Emergence of rebellious feminist perspective in Short stories (selected) of Ashapurna Devi/ আশাপূর্ণা দেবীর নির্বাচিত ছোটগল্পে প্রতিবাদী নারী ভাবনার উন্মেষ

Abstract

All have to make compromises in life to live in a society. But in the case of women they face more challenges. In reality the position and opportunities to men and women are not equal.  In a patriarchal society women are often kept as ignorant, homebound and weak. If we look back into the situation of hundred or two hundred years ago, we can find that women were bound to be in ignorance then. In the beginning of twentieth century there were still many obstacles in woman education so they had limited scope for work life. In this bleak era Ashapurna Devi introduced herself as a writer. The feminist writings prior to Ashapurna forecasted only women's subjugation and surrender. Through they often talked about protest against the subjugation, but in very liminal way. We only find a strong voice for emancipation of women, achieving a solid ground and free air for them, in the writings of Ashapurna. Inspite of being a woman writer of that bleak era Ashapurna envisioned the lives of Bengali middl class women with a progressive mindset. Women have their own saga of life - their family centered lifestyle - ups and downs of life - their own happiness. Ashapurna constitutes her writings portraying these personal emotions of women. In her writings the subjugation of women is presented at first and then the emancipation of women is indicated. In her writings the Women characters are able to protest against all the insult, contempt and hatred.  In mythology even when the heaven was threatened by the demons, gods were unable to defeat demon Mahishasur, they took help from furious mother figure called Devi Durga. women come forward to protest against evils of society also. They sang the song of revolution.In this essay some such rebellious women characters constituted by Ashapurna Devi in her writings, are presented.