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

Authors

  • Dr. Jyoti Bhatia Associate Professor, Government College, Parbatsar

Keywords:

Identity, Fragmentation, Brokenness, Dissociation, Self

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.

Author Biography

Dr. Jyoti Bhatia, Associate Professor, Government College, Parbatsar

Dr Jyoti Bhatia is an Associate Professor of English. She has been teaching English Language and Literature in different Government Colleges in Rajasthan for almost 25 years and is presently posted at Government College Parbatsar. Her area of research is Women's Writing. She worked on The Female Comic Tradition from Fanny Burney to George Eliot for her Ph.D.  She is a storyteller and does voiceovers in Hindi and English.

References

Karnad, Girish. A Heap of Broken Images, 2005.

Eliot, T. S. “The Wasteland”, 1922, https://www.poetryfoundation.org

Mukherjee, Tutun. “The Splintered Self: A Heap of Broken Images at Rangashankara.” Girish Karnad’s Plays: Performance and Critical Perspectives. Ed. Tutun Mukherjee. Delhi: Pencraft International, 2006.

Figments. “Broken Images- Analysis of Theme.”, Medium, 11 Nov. 2017, medium.com/@mahima.samant63/broken-images-analysis-of-theme-contains-spoilers-read-the-play-first-9ec6b03d15e7.

Gupta, Hemangini. "Actor vs. actor". The Hindu. Bangalore, 19 March 2005, https://web.archive.org/web/20050523114013/http:/www.hindu.com/mp/2005/03/19/stories/2005031903570100.htm

"Metaphor for a new age". The Tribune. 4 December 2005, https://www.tribuneindia.com/2005/20051204/spectrum/main3.htm

Downloads

Published

01.10.2021

How to Cite

Jyoti Bhatia. (2021). Fragmentation of Identity in Girish Karnad’s “Broken Images”. Journal of Teaching and Research in English Literature, 12(4), 32–36. Retrieved from https://journals.eltai.in/index.php/jtrel/article/view/18

Issue

Vol. 12 No. 4 (2021): October

Section

Research Articles

License

Articles are the intellectual property of the authors. The Journal of Teaching and Research in English Literature does not take ownership of the copyright of any published article. Authors retain the copyright to their articles and may republish these articles as part of a book or other materials. However, while republishing an article published in JTREL, the author must ensure that the following conditions have been met:

  • The source of the publication (the title, volume, number and URL of the Journal) should be acknowledged.
  • The article will remain published on the JTREL website (except on the occasion of a retraction of the article) and licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
  • We do not allow the distribution and transmission of plagiaristic works based on the articles that appear in our journal.
  • Readers may not use the articles for commercial purposes unless they get the written permission of the author and publisher. To disseminate copies for commercial purposes, write to editor.JTREL@gmail.com