Karim Raslan’s “The Beloved,” “Heroes,” and “The Mistress”: a

socio-political perspective

PRESENTED BY

Fatin M. Husni

FOR

Malaysian and Singaporean Literature

TAUGHT BY

Prof. Ghulam-Sarwar Yousof

Karim Raslan the tukang cerita• A Malaysian political analyst, short story

writer, journalist, columnist, and legal advisor.

• Often refers himself as a tukang cerita.• A Malaysian of mixed parentage, he

proudly acknowledges his Malay-ness, “I speak English like an English man, I speak Bahasa like an Indonesian man but at heart, I’m still a Malay” (Ceritalah, 2013).

• His literature often addresses the socio-political issues in the South East countries particularly in Malaysia and Singapore.

Socio-political approach in literature

• This approach is rooted from historical criticism, a literary concept in analysing works of literature and fiction.

• Essentially, it discusses literature in relation to its historical, cultural and political context in which the work is written in and addressed to.

• It brings to light social or cultural issues happening in the society.

Malaysian socio-political context and the new Malaysian writing

• Malaysian cultural and political identity is shaped by the Mahathirist ideology of Asian values: an emphasis on living as a community and privileging order over individual freedom (Bacon, 2011).

• In the Malaysian literary context, socio-political issues are a predominant feature defining the new Malaysian writing;o “Conterminous with social involvement”o “Backwardness in social and political progression”o “A protest against immorality, inhumanity, political

opportunism and hypocrisy”(Chee, 1981 in Quayum & Wicks, 2001, p. 43)

Synopsis

“Heroes”

“The Mistress”

“The Beloved”

Materialism

• Materialism: a social illness that begins to creep into the Malaysian urban society.

• It negatively results to greediness and selfishness.• An individual’s worth to the society is determined by

his/her wealth and family status.• This social illness is manifested through Karim’s

characterization of his characters: greedy, materialistic, selfish and arrogant.

• The use of first person pronoun narration to illustrate:o The concept of individualistic world;o The characters’ self-interest and egocentricity, forcing

readers to see the world from his biased perspective.

The abandonment of family and marriage institution

• The portrayal of dysfunctional family and marriage in the urban society.

• Such dysfunctional relationship results to loveless marriage and family.o In “The Beloved” and “The Mistress” the wives remain nameless

throughout the story whereas the husband’s secret lovers are given names: “Alissa” and “Datin Zeraphina.”

o The husband, Shukor, sees his wife only as “a sleeping presence” and “a woman who had given me three children in quick succession without ever daring to ask me if I loved her” (“The Beloved”, pp. 10-11).

• Relationship dilemma: love and family betrayal.• The husbands cheat on their wives and secretly keep a mistress

or a secret lover.o “Poor mother, to have married a man only to have him meet a woman

such as Datin Zeraphina. Mother’s world was bounded by deception and betrayal” (“The Mistress”, p. 86).

Blind acceptance towards the authority

• Government supremacy that takes precedence over moral and societal values.

• Hang Tuah’s blind loyalty: a history that constantly repeating itself throughout generations.

• “Heroes” depicts the Malay conception of heroism based on Hang Tuah’s blind loyalty towards the king.

• The protagonist enslaves himself to blind loyalty and ignores his friendship, moral conscience and individual judgment.o “I had to press on. Hang Tuah would have approved of me. I

never questioned. I acted on instructions whatever the consequence” (Heroes, p. 34).

• Shortsightedness contributing to the backwardness of social and political progression of the nation.

Social hypocrisy and deception

• The stories are about the false heroes in the Malaysian society.

• The author narrates the story from the point of view of an unreliable character:o Shukor: a writer who uses short story and poem to

escape real life commitment and a potentially fulfilling love relationship (Khoo, 1999):

o Ayah: a nation hero who lacks of personal integrity and uses Hang Tuah’s blind loyalty to cover up his cowardice: “I had experienced my own terrible cowardice” (Heroes, p. 48).

o Mahmud Mokhtar: a family hero, driven by lust and greediness, who eventually betrays his own mother: Maybe I’m more like my father than I thought” (“The Mistress, p. 87).

Societal need for new Malaysian heroes

• Heroes and other short stories is a collection of “morality tales” whose “protagonist are shams of heroes” (Khoo, 1999, p. 99).

• The Malaysian heroic conception of Hang Tuah needs to be reconstructed.

• Karim Raslan’s plea for the real Hang Tuah to stand up for justice, truth and moral integrity.

• Friendship, love (not lust), family, social justice and humanity need to be revived.

• In short, Karim Raslan’s short stories depict the new Malaysian writing:o Calling for “the awakening of the mind to search for the causes of

backwardness, injustice, moral weaknesses and human suffering” (Chee, 1981, in Quayum & Wicks, 2001, p. 43).

References

• Bacon, P. (2011). “Asian Values” and human rights. What happened to Asian values. Retrieved from:  http://paulbacon.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/waseda-teaching-ph201-fall2009-topic-10-asian-values.ppt.

• Chee, T. S. (1981). The politics of literary development in Malaysia in Mohammad A. Quayum (2001). Malaysian literature in English: a critical reader. Selangor: Pearson.

• Khoo, G. K. (1999). Gender, modernity, and the nation in Malaysian literature and film (1980s and 1990s) [Monograph]. Retrieved from: https://circle.ubc.ca/bitstream/id/26320/ubc_2000-486664.pdf