Female agency in Manjushree Thapa's selected stories from Tilled Earth

Abstract

Manjushree Thapa's Tilled Earth includes the stories of different characters that have directly or indirectly encountered gender discrimination and women exploitation and vigorously raise the voice of underprivileged women in the Nepali Society. Women empowerment, social and cultural transformation are the major issues. This thesis further analyses the degree of deprivation and isolation of women from mainstream of the state on the basis of theory of female agency which reflects an account of their capacity for individualized choice and action. In this thesis, for the study five short stories are selected from the Tilled Earth such as “Soar”, “Nineteen Years His Junior”, “The Student in Love”, “The Newly Appointed Chemistry Professor” and “The Girl of No Age”. In this thesis qualitative method has been used where content analysis is the main approach used to articulate the female agency. Women need protection and equitable right and justice to enrich their capacity regarding public decision making. How literary work could support for the gender equality with empowerment in the existing society is the major issues of this thesis. More importantly in this thesis, Chandra Talpade Mohanty , Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak , Ketu H. Katrak and Aletheia Donald et al. theories are being used. This thesis concludes that in the selected short stories Thapa’s virtuosity has been found to use the female agency marvelously. Key words: gender discrimination, cultural transformation, underprivileged, deprivation, empowerment, virtuosity, marvelously