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Volume 1 Issue 6 |
November 2014 |
| An Analysis of the Conceptualization of Colonial Modernity in Frances Collins’ The Slayer Slain | |
| Mr. Liju Jacob Kuriakose, Guest Lecturer, Department of English, CMS College, Kottayam, , |
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| Abstract | |
| The Slayer Slain or Ghatakavadham (1864) by an English missionary lady named Frances Collins is the first among the Nineteenth century proto-novels of Malayalam and it may perhaps be the first Indian English novel The novel, written from a colonialist perspective, dealing with the problems of the society of Kerala in the Nineteenth century. Being originally written in English, but was soon after translated into Malayalam. It is one of the first attempts made by the foreign Christian missionaries to express their views on what they identified as the problems of Kerala society. The novel is placed in a Christian setting, and addresses mainly the issues of caste and patriarchal hegemony. This paper endeavours to reread the novel viz. The Slayer Slain i.e. Ghatakavadham on the basis of the socio-cultural situations that surrounded their inception. An analysis of how the colonial modernity and the associated institutions expressed themselves through the native literature of that period forms the crux of the study. The paper looks into three main areas. The remoulding of caste identity which the conversion into the innately individualistic Protestant Christianity offered; the change of attitudes among the educated created by English education; and finally, the power struggle between the traditional and colonial systems of law. | |
| Keywords | |
| Colonial Modernity; Frances Collins; The Slayer Slain | |
| Article | |
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