Female Masculinity in Manju Kapur’s Difficult Daughters

Abstract

This thesis examines the Female Masculinity of the central female character Virmati in Manju Kapur’s Difficult Daughters. In the novel, we see the beginnings of new women and women emancipation in the novel. Analogically, India fights for freedom from British Raj, as Virmati fights for freedom to live on her own ways. This novel moves around the protagonist Virmati who feels more comfortable behaving and looking masculine. She is attributed with masculine traits like reason, rebellion, power and potency, courage, combativeness, assertiveness and so on. She consists of a dream to live an independent and a dignified life full of happiness and bliss. She disobeys her family members ‘advice to get married and deliver children accomplishing her feminine gender roles expected by the society. Set in Lahore and Amritsar, this novel is both a romantic and critique of English society at the beginning of the twentieth century as represented the protagonist by Virmati.