Representation of the Subalterns in Sonia Faleiro’s Beautiful Thing: Inside the Secret World of Bombay’s Dance Bars

Abstract

The thesis portrays the isolation and alienation of the bar dancers in the novel Beautiful Thing by using the subaltern theories of Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Dipesh Chakravorty David Ludden, Antonio Gramschi etc. The primary subaltern female characters Leela, Anita, Priya, Sangeeta are Indian who are grown up in Indian rustic society and raped by their own relatives, are pushed in the world of brothel and dance bar. In the novel Beautiful Thing, the male society dominated the female characters, They have to surrender themselves within the backdrop of male patriarchy. The internalized ethos of male culture is evident in the psyche, which are rigorously submitted to male patriarchal culture. They stand to fight for their existence achieving their goals in life. One becomes weaker not because they tend to be but because they are made to.