![]() ![]() ![]() She prioritizes him over herself and stays mum. She couldn’t express her problems with her husband clearly as she thinks he is already stressed. She never talks back to her mother-in-law who is downright abusive since the day she met her. Saroja as a character has been seen as an obedient, helpless woman who followed her husband just to stay safe as she knew nothing about the new place. The only strong thing about both of them is listening to their heart, marrying each other and standing by each other’s side. Where he lived, how the situation can get and what will be the conditions that Saroja might face after marriage was never told to her. He also never informed Saroja about his life before their marriage. He gets beaten up, bears insults made to his wife by village folk, yet asks Saroja to never speak up. Kumaresan listens to everything said by villagers silently most of the time. The protagonists Kumaresan and Saroja aren’t strong characters. The first woman Saroja met was her mother-in-law, Marayi and she becomes her worst nightmare. It is usually the women who are calling her names, asking her what she did to “attract” Kumaresan, coming with the age-old “ she must have cast a spell on our boy“-narrative which label women as witches and seductresses. Saroja had been called slurs on a daily basis. ![]() The book also captures the internalized misogyny of rural women when it comes to maintaining the existing social order. Overall, the book covers the issue of honor killing and casteism through different events like people getting violent, socially excluding the couple and their family, etc. She had been called names, slapped and taunted every day, yet she chooses to stay silent in order to stay safe.Īnother factor that compromises the effectiveness of the story is the male gaze while writing women characters or describing the affection among Kumaresan and Saroja. The book also fails the Bechdel test as all the women characters talk about her husband in one form or another and their lives are written around Kumaresan.įrom a gendered lens, the book covers the struggle of protagonist Saroja since the beginning of her marriage. She had been called names, slapped and taunted every day, yet she chooses to stay silent in order to stay safe. From a gendered lens, the book covers the struggle of protagonist Saroja since the beginning of her marriage. The book revolves around the love story of the couple, how they met, how they fell in love and why they choose to elope. The book highlights the struggle of inter-caste couples and how it is difficult to survive such marriages. The couple bears the wrath of Kumaresan’s village in the hope that things will get better. They belong to different castes and it eventually becomes a curse to their life. Perumal Murugan’s Pyre is a story about Saroja and Kumaresan, a couple in love who marry each other. The title Pyre creates a sense of curiosity. The book keeps the readers stuck to the story by talking about the harsh realities of the society. Pyre is a story of every inter-caste married couple in rural India. ![]()
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