Gender Roles In The Collaborator

Young men in patriarchal societies encouraged to act in ways so that societal norms remain intact. In war zones when home and life are under threat and invaded upon, these norms get further strengthened. Young men are supposed to act out their masculinities by resisting the military invasion. The expectation to uphold the gender roles becomes far more demanding in war zones. In the context of the novel The Collaborator we see how often the narrator feels ashamed of himself as all his friends join the Jehad against India leaving him alone. He suffers acutely for this reason. As he goes through the ruins and witness the atrocities of war on his village and on himself, he feels disoriented. In his reflections over his past life, we see how fractured he is. He goes through life as if he were under a spell. He observes sharply the doings of Army, but he does not know what is happening to himself. In these highly charged and unsettling times, we get to know about his sexuality which under normal circumstances would have

They all leave him. They always held a special zone, of which the narrator was not a part. Latter being left alone, he searches them. He becomes a collaborator with the Indian army in order to know about his gone friends. While he gets to know a lot about the Indian army´s styles of functioning, and he becomes involved in carrying out their everyday work, in a small but extremely hideous way. However, while he reflects a lot on his gone friends, on the dead bodies, on the charred forests, heavily shelled mountains, and delves deeper into his own history, on the good days of his childhood. He somehow loses himself. He pays for his life by not losing it, by not taking up a gun and shooting himself or someone else, by not taking some damn position. He turns out to be the most damaged character who suffers in multiple