Volume 7. Issue.1:2019
AMALGAMATION OF FOLKLORE AND CONTEMPORARY ISSUES IN
GIRISH KARNAD’S HAYAVADANA AND SALMAN RUSHDIE’S
MIDNIGHT’S CHILDREN
Dr. M. RAMESHWOR SINGH1, Dr. Y.
PRABHABATI DEVI2
1Assistant Professor, D.M. College of Arts,
DMU, Imphal, Manipur 2ACTO, KVK, Chandel, Manipur
doi: https://doi.org/10.33329/rjelal.7119.57
Abstract
Folklore is the expressive body
of culture shared by a particular group of people which
encompasses the traditions common to that culture, sub-culture
or group, including both tangible material culture and
intangible oral traditions such as tales, proverbs, and jokes,
customary lore, the forms and rituals of celebrations such as
weddings, dances, the traditional beliefs, popular myths,
customs, stories of a community or beliefs relating to a
particular place, or group of people. Each one of these, either
in isolation or combination, is considered a folklore artifact.
It also encompasses the transmission of these artifacts from one
region to another or from one generation to the next. These
traditions are transmitted along informally from one individual
to another either through verbal instruction, imitation,
repetition or demonstration. This informal knowledge is used to
confirm and reinforce the identity of the group. According to
William Bascom, an American folklorist, anthropologist and
museum director, in the human society folklore performs five
basic functions such as – amusement, validating culture,
education, maintaining conformity to the accepted patterns of
behavior and instrument of social and political change. Besides,
folklore, even though it is considered to be a domain of social
sciences, has a close proximity with literature. In most of the
societies, we found the elements of oneness in folklore and
literature. During the ancient and the medieval period most of
the literary elements were based on artifacts of folklore and in
those periods oral literatures were converted and preserved in
written form. Literary writers imported many of these folklore
artifacts in literature and they tried to add local colour,
design and traditional metaphors in their composition. Oral
traditions in the form of myths, legends, folktales, folk songs,
riddles, proverbs and idioms, either in original or in changed
forms are abundantly used in literature. The present papers
attempts to trace out some of these elements in fusion form
which are utilized in literature to analyze contemporary issues
like identity crisis, existential dilemma, longing for
fulfillment, sense of estrangement etc. It also attempts to
figure out the educative values of folklore in discussing and
understanding the complex human nature.
