Are The Social Issues Realistically Portrayed in Sri Lankan English Short Story
Abstract
Genres such as poetry, drama, novels or short stories are created by literarytalented personalities in a country based on one‟s experience or on social problemswhich prevailed or are prevailing in a particular community or society. In Sri Lanka, too,the situation is the same. For instance, when some literary works in Sinhala and Englishare closely examined, it is apparent that majority of such literary creations are absolutelybased on one‟s experience in his life time or social problems confronted by the people ina particular country or during a particular time period. The research problem of thepresent study is whether social problems of Sri Lanka are virtually portrayed in the SriLankan English short story. It is really significant to investigate this issue so as toascertain the link between the prevalent social issues and their relationship with the SriLankan English short story. The objective of the study is to find out whether the SriLankan English short story writers have addressed the social problems in a realistic way.Methodology applied in the study was entirely based on secondary data. Relevant shortstories, critical essays and articles on them were closely investigated. Some commentsmade in journals, magazines and newspapers were also examined and analyzed. SelectedSri Lankan English short stories written by Seeta Kulatunga, Neil Fernandopulle,Gunadasa Amarasekara, Vijitha Fernando and Chitra Fernando were the other sources,which were critically analyzed for obtaining the relevant information to observe whetherthe short story writers have identified the most significant social issues prevalent in thesociety during the 1970‟s, 1980‟ and 1990‟s. It was ultimately found that the mostprominent social issues such as abject poverty, migration to the Middle East ashousemaids, discrimination due to the low caste system, war victims, and violation offundamental rights of poor and helpless people have been realistically addressed by theSri Lankan English short story.
Key words: Social issues, Sri Lankan English short story, Portrayed realistic
