Cultural Politics in the Magical Realism Novels of Tri Aphirum Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences Mahasarakham University

Abstract

This article is aimed to study the cultural politics of Tri Aphirum’s 11 novels of magical realism in the meaning of authority area with the concept of cultural politics. There are four issues to study: politics of the area, politics of class, beliefs of religion and ideology and politics of gender. The results found that the magical realism novels of Tri Aphirum have a role in opening cultural politics areas in the following areas. First, politics of area found that scenes and places are a complex area which included habitation, ancient city, which were used to be as the symbol to convey social status and the notion
of the character’s morality as the norm of individual life and life of society.
Second, the politics of class meant the inequality of people in Thai society, both in urban areas and rural areas. The classes that gained an advantage were the dignitary and the titularity, while the disadvantageous group was the middle class, just the man in the street from the rural area and living in the forest. Thirdly, politics of belief in religion and ideology found that the novel written after the colonial era provides the atmosphere of World War 1, World War 1, Indochina War, and the Cold War, which affected household
economics and national economics impecunious. There were many criminals such as stealing, robbing and murdering, and people protected themselves by using the  power of Dhamma, charm, magic and superstitious. Finally,
politics of gender found that the writer gave priority to gender equality. The important characteristic of males are bravery, leadership, and being nice and moral. In contrast, females’ important characteristics were a virtue, both physical and mental, admitted to the law of action, being steady to the precepts, alms and pray, and awareness of morality toward nature.