Assignment

“The role of various characters in

4/10/2020 generating or degenerating
Patriarchy in the Ice Candy Man”
Theme Of Patriarchy

• Potent voice among the modern feminist writers

• The only Parsee woman to write on the theme of partition.
• Its protagonists are mostly women and each of them represents a way of life that either
colludes with the premises of patriarchy or else challenges the patriarchal repressiveness
in the most unassuming manner.
 Patriarchy is a social system in which men hold primary power and women are largely
excluded from it.
 Women are treated very mercilessly by the men as well as society

Characterization

She is a keen observer. Her physical movement is restricted due to her infirmity. It is only her
Hindu Ayah Shanta who is her true companion. When Shanta is abducted, she feels herself
Ayahless and alone in the world. The lameness of the narrator – protagonist is suggestive of
handicap, a woman creative writer faces, but when she decides to wield the pen, because writing
is an intellectual exercise, is considered a male bastion, outside the routine of women ;
submissive domesticity.

Ayah

She is a Hindu girl of eighteen and everything about her is also eighteen years old. Though she is
employed with considerate masters, her condition is that of an unprotected girl whom everybody
treats only as a sex object. Looking at Ayah, Lenny also becomes conscious of her sexuality.
Ayah is a flame of sensuous pleasure. Later on she is abducted, raped and became the mistress of
Ice candy man who makes her a dancing girl and forces her to change her religion.

God Mother

She’s a social worker whose character is very close to protagonist, has extreme love for ayah,
deals with ice candy man and rescues her.
Ice Candy Man

Bapsi Sidhwa potrayts the character of ice-candy man in generating patriarchal. He loved to
Ayah, but when he knew about the relationship of Ayah with Masseur, he brutally killed to
Masseur in the revenge. Later on he sold out Ayah in the red-light area because she was also a
Hindu girl. Later on, he married to Ayah, so here is clearly shown the patriarchy by the character
of ice-candy man.

Conclusion

In a patriarchal society all the good qualities are associated with males and all the weakness is
with female but in the ice candy man all the strong qualities are associated with female. The
female characters are aware and very much confident of their individuality like Lenny , Shanta ,
Lenny’s mother and God mother.