I

INTRODUCTION

Literature is more or less called the ‘mirror’ of the society. It is

interpreted as reflecting the various vital aspects of the society such as norms,
values, cultures, conflicts and problems etc. ‘Ramayana’ and ‘Mahabharata’ are
great epitomes which tell a story of some characters but one can read the
reflection of the issues and facts of the society of respective age. One can know
about the cultures, rituals, values, beliefs and social systems of the society
prevailing at a particular period in the literature. Of course, literature is a
creation of author’s mind and thinking, it is mostly based on imagination.
However, an author cannot keep away himself from the surrounding society of
his time .Author is one of the ordinary persons of the society and creates literary
works by shaping his/her experiences which are surrounded by the web of time
being incidents. It focuses on the shaping and creates the social actions. It also
focuses on history, arts and even be a direct reflection of the society. Literature
is a powerful tool of communication. It is a straightforward way of
communicating and preserving important details of cultures, traditions and
attitudes. It creates awareness among the readers and appeals the masses
regarding certain issues by creating some emotions about the horrible problems
prevailing in the society. It raises the voice of affected and exploited classes. A
good literature creates values, ethics and sensitizes the people towards pitiable
situation, pathetic realities of life of certain characters and classes of the society.
At the early stage, literature was in the form of poetry, while prose is a
much later form of the literature. Day by day, it developed in diverse forms of
literature by author’s products. Poetry-the product of imagination, prose-the fruit
of intellectual are of author’s masterpieces. Initially, poetry is an epic form.
Ramayana, Mahabharata, Iliad, Odyssey are some great epics in which we find a
picture of the ancient life and various facets of the society of the concerned place
and time. Drama and essay are the next to the poetry respectively mixture of
imagination and reality as well as easy form of literature. Furthermore,
Biography and autobiography are also a part of literature which presents the
picture of a particular period.
Literature can be classified chiefly into two forms respectively poetry
and prose. Again prose can be classified into two forms like fiction and non-
fiction. Fiction can be classified mostly into three forms- short story; novel and
drama/play. Non-fiction can be classified into essay, media column (journalism
writing, contemporary issues), bibliography and autobiography, memoirs,
criticism. The most realistic forms of literature are the stories and novels which
deal with the social, economic and political life of a region. The story either a
short story or a novel is an assortment of imagination and realities of the society
of a particular period. Literature entertains the reader because it takes away the
reader from the real life through the imaginary world for time being. People like
to read stories particularly novels. So far as, literature is a mirror of the society,
it reflects the real aspects of the predicament of women. Women are the half part
of the mankind and they have their own problems related to gender. In India, the
pre- independent literature reflects the patriarchal society in which woman is
portrayed as a subordinate character of man. Though woman is placed in the
centre of some of the fictions, she is presented as a sufferer or sacrificing for
others. Woman was mainly presented as faithful, shy and obedient character or
as a villain.
Now- a- days, Indian fiction has become well entranced within the larger
range Indian English Literature. Feminist fiction has taken the centre stage as the
most powerful and characteristic form of literature. Feminism is still a topic
which charms the contemporary women writers. Modern Indian Fiction Writers
adopt women centric approach that seeks to interpret experience from the point
of the female consciousness and sensibilities. In the field of Indian English
literature, feminist or a woman central approach is of major development that
deals with the experience and situation from the feminist consciousness. There is
a transformation in the image of women characters in the last four decades.
Contemporary writers moved away from traditional role of enduring self
sacrificing women towards women searching for identity and therefore she
remains no more a sorry tiger or victim. The feministic fiction particularly
written by Indian female writers can be seen as the reaction of the excessive
injustice towards women under the patriarchal traditions. The patriarchal society
in India has the age long traditions. The Hindu religious “Shastras” have
established the patriarchal traditions in India in which a family and society are
dominated by men and the female is considered as the subordinate partners of
male. The role of women is described by many perspectives in “Manu Smriti” as
an obedient wife, a caring mother and safe guarded daughter.

It is pertinent to note throughout the history of mankind, from Palaeolithic

civilization, Goddess worship was widely prevalent and families were
matriarchal in their structure course of time. Civilization was overtaken by
patriarchal dominance and worship of the male deity became the dominant
concept. In social set up, male ego acquired control and predominance in all
spheres of social activities such as ritualistic performances, politics, religions
and ethnic which in turn submitted women to the place of utter subordination, a
secondary place; the insignificant.

Indian literature right from very ancient books like ‘Ramayana’ and
‘Mahabharata’ to the literature created up to independence period of India is
reflecting the patriarchal system of Indian society. Authors have presented the
traditional society where the female characters are performing the subordinate
role of men. Though the women have a few rights {for example like to choice to
select her husband (Swayamvar). They have to live under male domination and
have to follow the traditions. ‘Sita Maiya’ has to give Agneepariksha
(examination for her chastity) and she was left by Lord Rama when she was
pregnant. Draupadi married to Arjun in a ‘Swayamvar’ but she has to become a
wife of five brothers and later on known as ‘Panchali’ because she has to obey
the words of her mother-in-law ‘Kunti ’. She was considered as the property of
her husband and she was put in gambling (in a game of Dice) as a property.
Thus, even powerful women have to follow the traditions and obey the orders of
their husbands. However, she recognizes the hurt of her self-respect; she doesn’t
bother about society and rebels against it. The Indian literature presents the
traditional society and chauvinistic approach where female characters enjoy a
little freedom in various aspects of life.

Patriarchy keeps women under the control of men. Female is oppressed

by various traditions and kept away from the freedom. Women have to follow
traditional values and customs. Arranged marriages are imposed on girls. A girl
child has to face many restrictions in her life varied from education, clothes,
behaviours, food and nutrition, plays and entertainment, work and marriage.
Separated (divorcee) single and unmarried mother are considered inferior and
have no social status. They have to face social stigma. Men have no strict
restriction on unfaithfulness but unfaithful women are considered characterless
(raised an issue over her chastity). Live in relationship is still considered
unhealthy but applicable in present scenario by the law. Unmarried daughters in
their late twenties are considered burden on their parents and it becomes a matter
of shame that a daughter remained unwed at latter age. It is proverb that
daughter is a bundle of snakes. Astha’s mother says:

When you are married, our responsibilities will be over.

Do you know the Shastras say if parents die without
getting their daughter married, they will be condemned to
perpetual rebirth?1

It is rightly mulled over the psyche of latter marriage of daughter’s beliefs

in the so called society. Brides have no choice to select their groom but they
have to respect the choice of their parents and relatives. After marriage, the
daughter becomes daughter –in-law, who is considered the property of in- laws.
Even the bride is given a new identity by giving her a new name and surname. A
woman has to leave her original identity / individuality of her parental home.
The bride is expected to serve her husband and in –laws silently and cannot
complain for any of the difficulties experienced by her. In India, few
communities like Sindhi, Bengali, Maharashtrian, Kannad and few Punjabi
families change the first name of the bride by her in-laws to symbolize the
changing identity given by her parental family. In Gujarat, there is no specific
caste in which the name of bride after marriage is changed but there prevails a
tradition of changing the name of bride after marriage in some of the families.
The original name of bride officially remains the same, but the family members
used to call her with a name as per choice of the family members. People like
modern names but brides’ names are coined in accordance with their wishes.
Hence, modern families give a new name to a new bride as per their choice. It is
not enough to change surname but also name of her choice. It is merely clarified
that there is no room for a daughters’ wish.
A few decades ago, even educated women were not permitted to work
outside home and it was a popular subject for debate in schools and colleges –
where is the place of woman - in home in outside home? With the changing
social economic conditions, now many of the female are permitted to work
outside the home in some selected sectors, but they do not have enough rights to
hold and spend the income. The working women have habitually to perform her
domestic duties such as cooking, child care, services to in-laws, social
responsibility etc. Law has given equal property rights to all, but women hardly
get befits from the property rights. In the western world injustice towards
woman has coined a phrase ‘the second sex’ for woman. Manju Kapur has
reflected the age old patriarchal mentality in her all novels through different
female protagonists. In Difficult Daughters, Kasturi, the mother of Virmati and
first generation of the novel, she remarks, “Still, it is the duty of every girl to get
married.”2

Furthermore, she says to Virmati;

When I was your age…girls only left their house when

they married. And beyond a certain age…3

and she tries to pursue her daughter by saying:

 If you cannot consider your duty to us, at least consider
yourself. There is a time in the cycle of life for
everything. If you wilfully ignore it like this, what will
happen to you? A woman without her own home and
family is a woman without moorings.4
Even Virmati, the leading character of the novel is conditioned with the
patriarchal lessons about the duties of wife. When Swarna Lata, her former
roommate advices her to leave her husband and joins her group to enjoy the
freedom, she replies, “A woman’s happiness lies in giving her husband
happiness.”5

Swarna Lata is an educated, a divorcee and freedom fighter advices to Virmati:

Marriage is not the only thing in life, Viru. The war-the

Satyagraha movement- because of these things, women
are coming out of their homes for taking jobs, fighting,
going to jail. Wake up from your stale dream6.
Moreover she tells Virmati:

Men don’t want family wealth to be divided among

women. Say their sisters get dowry, that’s their share, and
the family structure will be threatened, because sisters and
wives will be seen as rivals, instead of dependents who
have to be nurtured and protected. As a result women will
lose their moral position in society! Imagine!7

In A Married Woman, Astha’s mother-Sita and her mother- in-law are the
representative of Indian traditions of patriarchal set up. Manju Kapur has
narrated the traditional views of old type of women about marriage and women’s
duties. Sita, Astha’s mother also thinks to be more explicit to her daughter and
says:

Our Shastras teach us how to live. You will learn from the
Gita, the Vedas, the Upanishads.8

Astha’s mother-in-law comments on the duty of a married woman, “Woman is

earth and it is true she felt bounteous, her life one of giving and receiving,
surrounded by plenty.”9
 In Home, Nisha’s mother, Sona is a traditional woman. She reveals her
patriarchal thinking towards Nisha:

As Daughters, sisters and wives, women lit up their

households, and it was Nisha’s good fortune that, despite
being a mangli, she could start so early. Besides, one
should not be too attached.10
In The Immigrant, Manju Kapur presents the patriarchal views prevailing
in the society through Beth, the member of New Year Resolutions Group in
Canada. Beth is a modern western woman who does not believe in patriarchal
society or male dominated society but she is well aware of the male mentality.
She shares her views in the group:

As a result, male-female power equations are further

replicated, with the difference that the woman is now
paying for this shit…problems women have trend to be
treated as neuroses, rather than the result of stress that
comes from coping in a male dominated world, often
women feel inadequate, powerless, even sexually
vulnerable because of professional therapists.11
Feminism in Literature:-

The concept of feminism and feministic movement have developed in

the western world where mainly female thinkers, writers and activists had
advocated women’s rights and women’s freedoms. In India, feminism movement
was initially started by some social reformists like Raja Ram Mohan Ray,
Ishwerchandra Vidhyasagar, Kesav Chandra Sen and some Britishers. Initially,
the feministic movement was not for liberty and justice but to protect them from
cruel social traditions like Sati Pratha, child marriage, strict restriction to be
followers by widow, killing of infant female child (Doodh Peeti Karvi) etc.
While liberalization wave started in the world and a slow start in India during
1980’s some women described boldly about love, sex and marital relations. The
Indian women writers have distinctively portrayed the Indian women from the
feministic perspective. Female activists entered at latter stage of Feministic
movement in India. Feminism is primarily response to the way in which women
are presented in literature. It is an ideology which seeks to change the situation
in favor of women. Simon De Beauvoir’s’ phrase “The second sex” is related to
the feminism. She opines women’s thinking about herself as inferior to men and
dependent on him. She says, “The world is masculine as on the whole, those
who fashioned it, ruled it and still dominate it today are men.”12

Simon De Beauvoir has boosted the feminist movement through her ideas
given her famous book ‘The Second Sex’. Her book’s name itself indicates that
female are not equal to male but they are considered as the second sex. Her
widely quoted quote is “One is not born but rather, becomes a woman.”13 As per
Beauvoir, female are not born as woman, basically there is no difference
between male and female except biological structure. Mentally, man and
woman both are equal, but due to the male domination in the society some
traditions have been developed which forced the women to prepare themselves
as a woman. Basically, women’s characters and qualities are same in man and
woman both, but some established cultures, rituals, customs and traditions affect
the psychology of women to believe that they are different from men and are
made for subordinate role of men.

Feminist movement aims at weakening and removing social practices that

lead to the victimization of women.
Women come to realize the authenticity of the lives they
lead and struggle to discover for themselves, their own
impulse, relations, desires and needs. Their quest is for
self realization which can in term lead to relationship
based on mutual understanding and respect. Individual
change and social change, both are desired goals, together
with an eventual change in male perception and
attitudes.14

Feminists speak about woman that they are one half of the sky. There can be
seen more or less influence of western English novelists such as Jane Austen,
Misses Gaskells, Bronte Sisters and Virginia Woolf etc. on Indian women
writers. Manju Kapur is compared with British writer Jane Austen. Manju
Kapur’s style of narration of her characters seems to be inspired from the
writings of Jane Austen.
Most of the Indian female writers of post independent era are concerned
with identity crisis of women in their fictions. They have employed their skill
and efforts in presenting the angst of women. The protagonists of women writers
in variably express their feministic approach in their fictions.

Meaning of Feminism:-

Feministic movement is inspired by the concept ‘Feminism’. Feminism

concept is developed from the injustice towards the female. Some synonyms of
feminism are such as the women’s movement, women’s liberation, justice to
women, women’s rights, women empowerment etc. It is an idea related to
advocacy of women’s rights on the grounds of political, social and economical
equality to men. Feminism is derived from its origin Latin word “Femina”.
Femina is related to advocacy for the rights, status and power of women as
equality of sex. There is no difference between men and women. All women are
having equal rights parity with men. The term ‘feminism’ became popular at the
early stage of 20th Century as well-organized socio- political movement for
women’s emancipation from patriarchal oppression. ‘Female’ is the matter of
biology and ‘feminine’ is ‘a set of culturally defined character’. Feminism is
advocated to remove restrictions and discrimination against women as well as it
takes political position. Hence, Indian Feminists have also fought against
cultural issues related to the patriarchal traditions such as in Laitance laws and
practice of widow immolation. i.e. Sati Pratha. Marxist ideology had made the
feminist challenges sexism along with capitalism, because both encourage the
patriarchal tradition. Feminism is the belief that all persons should be treated
equally in the legal, social and economical aromas without any identity trails
such as religion, caste, sex etc. It is an interdisciplinary approach to issues of
equality and equity based gender, gender expression, gender identity and
sexuality as understood through social theories and political activism. Feministic
activists campaign in the areas such as reproductive rights, domestic violence,
fair social justice and workplace problems such as medical leave, equal pay,
sexual harassment and discrimination. Feminist activism is the wrestle for
equality- equal rights and opportunities for both men and women. It is in the
support of women’s rights and interests. Women should have freedom of her
decision of life, education, financial matters, birth control, sexist exploitation
and oppression.

The widely used meaning of feminism is awareness about

women’s oppression and exploitation in society at work place and within the
family and conscious action be taken by men and women to change this
situation. The feminist movement in India can be divided in three phases.

1. Mid 19th century (Pre Gandhian Era)

2. 1915 to Indian Independence (Gandhian Era)
3. Post Independence

The first phase of feminist movement in India began in the mid 19th
century which was initiated by Indian male reformists and Britishers to remove
social evils like Sati Pratha. (Widow Molestation)
The second phase of the movement was imposed by Mahatma Gandhi
starting from 1915 to 1947 that is till Indian independence. Gandhiji
incorporated women’s movement in to National Freedom Movement and
independent women’s organizations (like Jyoti sangh) emerged.
The third phase of feministic movement is post independence which has
focused on fair treatment of women at home after marriage and at work place
and in the society.
The feministic movement in India has become fruitful and
powerful with the functioning of a large number of women’s N.G.O.s and
women activists. The movement has become successful in different ways.
Despite the progress in some ways, women have to face some issues of
discrimination since the last few decades of the 20th century, they have also
emerged a disturbing trends of pre natal test and sex selective abortion. The
Indian feminists have to struggle against such injustices. Issues highlighted got
importance in media as well as in literature with the United Nations Celebration
international women year in 1975 and then international women decade 1975-
1984.

Feministic Writing by Female Writers: - Feminizing in Literature.

Feminism seems a powerful movement that swept the literary word

since a few decades. As per various writers’ consciousness, feminism has
articulated differently in diverse regions of the world. Feminism aims at
providing an altogether awareness of women’s role in the modern world.
Feminism gives a challenge to the age long tradition of gender differentiation. It
attempts to explore a new social order to find proper solution to the new life
problems.

The literature mainly written by women and concentrated on women

can be called feministic literature. Feminism has transformed the academic study
of literature; fundamentally alternative canon of what is thought and search new
agenda for literary analysis. Feminism has changed the way of trading and
thinking of people about literature. The purpose of the feministic literature is to
clarify the reality of the problems of women. So literature can be a medium for
solving the problems. With the upsurge of the feminist movement in the west,
the women started to resist oppressive gender arrangement. The image of Sita
and Savitri was established in Indian literature over a vast span of period.
Formerly the Indian fiction portrayed the women characters as either dutiful
daughters or self negating mothers. The traditional Indian literature reflected the
men, women relationship between two individuals or as common requirement
for satisfaction. The baggage of honour, chastity and dedication where laid down
on the shoulders of women and the man enjoyed the freedom. The literature
presented the women characters as preoccupied with domestic and family
environment. The creative writing related to the women’s side was considered as
a deviation from the conventional roles of the women. There was a great
influence of patriarchal tradition on Indian literature. Hence the writers both men
and women have to write on conventional themes like love, faith, motherhood,
family, devotion, dedication etc. After independence the feminist movement
spread with the socio-economic development, increasing urbanization and
increasing women education. A number of women writers entered in the field
and made a revolutionary transformation in the representation of women
characters.

The majority writers preferred to be freed from the stereo typed

conventional representation of women characters as silent spectators or tools for
satisfaction of men. Most of the female authors are assumed to write as per their
own experiences. The Indian female English writers had experienced and
witnessed the problems of women in the patriarchal traditions, but they had
grown up in the modern society and achieved the desired space and identity of
their own. The women writers started to present the experiences, desires,
expectations of the women of modern society. Women writers have presented an
authentic picture of the predicament of women. The women writing about
women have become a political act in India.

In the latter decades of a post independence, feministic movement many

female writers have focused on the existing gender inequality prevailing in the
society. In the contemporary scenario a collective emphasis is made by the
female writers on sovereignty of women in their writings. Rapidly growing
convent education among the women, increasing urbanization, emerging
globalization, developing sophistical life and culture spreading disrupt and pop
culture and such other factors of the modern age have influenced the women
writers to create more women centric fictions.

After 1970s feminists realized that equal right alone

cannot free women from sexual and social subordination.
Intellectual starvation, economic expansion, commercial
expectation, domestic domination, physical abuse, sexual
harassment and lack of personal freedom continued to
affect the lives of women instead of laws, to the
contrary.15
 The feminist writer and critics realized that socio-cultural set up that is
patriarchal tradition is playing a crucial role to keep women subjugated.
Feminist fiction during the last decades has become a powerful and
characteristic form of literary expiration. Now- a- days, feminism in Indian
English literature has become creative and innovative and it has got an important
place in the academic study and research. Many scholars particularly female
have selected the different aspects of feministic fiction for their research.

Indian Writing in English had expanded a ground after the independent

period; Indian Women Writers started questioning the patriarchal domination.
They have shown their worth in the field of literature both, qualitatively and
quantitatively. The Modern Women Writers focused on the women’s
persecutions of their aspirations and expectations. A major development in
modern Indian fiction is women centric approach which interprets experience
from the point of a feminine consciousness and sensibility. Many Indian writers
have explored female subjectivity in order to establish an identity. The image of
women in novels has changed during last four decades. Female characters search
their identity and struggle for freedom.

Indian Female Writers: Feministic Writing:-

Female writers are more sensible towards female issues compared to male
writers. Women write to celebrate their womanhood; they sing women’s dream
and speak their bodies. As long as women did not write, they were not heard.
Women’s writing is like raising consciousness. Their writing impacts their very
existence in the socio cultural milieus, it expedites, their shift from marginal
position to a centre one. Literature reflects the reality of the society but it is also
true that reality is molded by literature. In a country like India where even
political power in hands of rural uneducated women is used by their men, it
becomes very significant to explore the changes brought about in the literary
scene by women writers. The shift from women as seen and projected by men to
women as lived and experienced by women is most welcome. Women writers
write with experience and feelings about ‘She’ which is more authentic and
powerful.
Male Writers followed only tradition patriarchal set up in their writings.
They were not so sensible about women characters in their fiction. Chanbey has
rightly said:
… (a) man did not have access to the inside of a house
which was the only space women moved in, (b) only the
weaker knows where the shoe pinches and these shoes
were certainly not worn by men; and (c) however
sensitive these writers may have been they still did not
consider woman’s life as exciting enough to become apt
material for fiction. There were writers who chose women
protagonists, but their portrayal of them was too
romanticized to compare with the real life woman. The
suffering wife, the weeping widow, or the sacrificing
mothers were only image found in fiction. In these novels
the Sita, Pativtra image of women found acceptance, and
submissiveness, was still considered a virtue. There was
no room for a woman who was not virtuous. Women
either upheld conservative ideas or they were labeled
immoral. Traditional moral aesthetics dominated these
narratives.16

Almost all women novelists write from their personal experiences; almost
all of them end up in one or other form of feminism. Some of them give us their
autobiography in their fictions and all virtually identify with their female
characters. Indian English literature was initially produced by male writers. Who
had little concerned about women problems? Indo-Anglican literature spread
under the broader realm of post colonial’s literature. During the post independent
period female writers entered in the field of English literature. Most of the
female writers have chosen women centric themes in their fictions. They have
portrayed not only the female characters from conventional traditions of
patriarchal society but also have presented them struggling for freedom from
traditional society. Many of the female writers have presented the woman as a
new woman who does not bear the injustice silently but prefer to fight against
the situations.
 Nayantara Sahgal, Anita Desai, Arundhati Roy, Shashi Deshpande, Gita
Hariharan, Shobha De, Ismat Chughtai and Manju Kapur are the leading female
writers who have written for the cause of women’s rights.

Nayan Tara Sahgal:

Nayan Tara Sahgal is one of pioneers of female writing in English in

India, who had received a wide recognition as a feminist. She belongs to India’s
most prominent political family. She is a writer with feminist concern who
presents the female protagonists seeking independence expected. Her characters
are victimized by the conventional society, but they struggle for their
individualism and identity. She thinks that women are not born as women but
they are made women by the society and cultural ethos. Traditional woman is a
creation of male dominant society, where some rules are set only for her. She
presents a woman as an object of physical enjoyment for a man. Men take pride
in having relationship before and after marriage, but they don’t expect the same
from their women. Nayan Tara’s the protagonist does not feel quality for her
marriage. One other character feels that without a child of her own, she would
never be the mistress of the house. She gives a message that though law has
changed but attitudes are not. Her main novels are ‘This Time of Morning’
(1965), ‘Storm in Chandigarh’ (1967), ‘The Day in shadow’ (1971) ‘Rich like
us’ (1988) ‘Lesser Breeds’ (2003) respectively. In her fictions, she presents the
female protagonists who don’t adjust with traditional approach of their
husbands. She has also written her memories in 1954 named as ‘Prison and
Chocolate Cake’.

Most of Sahgal’s novels deal with the theme of man –

woman relationship especially women struggling against
social injustice and oppression heaped upon them in the
name of tradition and culture.17
Anita Desai:

She was short listed for the Booker Prize thrice, received Sahitya
Academy Award for her novel ‘Fire On The Mountain’ and British Guardian
prize for “The Village by The Sea.” Her first novel ‘Cry, the Peacock’ presents
Maya’s psychological problems. Maya in ‘Cry, the Peacock’, Monisha in ‘The
City’, Nanda in ‘Fire in the Mountain’, Sita in ‘Where Shall we go This
Summer?’ All the female characters have become depressed, violent and self-
destructive. They either loss their sanity or kill others or destroy themselves. Her
protagonists are mainly single woman. Tara in ‘Clear Light of Day’ achieves
fulfilment in her marriage while Bimala gets her individual freedom. She is
veteran feministic writer who focuses on women quest for meaningful life.

Her protagonists undergo a struggle to find their real self,

which they had lost, because of the pressures of anxieties.
They experience a disparity between the higher needs of the
individual’s inner nature and the unalterable cosmic condition
of existence.18
Shobha De:

Shobha De does not think that she did write with a deal of empathy
towards women without waving the feminist tag. She criticized spiritedly all the
traditional beliefs and moral values which suppress women’s freedom of
enjoying sexual pleasure. Her female protagonists recognize that sexual pleasure
is an important part of their lives. They know how to achieve sexual pleasure
without any sense of guilt or regret. The generation of feminism knows how to
achieve their needs, the power of beauty and sexuality. Her protagonists behave
as freely as they consider sexual pleasure human rights. De’s heroines try to look
glamorous and smart and act differently from the conventional women. They are
sexually librates and face thinkers who are termed as “New Women”. The female
characters are more aggressive and bold in compression to male characters. They
do not feel guilty of their free sexual airs. De’s heroines considered pre marital
and extra marital relations very common and natural sexual freedom is achieved
through economic freedom. Most of the female characters of her novel belong to
elite class. Her novels ‘Starry Night”(1989) , ‘Sultry Days’(1994), ‘Snap Shots’
and ‘Second Thoughts’(1996) presents the lives of elite class women, who try to
be freed of the traditional norms of the society and joint family system and want
free from the established gender rules and sexual restraints. They want to enjoy
the same rights as men.

Arundhati Roy:

She is an artifact and has won the Booker Prize for her work, ‘The
God of Small Things’. She is born in Bengal and grew up in Kerala. She studied
in Delhi school of Architecture. She knows for her debuted novel ‘The God of
Small Thing’. She won the Britain’s Premier Booker Prize in 1997. She is the
first Indian woman author who won the booker prize. Her known essays are ‘The
Greater Common Good’. Her character presents feminine sensibilities. She is a
leading environmentalist of the country. She is a social activist and feminist
writer, who have advocated the female rights and freedoms.

Shashi Deshpande:

She is graduated in journalism from Bhartiya Vidhya Bhavan. She started

her career as a journalist in the magazine ‘On Looker’. Her first novel is ‘Dark
Holds No Terror’ (1980). Her famous novels are ‘That Long Silence’ (1989),
‘Roots and Shadows’ (1983) and ‘A Matter of Time’ (1996). ‘That Long
Silence’, the novel got her Sahitya Academy Award. She has presented the
problems of middle class woman in artistic way. Her women protagonists are
having traditional approaches trying to tie family and profession to maintain the
Indian culture. The main theme of her novels is human relationships exists
between husband and wife, mother and daughter and father and daughter where
the woman occupy the central position having feminine consciousness. She
presents the views through her characters of her fictions. The operation of
women still exists despite a great chance to play in all the fronts of human life.
Women have been exploited and suppressed in patriarchal society and have lost
the courage to raise the voice for their needs. Modern women cannot accept the
conventional restrictions and wish to come out of the traditional situation. Her
female characters are traditional but bold, self- reliant and outspoken. They are
not submissive but assertive. They struggle to build their identity.
Kamala Markandaya:

She is graduated from Madras University and migrated to Britain after

India’s independence. Her main theme is cultural clashes between Indian Urban
and Rural societies. Her novels are ‘Some Inner Fury’ (1952), ‘Nectar in a
Sieve’ (1954), ‘A Silence of Desire’ (1960), ‘Possession’ (1963), ‘A Handful of
Rice’(1966), ‘Two Virgins’ (1973), ‘The Golden Honeycomb’ (1977), and
‘Pleasure City’ (1982). Her first novel ‘Nectar in a Sieve’ was the best seller
and considered as a notable book by The American Library Association (ALA).

Bharati Mukharjee:
She is born in Calcutta and completed post graduation in English and
ancient Indian culture from M. S. University, Baroda and done Ph.D. in English
and cognitive literature in 1969 from Lova University, U.S.A. The established
women writers of English fiction like Kamala Markandaya, Jhumpa Lahiri, Ruth
Prawer Jhabvala, Geetha Hariharan, Hathiya Hussaity, Santha Rama Rau and
some other female writers have focused on the oppressed mental status of
women due to age long conventional values prevailing in the society. They have
portrayed the female protagonist searching for their identity and struggling for
their rights and respects.

Manju Kapur:

Manju Kapur’s fiction is a step forward in the path of feminist

writing in India. Manju Kapur has created the women centric literature in which
she has widely utilized her own experiences as well as the keen observation of
her surrounding real characters and situations. Her characters have reflexive
attitude. Her female characters cannot adjust with the patriarchal set up and
struggle for self-respect and own interest. They quest position and attempted to
redefine cultural and social stereotype and values in order to create an
appropriate space for themselves. The main female characters of Manju Kapur
struggle for identity and try to get what they desire at any cost. She highlights
the factors which curb the freedom of women to live and grow. The female
protagonists resist, struggle and overcome the ideological suppression. The
character reinvent them self in a meaning full way. Thus the fiction of Manju
Kapur contributes towards the feminist psycho analysis in the Indian English
literature.
Feminists began to realize that equal rights alone cannot
free women from sexual and social subordination.
Intellectual starvation, economic expression, commercial
expectation, domestic domination, physical abuse, sexual
harassment and lack of personal freedom continued to
affect the lives of women instead of laws to the contrary.19
Manju Kapur does not simply give the voice to the women sufferers
under the patriarchal setup, but she highlights a wide range of issues like
personal fulfilment, men- women relationship, matrimonial discourse, women’s
struggle for freedom, identity crisis and inter & intra personal relationship. Like
other female writers, Manju Kapur plots for fiction around her personal
experiences in life and presents the feminist issues of one or the other kinds. She
presents the men-women relationship through arranged marriages, love affairs
like extra marital affairs and homo sexual (lesbian) relationship, infertility,
sexual dysfunction, adoption, divorce etc. Manju Kapur presents male characters
in simple or traditional role and one can hardly find any ‘Hero’ in her novels.
The real ‘Heroes’ of the novels of Manju Kapur are her female characters. Sweta
Tiwari rightly says:

The women protagonists or ‘female heroes’ of Kapur’s

novel pass through these complicated relationship and
evolve into independent and autonomous entities. Thus,
the gender relation in patriarchal society through man-
woman relation- ship is one of the central themes in the
novels of Manju Kapur...the male characters of Manju
Kapur’s novels affect the psychology of women but they
do not fit in the mould of a hero. On the other hand,
women characters are qualified as heroes because they
directly or indirectly transcend the societal restriction
thrust upon them by the agents of patriarchy.20

The female characters of Manju Kapur’s novels take the risk of safely of
marriage and family. They rebel like heroes to leave life on their own desires.
The women characters are quite conscious about their position in family as well
as society and they are in search of their individuality and freedom. They resist
the odd situation and struggle for their identity and prefer to end loveless and
selfish relationship with man. They prefer to bear harsh consequences out of
their own decisions. The women characters of Kapur are bold and courageous
who take radical decision against family and traditional values of the society.
The novels of Manju Kapur describe different types of relationship such as men-
women of the same. Her women centred writing starts with the issues of
feminine and reach to the feminist ideas. Her titles of novels are simple but
suggestive.

Kapur highlights the issues of feminism related to the Indian society. She
illustrates the various intricacies around the dissolution of marriage and difficult
situation of women to come out of the religious and traditional set up. Kapur’s
novels present the contemporary picture of today’s women. Who is eager to
break away the domestic walls hope their houses are build a new one of them
own. Her novels present new women before us. Who wants an identity for her-
self? Her novels narrate the struggle for emancipation from economical, political
and social bondages. She has evolved her own style of emergence of modern
women grounded in reality in modern Indian context. Kapur’s novels are
significantly the growing tradition of Indian women’s literature in English. “The
idea that all women were meant to get married be submissive to their husbands
was given a second look when we read the novels of Manju Kapur.”21 Manju
Kapur’s female protagonists are mostly educated seeking their respectable place
in the conservative family. Due to their higher educational level they think
indecently and can’t just adjust with traditional set-up. They are caught in the
conflict between tradition and modernity. Kapur has portrayed women as always
at disadvantage due to her physic indifferent situations. As Sheeba Azhar and
Syed Abid Ali say:
 … A woman’s first encounter with her body becomes a
significant point of departure for her. The female body is
always at disadvantage. The woman is either silent about
her sexuality in ‘Home’ or defiant as in ‘Difficult
Daughters’ or Rebel as in “A Married Woman. For a
woman sexuality is a domain of restriction, danger and
repression. It can also be argued that sexuality become of
a site women’s operation.22

It is truly accepted by the society that women’s virginity is pure if it is

not touched by male. When one has experienced sex, it creates dilemma
especially in the life of female. It believes that the loss of virginity means
pleasure for a man and sin and scandal for a woman. Man has considered
women a mean to meet his day- to-day needs and used her to satisfy his sexual
desires. Man has not thought to give her a respectable status. On the contrarily
he tries to remain her shadow self and subordinate. For man, she is only a sexual
being. Kapur has changed the passive and silent character of women in to
protesting, out spoken and action oriented determined women. Manju Kapur’s
novels are women centric and her protagonists are struggling against all odds of
the traditional set-up to find and establish their place. Consciously and
unconsciously Kapur has presented the feminist views, though she doesn’t
accept her as feminist one. B.S. Jadhav and R. S. Nitonde explain how Manju
Kapur can be considered a feminist.

Though Manju Kapur hates to be called as a feminist writer,

through all her fictional works she projects the feminist
concerns. The entire scenario in her novel is feminine.
Virmati in “Difficult Daughter”, Astha in “A Married
woman”, Nisha in “Home”, Nina in “The Immigrant” and
Shagun and Ishita in “Custody” are all middle class
educated urban Indian women struggling to establish
themselves with their own independent identities in the
patriarchal set up of which they are part and parcel.23

Manju Kapur has created not too much bulk of literature, but she has created
the qualitative literature in sufficient quantities. She has created the fiction as
well as non- fictional literature. Her fictional literature is her novels and her
short stories and her non-fictional literature is about essays and media writing.
She also adopted the collection of stories written by women writers of south
Asian Countries which published as “Shaping the World”.

Manju Kapur has written five novels. ‘Difficult Daughters’ (1998), ‘A

Married Woman’ (2002),’Home’ (2006), ‘The Immigrant’ (2008) and ‘Custody’
(2011). Her very first novel Difficult Daughters took eight years for rewriting
and publishing but it got her prestigious Common Wealth Writers’ Prize. Her
other novels have received a great success as best seller and are nominated for
various awards.

Difficult Daughters, her first novel is partially based on the life of her
mother, which tells a story of three dissimilar generations of which enlighten a
story of the struggle of a woman to get education and marry a man of her choice.
Virmati and her daughter Ida are the leading characters of the novel and Virmati
is a real Hero of the fiction. She symbolizes ‘A New Woman’ of the time of
India’s independent woman.

A Married Woman is her second novel in which she has narrated a lesbian
relation in Indian English Literature. In it, Astha who is neglected by her
husband and family, she comes in the contact with Pipeelika who is a young
widow and socially cut off due to cross community marriage. They both come
closer to forget their loneliness and try to get emotional satisfaction. The relation
ends dramatically because Astha has to take care of her husband who is suffering
from the severe heart problems and Pipeelika goes abroad for higher study.
Manju Kapur has portrayed the romantic relation between two women which
have become the brave characters in Indian English Literature. The novel
conveys the message that a women’s relationship with other woman does not
threat married life as much as a relation with a man.

Home, Manju Kapur’s third novel is a journey of a bold educated and

confident young woman for her autonomy under the conventional situations of
joint family. Joint family has its own benefits and also has its own problems.
Everybody has to compromised with their aspiration and adjust with others.
After the rejection of a youth by her family, Nina decides to establish her own
business. She develops her business against all the adversities. She gets ready for
marriage as per her parents wish but puts a condition that she will continue her
business after her marriage. She is a real hero of the novel who tries to make the
economic autonomy.

Her fourth novel The Immigrant narrates the challenges facing immigrant
wives. She has boldly narrated the psychological factors which contribute to a
barren married relationship between husband and wife. Nina, a college teacher,
marries to an NRI after long waiting, experiences very disappointing in very first
intercourse during honeymoon. Ananda, her husband, is suffering from
dysfunctional problem and she is not able to become a mother, sexual
inadequacy turns into dissatisfaction which leads Nina towards extra- marital
affair with Anton, a Canadian youth. The novel implies that physical ability,
passion and commitment are necessary for a successful marital relationship.

Custody is Manju Kapur’s fifth novel which enlightens a story of urban

upper middle class colonials in the background of emerging globalization during
the 90s in India. It is a story of disloyalty (infidelity) and infertility
(unproductiveness) of two types of women. Shagun is an ambitious woman who
breaks her marriage which creates the harsh problems for her children. Ishita is a
middle class educated woman who humiliated by her husband and in- laws due
to her infertility. She becomes a true mother of her step children after marrying
Raman Bhalla. The fiction presents the hasty, chaotic lives of wealthy urban
middle class people with their non-adjusting nature, thrust for veil and freedom.
Custody mainly is a tale of the suppression of married couple and child custody
along with Indian legal system; children are torn between two mothers, two
homes and two countries. The novel presents the shocking and distressing effect
of divorce on all the stakeholders of a family. She has also contributed in short
stories to explore her internal emotions and crucial part of depth internal
excruciating emotions of life and struggle. Moreover, she has contributed in
essays and also edited an anthology “shaping the world”.

Background for Selection of the Subject and Title:-

The researcher has selected the subject related to the feminist literature as
broad area in which there seems wide scope to discuss and explore women
issues which are already presented in English fiction. Portrayal of female
characters and their problems have a long history of ages, but it had focused
mainly on the characters of traditional ideal women. During the initial stage of
modern era, female problems got place in literature, but the female characters
were presented as enduring silently injustice, hate and insult. The leading female
characters where portrayed as silent sufferers and helpless towards their pitiable
condition in the traditional patriarchal society. After independence, the Indian
society and economy experienced many changes such as modernization,
urbanization, economic growth and increasing education among the women,
which have changed thinking of women and mobilized many indigenous women
in the state of modern women. Feminism movement has been becoming stronger
in independent India and the new issues of modern women to place in the
literature. “Identity of women” became an important theme of contemporary
literature. “Reinvesting womanhood” became popular idea for Indian fiction
writers. “Women’s quest for Identity” has become much popular among
feministic writer, literary critiques, and sociologist and Gender quietists.

Many modern urban women of middle and upper middle class have caught
in depression. They feel being neglected in the family. Women are taught by
their elders since their adolescence that they would be happy as good wife and
caring mother in traditional feminine role, but they do not fill happy in real
word. Modern women are fed up with the traditions and restrictions imposed
upon them by the family and society. They are also greatly influenced by the
way of education, organized jobs. Money and media have brought the changes in
the thinking and needs of women. Many women feel that their aspirations do not
match with the feminine role of Wi-Fi mother. They feel dissatisfaction with
their life. They do not wish to live as subordinate partner. They think that they
should be treated as human being. They want freedom to live as per their wish
and choice but the other members of the family who are conditioned by the
traditions, pressure and compel them to respect the traditional values and
customs. Women have to struggle for freedom from conventional set up of the
society and establish their identity as a human being.

Now feminism is an important and effective movement in India and

feministic issues, specially the quest for identity have become the central theme
of literature, particularly the fictions of female writers. Manju Kapur has
explored the feministic issues such as non adjustment with patriarchal set up,
matrimonial discourses, infidelity, lesbianism, infertility, suppression,
dysfunction, divorcee, struggle for freedom, survival strategies, identity crisis
etc. In her novels’ “Identity Crisis” and “Survival Strategies” are prominently
the common issues of Kapur’s protagonists. She has narrated her characters in
the quest for identity and implementing survival strategies as per their
circumstances.

The researcher has thus selected the feministic issues raised by Manju Kapur
in her novels as a broader subject and identity crisis and survival strategies
which are the common in her protagonists and the theme of identity crisis and
survival strategies is selected as the specific title. Thus the title for the research
is framed as: “Identity Crisis of Women and survival strategies in Manju
Kapur’s Novels: A Critical Study”.

Hypothesis:-

There prevail some feministic problems in the patriarchal set- up of the

society. The socio- economic scenario is changing rapidly since the last decade
of 20th century in India. The Indian female writers have created huge feministic
literature. Manju Kapur is one of the prominent writers of women centric
literature.
 The researcher finds certain situation in the feministic writing of Indian
female writers. Some ideas and facts related to the feministic writings can be put
as statements in the form of hypothesis, which can be analyzed and criticized.
The hypothesis is extracted from the fictions of Manju Kapur.

I. Female writers have portrayed their characters as per their own

experiences and kin observation of their surroundings.
II. Feministic aspects are the central points in the fictions of Manju
Kapur.
III. Portrayal of modern women in Manju Kapur’s fictions shows that
women are not ready to accept the patriarchal tradition.
IV. The main characteristic of the modern women presented in Manju
Kapur fiction is identity crisis.
V. Modern women are in search for identity and adopt survival
strategies as per their circumstances.

Objectives:-

The main objectives of the research are as under:-

I. To search the feminism in Manju Kapur writing.
II. To find the suffocative situations for women within the patriarchal
set up illustrated in Manju Kapur fiction.
III. To exploiter the contemporary marital problems in the works of
Manju Kapur.
IV. To search and explore the quest for identity of the female
protagonists of Manju Kapur’s fictions.
V. To understand women’s strategy for survival and achieve freedom
from conventional traditions in Manju Kapur’s fictions.

Research Methodology:-

The study is based on the primary as well as secondary literary works from
different sources pointing out the personal and social level how the characters
survive and try to get their identities endlessly. The research is basically
descriptive and analytical one. Primary sources are mandatory to describe and
criticize the characters’ identity crisis and survival strategies; hence novels
written by the novelist are referred. The researcher has referred and used the
references books, journals and research papers related to the study to carry out
the research work. Data collected from various internet sources are compiled
after a detail analysis and observations. So far as the research is related to the
literature, there is a limited scope for field work. The research work is related
mainly to the literary aspects. So primary data are not required in the form of
opinions and not required subjective or objective answers from respondents. The
researcher has collected the required data- information from the secondary
resources, which are mainly available in the form of published literature.

The researcher has used two types of published sources;

1. Basic Sources
2. Subordinate / Supplementary sources.
Basic sources are obviously the texts, the novels of Manju Kapur. Total five
novels are used as basic sources.

1. Difficult Daughters (1998)

2. A Married Woman (2002)
3. Home (2006)
4. The Immigrants (2008)
5. Custody (2011)
Her Short stories:
1. In the Back Water
2. Chocolate
3. The Necklace
4. Those were Roses that were Her Eyes.

Her Essays and A media Article:

1. The Men who Loved Beautiful Things

2. After Amba
 3. The Birth of A Baby
4. My Hair
5. Speaking Up for Inter Community or Cross class Marriages.
Supportive literature on the subject is used to describe, analyze and criticizes
the characters, ideas and narration concerned to the author Manju Kapur and her
works. The supplementary sources are mainly in the form of PhD thesis,
reference books, research papers and articles published in journals. Some of the
English dictionaries are also used for meaning and synonyms. Most of the
supplementary resources are in the form of published literature. Researcher also
has visited some of the websites to excess the information on-line. Some of the
interviews of Manju Kapur are also used as supplementary literature.
The researcher has intended to collect more authentic information and
original views of Manju Kapur through personal interview, for which she was
contacted some times, but due to her busy schedule it could not happen. Though,
some of her interviews have taken by some scholars who are published in
journals or available on websites are reviewed. The colleges as well as the
university libraries are visited for required literature on the subject. The research
work is relevant to present scenario and society. Woman has just become the
secondary/ subordinate human being at personal and professional level. She
survives after a conducting all her duties successfully. Still she does not get her
own identity. Her identity and individuality is not accepted or recognized by her
family and society. The research work focuses the light on the issues of identity
crisis of women of modern age their survival strategies adapted by middle and
upper middle class women.
This research work shall provide information of present day aspirations of
modern women of modern era in the Indian Society. The study shall support to
women’s struggle for their liberty and autonomy. The study shall help the
readers to understand the real issues of women under patriarchal society and
changing socio-economic environment and shall help to win the sympathy
towards modern woman struggling to establish her identity.
Review of Literature:-
A literature review is a scholarly paper, which includes the current
knowledge, as well as theoretical and methodological contributions to a
particular topic/ subject. It is secondary source and do not report new or original
work. It is a search and evaluation of the available literature in a given subject or
chosen topic area. It documents the state of the art with respect to the subject
under research. It is a critical analysis of published sources on a particular topic.
A literature review can be a simple summary of the sources, but usually it is
presented in analytical manner. It shows the depth of the knowledge related to
the study. It is also called as literature survey and analysis. It enables a
researcher to become an expert in the specific area. A literature review surveys
books, scholar’s article, Ph.D. thesis and dissertations and other sources relevant
to a particular topic of research. It provides a description, summaries and critical
evaluation of those works in relation to the research problem being investigated.
It provides an up-to-date understanding of the subject. It provides comparisons
for the research under taken. Though the literature review a researcher can be
able to critically summaries the current knowledge in the area under
investigation, identifying any strengths and weaknesses in previous work, so
helping the researcher to identity them in the current research. It helps to gain an
impression about the important aspects of the topic. It identifies data sources that
other researchers have used. Literature review might give a new interpolation of
old material or new progression on the subject. Researcher uses the literature as
a foundation and as suggest for a new insight.
Manju Kapur is a veteran novelist of Indian English literature. Her very first
novel has won the prestigious commonwealth writers award and her other novels
were nominated for different awards and prizes. Her novels are translated in
many Indian and foreign languages. She has become so popular and prestigious
writer that many national and international seminars are organized on the themes
of her fictions. Many scholars have preferred to work on her novels for doctoral
study and many of the students have selected the different themes of her novels
as essays and dissertation in post graduate and M.Phil. studies. Many scholars
have presented paper and published articles in national and international level,
seminar and journals respectively. Manju Kapur’s novels, short stories and
essays are used in this thesis as primary sources and Ph.D. thesis, post graduate
and M.Phil. Level dissertation and essays, published articles, seminars and
conferences papers and Manju Kapur’s interviews are used as the secondary data
in this thesis.
Soni Rashmi has submitted her Ph.D. thesis entitled on “On Folding
Cultural Dilemma- A Comparative Study of Manju Kapur and Jhumpa Lahiri” in
Gujarat University, 2013. She has discussed the cultural Dilemma of woman
protagonists of the novels of Manju Kapur and Jhumpa Lahiri both the writers
have presented psyche, sensibility, strength, suffering, struggle, strife, endurance
and phenomenology of the inner and outer selves of Indian woman. Both the
writers have many things in common to share irrespective or geographical back
ground. Female protagonist enjoys the front status as far as both the author’s
narrative treatment is concerned. Woman characters make emphatics attempts in
search of desirable changes in their life, but with moderate success only, both the
writer weave their fictional plots with the customary threats of marriage, man-
woman relationship, family and home making, economic independence and
women’s struggle for survival in the patriarchal structures. Manju Kapur seems
to be adding once conversing effect of the former by way of her fictional
treatment of the migrants that live on foreign lands, still aspiring to breathe their
native soil. Both Manju Kapur and Jhumpa Lahiri highlight the plights of their
woman characters in their creative writings. Woman characters hold the centre
while their male counter parts remain mostly at the periphery.
Manju Kapur’s women characters are dissatisfied with their native homes,
while Jhumpa Lahiri’s women characters are equally dissatisfied with their home
away from home for different reasons. Manju Kapur female hardly grow in
desired directions, due to patriarchal partiality while Jumpa Lahiri’s women are
confronted with challenges of new life in other country. Soni Rashmi has
touched the issues of quest for identity as well as struggle and survival of women
in the novels of Manju Kapur and Jumpa Lahiri. However, she has mainly
focused on the patriarchal values and diasporic issues.
Malti Singh has done the research work for her Ph.D (Jivaji University,
Gwalior) entitled on “Tradition and modernity: changing images of women in
the novels of Manju Kapur and Githa Hariharan: A comparative study”. The
scholar has introduced and compared the literary works of Manju Kapur and
Githa Hariharan. A variety of shades of women’s mind and light are: reflected in
the English literature by Indian women Writers- Manju Kapur and Gita
Hariharan both have portrayed the confident, ambitious, enterprising and
individualized women in their novels. Both the writers draw the images of
women who are raising the power and strength, claiming responsibilities for
their lives and declaring the society can be better with effective and capable
female. Both the writers present mature understanding of the female psyche as
per the different states of the women’s mind in different circumstances. The
concept of new woman presented in the novels of both the writers is based on
the ground reality. Gita Hariharan feministic approach is much bolder than
Kapur. The scholar has attempted to bring out the changing images of women in
Kapur’s and Hariharan’s novels from tradition to modern and post modern era.
Both writers’ novels seem to be a personification of a new woman who has been
continuously trying to throw off the burden of inhibitions, she has carried for
ages. Both the writers have deep concern with the problems being faced by the
women in the male dominated patriarchal society. The modern woman does not
want to be the rubber doll for the other to move according to their will. A new
woman can struggle with conventional restrictions to uplift her position and
survive in the society. The women protagonists of both the writers want to assert
their individuality and aspired self reliance through education. Gita Hariharan
and Manju Kapur bring out Indian woman’s steady development and feminism
in Indian fiction starting from traditional face, roaming to transitional stage and
finally attending modernity is studied critically from the novels of both the
writers. The scholar has tries to sum up a journey of a woman to accomplish
equality with man.
 Mahiptsingh Champavat has presented the Ph.D. thesis on “Survival
Strategies in the novels of Bharti Mukherjee: A Critical Assessment” (H.N. G.
Uni. Patan 2013). The scholar has deeply introduced the Indian Diaspora;
survival strategies related the female protagonists with the context Diasporas
issues. Bharti Mukherjee’s diasporic literature addresses the issues like identity,
culture, hybribity, pain of exile and homelessness. The issues of identity of
diasporance are related to the alienation and not the depression rose due to the
patriarchal society.
Hetal Prajapati (H. N. G. Uni., Patan) in her Ph.D. thesis entitled “Portrayal
of Women in Manju Kapur’s Novels” (2006) has discussed some of the major
themes of Manju Kapur’s Novels like feminism, patriarchal set up, victimization
of women under traditional values. The scholar has discussed such themes like
women’s search of their identity, alienation and struggle for existence. Manju
Kapur’s protagonists live in the patriarchal society where they have to perform
their domestic duties and cannot adjust with the traditional values. Women of
post-colonial Indian Society want to perform beyond their traditional role. They
are in search of their meaning of life. The thesis narrates a journey of female
from self-sacrifice to self- realization, self- denial to self-assertion.
Meena Chaudhari (Kadi Sarva Vishva Vidhalaya, Gandhinagar (2014)) in
her thesis “Novels of Manju Kapur: A Study in Feministic Approach” has
discussed the main theme of feministic approach in Manju Kapur’s Novels
introduced the feminist movement in India. The researcher has focused mainly
on the concept and emergence of ‘A New Woman’ from the novels of Manju
Kapur. New woman raises her voice against the traditional restrictions and try to
walk a step ahead beyond her family’s duties. Women characters of Kapur have
their own emotions and sentiments and hanker to be a part of intellectual
movement of the day, trying to assertion their individuality.

Honey Sethi and Seema Dhillon in their paper “The womanly observation by
Manju Kapur” have discussed the woman characters of the novels of Manju
Kapur. Literature was mainly created by the male writers till the independence
of India. Woman writer entered in the English literature after post conidial
colonial era. Manju Kapur has joined the growing number of modern Indian
women writers. Like Kamala Markandaya, Nayan Tara Sahgal, Anita Desai,
Shashi Deshpande, Bharti Mukherji, Geetha Hariharan, and some others who
have significantly contributed to the progression of Indian fiction. Manju Kapur
is post colonial writer who intuitively perceives the position of women in a
patriarchal society and dills with the different issues of women. She presents the
longing struggle of women to establish an identity. Kapur has presented many
aspects of woman’s like wife, daughter, mother, daughter-in-law, Mother-in –
law etc. of which mother- daughter, relation is nicely narrated in her all the
novels, ‘Difficult Daughters’ narrates the struggle of a young woman Virmati,
who tries to established her identity. As a second wife of a married woman, she
tries to achieve her individuality and a respectful space in her family but fails.
She tries to divert her mind and engages herself in a romantic relationship with a
younger widow Pipeelika. Manju Kapur raises the voice of a woman who is
suppressed in the patriarchal society. She presents the sentiments of women and
their self introspections all her character are searching for their ground from a
wrong threshold all of them fall in love first and search for the self identity
becomes the second thought.

Sheeba-Azhar and Syed Abid-Ali (Assistant professor, University of

Dammam, Saudi Arabia) in their paper, “Portrayal of Indian middle class
women in Manju Kapur Novel:”Aspirations and Realities” discusses the issues
related to the middle class or upper middle class woman their aspiration and
realities narrated by Manju Kapur in her novels, ‘Difficult Daughters’ , A
Married Woman, and Home. Manju Kapur’s female characters represents the
changing attitude of Indian middle class woman in the changing economic,
social, political and interaction scenario. The India that all women were meant to
get marry and be submissive to their husband is given a second look in Manju
Kapur’s novels. Women’s questions emerged especially in the context of the
identity crisis of the new educated middle class. Kapur’s female protagonist are
most educate aspiring individual caged within the continence of a conservative
society. Their education Leeds them to independent thinking for which their
family become in tolerant female protagonist struggle between traditions and
modernity. Their fight for autonomy and separate identity remains an unfinished
combat. The entire protagonist struggle for freedom and tries to established their
identity, but do not set successfully. Woman’s aspirations have changed but
social values are not changed much. Thus there is gap between the women’s
aspirations and the reality of the society.

B.D.S. Jadhav (D.S.M. College, Parbhani) and R.S. Nitonde (Shri Shivaji
College, Parbhani) in their paper “Matrimonial Discourse in Manju Kapur”
states that the feminist fiction has occupied the centre stage as the most powerful
and characteristic form of literary expression. Manju Kapur is one of the Indian
English woman writers who has raised women’s voice and discussed various
women related issues. Though all the novels of Manju Kapur present a new
woman of modern Indian middle class society, the Indian society still is caught
in traditional values. One of the main problems for educated women is marriage
and most of the problems are related to marriage. Marriage is a central theme of
all the fictional works of Manju Kapur. Pre marital, extra marital, break up and
separation in marriage infidelity and infertility, dysfunctional problems etc. are
related to the marriage which are the topmost significant issues in the life of
female protagonist of the novels of Manju Kapur. The scholars discuss the theme
of an exploiter and exploited in ‘Difficult Daughters’. In ‘A Married Woman’
marriage is shown as a sacred duty and miscalculations in ‘Home’ it is discussed
as arranged and love marriage. In ‘The Immigrant’ it becomes illocution for
happiness and in ‘Custody’ it narrates the effects of divorce and problems of
infertility.

Pew Maji (University of Dammam, Saudi Arabia) has selected to discuss the
feminism issues in the paper “Feminism in Manju Kapur’s Custody”. The
scholar has introduced Manju Kapur as a prominent author of Anglo- Indian
literature and compares her as the Jane Austen of modern Anglo-Indian
literature. The scholar has selected the feminism issues raised by Manju Kapur
in her fifth novel Custody. Custody depicts her revolt at the age old traditions
without being partial to anybody. She has brought out to aspects of feminist
perspectives in the novel infinitely and infertility in the form of her protagonists
Shagun and Ishita respectively. Custody is a tale of children form between two
parents, two mothers and two countries. Kapur garrets the lives of wealthy,
urban middle class woman with their unseating secrete. Her characters are
yarning for wealth, freedom and peace. Shagun an ambitious married woman
deceives her husband and attracted towards a charismatic rich man Ashok
Khanna. Her infidelity leads her break up in marriage, which results in a bitter
legal conflict for children custody. Ishita‘s infertility (inability to conceive)
results in her humiliation and divorce. None of the characters come out wholly
shining Shagun character presents a break up of individualism. Kapur stays away
from being partial and judgmental to any of the characters. She observes the
woman psychology and present two contradictory characters Shagun and Ishita
with equal importance. The concept of family shame and social propriety is kept
at the back ground and Shagun infidelity is not scandalized. In custody every
characters has to pay a price for their wish and act.

Scheme of Chapterization:-
The followings are the Chapterization of the present research work:
Chapter-I Introduction
Chapter-II Life and works of Manju Kapur
Chapter-III Identity Crisis of women in Kapur’s Fictions.
Chapter-IV Survival Strategies in Manju Kapur’s Fictions
Chapter-V Conclusion.
In the first chapter ‘Introduction’, a brief history of feminism and feministic
literature are given. Feministic aspects presented in Manju Kapur’s fictions are
also discussed. Brief information about the author and her works is also given.
Title of the research, its relevance and scope are described. Hypothesis,
objectives and research methodology are also clearly stated in the introductory
chapter.
The second chapter “Life and works of Manju Kapur”, provides a detail
information about the life of author and her writings. The chapter also reviews
the views of the author on her life and different themes of her fictions. Main
characteristics of the protagonists of Kapur’s fictions are analyzed in details.
In the third chapter “Identity Crisis in women Manju Kapur’s fictions,”
problems of identity crisis of women are discussed. Different contexts and
conditions of search for identity by women protagonists of Kapur’s novels are
analyzed in the chapter. This is the core chapter of the thesis.
In the fourth chapter “Survival Strategies in Manju Kapur’s fictions”,
different aspects of survival strategies are analyzed. How far the protagonists
fulfil their desires and get success in their objectives is discussed.
In the fifth and final chapter “Summary and conclusion,” the summary of
the thesis is given along with major conclusions. At the end of the thesis, after
the final chapter, the bibliography is given.

Relevance and limitation of the study:-

The topic selected for the work is relevant to the present scenario of the
Indian society. Though the time has changed, the socio- economic condition has
changed and laws related to the women are also changed. The attitudes are by
and large unchanged. The modernity has spread in various fields of human life,
but the conventional traditions have less changed. Though there seem some
changes in the thinking and action among the small groups of urban, middle and
upper middle class of women, they have to struggles for their rights and respects.
Illiterate and less literate women of the urban, middle and poor class as well as
women of the rural area are still caught in the trap or patriarchal thinking and
conventional values. Such women are far away from enjoying freedom, respect
and rights which are enjoyed by man. The modern women are suffocated in the
traditional set-up and protect against the injustice and restriction lay by family
and society. Modern educated urban middle and upper middle class women seek
their identity and struggle for their rights and freedom.
This research work shall provide information of present day, aspirations
of modern women of modern era in the Indian Society. The study shall support
to women’s struggle for their liberty and autonomy. The study shall help the
readers to understand the real issues of women under patriarchal society and
changing socio- economic environment and shall help to win the sympathy
towards modern woman struggling to establish her identity.
Many female writers of post independent era in India have portrayed the
female protagonists struggling for their right place and identity. Female centric
writings have benefited the feministic movement. In socio- economic transition
period in India, the writings and researches on the subject related to feminism
can contribute more or less to the women’s interests. This research work is an
effort to study and focus on various aspects of feministic problems, particularly
quest for identity and identity crisis of the women characters of the fictions of
Manju Kapur; hence it is relevant in contemporary Indian social scenario.
Western writers also have presented the women inferior to men. Age long
mental and psychological torture and suppression has forced women to raise the
voice against male domination. Tennyson has presented the women in following
words:
Men for the field, women for the hearth, Men with the
sword, for the needle she, Men to command, women to
obey. All else is confusion.24

Struggle and survive in life are subordinate parts of human being, especially
women who suffer from birth to death. The tangible of woman is a contemporary
issue facing every society and formed a little change. It is a universal problem.
History shows the rude conditions of women in male dominated society. The
traditional values believe that women are only obedient creature without own
identity. Patriarchal society has established certain values which are expected to
be followed by women. In such a condition, women are depressed. With the
changing scenario of socio-economic condition, women have become educated
and they have started thinking about their individuality, identity and rights. They
have started raising voice against the age old tradition and struggle for freedom
and autonomy.
References:

1. Manju Kapur. A Married Woman. New Delhi: India Ink Roli Book
(2002) published in 2006 sixth impression, 2011, p. 1.
2. Manju Kapur. Difficult Daughters. London: India Ink, Faber and
Faber, 1998, p.15
3. Ibid., p.111
4. Ibid., p.111
5. Ibid., p. 227
6. Ibid., p.151
7. Ibid., pp.251-252
8. Manju Kapur. A Married Women. London: India Ink, Faber and
Faber, 2003 pp. 27-28
9. Ibid., p.69
10. Manju Kapur. ‘Home’. Nodia: Random House India , 2007, p.72
11. Manju Kapur. The Immigrant. London : Faber and Faber, 2008,
p. 214
12. Beauvoir, De, Simone. ‘The Second Sex’ Chapter-5, translation.
Parsleys, H. M. London 4 Square Books, 1949, p. 298
13. Manju Kapur. The Immigrant. London : Faber and Faber, 2008,
p. 218
14. Shirin Kudchedkar. ‘Feminist Literary Criticism the Ground Work’
Journal of Literary Criticism 8:1, June 1996, p.147

15. Sushila Chaudhary, & Usha, Sharma. Feminism in the novel’s of

Manju Kapur. Language in India Volume 12: 1 January 2012,
Managing Editor: M.S. Thirumala.
16. A. Chanbey. “From Silence to Speech: An Assessment of Indian
English Fiction by Women”. Half yearly literary Journal, 2003.
17. Sudha P. and Mummatchi R. ‘Narrative Techniques in the Fiction of
Nayantara Sahgal’ International Journal of English Language
 Literature and Translation Studies, a quarterly Indexed, Reserved
and Peer reviewed open access International Journal Vol.2 , April
22, 2015.
18. Smitha, G. ‘Identity Crisis in the Selected Novels of Anita Desai and
Manju Kapur’ Language in India, Vol.15:8 Aug. 2011.
19. Sushila Chaudhary, & Usha, Sharma. Feminism in the novel’s of
Manju Kapur. (ed.) Thirumala M. S. Language in India Vol.12
January, 2002.
20. Sweta Tiwari. ‘Redefining Man-Woman Relationship: A Study of
The Novels of Manju Kapur’. Delhi: International Journal of English
Language, Literature and Translation Studies Vol.2 issue 3, 2015,
July-September, pp. 419-420

21. Azhar, Sheeba & Ali, Syed Abid. Portrayal of Indian Middle Class
Women in Manju Kapur’s Novels; Aspirations and Realities Lapis
Lazuli An international Literary Journal Vol.II, IssueI / Spring,
2012.
22. Ibid.
23. B. S. Jadhav, & R. S. Nitode. Matrimonial Discourse in Manju
Kapur, Language in India strength for today and Bright House for
Tomorrow Vol.11:8 Aug., 2011.

24. Alfred, Tennyson. The Princess. Part-V lines 427-431, United

Kingdom, 1847.