Search for Female Selfhood in Gita Mehta's: A River Sutra

Abstract

he novel issues out the theme of inequality, specially the differentiation between strong and weak, powerful and powerless as the central defining aspect of Indian society that helps in promoting the concept that the men should have greater authority than women and should rule over them. By doing this Mehta tries to condemn the patriarchal ideology as the hindrance in the path of freedom and equality.A River Sutradramatizes the suffering of women not to sympathize them but to empower the mwith the knowledge that the condition is worse in comparison to male. The novelist tries to unfold the complex nature of women's status in Indian societies. To evoke the very reality of such duality is to make people aware of the situation so that they can do something for betterment of female's status in the society. To create such awareness, Mehta presents her female characters as submissive creature,as they are found in Indian Society. Though the female characters are taken from the different strata of society, experience of oppression and domination is common to all. The diverse background of the female characters is significant to show the very reality of female's experience in different social backgrounds. Gita Mehta calls the reader to love womanness in women and to resist dehumanizing concepts of masculinity which is an essential part of Womanist struggle. Such struggle is the process of bringing changes in males' perception which is vital to bring women in the main stream.