TRADITION Vs MODERNITY: AN INSIGHT IN TO THE NOVELS OF MANJU KAPUR (Pages 46-55) by Mrs. K. Prabha in THE ENGLISH RESEARCH EXPRESS / ISSN:2321-1164 (Online); 2347-2642 (Print)

Manju Kapur presents the context of her texts narrating the joint families with her sharp observation of inconstancy of people and their relationship and acute social hypocrisies. She has unravelled the complex terrain of Indian family life, woman’s private self and public image in her socio-culture paradigms with much insight, affection and judgment. In all her novels, she expresses her feminine concern through her protagonists who struggle their best in a tradition soaked society. As they come from middle class social background, she presents her sharp observations of social hypocrisies and human weaknesses in them very perceptively. Manju Kapur in her novels narrates feminist awakenings. They are stories of women who realize that they could be something else than a wife and a mother. They also become painfully aware that patriarchal traditions are much more powerful than the desire to change the norm and the established roles in the domestic sphere. Both Virmati and Astha try hard to choose freedom, self -realization and something else than a conventional life for themselves. In her fiction, displaying a female perspective with universal potential, Kapur is able to represent how individual human beings cope with the collective sphere which surrounds them, establishing power- relationships and webs in human interactions. Key-words: social hypocrisies, socio-culture paradigms, feminine concern, protagonists, tradition soaked society, feminist awakenings, patriarchal traditions