Page 61 - 2019

Ph.D
(Social Sciences & Humanities)
THE IDENTITY CRISIS IN WOMEN:
A STUDY OF MANJU KAPUR’S NOVELS

Ph.D. Scholar : Raval Krupa Surendrabhai
Research Supervisor : Dr. Usha V. Kaushik

Regi. No.: 14146071002
Abstract :
A quest for identity has been an issue for every human being, especially for a woman
since many ages. Manju Kapur’s novels are literary documentation of Indian women and
their struggle for individual identity. The present thesis attempts to study Manju Kapur’s
five novels Difficult Daughters, A Married Woman, Home, The Immigrant and Custody in
the light of the theory of Identity Crisis.

The research work is based on descriptive, conceptual, analytical and qualitative research
methodology. The researcher has conceptualized the notion of identity crisis by reading
and analyzing majority of the available secondary sources like various articles published
in the national and international journals, books and websites, and has designed the
‘Research Tool’ which has been tested with the primary sources (texts) through
interpretation and analysis and thereby the researcher has explored certain research
findings.

The present thesis encompasses five chapters. Chapter I is an introductory
chapter that provides a brief history of Indian English fiction. The chapter discusses the
concept of identity, the theory of identity crisis, and an analysis of identity crisis in relation
to Feminism and other literary theories. It also gives a biographical sketch of Manju
Kapur, her works and her literary contribution to Indian English fiction. It ends with a
statement on the rationale and significance of the present study. Chapter II analyses
Manju Kapur’s first novel Difficult Daughters and her fifth novel Custody. While Chapter III
analyses her third novel Home and the fourth novel The Immigrant. Chapter IV makes an
analysis of Kapur’s second novel A Married Woman. All the three chapters aim to explore
causes and consequences of identity crisis in the women characters of the novels.
Chapter V is the concluding chapter which testifies the research tool and presents major
findings. The researcher has found that in all of Kapur’s novels, she has depicted the
causes responsible for generating identity crisis in women. She has discussed the causes
like generation gap between mother and daughter, marriage, education, gender
discrimination and social constitution. Kapur’s women protagonist’s yearning for self-
dignity and self- identity lead them to suffer from identity crises. All of them fight hard to
overcome their state of identity crisis and at last some of them resolve their identity crisis

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