Feminine Psyche: A Comparative Study of Nayantara Sahgal’s This Time of Morning and Alice Walker’s Meridian.

Abstract

            Nayantara Sahgal is one of the most prominent Indian writers, whose works are predominant in raising voices against patriarchal society and gender marginalization in Indian writing in English. She is a journalist, political columnist, and writer and her writings advocate women’s quest for Self-Identity, Individualism, Interpersonal Relationships, and Social and Political Issues against women. On the other hand, Alice Walker is a famous American novelist, short story writer, poet, and social activist- who is the first African-American writer to win Pulitzer Prize for fiction for her work “The Color Purple”. Her womanist novels accord voice to the African American women who were subjugated to suppression. Walker herself prefers to call herself a womanist because according to her Womanism is far better than feminism as it prefers and appreciates women’s strength, culture, and emotional flexibility. This paper attempts to examine and explore the portrayal of the feminine psyche and the quest for “self” in their works. The paper particularly illustrates the comparative study of Nayantara Sahgal’s This Time of Morning and Alice Walker’s Meridian and justifies how both writers are similar in voicing out for women’s freedom, identity, and rights, against cultural and political upheavals or trauma.