Indian English Drama: A Gynocritical Perspective (Hardbound - 2021)

Gynocriticism refers to the historical study of women writers as a distinct literary tradition. It denotes a criticism that constructs a female framework for the analysis of women’s literature, to develop new models based on the study of female experience, rather than adapt male models and theories.

The book illustrates gender-centred reality, psychodynamics of language and stage strategy in the select plays of Bharati Sarabhai, Mahasweta Devi and Manjula Padmanabhan. It presents a gynocentric interpretation of Bharati Sarabhai’s The Well of the People (1943), and Two Women (1952); Mahasweta Devi’s Mother of 1084 (1973); and Bayen (1976); and Manjula Padmanabhan’s Lights Out (1986), and Harvest (1997).

The book foregrounds the gender language, and techniques with a view to exploring the spatial dynamics leading ultimately to ascertain woman’s world view. It strives to unearth how these playwrights have challenged the social construction of gender by deconstructing the supportive socio-cultural and areocentric paradigms.

The objective of the book is to explore the self and language of women through perception of gender-based social reality to defy woman’s conventional, stereotyped construction in today’s male-dominated society and to make it an elaborative gynic realization in the male-centred society.

The book will be useful for the students and teachers of English Literature, particularly Indian English Literature, Feminist Literature and researchers in these fields.

Durgesh Bhausaheb Ravande, MA, Ph.D. has been working as Asstt Professor in the Department of English at K.K.M. College, Manwath, Distt. Parbhani, Maharshtra, for the last nine years. He has contributed articles in reputed literary journals such as Triveni, The Literary Criterion, Littcrit, Labyrinth, World Journal of Gender and Literature, Shodh Sampada and some others. He has been engaged to unearth the mechanism of Zhadipatti Ranghbhumi (People’s Theatre in Vidharbha, Maharashtra) as a part of his minor research project work. Contemporary Literary Theory, Indian Drama, and Women’s Theatre are the major areas of his introspection and interpretation.