A Cognitive Linguistic Exploration of Moral Ambiguity in Asura and Lanka’s Princess

Abstract

Mythological retelling as an emerging genre has grabbed attention of the contemporary generation. It not only takes them back to mythical stories of our sacred past, but reminds them of our cultural identity and origin. Several mythological retellings tend to challenge the long-standing dominant ideologies revolving around the ethical binary of good and evil and dharma and adharma. This paper aims to examine Neelakantan’s Asura: The Tale of Vanquished and Kane’s Lanka’s Princess through the lens of cognitive linguistics. It studies how traditionally evil icons of Ravana and Surpanakha are reframed in these texts using cognitive language, drawing reader’s sympathies. In addition, it also draws our attention to the moral ambiguities faced by the readers after reading these retellings that shapes their understanding of dharma- from a selfless deed- to a more dynamic expression of self-identity, personal justice and resistance. The paper draws on the Conceptual Metaphor Theory and Discourse Analysis to understand how metaphors are used in the language and how narrative tone and voices fuel this ambiguity.