Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Second phase of feminism in indian literature
Indian feminism in Indian English literature
Second phase of feminism in indian literature
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Second phase of feminism in indian literature
Anita Desai is one of the prominent novelists of Indian English fiction. She is not only concerned with the social realities, but also explores the hidden niches of human consciousness and meditates upon the existential question of women and their quest for identity in a complex patriarchal world. Her novel, Where Shall We Go This Summer is a story of a middle- aged, over- sensitive woman, Sita who is trapped in familial relationships and finds herself lonely in her own family. She suffers from identity crisis, but towards the end of the novel discovers her real self and solves the question of her existence.
The novels of Anita Desai are mainly women oriented. Her heroines are presented as victims in the male dominated Indian families. She has depicted both submissive and powerful women, and also those who have the ability to change and cope with situations. She tries to explore the psyche of Indian women emphasizing their solitude and alienation. Those characters who have doubts about their existence and identities go through transformation and find solutions to their problems towards the end of the novel.
Desai’s entire fiction traces the changing image of women in the face of existential dilemmas. These female protagonists assert their right to exist not as shadows of their male counterparts but as independent human beings with a will of their own. (Tandon 111-112) In Where Shall We Go This Summer? (1975), the protagonist Sita who in the beginning is a victim of loneliness and alienation and lacks identity, changes and recognizes her true- self with the course of time. Sita is a sensitive middle- aged woman who feels alienated from her family due to her emotional attitude towards day today happenings. She is inflexible and i...
... middle of paper ...
...ly associated to her self- discovery and the identification of her real- self. The mystery of the conflict going on within her is now resolved and she has come through as a maturer woman cleared of all doubts and fears.
Works Cited
Desai, Anita. Where Shall We Go This Summer?. Vikas Publishing House Pvt Ltd. Delhi,1975.
Print.
“Feminist Literary Criticism and Motherhood: Introducing the Mother Without Child”. UC Press
& Books Collection. U of California, 1982-2004. Web. 17 Dec.2013.
Kohli, Devindra, Melaine Maria Just, eds. Anita Desai: Critical Perspectives. Pencraft
International. New Delhi, 2008. Print.
Tandon, Neeru. Anita Desai and Her Fictional World. Atlantic. Delhi, 2008. Print.
Tiwari, Shubha, ed. Critical Responses to Anita Desai. Atlantic. Delhi, 2004. Print.
combined with the many phases of her life to reveal her true identity. It is the
If Hosseini aims to convey a message that women are tantalizing and provide warmth to society but are hidden and masked, evidently there must be an issue causing this suppression of women in society; thus the political and cultural backdrop plays in to the impression the reader takes away from the novel. Hosseini conveys his message of enduring and optimism profoundly through these two characters. If not for the political and cultural backdrop of the novel, the story could not have been developed with the significance and comprehensiveness that it currently has, which essentially are the backbone of the impact this novel has on the reader through a striking presentation of reality that has never been seen in this light, sending a motivational message to fight for the right cause and endure when necessary to achieve the ultimate target.
...environment she was placed in, and to not look for outside influences to help strengthen her, which was an indication of his insecurity. She accepted the environment that she was placed in but begin to slowly change it into what she wanted. Even though her husband really believed that he was helping her, he was actually hurting her. He was stuck in society's thinking that woman wanted to be taken care of and thought that, that's what he was doing. He could not understand why she began to react violently and angrily to the environment in which she was placed. Only by confronting her fears of what society and her husband would think about her, did she allow herself to become free. Once she achieved her independence, she realized that she didn't need to rely on anyone else but herself for her survival. By refusing to be submissive, she traded her sanity for independence.
...n be seen as her overcoming his total control over her life. She was now taking control, almost taking over the role that he had previously occupied.
She is free and seen as a more confident and tenacious woman. She begins to do things she never thought of doing. She begins to have more confidence in herself.
...tionship has completely evolved and the narrator somewhat comes into her own a natural and inevitable process.
...ceptance to her roots and traditions grew more as she learned. This brings a new perspective in Lisa’s life and with this last piece of recognition she is able to see a clear image of herself as a new person that she wants to see.
influence all her life and struggles to accept her true identity. Through the story you can
Throughout the story there are several aspects of the Protagonist’s character that play a major role in the shaping of her future. During her childhood she often demonstrates a sense of fear when she is sent to her bedroom. “We were afraid of the inside, the room were we slept (pg. 549).” She is intimidated by her personal space because she does not have control over it. Later, she gains control by adding lace to her side of the room; symbolically adding personality to herself and slipping into womanhood. When she felt uncomfortable she exercised her imagination, to psychologically regain control over the confusion in her life. Her subconscious effort to control confusing times were carried on to her later years as she was constantly put in difficult situations, which helped her to adjust quickly to change during adulthood. The dreams she created changed when she began to place emphasis on her appearance-that which she could control, other than past dreams of heroism that seemed so distant from reality. The Protagonist filled her childhood with much pride and maintained a consistent focused upon the activities that filled her childhood. She relished working at the side of her father, taking immense pride in every aspect of her assigned duties. She proclaimed, “I worked willingly under his eyes, and with a feeling of pride (pg. 551)” Once after her father introduced her to a feed sales man as “my new hired man (pg. 551),” the Protagonist was flooded with pride as she “turned away and raked furiously, red in the face with pleasure (pg. 551).” In her later years her pride helped her to assemble strong self-confidence she used in her years of growing. Passion and depth were characteristics that impacted her future as a woman. Her passion and depth was revealed early on in the story ...
...e could explore her own intuitions and be her own self, and like most women, it was a dream she had longed for since birth.
illuminated her disparity of being a woman in a man's world. As one reads her
The central problem in Flannery O’Connor’s story, “Everything That Rises Must Converge”, Maxine Hong Kingston’s “The Woman Warrior”, and Toni Morrison’s “Recitatif”, revolve on the issue of race. Morrison and O’Connor focus on the theme of race specifically between blacks and whites in America. It could be said that Kingston’s “The Woman Warrior” concentrates on the racial difference between Asian and Caucasian but race is not made to be a big issue in this novel, since almost all of the characters is ethnically Chinese. Instead, the relationships are more marked by nationality. The characters in Jhumpa Lahiri’s collection of stories “Interpreter of Maladies”, are of Indian origin and deal with the problem of ethnicity.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is a Nigerian author who has received numerous awards and distinctions. Her main argument is that everyone should be a feminist not because of our gender, but because it is what is right. Adichie has been featured in Beyonce’s song, “Flawless”, spreading awareness to the idea of feminism. “We Should All Be Feminists” is a book about her experiences in Nigeria, where men are more powerful than women. The intended audience of the passage is each and every person residing in heavily patriarchal societies. Hesr thesis is “we should all be feminists”.
Ramamoorthy, P. “My Life is My Own: A Study of Shashi Deshpande’s Women” Feminism and Recent Fiction in English Ed. Sushila Singh. New Delhi: Prestige, 1991.