The Politics of Performativity in T.D. Ramakrishnan’sFrancis Itty Cora

Abstract

T.D. Ramakrishnan is one of the most significant voices in contemporary Malayalam Fiction, having received both the Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award and Vayalar Award for his contribution to Malayalam literature. Ramakrishnan’s Francis Itty Cora is a postmodern novel that foregrounds multiple discourses within its narrative space, and this multifaceted nature of the novel offers endless perspectives to deliberate on. This paper attempts to delineate the gender discourse implicit in Francis Itty Cora, which is just one among the many that captures the attention of its readers. With reference to Butler, this study discusses how unconventional gender roles are curbed by culture and society, thereby limiting gender troubling or resistance against established gender norms. Reading the novel through Butler’s concept of performativity and Foucault’s theorisation of disciplinary power, this paper examines how Francis Itty Cora stages and ultimately forecloses the possibility of genuine gender subversion. The women who populate Ramakrishnan’s narrative variously attempt to perform beyond the boundaries of normative femininity only to be surveilled, punished or destroyed by the regulatory apparatus of patriarchal society, confirming that the politics of performativity is never simply a matter of individual subversion. The study is also informed by Mohanty’s postcolonial feminist caution, remaining attentive throughout to the Kerala cultural context within which the novel’s gender politics are rooted.