A Gender Analysis of Manju Kapur’s The Immigrant

Abstract

Abstract:                                                                                                                                   The history of civilization has been the history of women oppression and her marginalization. All religions produced by the patriarchal societies have been the most effective instruments of male chauvinism. This subservience of women from the primitive times and the consequent differentiation made between the two sexes according to their gender identity is evident in the Indian society too.  In Indian society, a woman’s role has been compartmentalized as a daughter, a wife and a mother. She has never been acknowledged as an individual outside these pre-destined roles. Over the decades, however, the position of Indian woman has undergone a transformation, where she appears to be aware, awakened, assertive and empowered. Manju Kapur is a contemporary woman novelist who has projected this transgression in a woman’s life in her novels, from a state of subservience to self-actualization. In The Immigrant, she has delineated this metamorphosis in the life of her female protagonist, Nina who eventually is awakened to her subjugation in marriage and asserts her individuality. The present paper will highlight a woman’s struggle and quest for her identity in a patriarchal society.