Representation of the Sri Lankan Civil War in Sehan Karunatilaka's The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida

Abstract

This thesis explores representation of Sri Lanka's civil war and the cultural conflicts of two groups, the Tamil and the Sinhalese in Karunatilaka's novel The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida. Maali Almeida as a representative from the Tamil community works as a human right activist, and later gets killed by the Sri Lanka government. Moreover, Sri Lankan Government’s brutality and its cruel behavior towards the Tamils community dominates, tortures, kills, and pulls to margin in the name of civil war. Michael Foucault's notion of Truth, Power, and Knowledge ventures the text from the perspective of criticizing the ideology made by Sri Lankan government as their ideology incorporates a false narrative to marginalize Tamils. Reading and analyzing the novel, Sri Lanka Government found to be expanding their language and right to resist by challenging war against the government; this is how the power creates knowledge as real to disseminate their own cultural value. Similarly, Paul Hamilton's theory of new historicism reveals the historicity of civil war and delineates the real representation. Sri Lankan Government dominates the Tamils from the history of civil war moment. In conclusion, the research find that Karunatilaka’s novel is a record of representation of Sri Lankan civil war an appeal for justice, existence, and the pursuit of freedom for the Tamils population in the Jaffna state, covering the message that hegemony is always resisted in one or the other way. Keywords: Culture, Political Atrocities, Resistance, Marginal Voice, Existence