Redefining the Institutions of Marriage and Family in Shyam Selvadurai’s Novel Cinnamon Gardens

Abstract

The fact is that Shyam Selvadurai’s Cinnamon Gardens (1998) revolves around marriage and family as mechanisms through which colonial society controls gender relations and identities. The novel unfolds in Colombo in 1927-1928 during the time of British colonial modernity versus the native traditions which leads to a conflict of personal desires against collective aspirations. As the novel advances, the novelist Shyam Selvadurai moves colonial politics from the public sphere into the private sphere, where marriage, kinship, and family honour act as devices of controlling women’s liberation, masculinity, and social life on the whole. In the novel Cinnamon Gardens, the novelist rather than perceiving marriage as a relationship of romantic interests, it demonstrates it as an institution that benefits classes, ethnic groups, and men. The author investigates Annalukshmi's learning ambitions and Balendran Navaratnam’s concealed sexual orientation to prove that personal relationships are sites of tension between traditionalism and modernity as such. However, Cinnamon Gardens emphasizes the ordinary discussions of the domestic sphere such as marriage and family, while also depicting a strong critique of colonial social institutions. In this context, the family is depicted as a space of friction in which resistance occurs in the form of education, moral choice, and emotional sincerity. The author seems to show that social change is possible not just in the political sphere, but also in the private sphere where identity-building takes place. The present research paper perceives the institutions of marriage and family in a more effective way in the colonial era and also identifies these institutions as a tool of social stability.