Main Article Content
Abstract
Culture is the social behaviour of a particular people or society. It is the characteristics of a particular group of people, their language, religion, habits, meanings, attitudes, beliefs etc. The term culture is used in all disciplines. In simple words culture is an identity; it decides the way of life for people of a particular culture. Different groups have different culture and it is historical as well as sociological. In this paper the researcher has taken the novel CHEMMEEN, which was written in the Malayalam language by a famous writer, named T.S.Pillai and translated into English by the well known Malayali writer Anita Nair. The novel is set against the background of the fisher folk community of coastal Kerala, of a place called Alleppey. The researcher looks at the cultural differences between the main characters Karuthamma and Paree kutty. Both of them fall in love with each other and they belong to different castes. The novel also depicts the story of a dishonest fisherman named Chembankunju who is greedy for wealth and this makes him blind to the values and traditions of the indigenous fishing community of coastal Kerala. In this novel, the writer has set the story within the indigenous community of Kerala. The translator being a Malayali herself has succeeded in re-creating the beauty of the locale and the doomed destiny of people who belong to different caste in a traditional society of Kerala in the 1950s. Culture plays a vital role in this novel