Live The Ethics of Ambiguity and Gender Liberation: Exploring Anuradha Roy’s All the Lives We Never

In Indian society and culture, gender awareness plays a key role in shaping the concept of womanhood. Many writers have emphasised how Indian women have been restricted by cultural and traditional norms, from the colonial era to the present day. This article focuses on the character Gayatri in Anuradha Roy’s novel All the Lives We Never Lived, analysing her through Simone de Beauvoir’s The Ethics of Ambiguity within an Existentialist framework. It explores women's status, freedom, and the societal constraints they face, using Gayatri’s existential quest for liberation from societal domination as a case study. The article also examines how Indian women navigated and overcame societal and cultural barriers during the colonial period. This tension between freedom and restriction remains deeply ingrained in Indian society even today. The paper aims to show how the novel challenges traditional notions of womanhood by portraying Gayatri’s journey toward self-exploration, advocating for a more subjective interpretation of freedom. Additionally, the article delves into the constraints placed on women while highlighting the importance of moral freedom achieved through the emancipation of others, offering a transformative perspective on women's roles in Indian society.

Keywords - Culture, Constraint, Existentialism, Gender, Identity, Societal barriers,

Self-exploration, womanhood.