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@article{204249,
        author = {Dr. Priyanka Tyagi and Dr. Jitender Vig},
        title = {Suffering and Sacrifice: The Representation of Women in Sharatchandra Chattopadhyay's Novels and the Gender Politics of Early Twentieth–Century Bengal},
        journal = {International Journal of Innovative Research in Technology},
        year = {2026},
        volume = {13},
        number = {1},
        pages = {2682-2688},
        issn = {2349-6002},
        url = {https://ijirt.org/article?manuscript=204249},
        abstract = {This paper focuses on the themes of suffering and sacrifice in the novels of Sharatchandra Chattopadhyay (1876–1938) and how these themes help create female identity in the social and moral context of early twentieth century Bengal. The present study takes its cue from the close readings of Devdas (1917), Charitraheen (1917), Srikanta (1917-33) and Pather Dabi (1926) to trace the negotiation of intersecting pressures of caste, class, conjugal duty and patriarchal morality. The paper suggests that Sharatchandra reflects and challenges dominant notions of the male gender of that colonial era Bengal through feminist literary criticism and historical contextualization. Many of his female characters are embodying endurance and self-negation – values awarded by a society that praised the suffering of women as moral strength – but some of them represent a kind of moral resistance and emotional independence that makes an easy interpretation of victimhood impossible. The paper places these literary images in the context of the overall cultural politics of the nationalist period when women were both celebrated as representatives of tradition and excluded from personal and public independence. This paper can add to the current debate concerning the aspects of gender, morality and literary modernity in the literature of South Asia by reclaiming the paradoxes in Sharatchandra's female characters.},
        keywords = {Sharatchandra Chattopadhyay, suffering, sacrifice, Bengali women, feminist literary criticism, colonial Bengal, gender and morality},
        month = {June},
        }