Bonded beyond time and place – exploring Malay archetypal images in Hanna Alkaf’s The Weight of Our Sky (2019) and the Malay historical texts
Malaysian literary works in English produced by the current generation of writers have been gaining recognition both locally and internationally in recent times. Among such is Hanna Alkaf, whose debut novel The Weight of Our Sky (2019) was critically acclaimed in Malaysia and abroad. As part of t...
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| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia
2021
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| Online Access: | http://journalarticle.ukm.my/18521/1/44967-172384-1-PB.pdf http://journalarticle.ukm.my/18521/ https://ejournal.ukm.my/gema/issue/view/1440 |
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| Summary: | Malaysian literary works in English produced by the current generation of writers have been
gaining recognition both locally and internationally in recent times. Among such is Hanna
Alkaf, whose debut novel The Weight of Our Sky (2019) was critically acclaimed in Malaysia
and abroad. As part of the new generation of writers in the Malaysian Literature in English
scene, Hanna Alkaf places Malay women as the main characters in this young adult novel.
Henceforth, this paper endeavours to study this novel in the attempt to uncover the archetypes
that represent the female characters. Other studies on archetypes in Malaysian Literature
English have not explored the similarities of characters in the current fiction to other characters
in the Malay historical texts, hence this analysis is significant to fill such a gap. To achieve the
stated objective, this paper has utilised the theories on collective unconscious established by
Carl Jung focusing on the archetypes, the reception theories posited by Wolfgang Iser with the
emphasis on gaps and blanks and the theories postulated by Ruzy Suliza Hashim which bring
into light the historical females in Malay court narratives. The findings have revealed that the
main female characters have certain similar attributes to the historical females in the Malay
court narratives written hundreds of years ago. Such similarities have managed to collapse the
boundaries of time and place and concomitantly, create a link binding these characters together
through the nexus of Malayness. |
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