Attempt a critical analysis of the story ‘A Mother in India.’

Among these also there were two categories. One consisted of writers who not only took up cudgels on behalf of the Anglo-Indian women, but showed equal concern for the Indian women’s exploitation and suppression. The second consisted of those writers who – true to the spirit of Anglo-Saxon superiority and British insularity – ignored the Indian women and concentrated on the hopes and miseries of Anglo-Indian women.

Sara Jeannette Duncan is one such writer. The dichotomy between the role of ‘a wife’ and ‘a mother in exile’ and the attendant problems form the background of the novella ‘A Mother in India’. It exemplifies Showalter’s comment that it is common in female literature that the writing can be interpreted as a “double-voiced discourse containing a ‘dominant’ and a ‘muted story”. The amalgamation of personal experience with social drama provides breadth to the story.