1. Second International Conference on
Language, Literature & Community
21-22 February, 2015 Bhubaneshwar, India.

2. THE FEMINIST CONSCIOUSNESS IN THE
SELECTED NOVELS OF ANITA DESAI
Hemangi Patiland Dr. M. Ghosal
Department of Humanities and Social Sciences
Visvesvaraya National Institute of Technology, Nagpur

3. •Feminism is a collection of movements and ideologies aimed at
defining, establishing and defending equal political, economic and
social rights for women.
•Feminist Consciousness is an awareness of victimization of
dominating males of the society which leads to women’s subordinate
status and the oppressive consequences.
• The problem for women today is not sexual but a problem of
‘identity’ and to be called as ‘Other’ in the society.
•So, Feminism is committed to the equality for women’s liberation in
all its approaches as a women and emphasizing the value of women
as they are.
INTRODUCTION:

4. 4
RATIONALE:
“Why we need Feminism?”
A Man isn’t told to dress provocatively..
A man isn’t told not to go out alone after dark...
A man isn’t judged on his level of physical attractiveness..
A man isn’t called selfish for having career as well as family..
A man isn’t called crazy for expressing negative emotions..
I am a Women who goes through these things everyday.
“That’s Why I need Feminism”

12. Incidence of Crime Against Women during 2013
(All India 3,09,546)

13. Crime Against Women Percent distribution
during 2013

16. ANITA DESAI AS A WRITER
• Anita Desai is a staunch feminist writer and a pioneer of psychological
novels in Modern Indian English Literature.
• She portrays not the experience of the external object, but the cognizance
of objective reality as seen by the mind.
• Anita Desai tries her best to voice the mute, untold and psychosomatic
miseries of married women who are caught in the net of existential
problems and predicaments.
• Through her deep and profound analysis of the psyche of women, she
portrays the emotional world of the second sex revealing a several
unfathomed shades of human personalities and feminine sensibilities.
• She also conceptualizes that feminism is never static, it depends on their
socio-cultural and regional backgrounds.

17. THEMES OF
ANITA DESAI’S
NOVELS
THEMES OF
ANITA DESAI’S
NOVELS
EXISTENTIALISM
MARITAL
DISCORD
ALIENATION
RECTITUDE
QUEST FOR
IDENTITY
SUBVERTED
HOMES
SECLUSION
FEMINIZATION
OF AGEING

18. MARXISM
PSYCHOANALYSI
S
DECONSTRUCTIO
N
GAYATRI SPIVAK

19. HER THEORY
The world is organized by language and
consciousness and is structured by language.
Her definition of woman
WO MAN
In both societies, patriarchal and matriarchal, it is
the man who is the owner of the child because he
produces the child, even though the woman
nurtures the child.

20. • The concepts of normality and health that are not yet properly
defined in Freud’s texts, Freud argues that the little girl is a little
boy before she discovers sex. In expounding his theory Freud
does not take the womb into account.
• Speaking in terms of Marx in terms of use-value, and exchange-
value and surplus value, she says that a woman in the traditional
social situation produces more than she is getting in terms of her
subsistence.
• The writer says that they should chart the itinerary of womb-envy
in the production theory of consciousness; the idea of the womb
as a place of production is avoided both by Marx and Freud.

21. • Finally, the writer concludes that criticism must remain
resolutely neutral and practical.
• These texts must be rewritten so that there is new material for
consciousness and society.
• After all, the people who produce literature, male or female,
are also moved by the general idea of the world and conscious
to which they cannot give a name.

22. CONCLUSION
 Equality has to be achieved for all and that has to be in
TOTAL SOCIETY and not in isolation.
 No doubt, feminist research is research ‘on women,’
‘for women,’ ‘about women’ but not only ‘by women.’
 The voices of women with the voices of the men will make
the achievement earlier and easier.
 Men and women need to work together to empower
women to realize their fullest potentials to fearlessly
contribute to the world.
FEMINISM = HUMANISM

23. REFERENCES:• National Crime Records Bureau, Compendium,2013-Government of India
• Literary Theory and Criticism, Patricia Waugh, Oxford University Press,2006
• Usha Bande, “The Novels of Anita Desai”, New Delhi: Prestige Books, 2000 ed.
Print
• Amarnath Prasad and T.S.Ramesh, “Anita Desai: The Novelist Par Excellence”,
New Delhi: Sarup Book Publishing Pvt. Ltd, 2011. Print
• Sujatha Rao, “Post-Modernist Approach to Anita Desai: A Socio-Cultural Study
of her Novels”, New Delhi: Prestige Books, 2010. Print
• Manmohan K. Bhatnagar and M. Rajeshwar, “The Novels of Anita Desai - A
Critical Study”, New Delhi : Atlantic Publishers and Distributors, 2013. Print
• N.R. Gopal, “A Critical Study Of The Novels Of Anita Desai”, New Delhi: Atlantic
Publishers and Distributors, 2013. Print
• Lokmat Sakhi Newspaper dated 25th
September 2014, Print 1.
• Sharma K.L, 2009, Dimensions of Ageing: Indian Studies, Rawat Publication.
• Gender and Ageing; ESCWA Centre for Women, Newsletter, August 2007, Vol.
1, Issue 10
• Can We Prevent Ageing? Health Publication, National Institute on Ageing.
• Human Rights and Status of Older Women in India- A National Study, Agewell
Research and Advocacy Centre; New-Delhi