Socio-cultural and Psychological Aspects of Violence in Godan: A Study of Caste, Class and Gender

Abstract

This paper explores the socio-cultural and psychological aspects of violence in Munshi Premchand’s seminal novel Godan (1936). It argues that violence in the text is not merely physical coercion but a pervasive structural phenomenon inscribed in the intersecting hierarchies of caste, class and gender. The analysis, using Pierre Bourdieu’s idea of symbolic violence with feminist and Marxist theories, shows how Premchand depicts the insidious kinds of violence that have been naturalised by societal systems and patriarchal ideology. The book takes place in the impoverished village of Belari in pre-independence Uttar Pradesh and exposes how violence is systematically reproduced through economic exploitation, caste-based discrimination, gendered subordination and internalisation of repressive norms. Through a close reading of the key characters—Hori, Dhania, Gobar, Jhunia and Selia—the paper traces the multiple registers of violence that shape their lives: the structural violence of the zamindari system, the symbolic violence of Brahminical hegemony, the domestic violence of patriarchal household relations and the psychological violence of internalised oppression. The study indicates that Premchand’s realist tale is diagnostic of structural injustices, illustrating the way in which violence acts as a web of interconnected oppressions trapping individuals across caste, class and gender positions.