Position of Woman and Patriarchy in Homen Bargohain’s Novel “Subala”

Author(s): Anamika Devi and Dr. Jayanta Madhab Tamuly

Abstract:

Patriarchy is the dominant code ascertaining the woman’s position. Women in patriarchy are placed in a marginalized position and each woman has common experience as an oppressive and exploitative creature of a gender biased society. In every society women are behaved and considered as an object, inferior to men and are deprived of equal power and position. Men are the decision makers who debate on virtues and vices of women and speak on the purity of a woman as chaste or unchaste. Societal honour of a community is related to a woman’s purity. The men are the subjects and superior sections of the society who determine the destiny of a woman by imposing various restrictions and repressions. Her sexuality is an important issue of discussion for man and any deviance by her is condemned. The main factor of women’s oppression is male control of a woman’s sexuality where patriarchal society plays a dominating role in sexual relations. Patriarchal society shows gender biasness in our society by expecting woman to be feminine with the qualities of mild, chaste, gentle, pure, dutiful, obedient, confined and private. But the same society expects men to be dominant, virile, controlling and decisive. Men belong to public sphere and women belong to the private sphere. So, in our society masculine agency controls female sexuality. Women are not considered equal with men but kept as wives and mistresses to satisfy their desires. A woman is judged as pure if she stays within the four walls of a home. But for a man the outside world is permitted as normal. In a patriarchal society a woman losses her identity if she fails to manifest the feminine attributes in proper measure. In this paper I will deal with the novel Subala written by Homen Borgahain, an Assamese novelist of the post war period to examine the position of a woman in a patriarchal society accepting the fact that both the genders male and female plays markedly differently roles.

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Pages: 11-13     |    2 View     |    0 Download