Professional Mourners – Alagu Subramaniam

Setting

·         Jaffna in Sri Lanka

·         A feudal, cast-ridden society

Point of view

·         A child narrator

Characters

The narrator

·         The narrator and his family are in a commanding position in their society

·         He is more sensitive to the unfairness of the way his uncle treated those of the ‘low’ castes

Master of ceremonies

·         He was the narrator’s uncle, “a teacher in a small school and trifle mad”

·         He was “in charge of all the arrangements on such occasions.”

·         He calls the fishermen “low minded fellows” and order them to attend the funeral

·         He calls the mourners “wretches” and order them to forget about their own mother’s death and mourn at his relative’s funeral

·         However, others who are more enlightened and compassionate reprimands him for his heartlessness

Professional Mourners

·         Lower cast women who were duty-bound to lament at the funerals of upper caste families

Themes

·         Caste issues

·         Mourning for the dead

o   The practice of professional mourning is about status - “His Honour the Supreme Court Judge and the Police Magistrate are coming, and what will they think about us if we did not have enough mourners?”

Techniques

·         Humour

o   the activities of the Master of Ceremonies

o   the way the mourners cry at the funeral: “The professional mourners sat down a short distance from the others and throwing their hands in the air, now beating their heads, now their breasts, began to wail and mourn”

·         Pathos

o   the situation of the professional mourners

o   the Master of Ceremonies dragging a woman along the ground