Published Paper Details:

This paper criticizes the authoritarian rules prevalent in India since pre-independence. The purpose of this paper is to probe the condition of women as highlighted in the contemporary Indian novel �Difficult Daughters� by Manju Kapur. This work of literature stresses on the plight of women and how they are objectified and considered worthless. The writer vividly describes how the first character in the novel is metaphorically compared with a fruit-bearing tree, the similarity between the two being, just as a tree is expected to bear fruits seasonally, Kasturi was expected to bear babies yearly. Her life was merely her own, she was a puppet controlled by her husband and his family. The three protagonists in the novel tell the readers about miseries faced by women in three different generations. Kasturi is not modern in thinking hence she does not want her daughter to be modern in her thinking. The core idea of feminism is that women should have equal rights, power, and opportunity but patriarchy and its subsets deprive them of their basic rights. Here the writer has successfully portrayed the conflict of traditional modernity in her characters, she chooses the urban Indian middle class and represents the majority of the population.