Theme Of Feminism In Literature By Shashi Deshpande

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.

When talking about feminism nowadays, some might say it is no longer necessary or that it’s just women who hate men, when it’s still an important and relevant subject matter. In the short story “A & P” by John Updike, three girls walk in an A&P grocery store wearing only bikinis, which catch the eyes of Sammy, the narrator, and everyone in the store. The story is told from Sammy’s description of what the girls are doing and how the rest of the store reacts to it. At the end, when the girls come to pay, the manager tells them that they are not dress appropriately. Sammy doesn’t like the way the girls were embarrassed and so he decides to quit his job. In the story, John Updike uses characterization, similes and metaphors to show that girls are victims of sexism.

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.

In Surfacing by Margaret Atwood, there are numerous portrayals of feminism and gender roles. There are underlying hints of distaste towards the female sex role and the predatory, aggressive behaviour of men towards women. The suppression of women is portrayed and analyzed, and Surfacing manages to tackle the theme of gender roles by exploring through the perspective of the female narrator how women are marginalized in many aspects of their lives. . Surfacing makes a case for strong women that defy stereotypical gender roles and portrays how men are continually pushing the boundaries of their roles and going to the extreme with them.

Books that are composed by feminist writers in particular time periods can have numerous similarities. For instance, Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston and The Awakening by Kate Chopin, both express the battle of a lady's liberation from regular societal difficulties. Both creators immovably provide cases of how two ladies originating from differentiating societies can harbor the same interests. In spite of the fact that in distinctive time periods both works pass on comparative messages. Hurston places her fundamental character, Janie, in a transcendently isolated time period while Chopin picks a more persuasive time of American extravagance for her character, Edna. The tale of how temptations, ways of life, and impacts upon

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 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

Through male chauvinism, the sanctity of marriage or of other relationships is dissolved. Men seem to be allowed to commit

Arguably the largest influence of literature and art in general is the culture in which it is created. Knowing and understanding culture gives readers better insight and understanding of the story and its meaning. The influence of modernism had a strong impact on literature during its time-period, and Rabindranath Tagore used the influence of modernism to address the issue of gender. In his short story “Punishment”, Tagore reflects his feministic views through his use of the characters and their fate. The topic of gender during this time creates an even stronger and deeper meaning to readers of Tagore’s story. Tagore recognized the importance of gender issues and the need to make people aware of these issues, and saw the opportunity forming to relay this message as the culture began to change and modernism caused people to see the world differently. Modernism created an outlet to promote feminist’s views and Tagore used this change in culture to address the treatment of women in society.

The 1980s signified the continuation of an era of social and political upheaval in the United States of America. At the forefront was a socially conservative agenda that aimed to rescind women’s rights only ratified less than a decade before, a marked display of the nation’s desire to uphold traditional values that defined the preceding generation (Françoise). Among the devastating political climate, however, was Margaret Atwood: a voice that refused to be silenced, a progressive storyteller who interwove her writings with feminist themes that pushed boundaries and defied the status quo (Napierkowski). Her prolific writing career is full of poems, essays, short-stories, and novels that have permanently altered the perception of Canadian literature, while never ceasing to shed light on pertinent cultural and social issues.

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.

As told by Emma Watson, "Men think it's a women's word. But what it means is that you believe in equality, and if you stand for equality, then you're a feminist” (Kahn). Feminists, and feminism, have appeared in all forms of society, including in literature, for centuries. In addition to feminists rebelling against instances of unequal rights between genders written in their literature, such as Charlotte Perkins Gilman in The Yellow Wallpaper and Simone de Beauvoir in The Second Sex, there are also women fighting for their rights in the present world. Whether they are celebrities speaking out at conferences, such as Emma Watson, or everyday people fighting against sexist views in their workplace. The fight for equal rights between genders is an important fight for millions of people throughout the world. Women in literature throughout the early centuries for the most part have been depicted as deceitful and should be killed by men for any minor blunder that they make. The Thousand and One Nights and The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer are two literary works that portray this harsh reality for women while still showing the correct viewpoints of feminist characters.

This paper explores the idea of feminism represented by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni. The paper uses method of dialogism and second wave of feminism to critically examine palace of illusions. Walking back to the 1600 B.C and the longest poems of all time Mahabharata which consists of 1,00,000 versus of shlokas. Mahabharata itself means 'Great India'. The title first selected by the writer of Mahabharata, ved vyasa was 'Jaya' which means 'victory'.Mahabharata an Indian mythological epic is the most adopted modern fiction.

Rabindranat Tagore, khushwant singh, Bhabani Bhattacharya, Arun Joshi Anita Desai, shashideshpande, Bharathi mukherjee, Nargis Dalal, R.K. Narayan, Anita Rau Badami are some of the famous writers who presented their novels by concentrating on the depiction of the women’s freedom and social reality of all the time many diasporic writers are in particular to emerge the cultural mix of times impacted by the globalization and the growth of many fields. Some writers are there like Karandesai, V.S.Naipaul, Harikunjru, Anita Desai used to write about the problems faced by the people in their nation home and native. These writers contest the difference between the culture in both east and west.

Books, plays, and movies that depict culture and social life often make statements about social issues such as gender roles, racism, and class distinction. Stories set up a context in which characters relate, often representing “stock” characters chosen from society and placed in situations where their stereotypical behaviors—and sometimes their breaking of these stereotypes—are highlighted. As feminism became a popular movement in Western countries in general and the United States in particular, female voices were naturally heard through fictional characters. Social and political issues commonly fuel entertainment; feminism, racism, and classism—recurring themes in entertainment through the 20th Century and into the modern day—have