Men at home, men and home in two Anglophone novels by Indian women writers

Abstract

Postcolonial Indian women novelists writing in English have been deeply concerned with addressing the ways in which ‘home’ in patriarchal societies is an ambiguous space, characterized by unequal gender relationships that make it a terrain rife with violence, and feelings of alienation and discontent for women. Through the lens of two contemporary Anglophone novels by Indian women writers, Arundhati Roy’s (1997) The God of Small Things and Manju Kapur’s (2006) Home, this article evaluates the significance of the relationship between male identities, politics and domestic spaces in India. Focusing primarily on two bourgeois male characters, Estha and Vicky, the article examines, in depth, their painful coming-of-age in terms of the complex intersection of gender, class and age hierarchies in the domestic arena and demonstrates the centrality of the concept of home to their sense of self and space.

Resumen

Las novelistas indias mujeres poscoloniales que escriben en inglés han tratado en profundidad las formas en que el “hogar,” en las sociedades patriarcales, es un espacio ambiguo caracterizado por las relaciones de género desiguales que lo vuelven un terreno plagado de violencia y sentimientos de alienación e infelicidad para las mujeres. A través de la óptica de dos novelas anglófonas contemporáneas de escritoras indias, El dios de las pequeñas cosas de Arundhati Roy (1997) y Home (Hogar) de Manju Kapur (2006), este artículo evalúa la significancia de la relación entre las identidades masculinas, la política y los espacios domésticos en India. Enfocándose principalmente en dos personajes hombres burgueses, Estha y Vicky, el artículo analiza, en profundidad, su dolorosa llegada a la mayoría de edad en términos de la compleja intersección de jerarquías de género, clase y edad en la arena doméstica y demuestra la centralidad del concepto de hogar para su sentido de sí mismos y del espacio.

摘要

以英文着作的印度后殖民女性小说家，深切地关注处理“家”在父权社会中，如何作为一个含糊不清的空间，并以不平等的性别关係为特徵，此般关係让该空间成为充满暴力以及让女人感到异化和不舒服的领域。本文透过两部由印度女性作家所撰写的当代英文小说——阿兰达蒂．洛伊（1997） 的《微小事物之神》，以及曼朱．卡普尔（2006）的《家》，评价印度的男性认同、政治与居家空间之间的关联性的显着性。本文主要聚焦两位布尔乔亚男性角色，艾沙（Estha）与维奇（Vicky），深入检视他们在居家领域的复杂性别、阶级和年龄阶层交会中的痛苦成长过程，并展示家庭之于他们自我意识与空间感的核心性。

Keywords:

• Domestic spaces
• gender, male identity
• class
• age
• The God of Small Things
• Home

Palabras claves:

• espacios domésticos
• género
• identidad masculina
• clase
• edad
• El dios de las pequeñas cosas
• Hogar

关键词:

• 居家空间
• 性别
• 男性认同
• 阶级
• 年龄
• 《 微小事物之神》
• 家庭

Acknowledgements

An earlier version of this article was presented at the Fifth Biennial Contemporary Women’s Writing Association (CWWA) Conference held in Melbourne, Australia in July 2014. I was awarded a conference bursary for my abstract in the early career researcher category for which I would like to thank the CWWA. I would also like to thank the two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments and suggestions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. A few of the many texts that examine these themes include: The Dark Holds No Terrors (1990) and That Long Silence (1988) by Shashi Deshpande, Githa Hariharan’s The Thousand Faces of Night (1992), Where Shall We Go This Summer (1975) by Anita Desai and Rama Mehta’s Inside the Haveli ([1977] 1996).

2. See for example, Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children ([1981] 2008) and Amitav Ghosh’s Shadow Lines (1988).

3. All references to Roy’s The God of Small Things in the article will be followed by the abbreviation GOST.

4. John Tosh’s A Man’s Place: Masculinity and the Middle-Class Home in Victorian England (1999) is one of the very few book-length works devoted exclusively to exploring masculine identity politics within the domestic sphere. Wider ranging studies on spatiality and masculinity include Spaces of Masculinities (2005) and Stud: Architectures of Masculinity (1996).

5. By the time Estha is ‘re-Returned’, his uncle Chacko has moved to Canada.

6. I have analysed, in detail, the construction of Velutha’s masculinity in an essay entitled, ‘Intimacy across Caste and Class Boundaries in Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things’ (Mirza 2015).

7. The Lal Family is an example of what Kolenda (1968, 347) classifies as a ‘lineal-collateral joint family’ since the household consists of the parents, their two married sons as well as the unmarried children of each couple.