LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 10 : 2 February 2010
ISSN 1930-2940

Managing Editor: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.
Editors: B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. A. Sharada, Ph.D.
         A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
         Lakhan Gusain, Ph.D.
         K. Karunakaran, Ph.D.
         Jennifer Marie Bayer, Ph.D.

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Issues of Social and Ideological Empowerment in
Contemporary Indian Women Writing in English

Seema Rana, M.Phil.

The Novel and the Society

Literature often provides social evidence. We can learn about any society through novels which can give an insight into its culture. The study of society through novels deals with a deep understanding of the socio-economic and political life of the people living in a particular milieu. Novel form is the critical and realistic examination of a society's claims and practices. The novelist has the perception and the analytical mind of a sociologist who provides an exact record of human life, society and the social system. In order to understand a society through fiction, it is essential to find out what issues and problems the novelists raise in their works. These may be social, religious, economic or political issues.

Contemporary Women Novelists Close to Earthly Reality: Challenge to Patriarchy

The contemporary women novelists are closer to the earthy reality, to the subtle nuances of social behaviour, to the complex structures of man's and woman's inner life, and to the use of a language that varies from the pedestrian and prosaic to the poetic and ornate. Nevertheless, what seems to be a uniting link among the contemporary English women novelists is that they are all emancipated and have all had at least a cross-cultural, experience that had liberated them from the narrow grooves of a highly stratified and traditional society with its rigid codes and orthodoxies. And yet they carry the indelible imprint of Indian sensibility and culture in their consciousness. Their writings are marked by freshness, originality and solid, cultural vigour and sensibility that are recognizably Indian and yet international in their implications and significance.

Indian women-writing in English is notable for the extent to which it has challenged patriarchy and the State and opened numerous ways of questioning and interpreting social life.

From Our Own Milieu

What we get to read today is straight from our own milieu. Even the West has begun to accept it. The reason for the Indian variety in modern fiction is that most of the authors hail from different professions and are ready to experiment. For instance, Kaveri Nambisan's The Hills of Angheri is a doctor's reflection on life, both in a rural and urban South India. Kiran Desai studied creative writing. Anita Nair worked as the creative director of an advertising agency. Arundhati Roy studied architecture and Manju Kapur is a teacher of English literature.

The Focus of This Paper

It is with the intention of critically examining the variations within an overall pattern that I have chosen to study a few novels by different women writers. I have selected those novels in which the writers have interestingly handled the variety of themes beyond domesticity. The selected novels are: Anita Nair's Ladies Coupé, Kiran Desai's Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard and Kaveri Nambisan's The Hills of Angheri.

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.

Compounds in Tolkappiyam and Balavyakaranam - A Comparison | Automatic Nominal Morphological Recognizer and Analyzer for Sanskrit: Method and Implementation | A Critical Study of The Wasteland - Poetry as Metaphor | Communicative Language Teaching - An Overview | Cinema and the New Media | Culture and Second Language Learning and Teaching - An Exploration in Tamil | R. K. Narayan's Humour in Swami and Friends | Towards Meeting Global Challenge - Cyber Based Instruction in Foreign Language Teaching | Novel Technologies, Engines and Mobiles in Language Learning | Role of Language in Effective Managerial Communication | Pragmatic Analysis of Politeness Theory | The Varied Horizon of Multimedia & Web Tools for English Language Acquisition in the Information Age | Challenges and Problems in the Teaching of Grammar | Some Features of Tirukkural Telugu Translations | Issues of Social and Ideological Empowerment in Contemporary Indian Women Writing in English | Does Stress-Shift Lead to Word-Class Conversion in English? | Insight through Body Language and Non-verbal Communication References in Tirukkural | Think-Aloud Protocol -- Elicitation of Strategy Use and Solution to Learning Problem | Voice of the Voiceless: Eugene O'Neill's The Hairy Ape and George Ryga's Indian - A Comparative Study | Inside the Haveli: A Study | HOME PAGE of February 2010 Issue | HOME PAGE | CONTACT EDITOR

Seema Rana, M.Phil.
CRM Jat College
Hisar
Haryana, India
Sima7269@yahoo.com
 
Web www.languageinindia.com
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