Gender-based Violence and Women’s Empowerment in Mehta and Kapur’s Novel

With an emphasis on the issue of women’s empowerment and gender-based violence and its capacity to spur societal change, this research paper looks into how female characters are portrayed in the books of Manju Kapur and Rama Mehta. In addition to examining how these writers portray their female characters' challenges and hopes. It will examine how these stories add to larger discussions around gender equality and societal change. This article examines how Mehta and Kapur show women’s empowerment as a catalyst for social change. It uses close readings of selected novels like ‘Difficult Daughters’, ‘A Married Women’, and Inside the Haveli’ to highlight their different viewpoints and approaches. They fight for education, the main female protagonist of ‘Difficult Daughters’ is a symbol of a woman who defies social conventions and expectations by pursuing an education and independence despite her conventional family’s limitations. She breaks free from the constraints of patriarchal norms and fights for her freedom, ultimately inspiring other women to do the same. By portraying strong, multifaceted, and empowered female characters, Kapur and Mehta illuminate women's lives in traditional societies and add to larger discussions about gender, power, and societal change. Here’s an appropriate research methodology that I will use for this paper selection of novels, literature review, comparative analysis framework, feminist literary theory, textual analysis, reader response analysis and so on.

Keywords- Empowerment, Gender-based Violence, Multifaceted, Tradition