Negotiating Gender and Sexuality: A Study of Preeti Shenoy’s The Rule Breakers

Abstract

The present paper deals with the societal framework of gender and sexuality in Preeti Shenoy's novel, The Rule Breakers. Judith Butler popularized the issues of ‘gender’ and ‘sex’ in her masterpiece, Gender Trouble. Judith Butler gives importance to the performance in order to establish the role of gender as well as she focuses on the trouble of homosexuality. ‘Sex’ is biological, whereas ‘gender’ is socially constructed. Apart from male and female bodies there is another sex that is called other sex. But the society defines only masculine and feminine. Language also denotes these two genders through the terms like 'he' and 'she'. In the field of language there is no single determining factor to detect the other sex. This binary structure of gender affects a great deal in the lives of female characters as well as of the other sex in Shenoy's novel, The Rule Breakers. Similarly, the normative trend of heterosexuality or the societal framework of heterosexuality hampers the lives of gay and lesbian and it causes despair and disappointment. In spite of the legal acceptance, some people dare not to reveal the nature of homosexuality, as it may separate them from the rest of the people. In The Rule Breakers Shenoy's treatment of gender and sexuality explores the subjugation and liberation of Shenoy’s Veda as well as the agony of the gay, Veda’s husband. Therefore, the present study aims at discovering the feminist approach of Veda and the crisis of gay identity for Veda’s husband.