Romesh Gunesekeras Ranvali: A Refutation of Conventional Characterizat

Romesh Gunesekeras Ranvali A Refutation of Conventional CharacterizationRanvali serves as a soulal reminder. It conveys sadness and grief with the narrators realization only years after her take had died that she had been mistaken about certain aspects of him and that after this realization, she was unable to try to improve their relationship because he was no longer alive. The characterization of her father is essential in carrying across this sadness and regret because his character - the person of the father, to be contrasted with the qualities of the father, is the preconditions for the narrators flashbacks. The objective of this paper is to refute the received argument that the functional role of a character makes it morselary in importance in a narrative and hence, show Ranvali to be a character-centred narrative. The alkali that this paper takes, therefore, is that the functional role of the narrators father makes his character an integral part of the narrative, such tha t Ranvali is a character-centred narrative.Before embarking on the analysis of Ranvali, it is necessary to introduce one-third theories surrounding the notion of character in narratives. According to Aristotles theory of character, a distinction can be made between an agent - a person who performs actions and is necessary, and, a character - something that is added later and in fact, not even essential to successful tragedy . . . Added later . . . if at all (qtd. in Chatman 109). In Ranvali, the narrators father is an agent because of his importance to the story, which will be elaborated upon later. However, he will be constantly referred to as a character in this analysis so as to be consistent with the terminology throughou... ...ves. By superimposing Todorovs theory of character, the second inference - this secondary importance of characters in narratives implies that such narratives are not character-centred, was made. The depression argument has already been refuted in the p revious section where the functional role of the father is shown to cause him to be of primary importance in Ranvali. As for the second argument, it has been refuted along with the refutation of the first argument, as well as, the satisfaction of both of Todorovs criteria. The conclusion, therefore, is that Ranvali is a character-centred narrative, where the deceased father is a primary character.Works CitedChatman, Seymour, Existents Story and parley Narrative Structure in Fiction and Film. Ithaca Cornell UP, 1978. 108-114. Gunesekera, Romesh. Ranvali. Monkfish Moon. London Granta, 199289-102.