Ideals, Images and Real Lives: Women in Literature and History

The papers in this volume reflect the refinement of theoretical approaches in many ways. They exemplify both the advances in feminist theory, especially with regard to notions of and interconnections between gender, male power and ideology, and the course of women’s movements in the third world. An important theoretical contribution of the third world scholars–unlike western theory which ignored imperialism–has been the examination of changes in gender relations brought about by the impact of colonialism. The real lives and mythic models depicted here intersect at various points–they are not two separate histories. Section I deals with real lives. Section II presents the formation of a nationalist iconography in fiction where nationalism is conjoined with notion of womanhood. In Section III are dealt with models for women provided by Indian tradition and its various interpreters, and the ways in which feminists have tried to grapple with them.