In her view they don’t speak much but we have an ample opportunity to read their inner beings. Despande has a rare vitality of language to make her portraits striking as well as convincing. 5 At last Jaya decided to come out of the game of power to mutually construct a peaceful world of equality with Mohan. Instead of using her feminine power she understood that living in a family not always demand a constrained life. She is ready to dedicate herself for her family. Jaya tend to opt for the easier path of confirmation rather than confrontation. The expression that “two bullocks yoked together” is now better understood by her, that they are moving in same direction with same pace only to avoid pain and discomfort. That Long Silence, thus, teaches …show more content…
She decides to "plug that hole" as said earlier by speaking, listening and erasing the alienation between her and Mohan. It is this erasing of the loneliness that symbolizes the assertion of her feminine voice. Now she decided to continue as a writer. Such an ending suggests a new beginning for Jaya and Mohan.
In the novel under study, Shashi Deshpande presents the meanings of silence. As she puts it: “You learn a lot of tricks to get by in a relationship. Silence is one of them. . . . You never find a woman criticizing her husband, even playfully, in case it might damage the relationship.” In charting the course of such unconventional women, Deshpande seems to make an obvious plea that traditional society must re- mould itself in order to accept these emerging new women. 7
All these stories lay emphasis on the gender-inequality and injustice as the central theme of That Long Silence. Sarla Palkar remarks that these are the “Victims of patriarchy and also of their own silence”.8 Undeniably, Deshpande presents the restraint on women “with greater self-consciousness, a deeper sense of involvement and often with a sense of anger”. She depicts the inner chaos of the women vividly in a cool and sensitive
If Hosseini aims to convey a message that women are tantalizing and provide warmth to society but are hidden and masked, evidently there must be an issue causing this suppression of women in society; thus the political and cultural backdrop plays in to the impression the reader takes away from the novel. Hosseini conveys his message of enduring and optimism profoundly through these two characters. If not for the political and cultural backdrop of the novel, the story could not have been developed with the significance and comprehensiveness that it currently has, which essentially are the backbone of the impact this novel has on the reader through a striking presentation of reality that has never been seen in this light, sending a motivational message to fight for the right cause and endure when necessary to achieve the ultimate target.
The narrator and her husband interactions shows her submissive in terms of gender equality. Although John perceives the narrator as a child with no volunteer ideas, it is shown in her writings that this is not valid but shaped to comply by her surroundings and society. The narrator’s inferior had negatively impacts her mental and physical health to the point she ripped off the wallpaper to break free. Nevertheless, when read critically, the story also brought the women suffrage and its struggle to light. Since this story was published, women had slowly breaking away from men’s suppression and gains more rights. In short, society and our culture define our gender role; however, the changing economic, social, and education open up a new path for women. Nowadays, women are given the chance to prove themselves and can act beyond their gender role. However, the equality between genders has not been achieved yet. Therefore, women should continue to fight for their rights and freedoms until they are treated with respect and enjoy
Be that as it may, Deshpande makes gender central to her writings. Her works deal not only with ordinary women in ordinary, urban situations but stem from a firm belief that our lives are to a great extent governed by gender. Women she feels, have not participated in the process of word-making; the stories myths and legends in our Puranas, epics and kathsa have been written by men. Deshpande feels that women never start with a picture of themselves on a clean slate, their self-image honed by the hegemonic influences of myths, movies and current-day soap operas. She sees herself as a writer whose writing comes Deshpande’s real concern is to explore the root cause of the fragmentation and dichotomy of her characters and to observe what happens
...present powerful characters, while females represent unimportant characters. Unaware of the influence of society’s perception of the importance of sexes, literature and culture go unchanged. Although fairytales such as Sleeping Beauty produce charming entertainment for children, their remains a didactic message that lays hidden beneath the surface; teaching future generations to be submissive to the inequalities of their gender. Feminist critic the works of former literature, highlighting sexual discriminations, and broadcasting their own versions of former works, that paints a composite image of women’s oppression (Feminist Theory and Criticism). Women of the twenty-first century serge forward investigating, and highlighting the inequalities of their race in effort to organize a better social life for women of the future (Feminist Theory and Criticism).
She handled typical Indian themes and has successfully depicted the dilemmas and conflicts of women in their interactions and dealings with their partners. Through the aspects of kindness, tolerance and understanding of human relationships this novel can better be accepted by the readers. The despair and disappointments in the life of Jaya is clearly understood by the readers from the very beginning of the novel. She begins the novel by saying
The women of this country struggle to gain independence due to the suppression that they face from the lack of moral compass within the male population. They are rendered voiceless by the male dominion which looms over them out of fear for the abuse they are all too will familiar experiencing. Constantly being subjected to abuse can and does pose a high impact not only the women, but the society in which the women live. Every waking moment, the lives of a woman is filled with hate, fear, and feelings of
...Nair has also projected her own Indian sensibility and attitude through her women characters in her novels.
In Kamala Markandaya’s novel, Nectar in a Sieve, the woman of great courage, Rukmani, is forced onto the commencement of a fast changing India caused by an increase in economic activity, urbanization and centralization of power. Rukmani resists and then is forced to conform to changes in her environment. Unlike those around her who threw their past away with both hands that they “might be the readier to grasp the present,” Rukmani “stood by in pain, envying such easy reconciliation” (Markandaya 29). Markandaya writes about Rukmani’s attempt to recover the aspects of her rural life that she cares most about, revealing her adoration for a traditional rural life and her belief that all women enjoy amicable, personal relationships with their outer
In the novel, action speaks louder than characters. Each character in the novel represents the dark reality of the society. Locution and the composition of provocative verses leave gaps, which should be filled up by the readers. The character of Lakshmi is the epitome for many unknown and unnoticed Lakshmies, who are the victims of Trafficking and Sexual Slavery world-wide. Through Lakshmi’s stream of Consciousness the readers get conscious about the atrocities done to poor children and women for the sake of money.
she is beginning to think rationally of herself throughout the book. She dealt with the subconscious alot that deals with the inside voice struggling with the ego. She had trouble in becoming verbal with her emotions.She lost herself meanwhile engaging herself in an affair with Lebrun something she secretly was longing for even when she was married. She was expereincing an overall crisis that means she reached a point where she was making sense of the world that was not ruled by what it used to. she suddenly was turning from her religious life and having sex. here this story relates to modernism of how one can be in a struggle with the subconscious and morality presented to them at
But when the inner reality surfaces, the protagonist become disillusioned and soon distances himself from such ostentatious lifestyle. The story talks about immigrant Indians, their nostalgia, their lifestyle, and the fixation that Indians have with the Western world. It brings to light the secret that individuals live with simply to continue their married life intact. Moreover, it also reveals the sort of adjustment that a couple maintains in America where husband and wife divide their responsibilities and appear as rivals to each other. The lifestyles of Mr. and Mrs. Das hinge on the foundations of co-operation and not on cordiality. Life for such couples becomes a continuous “bickering, the indifference, the protracted silences” (53). Mr. Kapasi, the interpreter’s description brings to light the various aspects of how American life had blunted the Indian way of the couple. It is, of course, a matter of pity for children who become the victim of such void that their parents
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,”
Sandhu, Sarbjit K. The Image of Woman in the Novels of Shashi Deshpande. New Delhi: Prestige, 1991.
Women have often been called upon to make sacrifices and suppress their personal desires.They have often been left on the margins of the social set-up as far as their personal desires and fufilment of those desires is concerned. Women are not a minority in our society but their “lives, experiences and values have been treated as marginal” and men’s experiences have been assumed to be central to society. One also needs to contest the often stated view that in India women have always enjoyed a place of respect and dignity, that they have been respected as ‘devis.’ It needs to be seen that “the respect and privileges which accompany the position of a ‘devi’ are not only anti-individualistic,” they are also anti-humanistic and “deny women a personhood”.
Shashi Deshpande novel “That Long Silence” main protagonist Jaya decides to keep silence for seventeen long years. She is a middle-class woman who finds herself trap in by society by being a good mother and wife. In her search for identity Jaya lives with three identities as Jaya a struggling writer, Jaya the victor and Suhasini the name given by her husband which means happy wife that loves cleaning and undertaking wifely duties. In the Indian society, a man and woman lives with the motives of their elders that gender roles are assigned to a boy and girl. For Jaya, she lived the theory of existentialism as she goes through the process of self-confusion and realization. In this Jaya urges to find oneself, to create space and grow without support