OIDA International Journal of Sustainable Development
Open-access peer-reviewed journal
https://doi.org/10.64211/oidaijsd190703
Child Ordination and Development: A Socioeconomic, Psychoanalytic and Linguistic Reading of Wijenaike’s Select Short Stories
Chitra Jayathilake 1,*, Sujeeva Sebastian Pereira 2, Hansamala Ritigahapola 3
1,2 Department of English and Linguistics, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Sri Jayewardenepura, Sri Lanka.
3 Department of Sinhala and Mass Communication, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Sri Jayewardenepura, Sri Lanka.
* Corresponding authour: chitra.jayathilake@sjp.ac.lk
Volume 19, Issue 07, Pg. 35-46, 2026
Abstract: Although development scholarship often prioritizes material, infrastructural, and economic development, the child monk experience brings another form of development to the forefront – that of emotional, social and psychological development. Although this type of development may appear less visible than its physical counterpart through infrastructural advances, it is central to human wellbeing and has profound ramifications in social resilience and ethical values. In this regard, the emotional lives of children residing in monastic institutions are not simply personal but intersect with a larger societal context and the developmental imagination. In the case of Sri Lanka, child ordination is sanctioned by no less than policy and public endorsement as an ethically approved method of developing spiritual merit and character education. But beyond this explicit representation, when children are subjects of literary representations of ordination, we encounter complex and messy personal and social development trajectories. In this qualitative research study grounded in interpretive perspectives, we read Sri Lankan author, Punyakante Wijenaike’s (1933-2023) two Anglophone short stories, “Retreat” (1979) and “Monkeys” (1992), with a focus on child ordination in the social contexts of poverty, illegitimacy and social convenience. By employing a triple-lenses framework – psychoanalytic (Freud), psychosocial (Erikson), linguistic (Lacan), and a critique of Marxist ideology – we argue that child ordination impedes emotional, cognitive, and social development. The limited development of individuals presents broader social implications for societal development and raises both ethical and developmental concerns regarding ordaining children.
Keywords: child ordination, development, psychoanalysis, Erikson, Lacan, Marxism, Sri Lankan English literature, identity
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