Chanchal Kumar
Manu Joseph's award-winning debut novel has been lauded for breaking away from the norm in its depiction of the dalit male character as an intelligent but cunning person. In the words of the author, Ayyan Mani is an "exceptional" individual who is "a freak, in a way" (Joseph 2010). While historically, dalits have mostly been represented in mainstream literature as docile, sympathetic beings, Joseph tries to give Ayyan Mani, who is an important figure in the novel, agency and self-awareness.
The criticism available on "Serious Men" mostly centers around the dalit character as the protagonist but it can be argued that Arvind Acharya, the brahmin scientist in the novel, is an equally important part of the narrative. The essay will continue with this basic premise since it will provide the primary objective of the argument, namely that the novel, in its attempt to humanise dalits, further stigmatizes them. This paper, firstly, through a comparison of how the brahmin Arvind Acharya and Dalit Ayyan Mani are portrayed, will attempt to prove how the process of "discursive discrimination" (Boréus 2006) takes shape. Next, it will try to show how the novel is actually about a tussle between two brahmins: Arvind Acharya and Jana Nambodri and the Dalit character and his world is there just to satiate the author's (and savarna readers') voyeuristic gaze.
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