CULTURAL IDENTITY IN K. S. MANIAM'S RATNAMUNI (original) (raw)

2015, JOURNAL OF LANGUAGE AND COMMUNICATION

In his fiction, the Malaysian-Indian author, K. S. Maniam depicts the identity and culture of Malaysian-Indian. This is shaped with a collection of materials that are vital to keep the trace of ancestral identification marks, of retaining the status of being Indian, even though the land they live in is not India. In the new land the Indian community invests its new narrative of existence with a power structure to support the Diasporic Indian " self ". In Maniam's reconstruction of the Indian immigrant experience in Malaysia, there are the difficulties that the community faced when trying to recreate this world. Maniam depicts the rites of the complicated cultural issues in a Diasporic Indian community. In his reconstruction of the Indian immigrant experience of Malaya, One can see these previously peripheral characters as the agents of the Diasporic identity that the present day Malaysian-Indian has inherited. The passage of such identity formation, however, is demonstrated to be filled with the many snares of both colonial and postcolonial experiences. The present study examines Maniam's short story, Ratnamuni, from a Diaspora perspective. This study shows the way in which Maniam symbolically depicts the culture of a nation in Diaspora. INTRODUCTION The history of Malaysia, its development from colonialism to post-colonialism, and its movement towards multiculturalism are all important in appreciating not only the nation at a particular period of time of its development, but also the psyche of its individuals and its authors. Obviously, this reconstruction can never be wholly and inclusively a smooth and balanced affair, especially where the issues of gender, culture, race and identity are considered. Yet, the key element is that the power of narrativity in the hands of postcolonial writers allows for the reinsertion of the subaltern into written history. By looking back at history, one can find that Malaysian literature develops in its own root that Malay language has been used as a medium in writing. Malay writers, particularly, have talked about issues on patriotisms and nation building. However, the emergence of Malaysian writers from other races began and rose together with the development and modernization in Malaysia. Malaysia literature in English has developed over fifty years which is after the country independence. Concerning the Malaysian writers that come from different races, their literary works are also varied and touch the important multicultural issues ranging from broad questions of identity such as sense of home/homelessness, gender, language, multiculturalism and Diasporic perspective.