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@article{184375,
        author = {Ms Ammu Unnikrishnan},
        title = {Voice, Silence, and Agency: Reimagining the Gendered Subaltern in Thrity Umrigar’s The Space Between Us and Jahnavi Barua’s Rebirth},
        journal = {International Journal of Innovative Research in Technology},
        year = {2025},
        volume = {12},
        number = {4},
        pages = {999-1003},
        issn = {2349-6002},
        url = {https://ijirt.org/article?manuscript=184375},
        abstract = {This paper examines the dynamics of voice, silence, and agency in the representation of gendered subalternity in Thrity Umrigar’s The Space Between Us (2006) and Jahnavi Barua’s Rebirth (2010). Drawing on Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s “Can the Subaltern Speak?”, and Kate Millett’s Sexual Politics, the study positions these novels within broader feminist and postcolonial frameworks. Through her narrative, Umrigar highlights how class and gender intersect, keeping women within long-standing silences. In contrast, Barua presents the gradual transformation of her protagonist from silence to articulation, underscoring motherhood and female friendship as sources of empowerment. This study also draws on the ideas of Chandra Talpade Mohanty, Judith Butler, Ranajit Guha, and Bell Hooks to show how Indian women’s writing unsettles the rigid divide between voice and silence by emphasising the shifting nature of agency within patriarchal systems. The comparison demonstrates that silence can operate both as a sign of subjugation and as a deliberate stance that opens the possibility of resistance. The findings suggest that Indian English women’s fiction reconfigures subaltern subjectivity by charting a movement from marginality to empowerment, contributing to feminist literary discourse while reimagining the gendered subaltern as a figure capable of negotiating power and selfhood within and against structures of dominance.},
        keywords = {Gendered Subaltern, Voice and Silence, Thrity Umrigar, Jahnavi Barua, Postcolonial Feminism.},
        month = {September},
        }