A Study of Transgender Narratology with Special Reference to the Parcel

Abstract

There are three points about stories: if told, they like to be heard; if heard, they like to be taken in; and if taken in, they like to be told.

                                                                                   - Ciarán Carson in Fishing for Amber (Kearney 125)

It is customary for human beings to tell or narrate stories through various means and modes of communication i.e. art, dance, music, painting, sculptures, cinema, and literature. Stories being the repository of our shared and collective wisdom of traditions, cultures, behaviors etc need to be told and retold. Literature, an amalgamation of facts and fiction, has always played a crucial role in translating the pain, agony, and sufferings of humans by portraying the depth of human psyche and revealing their hidden dependencies and wounds. Telling a story is technically known as  narrative in literature. It can be in the oral, written or imagined form transforming a piece of work into a living organism. Moreover, Barthes has rightly pointed out,

Under the almost infinite diversity of forms, narrative is present in every age, in every place, in every society; it begins with the very history of mankind and there nowhere is nor have been a people without narrative. All classes, all human groups, have their narratives, enjoyment of which is very often shared by men with different, even opposing, cultural backgrounds. Caring nothing for the division between good and bad literature, narrative is international, trans-historical, trans-cultural: it Is simply there, like life itself. (Barthes 237-272)