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According to Sarah Gamble in his essay gender and Transgender criticism, “Gender is
considered a behaviour, a learned and conditioned response to a society’s view of how
men and women should act.
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3. Phase FLT. French feminism
1980 French scholars introduced psychoanalysis discourse in their works influenced by
Freud and Lacan
Hélene Cixous and Catherin Clement, The Newly Born Woman
Luce Irigaray This Sex Which is Not One
Julia Kristeva.
1980 French scholars introduced psychoanalysis discourse in their works influenced by
Freud and Lacan.
Main aim to get to know feminine anxieties and how are reflection in texts
In 1980 emerged the postcolonial criticism movement
It was a response to a feminism that focuses only on women of Western culture
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Female characters at a point in history that do not challenge the Female characters at a different
traditional role of women such as Mammachi and Baby Kochama point in history that are
These characters reflect a distance time from the present narrative challenging the social
perspective that goes back and forward. expectation of femininity such
as Ammu and Rahel
In Mammachi we find the acceptance of the duties of marriage and These characters are employed
motherhood. to critique reality and to offer an
Her function in life is to take care of her children and of her husband, alternative to reality.
she does not complain when her husband broke her violin or when They are the product of a
her son displaced from her business. specific historic and geographic
reality
Baby Kochamma rebels in some away against her father will when This date was an important date
in the Sino Indian War. By the
she fell in love with father Mulligan but because of love not because 24 October 1962 Chinese forces
she wanted to get some agency. In Ammu we find a desire not only entered Indian territory and
attacked Assam.
to simply be by herself but a desire to act which is a reflect of the
new generations in India.
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Kochu Maria, the cook, still wore the thick gold earrings that had disfigured her earlobes
forever. She enjoyed the WWF Wrestling Mania shows, where Hulk Hogan and Mr.
Perfect, whose necks were wider than their heads, wore spangled Lycra leggings and beat
each other up brutally. Kochu Maria’s laugh had that slightly cruel ring to it that young
children’s sometimes, have.
All day they sat in the drawing room, Baby Kochamma on the long-armed planter’s chair
or the chaise longue (depending on the condition of her feet), Kochu Maria next to her on
the floor (channel surfing when she could), locked together in a noisy television silence.
One’s hair snow white, the other’s dyed coal black. They entered all the contests, availed
themselves of all the discounts that were advertised and had, on two occasions, won a T-
shirt and a thermos flask that Baby Kochamma kept locked away in her cupboard…
She was frightened by the BBC famines and television wars that she encountered while
she channel surfed. Her old fears of the Revolution and the Marxist-Leninist menace
had been rekindled by new television worries about the growing numbers of desperate
and dispossessed people. She viewed ethnic cleansing, famine and genocide as direct
threats to her furniture.
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2.3 Feminist theories focus on women relation to the politics of word and the politics
of the world
1. The focus is on women
Women is a term that disguise the differences between individual women
2. Feminist theories affirm that women are formed by structures that build on
economic subjection and physical repression
These are structures of oppression because of the social and psychic inequalities of
gender
3. FLT identify these structures of oppression as Patriarchy:
1. Social deprivation to specific women
Poor access to education or well paid work
2. Physiological oppression due to female body
Consider that bearing and rearing children is a woman work
Women weaker physically than men
Subjected to violence and rape
3. Cultural oppression
Considered devaluated as cultural objects by other and by themselves
4. Psychological oppression
Women are denied masculine status
Belief that they are inferior because their lack of masculine body or mind
In the God of Small Things, we can identify these structures of oppression of patriarchy:
1.This novel denounces a structural failing in the education system, Education is for men
but not for women who are not going to marry because knowledge is something
dangerous.
Baby Kochamma gets an education because there is no harm in it.
what she is comes from herself and for external circumstances such as her frustrated
love for father Mulligan. She rebels against her father will because of love not because
she is against it.
Ammu is not sent to the university but her brother Chacko was sent to Oxford.
The comparison between their access to education must be understood as gender
inflected.
Pappachi is an educated character but he beats his wife and his children and he is a
hypocritical character, his education has made no difference to that. He does take
responsibility for his own failings like the issue of the moth’s name.
Roy emphasized the idea that Chacko has an education but he has not been provided
with any practical education.
2.We can identify another structure of oppression, female body
Male Violence is highlighted in this novel as structure of oppression
Pappachi beats Mammachi, she accepts the patriarchal system and perpetuates it.
Baba beats Ammu, she rebels against it and fights it.
The women of the old generation are figures with undeveloped subjectivity while the
women in the new generations are presented as women with a strong subjectivity
determined to challenge the patriarchal system although they are punished for it.
Ammu is considered a sexual object by the Planters in the the Club
3. Structure of oppression: work.
Ammu was
Baby kochamma is displaced of her business by Chacko when her husband died
Workers in the pickles factory are sexually harassed by Chacko
Ammu is fired because she gets pregnant.
4.Marriage and family are identified as a structure of psychological oppression.
Women are meant to get a man; they have two options their family or their husband.
Ammu is not what a woman ought to be according to Baby Kochamma and Mammachi
because she rebels against the imposed role of wife and mother. Marriage is presented
as a trap and an impediment to the development of women subjectivity.
Cited works.
Wolfrey, Julian. Introducing Literaries theories: A guide Glosary. “Will the real feminist
theory please stand up?” Ruth Robbins (47, 63). Edimburgh University Press. 2001.
Roy, Arundhati. The God of Small Things. 4th State. London. 2017