Ambivalent Struggle of the Subaltern Women in Manjushree Thapa’s Seasons of Flight

Abstract

Manjushree Thapa’s Seasons of Flight represents many subaltern characters. Among them the two subaltern women characters, the protagonist Prema and her sister Bijaya perform subversive roles; they keep on fighting against the antagonistic fates, cross the limitations and deconstruct the hegemonic structures of domination and subordination. Their struggle is remarkable throughout the novel. But their struggle is ambivalent. They are helpless despite their ceaseless struggles for the quest of their identity and liberation from their inferior subaltern position. Prema wins a green card and immigrates to Los Angeles. In this unfamiliar metropolis she struggles to invent a life she can call her own, but she is never happy as her subaltern position can never be transformed and even her growing involvement with the endangered El Segundo Blue butterfly gives her a fragile sense of belonging. More ambivalent and pathetic is the situation of her sister Bijaya, a less educated girl of mid-teen, who joins Maoist movement as a so-called People’s Liberation Army, fights against the (Royal) Nepal Army and returns back to home with a son, without any greater achievement. She is then confined at her parent’s home after the 12 points peace accord between the Maoist and the major political parties of Nepal. These two central subaltern characters achieve no more significant thing; they fail to transform their subaltern position despite their ceaseless efforts, struggles and subversive roles which is the real plight of the poor Nepalese subalterns whether they are within or outside the country.