Conflict and change in travancore representation of social change in malayalam novels a historical analysis

Abstract

newlineThe study entitled Conflict and Change in Travancore: Representation of Social Change newlinein Malayalam Novels, a Historical Analysis discusses the feasibility of considering literature as newlinean alternative source for historical reconstructions in juxtaposition with the use of archival newlinesources. The conceptual design of the study revolves around the historicization of the grand newlinenarrative novels of Malayalam produced during the later half of the twentieth century that bring newlineout an introspection into the trajectory of society as evolving from past to the present in a newlinehistorical backdrop. The novel taken for analysis is Kayar by Takazhi Sivasankara Pillai (1978). newlineKayar has been conceived as a narrative depicting the social transformation in all the newlinediverse aspects of life in a particular region, the Takazhi village, the author s own provenance newlineand its immediate neighborhood in Kuttanad from a specific historical juncture marked by the newlineRoyal Proclamation for land survey settlement (1883) to the land reforms in the democratic era newline(early 1970s). Social changes represented in the novel have been conceptualized as being newlinemanifested at three levels in the society viz. structural, institutional and ideological. The said newlinechanges have been depicted in the light of individual experiences in the novel narrative. newlineArranged as in five chapters, the study makes use of several archival materials in the form of newlineadministrative reports, government level enquiry commission reports, census reports etc. along newlinewith the reconstructed historical and sociological narratives on the theme in order to illuminate newlinethe potentialities of literary narrative to shed lights on to the subjective experiences of people newlineliving in historical time and space that are otherwise not comprehensible from archival sources