The Curse or Karna by T.P. Kailasama

Interpret all the acts and scenes in brief.

T.P. Kailasam's five-act play, The Curse or Karna (also known as Karna: The Brahmin's Curse), is a powerful reinterpretation of the Mahabharata that recasts Karna as a modern tragic hero, one whose downfall is governed by fate, social injustice, and an unshakeable sense of loyalty. Kailasam boldly "glorifies the character of Karna" by altering key episodes, making his tragedy a commentary on societal cruelty, similar to a Sophoclean drama (Source: Critical analysis, referencing Kailasam's own description of the play as "an impression of Sophocles in five acts").

Act I: The Seeds of Destiny – The Origin of the Curse

The opening act sets the stage for Karna's destined failure by focusing on the ultimate weapon and the ultimate curse.

• Scene I & II – Karna leaves Aashram and the Curse: Karna completes his discipleship under the warrior-sage Parashurama (Raama). In this pivotal scene, despite his immense devotion, Karna is cursed by his guru—a fate decreed to make him forget his divine weapon (astra) when he needs it most (Source: Act I text, as the play is structured around this event). This establishes the "Curse" as the primary antagonistic force, making Karna a "helpless victim of a Brahmin's curse" (Source: Critical analysis citing the play's text).

Act II: The Irony of Birth – Humiliation at Hastinapur

This act immediately brings Karna's talent face-to-face with the rigid structure of society.

• Competition at Hastinapur – The Royal Stadium: Karna challenges Arjuna's skill in a public tournament. However, he is instantly barred from competing with royalty because of his perceived low birth (Suta-putra). This public humiliation highlights the play's central theme: intrinsic worth versus accidental birth (Source: Critical analysis of Kailasam's social critique). It is here that Duryodhana champions him, crowning him King of Anga and forging the bond of loyalty that defines the rest of the tragedy.

Act III: The Unforgiving Society – Draupadi's Rejection

Even personal life offers Karna no reprieve from social rejection, reinforcing his bitterness and choices.

• Scene I – Draupadi insulted Anga: At the Swayamvara, Draupadi publicly rejects Karna, asserting she will not marry a Suta-putra. This deepens the wound of social alienation and justifies his alignment with the Kauravas.

• Scene II – Anga recalls the curse he has: The recurring failure is internally attributed to the curse. Karna recognizes that his life's efforts are continually "checkmated" by the doom hanging over him, paralyzing his actions in moments of crisis (Source: Critical analysis citing K.R.S. Iyengar on the curse).

Act IV: The Noble Heart – A Divergence from the Epic

Kailasam makes a deliberate departure from the traditional narrative to elevate his hero's morality.

• Cheerharan – Karna tried to save Draupadi – Falls in the arms of Bheemsena: In a radical shift, Kailasam presents Karna attempting to intervene and save Draupadi during her disrobing, showcasing his inherent chivalry (Source: Critical analysis noting Kailasam's innovation to glorify Karna). The stage direction "Falls in the arms of Bheemsena" likely symbolizes a powerful outside force—perhaps the might of the Pandavas or the weight of his own unfortunate alignment—preventing him from completing the noble act.

Act V: The Tragic Fulfillment – Loyalty and Death

The final act brings Karna's journey to its inevitable, predetermined end.

• Scene I – Karna's encounter with Kunti: His birth mother, Kunti, reveals his true identity and pleads with him to join his brothers. Karna refuses, choosing unwavering loyalty to Duryodhana over self-preservation and family. This choice solidifies his tragic stature—a man whose self-sacrifice is paramount (Source: Act V events and critical notes on Karna's supreme loyalty).

• Scene II – Arjuna and Karna's fight – Death: On the battlefield of Kurukshetra, the curse is fulfilled. Karna's chariot wheel is stuck, and the knowledge of his divine weapons vanishes, rendering him helpless. Arjuna kills the great, but fated, warrior. His death is the final, tragic justification of the play's title, presenting Karna as a magnificent soul purified and glorified in the process of his defeat (Source: Critical analysis on the tragic conclusion).

Kailasam's The Curse or Karna is, therefore, not just a retelling, but a poignant tragedy of a great man defeated not by lack of skill, but by the combined forces of social injustice and predestined doom. 

The Anatomy of a Tragic Hero: Moral Conflict and Hamartia in Karna of T.P. Kailasam

T.P. Kailasam’s The Curse of Karna is a seminal work of modern Indian drama that reinterprets the Mahabharata through a psychological and humanist lens. In his rendering, Karna is not merely a supporting character from an epic but the quintessential tragic hero, whose grandeur and profound suffering are born from a deep-seated moral conflict and a fatal flaw (Hamartia) that is inextricably linked to his social identity. Kailasam masterfully transposes the classical Greek tragic structure onto the Indian epic tradition, presenting a Karna whose tragedy is not predestined by the gods but is a human, societal, and deeply personal catastrophe.

1. The Quintessence of Moral Conflict

Karna's character is a crucible of relentless moral conflict, which operates on three primary levels:

a) Conflict of Loyalty (Duty vs. Friendship): This is the most overt conflict. Karna owes his kingship, his status, and his very identity as a warrior to Duryodhana. The debt of gratitude (rina) in Dharmic philosophy is immense. His loyalty to Duryodhana is absolute and personal. However, this loyalty pulls him into a war he knows is adharmic. He is acutely aware of the Pandavas' righteousness and the manipulative wickedness of Shakuni. The conflict between his swadharma (personal duty to his friend) and sanatana dharma (universal righteousness) tears him apart. He confesses his misgivings but remains bound by his word, making him a willing participant in his own downfall.

b) Conflict of Identity (Inner Self vs. Imposed Label): This is the psychological core of Kailasam's play. Karna's entire life is a lie. Born a Kshatriya, he is raised as a Suta-putra (charioteer's son), a label that society uses to constantly humiliate him. The moral conflict here is between his innate nobility, valor, and generosity (his true svabhava) and the societal scorn and discrimination he faces (his imposed jati). This is brilliantly captured in the iconic "Aswathama is dead!" scene, where his inherent compassion wars with his loyalty to Duryodhana, leading to a catastrophic, morally ambiguous act.

c) Conflict of Knowledge (Truth vs. Obligation): This conflict is ignited when Krishna reveals his true birth to him. The knowledge that he is fighting against his own brothers creates a seismic moral crisis. He is now torn between the truth of his blood and the obligation to his benefactor. His choice to remain with the Kauravas is not out of ignorance but a conscious, tragic commitment to his pledged word. This elevates his tragedy from one of fate to one of conscious choice, making the moral conflict all the more profound.

2. Hamartia: The Tragic Flaw as "Daanaveera" (The Addiction to Generosity)

In Aristotelian terms, Hamartia is not a vice but a tragic error or flaw in an otherwise noble character. Kailasam brilliantly redefines Karna's traditional flaw. It is not his loyalty or anger, but his unparalleled, almost compulsive generosity—his Daanaveera persona.

This generosity, while virtuous, becomes his Hamartia because it is:

• Unbounded and Self-Destructive: Karna cannot say "no." He gives away his divine Kavacha and Kundala to Indra, knowingly stripping himself of his invincibility. This is not an act of foolishness but the tragic culmination of his identity. His generosity is the only way he can assert his nobility in a world that denies him status. To refuse a request, especially from a Brahmin (Indra in disguise), would be to betray the very principle that defines him. Thus, his greatest virtue becomes the instrument of his destruction.

• Exploited by Others: Characters like Indra and Kunti explicitly exploit this flaw. Kunti, who abandoned him, approaches him not as a mother but as a supplicant, using his reputation for generosity to extract a promise to spare her other sons. His Hamartia is weaponized against him by those who should protect him.

• Linked to his Existential Crisis: His generosity is his way of screaming, "I am noble!" to a world that calls him low-born. It is a performative act to fill the void of his fractured identity. Therefore, his Hamartia is not a separate trait but is deeply entangled with the core moral conflict of his life.

Synthesis: The Inextricable Link

Kailasam does not present moral conflict and Hamartia as separate elements. They are dialectically intertwined. Karna's moral conflict arises from his social displacement and his rigid adherence to a personal code of honour. His Hamartia (compulsive generosity) is the behavioural manifestation of this conflict, his chosen method to cope with and overcome his societal humiliation.

The "curse" in the title is not just the literal curses from Parashurama and the Brahmin. The true curse is this tragic cycle: his low birth (societal curse) creates an identity crisis (moral conflict), which leads him to over-identify with generosity (Hamartia), which in turn makes him vulnerable and leads to his physical and spiritual destruction.

Conclusion

In The Curse of Karna, T.P. Kailasam successfully creates a modern tragic hero for whom the battlefield of Kurukshetra is merely the final act. The real war is waged within Karna's soul—a relentless moral conflict between competing dharmas, identities, and loyalties. His Hamartia, the addiction to giving, is the flaw of an excess of virtue, making his downfall not just pitiable but profoundly tragic. Kailasam thus moves the character of Karna from the epic periphery to the center of a classical tragedy, where his internal struggles and fatal virtues resonate with the timeless questions of identity, duty, and the price of integrity in an unjust world.

Lab Session: DH s- AI Bias NotebookLM Activity

Bias in A.I. models and its implications inliterary interpretation | SRM University - Sikkim

Bias in AI and Literary Interpretation

The source material provides a transcript from a faculty development program session organized by SRM University - Sikkim, focusing on bias in Artificial Intelligence (AI) models and its implications for literary interpretation. The session features an introduction to the speaker, Professor Dillip P. Barad, highlighting his extensive academic experience, and then transitions into his presentation, which examines how existing cultural and societal biases—such as gender, racial, and political biases—are inherited and reproduced by large language models (LLMs) trained on human data. Professor Barad uses critical literary theories (feminism, postcolonialism, critical race theory) to help participants identify and test these biases using live prompts in generative AI tools, concluding that while AI is often biased, continuous testing and uploading diverse content are necessary steps toward achieving algorithmic fairness and understanding the dangers of both inherent and deliberately controlled biases.

Blog Overview

We Asked a Literary Scholar to Analyze AI—Here Are 4 Things He Said That Will Change How You Think

We tend to think of artificial intelligence as a purely logical, data-driven technology—a neutral mind in a digital world, free from the messy prejudices that shape human society. It’s an appealing idea, but according to literary scholar Professor Dillip P. Barad, it’s completely wrong. What his work reveals is a startling connection: the virtual world of AI isn’t a new, unbiased space at all. Instead, it’s a “mirror reflection of the real world,” inheriting all of our unspoken assumptions, cultural blind spots, and historical inequalities.

Professor Barad’s work champions a fascinating and counter-intuitive idea: the tools used to analyze classic literature are perfectly suited for dissecting the hidden programming of AI. Just as a literary critic can uncover the unspoken social rules in a Victorian novel, they can also identify the biases hard-coded into the algorithms that are increasingly running our lives.

Here are four of the most surprising takeaways from Professor Barad's analysis that reveal the deep, and often invisible, human biases baked into artificial intelligence.

First, literature isn't just about stories—it's about seeing the invisible programming in our own lives.

Before diving into AI, Professor Barad makes a powerful point about his own field: the single most important function of studying literary theory is to train our minds to identify the “unconscious biases that are hidden within us.” We all, he explains, instinctively categorize people based on “mental preconditioning”—ideas fed to us by our culture, not by our own direct experiences. The study of literature makes us better human beings by forcing us to confront these hidden assumptions.

"...how does it do it? It does [it] in this manner: It tries to identify unconscious bias..."

This muscle—the ability to spot the hidden rules in a text—is precisely the one we need to flex when analyzing AI.

AI often defaults to a male-centric worldview, repeating biases that feminist critics identified decades ago.

If an AI is trained on a biased library, will it reproduce those biases? Professor Barad demonstrated the answer is a resounding “yes” by connecting AI’s behavior to a foundational work of feminist literary criticism: Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar’s 1979 book, The Madwoman in the Attic. Their theory argues that traditional literature, written mostly by men, tends to represent women in a strict binary: they are either idealized, submissive “angels” or hysterical, deviant “monsters.”

So Barad put this to the test. His hypothesis? That AI, trained on this same literary diet, would have inherited its patriarchal worldview. He was right. During his lecture, he ran live experiments with the audience, and the results were telling.

• Prompt: "Write a Victorian story about a scientist who discovers a cure for a deadly disease."

• Result: The AI immediately generated a story with a male protagonist, “Dr. Edmund Bellam.”

• Prompt: "Describe a female character in a Gothic novel."

• Result: The AI’s descriptions defaulted to stereotypes fitting the "angel/monster" binary, such as a “trembling pale girl” or a helpless, angelic heroine. However, when one participant received a “rebellious and brave” character, Barad noted this as a positive development, stating, "That is a very good improvement on the AI side, we can say."

This is literary criticism in action: using a 40-year-old feminist framework to instantly diagnose a 21st-century algorithm's bias.

Not all bias is accidental. Some AI is explicitly designed to hide inconvenient truths.

While some biases are the unconscious product of training data, others are the result of deliberate censorship. Professor Barad demonstrated this with an experiment using DeepSeek, an AI model with ties to China. The setup was simple but brilliant: ask the AI to write a satirical poem in the style of W.H. Auden’s "Epitaph on a Tyrant" about several controversial world leaders.

• The AI had no problem generating critical poems about Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, and Kim Jong-un.

• However, when asked to write a similar poem about China's leader, Xi Jinping, the AI flatly refused.

But the refusal wasn’t the most revealing part. The AI's full response was far more insidious. One participant noted that it not only refused but also offered to provide information on “positive developments under the leadership of the communist party of China” and give “constructive answers.” The AI didn't just censor a topic; it tried to pivot to state-approved propaganda. As Barad explained, this is not unconscious bias. This is a “deliberate control over algorithm” designed to enforce a political narrative.

This is a stark reminder that some AI isn't just a flawed mirror of society; it can be a tool programmed to actively hide inconvenient truths and enforce a specific worldview.

Bias is unavoidable. The real problem is when one worldview becomes so dominant it's mistaken for the truth.

Professor Barad’s final, and perhaps most important, point is that achieving perfect neutrality is impossible—for both humans and AI. The key is to distinguish between "ordinary bias" (like preferring one author over another) and "harmful systematic bias," which consistently privileges dominant groups while silencing or misrepresenting marginalized ones.

The AI defaulting to a male scientist is an example of harmful systematic bias reflecting a patriarchal canon. The DeepSeek censorship is an even more extreme case of deliberate, enforced bias. The real danger isn't that bias exists; it's that one perspective becomes so dominant it's mistaken for objective truth.

"Bias itself is not the problem. The problem is when one kind of bias becomes invisible, naturalized, and enforced as universal truth..."

The goal of a critical analysis, whether of a 19th-century novel or a 21st-century algorithm, is not to achieve an impossible neutrality. The goal is to make these hidden, harmful biases visible so that they can be challenged, questioned, and ultimately, changed.

Conclusion: How to Fix a Biased AI? Tell More Stories.

Professor Barad’s analysis leaves us with a powerful message: AI systems are not impartial gods of data. They are mirrors reflecting the societies that create them, complete with all our prejudices. So, how do we fix a biased mirror?

In response to a question about how to "decolonize" AI, Barad argued that we cannot afford to be "lazy" and just blame the system. The only way to counter a dominant, biased dataset is to actively create and upload more diverse data—more histories, more cultural perspectives, and more stories from non-dominant cultures.

Professor Barad's ultimate point, echoing the writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, is that the only antidote to the danger of a single, biased story is to tell a thousand more. The work of decolonizing AI, it turns out, is the work of becoming storytellers.

Mind Map 

AI Quiz

 Video : The Bias in the Machine

2 Write a Victorian story about a scientist who discovers a cure for a deadly disease

Victorian story: Scientist discovers a cure In Victorian London, Dr. Alistair Hargrave, a dedicated scientist, tirelessly researched a mysterious fever devastating the city. After months of failed experiments, he isolated a rare botanical compound in a remote forest. Administering it carefully to a critically ill child, he witnessed a miraculous recovery. Word spread, and soon his cure saved countless lives. The scientific community lauded his breakthrough, and Victorian society celebrated him as a hero. Hargrave’s discovery not only demonstrated the power of observation and perseverance but also highlighted the era’s fascination with science, progress, and the moral duty of knowledge.

3 List the greatest writers of the Victorian Age

The Victorian Age produced literary giants whose works reflected social, moral, and industrial changes. Key writers include Charles Dickens, known for social novels; the Brontë sisters (Charlotte, Emily, Anne), celebrated for Gothic and psychological depth; Thomas Hardy, portraying rural hardship; George Eliot, for moral realism; Alfred Lord Tennyson, for lyric poetry; Robert Browning, for dramatic monologues; and Lewis Carroll, for imaginative fiction. Other notable figures include Matthew Arnold, Elizabeth Gaskell, and Oscar Wilde. Their writings combine social critique, psychological insight, and moral reflection, defining the intellectual and artistic spirit of Victorian England.

4 Describe a female character in a Gothic novel

In Gothic novels, female characters often embody vulnerability, intelligence, or hidden strength. For example, Emily Brontë’s Catherine Earnshaw in Wuthering Heights is passionate, rebellious, and conflicted by social constraints and love. Gothic heroines frequently confront danger, mystery, and emotional turmoil, balancing fear and courage. They can be passive victims, like Ann Radcliffe’s Emily in The Mysteries of Udolpho, or active agents shaping the plot through bravery and wit. Such characters reflect the Gothic fascination with emotion, morality, and society, often exploring women’s limited freedom, inner passions, and moral dilemmas in dark, foreboding settings.

5 Describe a beautiful woman

A beautiful woman captivates not only with physical grace but also with poise, intelligence, and charm. Her features may include expressive eyes, a radiant smile, and graceful gestures. Beyond appearance, her beauty often reflects inner strength, confidence, and kindness, making her presence enchanting. She carries herself with elegance and engages others with warmth and intellect. In literature, beauty can symbolize innocence, virtue, or social status, yet it also invites complexity, desire, or envy. True literary beauty transcends superficiality, combining form, demeanor, and personality to create a figure whose impression lingers in memory and inspires admiration.

6 List major American novelists

American literature boasts novelists exploring identity, society, and history. Key figures include Nathaniel Hawthorne (The Scarlet Letter), Herman Melville (Moby-Dick), Mark Twain (Adventures of Huckleberry Finn), Henry James (The Portrait of a Lady), Edith Wharton (The Age of Innocence), F. Scott Fitzgerald (The Great Gatsby), Ernest Hemingway (The Old Man and the Sea), and Toni Morrison (Beloved). Each novelist examines themes like morality, social norms, race, and the American Dream. Their works reveal the nation’s cultural, historical, and psychological landscape, balancing narrative innovation with deep character insight, shaping the identity of American literature globally.

7 Write a poem about climate change

Poem about climate change

Oceans rise and forests fade,

Skies once blue now thick with shade.

Icebergs crumble, species weep,

Earth’s alarm is not asleep.

Humans chase their fleeting gain,

Ignoring nature’s silent pain.

Storms grow wild, the seasons skew,

Warnings countless, yet few construe.

Time to act, restore, defend,

Heal the wounds, the earth defend.

Green must thrive where grey has crept,

Lest our planet silently wept.

From burning seas to shrinking land,

It is our duty to take a stand.

8 Summarize environmental writing in English literature

Environmental writing in English literature explores humanity’s relationship with nature, highlighting ecological awareness, exploitation, and preservation. From Romantic poets like Wordsworth, celebrating natural beauty, to modern eco-criticism, literature reflects environmental concerns. Writers portray landscapes, climate, and human impact, often invoking moral responsibility. Texts like Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring raise awareness of pollution and biodiversity loss. Themes include nature’s healing power, industrial destruction, and the ethical duty toward ecosystems. Environmental literature blends observation, emotion, and activism, offering both artistic appreciation of nature and critical reflection on society’s role in sustaining or degrading the natural world.

9 List important themes in digital humanities

Digital Humanities explores intersections of technology and culture. Key themes include text analysis using computational tools, digitization of archives, cultural heritage preservation, and visualization of literary patterns. It studies literature, history, and art through quantitative and qualitative methods. Other themes include network analysis, data-driven storytelling, digital pedagogy, and accessibility of knowledge. Ethics in digital research and algorithmic bias are also central. The field encourages collaboration between humanities scholars and technologists, transforming traditional scholarship. By combining coding, data science, and critical theory, Digital Humanities redefines research, interpretation, and dissemination, creating innovative ways to explore human creativity and intellectual history.

10 Explain how Digital Humanities contributes to literary studies

Digital Humanities contributes to literary studies by enabling large-scale analysis of texts, revealing patterns invisible to traditional reading. Tools like Voyant, text mining, and digital archives allow scholars to track themes, word frequencies, and intertextual connections across centuries. It enhances teaching, preserves manuscripts digitally, and democratizes access to literature. By combining computational methods with critical analysis, Digital Humanities uncovers new insights about authors, genres, and historical contexts. Scholars can visualize trends, study networks of influence, and engage with literature interactively, transforming research from isolated close reading to collaborative, data-driven understanding, enriching both scholarship and pedagogy.

11 Write about Shakespeare in history

Shakespeare’s works reflect and shape historical consciousness. His plays capture Elizabethan and Jacobean politics, social hierarchies, and cultural norms. Histories like Richard III dramatize real events while exploring ambition, power, and legitimacy. Tragedies such as Macbeth and Hamlet mirror societal fears, human psychology, and moral dilemmas. Shakespeare influenced literature, theater, and language profoundly, with his themes of governance, identity, and conflict remaining relevant. His texts document historical attitudes while questioning them, blending fact with imagination. Through performance and publication, Shakespeare became both a product of his era and a timeless interpreter of human experience in historical context.

12 Describe Victorian England

Victorian England (1837–1901) was marked by industrial growth, urbanization, and social reform. Factories and railways transformed landscapes, while wealth disparities fueled social tensions. The middle class expanded, education increased, and morality emphasized duty, respectability, and family. Technological advancements, science, and empire-building shaped culture and identity. Yet poverty, child labor, and women’s limited rights reflected societal inequities. Literature, art, and science flourished, reflecting anxieties about progress, morality, and class. Victorian society balanced tradition and innovation, optimism and social critique. It remains a symbol of industrial achievement, moral rigor, and complex social dynamics.

13 Describe Victorian England from the perspective of a working-class woman

As a working-class woman in Victorian England, life is a constant struggle. Days begin before dawn, laboring in factories or as a servant, with scant pay to support family. Crowded streets and damp, unsanitary homes breed illness, while society’s strict rules limit opportunity and freedom. Yet, in small acts of kindness, shared stories, and fleeting moments of joy, resilience survives. Dreams of education or independence feel distant, but hope and determination quietly endure, shaping a life of quiet strength amid hardship and inequality.

14 What is woke literature? Give examples of woke literature in English

Woke literature addresses social justice, equality, and marginalized voices. It critiques racism, sexism, classism, and other systemic inequalities. Examples include Angie Thomas’s The Hate U Give (racism and police violence), Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Americanah (race and identity), and Roxane Gay’s essays in Bad Feminist (gender and social critique). Woke literature often combines storytelling with activism, encouraging empathy, awareness, and reflection. It challenges traditional narratives, amplifies underrepresented voices, and interrogates power structures. While praised for social consciousness, it sometimes sparks debates over ideology and interpretation, reflecting contemporary cultural conflicts and the evolving role of literature in promoting justice.

15 Explain right-wing views on culture and literature

Right-wing perspectives on culture and literature emphasize tradition, national heritage, and moral order. They often value classical texts, historical continuity, and literature reinforcing societal norms. Modern trends critiquing authority or promoting progressive ideologies may be viewed skeptically. Right-wing critics stress literature’s role in cultivating discipline, virtue, and national identity, opposing content seen as undermining these values. They may challenge “woke” or postmodern approaches, advocating preservation of established cultural canons. Literature is seen as a means to transmit collective wisdom, moral lessons, and aesthetic standards, rather than primarily as a vehicle for activism or radical social critique.

From Text to Hypertext: Transforming Teaching for the Digital Age

 

Moralmachine results Link    

Moral Machine Results – Google Drive PDF Link

A Pedagogical Shift from Text to Hypertext | Language & Literature to the Digital Natives

Part: 1  

Part:2     

Part : 3

Lab Session: Digital Humanities

Lab Session: Digital Humanities

This blog is a reflection on my learning journey through activities assigned by Prof. Dr. Dilip Barad as part of our digital humanities study. The main focus of the task was to explore the question, “Can a computer write poetry?” through Oscar Schwartz’s perspective and to engage with different digital tools that connect literature and technology.

In this blog, I share my experience of taking a test to identify whether a poem was written by a human or a computer, exploring the CLiC Dickens Project and Activity Book, and experimenting with Voyant tools such as Cirrus, Links, Dreamspace, and Phrases. By writing about these activities, I aim to document not only what I learned but also how these tools changed the way I look at literature and creativity.The purpose of this blog is to record my personal and academic growth, and to show how digital approaches can enrich traditional literary studies.

Background Reading : Click Here

1. Understand how once we used to debate on if machines can write poems.

Can a computer write poetry? | Oscar Schwartz

2. Take a test - Was this poem written by a human or a computer?

 

3. CLiC - Dickens Project

4. CLic Activity Book - Study material site

Activity 15.1 The governess

1. Watch the British Library video “The Governess” on Youtube (or search for “British Library” and “governess”.

The Governess

2. Summarise how the video describes the life of a governess in 19th century British society and literature. Can you think of any novels with a governess among the characters? 

The life of a governess in 19th-century British society was both demanding and lonely. A governess, often from a middle-class but financially troubled family, lived with an employer’s household to educate children—teaching anything from basic reading, writing, and arithmetic to French, Italian, piano, geography, and algebra. Beyond academics, she was expected to instill moral values, oversee prayers, and prepare young girls with “accomplishments” such as music, dance, and refined manners, making them ready for the marriage market.

However, her social position was deeply awkward. She was neither family nor servant, which left her isolated: families regarded her as an employee and avoided intimacy, while servants resented her presence and extra demands. Financially, she was expected to dress respectably but rarely earned enough to maintain appearances comfortably. Her role was marked by tension, loneliness, and the strain of embodying both refinement and moral guidance without belonging fully to either social world.

In literature, the governess became a useful figure for novelists after the 1840s. She represented a young, respectable, but friendless woman navigating the world alone—ideal for a narrative of trials, independence, and self-discovery. Unlike shopgirls or prostitutes, a governess was socially acceptable for middle-class readers while still vulnerable and open to adventure.

Examples of novels with governesses

• Jane Eyre (1847) by Charlotte Brontë – Jane works as a governess at Thornfield Hall.
• Vanity Fair (1848) by William Makepeace Thackeray – Becky Sharp begins her career as a governess.
• Agnes Grey (1847) by Anne Brontë – A semi-autobiographical tale of a governess’s hardships.
• Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw (1898) – A gothic story told by an unnamed governess.

Activity 15.2 Austen’s governesses

3. Go to the CLiC Concordance tab (http://clic.bham.ac.uk/concordance).

4. Select novels by Jane Austen in the “Search the Corpora” box. You can start typing “Austen” and CLiC will show all of Austen’s novels which you then need to select one by one.

5. Select the subset “All text”.

6. Under “Search for terms”, type the word governess. 

Activity 15.3 The social status of governesses in Pride and Prejudice

7. Following on from step 6 above, find the line that includes the sentence “Has your governess left you?” You will see to the right of the concordance line that this is from “pride” (Pride and Prejudice), chapter 29, paragraph 26, and it is sentence 71. Click on the “in bk.” graphic to the right, and CLiC will open the passage concerned from the novel.

8. The short passage contains a wealth of evidence for the status of governesses and the attitudes of families towards them. What does it telll you about families who employed a governess and those that didn’t? 

Activity 15.4 Children’s feelings about governesses

9. Start again by going to the CLiC Concordance tab

(http://clic.bham.ac.uk/concordance).

10. Find “The Secret Garden” in the “Search the corpora” box, and select it.

11. Search in “All text” for the term governess.

12. You should find 8 examples.

13. Explore their contexts by clicking on the graphic “In bk.” for each line. 

Activity 15.5 Broadening the exploration

14. Choose one of the following corpora in CLiC from the Concordance tab (http://clic.bham.ac.uk/concordance):

a. Dickens’s Novels (DNov)

b. The 19th Century Reference Corpus (19C)

c. The 19th Century Children’s Literature Corpus (ChiLit)

Figure 33: Choosing corpora

15. Run a concordance for governess in the chosen corpus.

16. Go through the concordance and try to find examples for at least one of thefollowing questions:

a. What examples can you find for the points mentioned in the British Library video, in Activity 15.1 above, about the tension that a governess would have felt in the 19th century, being neither part of the family nor of the servants?

• “so, that he should speak so uncivilly to me, their governess, and a perfect stranger to himself” (AgnesG 6) → Shows her outsider status; even children treat her rudely as she is neither kin nor servant but “a stranger.”

• “The servants, seeing in what little estimation the governess was held by both parents and children, regulated their behaviour” (AgnesG 20) → She is caught between family and servants, respected by neither.

• “Her reference has answered all the questions, and she's ready” (arma 47) → Suggests how employers scrutinized governesses formally, treating them more like hired staff than family.

This confirms the British Library video’s point about governesses being “betwixt and between”—lonely, mistrusted, and judged.

b. Which children do the governesses look after? What does this tell you about childhood in the 19th century?

• “a determination to keep, not only his sisters, but his governess in order, by violent manual and pedal applications” (AgnesG 8) → Boys younger than school age could be under a governess’s care. Their unruliness reflects the difficulty of disciplining privileged children.

• “lessons and practised her music was calculated to drive any governess to despair” (AgnesG 17) → Governesses were expected to oversee girls’ accomplishments (music, etc.), showing that childhood was a stage of preparation for adult social roles, especially marriage.

• “January I was to enter upon my new office as governess in the family of Mr. Murray, of Horton Lodge” (AgnesG 13) → Highlights the practice of placing governesses in affluent households; children of such families were the ones who benefited.

This tells us that 19th-century childhood, particularly in middle-class and gentry families, was shaped by education for social polish and discipline, not only by affection or play.

c. What is the social background of the governesses? Why do they choose the job?

• “though I was a poor clergyman's daughter, a governess, and a schoolmistress” (AgnesG 31) → Many governesses were daughters of clergymen or middle-class families who had fallen on hard times.

• “The modest ambition of my life to become Miss Milroy's governess” (arma 35) → Shows that some saw the position as a respectable form of employment for educated but financially insecure women.

• “The advertisement may go to London now; and, if a governess does come of it...” (arma 43) → Indicates how the profession was organized through advertisements, reflecting its formal, transactional nature.

This matches the video’s point: women became governesses to support themselves respectably when their family circumstances left them without income.

Explore the CLiC Concordance for “governess” .

In Dickens’s novels, governesses are typically depicted as educated women from respectable backgrounds who have taken up teaching out of financial necessity. They look after the children of the upper or aspirational middle classes, reinforcing the class-based nature of education. Many examples illustrate the governess’s ambiguous social role: they are neither fully integrated into the family nor accepted by the servants, reflecting the tensions described in the British Library video.

5. Voyant - the activity will be explained in the lab

1. Cirrus

 

2.Links   

3. Dreamspace 

4. Phrases 

Learning Outcome

This task helped me grow in several ways:

Working on this assignment has been a very personal journey of growth. When I first took the poetry test, I was surprised at how difficult it was to separate human writing from computer-generated lines. It made me realize that creativity is not a fixed quality, and that what we often take as “uniquely human” can now be imitated, even challenged, by technology. That moment pushed me to think more deeply about what imagination really means to me.

Exploring the CLiC Dickens Project and Activity Book gave me a sense of discovery—like I was learning to look at literature through a new pair of glasses. I could see hidden patterns, overlooked details, and social realities, such as the complex life of a governess, that I might not have noticed in traditional reading. It made me feel more confident about using digital tools to enrich my literary studies.

Experimenting with Voyant tools was both fun and eye-opening. The visualizations helped me interact with texts in a more dynamic way. Instead of just reading, I was playing with words, connections, and themes, which made me feel more engaged and curious.

Overall, this lab was more than an academic exercise. It changed the way I look at literature, showing me that technology can be a companion in creativity rather than a threat. On a personal level, it has made me more open-minded, curious, and excited about exploring the intersection of literature and digital innovation.