EMERGENCE OF FEMINIST PERSPECTIVE IN MANJU KAPURS

DIFFICULT DAUGHTERS

ABSTRACT

Manju kapur an aspiring writer of India in her novels acquire a significant new meaning

when read in the point of view of crisscross dogmas of culture critical thinking. The paper

discusses about the interconnection or link that lies between the three isms they are sexsism ,

feminism, and marginalism of women kind from Manju kapurs first novel Difficult Daughters.

Do all the women are consider equal by men in the society? Marginalizing womenhood is a

concept of keeping a woman in a undesirable societal position , which has been aroused from the

traditional and religious concept of sexisms that is prejudice , stereotyping or discrimination ,

typically against women , on the basis of sex . So, now this has resulted in feminism which talks

about the womens rights on grounds of political, social and economic equality to men. Some

Indian novelists like Shashi Deshpande , Arunthathi Roy , Manju kapur, etc have tried with

sincerity and honesty to deal with the physical , psychological and emotional stress of women .

But now feminism has lost its way, feminist instead of searching for equality, they search was

super equality. Thus, to put in an end to all the isms both genders have to work together for

the good of the society, instead of separating themselves into two different sexes.

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INTRODUTION

Manju kapur has written four novels Difficult Daughters (1998), A Married Woman

(2002), Home (2006) and The Immigrant (2008). Difficult Daughters won the common wealth

writer prize for the best book. she has received prominent status in India and in the world. Manju

Kapur was born on 1948 at Amritsar. She teaches at Miranda House College in Delhi. This novel

depicts three generations of women Kasturi , Virmati and Ida. This novel is set around the time

of partition. It is a story of Virmati seen through the eyes of her daughter Ida, from whom her

mothers past had always been kept a secret. Virmati a young Punjabi girl belonging to an austere

family of Amritsar. A family she defines for the love of a married professor. Because of him, she

comes to value education and higher things in life. She realizes that lifes horizons are much

wider than those that have been shown to her.

However she cannot totally shrug of the sense of priorities so deeply embedded in her

and doesnt consider herself complete till she has married. Within a span of few years, through

her various experiences, she grows, girl to a woman matured by suffering. She might have

started on a quest for true love, independence and a sense of self, but when almost there, she

realizes that things are not always as they appear to be or perhaps they change .

SEXISM

Since the beginning of the history, sexism has always been a prominent barrier between

sexes. The notion that women are not on the same level as men has always been in existence. We

see that even during the book of exodus this belief stems from the creation of Eve, through a rib

of Adam. From scriptures , Eves role was to be Consider as a servant and a temptress , the sole

reason why Adam ate the apple . Consequently eve is blamed as being the reason why mankind

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is not living in paradise. Sexism has continued throughout our ancient history noncontinuous in

our environment to this day. Sexism has defined as the discrimination or hatred against people

based on their gender. Here in this novel Difficult Daughters, sexism is seen throughout.

A family is always taken over by a man whether he might play the role of a father,

brother or son. Whatever may be his role he becomes the head of the family. This kind of attitude

is seen right from our ancient era. Here kasturi a typical Punjabi women from a very bourgeois,

strat and a respectable Arya smaji family brought up upon the conventional principles of

patriarchal society where marriage was the ultimate destiny of a girls life and marriage implied

that a girl had to work tirelessly to please her in-laws.

So, at the age of seventeen she started giving birth to her children. She was considered to

be just pleasureful object rather than a woman or a human being. She is also trained to undergo

those slavery and she takes it happily as she hates going school and she also strictly believes on

those principles. All she does is to give birth to children; to look after them and her household

works and again to give a birth to children; to look after them and her household works and these

are her routine works. Her world is too small and revolves around only her family and nothing

more than that and she never worries about her freedom. Leela Dube (1978) sufficiently uses

the symbolism of seed and the earth to bring out the status of women. Man provides the sees ,

The essence for the creation of the offspring; the seed determines the kind. The role of the

mother is just to receive the seed and nurture it (WFW 5).

She is always been called as a breeding dog by her in- laws whenever she becomes

pregnant. She is not at all respected by her family members, instead she is seen as a child bearing

machine for her continuous child birth. She falls sick very badly when she gives birth to her

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eleventh child. I am going to die, Maji, this time. I know it. (DD 21). Kasturi is afraid that she

would not bear childbirth anymore. But kasturis husband suraj prakesh never bothers about her

health, instead he is bothered about his own pleasure.

This shows about what kind of importance is given to a women. Napolean Bonaparte has

told that Women are nothing but machines for producing children. And this the kind of

perception what man has about women. We have general social arrangement which perpetuales a

socialization process of designating women as inferior to men, especially in the power or

decision making area of the society. Here, kasturi is not at all asked for any ideas or

suggestions for decisions that are taken in her family. This is because of the thought that women

are truly inferior in mental capacity and physical strength.

She is treated as a servant of her man as they believe that god had made women sub-

servant to man, she was to be silent in public and remain in the home as wife and mother so till

last kasturi remains as a slaves in this novel and she is seen as one of the flat characters of the

novel.

This is a tale of sadness, love, duty and compromise. She is a callow girl, lacerated

between family duties, sensual appetite for study and illicit love for a married man who is a

father of a daughter. Kasturi is always sick lady so all, the burden of household work and

younger brothers sisters had dropped on suspectable childhood. She spends her life under

pressure of domestic duties and mothers restrictions at an early age. The pamper days of her

childhood, she is destroyed in sdomestic affair and nurturing her siblings. So, she procures

maturity in an early age.

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 Virmati is a second mother to her ten other siblings. Her conduct with brother-sisters

is very rigorous, hard and fast. Perhaps, she has heavy responsibilities on her shoulders, and

never enjoys according to her own desires like the other children. Ida, her daughter comes to

know about this facet of her mother after her death.

You know, our mother was always sick, and Virmati, as eldest, had to run the house

and look after us. We depended on her, but she was free with her tongue and her hands. One

tight slap she would give for nothing. She would lash out if we didnt listen. We used to run

from her when she came (DD 11).

It shows that she is the only sister who is so bossy, whose care everyone. This also shows

that she never rested or played with her siblings instead she is always busy with some of her

household works. But she is so keen with her studies, that even after marriage, she went for an

MA to government college, Lahore.

She is a very ravenous for love, affection and wants love from her mother, but Kasturi

never has the time to express her love and thankfulness to her daughter. She is always busy in

her pregnancies. A mother does not realize her daughters appetite for love. All children want to

get affection from their parents, if they dont get then they will share their feelings, passions,

enthusiasm with the outsiders. So, it is the main point Virmati falls in love with a married

man and achieves both things from him like love and study.

All time taboos and restrictions are not good for childrens body and mind. Virmati

looks after her brother and sisters as a second mother but Kasturi has no enchant words for her

dutiful daughter. One day, she put her head into her mothers warm lap while Kasturi impels her

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away and says harshly, she is wasting time and there are many things to do in the house except

sitting around. Mothers love doesnt expand towards Virmati.

The shift in valuations are reflected in Friendans description of feminine mystique and

clearly states that the only way women can be truly fulfil is, through sexual passitvity, male

domination and nurturing material love (DRWEE 211).

At times Virmati yearned for affection, for some sign that she was special. However,

when she put her head next to the youngest baby, feeding in the mothers arms, Kasturi would get

irritated and push her away. Have you seen to their food, milk, clothes and studies?. Arre, you

think there is all the time in the would for sitting around, doing nothing?. If you dont see two

things, who will? (DD 42).

She is not only longing for her mothers love but also her fathers and the other relations

of her family. She never gets a attention so she feels very bad and she starts hating her mother

and the duties assigned to her. This shows sexism is also been shown on a little girl. She is never

asked for any suggestions or interest of her own instead she is been pushed into a small circle

where never her wishes are fulfil. Though her wishes are very simple as love she never gets it

completely. So she is feed up by this and finally she wishes to concentrate on her studies so as to

come out of this mental illness. But she is not given proper education instead she is asked to stay

at home so as to take care of her siblings.

Kasturi has exerted to Virmati into knitting, sewing and cooking after her basic

qualification. Her mother calculates that a girl must be trained in all things for a suitable

match and she should have study only to read and write. She thinks that Virmati is a capable for

marriage and must be ready to go to in-laws home. An Indian girl must follow her family

6
traditions and husbands desires. But Virmati is the prototype of liberated woman. She infringes

all man made boundaries against modernity and family custom.

This novel is the story of three generations of women Kasturi, Virmati and Ida. The

present research paper attempts to evaluate the journey of Virmati, the protagonist towards

independent status Kasturi is a traditional woman and she wants that her children must take

interest in Poojas and traditions. But her daughter Virtmati breaks all chains of traditionalism and

looks like new woman.

Education is the process by which a nation transforms itself from what it is, into what it

aspires to be. Education is the backbone of the social development. Educational women in india

was influenced by religious and social factors. In vedic times upanayana was to be performed for

all children for all children and they had to recite vedic mantras and rituals later on boys and girls

required instruction. A strong feeling existed among the people that education was contrary to the

modesty of women and that a girl taught to read and write world after marriage become a

widow.It clearly shows a staggering achievements in 1901-0.9%.,1911-1.1%.,1912-1.8%.,1931-

2.9%.,1941-3.4%.,1951-7.9% (DRWEE 69).

As a child she had been sent, a ten-minute walking distance, to the Arya Kanya

Mahavidyalaya, situated in a gully so narrow that, with the drains on either side, it took one

single person. The school has a single set of rooms around a courtyard, with a dark bathroom in a

corner. Every morning at nine, the school maid servant collected Virmati from her house, along

ith others who lived in that area. There she learns some poojas, chantings and hyms that are to be

said during a Homam. No much importance is given to the education, but rituals and its ways

to be done is taught, as they think that a girl would be badly in need of such skills when she gets

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married. The earlier studies revealed that girls education leads to less participation in

household work, increase in the expense of the family, no economic benefit since income from

job is enjoy by her husband after marriage, loss of income from child labour, difficulty in getting

job, ect (GDIS 87).

When Virmati finishes her eighth standard she is sent for higher studies to Stratford

college, in the civil lines. After her ninth and tenth she has two more years to get a Fine Arts

Degree. Thirteen-year-old Virmati feels thrill. But, unfortunately she fails in her FA exams. This

is all because that she is not able to concentrate in her exams, that her siblings where disturbing

her carrying problems with them one by one. So, she always runs back of them each and every

time when they came to her beating each other. Her mother never cares for her that she is often

disturbed by her siblings, but instead she keeps nitpicking her repeatedly for her innocent

mistakes. So her mother asks her to get married. But she refuses and she tells that she wants to

continue her studies mean while Lala Diwan Chand her grandfather starts looking for a good guy

to get her settle of a same commodity. In Rajastan communities like Balai, Bhangi, Bolal,

chamar, Dholi, Gujras, Malis and Meenas believe, that marriage can be performed in childhood

days irrespective of their age and maturity (VAWI 20). Thus we can see a clear theory of sexism

applied throughout this novel.

During 19th century the economic status of womens labour at home came to be less

valued. Early half of 1800s these beliefs were emphasized that the work must be similar of no

great skill, no physical strength and work must involved direct contact with men. The core of

sexiest idealogy which justify a social arrangement of male domination is reflected in the

opposition of the idea of formal higher education for women and to the public speaking of male

abolitionists.

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 The women of India have indeed achieved their successes in half a century of

independence, but if there is to be a true female independence too, much remains to be done.

Here, a thirteen-year-old girl is not asked for any of her suggestions about her marriage which

would decide the rest of her whole life. Thus, her inner voice grumbles out to shout that this is

my life and let me decide it please!.

MARGINALISM

Marginalization is the powerless and exclusion experience by a group, resulting from an

inequality of control of resources and power structures within society. In our social environment,

groups of people or communities may have this experience of being excluded. Their

marginalization can be because they speak a different language, follow different customs or

belong to a different religious group from the majority community. They may also feel

marginalized because they are poor, considers that of low social status and viewed as being less

human than others. But, here in this novel marginalization is because of the gender, the female

are considered to the weak and are been marginalized.

Virmati, the heroine, seeks human relations that will allow her to be herself and to

exercise the degree of control over her life which as an educated woman, she knows she

deserves. Kasturi, the daughter of a father of progressive ideas and a traditionalist mother,

aspires to a freer life than that offered her by those around her. But, she is always marginalized

but her parents, relatives and the society. She is asked to do all sort of household works, which is

really to much for her age. But, she is forced to do it. If she refuses to do so she is criticized by

her mother and her family, which would hurt her emotions terribly. Women go mad less than

9
men. Again, the proportion is the same: men go mad twice as often as women. And still, after all

these facts established by science, the superstation continues that man is strong (VWL 36).

Virmati, like so many other sub-continental women, is asked to accept a typical arranged

marriage. But, she rebels against that destiny, to the lasting shame of her family, above all of her

mother. Insisting on her right to be educated, she manages to leave home to study in Lahore.

Nonetheless, she falls in love with an Amritsar teacher known as 'the Professor', a married man

who first appears in her life as her parents' tenant. After a number of a change of circumstances

of fortune, including a period as a school principal in a small Himalayan state, she finally marries

the man she loves, and returns to Amritsar to live with him. However, he refuses to leave his first

wife, and the consequences for Virmati are harsh indeed: she ends up being marginalized by her

own family and despised by her husband.

Virmati's tale is told, from a present-day perspective, by Ida, her only daughter, who

seeks to reconstruct her late mother's life-story. But, when she finds her mother to be weak in

relationships, though she was strong enough to fight both for herself and her nations freedom. I

grew up struggling to be the model daughter (DD 279). Ida makes a disastrous marriage as it is

short- lived and results in a divorce. This is because her husband asks her to aboat her first child,

but she refuses and asks him for a divorce. Thus she thinks herself as a new woman. She

seems to be a personification of a new woman (IELIT 121).

Kapur emphasises the efforts made at that time by numerous women who, while

demanding equal opportunities, equal access to education and life-opportunities going beyond

convention, were a visible force in the non-violent resistance to the British and she narrates about

the clash between tradition and modernity through the struggle of virmati in the male- dominated

society.

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 The pages of Difficult Daughters speak not only of Virmati, but of other 'difficult

daughters', who succeed better than she did in their parallel struggles for independence in their

lives. At the centre of the narrative, we are confronted with a woman who fights but falls by the

wayside. This is all because of marginalism that prevails in our society. Thus this has resulted in

feminism.

FEMINISM

Feminism has been derived from the Latin word femina which means women. It was

used with regard to the issue of equality and women rights Movement. Feminism means a

rebellion wherein she struggles to achieve racial, social, economic and spiritual equality with

man. Anyhow feminism has been used and interpreted in different shades. But the core idea that

women should have same rights, power, opportunity that men have, has always been more or less

the same. For achieving this equality women are stepping out of the rigid sex roles assigned to

them traditionally.

Though the high hopes of feminism have been washed away in the present society, the

relationship between Man and Woman becomes one of structured inter-dependence. But still the

woman has to work for her liberation to put forward herself to her destiny. Gender equality

remains a myth. Man has always escaped unscathed, even when the sin is committed together.

The autogenous impression of man about women is that she is the second sex, but this

submission by woman comes only as an emitted response because society has groomed her to act

dependent. Simon de Beauvoir vividly expresses her states as, A free and autonomous creature

like all others, a woman finds herself living in a world where men compel her to assume the

status of the other and reduce her to the status of the second sex(PWE 72).

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 Manju Kapurs first novel Difficult Daughter is set against historical back-ground of

Indias partition. It highlights the problem of marginalization suffered by Indian women whose

major concern is maintaining their individuality and dignity. Virmatis life takes different twists

and turns because of her inclination to education in true sense of term. Virmatis urge for

education had traces of her having an independent wish. She wanted to have her won space, her

own identity. So, virmati leaves her house to get educated against her parents and relations.

Meanwhile, she has also participated in independence movement in India. But she has fallen into

the hands of evil that she loves a professor, so she is in a relationship with him, when she is alone

in her Lahore hostel.

Thus, this is the tragic flaw of our heroine. She thinks that freedom is to do what she

likes. The actual reason she comes to Lahore is to take up her studies without any disturbance,

but her moto is lost now. This is because she dreamt for super equality, that she never achieves.

Unknowingly, the mother of Ida becomes the voice of patriarchy. Her mother fails to

understand her despair about failing in her studies. On this Ida reflects, Kasturi found the fuss

Virmati was making about failing unreasonable. It hardly made a difference to which was getting

married and looking after her own home. This is the focal point where the novel takes a

dynamic turn. Her marriage is final with Inderjeet but it is postponed because of the death of his

father.

After that she has to go to Lahore for further studies and there, she falls in love with

oxford returned Professor Harish Chandra who lives next door and is already married. This

illegitimate affair leads to many a trouble. Virmati has to bear the brunt alone. She fails to

demand her status from the professor whose baby she conceived before marriage. She is forced

to abort the child to Harish as the professor is reluctant-rather afraid to marry her. Simone de

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Beauvoirs seminal book The second sex was instrumental in making the world aware of thinking

of woman with regard with the treatment that they receive from men at home or in society

(INEEIC 232).

Finally at the insistence of a friend, he is forced to marry her. But Virmatis hardships do

not end here, they simply change colors. Though she succeeds to marry the professor yet she

does not secure any space for herself in family. Ganga, his first wife and his mother compel

Virmati to lead a suffocating life in the tight walls of the house. Manju Kapur oppositely projects

her position in the family, Though not overly hostile, in the warring factions that existed in the

house, she belongs to the opposition side (DRWEE 90).

Though these novels can be considered a Feminist literary work, it tackles the problems

faced by an educated Indian woman with authenticity and insight. It symbolizes a fight against

taboos, social restrictions and manmade code of conduct in a traditional society. But, now

feminism has becomes so dark and mean, that it has lost it way. Women in the name of feminism

has start spoiling their lives, getting divorce from their spouse for ridiculous things and they

never mind to adjust instead they start finding mistakes with each and everything.

SUMMING UP

In Introduction, the struggle of virmati the protagonist of the novel is seen apparently. Education

has become a main component in dealing with virmatis life. But, throughout the novel, we can

analyze that the desire of her seems impossible. Although, she stands firm, the end of the novel

she comes across to me the professor who is not at all decisive. This shows how women are

accustomed to patriarchy. Consequently, women are banded as othered as for as feminism is

considered. In this novel kasturi is repeatedly conceived, as seen in Mahasweta Devis The

13
Breast Giver. Jashoda the protagonist of the novel has been trapped by her husband to carry her

womb progressively.

Prohibition is highly depicted in dealing with marginalism. According to this theory virmati is

not educated according to her wish. Responsibility has become a burden, as her hand is full of

duties. In feminism, transformation of equality has been projected. Virmati and Ida seek for super

equality which is not given any relevance at all. Instead, they fill the wishes of others. Finally, to

get rid of it, they come not with relationships.

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