Female Subjectivity and Assertion of Self in the Select Novels of Shashi Deshpande

Abstract

The Indian English novel is firmly rooted in the social and cultural ethos in India. In all societies, a woman is assigned culturally by the standards of conduct and decorum both within the family and outside the family. If she turned away from the prescribed norms, the society would consider it as a violation to the ideal image of womanhood and named her as an unruly woman. In a patriarchal society, women have not been seen as equal partners. In India, their place in the socio-political and economic spheres has seen major changes in terms of status, respect, role and responsibilities. Their image in fiction too has undergone a change, especially during the last four decades. The post independence Indian women writers have moved away from traditional portrayals of enduring, self sacrificing women searching for their identity. They are no longer defined simply in terms of their victim status. Instead, these writers have explored the multi-layered roles of their women protagonists and rejected the ideas that are aligned to patriarchal conventions. Shashi Despande, a prominent Indian women writer, highlights the secondary position occupied by women and their degradation in her novels. All her protagonists are caught in the magic web of tradition and modernity. Her women characters are aware of the social and cultural disabilities to which they are subjected to in the male dominated society. They seek change but within the cultural norms with dignity and self respect. Her heroines Jaya, in That Long Silence and Sumi in A Matter of Time suffer in silence for the sake of social and moral society. They try to assert themselves and seek their own identity. They decide to assert themselves not only as a woman, wife or mother but also as an individual.