K.Jayatilake and Charita Tunak

Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language. - Ludwig Wittgenstein Austrian philosopher (1889 - 1951)

Deviating for the moment from the series of columns on Sanskrit Literary Culture, this week's column is dedicated to writer/philosopher K.Jayatilake whose passing away marked the end of an important phase of post-colonial Sinhalese literature.

If Piyadasa Sirisena and his ilk marked the early phase of Sinhalese literature pre and the immediate aftermath of British colonialism in Sri Lanka, the major writer and the voice who captured the subtleties and complexities of the transformation of traditional agrarian village into semi-urban and urban entities, is Kaluachchige Jayatilake or K. Jayatilake. His widespread knowledge which he acquired by deep reading over the decades, in many areas such as philosophy and world literature earned him the reputation of a prolific writer with a deep insight into human psyche and was known as the sage of Kannimahara.

Charita Tunak

Jayatilake's novel Charita Tunak (Three Characters) which has been translated into English as The Grain and the Chaff by Prof. Ediriweera Sarachchandra offers rich insights into the tropes, kind of language and literary devices that the writer employed in the narrative and in depicting the changing milieu.

In the foreword to the English translation of Charita Tunak, The Grain and the Chaff, Prof. Ediriweera wrote, "Kaluachchige Jayatilake or simply K.Jayatilake as he is best known among his readers first appeared on the literary scene with his volume of short stories entitled Punarutpattiya or "Rebirth". Since then, his work has been voluminous, he branched out into several fields both creative and scholarly, and in assessing his total output can compare it only with the contribution of the doyen of Sinhala literature, Martin Wickremasinghe.

I think his monumental work is Charita Tunak which literally means "Three Characters" and which I have translated as "The Grain and the Chaff". The three characters emanate out of similar origin but break out in different directions as far as the restricted environment in which they are born and bred enables them to. But there is always the pull-back, and it is the struggle to develop their varied personalities within the confines of a restricted set of values that constitutes the slow movement of the plot....Anyone reading Wickremasinghe's Gam Peraliya or "Changing Village" will naturally conclude that the characters depicted in it, especially that of Nandawati, are typical products of the unspoilt Sinhala character. That is, as revealed in their relationship with others and in the way they face various situations. But we must not forget that the South of Sri Lanka came under Western influence from the time that the Portuguese and the Dutch invaded the country and held the coastal region for four or five centuries. And this led to the emergence of character-types of a different mettle from that of the typical Sinhala village.

Jayatilake's novel is set in a different part of the island which, while not being very remote from the Westernised urban parts of the country, presents us with characters who possess, at the same time, an individuality of their own. In fact they represent a type of individual who seems to be the product of two sets of values, one based on tradition and other on individualism. From this conflict of values there emerges the character of Isa, the first person narrator who submerges his personal happiness in the interest of the happiness of the others, but not without a tinge of regret for the things of life that he has missed.

The events described in the novel are set in the background of a village in the Western province of Sri Lanka which, in the period it relates to, is yet remote and as such untouched by urbanisation to the extent that the villagers in the South have been. ... the character of Isa, the narrator, stands out as exemplary because of his innate selflessness and his tendency to self-depreciative. One wonders whether it is his lack of confidence in himself and a deep-seated asceticism that makes him reject the overtures that Lalitha makes to him and induces him to flee from her presence in order to escape from them"

The conflict

Unlike in Martin Wickremasinghe's Gam Peraliya, the conflict in Charita Tunak is not clear. It is not something between individuality and changing milieu. The central to the meanings of the text is the conflict between conventional values and individual values. It is this duality which occupies the centre of the plot. This is amply articulated by the author himself in a postscript to the novel Charita Tunak; "Man is a combination of genes and environment. One should not surprise when I say it is a combination of unfusable two segments. ....even considering literature, Shakespeare was not born of a Shakespeare. Influence of environment would also work in the same manner. The same environment would influence in different manner on persons with same genealogy.

The protagonist in the novel Isa is an introvert. This nature in him has not changed throughout his character. When he submerges his desires, they are being overcome by other characteristics inherent in the village's culture. It is the sense of duty and responsibility in the interest of the others. Though it seems natural, it is an ingrained trait in the village culture. It is the peculiarity of acculturation. That is to invisibly mould human characters (or to condition them in accordance with societal values). It is this which matures in Isa's old age. However, that does not mean he (Isa) is a model character overcoming mundane concerns. We can see on many occasions in his life common weaknesses come into the fore"

So it is obvious that the objective of the writer in the creation of the character Isa, the protagonist and the narrator of the novel is not to offer a model or stereotype character as in the novels of Piyadasa Sirisena. But, it is clear, that the undeclared objective of the writer is to depict the milieu in rather plain or un-embellished diction. Jayatilake himself acknowledged that his does not concern much about the structure, the way in which narration progress but what is to be narrated. Although the scope of the novel is rather limited as most of the novels by Jane Austen, Charita Tunak yields plurality of meanings as it is read over and over again.