From Wounds to Words: Exploring Gendered Power Dynamics and Psycho-Social Victimhood through Literary Lens

Abstract

This paper critically examines the representation of psychological harassment and gendered victimhood in Vijay Tendulkar’s Silence! The Court is in Session (1967) and Mahesh Dattani’s Tara (1995), two significant plays of twentieth-century Indian drama. While physical violence against women often attracts public attention, the study foregrounds the subtler yet pervasive forms of psychological oppression that remain largely unreported within families and social institutions. Through an in-depth analysis of the characters Miss Leela Benare and Tara Patel, the paper exposes the entrenched nexus of male chauvinism, gender discrimination, and social hypocrisy in modern Indian society.

The study demonstrates how Tendulkar’s portrayal of Miss Benare reveals the silencing of an independent, economically self-reliant woman by a patriarchal, moralistic society that punishes female autonomy while absolving male culpability. The mock trial in the play becomes a powerful metaphor for institutionalized psychological violence, public shaming, and the suppression of women’s voices. Similarly, Dattani’s Tara is analysed as a poignant critique of domestic patriarchy, where gender bias manifests through medical manipulation, parental neglect, and the preferential treatment of the male child. Tara’s physical disability and eventual death are read as consequences of systemic injustice rather than biological fate.

By juxtaposing these two dramatic narratives, the paper argues that women’s suffering is structurally embedded in social norms, family hierarchies, and cultural expectations that equate femininity with silence and sacrifice. Drawing on feminist thought and social critique, the study concludes that Tendulkar and Dattani transform personal trauma into collective testimony, giving voice to the voiceless and compelling readers and audiences to confront the psychological dimensions of gender oppression in Indian society.