ABSTRACT
Traditional narratives such as fairy tales, legends, are important because they help us understand the world, maintaining a basic framework for generations of people to use as “common philosophical guides” (S. P. Arya) from childhood to old age. One of the facts about our contemporary world that needs understanding, as Simone Weil has noted, is the “least recognised” but “most important” human need to overcome feelings of rootlessness and lack of belonging, brought about by displacement. Fairy tales are replete with examples of displacement of both the hero and the heroine. And in this chapter, I would like to go back to this genre and engage with the various tropes of displacement as depicted in various tales from India and other countries of South East Asia.
In most of the canonical western fairy tales dealing with the displacement motif, when the protagonist is female (e.g., Snow White or Dukhu from the Bengali tale SukhuDukhu), displacement is mostly shown as forcefully thrust on her, contrary to the treatment meted out to male protagonists; there is an urgent need in the stories to show that the women back in the domestic space by the time the end credits roll. In this essay my intention is to try to focus on tales from South East Asia and investigate how the experience of displacement differs for the male and female protagonists, even when the tool of magic is available for use.
