Re-defining Discourse on Power-Politics, the Genealogy of Family and Womanhood: A Study of Shashi Deshpande’s The Dark Holds No Terrors and Manju Kapur’s A Married Woman

Abstract

In social science and politics, power is the capacity of an individual to influence the conduct (behaviour) of others. The term ‘authority’ is often used for power that is perceived as legitimate by the social structure. Power can be seen as evil or unjust. The effects of power have been taken as negative connotations: as it ‘excludes’, it ‘represses’, it ‘abstracts’, it ‘masks’, and it ‘conceals’. Power produces; it produces reality; it produces domains of objects and rituals of truth. My paper will focus on the positive aspects of power politics, the genealogy of family and womanhood. In this context, my paper will include the select novels of Shashi Deshpande’s The Dark Holds No Terrors (1980) and Manju Kapur’s A Married Woman (2003) through which I will discuss the condition of women in Indian society, their overall developments as social beings, what sort of characteristics they possess and what kind of women fit in the concept of ‘Womanhood’.