ANALYZING ARUNDHATI ROY’S NOVEL THE MINISTRY OF UTMOST HAPPINESS THROUGH THE LENS OF CRITICAL RACE THEORY

Abstract

Arundhati Roy's novel The Ministry of Utmost Happiness (2017) portrays oppression faced by the marginalized people in Indian society. The research paper employed Critical Race Theory (CRT) as its theoretical framework. The paper describes the ways in which race, gender and class create differences. The basic tenets of CRT highlight the ways when power marginalizes specific groups in order to prioritize others. The paper also explores the dominant narratives in Indian society and offers various perspectives. It also foregrounds the observations and experiences of those who are mistreated. The selected extracts from the novel maintain that the novelist employees various traits of CRT – social construction of race, intersectionality, structural racism, counter story-telling and microaggression – in her novel. The paper ends with the suggestion that CRT can be applied in literary studies in order to explore multiple ways of oppressions, targeted against the marginalized people.