Reclaiming the Lost Hero in Girish Karnad’s The Dreams of Tipu Sultan

AWEJ for translation & Literary Studies Volume, 1 Number 3, August 2017                    Pp.2-21

DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.24093/awejtls/vol1no3.1

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Reclaiming the Lost Hero in Girish Karnad’s The Dreams of Tipu Sultan

 

Imad M. Khawaldeh
English Department, Hashemite University
Zarqa-Jordan

Shadi S. Neimneh *
Corresponding Author*
English Department, Hashemite University
Zarqa-Jordan

Abstract:
This article examines how theatre functions as an effective means for exploring an occluded pre-colonial period by constructing an alternative history that refracts the official accounts of colonialist history. Here we study Girish Karnad’s The Dreams of Tipu Sultan (2004), which re-writes the tragic decline of Tipu Sultan who governed the Kingdom of Mysore in the southern parts of India during the last two decades of the eighteenth century. The article concludes that what Karnad wishes to achieve, through this counter-historical theatrical project, is to dismantle the image of the ruthless and unprincipled ‘Other’ propagated by British historians, dramatists, and performers by creating or even recreating an alternative humane and noble character of Tipu Sultan.
Keywords: counter-discourse, counter-history, The Dreams of Tipu Sultan, Indian drama, Karnad, Orientalism, the Other, postcolonial studies

Cite as: Khawaldeh, I. M., & Neimneh, S. S.   (2017). Reclaiming the Lost Hero in Girish Karnad’s The Dreams of Tipu Sultan. Arab World English Journal for Translation & Literary Studies, 1(2).
DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.24093/awejtls/vol1no3.1