For my instructor Mr. Corio, who helped me going though the whole semester,
For my peers Shirley Xue and Rachel Zheng, who gave me precious advice most frankly.
To the one now reading:
Welcome to my writing portfolio and experience my bittersweet studying process of the Academic Writing course at Fudan University in the spring semester of 2007.
During the semester, I read four story and chose one to analyse under my instructor’s help. I accomplished reading logs for all the stories, three timed writings and three essay drafts. The five essays below all concern about The Grass-Eaters, which display my improvements of writing completely and effectively.
I learnt a great many writing skills, including the strategies of composing a strong thesis statement, incorporating effective quotations, and polishing final draft. My first essay draft lacks many basic elements an essay requires: Quotation marks for direct quotations, citing and documenting sources and so on. I revised all these mistakes and make my last draft a formal interpretive essay.
Besides the writing skills as most students gained from this course, I also learnt to articulate my point of view. That is, to compose the right thesis statement of my true feeling, to select the suitable evidence to back up my thoughts. I chose the five essays about the same story to reveal this progress.
The reading log demonstrates my fresh feeling about The Grass-Eaters after the first read. At that time, I was simply impressed by the humorous tone of the story and the impact it put on me. I indicated the effect of the humor but didn’t go into details.
When my instructor asked us to choose one story for essay, I decided on The Grass-Eaters without hesitation. Then there came the suffering process of forming a thesis statement. I wanted to write about the impressive humor in the story, but it was really tough for me to construct a suitable thesis statement, which express my feeling most appropriately. From the very first statement of “Krishnan Varma tells the story in a humorous way, but it makes the readers feel sad” to the final one of “Through the humorous tone, Krishnan tells the story in a stronger way”, I went through a hard time. However, I was still not clear about what I really want to write about. My instructor gave me the advise that I should write the essay at first and find the right thesis through the process.
I tried to explain my thesis statement in the first essay draft but found it difficult. The theses is too broad that I found too many details in the story to support it but didn’t know where to start. In the draft one below, I had listed three points in order to put my details into categories but did't develop them.
In draft two, I focused on the contrast between Babu’s reaction to his life and how the readers predict Babu to react. I felt this contrast most important and effective in telling the hardship humorously. Then my instructor told me that the “stronger way” in my former thesis statement became vague.
I changed my thesis statement several times when working on my third draft. I first wrote down “Krishnan successfully conveys a more profoundly doleful feeling than the agony of suffering from life.” I used two scenes in the story to support it. During the peer reviewing, my fellows told me that I had put too much emphasis on the content rather than the words of the story. They thought that humorous tone deals more about the usages of words and phrases. However, my instructor later asked me the reason why Krishnan used black humor to tell the story. I realized that I still need the story content because the black humor is presented in the contrast of the content. The problem is why I think the contrast so important. I referred to The International Story and noticed “A reader's reaction”(135). That's what I mean by “make the readers feel sad” in my very first thesis statement. I need to concentrate the readers' reaction to the black humor! The readers' feeling is what Krishnan wanted to achieve and the reason for using black humor.
The draft three on the blog is my latest product. I emphasis that Krishnan use black humor to “help the readers experience a more profoundly doleful feeling than the agony of suffering from life.” The humor is used to force the readers seeking explanations for the absurd contrast. Thus they can experience the hardship exactly the same as Babu.
The final timed writing provided me with another way to display my understanding of The Grass-Eaters. The color and music I tend to used in the trailer all reveal my feeling of this story.
I had done my best to express myself clearly through the whole semester although I still detect vagueness in both my essay draft three and my cover latter. I will continue to reflect on The Grass-Eaters and my writing to make a further progress.
Now please read my essays and evident my progress so far and please leave any comments you want to help me express myself in a better way. Thank you！
Your sincerely,
The black humor in The Grass-Eaters
During the 1980s, the relationship between Hindus and Muslims experienced great tension, accompanied by occasional wars and conflicts, which resulted in the tremendous hardship for both sides. Many writers had tried to represent the original scene of the Indians, with Krishnan Varma being one of them. Being an Indian, Krishnan often shares his observations of the life of the poorest people in his country(56). In 1985 Krishnan wrote The Grass-Eaters, a story about an Indian refugee Ajit Babu and his wife Swapna who tried to find different dwelling places. During this process, they met various difficulties, suffered from the hard environment, but finally settled down on the roof of a building.
Despite the painful content, the readers would mostly find the story amusing, since Krishnan uses black humor to tell the story. Readers may wonder why Krishnan apply a humorous tone to a depressing or even desperate story. The answer is that by this means, Krishnan successfully help the readers experienced a more profoundly doleful feeling than the agony of suffering from life.
The living condition of Babu and his wife remains poor after their arrival in Calcutta. They used to inhabit the railway station platform, a little-used overbridge and a water tank, and have moved to places like a wagon, a cement concrete pipe and finally the roof of a building. Any of these places would be inadequate for people nowadays to live in. Hence, readers may imagine Babu as a man constantly frowning, complaining about the “houses”, and swearing “the damn unfair life”.
However, the case turns out to be the opposite. In the story, Babu feels anything but sad or agony. This absurd contrast between Babu’s satisfactory emotion to the presented situation and the readers’ predicted one puts the whole story a rather funny atmosphere.
When Babu and his wife discovered the wagon, they found great satisfaction opening and shutting its two doors for an entire hour. For the readers, a room with four walls and a door keeping others outside are simply, not worth mentioning, but Babu claimed: “It was heaven. I felt I was God”(57). As a result, this scene looks like an extreme joke.
Although funny, the ridiculous scene forced the readers to search for an appropriate reason, They soon discover that the wagon was already a great improvement compared to their previous living place, a footpath crowded with too many refugees. Compared to the footpath, the wagon is too good for Babu and Swapna to imagine! It has four walls and a door to shut outside all the strangers like those on the footpath, keeping Babu and his wife private and free inside but requiring no charge. Thus, the declaration of “It was heaven. I felt I was God”(57) is never an exaggeration but Babu’s most sincere thought.
The answer is so shocking that the readers stop laughing, immersing in a doleful emotion. Babu and his wife doesn’t laugh because their life is good, but because it is torturable indeed! Moreover, the contrast between the former laughter and the latter sadness put an even deeper sorrow on the readers.
Later on, Babu and his wife moved to the roof of the building belonging to Babu’s employer. They kept finding its advantages: The roof was flat, better than the gabled cement concrete (their former residence). Compared to the ordinary apartments below, the roof can provide more light and ventilation yet requirs less rent, hence the apartment room is completely defeated.
This time, readers may find the wining of the roof ridiculous. Babu actually stacked some “old empty coal tar drums”(58) in two rows and “put a tarpaulin over them”(58) to form a place to live. Nevertheless, he ignored all of these and compliment the roof intensively.
Here, Krishnan features Babu as an optimistic character. Readers doubt where does Babu’s encouraging spirit originated from. How can an open-air roof win over an apartment? Referring to the overall story, readers will finally realize that it is because Babu had suffered so much from the most terrible things in life that nothing could make him a little sadder. On the other hand, even the smallest improvement could add color to his miserable life and please him.
This appaling finding again airs a bitter mood on the readers. The misfortune of Babu and his wife change their unreasonable happiness into reasonable one. How severely Babu and his wife suffers!
When life turned out to be nothing but desperation, when there is nothing worse to happen or to lose, everything will seem content to Babu while his attitude will appear funny to the readers. Krishnan uses the black humor to suggests Babu’s absurd circumstance, where he could only struggle for nothing but had to adapt to everything and even discovered minute satisfactions that can support he and his wife to live through the miseries. Through the skillful using of black humor Krishnan creates the adverse impacts of amusing the readers at the first read, pushing them to searching for a reason in the story, and grieving them to extreme in the end. Consequently, the readers experienced a far bitter taste than just anguish over the torture of life.
Work Cited
Krishnan Varma. The Grass-Eaters. 1985. Rpt in The International Story: An anthology with Guidelines for Reading and Writing about Fiction. Ruth Spack. New York. St. Martin’s, 1994.6-8
Title
During the 1980s, the relationship between Hindus and Muslims experienced great tension, accompanied by occasional wars and conflicts, which resulted in the tremendous hardship for both sides. Many writers have tried to represent the original scene of the Indians, with Krishnan Varma being one of them. Being an Indian, Varma often shares his observations of the life of the poorest people in his country(56). In 1985 Varma wrote The Grass-Eaters, a story about an Indian refugee Ajit Babu and his wife Swapna who tried to find different dwelling places. During this process, they met various difficulties, suffered from the hard environment, but finally settled down on the roof of a building.
Despite the painful content, the readers would mostly find the story laughable, since Varma puts the story in a most humorous fashion. Readers may wonder why Varma uses a humorous tone to tell a depressing or even desperate story. The answer is that by this means, Varma actually tells the story in a stronger way.
In order to create a funny atmosphere, Varma makes a contrast between the readers’ predicted situation and the actual one of Babu and his wife, which makes the story largely amusing.
The living condition of Babu and his wife remained poor after their arrival in Calcutta. They used to inhabit the railway station platform, a little-used overbridge and a water tank, and have moved to places like a wagon, a cement concrete pipe and finally the roof of a building. Any of these places would be inadequate for people nowadays to live in. Hence, readers may imagine Babu as a man constantly frowning, complaining about the “houses”, and swearing “the damn unfair life”.
However, the case turns out to be the opposite. When Babu and his wife discovered the wagon, they found great satisfaction opening and shutting its two doors for an entire hour. For the readers, a room with four walls and a door keeping others outside are simply not worth mentioning, hence, this scene looks like an extreme joke.
At this point, readers might start to wonder why they would feel so satisfied with such a terrible place? It is because that their situation in the wagon was already a great improvement compared to their previous living conditions. When Babu and his wife first arrived in Calcutta from East Bengal, they lived in a footpath filled by refugees. It was so crowded that if Babu leaved to rest himself, he would never find his place again when he was back. Besides, as all the people slept on the same ground, it would be easy for people to sleep in the wrong arms. Actually, Babu himself woke up one day finding “a bag of bones” (56) sleeping beside him instead of his own wife. Compared to the footpath, the wagon is too good for Babu and Swapna to live in! The wagon has four walls and a door to shut outside all the strangers like those on the footpath, keeping Babu and his wife private and free inside. What’s more, the wagon is totally free of charge. The declaration of “It was heaven. I felt I was God”(57) is never an exaggeration but Babu’s most sincere thought.
Later on, when Babu and his wife moved to the roof of the building belonging to Babu’s employer, they kept finding its advantages. This time they compared the roof with the ordinary apartment below them. The roof was flat, better than the gabled cement concrete (their former residence) and it could provide more light and ventilation yet required less rent, which makes it idea.
The writer features Babu as an optimistic character whose encouraging spirit originated from the deepest suffering of his life. How can an open-air roof win over an apartment? It is because Babu had suffered from the most terrible things in life that nothing could make him sad. On the other hand, even the smallest improvement could add color to his miserable life and please him.
When life turned out to be nothing but desperation, when there is nothing worse to happen or to lose, everything will seem laughable for both the character himself and the bystanders. Varma uses a humorous tone to represent this kind of laughable life to show the hardship of Babu and his wife’s life in a stronger way.
Work Cited
Krishnan Varma. The Grass-Eaters. 1985. Rpt in The International Story: An anthology with Guidelines for Reading and Writing about Fiction. Ruth Spack. New York. St. Martin’s, 1994.6-8
Title
Background information：
The actual life of Indian people in the 1980s.
Introduction paragraphs:
A lot of writers tried to represent the original scene of the Indians, and Krishnan Varma was one among them, In 1985 Varma wrote The Grass-Eaters, a story about an Indian refugee Ajit Babu and his wife Swapna who tried to find different dwelling place. During this process, they met various difficulties, suffered from the fierce environment, but finally settled down on the roof of a building, continuing their life full of miseries yet contently.
Despite the painful content, the readers’ first reaction to the story will mostly be laughing, since Varma put the story in a most humorous fashion. Question may occur to the readers why did Varma use a humorous tone while actually telling a depressing and gloomy story, and my answer is that by this mean, Varma told the story in a stronger way.
Three supportive points I can make out so far:
1.Sometimes, the better way to convey sorrow or sufferings is not cry or complains but jokes and laughter.
2.Even the smallest thing can be happiness in their life, since only adversity have they experienced.
The description of Babu and his wife opening and shutting the door of the wagon for an hour was indeed amusing and Babu called himself a God in heaven because of the processing of the wagon. Later he mentioned the advantage of “four walls, a roof and a door absolutely free of charge and complete freedom”. All the necessary and simple things to the readers became their pleasure as life has already sucked the last drop of their tear.
3.The terrible things to the readers’ eye have already turned to common under their circumstance. Anger or something else will even seem unrealistic for them to show. What they can react is only calm.
Ajit Babu described the scene of a tram burring, a man stabbing another man, a woman dropping her baby in a garbage bin as content. All the happenings horrible to the common readers became usual to Babu, which show their enormous daily hardness.
An outline of the Ending:
When life turned out to be nothing but desperate, when there’s nothing worse to happen or to lose, everything will seem laughable. I think that’s the point the writer tried to make by the means of humorous tone.
Directions: If you were to create a filmed advertisement (a "trailer" for a movie based on The Grass-Eaters, which scene would you select? Why? Discuss ways in which you might film the scene.
My choice is the scene of Ajit Babu and his wife opening and shutting the door of the train wagon with great satisfaction.
In the story, after Babu and his wife suffered from the living conditions of the footpath, where there was no privacy, no freedom but only violence and miseries, their discovery of the wagon appeared to them as a gift sent by god. The great contrast between the footpath and the wagon reflects their terrible hardship, and their aggressive happy emotion stresses the absurd and hopeless live they led. This scene is the climax in the novel, and I want to make it the peek of my trailer, as well.
In my trailer, I would like to put three short scenes last for about 1 second before the scene of the wagon. The three scenes tell Babu and his wife’s living on the footpath, which can achieve the purpose of comparison.
Here is a raw script of my tailor.
The background color of the screen should be black at first.
The first scene appears gradually, form dark to light. It presents the overall situation of the dwellers on the foot path. Then the scene fades away.
The second scene appears the same way as the first. It shows Babu’s night at the footpath, when he got back after resting himself, he could find no place to sleep at all. Then the scene disappears gradually.
The third scene comes the same way and presents the fight between Babu and the man whose wife was hugged by Babu mistakenly during the night.
All three scenes were shot in grayish color and the background music must be slow and gloomy.
Then there comes the main scene of Babu and his wife opening and shutting the door of the train wagon with deep happiness.
Firstly, I will shot the wagon from a far distance and then as the camera drawing closer and closer, the wagon becomes bigger and clearer. Then I will give the wagon door a special shot. Shortly after, the shot focus on Babu’s hand on the handle, quivering slightly. Later, there is another special shot of Babu smiling to his wife and his wife smiling in return. Meanwhile, the screen should turn from the former color to a light and bright one, and the music changes into a delightful style, implying the internal happiness of Babu and his wife. Finally the screen shows that they are closing and opening the door madly. The music goes louder and the screen even lighter.
Finally, the screen turns to dazzling white and then returned to black again. There remains no sound at all.
After reading The Grass-Eaters, I was first confused about the house that Ramaniklal Misrilal (father of the spherical boy Ajit Babu taught) offered him to live in.
In the middle of the story, Mr. Misrilal said: ”Why don't you move into one of my buildings, Ajit Babu?”(58) His words gave me the impression that he will give Babu an apartment room, but the following passage showed that Babu only got a roof to live on with his wife.
I guess that it was a kind of irony, trying to tell how mean the rich people of that time can be (Owning so many houses, Mr. Misrilal only gave his son's tutor a roof) as well as how the poor suffered.
I noticed that some logs above express a respect to Ajit Babu and his wife, since they kept optimistic despite the miserable life. However, I would like to post a new aspect on this issue.
Did Babu and his wife really spend every day in a cheerful spirit, looking at the terrible things happening beside them calmly? Didn't they ever complain about all the unfairness but accept them in silence? Yes, they did celebrate when owning a door for their dwelling place. They also felt satisfactory when inhabiting in a place better than the freight wagon. However, they started to fell happy about such things which would drive most of us cry because they had suffered so much. Nothing else in their life can delight them.
A Chinese saying goes that the experience of extreme sadness kills the feeling of a person. (I don't know if I translated it right. ), which means that great agony makes a person numbed to pain. Ajit Babu and his wife's sad feelings had faded, since their life had already drained the last drop of their tears.