A Critical Stylistics Analysis of Roy’s The Ministry of Utmost Happiness

Abstract

This study makes an attempt to undertake the critical stylistics analysis of Roy’s The Ministry of Utmost Happiness (2017). The study analyzes the discourses used for depicting gender identity, violence, social injustice, and humanism in the seemingly simple and reader-friendly novel of Roy’s The Ministry of Utmost Happiness (2017). The study was qualitative in nature and was based on an interpretivist paradigm. The study was conducted using Jeffries’ The Critical Stylistic, the power of English (2010) as a theoretical framework, which expresses the power dynamics implied in the text, the social values and the cultural norms. In order to collect the relevant data for the analysis the researchers had used purposive sampling technique in the current study. The selected data was analyzed through Belsey’s (2013) textual analysis model. The analysis revealed that in The Ministry of Utmost Happiness (2017), Roy has used naming and describing, implying and assuming, negating, equating and contrasting, exemplifying and enumerating, Prioritizing, and hypothesizing to integrate identity, marginalization, political resistance, love, loss and interconnectedness as dominant themes.