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@article{206042,
        author = {Dr. Subhalaxmi Mohanty},
        title = {Confessional Narrative as an Ethical Strategy in Chetan Bhagat’s Five Point Someone},
        journal = {International Journal of Innovative Research in Technology},
        year = {2026},
        volume = {13},
        number = {2},
        pages = {217-221},
        issn = {2349-6002},
        url = {https://ijirt.org/article?manuscript=206042},
        abstract = {This research article examines Chetan Bhagat’s debut novel, Five Point Someone: What Not to Do at IIT (2004), through the lens of narrative ethics and Foucauldian discourse analysis. While often categorized merely as popular “campus fiction” (Ruprah 408), the novel employs a sophisticated narrative strategy of secular confession. By positioning the protagonist, Hari Kumar, as a confessing subject who meticulously chronicles his academic failures, moral transgressions, and emotional vulnerabilities, Bhagat constructs a “counter-conduct” against the disciplinary power of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) system (Foucault, Discipline 195). This paper argues that the discourse of confession in the text functions not merely as a comedic device but as an ethical strategy that dismantles the hegemony of academic perfectionism (Gupta 53). Through the “five-point” perspective, the narrative validates the marginalized ethics of friendship, mediocrity and human fallibility over the institutional demands for efficiency and rank (Mun 1). Drawing on Michel Foucault’s theories of confession and power as well as contemporary critiques of Indian English fiction (Sreeramulu 2), this study illuminates how Bhagat’s narrative voice reclaims agency for the “underachiever” in a hyper-competitive postcolonial society.},
        keywords = {Confessional discourse, narrative ethics, campus novel, Indian English Literature, disciplinary power.},
        month = {July},
        }