Upward mobility and the naturalization of household norms in Vivek Shanbhag’s Ghachar

Abstract

This thesis examines the relationship between economic transformation, class mobility, and ideological change in Vivek Shanbhag’s Ghochar through a Marxist theoretical framework. The study explores how the family’s transition from poverty to prosperity reshapes authority, morality, identity, and interpersonal relationships within the household. Drawing on Marx’s concepts of base and superstructure and alienation, along with Louis Althusser’s theory of ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses (ISA), the research argues that economic advancement in the novella produces not only material comfort but also profound psychological and ideological consequences. Through qualitative textual analysis and close reading, the study demonstrates how the success of the family business restructures domestic power relations, normalizes obedience, and transforms family rituals into mechanisms of ideological control. The narrator’s purposelessness, silence, and emotional detachment are interpreted as forms of alienation resulting from insulation from meaningful labor. Furthermore, the study analyzes how the family naturalizes authority and suppresses dissent through everyday practices, particularly in its treatment of Anita, whose resistance exposes the ideological foundations of the household. Ultimately, the thesis argues that Ghochar presents upward mobility as an ideological transformation that redefines moral values, social roles, and emotional ties under conditions of modern capitalism and neoliberal social change.