Shobha De´s Socialite Evenings

INTRODUCTION

Children who grow up in unwholesome family atmospheres are denied parental love that is the fundamental requirement of a healthy personality. Childhood is in autonomous period where it is not influenced by the past or the future and yet it has the tremendous role in shaping the character and temperament of the mature person. Children who do not get genuine love from parents fail to gather a sense of belonging and develop a sense of insecurity and fear. Unconditional love is absolutely essential for temperamental growth in children. There are many factors, like domineering parents, partiality, over-indulgence and hypercriticism, which destroy a child's sense of confidence and thus damage the child's psyche.

Shobha De focuses on the attitude of society towards women where they are relegated to a marginal position giving the central position to men. According to Meenakshi Gupta, The child rearing emphasis of parents of daughters indicates that the parent-daughter relationship is characterized by close supervision and protection. The discrimination towards the girl is embedded in our Hindu culture and even Manu does not mention the girl. According to him a man conquers the world by the birth of a son; he enjoys eternity by that of a grandson; and the great grandfather enjoys eternal happiness by the birth of a grandson's son. Such beliefs have led to a preference for boys as against girls. The girl child picks up parental values and integrates them into her personality. But when the girl grows and comes into contact with the outer world, through education and marriage, she comes to the painful awareness of discrimination and the lack of identity.

A close look at the past of the De’s protagonists of Socialite Evenings re...

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... out ironically that a child’s upbringing in proper environment plays an important role on his/her life. If child-rearing isn’t done properly, distorted psychology will be developed in the child which leads to different sort of disturbance in his/her forthcoming life. De protagonists put light on the aspect how children improper upbringing causes disturbance in their life.

Works Cited

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Ciccarelli, Saundra K. and Meyer, Glenn E. Psychology. New Delhi: Pearson Education, 2007.

De, Shobha. Socialite Evenings. New Delhi: Penguin India, 1989.

Hall, Calvin S. and Lindzey, Gardner. Theories of Personality. New Delhi: Wiley Eastern Ltd., 1985.

Pathania, Usha. “The Filial Ties-A Bane: Fire on the Mountain.” Language Forum 14.1 (1988): 108-16.