Vol. II. Issue. III September 2011 - The Criterion: An International ...

www.the-criterion.com The Criterion: An International Journal in English ISSN 0976-8165
De Constructing Family and Gender Stereotypes in the Selected Novels of
Anita Desai
Dr.M.Gouri
Family, as an indispensible social institution has always been a matter of contention and
concern for the literary artist. In this new world of the modern and the postmodern, where every
conventional idea and concept undergoes change, even the ideas of family, gender roles and the
politics of power within the family undergo a phenomenal change. In most of the novels of Anita
Desai, females have been portrayed as the custodians of family values, struggling to preserve the
familial unit against the threat of cultural and social forces. The writer has often tried to explore a
woman’s world, most often, through the conventional stereotypes predominant in her times, of
women pitted against patriarchy. Yet even in these powerful conventional representations we
find some undercurrents of change, a change which intends to break free from the typical and the
quintessential norms of womanhood or manhood.
The male characters - Nirode, Arun,Raman, Gautum are individuals who have taken a
step forward in creating space for their female counterparts and re - establishing balance and
preventing a virtual break down of the family. In most of the cases the male characters have
made an effort to come out of the patriarchal mind set.Therefore this paper proposes to study
family and deconstruct its conventional readings and foreground the deconstructed gender
stereotypes.
Family, as an indispensible social institution has always been a matter of contention and
concern for the literary artist. In this new world of the modern and the postmodern, where every
conventional idea and concept undergoes change, even the ideas of family, gender roles and the
politics of power within the family undergo a phenomenal change. In most of the novels of Anita
Desai, females have been portrayed as the custodians of family values, struggling to preserve the
familial unit against the threat of cultural and social forces. The writer has often tried to explore a
woman’s world, most often, through the conventional stereotypes predominant in her times, of
women pitted against patriarchy. Yet even in these powerful conventional representations we
find some undercurrents of change, a change which intends to break free from the typical and the
quintessential norms of womanhood or manhood.
Family is not an individual’s private territory as it appears on the surface it is part of a
larger social system. Apart from being the most essential part of an individual’s life it has to
constantly work with other subsystems of the society to function efficiently. In an article on
family studies Linda Thompson and Alix J.Walker elaborate –
“The family, as a cultural system of obligation,” a tangle of love and domination”, is
distinguished from the household, a locus of labor and economic struggle. Neither families nor
households can be conceptualized as separate and solitary spheres.”
From time immemorial the general tendency to look towards the problems of gender and
family has been to follow the stereotyped, conventional idea where a woman is suppose to be the
‘marginalized other’ and the man a ‘confirmed patriarch.’ The breaking free of the conventions
and stereotypes of gender and family is rather a step towards finding solutions to familial
problems.
When we consider the research that has been carried on in this area of family and gender
the experts suggest that it is the roles that an individual is assigned within the frame work of
family that decides their inequality. These roles are socially and culturally driven not only in
Vol. II. Issue. III 57 September 2011