International Journal Of Language, Literature And Culture(IJLLC)

The significance of Indira Goswami in the Assamese literary canon arises from her consideration of social realities such as widowhood, marginalization, and systemic oppression over an extended period of time. Her narratives are therefore positioned as feminist interventions that mix fear, frustration, fury, and quiet rebellion while stopping short of being mere social documentation. The resilience articulated in silence in Goswami's fiction is studied. This is examined through the close reading of Nilkanti Braja and Chinnamasta, which finds silence highly charged as a mode of protest in the context of strict social and religious pressures. The protagonists, predominantly being widows and women in the margins, try to reject oppression verbally but soon find that language cannot oppose structures supported by patriarchal power. When language becomes an accomplice in an act of persecution and exclusion, the resistance only shifts to the silent and vulnerable naked human body. In Goswami's fiction, silence does not symbolize being passive; rather, it is embodied in the form of righteous anger against festering injustices. The mute body becomes a potent site for protest: endurance and restraint act to heighten the very intensity of dissent. Through her graphic and disturbing portrayals of violence against women's silent bodies, Goswami provides a screaming voice to those rendered voiceless and confronts the reader with the ethical and political ramifications of enforced silence. Thus, this study showcases how Goswami recuperates silence as an instrument and rhetorical tool in her fiction, claiming the power to resist and articulate resilience beyond speech.