The Role Of Women In The Dark Room By R. K Narayan

When one reads Ruth Prawer Jhabvala’s “The Interview”, it is very clear how gender roles are predominate within the family that is portrayed. Using this family as an extension to represent all of India, Jhabvala gives us some insight into the daily lives led over there. The story is told through the eyes of an upper-class man who is completely dependent upon his family, specifically his brother and the women in the house. This essay will examine the male and female roles that are presented in this short story, how they parallel each other, and the deeper meanings hidden within the text.

This paper attempts to examine the fictional projections of Indian girls, to see how they emerge in ideological terms. Their journeys from self-alienation to self-adjustment, their childhood struggles against the hypocrisies and monstrosities of the grown-up world, eventually demolishing the unjust male constructed citadels of power that hinder their progress- are the highlighted issues. The point of comparison between the two novels focused on here is the journey of Rahel in The God of Small Things and Sai in The Inheritance from a lonely childhood to a tragic adulthood passing through a struggle with the complex forces of patriarchal society. Both the novels portray the imaginativeness, inventiveness, independence, rebelliousness, wide-eyed wonder and innocence associated with these young girls.

Mr. Argyle focuses on various themes and comparisons presented in Nectar in a Sieve and juxtaposed them to the ones in Thomas Mann’s poems. By doing so, he elucidates that there is another way to perceive life and not to mundane idea that the destiny of a man is determined by the politics around him. Based on the depth of the analysis he makes, the author’s intended audience would include scholars, and people who are familiar with Indian culture and the distinct association of poverty with social classes. Additionally, he does assume that his audience is familiar with the religious aspects on Indian life. He presents a critical view on how fate and time play crucial roles in this ever-changing life Rukmani and her husband, Nathan experience.

Traditionally, an Indian woman had only four roles and those were; Her role as a daughter, wife, sister, and lastly, a mother. The women in today’s time however are experiencing far reaching changes and are entering into new fields that were unknown to them. They are actively participating in social, economic and political activities. Unlike the older times, women today have received higher education.

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

Thus, to give voice to the suffocated psyche and suppressed desire of woman and lay bare ambitions and frustrations and soothe the aches and pains has been primary focus in Deshpande’s writing. Her works show that compromise is what characterizes the life of the common run of the middle-class women in India. Unable to defy social conventions or traditional morality,

The purpose of the research paper is to examine the role of women in Hinduism and how it impact their lives .This paper will look at how narratives from sacred texts influences women’s role in society in the past and in the present. The role of women in Hinduism is often disputed, and positions range from equal status with men to restrictive. Hinduism is based on numerous texts, some of which date back to 2000 BCE or earlier. They are varied in authority, authenticity, content and theme, with the most authoritative being the Vedas. The position of women in Hinduism is widely dependent on the specific text and the context. Positive references are made to the ideal woman in texts such as the Ramayana and the

His mother’s silence meant different for Mohan and he regarded it as virtuous and symbol of strength but for Jaya her silence means suffering and despair. The silent suffering of Mohan’s sister, Vimala because of ovarian tumour gives a different meaning to silence. More than her husband her mother-in-law exploited her for this. She has to bear all and at last died.

The central theme in most of Narayan’s novels are the protagonists’ quest for identity but they are all of an average stature and incapable of bringing their quest to a fruition. Savithri in the Dark Room protests against the patriarchal rudeness of her husband and steps out of her house. She soon realises that her lack of proper education renders her fit only for a degenerate life, so she returns to her husband’s house, where at least she can discharge her maternal duties to her children.

Abstract: The paper examines the patriarchal bent of society in which Jaya lives and how this male oriented system creates ideological beliefs whereby, women are flung to marginalized positions of those social structures whose centers are constituted by males. The paper brings to the surface the inner dissatisfaction and maladjustment that Jaya suffers but about which she remains silent. Jaya as a subordinate character, a subject, seems to have internalized the code of conduct which the society has framed for her, considering it to be a natural order for most of her life, thereby, imparting on her a kind of perpetual silence about her desires, needs and ideas. . Deshpande has tried to define this silence as a full-fledged character who accompanies

The development feminism in India has prompted the scrutinizing of the conspicuous old patriarchal control. The ladies of today decline to be manikins in the hands of men. Henceforth the picture of ladies has experienced an intense change. The Indian female authors have made a move from the conventional depictions of persevering generous ladies to delineation of their inward life and inconspicuous relational connections. The clashing enthusiasm of man and lady in the general public thus of self-stating ladies, who are engaged in intense scan for their personality, is the lobby characteristic of present day depiction of female characters. Arundhati

I feel that the book is distinctive and special in a way, as it alternates between the view of Hari and Lila is in the village of Thul. From these two point of view we can get the idea of similarities and differences between city and village life. The situation in the village was very bad as we can see the father drunk and a critically ill mother the character of the family struggling to make end meet. It brings the struggle of man for evading the psychic pressure of life in the hope of survival. The writer denounces the flaws of society by painting scenes of everyday life and also how society works and how it can put pressure on people sometime to the point of destroying individual. Anita Desai’s critical sense of observation and her essential thinking with common men become important in her expert characterization, vivid description of a vigorous plot which is highly authentic. When we examine the concept of free or new women in this novel, we take it for granted that Anita Desai understanding of feminine sensibility is well display in all her novel. Her protagonist, most of whom are women, battle desperately with, their traditional

The traditions, culture and society in India have given precedence to men over women in multitude of issues concerning family, administration, decision-making and several other matters of high magnitude. This gender bias has gradually taken a shape as male chauvinism, which resulted in the oppression of women and subjected them to insufferable physical, psychological, moral and ethical castigation. Women, albeit contribute equally with men in societal and domestic affairs, are not allowed to enjoy equal status with men in traditional India. Indian society has always manifested them as obedient daughters, dedicated mothers, devoted wives and loving siblings. The funniest thing in Indian culture is a mother, being a woman, alienates her daughter and manifests antagonism to her, if she makes attempts to question gender-bias in her family or in society. The novel is an impeccable manifestation of post colonial period where a woman is fighting for her constitutional rights for education and power. The female protagonist Saritha in the novel acquires good education and becomes a doctor despite her mother’s antipathy to girl education. She sustains her mother’s antagonism to her who perpetually maltreats her with her offhand attitude to her very existence in the family as she wrongly concludes her as the murderess of her dear brother, Dhruva. Further, she is estranged from her family as she marries a person of her choice. Her husband, Manohar is a school teacher. Saritha, being a

His decision was of utmost importance and the same could generally be rebutted by only other male members of the Hindu family. The role in the decision making of the women members was kept at the minimal. The role of the women was apparently confined to household/ domestic chores. This system has prevailed for a very long time in India. It cannot be said that the said system is per-se ineffective or per-se bad. However, wanton use of this system has indeed apparently contributed somewhat to the weaker status of the Indian women. The biased use of the said system by some section of Indian men has further led to the subjugation of the Indian women. In the male-dominated society, women suffered to extreme levels of exploitation. Some factors- like death of bread winner, sudden fall in family income or inadequate family income – forced women to seek employment in informal sector (small trader, artisan or field labourer on a family farm) but yet, that did not result in women empowerment (Dr. K. Sundar & Ashok Kumar, 2012). A woman, in India, has always been seen as only a home-maker, or as a wife, or as a mother. The women psychology has been adversely affected by this.

Her character typifies the rise of individualism and the liberation of the Indian women from the yoke of age-old submissiveness and self-annihilation. In this character we find an early statement about the helplessness and claustrophobia of women in incompatible marriages that was going to be a recurrent concern of Indian fiction for many years to come. Mantagini was only a forerunner of many more women characters of great, independent and revolutionary spirit to follow in the novels of his successors. The creation of a character like Mantagini in the first Indian Novel in English was certainly a good beginning for that class of writing to be followed in India.