Emergence of New Women in Indian English Fictions

Emergence of New Women in Indian English Fictions

Ms. D. Pandiselvi, M. Phil Scholar, Dept. of English and Foreign Languages, Alagappa University, Karaikudi-3

Ms. M. Ganabharathi, M. Phil Scholar, Dept. of English and Foreign Languages, Alagappa University, Karaikudi-3

Women’s issues have been picked by women writers with a lot more enthusiasm than expected in a bid to support the cause of women’s liberation through these writers’ eyes we can see a totally different world. Traditional ways and values and modern life styles find a prominent place in the portrayal of women characters by the woman novelists.

The modern woman does not find any sense in accepting all rules set by the male dominated society. She is not ready to suffer and sacrifices as the traditional woman does. She wants to project her image as an individual, free from all kinds of conservative thinking which she seeks to overthrow. She is ready to fight against all odds to fulfill her aspirations. She rebels against the existing moral codes and social norms which either in theory or in practice tends to regulate the women to a secondary place in society.

            Tradition has a very strong hold over the Indian society and even a stronger hold over its women folks. In this society women are considered as secondary, marginalized and weak. According to Indian tradition she is supposed to make all kinds of scarifices for the welfare of the family. Right from the childhood she is taught that her main duty is to obey. Traditional woman has no her own self. She has to live her life for others against her own wishes. She is the prey of evil practice called ‘Sati. Sati is the practice in which when husband dies the wife has to join him on the funeral pyre. This cruel custom was part of Pativirartha dharma so as to prove her faithfulness towards her husband.

         To be born a girl in this society was like a curse. The birth of a son was welcome and celebrated with great enthusiasm and the birth of a daughter was avoided and considered as foreshadowing a chain of trouble for the parents. As such girls were married of early before they reached the age of puberty. Many infants were killed as soon as they were found to be girls.

The dowry system emerged from the sacred ritual of marrying of the daughter and sending her along with some gifts to her husband’s house to an ugly form with the passage of time. Marriage become almost like an auction in the open market. Families came to be destroyed due to high dowry demands made by the bridegrooms. Wives are ill-treated by their husbands and mother-in-laws to bring dowry.

However, this traditional attitude towards woman has changed tremendously in the course of time as so many reformists like Ishwar Chandra Vidyadagar, Swami Dayanand, Swami Vivekanand, Rajaram Mohan Roy etc, came out for women concern. They rebel for women’s emancipation from conservative society by trying to wipe out Sati, Pardah, Child marriage system and other evil practices. They insisted on woman’s education which played an important role in bringing Indian women into the main stream of development.

The women writers focus on women’s problems; they have a woman’s perspective on the world. The educated women prefer to enjoy a greater individually, recognition and responsibility than their uneducated people. Enlightened families encourage their daughters at home and at school and even send them to universities and jobs. The lot of average Indian women still remains much the same for custom as superstition die-hard and it is indeed very difficult to break the old barriers and destroy the shackles of tradition.

After men, women too came out of the women’s emancipation. Well known among them, are PanditaRamabaiSaraswathi, AnandibaiJoshi,Saraswathibai  and Annie Besant. These reformation movements directly helped producing a class of woman who were totally different in their attitude at outlook from the traditional women of conservative India.

Literature is mirror of society so it underwent a significant change with the emergence of these visionary women in society. Literature which was the dominance of the males started reflecting the issues imprisoned in the walls of the family now looked upon themselves from a different angle.

In the novels of women writers we come across a varied hue of Indian women-traditional, both traditional and modern, the ultra-modern and non-conformist. Traditional women who retain their individuality are seen in the novels of NayantaraSahgal. Women who opt for modernity for convenience and not out of conviction are seen in characters of Ruth Jhabvala. Women who use modernity as a license for licentiousness can also be seen in her novels. Women who are traditional, oppressed, exploited in the name of tradition are found in the women characters of Arundhati Roy. ShobhaDe’s women are ones who form a new and highly intriguing group-they are daring, educated unconventional, rich and self-absorbing with loose morals.

Kamala Markandaya’s women characters are both conformists and traditionalists. Women are the general figures in most of her novels, in her four novels: Nectar in a sieve, Some Inner Fury, Possession and Virgins. Her central consciousness is that of women. Her novels are characterized by a feminine sensibility. Markandya’s women are well drilled in the tenets of Indian ethos.

Rukmini in Nector in a Sieve impresses as with her amazing capacity compromise with her harsh fact of life. They emerge neither as a result of action nor because of her failures. There is no passivity in Rukumani acceptance but only a strong conviction. It is not stoic resignation but the acceptance. She believes. “We would be pitiable creatures indeed to be so weak, for is not mains spirit given to him rise above him misfortunes”. (Nectar in Sieve 113)

Again, Rukmini is passionately attached to her husband and fondly loves her children. She even for gives his affairs with Kunthi and serves him till his death. She is both traditional and conformist.

Sarojini in A Silence of Desire too gets her strength and sustenance from her religious belifs. Sorojini is calm and quiet, peaceful and submissive. Her husband Dandkar is made aware of the presences of the virtues in his excited wife’s strong will, assertive nature and stubbornness. The idleness of Dandkar brings out the chasm between them and that makes his wife withdraw from him and suffer.

Nalini in A Handful of Rice suffers passively the savage treatment by her husband Ravi: her husband unable to face the economic problems gives vent to his frustration on his docile and submissive wife. And Nalini accepts adversity passively Nalini took it stoically. “She was used to obedience and saw no point in hanging her head against a stone wall”. (A Handful of Rice7)

Nalini points out to Ravi that he is being influenced by Damodhar who is a bad man. Ravi hardly listens. She leaves home out of frustration but comes back the moment Ravi calls her back. Even if her compromise appears to be the result of her helpnesswituation, there seems to be enough wisdom in her acceptance, for she knows that rebellion and defiance would not have shown her a way out of suffering and provety.

Again, Arundhati Roy in her novel The God of Small Things portrays women in a traditional male-dominated society. Her women characters are seen to be suffering the old subjugation and humiliation of the underclass. In God of Small Things, Roy simplicity presses for greater social reforms in the rigid positioning of women and the intolerable plight of deprived classes. The character of Mamchi is that of submissive and obedient traditional wife who falls prostrate at the feet of her husband. She is beaten by her husband every night. “Every night he beats her with a brass flower vase. The beatings weren’t new, what was news was only the frequency with them took place?” (The God of Small Things 47)

She does not complain but takes it as a normal part of her marriage and their marriage survives long enough till Papachi dies. Her daughter Ammu is restless to break free from the restrictive behavior at home, manly Papachi’s outburst of physical violence to Mamachi from time to time. She gets no real freedom but just a change of master. Her husband too dominates her like father does to her mother. She decides to walk out of her marriage unable to withstand her husband’s violence after getting drunk. Ammu has no alternative but to return home where she stays like an unwelcome guet. Ammu finds love and solitude in Velutha’s arms much against the family’s objections. Velutha’s low social standing comes much in her way. They are condemned and Ammu dies in isolation while Velutha bleeds to his death due to police torture. The traditional helpless woman is suffering till she dies while the class-ridden orthodox society revels in society revels in its patriarchal power.

In this context modern woman is a woman who defies tradition and society and comes to have a new identity. Women of this type are heroines in the works of women novelists. These women comprise a small but prominent cross-section of society. They belong to the word of the rich and powerful they are usually wives and daughters of rich business tycoons and rich bureaucrats, women of the corporate world, famous film actresses and others. They are new breed of women who live life on their own terms.

References

Iyengar, K. R, Srinivasa, ed. “The New Poets.” Indian Writing in English. New Delhi: Sterling Publishers, 2000. Print.

Walsh, William. Introduction.Readings in Commonwealth Literature.By Walsh.Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973. Print.

---. “Small Observations on a Large Subject,” Aspects of Indian Writing in English. Ed. M. K. Naik. Madras: The MacMillan Company of India Ltd., 1979. Print.