Delineation of Male Characters and Sensibilities in the Novels of Manju Kapur: A Critical Analysis

Abstract

The research article aims to analyse the delineation of male characters in the novels of Manju Kapur. It tries to highlight the image of male characters from the perspective of a woman writer, who happens to be a feminist. In contemporary Indian English fiction dominated by women writers the primary focus is on the representation of women characters and addressing their sensibilities, their plight and place in patriarchal setting. As such, the male characters have been presented either with less vigour or as typical chauvinistic individual, responsible for the ordeals of women in society. In very few novels by women novelists in modern scenario do we find the sympathetic treatment given to the male characters. Considering this aspect of modern Indo-Anglian fiction, the article endeavours to examine the portrayal of male characters in women centric novels, by a woman writer. The qualitative method has been used to deduce how much and how sympathetic treatment has been given to the male characters by the novelist. In order to analyse the representation of men, Manju Kapoor's Difficult Daughters (1998), A Married Woman (2003), Home (2006), and The Immigrant (2008) have been brought under study. A comparison between the representation of men in the novels by men writers and that in the novels by women writers has been taken into consideration in order to draw an objective and unbiased conclusion.