Kaalam Character Analysis

Changes of life with the Kaalam

Now as a man is like this or like that, according as he acts and according as he behaves, so will he be; a man of good acts will become good, a man of bad acts, bad; he becomes pure by pure deeds, bad by bad deeds;

And here they say that a person consists of desires, and as is his desire, so is his will; and as is his will, so is his deed; and whatever deed he does, that he will reap.

Man is the product of his own fate. His fate will be decided by his Karma or action. From the earliest time of mankind, he always examined by his fate. Like the Greek tragic hero Oedipus with his bad curse he kills his father and marries his mother. The fate of Oedipus is the result his action like anyone else. This kind of

Vasudevan Nair set the backdrop of crumbling matrilineal family system of the Nairs, with its petty rivalries and jealousies. . M.T.’s art goes straight into boiling lava of emotions that lies inside the placid surfaces of frozen system of the family, society and ethics. He is fascinated more by the micro politics of power and resistance in intimate human relation than by the macro politics of the state and society. The writer himself confesses that “Sethu of Kaalam is a lot of like me. I share with Sethu his emotional experiences and the situations he has been through” Like any other novel of M.T.’s, Kaalam also depicts the life of an individual who suffers in the older social system. Marumakkathayam is a system which was prevails in Nair community till recently. The novel could be after effect some serious legislation taken place in Kerala. The first communist government of Kerala was very much anti- feudal. They tried to capture land from the feudal families with introducing new land reformation bill. The bill had been guaranteed that all the family can have certain amount of land. The excess land will be taken by government and distribute to poor and landless. These led to the disintegration both Brahmin and Nair feudal joint