April 2020
37
ISSN 2278 0742
Social Conflicts in Guru Prasad Mainali’s Paralko Aago (The Blaze in the Straw) Mahendra Kumar Budhathoki Abstract Conflict is a key element in the story, and without it, the plot of a story is almost impossible to move ahead. Social issues cause conflict in literature. Here, this paper tries to expose the social conflicts in Guru Prasad Mainali‘s story Paralko Aago (The Blaze in the Straw). This story typically represents the Nepali rural society. There is a conflict between a husband Chame and a wife Gauthali in the story. This research paper tries to analyze what the social factors inflame the quarrel of poor couples. The researcher has used a descriptive qualitative method and used conflict theory to analyze the story. The major findings are manifest and crisis conflict in the story. There is conflict between an individual Chame and an individual Gauthali, conflict between an individual Chame and an animal buffalo, conflict between an individual Chame and social beliefs, etc. Mainali has given such conflicts to make aware of individuals, especially couples, that quarrel between a husband and a wife is a fire of straw. Couples should not break up their relationship due to such quarrel. Key-words: Conflict, Latent, Manifest, Social Belief, Paralko Aago Introduction Literature can generally be a study on the bases of linguistic, aesthetic and social aspects. This study focuses on social conflicts in Guru Prasad Mainali‘s Paralko Aago (The Blaze in the Straw) based on sociological perspective. Sociology talks about human behaviors and their relationships with others in the real society. Sociologists seek sociological causes in every human behavior and events happened in the real society. Literature is a creative art that reflects society. Literature cannot be aloof from the real human society. As in the real society, literature has expressions of human behaviors, feelings, attitudes, intentions that are products of the certain social values and principles. Literature represents ―human activity and experiences‖ (Widdowson 2) of the real society. A society has their structures and functions. People have their various activities and those activities directly or indirectly affect or influence others in the real society. In the same way, a novel or story has different types of characters; they are socially connected. They do different activities and behaviors that are
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