Cultural Relativism and Feminist Discourse in Sharat Chandra Chattopadhyay’s Fiction vis-á-vis his Concepts on the ‘Worth of Women’

Abstract

The theory of Cultural Relativism in Comparative Literature entails cross-cultural literary investigations, which are based on an understanding that calls for an „empathetic‟ appreciation of the functions that a culture performs in society. Thus, instead of merely comparing one text with another, literary comparisons like relativism explore the functions a text performs in the respective system in terms of the cultural values represented by it. According to noted Indian feminist Maya Pandit, women‟s issues have formed an important part of the agenda of political and cultural movements in India right from the colonial days. A feminist reading of portrayals of Indumati and Achala in Sharat Chandra Chattopadhyay‟s Darpachurna and Grihadaha respectively would also incorporate the methodology of Cultural Relativism in the colonial context. The present study proposes to examine Sharat Chandra Chattopadhyay‟s essay “Narir Mulya” that encapsulates his views on cultural transpositions of “modern” and “liberal” western ideologies and concepts of women‟s issues in the Indian socio-cultural context vis-a-vis his fictional representation of “educated”, “liberal” middle-class Bengali women epitomizing his brand of “feudal feminism” as found in his short story “Darpachurna” and his novel Grihadaha.