Representating the Voice of the Subalterns in Ha Jin's Waiting
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Abstract
Ha Jin’s Waiting present research on explores projects the issue of subaltern consciousness. Even in the era dominated by the communist totalitarianism, subaltern people have struggled hard to raise their voices of dissent and disagreement. In Waiting the subaltern characters like Lin Kong and Manna fall prey to the restrictive and exclusionary policies of the communist dictator. While the upper class elite people freely enjoy the divorce rights and other additional packages of individual liberty, the subaltern people like Shuyu and others are subjected to the indescribable condition of suffering. Subaltern youths are so brainwashed and manipulated that they are forced to remain in the condition of psycho-sexual retardation. Although Kong being a doctor, his desire to divorce his wife Shuyu is not completed. Being an elite Dr. Kong is from a underprevelidged group so his voice is not listed and were all the characters here resembled subalterns group. Kong’s passionate attachment for Manna and his subsequent impotence after his marriage with her are twin evidences to show the fallout of vicious communist propaganda. The voices of the subaltern people are silenced. But Ha Jin manages to convey the subaltern concern and anxiety by using the perspective of subaltenrity.