Gendered Subalternity in Munshi Premchand's Selected Stories from The Shourd:Stories

Abstract

The study analyzes how the female characters of Munshi Premchand's selected stories live as subaltern women and how the socio-economic structure compelled them to live in a subaltern status. For this, six stories have been selected from his collection The Shroud : Stories . They are ''Two Graves'', ''The Farce of Brahm'', ''The Price of Milk'', ''The Co-wife'', ''Newly Weds'' and ''The Shroud''. Sulochana, Virinda, Rajia , Dasi, Leela, Asha and Bhangi and Bhudhiya are the main female characters of these selected stories who belong to marginalized community and are suppressed by the higher class people. More than that Indian patriarchal Indian family structures and male dominated cultural religious values of the society compelled them to live in a lower status than the males. So they are double victimized and have become gender subaltern characters. This thesis employs theories related to gender subalternity. It basically borrows insights from Gayatri Spivak and other subaltern studies scholars like Partha Chatterjee.