Fragmentation of Identity in Girish Karnad’s “Broken Images”

Abstract

Girish Karnad's one act, one performer play “Broken Images” (2005), can be looked at from multiple levels. At the beginning, it appears to take on the long-standing debate on the politics of language in the Indian literary culture with the protagonist Manjula Nayak, a short-story writer in Kannada suddenly producing an international bestseller in English. However Karnad, very skilfully, manoeuvres the play and turns it into a psychological thriller by centring on the formation of one's identity and how our earliest experiences stick with us for years and continue to influence us well into our adulthood. In this paper, I wish to focus on the protagonist of Karnad's play Manjula Nayak and her dissociation with her 'self'. The dissociative aspect is a coping mechanism which allows her to shut out the painful and traumatic experiences of her childhood. Manjula writes a novel in English with her sister as the central character. This act revives memories long suppressed. The lie she has been living shatters as she is forced to face her image/ conscience and acknowledge her brokenness.