Shah's Facing My Phantoms: Concerns over Third World Women's Struggle for Identity

Abstract

This research is a study on the third world women's struggle for identity in Sheeba Shah's Facing My Phantoms. In the novel, Sanjeevani has been presented as a rebellious character. Her rebellion marks the changing consciousness of Nepali women after the Maoist movement and its undercurrent to give voice to the patriarchal Hindu social set up, the limitations on the choice for woman, it imposes and opts for the freedom of women's choices. She discards the marriage proposal arranged for her by her family and launches an attack upon the rigid patriarchal codes Hindu society imposes upon the women showing her free spirit. In the quest for her identity, she resists the stereotyped image of an average third world woman as an uneducated, meek and coward.