Literary Narratives in the Socio-Economic Empowerment of Women in South Asia

A Thesis Titled

LITERARY NARRATIVES IN THE SOCIO-ECONOMIC

EMPOWERMENT OF SOUTH ASIAN WOMEN

Submitted to Beaconhouse National University Lahore

In partial fulfilment of the requirements

For the degree of

Master of Arts

In

Literature

By

FAKHRA HASSAN

SESSION: 2005-2007

REGISTRATION NO: 2005099

SUPERVISOR: Ms ASMA ZIA

Department of Literature & Languages

School of Liberal Arts

Beaconhouse National University

Lahore

Political Underpinnings 2

Acknowledgements

It would be unfair to begin my acknowledgement with the Amazing Grace because God has given

intelligence to everyone – even amoebas. It would also be silly to acknowledge the role of my family. I

mean, how do you achieve big goals in life without family support? I thank God and my parents for

bringing me into this world and for inculcating in me the value for education. ‘Education is the most

valuable asset a woman could own,’ my father said once. I thank my younger sisters Sarwat, Saima,

Aisha and my brother Imran for enabling me to understand and cherish the value of distance and

independence. I want to extend my deepest thanks to Ira Hasan – a teacher every student in love with

language would feel blessed to have – for her loving support and intervention in technical corrections

and suggestions for my thesis. She not only kept me on track in the journey to document feminist

literary movements but also facilitated my growth as a woman with an individual identity. Without her

help, I couldn’t have completed this journey. Thanks to the support and love of SLA faculty Nida

Maqsud, Saeed ur Rehman and Rafiya Hasan with whom I’ve had the privilege of their classes for

more than one semester. I thank them for teaching me the linguistics and cultures of different parts of

the world, especially South Asia. By sharing narratives of their own experiences, they made learning

rich and real. I owe a huge bundle of thanks to my friends Foaad Nizam, Miranda Husain, Feriha

Peracha, Jawad Haroon, Chandni Malik, Hina Khan, Maleeha Habib, Saira Bokhari, Zahra Bokhari,

Ayesha Anwar, Sonya Rehman and Habiba Nosheen for their guidance and belief in me. Those I have

missed, believe me, these are the only names I remember right now. In essence, everyone has been a

friend in some regard because everyone taught me. This thesis is partly dedicated to them. Finally, I am

grateful to my supervisor Asma Zia for valuable input in the thesis. She is funny. I thank her for

showing me her love for literature and language, and her light-hearted way of handling them. I couldn’t

have enjoyed the work without her support and belief in me. Thanks to Navid Shahzad for the privilege

to see the wonderful world of Arts. Her passion, care and love kept cool in the summer and warm in the

winter. I am especially grateful to her for helping me get my first job in Lahore. I have used the word

‘love’ several times. I didn’t know it before. I still don’t know it. May be ‘love’ means literature. I am

one of the luckiest to have experienced it.


Synopsis

Where women stand today is owed to the powerful narratives in the literary

movements of 20th century Europe and America. American feminist writers and

playwrights from the North and South, such as Susanne Glaspell, Margaret Deland,

and Tennessee Williams provide relevant basis for analysis of women’s narratives and

their political underpinnings. They provide an interesting comparison to the changing

legal and social systems in America – a crucial period for women in terms of their

socio-economic and political empowerment.

In South Asia, writers such as Bapsi Sidhwa and Qurratulain Haider have been

examined to understand the role of feminist literature in political empowerment of

women. Ultimately, it is learnt European & American movements are parallel to

current trends in South Asian literature. The research aims to offer viable solutions for

genuine emancipation of women – which is still partial – in the current era.


CONTENTS

Acknowledgements page 2

Synopsis page 3

Thesis Contents page 4

Chapter One: A Gender Overview

Section I: Understanding Narratives page 5

Section II: History of Feminist Politics in Europe,

Americas and the East page 12

Section III: Politics & Economics of Feminist Literary Narratives page 30

Chapter Two: Dynamism of Feminist Political Movements – America & Asia

Section I: Literature Breaking Barriers in the Social Sphere page 40

Section II: Female Leadership and Problems with Hierarchies page 57

Chapter Three: Conclusion page 65


Chapter 1 - A Gender Overview

1.1) Understanding Narratives

Narration has been a popular educated means – of telling a story or a set of

events that influence one’s life and shapes experiences in society and the world at

large – since the 6th century in Europe and 18th century onwards in America.

‘The tale’ or the set of events recorded or reported – either orally, in written

form or through visual expression – can be safely termed as narrative. Bertrand

Russell re-enforces the history of writing stories as follows:

The art of writing was invented in Egypt about the year 4000

B.C., and in Mesopotamia not much later. In each country

writing began with pictures of the objects intended. These

pictures quickly became conventionalised, so that words were

represented by ideograms, as they are still in China. In the course

of thousands of years, this cumbrous system developed into

alphabetic writing.1

The interesting point to note about narrative – in terms of shaping experiences

– is that witnesses to a similar set of events and characters/persons in a similar

situation may have different aspects of the same story to tell as is obvious from

1 Russell, Bertrand, History of Western Philosophy, 2000, Routledge, Chapter 1; The Rise of Greek Civilization, page 25


Russell’s definition. The variation stems from the upbringing, level of education

attained, theological and political beliefs, and sexual identities, differences based on

gender, culture, geography and socio-economic setup, and types of people he or she

interacts with. According to Marc Howard Ross from the Department of Political Science at

Bryn Mawr College, narratives matter for at least three different reasons:

1) A narrative’s metaphors and images can tell us a great deal

about how individuals and groups understand the social and

political worlds in which they live.

2) They can reveal deep fears, perceived threats, and past

grievances that drive a conflict.

3) Narratives are important because they sanction certain kinds

of action and not others.

Therefore, strictly speaking, narratives are explanations for events – large and

small – in the form of short, common sense accounts – stories – that often seem

simple. However, the powerful images they contain and the judgements they make

about the motivations and actions of their own group, and others, are emotionally

significant for both groups and individuals. Narratives are not always internally

consistent. For example, they often alternate between portraying one’s own group, as

well as an opponent’s as strong and portraying them as vulnerable. Narratives fulfil

needs of people. Ross asserts:


They are especially relevant in times of high uncertainty and

stress. Just at the moments when people are most disoriented,

such as the periods leading to world wars, civil wars and the

great depression, communism, black nationalism and radical

feminism in America in the early and late 20 th centuries. Another

example would be the period following September 11 th – where

we struggled to make sense of events, and shared narratives

which are re-enforced within groups that help people find

reassurance and to cope with high anxiety. It is crucial to

understand that narratives are not made from the whole cloth but

are grounded in selectively remembered and interpreted

experiences and projections. Finally, it is important to

understand that all cultural traditions have access to multiple

pre-existing narratives that provide support for diverse actions in

times of stress in social crises.2

Pre-existing narratives such as those of prophets such as Abraham, Moses,

David, Jesus and the prophet Mohammad (peace be upon all of them) for example

form three different types of cultural traditions or religions. After the Greeks, these

narratives became a reliable source of support in hard times for people from all walks

of life. They have existed in all the eras that followed the prophets which includes the

present. In this context, how these narratives are used is an interesting area to explore.

2 Ross, Marc Howard - The Political Psychology of Competing Narratives: September 11 and Beyond, page 1


Feminists have used the stories to challenge the orders of patriarchy – set by society –

that oppresses men and women. Blacks have used them against racial discrimination

by highlighting the principles of equality and justice – that eventually gave birth to

Black Nationalism. Scholars have used them to interpret the evolving social systems

and their economics to formulate legal systems such as of 20th century South Asia.

In the event of crises involving current times, powerful narratives – an

offshoot of cultural narratives – are crucial for the re-invention of identities and

development of roles. The powerful influences could be leaders such as Razia Sultana

of South Asia or Martin Luther of America or literati such as poet and traveller Walt

Whitman of America or writers such as Virginia Woolf of the UK, Anton Chekov of

Russia or Ismat Chughtai of South Asia. They could be philosophers, historians,

dictators, scientists, inventors or innovators. These influences are encompassed in

long-term memories of the influenced. That in turn enables the influenced to adapt,

evolve and excel in the surrounding systems – ever-sensitive to different types of

changes.

However, the narrative approach we adopt in reporting the influences is a

crucial matter of debate. As common saying goes, stories are multi-faceted or there

are many angles to a story. Which one would we adopt? While adopting it, are we

taking into consideration all the elements of the story? Can our narrative be similar to

that of the original source of it? The only reliable answer to these questions would be


knowledge of the story in terms of language, structure, plot, historical settings, and

events surrounding that time period, scholarly advice and the person’s own

experiences.

Narratives are always at risk of losing their essence due to disparities caused

by contemporary narration if great care is not taken. In times of conflict, for example,

in the absence of a legislation that would help in resolving it, it is paramount to resort

to civil, religious or literary means to resolve the conflict. However, given the fact

prophets and the women – such as Mary – have been in direct contact with God –

human followers have tried to arrive at several interpretations of that communication.

Even though, in essence, the interpretation may be similar to what occurred between

God and the prophet (s), the narrative would have a limited scope in terms of our

limited knowledge of God – the supreme force that controls the orders of the universe.

According to William Barclay’s translation of The New Testament, there are

four different versions of the Story of the Good News – Prophet Jesus’s Second

Coming. We know them as the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, four

individuals known to be in direct contact with Jesus. Barclay demonstrates the four

different versions of the Gospel as follows:

The man represents Mark, because Mark has the simplest and the

most human picture of Jesus. The lion represents Matthew,


because Matthew is concerned to show us Jesus as the Lion of

Judah, the promised Messiah. The ox represents Luke, because

the ox is animal of sacrifice, and Luke shows us Jesus in his all-

embracing love as the sacrifice, not for any chosen nation, but

for all mankind. The eagle represents John, because of all birds

the eagle flies highest, and it is said that of all living creatures

the eagle alone can look straight in to the blaze of the sun, and

not be dazzled. So John’s thought climbs highest of all, and John

sees furthest of all into the eternities.

So, we may think of Mark as the simplest Gospel; of Matthew as

the Messianic Gospel; of Luke as the universal Gospel; and of

John as the profoundest Gospel.3

Here, we see the attempt to understand the character of one prophet from four

different versions of story – through assigning symbols of nature. That could possibly

lead to disparity owing to reasons such as the sources from where we heard or read

and judgements based on the individual sense of authenticity. Due to lack of proper

knowledge and language skills, the disparity could be great and if care is not taken,

the original narrative could eventually lose its essential meaning.

This thesis is focussed on dynamics of this multi-faceted tool – the narrative –

which has been significantly influential in bringing about progressive and steady

psychological, socio-political and socio-economic emancipation – particularly for

3 Barclay, William, The New Testament, Arthur James – John Hunt Publishing, 1999, page i


women in 21st century South Asia. Based on research, an explanation of the impact –

and significance – of evolving concept of political narrative within literary

movements as trendsetters of pro-active feminism will be established as challenge to

crises of oppression which in feminist terms is the curse of elite-driven patriarchy.

This will be observed from emerging literary narratives in America, Europe and the

Sub-Continent from writers such as Susan Glaspell, Tennessee Williams, Henrik

Ibsen, and Bapsi Sidhwa.


1.2) History of Feminist Politics in Europe, Americas and the East

I have begun to tell the students

my politics: always dangerous

in box-shouldered academe, walls

where whispers strike thin cracks,

widen, echo, suck. i speak

of women’s bodies, choice, language

that keeps men men but makes of women

girls, chicks, cunts, slits, pieces

of a twisted dream of domination.

The eighteen year olds in their warm socks stare

all pink and green, small alligators

dancing on their shirts. one mutters

“women’s lib,” daring just that much

against the red ink my pen wields.

They will write home to mothers and fathers –

or, most likely, call collect – and tell

of the teacher who wears her hair long,

who says strange things that have nothing to do

with them, their needs, their nights, their money,

the jobs they will hold in four years. -Teaching4

Alexandro Seno’s points of view on women of power –

representing the State – re-enforce views of Kathryn Machan and

4 Aal Machan, Kathryn, If I Had a Hammer, Edited by Sandra Martz, Papier Mache Press, 1990, page 44


state of those young women who haven’t fully understood the

value of their sexuality and potential. Machan hints at the

problems of societal norms that would cause hindrances in the

growth of these youngsters. Seno speculates that at present,

Americans are contemplating a female president for the first

time. However, in Asia, 11 women have ruled in office since the

1960s such as Sirimavo Bandaranaike and Chandrika

Kumaratunga of Sri Lanka, Sheikh Hasina and Khaleda Zia of

Bangladesh, Park Chung-hee of South Korea and Megawati

Sukarnoputri of Indonesia, Indira Gandhi of India and Benazir

Bhutto of Pakistan with relatively few examples of female

leadership in Europe such as Queen Elizabeth and Margaret

Thatcher of England.5

In this research, Asia and the Middle East have been identified as East in view

of the regions’ vast literary contribution in the intellectual as well as spiritual growth

of women in their societies.

This generalisation, therefore, brings us to the question of female authority at

societal levels in the East. Were the literary women in society as powerful and

influential as the leading female elite? Were these women more qualified to lead the

state than the elected ones? What was the state of female leadership before the 60s?

Leadership provides us with a holistic view of society that has accepted the woman.

5 Seno A, Alexandra, Handing Down the Reins, Newsweek, October 22, 2007, page 56


However, reality at the grassroots level in terms of their rights, privileges and status in

society is always questionable.

In the early 8th to 12th centuries in the East, we see the emergence of literary

activities amongst women. However, accounts of narratives surrounding that era are

very hard to find. Research reveals these activities helped women formulate a

movement against oppression created by men who were dictators.

To state an example, consider the story of Sitt-ul-Mulk and her younger

brother Al-Hakim. The dynamics of their relationship and their opposing views on the

systems of rule provide an analysis of how they affect the public. Both became

leaders of their time. However, the young Al-Hakim transformed into a conservative

terrorising dictator in Egypt who could not live up to the progressive ideals of his

family or in feminist terms, Sitt-ul-Mulk’s mastery over the art of progressive

leadership.

In 970, Sitt-ul-Mulk was born to the fifth Fatimid Caliph of

Cairo Al-Aziz, and a Christian woman of Byzantine origin who

retained her religion. Proud of her dual ancestry, Sitt-ul-Mulk

was influenced by her father’s peaceful rule and his policies of

religious tolerance and inclusion from a young age. One example

of inclusiveness was his appointing a Christian and Jew

respectively as his vizier and as ambassador to Syria, to the


furore of religious conservatives. On Al-Aziz’s premature death

at 42 years in 996, Sitt-ul-Mulk’s eleven-year-old brother, Al-

Hakim, became the sixth Caliph. In practice, for the first few

years the task of ruling fell to a 27-year-old Sitt-ul-Mulk, their

mother, and a team of political advisors.6

Al-Hakim upon maturity – which in Arab terms was fifteen years of age since

Hakim was the only male descendant of Al-Aziz at the time – was awarded the reigns

of power. He ultimately ordered all the dogs of Cairo to be slaughtered, banned

singing in public and walking along the banks of the river Nile.

He targeted Jews and Christians by ordering them to wear

special clothes followed by dismissals, persecution and mass

conversions. Al-Hakim appointed the army and spies to enforce

his terror on the public.7

Similar decrees for women were also issued – declared as the

cause of chaos – by Al Hakim. Decrees included forbidding

women to leave their homes at night, laughing in public,

participating in amusing past-times. Conversely, they were also

forbidden to weep at funerals, attend burials and banned from

visiting cemeteries. They were forbidden to roam the streets with

6 Mernissi, Fatima, The Forgotten Queens of Islam, 2003, University of Minnesota Press, page 160-27 Mernissi, Fatima, The Forgotten Queens of Islam, 2003, University of Minnesota Press, page 172


their faces uncovered. For seven years and seven months,

women disappeared from the streets of Cairo.8

After Al-Hakim’s assassination – this according to some sources was

orchestrated by Sitt-ul-Mulk – order was restored in the country. Mulk governed as

regent for her nephew, al-Dhadir who was also a teenager. Though in power, Mulk

remained invisible by extension and brought back the essence of secularism in the

11th century Egypt. She restored the shattered economy and re-instated non-Muslims

to their earlier status like her father.

After long centuries of enslavement by men, our minds rusted

and our bodies weakened. We cannot assume that all men who

write about women are wise reformers. Their words must be

carefully scrutinised, and we must be wary of man being as

despotic about liberating us as he has been about our

enslavement, narrates Malak Hifni Nasif, founder of the feminist

movement from Egypt in 1909.9

Nasif also sets an incentive for women’s scholarly aptitude in the 19th century.

She calls for such women to be guides in their own communities as narrators of

history that has been lost. Her views reflect the changing nature of feminist movement

from fighting oppression and asserting rights to driving the process of socio-economic

8 Mernissi, 1729 Shaheed, Farida, Great Ancestors: Women Asserting Rights in Muslim Context, 2004, Shirkat Gah Publications, page 72


change. It is a unique kind of leadership in the socio-economic sphere. Here, women

learn to assert their rights and capitalise on their human potential and be familiar with

tricks of business at the communal and social level in order to succeed. Nasif adds

Political economy calls for a division of labour but if women

enter learned professions it does not upset the system. The

division of labour is merely a human creation.10

In the English and American bourgeois circles of the 18th and 19th centuries,

women in the literary sphere had also begun to question and re-interpret women’s

roles as a result of the common and dull notion of submissiveness to the orders of

patriarchy.

Mary Astell, for example, was one of the earliest feminists in the 18 th

century and perhaps the first writer to explore and assert ideas about

women which we can still recognise and respond to. Throughout her life,

she identified with and spoke directly to other women, acknowledging

their shared problems. Though she was deeply religious, she had little in

common with her outspoken predecessors in the 17 th century sects. She

was profoundly conservative; a life-long Royalist and a High Church

Anglican, radical only in her perception of the way women’s lives were

10 Shaheed, Farida, Great Ancestors: Women Asserting Rights in Muslim Context, 2004, Shirkat Gah Publications, page 72


restricted by convention, and their minds left undeveloped and

untrained.11

The conventions included strict adherence to principles of chastity, modesty,

veiling, submission to masculine dominance – pre-defined roles of being good wives,

mothers, daughters or as Margaret Walters, author of Feminism, A Very Short

Introduction puts it, ‘upper servants’. For centuries, and all over Europe, there were

families who disposed of ‘unnecessary’ or ‘unmarriagable’ daughters by shutting

them away in convents. In implicit terms, the conventions also applied to women of

the East. However, in the context of Muslim women – particularly from the educated

classes, issues of marriage, polygamy and divorce have been key areas of debate

amongst feminists in the late 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. Like their women

counterparts in Europe, these feminists also sought to challenge and re-interpret texts

and pre-existing narratives of religion by exploring the lives of other women and their

problems. For instance, according to Islam, a man is allowed to marry four times in

his life. Raden Adjeng Kartini, founder of women’s movement at the turn of the 20 th

century in Indonesia challenged the law and highlighted its shortcomings by the

following rhetoric:

The Moslem law allows a man to have four wives at the same

time. And though it be a thousand times over no sin according to

the Moslem law and doctrine,

11 Walters, Margaret, Feminism: A Very Short Introduction, 2005, Oxford University Press, page 26


I shall forever call it a sin….and if he does not choose to give her

back her freedom, then she can whistle to the moon for her

rights.

Everything for the man, and nothing for the woman, is our law

and custom.

Do you understand the deep aversion I have for marriage?

I would do the humblest work, thankfully and joyfully if, by it I

could be independent.12

In this respect, we see Mary Astell’s struggle with attaining a livelihood in

1668. Upon failure to do so, she wrote to William Sancroft, Archbishop of Canterbury

for help:

For since God has given Women as well as Men intelligent

souls, how should they be forbidden to improve them? Since he

has not denied us the faculty of Thinking, why should we not (at

least in gratitude to him) employ our Thoughts on himself their

noblest Object, and not unworthily bestow them on Trifles and

Gaities and secular Affairs?13

With financial aid and contacts with a circle of like-minded intelligent women

from the Archbishop’s guidance, Astell published her first book in 1694, entitled A

12 Shaheed, Farida, Great Ancestors: Women Asserting Rights in Muslim Context, 2004, Shirkat Gah Publications, page 11213 Walters, page 27


Serious Proposal to the Ladies, urging other women to take themselves seriously –

learn to think for themselves, work on developing their own minds and skills, and

challenge masculine judgements. In her other book entitled, Thoughts on Education,

she laid stress on the urgent necessity for women to be properly educated. These

narratives not only played a pivotal role for these women but also provided incentive

for a fair and challenging re-interpretation of cultural traditions that were male-

dominated.

From South Asia, we see another interesting angle, that women’s intellectual

status, capability and access to educational resources were more or less dependant on

their religion. South Asian writer Qurratulain Hyder’s 1979 novel Aakhri Shab Ke

Hamsafar (Fellow Traveller at the End of the Night), critiqued by M. Asaduddin –

who teaches English literature in Jamia Milli at New Dehli, India – would be useful to

explain the state of girls and young women in the region. He summarises:

In describing the lives of [characters] Deepali, Raihan, Jahan

Ara, Rosy and others, Hyder makes implicit comments on social

mores and educational attainments of different communities at

that point of time. While the girls in Hindu and Christian

families have been shown as actively participating in different

spheres of life, Muslim girls have been depicted as yet struggling


between restrictive social norms and their half-articulated desire

to achieve self-hood.14

It is important in connection with the above passage to understand that for

both Muslim and Hindu, and Christian women, the practice of hijab or purdah or veil

restricted them to their homes and forced them to cover their bodies in order to protect

them from possible disgrace at the hands of strange men. As time went on, these

practices also became matters of intense debate.

The All-India Women’s Conference in March 1918 in Bhopal

conducted a series of debates on purdah. A resolution at the

conference concluded that for the emancipation of women,

purdah should be relaxed and that Muslim women should only

have to observe it to the extent required by their religion.15

South Asian writer Dushka Saiyid asserts, “by the second and

third decade of this century the observance of purdah was

relaxed in its severity, at least in the cities of Punjab16.

In Bapsi Sidhwa’s novel Cracking India, Ayah – Lenny’s nanny

– is a character developed to portray the sexual tension among

14 Asaduddin, M, The Exiles Return, Qurratulain Hyder’s Art of Fiction, page 3115 Pennebaker, Mattie Katherine, “The Will of Men”: Victimization of Women During India’s Partition, Texas A & M University paper.16 Saiyid, Dushka. Muslim Women of the British Punjab. 1998, New York, NY: St.Martin’s Press, page 81


Hindu women, and “outsiders” or men. Ayah’s sexuality attracts

men of varying occupations and religions including the

Fallatihs, Hotel cook, the Government House gardener, the

butcher, Masseur, the Chinaman, the Pathan and the Ice-Candy

man (81). Ayah is a lower-caste servant for a Zoroastrian family.

She is therefore exempted from the strict laws of Purdah required

of the upper-caste Brahmins.17

Radical feminists18 argue that the primary element of patriarchy is a

relationship of dominance, where one party is dominant and exploits the other party

for the benefit of the former. Therefore, men use social systems and other methods of

control to keep non-dominant men and women suppressed.

Sidhwa, in Cracking India, provides us with an interesting view of power-

play of such politics. In highlighting the confusion faced by South Asians, she

succeeds in giving an individualistic, free perspective on the idea of following leaders

– devoid of thought or concern for self-growth.

[On Ice-Candy man’s political commentary], Lenny says,

Sometimes he quotes Gandhi, or Nehru, or Jinnah, but I’m fed

up with hearing about them. Mother, Father and their friends are

17 Sidhwa, Bapsi, Cracking India, 1991, Minneapolis: Milwaukee Edition. Page 8118 Radical Feminism – a “current” within feminism that focuses on patriarchy as a system of power that organises society into a complex of relationships producing a “male supremacy” that oppresses women. Source: Wikipedia


always saying: Gandhi said this, Nehru said that. Gandhi did

this, Jinnah did that. What’s the point of talking so much about

people we don’t know?19

It is important to note here that Lenny represents the Zoroastrian family –

minorities in South Asia. According to reliable resources, Zoroastrians were least

affected by the Indo-Pak-Bengal partition. Therefore, Lenny’s naivete in a way

reflects that fact. But Lenny is not alone in her views. Qurratulain Hyder has been

criticised for not being able to draw characters from the lower strata of society.

However, it is interesting to note that like Sidhwa’s character Lenny, Hyder too has

her reservations on political leaders and their politics – since they are set in the same

time-period.

Hyder’s interest in politics is minimal though she observes with

comic delight how people delude themselves by embracing some

particular political ideology and take it to be the panacea for all

social ills. In Fellow Traveller at the End of the Night, which

has in its background the Bengali extremist movement of the 30s

for the liberation of the country is, inter alia, an oblique satire on

the ‘progressives’ of the forties and the fifties. In their

enthusiasm for social reform the progressive writers made a

19 Sidhwa, 38


mockery of what Sartre calls ‘committed literature’ and missed

no chance to attack Hyder for refusing to toe their line. 20

The narrative covers the events up to the creation of Bangladesh in 1971. The

main character, Deepali Sircar’s initiation into the movement begins with a sacrifice

of her expensive Baluchari sarees. The revolutionaries badly needed money and she

could think of nothing else in the house but the sarees that were saved up for her own

marriage. Raihan, the radical leader – impressed by her show of commitment entrusts

her with serious responsibilities. Several years later, he calls her to his hideout in the

Sunderbans and they fall in love, though it is not expressed in so many words. From

this point, the fate of the extremist movement, the larger movement for a separate

homeland for Muslims – all are mixed up with the fate of the characters in the novel.

Deepali, along with her family, migrates to India and later to Trinidad. She sees the

world of her ideology crumbling to pieces, and watches Raihan’s metamorphosis

from a radical left-winger to a rabid right-winger, and lastly as an industrial tycoon

who thrives by exploiting workers in his mills.

Meanwhile, back in Europe and the Americas, the relatively well-educated

deeply religious Christian women in the early 18th century – a privilege shared by very

few such as Mary Astell, Elizabeth Barrett Browning (author of Aurora Leigh) and

Barbra Leigh Smith and Bessie Rayner Parkes (authors of Women and Work) set the

tradition of going out and talking to women, to educate and create awareness amongst

20 Asaduddin, M, The Exiles Return, Qurratulain Hyder’s Art of Fiction paper, page 31


them about the diverse opportunities they could avail – besides submitting to societal

conventions – and to document their experiences combined with their own either in

writing or orally. In addition to this, they confronted men of high learning with the

new set of arguments demanding equality and the right to earn for themselves – that

paved the way for discourse on gender. These experiences became narratives that led

to the formulation of the popular art of fiction and prose amongst women, which

would ultimately become a strong agent in changing the perceptions and roles of

women as well as the attitudes of those leading the social systems. However, the

question whether these groups of literary women of the 18 th century formed a

‘movement’ for emancipation at large for the next generation comes to mind. One

feels a sense of alienation and tends to wonder how much of the writings of these

women have survived. How much of it was public? What benefits did the writers gain

after compiling norm-challenging prose? Were they under constant threats or

restrictions from the orders of patriarchy at the time?

The survival rate of previous works of feminists does not seem enough and yet

it is. Things would begin to change for women in Europe significantly leading to the

suffrage movement – a period marked by strong prose compilations such as G.B

Shaw’s You Can Never Tell, E Bronte’s Jane Eyre, M Angelou’s I Know Why a

Caged Bird Sings and others. According to philosopher and historian William Durant,

suffrage21 is to be credited to the rapid industrialisation that inevitably needed women

21 A feminist movement beginning in late 19th century primarily concerned with women’s representation in the public and political sphere


to fill the gaps in the workforce due to lack of ‘sufficient manpower’. On the other

hand, their votes would enable them to choose the leaders of their choice and be

chosen to represent the ruling parties – drivers of the government and the legal

systems. These were privileges not available to women in Europe before. However,

how they would be deemed significant in terms of their influence in the political

hierarchies – as voters, workers, lawmakers, writers and journalists, business and

property owners – in the newly found status in the public workforce remains to be

seen and would be pursued in later chapters.

The account of the history of women’s legal status in Europe in the late 19 th

century is of core importance. In the UK Reform Act of 1832, women were

specifically excluded by substituting ‘male person’ for the more inclusive and general

word ‘man’ - which accounts for mankind - that implicitly means ‘human being.’ It is

also interesting to note, in the same time-period, only about one-third of adult men

could vote. Despite the Reform Act of 1884 which allowed a larger number of men to

vote, only 63 to 68 per cent used the privilege and made conditions worse for women.

Mary Smith, a wealthy woman from Yorkshire hired Orator Hunt – a radical

spinster of the time – to present parliament with a petition for allowing unmarried

women to vote. The petitioner pointed out, a woman pays taxes like any man;

moreover, since woman could be punished at law, she should be given a voice in the

making of laws, as well as the right to serve on juries. 22 However, it was not till 1918 22 Walters, Margaret, Feminism, A Very Short Introduction, Oxford University Press 2007, pg 69


that women over the age of 30 were given the vote; and in March 1928, under a

Conservative government, they finally won it on equal terms with men after countless

sacrifices and punishments for generations to remember.

In the above context – 20th century American writer Margaret Deland’s novel,

The Rising Tide – we encounter another interesting light-hearted aspect of woman’s

self-hood and its perceptions from the male gender.

“Mr. Weston, looking idly at the swans curving their necks and

thrusting their bills down into the black water, felt though

Frederica’s taste was vile, her judgement was sound – it was

silly for Aunt Adelaide to sacrifice herself on the altar of being

absolutely useless to society. Then he thought, uneasily, of the

possible value to Aunt Adelaide’s character of self-sacrifice.

“No,” he decided, “self-sacrifice which denies common sense

isn’t virtue; it’s spiritual dissipation!”23

The lines reflect Mr Weston’s comparison of the radical young woman

Frederica to a conservative Aunt Adelaide and his own ambiguity in coming to terms

with their characters. Here, Aunt Adelaide’s character is typical of the ideals of

patriarchy – which demands women to stick to assigned roles – such as marriage and

bearing children – in order to maintain the order regardless of their will to be the

23 Deland, Margaret, The Rising Tide, 1916, Harper & Brothers New York, pg 16


other. Therefore, Frederica’s radicalism is outside the norms of Aunt Adelaide’s

rationality which views marriage with a noble man the most important destiny of life

which Frederica boldly opposes. Loosely speaking, the notion of self-sacrifice from

Mr. Weston’s perspective highlights a form of oppression where a woman with

outdated beliefs tends to oppress the other woman no matter how common-sensical

she may be. The irony here is that there is evidence of such dichotomy amongst

women of all classes which could be termed as matriarchy – the devoted sister of

patriarchy. However, good education and exposure to literary thought has been one of

the key reasons for success stories of radicals such as Frederica. Following is another

example of her unconventionally intelligent and funny character that is a wonder for

young men and problematic for her elders.

“But I think! What I object to in Mother is that she wants me to

think her thoughts. Apart from the question of hypocrisy, I prefer

my own.” As she spoke, the light of a street lamp fell full on her

face—a wolfish, unhumorous young face, pathetic with its

hunger for life; he saw that her chin was twitching, and there was

a wet gleam on one flushed cheek. “Besides,” she said, “I simply

won’t go on spending my days as well as my nights in that

house. You don’t know what it means to live in the same house

with—with--”


“I wish you were married,” he said, helplessly; “that’s the best

way to get out of that house.”

She laughed, and squeezed his arm. “You want to get off your

job?” she said, maliciously; “well, you can’t. I’m the Old Man of

the Sea, and you’ll have to carry me on your back for the rest of

your life. No marriage in mine, thank you!”

They were sauntering along now in the darkness, her arm still in

his, and her cheek, in her eagerness, almost touching his

shoulder; her voice was flippantly bitter:

“I don’t want a man; I want an occupation!”24

24 Deland, Margaret, The Rising Tide, 1916, Harper & Brothers New York, pg 12


1.3) Politics and Economics of Feminist Literary Traditions

It is interesting to draw a comparison of individualistic narratives with group

narratives in the late 18th century onwards. From this comparison, we see the

emergence of women as individuals as asserted by Indonesian and Egyptian feminists.

In Elaine Showalter’s essay A Literature of Their Own, one sees the process of prose

development in this century and the centuries to come. Showalter provides a useful

narration of her views and opinions – the next step – on women as an influential

intellectual force; specifically writers and gives an explanation for why women’s

literary works in earlier times (as well as current times) are individualistic in nature. It

also in some ways explains why they waver to form a single political movement

encompassing the intricate patterns of their relationship with society – which is

largely centred on financial empowerment and stability – be they single, wives,

mothers, mistresses, widows or divorcees:

The theory of a female sensibility revealing itself in an imagery

and form specific to women also runs dangerously close to re-

iterating the familiar stereotypes. It also suggests permanence, a

deep, basic, and inevitable difference between male and female

ways of perceiving the world. I think that, instead, the female

literary tradition comes from the still evolving relationships

between women writers and their society. Moreover, the ‘female

imagination’ cannot be treated by literary historians as a


romantic or Freudian abstraction. It is the product of delicate

network of influences operating in time, and it must be analysed

as it expresses itself, in language and in a fixed arrangement of

words on a page, a form that itself is subject to a network of

influences and conventions, including the operations of the

marketplace. In this investigation of the English novel, I am

intentionally looking, not at an innate sexual attitude, but at the

ways in which self-awareness of the woman writer has translated

itself into literary form in a specific place and time-span, how

this self-awareness has changed and developed, and where it

might lead.25

Showalter goes on to say,

I am therefore concerned with the professional writer who wants

pay and publication, not with the diarist or letter-writer. This

emphasis has required careful consideration of novelists, as well

as the novels, chosen for discussion. When we turn from the

overview of the literary tradition to look at the individuals who

composed it, a different but interrelated set of motives, drives,

and sources become prominent. I have needed to ask why women

began to write for money and how they negotiated the activity of

writing within their families. What was their professional self-

25 Showalter, Elaine, Feminist Literary Theory, A Literature of Their Own: British Women Novelists from Bronte to Lessing, Basil Blackwell, 1986, pg 12


image? How was their work received, and what effects did

criticism have upon them? What were their experiences as

women, and how were these reflected in books? What was their

understanding of womanhood? What was their relationship to

other women, to men, and their readers? How did changes in

women’s status affect their lives and careers? And how did the

vocation of writing itself change the women who committed

themselves to it? In looking at literary sub-cultures, such as

Black, Jewish, Canadian, Anglo-Indian, or even American, we

can see that they all go through three major phases:26

There is a prolonged phase of imitation of the prevailing

modes of the dominant tradition, and internalization of

its standards of art and its views on social roles.

There is a phase of protest against these standards and

values, and advocacy of minority rights and values,

including a demand for autonomy.

Finally, the phase of self-discovery, a turning inward

freed from some of the dependency of the opposition, a

search for identity.27

26 Showalter, Elaine, Feminist Literary Theory, A Literature of Their Own: British Women Novelists from Bronte to Lessing, pg 1327 Robert, A Bone, The Negro Novel in America, New York, 1958; Northop Frye, Conclusion to A Literary History of Canada, in The Stubborn Structure: Essays on Criticism and Society, Ithaca, 1970, pp.278-312


However, Showalter’s view of ignoring diarists would be unfair to renowned

feminist American poets such as Emily Dickinson and Sylvia Plath – who were

mostly or partly discovered from their diaries and letters. Her view would also be

unfair to writers of the Progressive Movements of the 30s in South Asia such as Faiz

Ahmad Faiz, Rashid Jahan and Ismat Chughtai whose works were banned by

authorities due to their explicit criticism of political dictatorships, and content such as

domestic abuse, marital rape and lesbian love. These writers did not gain any

significant financial success and became available to the reading public years after

their death. However, the writings are shocking as well as very moving. They paint

pictures of gruesome realities surrounding women, and thus can not be ignored. The

writings have been adapted by serious film-makers of 21st century South Asia such as

Pakistan-based Mehreen Jabbar’s Kat Putli and India-based Mira Nair’s Fire. These

writers and diarists were prevented from earlier discovery within the sphere of readers

to avoid turbulence. Emily Dickinson managed to shake the audiences with her

eccentric style of writing on simple themes such as love, death, nature, immortality

and beauty.

Sylvia Plath challenged patriarchy and dictatorship to its core.

For example, in the verses from her poem entitled Daddy, she

says, “you do not do anymore black shoe in which I have lived

like a foot for thirty years, barely able to breathe or Achoo.” This

echoes with the success of the Suffrage movement.


Showalter has been quoted here to establish a crucial transition phase for

women in literature – emergence from the private home-based space to being in the

marketplace as merchants of social, political and economic affairs. The incentive to

do so comes from the need, knowledge, reputation, and strong socio-political links

combined with the writer’s financial stability and the ability to touch people’s lives in

the modern era.

On writings of women educators at the turn of the 19th century in the United

Kingdom (UK), Maria Tamboukou, Senior Lecturer in Psychological Studies and Co-

director of the Centre of Narrative Research, University of East London, in her paper

Women’s political narratives in the interstices of constructed dichotomies, says:

‘What I want to argue is that their (women) narratives of

becoming political seem to be discursively constrained first

within the dichotomy, between the private and the public and

second within the separation of the political and the social.

Women’s narratives emerging in the intersection of these

historically constructed dichotomies create non-canonical

conditions for the political subject to emerge as both relational

and narratable.’28

28 Maria Tamboukou, International Conference of Political Psychology, 2003, Source: www.uel.ac.uk/cnr/symposium.doc

http://www.uel.ac.uk/cnr/symposium.doc


By exploring the dichotomy of narratives between the private and the public,

and political and the social, an intersection through the identified prose would be

sought. Then, a view of their psychological impact in creating non-canonical subject

matter – for the political feminist to emerge from historically constructed dichotomies

would be formulated.

The following lines are taken again from Margaret Deland’s novel, The Rising

Tide. The characters are set in Payton Street. They are walking and engaged in a

discussion. It is a situation where Frederica is providing us with a view of herself

from her grandmother and mother’s perspectives and her own ways of reconciling

with them. While using Frederica as a subject – according to Tamboukou – emerging

as an individual in the given social setting, an interesting break from family

conventions is observed.

“Unwomanly? That’s Mother’s word. Grandmother’s is

unladylike. No sir! I’ve done all the nice, ‘womanly’ things that

girls who live at home have to do to kill time. I’ve painted – can’t

paint any more than Zip! And I’ve slummed. I hate poor people,

they smell so. And I’ve taken singing lessons; I have about as

much voice as a crow. My Suffrage League isn’t work, it’s fun. I

might have tried nursing, but Grandmother had a fit; ‘that warm

heart’ she’s always handing out couldn’t stand the idea of

relieving male suffering. “What!” she said, ‘see, a gentleman


entirely undressed, in his bed!” I said, ‘it wouldn’t be much

more alarming to see him entirely dressed in his bed’! She

paused, her eyes narrowing thoughtfully; “it’s queer about

Grandmother – I don’t really dislike her. ‘She makes me mad,

because she’s such an awful old liar, but she’s no fool.”29

Theorists of identity politics30 have argued passionately and persuasively that

oppression shapes the consciousness of the oppressed such that oppressed people

usually internalise their oppression. They further contend that only in an environment

when members of the oppressor group are not present to enforce outdated or unjust

definitions of equality, justice, and right, and the norms that derive from such

definitions, can the oppressed begin the difficult work of consciousness-raising, the

first step towards organisation of the oppressed to struggle for a liberation defined in

their own terms. In the above lines, within the sphere of the private we see a woman’s

character (Frederica) set between two different forms of definitions from two

characters of the previous generation (women) – Mother and Grandmother – for her

identity and place in the world. However, it is also interesting to note that the terms

‘Unwomanly’ and ‘unladylike’ are coming from Frederica’s frame of mind and in the

lines that follow she struggles to set herself above not only the women who’ve

influenced her since childhood but also above the stereotypical notion of struggle – 29 Deland, Margaret (b. 1845), The Rising Tide, 1916, Harper & Brothers, New York, pg 1330 Politics, Identity; L.A. Kauffman in his article traced its origins to the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the most militant organisation of the civil rights movement in the early and mid-1960s – it’s agenda has known to be used by black nationalists. It is defined as political action to advance the interests of members of a group supposed to be oppressed by virtue of a shared and marginalised identity (such as race or gender). The term has been used in the US politics since the 1970s. Source: Wikipedia


usually interpreted as a tedious task of going uphill to achieve a difficult goal that

could be achieved by simply going straight – associated with liberation and

emancipation. The lines also challenge the stereotypes of chastity and modesty by

associating gentlemen with nudity – which could also be seen as a hit on elite

mannerism of the time – in a nursing room, and renaissance activities such as painting

– which has brought to light the visual interpretation/narration of history – and also

establishes the idea that men are also suffering from orders set by the patriarchy. The

concept of relieving male suffering – gentlemen in particular, in their nudity in

nursing rooms – though strongly hinting vulgarity, is an ingenuous expression of a

strong-minded modern woman with a rebellious heart in the early 20 th century that

Deland has woven .

In the transition from the private to the public – for women – there have been

two fundamental ethics of human nature shaping human consciousness namely; duty

and responsibility. These have strong influences and while breaking from the shackles

of private domain, these two tend to take us back to our ancestral and other

obligations – where religious narratives become relevant. How much discipline and

with what amount of ease we manage to fulfil those duties, comes under

responsibility. However, there is a question – which is also fundamental in nature –

that stems from the conscience; how and where do you set the boundaries for duty and

responsibility? Where does the courage come from? Human nature is driven by


capacity, meaning, it is specialist in nature able to perform certain tasks and unable to

perform a lot others.

Within the social system – which is always a discovery for the newly admitted

member – an adult – experimentation on the system becomes a means for learning

because the only duty and responsibility she knows are lessons that were learnt from

those who were decision-makers within the private domain – family, schools of

thought and social circles. Therefore, the need to experiment is a smart tool in the

package for anyone entering the new social system – the public sphere. How the tool

is used and utilised to re-interpret the ethics of duties and responsibilities comes from

and depends on the training acquired, nature of interaction, knowledge and

compassion towards the others, legal and social rights, and financial benefits. That

can lead to several progressive consequences or reforms.

One of the consequences could be that the need to experiment combined with

new experiences, shapes our duty towards a movement such as nationalism or

feminism or an ideology such as globalisation, universal religion or peace with the

centre either in Jerusalem or Mecca or both, social identity and hence, diasporas –

where literary movements are ever evolving even as words emerge here.

The system of policies and regulations in the social sphere, however, poses

several questions: do they affect men and women differently? If so, are they fair


enough? Do they fulfil the socio-economic requirements of both sexes? Do they

provide any form of security to members of society? What could one do if they don’t

meet the demands of equality? It sets an incentive and good reason for us to emerge as

a significant influence in the public sphere with questions that require the re-

interpretation of socio-political narratives and re-enforcement of ideas that have been

emancipators for gender – that were probably hushed by historians and literati of the

past or like political psychologists argue, filtered from the system of selective

memory or wiped out by tyrants and misogynist dictators.

Therefore – for women in particular – the new political struggle as observed in

this chapter always begins from old existing ones – and the writers have a major role

to play as their prose and plays explain to us the complex workings of society. Their

characters, therefore, are important trendsetters for a workable vision of utopia.


Chapter Two: Dynamism of Feminist Political Movements in America & South

Asia

2.1) Women Breaking Barriers in the Social Sphere

If we look at the gap between the discovery of America – which was mistaken for

India – and the period when the newly discovered land was rapidly becoming home to

immigrants from Europe till the beginning of the 20th century, we witness a number of

legal, social and economic developments. It is a country evolving rapidly with

committees on public affairs, numerous constitutional amendments, legislation, taxes,

and treaties that were shaping and re-shaping the society. On February 25 th, 1913, it is

important to note the 16th amendment in the constitution that imposed tax on income.

The federal income tax levied a tax of 1 per cent for income above $3000 for single

individuals and above $4000 for married couples. The American Constitution has

been secular in nature since independence – meaning the society would be governed

by laws that cater to public needs from all walks of life regardless of class, religion,

gender and race. However, there were discriminatory practices since the beginning of

the colonisation of America such as the marginalisation of native communities who

were original inhabitants of this area – or in other words minorities. Black women,

white women; many of whom were ‘exported’ as slaves to America and Jewish

women were always at a higher risk of becoming victims of discriminatory atrocities.


The idea of ‘birth control’, a term coined by Margaret Sanger in 1915 which was in

essence meant to facilitate single women to maintain sexual relationships and their

individuality without the risk of getting pregnant, was met with strong opposition

from the majority of ‘conservative’ circles in American society. Sander was arrested

in New York for distribution of contraceptive information. It is important to note here

that ‘birth control’ is forbidden according to traditional Catholic beliefs as it is

considered an unnatural means to stop pregnancies from occurring and abortion of the

child – whether legitimate or illegitimate or due to unwanted conception of the baby.

However, since there was no legislation on this issue, Sanger was released. She

eventually opened the nation’s first birth-control clinic in Brooklyn. Thus, a large

majority group of women was denied legal support.

It is interesting to see that literary contribution in these times have been

significant in motivating and unifying public concern on some areas that eventually

led to legislation on the issues of concern, sometimes, beyond the expectations of the

writer. For example, in 1906, Upton Sinclair published The Jungle, an exposé of

working conditions in Chicago’s meatpacking houses. Sinclair wanted to generate

sympathy for the working classes. Instead, The Jungle provoked public concern over

adulterated food which eventually led to the formulation and implementation of The

Pure Food and Drug Act in the same year. According to the Act, sale of adulterated

food and drugs was banned, and sanitary regulations in the meat-packing industry

were also enforced. Sinclair says,


I aimed at the public’s heart but by accident hit it in the stomach.

Externally, the story had to do with a family of stockyard

workers, but internally, it was the story of my own family. Did I

wish to know how the poor suffered in winter time in Chicago?31

In the same time-period of the 1900s, we are introduced to Susan Glaspell

(1876 – 1948), journalist, feminist, realist playwright and writer from Davenport,

Iowa. She set out to challenge social norms through her literary contributions. She

promoted American dramatists for a period of seven years those who explicitly

expressed the progressive narratives of Glaspell and other writers to American

audiences, setting a tradition of highlighting issues that were not common knowledge

and promoting radical liberalism. Margaret Deland also wrote during this time – a

period that was crucial to the development of the woman and her transition from

‘woman’ to ‘person.’ According to Barbara Ozieblo:

Susan Glaspell had never liked to feel controlled or delimited;

she rebelled against society’s expectations rather than passively

wait for a husband to appear. She married a twice-divorced

father of two – George Cram Cook – whom she had met in her

hometown after earning the status and respect of a published

author who had opened the doors of Davenport’s social and

intellectual life. They were the founders of the Provincetown

31 Sinclair, Upton on his writing of The Jungle in American Outpost: A Book of Reminiscences, 1932; Source: Wikipedia


Players that would eventually showcase plays from playwrights

such as Eugene O’ Niel and Tennessee Williams.32

Glaspell went to Drake University in Des Moines, graduating in June of 1899,

and then worked as a reporter for the Des Moines Daily News. She gave up her

newspaper job in 1901 and returned to Davenport in order to write; she had already

published a number of short stories in Youth’s Companion, and was to see her stories

accepted by more sophisticated magazines, such as Harper’s, Leslie’s, The American

and others. Her story “For Love of the Hills” received the Black Cat prize in 1904;

her first novel, The Glory of the Conquered, would come out in 1909, followed by

The Visioning in 1911.

Glaspell utilises the art of dialogue to provide us with an insight of her passion

in literary activities and the strength she draws from them to develop her own

individual identity, of being her own woman.

‘Well—a woman that reads Latin needn’t worry a husband

much,’ Harry says to Dick after Claire [Harry’s wife] departs

after a heated debate, ‘You know, I doubt if you’re a good

influence for Claire. I suppose an intellectual woman – and for

all Claire’s hate of her ancestors, she’s got the bug herself. In

32 Ozieblo, Barbara, Susan Glaspell: A Critical Biography. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000.


this play, Claire seems to show plenty of agitation for outsiders

who want to be guests in her house. 33

This provides us with another aspect of Glaspell’s personality and her

romance with nativity and the resentment of the non-American settlers who

marginalised, maligned or destroyed the natives in America – an echo for women and

minorities in general. We shall see, with more examples that political activism in

Glaspell’s women is rampant. It encompasses logical takes and strong references to

nature and history. Men in her plays accompany women in either humour’s delight or

through the material settings of their surroundings – focussed on the present.

Claire: ‘But our own spirit is not something on the loose. Mine

isn’t. It has something to do with what I do. To fly. To be free in

air. To look from above on the world of all my days. Be where

man has never been! Yes – wouldn’t you think the spirit could

get the idea? The earth grows smaller. I am leaving. What are

they – running around down there? Why do they run around

there? Houses? Houses are funny lines and down-going slants –

houses are vanishing slants. I am alone. Can I breathe this rarer

air? Shall I go higher? Shall I go too high? I am loose. I am out.

But no; man flew, and returned to earth the man who left it.’

33 Glaspell, Susan, The Verge, performed on November 14, 1921 at the Provincetown Playhouse, pg 10. Characters quoted: Harry and Claire – (Husband and Wife). Dick is Harry’s friend. Source: www.gutenberg.org

http://www.gutenberg.org/


Harry: ‘And jolly well likely not to have returned at all if he’d

had those flighty notions while operating a machine.’34

In Claire, we see Glaspell’s conceptual take on the idea of ‘flight’ for which

she picks ‘spirit’ as her simile. Technically, a spirit needs no wings to fly. The first

witness to these lines, the reader or the viewer is set in the aftermath conditions of

World War I. ‘Man flew and returned to earth the man who left it,’ raises mixed

feelings about the male gender – pilot of the aircraft that took the lives of many, men

who lost control of their aircrafts and lost their lives in the war. It is a sheer mockery

of the Wright Brothers’ invention of the aircraft that besides facilitating the joys of

sharing the heights of eagles, it provoked war and bloodshed of a new kind. Claire

who seems to be an agitated person appears as the peacemaker, as a character who is

giving us a realistic sense of the events of history, and means to reconcile with it. It is

interesting to note Harry’s take specifically in ‘not to have returned at all if he’d had

those flighty notions while operating a machine.’

Here, Glaspell brings out the humorous way of reconciling the non-industrial

past with the industrial present which is highly dependant on machines. It also

represents those machine operating men and women – who have not witnessed career

highs in their lives – but dream of them. Therefore, we see Harry’s attempt to bring

Claire back to the present settings of the social sphere. In Claire, Glaspell is also

attempting to explain the dichotomy between ‘spirit’ and ‘flight.’ ‘Spirit’ refers to

34 Glaspell, Susan, The Verge, performed on November 14, 1921 at the Provincetown Playhouse, pg18. Source: www.gutenberg.org



courage and will and ‘flight’ refers to flying which could have several directions

leading to a specific destination or purpose.

Ozieblo contends Glaspell’s oeuvre is unparalleled in American letters in its

major achievements in two genres, drama and fiction. She goes on to state that

writing for the theatre made Glaspell more aware of innovations in structure and

style, and her later novels benefited from her intense involvement in the development

of the American drama. She chose simple settings for her plays to allow maximum

communication of characters with the audience. Taken together, her plays, stories,

and novels, all explore themes that continue to be vital and challenging to readers

and scholars today – themes of American identity, individuality vs. social conformity,

the idealism of youth, the compromises of marriage, and the disillusionments and

hopes of aging.

Both her plays and novels speak deeply of feminist issues such as

women’s struggle for expression in a patriarchal culture that

binds them in oppressive gender binarisms, the loving yet

fraught relationships between daughters and mothers, and

women's need for female friendship as a defining part of their

growth toward autonomy and selfhood.35

In order to filter Glaspell’s idea of ‘spirit’ from the essence of history,

consider the impact of the narrative of a 12-year old boy Walt on his native American

3536 Ozieblo, Barbra, author of Susan Glaspell: A Critical Biography. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000. http://academic.shu.edu/glaspell/aboutglaspell.html

http://academic.shu.edu/glaspell/aboutglaspell.html


foster aunt Mother Sioux’s struggle with neo-American settlers, and eventually, her

escape in the late 19th century from Mr Vertigo; New York-based post-modernist

writer Paul Auster’s fiction novel:

‘It started when she was sixteen years old, she said, at the height

of the Ghost Dance craze that swept through the Indian lands in

the late 1880s. Those were the bad times, the years of the end of

the world, and the red people believed that magic was the only

thing that could save them from extinction. The cavalry was

closing in from all sides, crowding them off the prairies onto

small reservations, and the Blue-Coats had too many men to

make a counteract feasible. Dancing the Ghost Dance was the

last line of resistance: to jiggle and shake yourself into a frenzy,

to bounce and bob like the Holy Rollers and screwballs who

babble in tongues. You could fly out of your body then, and the

white man’s bullets would no longer touch you, no longer kill

you, no longer empty your veins of blood. The Dance caught on

everywhere, and eventually Sitting Bull himself threw in his lot

with the shakers. The US army got scared, fearing rebellion was

in the works, and ordered Mother Sioux’s great-uncle to stop.

But the old boy told them to shove it, he could jitterbug in his

own tepee if he wanted to, and who were they to meddle in his

private business?

Walt goes on to say,


for Mother Sioux, it probably meant the difference between life

and death. A few days after her departure into the world of show

business, Sitting Bull was murdered in a scuffle with some of the

soldiers who were holding him prisoner, and not long after that,

three hundred women, children, and old men were mowed down

by a cavalry regiment at the so-called Battle of Wounded Knee,

which wasn’t a battle so much as a turkey shoot, a wholesale

slaughter of the innocent.36

The 20th century was an interesting period for the growth of South Asian

writers as well – people of the continent who inherited the English culture of writing

that eventually became ‘Literature,’ in the formal sense. America and Europe was

bustling with arts, literature, and journalism, legal, social and economic activities –

and rapid industrial development. At the same time, the colonisers were taking newly

developed systems and gadgets in their respective countries to South Asia in

languages that were alien to its inhabitants – modernity and English. Therefore, the

communities were faced with challenges, the most difficult one being to learn and

adapt to new ideas of thought, language and expression. Partha Chattarjee explains

this while taking Bengal as her case study:

In Bengal, it is at the initiative of the East India Company and

the European missionaries that the first printed books are

produced in Bengali at the end of the eighteenth century and the

36 Auster, Paul; Mr Vertigo, Faber & Faber Ltd., 1994, pg 74


first narrative prose compositions commissioned at the beginning

of the nineteenth. At the same time, the first half of the

nineteenth century is when English completely displaces Persian

as the language of bureaucracy and emerges as the most

powerful vehicle of intellectual influence on a new Bengali elite.

The crucial moment in the development of the modern Bengali

language comes, however, in mid-century, when this bilingual

elite makes it a cultural project to provide its mother tongue with

the necessary linguistic equipment to enable it to become an

adequate language for ‘modern’ culture.37

However, Chattarjee asserts that while European influences were crucial in

shaping explicit critical discourse, it was widely believed that European conventions

were non-appropriate and mis-leading in judging literary productions in Modern

Bengali, particularly in Drama.

Drama is the one modern literary genre that is the least

commended on aesthetic grounds by critics of Bengali literature.

Yet, it is the form in which the bilingual elite has found its

largest audience. When it appeared in its modern form in the

middle of the nineteenth century, the new Bengali drama had

two models. One, the modern European drama as it had

developed since Shakespeare and Moliere, and two, the virtually

forgotten corpus of Sanskrit drama, now restored to a reputation

37 Chattarjee, Partha, The Nation and Its Fragments. Whose Imagined Community?, pg 7


of classical excellence because of the praises showered on it by

Orientalist scholars from Europe.38

The conventions that would enable a play to succeed on the Calcutta stage

was very different from the conventions approved by critics schooled in the traditions

of European drama. The tensions have not been resolved to this day. What thrives as

mainstream public theatre in West Bengal or Bangladesh today is modern urban

theatre, national and clearly distinguishable from “folk theatre.” It is produced and

largely patronised by the literate urban middle classes. With drama, the Bengali novel

also had the essence of live characters speaking directly to the readers. On popular

forms of aesthetic expression, she goes on to say:

It was remarkable how frequently in the course of their narrative

Bengali novelists shifted from the disciplined forms of authorial

prose to the direct recording of living speech. Looking at the

pages of some of the most popular novels in Bengali, it is often

difficult to tell whether one is reading a novel or a play. The

literati, in its search for artistic truthfulness, apparently found it

necessary to escape as often as possible the rigidities of that

prose.39

Where there is change, there is nostalgia of the past, where there is nostalgia,

there is Tennessee Williams, American playwright from the South – a once neglected

38 Chatterjee, 739 Chatterjee, 8


part of the country like the present South in Pakistan. While we struggle to inhibit

horrific experiences in the emergence of a modern era by killing our social identity or

erase them from memory, Williams struggles to express them with humour and with

melancholic intensity. He is one of those few playwrights, who show how it’s done

with class and taste. One could also credit Williams for the commonly used phrase,

“we learn from our mistakes.” Williams brings out the psychological conscience of

his characters with great dexterity. Transformation and inner thoughts of his

characters are expressed through music, visuals and witty dialogue. Dubbed as one of

America’s greatest playwrights, and certainly the greatest ever from the South,

Tennessee Williams wrote fiction and motion picture screenplays, but he is acclaimed

primarily for his plays—nearly all of them set in the South – which at their best rise

above regionalism to approach universal themes. Eric W. Cash, in his essay on

Tennessee Williams highlights the crucial elements of his contribution to literature:

There is little doubt that as a playwright, fiction writer, poet, and

essayist, Williams helped transform the contemporary idea of

Southern literature. However, as a Southerner he not only helped

to pave the way for other writers, but also helped the South find

a strong voice in those auspices where before it had only been

heard as a whisper.40

40 W. Cash, Eric, Essay on Tennessee Williams, University of Mississipi. http://www.olemiss.edu/mwp/contributors.html

http://www.olemiss.edu/mwp/contributors.html


From A Street Car Named Desire to Cat on a Hot Tin Roof – plays for which

he won the Pulitzer Prize – Williams’ characters satirise social mores in a gentle

tongue-and-cheek way. Critics say many of his characters are caricatures of people in

his life – which has largely been influenced by ancestral domination and the

economic plight of the South. From the opening lines of Williams’s play, The Glass

Menagerie, that appeared in 1944, just before the Second World War, we see the

approach to narrating nostalgia:

Tom: To begin with, I turn back time. I reverse it to that quaint

period, the thirties, when the huge middle class of America was

matriculating in a school for the blind. Their eyes had failed

them, or they had failed their eyes, and so they were having their

fingers pressed forcibly down on the fiery Braille alphabet of a

dissolving economy. In Spain there was revolution. Here there

was only shouting and confusion.41

Williams tackles issues such as the plight of women in the South, their

conflicts within the domestic sphere. Doubts over marriage, hesitancy towards

independent livelihood, shyness, development of self – all encompassing some form

of nostalgia or oppression – are some of the key themes surrounding his female

characters. Amanda, one of the play’s main characters – mother of a son and daughter

– confronts her daughter Laura upon learning that she had been skipping business

school in the following extract:

41 Williams, Tennessee, The Glass Menagerie, from Six Great American Plays, A Random House Publication, page 273


Amanda [Hopelessly fingering the huge pocketbook]: “So what

are we going to do the rest of our lives? Stay home and watch the

parades go by? Amuse ourselves with the glass menagerie,

darling? Eternally play those worn-out phonograph records your

father left as a painful reminder of him?” We won’t have a

business career – we’ve given that up because it gives us nervous

indigestion! [Laughs wearily.] What is there left but dependency

all our lives? I know so well what becomes of unmarried women

who aren’t prepared to occupy a position. I’ve seen such pitiful

cases in the South – barely tolerated spinsters living upon the

grudging patronage of sister’s husband or brother’s wife! – stuck

away in some little mouse-trap of a room – encouraged by one

in-law to visit another – little birdlike women without any nest –

eating the crust of humility all their life!

Is that the future that we’ve mapped out for ourselves?42

In the following dialogue between Laura and Amanda on being crippled – Laura’s

secret admiration for an Irish boy at school, and secret loathing of going to business

school is revealed as well as Amanda’s dependence on illusion that she finds

comforting, that in denial, everything will be fine:

Laura: I’m – crippled!

42 Williams, Tennessee, The Glass Menagerie, from Six Great American Plays, A Random House Publication, page 285


Amanda: Nonsense! Laura, I’ve told you never to use that word.

Why, you’re not crippled, you just have a little defect – hardly

noticeable, even! When people have some slight disadvantage

like that, they cultivate other things to make up for it – develop

charm – and vivacity – and – charm! That’s all you have to do!43

Women who’ve made it to the public workforce as artists, writers, community

developers, doctors, engineers and scientists, and leaders have gone through many

difficult phases. Women all across the globe share the same history. If not, the bold

examples from literary history depicting women’s struggles continue to inspire us and

our fight for equality in this imperfect world regardless of geography. The price has

always been sacrifices for women in every step of the way on the road to equality.

In the similar timeline, while Williams was steady on his campaign to

emancipate the South, India was being divided. The greatest victims of partition,

women, have been left without a voice – largely ignored in light of political events

leading to partition. According to Ritu Menon and Kamla Bhasin:

The story of 1947, while being one of the successful attainment

of independence, is also a gendered narrative of displacement

and dispossession, of large-scale and widespread communal

violence, and of the re-alignment of family, community and

43 Williams, 290


national identities as a people were forced to accommodate the

dramatically altered reality that now prevailed.44

According to the Bhasin and Menon, this was the “largest peace-time mass migration

in history – about 500,000 – 1,000,000 had perished”45. Bapsi Sidhwa in her novel

Cracking India documents this mass exodus really well.

The countless rapes and kidnappings of women and young girls are

perhaps among the most sordid tales of partition. These females, some

with children in their arms, were reportedly abducted, raped and

molested, passed from one man to another, bartered and sold like cheap

chattel.46

A young woman of twenty-two narrates her flight from Pakistan with a foot convoy

from Lyallpur:

When the foot convoy left Lyallpur we all joined it. The military

had robbed us of everything before we left our house. First they

took away our arms, then our valuables. On the way, I was

separated from my people. I saw men being murdered and

women being raped on the wayside. If someone protested he was

killed. One woman was raped by many men. I was also raped by

three men in succession. A man, at last, took me to his house and

44 Menon, Ritu and Kamla Bahsin, Borders and Boundaries: Women in India’s Partition. New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1998, page 945 Ibid., page 3546 Khosla, G.D. Stern Reckoning: A Survey of the Events Leading Up To and Following the Partition of India. Dehli: Oxford University Press, 1989, page 230


kept me there for eight days…He subjected me to physical

torture, forced cow bones into my mouth so that I should be

converted to Islam…He put my hands under the charpoy legs

and sat down on it to say prayers while I suffered agonies of

pain.47

There are similar stories of women from Muslim and Christian backgrounds

in that period who either don’t exist to narrate them or have been silenced for good.

Women’s bodies had historically become territory in which men acted out their

aggression – by stripping them of their culture, language, religious identity and

gender. Where American women were demanding the rights to work and struggling

for their socio-economic independence, South Asian women were demanding the

right to be free.

47 Quoted in Ibid., page 332


2.2) Female Leadership and Problems with Hierarchies

During migration and colonisation – to America or in South Asia – women

and children suffered the most. However, it is apparent, women in South Asia had

bigger challenges to meet and needed to catch up on their education, skills

development and to begin campaigning for their rights from scratch. The new

countries didn’t have a powerful legislation that could help these women to think

beyond areas of their new identities. However, affluent women such as Begum

Liaquat Ali Khan – wife of Pakistan’s first prime-minister – came to the aid of

women who survived the atrocities of partition. Through her organisation, All

Pakistan Women’s Association, women were rehabilitated, given shelter and health

facilities, educated and eventually made aware of their potential as contributors to the

new economy. In the absence of legislation in favour of women then, these initiatives

became a ray of hope for their human development in mid 20th century.

At the social level, however, marriages of convenience based on lies,

limitations set by the traditional society and man-made principles of morality were

some of the problems that obstructed women from setting foot in the public sphere as

entrepreneurs, as independent beings in control of their lives, preferences and

decisions. It is interesting to know back in Europe in the late 19th century; women

were struggling with similar issues. Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen on the plight

of middle class women says:


There are two kinds of moral law, two kinds of conscience, one

for men and one quite different for women. They don’t

understand each other but in practical life, woman is judged by

masculine law as though she was not a woman but a man.

A woman cannot be herself in modern society. It is an

exclusively male society with laws made by men. Prosecution

and judges assess women conduct from a masculine standpoint.

Ibsen’s A Doll House is one such play that addresses the issue of such women

who get trapped in the man’s world. A Doll’s House is the tragedy of a Norwegian

housewife – Nora – who is forced to challenge law and society, and her husband’s

value system. She gives up her roles as wife and mother and reclaims herself, but in

the process she is isolated after years of social conditioning. She has to confront

suffering as she gains insight into herself.

The inspiration for A Doll’s House came from the tragic events

that happened to Laura Kieler, a young woman Ibsen met in

1870. She asked Ibsen to comment on a play she was writing and

they became close friends. Some time later her husband

contracted tuberculosis and was advised to visit a warm climate.

Unfortunately, they lacked the financial means, so she acquired a

loan. Repayment was demanded and Laura had to forge a

cheque. This was soon discovered and her husband treated her

like a common criminal, despite the fact that she had taken these


actions for his sake. She suffered a nervous breakdown and was

committed to a public asylum. Eventually, she begged him to

take her back for the sake of the children. Unfortunately, A

Doll’s House was resented by the woman who had inspired it.48

Ibsen’s settings like Glaspell’s were simple. He wanted his audience to see the

dynamics of his characters’ dialogues. The following lines from A Doll’s House

show how Nora gets entangled in the web of blackmail. What she thought of as a

favour for Helmer [her husband], Krogstad – Helmer’s junior colleague who had been

fired – uses as an illegal deed to threaten her to convince Helmer to re-instate him:

Krogstad: Mrs Helmer. Pay attention. Either you’ve a very bad

memory, or you know nothing of business. I’d better remind

you.

Nora: What?

Krogstad: Your husband was ill. You came to me for a loan.

Four thousand. Four thousand, eight hundred kroner.

Nora: Where else was I to turn?

Krogstad: I said I’d find the money –

Nora: You did find it.

48 Ibsen, Henrik, A Doll’s House – Kenneth McLeish Translation, Cambridge University Press, 1995, page 106


Krogstad – on certain conditions. You were so upset about your

husband, so eager for the money to cure him, I don’t think you

noticed the conditions. So I’d better remind you. I said I’d find

the money; I wrote a contract.

Nora: And I signed it.

Krogstad: That’s right. But underneath your signature was a

clause saying that your father would guarantee the repayments.

Your father should have signed that clause.

Nora: He did.

Krogstad: Let’s keep to the point, Mrs. Helmer. That must’ve

been a very difficult time for you.

Nora: Yes

Krogstad: Your father was desperately ill.

Nora: Yes

Krogstad: Mrs. Helmer, can you remember the exact date? The

date he died?

Nora: 29th September

Krogstad: Yes indeed. I checked. That’s what makes it so

extraordinary…..So hard to explain.


Nora: What’s hard to explain?

Krogstad: The fact that your father signed this document three

days after he died.

Nora: What d’you mean?

Krogstad: Your father died on the 29th September. But he dated

his signature – here, look – on the 2nd October. As I say, Mrs.

Helmer: extraordinary. Can you explain it?

Nora: I signed my father’s name.

Krogstad: Mrs. Helmer, you shouldn’t have admitted that.

Nora: You’ll get your money.

Krogstad: Mrs. Helmer, you’ve obviously no idea just what

you’ve done. But I’ll tell you, it was nothing more or less than

my own…..mistake. All those years ago.

Nora: You took a risk, that kind of risk, to save your wife?

Krogstad: The law is not interested in reasons.

Nora: Then it’s a fool.


Krogstad: Fool or not, it’s what you’ll be judged by, if I take this

document to court.49

Here, it is paramount to question if Nora had a powerful influence at the

communal level and if she had friendly ties with higher-ups of society, would she

have escaped the situation smoothly? Or more importantly, if she had more

knowledge and exposure to the world of market and economy, would she have made

the mistake even in extreme emotional circumstances? In the context of middle class

women of South Asia, these are important questions facing current times. In Europe

and particularly in America, women entrepreneurship is speedily gaining popularity

and importance. Gaps in the development of women between the East and the West

are due to variables such as the man-controlled legal systems, outdated traditions,

lack of knowledge in the sciences, and lack of awareness of rights that entitles them

to equal opportunities. However, despite Western women having some advantages,

discrimination still exists. Women are still contesting to demand equal pay and equal

status for the same job as males within and outside the sphere of family and public

sphere. If the idea of equality didn’t exist, there wouldn’t be struggles.

As seen in the previous arguments, women from all parts of the world share

more or less the same history of struggles and evolution although they are set in

different timelines. Some are ahead and some are catching up and some are leading.

According to a contemporary South Asian writer:

49 Ibsen, 32-35


Feminism is a tool, not an ideology. Feminism is an intervention.

It teaches you how to read everyday and find its sexist biases, its

racist bias, its class bias, its heterosexist bias, its nationalistic

bias, its religious bias, its secular bias. It teaches you to read

between the lines, find what's missing, find the gaps. It's a tool to

voice silence and uncover hidden things.50

It is also interesting to note that female leaders of the late 20 th century and

early 21st century mentioned in the previous arguments from different parts of Asia

shared one common characteristic: politically powerful parents and husbands.

There is no doubt that the rise of female leaders is linked to their

being members of prominent families: they are all daughters,

wives or widows of former government heads or leading

oppositionists. These women share dynastic origins and inherited

political leadership.51

However, even for women with famous last names, being female can be a

disadvantage. They have a tough challenge to be better than their ancestors as leaders.

But, these women have got it much better than women without family connections,

who still have trouble breaking into politics. According to the Inter-Parliamentary

Union:

50 Pasha, Kyla, from Urmila Goel’s Interview, November 2006. http://www.suidasien.info

51 Derichs, Claudia and Thompson, Mark, authors of Dynasties and Female Leadership in Asia, a German government funded research project.

http://www.suidasien.info/


Women compose only 16.6 per cent of Asia’s legislatures.

That’s an improvement over 13.1 per cent a decade ago, but a

long way from Scandinavia’s 41.6 per cent and still below the

global average of 17.4 per cent. 52

52 Seno A., Alexandra, Handing Down the Reins, Newsweek, 22 October 2007, page 57.


Chapter Three: Conclusion

It occurs to me why I want to make a quilt.

Of course, because Grandma did them, womanbeautiful

but also because my life seems so in pieces

not broken or scattered, but

I’m always working at putting together

fitting schedules and needs

piecing time to personalities

different sizes of energy scraps

various shapes of commitment

Making a cohesive unit

something functional and lovely

It’s all done with hidden stitches

sturdy and minute. Quilting53

53 Baker, Meleta Murdock, If I Had a Hammer, Papier Mache Press, 1990


Women with shared experiences have according to research by leading critics

in literature tried to construct and develop a collective identity that emerged from

collective oppression. For many women, commitment to women’s movement must

have also seemed like the birth of an individual identity. What comes after that?

When we claim, “I am a feminist,” how do we develop a collective subjectivity that

has rooms for difference and diversity? If we have constructed it, are we maintaining

it? Is there any coherence in our shared experiences? Are we quilting alright?

I did not enter the women’s movement in search of an identity.

Political activity simply presented itself to me as an imperative

and as an escape, a liberation from the privatised obsessions of

the search for identity.

The radical movements of the late sixties and of the seventies

did, though, raise the question of personal identity in a way no

political movement had raised it before. Earlier socialists may

have tried to raise questions of the personal life, but only now

was a culture already saturated with individualism popularised

by psychotherapies awaiting the revolution of everyday life.

Changed consciousness had become a necessary part of

revolutionary change.54

54 Wilson, Elizabeth, Mirror Writing: An Autobiography. Source: Mary Eagleton’s Feminist Literary Tradition, Basil Blackwell, 1986, page 181-182


Wilson goes on to say that due to non-availability or a very limited

opportunity to rely on the powerful appeal of solidarity with a class or group, we have

failed to develop a collective subjectivity.

Annette Kolodny elaborates Wilson’s point of view. She states, “What

distinguishes our work from those similarly oriented ‘social consciousness’ critiques,

it is said, is its lack of systematic coherence.”55 She exemplifies her point of view by

pitting our work against psychoanalytic or Marxist readings, which owe a decisive

share of their persuasiveness to their apparent internal consistency as a system. She

says, in contrast, the aggregate of feminist literary criticism appears woefully

deficient in system, and painfully lacking in program.

This rings true for the feminist movements as well – proved by various

examples worldwide that the movements’ emergence is strongly linked with the

growth of feminist literature.

It would be difficult to assess the reasons for the missing powerful strands of

the quilt that have not been knotted yet. Women of great talent and calibre have been

ignored or did not live to grab the opportunity of entrepreneurship – a modern term

for ‘developing self-hood.’ The middle class woman who is caught between two

extremes – modernity and oppressions of the past – is still partially aware of things

she is capable of doing. These middle class women could be the missing strands the

55 Kolodny, Annette, Dancing Through the Minefield: Some observations on the Theory, Practice and Politics of Feminist Literary Criticism. Source: Mary Eagleton’s Feminist Literary Tradition, Basil Blackwell, 1986, page 184


quilt needs. However, their inclusion as explained earlier would require them to attain

the skills, knowledge and have the compassion to co-exist with their fellows in the

quilt. Susan Glaspell, in her play The Trifles shows us:

Sheriff: Well, Henry, at least we found out that she was not

going to quilt it. She was going to – what is it you call it, ladies?

Mrs Hale [Her hand against her pocket]: We call it – knot it, Mr

Henderson.

It’s the knots in the quilt that matter. When those knots become as prominently

visible as the quilt itself, there is a gleam hope for a genuine emancipation of

womankind that also presents us with the opportunity of leading progress and

development from all areas and professions as a collective force worldwide.


BIBLIOGRAPHY

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Literary Narratives in the Socio-Economic Empowerment of Women in South Asia