Violence against Women in Shashi Deshpande’s Novels

Pages:21-25
Sharmila (Department of English, O. P. Jindal Modern School, Hisar, Haryana)

It was during last few decades that woman assumed an important place in our literature. Probably the chief reason for this interesting phenomenon lays in the fact that woman was for the first time given some slight chance of education, of entering into the intellectual life of the race; and, as is always the case when woman is given anything like a fair opportunity, she responded magnificently. Women embrace a different approach to living, which value relations more than self-enhancement. Women, seeing themselves in relation to others, merge and organize their selves in the service of home, husband and children, resting their senses of identity and value on it. They literally devote their lives for others. Just because they bear children, the responsibility of hearth and home falls on them. This blocks their way of self-enhancement. Many women rebel against the patriarchal set up which marginalize their position. They step into new roles, feeling uneasy in the identity handed over to them, where their whole existence is seen in relation to man. As they strive for a new independent identity for themselves, they have moments of uncertainty, insecurity, diffidence and sometime guilt also. Some of them are able to overcome the crises, while some succumb to the lashes of conventional society. However, they, in search of their new self, transcend their given identity. Torn between the traditional feminine and the modern feminist, they undergo psychological turmoil and seem unhappy. How far these women succeed in reforming the image of the ‘new women’ and in gaining happiness?