Representing Violence Against Women in Post Colonial Indian Writing

The discourse of violence against women reveals the marginalized and exploited status of women; nevertheless it is an empowering one. The erasure of the female body in the colonial discourse can be contrasted with the felt presence of actual, living women in contemporary writing. Even if patriarchal violence aims at demolishing identity for a particular gender, its presence as a theme ensures that it is an issue society and the individual need to grapple with. Modernity and modernization, two aspects of modernism seem to ensure that the individual is sacrosanct and that the liberty of the individual honoured. However, the irony of most civilized societies is the spurt in rape cases. Its ensuing culture of fear is a lived reality, universally perceived. This culture of fear created by crimes of violence against women successfully restricts women through their incarceration to the private sphere. This reifies the patriarchal gender bias and spatially restricts women.