Resistance, Revolt, and Agency: A Radical Feminist Study of All the Lives We Never Lived

Abstract

This paper studies gender disparity and female victimization in Anuradha Roy’s All the Lives We Never Lived from radical feminist perspective. It argues that gender discrimination is a fundamental cause of female oppression particularly in Indian context. It emphasizes the need for equal power dynamics and communication between genders to negotiate claustrophobic domesticity and achieve female empowerment. It is a qualitative research that critically studies the problem of female subjugation using Germaine Greer’s conceptual paradigm of radical feminism through textual analysis. The paper highlights the imbalanced nature of marriage where men act as dictators and treat women as inferior and sexual objects. Greer pleads the importance of women revolting against patriarchy, and breaking stereotypical gender roles and the protagonist Gayatri acts radically. She establishes her freewill by breaking the bond of her marriage and followed her dreams within an oppressive phallocentric Indian world, she revolted against patriarchal control and established her agency.