Funny Boy And Running In The Family | Analysis

umbrageous male child And Running In The Family AnalysisSearching for identity operator is thumping theme in Postcolonial studies. Identity or the sense of belonging counts a major role in everyones rifles. Identity tells us who we really ar and where we kick in come from. Identity can be either ordained or negative. It gives us the sense of pride in being who we are. If we do not pick up ourselves with our surroundings or the people we come in contact with, we are lost. We regain as if we do not belong there and hence we feel as if we have lost our identity. Actually, the search for identity is an ongoing g process and there is no terminateing for it. Many would do anything to find their identity and to search for the step up where they belong.In both Funny Boy and Running in the Family, the search for identity is the main theme. These novels bring forth the challenges that the main characters dis number case in the search for identity. The setting of these two novel s is in Sri Lanka. However, Funny Boys Arjie faced negative challenges thrown at him whereas Running in the Familys narrators (Ondaatje) journey of self- divulgey is more than towards the positive side. In this paper, I will the journey of self identification by the protagonists of the both novels that I mentioned above.In Funny Boy, we are exposed to the history of Sri Lanka, Arjies homeland. A country akin Sri Lanka that has just gained independence from the colonizers strives to build and recapture its own identity which was stolen by the colonizing powers. However, to form a unitary identity is not late because Sri Lanka is made up of distinguishable ethnicities and religious beliefs. The history of racial conflict surrounded by the Tamils and the Sinhalese in Sri Lanka plays an important role in Arjies life. The rivalry between Sinhalese (Buddhist) and Tamil (Hindu) inhabitants of Sri Lanka is caused by the differences in religion and custom. Salgado argues that the conne ction between language and ethnicity which substantiate the discrete ethnic markers of Sinhalese and Tamil, was very much the mathematical product of British orientalism, and was embraced by the Sinhalese who stood to gain from it (12-13).The Tamil nonage from India migrated to Sri Lanka between the 3rd century BC and 13th century AD whereas the Indo-Aryan in who migrated in the 5th century BC created the Sinhalese population in Sri Lanka. Since, the Sinhalese are more in population compared to the Tamils they hold much of the policy-making power. For so long,Sri Lanka has been under the Western powers like Portuguese and British before it gained independence in 1948, with both Sinhalese and Tamils uniting their forces.Somehow, this unity did not conk out long because the Sinhalese immediately assumed power and began to marginalize the Tamils. They began to treat the Tamils so badly till the Tamils had to push to make their voice heard. The conflict reached its invoice in 1956 when the Prime Minister Solomon Bandaranaike translate Sinhala as the national language and when Buddhism was declared as the official religion the Tamils grew angry.Arjies father says in Funny Boy, when asked about the riots, Sinhalese wanted to make Sinhala the only national language, and the Tamils did not like this. So there was a riot and many Tamils were killed (61). The Tamils subsequently much pain and suffering from denial of rights begin to fight to establish their own nation and this is evident in Funny Boy. There was a host in Jaffna called the Tamil Tigers. They wanted a separate country and the Sinhalese were very angry about this. Ammachi often talked about the Tigers. She was on their side and declared that if they did get a separate state, which they would call Eelam, she would be the first to go and kick the bucket in it. Father told her she was mad. This made Ammachi even more angry and they had many disputes about the Tigers. (61)These political and racist p ower struggles heavily influence many chapters in this novel and especially when it reaches the climax in the subsist chapter, Riot daybook An Epilogue. In Pigs Cant Fly, Arjie clashes with his cousin sister Tanuja and disagrees with the common social norm which forbids him from playing feminine games with girlfriends. In Radha Aunty, Radhas and Anils live situation is almost standardised to Romeo and Juliet love story. Radha is Tamil and Anil is a Sinhalese and they are forbidden to get married because they belong to different religion. In See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Daryl and Nalini endeavor to expose the corruption of the government, a fruitless effort in a corrupt and laden society. In Small Choices, Arjies father and Jegan had to battle against the racial stereotyping and violence, while in The Best School of All, Arjie and Shehan both defy the authority of the principal named Black Tie. At last, in the Epilogue the conflict between the Sinhalese and Tamils got worst which is the beginning of the civil war.Furthermore, binary oppositions the self and the other exists in every chapter of this novel in a form of stereotyping every person in their own category. Ania Loomba says that, stereotyping involves a reduction of pictorial matters and ideas to a simple manage subject form rather than simple ignorance or lack of real knowledge, it is a method of bear upon information. The function of stereotypes is to perpetuate an artificial sense of difference between self and other (55). In Funny Boy, Arjies grandmother Ammachi cannot accept Anil because she cannot see him beyond the stereotype. She cannot see Anil for more than just a Sinhalese. What did I tell you? She was getting a lit from a Sinhalese. Only a Sinhalese would be impertinent enough to offer an unmarried girl a lift (58).Society expects its people to choose sides and in return they will be defend accordingly. Conformity makes someone feel safe and it ensures ones survival. In a power struggl e, when one party has the upper hand claim on the country and bank other minorities will be marginalized. In the Empire Writes Back, Bill Ashcoft et al claims that in post-colonial societies, the participants are frozen into a hierarchical relationship in which the loaded is locked into a position by the assumed moral superiority which is reinforced when necessary by the of physical force (172).In Small Choices Arjies father explained the things Tamils top executive get in trouble with in which the Sinhalese will face no problem.When my father had finished relating the incident, Amma said, You should have taken Jegans side. After all, he is more important than the peon.As Tamils we must tread carefully, my father replied. Jegan has to learn that. even I have to circumspect when Im talking to the staff. If I was Sinhalese, like Sena, I could say and do whatever I liked.Amma sighed. Its so ridiculous, she said.What to do? One has to be realistic. (190).When the minorities do not ha ve equal rights as the majority, this will lead to gap and alienation in their own country. This will result in vengeance and vendettaYou know, Sonali said, Sometimes I wish I was a Sinhalese or a foreigner.I dont, Diggy said. He glared at us again. Im proud to be Tamil. Ifthose damn buggers come here, Ill (196)Diggys reaction is understandable and its called retaliation. His reaction is much similar to the reaction of the Tamil Tigers. Tamil Tigers are consists mostly of young people who are unable to put up with Sinhalese demands and discriminations.Society draws a demarcation between us and them so that people must confirm to either side, no matter how ridiculous it may seem. This applies to sex activity stereotyping as well. When asked why Arjie cannot play with his cousin sisters, his mother replies, It doesnt matterLife is full of stupid things and sometimes we just have to do them (20). So what will become for those who refuse not to belong to just one category? What if th ey exist in a triad space in between? In Arjies case, he belongs to the Tamil minority as well as in gay community. Homosexuality is not tolerated in Sri Lanka and therefore Arjie is marginalized twice than an average Sri Lankan. Hence, it will be harder for Arjie to feel accept and to have a sense of belonging.However, there many instance in Funny Boy where the characters try to defy the norm of life and social rules to live their life their own lives. This is evident in Arjies monologue below.How was it that some people got to decide what was correct or not, just orunjust? It had to do with who was in charge everything had to do with whoheld power and who didnt. if you were powerful like Black Tie or myfather you got to decide what was right or wrong. If you were like Shehanor me you had no choice but to follow what they said. But did we al agencyshave to obey? Was it not possible for people like Shehan and me to bepowerful too? (274) roughly of the time, the characters who deci de not to follow the social rules or everyday norms are secluded and alienated by their family and country and people. For an example, Aunt Doris, the director of the stage play Arjie was involved in chose to go against her Burgher familys wishes and married a Tamil man. This of course ended her relationship with her family. Even Arjie, after thwarting his principal and exculpate who he is and who he wanted to be with, thought to himself,As I gazed at Amma, I felt a sudden sadness. What had happened betweenShehan and me over the last few days had changed my relationship with herforever. I was no longer a part of my family in the same way. I nowinhabited a adult male they didnt understand and into which they couldntfollow me. (285)Here Arjie is talking about his sexual awakening but his feelings also apply to those who made choices that alienate them from the people and places they belong to.However, to Homi Bhabha the third space gives people like Arjie a chance to create a new id entity. This third space allows them to transcend their position and go against those suppress and squelch them. It gives them power and freedom to transcend boundaries society rules. They get the best of both worlds. It gives them self empowerment to move on in life and its a place where the can voice out their opinions. Most of all the third space gives them sense of belonging and identity.The third space is a mode of articulation, a way of describing a productive and not merely reflective, space that engenders new possibility. It is an interruptive, interrogative,and enunciative space of new forms of cultural meaning and productive blurring the limitation of existing boundaries and calling into oral sex established categorizations of culture and identity (Bhabha, 1994)Before Arjie is even aware of his tendencies, his family would have makes sure that any un-stereotypical gender fondness would have been eradicated by his family. His father who was panic-struck that Arjie might turn out funny forbids him to play bride-bride with his cousin sisters. Well, on the other hand when Arjie plays with boys he was called a girlie boy. This separates him from the possibility of being a girl or a boy. Gender stereotypes are enforced by families and society to demarcate the separate worlds of boys and girls. This leaves Arjie caught between the boys and the girls worlds, not belonging or wanted either (39). His exclusion from both parties suggests us that he inhabits some third space between these two. This third space is addressed as funny and it has a calamitous connotation. According to Gopinath, challenging gendered spaces in this novel which is portrayed by the main character. This is because he allows the inner space to be something more than a site of gender agreement. He allows gender and fantasy play. And by doing this he reveals how non heteronormative embodiments, desires, and pleasures surface within even the most heteronormative of spaces (170-171).Throu ghout the whole book, we follow Arjies journey growing up and attempting to search for his identity. Arjies search for identity is similar to Sri Lankas own research for identity amidst the warring ethnics. If the focus is just among the Tamils and Sinhalese, what about the homosexuals, Burghers and Muslims? Arent they part of Sri Lanka as well? Even though all of them are different in many ways, they yearn for a place to call home where they can be safe and live without persecution.Funny Boy also puts the story of the everyday people of Sri Lanka in the spotlight. It doesnt focus on one party but it focuses more on the struggle these people went through to live in a Sri Lanka they all own. It is not about finding a balance between your identities, or trying to localise within a particular one, Selvadurai explained. Rather, he said it is about being open-minded and being accepting of how others define you (www.thecannon.ca//shyam_selvadurai_funny_boy_on_campus).In Running in the Fa mily, Michael Ondaatje narrates the take to search about his father by re-conceptualizing the past and patching up the fragments of his family history. Ondaatje searches for his identity by retracing stern his familys past, especially his father in Sri Lanka.During certain hours, at a certain years in our lives, we see ourselves asremnants from the earlier generations that were destroyed. So our jobbecomes peace with enemy camps, eliminate the chaos at the end ofJacobean tragedies, and with the mercy of distance writehistories(179).The framework that Ondaatje uses is a fictionalized story. This allows Ondaatje to create his own form of reality and his own truths. This enables him to challenge boundaries between fiction and reality. similarly that, Ondaatje explores the autobiographical self and in his case, the quest for Mervin Ondaatje is an important detour in his search for his own identity. He uses the technique of searching about the other (his father) so that he can find hi s own identity. As Marlene Kadar points out, writing about life is the site of the other, and this other is autobiographical in one sense, and not at all in another (153).When Ondaatje is searching deeply about his familys and fathers roots he begins to shape his own roots. At the end of the book it is revealed that Ondaatje is the mirror image of his father. One could certainly claim that the end of the narrative is just the beginning of the discovery of the other (i.e. the father) through the self (i.e. the narrator) (Speaking Ones Truth Reading, 3).In Running in the Family, Ondaatje uses the infusion of family tragedies, their life dramas, warmth and love to connect the dots and construct his identity. He includes both the overt and private when he researches about his family past. By doing so, he is able to see the connections between his family and his colonial inheritance. As Patricia Hampl remarks,the truth memoir has to offer is not neatly opposite from fictions truth.Its m ethods and habits are different, and it is perhaps a more untowardgenre than novel It seems to be about an individual self, but it is revealedas a minion of memory which belongs not only to the personal world but topublic realm (205).Sri Lanka is a country consisting of a complex social network because it is a multinational country which has many national and cultural identities. Ondaatje acknowledges Sri Lankas identity as hybrid and creolized nature. This almost similar to Ondaatjes family choke offgroundEvery one was vaguely related and had a Sinhalese, Tamil, Dutch,British and Burgher blood in them going in back manygenerations. There was a large social gap between this circle andthe Europeans and English who were never part of Ceylonesecommunity. The English were seen as transients, snobs, andracists and were quite separate from those who had intermarriedand who lived permanently. My father always claimed to be aCeylon Tamil, though that was probably more valid about threecen turies earlier (41).However, there is a tension between Ondaatjes endeavour to reunite him with his family and to keep a distance from his family so that he is able to break through his familys history from different points of view. It is as if when Ondaatje runs in with his family, he is also running away from his family. The running aids the author in a more complex search for his identity because it allows him to discover his identity in different forms. Here, Ondaatje is creating history while collecting data, fragments of both Sri Lankas and familys histories.As to fill in the gaps in his identity, he uses myth to provide explanations and to be as closer to the truth of that time and closer to the truth of his family. By researching his country of birth, he sees it as the other that he is constantly searching for. He is both the insider and the outsider who speaks for both the marginal and the central I am the foreigner. I am the prodigal who hates the foreigner (65). Here Onda atje represents the immigrants, immigration and culture. The framework of fictionalized memoir allows both writers to speak their souls truth (cf.Hampl, 203).The search of identity is a process where there is a need to rely on the national identity and family identities. Its like you cannot runaway from where you belong because they somehow make you who you are. Arjie and his family had to leave Sri Lanka because Sri Lanka was no longer safe to be their home and it was no longer where they belong whereas, Ondaatje has to come back to Sri Lanka because that is where he can find his identity through his familys history. Even though, Arjie and his family had to run to Canada to survive, they are still Sri Lankans and are part of that country. Arjies father sent Arjie to a different school so that Arjie wont turn out funny, Arjie found Shehan who strengthen his sexuality. When it comes to Ondaatje, even though he is settled in Toronto, Canada, he has to go back to his birth place to fin d his identity. He even has dreams of going back to Sri Lanka. At last, one had to admit that the main part of their identity depends on where you are born and where you came from whether you are accepting it or not. This is evident in Shyam Selvadurais Funny Boy and Michael Ondaatjes Running in the Family.Work CitedAshcroft, B., Griffiths, G. and Tiffin, H. The Empire Writes Back. New York Routeledge, 1994.Bhabha, H.K.(1994). The Location of Culture. London.RoutledgeGopinath, Gayatri. unthinkable Desires Queer Diasporas and South Asian Public Cultures.Durham Duke UP, 2005.Hampl, Patricia. I Could Tell You Stories Sojourns in the Land of Memory. NewYork London Norton, 1999.Kadar, Marlene. Whose Life Is It Anyway? Out of the Bathtub and into theNarrative. Essays on Life Writing From Genre to Critical Practice. Ed.Marlene Kadar. Toronto U of T Press, 1992. 152-161.Loomba, Ania. Colonialism/Postcolonialism. 2nd Edition. New York Routeledge, 2005. Ondaatje, Michael. Running in the Fami ly. 1982. NCL ed. Toronto McClelland Stewart, 1993.Salgado, Minoli. Writing Sri Lanka, Reading Resistance Shyam Selvadurais Funny Boy and A. Sivanandans When Memory Dies. The Journal of Commonwealth Literature 391 (2004) 5-18.Selvadurai, Shyam. Funny Boy. United States Harcourt Brace, 1997www.academon.com/Essay-Identity-in-PostTexts/54654 Cached Similarwww.hichumanities.org/AHproceedings/Miriam%20Rothgerber.pdf Similarwww.thecannon.ca//shyam_selvadurai_funny_boy_on_campus