https://doi.org/10.67147/literariness.v1i4.096
Beyond the Backdrop: Space as a Site of Cultural Confrontation in S. Hareesh’s Meesha
JISHINA GOPINATH
Research Scholar
St. Joseph’s College (Autonomous), Devagiri, Calicut
Affiliated to University of Calicut
Email: jishipush@gmail.com
DR. MUHAMMED NOUFAL K
Associate Professor
Department of English
SARBTM Govt College, Koyilandy, Kerala
Affiliated to University of Calicut
Email: noufalmepayur@gmail.com
Abstract: The present paper studies focus on how the geographical and cultural space becomes a site for socio-political confrontations in fictional narratives. The geographical landscape of Kuttanadu becomes the background space for different ideological under-currents in the Malayalam novel Meesha. The novel is noted for its description of landscapes especially the backwater regions of Kuttandu and its unique socio-political terrain. The novel also becomes significant for the custom of chronicling the present. The peculiarities of the place along with its people are amalgamated in the character of Vavachan. He becomes an arch symbol of a rebellion against the Dalit oppression and patriarchal family system. By transcending the established socio-political affiliations, he emerges as a semi amphibian destabilizing all the existing notions of identity. This spatial position enables him to free him from the rigid social hierarchies that govern the human world. The river, backwater and marshlands function as counter spaces that subvert the rigidity of caste- based liminalities. The deep connections of Vavachan with the aquatic landscape challenge the existing anthropocentric identity establishment.
The paper is an in-depth analysis of the caste based socio-political terrain of the nineteenth and twentieth century Kerala using the theories of space studies. By foregrounding the liminalities and the fluid identities, the novelist questions the dominant narratives of marginalisation by interrogating and reconfiguring the existing socio-cultural spaces. Through this new-fangled spatial politics S.Hareesh subverts the fixed notions of identity, belongingness and cultural authorities.
Keywords: Culture, Space, Liminalities, Identity, Socio-political confrontations, Dalit identity, Marginalisation, Narratology
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