Decolonizing the narrative in The King of Ireland’s Son and “Goopi Gyne Bagha Byne”: A closer look at adaptations of folk literature for juvenile readers of Bangla and Anglo-Irish indigenous tales
Anindita Bhattacharya
Article. 2024, Vol. 2(1): 46-59.
ABSTRACT
Examining constructions of Indigenous childhoods in folkloric adaptations of Padraic Colum’s The King of Ireland’s Son (1916) and Upendrakishore Ray Chaudhury’s “Goopi Gyne Bagha Byne” (1914), this article offers an anti-colonial reading of popular Anglo-Irish and Bangla folk literature. These adaptations, particularly marketed as children’s and young adult literature, engaged with several themes such as religious fanaticism, jingoism, capitalism, nationalism, famine, etc. Considering personal influences, literary inspirations, ideological dispositions, narrative styles, and thematic choices made by Colum and Ray Chaudhury in their adaptations, this article studies the similar use of narrative techniques by these authors to reclaim their cultural and ethnic superiority.
KEY WOrDS
folklore; postcoloniality; indigenous narratives; children’s literature; India and Ireland
Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
SEXTANT: masculinities, sexualities & decolonialities 