THE TREATMENT OF MALE CHARACTERS IN ENGLISH / TAMIL ANDOCENTRIC NOVELS: A SELECT STUDY (Pages 08-28) by K. Radjalatchoumy and Clement S Lourdes in THE ENGLISH RESEARCH EXPRESS / ISSN:2321-1164 (Online); 2347-2642 (Print)

This paper focuses on how the male protagonists in the English / Tamil novels have been treated in the male-centric novel, since it is a hot topic of discussion in many forums, scholarly meetings, research fields, literary avenues and in mass Medias. We thought of these ideas as new to the public as so many were trying to give voices to the Gender issues in recent past. But, when we look back into those past generations of novelists and readers of the nineteenth and twentieth century’s, we can learn that the ideas regarding man/woman and her issues is not new rather it is old. Many social reformers and writers of English have discussed the gender issues in their own style of writing. They let their writings to speak-up in favor of males, whereas in reality they were focusing their attention on the new concept of woman they try to project and analyses in their writings. Like present, the past generation too were engaged in the interest of the women empowerment and tried to narrate their ideas by putting-forth the male characters as subjects and females as subsidiary. Yet, it does not place women in the negatives but rather pays more attention towards the male perspective point of view, their position in the society and the representation of human condition of woman in the organized socio-system. Keywords: Andocentric, patriarchy, new man, marriage, religion, monogamy, polygamy, angel of the house, feminism etc.