Reading ‘Dimple’ as a Typecast Trans Woman Character in Jeet Thayil’s Narcopolis

Abstract

This research paper studies the formulaic typecasting of the trans woman, Dimple in a role that has been appropriated by the writers in general thus proving deteriorating for the development of the trans woman character in the novel Narcopolis and explores how much of her character traits are not explored in order to truly understand the character. A trans woman is a “female” who was assigned “male” at birth and then decides to go after her true self, after discovering her identity as one. The novel is written in the year 2012 but the story dates back to 1970s and the writer has tried to make the character relatable to that era. However, as the novel is written for generation Z, it could have experimented with the character of the trans women, keeping in view the latest developments of the Rights of the LGBTQIA+ community and their efforts to erase the stereotypes held against them. The character of 'Dimple' could have been made progressive in order to present an original picture to the world about them. She is an integral part of the story without whom most of the action would not have taken place in the novel, the character of trans women is still stereotyped in a conventional frame which is being investigated here. Methodologically, close textual analysis of the novel is carried out to understand the meaning of the text and to further support our hypothesis by citing from the book as well.