LOSS OF SANITY AND MENTAL BALANCE IN AMBALAVANER SIVANANDAN’S WHEN MEMORY DIES: A POST-COLONIAL ANALYSIS

Abstract

When Memory Dies (1997) by the Sri Lankan novelist Ambalavaner Sivanandan is a classic among novels written by the South Asian novelists like Kiran Desai, Khalid Hosseini, Mohsin Hamid and Monica Ali. Ambalavaner Sivanandan is a diasporic novelist. He has migrated to England from Sri Lanka. His masterpiece When Memory Dies offers detailed post-colonial critique. It is both about the bitter colonial experience of the then Ceylonese under the colonization of the Great Britain and the bitter experience of subjugation and ethnic discrimination of the liberated Sri Lankans by their own fellow countrymen after the end of the British colonization. The Sri Lankan elite and ruling groups do the mimicry of the past English government and make the life of their own fellow beings miserable. Loss of sanity is one of the significant issues like loss of dreams, loss of honour, loss of homeland, etc. as found in the novel. Loss of sanity and mental balance is the result of miserable experience under the British subjugation and ensuing turbulent and chaotic political situation in Sri Lanka. The loss of relations also becomes the cause of playing havoc with people and rendering them mentally imbalanced and victim to mental traumas. The research study is qualitative and descriptive, which does close reading of the novel as a primary source for multiple time. Secondary data collected through physical and online libraries has assisted in working on the theme of loss of sanity and mental balance.