Women’s writings in the present world have made a deep impact on the social and cultural ambience. Women’s literature is now perceived as an individual entity, bringing women’s consciousness, experiences and values in the act of reading.
Literatures produced by women exhibit the subjects, motifs and problems exploring their urge for self-definitions, at times by flouting the structured norms of propriety as well as discarding the prescribed norms of gender relations.
The novels that have been chosen for study are: Difficult Daughters, A Married Woman and Home by Manju Kapur; The Crow Eaters, Ice-Candy-Man, The Pakistani Bride, An American Brat and Water by Bapsi Sidhwa; and Lajja by Taslima Nasrin.
The work of these three women novelists focuses on the area of contention between hegemonic values and the simultaneous changes transmuting women’s consciousness, represented as a marginalized section in their own textual narratives. The underlining theme in the textual construction of the three novelists is the Partition holocaust. These writers centre on the myriad meanings that Partition manifested for the different communalist discourses, and have highlighted the marginalized status of women within the socio-political framework of the Partition process.
The book analyses women characters as represented in the work of the three novelists—their mental, social, emotional and physical abuse, with reference to the tragedy of Partition and in the political and social extremity observed in the three nations. The work also analyses the reason for gender inequalities and injustices which exist in society. The study focuses on culture and its various ways of assigning different roles, responses, and attributes to the male and female.
The book assesses the emergence of women writers in the Indian subcontinent; studies how Manju Kapur, Bapsi Sidhwa and Taslima Nasrin have responded to Partition and all the trauma associated with it; comprehends the psyche of female characters their sexual urges; and studies the female characters in pain, anguish, vulnerability, abuse and sufferings. It discusses not only the female psyche but also women’s encounter with men and vice versa, providing an in-depth analysis of the female world.
The conclusion provided at the end is the assimilation and incorporation of the main theory that the work envisages. The book will be useful for the students of English literature, women’s literature and researchers in these fields.
Lalima Chakraverty holds a Ph.D. degree in English literature from Patna University. She was awarded gold medal by the former President of India, Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam for topping in M.A. English from Patna University in the year 2005. She has seven years of teaching experience in some of the most prestigious institutes in India including Patna Women’s College, Birla Institute of Technology, Extension Patna, and Amity University Noida. At present she is working with St Joseph’s College of Commerce, Bengaluru.
Her areas of expertise are post-colonial literature, feminism, Indian English literature and women literature. She has published research articles in national and international journals.
