Author: Chethan Raj B

Abstract: Meena Kandasamy’s ‘When I hit you’ is a tale of a battered wife who happens to be an aspiring writer. The novel traces the dichotomies of a misogynist husband who uses his profession and his ideologies as a masquerade to abuse his wife. It is a chilling account of the domestic violence and marital rape that the wife undergoes despite being an educated woman of elite class. If such is the scenario of the elite classes then, undoubtedly it is worse in case of a woman who is not economically liberated. The novel also raises issues such as class differentiation, child molestation, social isolation and most unflinchingly about domestic violence and marital rape. It also explores the reasons as to why people cling onto the relationship despite being battered and bruised as evident in the novel. The work of art attacks the diabolical nature of the male ego that is represented by the character of the antagonist professor and how writing acts as a liberating force for the protagonist.

Keywords: Domestic violence, Marital rape, Petite-bourgeois, Atrocities, Social isolation.

DOI: 10.22161/ijels.4.2.26