(By Aryavart International University, India)
Meenakshi
Vol. 2, Jul-Dec 2016
Abstract:
While presenting a parallel through women characters of mythical stories and legends to the present-day women characters, Githa Hariharan tries to establish that though suppression is not new to women but the means of oppression and the way women have been contending with it is changing and this becomes the theme of The Thousand Faces of Night as the writer chooses her main characters who share commonality in terms of their genetic identity i.e. of woman but whose experiences of being a woman are entirely different in shades. The paper investigates different types of women experiences as portrayed in Githa Hariharan’s debut novel The Thousand Faces of Night. The Thousand Faces of Night aims to present the inner lives of women and tries to scrutinize the confined social structure which does not accept women’s role apart from the conventional role. It is the story of Devi’s struggle, a young woman’s journey towards self-attainment. The writer highlights her experiences by interspersing them with those of other women and hence the position of women entrapped in male-oriented power structures has been explored. Devi’s story has been complimented by the stories of four other women – her grandmother, her mother, her mother-in-law and her housemaid. Along with the long history of women’s subjugation has been shown a scrutiny of myths that have a considerable impact on Indian psyche as well as the consciousness of the protagonist. In the course of study of the novel, we find the novelist dealing with the experiences of women of different generations, different classes, different edification and of different periods too. Although women have been under male subjugation since time immemorial, however, they have been aware of their subordinate position and from time to time they have developed the means of resistance and subversion through one or another way.