On Female Character And Female Narrative In The God Of Small Things

Arundhati Roy(born in 1961)is one of the most popular domestic female writers in contemporary India,and She is also the first Indian female writer who wins the Booker Prize.Through the story of women of three generations in her novel The God of Small Things,Roy shows the living condition and predicament they encounter and bequeaths,develops and reflects on the female consciousness in traditional literature.Roy is critical with all shackles that religion,patriarchal norms and traditional social orders put on women and takes an affirmative attitude towards their resistance consciousness.What's more,it also shows the author ' s exploration and inquiry of the way ahead of Indian women which reflects her responsibility and sense of mission as a female writer.The full text is divided into five parts:The introduction part summarizes the writer's life and writing,and relative research papers both in China and abroad.The first chapter discusses the condition and causes of the plight of Hindu women.Hindu women are subordinate in the family and community and suffers from violence,contempts and humiliation.They are either submissive to fate,or struggling in dilemma,or confused about life,however,their fate is tragic,because they are oppressed by religion and patriarchy.The second chapter analyzes the value and significance of the work from the perspective of literature history and discusses the predicament of modern Indian women on the realistic level.While bequeathing and developing the female consciousness in traditional literature,Arundhati Roy enriches the female characters as well through the depiction of the rebels and the oppressed.Besides,through the description of female sexual behavior of women and incest fornication Arundhati Roy questiones and criticies the moral standards and orders.Furthermore,the incompleteness of Indian women's liberation movement,the disjunction of legal system and real life,and the emphasis on women's family role by the national discourse also constitute predicament for modern Indian women.Therefore as it shows inArundhati Roy's work,the the path of liberation lies ahead of modern Indian women is full of hardships.The third chapter analyzes the relationship between Roy's narrative voice and the authorial authority,narrative perspective and the feminist consciousness from the perspective of feminist narratology.To construct connotative authorial authority Roy takes authorial narrative voice as narrative mode,and adopts some narrative strategies,such as the application of narrative intervention and creates a mutual text.At the same time,narrator and character pay close attention to female life,and it emphasize the feminine consciousness,it also shows author's firm belief in writing and utterring for Hindu women.The last part is the conclusion and it figures out that Arundhati Roy's writing on women criticizes moral standards and social orders,yearns for liberty and gender equality and appeals for social reform.It shows her responsibility and sense of mission as a female writer,which also accord with her identity as a public intellectual.