Shobha De

Mahasweta Devi’s short story, “Giribala,” is about the life of Giribala, a girl of Talsana village located in India. Born into a caste in a time when it was still customary to pay a bride-price, Giri is sold to Aulchand by her father. From this point on, we see a series of unfortunate, tragic events that take place in Giri’s life as a result of the circumstances surrounding Giri’s life. There are many issues in Giri’s life in India that Devi highlights to readers. First, the economic instability of the village leads to an extremely poor quality of life for the lower, working classes. Next, the cruel role of women determined by men in society is to either satisfy the sexual desires of men or to reproduce offspring who can work or be sold off to marriages. There are also other social norms and beliefs which discriminate against women that will be discussed.

The Duchess of Malfi not only challenges the concept of absolute male authority by having a female main character who has a will of her own and disobeys this authority, but it also illuminates the problem of the mentality of the conventional male who unquestioningly accepts the doctrines of the patriarchal system. This system is created to ensure that males are imbued with nearly limitless power, especially over women. In her book Male Subjectivity at the Margins, Kaja Silverman quotes Gayle Rubin, who claims that women though women are seen as object to be exchanged, in the way that people would exchange gifts. Rubin goes on to note that “ If women are gifts, then it is men who are the exchange partners, and it is the partners, not the presents, upon whom reciprocal exchange confers its quasi-mystical power of social linkage” (36). The concept that men possess a “quasi-mystical power” simply because they are men, is part of what Silverman calls the “dominant fiction” that is the patriarchal structure.

Women in India were unaware of their miserable condition. It is in the post independence period the women’s quest for identity of her own commenced. The 20th century saw the shift from outer to inner sensibilities and no one can better understand a man or woman better a feminine writer. In modern English fiction a number of women novelists have arrived on the literary scene, they have set out making new forays in to the world of women. Nayantara Sahgal being a feminist writer has emphasized in her novels on freedom and a new definition of the New Women. Sahgal’s heroines are well aware of the injustice done to them in their marriage and they come out of this traditional bond.

“Please don’t play your games with a helpless poor girl” declared Dhowli. The Misra boy leaned in closer to her replying, “I’m not playing games.” Dhowli then shouted back “ You’ll leave after you tire of the game, and what will become of me? Am I to be like Jhale? No, deota, not that.” (238). I’m hesitate to keep reading after this line thinking to myself how I feel sorry for Dhowli and who she is going to become since getting pregnant with a Misra boy who is dominant in the caste system. Dhowli creates an ambitious, courageous, and philosophical figure in the short story “Dhowli” by Mashasweta Devi. In the short story the caste system is well defined showing of social stratification of two opposite levels of the social chain in India. To an American reader the foreignness of how India treats single mothers is how this short story stands out.

Many women face discrimination throughout all stages of their life, beginning at (or even before) birth continuing as an infant, child, adolescent, and adult. While in the educated, urban middle class women’s rights continue to improve, there remains a strong bias against gender equality in those societal parts of India, where patriarchal traditions prevail; her self-image was torn into shreds by the patriarchal family which denied her basic freedom. Indian womanhood was mercilessly locked in the echo

The political and social events of the sixties and the seventies along with growing opportunities of education and employment for women encourage women belonging to the urban middle class to engage in literary activities. The thematic concerns of these women writers have been cantering around women related issues. The social setting for most of these writings is the urban middle class and the protagonist is, more often than not, a woman. Indian Culture treats women with utmost reverence. Women are identified with Adi Shakti or the primordial energy. Woman’s avatar as mother treated as highest manifestation of human relationship; It is the mother who gets precedence over all other principles of life including father and god in importance. She

How does patriarchy affect the lives of women? Patriarchy is a system in which males hold power and women are excluded from power. In some cases, this system of power can destroy the lives of women who dare to not conform to their role as dealt to them by patriarchy. In literature, feminist authors work to reveal the ways patriarchy influences the lives of women. In her short story “The Lady with the Pet Dog”, author Joyce Carol Oates describes the experience of a wife, who finds love away from her loveless relationship and consequently whose life has been torn apart by patriarchal social and psychological influences (Oates)(Brizee et al.).

In the novels “Scarlet Song” by Mariama Ba and “The Waiting Years” by Fumiko Enchi we as readers are able to experience the way in which the male characters’ treat the female characters of the novel. Women in present time are able to sympathize with these women because the way in which the men treat them leaves a very strong and negative impression and ambiance. It is true that different women may have different reactions toward how the women are treated depending on their cultures; however I

They either created unreal over-romantic instances or finally succumbed to the temptation of giving voice to the feminist ideology. In the novels of Shashi Despande, Silence is the theme which can easily be felt by the readers throughout her novels. Breaking of silence by her protagonists in different ways makes their voice heard by everyone. So far as women’s work, speech, acts and aspirations are concerned the male

The paper, titled ‘Revelation of Psychic Wholeness in Shobha De’s Sultry Days’ discusses the powerful site of rebellion and self- assertion in Shobha De’s Sultry Days(1994). The protagonist Nisha is transformed from the ingénue of submissive woman into a thriving complex character by asserting and establishing psychic wholeness. The novel apart from throwing light on the world of advertising, journalism, glamour encased in the hollowness, artificiality and inner fragmentation of the upper class society, also focuses on Nisha’s voyage towards self-realization. The novel also attempts to propagate that female subjectivity can resist male injustice and is capable of sustenance by facing it confidently eventually evolving triumphant.

The manner in which myth, religious dogma and tradition are used to control a woman’s freedom and block her natural impulses to live and grow as men do, and the manner in which her education and career are purposely delimited to deprive her of freedom from dependency are revealed as the two powerful social forces that delay the development of the Indian female child. Kapur’s female protagonists are mostly educated, hopeful individuals cages within the norms of a conservative

But it is not Devi’s description alone that finds experience in it; the novelist has entrenched so many other stories which are related to real life, to mythical page (told by her grand-mother, pati), to the life of musicians and about the females’ ideal role (told by her father-in-law) as well. The variety of stories does not create any harm to the meaning of the story and the aim of the novelist because the skilfully interwoven plots give each other considerable meaning. The revolving point of the story is Devi’s life with all the mythical stories. All these are inseparable part of the novel as all these stories and the real stories (connected with these mythical narrations) present a glimpse of what will go on in the life of Devi and put in the picture the truth of females’ fate in the patriarchal society. The novel causes the readers’ encounter with the truth that how so ever the female get educational capacities, how so ever the society may become modernised; but the females will be exploited in all the ages and their condition will remain as still as it was years ago during the mythical

The portrayal of socio-economic structure of Indian society of 1950’s and early 1960’s gets amply reflected in the early novels of Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, Most of the protagonists of her novels hail from upper and middle classes and their interaction with the lower strata of society reveals the gap between the rich and the poor, While her satire is directed against the materialistic attitudes of the middle class in most of her novels. Jhabvala can not be blamed for totally ignoring the lower class. In her fourth novel, The House Holder (1960), she has projected lower strata of society on an even bigger canvas. With this novel she returns to the intra – Indian context.

As an artist Kamala Markandaya’s fiction is concerned with change in feminine sensibility brought about by the social, economic and cultural forces, whereas Anita Desai’s major concern is about exploration of the psychological condition of the oppressed hyper-sensitive women. The synoptic views of Anita Desai and Kamala Markandaya’s portray the women protagonists in terms of the shifting sensibilities and changing attitudes of married Indian women. It also tries to analyze the portrayal of women characters that belong to rural and urban upper classes of Indian society. As an artist Kamala Markandaya’s fiction is concerned with

Ruth Jhabvala’s first novel reveals world order in which a stubborn identification with one’s inherited culture is both realistic and desirable. This identification has its genesis in the ancient code of laws laid down in the Dharma Shastras. An adherence sustained over the centuries to the social order created thereof, with its ramifications of caste and class and separations attendant upon them, still shapes and colours the Indian outlook as Ruth Jhabvala sees it. The characters of her novel identify with a well defined area, predetermined by birth and heritage and share a common conviction that only disruption and unhappiness can result from a violation.