Proverbs and axioms are the reservoir and treasure house of ancient wisdom of centuries. These were not composed by any individual mind or writer in one day but are the product of collective wisdom of mankind and collective unconscious mind of humanity. These are the essence of human knowledge and wisdom. These act as source of inspiration for future generations. These are good treasure house of imagery and symbolism for artists and men of literature.
Proverbs are the product of socio milieu. When social set up or social reality changes or goes for transformational vicissitudes than super structure based on economic
structure of society also changes. So with changing circumstances and social milieu the proverbs had also undergone drastic changes not only in form but in content also. The mutual relationship of society and literature is dialectical i.e. when one change the other also undergoes change automatically and instantly. These not only change or influence each other but are also getting changed in return. The determinant of literature is society but literature in turn also changes or influences society. Similarly the relationship between ideology and society is also dialectical.Face is the index of mind proverb was product of the feudal age. In feudal age society was all important and man was puppet in the hands of fate and religious powers. Determinism was the dominant social psychology. According to this doctrine everything is pre-determined. The king had divine rights that could not be challenged. Society and social set up was supreme and could not be challenged or changed by single man. Man was subservient to society and nature. Man was very fearful of natural forces and he has no control over these forces. The society as a whole was very simple and man was simple in mind. The simplicity was way of life. Innocence was considered to be the greatest quality of life and a great social value and virtue. Truthful living was way of people’s life. People had great ideals in their life. Moral values were supreme to them.
There was contentment in the life of people and there was no competition among the people .God and religion were the centre of society. Religion was dominant value and way of life of people. People were so simple in mental set up that what was in their mind was actually on their face. Whatever was in heir heart was on their tongue. These people by and large were so simple minded that they did not know what hypocrisy or trickstery is? They were the men of words. In Indian perspective and culture Ram and Krishna are representative of the feudal set up and psyche. Sita is representative dominant woman feudal character among woman belonging to feudal age.
Society is never static and everything in nature is subjected to change and decay. Change is law of nature. The feudal set up was changed and was replaced by capitalism in western. The feudal values gave way to capitalistic values of life.
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Rise of Capitalism
All social values of feudal set up went transformational change as the advent of capitalism. Individualization became the dominant tendency of society and social life. Now man did not remain puppet in he hands of nature. He started exploring the nature with scientific mind. He challenged the church, religion, gods and all religious institutions. Galileo is the example of the rise of capitalist and rationalist man of
Almost an entirely new social set up came into existence termed as capitalism. Man was totally degraded in this age of machinery and industrialization. Equality, fraternity and liberty were the new slogans and aspirations of new “machine man.” The new man may be rightly referred as “most industrialized opportunistic and pragmatic man of history.” this new man started exploiting everything and nature for his own benefits and selfish ends. He plundered the natural resources of nature ruthlessly for his own narrow ends and selfish motives. The love of individual self surpassed every value of society “I am not for society, Society is meant for me became the dominant slogan of this new man”. All these social changes gave a new interpretation of existing social values. Now in this complex society face is not the index of mind but face is the medium to conceal the evil design and crookedness of his mind.
Cunningness, deceitfulness, slyness, hypocrisy, elusiveness and trickiness are to be protected by wearing the mask of innocence, sincerity, faithfulness on the face. So people may not recognize his real face. Face has become the big tool in the ands of mind to conceal itself and its design. The life of tech man is full of contradictions and dichotomies. He is fighting against his own self. These dichotomies gave birth to new diseases like split personality and schizophrenia. The other tool this new man has invented is the concealment of his real mind picture through the misuse or clever use of language. Language is considered to be the powerful medium of one’s self expression and communication. By using smart language the tech man has started concealing the real emotions and motives of his mind. Language has not only become tool of concealment but deception also. Wearing of multitude of masks on face i.e. masqueradation has become the leading tendency and dominant life style of modern society .Jagjit a prominent poet of Hindi has beautiful exposed the dichotomous state of mind of modern man by saying: “you seem to be too happy and euphoric exihilarious today. What is the matter? What are the grievances and sorrows that you are trying to hide by being so happy today? So in this tech modern age face is no longer the index of mind but rather a smart tool in the hands of “trickster tech man” to hide the true mentality