110. Bhavin Purohit

Abstract 110
bhavin purohit                                                                                                                                           

The genre of women’s autobiography: a narrative of dissent

Abstract

The postmodern theoretical thinking including feminism has supported and encouraged the rise of ‘antinarrative’ forms in all fields of knowledge that serve certain ideological functions in culture and history. Women’s autobiographical writings as they emerge in different historical eras in different countries form distinct historiography and culture of women’s writings that shape the marginalized versions women’s selves and identity in different cultures. Such narratives contest different social, political, religious, economic positions and the institutionalized constructs of reality and self. They disrupt and endanger the metanarrative of the patriarchal version of the genre of autobiography and make a quest for an alternative discourse of self and subject.

The present paper tries to analyze two Indian women’s autobiographies written in Indian languages. Sunita Deshpande’s Aahe Manohar Tari (Marathi: 1990, Gujarati (trans.:2001) and Prabha Khaitan’s Anya Se Ananya (Hindi: 2007) present a voice of dissent through the depiction of narrator’s self in an essentially patriarchal Indian settings. The choice of the genre of autobiography to express self and subjectivity also helps both the writers to disrupt the patriarchal notions of autobiography adopted by male writers. They explore two different cultural settings viz. Marathi and Bengali/Marwadi and assess the uncertainties prevailing in women’s lives with the use of different linguistic, narrative strategies. The paper also explores the distinction between male and female autobiographies and tries to locate these two autobiographies into female autobiographical tradition in general and Indian women’s autobiographical tradition in particular.