Author Name
Ayesha Rajpal, Mohini Dwivedi, Nidhi Bhatnagar, Om Prakash Gupta
Abstract
Manju Kapur's novels are probably some of the best contributions to Indian contemporary literature, where her vivid imagination brings out the finest characteristics of women fighting the structural patriarchy of the society she depicts. She embraces marriage, becoming a mother, being sexually autonomous, and finding oneself among other issues in these works. Within this wider socio-cultural context of India concerning women and womanhood, Kapur’s heroines are often victims and also mechanisms of social impositions and desires, threading the many complexities and contradictions of being an Indian woman. “In Kapur’s Difficult Daughters, the protagonist Virmati embodies the struggle of Indian women who, in the face of societal constraints, seek personal autonomy and identity.” It seeks a critical analysis of the feminist critique that Kapur’s works invoke, with special attention to how she seeks to demolish and ridicule notions and practices of patriarchy. It is hoped that this study wil