Towards Modernity in Manju Kapur’s A Married Woman

Abstract

Manju Kapur speaks, with great narrative eloquence, of the idea of independence. She was awarded the Commonwealth Writers Prize for her first novel Difficult Daughters in 1999. It has earned her very substantial success, both commercially and critically, both India and in abroad. Her novel “A Married Woman” deals with new woman protagonist. It gives us revolutionary theme, the plot centers on a woman's obsession with love and lesbianism. Here, “new woman” is bold and modern in perspectives. She is job oriented, rebellious, educated and thoughtful. Kapur's heroines are mostly educated, aspiring individuals caged within the confines of a conservative society. Their education leads them to independent thinking for which their family and society become intolerant of them. They struggle between tradition and modernity. Kapur has taken profound insight into woman's inner turmoil to find a place, an identity and individuality of her own in society. For centuries, women are always back staged by patriarchal world. This paper brings out the feminist views of Manju Kapur and the issues related to the inner turmoil of women in her novel.