DOI: 10.36347/sjahss.2017.v05i08.031

Pages: 1020-1023

Among the many contemporary women writers in India writing in English, Manju Kapur holds a prominent position and her novels have carved a niche for herself in the terrain of women‟s emancipation. Set around the time of Partition, Kapur‟s first novel, Difficult Daughters published in 1998, raised issues of women‟s education and liberation amidst the shackles of patriarchal hegemony. This paper explores the different and emerging facets of feminism in India during two different time periods. The characters of Virmati and Kasturi have been selected as subjects for analysis. The paper also looks at the socio-political structures that dominate the female space and the predicament of women in this biased and patriarchal construct. This paper traces the characters‟ growth and their path to various degrees of selfrealization. Ideas such as feminine struggle, education and emancipation will be detailed with appropriation.