Karna is considered the voice of the subaltern in Indian literature. As the son of Kunti, he was abandoned at birth due to his lower caste. Despite facing rejection and injustice, Karna remained committed to righteousness. He displayed great sacrifice but received no rewards due to his low status. Karna's life was filled with tragedy as an outsider. However, his character represents the oppressed classes and makes him a unique, unsung hero in the Mahabharata.

1. Karna : ‘The
Voice of
Subaltern’

2. Personal Information
★ Name :- Aarti Bhupatbhai Sarvaiya
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★ Paper Name :- Indian English Literature- Pre-Independence
★ Submitted to :- Smt. S. B. Gardi, Department of English,M.K.B.U.
★ Dated on :- 16 October,2023
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3. 1
Points to Ponder
About ‘Karna’ About Subaltern Theory
2
3
Karna, ‘The Voice of
Subaltern’
Conclusion
4 References
5

4. About ‘Karna’
❏ This bitterness made a wonderful human being into such a nasty
and ugly character in the Mahabharata. He was a great human being
and showed his greatness in different situations, but because of this
bitterness, in many ways it was he who turned everything wrong.
❏ He was resentful because he did not know whose child he was. But
the people who brought him up, did so with utmost love. His foster
parents, Radha and Athiratha, loved him immensely and brought him
up very well, the way they knew. Because of his competence and the
will of fate, he became Angaraja – the king of Anga. He got many
things and was given a position and place in the palace. In many
ways he was also a big king’s sidekick. Duryodhana held him dear
and took advice from him. (Sadhguru)

5. About Subaltern Theory
❏ 'Subaltern' is a British word that combines the Latin meanings for
"under" (sub) and "other" (alter) to describe someone of lower
military rank (Abrams 307). A servant or peasant was referred to
as a 'subaltern' in mediaeval England. Lower-ranking troops or
foot soldiers were called subalterns in seventeenth and
eighteenth-century England. A person who works in a lower or
subordinate position is known as a subaltern.
❏ Antonio Gramsci coined the term in his article Notes on Italian
History, which appeared in Prison Notebook. The Subaltern, he
explained, is the oppressed underclass in a society where the
ruling authority wields hegemony.(Vivek)

6. About Subaltern Theory
❏ The theory of the subaltern is a popular theory in postcolonial literature
that stresses how colonial power and imperialism employed ruthless
measures to marginalise and silence native peoples. The subaltern theory
has proved to be the best mode of expression for victims of discrimination
of all sorts. Subaltern studies is a relatively new subcategory of
postcolonial theory. (Vivek)
❏ Spivak refers to women, black people, colonised people, and the working
class as "subaltern.Her use of the term "subaltern" was influenced by Italian
academic Antonio Gramsci. Gramsci frequently alluded to a submissive
position in aspects of class, gender, race, and culture. Spivak's article Can
the Subaltern Speak? focuses on how the 'subaltern' woman is portrayed
as detached, dumb, or unheard. Her work is mostly concerned with
women's "muteness" in postcolonial settings.(Vivek)

7. Karna ,’The Voice of Subaltern’
❏ The story of Karna begins with the misfortune of
his secret birth and unfolds itself amidst the
unremitting gloom of injustice and insult.
❏ The intriguing story of a hero who despite being
born to royalty was cast away by his mother
brought up lovingly by a lowly charioteer and his
wife, his whole life was one great struggle against
cruel destiny and all the odds placed in his way
by the inequities of his time. (Kapoor)

8. ❏ On the psychological front, the stigma of his perceived lineage
never left him. It required Adhiratha his father, to quote him the
equally tragic story of Ekalavya to bring him out of depression into
which Guru Dronacharya’s rejection for his enrolment for higher
studies had pushed him. His psyche again suffered a setback when
he was debarred from the tournament on the basis of his lineage,
despite being the best performer of the day.
❏ Another big shock came his way in the Swayamvar of Draupadi.
The biggest ambition of any warrior is to display his powers in
battle. But cruel fate even denied him that privilege when he was
forced to sit out of the Kurukshetra war for the first ten days. He
might have looked normal from the outside but his inner
personality was surely impacted by these and many other
tragedies.
Karna ,’The Voice of Subaltern’

9. ❏ He was rejected and insulted by society at every step, he
developed some flaws engendered by a defiant spirit and
nurtured by association with the devil designs of Duryodhana,
his benefactor prince. But those very things seem to enhance
and enliven the appeal of his character.
❏ At every stage in his life he had to endure immense hardships
and yet, never did he deter from the path of righteousness.
The various sacrifices he made were only one aspect of his
towering, though complex personality. Sometimes it was hard
to believe to what extent he could drive himself to adhere to
his principles of not sending anybody back empty-handed
from his presence. (Kapoor)
Karna ,’The Voice of Subaltern’

10. ❏ His commitment to his principal's generosity was so strong that he
knew that he was virtually giving away his own life to Indra in the shape
of his armour and earrings despite having been warned beforehand by
Surya-deva, his divine father. In another instance, he broke the
sandalwood panels of his own palace for charity, when he could not
otherwise procure the sandalwood demanded by an old Brahmin.
❏ Before him, all of the Kaurava, as well as Pandava princes, including
Arjuna, had pleaded helplessness in meeting the Brahmin’s request
because of the non-availability of sandalwood in Hastinapura. The
commitment to his principles was so deeply embedded in his psyche
that he could not breach the same even in the thick of battle and in his
worst nightmares. (Kapoor)
Karna ,’The Voice of Subaltern’

11. Conclusion
❏ His life went through various pitches of tragedy and
sacrifice alternately. He displayed this sense of sacrifice
continuously, but no good came out of it because he was
destroyed by the one thing that mattered to him the
most – he wanted to be somebody that he was not, at
least in the society. (Sadhguru)
❏ Overall, all this made him a unique personality with no
parallel among his contemporaries. Therefore Karna can
be considered undoubtedly as the unsung hero of the
Mahabharata. (Kapoor)

12. Joshi, Vivek V. SUBALTERN THEORY: DELINEATING VOICES OF THE
VICTIMS IN LITERATURE. International Journal of Creative Research
Thoughts, vol. 10, no. 5 May,2022, 2022, p. 8.
https://ijcrt.org/papers/IJCRT2205759.pdf
kapoor, Kajal. “Karna (The Unsung Hero of Mahabharata: The Voice of
the Subaltern).” International Journal of Linguistics, Literature And
Culture, vol. 2, No. 4, no. 4, November 2016, 2016, 15~25. Karna (The
Unsung Hero of Mahabharata: The Voice of the Subaltern),
https://sloap.org/journals/index.php/ijllc/article/view/132.
Sadhguru. Karna in Mahabharat - Hero or Villain? Karna in
Mahabharat - Hero or Villain?, 2 Jan. 2023,
isha.sadhguru.org/in/en/wisdom/article/karna.
References