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Colonialism In Anil's Ghost

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In the early 1800s, Great Britain seized the island of Sri Lanka known at that time as Ceylon. Amidst the mid 1800s, following much conflict and force, Sri Lanka and its assets were completely integrated into the British Empire. Soon after Sri Lanka’s integration into the British Empire, tension began to flow between the Tamils and the Sinhalese; Sri Lanka’s two largest ethnic groups. The Sinhalese eventually gained a majority in the democratic institution installed by Britain and passed discriminatory laws against the Tamil population. Tamil’s began to speak of forming a separate Tamil state and as the tension and anger built, a civil war erupted between the LTTE (Tamil) forces and the Sri Lankan Sinhalese forces. Anil’s Ghost is a novel written …show more content…

Colonialism and the imperialistic initiatives of countries such as Britain have left Sri Lanka in a state of disorganization, divergence, poverty and insufficiency. Examine these two consecutive excerpts from the novel “The Island no longer held her by the past. She had spent 15 years ignoring that early celebrity. Anil had read documents and news reports, full of tragedy” and “The streets were still streets, the citizens remained citizens. They shopped, changed jobs, laughed. Yet the darkest Greek tragedies were innocent compared to what was happening here.” These excerpts indicate that Anil when leaving the island, disengaged with the war and strife spawned from colonialism, yet when disengaged, Anil saw the war escalating, she saw the constant change faced by Sri Lankan society because of colonialism; this clearly correlates with the idea of societal change in Anil’s Ghost. Examine this next excerpt “[unknown extrajudicial executions mostly. Perhaps by the insurgents, or by the government or the guerrilla separatists. Murders committed by all sides]” This excerpt indicates and implicates all 3 of these factions within Sri Lanka for war crimes; this reflects the idea of colonialism and its influence on Sri Lankan society specifically when regarding the legacy of conflict it left behind. Colonialism and imperialism with it has impacted Sri Lankan society …show more content…

Sarath and Gamini both tend to display some degree of emotional pain or disruption to their lifestyle due to the civil war. Analyse these excerpts “[Where is your wife?] She asked finally. [I lost her a few years ago, she did— She killed herself]” It is known that the reason of Sarath’s constant emotional pain is due to his wife’s suicide; it is also expressed in the novel that Sarath’s wife similar to many others committed suicide because of the adversities of civil war; Sarath has experienced a personal change in such a manner because of the civil war. Consider these next excerpts “[We’re all fucked, aren’t we. We don’t know what to do about it. We just throw ourselves into it]” in addition to, “She noticed him palm a pill and swill it down with orange crush” It is determinable from both these excerpts that Gamini has also experienced a degree of emotional pain and disruption to his personal life due to the civil war when we consider his comments on his helplessness and indications of his drug addiction. Sarath and Gamini are yet but representations of the individual pain, disruption of life and personal change experienced by the whole of Sri Lanka due to the presence of such a vigorous yet tentative

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