Second International Conference on Language, Literature & Community

21-22 February, 2015 Bhubaneshwar, India.

THE FEMINIST CONSCIOUSNESS IN THE SELECTED NOVELS OF ANITA DESAI

Hemangi Patil and Dr. M. Ghosal

Department of Humanities and Social SciencesVisvesvaraya National Institute of Technology, Nagpur

•Feminism is a collection of movements and ideologies aimed at defining, establishing and defending equal political, economic and social rights for women.

•Feminist Consciousness is an awareness of victimization of dominating males of the society which leads to women’s subordinate status and the oppressive consequences.

• The problem for women today is not sexual but a problem of ‘identity’ and to be called as ‘Other’ in the society.

•So, Feminism is committed to the equality for women’s liberation in all its approaches as a women and emphasizing the value of women as they are.

INTRODUCTION:

4

RATIONALE:

“Why we need Feminism?”

A Man isn’t told to dress provocatively.. A man isn’t told not to go out alone after dark...

A man isn’t judged on his level of physical attractiveness..A man isn’t called selfish for having career as well as family..

A man isn’t called crazy for expressing negative emotions..I am a Women who goes through these things everyday.

“That’s Why I need Feminism”

Incidence of Crime Against Women during 2013(All India 3,09,546)

Crime Against Women Percent distribution during 2013

ANITA DESAI AS A WRITER• Anita Desai is a staunch feminist writer and a pioneer of psychological

novels in Modern Indian English Literature.

• She portrays not the experience of the external object, but the cognizance of objective reality as seen by the mind.

• Anita Desai tries her best to voice the mute, untold and psychosomatic miseries of married women who are caught in the net of existential problems and predicaments.

• Through her deep and profound analysis of the psyche of women, she portrays the emotional world of the second sex revealing a several unfathomed shades of human personalities and feminine sensibilities.

• She also conceptualizes that feminism is never static, it depends on their socio-cultural and regional backgrounds.

THEMES OF ANITA DESAI’S

NOVELS

THEMES OF ANITA DESAI’S

NOVELS

EXISTENTIALISM

MARITAL DISCORD

ALIENATION

RECTITUDE

QUEST FOR IDENTITY

SUBVERTED HOMES

SECLUSION

FEMINIZATION OF AGEING

MARXISM

PSYCHOANALYSIS

DECONSTRUCTION

GAYATRI SPIVAK

HER THEORY The world is organized by language and

consciousness and is structured by language.

Her definition of woman

WO MAN

In both societies, patriarchal and matriarchal, it is the man who is the owner of the child because he produces the child, even though the woman nurtures the child.

• The concepts of normality and health that are not yet properly defined in Freud’s texts, Freud argues that the little girl is a little boy before she discovers sex. In expounding his theory Freud does not take the womb into account.

• Speaking in terms of Marx in terms of use-value, and exchange-value and surplus value, she says that a woman in the traditional social situation produces more than she is getting in terms of her subsistence.

• The writer says that they should chart the itinerary of womb-envy in the production theory of consciousness; the idea of the womb as a place of production is avoided both by Marx and Freud.

• Finally, the writer concludes that criticism must remain resolutely neutral and practical.

• These texts must be rewritten so that there is new material for consciousness and society.

• After all, the people who produce literature, male or female,

are also moved by the general idea of the world and conscious to which they cannot give a name.

CONCLUSION Equality has to be achieved for all and that has to be in TOTAL SOCIETY and not in isolation.

No doubt, feminist research is research ‘on women,’ ‘for women,’ ‘about women’ but not only ‘by women.’

The voices of women with the voices of the men will make the achievement earlier and easier.

Men and women need to work together to empower women to realize their fullest potentials to fearlessly contribute to the world.

FEMINISM = HUMANISM

REFERENCES:• National Crime Records Bureau, Compendium,2013-Government of India• Literary Theory and Criticism, Patricia Waugh, Oxford University Press,2006• Usha Bande, “The Novels of Anita Desai”, New Delhi: Prestige Books, 2000 ed.

Print• Amarnath Prasad and T.S.Ramesh, “Anita Desai: The Novelist Par Excellence”,

New Delhi: Sarup Book Publishing Pvt. Ltd, 2011. Print• Sujatha Rao, “Post-Modernist Approach to Anita Desai: A Socio-Cultural Study

of her Novels”, New Delhi: Prestige Books, 2010. Print• Manmohan K. Bhatnagar and M. Rajeshwar, “The Novels of Anita Desai - A

Critical Study”, New Delhi : Atlantic Publishers and Distributors, 2013. Print• N.R. Gopal, “A Critical Study Of The Novels Of Anita Desai”, New Delhi: Atlantic

Publishers and Distributors, 2013. Print • Lokmat Sakhi Newspaper dated 25th September 2014, Print 1. • Sharma K.L, 2009, Dimensions of Ageing: Indian Studies, Rawat Publication.• Gender and Ageing; ESCWA Centre for Women, Newsletter, August 2007, Vol.

1, Issue 10• Can We Prevent Ageing? Health Publication, National Institute on Ageing.• Human Rights and Status of Older Women in India- A National Study, Agewell

Research and Advocacy Centre; New-Delhi