WOMEN IN GENDERED ENCLOSURE: A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF INDIRA GOSWAMI’S DATAL HATIR UNE KHOWA HOWDAH (THE MOTH-EATEN HOWDAH OF A TUSKER) AND EASTERINE IRALU’S A TERRIBLE MATRIARCHY

Abstract

The paper discusses Mamani Raism Goswami’s The Moth Eaten Howda of the Tusker (2004) and Easterine Kire Iralu’s A Terrible Matriarchy (2011) with reference to the plight of women in North East India. Although the socio-cultural context of the novels varies from each other, the paper argues that the characters depicted in the fictions are connected through the sense of deprivation and oppression that women have to undergo in a patriarchal society. Iralu’s A Terrible Matriarchy and Goswami’s The Moth-Eaten Howda of a Tusker underscore that neither religion nor modernity can offer a solution to the existing structures of domination and discrimination unless the women resist and break these structures from within.