CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

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 C HA P TE R 1

I N T R OD U CT I ON

This chapter is divided into various parts: The first part gives a brief history of

English Language in India, its challenges, movement and present status. Part two

reviews the development of the novel form in India with special emphasis on the

women novelists. The third part discusses various perspectives of Feminism, Post-

feminism and Indian feminism. The fourth part talks about feminine language. The

last part discusses the title, sensibility and phenomenology and puts forward the

hypothesis and objectives of the study.

Indian English Literature did not emerge out of vacuum but originated from the

colonial encounter and as a result of the conflux of two literary traditions: Indian and

British. English entered the Indian soil as an imperial, colonial and foreign language

used as a medium for commercial transactions. In course of time, it was established

as the official language for administrative and educational purposes. The advent of

English created a hierarchical oppositional structure as English versus vernacular

wherein the former stood for progressive development, a tool for civilization and a

modernizing force. Indian thinkers saw the enforcement of English as a part of

linguistic imperialism that could compromise the rich linguistic diversity of the

country. Some aptly domesticated this colonial legacy while understanding its far

reaching consequences and used English as a counter-colonial means as is evident

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from the writings of Raja Rammohan Roy, Aurobindo, Tagore, Tilak, Swami

Vivekananda, Gandhi, Nehru among others. In the hands of liberal thinkers and other

ambitious laymen, English became a useful tool in political awakening and

nationalist struggles. They became critical of their own religious orthodoxy and also

of the British rule and at the same time conscious of their personal rights and duties

to the nation. They appropriated the language of the colonizers using it as a

communicative link nationwide in the multilingual context of India.

The establishment of English colleges in India, led to the creation of an educated

class of Indians, enriched with a new awareness, flair for practicality and alertness in

thought and action. And Indian writing in English became the manifestation of the

new literary creative urge in India, although according to Sisir Kumar Das, from the

beginning of its history, Indian English writings exhibited two distinct strands:

One emerging out of Indian experience…. to communicate with fellow Indians and

the other is a literature manufactured for the foreign audience, in conformity with

the western perception of Indian reality. (1991:44).

M.K.Naik, puts it in another perspective, as he explains that Indian English writing

began with the motive of impressing the English masters but gradually the Indian

English writer learned to combine business with artistic pleasure. There were many

challenges that the writers of English in India faced.

a) They had to defend their choice of English over their mother tongue.

b) They had to create the reality of Indian life in another tongue.

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c) The future of this literature was uncertain

d) There were many issues regarding the nomenclature of this literature.

It was a challenge for these writers to use English in a distinctively Indian manner

and to represent the true essence of Indianness in English. Historians of Indian

literature like Sisir Kumar Das, claimed that though English language in India was

without communal and regional affiliations, its identification with the educated elite

was so complete that possibilities of growth and acceptance seemed remote. Anglo-

Indian, Indo-Anglian, Indo-English were among the appellations for this body of

writing but according to Naik, the Sahitya Akademi accepted „Indian English

Literature as the most suitable‟ title (1982:5). In course of time, there were clear

signals about the gaining acceptance of English and its popularity. The direction it

was to take was not in the elitist, rigid Queen‟s English that had fixed pattern and

vocabulary but the distinct variety called Indian English.

The first phase of Indianizing the language involved modifications in theme and

form to communicate Indian sensibilities. This meant a huge shift in the mindset and

rethinking and restructuring English as a homegrown language. The following lines

from Kamala Das‟ poem An Introduction is a reflection of this fact:

…..The language I speak

Becomes mine, its distortions, its queerness

All mine, mine alone. It is half English, half

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 Indian, funny perhaps, but it is honest.

Many of the writers confronted the problem of writing in English by experimentation

in the form of translations of words, phrases and idioms, ingenious interpolation of

words from Indian languages and phonetic spelling of words. They even attempted to

alter the normal structure and rhythm of English sentences. The English idiom was

translated and modified in their hands and Indian English began to acquire its unique

morphology, syntax and semantic features. Meenakshi Mukherjee considers Mulk

Raj Anand as „the first conscious experimenter‟ of English and opines that the early

writers used language carefully and were always conscious that it was a foreign

tongue. Anand literally translated dialogues, culture-bound expressions and phrases,

suggesting that an authentic Indian English style could only be nourished on the

mother tongue. The trend has been so that while he used to initially give a glossary

and notes on the Indian terms used in his early novels, he later gave up the practice.

Anand‟s English steps ahead in showing signs of Indianness in rhythm of speech, use

of distorted words, different spellings like fashun, railgadi, haspatal. Narayan made

English in India gain a local tone and colour which he knew would suit the themes

that he chose from the Indian rusticity. He used cultural and superstitious codes in a

language which was Indian from all sides especially presented in the creation of the

Malgudi novels. Raja Rao used translation of Indian nominals into English at the risk

of violating both English syntax and collocation in usages like as sane as a cow, as

honest as an elephant, son of a concubine etc. Raja Rao‟s attitude was to incorporate

everything Indian, the theme, language and style. Gandhi the greatest influence of

the times, was not a professional writer but his writings in Young India and his

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speeches give evidence of using English language in a clear and simple manner for

the Indian masses. His influence popularized words like satyagraha, ahimsa, swaraj,

charkha, harijan and many such words, without attempting to translate them but

using them in their original form.

The novelist G.V. Desani is a landmark in the field of experimentation in language

as he rejected the rules of English grammar and diction and worked out a style „to

produce a totally new type of English, neither the British way, nor the Indian variety,

but a hybrid of the two‟ (Singh 2001:23). He could use English with „comic

abandon‟ and celebrate hybridity much before the trend emerged in India under

Rushdie. Salman Rushdie‟s The Midnight’s Children signaled a new uninhibited

trend in writing that proved to be a seminal influence on most of his contemporaries.

His language was an eclectic mix of prose styles, formal and metaphorical and

colloquial English spoken in India. His vision was global and he encompassed

multicultural concerns. He drew from both ancient and contemporary cultures of

India and the world and employed the technique of magic realism and fantasy.

Rushdie is true in saying that English has „ceased to be the sole possession of the

English alone‟. (1991:70) It has become accepted as one of the voices in which India

speaks. Indian writers have unfettered English and handled it more freely, artistically

and unselfconsciously. They have nativised the language creating a rich complex and

hybrid English. The hybridity found in the new voices especially of Rushdie, Shobha

De, Upamanyu Chatterjee among others indicate the form Indian English is to

assume more and more in the future. Hence there is creation of words like Hinglish,

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chutnification, ma-in-law, Brahminhood etc. Indian words like paan are used in place

of betel to retain its flavor, diya instead of lamp, gajar ka halwa instead of carrot

dessert. Words specific to Indian customs, costumes, festivals, food habits, titles are

retained in its original form e.g. sahib or ji to give added respect, chutney, Holi, dhoti

etc. Since slangs are culture specific, we find ample usage in our linguistic system

e.g. Amma, kudi, yaar etc.

Indian English has become an important area of research and B.B. Kachru,

R.K.Bansal, S.V. Parasher have done significant work in this area. They work on the

emergence, diffusion and establishment of Indian English and understand its

distinctiveness as far as morphology, syntax and semantic features are concerned.

The suprasegmental features of Indian English in matters of accent, rhythm due to

native influence is very significant. They study the emergence of new words through

compounding, affixation, abbreviation and code switching with Indian languages.

All this proves that it has become a scientific area of enquiry and certainly shares the

post-modernist point of view that does not discriminate between anything high or

low, superior or inferior, mass or marginal. It has attained a distinct status through a

long process of coining and incorporation of new words, structures and expressions.

Indian English has become an autonomous entity with international recognition. In

the context of this research, an attempt is made to briefly study the use of English by

the four selected women writers. A focused socio-linguistic study would be an

interesting area of research but time and space limits such a study here.

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 II

The novel as a literary form was new to India although it has been a fountain of

story-telling. The genre was said to take roots in India in the mid nineteenth century

with the publication of Bankimchandra Chatterjee‟s Raj Mohan’s Wife. Indian novels

in English had begun to be written from various parts of India and though they were

geographically and culturally different, it was always in context of the British rule,

the freedom struggle and nationalism. The focus was on larger public issues and

social problems like child marriage, widow remarriage, sati, dowry, caste system,

untouchability and so on. This coupled with the influence of Gandhi on literature

was reflected in the spurt of realistic novels inspired by his person, ideology and

value based politics. Meenakshi Mukherjee remarks,

A great national experience must surely help in maturing the novel form, because an

experience shared by the people at large becomes the matrix of a society and the

novel flourishes best in a society that is integrated. (2005:36).

Mulk Raj Anand‟s Coolie, Untouchable and Two Leaves and a Bud, R. K.

Narayan‟s Swami and Friends, Waiting for Mahatma and The Guide, Raja Rao‟s

Kanthapura and The Serpent and The Rope and Kamala Markandaya‟s Nectar in a

Sieve, A Silence of Desire, and Possession depict the life of the common man in

India, their struggles and pains. Politics and history inspired a number of novelists to

take up various issues connected to the theme and the foremost among them was

Nayantara Sahgal whose important works are Storm in Chandigardh, A Situation in

Delhi and so on. She could weave the political and the private inner turmoil together

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and articulate the Indian women‟s search for freedom and self-realization. The

tragedy of Partition and its traumatic effect on people is a theme that is covered by

many writers through the ages. Khushwant Singh‟s Train to Pakistan, Manohar

Malgaonkar‟s A Bend in the Ganges, Attia Hosain‟s Sunlight on a Broken Column,

Bapsi Sidhwa‟s Ice-Candy Man, Amitav Ghosh‟s The Shadow Lines, Chaman

Nahal‟s Azadi are some of the novels that examine the religious fundamentalism and

fanaticism that led to the unforgettable historical horror of the Partition. In many

novels like Anita Desai‟s Clear Light of the Day, Manju Kapur‟s Difficult

Daughters, it works as a background to the story.

Another important theme in Indian English novel was the East-West polarity which

was initially expressed as the polarity between tradition and modernity. In popular

belief, modernity was associated with the West and considered antithetical to

tradition as seen in the novels of R K Narayan. In many novels, it was presented as

an encounter between the two, manifested in many ways. It portrayed the agrarian

joint family setup in India challenged by the wave of western technology and

industrialization. It exposed the frustrations with religious, moral and social codes in

India. Kipling was of the view that the “twain can never meet‟ while some like

Markandaya believed that a synthesis or compromise is possible, especially on a

personal level. This theme is treated in Kamala Markandaya‟s The Nowhere Man,

Some Inner Fury, Bhabani Bhattacharya‟s Music for Mohini, Ruth Prawar Jhabvala‟s

Esmond and India, Heat and Dust, Anita Desai‟s Bye Bye Blackbird and Mohan

Ganguli‟s When East and West Meet among others.

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The most remarkable trend noticeable in the post-Independence fiction is the shift in

emphasis from a concern with society to a concern about personal life and individual

consciousness. It manifested in the shift of focus to subjects like existential crisis,

self-alienation, disturbed state of mind, split personality and quest for identity. Anita

Desai and Arun Joshi carved out a niche for themselves in this area. Arun Joshi‟s

The Strange Case of Billy Biswas, The Last Labyrinth and other novels emphasise

the existential crisis of the protagonist who is gripped by feelings of hopelessness

and rootlessness. With the help of his technique of introspection, he portrays a

psychological understanding of the mind and inner conflict of the characters. Anita

Desai also knits her novels around the fragmentation of the protagonist‟s identity,

conflict between self and society, feelings of isolation, withdrawal and rebellion. She

introduced the genre of psychological realism. Her important novels include Cry, the

Peacock, Fire on the Mountain, Where shall we go this Summer?, Fasting, Feasting

among others.

Feminine sensibility also emerged as one of the significant themes of post-

independence era. It was evident in the novels of Narayan, Anand and Raja Rao but

it became the prime concern of women novelists. Indian English fiction resounded

with the women‟s assertion of her individuality, economic and social freedom and

desire for emotional independence. Writers like Kamala Markandaya, Ruth Jhabvala,

Nayantara Sahgal, Bharati Mukherjee, Anita Desai battled deeply ingrained gender-

based prejudices and with immense concern for women‟s cause, imparted a fuller

awareness of the feminine sensibility. Jhabvala‟s Heat and Dust won the Booker

Prize in 1975 making her the first Indian winner of the award, suggestive of the fact

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that Indian voices were making its presence felt in the international arena. Shobha

De, Suniti Namjoshi, Namita Gokhale, Gita Mehta were the leading figures in the

second generation of post Independence women novelists. The bold voice of Shobha

De describes the experiences of women who wish to break away from patriarchy,

discrimination and social taboos. Her characters were from the upper class and they

broke away from norms of society. Suniti Namjoshi is a prolific writer of various

genres, strongly feminist with emphasis on gender, sexual orientation and politics.

Her works include The Mothers of Maya Dip, Feminist Fables and so on. Gita

Mehta‟s Raj, A River Sutra focus on Indian culture and history and the western

perception of India. Namita Gokhale‟s Paro in 1984 created a stir by her sexual

frankness and satire on the upper class. They project the assertive, rebellious phase

of women‟s writing.

A number of women novelists made their debut in the 1990s. Many of these writers

belonged to the older generation but since they were also writing in other genres like

poetry, essay and short story, their debut novels were published during this period.

The themes of their fictional works focused more on the struggles of the modern

women in her journey from being a non-entity to self-emancipation. They are bolder

in delineation of character and treatment of taboo issues in society. A feminine

perspective becomes the thrust area of these novels. There is also a strong awareness

and representation of the political and social transitions taking place in India at

various levels. Meena Alexander‟s Nampally Road is the story of an England

educated woman who rejected the idea of arranged marriage and was in the quest for

self-identity on her return to India. She is a teacher and poet but realises her larger

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purpose in helping the victim of a gang rape and standing against the corrupt

government. Gita Hariharan does a feminist retelling of Arabian Nights. The

Thousand Faces of the Night won the Commonwealth Writers Prize in 1993 and it

exposes the different dimensions of woman‟s oppression by patriarchal structures

through the retelling of myths. Employing the technique of story-within-the story,

she links the plight of her women to the legendary heroines of Indian myths. Uma

Vasudev portrays the transformation of her protagonist from an ordinary woman into

a national political figure inorder to keep her promise to her mother-in-law, in

Shreya of Songarh. Shama Futehally focuses on how the microcosm of the family is

affected by larger issues like corruption, communalism and politics and the subtle

change it brings into the moral fibre of the family. Chitra Banerjee is a prolific writer

whose novels focus on feminine experience, female bonding and the psychological

struggles of the Indian woman dealing with exile and loneliness. The Palace of

Illusions is a woman‟s perspective of the epic war in Mahabharata. Rani Dharker in

The Virgin Syndrome described the idea of „virginity till marriage fixation‟ among

women and how the phenomena is changing in the social reality of India. Anjana

Appachanna also weaved multiple narratives in Listening Now, painting the domestic

life of six women and how they make their lives a tragic waste in their anxiety to

fulfill their marital roles. Rama Mehta‟s Inside the Haveli is about the predicament

of married women. The novels of Manju Kapur also reflect the struggles of women

in the family and their attempts to find an identity within and without the orbit of the

family. Shashi Deshpande was a new voice in fiction and her novels portrayed the

Indian woman in transition from orthodoxy to emancipation. She allows her women

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to withdraw, introspect and reach self-realization. She presents the upsurge of

feminine rebellion against social conventions and parental authority in her novels,

The Dark Holds No Terrors, That Long Silence , The Binding Vine and A Matter of

Time. This is a phase of articulation of self in women‟s writing.

Salman Rushdie heralded a new era in the history of Indian English fiction with the

publication of his sensational literary work, Midnight’s Children which won the

Booker of Bookers. With this novel, elements of postmodernism, magic realism,

hybridization of language, focus on history, intermingling of myth and politics

entered into the world of Indian fiction. It was a nodal period, when many promising

novelists like Vikram Seth, Amitav Ghosh, Upamanyu Chatterjee, Shashi Tharoor,

Rohinton Mistry, published their novels and tried to explore and manifest Indian

reality. The Golden Gate by Vikram Seth was the first Indian novel in verse. He

braved his critics, in the choice of the „Yuppies‟ of San Francisco as his

protagonists, his use of verse as a narrative mode against the prevailing literary

modes and his desire to adopt a style more accessible to the common man. The focus

on history and the theme of the subaltern is seen in the novels of Amitav Ghosh.

Trotter Nama by Allan Sealy, English August by Upamanyu Chatterjee, Rohinton

Mistry‟s Such a Long Journey, Seth‟s A Suitable Boy expresses the deep urge of the

protagonist to speak out, unfettered by society. These works earned distinctions in

the Western academic world as well as at home. Chaterjee‟s novels recount the lives

of the urban westernized Indians. Mistry‟s novels deal with the theme of history,

postcolonial attitudes and realism. Shashi Tharoor‟s The Great Indian Novel (1989)

is one of the examples of post-modern fiction which is satirical in nature and he

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follows a story-telling mode going back and forth in time. The novels of the nineties

were uninhibited, cosmopolitan and deregionalised in their outlook. Cultural

encounters did not shock as the characters tried to make home everywhere. The East-

West conflict was out and the awareness of the world as a larger place was in.

Unlike the early novels, which were mostly realistic in nature, these

novels vie with each other to break the old fictional form. They are full

of cryptic clues and arcane utterances and are always on the verge of coming

out with some important explanations or conclusions. We also come across in

them several modes of interpretation and the reader is free to identify with a

perspective of his liking. Because of the ingenuity of their technique some of

these novels have emerged as tour de force of the art of fiction. (Pathak 1999:18).

1997 was the year of Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things and the Booker Prize.

It was a major breakthrough in Indian English fiction with its typical Indian setting

and bold story of forbidden love. The novel exposes patriarchal domination,

incestuous relationships and creates a sensitive picture of the cruelty of tradition,

class and gender. Arundhati Roy, Anita Nair, Susan Vishwanathan, Manorama

Mathai have put the southern state of Kerala on the fictional map. Most of Nair‟s

novels are set in the ambience of Kerala. Her women characters interrogate tradition

and patriarchal values leading to changes in attitudes towards life. Mathai‟s

Whispering Generations oscillates between ideas of matriarchy and patriarchy in a

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very subtle manner. Jhumpa Lahiri‟s works focus on the subject of despair in the

institution of marriage and the unhappiness at the core of families. The Namesake

develops the theme of cultural alienation especially in the life of the female

protagonist as she tries to navigate between homeland and adopted land. Kiran

Desai‟s Booker Prize winning novel The Inheritance of Loss also deals with the

diasporic experience and the loss of homeland. Arvind Adiga won the Booker Prize

for The White Tiger in 2008. It was a work that depicted the cruel social hierarchy in

India and the inability of the central character to cross over from one class to

another. He dealt with the theme of class division relevant on a global scale.

Undoubtedly, these new novelists brought Indian fiction into sharp focus. Their

works are multilayered, unconventional and released from predictability. They are

creative, dynamic and cosmopolitan. They took up international themes with modern

man at the centre. As far as English language is concerned, they showed the future

course that it was to take by decolonising and domesticating it. It has become a rich

hybrid English incorporating the nuances of Indian languages and culture.

The phase of the post modern novel with its global appeal, diasporic experience and

cosmopolitan worldview did gain privilege over writings in Indian languages. One of

the key debates is the position of Indian writing in English vis-à-vis other languages

of India. There are many theories and anti-theories. Rushdie claimed that the best

writing in India after Independence was in English while Amitav Ghosh and Amit

Chaudhari believed that the versatility of Indian writing cannot be represented solely

by those who write in English. Meenakshi Mukherjee in her article, The Anxiety of

Indianness says that those who write in English cater to only a limited circle of

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English educated elite class. She also discusses the linguistic plurality in India, and

hence the problem of finding an Indian English dialect with unified sensibility. Even

Vikram Chandra in The Cult of Authenticity admits that regional specificity is in

conflict with pan Indian national traits. In this context, the critical question is how to

collaborate these two distinct aspects. Many critics advocate translation studies. The

truth is that the modern individual now inhabits an in-between space which Homi

Bhabha refers to as the “third space” in which the co-existence of different cultures

replaces the dominance of a monolithic culture. Hence for the new writers the

concept of individual has become plural, the idea of nation is questioned and they

effortlessly portray multiple perspectives. This is the direction Indian English fiction

is eventually moving towards; after beginning with the theme of social

consciousness, graduating to the theme of individual-focus and in the present times

to deconstruction of structures.

III

Much of the world literature is dominated by the male canon and women‟s literature

was consciously dismissed for many centuries. Thinkers from Aristotle to Darwin

reiterated that women are „lesser beings‟, „inferior to men‟ and „imperfect men‟.

Western culture was fundamentally oppressive and phallogocentric and focused on

the white European ruling class that claimed to be the centre of the universe. This

claim of centrality has been supported by religion, philosophy, politics and also by

language. To write from such a position was to appropriate the world and dominate it

by verbal mastery.

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After the primary necessities of food and clothing, freedom is the strongest need of

human nature. But it was denied to women and they were socially and physically

oppressed. In the West, Feminism as a movement began in order to provide rights

and liberty to women. Mary Wollstonecraft had a significant role to play in it. Her

whole life was a protest against institutions that denied women any identity. A

Vindication of the Rights of Women published in 1792 was a voice for the demand of

women‟s rights. John Stuart Mill‟s The Subjugation of Women 1869 made a rigorous

plea for women to enter any trade or profession. But an organized movement began

with the Seneca Falls Declaration in New York in 1848. The radical demand for

suffrage carried the social and political revolution for women‟s rights into a new era.

Historians refer to this movement as the first wave of feminism. The early feminists

included both men and women who advocated gender equality. Feminism as a theory

believes in equal rights for men and women and seeks to change the deep seated

cause of women‟s oppression.

Feminist ideas and social movement emerged in Europe and the United States in an

international context that promoted the migration of ideas across national boundaries.

The second and third waves of feminism were more concerned with the civil laws

and equality in the economic and social position of women. Virginia Woolf‟s A

Room of One’s Own is a major work in feminist criticism. It explains the

psychological conditions and historical constrains encountered by women writers.

She gave reasons why there were so few women writers. They are a) lack of space

for women to write b) no financial independence c) no women‟s literary tradition to

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follow. In A Literature of Their Own, Elaine Showalter chronicles three historical

evolutionary phases of women‟s writing:

1. Feminine (1840-1880): A phase where women imitated established traditions

by men

2. Feminist (1880-1920): A phase where women protested against lack of rights

and freedom and raised their voice for equality

3. Female (1920 onwards): A phase that explored female experience and raised

public awareness in all issues surrounding women.

Feminism was greatly influenced by the contribution of Sandra Gilbert and Susan

Gubar. They were influential in adding the texts by women into the literary canon.

They refused stereotypes by male writers and called for writing by women. The Mad

Woman in the Attic stands for everything that women must repress to write books

acceptable by male standards. They focused on the sad fact that women who spoke

out were branded as „monster‟ by society and brought out strategies adopted by

women to survive in a male dominated society. They postulated that women had to

negotiate alienation and psychological disease to attain literary authority.

French feminists were primarily psychoanalysts. They turned to fellow countryman

Jacques Lacan for their theoretical basis. They were concerned with language

particularly and how women are socialized into accepting the language of the father

and made to feel inferior. Julia Kristeva, Luce Irigaray, Helen Cixous were post-

structuralist feminists who were concerned with deconstructing the gender

differences in language. They asserted that language as we normally think of it is

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normally from a male point of view. Cixous was concerned with challenging what

she found to be a western tendency towards male-centered understanding of identity

and the world. She goes forward to assert that there is a particular kind of writing by

women that she calls „ecriture feminine‟ which means „women‟s writing‟. She

suggests that such writing could present a new limitlessness and an alternative

discourse. This concept is developed in the French essay, The Laugh of the Medusa.

She states, “Women must write her self: must write about women and bring them to

writing….Women must put herself into the texts as into the world and into history –

by her own movement.”

Elaine Showalter gave the term „gynocriticism‟ to refer to the writing by women,

about the experiences of women. It provides four modes that address the nature of

women‟s writing:

1. Biological: It centers on female biological differences and how it marks itself

upon the text.

2. Linguistic: It is based on the need for a new woman‟s discourse. It states that

women‟s language cannot be explained in terms of two sex-specific

languages but can be considered in terms of styles, strategies and contexts of

linguistic performances.

3. Psychoanalytic: It is based on analysing women‟s psyche and how it affects

the writing resulting in linguistic and stylistic differences.

4. Cultural: It seeks to understand how the society in which women writers

work shape their goals, responses and points of view.

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Hence it can be said that feminist criticism broadens one‟s understanding about the

works of women writers. It is also concerned with women‟s interpretation and

reinterpretation of texts written by male writers. Also inscribed within Feminist

Theory are various schools of feminist criticism like Liberal Feminism, Marxist

Feminism, Radical Feminism, Cultural Feminism, Eco-feminism, and

Psychoanalytic Feminism, to name some. Each has its own dominant positions and

practices. All these unite in implying a vision of reality from the perspective of

women. The three waves of feminism have succeeded to a great extent in giving

women the status and freedom they have today.

In the twenty-first century the equations have changed to a great extent. There is a

significant increase in the number of women writers. Women are no longer treated as

objects but have become subjects of their novels. This means that their perceptions,

experiences and struggles are finding a voice. The self with its challenges, conflicts

and conditionings are brought to the surface and a new awareness of oneself has

become the guiding principle for women. Along with the quest for identity, quest for

contentment and power has become important. Patriarchy is still the norm in many

societies but women are now seen in rebellion against oppressive aspects. The

women characters are now made stronger or hold the central position. This puts the

female protagonist in a perpetual conflict with her traditional role as a docile,

sacrificing person vis-à-vis gradual emergence of her image as assertive, confident

and articulate. Contemporary writers at times write about the open resentment and

sometimes describe the mute power struggles. Women‟s literature has started to look

deep into the forbidden territories of intimate relationships. Female bonding is also a

20
new dimension. Women writers have brought in new concepts of morality and

sought persistent change in society. Although feminism has come a long way in

opening opportunities for women, the battle is still an ongoing one.

Ideals of feminism, in its true sense are universal. The concept of self, space and

freedom apply to both genders. The ideology of Feminism must be unfettered from

gendered notions with the attitude of cooperation rather than confrontation on the

part of both men and women. Jasbir Jain in her book Indian Feminisms, discusses the

need to move on from layers of imposed thought to comprehension of stereotypes,

and from feminist, womanist to humanist, from feminism to post-feminism and send

across the message that to be a feminist is not to be non-human. She says, “Post-

feminism, in its impact on literary aesthetics, shifts the issue from identity to

relatioships, from a concern with oppression to one with the concept of freedom.”

(2001: 91) However Feminism is also culture-specific. The modes and extent of

patriarchy are different and so are the ways to stand against it. In this regard, it is

essential to consider feminism from the Indian perspective.

In India, feminism is a familiar word among the educated but its understanding is

vague. To a great extent it is perceived as a western trend resulting in unrestrained

freedom, loose morals, rebellion and breakup of family and social values. In

academic circles and research boards it is considered as clichéd or theoretical. In

seminars and conferences it becomes a war cry where voluble men and women

contradict each other‟s positions, another section of men wonder „what do these

women want?‟, and a section of women get so fed up that they refuse to have

21
anything to do with feminism. This is because feminism means different things to

different people ranging from a wish for change, a challenge to existing order of

things, a sacrilege of tradition, a drive to establish equality between the genders and

creation of an androgynous society. Sometimes it is a question of nomenclature i.e.

there is a prejudice against the term itself but on the contrary phrases like „women‟s

issues‟ or women‟s studies‟ are more acceptable. Again feminism has no equivalent

word in the Indian languages; the closest approximation is Narithwa in Hindi which

has more acceptability. Whatever be the implications, it is a major issue that requires

the active support of both men and women who are sensitive, balanced and impartial

in their views. It is the position of this research that feminism always stands for

independence of mind, body and spirit and co-dependence of men and women for the

betterment of society at large. Again considering the hazards of indiscriminately

applying Western feminist theories to Indian context, it becomes imperative for

feminist thinkers, theorists, researchers and activists to critically analyse the Indian

situation and develop feminism suitable to our situation.

Our society is different from the west on the basis of factors like caste, class,

religion, wealth, social stratification and patriarchal structures. In the Indian

scenario, writings of Manu, stereotypical images of women propagated by religion,

myth and tradition have enchained women for a long period of time. Western

feminism cannot easily be assimilated into the Indian way of life.

The first main reason for this is that while the West is more individualistic in

approach, Indian society is more family centered. Here the collective consciousness

22
is deeply ingrained which makes the social fibre very strong. The sense of tradition,

belief in religion is highly staunch. The home is ideally a place of care and solidarity

and women are more associated with it. Yet the neglect, exploitation and humiliation

they go through become an important area of discussion in their works. Indian

women writers in English dwell specifically and unilaterally on this area. They place

their focus on the home-front and discuss various modes of alignment. Marriage and

family are at the centre in the social structure in India; hence Indian feminism has to

be sensitive to such parameters.

Secondly, the idea of self does not exist in abstraction. It is deeply moulded by

socio-cultural patterns. The woman‟s status is mostly related to that of the male in

the family. Even though Indian women accept the notion of individualism, they still

wish to be in active link with family and community. Individuality is not rejection of

family or marriage. They cannot think of self sans the family. However each

generation and individual works out new definitions and patterns for self. And this

leads to questioning of traditional images that have not allowed selfhood to develop.

Jasbir Jain states in Indian Feminisms that we need to contest the off-quoted view

that in India, women have always enjoyed a place of respect and dignity. She

considers the position of „devi‟ as anti-individualistic. It deprives the woman of

emotional space, communication and identity. The image of a silent wife, suffering

mother and selfless woman are idealized and ingrained into the psyche of society.

Indian women have to find the golden mean between the extreme ideas of self and

family and negotiate proper alliance of the two through trial and error.

23
And again in India, the problems center on the structure of society. The lower class

rural woman who is illiterate and bound by tradition and superstition is ignorant of

the exploitation meted out on her and suffer silently. The middle class woman is

educated and employed but that also does not provide her equality or respite from

domesticity. Even the upper class women are victims of isolation and loneliness.

Most of the women fail to assert their individuality and create their own identity.

Books, films and other media perpetuate the image of the Indian woman who is

willing to endure and suffer for her family. But with increase in education, job

opportunities and financial independence, women in modern Indian society is aware

of the changes that must take place in the patriarchal structures and traditional

thinking. She welcomes the ideas of equality and liberation though she is also aware

of the reality of her life realizing the absence of easy solution or smooth exit. Indian

feminism must deal with spread of education, economic self-sufficiency, creation of

opportunities, awareness of rights, freedom and dignity, liberation from superstition,

overpopulation, female foeticide, sexual crimes and everything that constrains the

development of a healthy community. Few Indian feminists contemplate total change

as the dimensions of gender are too acute. Often the Indian woman is working

towards adjustment and less drastic changes. Shashi Deshpande opines that liberation

does not mean casting off your ties but refusing to be oppressed or doing things

against one‟s conscience.

A pertinent question to be posed here is whether literary feminism in India can find

an apt model from within its own heritage? This research considers Malashri Lal‟s

The Law of the Threshold as a seminal work in serving as a methodological resource

24
in feminist literary criticism in India. The „threshold‟ is an expected inhabitation for

women and also a typical Lakshmanrekha for women while men have since ages

crossed over and partaken of both the worlds. The metaphor of the threshold is

secular and it is a significant marker between the house and the world. It is built as

an intermediary position and symbolizes an interface. The Law of the Threshold can

be used as an analytic tool to analyse the position of women in India and their

projection in works written by women writers. According to Lal, the Law of the

Threshold works on the principle that a text may be seen to inhabit a permutation of

three possible spaces. First, the interior space; „this is a real and psychological

location on this side of the threshold which means that the characteristic tools of the

narrative derive from conventions commonly assumed by the author and/or her

readers.‟ (Lal, 14) The women writers choose to describe the rituals of homemaking,

about setting, decorating and maintaining the house, then the elaborate ceremonies

accompanying weddings, childbirths religious ceremonies which add colour and

emotion to the writings. They note the emotions that coincide with each ritual. As

important as the inclusions are the exclusions. Lal notes that demarcations within the

threshold should contain the private space of adult personal and sexual encounters

yet few women talk of uninhabited verbal exchange or passion. There is what she

refers to as „authorial escape‟ where physical dimensions are eliminated mainly due

to moral concerns. Compared to the western counterpart, Indian women‟s language

is inhibited though there are exceptions like Shobha De. Lal makes a curious

conclusion that „on the whole, they invert the Western assumption of home as a

25
private place.‟ The public aspects of the home are analysed but the intimacies never

dealt with.

The second operational space is the threshold itself. This is a contested space

between two kinds of influence. They are the interior with its customs, beliefs,

positions of security and the world outside which interfaces with the former. The

interior space has conditioned her and therefore „when she moves from the interior

and its disguises of form to the threshold verging on the outer world, she declares a

direction of change to herself and to those observant of her positioning‟ (17-18) In

this situation, she finds herself absolutely isolated where she is in a crisis because she

has disrupted the social arrangement and entered a non-traditional space.

The third conceptual space is operative for the woman who has made the

irretrievable choice in her one directional journey. „She has accepted the challenge of

a gender determined environment designed for the promotion and prosperity of men

and must contend with prejudices against her attempts to appropriate her own space

in the name of personal dignity and social justice‟. (19) Lal explains that the woman

in this position is aware of her isolation and makes strategies for survival including

male camouflage like male attire in battlefields or male pseudonym. The new woman

has only her courage and convictions to rely upon because she has separated herself

from the other women. „Her psychological move away from convention is so

contiguous to the seat of convention that she cannot escape constant reference to it.

In fact, all descriptions of her identity are evaluated as extensions or rejections of the

patriarchal norm.‟ (20) At this stage, the eye of the society is on her and re-entry to

26
the inner space is difficult. Several women are inept at handling these pressures and

break down while there are others who make the best of it.

Thus the three elements of the Law i.e. the interior space, doorway poise and outer

adjuncts provide an Indocentric approach that is acceptable and operative to the

cultural context of India. It is also time we proclaim our differences with the western

paradigms of feminism and carve a separate identity for ourselves. Susie Tharu and

K. Lalitha‟s admirable attempt to create an anthology of the texts written by women

in various Indian languages right from the days of the Buddhist nuns in the sixth

century B.C. to the present day is a huge step in creating a separate tradition of

Indian women‟s writing. Critics like Meenakshi Mukherjee, Jasbir Jain, Malashri Lal

have taken great strides in documenting, analyzing and evaluating works by Indian

women writers in English.

The tradition of writing by Indian women writers is significant in the context of this

research. Women Writing in India: 600 BC to the Present by Susie Tharu and K

Lalita, a two-volume anthology covering a large number of languages and genres of

women‟s writing is noteworthy in this regard. The earliest available poetry of women

writers came from bhakti poetry and Buddhist movements. This devotional

movement arose in different parts of India and in each of these places artisans led

people‟s revolt against the domination of upper class and poetry moved from the

precincts of the court to the open space and the land of the common man. The bhakti

poets composed in regional languages, deliberately breaking the literary and

religious hold of Sanskrit. Most of these poets were women of whom some of the

27
known names are Akkamahadevi, Sule Sankavva, Janabai, Rami Gangasati,

Ratanbai, Mirabai among others. The devotee has a personal relationship with God

who is a husband/ lover and the devotee a wife/lover. The poetry of the Buddhist

theris or senior nuns were collected in Therigatha. It reflects life transformed by

Buddha‟s teachings. For Mutta, it is

Free from three petty things-

From mortar, from pestle and from my twisted Lord. (68)

For Akkamahadevi, God is not in withdrawal but in the fullness of life‟s pleasures:

Not one, not two, not three or four,

But through eight-four thousand vaginas

Have I come. (80)

Janabai is even more bold,

I have become a slut

To reach your home. (83)

These poems were bold and liberated and an attempt to break free from the social

obligations of marriage and domesticity. Then there came a period in Indian history

that witnessed the invasion and settlement by the Persian empire. Writing by

courtesans of this time is traced, reflecting their boldness and education. Learning

and sophistication of women of Mughal royal families is known. Gul-Badan‟s

28
history of her brother Humayun is well known. Muddupalani, a courtesan of

Tanjavur court is known for Radhika Santwanam, a text that created a scandal for its

bold theme of a woman‟s pleasure and sexual appeasement. The important issue here

as discussed by Tharu is that there is a sense of loss while thinking about the writings

by women because most of the earlier works are not easily available. Patriarchal

attitudes had rejected and marginalized these writings. In this context, anthologies

like Tharu‟s are an important tool in developing a female literary tradition.

The 1820s in India is associated with reform related to many issues like sati, dowry,

child marriage etc. In the field of women‟s literature, a number of autobiographies

were written in the second half of the nineteenth and early twentieth century.

According to Tharu, many of these texts were a personal testimony of the new sense

of worth these women experienced as individuals. The recurrent themes were of their

sense of satisfaction in the support of their progressive husbands and their education

and the new possibilities that opened out. Autobiographies of Pandita Ramabai,

Cornelia Sorabji, Lakshmibai Tilak portray the dramatic tension faced due to the

traditional world they have lost, anxiety of rearing children in the new mode,

demands of a nuclear family, struggle with the society they had left etc. This was

also a period that women‟s education became important. There were constant

debates whether women should have a common curriculum like men or they should

be educated in the skills that would make them better housewives. This controversy

is addressed in Rokeya Hussain‟s Sultana’s Dream where she makes it clear that

education must equip a woman for rebuilding the world. For the new novelists,

… the problem of sculpting of a new woman took on added

29
 dimensions…..for these writers it was not enough that the

woman should be an efficient homemaker and supportive

companion. They needed a new woman molded into such

proportions that the hero could plausibly fall in love with her.

One of the major projects of the nineteenth century novel is the

making of this woman. (Tharu 1991:165)

In women‟s writing, the project is subverted from the question of finding a fit

domestic companion for a man to the story of the woman‟s search for a soulmate as

is seen in Swarnakumari Devi‟s The Unfinished Song or in Rokeya Hussain‟s

Sultana’s Dream where she subverts the female „zanana‟ with the „mardana‟ where

men are confined. As the nationalist movement swept across the country, the

woman‟s question took a secondary place. At this stage many women became editors

and publishers of journals like Bharati in Bengali, Indian Ladies Magazine in

English, Stree Darpan in Hindi and so on. Women were also contributors of articles

in many journals.

The reform movement‟s image of woman as uneducated,

ill-bred victims of atrocity and burden on a nation‟s self-respect

shifted, and women became part of the struggle, indeed the real

guardian of the nation‟s spiritual essence. (Tharu 1991:173)

30
The novels of this time show the struggles of the woman torn between home and

nation, husband and lover, tradition and modernity. Some of the noteworthy names

of this period are Savitribai Phule, Tarabai Shinde, Pandita Ramabai, and Sarojini

Naidu. There is a boldness in their works especially Shinde‟s Stree-Purush Tulana

and Simantni Updesh and Ramabai‟s The High Caste Hindu Woman, as they attack

the hollow customs, religious codes and myths that subordinate women. It was also

about this time that letters, diaries, protest writing, satire, memories, historical

accounts and autobiographies began to surface, reflecting the myriad experiences of

women. In Sarojini Naidu, dubbed the nightingale of India, „the temper of Indian

womanhood achieved its comprehensive synthesis‟ (Anita 2000:20). She was the

president of the Indian National Congress and also well known for her lyrical poetry

based on the themes of love and hope. The Independence movement gave the women

more freedom in life and literature. The fact that they were in free India certainly

affected the politics of their thinking.

The early women fiction writers included Swarnakumari Devi who wrote in Bengali

and translated one of her novels into English, titled An Unfinished Song, Raj

Lakshmi Devi and Krupa Satthianandhan who published two women-centered novels

Saguna and Kamala in the mid nineteenth century. As Jasbir Jain states, „Women are

beginning to be seen as active agents in the making of their self‟ (1997:148). These

women writers believed in the emancipation of women and wrote about the social

evils suffered by women. Toru Dutt‟s unfinished novel Bianca, Kaveri Bai‟s

Meenakshi’s Memoirs , Iqbalunisa Hussain‟s Purdah and Polygamy, and Vimala

Kapur‟s Life Goes On border on the autobiographical. The storylines were lifted

31
from the gamut of everyday experience and according to Malashri Lal, they were

„retellings of her own life in one way or the other‟. They tended to write about the

sociological base familiar to them and the repressed desires and sad compromises

that formed the subtext of the apparently simple woman-centered story. But the

novels of these women writers are different from those of their male predecessors.

There was a shift from the questions of the married woman to issues that relate to the

formation of the female self. She had to strive to attain recognition of her

individuality and acceptance by society, of an existence beyond her gender based

roles.

Post-Independence witnessed the upsurge in fiction written by women. Compared to

other genres, the novel form emerged vigorously and attained most of the coveted

prizes. Writers like Kamala Markandaya, Ruth Jhabvala, Nayantara Sahgal, Bharati

Mukherjee, Anita Desai were drawn into the forces that shaped the experiences of

women and made a valuable contribution in the clear portrayal of women‟s quest for

freedom and identity. They purposefully expressed the social and gender-based

grievances in a subtle manner and in the process disturbing the reader‟s complacency

and heightening their awareness about the realities of women‟s lives. The second

generation of post-independence novelists were Shobha De, Shashi Deshpande,

Suniti Namjoshi, Namita Gokhale, Attia Hosain, Gita Mehta and Rama Mehta. Their

works were bolder and sharply feminist in nature. The writers of the nineties were

Meena Alexander, Chitra Banerjee, Gita Hariharan, Arundhati Roy, Rani Dharker,

Jhumpa Lahiri, Anita Nair among others. Their works have been discussed earlier.

Here there in an attempt to study the trend, from the point of view of the novel.

32
Most of the writers choose the family as the base for their works. The protagonists

are mostly women. The initial works were autobiographical like that of

Satthianadhan‟s Saguna. It was the retelling of the author‟s life and experiences.

Some of them were fictionalized in a way that the protagonist would be modeled on

the author and events would also be based on her life. Gradually there was a move

from the personal to the familiar. Women writers who themselves enjoyed freedom

to study and have a career chose to write about women in the social context of India

who are still in chains or about those who have been able to achieve liberation or

those who rebel against the imposing patriarchal structures. They are always

conscious about their gender. Psychological realism became the most important

genre. Women writers described the thoughts and feelings of women, their joys and

sorrows, struggles and victories in the patriarchal setup. This brings in the feminine

perspective about patriarchy and also about their own lives and try to break the

images created about them. The image of a New Woman is developed in their works.

The term New Woman was popularized through Sarah Grand‟s essay, The New

Aspect of the Woman Question published in March 1894 in North American Review.

She uses the term to signify the woman who is above the man and has found the

problem with the idea of Home-is-the woman‟s-sphere and solved it. The new image

was of a feminist, educated, independent career woman. She exercised control over

her life and exerted autonomy in domestic and private sphere. She had no fear of

independence and solitary life and considered marriage to be a fetter. This image of

the new woman is reflected in the plays of Henrik Ibsen and novels of Henry James.

33
The other side was that the image was ridiculed as one that propagates disorder and

rebellion.

In the Indian context, the New Women are empowered by education, career and the

right to choose and are active in personal and public life. They have more awareness

about the world, technology, their rights and support systems. They are confident and

do not worry about social taboos. They are cosmopolitan in their outlook and have

no constrains of class, gender or religion. This image is found in many novels but

most of the protagonists, like in real life are those who try to negotiate a middle path

with a win-win attitude. Therefore the western idea of new woman is different from

the Indian image. This research studies the woman protagonists in all the eleven texts

and tries to understand their stands.

IV

Do men and women write differently? This question unfolds itself into an array of

related questions like are men and women different? Do they have different

sensibilities? Are there mental and psychological differences between them? Each

question is a research in itself and cannot be dealt with in detail in the gambit of this

study. Yet a brief discussion is needed to justify to some extent the opening question.

Although in the twenty-first century, we aim closer towards gender equality and in

many politically correct circles the discussion of differences between men and

women is obliterated, gender dynamics is an area that needs to be studied in an

interdisciplinary manner.

34
It is the position of this research that men and women are equal but different. They

have equal rights and status. Biologically, it is obvious that men and women are

diverse. According to various studies, men have more upper body strength, build

muscles easily, have joint structure more suitable for confrontation and use of force.

Women have four times more brain cells that connect right and left side of brain that

enables them to focus on more than one problem at a time.

However the psychological differences are less obvious. But an understanding of

these distinctions is helpful in forming and maintaining relationships. Michael

Conner, Clinical, Medical and Family Psychologist, in an online article

Understanding the Differences between Men and Women indicates some vital areas

of difference.

1. Problem solving: while both men and women can solve problems well, their

approach is different. For men problem presents an opportunity to show their

competance, resolve, commitment and authority while for women sharing

and discussing a problem presents an opportunity to explore, deepen and

strengthen relationships with the person.

2. Thinking: Men and women can arrive at similar conclusions and decisions,

but the process can be different. Women are intuitive and consider multiple

sources of information. They are prone to become overwhelmed and have

difficulty separating personal experience from problems. Men focus on one

problem and have enhanced ability to separate themselves from it. They are

35
 prone to minimize and fail to appreciate subtleties which are crucial to

successful solutions.

3. Memory: women are more adept at recalling memories with strong emotional

content while men recall events in terms of tasks and activities.

4. Sensibility: women have enhanced physical alarm response to danger. Men

feel closer through shared activities while women through communication

and emotional content.

5. Processing Information: The right brain which is the „emotional radar‟ is

more developed in women which enables them to see, hear and perceive

especially in case of mothers. But men are denser and miss what‟s going on.

Coming to the linguistic styles, the question of possible differences is controversial

and elusive. Some linguistic researchers like Janet Holmes indicate that there are

consistent differences between men‟s and women‟s writing while some believe that

no difference in style should be expected in formal contexts. Some stereotypical

views are that women‟s writing is light and fanciful while men sacrifice description

to plot. We can speculate indefinitely about how men and women write differently.

However concrete work is found in an online article titled, Gender, Genre and

Writing Style in Formal Written Texts published by Shlomo Argamon, Moshe Kopel,

Jonathan Fine and Rachael Shimoni. In this study, the researchers selected a corpus

of 604 British texts by both men and women authors. They applied fully automated

methods using a version of EG Algorith of Balanced Winnow algorithm to

automatically select the features that most properly categorised a document. It was

done with a set of 76 parts of speech like prepositions, nouns, articles, punctuation

36
marks and so on and found author gender with 80% accuracy. Their findings briefly

indicate the following:

1. Extraordinary frequency in the use of pronouns by women writers. Possessive

and reflexive forms are in greater use suggesting greater level of

personalisation. The second person „you‟ is used highly which suggests

drawing the reader into the text.

2. Male authors prefer generic pronouns. They use words that identify and

determine nouns (a,the,that) and words that quantify them. There is a greater

use of specifiers.

3. Male writers use more specifiers and style is more informational while

women writers are more connected with readers.

Gender Genie is an online software programme that uses a simplified version of the

algorithm developed by Moshe Koppel to predict the gender of an author. This is

talked about in detail in an online journal, The Internet Review of Science Fiction, in

an article by Elizabeth Barrett titled, Do Men and Women Really Write Differently?

She also states, “Gender division in writing and reading thus comes down as

tendencies, not absolutes. Men more often concern themselves with actions, ideas

and analysis. Women more concern themselves with processes, perceptions and

implications.” Philip Ball in Computer Programme Detects Author Gender,

observes, „men talk more about objects and women more about relationships.‟

Virginia Woolf says, „it would be a thousand pities if women wrote like men.‟

(1930:152). Anita Desai opines that “ women writers are likely to place their

37
emphasis differently from men, that their sense of values is likely to differ and that

they will deal with what may appear trivial to male readers because it appears to

have less consequences than the usual male actions do, with what is less solid and

tangible than the concerns of most men that is less with action, experience and

achievement and more with thought, emotion and sensation.” (42-43)

Men and women have different sensibilities and they articulate things differently.

Certain events happen only in the life of women and this affects the total mechanism

of their personality. So the experience of being a woman is different from being a

man. Though many modern psychologists believe that gender differences are

minimal except in few areas, society highlights and manipulates these differences

assuming an erroneous „inferior‟ or „superior‟ status. The following study is made

with the assumption that there are subtle differences in the writing by women. Only a

study of these subtle differences will raise the stereotypical labels attached to

women‟s writing, which confines it the level of „sharing‟, consciousness-raising‟,

domestic, limited or woman-to-woman writing. It is therefore that many women

writers oppose feminist labels. Madhu Kishwar‟s editorial in Manushi, Why I Do Not

Call Myself a Feminist? enumerates several reasons why she is wary of the label.

Some of them are the inadequacy and constrains of the label, subjection to feminist

western thought, lack of clarity in ideological positions and lack of connection to

Indian reality. Lakshmi Kannan writes in her essay, To Grow or Not To Grow: That

is the Question for Women, that for a woman, her works are no less a process of self-

actualization as her life. She has to wrestle with myths, legends or the conservative

elements within the community, both in life and her writings.

38
 V

The focal area of this research is the novels written by Indian women writers in

English after 1990, with emphasis on four of them: Shama Futehally, Manorama

Mathai, Manju Kapur and Kiran Desai. The topic of the research is Sensibilities of

the Woman’s world. The word „sensibility‟ has its origin in the Latin word

„sensibilitas‟. It has various meanings:

1. capability of being perceived by senses

2. power of feeling, responding

3. power of sensation, perception

4. emotional consciousness

5. quickness or acuteness of apprehension, reaction

6. capacity of refined emotion.

Perception means awareness, consciousness and ability to feel, experience and

understand. Responsiveness refers to receptivity, affectedness or sensitivity to

stimuli. Reaction refers to the quality of being affected by and the liability to feel

offended. So there is an effort to analyse how the writer and the women characters

perceive life, what induces positive response in them and what causes them to react

negatively. This can further be studied in a life-cycle perspective which could give a

holistic understanding of a woman‟s perceptions. Though individual traits differ,

there are critical patterns of events that are likely to be experienced by most women.

Moreover, it is possible to thus trace what period of life the writer focuses on most

and otherwise. The stages are as follows:

39
 1. childhood

2. adolescence

3. marriage

4. motherhood

5. aging and death

Besides this there are key areas like

1. self

2. education and career

3. sexuality

4. relationships

5. worldview

The study therefore aims to find out how the selected writers project the birth of a

girl child and the societal attitudes surrounding it. How are the adolescent years

described? What is the role of education in her life? What are the careers the women

characters take up? Do they follow the road to arranged marriages? What role does

the family play in life of a woman? Are there other alternatives to marriage

suggested directly or indirectly? What are the dimensions of her sexuality; pre-

marital, marital and extra-marital? How is motherhood portrayed? Which

relationships hold central place in her life? How does she deal with aging and death?

This study suggests that a woman‟s sensibility constructs a woman‟s world, i.e. the

way she perceives the world, responds and reacts to it. It aims at the study of her

40
perception of self, her roles, relationships, work and society through the medium of

the selected works.

Thus this study also looks at the texts from the philosophical point of view in its

focus on experience and consciousness. It is concerned with the study of experience

from the perspective of an individual. This makes it powerful in understanding

subjective experience, gaining insight into personal motivation and action, cutting

across taken-for-granted assumptions. This reflective study of the essence of

consciousness is the subject matter of the movement called „Phenomenology‟

developed in the 20th century by Edmund Husserl. Its basic principle lies in his

statement, „we can only know what we experience‟. The purpose of Phenomenology

is the study of experience from the perspective of the individual. It normally

translates into getting deep information and identifying the phenomena through how

they are perceived by the individuals. It is particularly effective at bringing to the

fore the experiences and perceptions of individuals from their own perspectives and

therefore challenging structural and normative assumptions. Topics discussed

within this tradition include the nature of intentionality, perception, time-

consciousness, self-consciousness, awareness of the body and awareness of others.

This kind of study would help the study of the above stated texts.

The objective of the present research is to closely and critically evaluate the novels

of the selected writers from the point of view of Indian feminism. Feminism as a

theory came from the West but it is universal in its claim for gender equality.

Considering the fact that gender is a social construct, the social roles and

41
expectations differ from culture to culture. Hence Indian feminism is different from

western feminism in its expression, especially literary expression. Indian feminist

critics like Jasbir Jain, Meenakshi Mukherjee, Malashri Lal, anthologists like Susie

Tharoor and K.Lalitha have traced the origin of women‟s writing in India, edited and

compiled many articles on women‟s texts and theorized on various aspects of this

writing and created tools or methodology to systematize it. The idea of the difference

from western feminism arises from this comparative study. Then it is necessary to

qualify this difference through systematic and evaluative study. It is here that such a

research as this provides a picture of the evolving Indian English fiction written by

women.

In this research the following novels are studied:

1. Tara Lane, Shama Futehally

2. Reaching Bombay Central, Shama Futehally

3. Mulligatawny Soup, Manorama Mathai

4. Whispering Generations, Manorama Mathai

5. Love and Dr Aiyar, Manorama Mathai

6. Difficult Daughters, Manju Kapur

7. A Married Woman, Manju Kapur

8. Home, Manju Kapur

9. Immigrant, Manju Kapur

10. Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard, Kiran Desai

11. The Inheritance of Loss, Kiran Desai

42
It is assumed that the study of these texts will help to place these writers in the larger

tradition of Indian women novelists. There is an attempt to study the particular

thematic and stylistic features of the writers and also point out the differences among

them. A psychoanalytic study of the protagonists is intended and also with reference

to phenomenology. The technical aspects of the narrative would be assessed with

focus on imagery, symbols, chronology of events, point of view, language,

chapterization and so on. This research can contribute in construction of knowledge

about the writers, the texts and the literary tradition.

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