Exploration of Vision for Power in Kiran Nagarkar’s Cuckold

Abstract

Kiran Nagarkar, an Indian novelist, playwright, film and drama critic and screenplay writer both in Marathi and English, is one of the most significant writers of the postcolonial India. Cuckol, one of the finest and much critically acclaimed novels written by him focuses on how the women characters fight for power - not for them but for the sake of the male characters, in spite of the social and sexual constraints they have in the society and in the royal f amily. Nagarkar portrays all the possible ways for Maharaj Kumar, the heir apparent to cherish his hierarchy in the kingdom. He analyses what position the women characters hold in the royal family they are offered to make the heir apparent, the hero of the novel Cuckold. This novel shows a variety of ways in which women characters try to come out of the social and sexual confines that are set on them. It is not that all the women are concerned with the political life of the time but with the impression they make in the life of Maharaj Kumar, the narrator and the heir apparent in the novel. It is obviously true in India that limits are set for women and they are restricted in the social and political activities. When it comes to a traditional or an orthodox family, a woman has to stay inside the houses to look after the household or she may be locked up in the houses or as in the novel she is demarcated within the zenena quarters. To encourage their sequestration, the patriarchal society opposes all kinds of divagations from the rules that are set in the society.