Listed by Duotrope
a peer-reviewed quarterly journal on literature
E-ISSN 2457-0265
Acerca de
Erothanatos
Scholarly Article
Shatarupa Mishra
A Retelling of the Abolkara Trope in Manoj Das’ ‘The Lady Who Died One and a Half Times and Other Fantasies’ : From Folklore to Theory
Volume
5
Issue
2
Pages:
1-9
Keywords:
folklore, retelling, Abolkara, Jataka, Panchatantra.
doi:
Abstract
Folklore has convincing explanations for the quotidian that makes one’s life what it is. Often the small, daily matters are overlooked in our quests for the grand/ sublime. And therefore, truth evades us. Post-truth might have declared the end of truth. But folklore brings it back using well-crafted narratives that address its readers, engaging their mind in various shades of perception. This paper aims to find out how folklore contributes to different theoretical perspectives that Humanities explores by making a close study of the retelling of the Abolkara trope of Odia folklore in Manoj Das’ collection of short stories titled ‘ The Lady Who Died One and a Half Times and Other Fantasies.’ It investigates the presence (or absence) of volition on the part of the characters in the tales which determines what they do to things done to them. Therein lies the key to survival, which means everything in the face of an unwavering pandemic.
About the Author(s)
Shatarupa Mishra is an Assistant Professor of English at Govt. Women’s College, Bhawanipatna, Odisha, India. Her research interests include memory studies, posthumanism, postcolonial ecocriticism and folklore studies. Her research paper titled “Tenability of Colonial Moulds in the Posthuman Body: A Study of the Grotesque in Stevenson vis-à-vis Avant-Garde Cinema” has been published in Erothanatos, Vol 5, Issue 1, January 2021. She is also a poet. Her poems have been published in Erothanatos, Vol 4, Issue 3, September 2020 and Knot Magazine, Spring/Summer Issue, 2021.
