THE translations given in this volume, with the exception of the stormscene from Tolstoy in the First Lecture, are my own. The reader will please bear in mind that these Lectures, printed here exactly as delivered, were written with a view to addressing the ear as well as the eye, otherwise the book would have been entirely different from what it now is. When delivering the Sixth Lecture, I read extracts from Tolstoy’s “My Religion” and “What to Do,” illustrating every position of his I there commend; but for reasons it is needless to state, I omit them in the book. I can only hope that the reader will all the more readily go to the books themselves.

1889. P. GRAFTON, MASS., 1 July, 1889.

The aim of this book is to shed light on dystopia within the circle of twentieth century literature by analysing the development of totalitarianism and its detrimental effects, such as dehumanisation and social unrest that shattered the unity of society in three basic forms as reflected in William Golding’s Lord of the Flies (1953), George Orwell’s Animal Farm (1945) and Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949). Thus, it explores the beginning of totalitarianism resulted from an inborn instinctive drive as reflected in William Golding’s Lord of the Flies (1953) first, then its formation and rise in George Orwell’s Animal Farm (1945), then finally the ill effects of it in both society and in individuals in Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949). Totalitarianism, together with “Fascism”, in the twentieth century can be confined to the period between 1922 and 1975. It starts with Mussolini; is followed by Hitler and Stalin, then ends with the death of Franco. It was during the rule of totalitarians that all ideals promising peace were abused to claim the rule, terror and fear factors were resorted to secure a totalitarian power at the expense of millions of deaths, torture and social unrest. In these novels, William Golding and George Orwell criticise how totalitarianism is established, and maintained by fear, manipulation and terror in the twentieth century.

“The title of Salman Rushdie’s famous essay, which later formed the title of a book of essays by him, ‘Imaginary Homelands’, is based on one side of a common and age-old perception of home: we make it in the mind or the imagination. Ordinary language has versions of it too: home is where the heart is, I don’t feel at home in my own town/country, this is my spiritual home, etc. On the other hand, there is a physical aspect to home too – ranging from walls associated with ancestral property or parents or some other such inheritance, and extended, through the imagining of communities, as Benedict Andersen would phrase it, sometimes to a land, a country, even a nation. To say that any one of these broad definitions of home is wrong is to cut off large sections of humankind: those who do not belong where they live or those who cannot return to where they used to live. To feel at home and to live at home are both valid cravings, and though they do not necessarily overlap, neither can be dismissed in favour of the other” Tabish Khair

Home in Western Language is a compilation of selected papers presented at the 7th BAKEA Symposium, 2021. In the time of the pandemic, when home has acquired more meanings, this book reads the idea of home and explores its connotations as presented in different genres and ages of English, American, French and literatures.