A STUDY OF MANJU KAPUR'S CUSTODY FROM A FEMINIST PERSPECTIVE

Main Article Content

S. Manimekalai, Dr. V. Vimala

Abstract

Ina traditional Indian society, women find space as a living being. She needs to be a wife and mother first and then a living being with heart and head. Right from childhood, women have been trained to suppress their physical needs, keeping their families' interest foremost in their minds. Sex is something forbidden to them, and it is treated as a cause for challenges and catastrophes. Under the pretext of maintaining tradition, female sexuality has been suppressed. Instead, it has been appreciated in exalted terms by glorifying motherhood. Infertility in married life affects both husband and wife, yet it is the woman who usually carries the social stigma. Women's social status, how they are regulated in life, economic independence, survival, and marital life are all equivalent to nothing unless their married life becomes fruitful. In this connection, Anderson opines," motherhood is generallyrecognized as an essential part of being a woman, to an extentpoint that women without children are usually described as unsatisfied and incomplete" (42). For a woman whose married life is barren,her body itself becomes an object of discontentment. This paper attempts to view the female body in Manju Kapur's Custody novel from a  feminist perspective.

Article Details

Section
Articles