If the twentieth century afforded great change due to wars and decolonization, a great deal of the twenty-first century’s upheaval comes from globalization and technology on one hand and a new kind of warfare labelled terrorism on the...
moreIf the twentieth century afforded great change due to wars and decolonization, a great deal of the twenty-first century’s upheaval comes from globalization and technology on one hand and a new kind of warfare labelled terrorism on the other.
The purpose of the research is to examine against the backdrop of this development, to what extent the image or construct of a woman has changed in India for readers, particularly by studying the way it has been depicted in the writing of Indian women authors. The fact that recently these authors have received international acclaim in the form of awards makes it even more important to understand how readers all over the world and India perceive the image of an Indian woman. In short how are Indian women being positioned?
The texts studied are: The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri, who is a second generation immigrant; The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai, a first generation immigrant; Ladies Coupé by Anita Nair and Difficult Daughters by Manju Kapur, both of whom are Indian nationals residing in India with a certain amount of western education, the latter being a ‘traditional’ intellectual. The last chapter deals with the ‘organic’ intellectual focussing particularly on two contrasting short stories—“The Hunt” and “Statue” by Mahasweta Devi. However, to substantiate the hypothesis and for the purposes of comparison, the study also takes a brief look at other novels by Arundhati Roy, Sudha Murty, Lalithambika Antherjanam, Sharmila Rege, Baby Halder and P. Sivakami, keeping in mind that many of these works are translations.
The approach adopted is a close reading of the texts focussing on the female characters, themes and attitudes. On this basis, the theoretical approach adopted is the writer’s interpretation of Hegel’s master-slave dialectics and Fanon’s reinterpretation of the same, Freud’s love-hate binaries, Gramsci’s differentiation between the ‘traditional’ intellectual and ‘organic’ intellectual and Spivak’s vision regarding the role of the humanities.
According to Hegel, consciousness does not exist in isolation but is always dependent on another for a sense of selfhood. As there is injustice and an imbalance of power in this world, the two consciousnesses engaged with each other will assume the roles of master and slave with respect to each other. The injustice inevitably results in a struggle for selfhood on the part of the slave; one way this selfhood can be attained is through recognition of the slave’s labour. A defining emotion in this relationship is fear and it is only by overcoming fear that the slave can break free. The ultimate fear is that of death. In addition to the instinct for domination, Freud does not see the true self as one entity but as in Marx, it is a balance between contradictory forces and in this case the dialectic is between Eros—the love instinct, and Thanatos—the death one.
For Antonio Gramsci, a solution or an instrument of change is the ‘organic’ intellectual. The purpose of an intellectual is not to be “specialised” but to become “directive” that is one who is political and driven to bring about change. However, in the face of globalization and the crisis that it brings with inequality, war and terrorism, according to Spivak, hope is available through education in the humanities, for it is through the humanities that one can bring about “the empowerment of an informed imagination” (Spivak, “Righting Wrongs” 2).
The aim of the research is to try and understand whether western education helps to envision a new-age woman, whom this study defines as self-reliant, able to question roles and norms society has set for her, thinks independently and uses her own free will to choose to live life for herself rather than be subservient to the needs of her husband and family, or is this education an impediment. Thus in addition to intellectual and economic independence, she must be emotionally independent as well. It must be stressed that this concept of new-age is an ideal which is strived for but never actualized because it is dynamic and constantly changing over space and time. Also one must be wary of the tendency to generalize women who vary on the basis of geography, race, economics, caste and so on.
The thesis statement explored is that although in some cases western educated Indian women may ostensibly live more liberated lives, the characters or images of women in the novels by the selected writers are more circumscribed as women.
Another concern of the study is the difference between lived and written reality. A questionnaire based on the movie The Namesake taken by a community of informed readers in Pune indicated that in reality the image of the woman may have changed on the page but not in the minds of women and hence paradoxically in reality the concept of ‘new-age’ is a myth.
The key women protagonists analysed are Ashima and Moushumi from The Namesake; Sai, her grandmother Nimi and her mother along with Noni and Lola in The Inheritance of Loss; Akhila and her companions in the coupé in the novel Ladies Coupé and Mary in ‘The Hunt’ and Dulali in ‘Statues’.
The research hopes to indicate, that the most revolutionary change in the image is captured in the characters drawn by the Indian woman who is an ‘organic’ intellectual. By working intimately with the subaltern, she is aware of the urgency for change unlike a more privileged woman. She functions as a “permanent persuader” who is an instrument of change. Thus perhaps one answer to the conundrum could be that the writing of the ‘organic’ intellectual has the potential to capture one of the myriad images of a new-age Indian woman. As for a definite final one, perhaps it can never be found as it will always be dynamically changing and evolving and hopefully aspiring towards an ideal concept akin to the one defined by the study
