Debunking Patriarchy: Gender Ideology in Select Fiction of Mahasweta Devi and PunyakanteWijenaike

Abstract

Mahasweta Devi and PunyakanteWijenaike, who articulate the anxieties and anguishes of the voiceless and marginalised, offer in their works a space to represent them. They expose and denounce notions of male superiority, the institution of marriage that is responsible for female subservience, domestic violence and gendered homelessness, all of which serve to tyrannise and victimise women. This paper attempts an analysis of select works of Mahasweta Devi and PunyakanteWijenaike where certain notions of womanhood, marriage and widowhood within the patriarchal social order are interrogated and contested.