LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 21:1 January 2021
ISSN 1930-2940

Editors:
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.
         T. Deivasigamani, Ph.D.
         Pammi Pavan Kumar, Ph.D.
         Soibam Rebika Devi, M.Sc., Ph.D.

Managing Editor & Publisher: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.

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Sense of Guilt and Search for Self-Hood in
Margaret Atwood’s Lady Oracle and
Shashi Deshpande’s Dark Holds No Terror

S. Kirthika, M.Phil., Ph.D. Scholar and Dr. J. Sobhana Devi, M.A., M.Phil., Ph.D.

Abstract

Margaret Eleanor Atwood’s Lady Oracle and Shashi Deshpande’s Dark Holds No Terror is an excellent source of feministic approach and search for self-hood. Both the writers are from different countries and lifestyles, but the way they handled the search of the protagonist stands on the same stage. Both the writers brought in a modern flavour to the feministic view. Atwood and Deshpande are modern-day feminists. They do not believe that women deserve special privileges, and they no longer play the victim card, which is optimistically delivered in the select novels. The concept of New feminism is a philosophy which emphasizes in the novel Lady Oracle. On the aspect of New Feminism, Deshpande’s novel The Dark Holds No Terror is unique in its own way. Sarita or Saru’s is a heart-rending story. Fate and social conditions seem to torment the innocent girl. Margaret Atwood’s Lady Oracle hands out the quest for identity of the protagonist Joan, as she believes that in killing herself, her old self, she will be able to finally live an honest and true life. But she never gets the chance to experience it. Even though Shashi Deshpande and Margaret Eleanor Atwood are from different cultures their thinking about women and their quest for identity is same. As a woman they need their gender to be free and they want to deliver their unique attitude towards the society. This paper focus on the identity crisis of women in Lady Oracle and Dark Holds No Terror who are from west and south.

Keywords: Shashi Deshpande, Dark Holds No Terror, Margaret Eleanor Atwood, Lady Oracle, New feminism, feminity, custom, harmony in life, quest for identity, deserted, treachery.

Introduction

In the novel, Lady Oracle, the protagonist Joan Foster is in search of harmony in life. Joan’s crises concern her growing awareness of the imbalance between her outward appearance and her inner sense of identity. She is in quest for an authentic self - development, both environmental and psychological, which entails coming to terms with multiple social forces—external as well as internal—that violate upon the path towards female individuation and an understanding of the individual self. The Aristotelian dictum that the human being is a social animal is central to the novel, as it traces the development of the protagonist as a social being. The protagonist becomes the representative symbolic reflections of different social circumstances and as such her individual existence cannot be distinguished from her social environment, her human significance and her specific individuality cannot be separated from the context in which she is created.

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.

S. Kirthika, M.Phil., Ph.D. Scholar
Madurai Kamaraj University
Madurai
Tamilnadu, India kirthikamaki90@gmail.com

Dr. J. Sobhana Devi, M.A., M.Phil., Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of English
The Standard Fireworks Rajaratnam College for Women
Sivakasi
Tamilnadu, India
shob_ravi24@yahoo.com
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