SLAYED BY PATRIARCHY: UNDERSTANDING NAYANTARA SAHGAL’S “A SITUATION IN NEW DELHI”

Abstract

Nayatara Sahgal,realized that women are born as free as men, but they are not allowed to remain free for long. In fact, as feminists asserted, the woman is made by society. As Simone de Beauvoir rightly said, one is not born but rather becomes a woman (de Beauvoir 249). It is civilization as a whole that produces this creature. In fact this is one of the ills of patriarchal society. Right from the feminine virtues and graces are so instilled in her that she forgets that she has an independent identity as a person. For man his will is law but for woman there are certain pre-ordained moulds into which she has to fit herself or else she is crushed and finished. She has to be perfect ‘angel in the house’’ as called by Virginia Woolf. The patriarchal set up dwarfs the existence of women. It is believed that if women are to derive satisfaction it should be within the framework of their relationship with their husbands and their families. Even the faintest of any such idea that all human beings, including women, exist primarily for the realization of one’s self is considered preposterous.