Gendered Geographies: Female Subjectivity and Space in the Works of Anita Desai and Kiran Desai

This research examines the combination of gender, spatial measures, and identity as embodied in the works of Anita Desai and Kiran Desai, who are eminent writers of the Indian English domain. Adopting a feminist-space theoretical perspective, it examines the manner in which contexts, that is, domestic, psychic, as well as world contexts, affect perceptions of oneself and consciousness among females. Anita Desai’s “Clear Light of Day” (1980) and “Fasting, Feasting” (1999) demonstrate the confines placed on women within family and cultural limits, while Kiran Desai’s “The Inheritance of Loss” (2006) and “Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard” (1998) consider the dynamic and discontinuous settings typical of diaspora and globalisation. Adopting Gaston Bachelard, Henri Lefebvre, Sara Ahmed, and Rajeswari Sunder Rajan’s theoretical ideas, it argues that the two writers adopt “space” as a metaphorical form of consciousness, reflective of the history of Indian womanhood from domestic limitations to cosmopolitan opportunities. It finishes by refuting that the transition from Anita’s reflective domestic realism to Kiran’s cosmopolitan perspective reflects India’s vast cultural shift, moving from post- independence reflection to world engagement, and thereby redefining female identity as a dynamic process of moving between belonging and estrangement.