Assignment Critically analyze the boys' character and his sexuality in the first chapter. Response The title of the book, "Funny Boy," is somewhat ironic to the character of the protagonist. Selvadurai, through the title, skillfully propels us to divert our minds from the actual notion of the boy's character. It slightly hides away the actual term which should have been associated to the boy. The word "Funny  which refers to the protagonist, Arjie, is not only confined to him being humorous or comical, but has a much more diverse counterpart to it. It's refers to him (Arjie) being "socially funny  and hence, unacceptable. Selvadurai seems like an omniscient writer as he describes Arjie exactly as his father describes him as he first encounters his "supposedly  homosexual character. The story is set in the backdrop of the political tensions that escalated between the Sinhalese and Tamilians in Sri Lanka leading up to the 1983 riots. Arjie was a boy of around seven years of age. Unlike the other boys of his age, who used to play cricket and engage in other "masculine  games and conversations, Arjie was more interested in playing "feminine  games. He was intrigued by the sight of his mother getting dressed in front of the mirror, wearing her accessories and putting on make-up. His grandmother's closet, and every such, female related stuffs excited him. Whenever he used to go to his grandparents' place with his parents and siblings, he used to play "Bride-Bride" along with his cousin sisters, playing the central character of the bride. For the children, the grandparents' house was divided into two parts- the front garden and the field belonged to the boys, whereas, the back garden and kitchen porch was the area of which Arjie was a part of, it belonged to the girls. This territorial demarcation did not just determine the separate gendered space of pleasure and recreation, but also marked a whole new world in which the child