Patriarchy and Feminism are always at loggerheads for Identity Primacy: A study through the fictions of Anita Desai (original) (raw)

Gender and Feminist Consciousness in Anita Desai’s Novels

Research on Humanities and Social Sciences, 2014

This paper critically examines the fictional world of Anita Desai, a prominent Indian woman writer to understand her outlook and standpoint on the socio-cultural issues of female freedom and empowerment. The study finds that Desai while depicting psychological plight of female characters in her novels makes clear that Indian feminism is quite different from the western one. Besides, this paper shows how authentically the writer represents the deplorable status of women in Indian patriarchal society.

CONFLICTING INTERESTS OF WOMEN CHARACTERS: A STUDY OF ANITA DESAI'S EARLY NOVELS

In India, the prominent female prototype is the chaste, benevolent, virtuous, patient, self-denying, enduring, self-sacrificing and self-effacing woman. Indian women of the twentieth century have changed and the modern woman questions the prominent female prototype and androcentric hegemony. Patriarchy is the foundation of women's oppression, and neither of the phenomena can be understood without the other. Women's problems can never be discussed without discussing them in relation to men's interests. The analysis of patriarchal attitudes even now shows that, things haven't changed completely for Indian women, though there is a bit of amelioration when compared to the earlier generations. Moreover, the gender roles dictated by a patriarchal society stifle the real roles of men and women. Conflict of interests is seen in the lives of women on account of this suppression. Anita Desai has been selected amongst many other women writers for this paper as she is often considered to be the representative Indian Woman Novelist in English, who has made a considerable contribution to post independent Indian fiction. The women characters of Anita Desai's fiction are mentally and intellectually advanced people, who are in a constant quest for identity and freedom in a patriarchal society.

Feminism In The Novels Of Anita Desai

Journal of Namibian Studies, 2023

Feminism in western nations are epitomized in literature and different books, that is in composed shape however in the east, especially in nations like India, attributable to its oral tradition and more noteworthy lack of education, the effect of these investigations was limited to the urban populace. In any case, as of late, even the rural regions have been secured due to the regularly spreading wing of electronic media. Since the most recent couple of decades, women have been attempting their hands at writings and that too effectively. Anita Desai is a standout amongst other known contemporary women writers of Indian fiction in English. She has picked up qualification in investigating the human psyche and the enthusiastic sentiments of her protagonists. She has included a new dimension and great support to the contemporary Indian English fiction and has a huge place because of her creative topical concerns and arrangements in her fiction with feminine sensibility.

CHARACTER OF WOMEN IN ANITA DESAI NOVELS

Historically women have been suppressed in past and literature. In the ethnical area they have represented "adjured"-burdened, indented and silenced. Now in the recent days, women started to grab spaces for themselves. In India with the battle from colonialism one more soundless battle carried on at the same time that followed by women to impart themselves equality with men. This was obvious as well in the literary domain. As of the present paper we would describe the women's rightist means of depicting women in Anita Desai's 2 most common and widely known novels-CRY, where shall we go this summer and the peacock.

How far Men are the Culprit of Women Predicament in Anita Desai’s Novels?

ABSTRACT:Human existence has been multidimensional for both men and women. Beginning with man’s creation to that of his physical structure extended to his career, man dominates the other (woman). As P.M.Nayak suggests:”Human experience has only been a masculine experience, in other words a malist experience”(Nayak,1). Man has been glorified from all angles and all fields. Even in the literature we find male domination. The aim of this research paper is to analyze how far men areresponsible for the distributed psyche and predicament of women in the novels of Anita Desai.Key words:

Woman's Quest for Identity in Anita Desai's novels

Anita Desai seems to have been on the quest for order and meaning in life in her Indian English fiction. She focused on feminine anguish in the complex cultural stresses and strains of Indian society. Her protagonists undergo a struggle to find their real self; because of the cramping pressures of anxieties, they seem to have lost it. They experience a discrepancy between the higher needs of the individual " s inner nature and the unchangeable cosmic conditions of existence. Those who are able to comprehend and surmount their personal problems seem to gain a healthy vision of life after some struggles. Desai remains primarily a novelist of moods, of persistent states of mind, of the psyche. Most of her novels are extended narratives of states of being which do not cohere into a plot or structure in the conventional sense, Desai sees the world in terms of experience as it emerges from the encounter of the self with the world outside. This paper attempts to show how she achieves the results she seeks to gain, in order to expose not only the extremity of the suffering endured by women, but also the deep psychological problems that beset many human beings.

THE CONFLICT OF TRADITION AND MODERNITY IN FICTIONAL WOMEN

Research Scholar --An International Refereed e-Journal of Literary Explorations, 2014

In conventional societies like India's, for woman to liberate herself from the overbearing patriarchy and to find her own voice to express her thoughts, to invent her own ways to manage her 'self' is a long and grueling journey against female-subservience, self-sacrifice, and selfdenial. Several stories of the well-known Urdu writer Ismat Chugtai and of renowned Indian writer in English Shashi Deshpande are concerned not only with social and psychological problems affecting middle-class Indian women, but bring about the complexity of their situations and their changing attitudes to and their abilities in confronting those situations. Their stories reveal the manifestation of woman's diplomatic ways of negotiating with her life in order to gain autonomy over her body and mind, to have the freedom to decide her own identity released from all conditionings, freeing her from sex-determined roles and performances, in spite of what she has to many times face as consequences. In many of the stories of Chugtai and Deshpande, it is evident that while for men power means the ability to impose one's self on another, for the female protagonists it is the ability to defend one's self from such imposition The paper analyses the fictional characters of Chugtai's 'Ghungat' and Deshpande's 'An Antidote to Boredom' as harbingers of change who do not necessarily let their 'beings' become 'identities' dictated by some of the gender ideologies and hierarchies that are embedded in the very fabric of life.

ANITA DESAI’S NOVELS AS POST-MODERNIST FEMINIST PROJECTIONS

For centuries, women in the traditional social order and system have always been considered subservient to men. In patriarchal Bourgeois society, the matriarchal community has been ‘humiliated’, ‘afflicted’, ‘silenced’ and ‘tortured’ socially and economically. With the post-modernizing age, women began to see the universe with their own eyes and not through the male gaze. In India, with the matriarchal struggle against patriarchy another inner revolution started manifesting itself in literature, especially women's writings. The voices of women began to vie with those of men. The purpose of our paper is to focus on the feminist message as articulated in Anita Desai’s well reputed novels, Cry, the Peacock and Where Shall We Go This Summer? Our intent is to examine critically how in the post- modern era Indian women writers in English have highlighted women's questions. They have raised a fiery voice or initiated an inner revolution against the traditional customs and gender discrimination with a view to equalizing human rights. Considering the femme fatale characters of Anita Desai, one of the most renowned Indian writers writing in English, especially the powerful and domineering female protagonists, Sita and Maya of Cry, the Peacock and Where Shall We Go This Summer? This paper proposes to European Scientific Journal May 2014 edition vol.10, No.14 ISSN: 1857 – 7881 (Print) e - ISSN 1857- 7431 648 draw attention to Desai’s works as exemplary instances of postmodern feminism. Keywords: Sita, Maya, Indian Feminism, Anita Desai

Gender Issues and Intricacies in Shobha De’s Select Novels

The Creative launcher, 2021

Shobha De, a feminist writer, depicts her female protagonists in a forceful way and uses the plot to emphasize her point that personal is not private but political. The protagonists in her works were outspoken critics of conventional society and its rules. They are not the typical women who accept abusive, unsatisfying, or uncomfortable relationships (in all aspects). It could be male dominance, objectification, sexual discontent, passion, or something else entirely. They don't keep it hidden because they believe it is taboo. On the other hand, the male characters are not shown as villains, but it is evident from the plot that they are products of patriarchal society. Gender issues in her works aren't about female oppression in terms of domestic violence; rather, they are about the sexual vacuum that all of the female characters experience. Male characters were traditionally assigned duties such as sexually active, powerful, and have self-identity, but these female figures defy such stereotypes. They represent women by demonstrating that they too have sexual wants, power, and a need for selfidentity. As a result, this research focuses on Shobha De's novels Socialite Evenings (1989), Sisters (1992), Starry Nights (1991), Second Thoughts (1996), which all deal with gender issues. The study not only examines issues but sheds light on the protagonists' struggles to find self-identity.