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Feminism In Fasting Feasting

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Women are portrayed as victims to the many patriarchal norms; men being the dominant ideology of patriarchy. The novel Fasting, Feasting examines various women victims of the oppressive society controlled by men. Anita Desai’s novel highlights the different ways each individual deals with oppression. The novel features a kaleidoscopic narrative that explores the contrast between two cultures that illustrates the reality that women are easy targets regardless of the country they reside in.
Uma, the oppressed heroine is forced to give up her convent school education in order to look after the only son in the family. “But I will work very hard! I will pass next time. Please, tell him Mother – I will pass next time!” Tripling emphasises Uma’s unfaltering thirst for education despite her abject asininity. In fact, her efforts to protesting seem to be in vain when Mama condemn her and decides. Furthermore the hyphen magnifies the dramatic impact in Uma’s desperate plea; albeit Mama favours her son’s well being over her daughter’s education. Notably, this gives a slight hint of women participating in patriarchy, where the mother dominates over her daughter in another sense women dominating women. Considering this a contemporary reader will have been shocked that the parents values the son’s welfare than the daughter’s education, this act of gender discrimination was itself a patriarchal norm in the Indian culture, however, this kind of bias ethos sends a modern reader in disbelief

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