Abstract
This study aimed to analyze the power patterns exercised by the two exploiters, namely Comrade Pillai and Chacko, in Roy’s (1997) The God of Small Things, in the perspective of Baudrillard’s (1984, 1997)postmoderntheory of simulacra and hyperreality. The analysis reveals theirpatriarchalhegemony to be hyperreal as it does not spring from any logical or moral reason. It is the cultural structure of the society that invests them with this hyperreal power and they manipulate the system very skillfully to legitimize it. Due to the cultural conditioning, people exploited by them never challenge their putative hegemony. The findings lead to the conclusion that most social norms and stereotyped ways of thinking are simulacra that disconnect us from reality and cause us to be exploited. The need is to be pragmatic while dealing with them and to exercise one’s options and choices daringly to shatter these hyperreal models of reality that paralyze our decision making power and cause the end of dialectics at social and individual level that amountstono possibility of any revolutionor positive change in life
Mohsin Khan, , Ghulam Mustafa Mashori. (2016) Hyperreal Power Patterns in Roy’s The God of Small Things: A Postmodern Analysis, The ELF Annual Research Journal, Volume 18, Issue 1.
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