Abstract

One of the dominating styles of post World War II era writing is ‘Social Realism’ invented during the ‘Great Depression’ in the American continent and entire Europe in contrast to Romantic Idealism. The artists and writers did not restrict themselves to beauty, pulchritude charm and serendipity and create narrative of Romantic Idealism but accepted stark reality and included in their narrative the ugliness of devastation caused due to World Wars I and II, the vast unemployment, mass poverty, widespread hunger, ubiquitous dirt, filth and fall in human values. The elites in colonial era shunned from Social Realism since it was not palatable to their tastes of decency, elegance, and adorableness. In Asia and the Caribbean, the writings of a group of authors displayed, bared stark realities of life. Social realism was seen in the audiovisual art like cinema, literature, painting, and music. Though elite disliked and shunned realism the common readers form the middle-class and the subaltern class liked realism. In his novel, Paraja author Gopinath Mohanty narrates everything from poverty, illiteracy, want, insult and humiliation including taking of woman in the borrower’s home. Thus, an abysmal fall in human values is narrated without inhibition.

Authors and Affiliations