A Feminist Analysis of Women's Trauma in Anita Desai's 'Fasting Feasting'

Komal Komal, Devendra Kumar Sharma

Abstract


Anita Desai's Fasting Feasting presents many issues surrounding ‘being a woman’ in India. It particularly deals with the trauma of three women and presents their sorrows. Uma and Aruna are two sisters, and Anamika is their cousin. Uma is forced to leave school to take care of her parents and younger brother's household chores. Aruna is married to a wealthy man, but her lifestyle is unacceptable to her old-fashioned parents. Anamika is a brilliant student who secures a prestigious fellowship at Oxford but cannot avail of it because she is a woman. She ends up in a toxic marriage and suffers from domestic violence, which ultimately leads to her death. These instances depict the subjugation of women in a male-dominated Indian society. The presents study explores the traumatic instances of women in a male-dominated society in India. Furthermore, it also presents the genesis of trauma of a woman. One major reason behind the trauma of women is the patriarchal mind-set of Indian society. Sometimes, even parents do not support their daughters due to their conserved mind-set and societal pressure. Although the novel presents trauma through three protagonists, Indian women continue to face similar issues in their lives even today.

Keywords


Fasting Feasting; Indian Feminism; patriarchy; trauma; women oppression

Full Text:

PDF

References


Balaev, Michelle. “Trends in Literary Trauma Theory.” Mosaic: An Interdisciplinary Critical Journal, vol. 41, no. 2, 2008, pp. 149–66. JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/44029500.

Beauvoir, Simone De. The Second Sex. (Le Deuxième Sexe, 1949) Paris, Trans. Ed. H.M. Parshley. London: Picador, 1988.

Caruth, Cathy. Unclaimed Experience: Trauma, Narrative, and History. Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996.

Desai, Anita. Fasting, Feasting. Chatto & Windus, 1999.

Edgar, Andrew, and Peter R. Sedgwick, editors. Cultural Theory: The Key Concepts. 2. ed., Reprint, Routledge, 2010.

Egan, Suzanne. “Trauma as Feminist Practice.” Putting Feminism to Work, by Suzanne Egan, Springer International Publishing, 2020, pp. 135–58. DOI.org (Crossref), https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-22109-6_5.

Haque, Mohammad Mozammel. “Anita Desai’s Fasting Feasting: A Picturesque Reflection of Male-Chauvinistic Indian Society.” World Journal of English Language, vol. 10, no. 1, Nov. 2019, p. 1. DOI.org (Crossref), https://doi.org/10.5430/wjel.v10n1p1.

Jackson, Elizabeth. “Responding to Patriarchy in India: Resistance and Complicity in Samina Ali’s Madras on Rainy Days and Anita Desai’s Fasting, Feasting.” Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature, vol. 37, no. 1, 2018, pp. 157–71. DOI.org (Crossref), https://doi.org/10.1353/tsw.2018.0007.

Richard, Jannet. Women Writer’s Talking. Cambridge, 1981.

Johnson, Pamela S., and Jennifer A. Johnson. “The Oppression of Women in India.” Violence

Against Women, vol. 7, no. 9, Sept. 2001, pp. 1051–68. DOI.org (Crossref),

https://doi.org/10.1177/10778010122182893.

Kaur, Ramandeep. “Low Female Literacy Rate and Its Impact on Our Society.” Maps of

India, 2013, https://www.mapsofindia.com/my-india/society/low-female-literacy-rate-

and-its-impact-on-our-society.

Kruks, Sonia. “Gender and Subjectivity: Simone de Beauvoir and Contemporary Feminism.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, vol. 18, no. 1, Oct. 1992, pp. 89–110. DOI.org (Crossref), https://doi.org/10.1086/494780.

Millet, Kate. Sexual Politics . Abacus: Sphere Books London, 1972.

Pilcher, Jane, and Imelda Whelehan. Fifty Key Concepts in Gender Studies. SAGE Publications, 2004.

Ramachandran, Bhuvana. “Marginalized Women in Anita Desai’s Fasting, Feasting.” The Criterion: An International Journal in English, vol. 6, no. 1, 2015, pp. 1–5.

Ruchi Panday and Prof. Gunjan Sushil. “Patriarchy and Resistance in Anita Desai’s Fasting, Feasting.” The Creative Launcher, vol. 7, no. 6, Dec. 2022, pp. 158–64. DOI.org (Crossref), https://doi.org/10.53032/tcl.2022.7.6.17.

Sangari, Kumkum. “Consent, Agency and Rhetorics of Incitement.” Economic and Political Weekly, vol. 28, no. 18, 1993, pp. 867–82. JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/4399675.

UN. “Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women.” OHCHR, United Nations, 1993, https://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-mechanisms/instruments/declaration-elimination-violence-against-women.

Volná, Ludmila. “Anita Desai’s Fasting, Feasting and the Condition of Women.” CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture, vol. 7, no. 3, Sept. 2005. DOI.org (Crossref), https://doi.org/10.7771/1481-4374.1272.

Webster, Denise C., and Erin C. Dunn. “Feminist Perspectives on Trauma.” Women & Therapy, vol. 28, no. 3–4, Sept. 2005, pp. 111–42. DOI.org (Crossref), https://doi.org/10.1300/J015v28n03_06.

WHO. Violence against Women. World Health Organisation, 2021, https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/violence-against-women.



View Counter


Abstract - 294
PDF - 113

Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.


Copyright (c) 2024 Komal Komal, Devendra Kumar Sharma

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

                                                       SUPPORT JOURNAL

ISSN: 2454-2296

E-ISSN: 2395-0897