International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS) |Volume VI, Issue IX, September 2022|ISSN 2454-6186
Dr. Kumudu Karunaratne Ranaweera
Senior Lecturer, Department of Sinhala, University of Colombo, Srilanka
Abstract: As a consequence of the socio-economic changes that took place in Sri Lanka during the colonial era, traditional socio-economic institutions which had been executed in the past underwent a notable transformation. The emergence of new social institutions coupled with the development of a navel form of social order reached its climax under the British colonial regime. This movement contributed to introduce vast range of economic and social changes in the Lankan society during the early nineteenth century and came to be termed later as the modern period. The present study is an attempt to examine how this transition is reflected realistically in fictions pertaining to that period. For this study Marxist theory on socio-economics factors and subaltern theory is adopted in reviewing literary perspective of the contemporary society. Qualitative data analysis was the method followed in analyzing data. Proliferation of new towns was seen as an outcome of industrialization and urbanization, which eventually became the hub of business enterprises and administrative activities. These newly cropped up establishments gradually grew up exerting a great influence on the daily activities of the people of all walks of life. An in-depth study suggests that the tone of the pre-colonial Sinhala fiction, in content-wise and vision-wise was a far cry from its post-colonial counterpart. The objective of the present study is to demonstrate how far it was successful in portraying this transitionary process in a realistic perspective.
Keywords: Modernity, Industrialization, Pre-Colonial Society, Colonial Society, Sinhala Fiction.
I. INTRODUCTION
Literature is not merely a creative process as it reflects a social process simultaneously. A work of fiction reflects perspectives of the collective consciousness of that particular society (Goldman 1975: 1960) Literary critics, sociologists and anthropologists believe that a literary work does not merely represent a fanciful imagination or a fantasy of a writer, but it penetrates further deep to manifest certain cultural traits contain cultural trails of the society from which it sprang (Suraweera 1982: 18, 21, 30). Thus, by studying a novel discerningly one would be able to judge whether the society it describes is realistically and sincerely represented. It enables the reader to identify the social institutions that played a significant role in that society.