Women and Hinduism in Anita Rau Badami's The Hero's Walk

Seminar paper from the year 2005 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 1,0, University of Leipzig (Anglistik), course: Canadian-Asian Fiction, language: English, abstract: Anita Rau Badami's novel The Hero's Walk is about an Indian Brahmin family finding its way within the Hindu tradition at the end of the twentieth century. Still believing in conventional attitudes but also being confronted with contemporary problems they have to adapt themselves and reconsider their opinions about what is important in life. Though it is Sripathi Rao, the 52-year-old family father, who is in the centre of the story the complex characters of five female family members are - for the most part - shown very detailed. In Badami's very emotive novel these five women represent four generations and different opinions about life, Hinduism and femininity. In the following paper the focus will be on these women and their attitudes towards Hinduism. In the first part the traditional role of women in Hindu culture will be described. To get a deeper insight into Badami's novel it is important to know what was expected from girls, married and unmarried women but also from widows in past centuries, and which important changes took place. In the second part of this paper the female characters of The Hero's Walk will be analysed. Each character will be examined concerning her position on Hindu religion and in how far she distances herself from the traditional role. In the course of this, the conflicts between them which result from the different opinions will be examined, too.