The Representation of Women and Gender Relations in Six Acres and a Third

Abstract

In Six Acres and a Third, Fakir Mohan Senapati defends socioeconomic ideals that were radical in the late nineteenth century, when he was writing. Much has been written about Senapati’s criticism of social and economic injustice (Mohanty, Mohapatra, Sawyer, Vargas). In addition to his condemnation of the caste and legal systems as benefiting only British colonials and rich or dishonest Indians, Senapati’s stylistic choices challenge the way peasants were written about by the British and by British-educated Indians, or babus; he writes with deeper and less stereotyped characterization, thus providing a more subtle and realistic account of their lives. No less important is Senapati’s continual questioning of not only the colonial British authority, but also the authority wielded by Hindu tradition.