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Research Paper | English Language and Literature | Volume 15 Issue 5, May 2026 | Pages: 321 - 327 | India
Can a Wife Speak: A Study of Meena Kandsamay's When I Hit You
Abstract: This paper examines Meena Kandasamy's When I Hit You: Or, A Portrait of the Writer as a Young Wife (2017) as a powerful feminist critique of marriage as a patriarchal institution that systematically silences women. Drawing on feminist theory, subaltern studies, and post-structural analyses of power, the study interrogates how the domestic sphere functions as a site of ideological control, epistemic violence, and bodily discipline. By engaging Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak's question ?Can the Subaltern Speak??, the paper relocates subalternity from colonial and class-based contexts to the intimate space of marriage, demonstrating how the wife's speech is rendered illegitimate despite her education and intellectual capacity. The analysis foregrounds the husband as an embodiment of ideological masculinity, revealing how progressive political rhetoric can coexist with and even mask patriarchal domination. Physical and sexual violence are examined as disciplinary practices that regulate the female body and enforce silence. At the same time, the paper argues that Kandasamy's act of writing constitutes a counter-discursive strategy through which the silenced wife resists erasure. While the novel confirms the structural impossibility of speech within marriage, it affirms writing as a mode of survival, testimony, and feminist resistance. Ultimately, the study highlights the political urgency of listening to women's narratives of domestic violence and recognizes literature as a crucial space for challenging normalized silencing.
Keywords: Marriage and Patriarchy, Subalternity, Domestic Violence, Feminist Writing
How to Cite?: Kalinga Kumar Das, "Can a Wife Speak: A Study of Meena Kandsamay's When I Hit You", Volume 15 Issue 5, May 2026, International Journal of Science and Research (IJSR), Pages: 321-327, https://www.ijsr.net/getabstract.php?paperid=SR26505181738, DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.21275/SR26505181738