Feminist Perspectives in Preeti Shenoy's The One You Cannot Have: Agency, Patriarchy, and Female Identity

Abstract This research paper examines feminist perspectives in Preeti Shenoy's novel The One You Cannot Have (2013), analysing how the text negotiates women's agency, patriarchal constraints, and female identity within contemporary Indian society. Through close reading of the three female protagonists Shruti, Anjali, and Dipika this study explores how Shenoy presents women navigating tradition and modernity, love and duty, personal desire and social expectation. Drawing on feminist literary theory, the paper argues that while the novel operates within popular romance fiction, it offers a nuanced critique of patriarchal structures, particularly through its exploration of marriage, reproductive autonomy, female friendship, and work-life dilemmas.