BLURRING BOUNDARIES BETWEEN SANITY AND INSANITY: A CRITICAL STUDY ON THE USE OF THE FOOL TO DECONSTRUCT POLITICIZED INSANITY IN LEONARD WOOLF’S ‘THE VILLAGE IN THE JUNGLE’

Authors

  • Waruni Tennakoon Senior Lecturer, Department of English, Buddhist and Pali University of Sri Lanka, Sri Lanka

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.46827/ejls.v3i2.362

Keywords:

sanity, insanity, political meaning, Fool, The Village in the Jungle, King Lear

Abstract

The present study intends to explore how Leonard Woolf has questioned the boundaries between sanity and insanity in his first novel, ‘The Village in the Jungle’. Arguing that these words are highly embedded with political meaning, the paper proves the two characters in the novel; Silindu and the old beggar resemble the characteristics of the Shakespearean Fool. Thus, the characteristics of the Fool in King Lear are compared with those of Silindu and the beggar in the novel. With the findings, it is expected to encourage students of literature to understand the political character of the polarizing words and emphasize the need to deconstruct and challenge their effect in society to limit and marginalize people.

Author Biography

  • Waruni Tennakoon, Senior Lecturer, Department of English, Buddhist and Pali University of Sri Lanka, Sri Lanka
    Dr. Waruni Tennakoon is a Senior Lecturer as well as the current Head of the Department of English at the Buddhist and Pali University of Sri Lanka. Her research interests include postcolonial literature and interdisciplinary literature.

References

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Foucault M, 2006. Method in Cultural theory and popular culture by John Storey, Pearson Education, London.

Janik V. K, 1998. Fools and Jesters in Literature, Art, and History: A Bio-Bibliographical Sourcebook, Greenwood, Westport.

Jesus L.V. D., 2012. A Study of Fools: Lear’s Fool in Shakespeare’s King Lear and Vladimir and Estragon in Beckett’s Waiting for Godot. https://www.lume.ufrgs.br/bitstream/handle/10183/54076/000837693.pdf Accessed 29 June, 2022.

Leila H, 2017. “The Aesthetics of Mutability in The Village in the Jungle (1913)” DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/angles.1424

The Encyclopedia of World Problems and Human Potential, 2022. http://encyclopedia.uia.org/en/about-encyclopedia. Accessed 11 August 2022.

Welsford E, 1966. The Fool: His Social and Literary History, P. Smith, Gloucester.

Woolf L, 1975. Growing: An Autobiography of the Years 1904 to 1911, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, New York.

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Published

2022-09-05

Issue

Vol. 3 No. 2 (2022)

Section

Articles

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