The Rashomon Effect and Polyphony as Narrative Strategies in M.M. Kaye’s novel The Far Pavilions | ||
| مجلة کلية الآداب جامعة الفيوم | ||
| Article 18, Volume 16, Issue 2, July 2024, Pages 649-685 PDF (805.18 K) | ||
| Document Type: المقالة الأصلية | ||
| DOI: 10.21608/jfafu.2024.307038.2084 | ||
| Author | ||
| Gehan Deeb* | ||
| October 6 University, 6th of October City, Egypt | ||
| Abstract | ||
| M. M. Kaye’s novel The Far Pavilions intertwines the Rashomon effect theory and Mikhail Bakhtin’s concepts of polyphony as narrative strategies to offer a rich tapestry of perspectives and multi-layered narration. It explores the complexities of identity and questions the nature of truth and human experience. Derived from Akira Kurasawa’s film “Rashomon” (1950), dramatizing the variance in witnesses’ accounts of a brutal rape and murder, the Rashomon effect is a phenomenon whereby different people construct subjective and contradictory accounts of the same event. The Far Pavilions reflects the multifaceted portrayal of the cultural, historical and social milieu of colonial India, where British rulers and Indian natives inhabit overlapping yet distinct worlds. Narrative strategies are coloured by characters from diverse social strata and ethnicities with conflicting perceptions and cultural backgrounds, each with their unique perspective on the unfolding story. Bakhtin’s polyphonic narrative, where multiple voices exist independently and are given equal weight, further enriches the novel’s complexity. The protagonist, Ashton Pelham-Martyn, a British officer raised as an Indian, serves as a central node, connecting the various threads and voices without overshadowing them. By presenting contrasting viewpoints on a long series of insurgencies and rebellions that fueled the Indian Rebellion in 1857, the novel becomes a discourse on the nature of narrative and how history is understood. The book’s deliberate fracturing of time and setting takes on a new mantle where the departure from the conventional focus on displaced army officers intertwines with the concept of polyphonic narrative and the Rashomon effect. | ||
| Keywords | ||
| Michael Bakhtin’s polyphony; M.M. Kaye; Rashomon Effect; the dialogical self; The Far Pavilions | ||
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