The Centre and the Margin in The Novel Kovaeru Kazhuthaigal

கோவேறு கழுதைகள் நாவலில் மையமும் விளிம்பும்

Abstract

Imayam (b. 1964) is a notable writer who has recorded the lives of marginalised people in modern Tamil literature, and his novel Kovaeru Kazhuthaigal (1994) is among his most important works. This article examines how the novel constructs the “centre” and the “margin” and how spatial power operates through them. In the novel, the village is organised as a caste-based structure of power. The streets and public spaces of the dominant castes form the centre, where land, water, livestock, and the means of production are concentrated. The washerman and Chakkiliyar settlements and the Dalit colony (cheri) are pushed to the margin. The article shows that this division is not merely geographical. It expresses social authority, economic domination, and cultural supremacy. The analysis shows that the centre depends on exploiting the labour of service castes, who are denied fair wages and due respect. It also shows that the opposition between purity and impurity shapes the spaces themselves: the dominant-caste streets are regarded as clean and honourable, while the marginal settlements are associated with scrub forest, filth, and unsafe surroundings. The article further considers women, who are doubly oppressed by caste and gender and can be called the “margin of the margin”. Their movement and bodies are controlled by caste power, as the sexual threat faced by Mary and the restriction of her movement show. The article concludes that the novel presents space as a socio-political structure formed by caste, power, labour, and gender, and that the prosperity and power of the centre are built on the labour of the margin.