The Dissent Between Tradition And Modernity In Bharati Mukherjee’s Select Works

Abstract

Bharati Mukherjee one of the most widely read contemporary and commercially successful novelists of Indian Writing in English has published eight novels, which break the traditional conventions, customs and religion. Her novels represent the contemporary modern women’s struggle to define and attain an autonomous selfhood. Her female protagonists are at great pains to free themselves from stultifying, traditional constraints. She presents her own experience that she faced as an immigrant. Accordingly, her women protagonists are caught between traditional values as well as hypocrisy and the free thinking and unbridled sexual freedom inspired by modernity. Hence they are neither the specimen of woman fighters for dignity and liberty nor the bruised and battered women of oppressive patriarchal structures. Mukherjee’s novels represent the contemporary modern women’s struggle to define and attain an autonomous selfhood. Her female protagonists are at great pains to free themselves from stultifying, traditional constraints. The social and cultural change in the post- Independence India has made women conscious of the need to define themselves, their place in society, and their surroundings. The present paper seeks to provide a modest study on Tradition and modernity of the novels of Bharathi Mukherjee, the most popular Indian Woman writer in English.