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