LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 15:3 March 2015
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.
         Jennifer Marie Bayer, Ph.D.
         S. M. Ravichandran, Ph.D.
         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.
         L. Ramamoorthy, Ph.D.
         C. Subburaman, Ph.D. (Economics)
         N. Nadaraja Pillai, Ph.D.
Assistant Managing Editor: Swarna Thirumalai, M.A.

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M. S. Thirumalai
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In Search of Self and (M)other:
Identity and Feminism in Select Indian Novels

Dr. Bhasha Shukla Sharma

Abstract

Woman is typecast as ‘Mother Nature,’ in Indian scenario, thus reducing her to the role of the perpetual ‘giver’. Religious doctrines aid these representations. Language makes it appear permanent and ‘natural’ through the use of patriarchal terms like Mother Earth and Mother Nature. Indian Writing in English represents a variety of female characters, with varied wishes and frustrations, desires and agony, searching for self-identity or self liberation. These twenty-first century female writers through their characters revolt against considering marriage and motherhood as ultimate goals of an ‘ideal woman.’ Here they stand with the wave of feminism strongly advocating individual liberation. In recent times feminist theories have paid attention to the narrative texts based on culturally constructed gender. While analyzing a narrative text, culture, identity, sexuality and power tend to formulate the major part. This article looks closely at select contemporary novels published by Amitav Ghosh (The Hungry Tide, 2004), Gita Mehta (The River Sutra, 1992), Githa Hariharan, The Thousand Faces of Night, 1992), and Arundhati Roy (The God of Small Things, 1997) which take a gender centered platform.

Key words: Woman as Mother Nature, ideal woman, revolt against marriage, revolt against motherhood

Dream through the Dream of Men

Simone de Beauvoir (The Second Sex, 1949) explained the sense of self through ‘exis’ philosophy. Existentialism proposes that one exists first, and through one’s acts, one becomes something. ‘One is not born a female, one becomes this.’ She reasoned that an individual has absolute control over his or her fate, and neither society nor organized religion should limit our freedom to live authentically. But since men have claimed the category of self, of subject, for themselves, women are relegated to the status of the Other. Consequently, the category of women has no substance except as an extension of male fantasy and fears. And since all cultural representations of the world around us have been produced by men, women must ‘dream through the dream of men.’ Thus a woman is required to accept her status of other, ‘make herself object’ and ‘renounce her autonomy.’

One Is Not Born a Woman, But Rather Becomes One

Beauvoir’s remark ‘One is not born a woman, but rather becomes one’ is loaded with semiotic connotations. ‘Sex, argue feminists, is biological, while gender is socially constructed. Irigaray’s theory of sexual difference suggests that there is ‘only one sex, the masculine, that elaborates itself in and through the production of the “Other”... Women are also a “difference” that cannot be understood as the simple negation or “Other” of the always-already-masculine subject’ (Butler, 1990:25).

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

Dr. Bhasha Shukla Sharma
Associate Professor and Head
Department of Humanities
UIT, Rajiv Gandhi Proudyogiki Vishwavidyalaya
Bhopal 462036
Madhya Pradesh
India
bhasha.shukla@gmail.com
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