Unsettling the System of Sexual and Ethnic Oppression in Shyam Selvadurai’s Funny Boy

Abstract

The contemporary novel titled Funny Boy (1994) by Shyam Selvadurai, a Sri Lankan Canadian writer is set in Sri Lanka against the traumatic struggles of ethnicity between majority Sinhalese and minority Tamils in the early 1980s. The novel has six chronologically interconnected stories, each concerning the subaltern central character in terms of race, sexuality and gender. The protagonist Arjun Chelvaratnam (Arjie) belonging to Tamil minority household experiences conflicting emotions imposed by rigid and repressive codes of the patriarchal family that forbids him to indulge in his love of cross-dressing game juxtaposed with a series of calamitous ethnic clashes in the country. Racially, there are political restrictions imposed on the minority Tamil groups and within the domestic sphere, Arjie undergoes sexual unease due to his unconventional sexual orientation. This study aims to explore Arjie’s plight in realizing his emerging sexuality thus transgressing the restrictive borders of gender and desirability. Further, to ascertain the theoretical insight about the process of gendered ‘othering’, Michel Foucault’s idea of power is consulted to justify and provide critical views on the marginalization of the third gender as power discourse in society.

1. Introduction

Human society firmly believes in the heterogeneity of sexes to such an extent that there are only male and female sexuality whose social identification align with the gender of man and woman. However, with the increased visibility of transgender as well as gender non-conforming people, sex and gender can be understood in diverse ways than they had been and they are far more complicated. The distinction is that, sex is a biological phenomenon indicated by the reproductive system while, gender differentiates male and female based on the social institutions and cultural norms prevalent in the society. Thus, scholars in feminist studies position their argument that sexuality is biological but gender is a social construct. However, though sexuality is one’s birth identity, factors such as dominant cultural forces, public policy, and the law constantly attempt to shape, manipulate, and transform one’s identity. As a result, gender identity is the extent to which society identifies a person as being either masculine or feminine. Right after birth, either male or female, children are taught appropriate norms and behaviors including ways to interact with others of the same or opposite sex within households, communities and work places. When individuals or groups deviate from the established gender codes, they often face stigma, discriminatory practices or social exclusion.

1.1 Objective

Hence, the objective of the paper is to elucidate Arjie’s dilemma in crossing the ethnic margins and boundaries of unconventional sexual orientation, thus unsettling the system of oppression from a personal domain.

1.2 Methodology

To explore the topic ‘Unsettling the system of oppression in Funny Boy’, the study has attempted an in-depth critical analysis of the selected text Funny Boy using a close reading technique. The topic is examined to show how the power play within the family and the ethnically divided nation as a whole affects the growth and identity of an individual as well as the nation. Within the boundaries of fixed sex and gender codes on one hand and ethnic codes on the other, both the individual and the nation are trying to discover their identity by subverting the codes, which is evident through Arjie’s struggle. While examining the novel, Michel Foucault’s idea of power is utilized to ascertain the play of power in marginalizing and othering minorities. Burdened by twin predicaments, amidst the ethnic tension and the plight of discovering his sexuality, Arjie loses the comfort of home and his family. At the end of the novel the family has to flee their native land before losing everything, yet the protagonist gains his self by discovering his new identity.

2. Discussion

The novel under study, set during the ethnic strife in Sri Lanka, unfolds the external and internal conflicts encountered by a minority Tamil boy who struggles to negotiate not only with his day-to-day life in the Sinhalese-dominated Colombo but also tries to come to terms with his emergent same-sex desire. The plotline unearths the exclusions that prevail in different walks of life in the Sri Lankan society including education and business.

According to Jazeel ([1], pp. 231–249), homosexuals are stigmatized in Sri Lankan society and perceived as foreign to the nation. Both the ethnic groups in Sri Lanka do not embrace homosexuality or any kind of aberration in sexuality. However, in the narrative, the homosexual relationship of two boys from opposite ethnic groups brings the nation together. Funny Boy talks about the violent ethnic conflict which bore so much hatred between the Sinhalese and Tamil folks; but when it comes to gender conflict, there is unification of these two groups. Ethnic conflict divides people yet gender binary and discrimination unite them; it is the gender trouble which brings the two groups together. Nevertheless, characters representing Sinhala and Tamil groups face challenges at home and school due to ethnocentric bias.

Homosexuality or queerness is not a flaw though mostly considered a deviant or a disorder. As asserted by Nayar [2], for both Butler and Foucault gender is not a fact or natural, but the effect of discourses that are controlled by power structures. So, gender is not fixed, every gender is normal and it is not a disorder. It is the society that perpetuated the idea of ‘hetero’ as normal and ‘homo’ as unnatural by programming the mind of individuals. The protagonist in the text under study is constantly troubled by his quest for identity within the heterophobic domestic setting and beyond it amid upsetting ethnic tension in the nation. The plight of Arjie in discovering his identity is seen as crucial because of his minority ethnic and gender status which makes him a doubly marginalized subject within the family and nation.

Each culture has normative standards about the way males and females should behave based on their gender. Instead of being about body parts, it is more about how you are expected to act, based on your sex. Gender identity is a feeling embedded into an individual’s life at a very early age. He/she feels and expresses it through clothing, behavior, and personal appearance. However, “appropriate gender roles are defined according to a society’s beliefs about differences between the sexes” ([3], p. 335). Gender roles are created and recreated by human’s interaction with each other in a patriarchal society. As a social construct, gendered identity is demonstrated by individuals, groups, and societies by ascribing to particular traits, statuses, or values imposed on them based on their sex; yet, these codified norms differ amongst societies and cultures, and over time within the same society.

In recent times, discourse on gender has become an inclusive discussion and it is a general thought that the third gender is no longer an isolated island because it is becoming mainstream. Still, the third genders have to undertake the risk and face the consequences and the social stigmas, by standing on their own. However, though they are navigating themselves, how far their assured destination is, remains unknown, and their acceptance in the society is elusive. In this regard, Sri Lanka was no different, the troubled island was also burning with ethnic conflicts during the 1980s. The voices of minorities for their rights were drowned and their future became uncertain. By unleashing violence, the minorities were forced to navigate toward the unknown future by leaving the island. Thus, the minorities moved toward unknown horizons in search of new destinations. Uncertainty and unknown future being common to both third-gender and ethnic minor groups, these commonalities invited our attention to look into sexuality and ethnicity as juxtaposed entities.

Although the novel under study is not autobiographical, Funny Boy (1994) does draw on Selvadurai’s experience of the escalating violence between the Sinhalese and the Tamils in Sri Lanka from 1950s to 1980s. It traces the journey of a 7-year-old boy, Arjun a.k.a. Arjie from the simplicity of childhood to the awakening of adolescence with its complexities. The events in the novel are narrated from Arjun’s perspective by focusing on his struggles in coming to terms both with Sri Lankan society and his homosexuality. Arjie’s experience of being exiled from his so-called normal circle of home began at an early age; during the ‘bride-bride’ game, his cousin Tanuja points out with the deep conviction that the role of a bride cannot be played by a boy, “a girl must be a bride” (Selvadurai 11). Nevertheless, his fondness for dressing like a bride and the eagerness to transcend his self is evident when he says,

I was able to leave the constraints of myself and ascend into another, more brilliant, more beautiful self, a self to whom this day was dedicated, and around whom the world, represented by my cousins putting flowers in my hair, draping the palu, seemed to revolve. It was a self-magnified, like the goddesses of the Sinhalese and Tamil Cinema, larger than life; and like them, like the Malini Fonsekas and the Geetha Kumarasinghes, I was an icon, a graceful, benevolent, and perfect being upon whom the adoring eyes of the world rested. (Selvaduria 3–4).

Arjie’s problem started when the innocence of childhood games was ‘gendered’ by the adults. Owing to Tanuja’s complaint, her mother, Kanthi Aunty discovers him dressing like a bride and brings him in front of his parents, “she pulled me up the porch steps and toward the kitchen door” (Selvadurai 12) and mocks at Arjie for doing what he liked the most, “Kanthi aunty cried out, her voice brimming with laughter, “see what I found!”, (Selvadurai 12). While his parents are embarrassed, others gathered at Ammachhi’s place further mocked at his behavior. Cyril uncle sarcastically remarks, “… looks like you have a ‘funny’ one here” (Selvadurai 14). Arjie’s parents, became restrictive about letting their son with girls and entering his mother’s dressing so that his queerness could be corrected. They prohibited his access to this feminized space, hoping that Arjie’s ‘different’ gender behaviors and sexual desires were due to his curiosity that could be corrected by imposing the right values that align with his male body. Arjie was instructed to play cricket with his male cousins on forth-coming spend-the-day, “Because (she says) the sky is so high and pigs cannot fly” (Selvadurai 23) in order to make him realize that to be ‘different’ and to be allowed to express that ‘difference’ is as unusual as the prospect of flying pigs. Arjie cannot express his sexual orientation without incurring the disgust of an intolerant and unjust society of which his parents are a part of.

The protagonist of the novel is pushed from spaces where he feels safe and happy to spaces which are more rigid and gender-conforming. Physical spaces such as school (Victoria Academy) and family home, which deliberately operates according to the “… notions of middle-class respectability which becomes a necessary precondition for a nationalist and patriotic agenda” ([4], p. 4), becomes the primary space where the protagonist encounters a sense of alienation from the majoritarian discourse since he is looked at as a deviant subject. Nonetheless, the alienation and seclusion he faces enables him to transgress the boundaries fixed for him.

Arjie’s homosexuality posed a threat to his father’s patriarchy and masculinity. Though the term ‘homosexual’ is never used directly in the text the implied idea is sensed in the words ‘funny’ and ‘tendencies’. Therefore, Chelvaratnam, the head of the family, takes up Arjie’s issue very seriously and decides to shift his school; sends him to the Victoria Academy, a British-style public school in Colombo. Perplexed by his father’s decision to change his school, Arjie asks, what is wrong with his current school and Appa replies, “The Academy will force you to become a man,” (Selvadurai 210). In addition, even Diggy mentions, “He (Appa) does not want you turning out funny or anything like that” (Selvadurai 210). Arjie’s Appa enrolls him in the Victoria Academy and simply believes that Arjie’s ‘funniness’, is a mere childhood fancy, some of which are, to dress up in saris, play bride-bride, stare at beautiful men, and read Little Women series on the front porch instead of playing cricket with his male cousins. But, Arjie’s desire is not just a passing phase of fancy but an intense conflict of sexuality and identity crisis.

At first, Arjie explores his sexual identity at the family home during the game of bride-bride and later in the school, where Arjie embarks into sexual exploration; the school also institutionalize the masculinization agenda of Arjie’s father. Thus, Arjie lucidly understands that his home will not support him in his struggles with himself and his homosexual feelings. Amid external and internal conflicts, when he discovers his sexual identity as expected it is his family that stands against him and the home becomes a gendered site. Arjie’s Appa is troubled by his son’s lack of interest in sports and other traditional male pursuits but Arjie is attracted to such interests only through the influences of a few individuals like Jegan, who is the son of Appa’s bosom friend Buddy Parameswaran.

Various movies and operas tend to propagate the notion of an ideal family where a boy meets a girl, proposes to her and finally gets married to each other and gives birth to a son preferably. This suggests an idyllic family where the women are submissive and obedient, and men are the head of the family, therefore, they are all ‘straight’ and there is no room for gay or lesbian relations. Similarly, the protagonist of the novel is expected to abide by the projection of such entertainment. Everything was fine in Arjie’s family until his parents found that their son is not ‘straight’. Thus, Arjie was caught between the two worlds of boys and girls due to the gender stereotypes which was imposed on him by his family. People still hold on to conventions that expect men and women to behave in alignment with the socially determined gender categories. In a patriarchal society, the socio-cultural norms expect girls and women to be polite, dress in typically feminine ways and exhibit accommodating and nurturing tendencies. Whereas, men are supposed to be strong, aggressive, and bold. Hence, Arjie internalizing feminine attributes was unacceptable to his parents and relatives. A man is not expected to be feminine in hetero-patriarchal society and in doing so Arjie is putting the patriarchal supremacy into jeopardy. Therefore, those who do not behave in ways considered appropriate for their biological sex are regarded as transgender, for they have crossed over the socially constructed boundaries of gender. However, according to Lerner (in [5]), patriarchy was an established form of social organization in which the father or the eldest male member headed a family or tribe. Then, in the course of time, patriarchy also meant governance or domination by men. Thus, patriarchy has transpired over the ages and today it denotes an institutionalized pattern of male dominance in society. Lerner believes that in Western civilization, men have advantages over something which they are not entitled and patriarchy reflects it. Gender stereotypes do not allow people to fully express themselves and their emotions. In addition, gender codes also encourage people to condemn and oppress those as misfits who deviate from the traditional gender roles. As a result, many third genders struggle to reach their full potential. Though Arjie is oppressed by gender stereotypes, he disrupts this notion and once again joins the girls’ space to exercise his interest. In doing so, he tries to repudiate the existing norms which is confirmed by everyone in the family. A man entering a female’s territory is considered to be an effeminate and such notions do pre-exist in any society.

According to a report on Human Rights Violations against Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) People in Sri Lanka [6], the country embraced the colonial laws during British rule with the intention to impose Victorian values on its colonies. The laws criminalizing same-sex sexual desire have been enforced to persecute individuals on the grounds of their sexual orientation and gender identity and such expressions have been retained to the present. Indeed, these laws have been extended to criminalize females as well as males for same-sex sexual conduct. Akin to this idea, Jazeel [1], also agrees that Sri Lanka’s contemporary homophobic legacies are the remains of their colonial anti-homosexual legislation that normalized nineteenth-century European bourgeois sexuality. Homophobia is not a typical Asian value, because if one explores the Indian subcontinent’s mythologies and devotional literature, “gods take female forms all the time. Sometimes to serve as ‘go-betweens’ to bring lovers together, sometimes to stand on for a missing wife and do the household chores, sometimes to nurse a sick devotee”, ([7], p. 9). Wilhelm asserted that during the Vedic civilization, “the cows, the Brahmanas, the women, and those belonging to the neutral gender (children, the elderly, the impotent, the celibate and the third sex) were all offered protection as an important social principle” (27). However, in the modern era, the third gender is marginalized, imposed with brutal rules and even prosecuted, but the ancient texts did not stigmatize them. In one of his commentaries, Pattanaik states that, in the religious literature, man becoming woman and woman becoming man by the grace of god is accepted without consternation. In addition, he mentions that “Unlike female-to-male and male-to-female gender transformations that evoked discomfort in modern times, in the mythic stories sexual transformation is accepted rather comfortably by all the characters,” (19).

Queers often feel the pressure to fit within society’s conventional ideas of the male-female binary, considered to be normal. Those who do not fit into the normative paradigm are subjected to ridicule, intimidation and even physical abuse. Arjie lacks a stable ground from where he can explore and discover his ‘unconventional adolescent sexual orientation’ ([7], p. 239). During the game of hide-and-seek, when Arjie and Shehan are hiding in the garage, Shehan seduces Arjie. The fulfillment of same-sex desire takes place at the bottom of the driveway, a neglected space, infrequently used by the family. The darkness of the garage makes it impossible for Sonali (the seeker) to find them. Arjie feels violated although Shehan had already kissed him once before. Arjie could not accept the orchestration of his sexual desire and felt sickened by what had just happened. Arjie tends to be secretive not only about his ‘abnormal’, sexual, and bodily desires but also about his first homosexual encounter with Shehan, which happened during the game of hide and seek. The garage which is the domestic non-space, is the only place in the house where Arjie can explore his as yet ‘latent same-sex desire’ ([1], p. 239). Discovering and coming out as a homosexual is traumatic, for the individual has been constantly imposed by parental, peer, and other societal apparatuses that their behavior is ‘bad’ and ‘unnatural’. Therefore, this leads to homosexual panic in an individual where their sexuality is aberrant from the codified forms of society’s sexuality and sexual identity. However, as the narrative progresses Arjie realizes that Shehan’s act was not to degrade him but was rather an act of offering his love.

Selvadurai’s protagonist Arjie is created in such a way that he does not assimilate into the power play of a heteronormative society. Rather, he creates his own world, a vibrant space where he can fully inhabit his queerness and unify himself with other marginalized characters. According to Lesk [8]

Sri Lanka, despite its cultural Westernization, does not favor the liberating sexual alternates. Arjie, as the novel’s queer, witnesses subjugation not only of Tamils to the majority Sinhalese but of various other groups, notably homosexuals, who barely register except as a joke to Funny Boy’s adults, and women, who despite advancement in Sri Lankan society, are still largely subordinate to men. (38).

Gays and lesbians suffer from heterosexism, the hegemonic construed norms that privilege heterosexuality, along with homophobia, a culture that devalues homosexuality. Thus, their sexuality is vilified, they are subject to shaming, harassment, discrimination, and violence. Most often policemen treat LGBTQ people like criminals ignoring the fact that they are the ones being victimized. In the Amnesty International research report, Mahamoor mentioned that [9] “…being persecuted for sexual orientation or gender identity has no place in our world today, and yet, individuals in Sri Lanka continue to face discrimination, abuse and a complete lack of protection for their real or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity” (2). Any society must not discriminate against individuals owing to their sexual orientation or gender, however many nations fail to provide rights and safeguarding the third genders.

In the novel under study, Arjie is constantly exposed to spaces to which he does not belong. Some of his everyday crises are he is a misfit amongst the boys of his age, and his anatomy prevents him from being with the girls; he is excluded from the children’s world and was forced to seek company from adults; his father insists him to speak Sinhalese thus placing him in Sinhalese-only classrooms, where his Tamil identity is conspicuous, and his sexual attraction to other men in a heteronormative culture that does not encourage non-heteronormative desire causes him to inhabit “a world they did not understand and into which they could not follow” (Selvadurai 285).

In this manner, the novel Funny Boy presents a protagonist who is a marginalized subject due to his sexuality and ethnicity. The novel shows the spaces such as Sri Lankan family, home and school playing a significant role in shaping the heteronormative boundaries of modern Sri Lankan society. Therefore, acquiescing to gender norms has been fixed in various spaces only to produce acceptable behavior. The constructs are made normative to such an extent that the non-normative experiences remain hidden and were closeted.

Foucault believed that power is a chain or net-like system of relation where individuals both enact and resist the power. In Funny Boy, women’s oppression and seeing them as ‘other’ begins at home where the father represents the patriarchal order. The idea of patriarchy appears in varied forms and operates in multitudes of spaces such as home, office, culture, sexuality, and state. Similarly, Arjie is excluded from ‘the girls’ space in order to safeguard the family honor, which is basically seen as a normalizing process in the family. Through the normalization process, power in society controls the subjects. Appa’s strict obedience toward patriarchy and masculinity, and the supremacy he holds seem lopsided when it concerns his hotel. Appa knows about existent homosexuality in Sri Lanka, however, he feels it is good to boost the country’s economy: “What am I to do…but is not it illegal? … to keep the tourist industry going” (Selvadurai 171). To this, Yuval-Davis calls attention to sex industry tourism [10], “A tourism which has become one of many post-colonial biggest source of economic survival allowing male Orientalist dreams of inexhaustible pools of sexual pleasure and exotic sexual objects” (52–53).

Appa’s motif behind admitting Arjie in ‘The Victoria Academy’ was to produce a son who is heterosexual, thus acquiescing to the norms of masculinity, because Victorian public school was perceived to be a factory producing gentlemen. The Victoria Academy is governed by hyper-masculinity principles whereby young boys are expected to behave according to dominant masculine stereotypes. It is within this ethos of hyper-masculinity that Arjie meets Soyza only to overrule the boundary and discover their relationship with Arjie and acceptance of homosexuality.

Why cannot I play with the girls?’…‘You cannot, that’s all’. But why?’… ‘You’re a big boy now. And big boys must play with other boys’ she said, ‘the world is full of stupid things and sometimes we just have to do them. (Selvadurai 20).

Arjie’s dialog with his Amma demonstrates the novel’s two competing gender discourses, conformity and non-conformity. Male and female are designations not as thoroughly opposed as the discourses surrounding them suggest. The differences that do exist are, as McNay points our in ‘The Prisoner of gender’ by King, a “overdetermined in order to produce a systematic effect of sexual division” ([11], p. 3). Foucault’s commentary on how subjectivity is produced calls to mind Simone de Beauvoir’s famous phrase “One is not born, but rather becomes a woman” (295). Through the corrective measures of the family, Arjie is forced ‘to become’ a person whom he does not like.

However, Selvadurai’s protagonist is motivated to unsettle the system of oppression and resist the power of patriarchy in his familial space and school space. Even though Arjie is in the grip of heteronormative restraint, Shehan’s anti-normative performance of gender allows Arjie to break away from Black Tie’s gendering structures. Very much like the state of Sri Lanka, the school as Shehan points out is divided between two factions and contending forces: “supporters of Black Tie and supporters of Lokubandara” (Selvadurai, 215). On the one hand, Black Tie represents a Tamilian establishment against which Lokubandara, represents an emerging Sinhalese nationalism. In both of these factions, masculinity becomes a propagative responsibility in shaping gender norms. The student body must agree to pain and violence as they grow.

On their first day of school, Diggy tells Arjie about a number of boys who were “disciplined” by Black Tie: “he began to detail punishments one received for getting on Black Tie’s bad side. Once he slapped a boy and broke some of his teeth. Another boy in my class got caned so severely his trousers tore. Then he made him kneel in the sun until he fainted” (Selvadurai 206). Discipline is usually enforced in order to operate control over individuals, while they are being either ‘observed’, ‘normalized’, or ‘examined’, throughout the society to ‘ensure control’ ([12], p. 221). The Academy was no less than a prison to people like Arjie and Shehan. When Arjie asks how the boys retaliated to Black Tie’s punishments, Diggy cautions him not to complain. As Victoria Academy’s most markedly queer figure, Shehan is disciplined more than the other boys. Black Tie tends to call him to his office more frequently and publicly punishes him in part because of their ethnic differences, as Shehan is Sinhalese and Black Tie is Tamil. The motivation of Black Tie’s hatred toward Shehan is comparable to that of Tamil-Sinhalese conflict, a battle for supremacy.

In a society that labels queer people simply ‘funny’, Arjie could not only withstand the dominant heteronormative culture but actively resists it. Arjie’s part in all these acts of resistance is crucial. He functions as Radha’s escort during her secret alliance with Anil, his mother’s partner in trying to discover the truth of Daryl’s death, and Jegan’s confidante during his stay in the Chelvaratnam household. His exposure to events and actions which illustrate the inequities, the narrowness, and the basic injustice prevailing in Sri Lanka reinforces Arjie’s inborn desire to be different from and to challenge the ‘normal’ world. The constant experience of being a misfit in every available sphere causes Arjie to seek solace in literature, which inspires him to create an imaginative space of his own, within himself. It is in this imaginative space and in the physical spaces that he shares with his allies, that he is able to recognize himself and thrives in his difference.

Arjie also finds solace in literature, which he uses to form the imaginative space. He watches the Sinhalese and Tamil movies, envisioning himself as an ethereal, powerful, feminine character. He reads Janaki’s Sinhala love comics when he is punished with confinement within the four walls of the house. With the help of Daryl uncle, Arjie’s reading of the book which his father feels is ‘a book for girls’ [13], could be understood as his way of dealing with the assumptions and limitations imposed on him. Various works of literature enable him to subsequently internalize strong female characters and kindle his admiration and interest in femininity and rebellion. Arjie’s response in school against Black Tie’s values is emphatically subversive and postcolonial. By embarking on a secret homosexual relationship with Shehan, he strikes a subtle blow against the macho order represented by his father, his brother, and Black Tie. Arjie deliberately misreads Henry Newbolt’s poem The Best School of All on Prize Day before the chief guest whose support the principal needs so badly. Further, Arjie learns the most significant lesson from his boyfriend Shehan resonating Orwell’s words in his essay [14], Such, Such were the Joys “the weak in a world governed by the strong” needs to “break the rules, or perish” (365). Arjie, eventually imbibed the power of resistance from his friend Soyza, thus in later phase dismantling all the anachronistic colonial values. While his sense of injustice at the inhuman punishments meted out to his lover Shehan was the main motivating factor, his growing resentment toward the manner in which those in authority took upon themselves the role of deciding what was right and wrong also prompted him to perpetrate the act of subversion. However, this constitutes just a modest blow against patriarchy and chauvinism. Consequently, Arjie comes out audaciously against orthodoxy embracing the beauty of his unique identity.

3. Conclusion

The study has examined Shyam Selvadurai’s debut novel Funny Boy (1994) using the incidents and experiences which presented the sensitive issues of race, ethnicity, and gender trouble. The novel is narrated from the point of view of seven-year-old Arjie and details his experiences within his family and in his school. Funny Boy highlights exclusions that pervade at every level of Sri Lankan society. The paper accentuates the identity crisis in the life of the protagonist, Arjie, who can be best surmised as a confused character owing to his unique sexual orientation, which is questionable within the code-conforming patriarchal family and society as a whole. He is also a typical outcast, separated and in conflict with not only himself but with his society too. In other words, Arjie’s experience is the universal struggle of young third genders to establish a stable identity of their own but at the same time, his crisis also reflects the crisis of any person labeled as ‘Other’ in the society.

The study has found that the identity crisis of the young protagonist is caused by his deviant attributes which are disregarded as per heteronormative codes. The demarcation of spaces for girls and boys enforces the gender stereotypes in the novel. The protagonist is not allowed to play with girls and when he plays with boys he is called a “girlie boy”. This separates him from the possibility of being a girl or a boy. This leaves Arjie “caught between the boys’ and the girls’ worlds, not belonging or wanted either” (Selvadurai 39). However, Arjie’s tumultuous personal journey compels him to unlearn whatever he has learned about sexuality and gender roles.