Volume III Special Issue V May 2023

Name of Author : Mrs. Anshu Praveen Soni, Dr. Gurpreet Kour

Title of the paper : Female Identity and Subject formation: A Reading of Mahasweta Devis Short Stories

Abstract: The boundaries of women writers permissibility are set by social constraints. Literature is one of the creative arts that have long been thought to actively contribute to the destruction of oppressive political and social structures. When women utilize this same artistic expression or art form to challenge the restrictive norms of the home, family, marriage, and motherhood, it becomes unacceptable. The voice that challenges the fundamental assumptions underlying the hypocritical old social order needs to be restrained and muzzled. The paternalistic societys requirement to institutionalize female agency and invoke the disciplinary has the effect of limiting a womans voice. Women need to be invisible in order to accomplish this, and the hierarchical division of responsibilities and domains of activity makes it possible for them to do so. Womens exclusion from the public sphere has been sanctioned in several layers, which helps to understand how power is distributed in society and how gender bias is expressed. This is not where it ends, but when women enter the public realm, the analysis of womens movement and sense of location becomes even more prominent. And that is where writing is done. The very act of writing by women not only transforms into an act of identification and empowerment, but also becomes a gesture of defiance, subversion, resistance, and transgression, which distinguishes womens voices in numerous ways. Here, Ill examine the role that female protagonists, writers, and narrators play in the construction of discourse.

Keywords : Permissibility, Female Identity, Resistance, Empowerment, Identity, Transgression

DOI :

Page Number : 52-55