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Pigs Cant Fly

• Gender and Nation

Sri Lanka
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What have we discussed so far?

• Childrens Experiences in a postcolonial society
• Street kids in a city
• Betrayal and Survival
• From Bride-Bride game
• to raising a child
• From friends in a garden
• to loss, betrayal and sense of fragmentation

• Salaam Bombay
• Gainda
• Earth

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Outline

• Introduction the author, the book and Sri Lanka
• Pigs Cant Fly
• I. Childhood Games and Social System
• II. Battle for Power and Gender Boundaries
• III. Ending

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The Author Shyam Selvadurai

• Born Colombo, Sri Lanka, 1963
• Father Tamil, mother Sinhalese
• Immigrated to Canada, 1984. -- his family forced
  into exile after the 1983 racial riot against the
  Tamil in Colombo.
• Education York University, Toronto.
• Funny Boy A Novel in Six Stories --read by the
  Sri Lankan President and prompted a national
  debate on the need to repeal the antisodomy law
  in the country (Salgado 100)

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Funny Boy Structure

• Funny Boy set against the increasing violence
  between a between Sinhalese and Tamil in Sri
  Lank, culminating in the civil war which lasted
  for almost a decade(1983-1991).
• The protagonist, "Arjie" Chelvaratnam, is the
  second-son of a privileged middle-class Tamil
  family in Colombo.

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Funny Boy

• Connected stories of how Arjie is continually
  isolated from his family and then exiled from his
  society because of his gender orientation and the
  societys racial tensions and despite attempts at
  breaking boundaries and rebellion.
• "Pigs Can't Fly-- 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.
• "Radha Aunty" --Arjie's Aunt Radha, and her
  doomed affair with a Sinhalese man.

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Funny Boy

• "See No Evil, Hear No Evil-- his mother's
  extra-marital affair with a childhood sweetheart.
  
• "Small Choices" --chronicles one of Arjie's first
  crushes a puppy love obsession with a young man
  employed by his Father
• The Best School of All Arjies experience of
  the conflicts between colonial education and
  Sinhalese nativism, between his need to conform
  and his love for Shehan.
• "Riot Journal" -- first hand accounts of
  anti-Tamil violence.

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Tamil vs. Sinhalese

• Sinhalese(????)migrated from Northern India to
  Sri Lanka since 5th-6th century BCE, while Tamil
  (????) came from Southern India around since 2th
  BCE.
• Sinhalese -- Buddhism
• Tamil -- Hinduism, more sent to Sri Lanka by the
  British government and supported by the latter.
• Since its independence as Ceylon, the Sinhalese
  (80 majority) put forth Sinhala Only Law in
  support of their political power, which causes
  discontent among the Tamil people (20).

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Documentary

• 300 Tamil imported to Sri Lanka by the British
• Sinhalese rise to power after Independence
• Civil War 400 the burning of the library ? 519
  1983 retalion of Tamils
• History updated
• 1983-2006 -- civil war (4 peace talks, 100,000
  people dead)
• 2004 striken by South Asian tsunami about
  35,000 dead
• 2009 -- LTTE defeated

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Central Questions

• Why cant pigs fly? (See 19)
• What does the sky mean?
• What does being funny mean?
• Is he funny because he is homosexual?

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The title

• Funny --either humorous or strange (17) disgust
• But Meena also crosses gender boundaries in
  playing the cricket game.
• The other girls do, too, in the bride-bride
  game.
• Arjies view of being a bride (5) and jewel and
  sari (15)
• ? the story is about the ideological system (the
  sky), and the power struggles within it.

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Plot Summary

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Discussion QuestionsI. Childhood Games and
Social System

• What does "spend-the-day" mean for both the
  adults and the kids, maybe excepting the servant
  cook who cannot have a break? (pp. 1-2)
• How are the boys' game and girls' game divided up
  and located? (p. 3)
• What are the rules of the boys' cricket game and
  the girls' Bride-Bride?   Do these rules make
  sense?   Do these groups' structure reflect that
  of adults, or not? 

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Childrens World and Their Views of the Adults

• Avoid Mamachi (2) and Janaki
• The dark corridor (2)
• Territoriality and leadership (3)
• Girls territory? potential for free play of
  fantasy (4)

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The Girls Game

• Arjie as the leader because of the force of his
  imagination(p. 4)
• His imagination allows him to "leave the
  constraints of his self and ascend into
  another, more brilliant, more beautiful self"
  (5).
• Still conditioned by the goddesses of the
  Sinhalese and Tamil cinema (breaking the racial
  boundary).
• A world for girls the groom the most useless
  (p. 6)

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The Boys GameCricket

• Competition -- with winning as the goal
• trading players
• less powerful ones e.g. Sanjay
• girlie-boy Arjie
• the batting order p. 26
• Numbers marked in the sand for the players to
  step on
• The older and better ones play first

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II. Battle for Power and Gender Boundaries

• Why does Her Fatness want to be the bride?
• What gender roles do Arjie and Her Fatness take
  respectively in their power struggle? 
• How does Arjie cross gender boundaries? Who else
  does so, too?
• What does the ending mean?  

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The Childrens Struggle for Power

• Her Fatness in need of attention
• An outsider pp. 6-
• Kanthi Aunt her anger (pp. 7-8)
• Wins attention
• by lying about not having a friend (7)
• by showing off the dolls (p. 8) which is less
  powerful than the bride-bride game
• by playing a loud groom (9)
• by appealing to traditional gender boundaries
  (11) A girl must be the bride.

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Arjies Fight back Failure

• Insisting on the rule to be the first one to play
  ? so that he becomes offensive and can run away
• the sari in the bag as a weapon
• Agrees to play the groom, and then attracts the
  other girls attention.
• Sari gone so is his power.

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Ending The Sea vs. the System

• Amachi and her cane p. 38
• The seaside and the tall building as a mirage p.
  38
• Exiled

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References

• Salgado, minoli. Writing Sri Lanka Literature,
  Resistance the Politics of Place. NY
  Routledge, 2007.
• 1. BBC Sri LankaTamil Tigers Evolution of the
  Ethnic War
• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vt1UnhPq8Pio
• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vArqcfDhHg9o

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Reference (2)

• Mukkuthinose ornament