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Fateha

University of British Columbia

This thesis contributes to the ongoing conversation in postcolonial and subaltern studies by locating a psychoanalytic pathway to decrypt the phantom presence within the locus of postcolonial and postwar psyches and bodies. It traverses the multi-narrative locale(s) of post-independence Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, where a chimeric phantom—born from an intricate amalgamation of political, economic, cultural, and colonial forces—has emerged. This thesis examines the representation of subaltern lives in Adib Khan’s Seasonal Adjustments and Michael Ondaatje’s Anil’s Ghost to interpret the phantom presence. The narratives of these texts situate the subaltern in a unique position as they represent not only innumerable dead subalterns but also living ones subjected to relentless violence, death, and degradation in the postcolony. My introductory chapter briefly explores the histories of Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, outlining how lingering colonial tensions transform these postcolonial states into necropolitical landscapes where subaltern populations are reduced to the status of the living dead. The second chapter explores Bangladesh and Sri Lanka’s triple bind, encompassing colonial, postcolonial, and post-partition constitutional entanglements that shape these postcolonial nations. Its objective is to investigate how the long-term impacts of the civil war and the institutional processes that perpetuate violence have silenced the subaltern. With this intention, it examines the pervasive silence and lack of resistance within the subaltern population to emphasize the complexities of their struggle for justice by delving into the multifaceted dimensions of violence beyond the overt theatre of war, unravelling its insidious manifestations within the spheres of surveillance, dismemberment, and deaths under the grip of state authority. The third chapter shifts from the physical realm to the metapsychological nature of the phantom by exploring the myth engulfing the living and the dead in the postcolony. To examine the ontological efficacy of subaltern myths as vessels of collective trauma and instruments of resistance, it analyzes the literary portrayals of subaltern populations in the selected texts. It further analyzes how the paradigmatic image of the subaltern as superstitious, illiterate, and non-political intensifies their marginalization within the dominant narratives of Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

Text

2024-08-29

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/89091

English

University of British Columbia

UBCV

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/