Insights of Subversive Construction in Manjula Padmanabhan’s Play Harvest

Abstract

Subversion in creative writing refers to an attempt to transform the established social order and its structure. The great Indian playwright, journalist, and comic strip artist Manjula Padmanabhan subverts the conventional notions of motherhood, brotherhood, and other familial relationships in her Greek Onassis Award winning play Harvest. This paper attempts to briefly discuss the subversion of good characteristics such as selfless nature, treating one’s children without bias, avoiding too much of craze towards modernization, behaving in a humanistic way. Also a woman’s attitudes of being faithful, chaste and virgin towards her husband are portrayed. The paper also discusses the subversion of responsibilities in family and society.