DEMYTHOLOGIZING WOMEN SUBJUGATION: RETHINKING ARUNDHATIROY’S GOD OF SMALL THINGS AND SARA SULEHRI’SMEATLESS DAYS THROUGH DERRIDEAN’S THEORY OF PHALLOGOCENTRISM

Abstract

Gender equivalence is yet a far-fetched conception for multitudes in an otherwise transforming world. In realms segregated on multiple divisions, women have customarily been placed on the lower pedestal, while the placement moves further downward when it comes to the dilemma of South Asian women, who at best are treated as auxiliaries and not partners to their male counterparts. The recent study aims to critically analyze Arundhati Roy’s God of Small Things and Sara Sulehri’s Meatless Days through the lens of Derridean philosophy of Phallogocentrism. The mentioned works have been analyzed qualitatively through an analytical approach. Sara Sulehri and Arundhati Roy, as South Asian writers, highlight the subjugation of women in the South Asian patriarchal society where women are treated as mere commodities. The regional predicament specifies the marginalization of women, where they are pushed to margins and treated as “others”. The authors have captured the existential explorations of depicted women who are endeavoring to claim their identity in a society of binary divisions. The theoretical framework of current investigation has been formulated with the Derridean theory of Phallogocentrism as it ensembles the concept of man’s domination with regard to female subjects. It was discovered in the course of this study that both of the writers, Sara Sulehri and Arundhati Roy, protested against the patriarchal attitudes in their society by challenging the philosophy of Phallogocentrism and raised their voice to record their dissension towards such practices. In a quest aimed at deconstructing the myth of Phallogocentrism, the research brings up the alienated and vanquished female voices from South Asia. Keywords : Phallogocentrism, binary divisions, and identity.