Name -: Rahul Roll No.-: 2020UEE0120 Gender And Fiction Gender and fictions -: In fictions, gender describe how writers and characters define themselves and how society judge them based on their gender. In gender fictions we talk about the gender novels. So, gender novel are those types of novels which have the central idea based on gender identity, gender equality. The main idea of the gender novels is to respond at contemporary issues within societies in regards to the perception of gender across the world. There are many factors which explain the role of gender in fiction or literature. So, some of these factors are following -: • Choice of characters -: In fictions male characters often take the leading role of the fiction for establishing their physical power. Female characters had to accept authority without any choice of freedom and independence. • Perception of the author’s gender -: Men writers had a serious advantage in telling their own stories. In contrast, women’s writing was considered immoral, treated with bias, and harshly criticized. As a result, they had to publish under male pseudonyms to have a chance of professional acceptance among writers. • Gendered language -: For example, it includes using masculine pronouns (he, him, his) to refer to people in general. This tendency occurred as a result of the historical patriarchy where being a man was a norm, and a woman was marked as “the other.” Our literature and fiction had a significant role in increasing the patriotic society. For a long time in the history books only contain the biography of men and ignored stories of women. In history of literature there are some common things which are defined for women such as the virgin is a pure woman whose main function is to get married and child birth, The mother is a woman who does all the things for support her child. History of gender fictions -: In gender fictions main theme of the fiction is to plot an idea about the gender. Initial debate for gender in these types of fiction are gender equality, gender stereotypes or the reversal of the gender. Some of the gender novels are following “The Left hand of Darkness” written in 20th century, “Middlesex” by Jeffrey Eugenides in 2002 and the theme of the novel is deal with issues of gender. It's not Essex or Wessex or Sussex: it's freaking Middlesex. Born intersex with primarily male features but raised female, Cal is right smack in between two genders, and he has to learn to rationalize them both. And “The Symptoms of Human Being” by Jeff Garvin in 2016 is a gender novel having the subject of transgender and genderqueer. This novel was a first in the representation of gender-fluid people, and was well received by critics and audiences alike Role of gender in different types of fictions -: • Role of gender in crime fiction -: Crime fictions includes the detective stories, murder stories. In those fiction we can see that main character in detective stories is man and woman are ignored. There are potential problems with gender representations even in supposedly feminist crime fiction, the inclusion of themes that do not concern male detectives, the idea of family and marriage preoccupy the minds of Carol and V.I. where they would not be a concern for their male counterparts as do self-doubt and self-criticism. • Role of gender in Science fiction -: Let’s take the example of the novel “The Left Hand of Darkness” is a 20th century novel written by Ursula K. Le. Guin, it is a science fiction novel. The main theme of this novel is social relations in a society where gender is irrelevant. This novel focuses on the idea that feminine attributes are created as a consequence of living in a patriarchal society. • Role of gender in horror fiction -: In particular, the gender roles of the character archetypes depicted women as inferior to men in horror fiction. The monster-like characters on the posters were masculine and they were often targeting young, beautiful women. In horror fictions woman had more roles as compared to the man. Now we see the gender in the Indian novel “Godan” written by Munshi Premchand. This novel is written in 1936. This novel describes the story of a poor farmer named Hori who has a strong desire to buy a cow. In this novel there are some Dalit women character named Dhania, Jhunia and Selia. In this novel those character suffer sexual oppression, economic exploitation and socio-cultural subjugation due to unequal gender relations. They suffer humiliation, deprivation and isolation by virtue of gender. They face dual oppression firstly being Dalit and secondly being women. Being Dalit, they suffer due to unequal caste distinctions and being a woman, they are victimized by the patriarchal social order both in their homes and in the outside world. Therefore, they are alienated at three levels - caste, class and gender positions which makes the violence against them unbridled. This novel talks about the position of a woman in village patriarchies—Brahminical or feudal is still governed by defining parameters of caste, class, gender and religion. Here we see the many aspects of gender in fictions. Now see some of the gendered sterotypes. In fictions we always saw the world like house wife not house husband and also for “carrier woman” not the “carrier man”. We have the word “emasculation” to describe the taking away of a man’s masculinity but there is no equivalent term for woman. In India we use the word “Bharat Mata” for representation of our nation, we not use “Bharat Pita”. So, here we can see that at many places we took the woman in lead and at many places we took man as in lead. In the conclusion we can say that by the help of gender fictions and novels our society is in under a change which gives apperantly same rights as man have. So gender novel change the mind set of people regarding gender, sexulity.
