Gender Identity and Cultural Conflict in Chitra Banerjee’s Select Novels

Abstract

Indian-born author Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni has a postcolonial diasporic identity. It has been noted that she is an Asian American writer of exceptional talent. She employs a variety of storytelling techniques while writing with a deep human insight. Her personas are portrayed with such realism that they leave the reader with a lasting impression. This paper looks at how a well-known male characters who show gender role reversal are portrayed in a few of Divakaruni's novels. The pieces under consideration for the analysis are Sister of My Heart and The Vine of Desire. Identity cannot be separated from religious, public, ethnic, and social setting of the reality. The unpredictability of author’s circumstances and assorted nature function in various places of the world. This causes the case of comprehensiveness of gender to an excess. Both the gender has wrestled with the subject of character, yet women’s quest for acknowledgment as a distinct has been confounded, as she begins to understand her capacities and failures. Divakaruni's works are set in a setting that alternates between India and America, and her fearless female characters come from all walks of life. Indian women in Divakaruni, who were torn between the two nations, struggle to define who they are and are entrapped by societal shifts. The novels Sister of My Heart and The Vine of Desire both address identity crises.