Cultural Memory In The Captivity Novels of NA D'Souza Alan Machado

Title

Cultural Memory In The Captivity Novels of NA D'Souza Alan Machado

Creator

Philomena, V A, Sonia

Contributor

Pinto, Anil Joseph

Description

Captivity novels are stories of men and women who were abducted and forcibly taken as captives and subjugated to slavery, usually for religious or political reasons. The research critically engages the captivity novels of Na DSouza and Alan Machado, which vividly evoke the harrowing captivity experience of Mangalore Konkani Catholic community during Tipu Sultans regime. It is alleged that Tipu, after the Second Anglo-Mysore war, wreaked vengeance on Konkani Catholic Christians on suspicion for betraying him and supporting the British. After two hundred years of great silence, the struggle for identity and the quest for history led the post-conflicting community to articulate the contents of the archives into the fabric of a literary composition. The literary works of DSouza and Machado are an essential bridge between generations problematizing history and memory illustrating the events of Great Captivity. The captivity narratives are cultural artefacts of memory that present alternative history of the Mysore Kingdom and revive the memories of the captivity experience of Mangalore Konkani Catholic Christians. The memories of the miseries revived in the writings of DSouza and Machado at the beginning of the twenty first century from the victims point of view expose the gaps in the official records of the Mysore Kingdom and emphasise the community's resilience and cultural significance. These narratives constitute the melancholic representation of the traumatic experience of the community and enable the community of the sufferers to re-live the torments which in turn act as a therapeutic agent. Thus, the imaginative recount of the Great Captivity by DSouza and Machado in the form of novels using memory as a tool challenge the historical construct and call for a legitimate space for the vanquished version in the construction of history.

Source

Author's Submission

Date

2024-01-01

Publisher

Christ(Deemed to be University)

Subject

English

Rights

Open Access

Relation

61000328

Format

PDF

Language

English

Type

PhD

Identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/10603/569998