Redefining Womanhood: Feminism in the Indian Context in Bharati Mukherjee's Literature
Abstract
This paper analyses re-imagining womanhood in the specific context of Indian feminist thematic concern inseminated through Bharati Mukherjee's literature. Mukherjee has written extensively about the triumphs and struggles of Indian women as they negotiate cultural norms, identity crises, and societal limitations. My analysis of selected novels and stories by Mukherjee demonstrates how her women characters articulate on the one hand their assimilation within a particular matrix as daughters or widows, but also contest such modes of subjectivity. The paper critically analyzes aspects of feminist themes, character voices and the culture in Mukherjee's writing.
References
Mohanty, C. T. (2003). Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourses. In C. T. Mohanty, Feminism Without Borders: Decolonizing Theory, Practicing Solidarity (pp. 17-42). Duke University Press.
Spivak, G. C. (1988). Can the Subaltern Speak? In C. Nelson & L. Grossberg (Eds.), Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture (pp. 271-313). University of Illinois Press.
Mukherjee, B. (1972). The Tiger's Daughter. Houghton Mifflin.
Mukherjee, B. (1975). Wife. Houghton Mifflin.
Mukherjee, B. (1989). Jasmine. Grove Press.
Mukherjee, B. (2002). Desirable Daughters. Hyperion.
Mukherjee, B. (1993). The Holder of the World. Knopf.
Mukherjee, B. (1997). Leave It to Me. Alfred A. Knopf.
Dhawan, R. K. (Ed.). (1996). The Fiction of Bharati Mukherjee: A Critical Symposium. Prestige Books.
Alam, F. (1996). Bharati Mukherjee. Twayne Publishers.
Banerjee, S. (2005). "Cultural Transnationalism in the Fiction of Bharati Mukherjee." Journal of South Asian Literature, 40(2), 65-78.
Jain, J. (2004). "Feminism and the Diasporic Space: Reading Bharati Mukherjee’s Jasmine." Indian Journal of Gender Studies, 11(2), 223-238.
Kumar, N. (2010). "Narratives of Exile and Identity in the Work of Bharati Mukherjee." Journal of Postcolonial Writing, 46(2), 153-165.
Singh, R. S. (1998). Indian Women Novelists. Anmol Publications.
Srivastava, R. (1998). "Diasporic Sensibility in Bharati Mukherjee's Jasmine." Contemporary Literary Criticism, 113, 22-27.
Verma, M. (2002). "Feminine Consciousness in Bharati Mukherjee's Wife." The Literary Criterion, 37(1), 45-57.
Vignisson, R. S. (2013). "Transnational Feminism in Bharati Mukherjee's Desirable Daughters." Feminist Studies, 39(3), 621-644.
Williams, L. (2004). "Crossing Cultures: Bharati Mukherjee's Shifting Perspectives on Identity and Feminism." Studies in Canadian Literature, 29(2), 106-124.