Queenly Assertion of Heritage And Pride A Feminist Reading of the Select Historical Novels

Abstract

This thesis endeavours to cull out the subjectivity of the royal women, which has been scarcely researched, as framed in the novels of Indian English Women Writers. The principal object of the present study entitled Queenly Assertion of Heritage and Pride: A Feminist Reading of the Select Historical novels provides an extensive array about the feminist reading in the novels of Indian English Historical Fiction. It aims at highlighting the impact of Feminism and Nationalism in the colonial era. An attempt has been made to signify novels of Gita Mehta s Raj (1989); Kamala Markandaya s The Golden Honeycomb (1977); Shahana Dasgupta s Razia: The People s Queen (2001); and Mahasweta Devi s The Queen of Jhansi (2000). In Indian Writing in English, Historical novels represent the royal households from about the turn of the twentieth century up to the eve of independence. This was a turbulent period of Indian history with the nationalists agitating for freedom and democracy, the Princely state of India struggling to retain their identity and power and Britain playing the one against the other. Most historical novels in India were written from the perspective of the British colonists of the Raj period, and portray the Indian perspective on colonial rule of women s historical position. Indian novelists try to depict the feminine sensibility and illustrate the struggle for equality for women s rights historically and politically. newline