An Inquisitive Study into the Peripheral Castigation and Unrelenting Societal Exasperation as Represented in Ashapurna Devi’s “Izzat” and Shashi Despande’s “The Intrusion”.

Abstract

Literature is an arena which reflects the socio-political perturbations mixed with realism and fantasy. Since time immemorial, representation of women through different lens of art and expression is a common practice that categorizes the manacles women are steeped into, or the nonessential ‘otherization’ that chastises them into accepting their status as the negative counterpart of the masculine virility. The pioneering authors and social activists like Mahasweta Devi, Ashapurna Devi, Anita Desai, Rokeya Begum, Shashi Despande, Amrita Pritam, Arundhati Roy or Chitra Banerjee, have depicted their chores through various gazes of domestic rampage, marital despoilment, enforced prostitution, financial debasement, human trafficking and so on. In this paper, I have selected two short stories, one by Shashi Despande, titled as “The Intrusion” and another by Ashapurna Devi, titled as “Izzat” for a detailed analysis into the perfunctory naïve obligations women are tirelessly subjected to. I wish to portray as well as make critical enquiry on the unprecedented cataclysm altering and transmuting the destiny of the women protagonists diminishing their aspiring desire for congenial cohabitation and venerable status as living individuals.