Critiquing Patriarchal System in Indian Women Fiction A Study of Select Fiction of Anita Desai and Dalip Kaur Tiwana

Abstract

The present research project entitled Critiquing Patriarchal System in Indian Women Fiction: A Study of Select Fiction of Anita Desai and Dalip Kaur Tiwana attempts to understand and critique the patriarchal system in the select writings of Anita Desai and Dalip Kaur Tiwana. By collaborating these two authors, this study explores patriarchal structures that have crushed the women of both the novelists. These novelists have emerged victorious by presenting the problems and suffering of their women characters. However, all the novels by the two novelists significantly represent the multiplicity of voices related to women issues. The novels selected for this research work include: Cry, the Peacock (1963) and Fasting, Feasting (1999) by Anita Desai, And Such is Her Fate (1980), Twilight/Mark of the Nose-Ring (2009) by Dalip Kaur Tiwana. newlineThus, the present study concentrates on the problematic issues of the patriarchal system in the select text of both the novelists as it affects Indian women. The novels represent the male dominated streak very strongly and issues such as loss of identity, inner conflicts, discrimination and patriarchy are outrightly exposed in these novels. The women characters have to undergo a harrowing time throughout their lives. The effect of such suppression, victimization and violence lead women to a sense of self-pity, helplessness, defiling self-dignity and violence of self-respect thereby forcing them to mental breakdown and even suicide. newlineThis study is an attempt to analyze the oppressed women characters from urban and rural society. Anita Desai s fiction is concerned with the exploration of the psychological condition of the oppressed hypersensitive women in urban milieu whereas Tiwana s focus is to present the exploitation of rural women in feudo-patriarchal society. The problem of education, arranged marriage and oppressive lives of girls in the middle class families are highlighted by Desai. Issues such as women s exploitation in rural society as they are considered man s property like