Women: The Subjects To Subjugation-Feministic Perspective In Kiran Desai’s The Inheritance Of Loss

Abstract

Kiran Desai, a recipient of the world prestigious literary award, the Booker Prize in 2006 for her second novel, The Inheritance of Loss acquired worldwide admiration for presenting multicultural and post-colonial issues. Feminism entails the demand of women for equality-equality for power, right and opportunity.  Even after the independence, the women in India are still dependent and under the ascendency of patriarchal society.  It is preoccupied with the belief in the superiority of men over women. The women have to exert strenuous effort to whatever the men have traditionally been conferred.  Man regards himself the subject to rule and woman to be ruled.  Women have simply been treated as object.  This paper highlights, among other things, the harsh realities of women in the novel, The Inheritance of Loss.  The novelist has delineated the three generations to depict feminine quest for identity. Some are subjugated and suppressed but other female characters grapple to achieve the authentic existence.   Through the women characters, Desai exhibits women’s search for liberty and right in real sense. The present research paper is an attempt to bring out the unfair and unjust treatment of women in the patriarchal Indian society.  Kiran Desai exhorts that the dynamic and multicultural situation of the world today demands a new way of thinking.