Volume : VI, Issue : I, January - 2017

THE PORTRAIT OF INDIAN WOMEN IN THE SHORT STORIES OF RUTH PRAWER JHABVALA

Kavali Ramana Rao, Dr. P V Ravi Kumar

Abstract :

 Jhabvala has used her experiences as a displaced European, living in India as a base for much of her fiction. ‘India’ is her recurrent theme whether her setting is in India or New York. She came to India after independence when the social conditions of women in the urban areas especially in the capital Delhi, were undergoing changes. Jhabvala views women with her colonialist eyes and most of the time tries to find fault with every class of Indian women. Jhabvala, taking the advantage of being an insider in a way, must have applied her western values to view and understand the intricacies of Indian womanhood. In many of her stories she satirized and categorized them as social climbers, committee woman, westernized Indian women, empty women who talked tall about Indian culture without being aware of its depth. But Indian tradition, despite its backwardness and many other negative aspects due to historical reasons, has always had its spirit intact. Such an attitude provides for fitful glimpses of the vision of Indian womanhood in her short stories and these are fatally compromised or flawed. The treatment of Indian womanhood in her hands lacks empathy and profundity. It cannot be an authentic representation, because she is ignorant of the historical, social, political, cultural mores of an alien country.

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Article: Download PDF   DOI : 10.36106/ijsr  

Cite This Article:

Kavali Ramana Rao, Dr. P V Ravi kumar, THE PORTRAIT OF INDIAN WOMEN IN THE SHORT STORIES OF RUTH PRAWER JHABVALA, International Journal of Scientific Research, Volume : 6 | Issue : 1 | JANUARY 2017

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