T 1290.pdf - Pondicherry University DSpace Portal

from 1949. The change gives both his hero and the fiction in~hlch he 1s embodied a sense of dislocation.Leslle Fiedler remarks that "A New L&& is about theFlftles, almost as much as it 1s about the West; the age ofMcCarthylsm and Cold War" (Fledler 1977,150). The collegeserves asthe back - drop of the novel, Levin struggles toteach as the educational system at Cascadia miserably fails toteach "how to keep clvillzatlon from destroying itself" (NL101). Wlth flne satiric thrust. Malamud cuts into the morass ofFreshman composltlon, the evaluation of teachers ln terms ofpopularity, the ln-flghting for the soon-to-be vacated positionof the Chalrman and the demise of the concept of thehurnanltles. Levln's career shows us in the words of Louls Rubin"not marl as teacher, but teacher as man". (Rubln 1962,512)Jasmine the herolne of Bharathl Mukher~ee's novel JasmlneDoves from East to West to frnd a new llfe, llke Levln. In thenovel deallng wlth the Indla of the Elqhtles, Jasmine thencalled +tiwas born a Hlndu In independent India. She wasbroughizn oral traditions and eplc lrterature In whlch animalscan talk, blrds can debate ethlcal guestlons and monsters canchange shapes. Llke Mukherjee, Jasmlne was taught to belleve inthe existence of alternate realltles and thls bellef makesitself evldent In her flctlon. Jasmlne is exposed to the West,through absorption, malnly of lts language and mores. She finds