Key words: Perumal Murugan,pyre, one part woman,culture, identity, contradiction. “His constant caution that a word may be misunderstood so, or it may be interpreted thus, is a real bother. “A censor is seated inside me now,” he has said.

Murugan has emerged from his trials chastened. Kali, in “ One Part Woman,” is a perfect example. “Resolve” addresses sex-selective abortions, “Pyre” is the story of an intercaste marriage (like Murugan’s own), “The Misanthropic Bird” is about land and caste.But Murugan works his themes with a light hand they always emanate from his characters, who are endowed with enough contradiction and mystery to keep from devolving into mouthpieces. Murugan’s extensive body of work (10 novels, 10 works of nonfiction, several collections of poetry and short stories) has always been inspired by social issues in his community. Like the farmhands, we pass daily between different kinds of terrains-rocky, arable and pasture lands-and infer that barnyards with cattle are normally adjacent to the house, whereas goat pens are out in the field, requiring them to be guarded at night. Goat pens are shifted periodically in order to spread the benefits of their nutrient-rich droppings across the field. In Murugan’s work, we learn much about the upkeep of animals and the many riches they yield. Livestock and poultry are important sources of income and food for the peasant’s family. Through close descriptions of the wealth of knowledge and skills in a farming community, the reader also becomes intimately familiar with the community’s inner life and the challenges that confront it continually.Ĭulture in northern Kongunadu is not based solely on cultivation.

However, unlike in ethnography, which often functions like Medusa’s head, freezing the community in a set of unchanging customs and practices, Murugan uses the details imaginatively to bring the terrain and people alive, giving them dignity and legitimacy. Some critics have seen shades of ethnography in Murugan’s work. Through his eyes, we experience the method used to clear virgin land of rocks and stones, the strategy for rearranging palm fronds on a tree for tapping toddy, and the way to cook millet over a wood fire to produce a tasty dish. The cultivator’s life, with its range of tasks, implements and infrastructure, is described in fascinating detail. Peenya-Bangalore Abstractįiction by Perumal Murugan has many features that are special to his chosen setting. *Shruthi.T, Assistant Professor of English, Government first Grade College. © 2020 JETIR April 2020, Volume 7, Issue 4 (ISSN-2349-5162) Cultural Identity and Identity crisis in Perumal Murugan's novels one-part woman and Pyre Cultural Identity and Identity Crisis in Perumal Murugan's Novels One-Part Woman and Pyre

One part woman