The Patriarchal Perspectives on Female Subjectivities in the Selected Plays of Atamjit and Mahesh Elkunchwar

Abstract

The present research is aimed at critically exploring the selected Marathi and Punjabi plays namely Pooran, Farash Vich Uggya Rukh, Main Tan Ik Sarangi Han by Atamjit and Old Stone Mansion, Garbo and Sonata by Mahesh Elkunchwar who are both well-known playwrights of the second half of the 20th century. Their plays are concerned with many social and political problems and divulge various dimensions which help construct female subjectivity. Both demonstrate woman as victim of the caste, class and gender discrimination. Inferior conditions of middleclass women, sexual issues like prostitution, violence, extramarital affairs, rape, murder, gender discrimination, exploitation, psychological disorders have been examined with special reference to construction of a woman’s subjectivity. This research work is significant as these two are important contemporary authors who raise questions about the marginalisation and subjectivities of women in two different societies, languages and cultures of India. The selected plays analyse different women characters in the selected plays who sometimes accept the supremacy of a man, and resist at other times while also representing the psychological constitution of a woman in terms of her gender and her cultural placement. The present study has also undertaken a comparative study of selected plays in order to explore the typically patriarchal perspectives of the two authors in their given cultural locations on how a woman is constructed in contemporary Indian drama. The thesis employs readings of the plays in consultation with diverse disciplines such as Psychoanalysis, Marxism, Gender Studies and Performativity. This study will help forge an understanding of the female subjectivities from varying standpoints under the light of various discourses prevalent in the contemporary Indian locations, particularly, those of the selected playwrights.