Forest of Allegory and the Allegory of Forest- Past, Present and Future: Valli by Sheela Tomy (Translation: Jayasree Kalathil)

The paper aims to explore Valli by Sheela Tomy as an allegory. An allegory is a paradoxical structure that simultaneously hides and reveals a fundamental tension between the surface and underlying meaning(s). The paper discusses how the novel Valli by Sheela Tomy is a ‘forest of allegory’ that hums the allegory of the forest. The paper tries to explore how the forest in the novel represents the ‘unrepresented and ‘unrepresentable,’ an essential tenet of allegory, and acts as a catalyst for transformation.