Mirage

MIRAGE

This short story is the first of the two short stories by Maureen Seneviratne. Both her stories deal with the racial conflict, or the ethnic war in our country. But what will strike you as different is the way she tells her stories or her narrative technique.


This story Mirage presents two greatly opposing sides of war, on the one hand the high profits of arms dealing, or selling of weapons, on the other human tragedy in the war zone. For one, war brings wealth and an opulent lifestyle, for another, misery, suffering and death.

The setting in the story shifts back and forth as in a film from the plush Colombo nightclub of the, previous night to the dangerous northern jungle of tonight. The story is narrated through the experiences and thought of the young soldier who was present at both places.

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Maureen Seneviratne, in her story ‘Mirage’ presents a glimpse of a high-living gunrunner whose imports do not of course reach the government forces, and an offer’s awaking to this kind of treachery and totally unscrupulous greed.

Seneviratne’s sustained juxtaposition of two situations, the gunrunner in the plush hotel with officer, on the one hand, and other the officer in the jungle in an operation against the terrorist on the other, makes the moral significance very clear.



Reference:

Sri Lankan English Literature and the Sri Lankan People 1917-2003 by Prof Goonetilleke