A Comparitive Study of Portrayal of the Girl Child in Short Stories by selec‎t Indian Women Writers

This paper is written on the comparison of the Girl Child protagonists in short stories of selected Indian Women Writers: Her Story So Far (Monoca Das), Merry Killing and Other Stories (Kamal Kumar ) and The Inner Courtyard (Lakshmi Holstrom), which are translated from regional Indian languages into English. In particular, this work studies the stories and compares: how girl children are doomed from the day they are born; how they are physically and emotionally exploited; how they are sucked sexually and how they are treated in the traditional land of India. The comparative study of the girl child protagonists proves that the plight of the girl child is the same and pathetic irrespective of community, caste, religion to which they belong and they are treated in a kind of ‘apartheid’ milieu. Furthermore, the paper presents an analysis on how the fictional girl children have been a victim to exploitation, giving scope for the further study of the plight of real girl child in the society.