Shackles of Liberation: Voices of Women in the Select Novels of Shashi Deshpande

Abstract

Shashi Deshpande is an award winning Indian novelist. She is an eminent novelist with a deep insight into the psyche of middle class Indian women. She has presented the modern Indian women’s search for self in her novels. With more than a dozen fictional works to her credit she has successfully captured the true emotions of Indian women. She describes the conflicts and predicament of the Indian middle class women in her writings. Her works The Dark Holds No Terrors, That Long Silence and A Matter of Time deal with the feminine issues. She presents a sensitive portrayal of Indian womanhood with a rare gift of sharp psychological insights. The women in her novels are subjected to continuous physical and sexual assaults in the society. Her novels deal with the theme of the quest for a female identity and the complexities of man-women relationship, specially in the context of marriage. The Indian woman has been a silent sufferer for years. While she has played different roles such as wife, mother, sister and daughter, she has never been able to claim her own individuality. In the novel  The Dark Holds No Terrors Manohar’s male ego tries to dominate Sarita which results in disintegration ultimately. In That Long SilenceJaya recognizes herself as a failed writer because her stories are rejected for lack of genuine feelings which she has laid aside. She becomes the shadow of her husband. A Matter of Timeis an exploration of  Kalyani, Sumi and her daughter Aru. Focusing on the marital relation she seeks to expose the tradition by which a woman is trained to play her subservient role in the family. Her novels reveal the man made patriarchal traditions uneasiness of the modern Indian women in being a part of them. Her young heroines reveal against the traditional way of life and patriarchal values and try to break all the social and economical barriers.