Nonwestern Literature - Self-Formation in Caste and Communism

The essay “Self-Formation in Caste and Communism” is a creation born out of my Nonwestern Literature course at Lewis University. I immensely enjoyed this course and realized I must take active steps to access voices and writers outside of Western and European influence. The paper explores how the fiction works The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga and The Bridegroom by Ha Jin convey the contributions (both negative and positive) of societal structures to citizen’s self-formation using elements such as symbolism, language use, and character development. In 2018, I was honored with the opportunity to present my essay during the 2018 Celebration of Scholarship as well as publish the piece in Voices (2018), a literary journal at Lewis University. While presenting this piece during Celebration of Scholarship I paid special attention to the delivery of my ideas to increase conceptual accessibility for an audience most likely unfamiliar with the plot and themes of the novels I discuss. This essay and the experiences it provided would not have been possible without the aid and guidance of my Nonwestern Literature professor, Dr. Pramod Mishra. 

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