“She is Present in Offstage, Absent in Mainstream”- Unheard Voices of Women in Shrilal Shukla's Raag Darbari

Abstract

This work seeks to constitute the unexplored area in Shrilal Shukla's Raag Darbari, which is the lack of representation and absent female voices in the novel, by looking at the liminality of their participation in the larger rubric of politics, education and economics etc. The research examines the ‘subjectivity and positioning of women’, which is in contrast to the delineation of the male voices in the novel. The work diverges from the current readings of the text, which focuses on the satirical aspect of the novel. The paper accentuates on the autonomy of women and their indulgence in the role play of the novel by locating them within the corpus of Anchalik Literature. The paper is doing textual analysis by aid of feminist reading of the novel. The task is accomplished, keeping in mind the Feminist Mystique theory of Betty Friedan and Patricia Collins and Dorothy Smith’s Feminist Standpoint Theory. The main findings of the research demonstrate the urgency of issue where feminine ideals of women are completely out of the picture. The larger concern of this paper not only focuses on the objectivity of women but also their subjectivity. As a result, the research shifts the lens of looking at it from satirical framework to inherent gender struggles in the narrative.