| dc.description.abstract | Abstract: Nation narration is instrumental in
the process of nation building, and diverse
narratives disseminated by leading political
figures of Sri Lanka have had significant impact
on shaping the national identity of the country.
However, in the process of nation building, these
leaders have often constructed an other who, in
most cases, is evil. The present study aims to
investigate this phenomenon by analysing two
texts produced at significant political junctures
of Sri Lanka, namely, A Message to the Young
Men of Ceylon by Anagarika Dharmapala
(1922) and President’s Speech to the Parliament
on the defeat of LTTE by the former Sri Lankan
President Mahinda Rajapaksa (2009), with a
view to critiquing the theories and politics of
nationalism, nation construction, and nation
narration imbued in the two texts vis-à-vis the
concept of the other (Bhabha, 1996) via an indepth textual analysis. The key theories utilised
in critiquing these are nation building and
narration theories of Homi Bhabha (1990) and
Frantz Fanon (1963). The analysis revealed that
both narratives have created an other/s as a foil
to the homogenous Sri Lankan nation the
speakers envisioned, which poses a threat to the
implied unified nature of the nation. | en_US |
