Liberal Feminism as Reflected in the Select Short Stories of Anjana Appachana: A Perspective

<p>           Anjana Appachana is one of the significant writers of the Indian Diaspora who gained wide acclaim with her collection of short stories Incantations and Other Stories (1991) and her popular novels Listening Now(1998) and Fear and Lovely(2023). Her fictional works discernibly focus on seminal themes like gender issues, isolation, marginalization, displacement, supremacy, suppression, and dominance of the male over the female in patriarchal society. One can find an ardent urge for the liberation and empowerment of women in her writings. To trace the streaks of feminism in her works is always a meaningful exercise. Anjana explores the predicament of women and the problems of existence through her writings.     <br>   Liberal feminism believes that equality between sexes can be achieved through education and by eradicating rigid patriarchal norms. Prominent liberal feminists such as Mary Wollstonecraft, John Stuart Mill, Helen Taylor, and Simon De Beauvoir propagated liberal feminism to emancipate women from cultural, traditional, and financial constraints through their writings. The present paper titled Liberal Feminism as Reflected in the Select Short Stories of Anjana Appachana makes a humble attempt to examine the feminist issues in some of her selected short stories in the light of liberal feminism and its implications.</p>