Introduction To The Concept Of Marriage And Womanhood As Depicted In The Contemporary Indian English Novel By Women: A Feminist Approach

Authors

Keywords:

The Concept Of Marriage, Feminist ideals of woman’s empowerment and eradication of gender discriminations, womanhood

Abstract

Within the parameters of feminist doctrine, one key issue that (Marriage as an institution) has ever been addressed by feminists is the institution of marriage. The pioneers of feminist literary theory, beginning from Virginia Woolf, Simon de Beavoir, Ann Dally, Helen Cixous, Luce Irigaray, Nancy Chodorow and Alice Walker have all questioned traditional representations of the woman in marriage and focused on the shaping of woman’s identity in marriage. Feminist ideals of woman’s empowerment and eradication of gender discriminations have become deeply entrenched in India since the recent past. In the field of Indian English fiction, age old patriarchal ethos have been questioned and often defied by women writers. Significantly enough in the Indian English novel by women writers, it is through the representation and (de) scription of the institution of marriage that the discourses of protest find expression. These novels centre round the emergence of the new woman from the margin to the centre, from role to individuality, from woman as a stereotypical category as a woman as an individual capable of authenticity of feeling and belief. The Indian woman is essentially different from her western counterpart. In the Indian context neither the writer nor her character can adopt western modes of protest and defiance. Marriage, in India, is a particularly complex space through which multifaceted force operate. This paper explores the various ways of feminist assertion and protest as projected through the dynamics and problematic of the social institution of marriage in case of Indian women.

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Published

30-06-2016

How to Cite

Dr. Jayatee Bhattacharya. (2016). Introduction To The Concept Of Marriage And Womanhood As Depicted In The Contemporary Indian English Novel By Women: A Feminist Approach. Jai Maa Saraswati Gyandayini An International Multidisciplinary E-Journal, 1(III), 64–81. Retrieved from http://jmsjournals.in/index.php/jmsg/article/view/42