Debut of Self Quest in Divakaruni’s Oleander Girl

Abstract

Women empowerment can be precisely stated as the altering consciousness approach by which women believe in their uniqueness. From ancient days the quest for women’s identity is a never-ending process as they prefer to be unconventional. In the epoch of post modernism and globalisation, the voice of South Asian Diasporic women being empowered by their throng of writing has taken the literary globe of Diasporas to the zenith. As a South Asian Diasporic writer with a feminist perspective, Chitra Banerjee she has unfolded the various facets related to these aspects by portraying her own experiences and those of other immigrant Indian women in her novels. Her writings largely deal with immigrant women and their trail for autonomy, identity, and independence. Significantly to a certain extent, instead of restraining women’s life to a particular belief, she drives her perception across-the-board of each veiled woman. She endeavours to sensitise readers on how women contemplate and feel through her works. She adeptly portrays energizing female characters and discloses the pinnacle of their strength across the generational difference. This paper attempts to explore the protagonist’s trepidation in seek out for her individuality which she assumes has gone astray in the novel Oleander Girl.