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Literature and social concerns have gone together for centuries. Fictional

narratives have created their own impact in fighting social evils. Literary writings

make their impact on every day human life, especially when they relate to half of

the humanity - women. In this thesis I have tried to analyze and interpret four

canonical novels that have contributed immensely to the understanding of the

marginalization and subjugation of women. In these novels, the women suffer

because of several reasons. The fight for the emancipation of women has to work

at various levels. Literature has to be read as the story of real life. The women

characters in these novels suffer and are exploited not by individuals but by the

social system. The fact remains that patriarchy still controls all the aspects of a

woman’s life. A woman is not free in any field of life, be it familial, social,

religious, cultural or even literary. In these novels it is very clear that the agenda of

feminism has not achieved much in the real sense of the term.

In this thesis I have tried to bring out the exploitation of women in the

Indian context. Generally whenever feminism in literature is discussed, the

Western theorists are quoted and the Western model of feminist literary studies

dominates. But the conditions of Indian women are very different and any feminist

literary criticism must take into account the local conditions that create the system

of exploitation which is specific to the immediate conditions of life and society

that rule over cultural constructs. In this regard Alka Kurian says:

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While feminists would surely not deny that the oppression of women

is a matter of international concern, the west has tended to dominate

both the theoretical and practical aspects of the movement. The

customary division of the history of feminism into ‘waves’ stands as

a good example of this, since these categorizations are

conventionally organized around American and European events and

personalities. Thus, however, unintentionally, the ‘grand narrative’

of feminism becomes the story of western endeavour, and relegates

the experience of non-western women to the margins of feminist

discourse (Kurian 54).

The feminist thought in the west has had a considerable impact on Indian

writings. Although feminism as an organized movement began late in India in the

1970s, its spirit could be felt long before the first stirrings of Western feminism

movement. So, on the one hand, if we have the examples of women like Sita,

Ahalya and Draupadi, who were victimized by the patriarchal society, we can also

refer to the practice of Swayamvara which gave freedom to women to choose their

husbands on the other. We may also refer to the 15th century story of Meerabai

who forsook her marriage for her divine love, Lord Krishna.

However, feminism in India cannot be defined merely in relation to its

western counterpart – it cannot be reduced to the contradictions between man and

woman. The reasons are obvious: feminism in India is more personal than

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political. It is rooted in the historical and cultural diversity of the region. It has

emerged out of the lived experience of Indian women, her predicament of being

placed in a precarious position between the conflicting binaries of tradition and

modernity. It derives its sap from the typically Indian ethos of the times – it has

carved out its own strategies to expose the subtle processes of oppression and

gender-bias operant within the family and the patriarchal structure of the Indian

society at large. Hence, as Das comments, “It feminism is an ideology and a

school of criticism in the west, in India it has to do more with a woman’s social

position than has to do more with a woman’s social position than her writing”

(Das 20). Shashi Deshpande, a significant woman writer, observes in this context:

Feminism had crept into the country, not through theories and books,

but through actual women’s problems, through the attempts of

some women, whom we would later call activists, to confront them

and make them a public, not a domestic issue. The rape of a young

girl by two policemen, the burning of brides, the attempt to make a

sati of a young woman, the courage of a Muslim woman who asked

for maintenance from a divorced husband – these became public

issues. Feminism became a political word and political correctness

ruled out derogatory remarks – at least in public – against women or

their work. It seemed there was finally a tiny space on the public

platform available to women. And it was on this space that a

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woman’s work could now be seen: it could become a ‘feminist

work’ (Deshpande 148).

Hence Indian feminism may be taken as a response to the issues which are

specific to the Indian women. However, this does not mean that there are no

common theoretical perspectives that can be used to analyze and interpret the

literary works of Indian women writers. Language, discourse and literary

narratives share one common feature. And the common feature is that they can

create social reality. Language and narratives created a biased identity of women

both in the east and the west. The role of the narratives in creating the genders and

the gender-attributes has been well explored by the Western theorists, especially

by the post-structuralist feminist thinkers like Julia Kristeva, Judith Butler and

Helen Cixous. The writings of these critics have provided the tools for

investigating the narratives in India. Indian critics like Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak

have also investigated the role of the narratives in creating the identities. There are

other critics also who have used the insights of post-structuralism in analyzing the

literary narratives.

In this thesis I have tried to analyze the stories of different female

characters who suffer from marginalization and subjugation from the point of view

of society that functions under the patriarchal ideology. It is important to

understand how patriarchy came into existence in working together with the

narratives and other ideological forces. Since ideology has different elements at

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different places and times, there can’t be any simplistic analysis of the ideologies

that have worked together with patriarchy to exploit women. The western thinkers

have exposed the role of ideology and patriarchy in the marginalization of women.

Ideology is defined as false consciousness. It means that it is fictional in nature.

But this does not mean that ideology remains and functions only as a false or

fictional entity. In real life ideology functions as concrete reality in the human

world. Human beings are created by dominant ideologies. Patriarchy became a

dominant ideology in the due course of history of mankind. The male used every

kind of power – financial power, physical power, and political power – to create

the ideology of male superiority. The male is not superior by birth. He is a human

being like the female. But he has used various means to create the sense of male

superiority. Anyone who has this economic power and political power can control

and manipulate the social and cultural discourse. Because the male controlled and

owned the material resources, the wealth, the money, he also became the owner

and manipulator of the gender identities. In patriarchy a female is always

considered inferior to the male because it is a male who has the power to ‘judge’

who is superior and who is inferior. This power to judge comes from the social

and the cultural practices, which are part of the dominant ideology that supports

and sustains the patriarchy.

This thesis clearly brings out the role of dominant male ideology in the

exploitation of women. The narratives in literature should not be dismissed as

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fictional and unreal. The women characters suffer in these novels because the

society and the male individuals who are the representatives of the society are the

products of the male dominant ideology. In the male dominant ideological system,

the male is considered to be the sole arbiter of right / wrong, moral / immoral,

just / unjust, legal / illegal, natural / cultural, and of everything that concerns

human life. The women suffer and get exploited because it is the man who takes

decision about their lives. Over the centuries, the culture is dominated by the

practices that support the male supremacy. Various narratives tell the story of the

male as the hero, and the female as the one who supports the hero in his noble

pursuits. As if the female has no pursuits and nothing o achieve in life. All these

grand narratives support this idea about women. It is only now that the narratives

that narrate the life of the female have started exposing the mechanisms of

dominant male ideology. While on the one hand female literary writers are

creating texts which expose the patriarchy, the female readers bring into focus the

issues that are narrated in such texts. The researches that are conducted on the

literary works that deal with female issues have this task in hand: to read literature

and to bring out the female issues in focus. In this regard Ellen Rooney says:

When feminist readers begin to argue that the women’s readings

matter to the meanings of literary texts, they are willy-nilly caught

up in an argument about the manner in which men read (in he

present and the past tense). Indeed, the feminist readers expose, by

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the difference of their interpretations the masculinism of prior

readings and readers. These prior readings had presented themselves

not as the products of men accustomed to masculine privilege (so

accustomed that their privileges appeared to them simply as nature),

but as reading itself, objective, humanistic reading, where men (or

certain men to be more precise) were presumed to represent the

human. Mary Ellman’s Thinking About Women cannily called this

pseudo-objective reading “phallic criticism.” Masculinity itself as a

gender (rather than in the form of the generically human) is made

visible in her critical rereading. Can we argue, then, that when a

masculinist reading is exposed as such, we may presume that the

agent of that exposure is a feminist critic? (Rooney 7-8).

I have attempted to read the fictional works of Arundhati Roy, Rama

Mehta, Manju Kapur, and Anita Desai, to expose the patriarchal forces which are

responsible for the exploitation of women. The stories of The God of Small

Things, Difficult Daughters, Inside the Haveli, Fasting Feasting – depict life of

different women who come from different walks of life, and are engaged in

different occupations. But all these four stories are linked from one point of view –

and the point of view is that they are exploited not because of their own fault or

because they are inferior to the male, but because they are the victims of

patriarchal frameworks of life which still operate in the society.

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In the research I have taken up four canonical fictional texts which narrate

experiences and sensibilities of the female, belonging to a typically Indian

background in the most effective manner. The first text I have taken up is

Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things which was published in 1997. It is

perhaps one of the most seriously debated and researched literary text of the

present times. Through this novel Arundhati Roy has tried to depict that in this

patriarchal society a woman is victimized everywhere: as a daughter in her home,

as a wife in her husband’s house, as a worker in a factory, as an employee in an

office, it is happening everywhere. In this novel we see the protagonist, Ammu

suffering throughout her life. She is a strong woman who refuses to sacrifice her

individuality for the sake of conforming to the traditional role-models of the

patriarchal society. Pitted against a dominating father, an indifferent brother, an

incompatible husband, and the hostility of her own clan, she daringly demands her

chunk of flesh. Defying the permissible boundaries of female desire, she wages

war against many powerful agencies of patriarchal domination. But the system

proves too powerful for her to resist and her rebellious spirit is mercilessly

crushed. She is denied higher education, her rights in her own parental home, her

dignity as a wife and as a human. Her wasted life and her tragic end are pointers to

the fact that the patriarchal structure of the society is hard to penetrate and

ruthlessly subdues those who dare to do so.

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In fact, it is not only Ammu who suffers for the fault of being a woman.

Her mother Ammachi, Baby Kochamma, even Rahel, who emerges as an

emancipated woman - all have their own shares of suffering. Often their voices of

pain are muted, sometimes they are loud enough to be heard, but their predicament

is very much real and ingrained in the harsh realities of the times. Ammachi

suffers as a passive, submissive wife because it is not easy for a woman to walk

out of her marriage, specially when she has no support from other quarters. To

save her married life she bears all injustice without any protest and clings on to her

husband despite his abominable treatment of her. In the character of Baby

Kochamma, we find an example of such women who, despite suffering oppression

themselves, connive with the oppressive patriarchy to inflict pain and punishment

on their fellow female human beings who do not comply with the traditional rules.

Amidst such dismal darkness, a faint ray of hope is visible in the character of

Rahel who tries to carve her own path towards self- actualization. Thus Ammu and

Rahel manifest different attitudes towards oppression – one rejects and the other

rebels. But it is evident that there is a resistance against domination. The journey

is long and arduous, but at least the beginning has been made.

Inside the Haveli by Rama Mehta narrates the story of a young, educated,

vivacious girl, Gita. After marriage she finds herself living in purdah. In

Rajasthan, the purdah is observed by high-born woman even indoors, in the

woman’s areas. Geeta is a Bombay born girl accustomed to a liberated way of life.

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But in Udaipur she finds her existence shrinking into a conservative aristocratic

family of Udaipur within the enclosed word of the ancestral haveli. Marriage

brings Geeta from outside of the modern world to the enclosures of the haveli. She

struggles much to carve out her own identity in the male dominated society but the

haveli circumscribes all her thought and activities and imposes on her all

traditional restrictions.

In the novel, the haveli seems to be an overarching structure symbolizing

the circumscribed world of a married woman. In the haveli, along with physical

veiling, feelings and emotions of women are also hidden. Geeta has a very

precarious existence in this self-enclosed world. In the haveli her education begins

with painful efforts. Situations and events contribute new lessons to her

knowledge of life. The lure of security and the consequent confinement compel

her to accept the discipline of the Haveli without any kind of protest. She has no

hope of leaving the haveli and settle in Delhi because Ajay, her husband, does not

want to leave his father alone as he is getting old. She has to succumb to the

familial pressure at the cost of her individuality and freedom. Ultimately, she

accepts the codes of the haveli: the veil, the respectful silence before elders with

the feeling that the haveli has made her a willing prisoner within its walls. Thus

the novel presents the conflict between tradition and modernity, but favours

tradition and a conservative outlook. It seems not to question or challenge, but to

naturalize the perpetuation of patriarchal hierarchy.

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In Difficult Daughters by Manju Kapur, Virmati is an educated, modern

Indian woman, representing an urban, middle-class consciousness. She wants to

live an independent life. She rejects the world of marriage, domesticity and child-

bearing but she is not able to fulfill her wishes and is torn between tradition and

modernity. In this novel, we find Virmati as a victim of ineffectual will power.

She struggles throughout her life for an independent identity and life. But Virmati,

like many educated Indian women, is not clear about what she wants from life.

First her desire for education entraps her in an affair with a married professor and

later on her only desire is to find a socially sanctioned position in his life. She gets

married to the professor and becomes his second wife. Thus she becomes a victim

of her choice like a traditional woman and unintentionally harms another woman –

Ganga, the professor’s first wife. After marriage Virmati becomes isolated, silent

and withdrawn. Her mind and her heart are constantly agitated with the thought of

her freedom. All the times she finds herself alone and unwanted. She wants to

break free of the marital bounds and tries to counter social norms but she does not

succeed. Usually we find that women do think of ways to escape the atrocities of

men, but not all women can break free of marital bounds so easily. Virmati suffers

all the pains and pangs as other women in life do. The success of Manju Kapur as

a novelist lies in the fact that she does not try to justify or castigate Virmati for her

doings but rather projects the inner suffering and confusion that keep engulfing her

mind.

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In Fasting Feasting Uma as a girl child was forced to live a life of

subjugation first in her parents home and later in the home or her in – laws. Her

father is not named in the novel. He is a typical middle class Indian and ruling

over the family. Whole day Uma’s parents find things for Uma to do; they keep

Uma occupied. In this way following their orders Uma remains repressed and

imprisoned at home.

Uma’s father was obsessed with having male child and when his wife

delivers a baby boy he is filled with joy. Though that boy was weak and

unpromising, after the birth of her brother Uma’s condition becomes worse. Her

mother compels her to stop her study. Because like a traditional woman she also

thinks to learn the art of baby sitting and household is very necessary for her.

Being unattractive she is rejected many times in marriage proposals. A

suitor does come to see her but demands the hand of Aruna, the younger sister

rather than that of Uma. Meanwhile alter sometime another proposal come for

marriage but they demand a large of dowry for marriage.

After extracting a lot of money the boy decided not to marry her. At last

when she got be married it was found that the boy was already married. After

marriage when she knows it she returns back to her parent’s home with her father.

Dejected, frustrated, isolated, alienated and lonely Uma stands now nowhere,

neither belongs to the category of unmarried girls nor of married woman. She

losses her identity. She becomes frustrated and lives as if she has commited a

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crime. When Uma’s life becomes isolated, one day Dr. Dutt comes to her home

and she offers Uma the job of supervising the nurse’s hostel which she runs. But

her parents don’t give permission and the offer is turned down by her hypocrite

father. Though Arun, Uma’s brother, has no interest in studies but for his bright

future he was sent to a foreign country for further studies. Uma suffer throughout

her life.

There are Ammus, Geetas, Virmatis, Umas in every family in every village

and in every city of India. What I have tried to do in thesis is to analyze the

experiences of these women characters to understand the sources of gender

marginalities in the patriarchal system of society, the patriarchal thought, and the

patriarchal discourse.

In these times, we frequently hear the words like post feminism or after

feminism or irrelevance of feminism. There are scholars who believe that

feminism in literature has been overdone. In my view the feminist theory and

practice will remain a relevant area of research in literature till the marginality of

women exists.