Bankim’s Use of Familiar Patriarchal Tropes/Frameworks in Rajmohan’s Wife to Define and Re-Define Womanhood

Abstract

The present paper aims to look at the concept of womanhood as defined and revised upon by Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay, in his debut novel, and, incidentally, the first Indian novel, written in English language, known as Rajmohan’s Wife. Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay is the great Indian novelist, and, poet, who has given a new dimension to the genre of Bengali novel. In this present novel, he has tried to show the Bengali woman trying to come out of the conservative, conventional patriarchal ethos, and, slowly trying to make a room/space of her own. And, this, by not abandoning/rejecting patriarchy outrightly, but by staying very much within the patriarchal zone, and, yet asserting her individuality/personality.