“Slogans!
 GDR is looking for creative ideas for our new slogan. Something that 
we can easily put on t-shirts and bumper stickers that will catch
 people’s eyes and make them ask about GDR. If you’ve got any great
ideas let us know!”

“We’re barking up the right tree” or “We’re barking up the right tree since 1990″ was the slogan that immediately popped up in my head. Since the aim of the slogan is to “catch people’s attention”, I thought of altering a commonly known idiom to give it its opposite meaning. Therefore, I changed “Barking up the wrong tree” to “Barking up the RIGHT tree”. GoEnglish.com Idioms, describes “Barking up the wrong tree” as follows:

“You are like a dog that is barking up at a tree that has nothing in it. This may also mean trying to find the answer to some problem by using the wrong approach.”

Since Grateful Dogs Rescue has saved hundreds of “unadoptable” dogs from euthanasia and has found loving homes for them, they are certainly doing something right.

Altering idioms is nothing new, but it seems to get the point across which one is trying to make. The point that I wanted to get across by changing this particular idiom is that GDR is not “using the wrong approach”, they are barking up the right tree.

Note: The new GDR-slogan will be announced soon after the voting has taken place.

The respective volume contains the stories, Five Little Pigs, A Murder is Announced, and Taken at the Flood. When reading these stories, I asked myself whether the “modern” reader has a lead over the “old” reader of Christie; because of the possible exposure to all those crime shows on TV (provided, they expose themselves to it). This might harden the modern reader and thus, make him or her foresee the plot. If so, does that mean that “modern” Christie readers cannot appreciate these stories the same way as the “old” reader might have appreciated them? Did readers back in the 40s and 50s have a different reading experience? Were they more scared to go to bed after poring over this sort of crime fiction? Were they more excited when Hercules Poirot or Miss Marple announced who the murderer was?

As far as the first premise is concerned, I do not think that increased exposure to crime fiction, or crime TV shows, etc., transform the reader into a super-sleuth who already gets it all. What I do think is that people who lived during the time when Christie novels were published, had a better understanding of the time in which the story unfolds; a better grasp of references made about people, places, politics, etc. It would be interesting to know, what people back then were taking in when reading Christie texts. I am a reader of Agatha Christie who has no idea what it was like to live during that time in which the story unfolds, but the author leaves me hints that I then can compare to now (e.g., references about clothing/textile, social relationships, money). What seems plausible is that these references which I, as the modern day reader, need, in order to make sense about the period, might have been read and meditated on differently in the past.

In conclusion, it seems that Agatha Christie’s strongest asset was to create stories that are timeless and appeal to a vast variety of readers. What I most like about Christie, is that she gave us Miss Marple and Hercules Poirot-two entirely different protagonists that are a consistent staff in her stories. When beginning to read her novels, one never knows who is going to appear -Poirot or Miss Marple (for they never solve crimes together), and that alone can be just as exciting as getting through the last pages.

The paper, “Code-Switching Among English and Swiss-German Speaking Couples” is a proposal for a hypothetical research project in linguistics, and it was a collaboration between Azra von Niederhäusern-Hodzic and me. We worked on the premise that native speakers of both languages will eventually code-switch during a conversation, no matter how consistently they try to stick to one language. We took the stance that there are certain words in English and Swiss German which are more prone to be subject to code-switching than others. To be more precise, we proposed that the English word ‘cozy’ and the German word ‘Treffpunkt’ do not have a satisfying equivalent in the other language.

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Note: One title which I warmly recommend to anyone who is interested in accent/dialect discrimination, is English with an Accent. Language Ideology, and Discrimination in the United States, by Rosina Lippi-Green.

View discussion topics and bibliography

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2. Discussing The Knight’s Tale In Terms of Historic Accuracy
The concepts of dueling differ greatly between a medieval one and one, for instance, in the 18th century. In addition they differ even within the period we usually call the Middle Ages. Inevitably, this paper will not offer a hermeneutic representation of the duel, as the focus in this paper is set solely in European late Middle Ages. The references to The Knight’s Tale, which are discussed in this section, serve as a means to draw attention to the issues that will be dealt with in more detail in the course of this text.
Victor Gordon Kiernan has devoted an entire book to the subject of dueling in European History. In the chapter “Europe of the Knights” entitled in The Duel In European History, Kiernan refers to Marc Bloch and states that the Middle Ages lived under the sign of private vengeance and that individuals and their extended kinship regarded this as the most sacred duties. Moreover, the Middle Ages were a feudalistic era and a system of man-to-man relationships.
If one applies this notion to The Knight’s Tale, private vengeance does occur in a man-to-man relationship, namely in the one between the two cousins, Arcite and Palamon: They take vengeance on each other.
Kiernan further states that Feuds between private families inevitably involved their vassals, kindred or retainers, which lead to private warfare. This instance was cherished as a feudal right, whenever honor and pride called for bloodshed. It is noteworthy, that there was an alternative to unlicensed, unlimited scrimmaging, which took on the shape of a judicial combat, or a trial by battle. This can be traced back to Germanic custom.
This notion does not directly apply to the case of Arcite and Palamon, for their feud is only between them, and thus does not concern any other members of their family. Yet, the two rivals are related and therefore, one could argue that the feud between two individuals is enough to call it a private warfare. On the other hand, there are two instances, which indicate that the battle between Arcite and Palamon does not comply with Kiernan’s points: Historically, there is such a thing as “unlicensed scrimmaging”. Therefore one has reason to believe that some form of combat was forbidden if there was no judge present at the scene. Secondly, in the case of The Knight’s Tale, where the first duel takes place, there is no judicial trial. (This will be discussed at a later point in this paper). So, according to Kiernan the unsupervised duel between Arcite and Palamon would be “unliscensed”.
Kiernan states, that with the rising of judicial combat, rules were being codified, and resembled a ceremony. Furthermore, it was not uncommon that representatives of the church and secular authorities were present when combats were carried out in public.
This is only the case in the second, public duel in The Knight’s Tale: The combat is open to the public and Duke Theseus functions as the judge. However, there are no members of the church involved in the observation of the public battle. But one could argue that in the Knight’s Tale the Roman gods function as representatives of a higher power, which, in a way applies to Kiernan’s statement concerning church representatives.
With regard to the proceedings of a duel, they would often commence with the challenger throwing down a gauntlet. Kiernan notes that originally, it was the challenger who was to choose his weapons first. This procedure was later reversed, leaving the other party the first choice.
The reader will find that in The Knight’s Tale, it is Arcite who challenges and that Palamon is left with the choice of weapons. “And ches the beste, and leef the worste for me.” (1613). Therefore, this excerpt corresponds with the historic background.

3. Analysis Of The Duel In The Knight’s Tale
3.1 Reasons For Dueling In The Knight’s Tale
According to Wolfgang Schild there are several reasons for dueling in the Middle Ages. Factors that called for dueling were revenge or striving for rulership, over prey, recognition, to decide which party won the battle, legal disputes, or disputes per se, or to entertain an audience.
In Chaucer’s Knight’s Tale, it is a female that is the primary reason for a duel between Arcite and Palamon. In retrospect, it is Palamon who sees Emelye first. Thus, Palamon sees it as his prerogative to have her in marriage and not his cousin, Arcite, who unfortunately happens to be in love with Emelye as well. To Palamon, it is an audacious act by Arcite to hold claim to a woman, who, in his view, is bespoken to him. His sole reason for holding this prior claim is based on the factor of who sees first. In contrast, Arcite feels that it is his prerogative to love any woman whom he pleases, and he objects to Palamon’s reasoning. To sum up, both men want to rule over a lady, which they both see as an object (it is as if Emelye were the pray in a hunting game). Lastly both men want to be recognized as the rightful suitor of Emelye.

3.2 Worthy Contenders – Arcite And Palamon Fulfill The Requirements Of Valid Duelists
Until the tale reaches its first climax, that is, when Arcite and Palamon duel after their first encounter outside of the royal prison tower, subtle indications are given to the fulfillment of requirements, which have to be met in order to do perform a duel. Kiernan refers to the act of dueling as “a badge of rank” . Therefore, close attention should already be drawn to the lines 1017 to 1018, as they offer valuable information about Arcite and Palamon’s heritage, which is important for fulfilling the regulations of dueling. “The heraudes knewe hem best in special [a]s they that weren of the blood roial […]” Not until the tale reaches the dueling scene, the aspect of “the blood roial” is the sole reason why Arcite and Palamon are not slain on the spot, but are kept as live battle trophies in the Duke’s tower. Yet, this royal heritage also meets the rules and regulations of a proper duel. If Arcite and Palamon were not equal in rank, they could not duel against each other. This is suggested in line 1608/9 with Arcite’s exclamation, [b]ut as muche thou art a worthy knyght, [a]nd wilnest to darreyne hire by bataille, […]”. Arcite acknowledges that Palamon is a “worthy” knight. By defining his opponent as worthy, Palamon seems to acknowledge equal rank as one of the elements, which make a duel valid.

3.3 The Duel As A Ceremony
The idea of a duel having a somewhat ceremonial execution reads in the context of Arcite’s exclamation in line 1608/9 that recognizes Palamon as a worthy contender. Arcite, having been antagonized by Palamon, wants to slay him in an instant but retracts when he notices that his enemy holds no weapon. “And eek that thow no wepne hast in place, [t]hou sholdest nevere out of this grove pace,[…]” (1601-1602). What the reader can derive from this exclamation is that Arcite cherishes his and Palamon’s honor by drawing back his sword. What is more, by doing so, Arcite is aware of putting his honor as a “worthy knyght” (1608) at risk if he were to kill a defenseless knight. Instead, Arcite postpones the duel to the next day.

Have heere my trouthe; tomorwe I wol nat faille,
Withoute wityng of any oother wight,
That heere I wool be founden as a knyght,
And bryngen harneys right ynough for thee;

What appears to belong to the standard ritual is the setting of a date for the duel, just as can be seen in the first line of the quote. A part from this, the overall appearance of the contenders must signal their status. Arcite’s statement, “[h]ere I wool be founden as a knyght”, substantiates this idea. He wants to look the part of someone that duels. Therefore, his accentuation of the word knight lets the reader know that he is aware of his right to indulge in a duel. Finally, the last line is somewhat peculiar in its content. As modern readers would probably expect rivals to show every lack of respect to one another, there is no sign of profanity when Arcite announces that he will bring Palamon enough weapons. In Chaucer’s Knight, Terry Jones states that “[t]he responsibility of equipping and arming had always rested with the knight himself.” As a consequence, Arcite guarantees the equality and he respects Arcite as a valid contender, but at the same time he emasculates Palamon because it would be his duty, as a worthy knight, or say, a man as such, to gather his own armor. This evokes an image of a little boy who is dependent on a grown up. What is more, one can deduce that Arcite does not seem to think Palamon capable of gathering his own armor, as he does not ask Palamon if he agrees with his terms.

3.3 The Unapproved Duel Of Arcite And Palamon
However, there are two main depictions which suggest that the duel between Arcite and Palamon is not a valid one. Firstly, there appears to be no escalation of violence endorsed by the contenders. The reader might expect the duel to commence gradually and resemble a sort of tournament, which then becomes more violent towards the end. Yet, the depiction of Arcite and Palamon’s duel is beastly from the beginning and with no prearranged rules as to the execution of the duel. Consider the sentences:

“[U]p to the ancle foghte they in hir blood” (1660), and, “[t]hat foughten breme as it were bores two. The brighte swordes wenten to and fro, so hideously that with the leeste strook It seemed as it wolde felle an ook. “ (1699-1702).

Arcite and Palomon are no longer depicted as men, but as wild boars, and the force with which they stab each other is compared to the strength it takes to cut an oak tree. As Jones points out, the imagery of wild beast is a recurrent theme in The Knight’s Tale. Indeed, the way Arcite and Palamon’s duel is executed resembles a massacre. The considerable amount of violence, which appears to degrade the proper act of dueling, is not the main reason why Theseus is aghast when he sees the two men fight. The fact that the duel takes place unsupervised appears to be a disgrace.
The next lines of the tale, which appear just after the ones discussed above, offer a valuable insight into the rules of dueling. It is the passage, where Arcite and Palamon perform a duel unobserved and are interrupted by Duke Theseus and his hunting party who coincidently happen to ride by the scene. The following quote is Theseus’ reaction to the goings on.

“Hoo!
Namore, up peyne of leysinge of youre heed!
By myghty Mars, he shal anon be deed
That smyteth any strook that I may seen.
But telleth me what myster men ye been,
Withouten judge or oother officere,
As it were in a lystes lystes roially.”

Theseus is clearly appalled by the spectacle that is unfolding in front of him, which is why he aborts the duel immediately. In the sentence, “By myghty Mars, he shal anon be deed [t]hat smyteth any strook that I may seen.”, the Duke establishes his superiority over the two duelers. This sentence suggests that the duel should not have commenced without Theseus’ approval. It is safe to assume that the grounds on which Arcite and Palamon fight, belong to him. Therefore the duke perceives this as a slanderous act. What is more, Theseus is so offended that he wants to kill them. The third and last indication that Arcite and Palamon’s duel is violating the terms of the duel is given in the last two lines of Theseus’ exclamation. “Withouten judge or oother officere, [a]s it were in a lystes roially.” The content of the last two lines are historically accurate. To be more precise, the performance of a duel had to be supervised by someone functioning as judge.
According to the opening lines, 1706 to 1708 of Theseus’ exclamation and the depiction discussed above, that degrades the contenders to boars, the duel between Arcite and Palamon does not follow a certain etiquette.

3.4 The Duel As A Public Spectacle In The Knight’s Tale
In section 3.2, of this paper I have listed several reasons for dueling in the Middle Ages, of which I last mentioned the duel as entertainment of an audience. In this section, I discuss the duel in The Knight’s Tale as a means of public spectacle. It is noteworthy that the duel between Arcite and Palamon, which is conducted by exclusion of spectators, is early terminated by Theseus. The Duke, having been moved by the idea of battling over love, elevates the private duel to a public spectacle, which is to take place a year later. What is more, Arcite and Palamon each have to gather an army of one hundred knights, who are to join them in combat. By this agreement, the duel is elevated from a duel to a tournament.
There is a certain historic untruthfulness in this depiction of a public battle. Terry Jones argues that personal animosity sometimes entered into such tournaments, but they were seen as a disgrace towards chivalry. Knights were supposed to take an oath that they would participate in tournaments for the sole purpose to exercise war and not to see it as an opportunity for personal revenge. In The Knight’s Tale, the public battle would be a disgrace, as personal revenge is the reason for Arcite and Palamon to duel against each other and not to exercise war. Having this in mind, it seems absurd that Duke Theseus, being a worthy judge, would allow a public battle that does not serve the means of practice, and instead, violates “the true spirit of chivalry”. (178)
Apart from this, Theseus has a costly arena and several temples erected for the sole purpose of this spectacle. This is minutely described in the third part of The Knight’s Tale. I will not discuss this passage in further detail, as it would exceed the length of this paper. Instead, I want to focus on the idea that in the third part of the tale, the duel is no longer a concern between two men; it is the subject matter of Theseus’ play. In the opening lines of the third part of The Knight’s Tale, the following is mentioned.

Of Theseus, that gooth so bisily
To maken up lystes royally,
That swich a noble theatre as it was
I dar well seyen in this world it nas.

Attention should be drawn to the third line of this quote, where “a noble theatre” is mentioned. The use of the word theatre evokes the idea that the duel is being adapted into a theater spectacle. The third part consists of minute depictions of the building of this theater and the temples, all of which are based on what might be a mixture of Greek and Roman architecture. The temples are dedicated to the Roman gods Venus, Mars, and Diana. Clearly, the Knight’s Tale is set in Ancient times, so the inclusion of an audience in a theater appears to be a natural setting and meets the overall perception of ancient Athens, the town in which this tale unfolds. To conclude, it appears that the early termination of Arcite and Palamon’s first duel makes way for the public battle in a more refined setting, which is the theater. It seems that the first setting (a field) on which the duel takes place is not worthy enough for this spectacle.

4.Conclusion
The act of dueling consisted of several criteria. Firstly, there had to be a dispute which called for this act. In addition, terms for the execution of a duel had to be set in advance, and most importantly, the duelists had to be of the same rank, but not necessarily of royal heritage. I have argued that the duel between Arcite and Palamon is a violation of the code of dueling because it is conducted with the exclusion of a judge. Moreover, the interruption of Duke Theseus is interpreted as a means to tell the readers that this is not a proper duel. I have substantiated my position by offering historical background information which discusses this factor. Apart from this, Theseus postpones the duel of Arcite and Palamon and elevates it from a simple duel to a battle. What is more, the costly production of the theater, which Theseus has erected for the public battle, is a means of amusement and seems to serve the purpose of judging a duel. Therefore, I have argued that Theseus production does not serve the true spirit of chivalry. The public battle in The Knight’s Tale is a theater spectacle.

5.Works Cited

Bloch, Marc. Feudal Society. London: Routledge, 1965, i. 125-126. In Kiernan, Victor Gordon. The Duel In European History. Oxford: University Press, 1988, 32.
Chaucer, Geoffrey. “The Knight’s Tale”. The Riverside Chaucer. Ed. Larry D. Benson. 3rd edition. Oxford: University Press, 1988.
Jones, Terry. Chaucer’s Knight. The Portrait Of Medieval Mercenary. London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1980.
Kiernan, Victor, Gordon. The Duel In European History. Oxford: University Press, 1988.
Schild, Wolfgang. „Zweikampf“. Lexikon des Mittelalters. Bd. IX. Stuttgart; Weimar: J. B. Metzler, 1977-1999.

6. Appendix

Lexikon des Mittelalters. Original text:
Rache, Streben nach Herrschaft, Beute oder Anerkennung, zur Entscheidung einer Schlacht […] oder eines (Rechts-) Streites oder zur Unterhaltung von Zuschauern. (723).

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My cricket game was the one thing for which my grandmother never grudged me time away from my homework: on the contrary, she insisted that I run down to the park by the lake whether I wanted to or not. You can’t build a strong country, she would say, pushing me out of the house, without building a strong body. (8)

This example substantiates the position that studying takes up a major role in the narrator’s youth. I shall explain this in more detail, because I propose two ways of looking at this passage. Firstly, as mentioned before, the narrator’s spare time appears to be work-related. To be more precise, it is the Grandmother, a former schoolmistress, who feels that physical activities and being meticulous about one’s homework help to shape a strong personality.
The cricket game is a striking element in this sense, because it is the sort of game one would connect to British society. To make a general statement, it was the British who did not assimilate to the Indian culture. On the contrary, during the period of English colonization in India, the British people brought their traditions to India, cricket being one of them. It seems that the game has established itself in the Indian community as being a national one. Boria Majumdar and Sean Brown write in their essay ‘Why baseball, why cricket? differing nationalisms, differing challenges’ , that in India, the nationalist movement from the close of the Nineteenth Century made it crucial that cricket be taken up as a non-violent means to compete with the ruling British. The grandmother’s statement “[Y]ou can’t build a strong country […] without building a strong body” might entail the notion of a more Western society, where personal achievement seems to be credited to a stern education. Yet, it seems to be an overhasty conclusion that this form of education — that is, the combination of mental and physical education — is a British one and not traditionally Indian. To compare the traditional British school system with the traditional Indian means of education lies beyond the scope of this paper. Extensive research would have to be undertaken to adhere to such statements.
In the section above, I have offered a two-way perception of the provided excerpt. Firstly, I have discussed the grandmother’s promotion of education, and secondly, education as a means to run a nation. As discussed previously, the narrator emphasizes his grandmother’s severe ways of tutoring him. I have suggested that one way of discussing the narrator’s statement is to focus on the importance of studying and playing cricket. The narrator has the grandmother- figure explain the impact these activities have on the individual and on the country. To sum up, the grandmother’s belief that only the physically strong can build a strong country lead to the conclusion that education does play an important part in the social status of individuals in India. Furthermore, it is the educated people, in the grandmother’s opinion, who are able to rule a nation.
To make a connection between the grandmother’s ideas and the Indian nationalist idea that the game of cricket has been applied as a non-violent counterforce to Britain, it seems that there is a strong connection between the game of cricket and the nationalist point of view. To be more precise, the non-violent way of competing with a nation’s former colonizer appears to be the only way to publicize the nation’s struggle for its own identity. In turn, the only way of gaining enough strength to be able to rule a nation is through disciplined studies and playing a game that represents the nation.
So far, I have tried to highlight the importance of education in The Shadow Lines. I have substantiated my position by discussing the narrator’s recollections of his boyhood, where he clearly states that his spare time had to be reasonably spent with doing homework and playing cricket. This, of course, is a focus, which lies on one single-family structure.
The reader might find it interesting to know that throughout the novel there is but one passage that could be considered dealing with outcasts in Indian society. In the following excerpt, the narrator and his family visit a relative of theirs in the economically deprived parts of Calcutta. The narrator is watching outcastes washing their children in filthy water and collecting rubble off the slopes. Interestingly, the connection is made between poverty and education when the narrator is reminded that education is the only means to keep people in India from sliding into poverty. The construction of this connection is as follows: At first there is a narrative description with an overall focus on the setting, evoking feelings of disgust and shame towards the social outcasts. Secondly, the narrator uses the evoked feelings of disgust and shame in order to make the connection that failure in one’s education leads to poverty.

I could see women squatting at the edges of the pools, splashing with both hands to drive the back layers of sludge, scoping up the cleaner water underneath to scrub their babies and wash their clothes and cooking utensils. […] Running along the factory was a dump of some kind; from it the sludge-incrusted pools. […] I saw that there were a number of moving figures dotted over those slopes[…] They were picking bits of rubble off the slopes and dropping them into their sacks[…] [t]hey were completely camouflaged, like chameleons, because everything on them, their clothes, their sacks, their skins, was the uniform matt black of the sludge in the pools. (133).

The narrator constructs a situation, which evokes uncanny feelings such as disgust and shame towards the outcastes. The consecutive use of the terms “sludge”, “dump” “sludge-encrusted pools”, and “rubble” generate these feelings. To be more precise, the narrator builds up a climax of terms, which undermine the scenery that is so repulsive that it might even provoke a feeling of nausea in the reader. The depiction of mothers bathing their babies in filth is particularly strong, as those readers who might have children of their own will find themselves compelled to compare their situation with the narrator’s depiction. Moreover, all the goods that are washed in sludge are very close to one’s body. As a consequence, the clothes are never clean and the filthy water remains on the cooking utensils, and thus, indigested with the food that is eaten. Clearly, this depiction evokes disgust. Furthermore, the narrator compares these poor people with chameleons because they take on the same color as the puddles of mud that they stand in. Thus, these chameleon-like people are not to be told apart from each other, as they no longer appear as individual human beings, but as muddy creatures festering in trash. It follows that these people are not part of the nation because they are simply overlooked, as one can observe in the following citation.
In the second part of the excerpt the narrator makes the connection between failing in one’s education and sliding into poverty. Here, the reader is told that the fear of becoming one of the outcasts triggered his will to be meticulous about his studies. To be more precise, it is the mother that propagates this anxiety. She tells her son that if he doesn’t study hard enough he will end up on the slopes where all the poor people gather to collect trash.

Our relative spotted me leaning on the railing and ran out. Don’t look there! she cried. It’s dirty! Then she led me back inside. I went willingly: I was already schooled in looking away, the jungle-craft of gentility.[…] It was that landscape that lent the note of hysteria to my mother’s voice when she drilled me for my examinations; it was to those slopes she pointed when she told me that if I didn’t study hard I would end up over there, that the only weapon people like us had was our brains and if we didn’t use them like claws to cling what we’d got, that was where we’d end up, marooned in that landscape: I knew perfectly well that all it would take was a couple of failed examinations to put me where our relative was, in permanent proximity of to that blackness: that landscape was the quicksand that seethed beneath the polished floors of our house; it was that sludge which gave our genteel decorum its fine edge of frenzy. (131/132).

Discussing the citation, the reader perceives that the landscape, which the narrator is looking at, is so dirty that he is scolded immediately and taken back inside the apartment. Interestingly, the narrator states that he is already schooled in looking away, because he was told early on that neglecting one’s studies would lead to poverty. The way in which this fear has affected the narrator is, to use a Western example, is reminiscent of the stories that act as a deterrent in the German children’s book, Der Struwwelpeter. The stories in this book serve to make children believe that they will be punished like the protagonists if they do not behave the way their guardians want them to.
Another aspect to be considered is the word there, which is used synonymously to refer to the gutter. Therefore, one can draw the conclusion that the people in the narrator’s family are so overwhelmed with fear of sliding down into poverty that this unwanted situation is simply referred to as there. What is more, the mother emphasizes that the brain is the only weapon that saves them from ending up in that particular situation. To sum up, the narrator creates a climax when he uses the quicksand metaphor to refer to the instability of his family’s home. The narrator pictures their home on top of quicksand, and the only way to avoid being swallowed is to keep one’s grades up in school.
At this point I would like to discuss a character that does not consummate his education. Tridib is the narrator’s eccentric cousin who lives in his family’s old house in Calcutta. What makes this character so special in the context that is discussed in this paper is that he acts as a deterrent. Ironically, Tridib is by no means an uneducated person; he is one of those individuals who would fit the typical description of a bohemian. He is a bachelor and spends most of his time in his room reading and smoking cigarettes. It seems obvious that Tridib is a threat to the grandmother’s notions of education.

She would often try to persuade me that she pitied him. Poor Tridib, she would say. There’s nothing in the world that he couldn’t have done with his connections. He could have lived like a lord and run the country. And look at him – oh, poor Tridib – living in that crumbling house, doing nothing. (7)

Judging from the grandmother’s perspective, it is obvious that education is only good if one makes use of it. For her, Tridib is the perfect example of a man who will not lead a meaningful life. Apart from this, the grandmother’s belief appears to be that educated people should rule the country, and this is only possible if one implements one’s knowledge. As previously discussed, the grandmother, like the mother, makes use of the deterrent theme. Again, the narrator is lured into believing that if he does not implement his knowledge, he will end up living in a deteriorating house like his cousin. The narrator offers an interesting insight into the reasons for the grandmother’s disfavor of Tridib, namely, that he associates with people of a socially lower status.

She had deep horror of the young men who spent their time at the street-corner addas and tea-stalls there. All fail cases […] [t]hink of their poor mothers, flung out on dung heaps, starving…(7).

The passage is very similar to the one where the mother passes on to her son the fear of having to live an outcast life on the muddy slopes.
At this point I think it could be argued that Tridib has used his education to liberate himself according to his own wishes and desires. He has made a conscious decision, and seems content with his choice of lifestyle. One has the impression that the narrator cannot make this claim for himself, because he seems to be more a victim of the grandmother’s manipulation rather than the master of his own life. Also, “the deep horror” of those men, those “fail cases” (7) is justified, as the grandmother believes that it calls for strong and educated men to rule a nation. Clearly, those men will never be candidates for such a position. In addition, it is indicated that the women will suffer the consequences.
To conclude, I have mentioned in my introduction that the topic discussed in this paper is not the outstanding feature in The Shadow Lines. Yet, what I have hoped to bring across is that being an educated person inevitably contributes to a social upraise. To apply this notion to the discussed excerpts, it is fear of loosing social status and housing that is the reason for emphasizing the importance of education. Moreover, I discussed that the grandmother and mother characters function as the figures that bring this idea across. The means by which the narrator is made to take his studies seriously is by choosing social outcasts and the narrator’s cousin Tridib, who take on the functions of a deterrent. To be more precise, they are made examples of social failures, which under no circumstances should be emulated. The reasons why the outcasts became such in the first place is oversimplified, as these people most likely never had the access and means to education. The narrator is made to believe that education is the only way to prevent a downfall into poverty. But, education in the case of Tridib has a function of personal liberation – he has made educated choices – his choices, and is happy with them. One could argue that the grandmother’s insistence that education must have a practical application, such as running a country, actually imprisons the individual instead of liberating them. On the other hand, Tridib serves as an example of an educated individual who has not put his knowledge to use and is prone to slip into poverty. To sum up, to antagonize the socially deprived individuals in The Shadow Lines is a means of make-belief.

Works Cited

Ghosh, Amitav. The Shadow Lines. United States of America: Viking Penguin, 1989.
Brown, Sean, Majumdar, Boria. ‘Why baseball, why cricket? differing nationalisms, differing challenges’ In: International Journal of the History of Sport. Volume 24, Issue 2 February 2007, pages 139 – 156. http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~content=a768567400~db=all (visited on 6/1/08 11:10 AM)