Comparative Postcolonial Study of Arundhati Roy and Kiran Desai Novels

Abstract

In the present thesis, I have attempted to study the two eminent novelists of contemporary Indian English fiction Arundhati Roy and Kiran Desai in the postcolonial perspective. Postcolonial criticism draws attention to issues of cultural difference in literary texts. It involves the critical analysis of history, culture literature and modes of discourse that are specific to the former colonies of England, Spain, France and other European imperial powers. In Indian context, it more particularly examines the impact of colonial culture on a native personality. The influence of colonial rule in India has deeply affected the Indian society including the persons who bear postcolonial identities. This means that in the society as well as in literature we can trace the postcolonial components when we investigate the themes and characters. Arundhati Roy and Kiran Desai are commonly acknowledged as postcolonial writers. Both address the issues of postcoloniality prominently in their novels. The thesis attempts to examine this aspect in the light of views derived from critics like Said, Homi Bhabha, Gayatri Spivak, etc. While I have immensely benefited from the existing scholarship on Roy and Desai, my chief endeavour has been to analyse the characters in the fictional works of the novelists. Both the novelists have two novels each to their credit. The God of Small Things and The Ministry of Utmost Happiness by Arundhati Roy and Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard and The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai. All these four novels have been analysed in the light of postcolonial theory. The first chapter of the thesis provides the necessary background and right perspective for the present study. It briefly examines the response of the readers to the novels of Arundhati Roy and Kiran Desai and their reputation as novelists at present. Adequate discussion of vii postcolonial theory and a survey of existing critical works on the authors under consideration have also been included in this chapter. The second chapter is devoted to a sy