IDENTITY PERSPECTIVES IN THE SELECT NOVELS OF MANJU KAPUR-A THEMATIC STUDY

This paper brings forth the issue of gender discrimination and Indian women's struggle under a closed society's patriarchal system in Manju Kapur's Difficult Daughters (1998). Which fetched her Commonwealth Prize in Eurasia Section, A Married Woman (2003), Home (2006), and The Immigrant (2009) with the view to study tradition versus modernity in Manju Kapur's novels. This novel based on the crisis in the value system of the modern society. Manju Kapur is much interested to present the questions and problems related to women in a larger perspective. In her novels, the women's questions have emerged essentially in the context of the identity of the new educated middle class. Manju Kapur in her works depict how women manage to negotiate both the spaces in their lives, through sacrifices they have to make the home fires burning and also through their personal lives they find some kind of fulfillment outside the home. The idea that all woman meant to get married and be submissive to their husbands was allotted a second look when we go through the books of Manju Kapur. She inspires women to cross the threshold of family life. She grapples with the intermingling of traditional and modern ethos. In this paper, I delve into the question of searching for a distinct identity in special reference to Manju Kapur's. This paper attempts to view the female body in Manju Kapur's Custody novel from a feminist perspective.