• Padma Kalyani Mohapatra

This article attempts to view Manjula Padmanabhan’s Lights Out under the postcolonial lens so as to reemphasize the standardization of gender and proneness of the ‘weaker sex’ to be seen as a victim to gender subalternism, which pushes them to a deprived zone of speechlessness and disempowerment. Basing on Gayatri C. Spivak’s seminal work Can the Subaltern Speak? and Antonio Gramsci’s concept of ‘subaltern’, this paper identifies different role plays and power-structures embellished in the society that widows a woman of her own freedom and identity. Putting a specific emphasis on ‘silence’ as a form of weakness and tool, the author exposes the brutality of the dominant gender, their perceptions, and thoughts, along with an attempt taken by the female character, Naina, to revert back and subvert the preconceived patriarchal notions of gender, power, and sexuality.

Subaltern, silence, madness, rape, colonisation

"The Existence of Gendered Subaltern-ism in Manjula Padmanabhan's Lights Out", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.5, Issue 7, page no.301-305, July-2018, Available :http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR1807392.pdf

"The Existence of Gendered Subaltern-ism in Manjula Padmanabhan's Lights Out", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org | UGC and issn Approved), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.5, Issue 7, page no. pp301-305, July-2018, Available at : http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR1807392.pdf