The Crisis of Female Indentity in the Novels of Jane Austen and Shashi Deshpande - A Comparative Study

The Present book seeks to study the feminist perspective in Jane Austen and Shashi Despande's novels. The discussion of feminism in literary context, particularly in the context of Jane Austen and Shashi Deshpande, is an endeavor of highly innovative nature of comparing female voice of Britain and India representing a significant departure from the traditional mode of critical evaluation of feminism. It reveals both the novelists' sincerity and ability in voicing the concern of urban, educated, middle class women. Trapped between tradition and modernity, their sensitive heroines are fully conscious of being victims of gross gender-discrimination prevalent in a conservative male-dominated society. Though the writers belong to two different continents, countries and centuries but they have become the mouthpiece of millions of women who are devoid of right to live as humans. They epitomize the whole female community of the world.

A culture specific approach has been - adopted to unravel jane Austen's and Shashi Despande's pragmatic resolution related to British and Indian women's beleaguered existence.

The book, it is hoped, will make a rich and novel contribution to women-studies.

**Contents and Sample Pages**