ABSTRACT
Marginality as a concept comes from the lived experiences of the people living in the periphery of the social hierarchisation. It is not only a site of oppression and hegemonic control, but at times it is also a site of resistance and newer possibilities. The subaltern collective has endeavoured to rewrite historiography from the margins. There is a discreet and overlapping patriarchal oppression which violate human dignity and it is in this context that a study of the marginality of the gendered subaltern is most warranted. Women writers like Indira Goswami and Mahasweta Devi have taken up issues of marginality of women from their specific locations by portraying oppressions by socio-political as well as patriarchal hegemonic structures. This chapter makes a comparative study of Indira Goswami and Mahasweta Devi and showcases the overlaps and differences in the representation of women in the margins, their acts of registering their protest through silences, words and actions. An attempt is made to read select short stories of Indira Goswami and Mahasweta Devi by emphasising on women as gendered subalterns in relation to the contestations inherent in the word ‘margins’, it being a site of resistance, and a locus of a counter-hegemonic discourse.
