– A Study of Shashi Deshpande’s That Long Silence Woman is a currently complex being and her evolution is a study of perennial interest. In recent times the image of the middle class Indian woman has undergone a rapid change. Women are now more articulate. A sizeable portion of them are active in professional and public life. Although there is an apparent change, the basic roles and presumptions about women’s world remain the same. The move of the New Woman from home to the world and the hurdles she has to cross analyze factors hampering the movement of the modern Indian woman.
Women have been both a centripetal and centrifugal force for many creative artists. In India, they are idolized, the most idealized, and canonized image in art, literature sculpture and religion. These artists have exposed only their external physic but none cared to explore and express the psyche and the inmost passions of their mind. Indian women are still bogged down by the invisible fetters of religion, tradition and culture. The myth of collective unconscious prized by a society is prevalent in Indian women. The Indian women are in the transitional stage of moving towards freedom.
Three Stages of Feminine Freedom:
1. The first stage is Embryo-Incipience and the second stage is Incubation-Transition and the third stage is Fledgelings-Transformation. In the first phase the Indian women assimilate the native culture. Brought up in a joint family, which is patriarchal, they themselves internalize the values of the period during their formation and growth. Their evolution in their embryo stage is in the conventional mode. It is a retreat into silence dwelling as in a dark chamber.
2. In the second phase Incubation-Transition, there i...
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... woman. The only thing to remember is that choice is relevant only there is knowledge. In the same way freedom is relevant only when there is responsibility- responsibility to oneself, Freedom to survive ‘the whole’ within the system, and Jaya ultimately feels it is possible. She acquires moral strength after a long silence. She decides to sound like a true fledgling with the rational capacity developed by education. She propels herself in the right direction towards feminine freedom. She breaks out the cocooned existence and comes out as a fledgling of the new sought freedom.
Works Cited
Deshpande,Sashi. That Long Silence. New Delhi: Penguin, 1989.
Landis,G.Mary. Reading in Marriage and the Family. New Jersey, 1952.
Maurya, Sahab Deen. Women in India. Allahabad:Chug,1988.
Radha,.K. Ed. Feminism and Literature. New Delhi:Creative Books, 1995.
Her realization that she is not alone in her oppression brings her a sense of freedom. It validates her emerging thoughts of wanting to rise up and shine a light on injustice. Her worries about not wanting to grow up because of the harsh life that awaits her is a common thought among others besides the people in her community. As she makes friends with other Indians in other communities she realizes the common bonds they share, even down to the most basic such as what they eat, which comforts her and allows her to empathize with them.
I believe viewers are more likely to communicate upon the works of the Guerrilla Girls with one another in society when they take on a more comedic approach. This investigation has examined the Guerrilla Girls through direct connection to the inequalities of power over women in the art world. Several themes were highlighted within society that reinstated these cultural norms of gender and sex within the institutions of art. With a variety of forms used by the Guerrilla Girls to redefine women's identity in history, they were able to break down such barriers that stood in the way which denied the prosperity of female artists.
Women have had to fight for equal rights throughout history, but still endure many hardships due to sexism. Marilyn Frye made it a point of her career to highlight these struggles, and did so by identifying three main ways women are disadvantaged. Frye’s analysis begins by elaborating on oppression itself, then she uses this definition to detail the mechanisms in society that are oppressive, and ends with a closer look on women’s limited choices. Even though Frye first published her papers back in 1983 it is still worthwhile to explain and critique the ideas presented, and to analyze their accuracy in 2017.
Ihara Saikaku’s Life of a Sensuous Woman written in the 17th century and Mary Woolstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman written in the 18th century are powerful literary works that advocated feminism during the time when women were oppressed members of our societies. These two works have a century old age difference and the authors of both works have made a distinctive attempt to shed a light towards the issues that nobody considered significant during that time. Despite these differences between the two texts, they both skillfully manage to present revolutionary ways women can liberate themselves from oppression laden upon them by the society since the beginning of humanity.
The feminist art movement was a movement that set into motion to fight for equality, women’s liberation and women’s rights overall. The view of artistic production through the female perspective brought high visibility to the female artist, and was the beginning of many influential female artists whom made both political and strong social statements through the centuries. The feminist art movement became a platform in which female artists could rebel and express their opinions, views and ideas. By the 1960’s women had reached their tolerance level with being good enough to be placed on works of art for gawking purposes, but not good enough to be seen as an artist. This was a time when female artist began producing art that reflected the lives of females from their perspectives and not from a man’s
“Hindu symbolism and colour meanings dominate Indian culture and society,” in Global Graphics: Gloucester, Massachusetts:Rockpoint Publishers, pp.175-176. Stonjanova, Christina. 2010. “Beyond Tradition and Modernity: The Transnational Universe of Deepa Mehta,” in Brenda Austin-Smith & George Melnyk, Canadian Woman Filmmakers: The Genered Screen. Ontario, Canada: Canada Council for Fine Arts, pp.
... However, through the narrators partial freedom she more importantly finds a new compassionate/humane path on her journey to womanhood. Also, this new path in itself acts as a sort of self-healing for the grief experienced by the narrator. Though only partial freedom was found and cultural boundaries were not shattered, simply battered, the narrator’s path was much preferable to that of her sisters (those who conformed to cultural boundaries).
The world before her is a film of hope and dreams for Indian women. We examine two girls with different paths but one goal in common, empowerment. This term conveys a wide range of interpretations and definitions one of them being power over oneself. Both Prachi and Ruhi manifest a will for female empowerment but both have distinct views on how this is achieved. Prachi believes the way to achieve empowerment is through her mind and strength, while she still confines to tradition views of Indian culture. Ruhi desires to achieve female empowerment by exposing her beauty in a non-conservative way while maintaining her Indian identity.
The novel A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini is set in Afghanistan. It covers about a 50 year time period from the 1950’s to the mid 2000’s. Hosseini uses allusions to actual Afghani events to depict the ever changing liberties that the women of Afghanistan endure with the lack of stability in Afghanistan’s government.
In the novel This Earth Of Mankind by Pramoedya Ananta Toer, discrimination against social structure, race, and gender is apparent. The setting is in the Indies, or now called Indonesia. At that time, there are terms for different races in the book, which are “Native” indicating someone who is pure Indonesian, “Indo” a half European and half Indonesian, and “Pure Blood” or “European” when someone is pure European. An Indo and a Pure Blood receives more respect in society than a Native. Furthermore, European or Pure Blood is at the top of this social hierarchy, people who are European or Pure Blood receives the utmost respect in society. Differences in gender is prevalent in this novel, where most women in this book have power in their own homes, but in society is looked down upon. Female characters experiencing these are Annelies, the main character’s love interest, Nyai Ontosoroh, Annelies’ mother who is a concubine, and Magda Peters, the main character’s European teacher. Women in this novel are portrayed differently according to what race, social structure, and gender they are born in, which can be seen through Nyai Ontosoroh, Annelies, and Magda Peters.
In this chapter Mahasweta Devi’s anthology of short stories entitled Breast Stories to analyze representations of violence and oppression against women in name of gender. In her Breast Stories, Devi twice evokes female characters from ancient Hindu mythology, envisions them as subalterns in the imagined historical context and, creates a link with the female protagonists of her short stories. As the title suggests, Breast Stories is a trilogy of short stories; it has been translated and analyzed by Gayatri Chakraborty Spivak and, in Spivak’s view, the ‘breast’ of a woman in these stories becomes the instrument of a brutal condemnation of patriarchy. Indeed, breast can be construed as the motif for violence in the three short stories “Draupadi,” “Breast-Giver,” and “Behind the Bodice,”
Women have been an important part of art history since the moment of its creation. While women artists began to emerge from the shadow of their male counterparts, their representation in artwork remained particular to how women were perceived by men and society’s idea of what a woman was and should be. Women have taken great strides in taking the reins on their own lives and their own representations both in the art world and in the general environment. Yet so many names have been forgotten or erased through the trajectory of time and many of their struggles are left unaware. A woman would be more likely to become an artist or have the ability to make art would be if she was related to a male artist and had the materials available. It was highly unusual for a woman to study the subject on her own.
Mahasweta Devi, always writes for deprived section of people. She is a loving daughter, a clerk, a lecturer, a journalist, an editor, a novelist, a dramatist and above all an ardent social activist. Her stories bring to the surface not only the misery of the completely ignored tribal people, but also articulate the oppression of w...
Throughout history, women artists have had to face opposition from their male counterpart to be treated as equals in both society and in art. Men has enjoyed a level of personality in the depiction of male figures that have allowed for active roles while women were forced in roles deemed lesser. Their treatment in both society and in the representation of art, has limited female viewer in what types of female figures she would see. Her models were mostly passive and objects of beauty or femmes fatales.
The men have internally colonized the minds of women, often making them aware of the limitations. Women are illtreated and tortured for various reasons and are considered a debit to the family though they bear and bring up children; do all the house work and some of them do jobs additionally. Ambedkar points out, “A woman under the laws of Manu is subject to corporal punishment and Manu allows the husband the right to beat his wife”.2 There is another problem which affects almost all women is the problem of gender inequality. Since the women are given the subordinate status, they never feel that they are at the driver seat of their lives. Their role in the family or society is considered inferior than their male counterparts. Even the modern women who are educated and who have economic independence remain unchanged in this aspect that is their subordinate status remains intact. The Indian society which has accepted the laws of Manu denies education to women and thus mental growth. Manu says, “Women have no right to study the Vedas”.3 In modern India, though women are allowed to study, there is a danger of becoming sophisticated slaves in the patriarchal system as ‘Saritha’ in Vijay Tendulkar’s play,