Impossible Reconciliation in Manju Kapur’s Difficult Daughters
Manju Kapur’s first novel, Difficult Daughters, presents a daughter’s account of her mother’s troubled life and times. Viramati, as the name of the protagonist implies, is the embodiment of courage. Born in Amritsar in an austere household, she falls in love with her married neighbour and professor,...
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| Vydáno v: | URI:https://journals.openedition.org/ces, |
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| Hlavní autor: | |
| Médium: | Article ou chapitre numérique |
| Jazyk: | Anglais |
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Commonwealth Essays and Studies
2024
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| On-line přístup: | Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM |
| Shrnutí: | Manju Kapur’s first novel, Difficult Daughters, presents a daughter’s account of her mother’s troubled life and times. Viramati, as the name of the protagonist implies, is the embodiment of courage. Born in Amritsar in an austere household, she falls in love with her married neighbour and professor, Harish. Viramati’s struggle to achieve her own independence through education and a teaching career finds a parallel in India’s tumultuous course towards freedom. She becomes Harish’s co-wife and mothers a baby girl after an abortion and a miscarriage, while Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs are fighting with one another in Amritsar. When the father refuses to name the girl, Bharati, after the nation, the reader is sensitized to irrevocable pain of partition and loss in and around Viramati and the impossible reconciliation between love and liberty, work and family, Hindus and Muslims in India. |
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