(1952) and sLauGhterhouse-Five (1969), which
portray the violent decay of the modern world.
Racial violence is apparent in novels like Richard
Wright’s native son (1940) and Toni Morri-
son’s The bLuest eye (1970). The universality of
women’s experience of sexual violence has provided
grounds for feminist contributions from writers such
as Margaret Atwood and Joyce Carol Oates.
With the close of the 20th century, imagistic
representation of violence in all forms of media has
become commonplace. Films, television, art, and
print media are saturated with images of familial
violence involving women and children; issues of
community violence directed toward ethnic and
minority groups; the practice of institutional vio-
lence in workplace, schools, hospitals, police and
law enforcement agencies; and incidents of state
violence, such as the repression and surveillance
practices after the September 11, 2001, destruction
of the World Trade Center in the United States,
the legitimation of violence through state support
witnessed in the communal riots in Gujarat, and the
Nandigram massacre in West Bengal, India. Though
the media plays an active role in recording, portray-
ing, disseminating, and reflecting on violence, its
methods and intentions are often suspect because
the politics influencing it may engender newer
forms of violence.
Plagued by violence, the contemporary era views
nonviolence as a redeeming idea and the need of
the hour. Though the history of nonviolence as a
religious or philosophical doctrine has been traced
as far back as the Chandogya Upanishad of ancient
Hinduism, the Chinese Tao Te Ching, the Bible, and
the early Christian prophets, the dramatic advent
of nonviolence as a favored alternative position
occurred in the recent past with Mohandas Gandhi’s
“Satyagraha” campaigns for India’s independence in
the 1920s, and the struggle for racial justice in the
United States during the 1960s. Contemporary dis-
courses on nonviolence not only advocate traditional
ideals such as love and tolerance to protect both
human and animal rights; they also focus, paradoxi-
cally, on the use of violence to achieve peace through
enforcement and prosecution. Besides, the modern
practitioners of nonviolence seek to strengthen the
role of nongovernmental organizations that pro-
mote education to prevent violence. Significantly,
pacifist propaganda, too, is embedded in the matrix
of human civilization and continues to be a cause
worth fighting for in a world with ever-escalating
incidences of violence.
See also Albee, Edward: who’s aFraid^ oF^
virGinia wooLF?; Bambara, Toni Cade: saLt
eaters, the; Conrad, Joseph: heart oF dark-
ness; Dickens, Charles: taLe oF two cities, a;
Grass, Günter: tiM druM, the; Hesse, Her-
man: steppenwoLF; Jackson, Shirley: “Lottery,
The”; Jacobs, Harriet: incidents in the LiFe oF a
sLave GirL, written by herseLF; Knowles, John:
separate peace, a; Kozinski, Jerzy: painted bird,
the; Melville, Herman: biLLy budd, saiLor;
Morrison, Toni: sonG oF soLoMon; O’Connor,
Flannery: “Good Man Is Hard to Find, A”;
Pope, Alexander: rape oF the Lock, the; Roth,
Philip: aMerican pastoraL; Shakespeare, Wil-
liam: haMLet; henry iv, part i; Twain, Mark:
connecticut yankee in kinG arthur’s court, a;
Walker, Alice: coLor purpLe, the; Williams,
Tennessee: streetcar naMed desire, a.FURTHER READING
Arendt, Hannah. On Violence. New York: Harcourt
Brace, 1970.
Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish. Translated by
Alan Sheridan. New York: Vintage Books, 1977.
Freud, Sigmund. Psychopathology of Everyday Life.
Classics in the History of Psychology. Available
online. URL: http://psychclassics.asu.edu/Freud/
Psycho/. Accessed March 17, 2010.
Garver, Newton. “What Violence Is.” In Today’s Moral
Problems, edited by R. Wasserstrom, New York:
Macmillan, 1975.
Gilligan, James. Violence: Reflections on a National Epi-
demic. New York: Vintage Books, 1996.
Marcuse, Herbert. Eros and Civilization. New York:
Vintage Books, 1955.
Miller, William Robert. Nonviolence: A Christian Inter-
pretation. London: George Allen and Unwin, 1964.
Sorel, Georges. Reflections on Violence. Translated by
T. E. Hulme and J. Roth. Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press,
1950.
Srirupa Chatterjeeviolence 119