Asian Children’s Literature and Film in a Global Age by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9789811526312
Publisher: Springer Singapore

Mythil’s frustration at the rejection he experiences from adults posits the dilemma of the child hero, in which “adults are depicted as flawed and limited human beings. The heroes are ordinary children who struggle to do the best they can in a difficult world” (Hourihan 1997: 217). Although it has been recognised that adult figures in many children’s books are considerably negligible in terms of the overall narrative, when they play an active role, they are often portrayed in a negative light or censorious tone. In MS, it is the latter, as Mythil’s relationship with Asiri is undermined by the adults, who consistently cast doubt on his own mental security, falsely transposing the anxieties he experiences within his domestic realm with his ability to see yakas.

When he discovers his “superpower”, Mythil is deeply troubled. The narrative is replete with images of his discomfiture, unveiling its “burden”: “Well, he was upset because Ammi and Thathi were fighting. If they stopped fighting, perhaps the yakas would go away. […] His head hurt. […] He worried about the yakas” (MS: 39). Such a state of unease, apprehension coupled with fear, precludes a facile and instant bond to be forged between the child and “other”. Rather, the author allows narrative space for the “burden” to develop into an understanding by the child protagonist of it as a “gift” which leads to a deep friendship with the yaka.

Cognisant of the perils of stereotyping, Rambuwella’s modus operandi in the narrative is to grant Mythil the ancestral gift of being able to “see” yakas, thereby enabling him to forge a relationship with the yaka Asiri, and accept Asiri as an ally. Asiri, enfeebled by the powers of the evil yaka is conferred with attributes, such as loyalty, which facilitate the human/yaka nexus. By avoiding a simplistic rendition of the relationship between Asiri and Mythil, Rambukwella sensitively captures the trajectory of acknowledging and then accepting difference. The mutual suspicion foregrounds an empowering reality that the relationship between Self and Other is not a permanent configuration but is liable to change (Gibbins 2012: 60).

Such an inability to accept alternative ways of seeing, of acknowledging “difference” typifies the compulsions within narratives of conflict at national and sociocultural levels. In post-conflict Sri Lanka , juxtaposed against the state’s insistence on reconciliation runs a parallel discourse which is overlaid by Sinhala Buddhist formulations of ethnic supremacy. Since the novel enables a reading which allows for allaying fears regarding what is perceived as divergent, the adult reactions to Mythil’s ability to “see” yakas can be read as symbolic enactments of the monolithic underpinnings of identities that overdetermine nationalist discourses , an interpretation supported by John Fiske, who argues: “Finding discourse in a text that makes sense of one’s experience of social powerlessness in a positive way is the vital first step towards being able to do something to change that powerlessness” (1987: 70).

MS empowers the reader to recognise and accept the “other” amidst—and despite—oppositional forces, thus opening up a space for altering the “powerlessness” that the “other” confronts.

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