Examining Depiction of Women in Tilottoma Misra’s Swarnalata

Abstract

This paper examines the depiction of women in Tilottoma Misra’s Swarnalata in the light of Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s notion of the Subaltern Perspective. The novel picturizes the condition of women in nineteenth-century Assam through the three female characters: Swarna, Tora, and Lakhipriya. Through these female characters, Misra presents the prevalent conventional notions in the then society that had suppressed females, in the beginning, and as the story grows she eventually releases that through the agency they were able to debunk the orthodoxical instances. Therefore, this research paper focuses on three specific questions: how have women been depicted in the novel? Why does the writer choose to write Swarnalata amidst the turbulence? And why a character like Gunabhiram has been presented? With the focus on these three characters, the paper argues that Misra’s politics is to address that women do not remain in a static position but rather their state of vulnerability changes when they are provided agency. Furthermore, it is through the agency that women can obtain a position equivalent to that of the males in society. Keywords: Swarnalata, Subaltern, Organic intellectuals, Agency, Liberation