NCERT 10th Class (CBSE) Social Science: Novels, Society and History Quiz
23 Multiple Choice Questions related to NCERT 10th Class (CBSE) Social Science: Novels society and history Quiz:
- Novel is a modern form of literature born from print, a mechanical invention.
- New groups of lower-middle-class people such as shopkeepers, clerks, aristocrats and gentlemanly classes formed the new readership for the novels.
- It allowed readers to relish the suspense, discuss the character of a novel and live for weeks with its story.
- He has shown the main character i.e. Jane as independent and assertive while girls of her time were expected to be quiet and well behaved.
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Novels, Society and History Quiz – Chapter Summary:
The Rise of the Novel
- A novel is a modern form of literature which is born from print, a mechanical invention.
- The novel first took firm root in England and France.
- From the eighteenth century, novels started flowering.
- As readership grew, the earnings of authors increased and gave them the freedom to experiment with different literary styles.
The Publishing Market
- The introduction of circulating libraries in 1740 provided easier access to books.
- Technological improvements in printing brought down the price of books.The novel became one of the first mass-produced items to be sold because the worlds created by novels were absorbing and believable, and seemingly real.
- In rural areas, people would collect to hear one of them reading a novel aloud.
- Serialisation of novels in the magazines allowed readers to enjoy the suspense, discuss the characters of a novel and live for weeks with their stories.
The World of the Novel
- In the nineteenth century, Europe entered the industrial age.
→ During this time, the central theme of the most novel were lives of industrial workers. - Charles Dickens published two novels named Hard Times (1854) and Oliver Twist (1838) at this time.
→ Hard Times describes Coketown, a fictitious industrial town while Oliver Twist is the tale of a poor orphan.
Community and Society
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- The vast majority of readers of the novel lived in the city.
- The novel uses the vernacular, the language that is spoken by common people.
The New Woman
- In the eighteenth century, women got more leisure to read as well as write novels.
- In novels, they drew upon their experience, wrote about family life and earned public recognition.
- The women novelists also showed women as rebels who broke established norms of society before adjusting to them.
Novels for the Young
- Novels for young boys idealized a new type of man: someone who was powerful, assertive, independent and daring.
- Most of these novels were full of adventure set in places remote from Europe where colonizers appear heroic and honorable.
- Books like R.L. Stevenson’s Treasure Island (1883) or Rudyard Kipling’s Jungle Book (1894) became great hits.
Colonialism and After
- The early novel contributed to colonialism by making the readers feel they were part of a superior community of fellow colonialists.
The Novel Comes to India
- Some of the earliest Indian novels were written in Bengali and Marathi.
- The earliest novel in Marathi was Baba Padmanji’s Yamuna Paryatan (1857), about the plight of widows.
- Translations of novels into different regional languages helped to spread the popularity of the novel.
The Novel in South India
- A few early novels came out of attempts to translate English novels into Indian languages.
→ However, they were instant failure because of culture difference.
The Novel in Hindi
- In the north, Bharatendu Harishchandra, the pioneer of modern Hindi literature.
- In 1882, the first proper modern novel titled Pariksha-Guru written by Srinivas Das of Delhi.
- Hindi novel achieved Excellence with the writing of Premchand.
Novels in Bengal
- In the nineteenth century, there were two types of novels:
→ One was based on historical events.
→ Another was domestic novels which dealt with the social problems and romantic relationships between men and women. - The new well educated Bengalis (bhadralok) found himself at home in the more private world of reading novels.
- By the twentieth century, the power of telling stories in simple language made Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay (1876-1938) the most popular novelist in Bengal and probably in the rest of India.
Novels in the Colonial World
Uses of the Novel
- Colonial administrators found ‘vernacular’ novels a valuable source of information on native life and customs in governing Indian society, with its large variety of communities and castes.
The Problem of Being Modern
- Novels did not always show things exactly as they were in reality.
- Under colonial rule, many of the English-educated class found new Western ways of living and thinking attractive.
- Through the ideal characters of novel, they showed how Indian and foreign lifestyles could be brought together in an ideal combination.
Pleasures of Reading
- In India too, the novel became a popular medium of entertainment among the middle class.
- Novels encouraged reading alone and in silence.
Women and the Novel
- Women also began to write novels.
- In the early decades of the twentieth century, women in south India also began writing novels and short stories.
- Stories of love was a staple theme of many novels.
- Many men were suspicious of women writing novels or reading them which cut across communities.
Caste Practices, ‘Lower-Castes’ and Minorities
- Novels like Indirabai and Indulekha were written by members of the upper castes, and were primarily about upper-caste characters.
- From the 1920s, in Bengal, a new kind of novel emerged that detailed the lives of peasants and ‘low’ castes.
The Nation and its History
- The educated and working Indians under the English system wanted a new view of the past that would show that Indians could be independent minded and had been so in history.
- In Bengal, many historical novels were about Marathas and Rajputs which produced a sense of a pan-Indian belonging.
- The imagined nation of the novel was so powerful that it could inspire actual political movements.
The Novel and Nation Making
- Novels include various classes in the novel so that they could be seen to belong to a shared world.
- For example, Premchand’s novels are filled with all kinds of powerful characters drawn from all levels of society such as aristocrats and landlords, middle-level peasants and landless laborers, middle-class professionals and people from the margins of society.