Exploring Social disability in Perumal Murugan’s One Part Woman

Abstract

Feminists generally view One Part Woman by Perumal Murugan as a critical examination of the patriarchal and caste-based pressures on women’s reproductive roles.The novel portrays the intense societal expectations and stigma faced by childless women, highlighting how their worth is often reduced to their ability to bear children. The rituals allowing Ponna to conceive with a stranger further underscores the lack of agency women possess over their own bodies. The book is seen as a powerful critique of how deeply entrenched patriarchal norms impact women’s lives and choices. Disability Studies is an interdisciplinary academic field that examines disability as a social, cultural and political phenomenon, rather than just a medical or individual issue. It aims to shift the perspective on disability from a focus on limitations and medical diagnoses to understand the societal structures, attitudes and barriers that create or exacerbate disability. Disability studies also examines the meaning, nature, and consequence of disability. Disability Studies in literature explores how disabilities are represented, experienced and interpreted in literary works. It examines how authors depict characters with disabilities, the societal attitudes and perceptions towards disability and the impact of disability on identity, culture and society. The term disability covers all impairments, activity limitations and participant restrictions that affect either organs as body parts of a person life.