LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 15:11 November 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.
         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.
         L. Ramamoorthy, Ph.D.
         C. Subburaman, Ph.D. (Economics)
         N. Nadaraja Pillai, Ph.D.
         Soibam Rebika Devi, M.Sc., Ph.D.
Assistant Managing Editor: Swarna Thirumalai, M.A.

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Demystifying ‘Mother’ and ‘Daughter’ in Manju Kapur’s Custody

Jitender Singh

Overthrowing Age-old Conventions

An anti-establishment attitude to overthrow the age-old conventions has gripped the conscience of the contemporary writers. It has become a common motif to look beyond what has been in prevalence. To question and inquire is something which adds critical flavour to creative writing these days. But there are a selected few who do not confine their approach to mere questioning; rather they take a bolder step to subvert what is given on the basis of what might have been hidden during the construction of the text. The other side of the coin is considered more significant than the one present easily before the reader. It is under this kind of perspective that in this paper the changing contours of woman as mother and daughter are studied to unravel the gap between ideology and reality.

Probing Women’s Experience

Manju Kapur is one such novelist who tends to probe the deep recesses of women’s experience in order to question the conventional modes of perceiving and treating them. But her vision is sometimes found fragmented and lacking coherence. The positions where she places woman as mother and daughter are both traditional as well as modern. Without merging the gap, on the one hand, she tries to preserve the conventional concept of motherhood and on the other, seeks to glorify daughter as an individual self in a modern context. Therefore, to understand and explore the multiple dimensions of ‘mother’ and ‘daughter’ a deconstructive approach is needed since deconstructionists believe in exposing the loopholes existing behind the idea of such identities. Nicholas Royle aptly contends: Deconstruction – which is never single or homogenous, but . . . at least provisionally, be identified with ‘the work of Derrida’ – is concerned with the lucid, patient attempt to trace what has not been read, what remains unread or unreadable within the elaboration of concepts and workings of institutions. (160)

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

Jitender Singh
Assistant Professor
Department of English
Hindu College
Sonepat
India
jitenderwriter@gmail.com
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