Sham Pratisruti Poem Analysis

The theme of women’s suppression also finds its way in Ashapurna Devi’s novel. Ashapurna Devi (1909–1995), a prominent Bengali woman novelist focused on women’s imagination and enlightenment during the colonial and postcolonial period in Bengal, India. She has displayed immense will power, persistence and a strong spirit which enabled her to come out a prominent place for herself in the world of creative writing. Her different experiences have shaped her mind and personality and helped her to depict the emerging face of the enlightened Bengali middle class woman. Her writing traces the person struggling against the shackles of biased norms imposed upon her by society. She traces the extremely traditional upbringing that the female members of her generation were subjected. She shows how different individuals responded to these strictures in different ways. Some would protest un- questioningly, some would obey simply because they would not dare to protest, while some would break free and find their own place in the outside world. She has focus on the revival of a reformed traditional womanhood that would accommodate women’s need for self-expression. She considers education of women to be of supreme importance. She does so because she sees women, and not just men, as agents of female

The trilogy traces the life of three generations in a family — Satyabati, Subarna and finally Bakul that establishes Ashapurna Devi as a path breaking champion of women’s liberation in an era when such actions were few and far between. As Indira Chowdhury argues in, Rethinking Motherhood, Reclaiming a