She Did What?

I WAS in Singapore last weekend to watch The Swordfish, Then the Concubine, by Kee Thuan Chye, a critically acclaimed Malaysian playwright who also happens to be an associate editor at The Star.

The play is based on a legend, told in the Sejarah Melayu (Malay Annals) of the attack of Singapore by swordfish. I've always been fascinated by the story without really understanding it. It's obvious that Singaporean fishermen would have been affected by shoals of killer swordfish, but apparently thousands of men, women and children were also killed. Strolling by the seashore was, I suppose a favourite pasttime in those days before video games and cable TV.

Anyway, the ruler of Singapura (as the island was called then) ordera the royal guard to form a human barricade at the edge of the water, but this plan fails. Presently though, a small boy suggests that banana stems be used to form a protective barrier against the fish. This brilliant idea works like a dream: the swordfish get their sharp snouts stuck in the stems and are destroyed by the king's men. However, the boy's original thinking is not rewarded. Fearing that he will grow up to be a threat to authority, the king has the lad killed.

According to the legend, it is the blood of the murdered boy that stained the earth and gave Bukit Merah its name. And what is the lesson that this tale teaches? Ummm ... that children should be seen and not heard? As one of the character's in Kee's play says, if the boy had kept his mouth shut, he would have lived - provided he kept off the beach, that is. Hmmm ... no wonder many versions of the story end simply with the success of the banana-trunk wall.

Yet, although the end of the tale is a tragic and unfair one, it does accurately reflect life. One is not always rewarded for doing the right thing. Performing well wins you admiration and can lead to success, but also causes jealousy and may end in downfall at the hands of those who resent you. In anycase, no one actually does anything about the boy's unjust treatement. "The kingdom thrives, the people carry on ..." sings the chorus in Kee's play. All's well, so why rock the boat for the sake of one scabby little kid?

If someone were to re-write the story as a children's book, would the boy be made to escape? Would he run far away and have adventures in strange lands, eventually returning to become, as predicted, a threat to authority, and, finally, overthrow the insecure, ineffective and corrupt ruler and become a wise and fair king himself? I can already picture the movie version!

Kee's play features another unfortunate character. She is the concubine of another king (the son of the one who ordered the small boy to be killed) and she executed for treason. She claims she is innocent and the audience has no reason to believe otherwise as she speaks eloquently and passionately, in the voice of a an enlightened young woman, of the importance of opening one's mind to different ideas, things and people. Would a concubine living in 14th century Singapore feel and think this way? As the daughter of the royal treasurer, she would have led a sheltered, privileged existence, and as a royal concubine her life would have become even more restricted. It is unlikely she would have ever enjoyed much freedom of movement, let alone allowed access to the world outside the palace. It is unlikely that she would have been comfortable in the presence of people of a lower social rank and she would certainly never have spoken to and of the sultan like she does in the play.

However, the concubine's sensibilities (that of a young, idealistic social activist) are of the 21st century because, presumably, Kee is merely using a historical setting to explore 21st century issues. It simply brought to my mind how authors of fiction (for all ages) often give characters ideas and opinions that are not in keeping with the historical settings of the books. This is to make the characters more relevant to readers (and perhaps to make them more politically correct), but it's at the expense of historical accuracy.

Such a problem of course does not usually occur when the author is writing stories set in their own world and age - like Laura Ingalls Wilder (the Little House series), Jane Austen and Louisa Alcott (Little Women and its sequels). However, Charlotte Bronte and her sisters were frowned upon for creating characters and devising plots that were rather too "coarse" - they were not suitable for the consumption of respectable women and did not reflect well on the Brontes' own characters! Still, while a character like Jane Eyre might act in a so-called unladylike manner, her attitudes, actions and motives are nevertheless very much informed by the times during which she was created and lived. Jane Eyre was bound by 19th century conventions and judged herself by them - if she went against them, she was fully aware of her perversity and fully expected to be punished for it.

Not all novels set in the past portray it accurately. And it's not simply facts and figures that should be noted, but the depiction of characters, social mores, habits and sensibilities. After all, if someone who, for example, lived in the 1416 acted and behaved exactly like a socially enlightened person from 2008, her 15th century clothes would be nothing more than fancy dress; her home, with its 15th century architecture and lack of modcons, merely an exotic location. One might as well play with paperdolls.

Comments

[SirWilson]

If the boy escape?

PS: Then Bukit Merah will not be red anymore..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bukit_Merah

According to a Malay legend, a mysterious bloody event lies behind the name. In early times when the island was populated by fishing villages, the fishermen were often threatened by swordfish attacks. A young boy who lived on the hill proposed a possible solution to the Sultan: Build a fence of banana tree trunks to ward off the swordfish. This was done, and the attacking swordfish were stuck in the tree trunks, thus proving the boy right. The battle with the swordfish was won. The Sultan, however, alarmed by the boy's intelligence, ordered his soldiers to kill the boy. While four soldiers were making their way up to the hill one night to kill the boy. The poor boy was killed, and his blood spilled down the hill and dyed the soil red