NCERT Solutions Class 10 Social Science Chapter 8 Novels Society and History

NCERT Solutions for Class 10 Social Science History for chapter 8 Novels Society and History

Write in brief

Explain the following:

a) Social changes in Britain which led to an increase in women
b) What actions of Robinson Crusoe make us see him as a typical coloniser?
c) After 1740, the readership of novels began to include poorer
d) Novelists in colonial India wrote for a political

Answer:

a) In the eighteenth century, the middle classes became more prosperous. Women got more leisure to read as well as write novels. Novels discussed the world of women - their emotions and identities, their experiences and problems. Many novels were about domestic life- an issue extensively discussed by women. They discussed their family life and highlighted their social world.

b) The early novel in Europe justified colonialism by making the readers feel that they were part of a superior community of the colonialists. For example, Crusoe, the hero of Daniel Defoe's novel Robinson Crusoe (1719), treats the native people not as human beings equal to him, but as inferior creatures. He rescues a 'native' and makes him his slave. He does not ask for his name but arrogantly christens him 'Friday'.

c) After 1740, the readership of novels began to include poorer people because they had easier access to books with the introduction of circulating libraries. Technological improvements in printing brought down the price of printed books, and innovations in marketing led to expanded sales. In France, publishers made super profits by hiring out novels by the hour; many poor people eagerly read them.

d) Novelists in colonial India wrote for a political cause because the novel was a powerful medium for expressing social issues and suggesting remedies for the same. The novel emotionally attached the masses with the glorified historical past in the stories. Since the novel was read by the people of all communities and groups, it made the masses aware of ideas of nation and nationalism. Novelists used it to spread a feeling of belonging to a shared past.

2. Outline the changes in technology and society which led to an increase in readers of the novel in eighteenth-century Europe.

Answer:

(i) Novels were widely read and became popular because of the printing technology.

(ii)From the eighteenth century, big cities like London were connected to small towns and rural areas through print and improved communications.

(iii)Novels produced a number of common interests among their varied readers. They influenced them on the issues such as the love and marriage, and the proper conduct for men and women.

(iv)New groups of lower-middle-class people (shopkeepers and clerks) and the aristocratic and gentlemanly classes in England and France formed the new readership for novels.

(v)The popularity of the novels brought more profits to the authors. This freed them from financial dependence on the patronage of aristocrats, and gave them independence to experiment with different literary styles.

3. Write a note on:

a) The Oriya novel
b) Jane Austen's portrayal of women
c) The picture of the new middle class which the novel Pariksha-Guru portrays.

Answer

a) In 1877-78, Ramashankar Ray, a dramatist, serialised the first Oriya novel, Saudamani. Fakir Mohon Senapati wrote his novel Chaa Mana Atha Guntha (six acres and thirty-two decimals of land) in 1902. It announced a new kind of novel on the question of land and its possession. This novel made rural issues an important part of urban preoccupations.

b) 

(i)The novels of Jane Austen discussed the world of women in genteel rural society in early-nineteenth­ century Britain.

(ii)Her novels portrayed a society which encouraged women to look for 'good' marriages and find wealthy or propertied husbands.

(iii)Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice narrated the behaviour of the main characters, who are preoccupied with marriage and money, as typifying Austen's society.

c) Srinivas Das's novel Pariksha-Guru (The Master Examiner), published in 1882, cautioned young men of well-to-do families against the dangerous influences of bad company and consequent loose morals.

Discuss

1. Discuss some of the social changes in nineteenth-century Britain which Thomas Hardy and Charles Dickens wrote about.

Answer:

Thomas Hardy: The nineteenth-century British novelist, Thomas Hardy wrote about traditional rural communities of England that were fast vanishing. This was actually a time when large farmers fenced off land, bought machines and employed labourers to produce for the market. The old rural culture with its independent farmers was dying out. Hardy's Mayor of Casterbridge (1886) highlights these social changes.

Charles Dickens: In the nineteenth century, Europe was witnessing the emergence of the industrial age. Factories came up, business profits increased and the economy grew. However, the industrial workers faced poverty.

They faced unemployment and housing crisis. The growth of industry was accompanied by an economic philosophy which celebrated the pursuit of profit and undervalued the lives of workers. Charles Dickens wrote about the terrible effects of industrialisation on people's lives in his novel Hard Times (1854).

2. Summarise the concern in both nineteenth­ century Europe and India about women reading novels. What does this suggest about how women were viewed?

Answer:

(i)The concern in both nineteenth-century Europe and India about women reading novels was the fear of the conservative groups that women would be corrupted.

(ii)They were worried that the romantic and critical views in the novels would encourage women to defy the social order and to question their condition at home.

(iii)Some of the orthodox individuals wrote in newspapers and magazines, advising people to stay away from the immoral influence of novels. Women and children were seen as easily corruptible.

3. In what ways was the novel in colonial India useful for both the colonisers as well as the nationaIists?

Answer:

Colonisers and Indian novel:

(i)Colonial administrators found 'vernacular' novels a valuable source of information on Indian culture and social customs.

(ii)They used the cultural knowledge gained from the novels for understanding and governing Indian society with its complex caste system.

(iii)The British read new novels in Indian languages that narrated the life inside Indian households, with descriptions of domestic life.

(iv)The novels reflected on the dressing pattern, forms of religious worship, beliefs and practices of the local people.

(v) Some of these novels were translated into English by British administrators or Christian missionaries.

Nationalists and Indian novel:

(i)The novels carried the narration of an "imagined heroic past" and helped in popularising the sense of belonging to a common nation.

(ii)There were other novels that included issues and characters from various classes, creating a feeling of belonging to a single nation.

(iii)For example, Premchand's novels had all kinds of powerful characters- aristocrats and landlords, middle level peasants and landless labourers, middle-class professionals and the poorer people, drawn from all levels of society.

4. Describe how the issue of caste was included in novels in India. By referring to any two novels, discuss the ways in which they tried to make readers think about the existing social issues.

Answer:

The issue of caste was included in novels in India through the characters that taught the readers to liberate themselves from the social and economic domination of the upper castes. The following two novels exemplify the aim of the social liberation in their characters:

Indulekha:

1. The novel Indulekha by Chandu Menon questions and challenges the marriage practices of upper-caste Hindus, the Nambuthiri Brahmins (landlords) with the Nayars (tenants of the Nambuthiris) in Kerala.
2. According to the story, Suri Nambuthiri, a landlord, wants to marry Indulekha, a Nayar woman. However, she rejects the landlord and chooses Madhavan, an English-educated Nayar man as her husband.
3.  After the marriage, the young couple moves to Madras, where Madhavan joins the civil service. The landlord finally marries a poor woman from his caste.
4. The novel clearly wanted its readers to appreciate the new values of the hero and heroine and criticised the ignorance and immorality of the Nambuthiri caste.

Saraswativijayam:

1. Potheri Kunjambu, a 'lower-caste' writer in Kerala, wrote Saraswativijayam in 1892, questioning the caste oppression.
2. In the story of the novel, a young man from an
3. 'untouchable' caste leaves his village to escape the cruelty of his Brahmin landlord.
4. He converts to Christianity, obtains modern education, and returns as the judge in the local court.
5. Meanwhile, the villagers, thinking that the landlord's men had killed him, file a case.
6. At the conclusion of the trial, the judge reveals his true identity, and the Brahmin landlord repents and reforms his ways.
7. Saraswativijayam stresses the importance of education for the upliftment of the lower castes.

5. Describe the ways in which the novel in India attempted to create a sense of pan-Indian belonging.

Answer:

(i) In the novels, nation was imagined in a past with historical characters, places, events and dates.

(ii)For example, in Bengal, historical novels dealt with Marathas and Rajputs and produced a sense of a pan­ Indian belonging.

(iii)The novels imagined a nation to be full of adventure, heroism, romance and sacrifice. They allowed the colonised to give shape to their desires.

(iv) In Bhudeb Mukhopadhyay's novel Anguriya Binimoy (1857), its hero Shivaji fights a war with the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb.

(v) During the battles, Man Singh advices Shivaji to make peace with Aurangzeb.

(vi) However, on learning that Aurangzeb attempts to confine him as a house prisoner, Shivaji escapes the conspiracy and continues with the battle. According to the novel, Shivaji believes himself to be a nationalist fighting for the freedom of Hindus.

(vii)Another novel, Bankim's Anandamath (1882) inspired actual political movements and freedom fighters. The novel is about a secret Hindu militia that fights Muslims to establish a Hindu kingdom.