Dr. Aparna Mishra
English
Bhopal, India
Email: aparnaamishra24@gmail.com
Abstract
Education is widely conceptualised within feminist theory and social-development discourse as a transformative instrument capable of enabling women’s empowerment, autonomy, and social mobility. In the Indian context, however, literary narratives frequently complicate this assumption by revealing the emotional, cultural, and structural consequences of education for women situated within rigid caste and gender hierarchies. This paper examines education as a site of feminist disillusionment in Bama’s Karukku and Manju Kapur’s Difficult Daughters and A Married Woman. It argues that while education sharpens feminist consciousness and ethical awareness, it often intensifies social and emotional marginalisation when institutional and cultural structures remain unchanged. By integrating literary analysis with feminist social theory, the study demonstrates that education often produces awareness without emancipation, exposing the gap between developmental promises and lived realities. The paper concludes by outlining policy implications for gender and education that emerge from these narratives.
Keywords: women and education, feminist disillusionment, caste and patriarchy, social exclusion, Indian society
1. Introduction
Within international social-studies scholarship, education is consistently positioned as a cornerstone of social progress. Development indices, policy frameworks, and feminist advocacy alike emphasise women’s education as a solution to gender inequality, poverty, and social stagnation. Education is assumed to foster rational agency, economic independence, and democratic participation, thereby enabling women to transcend traditional constraints. However, this assumption presupposes that social institutions are willing and able to absorb the transformed consciousness that education produces. In societies structured by caste hierarchy, patriarchal family systems, and moral regulation of women’s lives, education may heighten awareness without ensuring social acceptance. It is within this contradiction that feminist disillusionment emerges—not as personal despair, but as structural betrayal. Indian women’s writing offers a particularly incisive lens through which to examine this paradox. Rather than celebrating education as an unqualified emancipatory force, many narratives document the emotional, ethical, and social costs of educational awakening. As Elaine Showalter observes, women’s literature often records “the painful process of becoming conscious” rather than triumphant liberation (13).
This paper examines such consciousness in the works of Bama and Manju Kapur. Writing from distinct social locations—Dalit Christian Tamil society and North Indian middle-class Hindu patriarchy—both authors foreground women whose educational attainment intensifies their awareness of injustice without securing belonging or fulfilment. The paper argues that education functions as a paradoxical force: it empowers the mind while isolating the self.
2. Education, Feminism, and the Problem of Structural Limits
Liberal feminist theory has traditionally foregrounded education as a primary route to women’s emancipation. Simone de Beauvoir asserts that women’s subordination persists because they are denied access to institutions that produce autonomy, among which education is central (37). From this perspective, education appears as a corrective capable of dismantling gender inequality.
Yet postcolonial and subaltern feminists challenge the universality of this claim. Education, they argue, does not operate outside power relations; it is embedded within them. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak cautions that access to education does not automatically confer voice or agency, particularly for subjects positioned at the margins of social power. Institutional systems often absorb educated marginal subjects without altering the hierarchies that silence them (Spivak 287).
Dalit feminist scholarship further complicates the narrative of educational empowerment. For Dalit women, education frequently produces heightened awareness of exclusion while leaving caste structures intact. Knowledge becomes a means of recognition rather than escape. Disillusionment, therefore, emerges not from the failure of education itself but from the failure of society to respond to the consciousness education generates.
This theoretical tension provides the framework for the present analysis. In the texts examined, education produces critical consciousness without social legitimacy, resulting in feminist disillusionment.
3. Education and Caste Alienation in Bama’s Karukku
Bama’s Karukku occupies a central position in Dalit feminist literature, offering a searing critique of caste oppression as experienced within educational and religious institutions. Education initially appears as a promise—a means to dignity, equality, and escape from inherited humiliation. As a student, Bama internalises the belief that learning will enable transcendence.
This belief, however, is systematically dismantled. Bama states with stark clarity: “No matter how educated we are, the label of ‘Paraiya’ can never be erased” (Bama 29). This assertion encapsulates the fundamental paradox governing education in the text. Education sharpens awareness of injustice but does not dismantle caste as a social determinant.
Educational spaces, rather than functioning as neutral sites of meritocracy, become arenas where caste prejudice is reproduced. Bama recounts repeated experiences of humiliation within Church-run schools, exposing the hypocrisy of institutions that preach equality while practising discrimination. She observes that “they spoke of love and justice, but treated us as if we were born to be humiliated” (Bama 41).
As is evident from the narrative, education intensifies emotional alienation. The more Bama learns, the more acutely she perceives the injustice surrounding her. Education estranges her not only from dominant institutions but also from her own community, which often discourages questioning as a threat to collective survival. The educated Dalit woman thus occupies a liminal position—critically aware yet socially marginalised.
From a social-studies perspective, Karukku demonstrates the limitations of educational inclusion without structural reform. Education exposes inequality but lacks the institutional authority to dismantle it. Feminist disillusionment here emerges as a rational response to systemic betrayal rather than personal pessimism.
4. Education, Gender, and Nationalist Modernity in Difficult Daughters
Manju Kapur’s Difficult Daughters situates women’s education within the socio-political context of nationalist India, a period that outwardly promoted female education as a symbol of progress and reform. Yet the novel reveals that this promotion was conditional and deeply gendered.
Virmati’s education enables intellectual awakening and feminist questioning. She becomes increasingly dissatisfied with domestic confinement and marriage as destiny. However, this awareness does not translate into autonomy. Reflecting on her educational journey, Virmati recognises that it made her “restless, dissatisfied, and incapable of fitting into the life laid out for her” (Kapur, Difficult Daughters 143).
Education destabilises her social position without providing alternatives. As can be understood from the narrative, educated women are perceived as disruptive rather than empowered. Virmati’s learning threatens patriarchal order, yet the same order refuses to accommodate her aspirations. She becomes a figure of moral anxiety rather than progress.
Kapur thus exposes a central contradiction of nationalist modernity: women’s education is celebrated rhetorically but constrained materially. The educated woman is expected to embody progress without demanding autonomy. Feminist awareness produces isolation rather than solidarity, revealing the emotional cost of consciousness.
5. Education, Sexual Identity, and Emotional Estrangement in A Married Woman
In A Married Woman, Kapur extends the theme of feminist disillusionment by linking education to political and sexual awareness. Astha’s education enables her to engage with art, activism, and alternative forms of intimacy. This expansion of consciousness allows her to perceive the emptiness of her marriage with clarity.
Astha acknowledges that education has given her “the ability to see the emptiness of her marriage clearly” (Kapur, A Married Woman 212). Yet clarity does not produce freedom. As is conveyed in the text, education sharpens perception but does not dismantle the structures that enforce marital conformity.
Astha’s feminist awareness intensifies emotional fragmentation. She becomes increasingly alienated within domestic life, unable to reconcile intellectual fulfilment with social expectation. Education destabilises patriarchal arrangements but leaves her without viable alternatives. This condition reflects what feminist theorists describe as the emotional cost of consciousness—awareness becomes a burden when society lacks the capacity to absorb transformed subjectivities.
6. Comparative Analysis: Awareness without Emancipation
Across Bama and Kapur’s works, education functions as a catalyst for feminist consciousness while simultaneously producing alienation. In Karukku, caste hierarchy renders education socially ineffective. In Kapur’s novels, gendered respectability neutralises its emancipatory potential.
As Elaine Showalter notes, women’s writing frequently records “a struggle for self-definition within structures that deny legitimacy” (19). Education intensifies this struggle by exposing injustice without resolving it. The educated woman becomes hyper-aware of exclusion but remains constrained by institutions unwilling to change.
From a social-studies standpoint, these narratives challenge education-centric models of empowerment. They demonstrate that education, when divorced from structural reform, risks producing disillusionment rather than liberation.
7. Implications for Gender and Education Policy
The literary insights offered by Bama and Kapur carry significant implications for gender-responsive education policy. First, the narratives reveal that access to education alone is insufficient to ensure empowerment. Policies that focus solely on enrolment and attainment must be re-evaluated, as they risk overlooking the lived realities of educated women who remain socially marginalised.
Second, the texts underscore the necessity of addressing structural inequalities alongside educational expansion. In Karukku, caste discrimination persists within educational institutions themselves, suggesting the need for institutional accountability, inclusive pedagogy, and enforceable anti-discrimination mechanisms. Without confronting caste hierarchies, education may amplify awareness without enabling mobility.
Third, Kapur’s novels highlight the gap between educational advancement and social accommodation. Gender-sensitive policy must address not only access but also the social conditions that shape women’s post-educational lives—marriage norms, workplace discrimination, and moral surveillance. Education that disrupts traditional roles without institutional support can intensify emotional vulnerability.
Finally, these narratives emphasise the importance of integrating emotional and ethical dimensions into educational policy. Empowerment must be understood not only in economic terms but also in terms of belonging, dignity, and legitimacy. Feminist disillusionment, as portrayed in these texts, serves as a critical diagnostic tool, revealing where policy promises fail to translate into lived justice.
8. Conclusion
This paper has examined education as a site of feminist disillusionment in the works of Bama and Manju Kapur. While education enhances critical awareness and ethical questioning, it often deepens social and emotional marginalisation when caste hierarchies, gender norms, and institutional resistance remain intact.
Rather than rejecting education, these narratives demand a re-evaluation of its role within social transformation. Education alone cannot guarantee empowerment unless accompanied by systemic change. Feminist disillusionment thus emerges not as failure but as critique—a powerful indicator of the gap between educational promise and social reality.
For international social-studies scholarship, these texts underscore the necessity of coupling educational access with structural reform. Without such integration, education risks producing awareness without emancipation.
References
Bama. Karukku. Translated by Lakshmi Holmström, Oxford UP, 2012.
Beauvoir, Simone de. The Second Sex. Translated by H. M. Parshley, Vintage, 1989.
Kapur, Manju. A Married Woman. Penguin India, 2003.
—. Difficult Daughters. Penguin India, 1998.
Showalter, Elaine. A Literature of Their Own. Princeton UP, 1977.
Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. “Can the Subaltern Speak?” Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture, edited by Cary Nelson and Lawrence Grossberg, U of Illinois P, 1988, pp. 271–313.
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Sharma, D. (2017). Insights of Feminist Epistemology in Some Selected Novels of Alice Walker. Rupkatha Journal on Interdisciplinary Studies in Humanities.
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