Canada and India were once British Empire colonies, and they are now Commonwealth members. The immense contrast between Europe in general and England in particular has had its effect on the social, political, cultural, and literary landscape of the two countries, which can be easily understood. Canada’s geophysical factors made it an entirely different country from typical European nations. Most immigrants to Canada had little literary tradition of their own, except for some. India’s position, however, is quite different, as it has a glorious cultural heritage that goes back to the Vedic Era. This paper conducts a comparative scrutiny of the concept of gender and its representation by examining one novelist from India and one from Canada.
The comparative study of Anita Nair and Margaret Laurence within the Commonwealth context compares the two paradigms on two levels. On one hand, it seeks to compare two authors with different cultures; on the other hand, the study draws attention to the underlying concerns of the two authors and to the parallels that can be found in such different disciplines as philosophy, psychology, and religion. The selected novels of Anita Nair and Margaret Laurence testify to the struggles women face in defining their individual selves within male-dominated cultures. Both women authors portray their female characters through different modes of perception.