Abstract: The paper is an attempt to examine the feminist perspective in That Long Silence and The Dark Holds No Terror of Shashi Deshpande. Feminism as movement might have originated in the West but with the deterioration in the status of women in India and the subsequent efforts made during the freedom struggle to pave the way for equal status, there arises a need for feminist studies in India. So, feminists like Deshpande whose quest for identity and freedom in a patriarchal society has become dominant themes in literature, unfolds the problems of women in the Indian patriarchal society in a very positive way. Deshpande may not be a formal feminist in the strict sense of the word, but it can also be observed that feminism can mean different things to different people Though the male member in the family is prioritised in her two above mentioned select novels, however the solution to these is not violence to bring a change. As feminism has always meant independence of mind ,spirit and body, so in this context the writer focuses on the educated earning wife and her adjustment within the marriage system. Through her texts, it has been observed that the protagonists after attaining all types of rights, now struggles to adjust rather than to get free from the traditional world .They submit themselves to the tradition ,perhaps realizing the essence of the traditional ways at this transitional phase of society. Though economically independent, they are emotionally dependent on their husbands.
Keywords: feminism, identity, tradition, adjustment.
Title: Indian Feminism in Shashi Deshpande’s That Long Silence and The dark Holds No Terror: A Reconstruction of Identity through Difference
Author: Meghali Gogoi
International Journal of Interdisciplinary Research and Innovations
ISSN 2348-1218 (print), ISSN 2348-1226 (online)
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