Culture Versus Psychological Ambivalence in Vijaya Malla’s Kumari Shobha
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Faculty Arts in English
Abstract
Vijaya Malla’s Kumari Shobha is depiction of Newari culture associated with
Kumari Pooja. Traditionally a girl of Shakaya caste is selected to be installed in the
Kumari House as goddess. She stays at Kumari House until her menstruation. Then
she is returned to her home and another virgin girl replaces her. There is a belief that
because she has received veneration as a virgin goddess the man who may marry her
dies an untimely death. In reality however it seems that most Kumaris do eventually
marry.
In the story, while Shobha hesitates to marry because of the persistent belief,
the young man who loves her does not entertain the belief and he wants to marry her.
The conflicting thought in her mind as well as in the minds of other characters
dominates the course of the novel. After analyzing the text using psychoanalysis as a tool, the conclusion is
drawn that the major character, Shobha, is in great confusion and dilemma primarily
because of the psychic fear originating in cultural myth. The thesis finds that because
of her being in mentally disturbed position, Shobha can neither assimilate nor ignore
cultural belief .The unfounded cultural belief that Kumari would lose her husband if
she gets married becomes an unresolved tension for her. The ambivalence here lies in
her oscillating between the cultural myth and personal desire.