The ‘Engendered’ Class: Intersectionality of Gender, Class and Caste in Munshi Premchand’s ‘Kafan’ and ‘Beton Wali Vidhwa’

This paper aims to trace the intersectional nature of discriminations towards women in Munshi Premchand's short stories, ‘Kafan' and ‘Beton Wali Vidhwa'. Premchand explores various aspects of the lives of women in his stories. The suffering and plight of the women in his stories are a result of many facets of their society and surroundings. This plight can be a result of their affiliation to a certain class, their gender and their caste-based identities. In this paper, the intersectional framework will be utilized to understand women's marginalization and suppression keeping the three aspects in mind: gender, class and caste. Gender, class and caste will be taken into consideration to analyze how intersectional discrimination towards women takes place in the selected author's works.