Volume I Issue I January 2021

Name of Author : Dr. Gils M. George

Title of the paper : Casting out the Third Gender: A Critique of Arundhati Roys The Ministry of Utmost Happiness

Abstract: Being an outcast in a society is a fear everyone carries. Everyone tries to fit into the category of normal. Transgender people are usually thrown out of the mainstream of society. They are those who have a gender identity or gender expression that differs from their assigned sex. Intersex people are born with any of several variations in sex characteristics including chromosomes, gonads, sex hormones, or genitals that do not fit the typical definitions for male or female bodies. Intersex people may face stigmatization and discrimination from birth or discovery of an intersex trait. This may include infanticide, abandonment and the stigmatization of families. Some intersex persons may be assigned and raised as a girl or boy but then identify with another gender later in life, while most continue to identify with their assigned sex. Through the novel The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, Arundhati Roy dissects the mainstream India through Anjum, a transgender woman who comes out on her own only to find herself redefined by tragedy, turning to cemetery in Delhi for refuge. The novel shows the suffering life of transgenders in general in a postmodern India where politics, nationalism, culture, etc. are all messed up.

Keywords : Gender, Transgender, Intersex, Identity

DOI :

Page No. : 80-82