How far Men are the Culprit of Women Predicament in Anita Desai’s Novels? (original) (raw)
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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.
International Journal For Multidisciplinary Research
This paper deals with the study of marital relationship, one of the most complex, subtle and chameleonic human relationship, in the lives of the protagonists in the novels of Anita Desai. Through the depiction of this relationship, the novelist tries to foray into the deep recesses of her protagonists' psyche and reveals their strivings to attain a meaningful pattern of life. Through the depiction of varied kind of protagonists, the novelist tries to show that some of her initial protagonists are quite immature, having myopic vision of life, who reflect rigidity in their personality. This extreme rigidity and egoism creates insurmountable hurdles for them in their inter-personal relations as well as adjustment with the flux of life. Various social customs and traditions which demand sacrifice and adjustment for their part are beyond their comprehension at all. The harrowing despair in their marital relations and lack of recognition in the family and society cumulatively thrusts them into circumscribed zones of isolation. On the other hand, some of her characters are made of strong stuff. They are quite mature and tend to face various vicissitudes of life with a mature, flexible and compromising attitude. Since they have a strong desire to achieve an authentic kind of existence and this zeal makes them flexible to evaluate the pattern of life in totality and eventually, they succeed in evolving a new harmonious pattern life at a higher level of maturity and wisdom.
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.
ANITA DESAI'S PERSPECTIVE OF MAN-WOMAN RELATIONSHIP IN HER NOVELS
Shelly Jain
The most prominent theme that the novels of Anita Desai carry is the relationship between a man and a woman. She beautifully uses her artistry to explore this theme in all possible directions. While depicting the relationship, she not only gives voice to the feminine cause, but also presents it realistically, though, in a silent manner. She presents the picture of modern woman in the context of her relations with man in various situations and circumstances. She is neither for nor against the institution of marriage, yet, at the same time she throws light on the limitations of such institution. Most of her themes are based on the unfriendly and cold relationship between husband and wife resulting in traumatic situations, especially for wives. Nearly all of her female protagonists are the victims of such situations and circumstances; sometimes struggling to oppose such situations while at others trying to adjust with them in order to get over them. She emphasizes not to idealize but to depict the reality. She does not convey her objective expressly while depicting such themes, but makes her readers to contemplate and define the issues in their own terms. Although in some of her works her mode of depiction hints at what she wishes to convey but never does so in its entirety. This also reflects her psychological approach towards this subject. "In Desai's novels most marriages are proved to be unions of incompatibility"(Kaskari 1). Women have been shown to be treated as second grade human beings. However, questions such as whether such treatment is in line with usual human parameters, or whether such treatment is the result of women being the victims of their own complexes and image fixation have been left unanswered. These are the questions which are left to the readers to answer. Purview of Anita Desai's subject matter excludes such explanations. She confines herself to unadulterated characterization of the circumstances rather than adding opinions to it. Her women protagonists are shown to struggle due to their perceived sense of subjugation and denial of their own rights and their own psychological limitations. The domestic rights
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.
WOMEN -THE VICTIMS OF MALE CHAUVINISM
Anita Desai is a voracious reader, constantly poring over books of all kinds. Writing is only her spare time engagement. A very busy housewife, she has learnt to adjust her working hours to her family life. She writes because of her inner compulsion and urge to find out the inner self or women like her, and it is here she exceeds and gets differentiated from other ordinary writers. She has carved a special niche for herself in the Indo-Anglican novels because, with her, comes a distinctive change in the content and purpose of the social novel.
International Journal of English Literature and Social Sciences, 2021
The construction of gender is not an overnight formation, rather a continuous process intimately connected to other historical developments in society for generations. Feminist scholars, writers, and researchers have consistently insisted on percolating the message that "Gender is a social construct" because, the general image of women as docile, lovable, simple, and weak, creates the ground for exploitation, and denies its rightful place in society by the patriarchal determination. This is the reason; many feminist writers raise the subject of female identities, in order to give women a sense of belongingness in their fictional works. This paper examines cultural and other potential factors of gender construction in the society, as a contributing element for isolation and loss of identity of Women in a family through select works of Anita Desai. It also looks at gender relations globally; the socio-psychological compulsions while highlighting the fact, that men and women have rigidly defined roles as well as a range of social and moral obligations attached to these gender roles, which requires to be adhered to.
Anita Desai and Shashi Deshpande portray the sociological effect on the psyche of women. Through their fiction they provide a wealth of understanding in women’s issues, such as psychological, emotional and spiritual crisis experienced by the Indian woman folk. The traumatic psychic experiences faced by women in the conservative male-dominated society and their survival are the main focus of the novels of Desai and Deshpande. They seek liberty at least in the house itself not from outside, without showing their artificial sentiments. She portrays the interior landscape of the mind and psychic elements completely. Her later novels show a sharp shift in her themes. The protagonists try to escape from convulsions and tensions. The Women characters are trying to come to a new understanding and reinstate themselves in the society. Like Desai’s novels Deshpande’s are also dealt with the problems and personal agonies of women in our patriarchal society. Deshpande’s protagonists set out in search of self-expression and self-fulfillment. The women characters crave for freedom from oppressive bonds exercised by the patriarchal society. They try to face the challenges of contemporary life imposed upon them and reconstruct the norms and patterns of womanhood. They want to find out their identities. Her novels dealt with various forms of suppression faced by women in our society. Deshpande wants to establish a new dimension of presentation. Despande presents women who prove themselves adaptable. Keywords: Stereotyping, neur
FEMINIST PERSPECTIVES IN THE SELECT NOVELS OF SHASHI DESHPANDE’S- A STUDY
IAEME PUBLICATION, 2021
Shashi Deshpande has numerous symbols. In intellectual debates, she defends the reasons for English as an Indian language and fights for the recognition of a woman as a person. She talks about the truth delicately yet solidly, her words lingering long after her exit. The current paper expands on the true story of women, who represent themselves or the entire womankind in a way that is not quite the same as a man telling a woman's story; additionally, it highlights the possibility of women elucidating themselves and emerging from the case of self-negligible to spread their wings of selfassurance. The current study, based on Shashi Deshpande's selected novels, deals with the complexities of man-woman relationships, particularly in the context of marriage, as well as the trauma of disturbed adolescence, with reference to four novels by Shashi Deshpande, namely That Dark Holds No Terrors (1980), Binding Vine That Long Silence A Matter Of Time and Shadows Remedies, Penguin India (2000), On, Penguin She depicts what happens to men and women in and after marriage, what they have been, what they have become and what is in store for them. The changes in the status of men and women after marriage and the changing nature of marital relationships are presented in these four novels. Focusing on marital relations, she seeks to expose the tradition by which a woman is trained to play her subservient role in the family. Shashi Deshpande’s novels also show how carefully she expresses the frustration and disappointment of women, which they experience in their marital relationships. It implies that men and women must work together to create a mature and balanced gender relationship
This paper attempts to explore the Portrayal of women in some of the works of Anita Desai, Shashi Deshpande and Nayantara Sahgal. The quest for identity and freedom has become dominant themes in literature. It unfolds the problems of women in the patriarchal society in a very positive way. These writers brings out the alienation, anxiety, insecurity, fear her marital familiar and social relation, sufferings and exploitation and struggle for new identity. These writers brings the familiar problems faced by women in the society and her own family. Their trauma over the situation of being dependent and suffering without expressing it to others. The inner strength of the women has been observed clearly. Most of the female novelists are known for their bold views that are reflected in their novels. They focus principally on the psychological searching of inner mind of women. These writers being women enter deep into the inner mind of the depressed women by virtue of their feminine sensibility and psychological insight and bring to light their issues, which are the outcome of Indian women's psychological and emotional imbalances of the society.