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Women in the Patriarchal Discourse: Questions on Femininity,

Oedipus Complex in The God of Small Things

Chia-feng Hsieh

Ⅰ. Introduction

The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy is a novel about a tragic and traumatic experience in an Anglophile family in Ayemenem, India. Even if in the postcolonial India, the Asian Indians are still chauvinistic. In this novel, there are two women are suffered in the patriarchal society. The older woman, Mammachi is younger than her husband, blind. She is often stricken by her husband, Pappachi. Mammachi loves her son more than her daughter. The younger woman, Mammachi’s daughter, Ammu is beaten by her father for no apparent reason in her childhood. Pappachi is unwilling to let her daughter, Ammu get the college education in the British or America because Ammu is a woman rather than man. Pappachi has no money to give the dowry to Ammu for the wedding. In order to escape from Pappachi’s domination, Ammu plans to spend the summer with a distant aunt in Calcutta. In Calcutta, Ammu meets a man, Baba and decides to marry him. Ammu’s husband, Baba is an alcoholic so his English boss, Mr. Hollick suggests Baba that Ammu must be sent to Mr. Hollick’s house to be “look after” lest he will be fired. Hearing Baba’s request, Ammu keeps silent. Baba is angry with Ammu’s silence so he beats Ammu. Ammu also strikes back. Ammu is angry and decides to divorce because Baba also beats her children. After divorce, Ammu takes her children to her parents’ house in Ayemenem. Unlike Ammu, Mammachi is a representative of traditional passive and obedient woman. Women play the passive and obedient roles in the traditional patriarchal society. Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic theory on femininity is male-centered. In her work, “The Blind Spot of an Old Dream of Symmetry’’ the French Feminist, Luce Irigaray reinterprets Freud’s interpretations on femininity and points out Freud’s theories on femininity, the Oedipus complex, the penis-envy and etc are uncertain and unpersuasive. In this proposed research, I would like to utilize Irigaray’s insights to reveal Freud’s perspectives on femininity and the Oedipus complex are wrong and doubtful. It is unsuitable for this novel. I also refer to there are two elements: the surname and the marriage in the patriarchal discourse make women are dominated by men.

Ⅱ. Questions on Freud’s theory on femininity

        At first, I would like to question Freud’s perspectives on femininity and points out femininity do not include passivity and obedience. In the patriarchal society, women are required to be passive and obedient to male. Passivity is a rule established by male to make women are minor than men and dominated by men. According to Sigmund Freud’s theory on femininity, women are passive because their sex cell is passive than men’s sex cell in the sexual union. In Freud’s view, “In intercourse, man and woman mime the type of relationship between sperm and ovum. ‘The male pursues the female for the purpose of sexual union, seizes hold of her and penetrates into her’ (p. 114)’’ (Irigaray 15). But in Irigaray’s view, Freud’s insights are uncertain because “In some classes of animals, the females are the stronger and more aggressive and the male is active only in the single act of sexual union” (p. 115)’’ (Irigaray 17). In my own interpretation, women’s sex cell cannot but receive the male’s product: sperm to make the procedure of reproduction could operate normally. In Irigaray’s view, “Passivity is required of woman at the moment of intercourse by reason of its usefulness in sexual functioning” (Irigaray 18). Irigaray argues that woman is more active than male when she breast-feeds her children. In this story, the younger woman, Ammu is sufferer for her gender. But Ammu is active, brave, and rebellious. There are four dimensions to show that Ammu is a woman warrior and she tries to rebel against the patriarchal rules. First, Ammu abolishes the patriarchal rule: father is always in the superior position. For example, Ammu tells her children that ‘“Everybody says that children need a Baba. And I say no. Not my children. D’you know why?’” and her children response that ‘“Because you’re our Ammu and our Baba and you love us Double”’ (Roy 149). In my view, Ammu overthrows a patriarchal rule: children need a father and she weakens the superior position of father in the traditional patriarchal discourse. This case is different from Mallarmé’s tragic dream. According to Hélène Cixous’s “Sorties,” the Mallarmé’s tragic dream is, “The dream of a union between the father and the son－and no mother” (Cixous 92). As Cixous observes on Mallarmé’s tragic dream, “No need for mother—provided that there is something of the maternal: and it is father then who acts as—is—the mother” (Cixous 92). But in this case, Roy handles that Ammu plays two roles at the same time: mother and father and provides her double love to her beloved children. It reveals that women are not passive and men are not always active. It subverts the concept: “Woman doesn’t exist.” in the traditional patriarchal discourse. In the second dimension, Ammu expresses actively her discontents with India is a patriarchal society. For instance, Ammu responds “Thanks to our wonderful male chauvinist society” after hearing her brother, Chacko tells her children that “Ammu had no Locusts Stand I” in India (Roy 57). In the third dimension, Ammu controverts Mammachi blind preferences for her son, Chacko. For example, Mammachi often says that Chacko is the cleverest men in India because Chacko is a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford. Hearing Mammachi’s fancy, Ammu responds that “According to whom? On what basis” (Roy 55) ? Even Ammu brings up four persuasive reasons to show why she thinks Chacko is not the cleverest men in India, as follows:

(a) Going to Oxford didn’t necessarily make a person clever. (b) Cleverness didn’t necessarily make a good prime minister. (c) If a person couldn’t even run a pickle factory profitably, how was that person going to run a whole country? And, most important of all: (d) All Indian mothers are obsessed with their sons and are therefore poor judges of their abilities. (Roy 56)

In my own interpretation, Ammu often responds by way of sarcasm to reveal what people say is uncertain. In this case, Ammu is not passive at all. In contrast to Mammachi, Ammu doesn’t express her preferences on her brother. In the four dimension, unlike traditional woman, Ammu doesn’t cry when she is beaten by her father. Even if Ammu is an active, brave, aggressive and rebellious woman, she is still disregarded by her family because she doesn’t get the college education in the British or America in an Anglophile family. According to Irigaray, “The suppression of women’s aggressiveness which is prescribed for them constitutionally [whatever the means] and imposed upon them socially [by what mechanism?] . . . Somehow, there seems to be no permitted mode of female aggression” (Irigaray 19). In my view, men think women’s aggressiveness could threat the superior position of men. So men think they must suppress the women and deprive the right of women’s education. But it is unfair. Why must men repress the women for her aggressiveness? Does it mean that the superior position of men is doubtful? If the answer is no, why must men deprive the right of women’s education? Does it mean that men are afraid that women opposes to patriarchal rule and rise a rebellion against men? So the men determine to deprive the right of women’s education to make women are obedient to his order and dominated by men. In Irigaray’s view, “Woman, on pain of infringing the laws of both social custom and constitution, develops strongly masochistic” (Irigaray 20). According to Cixous, “In the concert of personalizations called I, at the same time that you repress a certain homosexuality, symbolically, substitutively, it comes out through various signs－traits, components, manners, gestures” (Cixous 97). It reveals that the men repress the women to support and strengthen the superior position of male. As Irigaray observes that “Freud’s own texts . . . evaluate all aggressiveness by the yardstick of masculine homosexuality” (Irigaray 20)? It reveals Freud’s theory on femininity is wrong because he thinks women are passive to support the superior position of male. Irigaray argues that “The active/ passive opposition is not pertinent to the characterization of the male/ female difference” (Irigaray 18). According to Irigaray, ‘“Sexual difference’ is a derivation of the problematic of sameness” (Irigaray 26). It shows that Freud’s perspective with a blind spot because the truth is, the male or the female is different individual subject.

Ⅲ. Questions on femininity

Secondly, I would like to question the femininity and reveal that the traditional woman not only accepts the patriarchal rule but also internalizes it. The traditional woman is passive and obedient woman as the patriarchal rule requires her to become. In contrast to Ammu, Mammachi is a passive woman. When her husband, Pappachi strikes her, Mammachi doesn’t fight back. Unlike Ammu, Mammachi is an obedient woman. For instance, Chacko tells her “Mamma！That’s enough！Enough violin！” in the middle of the melody (Roy 183). Hearing her son’s request, Mammachi stops playing the violin right away and says that “I think I’ll stop now” (Roy 183). In contrast to Ammu, Mammachi is a blind woman. There are two reasons to explain why the author, Roy handles that Mammachi is a blind woman. Mammachi is blind so she can’t fight back. She doesn’t have the eye power to strike her husband. Mammachi is blind because she accepts blindly the patriarchal rules. She doesn’t found the patriarchal rules are doubtful and uncertain. In my own interpretation, Mammachi is a masochistic woman. Irigaray argues that “Woman is nothing but the receptacle that passively receives his product, even if sometimes, by the display of her passively aimed instincts, she has pleaded, facilitated, even demanded that it be placed within her” (Irigaray 18). It reveals that the passive and obedient woman as the receptacle and accepts the patriarchal rules blindly. According to Irigaray, ‘“Woman’s own constitution’ demanded she repress all signs of aggressivity－a repression encouraged by ‘social custom’ and certainly also by the ‘sexual function’ that we recognize in or attribute to her” (Irigaray 24). It shows that Mammachi internalizes the sharp patriarchal rules to become a passive and obedient woman. It is a good example about “Woman’s own constitution.”

Ⅳ. Questions on Oedipus complex and Penis-envy

Third, I would like to question Freud’s perspectives on Oedipus complex and penis-envy and reveal that Freud’s view is uncertain. According to Freud’s theory on Oedipus complex, “For a girl too her first object must be her mother. . . . But in the Oedipus situation the girl’s father has become her love-object” (Irigaray 31). But In Irigaray’s view, why must the girl go from “her masculine phase” to the feminine? Freud’s theory on Oedipus complex is unsuitable for this novel. Ammu is stricken by her father in her childhood. Although her father has authority, Ammu doesn’t long for his love. Ammu’s father refuses to let Ammu get the college education in the British or America even doesn’t want to give her any dowry. Her father only wants to dominate and control her. So Ammu hates him. It proves that the girl’s father is not become her love-object. If her father always dominates her, why must the girl turn to her father as her love object? It is irrational because her father doesn’t do anything good to the girl. But in Freud’s view, the reason is that her father has the phallus, but her mother doesn’t have one. After the girl found that both she and her mother don’t have the penis, the girl is angry to her mother and changes her love object to her father and wants to bear a child who has the penis. It is nonsense. According to Irigaray, “If one loves, desires one sex, one necessarily denigrates, detests the other. What is more, with only one sex being desirable, it becomes a matter of demonstrating how the little girl comes to devalue her own sex by devaluing her mother’s” (40). Ammu doesn’t have penis-envy. Even if Ammu is sufferer in the patriarchal family, she doesn’t want to be a man. Ammu doesn’t despise her gender. Even Ammu tells her daughter that “her son, Estha could grow up to be a Male Chauvinist Pig” (Roy 83). The only thing that Ammu could do is rebellion. Ammu always opposes to the patriarchal rules and rebels against the men. Neither the Oedipus complex for the girl nor for the boy is unsuitable for this novel. According to Freud’s theory on Oedipus complex, “A boy’s mother is the first object of his love, and she remains so too during the formation of his Oedipus complex” (Irigaray 31). As Irigaray argues that “If man remains fixated on his first love object, his mother, throughout his life, what will be his wife’s role in his sexual economy” (Irigaray 31)? When Chacko found his father, Pappachi strikes his mother, Mammachi, Chacko warns his father that “I never want this to happen again” (Roy 48). After that day, Mammachi thinks Chacko is her only man, only love. But Chacko only loves his English ex-wife, Margaret Kochamma rather than his mother. It proves that the boy’s mother is not become his love-object forever. In Freud’s view, the daughter-in-law must imitate her mother-in-law in order to please her husband. It is also unsuitable for this novel. Even if Margaret Kochamma doesn’t imitate her mother-in-law, her husband, Chacko still loves her very much. However, Mammachi loves her son, so she hates her daughter-in-law. Mammachi thinks her daughter-in-law snatches her son. In addition, Mammachi treats her son better than her daughter. For example, “Mammachi secretly pawned her jewellery and arranged for money to be sent to him in England” when Chacko asks for money about marriage (Roy 248). In contrast to Chacko, Ammu doesn’t get any dowry.I am doubtful about this case. I am curious. Why the woman is suppressed by the male, she still suppresses the other woman? Why the woman is oppressed by the male, she chooses to treat her son better than her daughter? It is contradictive. In my view, the traditional, passive, obedient woman is both the sufferer and perpetrator. I think Freud’s theory on penis-envy is only suitable for those women who internalize the patriarchal rules and become the passive and obedient women. In Irigaray’s view, “The penis-envy will allow her—perhaps—to enter into the system of a discourse whose ‘sense,’ whose ‘meaning’ is based exclusively on a phallic standard” (Irigaray 56). According to Irigaray, ‘“Penis-envy’ would represent, would be the only effective representative of woman’s desire to enter into symbolic exchange as a ‘subject’ and raise woman from her status as a mere ‘commodity’’’ (Irigaray 56). According to Rahul Gairola on his essay “Burning With Shame: Desire And South Asian Patriarchy,” it reveals that the traditional passive woman cannot but obey the patriarchal rules:

         Any exchange at all occurs within the gendered subject, who scrambles to compromise her own identity; the bartering of gender roles and other facets of identity is thus an individual, internal, symbolic act never uninformed by the surrounding society. For a subaltern woman this means subordination to the patriarchal codes that constitute her subjectivity. (Gairola 308)

Ⅴ. Two Elements in the Patriarchal Discourse

What’s more, I would like to refer to there are three elements consolidate the patriarchal discourse, including the surname and the marriage. The first one is the surname. People have no choice about their surname. The surname is only based on the surname from the paternal figure: father. Even if your father always treats you badly, you cannot but choose his surname as your surname. But if you are woman, your surname will turn into the surname of your husband after you marry. And the surnames of your children are only based on the surname of his/her father: your husband. Woman doesn’t have any choice about the surname of her children. In this novel, Ammu rebels against the patriarchal rule on the surname. Ammu’s children has no surname because “Ammu was considering reverting to her maiden name, though she said that choosing between her husband’s name and her father’s name didn’t give a woman much of a choice” (Roy 36). In my own interpretation, it reveals that the surname is a symbol of patriarchal domination. It is totally unfair to the women. Irigaray argues that the surname as the logotype:

         By man’s ‘active’ role in intercourse and by the fact that he will mark the product of copulation with his own name. Thereby woman, whose intervention in the work of engendering the child can hardly be questioned, becomes the anonymous worker, the machine in the service of a master-proprietor who will put his trademark upon the finished product. (Irigaray 23)

As Irigaray observes, Woman is the anonymous worker and the children are the products with only the paternal trademark. It reveals that both woman and the children are sufferers in the patriarchal discourse. Besides, Roy is unwilling to give the surname for her characters. She uses the nickname or hypocorism instead. In my view, Roy’s narrative style on the names of characters is a rebellion against the patriarchal rules.

The second one is the marriage. Marriage is a symbol of patriarchal domination, too. When woman marries a man, she must leave her house, her beloved family and live in her husband’s house. She must learn how to get along with her father-in-law, mother-in-law and etc. She must take care of her father-in-law and mother-in-law. If her mother-in-law treats her badly, she just bears. If her husband treats her badly, she just bears. These are the patriarchal rules. In the traditional patriarchal society, women must bear in every time. But it is nonsense. Why must woman leave her house after she marries? What is the function of marriage? In this novel, the reason why Ammu marries is escape. Ammu accepts her husband’s proposal because “She thought that anything, anyone at all, would be better than returning to Ayemenem” (Roy 39). But the decision is ironical. Ammu and her children are stricken by her alcoholic husband in the end. If her father and her husband always strike her, where is the place woman could go? The answer is nowhere. But why must woman bear? What she could do to change her misfortune? I think the divorce law provides a chance and make women must not bear all unreasonable requests and domestic violence from her husband. In this novel, Ammu divorces after her husband strikes her and her children. After Ammu divorces and returns her parents’ home, she found her wedding photographs are derisory. In Roy’s narrative, after the divorce, the wedding photographs become:

         When she looked at herself in her wedding photographs, Ammu felt the woman that looked back at her was someone else. A foolish jeweled bride. . . . Looking at herself like this, Ammu’s soft mouth would twist into a small, bitter smile at the memory － not of the wedding itself so much as the fact that she had permitted herself to be so painstakingly decorated before being led to the gallows It seems so absurd. (Roy 44)

   In my own interpretation, the only thing that Ammu could do is divorce. In order to rebel against the patriarchal rule: woman must passive and obedient to her husband.

   Ⅵ. Conclusion

   To sum up, both passive and rebellious women are suffered in the patriarchal society. In the patriarchal society, surname and marriage consolidate the patriarchal society. Even as Irigaray observes, Freud’s theory on Femininity, Oedipus complex, and penis-envy are uncertain and phallocentric. In Cixous’s view, the reason is “The difference makes itself most clearly apparent in as far as woman’s libidinal economy is neither identifiable by a man nor referable to the masculine economy” (Cixous 95). Freud’s theory is only suitable for those traditional passive women. In Roy’s narrative, the younger woman, Ammu always opposes to the patriarchal rules. She always rebel against the patriarchy. Roy subverts the outdated idea: women are always passive and obedient. Roy overthrows the superior position of father. Although women are suffered in the patriarchal society, she must rebel against the patriarchal society. Who will say “Women don’t exist！” ? The question is the patriarchy rather than the femininity: passivity and obedience.

Works Cited

Cixous, Hélène. “Stories” New French Feminisms: An Anthology Ed. Elaine Marks           and Isabelle De Courtivron. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1980. Print.

Gairola, Rahul. “Burning With Shame: Desire And South Asian Patriarchy, From       Gayatri Spivak’s ‘Can The Subaltern Speak?’ To Deepa Mehta’s Fire.” Comparative Literature 54.4 (2002): 307-324. MLA International Bibliography. Web. 26 June 2013.

Irigaray, Luce. Speculum of the Other Woman. Trans. Gillian C. Gill. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1985. Print.

Roy, Arundhati. The God of Small Things. London: HarperCollins Publishers, 1997. Print.