DISTORTION OF TRADITION AND HISTORY IN SHAH’S FACING MY PHANTOMS

Abstract

The research paper aims to analyze how Sheeba Shah distorts the mainstream Nepalese tradition, convention and history of Nepal in her novel, Facing My Phantoms, through the narrative of two narrators, Sanjeevani and Sanat. The research tools used to survey the text are the postmodern tropes such as parody, irony, intertextuality, and meta-fiction advocated by such postmodernist theorists as Linda Hutcheon, Jean Francois Lyotard, and others. Using parody and intertextuality, Shah not only subverts Nepalese history from the 1930s to early 21^st century, but also attempts to rewrite it in the novel by borrowing references from Nepalese history, culture and society. Sanat’s narrative represents the prevalent ideology of Nepalese society from the 1930s, while Sanjeevani’s story represents contemporary Nepalese society after the Maoist insurgency. The research finding is that Sanat’s story ruptures the historical facts, and Sanjeevani’s narration critiques the patriarchy, and feudalism, Maoist insurgency in Nepal by utilizing parody and intertextuality. It is expected that researchers aiming to probe the postmodernity and intertextuality in Nepalese fiction can take the paper as a reference.