Midweek Review

A Bigger Picture: how the Humanities can widen our perspectives

Published

5 years ago

2021/12/22

Sahan Weerasooriya

A scene from the movie, ‘Perfume- The story of a murderer’

by Liyanage Amarakeerthi

(Lecture given at the 18th annual academic sessions of the Sri Lanka College of Psychiatrists

On 16 December 2021 at Grand Kandyan Hotel, Kandy)

In order to understand life as a whole, one needs to focus on the bigger picture of human affairs- perhaps of forces larger than humans. Our lives are increasingly determined by much larger forces that we might not even perceive in our everyday lives. Within our education system, we have developed numerous subject areas that help us uncover those behind- the scene-forces. As a scholar in the humanities, I have no knowledge in many of those subjects. Even within the humanities, I only have some expertise in literary studies. Since literary studies have always been a richly interdisciplinary field, I may be able to touch on some adjacent fields such as history, philosophy, sociology, and so on. My topic should ideally be ‘how liberal arts can widen our perspectives’ because liberal arts includes humanities, social sciences and some natural sciences, but I decided to stick to the humanities primarily for two reasons: I will be making my points mostly with literary examples, and the term, ‘humanities’ is the term often used in Sri Lanka.

Professor Joseph B. Cuseo and Aaron Thompson in Humanity, Diversity and Liberal Arts Education (2015) describe seven socio-spatial perspectives typically developed in liberal arts teaching: Perspective of family, perspective of community, perspective of society, national perspective, international perspective, global perspective, and perspective of the universe (cosmos).

It is extremely difficult to elaborate on all these perspectives with different examples in short speech. Therefore, I decide to focus on one novel. Its film version might be quite familiar to the psychiatrists and psychologists in the audience. I use the novel and the film in my teaching at University of Peradeniya but not necessarily the same way that I am going to use it today. The novel is Perfume, the the film has the same name.

It is the story of Grenouille, illegitimate son of a female fish seller in the 18th century France. Even when he is born, his mother is selling fish. The new born is left on a heap of fish guts, – perhaps most disgusting and unhealth environment for a child to be born in. His mother does not want to raise him, and she could not afford to. He is left alone to die there on the heap of fish waste so that garbage collectors will put away the dead child fish guts in the evening.

The author of the novel, Patrick Suskind, explains the situation in a beautifully-crafted paragraph:

Here, then, on the most putrid spot in the whole kingdom, Jean-Baptiste Grenouille was born on the 17th July, 1738. It was one of the hottest days of the year. The heat lay leaden upon the graveyard, squeezing its putrefying vapour, a blend of rotting melon and the fetid odor of burnt animal horn, out in to the nearby alleys. When the labour pains began, Grenouille’s mother was standing at a fish stall in the rue aux Fers, scaling whiting that she had just gutted. The fish, ostensibly, taken that very morning from the Seine, already stank so vilely that the smell masked the odour of corpses. Grenouille’s mother, however, perceived the odour neither of the fish nor of the corpses, for her sense of smell had been utterly dulled, besides which her belly hurt and the pain deadened all susceptibility to sensate impressions. She only wanted to put this revolting birth behind her as quickly as possible. It was her fifth (p.5)”

She expects the new born to die there in the heap of fish guts. In the evening, a carter would come and pick up the garbage and drop them on the grave yard or to the river. Then, all her responsibilities will be over. She is still in her twenties.

Dangers of limitless love

But her fifth child does not bring her good luck; Grenouille does not die there. The mother is taken into custody and is accused of killing her previous babies and of attempting to kill the new born. She is decapitated in public. Grenouille grows up in orphanages to become one of the gruesome serial killers in history. But he is not a killer. He becomes one of the most skilled perfumers; he has an acute sense of smell; in some beautiful virgins he finds magically captivating fragrance. He develops the arts and science of extracting that fragrance from those young women’s hair, pubic hair, skin, and so on. By the time he was done perfecting the most fragrant perfume in history, he had killed twenty-five young women. The perfume is so captivating that it can enable people to engaged in acts of limitless love. Limitless love is so dangerous that a group of people madly intoxicated by the smell of the magical perfume, kills Grenouille alive. He literally vanishes from the earth.

None of us has extreme lives of this kind: But the point of narrative art is to intensify human experience and get us to reflect on. Story of this young man is illustrative of many of the perspectives I want to speak of during this speech.

Family determines who we eventually become. Familial impact on us takes place at many levels. Perfume demonstrates that Grenouille’s search for this magical fragrant emanating from some beautiful women, is in a way his desire to regain the warmth of his own mother – a pleasurable warmth he never experienced. His desire for those young women is a sublimated form of hating them. As the fantastic perfume he creates is capable making people engaged in mythical acts of love turns into extreme form of violence, his love for those young women leads to the most gruesome murder of them. Unimaginably violent acts on those bodies such as peeling their skins, are performed in a clinically scientific detachment.

Perfume is a work of art not a scientific treatise on how family or the lack of it shapes one’s character. Thus, the novel does not claim that any illegitimate son, who is forced to grow up without his mother, will certainly end up being a serial killer. Works of art provide us with frameworks for further contemplation not exact mathematical formulas.

Let me move on to a ‘the perspective of the community.’ A catholic monk named Terrier arranges a wet nurse for the child. Grenouille spends a few months with this extremely religious wet nurse, who believes that the baby is possessed with the devil because he sucks her dry. Yes. The child drinks a lot of breast milk. With his insatiable thirst for breast milk, the wet nurse refuses to keep him at her house. She also believes that the child except for his excrement does not smell at all.

Within this community where Catholic and pagan beliefs shape people’s thinking, the child does not get to develop any motherly attachment to any women. The wet nurse brings the child back to father Terrier and leaves the baby with him. The priest thinks that when a mother breastfeeds a child regularly, the child develops a certain attachment to the mother’s body and gets used to the rhythm of the heartbeat of the mother. This child would never know a mother’s heartbeat. Thus, we can see Grenouille’s character is crucially shaped by his close community.

Then comes the perspective of the society, which invites us to perceive the question at hand within the framework of larger society. Let’s stick to the novel, Perfume. What was the kind of society in which Grenouille lived in? It was 18th century France, fifty years before the French revolution, and it was a country ruled by kings and their regional deputies. The dominant worldview was the religious one. Scientific thought and human reason were still to become the main source of wisdom. Thus, it is no accident that Grenouille’s last and the most precious victim was mythically beautiful Laure, the only daughter of a regional lord. In that sense, the young perfumer’s search for the perfect scent was an individualist attack on a social structure that made him a bastard and an orphan. After all, that is the very society that made his mother kill her babies because she was too poor to raise them. In addition, she was sexually exploited by men in the positions of power in the society. Still in her twenties, her beauty intact, she hoped to find a man to marry, perhaps, aged widower, and settle herself into a better life.

Thus, selling fish is a something temporary for her. But she keeps getting pregnant by men whose names are not revealed to us. Through them she picks up diseases like syphilis as well. What else a poor young woman, living in the most disgusting corner of the city, can do to her newborns other than to hope for their death? The author of the novel situates her character in a larger societal frame and invites us see the bigger picture of life. In teaching a novel like this, insights from history, political science, sociology can be brought in to enrich the discussion.

As Cuseo and Thompson (2015: 15) maintain,” human societies also consist of groups of people stratified into different social classes with unequal amounts of resources and material wealth; those groups occupying lower social strata have less economic resources and social privilege.”(Humanity, Diversity and the Liberal Arts). Grenouille’s birth and death occur in pre-revolution France where social stratification was so pronounced that, in there, many people of the lowest strata lived a subhuman life. It is not surprising that the French word “Grenouille” means ‘the frog.’

Though there are more to be said about the novel, let me leave it that by summarizing my argument so far: the extraordinary life of this young man, Grenouille, can be better understood when he is analyzed through different perspectives such as family, community, and society. In doing so, we not only understand the young man better we also get to look into larger contexts within which human life is shaped.

Other ways of seeing things

Let me now briefly touch on other perspectives the liberal arts education at its best attempts to develop in students. The national perspective is an angle of vision that helps us reflect on how the realities of nationhood, nation state, national boundaries influence our lives. We all are aware of certain realities, obligations, frustrations and so on exist for us just because of the nature of our nation state. We have to live with them by virtue of being citizens of our nation state.

This is the opening sentence of the novel, Perfume, “In eighteenth-century France there lived a man who was one the most gifted and abominable personages in an era that knew no lack of gifted and abominable personages.” We can immediately see that the writer wants to see the main character’s predicament in ‘France’ in the 18th century. This brings us to the international perspective.

One cannot understand France at the time without understanding how France was connected to a host of other countries even before the French Revolution. A central metaphor of the novel is perfume. Many of the ingredients used to make perfume came through in international naval routes in colonial ships. Phenomenal development of perfume industry in France cannot be understood without referring to colonialism and international trade relations that France had developed with other countries. In addition, some of the girls killed are from Italy. During those days, poor Italian peasants came to France as seasonal workers for harvesting. Moreover, the consumers of those extremely expensive perfume were not just French people. The aristocracy in neighboring countries, perhaps, even in far away countries bought French perfume. Thus, one cannot isolate gruesome murders of one unknown French man, whose name means frog after all, from France’s connections with other countries those days.

I must recall here that I am trying to briefly explain all the perspectives by using a single novel. Still, the novel can be used to explain what we mean by ‘global perspectives.’ It is a quite broader perspective than ‘international’ perspective because it takes into account nearly everything that might have contributed to making a phenomenon. Let’s return to the novel. Grenoulle’s life is connected with so many things other than human affairs such as trade and politics which were discussed earlier. “It extends beyond nations to embrace both human and nonhuman life inhabiting our planet and how these life forms interface with the earth’s natural resources (minerals, air, and water). Human’s share the earth with approximately 10 million animal species and more than 300,000 forms of vegetative life, all of whose needs must be met and balanced to ensure the health and sustainability of our planet” (Cuseo and Thompson, p. 18).

In this novel, the central character is presented as someone much closer to nature than culture. Hence, the name ‘frog.’ He is born on a heap of fish guts, and in that sense too, he is nearly an amphibian. Later in his life, he spends seven years like an animal in a forest cave separated from human civilization. This is how the author explains the Grenouille’s life in that forest. “He also ate dry lichen and grass-berries. Such a diet, although totally unacceptable by bourgeoises standards, did not disgust him in the least. ” During those, seven years of hibernation or the forest-life, he is portrayed as a part of the larger nature of the planet earth. He is an insignificant and a seemingly innocent part of nature itself. But this very man, after being discovered again by the representatives of human civilization and taken into to the city, begins his adventure of murdering twenty odd young women and perfecting the most fragrant perfume in the world- in fact a perfume that can generate the perfect love.

Let me quickly jump into the last perspective, cosmos. This is a wonderful novel in establishing the fact that man, even the central character, Paris, France or the earth, are not entities that stand in themselves. Here, we are not alone. We are part of larger universe; solar systems, milky ways and so on. No wonder that in the middle ages, astronomy was included in liberal arts. Not only that different entities in the universe are inherently connected to one another, we humans keep looking into what is out there. Just last month, scientists claimed that the moon’s top layer of soil contained oxygen that could sustain 8 billion human lives for more than one hundred thousand years.

Here in the novel, Perfume, the unknown, the unseen, the extra-terrestrial, the cosmic, is always present; and every key incident in the novel seems mysterious connected to something else, and to long chain of ‘something-elses’, some of which might extend as far as the heavens. If it is not the heavens, it is the nature, the Nature with a big N. Let me quote a couple of sentences where a certain character’s disappearance is described: “…The last was seen of him was his silhouette: hands lifted ecstatically to heaven and voice raised in song, he disappeared into the blizzard… [They did not find any trace of him] “no clothes, no body parts, no bones…”(Pp. 187-8).

In this speech, I wanted to show that in order to get at some understanding of Grenouille’s life to one has to enter his story from multiple perspectives. Among other things, liberal arts education aspires to cultivate skills in creatively using these perspectives in students. The life of the young man in the novel is an extreme case and the lives of many of us are not nearly as dramatic, tragic or gruesome. Yet, the intellectual training that we develop by trying to understand his life from multiple perspectives can carry over into our real lives. Even the most insignificant lives or phenomenon exists in complex networks of relations. My speech today hopefully contained some insights that could motivate the psychiatrists here in the audience to reflect on the need of situating their ‘subjects’ in a bigger picture. I hope with much that you will never have to treat a serial killer, any killer for that matter. But the seven perspectives I explained above might suggest that you are more than likely to meet some versions of Grenouille- human beings trying to perfect formulas for producing perfect love in an extremely imperfect world.

(Amarakeerthi is professor of Sinhala, University of Peradeniya)

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Midweek Review

22A: Developing constitutional quagmire

Published

4 days ago

2026/08/26

Sahan Weerasooriya

The government’s high profile project to enact the 22nd Amendment failed to secure any tangible support from anyone outside the NPP, in Parliament or outside. In a statement, the Illankai Thamil Arasu Kadchi (ITAK) noted that the proposed amendment concerned the sovereignty of the people and, therefore, required approval through a referendum. The ITAK, a key member of the six-party Political Council of Tamil-Speaking people (PCTSP) and the second largest party in the Northern and Eastern Provinces, other than the NPP, is opposed to President Dissanayake’s move. Tamil Progressive Party (TPA) leader and former Minister Mano Ganeshan, also of the PCTSP, has rejected the 22nd Amendment. The Island learns that all political parties, represented in the PCTSP, are opposed to the proposed Amendment.

The NPP obtained the most seats at the Parliamentary General Election 2024. Other parties that managed to gain seats in Parliament are the Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB/40 seats), Ilankai Tamil Arasu Kadchi (ITAK/8 seats), New Democratic Front (NDF/5 seats), Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP/3 seats), Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC/1), Sarvajana Balaya (SB/1), United National Party (UNP/1), Democratic Tamil National Alliance (DTNA/1), All Ceylon Tamil Congress (ACTC/1), All Ceylon Makkal Congress (ACMC/1), Jaffna – Independent Group 17 (IND17-1) and the Sri Lanka Labour Party (SLLP/1).

Timeline

* March 30, 2026, BASL wrote to Justice and National Integration Minister Harshana Nanayakkara seeking a meeting to discuss 22A

* May 25, 2026, BASL wrote to President Dissanayake seeking a meeting to discuss the same

* July 16, 2026, BASL wrote again to the Justice Minister underscoring the failure on his part and the President to respond to previous letters

* July 27, 2026, NPP executive committee member advocate Lal Wijenayake declared opposition to the government move

* July 29, 2026, BASL met the Justice Minister, sought a meeting with President Dissanayake

* July 31, 2026, Mahanayakes of four Chapters (Nikayas) wrote a joint letter to President Dissanayake urging him not to go ahead with the 22nd Amendment. But, the Mahanayakes refrained from releasing the letter to the media

* August 3, 2026, BASL disclosed the Mahanayakes’ letter to the President. Justice Minister Nanayakkara, accompanied by Health and Media Minister Dr. Nalinda Jayathissa, visited the Mahanayakes to explain the government stand. But, they denied receiving the crucial letter

* August 7, 2026, UN requested President Dissanayake, in no uncertain terms, to abandon the move.

* August 11, 2026, Government admitted receiving the Mahanayakes letter

* August 18, 2026, 22nd Amendment Bill presented in Parliament. Those opposed to the constitutional amendment began filing petitions. The BASL led the way. By 24 August, 21 petitions were filed.

* August 20, 2026, Catholic Bishops’ Conference urged the government not to proceed without adequate consultations.

* August 24, 2026, BASL, in a motion filed in the Supreme Court, suggested that Chief Justice Preethi Padman Surasena recuse from hearing the petitions

By Shamindra Ferdinando

In support of the ruling National People’s Power (NPP) government’s highly contentious move to enact the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution despite worldwide condemnation by eminent jurists, meant to extend the retirement ages of superior court judges, NPP leader and President Anura Kumara Dissanayake will address a series of countrywide meetings.

Dissanayake is also the leader of the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), the main constituent of the governing party.

Justice and National Integration Minister and Attorney-at-Law Harshana Nanayakkara, on 18 August, 2026, tabled the controversial 22nd Amendment Bill in Parliament. Nanayakkara also tabled the Judicature (Amendment) Bill on the same day. That will pave the way for the increase of the retirement ages of High Court judges to 63 years, and District Court and Magistrate Court judges to 62 years. The government wants to increase the retirement ages of Supreme Court and Court of Appeal judges to 67 and 65, respectively.

However, the government has proposed a six-year term for the Chief Justice but he/she will have to retire at the new mandatory retirement age of 67.

Health and Media Minister, as well as Cabinet spokesman Dr. Nalinda Jayathissa, recently announced the decision to launch the high profile propaganda campaign on 5 September. The NPP and JVP leader has vowed to enact the 22nd Amendment, come what may.

Dissanayake, who took over the party leadership on 2 February, 2014, at the 17th convention of the JVP, and formed the NPP in 2019, has indicated that he wouldn’t, under any circumstances, give up the 22nd Amendment. Dissanayake didn’t mince his words when he received a top level delegation of the Bar Association of Sri Lanka (BASL) at the Presidential Secretariat, on 12 August, to discuss the burning issue wracking the country. It would be pertinent to mention that the BASL raised the issue with Dissanayake, on 25 May, after Nanayakkara ignored their first request, made on 31 March.

The Supreme Court will hear over 20 petitions challenging the constitutionality of the 22nd Amendment Bill. Now that the matter is before the Supreme Court, the main opposition Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) shouldn’t have sought to involve the BASL in a futile attempt to educate the NPP parliamentary group. The BASL, too, should know better. The BASL and SJB are among those who moved the Supreme Court. Against that background it would be unthinkable that the NPP parliamentary group wants to listen to BASL. Government activists, on Monday (24), organised a protest outside BASL Secretariat, NO. 153, Mihindu Mawatha, Colombo 12 demanding the resignation of BASL President Rajeev Amarasuriya.

SJB and Opposition Leader Sajith Premadasa clashed in Parliament with the leader of the House Bimal Rathnayake over his bid to bring in the BASL team to address the whole Parliament. NPP National List lawmaker Najith Indika declared on X that “the Opposition Leader couldn’t call all MPs for meetings. BASL either does not follow parliamentary procedure or knows how to manipulate public perception.”

The Supreme Court will receive petitions during two weeks, after the tabling of the Amendment. The Court should inform the Speaker of its determination within three weeks. Parliament will receive that determination ahead of President Dissanayake completing his second year in Office. The last presidential election was held on 21 September 2024.

Dissanayake won a five-year term and in November, the same year, led the party to a resounding victory at the parliamentary poll. The NPP/JVP position is that both Bills can be enacted with a 2/3 majority. With a mammoth 159 seats in Parliament, the government is confident that its political project can be easily achieved. But, the NPP operation has run into significant opposition with the United Nations, throwing its weight behind the BASL-led campaign.

Tabling of the two Bills on 18 August coincided with the 39th anniversary of the JVP grenade attack on the UNP parliamentary group, in the wake of the signing of the Indo-Lanka peace accord in 1987. Ajith Kumara, at that time a minor parliamentary employee, lobbed a hand grenade at the UNP group meeting, chaired by President J.R. Jayewardena. Prime Minister Ranasinghe Premadasa, too, was present. The then National Security Minister Lalith Athulathmudali narrowly escaped death in the attack that took place in the Committee Room 1 of Parliament. Deniyaya MP and Matara District Minister Keerthi Abeywickrema was killed. The writer covered the funeral, held on 22 August, 1987, at the playground of the Morawaka Maha Vidyalaya. Then the young Minister in charge of Youth Affairs and Employment, Ranil Wickremesinghe, was among those who represented the government at the funeral.

Kumara had been recruited as a sweeper by no less a person than the then Secretary General of Parliament, Nihal Seneviratne. Had Kumara been a member of the proscribed JVP at the time he joined the parliamentary staff or did the JVP approach him later?

The Colombo High Court acquitted Ajith Kumara on 12 October, 1990, and released him from custody on 6 August, 1993. Subsequently, the JVP accommodated Ajith Kumara on the party’s politburo and paved the way for him to contest the Sabaragamuwa Provincial Council poll on the JVP ticket. With fat hopes the JVP named him their chief ministerial candidate.

Key Opp demands

Pointing out that the matter before the Supreme Court judges related to them, the BASL requested that a bench consisting of a full court, comprising all the judges, be constituted to determine the constitutionality of the 22nd Amendment Bill. The BASL also requested the Supreme Court to determine that the Bill is inconsistent with Article 3 of the Constitution and required approval by the people at a referendum.

In the alternative, the BASL sought determination that Clause 2 of the Bill is inconsistent with Article 3 of the Constitution and required approval by the people at a referendum and Clause 3 of the Bill is inconsistent with Article 3 of the Constitution and required approval by the people at a referendum.

Essentially, all petitioners have requested for a full court, comprising all Supreme Court judges and a referendum, if ordered, it’ll be the second instance. The first referendum was held in December 1982. The UNP that won an unbeatable 5/6 majority in a 168-member Parliament, at the 1977 parliamentary election, obtained a mandate of the people to extend the life of Parliament by six years. That utterly undemocratic, unreasonable and treacherous act contributed to the overall deterioration of the country. By the time the 1989 parliamentary poll was held, the police, backed by the armed forces, were fighting the JVP in the South, and the Indian Army, deployed in the Northern and Eastern regions, in terms of the Indo-Lanka Accord.

Former External Affairs Minister Prof. G. L. Peiris, convenor of the Joint Opposition grouping, too, moved the Supreme Court against the 22nd Amendment, and General Secretary of the SJB Ranjith Maddumabandara did the same. Altogether there were nearly two dozen petitioners

Ex-Law Professor Peiris has vigorously campaigned against the government move, and the weekly media briefing. held at former President Wickremesinghe’s Flower Road Office, has become the focal point of the Opposition campaign. Peiris insists that the Supreme Court shouldn’t hear the petitions as justices were direct beneficiaries of the proposed Amendment. Therefore, determination should be made at a referendum. In case the Supreme Court decides to hear the petitions, the full court consisting of all judges should be constituted to determine the constitutionality of the 22nd Amendment Bill, the former parliamentarian has asserted.

As repeatedly stressed by Prof. Peiris, two previous determinations by the Supreme Court that the alteration of superior court judges’ retirement ages should be subject to a referendum cannot be disregarded, under any circumstances. One of the determinations is of crucial importance as former Chief Justice Murdhu Fernando (December 2024 to July 2025) served on the three-member bench that made the far reaching announcement in 2022.

But, the BASL made an unexpected move on Monday. Close on the heels of its petition against the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution, the BASL filed a motion in the Supreme Court suggesting that Chief Justice Preethi Padman Suresena recuse from hearing petitions.

Petitioners BASL President Rajeev Amarasuriya and its Secretary Nalin de Silva cited Attorney General as the respondent in a motion filed in terms of Article 121 read with Article 120 of the Constitution to determine whether the Bill, titled “Twenty Second Amendment to the Constitution,” or any part thereof, is required to be passed by a Referendum in terms of Article 83 of the Constitution.

The BASL pointed out that the first Judge of the Supreme Court, who would benefit if this Bill is enacted into law without the process of a referendum, is the Chief Justice, and further that if a referendum is mandated, then that there is a possibility that the Chief Justice may retire before its completion, and if for those reasons, the Chief Justice wished to recuse from hearing this matter, then the petitioners have requested the Chief Justice to constitute a bench comprising of all other judges in Supreme Court.

The maximum number of Supreme Court and Court of Appeal judges are 17, including the CJ and 20 judges ,including the President of the Court of Appeal, respectively. The NPP caused controversy by not filling vacancies among the superior court judges with the Opposition alleging there were four vacancies each. There’ll be another vacancy among the Court of Appeal judges in the first week of September.

The warning issued by the UN following a spate of other statements from various local and international bodies has brought tremendous pressure on the government. Having initially denied any knowledge of a joint letter, dated July 31, addressed to President Dissanayake by the Malwatta, Asgiriya, Amarapura and Ramanna chapters, the government, on 11 August, admitted the President received the letter.

However, the Catholic Bishops Conference publicly commented on this issue, only on 20 August, after all other concerned parties censured the government over the move. A section of the civil society that portrayed the 22nd Amendment as the panacea for a mountain of cases held up in courts had no option but to sing a different tune after the UN warned the NPP government over the pet project that seemed to have backfired. The UN’s position rattled the government and its backers.

18A and 20A

War-winning President Mahinda Rajapaksa enacted 18th Amendment to the Constitution in early September 2010. That despicable political project did away with a two-term time limit for the executive president and expanded presidential powers over independent commissions. That Bill received 161 votes, two more than the NPP parliamentary group. But, 18A didn’t do any good for President Rajapaksa or his party. Maithripala Sirisena, General Secretary of Mahinda Rajapaksa’s party, betrayed him, won the 2015 presidential election, and created an utterly undesirable political environment that, over a period of 10 years, ruined the country’s major political parties.

The emergence of the NPP as the dominant power should be examined taking into consideration the deterioration of the UNP, SLFP and the SLPP. The UNP and SLFP are no longer represented in Parliament while the SLPP that won a commanding 145 seats at the 2020 parliamentary poll was reduced to just three lawmakers in Parliament. SLPP’s National Organiser Namal Rajapaksa was so concerned about the transformation of the political environment he took refuge in the National List. Had he not taken that precaution, he wouldn’t be in Parliament today. While the SLPP deteriorated from 145 seats to just three, the NPP, whose 2020 parliamentary group consisted of just three, including one National List member (Dr. Harini Amarasuriya) ended up taking 159 seats, the best results achieved under the Proportional Representation system introduced in 1989.

Having handsomely won the 2019 presidential election, Gotabaya Rajapaksa brought in the 20th Amendment aimed at further consolidating his hold on power. Basil Rajapaksa, a dual citizen of Sri Lanka and the US, wanted to enter Parliament through the National List. The Rajapaksas removed a particular clause through the 19th Amendment to enable Basil Rajapaksa to enter Parliament. Subsequently, the SLPP accommodated Basil Rajapaksa in the Cabinet as the all-powerful Finance Minister. He succeeded Mahinda Rajapaksa in July 2021. But by then, the national economy had suffered irreparable damage and the 20th Amendment, meant to consolidate executive power, seemed irrelevant. Public protest campaign that received overt and covert US and Indian backing was launched in March 2022, leading to President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s unceremonious ouster in July of same year due to India and Western backed violent protests.

The 18th Amendment and the 20th Amendment were enacted at the expense of particularly the 17th and 19th Amendments, respectively.

The Frontline Socialist Party (FSP) has alleged that the 22nd Amendment would enable the government to implement its neoliberal programme. The breakaway JVP group has asserted that the government’s sinister project is intended to remove whatever obstacles to its neoliberal strategy.

FSP’s Education Secretary Pubudu Jayagoda said: “A new Fisheries Act will divide the ocean into plots, lease the fish-rich areas to multinational corporations, and deprive local fishermen the opportunity to catch fish in the deep sea. The biggest obstacle to this is the fishermen. A Quality Assurance and Accreditation Commission Act is being drafted to grant state recognition and legality to degree mills. Three thousand schools are going to be closed, depriving children of the fundamental right to education. To do that, every pillar of the state must be brought under government control. A long list can be given: privatising hospital laboratory services, selling off state institutions, bringing forward new repressive laws like the PSTA (Protection of the State from Terrorism Act), and a new Cooperatives Act that snatches away people’s funds—many things like that. Taking the arbitrary power required to execute these into the hands of the executive is the true objective of this constitutional amendment.”

Midweek Review

Shakespeare’s female characters

Published

4 days ago

2026/08/26

Sahan Weerasooriya

Ophelia in a scene from Hamlet

Displaying Gender-Based Issues that Resonate with Our Times

by Dr. Siri Galhenage
Psychiatrist [Retd]

In most of William Shakespeare’s plays, the protagonists are male. He created such memorable characters as Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth, Julius Caesar, Prospero, Coriolanus, the monarchs of history plays and many others – heroes as well as villains. This was a reflection of the societal values of the time. Women were not permitted to perform on stage, and all female roles were played by young males – a practice that continued for nearly half a century after Shakespeare’s death. This was so even though Elizabeth 1, the learned female monarch of England and Ireland and a humanist, occupied the throne during most of Shakespeare’s writing life [1580–1613], and extended her patronage to his plays.

Nevertheless, compared with his contemporaries Christopher Marlowe and Ben Jonson, Shakespeare wrote a greater number of plays featuring prominent female characters that drove the narratives, providing insights into intra-psychic, interpersonal, social and moral aspects of life.

I have selected two such female characters from Shakespeare’s plays and another from one of his narrative poems to illustrate this idea, focusing primarily on gender based violence – emotional, physical and sexual – that continues to resonate in our own times. I have also chosen another female character who challenged the gender constraints that imposed by contemporary society.

DESDEMONA in Othello –

A Victim of Morbid Jealousy

A scene from As You Like It

Jealousy, as a human experience, has many nuances of meaning, ranging from the harmless to the morbid, including delusional forms, with many variations in between. The object of concern in jealousy is the suspicion of unfaithfulness or infidelity on the part of a loved one, commonly a female partner in a marital relationship. In its morbid form, accompanied by intense passion, jealousy has the potential to be destructive and even dangerous, placing the spouse at risk. It is not an uncommon presentation in clinical practice attracting the diagnosis of ‘Othello Syndrome’ although there is disagreement among clinicians about the application of the term.

Othello, a valiant soldier of African heritage in the state of Venice, had no difficulty winning the heart of Desdemona, the attractive young daughter of a prosperous senator. He took her away in defiance of her father’s wish for her to marry into the Venetian nobility. At this point, the Turks were preparing to regain Venetian-held territory in Cyprus, and Othello, recognised for his military prowess, was selected to lead the defence of the territory.

Despite the imminent Turkish attack on Cyprus, Desdemona preferred to remain with her husband rather than stay in Venice. The attack did not eventuate, however, because a violent storm dispersed and destroyed the invading Turkish fleet. The Venetian forces rejoiced, and the occasion provided an added opportunity to celebrate the marriage of Othello and Desdemona.

Casio, a close confidant of Othello, who had been recently promoted to lieutenant, was delegated to supervise the festivities. Cassio’s promotion caused great offence to Iago, who strongly believed that he was better suited to the position. He plotted to take revenge on Othello and Cassio by planting the seed of doubt in Othello’s mind through innuendo and trickery, casting suspicion on Desdemona’s fidelity and on her relationship with good-looking Cassio. Desdemona, a woman of exuberance and humour, became the unwitting focus of Iago’s manipulation.

The dissonance that arose in Othello’s mind eventually reached a climax when he accused his wife of infidelity and became convinced that she should die. Despite Desdemona’s plea for compassion, Othello strangled her to death. On finally gaining insight into the whole saga, Othello fell on his sword beside his wife.

OPHELIA in Hamlet – A Case of Manic Defence in response
to emotional abuse

Hamlet, the Prince of Denmark, takes centre stage in the play of the same name, and his mental processes have been the focus of scrutiny by successive generations of critics.

Young Prince Hamlet is faced with a complex emotional challenge following the sudden death of his father, King Hamlet, he idolised. The late king’s brother, usurper to the throne, hastily marries the widowed queen, denying the young prince his lawful right to sovereignty. Hamlet’s grief is compounded by his outrage towards his mother and his lingering doubts about the circumstances of his father’s death. He lapses into a state of melancholy.

But the impact of Hamlet’s emotional instability and the displacement of his anger onto Ophelia, to whom the prince had professed his love, receive less attention by critics, despite the significant psychological issues raised by her predicament. The episode in which Hamlet directs his anger towards Ophelia – often referred to as the ‘nunnery scene’ – is considered one of the most vicious in all Shakespeare.

Get thee to a nunnery. Why wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners?”…. “If thou dost marry, I’ll give this plague for thy dowry, be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shall not escape calamity. Get thee to a nunnery; go, farewell. Or if thou wilt needs marry, marry a fool, for wise men know well enough what monsters you make of them. To a nunnery go, quickly too. Farewell

Her love for Prince Hamlet was forbidden from the outset by her father, the scheming counsellor, Polonius, and by her brother Laertes; she was obedient to them. With her dignity destroyed by the very person she loved and her father killed, albeit inadvertently by the hand of her lover, she nevertheless reacted with compassion. With her brother away in France, Ophelia is bereft of any meaningful relationships.

With no one left to confide in, her mind had no alternative but to escape reality. She lapsed into a state of mania – a state of ‘fragile happiness’ with underlying deep sorrow; an unconscious defensive operation of the mind known as ‘manic defence’, as described by Melanie Klein [1882-1960], the renowned Austrian Psychoanalyst.

In this state of mind, Ophelia presents herself before the king and queen, singing snatches of song concerning love, death and betrayal. Her behaviour is totally out of character to her formerly demure self. Here are a few excerpts from her verses illustrating what might be described as a ‘flight of ideas’.

How should I your true love know/ From another one? / By his cockle hat and staff/ And his sandal shoon…”

“He is dead and gone, lady/ He is dead and gone/ At his head a grass green turf/ At his heels a stone…

They say the owl was a baker’s daughter. Lord we know what we are, but know not what we may be. God be at your table …

Hey non nonny, nonny, hey nonny/ And in his grave rained many a tear …” “You must sing ’Adown adown’ and you call him adown-a.”

Later, Queen Gertrude, Hamlet’s mother, announced that Ophelia ‘Fell in a weeping brook while making garlands from crow-flowers, nettles, daisies and long purples’, and had made no attempt to save herself. At the graveyard two gravediggers discussed whether she deserves a Christian burial as she appeared to have taken her own life.

LUCRECE – in Shakespeare’s narrative poem The Rape

of Lucrece

Reworked from a story by the Roman historian Livy, Shakespeare’s innovative narrative poem, first published in 1594, gives access to the mind of a victim of sexual assault. Set in ancient Rome, the poem gives expression to the agony of Lucrece, the gracious wife of a nobleman, following a savage attack upon her by Sextus Tarquinius, the son of the brutal king Lucius Tarquinius of Rome.

During a joyous conversation, a group of young noblemen were commenting on the virtues of their wives when Collatinus extolled the incomparable beauty and chastity of his beloved Lucrece. Aroused by the description of her elegance, young Sextus makes a covert exit, ‘borne by the trustless wings of desire’ in pursuit of his prey –the peerless dame’, ‘weakly fortressed from a world of harm.

Lucrece warmly welcomes her royal guest, who shows no inward ill or outward harm. He praises her husband’s military prowess, ‘pawning his honour to obtain his lust. During the conversation he scans her beauty and burns with sexual desire, yet ‘is madly toss’d between desire and dread. His ambivalence finally gives way to desire. ‘Desire my pilot, beauty my prize/ ‘Then who fears sinking where such treasure lies?’ This said, he advances upon her, ‘like a falcon towering in the skies, that ‘Coutcheth the fowl with his wings’ ‘So under his insulting falcon lies/ Harmless Lucretia’ shade’, trembling with fear, ‘as fowl hear falcon’s bells’. She ‘lies at the mercy of his moral sting’ and finally succumbs ‘To the rough beast that knows no gentle right/ Nor aught obey but his foul appetite’.

Lucrece is shattered, perplexed and grief-stricken by the unexpected assault on her by her honoured guest. ‘I alone must sit and pine/ Seasoning the earth with showers of silver brine’. She weeps, ‘O unseen shame, invisible disgrace/ O unfelt sore, crest wounding private scar’. Her anguish is further expressed through the image of the violated hive. ’My honey lost, and I, a drone – like bee, have no perfection of my summer left/ But robb’d and ransack’d by injurious theft./ In thy weak hive a wand’ring wasp hath kept/ And suck’d the honey which thy chaste bee kept’.

In this state of mourning, Lucrece despatches two messengers: one to her father in Rome and the other to her husband on the battlefield. On their arrival, she reveals the circumstances of her agony and names the individual responsible. She then stabs herself to death.

Their entourage carry her body through Rome and vow to avenge the death of this ‘incomparable woman of chaste’. By public acclaim the reign of Tarquins is overthrown, and the rule of Rome handed over to the consuls.

A scene from Othello

ROSALIND in ‘As You Like It’ – Challenging the Gender Constraints

One of the few female characters to play a leading role is Rosalind in ‘As You Like It’. She remains much to the liking of many a theatre goer because of her wit, wisdom and inner strength. Rosalind transcends the constraints imposed on women during the Shakespearean era – constraints that continue to resonate in certain cultures even today.

Two young women of noble birth flee the oppressive court in disguise and seek refuge in the Forest of Arden. Rosalind disguised as a young man, Ganymede, while her devoted cousin Celia adopts the name Aliena. As they depart Celia declares, “Now go we in content/ To liberty, and not to banishment.” Orlando, the object of Rosalind’s affection, also escapes to the forest to evade the hostility of his brother. Unaware of Rosalind’s disguise, he expresses his love by hanging verses in her praise upon the trees. Although Rosalind discovers these poems, she chooses to maintain her disguise, using it as an opportunity to test Orlando’s devotion and explore the nature of love, courtship, and the differing gender expectations. The play reaches a conclusion by Rosalind dropping her disguise, and the two uniting in love.

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Gender-based violence is recognised globally as a pervasive violation of human rights and a significant social, cultural and public health concern. Violence against women, including emotional, physical and sexual, varies across societies in form and prevalence, and is often rooted in unequal power relations and social structures that perpetuate male dominance. Gender-based violence requires collective action through education, legal protection, economic empowerment, accessible support services and changes in attitudes and cultural practices. Power and influence should not be allowed to shield the perpetrators.

Art, including dramatic and literary art, serves to illuminate human experience. It allows us to explore emotions, ideas and moral dilemmas that may otherwise remain beyond ordinary expression. Art can entertain and inspire, but it can also challenge our assumptions, evoke empathy, and offer new ways of seeing ourselves and the world around us. In this sense, art is not merely a form of aesthetic pleasure; it is a means of understanding what it means to be human.

Desdemona, Ophelia, Lucrece and Rosalind are among Shakespeare’s more prominent female characters. The first three are innocent victims of male violence in different forms, evoking our empathy and compassion; the fourth challenges the gender assumptions and constraints of the time. Together, they illuminate gender-based issues that are both universal and timeless. In this sense, Shakespeare remains ‘our contemporary’, as Jan Kott, Polish-American literary critic, famously observed.