DEPICTION OF WOMEN’S INDIVIDUALITY AGAINST PATRIARCHY AND SUPPRESSION IN SUDHA MURTHY’S GENTLY FALLS THE BAKULA AND HOUSE OF CARDS

This study explores women’s individuality against patriarchy and suppression in Sudha Murthy’s novels Gently Falls the Bakula (2008) and House of Cards (2013). Individuality is what distinguishes a person from others, yet in India a woman still has to struggle with society for the right to exist as an individual. The paper examines the roots of women’s suppression and the related themes of family, marriage, money, and social norms, reading both novels through feminist theory and through Uma Chakravarti’s concept of Brahmanical patriarchy. The protagonists, Shrimati and Mridula, begin as dutiful, educated, middle-class wives, gradually recognize that their identities have been absorbed into those of their husbands, and finally move beyond tradition by leaving unfulfilling marriages to begin lives of their own. The paper argues that Murthy presents domestic oppression as a cumulative process, and that her heroines’ departure is an affirmation of selfhood and not an act of revenge.