Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Shyam Selvadurai's Funny Boy


Shyam Selvadurai: Funny Boy
·         Neluka Silva (University of Colombo)

Shyam Selvadurai was born in 1965 in Sri Lanka and moved with his family to Toronto, Canada in 1984. Funny Boy is Selvadurai's first novel. It is set in Sri Lanka, and is constructed in the form of six beautifully rendered stories about a boy growing up within an extended upper-middle-class Tamil family in Colombo during the seven years leading up to the 1983 riots, when he and his family sleep in their shoes so they can flee from the Sinhalese mobs. When Selvadurai's Funny Boy was published in 1994, it was hailed as one of the most powerful renditions of the trauma of the prevailing ethnic tensions in contemporary Sri Lanka. Selvadurai brings together the struggles of class, ethnicity and sexuality. These issues are discus
The magic of fiction seems to be the more specific you are, the more universal you end up becoming. -- Shyam Selvadurai, in an Outlines Interview, May 1996.
If post-colonialism is said to be "The Empire" writing back, many Sri Lankans have had to write back to an Empire they now reside in. Emigrating to the United Kingdom, Canada, or the United States to escape the political, religious and racial violence that has consumed their home country, expatriate Sri Lankans such as Michael Ondaatje and Romesh Gunesekera have carved out respected positionsfor themselves within the world of letters. Newcomer Shyam Selvadurai is a Sri Lankan author whose first novel, Funny Boy, has established him as a new talent capable of earning a place next to some of his more well-known expatriates.
Born in 1965 in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Selvadurai's mixed Tamil/Sinhalese family emigrated to Canada in 1983. While in Canada, Selvadurai came to terms with his homosexuality, and took a degree from York University. He currently lives in Toronto and is at work on his second novel.
Funny Boy
Funny Boy could be read as a Bildungsroman, the story of one young boy's interior formation and integration set against the backdrop of his country's disintegration. The boy, Arjun "Arjie" Chelvaratnam, is the second-son of a privileged middle-class Tamil family. It is amid rising waves of Sinhalese and Tamil violence that Arjie must understand and come to terms with his own homosexuality. Coming out is no small feat for any gay teen to undertake, and on top of the usual feelings of loneliness, isolation and fear of rejection by family and friends, Arjie must negotiate his painful transformation to adulthood in the midst of a country gone mad.
It is the socio-economic, racial and religious tensions within Sri Lanka that occupy most of Selvadurai (and consequently Arjie's) time and attention within the novel. In fact, while Arjie's awakening sexuality serves as an undercurrent throughout the book's five sections (plus an epilogue) it is really only the main theme of one, "The Best School of All." That is the section in which Arjie's father sends him to The Queen Victoria Academy, a terribly cruel English-style school.
The Queen Victoria Academy serves a symbol for colonial, aristocratic and middle class privilege--male privilege. This is the tradition Arjie is expected to be a part of. To be gay would, for Arjie, mean failing in the eyes of his Father and the larger world of middle class Tamil patriarchy in which he lives. Indeed, Arjie's father tells him that the academy "will force you to become a man," clearly indicating that the school is to indoctrinate Arjie in the ways of middle class male privilege. Arjie's older brother warns him that their Father suspects and fears his homosexuality ­ his move to the Academy is clearly meant to "cure" him of (what his Father sees as) the homosexual affliction. Within this context, it is extremely ironic that the Academy is the very place in which Arjie meets Shehan Soyza, a Sinhalese classmate whom he falls for and carries on a sexual relationship with.
The five sections of the novel and its epilogue could each be read as lengthy short stories or novellas in their own right. "Pigs Can't Fly" examines Arjie's early childhood and his gravitation towards the imaginative games his female cousins play as opposed to his male cousins' beloved game of cricket. The section concerns cultural constructions of gender and the negative developmental effects incurred by one who naturally falls outside of said constructions. "Radha Aunty" is the tale of Arjie's Aunt Radha, and her doomed affair with a Sinhalese man. It foreshadows some of the conflicts Arjie is to face in his own relationship with Shehan. In "See No Evil, Hear No Evil" Arjie plays an important role in his mother's extra-marital affair with a childhood sweetheart. This is his introduction into the world of covert or secretive relationships between adults ­ and the prices anyone may pay for loving the "wrong" kind of person. "Small Choices" chronicles one of Arjie's first crushes ­ a puppy love obsession with a young man employed by his Father, while the novel's epilogue "Riot Journal" is Arjie's frightening first hand accounts of anti-Tamil violence. The book ends with the family's imminent emigration to Canada.
In an interview, when the question of autobiography was raised, Selvadurai had this to say: "I'm gay and Arjie's gay and both families left Sri Lanka, but that's where it ends. Arjie's first experience and acceptance of himself happened in Sri Lanka and mine happened in Canada. My family is also much more liberal. My father is Sinhalese and my mother is Tamil which was a huge thing at the time of their marriage so we were brought up differently from other kids. There was a lot of tolerance for difference."
Selvadurai's latest project is a historical novel, Cinnamon Gardens, set in Sri Lanka in the Twenties.
Awards and Honors
Funny Boy won the Lambda Literary Foundation's Award for Best Gay Male Novel as well as the Smithbooks/Books in Canada First Novel Award for 1994.
Selected Bibliography
Keehnen, Owen. "Sri Lankan Author Shyam Selvadurai's A 'Funny Boy.'" (May 1996) 24 par. Online. Outlines: The Voice of The Gay and Lesbian Community. Internet. Nov. 5, 1997. Available: http://www.suba.com/~outlines/may96/srilanka.html.
Selvadurai, Shyam. Funny Boy. San Diego: Harvest Books, Harcourt Brace & Company. 1994.
"'The Breach'": Three Sri Lankan-Born Writers at the Crossroads." (Summer 1997) 19 par. Online. Outlook: The Weekly News Magazine. Internet. Nov. 5, 1997. Available: http://www.is.lk/is/spot/sp0151/clip5.html.

Shyam Selvadurai (born 12 March 1965) is a Sri Lankan Canadian novelist who wrote Funny Boy (1994), which won the Books in Canada First Novel Award, and Cinnamon Gardens (1998). He currently lives in Toronto with his partner Andrew Champion.[1]
Selvadurai was born in Colombo, Sri Lanka to a Sinhalese mother and a Tamil father--members of conflicting ethnic groups whose troubles form a major theme in his work. Ethnic riots in 1983 drove the family to emigrate to Canada when Selvadurai was nineteen. He studied creative and professional writing as part of a Bachelor of Fine Arts program at York University. [2]
Selvadurai recounted an account of the discomfort he and his partner experienced during a period spent in Sri Lanka in 1997 in his essay "Coming Out" in Time Asia's special issue on the Asian diaspora in 2003.
In 2004, Selvadurai edited a collection of short stories: Story-Wallah: Short Fiction from South Asian Writers, which includes works by Salman Rushdie, Monica Ali, and Hanif Kureishi, among others. He published a young adult novel, Swimming in the Monsoon Sea, in 2005. Swimming won the Lambda Literary Award in the Children's and Youth Literature category in 2006. He was a contributor to TOK: Writing the New Toronto, Book 1.[3]

[edit] Bibliography

Born in 1965, Shyam Selvadurai spent most of his adolescence in Sri Lanka. However, after the 1983 riots in Colombo, he and his family moved to Canada. This experience provided the historical and personal background for the novel Funny Boy. Selvadurai then went to York University and earned a B.F.A. in creative writing and magazine writing. He has won both the W.H. Smith/Books in Canada First Novel Award and the Lambda Literary Award for Best Gay Men's Fiction.

 

A long-standing rivalry between Tamil and Sinhalese inhabitants of Sri Lanka has ensured an extremely volatile relationship between the two groups. The combination of religious and ethnic differences continues to create violent conflicts between the parties although they have shared Sri Lanka for innumerable centuries.
The Tamil minority originated from India, immigrating to Sri Lanka between the 3rd century B.C. and the 13th century A.D. Making up a small portion of the population, Tamils constitute almost the entire Hindu population of the land. In the 5th century B.C., Indo-Aryan emigration from India created the Sinhalese population in Sri Lanka. It still holds the majority today and thus, much political power. The greater part of the Sinhalese populace considers itself to be Buddhist. Religious tension intensifies the struggle for supremacy between Tamils and Sinhalese.
Prior to colonial occupation, Tamils controlled the northern part of Ceylon (renamed Sri Lanka in 1972), while the Sinhalese ruled the southern regions of the land. In 1505, the Portuguese took control of the country and began its history as a colonial settlement. Throughout its relationship with the west, Sri Lanka has been dominated by world powers that have their prevented self-rule. Finally, in 1948 Sri Lanka gained independence and thus, sovereignty over its lands. Prior to this momentous occasion, Tamil and Sinhalese forces combined to fight for their common freedom. However, this alliance did not last long.
The Sinhalese have retained power throughout most of Sri Lanka's history because of its size compared to the Tamil population, the second largest group in the country. With unquestioned economic and political power, the Sinhalese inhabitants face the anger and bitterness of the minority Tamils, who must struggle to have their voice heard. Conflict between the Tamil and Sinhalese rose to a new degree in 1956 as Solomon Bandaranaike was instated as Prime Minster and declared Sinhala the official language of what was then Ceylon. The Tamil minority was outraged by this act and opposition to the Sinhalese dominated government grew as the state backed Buddhism on an official level. Bandaranaike was later assassinated and proceeded by his wife who became Prime Minister in 1960. In 1983 civil unrest could no longer be contained and the country broke out into civil war.
Shyam Selvadurai's Funny Boy leads the reader through a narrative of the Sinhala/Tamil conflict in Sri Lanka, which first erupted in the early '80s. Even though the novel is very much about the personal growth of the protagonist, Arjie, each individual episode in some way highlights the growing unrest occurring in the nation. Arjie's own journey, then, can be read as the journey of the nation, moving towards the social upheaval and violence that the book eventually culminates in. Over the course of the book a through-line emerges which tells the story of the escalating conflict, first foreshadowing it lightly, but ultimately bringing it to the forefront of the narrative when the riots begin. All significant relationships in the text are dictated by this conflict, and almost every pivotal event that can be linked to the impending riots. When the conflict finally comes to a head and becomes the primary subject of the narrative rather than a link between the events, the linear form breaks down. Since the Sinhala/Tamil tension is the cohesive glue of the novel, the lens through which the reader can view all events, when it is highlighted the narrative no longer has a point to refer back to. As such, the final chapter is a choppy and disjointed journal entry, often omitting events and calling the reader's attention to the absences.
In order to elucidate the conflict's growth in the narrative, culminating in the disjointed final chapter, let us examine the book event by event to better understand the arc. In "Pigs Can't Fly" the reader is barely made aware that any such tension exists. The first reference to the two ethnicities occurs when Arjie describes how he feels when he is dressed up for the game "bride-bride". Arjie explains that he feels, "like the goddesses of the Sinhalese and Tamil cinema," (5). From this reference the reader cannot surmise that these two kinds of "goddesses" are in any opposition to each other. However, in the next paragraph Selvadurai foreshadows the riots when he describes the picture as one made "even more sentimental by the loss of all that was associated with them," and refers to the eventual move to Canada (5). Other than these events, the first chapter remains blissfully free of the conflict. Arjie is young, and not yet aware of the problems facing his country. However, as he grows, so too does his awareness of the conflict itself.
In "Radha Auntie" the tension begins to enter more significantly into the narrative. Anil and Radha Auntie's relationship cannot exist, given their ethnic differences. However the couple attempts to give it a chance until violence intervenes. After Radha Auntie's direct experience of the violence, she no longer has an open mind with regard to her love for a Sinhalese man. She reflects the view of her extended family, in transferring the feelings of hatred towards her attackers onto Anil. Ammachi and Kanthi Auntie's feelings when they say, "'Haven't you people done enough?' 'Please go... You are not wanted here,'" (89) are indicative of Radha Auntie's transformation as she does not stop them or intervene in time. Arjie's opinion is altered as well. Whereas once he romanticized weddings and hoped fervently for Radha Auntie's, when the time finally arises he is not pleased, as he has been altered by the tension and violence around him.
From this point on the conflict pushes further towards the surface of the novel. In "See No Evil, Hear No Evil" we are introduced to Daryl Uncle, and with him the government's role in the conflict and "The Prevention of Terrorism Act." We have moved from the personal (Radha Auntie's failed relationship with Anil) to the political (Daryl Uncle's tension with the government). The reader is also aware of the growing stakes surrounding the characters interactions with the tension. In "Radha Auntie" there was violence and tragedy, but in "See No Evil, Hear No Evil" there is death. This is also the first time that violence directly affects Arjie, shocking him into accusing Amma and destroying his idolatry of her (144). By the end of the vignette Arjie's perception of his life has been forever altered. In a stunning passage he describes "little clay lamps" Amma has lit around their garden: "They provided the only light, and in their flickering illumination, the guests, the waiters, the tables of food, and indeed the whole garden, seamed insubstantial" (150).
In "Small Choices" the violent events come at an even more rapid pace. Arjie is again directly affected by them, and at no point is there any more than a moment where the reader is not cognizant of the tension at hand. By "The Best School of All" Arjie is able to formulate his own opinions about the conflict, and even as he is beginning a relationship with Shehan, a Sinhalese boy, he is made more aware of the hostility around him. He opts not to "choose sides" but asks instead, of the distinction between Black Tie and Mr. Lokubandara (the Principal and Vice Principal of the school, who the reader is made to understand represent a microcosm of the larger tensions), "Was one better than the other? I didn't think so. Although I did not like what Mr. Lokubandara stood for, at the same time I felt that Black Tie was no better" (242).
Finally, in "Riot Journal: An Epilogue" the conflict culminates, both in the narrative structure and Arjie's own life. Since the tension can no longer be the thread that holds the story together, the linearity of the text breaks down. The journal is disjointed and entries, which begin in rapid succession soon begin to come farther apart, representing Arjie's relationship to the riots. He is not able to write for days, and as time lapses, events that have occurred are told in brief passing synopses, rather than given the attention to detail that has thus far been characteristic of the novel. Because the conflict has come to fruition it can no longer hold these details together, and can no longer function as the adhesive for the events in Arjie's life.
Both the narrator in Funny Boy and in Cereus Blooms at Night are non- heteronormative diasporan individuals. While Arjie, Funny Boy's narrator speaks as an adult in diaspora reflecting on his childhood in his native country of Sri Lanka, Tyler in Cereus Blooms at Night tells his story as an individual born and raised within a diasporan context. Each struggles to reconcile their own perception of their sexual selves with other's (often disapproving) perceptions of them. Although nonheteronormative sexualities are alluded to in both works, in neither of the novels is this sexuality explicitly named. Neither author employs the phrases "gay," "homosexual," or "transgender" that are often used within a Western framework to label sexual tendencies or preferences. Without these descriptive labels, the authors appeal to alternative significations of this situation, often representing their respective characters as excluded from the categories of male and female, and instead, somewhere in between. Just as individuals in diaspora cannot be placed within any one cultural or ethnic categorization, both Arjie and Tyler must occupy a space outside of normal gender and sexual categorizations. The choice by Mootoo and Selvadurai to place their narrators in a nameless middle space in between demarcated sexual and gender boundaries in many ways mirrors the inability of diasporan individuals to be placed within cultural and ethnic boundaries.
The title of Funny Boy itself evokes the nature of the environment in which the main character and narrator Arjie negotiates his sexuality amidst family and political tensions. As a child and young adult, Arjie displays "certain tendencies" (162), as his father calls them, that defy accepted norms of the ways men and women are expected to behave. During spend-the-days at his grandparent's house, Arjie relishes in donning a sari and jewelry to play the role of a female in "bride-bride," his favorite game. The older Arjie describes this ritual as a "transfiguration" (5) in which he "was able to leave the constraints of [him]self and ascend into another, more brilliant, more beautiful self" (5). The experience of dressing in women's clothing somehow allows him to attain a level of freedom and appreciation of himself that remaining within the confines of a boy's world does not. Although this ritual is nearly sacred to him, it earns him the adjective of "funny," a word whose significance he does not fully understand, but that he can sense nonetheless has a shameful connotation.
Before Arjie is even aware of the repercussions of his "tendencies," any un-stereotypical gender inclinations he may have are discouraged by his family. His parents (particularly his father), out of fear that he will turn out "funny," forbid him from playing "bride-bride". However, when playing with the boy children proves equally problematic because of his "girlie-boy" (25) status, thus separating him from the possibility of being either a girl or a boy. Gender stereotypes imposed by his family explicitly demarcate the separate worlds of boy and girl, leaving Arjie "caught between the boys' and the girls' worlds, not belonging or wanted in either" (39). Within these early episodes, Arjie's sexuality is negotiated solely within the confines of gender, male and female. His exclusion from both the boys and girls suggests that Arjie himself inhabits some third space in between these two, but that third space is merely described as funny and never named. Just as the space Arjie occupies between male and female is not clearly defined, so too are the words employed to describe this space vague and shifting.
The various stories and language that Tyler uses in Cereus Blooms at Night echo Arjie's experience in the space between male and female. The fact that Tyler describes himself as "neither properly man nor woman but some in-between, unnamed thing" (71) emphasizes the idea that, as a non- heteronormative individual, he exists sexually outside of distinct male-female categories. Tyler's "perversion" (47), just like Arjie's funniness, sets him in an "in-between" space that is neither strictly male nor female. Like Arjie playing "bride-bride," Tyler feels a particular comfort in inhabiting the role of a female. In one particular scene, when he puts on the female nurse's costume that Mala steals for him, he feels as though his body is "metamorphosing" (76) from male into female. As Mala's reaction to Tyler suggests, Tyler more closely resembles his inherent nature dressed as a female than he does as a man. By costuming Tyler as a female, Mootoo signifies Tyler 's in-between nature without specifically titling it .< /p>
Both authors elude the placement of an official title or label on their narrators. While references such as "funny" and "perversion" certainly suggest behavior that would typically be described in Western culture as homosexual, that explicit naming does not occur in either text. Arjie and Tyler are caught in between the worlds of male and female, man and woman, and in therefore cannot be given a definitive title within these axes of identity. Even at moments of revelation for Arjie and Tyler, their gender/sexual orientation remains an unnamed entity. When Arjie invites Shehan , the object of his attraction, to his home, Arjie's brother Diggy remarks that Arjie's father will now "definitely know that you're . . . " (Selvadurai 249), and fails to actually name what Arjie is. Likewise, when Tyler , through his relationship with Mala , finally comes to terms with his own insecurities about what he is, Tyler says: "I decided to unabashedly declare myself, as it were" (Mootoo 247). He proceeds to wear makeup and perfume, feminizing himself, but what this declaration signifies is again not represented by any specific title or label. Tyler's declaration is not merely one of his sexuality or gender, but of his self.
Both authors, as individuals themselves in diaspora , describe sexuality and gender of their diasporan characters not as having a specific name, but rather, as being an in between. Tyler and Arjie's location within male and female stereotypes and modes of behavior fails to be representable as one moment in time or one descriptive word, just as the identity of individuals in diaspora , with ties to several different locations and places, cannot be fully encompassed by any one cultural or ethnic label. Selvadurai and Mootoo's refusal to encompass their character's identities by titling them thwarts a Western desire to categorize sexuality, and parallels the vague nature of diasporan individual's location within the framework of cultural and ethnic belonging. Arjie and Tyler 's sexual and gender location, like the cultural and ethnic location of individuals in diaspora , can only really be described as an "in-between".
In the initial stories of Shyam Selvadurai's Funny Boy, the narrating character, Arjie, is obsessed by ideas of romance, love, and marriage. This interest, which governs most of his childhood, leads him to discover and understand more serious aspects of his life, such as his homosexuality and the political tension in his homeland.
At the spend-the-days at his grandparents' house, Arjie conducts the game of "bride-bride," where he and all the girl cousins create an elaborate pretend wedding in which Arjie stars as bride. In the world they construct, gender does not play a part until Her Fatness, a cousin who has recently returned from time overseas, intervenes. Her insistence that "A boy cannot be the bride ... a girl must be the bride" imposes gender roles onto the idealized world of "bride-bride" (11). In this way, the world of the adults intrudes into the pretend world of the children and requires them to even play in ways that are socially proper. In doing so, they become aware of conventions of the world outside of their game. A similar insistence from Amma that "boys must play with other boys" shows the opposition between reality and the idealism of "bride-bride" (20).
The role of bride is given to the person who plays it best, namely Arjie, instead of a girl cousin. The bride is not even seen as particularly female, as is evident in the scene where Arjie is dressing up as bride. In that passage, he considers the activity not dressing up as a woman, but rather as inhabiting the highly symbolic role of bride as "icon." Arjie as bride is free to acknowledge himself as transcending the "constraints of [him]self, and transcend into another, more brilliant, more beautiful self" (4). There is no language of gender or sexuality, only of idealized, neutral forms. Arjie's awareness that he perhaps does not belong with either the girl cousins or the boy cousins can be seen in this genderless language. His unwillingness to associate himself with a gender in his "more beautiful self" shows his recognition that he is "caught between the boys' and the girls' worlds, not belonging or wanted in either" (39). This concept is a precursor of his later recognition of his homosexuality, but in the innocent, simplified terms of a child.
Radha Aunty's appearance marks another rift between the innocence of childhood and the realities of life. When Arjie first hears of her return to Sri Lanka and her engagement, his imagination works to produce a mental image of his aunt as someone "separated from everyday people, because she inhabited the realm of romance and marriage" (45). Although his idealization of her is shattered when he meets her, they become close friends because she is willing to indulge his excitement for weddings. Through their friendship, Arjie is exposed to the social problems that the Tamil/Sinhalese conflict creates. Radha and Anil's tense relationship and the secrecy it requires contradict Arjie's conceptions of love and romance, which have been lifted mostly from movies and love comics. His investigation into the cause of their strange and secretive relationship leads him to discover the racial tensions in Sri Lanka plaguing society. As his awareness of the political problems in Sri Lanka grows, so does the severity of the conflict until it finally culminates in violence.
As Arjie grows older, his eyes open to things that would have previously gone over his head, such as civil strife and culturally appropriate gender roles. His love for romance only serves to make these things more clear, as they disrupt the idealizations that he holds dear. These broken ideals usher out the era of his childhood and prepare him for the tumultuous events of his later life.
1. In Funny Boy, the Western world often merges with the Sri Lankan culture, sometimes to a disastrous effect. The influences of the West bring additional tension to pre-existing problems. For example, the conceit displayed by "Her Fatness" about having spent time abroad adds another facet to the conflict between she and Arjie. "Her Fatness" uses Western objects and words to try to gain power over the other cousins, only to end up as their enemy. Why does this attempt to gain power backfire? Is the appeal of the West as strong for the children as it is for the adults? Do the Western words she learned abroad, such as "faggot," hold any power inside of Sri Lanka? Later in the novel, the construction of a Western-style hotel provides a center for the escalation of civil conflict. Why does this instance of Sri Lankan social strife take place in a Westernized setting? What aspects of the conflict are heightened by the juxtaposition of the Western world with Sri Lanka? Does the presence of a Western object, such as a hotel, compel Sri Lankans to strengthen their ethnic identity?
2. The account of Arjie's youth contains a number of relationships in which at least one person is a woman. Of these relationships, the most nurturing ones tend not to occur between mothers and their children. Mothers take the role of enforcer and disciplinarian, coming down strictly on their children when they think that they have erred. For example, Ammachi interferes with Radha Aunty's relationship with Anil because of her need to make her child follow her politics. How does the strength of the maternal figures in the book compare or contrast with the larger societal structure of Sri Lanka? What messages could the mother's role as a strict disciplinarian convey about the role of family in Sri Lankan life? Is respect for tradition the main driving force behind maternal discipline? Additionally, women outside of the immediate family structure are shown as being nurturing and loving. Radha indulges Arjie's love of dress-up, just as Janaki allows him to read her love-comics. Do their nurturing tendencies display their maternal tendencies that are yet untapped, or do they express their opposition to the harsh role of mother? Why is it that Arjie consistently turns to women when he is in need of emotional support?
3.
Now I was beginning to understand why Ammachi had been so angry. Part of her anger was because Anil was Sinhalese, but another part, I now saw, had to do with her fear that Anil and Radha Aunty were in love. [65]
In what forms do the different ethnic identities (Tamil, Sinhalese, Burgher) dictate the power structures of relationships among characters? Examine specifically the relationships between Radha Aunty and Anil, Amma and Daryl Uncle, and Arjie and Shehan. Do these relationships manage to subvert their ethnicities, or do they simply reinforce already existing conflicts?


4. What had happened between us in the garage was not wrong. For how could loving Shehan be bad? Yet if my parents or anybody else discovered this love, I would be in terrible trouble. I thought of how unfair this was and I was reminded of things I had seen happen to other people, like Jegan, or even Radha Aunty, who, in their own way, had experienced injustice. [267)]
Examine the way in which Arjie's understanding of his identity as sexual "other" develops alongside his understanding of himself as ethnic "other" or outsider. Look specifically at his conception of "justice" and how it is informed by the incidents in the text. Is this parallel between sexuality and ethnicity visible in any other characters in the novel?
5. As Kanthi Aunty reveals Arjie's "funniness" to the adults, his role in the familial structure suddenly changes. No longer is he just a child playing an innocent game of dress-up. Although he does not fully understand why, he becomes the frequent familial accomplice. Kanthi Aunty's action creates a new role for Arjie to play in his close-knit family.
Arjie's "secret" (which he does not even understand) builds a bond between his family members, particularly women, who also conceal something. Both Radha Aunty and Amma take him into their confidence to keep their individual secrets from the rest of the family. Radha Aunty uses Arjie as a pretext when meeting with Anil. She claims to Mala Aunty " 'Our friend' - meaning [Arjie] - 'has to use the toilet.' She pressed my hand hard, warning me not to seem surprised" (80). Although no one else can know of her relationship with Anil, Arjie is entrusted with the great secret. Arjie's own mother expects him to keep her own affair with Daryl Uncle private. Amma trusts Arjie not to reveal that "Daryl Uncle was with us all the time" while on their vacation in the hill country (113). Both women exploit Arjie's trust, innocence, and "funniness" for their own benefit. A definite commonality between all three's secrets bind them together.
Why do two adults put so much trust in a young boy? How is the kinship created? Is there a connection between the two women's secrets and Arjie's, as dealing with sexuality? Can Arjie truly understand the familial ridicule Radha Aunty and Amma will experience if their secrets are revealed? Do they share their secrets with him because he may understand their desire to commit an act that directly contradicts the norm?
6. Initially, Arjie does not even understand what Cyril Uncle is inferring when he claims "looks like you have a funny one here" after Arjie's Bride-Bride costume is revealed (14). Arjie takes the word funny to me an "humorous or strange," not "homosexual reference," as his uncle intends (17). Arjie's father sees "funny" as a negative state of being, something Arjie can become that will result in ridicule and contempt from everyone else. Eventually, Arjie understands his father and uncle's conception of "funny" when his friendship with Shehan escalates physically. He finally realizes that "the difference within me that I sometimes felt...it was shared by Shehan" (250). In this instance, Arjie defines "funny" as a deviation from the norm that both he and Shehan experience. However, Arjie does not hold the same disgust that his own father has for individuals who are "funny." Yet, he is riddled with guilt after he commits another revealing and defining act, like his Bride-Bride game.
How else is "funny" used throughout Selvadurai's novel? What role does "funny" play in other people's lives? How does Selvadurai's manipulation of the word "funny" affect the meaning as each character holds a different understanding of the word?

 

Filling the Void: Oppression in Funny Boy


Summary:   Social contrasts and gender boundaries create oppression and injustice amongst the characters in Shyam Selvadurai's Funny Boy. Oppression emerges within the Chelvaratnam family, who are displeased by Arjie's "tendencies", and the likelihood that he will grow up "funny." Oppression also surfaces between the Sinhalese and Tamils with ethnic riots in Sri Lanka's society.
Social contrasts and gender boundaries create oppression and injustice amongst the characters in Shyam Selvadurai's Funny Boy. This injustice affects the composure and behaviour of the characters throughout the novel and it appears in every aspect throughout Funny Boy. Oppression emerges within the Chelvaratnam family, who are displeased by Arjie's "tendencies", and the likelihood that he will grow up "funny." Oppression also surfaces between the Sinhalese and Tamils with ethnic riots in Sri Lanka's society. Even when Arjie is not involved, he still manages to appear at the center of every oppressive and unjust situation.
Arjie experiences his first gender boundary when he is no longer permitted to play with the other girls during his spend-the-days. He is forced to conform to his family's' belief of normality. This is an interesting situation, because the fact that the only boy was the bride every time the girls played was never an issue to the other children. The only time Arjie's gender became an issue was when jealousy became a factor; he was forbidden to have any part of the girls' game, unless he took on the male's role. "That Her Fatness wanted me to swallow the bitter pill of humiliation was clear, and so great was my longing to be part of the girls' world again that I swallowed it" (30). This was Arjie's first direct experience, (but not to be his last) with a gender boundary. Even the setting in the novel is divided into gender territories, at the grandparents' house, the boys and the girls had specific play areas. "Territorially, the area around my grandparents' house was divided into two" (3). The front yard belonged to the boys and the back yard to the girls. "It was to this territory of "the girls," confined to the back garden and the kitchen porch, that I seemed to have gravitated naturally..." (3). The girls' territory, being near the kitchen and the garden is typical of the female's role; a woman works in the kitchen and around the household. The boys' territory, pertaining to the road and the field; is typical of the male's role in society, a man does hard labour and comes home to a well kept household.





Fortunately for Arjie's self esteem, his newly returned Radha Aunty takes pity on him, and recovers what is left of his self-respect by letting him play with her jewellery and make-up. Radha Aunty feels the direct impact of injustice and oppression from her family. The families' attitude towards Radha Aunty is an inflexible disapproval, when it is discovered that she is secretly seeing a Sinhalese man. The classic matriarch, Ammachi, takes control in determining the fate of her daughter. The relationship between Anil and Radha Aunty causes tension not only within the family, but also gossip within the community. Anil and Radha Aunty realize that their relationship could not possibly work out optimistically in the end .".. [I] believed that if two people loved each other everything was possible. Now, I knew that this was not so" (97). Maintaining a good reputation for the family name was more important to Radha Aunty's family, than for them to put aside ethnic differences for her happiness.
Daryl Uncle helps Arjie's sense of confidence by giving Arjie the sequels of his favourite novel: Little Women, Arjie would not ask his father to buy these sequels for him. "I wanted to reach out and hug him, but, feeling that this was inappropriate, I thanked him instead" (109). This simple act shows Arjie an adult male's acceptance that he desperately needed. There is an immediate sense of disapproval by Amma towards Daryl Uncle for his act of kindness towards Arjie; Daryl does not recognize the situation with Arjie that Amma and Appa are trying to reverse. "She was looking at Daryl Uncle and there was an expression on her face I had never seen before" (109). The sudden arrival of Daryl Uncle to the Chelvaratnam family also brought a new set of problems. Arjie's attachment to Daryl Uncle is quickly followed by the death of Daryl Uncle, this forces Arjie to grow up much faster than he should have to. When Arjie is reminiscing about Daryl Uncle, he turns to a chapter in Little Women that no longer brings him pleasure "The world the characters lived in, where good was rewarded and evil punished, seemed suddenly false to me" (149). Daryl Uncle's torturous death at the hands of the Sinhalese police forecasts Sri Lanka's deteriorating ethnic situation. Amma brings Arjie along with her as she throws herself directly in the center of the violently, oppressive situation between the two opposing ethnic groups. Arjie learns that there is nothing that can be done to bring the killer of Daryl Uncle to justice, and this is would be a harsh reality for any adult to understand, let alone for a young boy to have to face.
Arjie's non-masculine qualities leave his father no choice but to transfer his son to the Victorian Academy. This transfer appears to be Appa's final attempt to correct Arjie's future. "The Academy will force you to become a man" (205). Once Arjie becomes accustomed to his new school, he becomes what his family had always feared. Arjie's sexuality is no longer deniable by him nor is it changeable by his family any longer. The cultural spitefulness also transfers to the school yard between the Tamil's and the Sinhalese. A power struggle develops between the Buddhist and cruel, yet non-discriminatory school principal and the Sinhalese-chauvinist vice-principal; it is believed that Black Tie is associated with the harassment of the minority Tamil students by their Sinhalese peers.
Arjie's innocence and confusion make him such an appealing character. When the oppression he experiences from his family is added to his character, this makes Arjie even more engaging. The social contrasts between the ethnic groups in Sri Lanka and the difficulties experienced by Arjie are what truly make the overall presentation of the novel so enticing and powerful.
Works Cited
Selvadurai, Shyam. Funny Boy. Orlando: Harcourt Brace & Company, 1994.

 


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