An Analysis of Mother-Daughter Relationship in Manju Kapur's Difficult Daughters

2454 Words5 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Indian feminism in literature

‘Indian women Novelists in English are proving to be a singular phenomenon in today’s modern times. Their unique genius, as reflected in their novels, has provided insightful understanding of women’s psyche. The reader is kept abreast of all the intricate thoughts and views of today’s women. Thus the writing of these novelists enjoy a significant and central place in women’s lives.1 The stereotyped representations of women have been emphatically rejected by the contemporary women novelists. The repressive society has taught a woman to be culturally silent, and thus this act of writing is for her essentially an act of breaking her silence. These women writers are aware that hundreds of thousands of women are discriminated against merely for being women. Such an insight into the marginalized feminine consciousness is provided by Manju Kapur’s Difficult Daughters. Every woman wants to differ from the stereotypes based on sex but to win over the oppressive forces she must manifest courage and uprightness. Manju Kapur, as a keen observer, explores many aspects of feminine sensibilities in her novel, Difficult Daughters. The novel can be considered as an earnest effort to portray the various nuances of women’s psyche and especially of those women who do not wish to be encoded even by the deceptively trivial bonding of male supremacy. In the novel Virmati and Ida rebel against the existing traditional roles preordained for a woman. In spite of belonging to different generations both show an unmistakable urge of self- actualization. Through Virmati’s and Ida’s private and intimate experiences, Manju Kapur has boldly handled even radical themes.
Contemporary women writers also focus on the mother- daughter involvement and are deeply influe...

... middle of paper ...

...(New Delhi: Sarup and Sons, 2006) pp 245-246.
4. (Adrienne Rich, of women Born, Motherhood as Experience and Instituted (New York: W.W. Norton, 1976p. 243).
5. Sales Salvador, Dora. 'The Memory of Desire in Manju Kapur's Difficult Daughters: In Past and Future Tense' In Constanza del Río and Luis M. García Mainar (eds.), Memory, Imagination and Desire. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag C. Winter. (awaiting publication).
6. Gur Pyari Jandial, 'Evolving a Feminist Tradition: The Novels of Shashi Deshpande and Manju Kapur' (awaiting publication in Atlantic Literary Review [Delhi], 4.3).
7. References to Difficult Daughters (abbreviated DD) are to the novel published by Manju Kapur. Difficult Daughters (Delhi: Penguin, 1998).
8. Nancy Chodorov,The Reproduction of Mothering:Psychoanalysis and the Sociology of Gender,Berkley: university of California press, 1978.

Show More
Related

  • Analysis Of Susanne Beacker's Monster Culture

    1176 Words  | 3 Pages

    Like the Good Other Woman, the Evil Other Woman often spends much of her life hidden away in the castle, secret room, or whatever, a fact suggesting that even a virtuous woman’s lot is the same she would have merited had she been the worst of criminals. The heroine’s discovery of such Other Women is in the one case an encounter with women’s oppression-their confinement as wives, mothers, and daughters-and in the other with a related repression: the confinement of a Hidden Woman inside those genteel writers and readers who, in the idealization of the heroine’s virtues, displace their own rebellious

    Read More

  • The Importance Of Sacrifice In In Beloved

    1920 Words  | 4 Pages

    Women throughout time have been compelled to cope with the remonstrances of motherhood along with society’s anticipations

    Read More

  • No Longer one of the Boys

    944 Words  | 2 Pages

    Ranson, G. (2005). No longer ‘one of the boys’: Negotiations with motherhoods, as prospect or

    Read More

  • Mean Mother with a Hurt Daughter

    2052 Words  | 5 Pages

    Donaldson, Susan James. “Freud Was Right: Mean Mothers Scar For Life, Some Children Mired the Past, but Others Learned to Move on and Forgive Abusive Moms”. Parental Alienation Canada. ABC News, 7 May 2010. Web. 10 June 2010.

    Read More

  • Gender Stereotypes

    1331 Words  | 3 Pages

    Even through some of the greatest literature women are exposed are flat characters. Meaning that they never have too much personality or they don’t possess any purpose to the story. Feminist Critic believes that “literature is merely one of the many expressions of the patriarchal society with a vested interest in keeping women subordinate to men.” (Feminist Criticism 1132) Through literature people find out the many ways women are taught to live in different countries and throughout time, it often seems to be the same routine for women no matter the country or time period. In literature women are shown as housewives...

    Read More

  • Adrienne Rich's Of Woman Born – The End of Motherhood

    662 Words  | 2 Pages

    In Of Woman Born, Adrienne Rich effectively weaves her own story into a convincing account of what it means to become a mother within the bonds of patriarchal culture. Her conclusion that the institution of motherhood, which she distinguishes from motherhood, must be destroyed in order to release the creation and sustenance of life into the same realm of decision, struggle, surprise, imagination, and conscious intelligence, as any other difficult, but freely chosen work is substantiated by her courageous confession that contradicts culturally normative notions of motherhood.

    Read More

  • Gail Godwin's A Sorrowful Woman

    1185 Words  | 3 Pages

    “Motherhood is a great honor and privilege, yet it is also synonymous with servanthood, everyday women are called upon to selflessly meet the need of their families. Whether they are awake nursing a baby, spending their time and money on less than grateful teenagers, or preparing meals, mom continuously put others before themselves” – Charles Stanley (Brainy Quotes, 2016)

    Read More

  • Gender Trouble by Judith Butler

    1724 Words  | 4 Pages

    In this chapter Mahasweta Devi’s anthology of short stories entitled Breast Stories to analyze representations of violence and oppression against women in name of gender. In her Breast Stories, Devi twice evokes female characters from ancient Hindu mythology, envisions them as subalterns in the imagined historical context and, creates a link with the female protagonists of her short stories. As the title suggests, Breast Stories is a trilogy of short stories; it has been translated and analyzed by Gayatri Chakraborty Spivak and, in Spivak’s view, the ‘breast’ of a woman in these stories becomes the instrument of a brutal condemnation of patriarchy. Indeed, breast can be construed as the motif for violence in the three short stories “Draupadi,” “Breast-Giver,” and “Behind the Bodice,”

    Read More

  • Gender Roles and Ideas

    5515 Words  | 12 Pages

    Often in literature authors, particularly men, are criticized for falsely or inaccurately portraying or "writing" women. This debate has been historically confined to male authors, but is on occasion reversed and female authors are criticized for inaccurately writing men. Although it may sound like a fair trade—or at least the beginnings of one in the world of critics—these situations are limited to primarily European and predominately North American literature. Examining the portrayal of men and the male sex as a whole, by women, is an important if not essential undertaking in this modern world, but where is comes to a point of being absolutely crucial is when it is the women authors of a world where they are second class citizens only because of their gender. If the writing of men in Arab women’s novels can be understood at even the most basic level it may allow some insight into what these women think and assume consciously and subconsciously, about themselves and their position in society and about the inherent oppression that they deal with and resign themselves to—no matter how weak or extreme the degree of the oppression, ranging from Egypt to Saudi Arabia.

    Read More

  • things fall apart

    552 Words  | 2 Pages

    To men women exist in a world in which they are to be seen and not heard. The author analyzes and makes a connection between the women as not only women in general but as wives, mothers, and daughters also. This is to show that they all have something in common in their life. In addition, the author explores the relationships between these women in order to show how they all connect from their own personal experiences. In the novel, women are viewed mainly as child bearers and help mates for their husbands. Men believed that women are not capable of as much as men are. Reading the text from a female perspective shows that the women experiences from deal...

    Read More

  • Anne Deshpande Root Cause Of Fragmentation And Dichotomy

    239 Words  | 1 Pages

    Be that as it may, Deshpande makes gender central to her writings. Her works deal not only with ordinary women in ordinary, urban situations but stem from a firm belief that our lives are to a great extent governed by gender. Women she feels, have not participated in the process of word-making; the stories myths and legends in our Puranas, epics and kathsa have been written by men. Deshpande feels that women never start with a picture of themselves on a clean slate, their self-image honed by the hegemonic influences of myths, movies and current-day soap operas. She sees herself as a writer whose writing comes Deshpande’s real concern is to explore the root cause of the fragmentation and dichotomy of her characters and to observe what happens

    Read More

  • Ramona T. Mercer: Maternal Role Attainment

    3116 Words  | 7 Pages

    Ramona T. Mercer is the theorist credited for developing the theory of Maternal Role Attainment, which is also known as the theory of Becoming a Mother. “Maternal role attainment is an interactional and developmental process occurring over time in which a mother becomes attached to her infant, acquires competence in the caretaking tasks involved in the role, and expresses pleasure and gratification in the role (Tomey & Alligood, 2006, p. 608). Mercer’s career has been primarily focused in pediatrics, obstetrics, and maternal-child nursing. Mercer’s greatest accolades have been based on her extensive research on the topic of maternal role and development (Tomey & Alligood, 2006, p. 605).

    Read More

  • Vision of Man-Woman Relationship in The Hungry Tide

    2385 Words  | 5 Pages

    Sandhu, Sarbjit K. The Image of Woman in the Novels of Shashi Deshpande. New Delhi: Prestige, 1991.

    Read More

  • Buchi Emecheta's The Joys of Motherhood as an African Feminist Text

    3065 Words  | 7 Pages

    New York: George Braziller, 1979. Nnoromele, Salome C. "Representing the African Woman: Subjectivity and Self in the Joys of Motherhood." Critique 43.2 (2002): 178-190. Ogundipe - Leslie, Molora. The Female Writer and Her Commitment.

    Read More

  • Critical Analysis Of Susanna's Seven Husbands

    1750 Words  | 4 Pages

    Indian Writing in English has a special status in English Literature owing to its treatment of women characters. Short stories help the writers to project select characters in an impressive way to the readers. In Indian context the status of woman in a society and her treatment is very different from those of her European or American counterparts. Women are depicted both as a good and evil in literature by various writers. However, in no literature is a women stereotyped as was done in Indian literature. Away from the mythical stereotyping of women, Ruskin Bond portrayed his women in a different way. The female characters of his short stories range from a small child to a grandmother. These characters are as powerful as men and have left a strong impression on the readers. I have chosen following eight short stories for the critical analysis of Ruskin Bond’s Women in this paper.

    Read More

More about An Analysis of Mother-Daughter Relationship in Manju Kapur's Difficult Daughters

Open Document