Feminism and Tradition: Binaries in Gita Hariharan’s The Thousand Faces of Night

Abstract

Indian women writers have always tried to portray an honest attempt to depict the miserable plight of women in an effective way. The progressive elements of feminist ideas and the social status of men and women are thoroughly scrutinized in their works. In this modern era even though we claim that women have attained equal status as that of men, our social, cultural realities still tend to oppress women and many of these are reflected in the writings of many Indian female writers. Githa Hariharan can be thought of as one among them. Her debut novel The thousand Faces of Night (1992) depicts the struggle of Indian women for their mere existence. She shows how the couples survive and exist with each other in a social framework of marriage which is totally deprived of love and understanding. It is not just the plight of uneducated woman, but the same applies for even the modern, educated women. Through this article I have tried to make an attempt to bring out the feminist aspects of Hariharan’s work.