(i) World of women : Women got more leisure to read as well as write novels. And novels began exploring the world of women-their emotions and identities, their experiences and problems.
(ii) Domestic life: Many novels were about domestic life - a theme about which women were allowed to speak with authority.  They drew upon their experience, wrote about their family life and earned public recognition.
(iii) Women Authors: Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte, George Eliot etc were some of the best-known novelists of that era.  They wrote about a society which encouraged women to look for good marriages and find wealthy or propertied husbands.
(iv) Independent and assertive : But women novelists did not simply popularise the domestic role of women.  Often their novels dealt with women who broke established norms of society before adjusting to them.  Such stories allowed women readers to sympathise with rebellious actions.  In Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre, published in 1847, young Jane is shown as independent and assertive.  While girls of her time were expected to be quiet and well behaved, jane at the age of ten protests against the hypocrisy of her elders with startling bluntness.

(i) World of women : Women got more leisure to read as well as write novels. And novels began exploring the world of women-their emotions and identities, their experiences and problems.
(ii) Domestic life: Many novels were about domestic life - a theme about which women were allowed to speak with authority.  They drew upon their experience, wrote about their family life and earned public recognition.
(iii) Women Authors: Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte, George Eliot etc were some of the best-known novelists of that era.  They wrote about a society which encouraged women to look for good marriages and find wealthy or propertied husbands.
(iv) Independent and assertive : But women novelists did not simply popularise the domestic role of women.  Often their novels dealt with women who broke established norms of society before adjusting to them.  Such stories allowed women readers to sympathise with rebellious actions.  In Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre, published in 1847, young Jane is shown as independent and assertive.  While girls of her time were expected to be quiet and well behaved, jane at the age of ten protests against the hypocrisy of her elders with startling bluntness.

(i) At the time when the novel was written Indian girls were not allowed to choose their partners. The intelligent Indulekha refused to accept this practice and decided to marry to an educated and handsome boy of Nayar community.
(ii) The novel highlights how the women struggled to get out of unfair social norms of that time.
(iii) Indulekha is a graceful Nair girl with good intelligence, artistic talent. She is a young and educated, knowledgeable young woman with education in English Sanskrit, who is in love with another young man, Madhavan, the hero of the novel, who was also presented in ideal colours, a member of newly educated class from University of Madras. The story details how the matrilineal society of those times, encourages Namboothiris to start a relationship with Indulekha. Indulekha promptly snubs the old Nambudiri man, but Madhavan in haste runs away from the household, to Bengal. There he makes a lot of good friends. In the end, he arrives back and is united with Indulekha.

(i) The novels of Jane Austen give us a glimpse of women in genteel rural society in their domestic role.  Bronte talks about the women who broke established norms of the society.

(ii) Austen's characters are preoccupied with marriage and money while Bronte's characters are daring and assertive.

(iii) Austen's characters are opting for wealth and facilities.  They wish to live a luxurious life while Bronte's character protests the hypocrisy of elders and wants to live a more dignified life at equal footage.

(i) Kabirlarai: It was a type of contest held among the poets.  It was a public form of entertainment.  The merchants of Calcutta used to patronise such contests.

(ii) Jatra : It is the tenth day after Navaratra and is celebrated as the day of departure of Goddess Durga.

(iii) Bhadralok : It means those people who are well read and belong to rich families from upper class.

(i) Novel and industrialisation: Charles Dickens was the foremost English novelist of the Victorian era. He wrote about the terrible effects of industrialisation on people's lives and characters. His novels Hard Times and Oliver Twist became world famous.
(ii) New for the young: Novels for young boys idealised 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. G.A. Henty a English novelist wrote exclusively for young boys.
(iii) Source of information for colonial administration: Colonial administrators found the 'vernacular' novels a valuable source of information on native life and customs. Such information was useful for them in governing Indian society, with its large and a variety of communities and castes. As outsiders, the British knew little about life inside Indian households. The novels in Indian languages often had descriptions of domestic life.
(iv) Novels and struggle for freedom: The imagined nation of the novel was so powerful that it could inspire actual political movements. Bankims Anandamath (1882) is a novel about a secret Hindu militia that fights Muslims to establish a Hindu Kingdom. It was a novel that inspired many kinds of freedom fighters.
(v) Novels for Women: Many women novelists wrote exclusively on life of women, their emotions, their experiences and problems.

(i) Indians used the novel as a powerful medium to criticise what they considered defects in their society and to suggest remedies. Writers like Viresalingam used the novel mainly to propagate their ideas about society among a wider readership.
(ii) Novels also helped in establishing a relationship with the past. Many of them told thrilling stories of adventures and intrigues set in the past. Through glorified accounts of the past, these novels helped in creating a sense of national pride among their readers. At the same time, people from all walks of life could read novels so long as they shared a common language. This helped in creating a sense of collective belonging on the basis of one's language. (iii) Novels made their readers familiar with the ways in which people in other parts of their land spoke their language.
(iv) As elsewhere in the world, in India too, the novel became a popular medium of entertainment among the middle class. The circulation of printed books allowed people to amuse themselves in new ways.
(v) A reason for the popularity of novels among women was that it allowed for a new conception of womanhood. Stories of love which was a staple theme of many novels showed women who could choose or refuse their partners and relationships.
(vi) From the 1920s, in Bengal too a new kind of novel emerged that depicted the lives of peasants and 'low' castes. Advaita Malla Burman's (1914-51) Titash Ekti Nadir Naam (1956) is an epic about the Mallas, a community of fisherfolk who live off fishing in the river Titash.
(vii) Basheer's short novels and stories were written in the ordinary language of conversation. With wonderful humour, Basheer's novels spoke about details from the everyday life of Muslim households.
(viii) Premchand's novels, for instance, are filled with all kinds of powerful characters drawn from all levels of society. In his novels you meet aristocrats and landlords, middle level peasants and landless labourers, middle-class professionals and people from the margins of society.

(i) Indians used the novel as a powerful medium to criticise what they considered defects in their society and to suggest remedies. Writers like Viresalingam used the novel mainly to propagate their ideas about society among a wider readership.
(ii) Novels also helped in establishing a relationship with the past. Many of them told thrilling stories of adventures and intrigues set in the past. Through glorified accounts of the past, these novels helped in creating a sense of national pride among their readers. At the same time, people from all walks of life could read novels so long as they shared a common language. This helped in creating a sense of collective belonging on the basis of one's language. (iii) Novels made their readers familiar with the ways in which people in other parts of their land spoke their language.
(iv) As elsewhere in the world, in India too, the novel became a popular medium of entertainment among the middle class. The circulation of printed books allowed people to amuse themselves in new ways.
(v) A reason for the popularity of novels among women was that it allowed for a new conception of womanhood. Stories of love which was a staple theme of many novels showed women who could choose or refuse their partners and relationships.
(vi) From the 1920s, in Bengal too a new kind of novel emerged that depicted the lives of peasants and 'low' castes. Advaita Malla Burman's (1914-51) Titash Ekti Nadir Naam (1956) is an epic about the Mallas, a community of fisherfolk who live off fishing in the river Titash.
(vii) Basheer's short novels and stories were written in the ordinary language of conversation. With wonderful humour, Basheer's novels spoke about details from the everyday life of Muslim households.
(viii) Premchand's novels, for instance, are filled with all kinds of powerful characters drawn from all levels of society. In his novels you meet aristocrats and landlords, middle level peasants and landless labourers, middle-class professionals and people from the margins of society.

The novel in colonial India was useful for both the colonisers as well as the nationalists on account of a veriety of reasons. Colonial rulers found "vernacular" novels illuminating for the information they provided on native customs and life.  It was useful in the governance of this diverse country.  Indian nationalists used the form of the novel to criticise colonial rule and instill a sense of national pride and unity amongst the people.

The concern in both nineteenth-century Europe and India about women reading novels bore more or less similar fears.  Women were seen as easily corruptible and an imaginary world that the novel provided was seen as a dangerous opening for the imaginations of its readers.  In certain Indian communities, it was felt that women who read novels would leave their domestic environments and aspire to be part of the outside world the male domain.  This suggests that women were viewed as delicate and incapable of their financial needs while they maintained his household and remained subservient to him.

Thomas Hardy and Charles Dickens wrote mostly about the effects of industrialisation Dickens wrote about industrial towns and the plight of the poor in them-smoking chimneys, grim factories, pollution, and identity-less and exploited workers.  In his novel "Hard Times", he criticises the greed for profits and the reduction of urban life under industrial capitalism.  Thomas Hardy, on the other hand, wrote about traditional rural communities of England which were vanishing in the face of rapid industrial growth.  the change from old agricultural practice of independent farming to employment of labourers and machines on large farms can be seen in Hardy's famed work "The Mayor of Casterbridge".  In this novel, through the character of Michael Henchard, Hardy demonstrates how he mourns the loss of the personalised world, even though he knows its problems and understands the advantages of the new order.

(a) In 1877-78, Ramashankar Ray started to serialise the first Oriya novel, "Saudamini" but it remained incomplete. Orissa's first major novelist was Fakir MohonSenapati. He wrote "Chaa Mana AtheGuntha" that deals with land and its possession. This novel illustrated that rural issues could be an important part of urban concerns.
(b) Austen portrayed the lives of women of genteel rural society in early nineteenth century Britain. Her novels explore the social norms that women had to follow predominantly, their duty was to marry wealthy husbands who could offer them financial and social security. The women in Jane Austen's novels are not always shown to conform to social convention. Although her works do typify the society she lived in, the protagonist in her novels is always an independent-minded woman.
(c) The novel "Pariksha - Guru" portrays the difficulties of the new middle class in adapting to colonised society while preserving its cultural identity. It emphasises that Western ideals must be inculcated, but without sacrificing the traditional values of middle-class households. The characters in this Hindi novel by Srinivas Das are seen endeavouring to bridge the two different worlds of modern education and traditional ethics.