Pallabee Dasgupta
Research Scholar, Department of English, Banaras Hindu University, Email: paldg2009@gmail.co
Volume VII, Number 1, 2017 I Full Text PDF
Abstract
The North-Eastern part of India has always been regarded as unique and mysterious not only because of its geographical and cultural insulation but also because of its primitive way of life existing somewhere between myth and reality. Thus, literature from the north-east India emphasizes on the lifestyle of the tribal people, inseparable from the nature around them as opposed to the Western dualistic structure which makes a clear distinction between nature and culture. In this, the narratives become useful not only for exploring the representation of nature in it, but also for the representation of animals, sometimes biological and often symbolic and conceptual. In this, the stories also embrace concepts like totemism and animality opening themselves up to larger significant readings. The present paper reads the animal presence in two short-stories from the north-east of India, Temsula Ao’s “Death of a Hunter” published in her anthology Laburnum for My Head (2009) and Mamang Dai’s “the boy who fell from the sky” published in her The Legends of Pensam (2009). Both the stories can be analyzed for the way nature and animals in particular are conceived in tribal life and imagination, often as larger than life presences and yet both familiar and intimate.
Keywords: Tribal, Oral Tradition, Myths, Animality, Temsula Ao, Mamang Dai.