The Study of Identity Crisisin Nalini Sharma’s The Portrait

Abstract

Analysis of Nalini Sharma’s short story The Portrait reveals the age long fight for identity by women folk in India and the protagonist’s success in creating her own identity. Women writers in the post-colonial India have often recorded the subtle experiences of women like menstrual fears, pregnancy hysteria etc., besides the patriarchal oppression in their works. This story speaks of woman who despite becoming widow when she still young never slows the society to consume her in the traditional way of getting remarried. Her decision to run a small ‘idli’ shop and live independently is a lesson for women in the society. Her refusal to give up that identity even after the marriage of her daughter makes her a prototype.