Representation of the Subaltern in Upadhyay’s The Royal Ghosts

Abstract

The origin of the term subaltern traces back to the medieval age to apply to peasant class. However, the term incorporates the people of lower strata who are marginalized and oppressed. The subaltern studies, thus, tries to find out the real scenario of the people from the margin and to promote them to have their agency insuring their voice. Subaltern studies works through the idea of representation and misrepresentation and Spivak, Gramsci, Guha and many other are the contributors of subaltern studies Gramsci, one of the contributors of subaltern defines: “[. . . ] refers to those group in the society who are subject to hegemony to the ruling classes” (215). In The Royal Ghosts, Upadhyay has written various stories trying to represent the characters belonging to the subaltern group, but he fails to do so. Therefore, the present research work addresses on the issue of “Representation of the Subaltern in The Royal Ghosts.”aiming to explore the real condition of the characters in the text and deal how misrepresentation does not empower the people from the margin. For this,the researcher has used the methodology of representation and misrepresentation from the subaltern studies as the best tool in this research to deal on their problems of the characters from the subaltern. Subaltern people cannot speak for themselves. Instead, they have got to be represented. Not only this, there can be the case of misrepresentation including interpretation and appropriation of ideas to the point of triviality, semblance, or incoherence considered as abuse. There is misrepresentation of characters in the The Royal Ghosts by Upadhyay because the author seems to have his soft corner for the subalterns in making them the protagonists in his stories, but still he does not give them and voice. Instead he makes the elites talk for the subalterns. He makes them be audible only through the elites, which is what we talk as misrepresentation that makes the subalterns remain silent about their own situation.