The document discusses Dalit literature and the story "Poisoned Bread" in particular. It summarizes that the story manifests the self-disintegration, alienation, and fractured consciousness of the Dalit characters. It also discusses how Dalit literature addresses the marginalization of Dalits in Hindu society and their sub-human status, as well as themes of social justice, cultural hegemony, and environmental politics in asserting Dalit political identity and rights.

1. EXISTENCE AND ENVIRONMENT IN
THE LITERATURE OF MARGINS:
POISONED BREAD
Presented by
Dr. Jayshree Singh
Senior Faculty(Lecturer in Selection Grade)
Deptt. of English, Bhupal Nobles P. G. College
Mohanlal Sukhadia University
Udaipur – 313001
Email: dr.jayshree.singh@gmail.com
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Dr.JayshreeSingh,HODEnglish,
B.N.P.G.College,Udaipur
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2. DENIED ACCESS FOR AGES TO
GET ANY LITERARY
TRADITION AND SELF-IDENTITY
Published in 1992, the first
anthology of Dalit literature.
Gail Omvedt, a distinguished
scholar activist working with
new social movements.
Omvedt, who has been
actively involved in anti-caste
campaigns since the 1970s,
lives and works in
Maharashtra.
(http://www.swb.co.in/store/bo
ok/poisoned-bread)
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Dr.JayshreeSingh,HODEnglish,
B.N.P.G.College,Udaipur

3. WRITING THE ENVIRONMENT
 The writer subverts the conceptions of human
personhood in context of nature and culture
 Unravels identity politics and questions
romantic/essentialist arguments and post-human
ones
 Duality and anarchy of social standards i.e. weak
versus strong ego boundaries
 The narrator attempts to dissolve hierarchical
subject-object dichotomies
 The narrator disregards the boundaries between
one creature and another
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Dr.JayshreeSingh,HODEnglish,
B.N.P.G.College,Udaipur

4. WRITING THE REAL LANGUAGE OF ECOLOGY
 Dalits’ bodily experience serves as a kind of identification
with the mother earth
 Dalits and the mother earth are mere ‘objects’ or ‘others’
on whom the producer – consumer thrive as subjects,
while the dalits as labourers, decomposers and mother
earth as non-living object to be exploited and to be
possessed
 Religion or myth of objectivity legitimise domination of
culture over nature or biotic well-being, so the author
wants to delegitimise the hierarchical presuppositions
and to restrict solipsism.
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Dr.JayshreeSingh,HODEnglish,
B.N.P.G.College,Udaipur

5. BANDHUMADHAV’S STREAM OF
CONSCIOUSNESS (TRANS. BY RAMESH DANYATE)
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Dr.JayshreeSingh,HODEnglish,
B.N.P.G.College,Udaipur
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 The story ‘Poisoned Bread’
manifests Bapu Patil’s –
 Self-disintegration
 Disillusionment
 Alienation form oneself and
from one’s fellow men and
from nature
 Fractioned functions
 Fractured consciousness
 Caste ideology
 dehumanized mankind
 Incompatibility between
their desires and ideals
 The character Yetalya,
painfully suggests -
 Predicament
 Self-estrangement with the
right to live with dignity,
opportunity and
development
 Loss of freedom
 Self-annihilated, enslaved,
decimated and subordinate
convictions
 Pseudo-affirmations of
personal identity
 Psychic condition of the
custodians of religious faith

6. A NARRATIVE OF ENVIRONMENTAL COUNTER-
VALUES
18/09/2016
Dr.JayshreeSingh,HODEnglish,
B.N.P.G.College,Udaipur
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 Hindu Society
 Brahminical Tradition
 Caste Hierarchy
 Marginalised Section –
Dalits
 Sub-human Status –
 Poor, bonded labourers,
underpaid workers, outcaste
or underclass, unregistered,
unrecognised and not in
national mainstream, policy-
making
 Traditional myths of eugenic
origin
 Literary Discourse of Dalits
 Dalits refer to Change, but
not revolution
 Introspects their
Metaphysical Existence
 Meditations on Morality and
Ethics
 Social Justice
 Cultural and Social
hegemony
 Social interdependencies in
the nation-building process

7. CONCLUSION
The story ‘Poisoned Bread’ suggests “the strident
assertiveness of the writer’s work. It affirms the rights of a
given identity, often conflicts with simultaneous affirmation
of marginalised ‘weak ego boundaries’. It gives voice to
Dalits to assert their political identity and to break their
fragmentation of inner and outer realm and it arises also
environmental politics i.e. how to be heard in a society that
has its own assumptions and arguments”.
(Clark, Timothy.The Cambridge Introduction to Literature and
Environment. U.S.A.:CUP, 2011. Pp.111-119)
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Dr.JayshreeSingh,HODEnglish,
B.N.P.G.College,Udaipur