The Representation of Cultural Materialism in Arundhati Roy's The Ministry of Utmost Happiness (original) (raw)

Cultural Materialism is a way of Marxist approach to Anthropological studies which is started from 1980's in by Marvin Harris. It defines the cultural similarities and difference in a social framework which is responsible for the cultural change. It intends three primary influences on cultural change which is the Infrastructure, Structure and Superstructure. Arundhati Roy, the first Indian to win the Booker Award for her debut work The God of Small Things (1997), describes the lives of Kerala people who were the captives of Communism and the caste system. Her second novel, The Ministry of Utmost Happiness (2018) is the political journey of India for the past twenty years. In this novel, Roy traces the hegemonical notion of Superstructure which is destructed the cultural harmony of the social framework. The paper aims at the subversion of power struggle not to become dominant group but escape from the exploitation of canonical societies. Cultural Materialism is a term coined by Marvin Harris in his text The Rise of Anthropological Theory (1968) which included three anthropological schools of thoughts that are Marxism materialism, cultural evolution and cultural ecology. It is a Marxist approach to Anthropological studies which highlights the material, behavioural and ethic process of human in socio-cultural evolution of the social structure. Anthropology denotes the study of human and human behaviours in relation to the society in the outlook of present and the past. As an expansion of Marxism, Cultural Materialism enlightens the similarities and differences as well as models for cultural change within a societal framework. The social construction is divided into three different levels: Infrastructure, Structure and Superstructure. Infrastructure is the "material realities" such as technological, economic and reproductive factor which denotes the demographic aspects of a society that mold and influence the other two aspects of culture. It is simply material in nature which consists of the technology (mode of production), population (mode of reproduction) and social practices by which the society fits in to its environment. It is also manipulated the society by modifying the amount of type of resources needed. The stability between population level and consumption of energy is balanced by modes of production and reproduction. Structure is the next important component of the socio-cultural systems which consists of the controlled patterns of social life among the members of the society. It maintains a secure relationship among the people and its constitutional groups and neighbouring societies. It includes the organizational aspects of culture such as kinship system, domestic economy and political economy. Superstructure is the last sector which contains the ideological and symbolic aspects of the society. Religion is one of the most important ideology and symbolic progressions includes Behavioural Superstructure (art, literature, rituals, games and hobbies) and Mental Superstructure (myths, philosophies and religion). Every writer involved on the problems of suffering people and the rebellious people, they described particular social issues in their literary texts either in fictional or non-fiction. One such author created a center of attention for all social issues both in fictional and non-fictional texts with lot of field works among the victims is Suzzanna Arundhati Roy (1961-still), the first Indian to win the Booker Prize for her novel The God of Small Things (1997). She is also a peace activist and involved in Politics, Human Rights and Environmental Causes. Arundhati Roy's first novel The God of Small Things described the Casteism among the South Indians. Most of the characters are Syrian Christians who followed the caste system and suppressed the lower caste. The book brought name and fame for her. The recent second novel The Ministry of Utmost Happiness (2017) had a long gap of 20 years. Between these two novels she wrote a lot of essays on social and political issues. She is the spokesperson of Anti-globalization and Neo-colonialism in India. She is a strong critic of U.S Foreign policies like Nuclear weapon, War against Terrorism and Privatization. Reading the essays of Roy is like being blasted by a hot wind of anger. Roy raged against the broken world, against the poverty, war and horrific attacks of millions of minorities including Muslims, Christians, Dalits, Tribes and Adivasis, and the mechanization of the Multinational corporate companies.