Making the difference: women and identity in contemporary South Asian English Fiction

Abstract

This article focus on the modification of identity of women in contemporary south Asian English literature. Women are trapped in historical, cultural and ideological circumstances of societies. Do women become victims of hopelessness, dejection as they feel the people around them asking them, ‗Who are you? What is the position they hold? The confusion of the protagonists affected by the dualistic opposition of choosing a path, making choices, results in an identity crisis. Identity is concerned with the self-image and self-perception of an individual. It is a gender, a communal, a class, a battle or sex or imaginary which deals with the existence and role of who we are. What position we hold in society. south Asian women novelist span multiple forms of violence against women, including child sexual abuse, rape in the war, sexual assault and domestic violence. Although the authors are described separately for their contributions. Though it is recognized that the collective contributions of all that the progress of eliminating violence against women rests. They recognize the power differentials between men and women cross-culturally and internationally and the necessity of acknowledging the social and political contexts in which violence against women occurs. They value and validate the experiences of women by presenting their findings in the voices of those who would be silenced. Over the centuries and in many different countries, women have spoken out for their community and voiced their complaints, their needs, and hopes as it was believed that women were inferior, untaught and insulted, oppressed from birth. Most women unavoidably grow up ignorant. Girls learn how to be women when they are hardly more than babies, as they grow older, they exploit this femininity. The self/ identity is never stable but it continues to change in a given situation. They rise from falling and fall to rise. Sometimes women seem passive than responding to the problem. They are constantly on the quest for herself when an outer situation occurs. The self never flexible at one point but it juxtaposes with other. ―Other‖ defines women as, passive, immanent, an outsider, weak, inessentially other. When people inconsiderately accepts the dominant norms that lead to contradicting subjection and objectification of a class, race or sex, breaking free becomes impossible. Any misrepresentation in the custom or social norm is considered as a threat that must be suppressed through violence, force or constant conditioning that leads to internalization of the notions inescapable in the society.