Beyond Conventional Spaces: A Feminist Perspective on Lummer Dai's Bride Price, Mamang Dai’s The Black Hill and The Legends of Pensam

Textual representation always plays a key role in exploring the women’s experiences and the ways of life in the historical and cultural spaces. The emerging writers while recollecting their history, culture, tradition, ritual and the live experiences of the people of their ethnic group, at the same time, they intellectually describe the emancipation of women in the patriarchal society. The women writings from the different corners of the world have projected themselves by deconstructing the patriarchal norms, looking for a universal space. Similarly, the Indian Northeast women narratives also provide a major concern for women’s liberation by representing various women characters in their writing. Writers such as Mamang Dai, Lummer Dai, Temsula Ao, Indira Goswami, Easterine Kire etc. depict the value of their ethnic culture in the globe, along with the changing status of women. However, being a male Lummer Dai also represents the female consciousness in his writings. Their writings represent how women have struggled for an equal space interrogating the partial issues in the patriarchal society, not in the motive of dominating the other sex categories. Moreover, along with the transition of society and culture in the dynamic process, the gleam of feminism is also visible in their writing. This paper will analyse Lummar Dai's Bride Price, Mamang Dai’s The Black Hill and The Legends of Pensam, depicting select women characters to show how the women have interrogated the legacy of pseudo-patriarchal expressions through their representation.

Keywords: Culture, Tradition, Modern, Patriarchal, Feminism