OTHAPPU AS AN ICONOCLASTIC NOVEL
ABSTRACT
Sarah’s novel ‘Othappu’ discloses the ubiquitous forces within catholic practices that make such proactive faltering a heretical imperative. The novel gives us rare glimpses of Malayali Christian society peppered and layered with Biblical quotations and allusions and carrying echoes and subtexts that parallel events in the New Testament. It dares to explore the role of spirituality, sexuality and the freedom of the self in a self-consciously religious society. ‘Othappu’ unfolds at many levels to critique notion of class, caste, antiquity and prestige that have, over time, eroded the powers of the church. The novel is not only limited to the Christian community but also to our entire cultural terrain.
Keywords: orthodox, temptation, renunciation, iconoclastic, vulnerability.
Introduction: Othappu is an iconoclastic novel only to the extent that it questions and exposes the hegemony of irrational and materialistic functionaries within the church that defeat and nullify its spiritual resources. Sarah had done this earlier in short stories and the novel Nanmathinmakalude suvishesham. But in ‘Othappu’ she challenges the reader to
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Midgley, Mary. “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas." The Moral Life: An Introductory Reader in Ethics and Literature. 5th ed. New York: Oxford UP, 2000. 231-235. Print.
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Eastman, Roger. The Ways of Religion: An Introduction to the Major Traditions. Third Edition. Oxford University Press. N.Y. 1999
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