Corpses at fate’s crossroads: a tapestry of family honor and caste in Faleiro’s <i>The Good Girls</i>

Women’s autonomy, rights as well as mobility are being governed by deeply entrenched system of rigid ideologies, especially in rural India. The socio-literary intersection of caste, patriarchy and honor is positioned at the epicenter of this paper, which is based on the critical analysis of Sonia Faleiro’s The Good Girls: An Ordinary Killing, a thought-provoking narrative of the infamous honor killing of Padma and Lalli in Uttar Pradesh (2014). Through the application of postcolonial feminism, Dalit feminism and subaltern interventions, this paper evaluates the ways in which the deep-rooted socio-cultural norms, caste hierarchies and institutional failures congregate to subjugate female autonomy and catalyze gender-based violence. The discussion examines the narrative approaches coupled with ethnographic detailing and literary journalism proposed by Faleiro reinforcing the idea that the concerned tragedy is the outcome of embedded institutional discriminations. Symbolism is at its very best, as the bodies of the girls are left at the site; a kind of open protest demanding comprehensive recognition. By comparing it to various literary and cinematic works, the paper places the incident at larger structural landscape portraying how flawed justice systems put women at sustained risk.