LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 20:5 May 2020
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.

Celebrate India!
Unity in Diversity!!

HOME PAGE

Click Here for Back Issues of Language in India - From 2001

BOOKS FOR YOU TO READ AND DOWNLOAD FREE!

REFERENCE MATERIALS

BACK ISSUES

  • E-mail your articles and book-length reports in Microsoft Word to languageinindiaUSA@gmail.com.

  • PLEASE READ THE GUIDELINES GIVEN IN HOME PAGE IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE LIST OF CONTENTS.

  • Your articles and book-length reports should be written following the APA, MLA, LSA, or IJDL Stylesheet.

  • The Editorial Board has the right to accept, reject, or suggest modifications to the articles submitted for publication, and to make suitable stylistic adjustments. High quality, academic integrity, ethics and morals are expected from the authors and discussants.

Copyright © 2020
M. S. Thirumalai

Publisher: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.
11249 Oregon Circle
Bloomington, MN 55438
USA
Custom Search

A Feminist Reading of Shashi Deshpande’s Short Stories:
Indian Women and Their Cry for Identity

Dr. (Mrs.) Veeramankai Stalina Yogaratnam, B.A., M.A., B.Ed., Ph.D.

Sashi Deshpande
Shashi Deshpande
Courtesy: https://www.hydlitfest.org/speaker/shashi-deshpande/

Abstract

This paper aims at a study of the ways the relationships are negotiated in select short stories of Shashi Deshpande in a feministic perspective. The women in these short stories search for their identity in the patriarchal family system. Shashi Deshpande creates women of complex personalities who go through conflicts of the self-juxtaposed with social values. This paper brings out the sufferings of the women who are entangled to follow preconceived notions of patriarchy. It attempts to briefly sketch the disadvantages of Indian culture affecting the women society of its own. In a serious discussion the gloomy aspects of the women born pertaining different roles are elaborated in this paper. A clear-cut definition of what is real feminism and what is considered as a useless feministic view is discussed well. Voices of the voiceless women of the entire Indian community are heard in the select short stories chosen in this paper. The idea of women to remain suppressed and submissive after enduring all the evils of the society is opposed. This paper highlights that the space and identity of womenfolk is a fundamental one. If the same is not provided a rigorous and violent weapon called feminism.

Keywords: Shashi Deshpande, Short Stories, Feminism, Social Values, Voice, Voiceless, Women, Society.

Introduction

Shashi Deshpande occupies a unique position among contemporary Indian writers in English. She deals with the struggles and adjustments of the middle-class Indian woman who represents the overwhelming majority of Indian women. Gifted with a rare literary bent of mind, Shashi Deshpande has made a niche for herself among Indian English writers. She has treated the typical Indian themes very sensitively and has pictured the contemporary middle-class women with rare competence. Shashi Deshpande is the second daughter of the famous Kannada dramatist and Sanskrit scholar Sriranga known as the Bernard Shaw of the Kannada theatre.

Deshpande’s thematic concerns in her works have also been discussed. In a male dominated society, woman is supposed to be an ideal wife, a mother, and an excellent homemaker with multifarious roles in the family. As wife and mother, service, sacrifice, submissiveness and tolerance are her required attributes. Excessive endurance and series of adjustments that she makes in her life faithfully and obediently are her admired qualities. Her individual self has very little recognition in a patriarchal society.

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

Dr. (Mrs.) Veeramankai Stalina Yogaratnam, B.A., M.A., B.Ed., Ph.D.
Senior Lecturer in English Literature
Department of Linguistics and English
University of Jaffna, Sri Lanka
yoharatnam7@gmail.com
Custom Search
  • Click Here to Go to Creative Writing Section

  • Send your articles
    as an attachment
    to your e-mail to
    languageinindiaUSA@gmail.com.
  • Please ensure that your name, academic degrees, institutional affiliation and institutional address, and your e-mail address are all given in the first page of your article. Also include a declaration that your article or work submitted for publication in LANGUAGE IN INDIA is an original work by you and that you have duly acknowledged the work or works of others you used in writing your articles, etc. Remember that by maintaining academic integrity we not only do the right thing but also help the growth, development and recognition of Indian/South Asian scholarship.