr. Salima Lejri *Logan Cochrane
University of Tunis, Tunisia University of British Columbia, Canada

*Dr. Chuka Fred Ononye *Shataw Naseri
Alvan Ikoku Federal College of Education, University of Shahid Beheshti in Iran
Nigeria
*Dr. Mohammed Salah Bouomrani *Manoj Kr. Mukherjee
University of Gafsa, Tunisia Visva Bharati University, Santiniketan,
West Bengal, India
*Dr. Mahdi Zarai *Javed Akhter
University of Gafsa, Tunisia University of Balochistan Quetta
Balochistan, Pakistan

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Table of Contents

Editorial……………………………………………………………………………………....…….V

1) The Rise of Indian Americans’ Identity in Zitkala Sa’s “Impressions of an Indian Childhood” and
Jhumpa Lahiri’s “Interpreter of Maladies”
Hala Abdel Razzaq A. Jum’ah, Kifah (Moh’d Khair) Ali Al Omari……..…………………..1-16

2) Feminine Diasporic Consciousness in the Arab-American Poetry after 11 September 2001
Reham Mohammed Abu Zaid…………………………………………………………………..17-36

3) The Impact of Comprehensive Banking Implementation on the Empowerment of Human Resources
in the Branches of Tejarat Bank (Case Study: Tehran Branch Management Employee)
Roxana Behrouz Aghdam………………………………………………………………………37-53

4) Overlapping of Feminisim and Postcolonialism in Raja Rao’s Kanthapura and R.K. Narayan’s
Waiting for the Mahatma
Nedal Al-Mousa…………………………………………………………………………...……..54-63

5) Contentment in Islam: A Marker of Happiness, Richness, Self-Sufficiency, and Tranquility
Nazmi Al-Shalabi……………………………………………………………….……………..64-75

6) Phonetics features of the Modern Standard Arabic word (MSAW)
Salah Belqacim Belhassen……………………………………………..…………………..……76-88
7) The European Union in the British national press: a questionable objectivity
Mohamed Elabed………………………………………………………………………………89-103
8) Un)Representations of the Subaltern in Three Victorian Novels
Hend Hamed Ezzeldin………………………………………………………………………..104-115

9) Investigating the Necessity of ICT Usage in Teaching Business English at Tertiary Level: The
Higher Institute of Human Sciences Medenine as a Case study
Nesrine Hamdani……………………………………………………………………….…….116-137

10) Child Language Acquisition versus Second Language Learning: Any Bearing on Teaching
Khawlah Rauof Khanekah………………………………………………………...…………138-147

11) Enhancing cross-cultural Communication through conceptual metaphor awareness: The case of
1st year Magister literature students at Laghouat University, Algeria (2013-2014)
Sara Mechraoui-Salmi………………………………………………………………………..148-156

12) Criminological Analysis of Unveiling (hijab ) in Iran with an Emphasis on Islamic Views
(Case Study: Najaf Abad, Isfahan, Iran)
Mahdi Momeni, Salman Mokhtari………………………………………………………..157-169

13) Occultism and Modern Humans Uncertainty in Eliot's Four Quartets
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Asma Jasim Muhammad…………………………………………………………………….170-178

14) Heritage of Slavery in August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson
Dlnya A. Muhammed, Mariwan N. Hasan……………………………………….…………179-185

15) A Female Bangladeshi’s Quest for Her New Identity in Monica Ali’s Brick Lane: A Textual
Analysis
Ashti Anawr Muhammed………………………………………………………………...…..186-202

16) Realism in Ibsen’s a Doll’s House: a Critical Study
Ashti Anwar Muhammed, Asma Jasim Muhammad………………………………………203-216

17) Towards an Understanding of Wartime Residues Typifying Syrian Pictorial Genres: A Socio-
Semiotic Perspective
Latifa Neïli………………………………………………………………………...…………..217-238

18) Negative Images of Women in Some Selected Passages in the Old Testament and Its Impact on
Women in the Contemporary Nigerian Society
Adesanya Ibiyinka Olusola…………………………………………………………………..239-251

19) The Ugliness of War in the Perspective of the Speaking Dead in the poems of Wilfred Owen and
Sherko Bekas
Najat Ismael Sayakhan, Kwestan Jamal………………………………………………...….252-258
20) Prison and Freedom: Three Discourses of Prison Subculture in Soviet and Russian Literature
Natalia V. Tishchenko……………………………………………………………….……….259-271

21) Teachers’ Attitude Towards Teaching Mathematics at Upper Primary Levels in Fiji’s Primary Schools: A
Case Study of the Western Primary Schools
Ruveni Tuimavana, Nikleshwar Datt…………………………………………………...…………….272-293

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Editorial

Dear Colleagues and Readers

I am so glad to present Volume 3, Issue 4 of the International Journal of Humanities and
Cultural Studies (IJHCS). The IJHCS has moved to its more advanced and technically rich website
through the use of the popular Open Journal System. This, of course, reflects the depth of the work
being done in our journal.

The journal keeps faith in multidisciplinary perspective. Articles published in this issue, reflect
different theoretical and applied concerns in humanities, cultural studies, management, linguistic
studies among other disciplines. As a matter of fact, this new issue includes works of the research
scholars from different countries which reflected the international nature and scope of the journal.

As usual, I sincerely thank our respected authors for selecting the IJHCS, our reviewers for
reviewing the selected articles for this issue and the Administrative Board for its contribution to
helping the IJHCS achieve this success. Next issue will be published in June 2017 and your valuable
contributions are welcome till 20 May 2017.

With Best Regards,

Dr. Hassen Zriba
Editor-in-Chief
The International Journal of Humanities and Cultural Studies (IJHCS)

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The Rise of Indian Americans’ Identity in Zitkala Sa’s “Impressions of an
Indian Childhood” and Jhumpa Lahiri’s “Interpreter of Maladies”

Hala Abdel Razzaq A. Jum’ah
The Hashemite University/ Department of English Language and Literature, Zarqa, Jordan
[email protected]

Dr. Kifah (Moh’d Khair) Ali Al Omari
The Hashemite University/ Department of English Language and Literature, Zarqa, Jordan
[email protected]

Abstract

The present paper scrutinizes the seismic shifts of the Indians' identity during the
twentieth century. It tends to outline the Indians' collapsing image at the end of the century,
taking Zitkala Sa's "Impressions of an Indian Childhood" and Jhumpa Lahiri's "Interpreter of
Maladies" as sample stories to represent such shifts. Both Sa and Lahiri embody different
aspects of the Indians’ identity in which the sense of originality, culture and spirituality changes.
The paper dwells on the changes of these aspects from the beginning to the end of the twentieth
century due to several factors such as World War I, World War II, and many other social and
political developments during this century. The main argument, thus, is that the writings of the
Natives transfer to depict their transitional period. To prove this argument, the researchers
analyze the Natives’ distinctive identity, inspecting four distinguished components, originality,
culture, spirituality, and struggle in Zitkala Sa’s story. The paper moves to contradict the
Natives distinguished identity at the end of the twentieth century, taking Lahiri’s story as a
sample for application. It ends by tracing the transitional break of the earlier identity’s
components, emphasizing the aspects of imitation, destruction, and shallowness. These aspects
make up the main thread of the Indians’ changing identity at the end of the century. By adopting
this frame, the researchers consider the Indians’ identity to be one of the most important
constitutive norms that changes and adjusts itself to suit many drastic developments that took
place throughout the century.

Keywords: Voice, culture, Zitkala Sa, Jhumpa Lahiri, identity, shallowness.

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I. Introduction
This study tends to trace the seismic shifts of the Indians’ identity during the twentieth
century, taking Zitkala Sa’s “Impressions of an Indian Childhood” (1921) and Jhumpa Lahiri’s
“Interpreter of Maladies” (1999) as a model. Precisely speaking, it is conducted to portray a
comprehensive image of the Indians’ identity transformation during the century. The study
examines the transitional point of the Indians’ identity during World War I and World War II,
trying to find out how such identity transfers from being original to an imitative one, from
having its own distinctive culture to a whipped and ignored one. The movement is from
spirituality to destruction, causing their identity to become an imitative identity, lacking its own
voice and distinctive features. The Indians become senseless and aimless. Their life is
disillusioned by the whites’ fantasies. One can notice a sense of bitterness and hopelessness in
their life.

II. Methodology
The present paper traces the development of the Indians’ identity from 1920s as mirrored in
Zitkala Sa’s story. Then, it moves forward to show how such identity fades during and after WW
I and WW II (1914-1945), causing total destruction to the Indians’ identity from within, as
presented later at the end of the century in Lahiri’s “Interpreter of Maladies”. These two stories
embody the writers’ thoughts and conflicts and reflect a total transformation in American
literature and culture. In fact, they were written at the beginning and at the end of the century,
enabling the researchers to trace the development of the Indians’ identity during the century. The
main argument, thus, reveals that the Indians’ identity collapses at the end of the twentieth
century after it was united by the Indians’ tribal, communal, and spiritual connections at the
beginning of the same century. In order to elaborate more on this argument, the paper discusses
the aspects of imitation, heritage, spirituality, and struggle in both stories.

Iii. Discussion and Analysis
Suffering from the sharp contrast between the inherited culture and the new world, Indian
Americans try to sustain this constant contrast and tension to attain their identity during the
twentieth century. They tend to expand and to establish their own nation despite the stereotypical
classifications. At the beginning of the twentieth century, people use stereotype as a form of
prejudice to eliminate diversity through generalization. Therefore, Indian Americans tend to defy
such stereotypical notions by having and producing their own identity to fit the twentieth century
newness. The term ‘ethnic identity’ refers to “a person’s socio-psychological identification with
a group which has unique cultural traits, such as a language or religion” (Liebler, 1996, p. 2).
Experiencing “a distinct perspective on the formation of ethnic identity” (Liebler, 1996, p. 1),
the voice of ethnic minorities rises and changes. Zitkala Sa’s story depicts the life of the Indians
in the first half of the twentieth century. It presents the preserved identity of the Indians through
the eyes of an unnamed girl at the age of seven. The story traces such an identity through
different sections as My Mother, The Legends, The Beadworks, and The Coffee-Making. These
sections prove the fundamental existence of the Indians despite the paleface missionaries’
attempt, as the mother’s girl calls them, to destroy such united identity by force. The story ends
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by the mother sending her daughter, now eight years old, to the East to whites’ boarding schools
in order to educate her.
On the other hand, “Interpreter of Maladies” presents a different perspective of the Indians’
identity. In this story, Mr. and Mrs. Das, Indian Americans visiting the country of their heritage,
hire middle-aged tour guide Mr. Kapasi to be their driver for the day as they tour. Mr. Kapasi
notes the parents’ immaturity. Mr. and Mrs. Das look and act to the point of childishness, go by
their first names when talking to their children, Ronny, Bobby, and Tina, and seem selfish and
indifferent to the kids. On their trip, when her husband and children get out of the car to sightsee,
Mrs. Das sits in the car, eating snacks that she offers to no one else, wearing her sunglasses as a
barrier, and painting her nails. Mr. Kapasi talks about his weekday job as an interpreter in a
doctor’s office. While Mr. Kapasi begins to develop a romantic interest in Mrs. Das, she reveals
a secret. She tells Mr. Kapasi the story of an affair she once had, and that her son Bobby had
been born out of her adultery. She explains that she chose to tell Mr. Kapasi because of his
profession. The story ends by everyone trying to rescue Mrs. Das from monkeys which begin to
trail her on her way home.
Published in 1921, Sa’s story challenges, as Gottesman points out, the norm of a poor
mixed-blood born on an Indian reservation. Stereotypically, Zitkala Sa is supposed to be
“invisible, silent, segregated, and submissive; instead she achieves notoriety through her writing,
oratory, and musical skills and was highly vocal and aggressive in pursuit of her own
development and the legal, economic, and cultural rights of Native Americans” (Gottesman,
1994, p. 877). Her story encloses within it what characterizes American society before World
War 1. “Before World War I what characterized American society were individuality, values,
property, order and culture, but the first World War denied these attitudes” (Pajer, 2009, p. 102).
Zitkala Sa wants to trace the importance of the individual at that time in shaping the society’s
foundation.
Seen as sub humans and imitative people who do not have their own role in documenting
their distinctive voice and personal experiences, the unnamed Indian American girl in Sa’s story
is proud of her “wild freedom and overflowing spirits” (Sa, 1921, p. 45) in cultivating herself
without depending on others, she has “no fear … of intruding [herself] upon others” (Sa, 1921, p.
45). She is narrating her experience while she was a child with her mother. Thus, she challenges
the unexpected by documenting her own voice in an elegant way instead of imitating others. The
girl has “long-standing consensus on the norms and values that constitute American identity”
(Schildkraut, 2007, p. 597). Tackled as an autobiographical text, Sa’s story might exhibit the
voice of minority, their norms and values that formalize the Native Americans’ identity in
general, and Sa’s in particular.
Sa hints at the Americans’ identity in the first half of the twentieth century to indicate how
such identity works as a salad pot instead of a melting soup as expected in the second half of the
twentieth century. She highlights the fact that Natives’ are distinguished from those who are
white and everyone has his/her own individual characteristics. Therefore, their identity,
presented by their voice, affronts and denies the stereotypical notions of imitating and
assimilating with others. Sa explores “the blue lines on [the old woman] chin” (p. 39), “the
beadworks” (40) and “the painted faces and … the white bosoms of elk’s teeth” (p. 43) in
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celebration as distinctive features of Natives’ life style. In fact, Liebler (1996) describes the
whites’ attempts at eliminating the Indians’ distinctive identity by saying:

American Indians have been the targets of federal programs aimed at
assimilating them into White culture, such as the late nineteenth century
policy of sending American Indian children to distant boarding schools
and the more recent program to move American Indians into cities (p. 1)

Fighting to maintain their originality, the Indians in the second half of the twentieth century will
no longer anticipate their originality and individual features as the Dases in Lahiri’s story. The
unnamed girl stands against the whites’ attempts to wipe her identity and everything that makes
her special in following her heritage.
“Free as the wind that blew [the girl’s] hair” (p. 37), the unnamed girl reflects the Natives’
capacity of learning. Despite the fact that she, at the age of eight years, “knew but one language,
and that was [her] mother’s native language,” the girl constructs her own identity independently.
She learns from “self- inflicted punishment” through which her mother’s quietness made her
“feel strongly responsible and dependent upon [her] own judgment” (p. 40). She wants to prove
to others the fact that she has the seeds of cultivating herself even though she is young. She
decides to move to the white community to fulfill her spiritual thirsty for knowing and learning.
She benefits from “the clash of civilizations [since it] was fundamental and investable” (Borden
and Graham, 1978, p. 217). Therefore, she moves with “two paleface missionaries” (p. 45) to
the East in order to educate herself.
Though the unnamed girl moves willingly with the two missionaries, she is proud and
motivated by her inherited culture. Culture is part of the “constitutive norms” that form “the
meaning of a collective identity” (Abdelal, 2005, p. 3) of Native Americans. For her, culture is
sensed as a way of life of her people and their values, beliefs and behaviors. Moving from one
generation to the next, Sa draws on the girl’s perspective of culture. She displays the importance
of culture by viewing the Natives’ hospitality, respect and tradition as constitutive norms that
shape and compose their identity.
“With very few exceptions, the earlier Indians did not [, as the late Indians,] … assimilate
into white culture” (Borden and Graham, 1978, p. 218). Hospitality is one of these exceptions as
explored in Sa’s story when strange people pass beside the wigwam of the mother “to rest, and to
share [the family’s] luncheon with [them], for they were sure of [the family’s] hospitality” (p.
38). Moreover, in the coffee-making incident, the girl “offers [coffee] to [the grandfather] with
the air of bestowing generous hospitality” (pp. 42-43) despite her young age and her mother’s
absence.
Besides the Indians’ hospitality, respect spreads between children, young, and old people as
opposed to those in the second half of the twentieth century. As children, the girl remembers how
she, with other children, used to “exchange [their] necklaces, beaded belts, and sometimes even
[their] moccasins” as “gifts to one another” (p. 41). Moreover, such respect is sensed in the way
children treat elder people and vice versa. The girl stands “long moments without saying a word”
shyly at the entrance “to invite the neighboring old men and women to eat supper with [the
family]” (p. 38) upon the mother’s request. The girl, in her halt at the entrance, does not intend to
withhold the invitation, but to assure that “[she] should not hinder other plans” (p. 39) after
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