The Representation of Unattainable Love in T.S Pillai’s Chemmeen

Abstract

This paper clearly focuses on The Representation of Unattainable love in T.S Pillai’s Chemmeen. Chemmeen is one of the celebrated works in Indian Literature. He is known as Malayalam novelist and Short story writer. His novels and short stories mostly focused on oppressed classes of Kerala in the mid twentieth century. Chemmeen is translated by Anita Nair from Malayalam into English in 2011. The author portrays Karuthamma and Pareekutty as lovers in the novel. The pitiable lovers of the novel are playing a vital role in the novel. They struggle a lot to express their love each other. They don’t even express their love through words but through eyes, they speak a lot. The lovers love to speak and spend time with one another. Both of them are unable to reach the destination of marriage. The tradition, customs and society are the major reasons of the unattainable love of Karuthamma and Pareekutty. They are unable to hide their love from one another when problem occurs. The author clearly presents happiness and pain of the lovers. Further, the writer describes their suffering in life without their loved one. The protagonist belongs to the fisher community. Her lover is known as Muslim trader. As per the customs of fisher community, a fisher woman should not maintain a relationship with a man belonging to another community.