An Analysis of Mother-Daughter Relationship in Manju Kapur's Difficult Daughters

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Recommended: Indian feminism in literature

‘Indian women Novelists in English are proving to be a singular phenomenon in today’s modern times. Their unique genius, as reflected in their novels, has provided insightful understanding of women’s psyche. The reader is kept abreast of all the intricate thoughts and views of today’s women. Thus the writing of these novelists enjoy a significant and central place in women’s lives.1 The stereotyped representations of women have been emphatically rejected by the contemporary women novelists. The repressive society has taught a woman to be culturally silent, and thus this act of writing is for her essentially an act of breaking her silence. These women writers are aware that hundreds of thousands of women are discriminated against merely for being women. Such an insight into the marginalized feminine consciousness is provided by Manju Kapur’s Difficult Daughters. Every woman wants to differ from the stereotypes based on sex but to win over the oppressive forces she must manifest courage and uprightness. Manju Kapur, as a keen observer, explores many aspects of feminine sensibilities in her novel, Difficult Daughters. The novel can be considered as an earnest effort to portray the various nuances of women’s psyche and especially of those women who do not wish to be encoded even by the deceptively trivial bonding of male supremacy. In the novel Virmati and Ida rebel against the existing traditional roles preordained for a woman. In spite of belonging to different generations both show an unmistakable urge of self- actualization. Through Virmati’s and Ida’s private and intimate experiences, Manju Kapur has boldly handled even radical themes.
Contemporary women writers also focus on the mother- daughter involvement and are deeply influe...

... middle of paper ...

...(New Delhi: Sarup and Sons, 2006) pp 245-246.
4. (Adrienne Rich, of women Born, Motherhood as Experience and Instituted (New York: W.W. Norton, 1976p. 243).
5. Sales Salvador, Dora. 'The Memory of Desire in Manju Kapur's Difficult Daughters: In Past and Future Tense' In Constanza del Río and Luis M. García Mainar (eds.), Memory, Imagination and Desire. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag C. Winter. (awaiting publication).
6. Gur Pyari Jandial, 'Evolving a Feminist Tradition: The Novels of Shashi Deshpande and Manju Kapur' (awaiting publication in Atlantic Literary Review [Delhi], 4.3).
7. References to Difficult Daughters (abbreviated DD) are to the novel published by Manju Kapur. Difficult Daughters (Delhi: Penguin, 1998).
8. Nancy Chodorov,The Reproduction of Mothering:Psychoanalysis and the Sociology of Gender,Berkley: university of California press, 1978.

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