আশাপূর্ণা দেবীর অণুগল্পে নারী চরিত্রের বর্ণনা/ Female Characterization in the Short Stories of Ashapurna Devi: A Critical Discussion

Abstract

Half of the human population consists of women. Women’s identity, character formation, and patterns of life are continuously shaped by social institutions such as literature, culture, values, norms, customs, and traditions. Therefore, challenging the assumption that being a wife automatically defines a woman, Simone de Beauvoir argues that “one must participate in a mysterious and precarious reality called femininity in order to become a woman.” Femininity thus emerges as a socially constructed and empirically validated category. Throughout her life, a woman is required to become a woman, remain a woman, and repeatedly perform womanhood. This is a historical and social process that has been reproduced across centuries. Within society, women’s experiences of being a daughter, a spouse, a mother, a childless woman, or a divorced woman generate a dominant discourse within the structural confines of patriarchy. These life stages function as social roles that define women’s social identity and position. Society’s perception of women, as well as women’s internalized perception of society, collectively shape women’s lifestyle and everyday practices. The primary objective of this paper is to examine the position of women within the family structure of the Bengali middle-class through an analysis of Ashapurna Devi’s unpublished short stories. The study also aims to identify the directions of possibility toward the transformation and advancement of women’s position as indicated in Ashapurna Devi’s writings.