Bonded beyond time and place – exploring Malay archetypal images in Hanna Alkaf’s The Weight of Our Sky (2019) and the Malay historical texts

Abstract

Malaysian literary works in English produced by the current generation of writers have been gaining recognition both locally and internationally in recent times. Among such is Hanna Alkaf, whose debut novel The Weight of Our Sky (2019) was critically acclaimed in Malaysia and abroad. As part of the new generation of writers in the Malaysian Literature in English scene, Hanna Alkaf places Malay women as the main characters in this young adult novel. Henceforth, this paper endeavours to study this novel in the attempt to uncover the archetypes that represent the female characters. Other studies on archetypes in Malaysian Literature English have not explored the similarities of characters in the current fiction to other characters in the Malay historical texts, hence this analysis is significant to fill such a gap. To achieve the stated objective, this paper has utilised the theories on collective unconscious established by Carl Jung focusing on the archetypes, the reception theories posited by Wolfgang Iser with the emphasis on gaps and blanks and the theories postulated by Ruzy Suliza Hashim which bring into light the historical females in Malay court narratives. The findings have revealed that the main female characters have certain similar attributes to the historical females in the Malay court narratives written hundreds of years ago. Such similarities have managed to collapse the boundaries of time and place and concomitantly, create a link binding these characters together through the nexus of Malayness.