Astha in A Married Woman: Between Duty and Desire

Abstract

This paper examines the complex journey of Astha, the main character in Manju Kapur’s “A Married Woman”, as she balances societal expectations and personal interests. The novel depicts the life of an Indian woman, encapsulated in the life of Astha, who transforms from an obedient daughter and dutiful wife into a woman striving for autonomy, emotional fulfilment, and self-expression. When studying the narrative, the author uses feminist literary criticism to analyse how Astha’s emotional conflicts resonate with the structural gender discrimination that persists in India’s societal framework even today.

Drawing on foundational feminist theories by Simone de Beauvoir, Adrienne Rich, bell hooks, and Virginia Woolf, this research contextualizes Astha’s journey within broader discourses on marriage, motherhood, sexuality, and artistic agency. The paper highlights the tensions between tradition and modernity, individuality and conformity, and examines how these dichotomies manifest in Astha’s psyche and personal relationships. Astha’s romantic and sexual relationship with Pipeelika goes beyond self-empowerment, as it serves to confront traditional domesticity and rigid gender constructs, showing radical transformation. This paper emphasizes the critical relevance of the novel “A Married Woman”, including its critique of misogynistic societal frameworks and its celebration of women’s creative imagination and resilience as shaped through women’s agency, solidarity, and self-exploration, by locating it within global feminist thought as well as intertextual literary traditions.