Representation of the Subaltern in Elias’s Novels

Abstract

This study engages with the idea of the representation of the subaltern in Akhtaruzzaman Elias’s two novels, Chilekothar Sepai and Khoabnama. The idea of the subaltern is a complex one and both Gramsci and Gayatri Chakravarty Spivak have foregrounded and adequated the theory of the subaltern. However, in her essay “Can the Subaltern Speak?” Spivak asks if a proper representation of the subaltern is possible because the mainstream representation of the subaltern often eclipses the voice of the subaltern. She also argues that dominant history has failed to narrativize the resistance of the subaltern. For Spivak, it is rather narrative itself which succeeds in representing the dynamics of the subaltern life. Using Spivak’s idea of the subaltern, I argue in this work that among Bangladeshi novelists Akhtaruzzaman Elias has successfully captured the dynamics of life as well as the resistance of the subaltern. In his novel Chilekothar Sepai Elias illustrates how Khijir and Chengtu have contributed to Unosotturer Gonoovuuthan or the mass insurgency of 1969 and what their lives are about. Besides representing the Khijir and Chengtu, the novelist also has taken into account the lives of ticket blacker Bazlu, a house maid Jummoner Maa, Khijir’s mother etc who are the urban proletariat or the subaltern. Elias in his the last novel Khoabnama portrays a life of an adhiar, Tamij who is involved in peasant uprising or Tevaaga movement in1940s. But Khijir, Chengtu and Tamij do not fight in these insurgencies with a clear idea about their own political aim; rather, they do it out of material necessity and commonsensical idea about the equality and freedom. This is what Elias tries to bring to our notice in through his novels Chilekothar Sepai and Khoabnama. The objective of the research is to show how Elias’s novels Khoabnama and Chilekothar Sepai deal with subalterns’ life. Moreover, this project makes an attempt to show how the historical shift from feudalism to capitalism in Bangladesh may offer a historical account but does not account for the lives and struggles of other disempowered groups, including peasants, women and indigenous groups. Through his novels, Elias raises some of the key questions. Perhaps the most significant of these are: What are the positions of the subaltern in historical insurgency? How does Elias re-present the lives of the subalterns in his novels? What is Elias’s position on subalterns’ contribution in historical moments? And, finally, what is the role of women in the patriarchal society as subaltern?