Moore also noted that conversion to Christianity did not involve them in a loss of caste 14. Christian missionary usually adapts the local custom and synchronize it
with their ideology. For example, Italian Jesuit, Roberto de Nobili adapted Hindu to the way of life and considered it as a positive enriching element to the local way of
Christianity. De Nobili approached the most influential Brahmins and ensured them that converting to Christianity will not abolish the privilege of their caste. Therefore,
although they are no longer Hindu, the converts still preserve the notion of caste and its ancestry-based stratification.
In terms of education, Christians maintain leading learning institutions that also accept non-Christian students. According to Moore, Christian schools and
colleges are noted by high class Indians due to their high academic standards and highly qualified teaching staffs. Christian institutions are also often at the top of local
leagues. Furthermore, Christian institutions also put stress on moral instruction, respect for religion, and strict discipline 39.
3. Women in India
In India, especially in rural areas like Ayemenem, the gender experiences within the society are significant. There is a strict rule governing what women can
and cannot do, what women should and should not do, and what women believe and disbelieve.
In India, especially in Ayemenem, a girl’s life ends and begins in marriage. Girls are prepared to be a bride, and marriage is the main purpose in life. In the novel,
it is mentioned that there was very little for a young girl to do in Ayemenem other
than to wait for marriage proposals while helping the mother with the domestic chores p. 19.
In an interview with David Barsamian, Arundhati Roy mentioned that as a girl, her life in Ayemenem, Keralla is a “...a nightmare for me. All I wanted to do was
to escape, to get out, to never have to marry somebody there Roy in Barsamian, The Progressive.”
Furthermore, Roy stated that many women from Kerala have to work throughout India and around the world as labors. The money they earn has to be sent
home, which means they have a big role in establishing the family’s financial matters. But still, they have bizarre subservient relationships with their husbands Roy in
Barsamian, The Progressive. Roy also mentioned that she was the worst thing a girl could be in her
hometown, because she was “...thin, black, and clever Roy in Barsamian, The Progressive.” The three characteristics: thin, black, and clever, shows three identity
categories that positioned an Indian woman in a certain state that is not favored. Her thinness shows that she lacks the physical and sexual qualities preferred by men. Her
blackness shows the underprivileged class that she is in. Her cleverness shows her open-mindedness that is hard to accept by her surroundings. These qualities that she
discovers in her real life are poured in the characters of her novel. Roy is a daughter of a Syrian Christian woman who married and divorced a
Bengali Hindu man. From this circumstance, she has lost a place in her grandparents’ house and being an alien to her surroundings. About this situation, she is grateful. She
remarked, “I didn’t have a caste, and I didn’t have a class, and I had no religion, no traditional blinkers, no traditional lenses on my spectacles, which are very hard to
shrug off Roy in Barsamian, The Progressive.” In the article, it is implied that her personal childhood and her mother’s brief
marriage are significant in the shaping of Roy’s concern about women and their place compared to that of man in India. She is always grateful that she doesn’t have a father
that educates her in accordance to the traditional system and “…beat us occasionally in exchange.” Roy looks up to her mother who is also an activist, and adore her
being independence of men. Her mother taught her that it is possible for a woman not to need a man and thus not to suffer. Roy states that every time she looks at an Indian
bride, she feels frightened “…to see this totally decorated, bejeweled creature who, as I wrote in The God of Small Things, is polishing firewood.”
In the novel, the experience of being a woman is determined by the Love Law in the terms of marriage, sexuality, and motherhood. Referring to her personal life
history, Roy seems to characterize Rahel according to her own life. Below is a quotation on how Rahel grows up without specific conducts of being a bride to be.
Rahel grew up without a brief. Without anybody to arrange a marriage for her. Without anybody who would pay her dowry and therefore
without an obligatory husband looming on her horizon p. 9. Instead of feeling inferior of being different from other girls that are well-
prepared to be a bride, Rahel seems indifference about the issue and even feels a little
bit privileged. It can be seen from how Roy use the word “obligatory” in describing husbands.
As marriage seems to be the life purpose for girls in India, high education is not a priority. Even, high education is considered a harmful threat for marriage
possibility. In the novel, Baby Kochamma apparently is granted a chance to study in the United States only after she quits her life as a nun in the monastery. In her
hometown, there will be no man interested in taking an ex-nun as a wife, therefore her father needs to put her into an activity that will give her a meaning in life.
Reverend Ipe realized that his daughter had by now developed a “reputation” and was unlikely to find a husband. He decided that since
she couldn’t have a husband there was no harm in her having an education. So he made arrangements for her to attend a course of
study at the University of Rochester in America p. 13. Pappachi, Reverend Ipe’s son, also maintain the same perspective. He thinks
that college education is an unnecessary expense for women p. 19. Failure to get married properly means failing to be a woman. Neglected by her
family, Rahel seems like she is clueless about how to be a proper woman. She also can explore her sexuality in a way that people think unaccepted.
Six months later she was expelled after repeated complaints from senior girls. She was accused quite rightly of hiding behind doors
and deliberately colliding with her seniors. When she was questioned
by the Principal about her behavior cajoled, caned, starved, she eventually admitted that she had done it to find out whether breasts
hurt. In that Christian institution, breasts were not acknowledged. They weren’t supposed to exist and if they didn’t could they hurt?
p. 9. Women’s right to acknowledge their own breasts is castrated in the Christian
Indian. It is not to be explored at school or even talked about at home. Girls are constructed to ignore their own sexuality and thus see it as an unimportant thing or
even despising. Besides sexuality, marriage is also strictly governed by the Love Law. In a
marriage, affection and sexuality is institutionalized within a construction that does not favor the biology of a woman. Sex becomes obligatory, being put in the same
plane as other obligations such as the taking care of the household and the rearing of the children. Wives should obey their husband and put themselves in the subordinate
position. In the novel, an example of the ideal Indian woman is portrayed by Kalyani, Comrade Pillai’s wife.
“He has gone to Olassa. He’ll be back any time now,” she said. She referred to her husband as addeham, which was the respectful form of
“he,” whereas “he” called her “eli,” which was, approximately, “Hey, you” p. 127.
In the novel Kalyani is portrayed as an obedient wife. She obeys her husband faithfully and positions herself as the faithful servant of the family p. 127, 128, 131
and so on. Mammachi, Ammu’s mother, is also portrayed as an exemplary of how an
Indian woman should be. Mammachi marries Pappachi when she was very young and she has obeyed him since then. Talented, young, and beautiful, Mammachi shows
musical potential on violin courses and business expertise in starting her own pickle factory. She even manages to save the family’s financial slide when Pappachi retires
from his imperial profession by enlarging the pickle business p. 23. However, Pappachi often shows resentment on her prime qualities. He breaks
her violin bow, he tortures her with beatings every night, and he acts as if he is a neglected husband so that the neighbor will take a negative image of her being a
career woman p. 23. Still, Mammachi’s faith and pride to her husband are not deterred.
When Pappachi dies, she directs her love to his son, Chacko. In the beginning of the novel, Mammachi is pictured as a devastated old lady in the funeral of
Chacko’s daughter. In the following quotation “Chacko was Mammachi’s only son. Her own grief grieved her. His devastated her” p. 2, Ammu’s position as her only
daughter is ignored. Mammachi also tolerates Chacko’s sexual assault towards factory workers.
She even build an entrance to Chacko’s room that enables him to smuggle women from lower caste that he desires without necessitating them to enter the main house.
“He can’t help having a Man’s Needs.” is Mammachi’s excuse for her attitude towards her son’s feudal libido p. 80. Toleration to men’s sexual behavior is
common in India. Sangtin writers, a group of feminist activist working in rural India noted that when men have sex with illegitimate women, they simply get screamed at
by their wives, but when a girl falls in love, she has to give up her life 36. The murders of adoslescent girls by their male family members are common for the sake
of the moral of the family 35. On page 27 Ammu says “All Indian mothers are obsessed with their sons and
are therefore poor judges of their abilities.” This quotation represents the hegemonic masculinity that is internalized in the society and experienced by the characters in the
novel. In the novel, “dowry” is also frequently mentioned page 9, 19, 60, and so
on. The dowry system in India is specific. In India, the bride’s family pays gifts in the form of cash, jewelry, furniture, bedding, or other valuable items to the
bridegroom’s family. In return, the bridegrooms are to take care for the bride and their children Barsamian, The Progressive. The expense caused by the dowry
system is considered a financial burden, and thus leads to the sex selection in favor for sons. The dowry system is also has been thought as one of the factors of female
feticide in India. The gendered society depicted in the novel is similar with what is noted by the
Sangtin Writers from their research in rural India. In their book, Playing with Fire: Feminist Thought and Activism through Seven Lives in India 2006, feminist writers
Anupamlata, Ramsheela, Ansari, Singh, Shashibala, Surbala, Bajpayee and Nagar noted that little girls in India are prepared to be brides under masculine discipline of
their fathers, brothers, uncles, or their sister’s husbands. Girls that are just entering puberty are governed and monitored in accordance to the male members of the family
of how they should behave in preparation to be a good wife 32. Death threat for food that is not cooked properly is usual, as well as the
prohibition not to beautify oneself with cosmetics and jewelries. The activists noted that there is an adolescent girl who made her father furious because she painted her
nails. Seeing the anger in her father, she scraped the nail polish immediately with a razor 32-33. They also noted that there is an adolescent girl who was murdered by
her own brother in law because “...that girl spent a lot of times with boys. She had a bad character 35.” Playing with boys and even to laugh out loud can make a girl
considered immoral and wrong, which is a justification to murder her 35. For a daughter, a function of a family is a training ground to be a good wife.
Daughters are considered financial burden, because they are to be handed to other man anyway once they are married. However, the activists noted that there are girls
who have the dreams to study and marry a good man. Below is a note from the a Sangtin writer:
...
The dreams of our youth were so easily chased away by these threats and scoldings, however. We had dreams that we would study a
lot and get jobs for ourselves, that we would fall in love and marry
young men we loved, that our husbands would be good-looking men with salaried jobs who would spoil us rotten with love. We imagined a
home in town, and if not that, at the very least we looked forward to having a tiny room of our own, where we could sit with our love and
talk to our heart’s content. But where did our parents have the means to pay the fat dowries that would have bought us such husbands? 33
This is the gendered society in which Ammu lives. Kalyani and Mammachi represent the ideal female character that Ammu is supposed to be. How Ammu reacts
to the given situation will be elaborated in the next chapter.
CHAPTER IV AMMU’S IDENTITY MARKERS AND TRANSGRESSION
After elaborating the socio-cultural portrait of Ammu’s surrounding, this chapter aims to analyze a deeper investigation on Ammu’s personality. While the
previous chapter focuses more on her identity categories and how the Love Law functions in accordance to those categories to control the society, this chapter focuses
on Ammu’s identity markers. Ammu’s identity markers that is elaborated here is her actions and her decisions that somewhat deviate from the values celebrated by her
surroundings. The thesis re-arranges the plot pattern used by Roy in arranging her story. In
this chapter, the plot is stretched in a linear way as a method in analysis. This is essential to see the happenings in Ammu’s life that shape her personality, and to see
how she reacts towards the given circumstance. Although the discussion centers on Ammu’s existence, feelings, and reaction, the characters around her are also
examined. This is needed to see her standing point in the story and how she represents the subaltern although she is placed in the privilege position.
According to the postcolonial theory, being a subaltern means to be in the lower class or in the social groups that are in the margins of a society Young 10.
Being a subaltern means being a person that is without agency due to his or her social status.
