輔仁大學英國語文學系

Subalternity and Gender Oppression: Women’s Positions in Relation to Marriage in The God of Small Things and Monsoon Wedding

學年 / 109　學生 / Viola Savariappan　指導教授 / Liu, Chi-Wen　

This thesis studies two textual examples of women’s positions in Post-Nehru India and Post-modern India. Roy’s The God of Small Things, presents upper-class women characters in South India (Kerala) between the period of 1960 and early 1990’s (Post-Nehru India) in the village of Ayemenem. Nair’s Monsoon Wedding, portrays upper-class and lower-class female characters in North India in the city of Delhi from late 1990’s (Post-modern India). Both in TGST and MW, women characters struggle mostly, with love and marriage related issues but are not totally powerless; they do speak for themselves in different ways. In other words, subalternity in novel is never absolute since the female characters in some instances, assert themselves against patriarchal ideologies. Yet, gender-based differences with multiple power differentials such as caste, class, and cultural values forced them to subaltern position or constrain them in diverse forms of oppression; firstly, to articulate the subaltern theory with an intersectional approach, I argue that in TGST, Mammachi’s subalternity and her complicity with the system; Baby Kochammas’ assertive actions to search for her love, her dependency upon religious and colonial ideologies and Ammu’s subalternity through divorce, and a forbidden love affair all, lead to tragic consequences in the low-caste or second-generation characters. To further study social factors of Adithi’s arranged marriage and her secret-affair; Alice’s lower-class position impacting her marital choice, and Riya’s sexual abuse in MW are analyzed as part of contemporary gender discourse in India and with interactive intersectionality connected to contemporary cases of women sharing similar experiences with Adithi, Alice and Riya in online newspaper articles. Furthermore, to gain a better understanding of women’s status in contemporary India, the achievements of women in the current context; continuing disparities in violence against women in marital life; and the most recent problem of Covid-19 and its disproportionate impact on women are discussed in the concluding section.

Listening Knowledge and Listening Problems in the Cognition Process of EFL Listening: A Case Study of Comparing Audio-Only, Audio-Visual and Animated Listening Tasks

MA Theses & Academic Papers

Subalternity and Gender Oppression: Women’s Positions in Relation to Marriage in The God of Small Things and Monsoon Wedding

Listening Knowledge and Listening Problems in the Cognition Process of EFL Listening: A Case Study of Comparing Audio-Only, Audio-Visual and Animated Listening Tasks