Peasant Women's Consciousness and Resistance: A Study in Subalternity in Mulk Raj Anand's Two Leaves and a Bud

Abstract

This thesis studies Mulk Raj Anand's Two Leaves and a Bud (1937) from the perspective of gendered subaltern. Gendered subaltern raises the issues of the poor peasant females who are ignored, forgotten, backward in position and whose voices remain silent. These females are docile in front of their male counterparts. As the female characters in the novel are exploited at the hands of colonial rulers, they cannot speak up for their rights though they try to resist to hegemonic control of colonizers and their Indian agents during colonial period. The characters, Sajani, Leila, Chambeli and other women in the novel struggle against pathetic plight precipitated by the colonial elites and their stalwarts. Thus, this thesis studies the female characters from the viewpoint of subalternity and explores the causes making them silent. This is explored with the help of Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s theory which helps to analyze the representation of gendered subaltern in Two Leaves and a Bud.