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Social Problems in Novels of Arundhati Roy: A Study | |||||||
Paper Id :
17445 Submission Date :
06/03/2023 Acceptance Date :
22/03/2023 Publication Date :
25/03/2023
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Abstract | Indian author, social activist, cultural critic, and well-known political personality Arundhati Roy has been using her writings to protest against acts of violence committed against people all over the world. The God of Little Things discusses the atrocities of gender inequality in India as well as how patriarchy marginalises and oppresses women in general. Via societal structures, the author of the story exposes readers to issues of caste, gender, colour, and racial prejudice while vehemently arguing that these issues have an impact on interpersonal relationships and individual behaviour. By emphasising how injustice is done to these socially marginalised people due of their gender, Roy has raised a voice of protest against the antiquated norms that give rise to rebellious sentiments. | ||||||
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Keywords | Gender Discrimination, Patriarchy, Male-dominated Society, Marginalised. | ||||||
Introduction |
During the past twenty years, Arundhati Roy has not made any announcements regarding the release of her second book. When her outstanding debut novel Housekeeping was released in 1980, American author Marilynne Robinson similarly took a break for almost twenty-five years. For the Pulitzer Prize, the book was a finalist. Yet when Gilead was published in 2004, it was just her second book that won her the prize. Marilynne Robinson's fiction work and essays are a part of her creative and intellectual personality. She has earned several awards for her numerous following books, HOME 2008 and Lila (2014). Sometimes a writer's work is more straightforward, such as British-Pakistanian author Nadeem Aslam’ s novel Maps for Lost Lovers, which took him 10 years to finish because he was careful and hardworking rather than because he was experiencing any existential crises. It took him five years to write the first chapter correctly.
Arundhati Roy, whose first book The God of Small Things received the Booker Prize in 1997, was more active during the subsequent 20 years in her activism against environmental destruction. Instead of producing any creative work, she spent her time protesting in support of Kashmir’s independence, against Hindu nationalism, and against charges of sedition brought against her by the Indian government.
That her nonfiction writing gave her life meaning, from 2002’s The Algebra of Endless Justice to volumes on capitalism, globalisation, and democracy, is a completely different issue. Yet because she didn't have much time, her artistic output faltered.
The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, Roy’s second book, was published in 2017, and it turned out to be more of an experimental work than her previous book, “The God of Little Things,” which had a radical reputation for its very unconventional structure and style. The Ministry of Utmost Happiness appeared on the Booker Prize Judging Panel's long list a few weeks after its release but failed to receive a nomination in the final round.
Novel combinations involving several subjects. The first theme is the overwhelmingly dominant caste system that permeates Indian society and its retributive effects on people who are born into lower castes. The second topic that this story addresses is the gap that cannot be closed between India’s impoverished and its wealthy or privileged and exceptional citizens. The caste and class divisions in Indians' economic and political lives worry the novelist.
The novelist also revealed the Indians' perilous position in the local social and political spheres of life. Children Kochamma, Pappachi, Mammachi, and Chacko mistreated Ammu solely because she had secretly wed Babu. They didn't realise they were partially responsible for she is urgent. She wouldn’t have jumped into challenges if they had given her more consideration at home.
Chacko is another egregious example of fake respect in the book. He divorces Margaret for being disloyal to him without looking within his own heart. He was happy to have had sex with several of the women who worked in his gherkin factory. He was unable to comprehend Ammu and Velutha’s inappropriate relationship but still anticipated Ammu would embrace his bold sexual proclivities. |
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Aim of study | 1. To investigate the unique studies of Arundhati Roy. 2. An examination of the social concerns that Arundhati Roy brings up in her books. 3. To research the treatment of women differently in Arundhati Roy's books. 4. To investigate the story characters' fierce willpower. | ||||||
Review of Literature | Vasavadatta
Shastri, a well-known novel by B.R. Rajan Iyer, appeared in Prabhuddha Bharata
between 1896 and 1898. In collaboration with Behramji Malabari and Nagesh
Vishwanat Pai’ s stories of Indian Christian life, Mr. Samual Sattianathan and
Mrs. Kamala Sattianathan composed the works – their novel is Gujarth and the
Gujarthis (1882). Indian English novelists tried their efforts at a variety of
social, historical, and emotional topics. They made a very rudimentary effort
to translate the Mahabharata and the Ramayana into English. He wrote six
Bengali novels. Also, he wrote two English-language books. The absence of palms
(1902) and the Slave young lady of Agra (1909), Nasreen (1915), Kamala (1925)
and Kamini (1931), Bal Krishna composed a social novel Love of Kusum (1910).
His novels are 1001 Indian Nights (1905), The ruler of Destiny (1909). S.P
Banerjee’s Tales of Bengal (1910). Indian Detective stories and so forth.
Madhaviah Nanda The Pariah Who Overcome Caste (1923) Arundhati Roy's
narrative method is referred to by Madhu Benoit in her 2006 book as her
deconstructive reading “fragmented temporal structure with it polyphonic
narrative voices” which she says. “Compels the reader to reconstruct the text
much as she/he would piece together a jigsaw puzzle as the story of three
generations unfolds.” The novel’s
conclusion is left unresolved or unclear, leaving us unsure of the characters’
fates. The most crucial aspect of Roy’s method, though, is that she avoids
using a dependable or omniscient and intrusive narrator and instead adopts a
linear and chronological sequencing of her content. When she deals with many
social realities from various points of view, she tends towards a complicated
and fluid handling of time that entails a lot of backward and forward
cross-referencing throughout the temporal span of activity. “Time is
super-imposed in layers, each layer leaving unobliterable traces that confuse
perception of the whole. “MadhuBinoit” clarified the technique further in the
same book. We have in simple words time-frames throughout in the novel. Even when
discussing the novel’s style and organisation in an interview with “The
Hindu’s” reporter in New Delhi on June 2, 2017 Roy said “The Novel is not a
story with a beginning, middle and an end as much as a map of a city or a
building. Or like the structure of a classical “Raga” where you have these
notes and you keep exploring them from different angles, in different ways,
different ups and different downs.” Her remarks are
enticing, but it’s unclear whether her strategy will work. Later, when we
analyse the novel, we’ll see that the novelist has been engulfed by the
pamphleteer, which is why her creativity has failed. English author
Raj Mohan's Wife was written by Bankim Chandra Chatterjee (1838–1993). He is
the most remarkable essayist now writing in Bengali. Kapalakundala, Durgesh
Nandini, and Krishna Kanta, three of his Bengali novels, were translated into
English. Bianca or the Young Spanish Maiden was written by Toru Dutt and
published in the Bengal Magazine between January and April of 1879. The works
of Lal Behari Day (1880), K. Chakravathy (1898), B.R. Rajan Iyer (1896–1898),
and Vasavadatta Shastri (1898–1898) appeared in the Prabhuddha Bharata during
this period. Along with Behramji Malabari and Nagesh Vishwanath Pai, Mr. Samual
Sattinathan and Mrs. Kamala Sattinathan wrote Gujarth and the Gujarthis, a
novel about Indian Christians (1882). In her private
life, Roy writes for the innocent individuals who lose their lives as a result
of the heinous choices made by the state's upper classes. The "Pulwama
attack" episode might serve as an excellent illustration. Roy illustrates
the problem of how young boys are brainwashed and manipulated in the novel “by
Pakistan to bleed India”.
She contributed
her accounts to Macmillan's Magazine in the nineteenth century. These
experiences were collected in three books: Sun Babies (1902), Love and Life
behind the Purdha (1901). (1904). Her stories focus on the lives of women and
their conditions in Indian homes and are all social examinations. Bengal
Dacoits and the Tiger by Maharani Sunity Debi, written in 1916, describes
exciting events in the life of Bengali people who are frequently victimised by
dacoits. Marxism, a libertarian-focused intellectual movement, energised 33% of
the world's population between the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of
the twentieth centuries. |
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Main Text | Narrative
Technique No consecutive
examples are used to describe the novel. The flashbacks and the onward movement
are combined. The novel's major plot points are completed in a complex manner,
and Rahel, the storyteller, sees them via the synchronisation of her memory
viewpoint. Using these methods, the developer may gain a great deal of
skilfully. That aided her in structuring the book. To create the
riddle's component, the inventor used precognition. The passing of Sophie Mol
foreshadows events and circumstances before they really occur. By introducing
the element of the creative mind and expectation, the designer uses this method
to create stress and frenzy. The marvel of
Friend Pillais was false. He wouldn't worry about Velutha being close by at the
political gathering. He had no problem with Velutha joining the gathering. Due
of Velutha’s connection, the gathering boasted about its depth. Language of the
novel Any novel's
language is its foundation. In a country like India, English is a widely
recognised language and it is a free streaming language for the large majority
of the residents, which is the cherry on top of an already fantastic situation.
The precision in representation is one of the modern Indian novels' salient
features, according to critics. Roy begins her
book by saying: “May in Ayemenem is a hot, agonizing month. The days are long
and moist. The waterway therapists and dark crows gorge on splendid mangoes in
still, dust green trees. Red bananas mature. Jackfruits burst. Lewd bluebottles
murmur vacuously in the fruity air. At that point they stagger themselves
against clear windowpanes and pass on, fatly puzzled in the sun.”
By reading
these sentences in the introduction, one gets a sense of what to do next. Roy
illustrates Velutha’s disgusting physical condition in the following words:
"His skull was broken in three spots. His nose and the two his cheekbones
were crushed, leaving his face thick, indistinct. The hit to his mouth had part
open his upper lip and broken six teeth, three of which were inserted in his
lower lip, revoltingly transforming his lovely grin. Four of his ribs were
chipped; one had punctured his left lung, which was what caused him to seep
from his mouth. |
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Conclusion | The frameworks used in gender studies vary greatly. One viewpoint that Simon-de-Beauvoir expresses is: “One isn’t conceived as a lady yet rather gets one”. Today In the multidisciplinary study of gender, factors including race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and geography are examined. Feminism in India currently responds to the gendered manifestations of caste inequality through its reorientation towards social change based on a populist foundation. According to experts like Anupama Rao, this would entail a revaluation of caste, class, and gender relations and would suggest that knowing how caste has changed is essential to understanding the particular institutions that give rise to and support gender inequality and sexism. Understanding the social and mystical element that creates, supports, and alters gender imbalance is the main focus, to the extent that is reasonably possible. The current study attempts to examine how social prejudice, socio-social boundaries of caste, class, and gender are portrayed in Indian settings of key social novels in Indian English literature, notably in the works of Mulk Raj Anand, Kamala Markandaya, Arundhati Roy, and Aravind Adiga. It is acknowledged that the current research study, which emerges from the healthy exploration of separation based on caste, class, and gender, would undoubtedly open up new vistas of understanding. | ||||||
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3. Saros Cowasjee, Somany Freedoms, Madras; Oxford university press, 1977. p-127
4. Riemenschneider, D. “An ideal of man in Anand’s novel”. Bombay Kutub Popular,1967 p267
5. Krishna swamyshanta, The women in Indian Fiction in English. New Delhi; Ashish publishing house.1984(p-354)
6. Uma Parameshwaran, Salman Rushdie’s Early Fiction, Jaipur; Rawat Publication 2007, p-6
7. Usmani Meena. Violence against women “In university news Magazine New Delhi; Oct 16 2000, vol .38, no 12 , p-13
8. Naik M.K, Mulk Raj Anand, New York Twayne publication 1972 p-86
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