This article examines the representation of women in the fiction of Anita Desai and Jhumpa Lahiri through the perspectives of feminist and postcolonial criticism. Both writers portray women struggling within restrictive social and cultural structures, though their narrative contexts differ significantly. Anita Desai primarily focuses on women confined within traditional Indian domestic spaces, while Jhumpa Lahiri explores the experiences of immigrant and diasporic women negotiating identity in transnational environments. The article argues that both writers depict women as “trapped between worlds” — between tradition and modernity, silence and expression, home and exile, duty and individuality. Through characters such as Bim and Uma in Desai’s Clear Light of Day and Fasting, Feasting, and Ashima and Gauri in Lahiri’s The Namesake and The Lowland, the study explores themes of emotional isolation, patriarchal oppression, migration, hybridity, and female resistance. Desai’s women often resist through silence, introspection, and emotional endurance, whereas Lahiri’s women negotiate autonomy through migration, education, and intellectual independence. However, both writers reveal that female agency remains emotionally costly and incomplete within patriarchal systems. The article further demonstrates how silence, displacement, and fragmented identity become central experiences shaping women’s lives in both domestic and diasporic contexts. By presenting women who struggle to preserve individuality despite emotional and social confinement, Desai and Lahiri contribute significantly to feminist and postcolonial literary discourse. Their fiction illuminates the psychological realities of women negotiating identity and belonging in changing social and cultural environments.
P.G. Department of English Magadh University, Bodh-Gaya
