CHAPTER – I
INTRODUCTION
Literature broadly is any collection of written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially prose fiction, drama, and poetry. In recent centuries, the definition has expanded to include oral literature, much of which has been transcribed. Literature is a method of recording, preserving and transmitting knowledge and entertainment. Literature, as an art form, can also include works in various non-fiction genres, such as autobiography, diaries, memoir, letters, and the essay. Within it‘s broad definition, literature includes non-fictional books, articles or other printed information on a particular subject.
Literature is classified according to whether it is poetry, prose or drama, and such works are categorized according to historical periods, or their adherence to certain aesthetic features, or genre. In ancient India literature originated from stories that were originally orally transmitted. Early genres included drama fables, sutras and Epic Poetry, Sanskrit literature begins with the Vedas dating back to 1500 - 1000 BCE and continuous with the Sanskrit epics of Iron Age India. In ancient Greece the epic of Homer who wrote the Iliad and the Odyssey and Hesiod who wrote works and days and theogany are some of earliest and most influential of ancient Greek literature, classical Greek genres include philosophy, poetry, historiography comedies and dramas. Now the Seed has blossomed into an evergreen
tree with fragrant flowers and the ripe fruits. The fruits are being tasted not only by the native people however they are also being chewed and digested by the foreigners.
Indian English literature is a reliable endeavour to demonstrate the newer gems of Indian writing in English. Indian writers-poet's novelist, essayists and dramatist have been making momentous and considerable contribution to world literature since pre-Independence era. The past few years have witnessed a gigantic prospering Indian English writing in the world market. There were critics and commentators in England and America who appreciate Indian English novels. India's significant contribution to world literature is largely due to the abundantly creative literary works generated by novelist in English.
Rabindranath Tagore (1861 to 1941) is a celebrated name in the era of English literature. Rabindranath Tagore‘s creative genius is so much accounting and his literary output is so much rich and varied that the phrase "Myriad-minded" which Matthew Arnold has used for Shakespeare can be used for him also. He won Nobel Prize for literature in 1913, for his immortal poetic work Gitanjali. The Indian fiction has had a matristic growth during the dawn of the millennium and the writing in all genres of literature has gained momentum, particularly the Indian novel, the doyens of the Indian writing like RK Narayan, Mulk Raj Anand and their promoted the conventional mode of writing. The Crusader of the contemporary and modern era includes Salman Rushdie, Amit ghost Vicario Seth and so many more.
Post-colonial literature is a body of literary writings that answer to the mental discussion European colonization in Asia, Middle East, the Pacific and elsewhere. Postcolonial literature represents the sufferings, problems and result of the decolonization of the nation, mainly the cultural and political independence of previously conquered colonial people. Postcolonial fiction writers deal with the radition colonial discourse, either by alter or by destabilizing it, or both. The writers of the 1930 are lucky because after many years of use, English had become an Indian language used widely and at different levels of society.
Kamala Margandeya is an early writer in Indian English literature who is after grouped with the divine of RK Narayan, Mulk Raj Anand and Raja Roy. Major contributions were made by Manoj Das and Manohar malgonkar to the growth of Indian English literature largely remains unacknowledged. Indian English fiction occupies its prosper place in the field of literature. Mostly Indian women authors have always been undervalued because of some patriarchal assumptions. Indian societies give priorities to the worth of experiences. Modern women novelist reflects in their work that the present age women have realised that she is nor helpless and not dependent. They feel that a woman is an equal strength just like a man today. Women of modern era is not lonely captive to household works.
The women writers of modern period think on different lines which is what is depicted in the novels of the Indian women authors. Women Writers in India have, thus, made quite sizeable, approximate and varied donation to the Indian English Fiction. Their fiction reveals complex vicissitudes in the life of the Indian women and decorate their
struggle to set up their identity and achieve their freedom. The women's fiction in the late 20th century clearly shows disclosure of new woman, who has learnt to assert herself and to be bold enough to chart the course of her life in the face of social criticism. The women novelists, most of them, try to express their concern for women's difficulty in the largely patriarchal set-up of the Indian family life. In the post independent India, through their education and their entry into the job- market women have discovered their identity and the role they can play in the family as well as in the social sphere as independent individuals. Their active participation in the social and economic field has given them a voice.
However now the women writers have tried to bring out the difficulty of women, their physical and mental suppression, through their fiction. Women activists in the Indian social and political field have also created awareness among women, which is reflected in the fiction of the women writers. Women have located that fiction is the most effective from of literature to express themselves and to bring to light the plight of women in the family and the society. In the West, women creative writers have very effectively used this from to reveal the feminine point of view and the sufferings. The Indian women novelists have tried to show how Indian women have to face patriarchal oppression and resultant psychological crisis in their life. Women novelists have been able to express the emotional and physical sufferings of women in the highly male dominated social structure in India. These writers have created daring tries to recapture the altered perception of postcolonial Asian country and
also the use of revolutionary narrative technique and have elevated their positions among the writers of Indian fiction in English.
Post colonialism is a wide cultural approach to the study of power relations between different groups cultural or peoples postcolonial is the literature by people from formerly colonized countries. It exists on all continents except Antarctica. Postcolonial literature often addresses the problems and consequences of the decolonization of a country. Especially questions related to the political and cultural independence and oppression peoples. It themes is racism colonialism. Indian women novelist has given a new shape to the Indian literature. That Indian literature novelist express many details in their novels. Fiction begin the most powerful form of literary expression today. Indian women's writers how prestigious place in Indian English literary today. It's generally agreed that the novel is most suitable form for the description of experience and the context of our time. Writers remembered for their daredevil techniques narrative spanning generation and depiction of characters with extreme level experimentation with vogue, luxuriant use of allegory symbols and thinly veiled disguise of world individuals and political overtones, Women novelist have content and important and significant role in increasing the standard and amount of the Indian English fiction.
Indian women writers continuously been undervalued due to some patriarchal assumptions within the 19th century, a lot of girls actively participated in India's reformist movement against country rule. Over the years the globe of feminist ideologies began to influence the English literature of Asian country. Indian women writers like Kamala Markrndaya , Barathi Mukherjee , Anita Desai , Nayanthara Sagal and plenty of content a pioneering role in transference the readers a wide different of native Indian problems, punctuated by a strong feministic Outlook. The key behind the success of novels written by up to date girls writers is there easy and life characters they sometimes a help from middle class families this is one amongst techniques the author uses in their works or novels these become quite interesting between the people. Understanding of the Psyche of characters, up to date girl's writers like Manju Kapur, Mahasweta Devi were combined women's causes with political movements. The nineteen nineties have been a most momentous decade for the Indian novel written in English, an advent grade decade which brought about significant changes in literary discourses.
The novels of this time were of great success with universally acclaimed and were given prestigious national and international awards. They clearly evidenced our steady march towards the globalization of the Indian Writing in English, particularly .The Indian English novel. Therefore, it is time to evaluate and interpret the major works of the major writers of this decade. Scholars and critics of contemporary literature, interrogate the outstanding works of Arundhanthi Roy, Amit Chandhuri, Vikram Chandra, Vikram Seth, Githa hariharan, Raj Kamal Jha, Pankaj Mishra, Sunny Singh, Salman Rushdie and Manju Kapur though most appropriate but diverse critical strategies and try to bring out the best in them. The contested sites of Indian English, the shape of the future literary criticism have been nicely carried out.
Indian Women Novelists can be said to be highly conscious of the women's liberation movement.
By and large they have portrayed women and their stories with consciousness of the injustice being meted out to women by society. These novels have a feminist undercurrent. Usually these novels have a woman as the central character. If we look at the fictional female characters, a large number of them rebel against the existing social set up. They discard the idea of being submissive, suffering and sacrificing. Rebellion is no easy process. It demands determination and a will to stand by the cause of rebellion at any costs. These come up to paying the prize of their rebellion rather than submitting and dying through suffocation Awareness on the writer's part of the individual needs of women like self-fulfilment and identity formation have resulted in these novels in patterns of alienation, communication gap, broken relationships and identity crises.
Women in the works of Nayantara Sahgal are liberal and unconventional. Saroj in "Storm in Chandigarh" refuses to succumb to socially acceptable norms of feminine behaviour. Ruth Jhabvala as a major woman novelist is less concerned with the personality development of her women; she is attracted by the double standards of Indian women in general. She can be said to have dealt with distortion of modernity and women's liberation. Shasi Deshpande is one novelist who is raising like a star feminist among women novelists of India. Her women are educated, self-conscious and sensitive. Their revolt against the rigid social and family set up comes out of necessity. In her novels like That Long Silence and A
Matter of Time, Despande has subtly and accurately described the silence which has been thrust on Indian women for centuries. Anita Desai has touched the nuances and subtleties of fiction hitherto unknown in Indian fiction in English. Bharati Mukherjee was an Indian American Canadian writer and professor emerita in the department of English at the University of California, Berkeley. She was the author of a number of novels and short story collections, as well as works of nonfiction. Of Indian Hindu Bengali Brahmin origin, Mukherjee was born in present-day Kolkata, West Bengal, India during British rule. She later travelled with her parents to Europe after Independence, only returning to Calcutta in the early 1950s. There she attended the Loreto School.
She received her B.A. from the University of Calcutta in 1959 as a student of Loreto College, and subsequently earned her M.A. from Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda in 1961. She next travelled to the United States to study at the University of Iowa. She received her M.F.A. from the Iowa Writers' Workshop in 1963 and her PhD in 1969 from the department of Comparative Literature. After more than a decade living in Montreal and Toronto in Canada, Mukherjee and her husband, Clark Blaise returned to the United States. She wrote of the decision in "An Invisible Woman," published in a 1981 issue of Saturday Night. Mukherjee and Blaise co-authored Days and Nights in Calcutta (1977). They also wrote the 1987 work, The Sorrow and the Terror: The Haunting Legacy of the Air India Tragedy (Air India Flight 182). In addition to writing many works of fiction and non-fiction, Mukherjee taught at McGill University, Skidmore College, Queens College, and City University of New York before joining Berkeley.
In 1988 Mukherjee won the National Book Critics Circle Award- for her collection The Middleman and Other Stories. In a 1989 interview with Ameena Meer, Mukherjee stated that she considered herself an American writer, and not an Indian expatriate writer. Mukherjee died due to complications of rheumatoid arthritis and takotsubo cardiomyopathy on January 28, 2017 in Manhattan at the age of 76. The Novels written by Mukherjee are: The Tiger's Daughter (1971), Wife (1975), Jasmine (1989), The Holder of the World (1993), Leave It to Me (1997), Desirable Daughters (2002), The Tree Bride (2004), Miss New India (2011),Darkness (1985), The Middleman and Other Stories (1988), A Father, The Management of Grief, Days and Nights in Calcutta (1977).
Bharati Mukherjee is the author of five novels, two non-fictional books and two collections of short stories, including The Middleman and Other Stories, for which she won the National Book Critic Circle Award. Her other books include Darkness, The Tiger‘s Daughters, Jasmine, Wife, Days and Nights in Calcutta and Leave It to Me.
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