Patriarchy in Shyam Selvadurai’s Pigs Can’t Fly
Woman is not born: she is made. She becomes the symbol of this and that: mother of the earth, slut of the universe and in the making, her humanity is destroyed. ~Andrea Dworkin
Patriarchy is a universal system in which women are dominated. Women, in continents as diverse as Iran and China, have been subjugated through social measures such as female circumcision and bound feet. Yet as Andrea Dworkin so neatly stated, subjugation often takes more devious forms, through the stereotyping of gender roles, attempts to “fix” women by stereotyping them as spineless “natural homemakers” or monstrous hideous figures and thereby justifying patriarchy as through stereotyping men as having more initiative and intelligence. This devious method of subjugating women is similarly reproduced in Shyam Selvandurai’s “Pigs Can’t Fly”. Although it is ostensibly about a boy’s childhood, I believe that it reinforces patriarchy through the skilful use of characterization, filters, narrators and setting.
Before explicating my argument, I would like to clarify a few key terms I have borrowed mostly from Seymour Chatman in analyzing the story. The only exception, characterization, is E.M. Forster’s concept of round and flat characters where flat characters are predictable because they are dominated by a single trait unlike round characters with multiple, sometimes conflicting traits dominating their personality. Filter, here, is used to denote what is commonly known as a character’s point of view. Narrator-characters are characters that function as characters and narrators or otherwise known as first person narrators.
It is fascinating to note that the narrator and filter through whom the story u...
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...chal constructions of “correct” female and male behaviour by appealing to natural laws (“Because the sky is so high and pigs can’t fly”). Arjie’s unhappiness, however, shows implicit criticism of patriarchy as it cannot satisfy him.
It is therefore evident that “Pigs Can’t Fly” is not a simple story about a child’s growing up process. Its adept use of various elements of discourse pushes it beyond a simple narrative into the realm of a mature narrative whose ambiguous meanings (over its support for patriarchy) mirrors a world of uncertainty with no absolutes governing. The story’s refusal to pigeonhole itself is for me, a source of beauty and complexity.
Works Cited
Selvadurai, Shyam. "Pigs Can't Fly." Funny Boy. New York: Vintage, 1995: 1-40.
Chatman, Seymour. Story and Discourse: Narrative Structure in Fiction and Film. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell UP, 1978.
D'hoker, Elke, and Gunther Martens, eds. Narrative unreliability in the twentieth-century first-person novel. Vol. 14. Walter de Gruyter, 2008.
It is now established that Yossarian is the central character and that most of the events told in the story are told in a third person narration from his view
The main traits of the narrator are that the narrator is very observant with things that interest him, and is determined to find out everything about them in either through fascination or to use that information to his advantage. For example, the narrator knows many aspects of Sheila Mant’s mood through observation, “I had learned all of her moods/ if she lay flat on the diving board with her hand trailing idly in the water, she was pensive, not to be disturbed” (Wetherell 1), the narrator had a big crushed on Sheila, so he decided to learn everything about her, even knowing how her moods change based on observation her body language, which shows immense dedication. However, despite being deep in love with Sheila, the narrator had also great love
The Disney movie, Mulan, is a fantastic movie that depicts gender-stereotyped roles, socialization of gender roles, and consequences of over stepping one’s gender role. Both males and females have a specific role in the Chinese society that one must follow. Mulan made a brave choice pretending to be a man and going to war against the Huns in place of her father, risking serious consequences if she were to get caught. She broke the socialization of gender roles and could have been faced with very serious consequences of her actions. The Chinese society in Mulan exemplifies the typical gender roles of males and females, the consequences of displaying the opposite gender role, and showed what the society expected in males and females in characteristics and attitudes.
...e, women are the weaker of the two sexes. Women are slaves and spoils of war, if they are valued for sex they are used for sex. The universal portrayal of women causes a reevaluation of modern day gender balances by the reader.
Now, one might argue that because the narrator thinks this story “is worth a book in itself. Sympathetically set forth it would tap many strange, beautiful qualities in obscure men”, then he is biased: ergo, he’s an unreliable narrator (1940). However, being biased in and of itself is not the sole criterion for a narrator be...
In conclusion, Poe shows the insanity of the narrator through the claims of the narrator as to why he is not insane, the actions of the narrator bring out the narrative irony of the story, and the character of the narrator fits the definition of insanity as it applies to "The Tell Tale Heart". The "Tell Tale Heart" is a story about how insanity can overtake someone's mind and cause one to behave irrationally.
How does one person develop into the human that he or she is? Do his or her characteristics depend on the qualities he or she was born with? Or does his or her upbringing mold them into the person he or she becomes? The debate between nature and nurture is one that can be difficult to conclude and thus has been argued for centuries. Sheri S. Tepper explores this issue in her acclaimed novel The Gate to Women’s Country. The narrator of the work, Stavia, lives in a woman-dominated, post-apocalyptic country, where the women’s goal is to breed out the violent and murderous qualities that men are believed to possess. These women have an preconceived ideal people who are “CAPABLE of violence and ruthlessness, but very much in control of their tempers
Women, in the past decades, have undergone a revolution. They have earned the right to vote and the right to be a man’s equal under the law. They have confronted the obsolete values of male superiority. They have even manage to destabilize the firm belief that only men could be in power. Despite these accomplishments, women have also made a point that we are not equal, simply, men aren’t superior to any women.
The church in today’s world have very low standards. We are disregarding the active sins of the believers in the churches and are not ready to take a stand and speak to them about it. As a result of this churches are encouraging adultery, envy, strife, unforgiveness and lack of love which is taking us away from God on a daily basis. God will give us a time to repent but one day he will judge the church and the nation just like Israel so that we come back to him (Beckham, n.d.).
Mittel, J., 2007. Film and Television Narrative. In: D. Herman, ed. 2007. The Cambridge Companion to Narrative. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp.156-171.
So, you want to become a Movie Director? With becoming a Director, especially a Movie Director, comes many advantages and disadvantages. Advantages can be anything from gaining a great amount of salary annually, that you are your own “boss,” or that you get to dream for a living. Some of the disadvantages are that Directors work irregular hours, they have very stressful work, and it requires lots of skill. To start out though, what are Movie Directors duties? They have to select a script or an idea for a movie. As Steven Spielberg says, “It all starts with the script: it's not worth taking myself away from my family if I don't have something I'm really passionate about.” Basically, what he means is if you don’t have a script, you don’t have a movie, therefore, just go home. Some more jobs that they must do is select a casting director to find a cast, to make sure that a project stays on track as far as time and money, and they also tell the actors what they have to do to make the movie better. Well, as they say in Hollywood, “Let’s get this show on the road!” Advantage number 1, is that being a Movie Director can bring in a boat load of cash, if you’re good at it. According to The United States Department of Labor, Directors can get on average, about $68,000 a year. Now you have to remember that that is the minimum. If you’re one of the best Directors in the world, such as Steven Spielberg, then you might get paid upwards $330,000,000 a year. If you think that crazy, then you won’t believe that per second, he makes $47.74, per minute he makes $2,864.58, and per hour he makes $171,875. Now, onto advantage number 2, which is that you would be your own boss. Just think, that while there can be anywhere from 1 to 1,000 other people working on the movie, that you have the all complete power. This can also be bad, because if the movie ends up being a flop, people point fingers at you because you made all the production critiques. Advantage number 3, which is the final advantage, is that you get to dream for a living! Steven Spielberg himself says, “I dream for a living.” The coolest thing, I feel, about being a Movie Director, is that in the end, the movie is your dream and imagination.
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