Tenzing Norgay as a Subaltern Hero in John Hunt‟s The Ascend of Everest

Abstract

The research paper examines the transition and transformation of a subaltern hero, Tenzing Norgey Sherpa with reference to John Hunt’s The Ascend of Everest. Though the text documents Sherpa as the supplementary agent of Mt Everest expedition of 1953 within hegemonic power structure, but his impressive personality which climbing skills establishes him as a subaltern hero. The transformation of Tenzing from an ordinary individual to an extraordinary climber creates an indispensable space within elitist discourse where Sherpa stands as subaltern hero. On the foundation of Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s “Can the Subaltern Speak ?” , this paper investigates how Sherpa speaks as a subaltern hero, who in the very beginning, is represented as a porter but in the later part of the expedition establishes himself as a subaltern hero despite the fact that there is meager space to him to act as key actor.