The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 1 Certificate The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 2 Dr. Uttam Lal Thakur  9430837237 / 9572711391  06246-275248 Professor & Head, RESIDENCE: Department of English Ladania Bazaar CMJ College, Donwarihat Madhubani 847232 Khutauna, Madhubani 847227 31 July 2013 C e r t i f i c a t e SHRI CHANDESHWAR YADAV has carried out the research work entitled The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande under my guidance for the award of Ph.D. Degree of LN Mithila University, Darbhanga. I certify that this is a record of the work done by SHRI CHANDESHWAR YADAV and that the contents of this thesis did not form the basis for the award of any previous degree to the candidate or to anybody else. Throughout the period of his research Shri Yadav has been in constant touch with me to seek my guidance. By habit and character the candidate is a fit person for award of the Ph.D. Degree. (UTTAM LAL THAKUR) (Supervisor) The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 3 The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande Table of Contents Supervisor's Certificate Preface i Acknowledgements III-IV Dedication V Chapter 1 1-15 Introduction Chapter 2 16-22 Shashi Deshpande and Her Milieu Chapter 3 23-51 Social Condition of Indian Society after Independence Chapter 4 52-99 Technology of Gender (Feminism) A General Introduction Chapter 5 100-164 Early Novels Chapter 6 165-209 Latter Novels Chapter 7 210-236 Conclusion Bibliography 237-247 Synopsis I-iX The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 4 Dedication Preface Acknowledgment The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 5 Dedicated To My Teachers & Parents To Whom I am Indebted For What I am The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 6 Preface Among Indian women writers Shashi Deshpande is especially committed to the reorganization of female objectivity. Her concern related to the feminist questions is important in the interest of an Indian feminist praxis. She expresses her opinion: "I am a feminist in the sense that I think we need to have a world, which we should recognize as a place for all of us human beings. I fully agree with Simone de Beauvoir: "The fact that we are human is much more important than our being men and women." The novels of Shashi Deshpande are realistic and optimistic portrayal of the Indian middle class educated women. She successfully presents these women as they are engaged in the complex and difficult social and psychological problems of defining an authentic self. She delineates them with their variegated swings of mood, 'the ebb and flow of joy and despair.' The present thesis The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande has been divided into seven chapters. In the first chapter I have dealt with the development of Indian fiction in English. I have pointed out Deshpande's approach to women's problems. Her clear understanding of human relationships, her close observation of the ways of the world, her unbiased attitude to dogmas and movements have been depicted. In the second chapter I have tried to focus my attention on the life and works of Shashi Deshpande, her place in the tradition of Indo-Anglian women writers along with the theme and technique of her novels. The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 7 In the third chapter social condition of Indian society after 1947 (independence) has been depicted beautifully with examples cited from her different novels. Chapter four deals with the definition of the term gender (feminism), its kinds and class in society. Different theories of feminism have been mentioned in detail. In chapter five I have dealt with the following important novels of the author with gender point of view. The novelist has drawn our attention towards the pitiable condition of women in modern society. They are dominated by male. The Dark Holds No Terror, Roots and Shadows, Come Up and Be Dead, If I Die Today and Long Silence describe the gender consciousness of the novelist in detail. In chapter six I have tried to mention the feeling of Shashi Deshpande for the miserable condition of female characters in the later novels like The Binding Vine, A Matter of Time, Small Remedies and Moving On. In the last chapter, Chapter Seven, I have dealt with my opinion on the view of the novelist that women should be regarded as the one wheel of the same cart in which men are the other one. They should be given equal rights in society to solve the burning problem of the modern era in respect of gender discrimination. Lastly, in Bibliography I have mentioned the names of the several books on Shashi Deshpande which have been used in writing this dissertation. Chandeshwar Yadav The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 8 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT In the preparation and completion of this thesis I owe more than I can express in words to my teacher and supervisor Dr Uttam Lal Thakur, Professor & Head, Department of English, CMJ College, Donwarihat, Khutauna, Madhubani. But for his able guidance this thesis could have never been completed. I am equally indebted to Head, P.G. Dept. of English, Dr. B. K. Singh, and Dean Dr. A. K. Jha for his constant encouragement and scholarly suggestions. My mother Smt. Hansi Devi Yadav, elder brother Sri Bindeshwar Yadav and sister-in- law Smt. Renu Yadav have played pivotal roles in helping me carry on my research and complete it. They kept me almost free from the drudgery of domestic affairs and boosted me up whenever my patience petered out, and thus inspired me immensely at every stage. I acknowledge the debt I owe to my teachers Dr. Sonafi Yadav, Dr. Beerendrendra Pandey, Prof. Dr. Krishna Chandra Sharma, Dr. Amma Raj Joshi, Sri Rajendra Kishor, Sri Dayaram Yadav, Sri Muktinath Sah, Sri Gangaram Yadav, Smt. Rohini Jha, Sri Vishundeo Yadav, Principal, R. R. M. Campus, Janakpurdham, Sri Shiv Narayan Yadav, Principal, R. B. M. Campus, Jaleshwar, Tribhuvan University who have always been a source of strength and inspiration to me. I could have never accomplished this rigorous work without their blessings and support. I consider it a great privilege to acknowledge my deep sense of gratefulness to my friends Sri Bhola Yadav, Sri Jogendra Mandal, and Sri Ram Sebak Thakur, Sri Shambhu The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 9 Yadav, Sri Ram Arichay Adhikari, Sri Bijay Ray for their constant encouragement and support. My most personal thanks are due to my wife Smt. Rinku Yadav who boosted me up whenever my patience faltered, and thus inspired me immensely to complete this work. I like remembering my beloved children Premlata, Amit, Sumit, Praphool and Nishu. I have named above many of those who have helped me in some way or the other. My memory may have failed me in remembering them all. To them I render my sincere apologies. The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 10 Chapter 1 An Introduction The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 11 Chapter–I Introduction Indian fiction in English has a galaxy of women novelists starting from Kamala Markandaya, a galaxy that includes among others, such widely acclaimed novelists as Nayantara Sahgal, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, Attia Hosain, Anita Desai and Shashi Deshpande. In the changing scenario of postcolonial Indian society that observed crosscurrents of traditional ideals and newly imported ones, these women novelists were burdened with the task of giving their women characters the specific roles that would fit in the socio-cultural modes and values of the changed society. A new generation of women emerged, embracing the changed values according to which women have a voice of their own, a voice that had been suppressed for centuries. These The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 12 women, who have the capacity to make free choice and need not therefore depend on the choice of the male, are portrayed in the novels of the new generation women novelists. These new women characters are not however the Sarue everywhere: they react to the particular situation they are in, and their psychic and moral dilemmas are exposed accordingly. Shashi Deshpande, a well known name in Indian literature in English, began her literary career in 1970, with the publication of a collection of short stories. Daughter of an eminent Kannada dramatist and Sanskrit scholar, Adya Rangacharya (Sriranga), Shashi Deshpande was born in Dharwad (in Northern India) in the year 1938. She received her graduate degree (Hons. in Economics) from Bombay and then moved to Bangalore to obtain a degree in Law. She also took a course in journalism and worked for a magazine for a brief period of time. Later, she settled in Bangalore with her family. Shashi Deshpande’s stories and novels were first published by small literary publishers like Writers’ Workshop in Calcutta. But gradually her novels began to be accepted by internationally famous publishers such as Virago Press and Penguin Books. Be-sides four children’s books, she has written novels such as The Dark Holds No Terrors, If I Die Today, Come up and be Dead and Roots and Shadows before the publication of her Sahitya Akademi Award winning novel That Long Silence (first published in 1988) The Binding Vine, A Matter of Time, Small Remedies and Moving On are her later novels which drew the critics’ immediate attention. After a hard struggle for a footing in the literary world, Shashi Deshpande is now acclaimed as a representative woman writer of India all over the world. Her short story ‘The Legacy’ has been prescribed by The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 13 Columbia University in its literature syllabus. Her works are now translated in different languages and are available in different corners of the world, particularly in the English-speaking world. It is her command over English language that contributes to her worldwide fame. But her hold on psychology, particularly female psychology, her keen observation of the changes in society and her deep knowledge of the Indian tradition are not to be underestimated. Thanks to the worldwide trend of feminism, the women characters belonging to different strata of life are the centre of attraction in the novels of the women writers. Kamala Markandaya’s Nectar in a Sleve is perhaps the first full-length study of a rural Indian woman in English. Rukmani is the representative of the poverty-stricken, hardworking, sincere and silent women of India who live like animals, embrace intolerable suffering for survival, and yet hope for a better future for their issues only to be crestfallen at the end. Nothing happens in their l ife but series of disappointments along with humiliation and torture and re-peated displacement. Besides the rural mass, there are middle class women in the innumerable towns and cities of India who are often unable to enjoy the legal status conferred on them. Women are now treated on equal terms by law as far as inheritance of property and opportunities of job are concerned. But on the social level, these women who have been struggling since ages to assert themselves, are still being heckled by their male counterparts and forced to remain silent. The voice of this newly emerged class of women, who have the Sarue education as the men are having, and are sometimes given the opportunity of supporting themselves financially, is heard in the writings of the contemporary The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 14 women writers. A voice of protest against the marginalized condition of women as a class is also audible in their works. The meek and submissive heroines who were accepted as the standard women characters are replaced by the bold heroines. having moral courage neces-sary for self-assertion. It is likely that the approach of one such enlightened woman will be different from that of others. But the common point in their approaches is distinct: the misrepresenta-tion of women by the male writers, who always liked to render the woman as subordinate to man, is challenged. Shashi Deshpande’s approach to women’s problems, as de-picted in her novels, is quite distinct. It is possible to differentiate her approach from that of her contemporaries who either protest against the existing norms of the society or remain indifferent to the social system responsible for the oppression of women. Shashi Deshpande did not choose the way of protest as such, although she is loosely described as a feminist. One who is influenced by the individualistic feminism propagated by the Anglo-American feminist tradition. Deshpande’s protagonists, who are educated women and most of whom are financially independent, have not necessarily developed an anti-male attitude. When one such character suffers and the husband is blamed, her father, brother or some male friend is found to be her saviour. Again, a woman is often rendered responsible for the suffering of another woman even if she is her daughter. In The Dark Holds No Terrors it is Sarita’s mother who creates the guilt consciousness in Sarita through her hysterical accusation that Sarita had killed her kid brother Dhruva and ultimately this repeated accusation drives her to the border of schizophrenia. In fact, Sarita desperately tried to save her dear The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 15 brother Dhruva when she saw him getting drowned in a pit full of muddy water, but denied any knowledge of him out of fear when asked by her parents. Deshpande sought to highlight Sarita’s psychological condition as she was being alienated from her parents after the mishap, though she was then the only child left to her parents. The author criticizes the society that cares only for a male child and ignores the female child and fails to provide the latter a healthy atmosphere for physical and mental growth. It would be an exaggeration to hold that the sister’s authority over her kid brother forms the battleground on which she was fighting for a space of her own.1 It is quite natural for a child that he/she likes to draw full attention of the parents without which a child feels insecurity. Therefore when the parents go for a second baby they are ad-vised not to neglect their first issue lest there be any psychologi-cal complexity. Sarita’s psychological complexity was enhanced by her mother’s suggestions that she should not go out into the sun and should take care of her complexion; she hated to be treated as a member of the feminine world who is supposed to take care of her feminine beauty lest she be rejected by a male for being his partner in life. This is an insult to her individuality, and she developed contempt towards femininity. She was in fact desirous of being treated as a human being, no more and no less. If others (including his male counterparts) have the freedom of moving into the sun why not she? Sarita’s desire to be emanci-pated was fulfil led when her father much to her mother’s irritation, came forward to support her both morally and financially and she came out as a medical practitioner. It may not be full justice to Sarita and her creator to interpret all her actions as per feminist’s programme. Sarita The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 16 represents, as do other protagonists of Deshpande, the contemporary woman’s struggle to attain an “autonomous selfhood.” Sarita, Jaya (That Long Silence), Indu (Roots and Shadows), Sumi and Aru (A Matter of Time) and other women characters in Deshpande’s novels try to assert themselves as independent individuals through confrontations with the traditional constraints in Indian society. As the tradition demanded, the women protagonists in Deshpande’s novels usually start with their roles assigned to them by the society. While other women in their surroundings appear to be happy with their roles, they cannot be happy as they have a strong urge to make a free choice for themselves. This urge is very close to an existentialist’s urge for making an independent choice. A man is condemned to be free, said Sartre. And those who say that they are not free are only lying to themselves. This lying to oneself is called ‘bad faith’ and Sartre considers ‘bad faith’ to be a moral flaw.2 The intelligent and highly conscious individuals (the women protagonists) in Deshpande’s novels proceed through the hazardous way of making decisions on their own, for this is the only way to assert oneself. As it is realized by Jaya towards the end of the novel, That Long Silence, Lord Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita suggests this free choice for His devotees. To quote a few lines from the novel, The final words of Krishna’s long sermon to Arjuna. ‘Do as you desire,’ I’d thought it something of a cheat. Imagine the Lord any Master telling his disciple .... ‘Do as you desire’! What are Prophets and Masters for if not to tell you what to do? But now I understand. With this line, after all those mill ions of words of instruction, Krishna confers The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 17 humanness on Arjuna have given you knowledge. Now you make the choice. The choice is yours. Do as you desire.’ Jaya’s realization throws light on her creator’s view of free choice as a moral act. After one gains full knowledge of oneself and of the way of the world, one is free to act according to one’s desires. For, this time one’s knowledge would act as one’s guide and there is l ikely to be no fear on the way. An individual is ex-pected to be true to him/her and onIy then preparation for free choice is complete. Broadly speaking, the protagonists in Deshpande’s novels suffer on their way to getting prepared for the choice and the novels display several stages of self-realization leading to the act of choice. The female characters in Deshpande’s novels are basically Indian women; when they try to assert their individuality, emancipating from the age-old patriarchal pattern of thought, they exhibit their unique way which is sharply different from the western feminist movement. Deshpande has laid stress on the mixed cultural value systems prevalent in India and thus the indiscriminate application of western models of feminism will not do justice to her works. As Vrinda Nabar aptly comments, “The vastly different scenario in India encompasses contradictions of a kind undreamed of in the mainstream (western) feminist philosophy.”3 Thus it is almost impossible for someone, who is not accustomed to the thought pattern of the Indian middle class people, to understand how the publication of poems written by a woman long dead can cause dishonour to the family. When the central character Urmi in The Binding Vine is so much haunted by the poems written by her mother-in-law, who died at the time of giving birth to her son, and decides to publish the poems, a The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 18 serious charge of being a traitor to the family is brought against Urmi. A slight hint at the dead woman’s relation to her husband through her poems is equated to blasphemy. Hence Vanna is en-raged when she comes to know that Urmi is going to publish Mira’s poems. “It is as if the knowledge of what her father did. of what he was, has threatened something, disturbed the inner rhythm of her being. So that there is a sense of disharmony about her.” A common woman in a male-dominated society is nourished in such a way that it is impossible for her to see things from a fresh point of view, other than the male one. The traditional Indian mind fails to appreciate a poem as a work of art independent of its context. Almost a similar incident occurs when Mohan in That Long Silence brings the charge of infidelity against his wife who was supposed to have made public the secrets of her married life through her novels. Mohan’s ego is hurt and his wife Jaya ceases to write about matters that might hurt Mohan. Shashi Deshpande keenly observes the nature and the causes of the plight of an Indian woman writer who is suppressed both at home and in the literary world outside, in various ways. In The Binding Vine, Mira’s diary records the conversation between Mira and the rising poet Venu who later became famous in In-dian literature. Having read some of Mira’s poems. Venu is re-ported to have said. “Why do you need to write poetry? It is enough for a young woman like you to give birth to children. That is your poetry. Leave the other poetry to us men.” This is the way of humiliating the other sex in the male- governed world. Whatever a woman writes is considered unnecessary, if not trash. And at home, there are psychological fears and physical sufferings along The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 19 with the demand that a woman “must always be a few feet behind her husband.” and in order to maintain a happy married Iife, she should not “try to reverse the doctor-nurse, executive-secretary, principal-teacher role.” In order to assert her individuality, to be a human being in the proper sense of the term, every woman has to try hard to move beyond the barrier made for her in the society. Deshpande reveals this attempt of her protagonists in her novels and she is hardly biased against the male. That is why Urmi’s husband (in The Binding Vine) is rendered as an ideal husband and Urmi hardly has any dissatisfaction with her. But she has to struggle for the cause of other women in the society in order to assert her humanity. In Deshpande’s literary world there are characters taken from almost all the sections of life. There are medical practitioners and writers, educated housewives, uneducated ones and the maidservants. Besides poverty, bereavement and such other common adversities, there are some causes of suffering exclusively for the female. Deshpande renders with sympathetic understanding the variety of suffering a woman has to undergo. Sometimes the suffering is attached to the social taboos and sometimes the woman is silenced in the name of family honour, and is compelled to digest torture. Kalpana’s case in The Binding Vine is an example. When Kalpana is found in dying condition after she has been molested by her own relative, her mother Shakutai requests the doctor not to inform the police lest the honour of the family is gone, leaving her unable to marry her daughter off. “I‘II never be able to hold up my head again,” she says. “who’ll marry the girl, we’re decent people.” Urmi under-stands that women like Shakutai, who are rejected by their husbands and The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 20 have to face the humiliation and torture, must have felt that marriage is the only shelter of a woman’s life. At least one is “safe from other men.”This insecurity felt by the womenfolk in general puts a bar on their way to free thinking. The parents hardly encourage their female child to develop independent thinking as they are eager to get relieved of the responsibility somehow, by marrying her off. And if some parent dDev encourage (as dDev Jaya’s father in That Long Silence), this act is hardly supported by others in the family. Deshpande makes the social system responsible for the suf-ferings of women, and this system includes its female members too, who have been moulded by the society and are rendered unable to think otherwise. The anguish of the soul, weakened by unthinkable humiliations and physical torture, may be revealed by one who has direct knowledge of that anguish and a hold on language necessary for revealing that experience. Shashi has the capacity to delve deep into the anguish that eats into the very core of life, and hence she can create life-like characters like Sulu. Sulu (in The Binding Vine) has no other way but to give Kalpana the proposal of marrying her husband Prabhakar as desired by him. And when Kalpana refused, and as a result was raped by Prabhakar, Sulu had no option but to commit suicide as the poor soul could no more disgrace herself by telling a lie to save her husband. Sulu’s suicide throws light on the dark chapter of keeping the women silent in Indian society–a society that remains blind to its male members turned into wanton animals, possessed by lust. The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 21 Shashi Deshpande’s sincere attempt to break the silence of women has been widely acclaimed in home and abroad. Her clear understanding of human relationships, her close observation of the way of the world, her unbiased attitude to dogmas and movements and her hold on English language explain her success. The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 22 References 1. Sarita’s childhood jealousy that becomes evident in her pushing Dhruva from her father’s lap when he was hardly a year old, may not be interpreted in terms of what some critics say her “contestation with the male power.” However, Sarita enjoyed the opportunity of exercising power over her little brother: Just three years between them. But what immense advantage those three years gave her. She had ruled over him completely. No dictatorship could have been more absolute. It is a mutual and quite natural relationship between a younger brother and his elder sister. Dhruva was completely loyal to his sister, and always ran after her and their relationship may not be seen as Sarita’s “battleground” on which she is fighting for a space of her own. 2. According to Jean-Paul Sartre, man is condemned to be free, but this freedom being unbearable, man escape freedom of choice and seeks comfort o excuses. This state of pretending that one is one free to choose for oneself, is called “bad faith”. Sartre described “bad faith” as “lying to oneself”: to be sure, the one who practises bad faith is hiding a displeasing truth or presenting as truth a pleasing untruth. Bad faith then has in appearance the structure of falsehood. (Being and Nothingness, trans. Hazel E. Barnes, p. 49) 3. Caste as Woman (Penguin India, 1995), p. 26. The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 23 Chapter 2 Shashi Deshpande and Her Milieu The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 24 Chapter–II Shashi Deshpande and her Milieu Namita Gokhale too has had her contribution to feminist writing written in the autobiographical mode. Her novel Paro: Dreams of Passion is about Paro’s rebellion and her rejection of the culturally imposed sexual repression. All her inhibitions and moral barriers come to an end, and she becomes a nymphomaniac in search of sexual variety. In the character of Paro, sex is symbolic of a quest for identity as a free woman. Her sexual exploits are an expression of the free woman-the symbol and prototype of emancipation and individuality. Shashi Deshpande holds great worth as an Indian English woman novelist. She is the only Indian author to have made bold attempts at giving a voice to the disappointments and frustrations of women despite her vehement denial of being a feminist. Roots and Shadows, her first novel, depicts the agony and suffocation experienced by the protagonist Indu in a male-dominated and tradition-bound society. She undergoes great mental trauma when she refuses The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 25 to play the straitjacketed role of a wife imposed upon by society. The man she marries after her heart, to her great disappointment, is no different from the less educated and conservative Indian men. She is even more pained to realize that she herself has all along been unconsciously aping the role of the ideal Indian wife. In her quest for identity, she even develops an extra-marital affair to finally realize that it is possible to exercise autonomy within the parameters of marriage. Shashi Deshpande thus exposes the gross gender discrimination and its fallout in a male-dominated society. The Dark Holds No Terrors, the second novel, is about the traumatic experience the protagonist Saru undergoes as her husband refuses to playa second-fiddle role. Saru undergoes great humiliation and neglect as a child and, after marriage, as a wife. Deshpande discusses the blatant gender discrimination shown by parents towards their daughters and their desire to have a male child. After her marriage, as she gains a greater social status than her husband Manohar’s, all begins to fall apart. His husband’s sense of inferiority complex and the humiliation he feels as a result of society’s reaction to Saru’s superior position develops sadism in him. Manu vents his frustration on Saru in the form of sexual sadism, which has been vividly portrayed by Deshpande. That Long Silence, the third novel, is about Jaya who, despite having played the role of a wife and mother to perfection, finds herself lonely and estranged. Jaya realizes that she has been unjust to herself and her career as a writer, as she is afraid of inviting any displeasure from her husband. Her fear even discourages her from acknowledging her friendship with another man. The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 26 The Binding Vine, her fourth novel, deals with the personal tragedy of the protagonist Urmi to focus attention on victims like Kalpana and Mira. Urmi narrates the pathetic tale of Mira, her mother-in-law, who is a victim of marital rape in marriage. Mira, in the solitude of her unhappy marriage, would write poems, which were posthumously translated and published by Urmi. Urmi also narrates the tale of her acquaintance Shakutai, who had been deserted by her husband for another woman. The worst part of her tale is that her elder daughter Kalpana is brutally raped by her sister Sulu’s husband, Prabhakar. Urmi takes up cudgels on Kalpana’s behalf and brings the culprit to book. In A Matter of Time, her fifth novel, Shashi Deshpande for the first time enters into the metaphysical world of philosophy. Basically, it’s about three women from three generations from the same family and how they cope with the tragedies in their lives. Sumi is deserted by her husband Gopal, and she faces her humiliation with great courage and stoicism. Though, deep inside, she is struck with immense grief, but tries to keep herself composed for the sake of her daughters. Her mother Kalyani was married off to her maternal uncle Shripati. When their four-year-old son gets lost at a railway station, Shripati sends her back to her parent’s house. On Manorama’s request, when he returns he maintains a stony silence for the rest of his life. Kalyani’s mother Manorama fails to beget a male heir to her husband, and fears lest he should take another wife for the same purpose. Manorama, to avoid the property getting passed on to other family, gets Kalyani married to her brother Shripati. Thus, Deshpande has revealed to our gaze the fears, frustrations and compulsions of three women from three generations from the same family. The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 27 Small Remedies, her latest novel, is about Savitribai Indorekar, the aging doyenne of Hindustani music, who avoids marriage and a home to pursue her genius. She has led the most unconventional of lives, and undergoes great mental trauma due to the opposition by a society that practises double standards-one for men and the other for women. Even as a child she was a victim of gross gender discrimination. Besides, Madhu narrates her own life story and also those of her aunt Leela and Savitribai’s daughter, Munni. A deep analysis of her novels leaves no doubt about her genuine concern for women. Her protagonists are acutely aware of their smothered and fettered existence in an orthodox male-dominated society. Caught between tradition and modernity, her protagonists search for their identity within marriage. Deshpande’s novels contain much that is feminist. The realistic delineation of women as wife, mother and daughter, their search for identity and sexuality as well, leaves the readers in no doubt where her real sympathies lie. She has been against her works being labeled as “feminist,” as it has traditionally been regarded as an inferior type of literature in the minds of people. She denies any influence of the militant kind that Western feminists like Simone de Beauvoir, Germaine Greer, Betty Friedan, and Kate Millett advocate. She concerns herself with the women’s issues in the Indian context. In an interview she tells Lakshmi Holmstrom: It is difficult to apply Kate Millett or Simone de Beauvoir or whoever to the reality of our daily lives in India. And then there are such terrible misconceptions about feminism by people here. They often think it is about burning bras and walking out on your husband, The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 28 children or about not being married, not having children etc. I always try to make the point now about what feminism is not, and to say that we have to discover what it is in our own lives, our experiences.1 Women-centred narratives in her novels have led many interviewers to ask her as to what extent does she consider herself a feminist. Shashi Deshpande says: I now have no doubts at all in saying that I am a feminist. In my own life, I mean. But not consciously, as a novelist. I must also say that my feminism has come to me very slowly, very gradually, and mainly out of my own thinking and experiences and feelings. I started writing first and only then discovered my feminism. And it was much later that I actually read books about it.2 The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 29 References 1. Shashi Deshpande, “Interview: Shashi Desphande Talks to Lakshmi Holmstrom,” Wasafiri, No. 17, Spring 1993, 26. 2. Loc. cit. The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 30 Chapter 3 Social Condition of Indian Society After Independence The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 31 Chapter–III Social Condition of Indian Society After Independence But before going into the feminist world of Shashi Deshpande, for a fair evaluation of her mind and art, an exposition is rendered imminent as to how the patriarchal and male-dominated Indian society looks [down] upon women and also the straitjacketed roles it has defined for them. The women have been traditionally characterized as ideally warm, gentle and submissive, who are to be kept in subordination to the male members of the family. Manu declares: Day and night, women must be kept in subordination to the males of the family: in childhood to the father, in youth to her husband, in old age to her sons. [ ... ] Even though the husband be destitute of virtue and seeks pleasure elsewhere, he must be worshipped as god.1 Women were denied the right to study the Vedas, and were bracketed with sinners and slaves. The code of Manu was so rigorously observed that the The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 32 role of women was confined to the family, and thus they were denied rights equal to man. Although her lot in the family kept changing with the times, but it invariably remained an inferior one. Still she is hardly given much freedom. Shantha Krishnaswamy comments on the general lot of women thus: She is a creature who as a child is sold off to strangers for a bridal price, or when she grows up, serves as a supplier of dowry for her husband’s family, or who as a widow, in a final act of obliteration immolates herself on her dead husband’s funeral pyre to be acclaimed as ‘Sita-Savitri’, as an immortal.2 The early decades of the 20th century witnessed an improvement in the women’s lot, which was the outcome of the movements of Raja Ram Mohan Roy and Jotiba Phule. A major change was effected by Mahatma Gandhi’s emphasis on women’s participation in his non-violent movement. In an article on Gandhi entitled “Not by Faith Alone,” Ramachandra Guha observes: Woman is the companion, Gandhiji affirmed as early as 1918 with equal mental capacities and she has the Sarue right of freedom and liberty. He (Gandhi) dismissed the ideas put forward by Manu as an interpolation and if it was not an interpolation, he could only say that in Manu’s days, women did not have the status they deserved.3 Simultaneous with it was the introduction of Western liberal education that forced new values of life upon women. Legally, she has been given equal right with man, the submissive and gentle nature of women embedded deeply into their psyche did not disturb the male-dominance in the family. The male The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 33 mentality is so shaped that it cannot adjust to the notion of woman being equal to man. Despite equal opportunities of education and economic independence, women remained a victim of domestic injustice within the family, and other legal rights outside. Despite the universally acknowledged fact that women perform on par with man physically and mentally, they have been denied the freedom to express their feelings, thoughts and anguish. The women have been working indoors and outdoors, but their services remain unrecognized. Although the lot of women in the family and society has changed with the times for the better, but remained invariably inferior to those of men. The last quarter of the 19th century witnessed the emergence of some great women writers like Toru Dutt, Mrs Ghoshal, Sorabji Cornelia and Krupabal Sathianathan. K.S. Ramamurti, in his book Rise of the Indian Novel in English, says, “it [their works] was qualitatively superior to those of many others who wrote before and after them.”4 The movements of Raja Ram Mohan Roy and Mahatma Gandhi proved a great relief to women as they were brought out of the tyranny of the social evils. Sti ll the number of women enjoying considerable freedom was very meager. For the majority of women, subordination to men and misery was synonymous. The battle for emancipation was taken over by a few educated women, and they turned writers. The motive was to voice their own bitter experiences as women with a view to influencing the society and effecting social reforms. Professor John B. Alphonso-Karkala in his book Indo-English Literature of the Nineteenth Century writes: The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 34 They tried to tell the world the obstacles women faced and the disadvantages they suffered in an orthodox Hindu world. These women writers struggled to give form and shape to their autobiographical accounts, which attracted publishers, both in India and abroad.5 The ideal image of woman like the traditional Sita or Savitri was gradually replaced by the realistic one, i.e. the frustrated and alienated one. The introduction of liberal English education not only brought significant changes in the middle-class life-style but also raised a consciousness of freedom in the minds of women. This only led to a romantic desire for a freedom that wasn’t easy to come by. The women writers, thus, used this conflict between tradition and modernity. It was a portrayal of women facing the conflicts and problems issuing from the fusion of the traditional and modem values. The transition from the old to the new; from the traditional to the modern affect both the sexes, but the fair sex gets the worst of it-the crisis of value adaptation being the more excruciating. The modem age has left woman confused between the opposing forces of modernity and tradition, and they find it difficult to reconcile between their romantic aspirations and the realities of life. It is a conflict between a personal fulfilment of desires and their duty towards family and children. Thus, most of the woman novelists took up the theme of the problem of adjustment, and they are shown adjusting themselves to the ground reality. Earlier the problems of women were more of an emotional nature due to her attachment to home and family. But with her increasing consciousness as an individual, she has begun to assert herself within the family and outside it as well. A society The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 35 conditioned to the age-old patriarchal mindset opposes and rejects such deviation from the established social norms, and his opposition to her quest for identity and selfhood becomes a cause of her seemingly impossible struggle. Although there are many women forums voicing their concern, but the going seems tough. The road ahead is rugged and full of hurdles in a chauvinistic society where most women wouldn’t support the movement for fear of losing the little freedom they enjoy in the confinement of the four-walls. Sushila Singh rightly observes: Human experience for centuries has been synonymous with the masculine experience with the result that the collective image of humanity has been one- sided and incomplete. Woman has not been defined as a subject in her own right but merely has an entity that concern man either in his real life or his fantasy l ife.6 Since the inception of the feminist movement in the 1960s in the West, much has been written on women, but much sti ll remains to be done to reflect the injustices meted out to women and also to rid the male-psyche of the prejudices and misconceptions regarding them. Alexander Dumas, the nineteenth century French dramatist, was the first to use the term “feminism” for the movement for women’s political rights. Later it spread across the world to secure complete rights for women-political, social, economic and educational. The movement went from strength to strength and, by the end of the twentieth century, made the complacent society to think anew about the age-old distorted beliefs. The movement could not make much The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 36 headway in Indian society steeped in religious belief, superstitions and tradition. Though, of late, feminism does seem to have begun influencing a cross-section of the Indian society. Some few Indian writers in English have challenged the hitherto unchallenged man-woman relationship. Ibsen heralded the idea of woman’s emancipation with his character Nora in A Doll’s House. But it was Simone de Beauvoir’s book The Second Sex, first published in French in the year 1949, that sowed the seeds for a women’s movement. It won great acclaim as a feminist book when its English translation was made accessible to the world. She successfully shatters the myth of femininity and shows how, deprived of their social, economic and political rights, they remain relegated to the background. Despite their great contribution, they are dubbed as the weaker sex. Despite their numerical strength they are told that their femininity is in danger. Simone de Beauvoir writes: All agree in recognising the fact that female exists in the human species; today as always they make up about one half of humanity. And yet we are told that femininity is in danger; we are exhorted to be women, remain women, become women. It would appear, then, that every female human being is not necessarily a woman; to be so considered she must share in that mysterious and threatened reality known as femininity. Is this attribute something secreted by the ovaries? Or is it a platonic essence, a product of the philosophic imagination.7 The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 37 She lent great force to the women’s Liberation Movement in the mid- nineteenth century by laying bare the gross inequalities in society. Drawing heavily on disciplines like biology, psychology and history, she discusses girl’s education, love, sex, marriage, prostitution and domestic drudgery as well. She frankly talks about sexual exploitation and sexual pleasure for women, and does not give way to sentiments while discussing “maternity.” The feminist movement was sparked off by Betty Friedan’s book The Feminine Mystique, published in 1963. She interviewed many wives and mothers and discovered the falsity of a woman’s achieving happiness and contentment in marriage and motherhood although they had been blessed with all the comforts of life. All were merely trying to seek fulfilment by playing the role of a devoted wife and caring mother. Friedan writes: For a woman, as for a man the need for self-fulfilment—autonomy, self-realisation, independence, individuality, self-actualisation—is as important as the sexual need, with as serious consequences when it is thwarted. Women’s sexual problems are, in this sense, by-products of the suppression of her basic need to grow and fulfill her potentialities as a human being, potentialities which the mystique of feminism fulfilment ignores.8 Kate Millett is another important feminist of the twentieth century. Her book Sexual Politics, published in 1969, vehemently argues that the women are in such an intolerable, subordinate position in the patriarchal social setup that most of them repress and deny its existence. In the two studies conducted by her she found that, were the’ female children given a choice, most of them The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 38 would prefer to be born a boy. She graphically explains the sense of insecurity in women and the problem society would face in future in the form of female feticide through pre-natal sex-determination tests. She writes: The phenomenon of parents’ prenatal preferences for male issues is too common to require such elaboration. In the light of the imminent possibility of parents actually choosing the sex of their child, such a tendency is becoming the cause of some concern in scientific circles.9 Germaine Greer, too, belongs to the Sarue brand of militant feminism, and goes to the extent of saying that “if women are to affect a significant amelioration in their condition it seems obvious that they must refuse to marry.”10 A few feminist writers also made their contribution to the women’s movement. Sylvia Plath’s Bell Jar is about Esther, a young innocent and oppressed heroine who later becomes vengeful. Sylvia uses the metaphor of an exquisitely handcrafted mat made by Mrs. Willard for Esther’s oppressive state. The mat is not a thing for interior decoration but is used to be soiled under feet. Esther thinks: And I know that in spite of all the roses and kisses and restaurant dinners a man showered on a woman before he married her, what he secretly wanted when the wedding service ended was for her to flatten out under his feet like Mrs. Willard’s kitchen mat.11 Margaret Drabble, Doris Lessing, Iris Murdoch, Marilyn French and Margaret Atwood have also contributed greatly in the movement, and have The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 39 been internationally acclaimed as great feminist novelists. A couple of centuries back women writers dare not express themselves honestly by defying the rigid norms laid down by society, inviting social censure. However, there were many spinster writers like Jane Austen, Emily Bronte, Stevie Smith, Charlotte Mew, Mananne Moor and Elizabeth Smith. But the freedom to express themselves from the core of their heart was sought at the price of giving up the so-called “Womanliness”-sex, marriage, children and the social status of a wife. Now the times have changed for the better for women. Women writers today have a relatively greater measure of freedom and are venturing into regions of experience which were earlier considered taboo. Although a very conservative nation, India too has uninhibited women writers l ike Shobha De, who is a commercial success in pornography. However, in the West the women writers are relatively more militant feminists than their Indian counterparts. In India, the Trio—Mulk Raj Anand, R.K. Narayan and Raja Rao—did not pay much attention to women emancipation. Although they had in their hand a great material on freedom movement and the role women played, they let themselves miss out on this opportunity. Excepting The Old Woman and the Cow, Anand is deeply involved in championing the cause of the have-nots. Gauri, its heroine, is a fine example of his idea of women’s emancipation. Narayan’s portrayal of women characters ranges from the meek and submissive wife of Margayya in The Financial Expert and Savitri in The Dark Room to the vibrant and radical women characters like Daisy and Rosie in The Painter of Signs and The Guide respectively. But Daisy and Rosie are not examples to be The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 40 emulated, and Anand obliquely warns us of the destructive repercussions ‘feminism’ wil l have on society. Women in Raja Rao’s novels suffer from domestic injustice and tyrannical tradition, but the writer suggests no way out of their dilemma. His women characters, who are a little ambitious, end up playing the devoted role of a wife like Savitri in The Serpent and the Rope. Indian culture being rooted into his consciousness fails him to offer any concrete solution to the besetting women’s issue. Bhabani Bhattacharya’s portrayal of women is too optimistic to be realistic. His women are tender, charming, and virtuous, and play a significant role in effecting social change. But in spite of being tender and virtuous, they are victimized. Kajoli in So Many Hungers! undergoes immense suffering and misery, but her spirit remains invincible. Mohini in Music for Mohini effects social reforms in Behula village steeped in superstitions and obsolete customs. Thus, male writers, owing to a misconception about or ignorance of the women in general, have failed to give an honest or real portrayal of their women characters. They have either exposed their weaknesses and drawbacks, or placed her on a high pedestal and deified it. Thus, the delineation of the real woman has escaped the pen of male writers somehow. Kamala Markandaya’s works are a realistic delineation of the double pulls that the Indian women is subjected to, between her desire to assert herself as an individual and her duty in the capacity of a daughter, wife and mother. She also points out how the socio-economic conditions affect the women most. Markandaya’s first novel Nectar in a Sieve is a well-constructed novel on the The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 41 classical model on the theme of hunger and starvation. As a tour de force on the peasant’s life, their toil, their anguish, their misery and above all their tragedy, it has been justly compared with Pearl S. Buck’s The Good Earth, Alan Paton’s Cry the Beloved Country and K.S. Venkataramani’s Murugan the Til ler. Rukmini, the narrator-protagonist, narrates in the reminiscent mode about the decline of her family into poverty. The socio-economic conditions affect Rukmini and her daughter Ira most. She experiences one misery after another. Her husband becomes unfaithful and even her daughter, Ira, resorts to prostitution to save the family from starvation. Markandaya, gives a vivid description of the social customs and traditions and shows how these add to the sufferings of women. Parents arrange marriages, and the size of dowry decides the status of the bridegroom. Rukmini’s elder sister was married off with suitable dowry, but Rukmini is married off to a tenant farmer for want of a suitable dowry. Barren, childless women, especially those who fail to give birth to a son, are contemptuously looked down upon. A son carries on the name of the family from generation to generation. In the novel, Nathan wants a son and Rukmini gets a number of sons through the help of Dr Kenny. Thus, the disintegration of their marriage is averted. Ira is abandoned by her husband as she remains childless even after five years of her marriage, and by the time she gets medically cured of barrenness, her husband has taken another wife. Furthermore, Markandaya shows how a woman can attain a deeper self- knowledge, not through alienation and self-laceration but through expansion The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 42 and communion. The novelist shows that within the traditional role, she can accommodate her other roles as a human being. Her second novel, Some Inner Fury, is about Mirabai who is forced to part from her lover Richard in the heat of Quit India Movement. Besides, the novel is also about Premala who, finding her husband’s home and his English friends disgusting, tries to seek relief by helping Hickey, an English missionary, to run a school for the village boys. She dies of suffocation when the school is set on fire. Some Inner Fury has been compared with Venkataramani’s Kandan, the Patriot. Whereas Venkataramani is poetical and masculine, Markandaya is suggestive and feminist. In a Silence of Desire, the protagonist Sarojini overcomes her problems in her own way. Dandekar, after fifteen years of married life, begins to irritate with his god-fearing and religious wife. His wife’s visits to a Swami for the cure of her tumour develops in him an inferiority complex. He becomes extremely meddlesome and possessive, but the more he tries to deviate her from the influence of the Swami, the more he fails. But finally all is well when the Swami leaves the city after advising Sarojini to undergo an operation for her tumour. Here Markandaya realistically portrays the complexity of man-woman relationship. In most of her novels women have been shown as a source of great latent strength that saves the made protagonists from collapse. Ruth Prawer Jhabvala’s novels are articulation of her own bitter experiences in an alien land. Preoccupied with the travails of the white woman in India, her delineation of the Indian women becomes limited and narrow, which only leaves the impression of being contemptible, flighty and pathetic. Hers is a feminine contemporary urban sensibility. Living in Delhi in the years The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 43 after independence, Mrs Jhabvala has had opportunities of exercising her prowess of close observation on a milieu that changes like a chameleon. She has written prolifically and with versatility about personal relationships, man- woman relationships and domestic l ife. Her novels are: To Whom She Will (1955), The Nature of Passion (1956), Esmond in India (1958), The Householder (1960), Get Ready for Battle (1962), A Backward Place (1965), A New Dominion (1972) and Heat and Dust (1975). To Whom She Will is a simple love story which presents vividly the modern Indian domestic life. It is a story in which love loses to tradition and family. Amrit is a dashing girl who submits to tradition. Jhabvala’s first three novels are about both wife hunting and husband hunting. In her later novels she concentrates on the trapped married couple who seek a better mutual understanding, as in The Householder and in A Backward Place, or separation of the couple as in Get Ready for Battle. Anita Desai’s famous novels are Cry the Peacock (1963), Voices in the City (1965), Bye Bye Blackbird (1971), Where Shall We Go This Summer? (1975), Fire on the Mountain (1977), Clear Light of Day (1980) and The Vil lage by the Sea (1982). The novelist has graphically presented the turbulent psyche of the modern Indian women. Her protagonists are intell igent, sensible and sensitive, but in an attempt to manage home and children and attain emotional fulfilment, they reach on the verge of mental crisis. Unable to cope with their crisis, they resort to drastic steps. Maya in Cry, the Peacock, kills her husband Gautama by pushing him from the roof. In Where Shall We Go This Summer?, the author lays bare the void in Sita’s life as a woman, wife and mother. It is a The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 44 poignant tale of a middle-aged woman torn between her desire to abandon her comfortable, albeit boring existence, and the realization that the bonds that bind her to it cannot easily be severed. Desai has been labeled as a great feminist writer of international acclaim for having presented the predicament of sensitive women characters trapped between tradition and modernity. She, however, does not suggest solutions to their problems. Attia Hussain’s famous novel Sunlight on a Broken Column (1961) created an indelible stamp on the readers’ psyche. Written in a strictly autobiographical and retrospective mode, its plot deals with Laila’s revolt against the joint family system. Although she lives a secure and sheltered life in a Muslim family with a Western outlook, she is denied the freedom that women in the West enjoy. The reins of the household are in the hands of Baba Jan, a dying grandfather and domineering patriarch. With the passage of time, the old order fast changes. Laila questions and rebels against the traditional values, and finally decides to marry Ameer, a man after her heart. In spite of the disapproval of the entire joint family, she marries Ameer. He joins the Army in 1942, is taken prisoner and gets kil led while trying to escape. She has a daughter by him and learns to struggle and come to terms with life. Attia Hussain’s graphic description of scenes of college life, garden parties and receptions are vivid and informing. Her sharp and pointed remarks on social facts and orthodox conventions that enslave a woman, especially a Muslim one, earn for her a secure niche in the field of feminist writing in Indian English literature. The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 45 Nayantara Sahgal, yet another prominent Indian woman writer, dealt with issues concerning women that later became major issues in the feminist movement launched in the sixties. With delicate sensitivity, she exposes the prejudices women face in a male-dominated society. The Day in Shadow is about the prejudice faced by the divorcee-heroine Simrit. Sahgal, being a divorcee herself, reveals in a realistic and vivid manner how Simrit tries to square her equation with her growing children and her ex-husband. She not only undergoes the humiliation of being a divorcee but also faces the cruel “consent terms” of the divorce. Her best novel Rich Like Us is about Sonali, the daughter of a Marathi and a Kashmiri mother. Sonali, the central character, differs from the stereotypes of Indian womanhood found in fiction. She is a very brill iant IAS officer. She goes to Oxford to escape the Indian world of arranged marriages. She inherits from her father his uncompromising idealism and on her refusal to pass the sanction for the Happyola factory for Dev, she is replaced by the pliant Kachru. Besides, the emotional and mental trauma of Mona and Rose caused by their husband Ram is also vividly laid bare. Conditioned to the oppressive Indian social setup both become willing victims of exploitation and injustice. Sahgal has a l imited world of feminist ideas. She does a close and sensitive study of her elite women characters. Her protagonists refuse to remain fettered to their subordinate roles and defy traditional norms and values in search of emancipation. Parallel to the main theme of man-woman relationships, runs the allegory of the impersonal world of the post-Nehru Indian political world. The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 46 Kamala Das, the renowned poetess, has written two novels: The Alphabet of Lust (1980) and A Doll for the Child Prostitute. They are about the quest for identity in a male-dominated society. The protagonists let themselves exploited sexually in their assertion for emancipation and search for identity. Even her autobiography My Story reveals her struggle for emancipation and search for identity. Written in the autobiographical mode, The Alphabet of Lust is about Manasi, the unhappy and frustrated wife of a government official, Amol Mitra, who is old enough to be his father. The two are not suited to each other. All the time he is busy with his official work, and denies her love, companionship and warmth. In a state of frustration, despondency and diminished status, she hungers for emancipation and identity. She is so overwhelmed by her circumstances that she discards all barriers, inhibitions, whether moral or social. Using her political contacts she is able to become a poetess with a number of awards to her credit. She finally succeeds to become the Home Minister. By asserting her individuality unscrupulously, she soars to the highest pinnacle of success, power and glory. A Doll for the Child Prostitute, her next novel, is about a child prostitute’s struggle for liberation and quest for identity. To this end Mira, the child prostitute, secretly marries her student—client which doesn’t last a week, and is forced back into the abhorrent profession of prostitution. Another child prostitute, Rukmini, too has similar pursuits. Her mother sells her to a brothel keeper and her craving to become a cultured and cultivated woman are frustrated. One Inspector Sahab, fond of her, wants to make her his “keep.” She The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 47 ironically begins to call her “Papa” as he resembles her father. Forgetting all his lust, he begins to behave as one. He had promised to bring a foreign doll for her and he makes good his promise. His carnal lust is changed into parental love and affection for her. The brothel keeper proposes to marry Rukmini to her son. Thus she gets an opportunity to identity herself as a decent and self- respecting woman. Thus, Kamala Das’s novels are clear manifestations of a woman’s quest for identity. Namita Gokhale too has had her contribution to feminist writing written in the autobiographical mode. Her novel Paro: Dreams of Passion is about Paro’s rebellion and her rejection of the culturally imposed sexual repression. All her inhibitions and moral barriers come to an end, and she becomes a nymphomaniac in search of sexual variety. In the character of Paro, sex is symbolic of a quest for identity as a free woman. Her sexual exploits are an expression of the free woman—the symbol and prototype of emancipation and individuality. Shashi Deshpande holds great worth as an Indian English woman novelist. She is the only Indian author to have made bold attempts at giving a voice to the disappointments and frustrations of women despite her vehement denial of being a feminist. Roots and Shadows, her first novel, depicts the agony and suffocation experienced by the protagonist Indu in a male-dominated and tradition—bound society. She undergoes great mental trauma when she refuses to play the straitjacketed role of a wife imposed upon by society. The man she marries after her heart, to her great disappointment, is no different from the less educated and conservative Indian men. She is even more pained to realize The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 48 that she herself has all along been unconsciously aping the role of the ideal Indian wife. In her quest for identity, she even develops an extra-marital affair to finally realize that it is possible to exercise autonomy within the parameters of marriage. Shashi Deshpande thus exposes the gross gender discrimination and its fallout in a male-dominated society. The Dark Holds No Terrors, the second novel, is about the traumatic experience the protagonist Saru undergoes as her husband refuses to play a second-fiddle role. Saru undergoes great humiliation and neglect as a child and, after marriage, as a wife. Deshpande discusses the blatant gender discrimination shown by parents towards their daughters and their desire to have a male child. After her marriage, as she gains a greater social status than her husband Manohar’s, all begins to fall apart. His husband’s sense of inferiority complex and the humiliation he feels as a result of society’s reaction to Saru’s superior position develops sadism in him. Manu vents his frustration on Saru in the form of sexual sadism, which has been vividly portrayed by Deshpande. That Long Silence, the third novel, is about Jaya who, despite having played the role of a wife and mother to perfection, finds herself lonely and estranged. Jaya realizes that she has been unjust to herself and her career as a writer, as she is afraid of inviting any displeasure from her husband. Her fear even discourages her from acknowledging her friendship with another man. The Binding Vine, her fourth novel, deals with the personal tragedy of the protagonist Urmi to focus attention on victims like Kalpana and Mira. Urmi narrates the pathetic tale of Mira, her mother-in-law, who is a victim of marital The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 49 rape in marriage. Mira, in the solitude of her unhappy marriage, would write poems, which were posthumously translated and published by Urmi. Urmi also narrates the tale of her acquaintance Shakutai, who had been deserted by her husband for another woman. The worst part of her tale is that her elder daughter Kalpana is brutally raped by her sister Sulu’s husband, Prabhakar. Urmi takes up cudgels on Kalpana’s behalf and brings the culprit to book. In A Matter of Time, her fifth novel, Shashi Deshpande for the first time enters into the metaphysical world of philosophy. Basically, it’s about three women from three generations from the Sarue family and how they cope with the tragedies in their lives. Sumi is deserted by her husband Gopal, and she faces her humiliation with great courage and stoicism. Though, deep inside, she is struck with immense grief, but tries to keep herself composed for the sake of her daughters. Her mother Kalyani was married off to her maternal uncle Shripati. When their four-year-old son gets lost at a railway station, Shripati sends her back to her parent’s house. On Manorama’s request, when he returns he maintains a stony silence for the rest of his life. Kalyani’s mother Manorama fails to beget a male heir to her husband, and fears lest he should take another wife for the Sarue purpose. Manorama, to avoid the property getting passed on to other family, gets Kalyani married to her brother Shripati. Thus, Deshpande has revealed to our gaze the fears, frustrations and compulsions of three women from three generations from the Sarue family. Small Remedies, her latest novel, is about Savitribai Indorekar, the aging doyenne of Hindustani music, who avoids marriage and a home to pursue her genius. She has led the most unconventional of lives, and undergoes great The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 50 mental trauma due to the opposition by a society that practises double standards-one for men and the other for women. Even as a child she was a victim of gross gender discrimination. Besides, Madhu narrates her own life story and also those of her aunt Leela and Savitribai’s daughter, Munni. A deep analysis of her novels leaves no doubt about her genuine concern for women. Her protagonists are acutely aware of their smothered and fettered existence in an orthodox male-dominated society. Caught between tradition and modernity, her protagonists search for their identity within marriage. Deshpande’s novels contain much that is feminist. The realistic delineation of women as wife, mother and daughter, their search for identity and sexuality as well, leaves the readers in no doubt where her real sympathies lie. She has been against her works being labeled as “feminist,” as it has traditionally been regarded as an inferior type of literature in the minds of people. She denies any influence of the militant kind that Western feminists like Simone de Beauvoir, Germaine Greer, Betty Friedan, and Kate Millett advocate. She concerns herself with the women’s issues in the Indian context. In an interview she tells Lakshmi Holmstrom: It is difficult to apply Kate Millett or Simone de Beauvoir or whatever to the reality of our daily lives in India. And then there are such terrible misconceptions about feminism by people here. They often think it is about burning bras and walking out on your husband, children or about not being married, not having children etc. I always try to make the point now about what feminism is not, and to The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 51 say that we have to discover what it is in our own lives, our experiences.12 Women-centred narratives in her novels have led many interviewers to ask her as to what extent does she consider herself a feminist. Shashi Deshpande says: I now have no doubts at all in saying that I am a feminist. In my own life, I mean. But not consciously, as a novelist. I must also say that my feminism has come to me very slowly, very gradually, and mainly out of my own thinking and experiences and feelings. I started writing first and only then discovered my feminism. And it was much later that I actually read books about it.13 The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 52 References 1. Hunter College Women’s Studies Collective: Women’s Realities, Women’s Choices: Introduction to Women’s Studies, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1983, 68. 2. Quoted in Sarbjit K. Sandhu, The Image of Woman in the Novels of Shashi Deshpande, New Delhi: Prestige Books, 1991,8. 3. Ramchandra Guha, “Not ‘by Faith Alone,” The Sunday Express, 1 October 1918. 4. K.S Ramamurti, Rise of the Indian Novel in English, New Delhi: Sterling, 1987, 66. 5. John B. Alphonso-Karkala, Indo-English Literature in the Nineteenth Century, Mysore: University of Mysore, 1870,78. 6. Sushila Singh, “Preface,” Feminism and Recent Fiction in English, New Delhi: Prestige Books, 1991,7. 7. Simone de Beauvoir, “Introduction,” The Second Sex, translated and edited by H.M. Parshley, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1983, 13. 8. Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1971, 282. 9. Kate Millett, Sexual Politics, London: Rupert Hart Davis, 1971, 56-57. 10. Germaine Greer, The Female Eunuch, St Alabama: Paladin, 1976,319. 11. Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar, London: Faber & Faber, 1982, 88-89. The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 53 12. Shashi Deshpande, “Interview: Shashi Deshpande Talks to Lakshmi Holmstrom,” Wasafiri, No. 17, Spring 1993, 26 .. 13. Loc. cit. The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 54 Chapter 4 Technology of Gender (Feminism) A General Introduction The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 55 Chapter–IV Technology of Gender (Feminism) A General Introduction Human experience has chiefly been a masculine or, what may be called, a ‘malist’ experience. Hence the cumulative image humanity offers is a tilted, distorted one with the female voice denied an equal force, with the’ woman remaining behind the arras. “Men have had every advantage of us in telling their own story. Education has been theirs in so much higher a degree; the pen has been in their hands”, protests Jane Austen in Persuasion. From Christine de Pisan to Mary Wollstonecraft, from Simone de Beauvoir to Jane Austen and beyond, women have been demanding their rights in a male-centric world. Feminism is a protest movement launched by women of the West for equal social, political, legal, moral, cultural rights with men. It is a movement by fist-shaking, foot- stamping, rights-demanding women opposed to androcentric or male-supremacist ideas, ‘Feminism is the sentiment’, observes Rebecca West, ‘that differentiates me from the doormat’. It is an anti- masculinist movement of the women, by the women and for the women. It is also called Aphraism after Aphra Behn, a 17th century feminist, political activist and abolitionist. This movement recognizes the ‘inadequacy of male-created ideologies’ and works towards the spiritual, racial, economic and social equality of The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 56 women who are ‘sexually colonised, historically neglected and biologically subordinated’. It refers to the conviction that ‘our production of culture and meaning, like our consumption of culture and meaning influences our sex/gender systems. In turn sex/gender systems influence our production and consumption of culture and meaning.’ The rise of Feminism in Europe in 17th and 18th centuries is related to the economic prosperity of the new bourgeois resulting in the use of servants to perform domestic work. In 19th century, Feminism remained a protest movement against the suppression of women’s rights, against what may be called an ‘ego-testicle world view’. In the beginning of the 20th century, it expressed itself in the Suffrage Movement. The changes in technology and means of production and the rising demand for female labour have together formulated the structure and texture of the Suffrage Movement. Mary Astell’s A Serious Proposal to the Ladies (1697) stressed the role of women’s education in removing their inferiority and insecurity. Much later, Virginia Woolf accepted Astell’s view that education alone can expand woman’s-consciousness of the world and ensure her place in the society: It was she (the woman in her) who used to come between me and my paper when I was writing reviews. It was she who bothered me and wasted my time and so tormented me that at last I killed her .... She was intensely sympathetic. She was immensely charming. She was utterly unselfish. She excelled in the different arts of family life. She sacrificed herself daily. If there was chicken, she took the leg; if there was a draught, she sat on it-in short, she was so constituted that she never had a mind or a wish of her own but preferred to sympathise always with the minds and wishes of others—And The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 57 when I came to write I encountered her with the very first words. The shadow of her wings fell of my page. I heard the rustling of her skirts in the room. The Puritan movement in the middle of the 17th century, no doubt, supported patriarchal authority. but it recognized women’s rights. Sophia, a poineer of women’s liberation movement in 18th century, questioned male authority over property and pleaded for women’s open access to employment opportunities and political issues in Woman not inferior to Man (1739). Mary Wollstonecraft in her Vindication of the rights of Women (1789) opposed restrictions on women’s freedom for self-expression and self-development. She wrote against the demeaning in-dignity of systematic exclusion of women from the rights and responsibilities of citizenship. Elizabeth Lady Staton, 19th century American suffragist, stressed self-sovereignty asa moral imperative and not as a categorical absolute. Mary Collier in her book The Women’s Labour, an answer to Stephen Duck’s open poem “The Thrasher’s Labour” argued against the misconceptions regarding the values of labour contributed by women for agricultural produciton. William Thomson in the work—Appeal to one half of the human race, women, against the pretensions of the other half, men, to retain them in political and thence in civil and domestic slavery—(1825), opposed James Mill’s views that women will not benefit from separate legal rights in isolation from their husbands. The French Utopian socialists, Fourier and Saint-Simon, too, threw their weight in support of women’s lib. Condercet believed there can be no social justice without women’s rights to equality with men. He believed in the classic feminist argument that women are neither biologicalIy nor intellectualIy inferior to men. The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 58 In the year 1788 Jeremy Bentham raised live arguments against women’s suffrage: first, the traditional work done by women will suffer if they take interest in politics; second, women will have to depend on men economically; third, men have to depend on women sexually; fourth, women cannot combine education with domestic duties; and fifth, there will be no domestic harmony if women are given the right to vote. In 1867 JS Mill introduced amendments to the Second Reform Bill in order to give women the right to vote. Lydia Becket started a Suffrage Society on property-based vote. But Ethel Derbyshire and Selina Cooper opposed it as there were women workers who had no property. Women’s participation in World War I dispelled all illusions about women’s unsuitability for jobs meant for men. Women manufactured ammunitions. They fought the war. Frailty was no longer synonymous with femininity. Woman had walked a long way away from Arnold Bennett’s Hilda Lessways who was the very incarnation of fragility. While addressing Akron Convention on women’s rights in 1851, Sojourner Truth observed: That man over there says women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place ! And am a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed, and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me ! And am a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man....I have borne 13 children, and seen them sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother’s grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain’t I a woman? (Sojourner Truth 1851, in Bert James Lowenberg and Ruth Bogin cd. 1976,235). The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 59 Dr. Anna Manning Comfort, an 1865 Medical School graduate, deplored: As a physician there was nothing that I could do that satisfied people. If I wore square-toed shoes and swung my arms, they said I was manish, and if I carried a parasol and wore a ribbon in my hair, they said I was too feminine. If I smiled, they said I had too much levity, and if I sighed, they “said I had no sand. Men write in their libraries and studies. Jane Austen wrote in the drawing room. Elizabeth Gaskell wrote in the dining room which had 3 doors leading from it and from which she could supervise the household once told a friend: ‘If I had a library like yours all undisturbed for hours, how I would write .... But you see everybody comes to me, perpetually .... settle 20 questions of dress for the girls .... and it’s not half past ten yet. Kate Chopin in The Awakening speaks of her heroine as one who instinctively apprehended the dual life—that outward existence which conforms, the inward life which questions. She questions their ‘downpression’, this discrimination in a phallocentric society that excuses all in the male and accuses all in the famale: Crime has no sex and yet today I wear a band of shame. Whilst he and the gay and proud Still bears an honoured name. Can you blame if I’ve learned to think Your hate of vice a sham When you so coldly crushed me down And then excused the man. The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 60 “The word ‘man’ always includes ‘woman’ when there is a penalty to be incurred”, observes Charlotte Carmichael Stopes (1908, 5),” it never includes ‘women’ when there is a privilege to be conferred.” “When obligations are meant such as taxation, women are included and considered equal,”, writes Varda One, “whent rights are meant, such as suffrage, they are excluded and must fight for each one.” “If a woman is swept off a ship into the water, the cry is ‘man overboard’. If she is injured on the job, the coverage is ‘workmen’s compensation’. But if she arrives at a threshold marked ‘Men only’, she knows the admonition is not intended to bar animals or plants or inanimate objects. It is meant for her.” In 1801 there appeared in Paris a book by Silvain Merechal Shall Women learn the alphabet? The book proposed a law prohibiting the alphabet to women. It quoted authorities to prove that a woman who knows the alphabet loses her womanliness. Madame Guion would have been far more adorable had she remained a beautiful ignoramus as Nature made her. Ruth, Naomi, the Spartan woman, the Amazons, Penelope, Andromache, Lucretia, Joan of Arc, Petrarch’s Laura, the daughters of Charlemagne could not spell their names, while Sappho, Aspasia, Madame de Maintenon and Madame de Stael could read too well Cor their good: Merechal argued that if women were permitted to read Sophocles or work with Logarithms or nibble at any side of the apple of knowledge, there will be an end to their sewing buttons and embroidering slippers. As if women were born with a sewing needle in their hands ! Dale Spender calls the literature made by men ‘man-made language’ which Varda One satirically designates ‘MangIish’ Such an attitude made women ‘invisible’. The detiographer made them in-audible. Consequently, women produced fewer words than men, published fewer and their books remained in print for fewer years. Tillie Olsen notes The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 61 that out of five books published, only one is by a woman, and that too remains unrecognized, untaught, unknown. Nina Bayon (1978) details hundreds of novels by 19th century women writers ignored by critics. Erlene Stetson (1982) documents the politics of publication for Black women. Marlene Dixon (1976) describes her confrontation with Mc Gill University in a book which she calls ‘one long breach of confidentiality’. Evelyn Torton Beck edited in 1982 Nice Jewish Girls and called it a book written by people who do not exist. Deborah Rosenfield (1982) counts 25 pages in the British Museum catalogue headed simply ‘A Lady’. An 1880 pamphlet lists 151 works published under that name which makes Hawthorne condemn them as ‘that damned mob of scribbling women’. Clare Booth in her foreword to the play The Women (1937) lists some epithets applied to the women by the gentlemen of the press: Cats, Tiger cats, Supercilious cats, Malignant cats, Hell cats, Poison Tongues, Tittle - Tattlers, Gossip peddlers, Cobras, Female Lice, Flashy, flossy, frightful, filthy harlots, Odious harpies, Brazen hussies etc. Anatomy is destiny, said Freud. At these words have become as famous as his name. But Feminists oppose with all force this Freudian myth of biological determinism. If anatomy were destiny, they ask, how is it that wheels were invented? We should have been limited by our legs. “Reduce woman to her anatomy- to womb- and it is death, death, death, all the way; death and death and death, always endlessly, glut-tonously death. The destiny of anatomy is death.”. ‘Is anatomy linguistic destiny?’, ask Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar (1982), ‘Is a womb a metaphorical mouth, a pen a metaphorical penis?’. Clare Booth Lure questions, ‘But if”God had wanted us to think with our womb, why did He give us a brain’. ‘If you display any kind of strength or power or otherwise’, deplored Margaret Atwood, ‘you are ... a witch, a Medusa, a destructive, powerful, scary monster’. A woman The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 62 is a woman, and a woman she must remain, man’s shadow self, an ally, an auxiliary, an ‘embedded rabbit’, the ‘inessential other’as Simone de Beauvoir calls her. ‘Public places like the village square, the cafes and the Mayor’s house are the domain of men, while private places such as houses and the back streets .... belong to women’. When Davy says he would call Tom Cat a Thomas Pussy hdon: the Minister, Dora suggested, “I think ‘gemtleman cat’ would be more polite”. “You thinking”, retorted Davy with withering scorn. As if a woman is incapable of thinking! Thus woman remained inside the field of vision of, what Marilyn Fryc calls, man’s ‘arrogant eye’ lest her work should be meaningless, her life of no value, her accomplishments empty, her identity illusory. ‘Art as we know it’, writes Cicely Hamilton in 1909, ‘is a masculine product wrought by the hands and conceived by the brains of men; the works of art that have forced themselves into the enduring life of the world have been shaped, written, builded, painted by men. They have achieved and we have imitated- on the whole, pitifully’. Eunice Golden in 1981 talks of male ‘landscape drawn by her female artists to depict ‘our bombardment by phallic imagery’ to ‘explore the phallacy of that power’. When Rich received the Nationalist Book Award for her Diving into the Wreck, she did in the name of all the women ‘whose voices have gone and still go unheard in a patriarchal world.’ This is the voice of frustration, the female voice of failure which we hear in Dorothy Parkin’s verses filled with bones, shrouds, weeds, graves, linen, ghosts, worms, in the funeral titles of her books: Sunset Gun, Enough Rope, Laments for the Living, Not so deep as a well, Here lies. “No other people are so entirely captured, so entirely conquered, so destitute of any memory of freedom, so dreadfully robbed of identity and culture, so absolutely slandered as a group, so demeaned and humiliated . The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 63 And yet we go on, blind, and we ask over and over again, ‘what can we do for them?’. It is time to ask, ‘what must we do now for US?’ Woman was considered incomplete without man. Cicely Hamilton and Charlotte Perkins opposed this Dale Spender’s concept of ‘completion complex’. Kate Millet maintained that women are not a dependency class who live on surplus. In 1739 Sophia in her book Woman not inferior to man wrote: ‘The worst of us deserve much better treatment than the best of us receive.’ It is ‘ a dynamic affirmation of women’s newly acquired identities as whole women’. Elsa Lanchester resurrected by the mad doctor from the dead to be the mate of his Frankenstein monster in the movie “Bride of Frankenstein” rebels and the doctor’s castle tumbles down - ‘the phallic castle of male supremacy’. ‘I realize many women today must work for a bigger slice of the pie’, writes Jackie Lapidus to her mother in 1975, ‘but I will not do so- I prefer to work to change the recipe’. The woman today no longer wants to remain a Cinderella, a La Chingada, a Madison Avenue’s woman. She must change. She must release herself from, what Francoise d’Eaubonne calls, ‘feminitude’, from her legal, social, psychological exclusion. Arab women protested against false male genetics 1400 years ago. ‘We have proclaimed our belief in Islam and done as you have done. How is it then that you men should be mentioned in the Koran while we are ignored?’ So Allah henceforward said: ‘All Mouslimeena Wal Mouslimat, Wal Mou’minnena Wal Mou’minat: The Muslims, men and women, and the believers, men and women. Thus the very basis of feminism is reformist. It subverts male strategies of oppression. It gives a better understanding of the woman condition. As Lynda Gordon says, feminism analyses woman’s subordination and in analysing it, helps to change it. The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 64 Various Feminist organisations like Emma Goldman Brigade, Combalee River Collective, Grey Panthers, ANLU, NAWSA, and women’s periodicals like Cauldron in Australia, Revolting Women in Canada, Siren in Chicago, Grape Vine in Ontario, Gossip in San Francisco, Up from Under in New York, The Furies in Washington, Ain’t I a woman in Iowa, Sojourner in New England, Broadside in Houston, Hysteria in Cambridge, Trouble and Strife in Leeds, Enough in Bristol, Women in Struggle in Wisconsin, Women Come Together in Swansea etc. were started as instruments of change. Today the suppressed female voice is articulated. The dignity of woman is affirmed. She has a greater share of social responsibility and a greater readiness to author her own authority. Rosalind in As You Like It puts on a man’s garb and goes about looking for her lover. Even Sita, an of-quoted example of anti-feminism, had the guts to resist Ravana. Elizabeth Barret Browning and George Eliot revolted against social conventions. Simone de Beauvoir in The Second Sex is concerned with the physical suppression of woman. The result was: in French Feminism we see greater sexual expression; in England women have been reclaimed into the male world order; in America they enjoy greater freedom of speech. Kate Millet in Sexual Politics, Virginia Woolf in A Room of One’s Own and Simone de Beauvoir in The Second Sex explore the woman question and in exploring it, expose the myth of male superiority. ‘Our country belongs to its men’, observes Aunt Lila in Anita Desai’s Voices in the City. And so it did for hundreds of years. Father and husband treated women as their property that can be owned, controlled, disposed of the way they liked until Gandhi came. Gandhi gave a new direction and dimension to the Feminist movement in India. He freed women from passivity, servility, domesticity. He held that men and women were partners, sharing equal duties in social life and equal rights in political field. Though The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 65 Municipal vote for Indian women was acquired as far back as 1885, it had not been properly utilised by them for lack of education, lack of opportunity for self-development, lack of interest in social problems. But the movement of social reform tried to remove this ‘Howeverism’, taking what is given. Women had enjoyed equal rights with men in the Vedic days. They had the opportunity of receiving the highest education. They had what may be called ‘Jane-Eyreity’, a high sense of independence. Property was under the joint control of husband and wife. Later the wife became the property of the husband—a Susan in the hands of a Henchard in Hardy’s Mayor of Casterbridge. Since then saints and savants, reformers and rebels, poets and novelists have championed the cause of women’s rights. Ganghi acclaimed the ideal of Ardhangini enshrined in Indian culture and accepted the fact that men and women complement one another, and one is never whole without the other. He proclaimed the scriptures which had conceived Prakriti and Purusha as one, man and woman as one in the concept of Ardhanariswara. The National Council of Women in 1921, All India Women’s Conference in 1927 and 1930 protested against the feudal forces which kept Indian women under subjugation, kept them cleaning or scrub-bing or washing or ironing or cooking, left them lost in ‘malestream’ as Mary Daly would have it. They denounced what Chaman Nahal calls ‘this dependence syndrome’. Sarojini Naidu who was in the forefront of the Indian freedom struggle did much to redeem Indian women from the clutches of slavery and superstition. Margaret Cousins and Annie Besant led the movement for gaining voting rights for Indian women. It was in 1920 that the power of vote was first given to women in Cochin and Travancore and in 1921 in Madras Presidency. Many laws passed after 1947 like the Hindu Marriage Act and Hindu Succession Act of 1956, Dowry Prohibition Act of The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 66 1961, Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act of 1971 etc. gave a wide spectrum of rights to Indian women. Traditionally, India had a male-dominated culture. Indian woman ‘covered with many thick, slack layers of prejudice, convention, ignorance and reticence’ in literature as well as in life had no autonomous existence. She was Sahgal’s Bimmi in Rich Like Us, an inanimate object’ with ‘manacled hands resting submissively in her red silk lap’. She was, what Sylvia Plath calls her, ‘the cloud that distils a mirror to reflect its own slow/Effacement at the wind’s hand’. Bengali women, says Monisha in Desai’s Voices in the City, follow five paces behind their men ... and there is something infinitely gentle, infinitely patient about their long eyes, the curve of their shoulders, their manner of walking which arouses, not aggressiveness in one.... but a protective feeling ... .! think of generations of Bengali women hidden behind the barred windows of half-dark rooms, spending centuries in washing clothes, kneading dough and murmuring aloud verses from the Bhagvad Gita and the Ramayana in the dim light of sooty lamps’. But with the influence of Western education and culture, the Indian woman has re-emerged as a new being. A new feminine literary tradition has spawned out of the curiosities and anxieties of a woman’s life. Sahgal makes a character say in Rich Like Us : But now I believe all wives are good because they have little choice. The nuns in nunneries are good. Little children in their cradles are good. The Hindu wife is a Hindu wife and can do nothing else. And it is not until we can take the goodness of women less for granted that we shall learn to value it. The woman’s voice is an insurgent, subaltern voice. In the development of the Indian English fiction, observes AV. Krishna Rao, the feminine sensibility has achieved an The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 67 imaginative self- sufficiency which merits recognition in spite of its relatively late manifestation. A woman writer imprisoned within her social dogmas and stigmas had to choose her literary canvas from a selected area of experience with certain vistas remaining beyond her reach. These vistas hitherto forbidden to her are being creatively explored and candidly delineated. There has been a spurt of new women writers like Namita Gokhale, Kamala Das, Shobha De etc. The shadow-figure, the tagged self has now come out of her solitary confmes, of domesticity and, what Andrea Dworkin calls, ‘masochistic passivity’. The US anti-war slogan of the 60s was ‘Make love, not war’. The anti-masculinist slogan of the Indian woman today is, ‘Make War, not love’. The Indian woman today is no longer a Damayanti. She is a Draupadi or a Damini’ or a Nora or ‘a Candida or a Joan of Arc. Social reformers like Raja Rammohan Roy, Pandit Iswar Chandra Vidyasagar and political revolutionarie like Mahatma Gandhi and ‘Pandit Nehru lent her a new dimension, gave her a new direction. Thus Feminism as a new way of life, a new perspective came into existence in India with the feminine psyche trying to redefine woman’s role in the society. Indian women writers have turned inward to explore the private rather than the public life of the individual. So their literature has largely become confessional and personal and their subjective style has been labelled feminine, even though men, too, employ it. Feminism in Indian English fiction has been a series of counters and ordeals on the art of woman to strike roots, to belong and assert her identity in a ransitional society. Woman is horn free, but she is in· chains. She has become the ‘subordinate sex’. But not always and everywhere. All women do not conform. They rebel. They reconcile. And The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 68 hence as Nirode sees them in Voices in the City, they arc Kali as well as Durga, symbols of destruction as well as creation. In India woman has been ‘woe-man’ from the beginning barring the Vedic period when she enjoyed the pride of place with Gargi, Maitreyi, Lopamudra who walked shoulder to shoulder with men. Even Sita, Savitri, Shakuntala and Draupadi who appeared at a later period could not be said to be passive, submissive, docile and servile, for while Sita in the Ramayana resisted the demoniac aggressiveness. of Ravana, Savitri snatched a century from the grim grip of Yam a, Lord of death, Shakuntala in the Mahabharata proved the strength of her nerves by meeting the challenge of Dushmanta, Draupadi displayed the female ferocity by washing her hair in the blood of Duhsasana who had attempted to disrobe her in the court of the Kauravas. It is said, , ‘Yatra naryastu pujyante! ramanti tatra devatah, the gods themselves the place where woman is worshipped, woman so indispensable to man’s life, an adviser in work, a slave in service, a partner in noble deeds, an earth in tolerance, a mother in affection, a harlot in bed, and a friend in enjoyment: Karyeshu mantri, karaneshu dasi Dhanneshu patni, kshamaya dharitri Sneheshu mata, shayaneshu veshya Range sakhi, Laxmana! sa kuto me. But slowly with Manu’s male-dominated code of conduct enunciated in Manu Saruhita, the woman in India was dislodged from her pedestal until finally during the Muslim rule, she disappeared behind the Purdah. Life became a lengthy street where she walked every day with her basket. It was only when Gandhi gave his clarion call for The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 69 India’s independence that women broke their chains, walked hand in hand with men, raising their little fingers against the unmitigated autocratic rule at home and abroad. Sarojini Naidu left home and led the way to Salt Satyagraha just as the little girl in her “Village Song” preferred the free life in the forest to the prisonhouse called the world: The bridal songs and cradle songs have cadences of sorrow. / The laughter of the sun today, the wind of death tomorrow. / Far sweeter sound the forest notes where forest streams are falling / O, mother mine, I cannot stay, the fairy folks are calling. This protest was voiced in many forms in Indian English fiction. Not only women writers like Anita Desai, Nayantara Sahgal, Shashi Deshpande, Jai Nimbkar, Shobha De, Kamala Markandaya, but male writers like Tagore, Mulk Raj Anand, RK Narayan, Manohar Mal-gonkar etc dwell on tortured womanhood. Tagore brought woman out of the kitchen into the parlour. His Damini is the syni00l of feminine strength, a woman who throws a challenge to the orthodox, hide-bound Bengali society through her remarriage. Yet Tagorc’s woman remains ‘half-human and half- dream.’ Anand places woman in a traditional socio-cultural milieu of a stiflingly conventional Hindu society where she is doomed to a life of degradation and dehumanisation, a life of mental subjugation and conditioned responses. Anand’s men fail to recognise what Jung calls ‘anima’ or the female principle, the inherited collective image of woman lying in man’s unconscious with the help of which he apprehends the nature of woman in his fictional world. Men remain hollow and women unredeemed, dumb creatures caught in the Dar-winian world of the survival of the fittest unable to pull their weight beyond the biological. Anand’s Lajwanti is a prototypical pathetic image of The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 70 Indian womanhood shrunk half-size, while his Gauri explodes the Sita myth into a thousand fragments and retrieves the female species through her’ symbolic emancipation on the road to Hoshiarpur, and the spurious righteousness of masculine hegemony disintegrates in the face of Gauri’s new-found freedom. Narayan’s The Dark Room (1972) projects the lop-sided family life of Ram ani where there is little understanding between husband and wife. Savitri makes an unsuccessful attempt to run away and live a life of her own, but ultimately comes back to the life she had left behind. Her ‘spirited protest’ ends in a ‘gratuitous home coming’; Narayan marks man-woman relationship on the marital plane in The Dark Room and The English Teacher and on the extra marital plane in The Guide, The Vendor of sweets and The Painter of Signs. In The Guide, Rosie rises on her own feet when Marco and Raju fail her, and acquires an independent identity, no longer a dancing girl pandering to the tastes of all and sundry, while in the The Painter of Signs, Daisy dictates terms to Ramani, she asserts her right to follow her own faith: There are millions of women ....I am not one of them ... .lf you want to marry me. You must leave me to my own plans, even when I am a wife. On any day you question why or how, I will leave you. It will be an unhappy thing for me, but I will leave you.’ She echoes the words Yojanagandha had said to Raja Shantanu in The Mahabharat. Malgonkar’s Maharani in The Princess and Sundari in A Bend in the Ganges, too, struggle against the tyranny of tradition. Hiroji, her husband, consigns the Maharani to the dark loneliness of the palace, her son calls her ‘bitch’, but she exercises her right to live life in her own way in preference to an animal existence, to the life of a ‘leper kept in segregation’. She marries a Muslim and leaves the country. The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 71 But more than men, Indian women novelists turned towards the woman’s world with greater introspective intensity and authenticity. They launched an aesthetic voyage within to explore the private consciousness of their women characters and measure the pressure of the inner weather. Elaine Showalter talks of 3 phases in the growth of feminist tradition: limitation, protest, self-discovery. Anita Desai’s works are directly related to the third phase. They encapsulate her ‘private vision’ that captures the long-smothered wail of a lacerated psyche, that tells the harrowing tale of blunted human relationship. The fate of Maya, Monisha, Sita and Nanda Kaul reminds us of Mr. and Ms. Ramsay in Virginia WooIfs To The Light House. Maya’s married life in Cry, The Peacock (1963) is punctuated by ‘matrimonial silences and her husband’s hardness ... his coldness and incessant talk of cups of tea and philosophy’, by the total lack of communication on his part: ‘How little he knew my suffering .... Telling me to go to sleep while he worked at his papers, he did not give all another thought to me, to either the soft willing body or the lonely wanting mind that waited near his bed.’ Her schizophrenia aggravated by her infantilism reduces her to ‘a body without a heart, a heart without a body.’ Voices in the City (1965) presents the odyssey of two world-weary young women doomed to reside in Calcutta, the ‘city of death’. Permeated by existential angst, it explores the inner climate of youthful despair, ‘the terror of facing simglehanded the ferocious assaults of existence’ as Desai called it in an interview with Yasodhara Dalmia. Married against her will to a ‘blind moralist’, ‘a rotund, minute-minded and limited official’, she finds her life teeming with trivialities, pettinesses of our mean existence. ‘Is it what is then, my life’ she asks, ‘only a conundrum that I shall brood over forever with passion and pain, never to arrive at a solution? I Only conundrum, is that then life’. That claustrophobic life ends in suicide. The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 72 Where Shall We Go This Summer? probes deeper into the aching void of Sita’s life. A highly sensitive, over-emotional, middle-age woman, already saddled with four children and expecting the fifth, Sita continually breaks into violent eruptions of emotions, suffocated by the vegetarian complacency, and insularity of her unimaginative husband. Sita is ‘a cripple without crutches’, Nanda Kaul in Fire on the Mountain (1977) is ‘a charred treetrunk in the forest, a broken pillar of marble in the desert, a lizard on a stonewall’, lIa Das is ‘an old animal that has been made to run before the hounds’, ‘that last little broken bit of crazy life, fluttering up over the gravel like a bit of crumpled paper’, a ‘shrivelled, starved stick’, This was the Indian woman, This was her life. This was our attitude: Pita rakshati kaumarye bharta rakshati yauvane Rakshanti sthavire putrah na stri svatantryam arhati. (Manusmriti) ‘The father looks after her during childhood, the husband protects her during youth and the sons take care of her when she grows old. The woman is never fit for freedom.’ And it is this freedom Desai’s woman yearns from the sheltered, overprotected life of her husband’s home. Sita welcomes the storm to give her’ a sensation of flying, of being lifted off the earth ... realease and liberty’. Monisha longs to thrust her ‘head out of the window’, but ‘the bars are closely set’. She is con-demned to live a ‘one-dimensional’ life: ‘They put me away in a steel container, a thick glass cubicle and I have lived in it all my life, without a touch of love or hate or warmth in me. Sita wants to break loose ‘the barbed wire of prudence, caution, routine and order that throttle, choke and enslave her. She revolts against the subhuman placidity, calmness and sluggishness of her husband’s family. Like Nanda Kaul’s, Sarla’s aspirations have been shattered in In Custody. She is reduced to ceaseless passive waiting: ‘Sarla never lifted her voice in his (Deven’s) The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 73 presence- countless generations of Hindu womanhood be hind her stood in her way, preventing her from displaying open rebellion’. Sita sees women ‘chopping, slicing, chopping, slicing. If meals were not being eaten, then they were being cooked, or cleaned up after or planned’. Monisha goes down on her knees to touch her mother-in- law’s feet, while ‘another pair of feet appears to receive my touch, then another. How they all honour their own feet !’. The repres-sion, prohibition, exclusion and domination of Desai’s women can be linked with the dynamics of the spirals of power and pleasure which reinforce one another as Michel Foucault has it. In the novels of Anita Desai and Nayantara Sahgal, women are not a goddess or an automaton, they move from bondage to freedom, from indecision to self-assertion, from weakness to strength. sahgal’s The Day in Shadow (1976) sensitively presents a woman’s irrational fears and intolerable tensions in Indian society when she dissolves a marriage 17 years old. A society that looks upon divorce as ‘a disease that left pock marks’ does not recognize a woman’s identity apart from her husband’s. The disintegration of Simrit’s inner world is reflected in her frightening dream of a fall from the balustrade to the pavement below. While no one took any notice of her fall and cars and people kept going by, she picks herself up in panic and is relieved to find she did not fall apat: “ ‘It is the inside that has gone to pieces, and I’ll just have to go along very carefully from now on ... .’ The pain, a leper-like thing, detached itself from her and walked beside her to the end of the pavement; the end of the road and beyond.” She will have to pay a huge amount of tax on an income she can’t even use. She cannot live alone either on the economic or on the emotional level. She sees her life with Saru as no different from her present one: ‘May be, she had always been an animal, only a nice, obedient, domestic one, sitting on a cushion, doing as she was told. And in return she had been fed and The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 74 sheltered.’ Now she looks like a liberated woman, liberated from a marriage where there was neither companionship nor partnership. Yet it is not a liberation. She only steps out of the sheltered world of Saru into the shadow of Raj. And Simrit who never accepted a world where men did things and women waited for them acquiesced into one who will take orders again. Simrit passes from one man’s world into anther man’s. And an artificial power structure looks like a natural one. The status quo is affirmed. Simrit submits to male superiority and male dominance. And the novel which began with a feminist text ended with an anti-feminist texture. ‘In old times there was a husband and there was a wife’, observes Una Stannard sarcastically, ‘one who commanded and one who obeyed. They were two. Now they are one, the husband in whom the wife is totally merged and who, therefore, obeyed not because her husband was her ruler but because she was one with him. In Rich Like Us (1985), Sahgal transcends the personal introverted world of The Day in Shadow underscoring the arbitrariness of the power distribution in gender roles. With a wife and newly born infant back home in India, Ram Courts Rose in England and marries her. Ram for whom wives are things to be used and not discarded but kept aside for future needs discards Rose for Marcella. And ‘in the utter stillness, the thin Sobbing sound of pure grief no one was meant to hear froze Mona’s tears in Rose’s eyes’. In this male World where men pass orders and women carry them out, when men create situa-tions and women live them, the only hope of Woman is another Woman” sisterhood. Mona and Rose become sisters. Mona looks to Rose for Comfort and Rose to Sonali for solace. Sonali is the only Woman who is free to live in her own way, free from subjugation and subordination, but she, too, pays a heavy price: she remains single all her life. On the other hand, Ravi ‘had never fought a battle for freedom, never had a sari throttling his legs, The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 75 making walking in the wind and running to catch a bus a threat to life and limb, never had his mother set up a howl when he went and got a haircut. He had no idea what the simplest subjugations were all about. I, who did, had no intention of chaining myself to any doctrine when I had just lost some of my claims’. While Nayantara Sahgal deals with urban upperclass women, Shashi Deshpande delineates the middle-class educated women to show what man had made of woman. Deshpande’s women are anti-matriarchal. Saru in The Dark Holds No Terrors is discriminated against by her mother who values her son above her daughter. Saru looks forward to the role of wife, but what does she find? Against her parents wishes, she marries Manu, a boy from a lower caste, to secure the love lost in her parental home. But once she sets herself up as a doctor, she is cut off from her children and her husband. She fails as mother and wife. Manu’s superior male ego asserts itself through nocturnal sexual assaults upon Saru. ‘I put another brick on the wall of silence between us. May be, one day I will be walled al.ive within it and die a slow, painful death,’ Saru sighs. She wants to leave: the profession but Manu will not allow since it will tell upon the family purse. She wants to live with her father, but her father will not allow as it will tell upon his family prestige. Since hers was an arranged marriage, she is an unwelcome guest to her father who is an unwilling host. ‘...... there can never be any forgiveness. Never any atonement. My brother died because I hee’dlessly turned my back on him. My mother died alone because I deserted her. My husband is a failure because I destroyed his manhood’. This is not only the picture of Saru, this is the state of Indian womanhood, the dumb driven cattle of the country. When Manu arrives, she begs her father not to open the door. But then she reflects: ‘Can her father’s home be hers? Is it all a fraud then, the eternal cry of…my husband, my wife, my children, my parents? Are all human relations doomed to be a The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 76 failure?’. Saru realizes she is her own refuge: All right, so I’m alone but so’s everyone else. Human beings ..... they are going to fail you. But because there is just us, because there’s no one else, we have to go on trying. If we can’t believe in ourselves, we are sunk’. With this realization, she asks her father to tell Manu to wait: ‘I will be back as soon as I can’. She submits like Indu in Roots and Shadows. When Naren threatens to go away Indu says: ‘Going? Why did I feel at once like a deserted, abandoned child? Why did it always have to be someone else for me?’ Jai Nimbkar in Temporary Answers presents her new woman in Vineeta who resents when Abhijit returns home on hearing she was ill: ‘I did not want to be a child but Abhijit had treated me as a child, and I had encouraged him to treat me as one. Why else had he come back?’ And when the novel closes, she tells him .... give me a real chance to deal with my problems in my own way. Shobha De projects woman as a creative force that controls the dynamics of the society. Her Karuna revolts against the marginalisation and trivialization of the wife by the husband in Socialite Evenings (1989). She opposes what Evelyn Tension calls three Ms : marriage, motherhood and monotony. She refuses to marry for the second time. If her first marriage proved unsatisfactory and unsuccessful, what guarantee was there that her second husband would treat her well? She tells her mother: ‘I like and respect Girish. We share a lot of common interests. But I’m not sure I’ll make a good wife to him. Or, he a good husband to me. Perhaps we are both far too selfish for marriage. I can’t make any sacrifices—not now.’ She is not prepared to make any sacrifices so long she is able to stand on her own legs. In Kamala Markandaya’s Possession (1963) Lady Caroline Bell not only deals with her problems in her own way, she solves Valmiki’s problems in her way. She lords over him. The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 77 She becomes the oppressor and he the oppressed. The stereotyped sex-roles have been reversed. Caroline is the consequence of Markandaya’s anti-sexist, anti-patriarchal rage. In her, Markandaya sees a domineering possessor, an active victimiser of an adolescent male reminiscent of the enslavement of the Negroes by the Whites in 18th and 19th centuries. If Caroline possesses Valmiki by money and strength and Ellie and Annabel by their youthful charms, Anasuya does it by her kindness and sympathetic understanding. Possession is a woman’s world where the male is manipulated, purchased, commanded, exploited and taken around like a pet. In inverting the sex roles, Markandaya thinks far in advance of her time and perhaps warns us of the consequences of a female-dominated world. As it is said, Yatra stri yatra kitavah yatra vale prasasitah Rajan, ninnu/atam yati tad geham Bhargavovravit. A house run by a woman, a servant or a boy goes to ruin, so says Bhargava, a King ! I used to dream militant dreams .../ I used to dream radical dreams. ../ I even used to think i’d be the one to stop the riot and negotiate the peace/then I awoke, and dug/that if I dreamed natural/ dreams of being a natural/woman doing what a womaxidoes when she’s natural / I would have a revolution (Nikki Giovanni 1970 Revolution). ;Therefore, perhaps, in the West where women’s lib took roots, there care contrary winds blowing now. There is feminism, a movement ; against women by women, ‘women who claim that the only place for woman is in the home and who have come out of the house to prove it.’ This is the natural corollary of Feminism. In - trying to counter one extreme they have come to the other extreme. There is a dialogue between a male The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 78 speaker and a chorus of lady antis who believe in marriage and motherhood in Alice Duer Miller’s The Woman Voter: : I am cleverer than you : Very true, very true. : I am braver, too, by far : So you are, so you are. : I can use my mind a lot : We cannot, we cannot : Men adore your lack of mind : Oh, how kind; oh, how kind! : You do very well without : Not a doubt, not a doubt : You have hardly any sense. : What eloquence, what eloquence! : Yet your moral sense is weaker : Isn’t he a charming speaker! Such an argument will prove counter-productive. It will push the movement of women’s lib back to square one. Or, inspire the feminists to push it to its androgynist limit. If ‘the perpetual witch-craze of patriarchy’ as Mary Daly calls it or what the spanish call ‘Machismo’ tilts the balance against women leading to aggressive feminism, will not women’s power or Gynarchism take the women’s lib in the reverse direction leading to misogynism ? One would do well to read Norman Mailer’s The Prisoner of Sex which is a result of chauvinistic feminism. This is not to say with Aristotle or Augustine that there are innate and unalterable psychological differences between man and woman, differences The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 79 which make it in the interest of both sexes for women to play a subordinate pivotal role destined for wife and motherhood. As Simone de Beauvoir observes, one is not born, but rather becomes, a woman. It is true that women must free themselves from this patriarchal authority. But how? In Dorris Lessing’s The Golden Note book (1962) Anna and Molly struggle against men till they become respectable females in the Labour Movement. They break down the orthodox model of living. But they have no replacement model. Ultimately they are absorbed into the male world of the Labour Party. In Orwell’s Animal Farm, animals revolt against men’s tyranny. They have a re-placement model but it is just the model they have replaced. They face the worst tyranny. In Marilyn French’s The Women’s Room (l977)) we have an American woman who frees herself from her long wifehood but ends with her daughter raped. Bhabani Bhattacharya’s Kajoli in So Many Hungers saves herself from dependence on her grandfather, her husband, from prostitution, and sets herself up as a newspaper hawker. One can set up an order through defiance, through the myth of protest. In her letter to The Levellers in 1982, a woman wrote that in this society the nearest any of us reach freedom, honesty and spontaneity with others is in bed with a lover on the street hurling beer cans at the police. One is driven into a corner where there is no way but to hit back, to shatter the framework of institutions, to blow up the land, to break up the ‘truth’ with laughter as Helene Cixous (1875) has it. This is how Nayantara Sahgal’s women oppressed by marriage, by political circumstances, by accidents of history help themselves in A Time to be Happy, This Time of Morning, The Day in Shadow, A Situation in New Delhi and Rich Like Us. The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 80 In Raji Narasimhan’s Forever Free (1979) the woman protagonist Shree hits back. In Uma Vasudev’s novel The Song for Anasuya (1978), Anasuya uses men and discards them just as Sister Carrie in Oreiser’s novel discards Charles Orouet and George Hurstwood in order to ‘optimise the business of living’. Rama Mehta’s alternative model is conformity. In Inside the Haveli (1977) a girl from Bombay, Geeta, is married into a Rajasthani family where the door is locked upon her; but she does ront walk out like Ibsen’s Nora (In fact, Ibsen has no alternative model. He makes Nora walk out but does not tell us what happened then). With her tolerant good nature and patient under-standing, she changes her father-in-law, her husband—everyone; like Rukmini in Kamala Markandaya’s Nectar in a Sieve (1954). While Gloria Steinem suggests the fifth world for woman. Julie Kristevo allots a third space for feminism, the space which deconstructs all identity, all binary opposition. Relational feminists believe in a gender based but egalitarian society. They believe in ‘equality in difference’. They do not tend to overlook the biological and cultural distinction between man and woman what Catherine Mackinnon calls ‘difference difference makes’. In her book Equality and Rights of Woman, Elizabeth H.Wolgast supports this bivalent approach to feminism. If autonomy is purchased at the cost of womanliness, the avant-garde French feminists reject the goal, prizing la difference. Individualist feminists, on the other hand, emphasise the individual male or female as the basic unit of the society. Thus recent trends in feminist thought seeks to destroy masculinist hierarchy but not sexual dualism. It is pro-woman but not anti-man. Hence Evans Gardner prefers Socracism to Feminism. The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 81 Susan Sontag discovers a congruence between women’s subjective experience of oppression and technological destruction of environment just as Marxians had found a parallel in the exploitation of labour by capitalists or anti-racists in the oppression of the Blacks by the Whites or Virginia Woolf in the opposition of pacifism to fascism. Katheryn Allen Rabuzzi in The Sacred and the Eeminine: Towards a theology of Housework (New York: Seabury, 1982) contrasts feminine writing with masculine questing and conquering just as Sara Ruddick contrasts holding with acquring, material thinking with scientific thinking or what she calls ‘instrumentalism of technocratic capitalism.’ Evelyn Fox Keller contrasting Barbara Mc Clintock’s empathetic respect for the material in letting the material speak for you with Bacon’s aggressive manipulation of Nature suggests that feminine modality advocates a science less restrained by the impulse to dominate’. (‘Feminism and Science’ Signs, Spring, 1980, 599). Azizah al Hibri observes that envying women’s reproductive powers which is a means to immortality, the pre-historic man turned to production as an imitation of reproduction to carve his own avenue to immortality. Like Ruether in New Woman: New Earth (1975) and other existentialists Al Hibri sees in the establishment of the transcendental male self the domination of another, the female and feminized nature. AI Hibri says that not only women but other ‘others’ black, red, Jew, Arab etc.—must rebel in order that a feminist humanist revolution be accomplished. Man’s obsessive technological imperialism is rooted in a fear and denial of the feminine, in his own sense of masculine inadequacy. Simone Weil and Iris Murdoch want man to redirect his will to see what is other than oneself. Rosemary Ruether calls for a renewed ‘ecological consciousness’ and ability to The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 82 enter into reciprocity with the other to acknowledge the validity, the reality of the ‘thouness’ of the other’s being. Robin Morgan in The Anatomy of Freedom: Femi~ism, Physics, and Global Politics (New York: Doubleday, 1982,P·282-84) says that th new feminist moral vision is in many ways analogous to the visions of reality offered by the new physics. She sees feminism as crucial to the continuation of life on this planet. For feminism, like Physics, sees things in terms of relationships. Thus feminist thought is humanist thought. To Virginia Woolf, feminism is the antonym of fascism: ‘Scarcely a human being in the course of history has fallen to a woman’s rifle; the vast majority of birds and beasts have been killed by you, not us’. She proposes an outside’s society based or women’s ethic that is positivistic, holistic, anti-materialistic and life-af- firming. Such an ethic must become the basis for a new public morality for the constitution of a ‘left-handed’ world. Feminism challenges the traditional view of woman as the weaker sex and the belief that her place is in the kitchen. It assumes the equality of the sexes and seeks to achieve for women a role in society which such equality warrants. This has led to a rethinking on gender relations reflected in literature and in life. In her study of women’s writing, Ruth Sherry stresses two aspects of feminism: the disabilities and disadvantages women suffer on ac-count of inequalities and injustices, and the value, the values of women and human dignity. The Marxians consider feminism a bour-geois women’s movement for equal rights with men within the framework of capitalist State. The international conferences of Com-munists and workers’ parties help in 1957, 1960 and 1969 assigned to the r’\Ml11unists the world over the task of intensifying The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 83 their work among the female masses as a vital condition for the people’s successful anti- imperialist struggle. Marxist theory links the solution of the question of women’s rights with the clast; struggle of the working class for revolutionary transformations and socialism. Marxists con-sider that only in a society in which there is no private owner-ship of the means of production and no exploitation of one class by another and in which the social equality of all people, both de jure and de facto, has been achieved, will women really become emancipated and be able to participate in all spheres of material and spiritual life on par with men. This thought can be traced throughout many works by Marx, Engels and Lenin ... Contemporary feminist movements are partly rooted in transfor-mations in social experience that challenge widely shared categories of social meaning and explanation. In the US such transformations include changes in the structure of economy, the family, the declining authority of previously powerful social institutions and the emergence of political groups that have increasingly divergent ideas and demands concerning justice, equality, legislation and the proper role of the State. Feminism can be identified as the liberation of women from social taboos and male dominance. Jane Flax in fact considers gender as the basis of feminism: “Gender relations enter into and are constituent elements in every aspect of human experience.” Gender relation is a category meant to capture a complex set of social processes. We are born with sex but acquire gender. Gender can no longer be treated as a simple natural fact. The study f gender enjoins us to differentiate and explain a lot of human activities like sexual division of labour child-rearing practices and processes of signification or language The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 84 Socialist feminists locate the fundamental cause of gender arrangements in the organisation of production or the sexual division of labour. Labour is still seen by many as the essence of history. The repression and suppression of woman from times immemorial is to be trace to the gender relation. Feminism is the study of gender relation and the analysis of male domination: “To emancipate woman is to refuse to confine her to the relations she bears to man.” But when in the 60s women in the New Left began to extend tale about women’s rights into discussion of women’s liberation, many me argued that gender issues were secondary because they were subsumable under more basic modes of oppression, namely class and race. In response to this practical political problem, Shulamith Fireston invoked biological differences between woman and man to explain sexism. She turned the tables on the Marxists by claiming that gender conflict was the basic form of human conflict and the source of all other forms including class conflict. Feminism is often identified as a movement which began in the late nineties but the history of the struggle for woman’s equality, though sporadic, is older than that. Feminism in Germany had as its background the liberal ideals of the French Revolution: liberty, equality are fraternity. But for various reasons it collapsed and then the Naz ordered all feminist organisations either to disband or face suppression. During Nazi rule there was a resurgence of women in German. In his address to women at Niirnberg, September 14, 1934, Hitler saw “Woman has her battlefield. With each child that she brings to t nation, she fights her fight for the nation” (Mary, 22-23), Lenin, Mr Solini and Franco understood the importance of women in a revolution Nadejida Krupskya worked together with her husband. Lenin and to titanic revolution of the 20th century became the launching pad The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 85 for to fight for the equality of women in Russia. In America women at we evoked immense political excitement which ultimately led to feminist. In ancient India women enjoyed a social status equal to Women are said to have had a share in the composition of the Rig Veda Princess Ghosha and Rishi Kakshivan are supposed to have author a number of hymns. During the time of Manu, there had beers deterioration in the status of Indian women. But in the fifth century B.C. the nuns of Buddhism sang songs in praise of the way of the Buddha. Some of these poets sound a strangely modern note, some-what akin to the feminist spirit, in their exultation over the opportunity for self-expression, the breaking loose from the cramping bonds of an irksome domestic routine and the joy of developing their separate personality. Thus Multa, who married a hunch - backed Brahmin and later became a nun, sings: O woman well set free! how free am I, How thoroughly free from kitchen drudgery! Me stained and squalid, mong my cooking-pots ... (Margaret, 256) Feminism in India can be traced to the days of Rammohan Roy and the Atmiya Sabha he started in 1914. The emancipation of Indian woman was a by-product of Gandhiji’s non-co-operation movement. The independence struggle paved the way for women out of the hearth and chimney nooks into the life of the nation. It gave them an oppor-tunity to realise the potentiality they possessed: Transition began with the renaissance, reformist and independence movements. Another factor which influenced the family system particularly in the present century was the growth of cities. Social reformers believed that education was the key to social change for improving the position of women. The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 86 They started educational institutions for women. Social trans-formation was enhanced by Gandhiji’s call to women to join the freedom struggle. He was aware of the potential power of women in influencing society, just as Annie Besant was aware of an educated woman’s capacity to enlighten her home and the family.... Urbanization and industrialization have opened up new vistas of employment. They have led to new oppor-tunities which are different from the traditional ones, wherein occupational mobility is possible. The transition from ascription to achievement took place in post- independence India. (The Indian Family, 140) In pre-independence India the picture of Indian womanhood was stale and perverted. It was either exaggerated or neglected. In a word it was unrealistic and imitative. Woman does not occupy an important place in most of the Anglo-Indian novels. In Rudyard Kipling’s Kim there is hiudly any woman character. In E.M. Forster’s A Possa, to India Indian women are sketched, not drawn. In Richard Collin’s The Slayer Slain, Mariam, the heroine, defiant of her father, is pictured as a woman of virtue. The Indo- Anglian novels of this period present woman as romantic, charming, cultured, graceful, wise, courageous—such stuff as dreams are made on. The novelists of this period treated women’s lives, experiences and values as marginal. They· assumed that literature about public events was more serious than that about private life. They thought literature by and about women were inferior to literature by and about men. Bankim Chandra Chatterjee’s Rajmohan’s Wife (1864), the first Indian English novel, is a melodramatic tale of the trials of a typical, long-suffering Hindu wire. Even women The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 87 novelists of this time—Raj Lakshmi Debi author of The Hindoo Wife (1876), Toru Dutt author of the unfinished novel, Bianca (1878), a romantic love story set in England, Krupabai Satthiannadhan, author of Kamala (1895), and Kali Krishna Lahiri, author of Roshinara (1881)—are preoccupied with the suffering of women. For them woman was either a devi or a doormat. Woman was a stereotype of the Pativrata. The women of the early Indian English novels had no identity. Their ideal was to obey the elders and follow the traditions: “This sense of obedience to the elders which the girls have to follow pervades the Indo- Anglian novel. The picture of the highly Westernized girls aping the West and obsessed with the idea of physical love only was ridiculed. In contrast, the traditional ideas of obedience and faithfulness were shown as the very essence of Indian girls and girlhood”. Woman in early Indian English fiction suffered mostly owing to the infidelity of her husband or the stigma of childlessness. Meena Shirwadkar observes: “The early works of Anand and Narayan are dominated by the male point of view. Both have observed, shown and given prominence to the boys in Indian families in their novels. The girls are shown as subordinate creatures. They are rarely shown in depth and come before us mainly as pictures of pity and suffering Mulk Raj Anand, R.K. Narayan, Kamala Markandaya and Manjeri Isvaran present woman in the traditional image of the ‘Pativrata’. She is an object of pity and has no will of her own. To suffer in silence is her only life. In Anand’s Coolie, Laxmi, we of Hari, lives in sub-human surroundings but sticks to her husband without grudge or grumbling. Markandaya in Nectar in a Sieve presents Rukmani as a dumb, docile wife who bears no malice towards her husband despite his extra· marital involvement with Kunthi. Manjeri Isvaran presents Jagadamba as silent sufferer in his novella, Immersion. Jagadamba is innocent. Raped by the cart driver, she feels guilty of adultery, a crime for which nothing The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 88 short of suicide would constitute adequate atonement. R.K. Narayan’s The Guide presents Raju’s mother as an innocent, naive woman, a mere shadow of her husband. She is bewildered to hear Rosie has come along without an escort: “How courageous you are ! In our days we wouldn’t go to the street corner without an escort. And I have been to the market only once in my life, when Raju’s father was alive.” Thus is early Indian English fiction there was endless variety and monotonous similarity. The ideal of womanhood was motherhood -that marvellous, unselfish, all- suffering, ever-forgiving mother. The Indian woman had only one facet. She was nothing, less than nothing, and she had to wait for a few decades to assume an existence and a name. It was the Gandhian non-co-operation which brought the Indian woman to the surface in family and society. The awakening of women was one of the by-products of the freedom struggle. K.M. Panikkar in The Foundation of New India writes: It would be wrong historically to consider that the great part the women of India played in the non-co-operation movement and the position they have achieved for themselves in modern Indian life was the result of a sudden transformation. For over a century the process had been at work.... The Brahmo Samaj led the movement of emancipation. The ancient rules of purdah were broken and Brahmo women moved freely in society but this ‘was but a false dawn as it was far in advance of popular opinion .... . It was, however, only with Gandhiji’s non-co-operation movement that women were encouraged to come forward and participate in the life of the nation. With the spread of education there was a gradual erosion of faith in the traditional customs and values but it took some time for the modern ideas and western culture to fill The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 89 the vacuum so created. The gulf between Indian and Western cultures created a transitional society neither fully modern nor fully traditional. And here the women walked in. In ‘the words of Bhabani Bhattacharya, “I think the women of India have more depth, more richness than the men. The transition from the old to the new, the crisis of value adaptation strikes deeper into the lives’ of our women than our menfolk.” The conflict of tradition and modernity is a favourite theme for Khushwant Singh, Kamala Markandaya and Ruth Prawer Jhabvala. R.K. Narayan presents a few independent, individualistic characters. Daisy in The Painter of Signs and Bharati in Waiting for the Mahatma—symoblise the emerging spirit of feminine freedom. Arun Joshi is another writer who deals wit4 women realistically “From June Blyth in The Foreigner (1968) to Anuradha in The Last Labyrinth (1981), a close study of Joshi’s women characters reveals that the novelist’s attitude towards the women as portrayed in his novels has undergone a radical shift. While June Blyth is portrayed as a simple woman with exuberant vitality and noble ideals, through the character of Anuradha the novelist seems to project feminine power.” Women novelists like Kamala Markandaya, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, Attia Hosain, Anita Desai, Shakuntala Shrinagesh, Nayantara Sahgal and Vimala Raina are preoccupied with the problem of adjustment. They have been trying to explore the feelings of girls who fall a victim to the conflict between the traditional and the newly acquired values. Meena Belliappa discovers in Anita Desai’s writings the “new direction that Indian fiction is taking in the hands of the third generation of urban writers ... a deliberate growing away from debased tradition of fiction as romance to a more meaningful wrestle with reality”. The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 90 Today the novelists depict a large number of women characters including hawkers, gypsies, prostitutes, painters, nuns and women employed in a variety of professions. Women now occupy the centre of the stage in the novels not only by women but also by men. These women characters show courage enough to fight with social evils and male superiority. The women novelists have contributed to the Indo-Anglian fiction some intimate pictures of girls in isolated circles like the women in Brahmin or purdah-clad families particularly during the period of adolescence when the vigilance over virgins is usually very strict....The girls are at the centre of most of the novels by women writers and some are first person narrations by the central woman character. This has given scope to the feminine point of view to enter into the sphere of Indo-Anglian fiction. Yet the Indian English novelist is concerned with much more than that: “The new woman, the feminine novelist of the twentieth century has abandoned the old realism. She does not accept observed revelation. She is seeking with passionate determination for that Reality which is behind the material, the things that matter, spiritual things, ultimate Truth.”. If she does her work well, reality will appear even more unstable, complex and disorderly than it does now. In this sense perhaps Freud was right when he declared that women are the enemies of civilization. D.H. Lawrence once observed: “The great relationship, for humanity, will always be the relation between man and woman. The relation between man and man, woman and woman, parent and child will always be subsidiary. And the relation between man and woman will change for ever, and will be the new central clue to human life”. This conviction is based on the belief in male superiority. Human relation can take many forms. The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 91 It has a hundred hands and walks by a thousand ways. The present change in attitude towards human relationships reflects the influence of feminism. It can be felt in the words of Bonnie Zimmerman: “It is becoming evident that many women writers, especially in the twentieth century, can be understood only if the critic is willing and able to adopt a lesbian point of view”. The lesbian point of view offers an alternative to the age-old faith in man and woman relation and the belief that woman can derive emotional and sexual fulfilment through men only. The new point of view envisages life without men. The Indian English fiction has come a long way from the traditional ways of presenting woman struggling with sexuality and creativity in a world where she was offered only three possible roles: virgin, wife or whore. The feminist theory is dependent upon and reflects certain set of social experiences. The Indian English writer has recovered and explored the aspects of social relations that have been suppressed, unarticulated or denied within the dominant male view-points. The influence of the progressive assimilation of western standards of culture on the ethos of the urban community, especially at the higher levels of society, has given a possible thrust to the liberation of women from the shackles of tradition as reflected in the contemporary Indian English fiction. But a mere, imitation of the west in this regard is bound to lack vitality and power, if it does not draw its life-force from the main stream of our own culture. The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 92 References Beard, Mary R. Woman as Force in History, A Study in Traditions and Realities (New York: Collier Books, 1962). Bhattacharya, Bhabani. “Women in my stories” Journal of Indian Writing in English, ed. G.S. Balarma Gupta, Gulberga, India, Vol.3, No.2, July 1975). Belliappa, Meena. Anita Desai: A Study of Her Fiction (Writers Workshop, Calcutta, 1972). Brimley, Johnson R. Some Contemporary Novelists, (London : Routledge,I920). ‘ .. ‘ Freud, Sigmund. Civilization and its Discontents (New York: Boni and Liveright, 1920). Flax, Jane. “Post-Modernism and Gender Relations in Feminst Theory” Feminism/Post- Modernism ed. Linda J. Nicholson (New Yark: Routledge, 1990) Jeevan, Parvathy. “Image of Women in the Novels of Arun Joshi” Commonwealth Quarterly ed. S. N. Vikram Raj Urs, Vol. 16 No. 41, 1990. Kovalsky NA and Blinov YP Women Today (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1975). Margaret, Macnicol “Freedom in Poems by Indian Women, Multa” The Heritage of India’ Series (Calcutta: Oxford University Press, 1923). Miles, Rosalind. The Female Fonn: Women Writers and the Conquest of the Novel (London: Routledge, 1990). Narayan, R. K. The Guide (Mysore : Indian Thought Publication, 1958). The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 93 Panikkar, K M. The Foundation of New India (New Delhi: Asia Publishing House, 1961) Ramanamma, A and Bambawale, Usha “Family Mobility and the Position of Women in tbe Indian Family” The Indian Family in Transition ed. John S. Augustine (New Delhi: Vikas, 1982). Sherry, Ruth. Studying Women’s Writing: An Introduction. (London: Edwain Arnold, 1988). Shirwadkar, Meena.Image of Women in the Indo-Anglian Novel. (New Delhi: Sterling, 1977). The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 94 Chapter 5 Early Novels The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 95 Chapter–V Early Novels The Dark Holds No Terrors,1 Shashi Deshpande’s second novel, is about Saru—an educated, economically independent, middle-class wife—who is made conscious of her gender as a child and whose loveless relationship with her parents and strained relations with her husband lead to her agonizing search for herself. The novel opens with Saru’s return to her parents’ house fifteen years after she left home with a vow never to return. Her relations with her husband become unbearably strained and she returns for some solace. Here she gets a chance to think over her relationships with her husband, her children, her parents and her dead brother, Dhruva. Saru’s relationship with her brother has been given special presentation. She is ignored in favour of her brother, Dhurva. No parental love is showered on her and she is not given any importance. Her brother’s birthdays are celebrated with much fanfare and performance of religious rites, whereas her birthdays are not even acknowledged. She even feels that her birth was a horrible experience for her mother, as she later recalls her mother telling her that it had The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 96 rained heavily the day she was born and it was terrible for her mother. It seemed to Saru that it was her birth that was terrible for her and not the rains. She recalls the joyous excitement in the house on the occasion of his naming ceremony. The idea that she is a liability to her parents is deeply implanted in her mind as a child. Her mother’s adoration of her son at her daughter’s cost is the rallying point for the novelist to bring her feminist ideas together. The preference for boys over girls can be openly witnessed in most Indian homes, and is inextricably linked to the Indian psyche. Sons bring in dowry could be one reason, but the Indian society steeped in tradition and superstition considers the birth of a son as auspicious as he carries on the family lineage. The first thought that rose in Saru’s mind at hearing about her mother’s death is: “Who lit the pyre? She had no son to do that for her. Dhurva had been seven when he died”. As Sarbjit Sandhu aptly remarks: The mother is very attached to her son. Her attitude is a typical one- after all, he is male child and therefore one who will propagate the family lineage. In another sense, also, the male child is considered more important than a girl, because he is qualified to give “agni” to his dead parents. The soul of the dead person would otherwise wander in ferment.2 Her mother constantly reminds her that she should not go out in the sun as it would worsen her already dark complexion. Saru recalls her conversation with her mother: “Don’t go out in the sun, you’ll get darker.” “Who cares? The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 97 “We have to care if you don’t. We have to get you married. “ “I don’t want to get married.” “Will you live with us all your l ife?” “Why not?” “You can’t.” “And Dhurva?” “He’s different. He’s a boy”. This sort of blatant discrimination between Saru and her brother leads to a sense of insecurity and hatred towards her parents, especially mother, and her resultant rebellious nature. Y.S. Sunita Reddy observes: “In this connection, Saru’s mother’s attitude is typical of most Indian mothers and a common enough phenomenon in the Indian context.”3 The turning point in her l ife is the accidental death of her brother by drowning. All her life she is haunted by the memories of her mother accusing her of intentionally letting Dhurva die by drowning: “You did it, you did this, you killed him”. She too on her part has a guilty conscience as she considers herself responsible for having remained a mute spectator to her brother’s death by drowning. She never refutes the charge leveled against her by her mother. As G. Dominic Savio observes: “Dhurva’s demise had always been her subconscious desire and there is a very thin demarcation between her wish and its fulfilment.”4 Shashi Deshpande thus reveals the social aspect of keen sibling jealousy born of a mother’s undue fondness for the son. Saru’s mother’s discriminatory behaviour makes Saru feel unloved and unwanted leading to a sense of alienation and estrangement. She is in the grips of insecurity. After her brother’s death her lot deteriorated from bad to worse. The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 98 Irrespective of geographical or chronological space, any Indian girl is a victim of gender discrimination in the Indian social setup. As S. Anandalakshmi opines: “The birth of a son gives a woman status and she invests herself in her son’s fixture, creating a deep symbiotic bond.”5 Saru’s mother could be no exception to this and she loses interest in l ife after her son’s death. She puts the blame for her own wretched lot squarely on Saru’s shoulders. She snatches every opportunity to reproach her and takes no interest in education, career or future. Her feeling of being unwanted is so acute that she begins to hate her own existence as a girl or woman. On attaining puberty she says scornfully, “If you are a woman, I don’t want to be one”. The treatment that is meted out to her during her monthly ordeals is inhuman. She is treated like an untouchable, segregated from the other members of the family and made to sleep on a straw mat with a cup and plate exclusively meant for her to be served in from a distance. She is engulfed with a sense of shame and prays in desperation for a miracle to put an end to it. Thus, unloved and unwanted, she develops hatred towards the traditional practises during her impressionable years. Her hatred towards her mother is so acute that she becomes rebellious just to hurt her, “I hated her, I wanted to hurt her, wound her, make her suffer”. This hatred drives her to leave home for Bombay to seek medicine as a career. In the medical college she falls in love with a college mate and marries him against her parents’ wishes. Her orthodox mother was dead against her daughter’s marrying a man from a lower caste: “What caste is he?” “I don’t know.” The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 99 “A Brahmin?” “Of course, not.” Then cruelly ... “His father keeps a cycle shop.” “Oh, so they are low-caste people, are they?” The word her mother had used, with the disgust, hatred and prejudice of centuries had so enraged her that she had replied ... “I hope so”. Had her mother not been so against him, she would probably not have married him and brought herself to such a miserable condition. She later recollects: If you hadn’t fought me so bitterly, if you hadn’t been so against him, perhaps, I would never have married him. And I would not have been here, cringing from the sight of his hand-writing, hating him and yet pitying him too. Devoid of love and security, she wanted to be loved. When she gets attention from Manu, she wonders, “How could I be anyone’s beloved? I was the redundant, the unwanted, an appendage one could do without”. The need of the moment was a relation with someone who could give her love and security. She thinks: “The fisherman’s daughter couldn’t have been more surprised when the king asked her to marry him than I was by Manu’s love for me”. Later when her relations become strained with Manu she regrets for having rushed into marriage unconditionally: “The fisherman’s daughter was wiser. She sent the king to her father and it was the father who bargained with him, while I [ ... ] I gave myself up unconditionally. Unreservedly to him, to love him and to be loved”. The circumstances that lead to her taking such a step, The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 100 are the making of her own parents. As Sunita Reddy opines: “If her mother had provoked her by her blatant hosti lity, her father had contributed to her present predicament by remaining a mute spectator in the family drama.”6 Saru considers herself the luckiest woman on earth, as the initial years of her marriage are sheer bliss. Manu is her saviour and the romantic hero who rescues Saru—a damsel in distress. She marries to secure the lost love in her parental home and her identity as an individual. As S.P. Swain writes: “Her marriage with Manu is an assertion on and affirmation of her feminine sensibility.”7 Although, Saru refrains from any physical indulgence with Manu but, after marriage, she revels in it with wild abandon: I became in an instant a physically aroused woman with an infinite capacity for loving and giving, with a passionate desire to be absorbed by the man I loved. All the cliches, I discovered were true, kisses were soft and unbearably sweet, embraces hard and passionate, hands caressing and tender, and loving, as well as being loved was an intense joy. It was as if little nerve ends of pleasure had sprung up all over my body. Her dingy one-room apartment with “the corridors smelling of urine, the rooms with their dark sealed in odours”, is “a heaven on earth” for her. But soon all this proves to be a mere mirage for her. Soon she realizes that happiness is illusory. Saru remembers how a particular incident becomes a turning point in their blissful marital relationship. One night she returns home late in her bloodstained coat as she helped out the victims in a fire accident in a factory nearby. The neighbourhood thus comes to know about her identity, and she The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 101 gains recognition. People would come to her for medical help and other related matters. In the beginning Saru could not realize the change that had come in Manu. Her success as a well-known and reputed doctor becomes the cause of her strained marital relations with Manu. In a retrospective mood she says much later: “He had been the young man and I his bride. Now I was the lady doctor and he was my husband”. Manu is uncomfortable with Saru’s steady rise in status, as he feels ignored when people greet and pay attention to Saru. Besides she is unable to spare time enough for Manu and children. Manu and Saru want to move out to some other place for their own reasons. While Manu feels humiliated and embarrassed, Saru is no longer happy in that cramped and stinking apartment and wants to move into something more decent. Earlier she was happy and contented to live on Manu’s salary but in her new role as career woman she becomes discontented. She resents: For me, things now began to hurt. [ ... ] a frayed saree I could not replace, a movie I could not see, an outing I could not join in. I knew now that without money life became petty and dreary. The thought of going on this way became unbearably. Manu does not love her as he used to earlier. Saru begins to hate this man-woman relationship, which is based on need and attraction and not love. She scorns the word “love” now. She realizes there was no such thing between man and woman. With the change of circumstances she feels a gradual disappearance of love and attachment towards husband and children. The most solemn duties The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 102 towards them remain unattended to. The children are denied due love and care as she gets late in the evenings. While her social and financial status rises gradually, there is an inverse decline in her conjugal relationship. Her relations with Manu would have somehow moved on smoothly had she remained contented with treating people in the neighbourhood. But her ambition to move higher in life by furthering her career through Boozie, who is a handsome and efficient doctor. He is flirtatious in nature and Saru has no aversion towards flirts. Their relation reaches a stage when Boozie helps her financially to set up her own practice in a posh area. Saru, blind in ambition, is unscrupulous in her relationship with Boozie and consoles herself by treating it as a mere teacher-student relation. She tells herself, “It was just a teacher-student relationship. If he put his hand on my shoulder, slapped me on my back, held my hand or hugged me [ ... ] that was just his mannerism and meant nothing. It had nothing to do with me and Manu”. Both had their own vested interests in sustaining such a relation. Boozie openly flaunts his relationship with Saru to hide his homosexual nature and Saru wanted to exploit him through her feminine wiles to achieve her much coveted goal of becoming an established, reputed doctor. Although there is nothing physical about Saru-Boozie relationship, but this gives rise to a misconception in Manu’s mind. But she had such a loathing towards Manu that she does nothing to placate him, rather lets him believe the obvious. Even at the inauguration of her consulting room, when Boozie flaunts her by his side openly before the invitees to the programme, she feels resentful towards her husband: The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 103 I could feel the stares. Everyone’s except Manu’s who would not look at us. And I should have hated him then. [ ... ] not Manu, for he had done nothing then for which I could hate him, but this attractive, ravishingly masculine man who was doing this deliberately. Attracting attention to the two of us. But funnily enough, it was not him I hated, it was Manu for doing nothing. But Saru’s rise in social and financial status in contrast to Manu’s status of an underpaid lecturer sets in great discomfort in their conjugal relation. Saru’s contentment in her career is no match to her discontentment at home. And contrary to the claims of most feminists, she does not achieve fulfilment in l ife. Betty Friedan asserts: “For woman, as for man, the need for self-fulfilment- autonomy, self-realization, independence, individuality, self-actualization is as important as the sexual need, with as serious consequences, when it is thwarted.”8 In a reminiscent mood she recalls one particular incident which leads to her loathing towards Manu. It was on the day when they had been watching a TV programme. She recalls: [Manu] had been sitting with his feet up on a stool, [ ...] soft, white, unmarked and flabby. Like his hands. And his laugh [ ... ] it was rather silly. A kind of bray almost. Why had she never noticed that before? And had he always picked at his ears that way, deftly, rather stealthily? It was like seeing a man she had never seen, never seen, never known. [ ... ] now that she knew him, she rather despised. The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 104 Certain incidents aggravate the already strained relation between the two to the extent that in the privacy of their room at night he doesn’t behave like a husband, but a rapist. In an interview with Saru when the interviewing girl happens to ask Manu innocently: “How does it feel when your wife earns not only the butter but most of the bread as well?” The three—Saru, Manu, and the girl—merely laughed it off as if it were nothing. This particular incident is very humiliating to him and he feels helpless and effeminate. To gain his masculinity he gives vent to his feelings through his beastly sexual assault on Saru. Although he is a cheerful normal human being and a loving husband during day, he turns into a rapist, to assert his manhood. In yet another incident she undergoes this nightmarish experience. Prior to going on a vacation to Ooty while shopping Manu and Saru happen to meet the former’s college mate and his wife. During the talk Manu tells his colleague that they were going to Ooty. When his colleague expresses his inability and bad luck in affording such a vacation, the colleague’s wife replies that he also could have afforded it had he married a doctor. A humiliated Manu once again victimizes Saru. She expresses her helplessness to her father: “I couldn’t fight back. I couldn’t shout or cry, I was so afraid the children in the next room would hear. I could do nothing. I can never do anything. I just endure”. Although she has achieved economic independence, her plight is miserable, as she has to perform double duties. Besides practicing medicine she has to fulfil the assigned job of a housewife. She expresses her desire to leave her medical practice but Manu dissuades her from doing so, as their standard of living wouldn’t be possible on Manu’s income. The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 105 The circumstances seem all the more intolerable as Manu feigns ignorance in the mornings of his beastly behaviour at night. At this juncture she comes to know about her mother’s death. Despite her vow never to return home, she does so. She has reasons to do so as she won’t have to undergo the humiliation of her mother’s taunts, and she has an explanation to give to her father for her returning home on account of her mother’s death. At her father’s house she objectively mulls over the reasons of her disastrous marriage. She blames herself for it as she easily identifies the consequences of the shattered male ego. The novel may be said to be a study in guilt consciousness, as Saru ruminates, “My brother died because I heedlessly turned my back on him. My mother died alone because I deserted her. My husband is a failure because I destroyed his manhood”. But what Shashi Deshpande suggests is the gender discrimination by parents towards their children, and the compulsion to perpetuate male dominance if the marriage is to be kept going. Thus, she has presented a realistic picture of the gross gender inequality prevailing in our society. Although she returns to her parents’ place in a detached frame of mind, she feels strange despite the fact that nothing had changed in the house, not even the seven pairs of large stone slabs leading to the front door on which she had played hopscotch as a child. Her father also sounds strange as he talked like an unwilling host to her as if she were an unwelcome guest. She is in grave need of sympathy but he does nothing to console her. This reminds her of the fate of a sister of her friend’s who had come home after her disastrous marriage. She remembers how she received care and sympathy from her The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 106 parents. Because her marriage had been an arranged one, the parents too were party to her misfortune. Since Saru’s was not an arranged one, she makes herself solely responsible for her disastrous marriage and is guilty conscious. She is totally confused and feels that she has done great injustice towards her brother, mother, husband, and children. On one occasion Saru presents a perfect recipe for a successful marriage. On being asked by her friend Nalu to talk on Medicine as a profession for women, to a group of college students, she says: I A wife must always be a few feet behind her husband. If he is an MA, you should be a BA. If he is 5’4" tall you shouldn’t be more than 5’3" tall. If he is earning five hundred rupees, you should never earn more than four hundred and ninety, if you want a happy marriage. Don’t ever try to reverse the doctor-nurse, executive-secretary, principal-teacher role. It can be traumatic, disastrous. And I assure you, it is not worth it. He’ll suffer. You’ll suffer and so wil l the children. Women’s magazines wil l tell you that a marriage must be an equal partnership. That’s nonsense, rubbish. No partnership can ever be equal. It will always be unequal but take care that it’s unequal in favour of your husband. If the scales tilt in your favour, god help you, both of you. Retrospectively she also thinks about her relationship with Padmakar, her classmate in medical college, who she happens to meet years later. After a few meeting Saru dissuades him from attempting to forge a deeper relationship with her. She does so after realizing that such a relationship was no comfort. Now The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 107 she had no illusions about romances or love for these two had lost relevance in her life: “Love? Romance? Both, I knew too well, were illusions and for me, sex was now a dirty word”. Through her relations with Boozie and Padmakar, she achieves no happiness and fulfilment. These extra-marital relations are no solace and compensation for her tense married life. Kamini Dinesh aptly remarks: “There cannot be an ‘escape route’, from the tension of married life. The woman seeking a crutch has, finally to fall back on herself.”9 Shashi Deshpande contrasts Saru’s life with the lives of her two school friends-Sunita and Nalu. Sunita leaves no effort to pose as a happily married woman. All the while she talks about her intimacy with her husband as if she were a non-entity without him, which only invokes pity in the eyes of the reader and hatred of her two friends. Nalu also questions her as to why she let her husband change her name from Sunita to Anju: “Do you have to surrender so easily?” Nalu is contemptuous of Sunita’s constant references to her husband and hates her for her submissive attitude of satisfying every whim of his. She tells her, “Well, I refuse to call you Anju or Gitanjali or whatever. To me you are Sunita and will always be Sunita”. On the other hand is Nalu, a spinster who is a teacher and lives with her brother and his family. Saru contrasts Nalu with the Nalu of her college days who was full of enthusiasm. But now bitterness has crept into her, and Saru does not blame her bitterness on her spinsterhood. Saru feels that it would be wrong to say that Nalu “is bitter because she never married, never bore a child. But that would be as stupid as call ing me fulfil led because I got married and I have borne two children”. Shashi Deshpande contrasts the lives of Saru, Sunita and The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 108 Nalu and shows that a wife, a mother and a spinster had their own share of joys and sorrows, and it is almost difficult to conclude as to who is the more happier or the more fulfilled. While the married women are reported to be dissatisfied with their marriage, the unmarried ones are reported to have their own sufferings and anxieties. Betty Friedan observes: “Strangely a number of psychiatrists stated that, in their experience unmarried women patients were happier than married ones.”10 A mature Saru now shuns extremes and takes a practical view of the circumstances. She is neither the typical Western liberated woman nor an orthodox Indian one. Shashi Deshpande does not let herself get overwhelmed by the Western feminism or its militant concept of emancipation. In quest for the wholeness of identity, she does not advocate separation from the spouse but a tactful assertion of one’s identity within marriage. Roots and Shadows’,11 Shashi Deshpande’s first full length novel, is about the struggle of the protagonist Indu-representative of the educated, middle- class women-as to how her assertion of her individuality to achieve freedom leads to her confrontation with her family and the male-dominated society. Feeling smothered in an oppressive male-dominated and tradition-bound society, she attempts to explore her inner self to assert her individuality. Indu returns to her ancestral home after a gap of eleven years, which is occasioned by her cousin Mini’s marriage being performed in the traditional mode in their ancestral home. She leaves home at the age of eighteen to marry the man she loves. She returns on being summoned by Akka, the domineering matriarch, as she is on her deathbed. Akka has made her the sole The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 109 heiress to her property, and the household atmosphere becomes charged with resentment by the family members for being excluded from the will. Deshpande presents with vivid details a large Maharashtrian Brahmin household, and the myriad women characters, their greed, jealousy, hopes, fears, disappointments, and their anguish. Among the myriad women characters the old tyrannical matriarch Akka is worth special mention. She is rich and childless, and decides to stay in her brother’s house after her husband’s death. She wields absolute control over her brother’s household, and her venomous tongue reduces Indu’s grandfather Kaka into a tongue-tied, submissive character. Akka representative of the old order, is so obsessed with untouchability that she refuses to move into a hospital for fear of getting polluted by the touch of nurses belonging to other castes. She is also very particular about how a girl should conduct herself in society, and reprimands Indu for talking to a boy in the library. She is also dead against the idea of Naren’s mother wanting to learn music. She says: What learn music from a strange man! Sit and sing in front of strangers! Like THOSE women? Are we that kind of family? Isn’t it enough for you to sing one or two devotional songs, one or two aarti songs? What more does a girl from a decent family need to know? Only after her death does Indu come to know about Akka’s life from Narmada Atya. Akka was married at twelve and her husband—tall, bulky with coarse features-was well past thirty. On the contrary Akka was small, dainty, pretty with a round face, fair skin, straight nose and curly hair. She went to her The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 110 husband’s house after six months. By the time she was thirteen, she made two abortive attempts to run away. Her mother-in-law whipped her and kept her starved by locking her up in a room for three days. Then she was sent to her husband’s room. She cried and clung to her mother-in-law saying, “Lock me up again, lock me up”. But as Akka told Narmada that there was no escape from a husband then. She even tells Narmada before the consummation of her marriage: “Now your punishment begins Narmada. You have to pay for all those saris and jewels”. For child brides in those days, sex was a kind of punishment against which they could do nothing and continued to suffer in silence. Tara Ali Baig aptly observes: “Arch traditionalists that women are it is they who have successfully and brutally established man’s ascendancy over women in society.” 12 Thus, Deshpande, unlike a militant feminist does not put the blame squarely on man’s shoulders, but reveals the contradictions in a woman’s character also. The other side of Akka’s character is manifest in the way she controls her husband after he is struck by total paralysis. Although she takes excellent care of her paralyzed husband for two years, but avenges herself of all that she had to forbear (undergo) by not allowing his mistress, whom he adores, to meet him. Her sadistic nature is also manifest when Akka tells Narmada with a vicious pleasure that she threw his mistress out when she had come to meet him. Narmada tells Indu that later that night she finds Akka in tears who tells her that after marriage no night passed without tears. Thus, Deshpande makes a strong statement on the arranged marriages, which are outright discriminatory towards women. A husband can have a mistress with impunity for his physical The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 111 and mental needs, whereas a wife cannot take another man—her act is branded adultery. Neena Arora aptly remarks: “This condemnation is dictated by man’s interest in preserving his property rather than by any moral consideration.” 13 Although Akka has undergone great suffering at her husband’s house, on her return to her father’s house after her husband’s death, she enforces a rigid code of conduct on women in the household. She insists that a woman should never utter her husband’s name, for it means not only disrespect towards him but also shortens his life span. But Indu, an educated upper middle-class woman, resents as to what connection there was “between a man’s longevity and his wife’s calling him by name? It’s as bad as praying to the tulsi to increase his life span”. But caught in the matrix of age-old custom or tradition, like the other Deshpande’s women characters she cannot break herself free from the clutches of tradition. She painfully realizes that despite her education and exposure, she was no different from the women that circumambulated the tulsi plant to increase their husbands’ life span. Even her husband who is educated and apparently a modern man, is only a typical Indian husband for whom she has to remain passive and submissive. Several instances prove that all along Indu has been playing the role of wife to perfection to keep Jayant happy and satisfied. Despite her reluctance, she has to continue the frustrating job of writing for the magazine just to keep Jayant satisfied. She is against working for the magazine as she gets disillusioned by her experience with a so-called social worker, who had The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 112 received an award for social services. Indu was so much impressed by that “soft spoken, [ ... ] seemingly sincere and dedicated” woman that she wrote an article on her. But then she is shocked after reading an article she received on that woman, as she realizes that it was “a story of shameless exploitation of ignorance, poverty and need. A story of ruthlessness and unscrupulousness in the pursuit of fame, power and money, all of which had come now”. When she shows the two stories about the Sarue woman to her worldly-wise editor, he rejects the later story knowing full well that it was true. Appalled by the woman’s hypocrisy and the editor’s attitude, she tells Jayant about it who, steeped in his middle-class values merely says: “That’s life! What can one person do against the whole system! No point making yourself ridiculous with futile gestures. We need the money, don’t we? Don’t forget we have a long way to go”. Thus, she continues to write what suits the magazine and not her own conscience. Gradually, but surely, she realizes the absurdity of the existence, as she has to compromise against her conscience with the values of a hypocrite society where success is counted sweetest. But all this was not to go for long. Circumstances bring her to the proverbial crossroads where every individual has to do some introspection sooner or later. Had Akka, her old domineering matriarch not called her, she wouldn’t have had time enough to think about her identity and selfhood, which she had effaced just to prove that her marriage was a success. But her belated realization is manifest in her private conversation with Naren where she bares all. It was the height of hypocrisy she practises just to flaunt that Jayant and she belonged to the smart young set. She tells: The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 113 We are rational, unprejudiced, broad-minded. We discuss. We discuss intelligently, even solemnly, the problems of unemployment, poverty, corruption and family planning. We scorn the corrupt. We despise the ignorant, we hate the wicked—and our hearts bleed, Naren for Vietnam, for the blacks, for the Harijans—but frankly we don’t care a damn not one goddamn about anything but our own precious selves, our own precious walled-in-lives. Indu, who had considered herself smart, educated, independent and clever, comes to the painful conclusion that she was no better than her Kakis and Atyas. Several other incidents in the novel prove Indu’s poignant awareness of the inequality Indian women had to reconcile with under compulsion. The drudgery of performing the countless household chores makes their life miserable and when this goes unrecognized, it makes then the more miserable. Indu is disgusted at the sight of strewn plates and littered remnants lying about after the meal. She becomes conscious of the exemplary patience and courage women have shown to clear up the mess after every meal. “And women like Kaki even ate off the Sarue dirty plate their husbands had eaten in earlier. Martyrs, heroines, or just stupid fools”. Indu, calls the household chores tiresome, boring and frustrating like the job of Sisyphus. Simone de Beauvoir says: Few tasks are more like the torture of Sisyphus than housework, with its endless repetition; the clean becomes soiled, the soiled is made The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 114 clean, over and over, day after day. The housewife wears herself out marking time. She makes nothing, simply perpetuates the present. 14 She had become aware of the prevailing injustice in society since her childhood. No effort was spared to indoctrinate her to play the role of a meek and submissive daughter, wife, and mother. She tells Naren: “As a child they had told me I must be obedient and unquestioning. As a girl they had told me I must be meek and submissive,” because “you are a female. It is the only way for a female to live and survive”. Even, her womanhood is thrust upon her brutally and gracelessly, when she is told, “You’re a woman now ... You can have babies yourself’. She begins to hate herself as “for four days now you are unclean. You can’t touch anyone or anything”. That was how she had been introduced into the beautiful world of womanhood. Simone de Beauvoir refers to this dramatic conflict that every girl at puberty has to undergo as “she cannot become ‘grown up’ without accepting her femininity; and she knows already that her sex condemns her to a mutilated and fixed existence, which she faces at this time under the form of impure sickness and a vague sense of guilt.”15 Indu is conscious of the secondary position women have been condemned to. She asks her Kaka in jest, “Can you imagine them sending up a cup of tea for me? Women and children should know their places”. The shaven-head of a widowed domestic help reminds her how a widow had to remain shaven-headed all life after her husband’s death for fear of getting ostracized. Indu’s Kaka was dead against this idea and the widowed Atya “was now a second class citizen in the kingdom of widows. The orthodox would not eat food cooked by her”. The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 115 She also becomes painfully aware of the fact that she is incomplete and certainly not different from the breed of women she had forgotten after leaving home. All the time she misses Jayant and wants him to be beside her. She feels miserable and incomplete in Jayant’s absence. She feels incomplete in yet another sense as her own academic and economic success does not make any special impact on the other household women: “To get married to bear children to have sons and then grandchildren they were still for them the only success a woman could have”. She has come far enough in life in comparison to her Kakis and Atyas but back home she becomes painfully aware of her unenviable plight, as her marriage has not put her in a class apart. In the process she has lost her own self, her identity and needs. Jayant who hates any display of passion on Indu’s part denies her even the most basic sexual need in marriage. Even in the privacy of their bedrooms, she is not let to shed her inhibitions. She tells Naren: “Jayant, so passionate, so ready, sitting up suddenly and say, ‘no, not now’, when I had taken the initiative”. Being so snubbed by Jayant she feels humiliated and disillusioned. In a choked voice, she tells Naren: “When I’m like that he turns away from me. I’ve learnt my lesson now. And so I pretend. I’m passive. And unresponsive. I am still and dead”. So her lot is not much different from the other household women. Like them she too has become “still and dead.” She rebels to become complete and independent, but painfully realizes that she is neither of the two. Although she is excited to be back home after an absence of eleven years, but all the while she feels herself incomplete without Jayant by her side. She thinks, “This is my real sorrow. That I can never be The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 116 complete in myself’. Here lies the rub. All along she had struggled against a system to achieve completeness in herself, which certainly is well nigh impossible. How can she imagine being totally free and independent without being complete in herself. The compulsive circumstances had made her as diminished and submissive as any other wife. She has even become obsessed with Jayant: “When I look into the mirror, I think of Jayant, when I undress I think of him. Have I become a fluid with no shape, no form of my own?” So she is on her way to become an ideal woman, a woman who doesn’t have an independent identity of her own: “A woman who sheds her T who loses her identity in her husband’s”. Pitting her against the woman of the older generation, Deshpande has very artistically juxtaposed two sets of Indian women. The one is representative of Narmada, Kamala Kaki, Sumitra Kaki, Atya, and Sunanda Atya; and the other by Indu. Indu’s academic achievement, economic independence and her independent attitude mean nothing to the woman of older generation, as their only aim in life was “to get married, to bear children, to have sons and then grandchildren”. Indu, representative of the new generation with a rational temperament tries to follow her own conscience but fails miserably under combined pressure of the tradition—bound society and the fear born of stigma attached to such independent attitude and existence. In Shashi Deshpande’s Roots and Shadows, much critical controversy has been raised about the author’s motives regarding the incestuous relation between Indu and her cousin, Naren. It is Naren to whom she tells every little detail of her married life. Naren who was so natural to her and the easy compatibility that develops between the two, makes her take the most daring The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 117 step of surrendering herself to him not once but twice in the novel. She indulges in the act with much wild abandon and cherishes it later without any guilt consciousness. She thinks: I can go back and lie on my bed. I thought, and it will be like erasing the intervening period and what happened between Naren and me. But deliberately I went to my bed and began folding the covers. I don’t need to erase anything I have done, I told myself in a fit of bravado. She resolves not to disclose this to Jayant as she thinks it had nothing to do with him. This assertion of herself has sparked off contradictory remarks from the reviewers. P. Bhatnagar laments: Indu’s casual and matter-of-fact attitude to what she had done is shocking. Have our morals really gone so low that woman commit this sin for nothing, just to prove that they do not lack courage? Is this really representative of the modern Indian woman? 16 Another critic, P. Ramamoorthy does not view Indu’s adultery as something negative but as something stemming from the predicament of the compulsive circumstance woman like Indu find themselves in. To Indu it is an exercise of autonomy within marriage. He observes: This sheds a brill iant light on Indu’s awareness of her autonomy and her realization that she is a being, and not a dependent on Jayant. The novel gains its feminist stance in Indu’s exploration into herself but it also moves beyond the boundaries of feminism into a perception of the very predicament of the human existence. 17 The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 118 A society wherein a man takes sexual liberties with impunity and a woman indulging in the Sarue is looked upon with shock and horror and branded an adulteress and much a harlot or loose lady. Deshpande probably is trying to shake the readers out of their complacency by thrusting in their face the double standards being practised in a patriarchal social setup. Deshpande also highlights the problems that middle-class families encounter in their search for suitable grooms for their daughters. The case in point is that of Padmini, where the parents get her married off in desperation, and the stoic resignation with which the girl accepts her lot is exemplary and commendable. Padmini’s acceptance of a groom with “heavy, coarse features and crude mannerism”, makes her wonder whether woman had any other choice but to accept and submit unconditionally. She thinks: “The woman had no choice but to submit, to accept. And I had often wondered ... have they been born without wills, or have their wills atrophied through a lifetime of disuse? And yet Mini, who had no choice either, had accepted the reality, the finality, with a grace and compose that spoke eloquently of that inner strength”. Like Padmini, for the other Indian girls also, it is marriage that matters and not the man. The search for a man is so difficult that parents become anxious and desperate and, at one nod from the man, settle the marriage. Indu wonders what the reasons could have been behind Padmini’s acceptance of a man who was no match for her. Padmini’s reply to Indu’s question is reflective of the mental trauma most Indian girls of marriageable age undergo: You don’t know what it has been like. Watching Kaka and Hemant and even Madhav Kaka running around after eligible men. And then The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 119 sending the horoscope and having it come back with a message, it doesn’t match? And if the horoscope matched there was the meeting to be arranged. And mother and Atya slogging in the kitchen the whole day. And all those people coming and staring and asking all kinds of questions. And if we heard they were old fashioned people, I would dress up in an old fashioned manner and they would say, ‘She’s not modern enough.’ And if I dressed up well, they would say, “She’s too fashionable for us. Or too short. Or too tall. Or too something.” And Kaka trying to laugh and talk to those people, while his eyes looked so [ ... ] anxious. And I, feeling like as if I had committed a great crime by being born a girl. So we would have to go through with it all over again. And finally if, everything was fine, there was the dowry. Since arranged marriage is not a marriage of two souls, Deshpande raises the seminal issue of arranged marriage if it was any good. Indu reflects Deshpande’s views that an arranged marriage was nothing “but two people brought together after cold-blooded, bargaining to meet, mate and reproduce so that the generations might continue?” Here, the novelist exposes the hypocrisy and double standards prevalent in society. The easily available Naren is not considered a suitable match for their daughter; instead they pay a handsome dowry for one who has nothing but his family’s social status. Shashi Deshpande does not make any sweeping anti-dowry statements but raises the issue subtly to be pondered over by the readers. The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 120 Indu’s experiences teach her that one should listen to the voice of one’s conscience and be faithful to it. Freedom within marriage is possible if one dares to do what one believes is right and tenaciously follow it. This alone can bring harmony and fulfilment in life. Indu decides to go back to Jayant with the hope that she would do what she thinks correct and not be dishonest to her inner self. She reflects: Now I would go back and see that home could stand the scorching touch of honesty. Nevertheless I knew I would not tell Jayant about Naren and me. Learning from her bitter experiences, she realizes how an emancipated woman should be. She takes the firm decision on how Akka’s wealth is to be put to use, knowing full well that the other relatives would feel greatly offended. She does not care to make good her promise to the dead Naren and decides to spend on Vithal’s education. All this shows how mature and detached she has become as she does not care for the likes and dislikes of the living or dead, and follows her own conscience. Thus, Shashi Deshpande suggests that the modern Indian women should learn to conquer their fears and assert themselves. The novel ends on a note of compromise which is quite representative of the basic Indian attitude. With the conviction of rationale and accountability she holds steadfast to her decisions in a tradition-bound household, which is proof enough of her individuality. A demand for equal status for women in the male-dominated society was heard in nineteenth century Europe and gradually this demand developed into a struggle for women’s rights in the early twentieth century. In North America, The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 121 Feminism emerged as one of the most powerful social, cultural and political movements. Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman launched a powerful attack on the second class status of women, an attack that was in the line of her continuous publications on women’s issues such as Thoughts on the Education of Daughters (1787) and The Wrongs of Woman: or Maria (published posthumously). John Stuart Mill’s The Subjection of Women (1869) and Margaret Fuller’s Women in the Nineteenth Century (1845), among others, were radical responses to the conservative opinion. Virginia Woolfs A Room of One’s Own (1929) and numerous other es-says paved the way for feminist literary criticism. A much more radical approach was launched by Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex (1949). Simon de Beauvoir suffered from a terrible male envy for the female physiology, and complained against the physiological problems of womanhood. She opposed the cultural identification of women as merely the negative object, or ‘Other’ to man. Feminist literary criticism as a self-conscious approach was, however, as late as I960s to be visible. Two important modern feminist approaches to Iiterary criticism of the time were Mary Ellman’s Thinking about Women and Kate Millett’s Sexual Politics, both published in 1968. Mary Ellman protested against the derogatory stereotypes of women in literary works by men, and also against the subversive points of view in some women’s writings. Mil lett pointed at the manipulation of power by the male and the dominance of men in every sector of society. Feminist literary criticism flourished after that with an urgency and excitement that can hardly be seen with any literary movement. The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 122 Broadly speaking, feminist criticism launches its attack on patriarchal ideology, on the prevailing concepts of gender and on the marginalized roles allotted to women in the male-governed society. This patriarchal ideology teaches women to internalize this concept in the process of their socialization. Diverse post-structural ist theories as well as psychoanalytic and Marxist approaches have also been included in feminist l iterary criticism. That the differences in race, class, nationality and historical situation stand on the way of uniform female identities is high-lighted by these critics. Barbara Johnson’s A World of Difference (1987), Rita Felski’s Beyond Feminist Aesthetics: Feminist Literature and Social Change (1989), The Norton Anthology of Literature by Women edited by Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar, Toril Moi’s Sexual/Textual Politics: Feminist Literary Theory (1985) are a few examples from the vast body of Feminist theoretical and critical writings. As a movement, however, feminism is marked by contradictions; but those who remain outside the movement, feminism appears to be shaped by a unified monolithic vision. The female novelists in the last two decades of the twentieth century have been greatly influenced by these feminist writings and they appear to be totally conscious of the feminist trends of the time, focusing on the genuine issues that a woman has to confront in her family and in the society. Margaret Laurence’s The Diviners. Margaret Atwood’s Bodily Harm. Mary McCarthy’s The Croves of Academme. Anita Desai’s Fire on the Mountain are instances of modern novels by the women writers who introduced feminist issues that have been raised by the writ-ers for several decades. The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 123 Shashi Deshpande is fully aware of those disturbing issues, but she deals with those issues in a different way. She projects women in a man-woman situation, rather than in an exclusive man’s world. She is also aware of the fact that in spite of count-less instances of atrocities committed against the Indian women at various stages, the myths have always treated them with honour and this treatment was not necessarily a way of deceiving the women folk. Moreover, unlike say, Simon de Beauvoir, Shashi has not looked upon female physiology as a burden. Among the physiological problems of the women, it is pregnancy alone that she takes up with concern; for, the period of pregnancy demands great caution and extra care which are hardly provided to the women in India. She does not forget to accept pregnancy as a privilege for the women. She says in an interview, The women in my books are people who come to realize what it is to be a woman in the process of their own lives and the situations they face not through books and theories. I think feminism is an entirely personalized perception. It is when you start questioning preconceived notions about your roles. I don’t think there is anything ‘inherent’ in a woman apart from the fact that she can conceive. All other things are equally important for them as they are for the men.18 Deshpande makes her stand as a feminist clear in the above statement. Though she is fully aware of the existing trends of feminist criticism, she hardly copies them. Instead, she criticizes the preconceived notions whenever she The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 124 feels an urge to do so. Otherwise she accepts the normal condition of the society where both men and women have contributed to the plight of women. Among the preconceived notions that are criticized in the novel, the elimination of the girl child from the ‘family tree’ is perhaps the most important. Once Jaya’s Ramu Kaka excitedly showed her the family tree prepared by him. He was proud to proclaim that he had gone back nearly two hundred years to trace the line of their ancestors. But Jaya was shocked to find her name missing. The conversation between Jaya and Ramu Kaka may be quoted to show Jaya’s shock and her ignorance as her father had hardly given her any scope to think about her differ-ence from the male members (her brothers, for example,) in the family. “I’ve been able to go back for nearly two hundred years. There are a few gaps, of course, but I’ll fill them up eventually. Look, Jaya, this is our branch. This is our grandfather—your great grand father—and here’s father, and then us—Laxman, Vasu and me. And here are the boys-Shridhar, Jannu, Dinkar, Ravi ....” “But Ramukaka,” I’d exclaimed, “I’m not here!” “You!” He had looked up, irritated by the interruption, impatient at my stupidity. “How can you be here? You don’t belong to this family! You’re married, you’re now part of Mohan’s family. You have no place here.” At this point, as I had been narrating this story to Mohan, Mohan had smiled. “Of course, your Ramukaka is right. You belong to my family now.” Okay, I’d wanted to ask Ramukaka, if I don’t belong to this family, what about the Kakis and Ai? They married into this fam-ily, didn’t they, why are they The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 125 not here? And what about ajji, who single-handedly kept the family together, why isn’t she here? But I had said nothing—neither to Ramukaka, nor to Mohan. Ajji should be pleased with me. I had learnt it at last—no questions, no retorts. Only silence. The fact that the family tree does not include any woman reveals the utter lack of importance for women in the Indian social set up. Jaya is also aware that the Indian women have been treated not only with negligence, but also with physical torture. Manda’s description of her mother’s suffering leads Jaya to reflect on the condition of the poor Indian women: Where was it I had read an account of how baby girls were done to death a century or so back? They were, I had read in horror, buried alive, crushed to death in the room they were born in; and immediately after that, a fire was l it on the spot—to purify the place, they said. Perhaps it was to ensure death. Jaya’s anger and despair over the inhuman treatment inflicted on the women in Indian society is artistically rendered in the novel. Shashi Deshpande analyses the problems faced by the Indian women belonging to different strata of life. Her approach to the problems of women is serious as she is a serious writer, but she does not like to be treated as a so- called feminist. She says, It is a curious fact that serious writing by women is invariably regarded as feminist writing—A woman who writes of women’s experiences often brings in some aspects of those experiences that The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 126 have angered her, roused her strong feelings. I don’t see why this has to be labelled feminist fiction. A (male) critic once said about a novel of mine, “She can be quite brilliant when she is not raising her banners of protest.” What banners of protest, was my thought. Any woman who writes fiction shows the world as it looks to her protagonist: if the protagonist is a woman, she shows the world as it looks to a woman-to apply the tag of feminist is one way, I have realized, of dismissing the serious concerns of the novel by labelling them, by calling the work propagandist.19 She further says, When a man writes of the particular problems a man is facing, he is writing male propaganda. Nobody says that, why is it said only about women writers?20 Deshpande’s novels are yet discussed by some critics as feminist novels. But it will be a great mistake to assert that she is supporting the western individualistic feminism. Rather, she comes close to Chaman Nahal’s definition of feminism. Chaman Nahal says, I define feminism as a mode of existence in which the woman is tree of the dependence syndrome. There is a dependence syndrome: whether it is the husband or the father or the community or whether it is a religious group, ethnic group, when women free themselves of the dependence syndrome and lead a normal life, my idea of feminism materializes.21 The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 127 The protagonists in Deshpande’s novels do not depend on any religious or ethnic group. And when they find ‘dependence syndrome’ in themselves, they try to free themselves; unlike Ibsen’s Nora, however, they may remain at home with their male counterparts but they change themselves internally, learning how to assert individuality. They often develop a world—view that en-ables them to see themselves in terms of relationships and of human values.22 The women protagonists in Deshpande’s novels go beyond what Elaine Showalter calls the’ Female Phase.’23 The very title of the novel That Long Silence brings Shashi Deshpande close to the feminist thinkers. The title is derived from a speech given by the American actress Elizabeth Robins to W. W.S.L. in 1907. Robins said, “If I were a man and cared to know the world I lived in, I almost think it would make me a shade uneasy, the weight of that long si lence.” This ‘long silence’ was however taken up as their subject by a good number of women writers, but most of them lapsed into sentimental ro-mances as they almost failed to delve deep into the superficial matters. In contrast with her predecessors who either dwelt on superficial matters or succumbed to the feminist ideology, Deshpande studies facts and projects the ‘silence’ of all sorts of women facing different types of problems. The choice of a writer as the protagonist of her novel helped Deshpande to render credibility to her writing. Jaya, the protagonist of the novel, has been portraying characters who belong to the make—believe world, and she is aware that she avoids reality. She remembers how her first attempt to reveal reality was interpreted by her husband as an act of profanation (Mohan The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 128 accused her of blaming her husband through her story), and since then her career has been jeopardized. She starts writing under an assumed name, but her stories are rejected. She remembers the comment of her neighbour Kamat that her stories are lacking in strong emotions and that a woman’s story is supposed to express anger. Jaya almost echoed her husband when she argued, “A woman can never be angry. She can only be neurotic, hysterical, frustrated.” As a perceptive critic, Kamat gave her a warning: “Beware of this ‘women are the victims’ theory of yours. It’ll drag you down into a soft, squishy bog of self-pity. Take yourself seriously, woman. Don’t skulk behind a false name.” Through Kamat’s accusations, Deshpande criticizes those women writers (the Indian women writers, in particular) who continue to idealize the women, ignoring reality. Kamat’s suggestion did not however have any immediate ef-fect on Jaya. Instead of showing anger in her stories she started writing light humorous pieces on the travails of middle-class housewives in a column entitled’ SEETA.’ This column received good responses from all sides including Mohan, and Jaya felt ‘secured’ as she could maintain peace in the family. Dissecting her creative self, Jaya acknowledges, She [Seeta] had been the means through which I had shut the door, firmly on all those other women who had invaded my being, screaming for attention; women I had known I could not write about, because they might—it was just possible—resemble Mohan’s mother or aunt or my mother or aunt. The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 129 A writer’s fear to face the reality could hardly be better described. Jaya finally wins over her fear during her stay in the Dadar flat and acquires necessary courage to overlook Mohan’s reactions. Through the process of Jaya’s self- realization and her memories, all the characters of real life that she had earlier avoided, appear and Deshpande utilizes the opportunity of introducing real women encountering real problems of life. A brief discussion of how the women characters in That Long Silence are focused will reveal Deshpande’s acute concern for the position of women in the male-governed society, a con-cern that explains her affinity with the feminists. Take Kusum’s story first. She was the.niece of Jaya’s aunt (Vanitamami) who, being childless, took up Kusum as her own daughter. Kusum did not have beauty, charm and wealth and thus became an easy prey to male antagonism. She had no intell igence either and Jaya too developed a dislike towards her, a dislike that was later tempered to an indifferent contempt. Jaya explains what in particular irritated her: Even as a gaunt, unattractive girl, Kusum had emphasized her fe-maleness. She had aped a grown woman, swinging her skinny hips from side to side in a grotesque parody of a woman’s walk. She had begun wearing a sari when she was barely thirteen, pulling the end of it scrupulously round her shoulders, covering herself fully, as if to hide her barely perceptible breasts from possibly lecherous males. Whenever Dada was about, she would sidle past him with a kind of exaggerated modesty that had both enraged me and made me want to laugh. The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 130 That insignificant Kusum was married and gave birth to three children all of whom were girls. Desperate to have a male child of her own, Kusum developed insanity and was rejected by her husband. At that stage Jaya took the initiative, arranging for Ku-sum’s treatment and her stay in the Dadar flat, much to Mohan’s opposition.24 Jaya resisted when Mohan tried to stop her from helping Kusum, and this was Jaya’s first straight fight against Mohan. Kusum could not yet be saved. She insisted on going back to her ‘home’ where everybody despised her. When Jaya rudely told her that her children did not need her, Kusum replied that she needed them. Jaya had no answer to that and Kusum was gone. After a few days she threw herself in a well and died. Jaya’s reflections on Kusum render her as the ‘Other’ or the ‘Double’ of Jaya and the description receives a new dimension: I could feel her anguish, her fears, her despair. They seeped into me drop by drop, until I felt myself burdened with them. The day I heard she was sick, I felt relief. It was like hearing of someone’s death. Your own life, your living, becomes a vital truth you’re suddenly conscious of. And so with Kusum’s madness I became aware of my own blessed sanity. Thank God, Kusum, you’re nuts, I had thought; because you’re that, I know I’m balanced, normal and sane. Suddenly it occurs to me—as long as Kusum was there, I had known clearly who I was. I was not Kusum. Now, with Kusum dead ... ? The above passage reminds one of the feminist interpretations of Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre. Bertha Mason, the mad woman in the attic, is rendered as The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 131 Jane’s double. The above passage renders Kusum as Jaya’s Double almost in a similar way.25 While Kusum is an embodiment of negative qualities, some other women characters in the novel are denied proper attention and opportunities, and suffer from insecurity. Childless Vanita-mami is one such character who suffers from insecurity in a male-dominated society where the household is dominated and ruled by the elderly mother-in-law, and the daughters-in-law have no way but to digest humiliations. It is her sense of insecu-rity that prompted Vanitamami to give an advice to Jaya in regard to her attitude to her husband. She tells that a husband is a sheltering tree forever and the wife should ignore even if he keeps a mistress. Jaya also could not understand why of all her sister’s brood, Vanitamami had taken to the feeble, spiritless Kusum. She concludes later that perhaps Vanitamami had never known what it was to choose. Since her mother-in-Iaw’s death, Vanitamami had changed completely. She became aggressive, letting loose her pent-up rage. Jaya’s mother, who had been staying in her brother’s horne, dominating his family for last twenty years, could not anymore cope with the metamorphosed Vanitamami and was desperately looking out for a place she could retreat to. Deshpande’s hold on psychology is thus blended with her feminist stand. With Mohan’s mother and sister, the surrounding was more cruel and suffocating.26 Even Mohan is unaware of the facts about his mother’s death which were told to Jaya by Mohan’s sister Vimala. Vimala says that her mother always remained pregnant and she did not want the last child. Being The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 132 desperate, she went to a midwife to get her aborted, and died a painful death. Vimala’s description of her mother’s silent suffering is horrifying: I didn’t bother until I heard her screams. I didn’t even imagine it was her screaming at first, it wasn’t like her voice at all, it was a thin, ugly voice that scared me to death. And then, as I watched, she began hitting herself on the face. Her hands were all floury, and wet too, and her face soon became white and flowery. Soon there were red patches as she went on and on hurting herself. I tried to stop her; I tried to stop her screams, (tried to hold her hands, but I could do nothing. Her hands were like ... steel. At last her hands slowed down and I could hold them. She began to cry. I tried to make her lie down, I tried to make her drink some water, but she just went on saying, “I can’t, l can’t” She lay near the fire moaning. Her body had become like a .... like a stuffed doll’s … At last she stopped crying and lay still, breathing heavily … A week later she died. Mohan’s father was a drunkard and he would come home late every night compelling her wife to wait with hot meal to serve him. He wanted his rice fresh and hot, from a vessel that was untouched. Mohan described how one day he threw his rice plate at the wall as there was no fresh chutney that day. The poor wife picked up the plate and cleansed the floor si lently and then went to prepare chutney, after lighting the fire and blowing it. When the baby woke up and began to cry, she hushed it and gave it her breast. When the baby finally drifted off to sleep, she sat in front of the fire, silent and motionless. Describing the incident, Mohan commented that women those days were tough. Jaya’s The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 133 view was different. She said, “He saw strength in the woman sitting si-lently in front of the fire, but I saw despair. I saw a despair so great that it would not voice itself. I saw a struggle so bitter that silence was the only weapon. Silence and surrender.” This is a direct attack on the patriarchal system and for such attacks Deshpande is called a feminist, though her approach is different from that of some well-known feminists of the western world. Besides Mohan’s mother, there is Mohan’s sister Vimala who also died in silence. She was suffering from an ovarian tumour with metastases in the lungs, but she did not tell anyone about her illness. Why she preferred silence is clear from the words of her mother-in-law which are quoted by Jaya without further comment: ‘All that bleeding,’ they had whispered after death, the women in her husband’s home. When Mohan and I had visited her—our normal routine visit during our annual stay in Saptagiri—her mother-in-law had shrugged heavily and said, ‘God knows what is wrong with her. She has lying there on her bed for over a month now. Yes, take her away if you want to. I never heard of women going to hospitals and doctors for such a thing. As if other women don’t have heavy periods! What a fuss! But these women who’ve never had children are like that.’ The above passage displaying a woman’s callousness, in humanity and rudeness causing another woman’s death highlights the distinctness of Deshpande’s attitude. She does not put the blame only on the men for their antagonistic attitude; the women are equally blamed. These women are so The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 134 moulded by the existing pattern of the society that they are unable to think freely. Jaya’s ajji and other ajj i (her paternal and maternal grandmother), Mukta’s mother and such other women, who deny human rights to other women and exercise their power on those women, belong to this group. Among the working class women, the picture is hardly better. Though they earn money doing odd jobs all over the day, they are prey to all sorts of maltreatment, and are burdened with repeated pregnancy against their will. Nayana and Tara are such typical Indian women who cling to their husbands despite their various tortures simply because they owe their ‘kumkum,’ the mark of married women, to them. The elderly woman Jeeja is markedly distinct among the lot. Jaya refers to Jeeja’s ‘reticence’ or ‘stoicism,’ and she even envies Jeeja’s ‘single mindedness.’ As she says, “She knew what her purpose in life was-it was to go on living. Enduring was part of it and so she endured all that she had to.” When she started working for Jaya, she asked her mistress not to give her husband any of her pay, giving hints thereby what her life was l ike. Jaya calls her a realist, not loyal, because she knew that she was earning more money than other servants only because of her reliability, and that she badly needed money. A ‘pure professional’ like Jeeja is indeed rare among her class. But her views of life are hardly different from others. Jaya is surprised to see no anger behind her silence. When asked by Jaya, she expressed her feelings which reveal her sympathetic under-standing of others including her husband who appears to be the cause of her suffering. Jeeja told that her husband was not from the beginning a drunkard. Only after he lost his job at the time of a strike The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 135 that he started drinking. Moreover, she was denied the blessing of having any issue and so she cannot blame her hus-band for marrying again. Jeeja even had the broadness of mind to look after the children of his husband’s second wife after her death. When after her husband’s death Jeeja found her son step-ping into his father’s shoes, she took it up as her responsibility to look after the family of the son. The daughter-in-law Tara has three children and she is lacking in Jeeja’s toughness and resil-ience. She has been trailing Jeeja from door to door, doing all the odd jobs. And whenever she moans her fate wishing her hus-band’s death, Jeeja reminds her that “he keeps the ‘kumkum’ on your forehead. What is a woman without that?” While projecting this picture of exploitation of woman by the society which is governed by age-old ideas created by men for their comfort, Deshpande does not forget to make her protagonist reflect on exploitations of the poor by the rich. Jaya says, “It was Jeeja and her like I needed; it was these women who saved me from’ the hell of drudgery. Any little freedom I had depended on them.” Thus Deshpande is above all a hu-manist who centres on the problems faced by the Indian wom,en and offers a realist’s view of life, one that is not limited by any dogma. Deshpande is also aware of the pernicious effect of the catchy slogans of Women’s Lib on the affluent families who have no faith in traditional values. To illustrate her point she in-corporates the incident of a jeans-clad beautiful’ and educated girl accompanied by two young men. “The girl had a face of remarkable beauty and delicacy. A slim body clad in jeans. On the whole, a beauty that was appalling in its perfection ... the girl snatched at a cigarette The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 136 one of the men was smoking. He feigned unwillingness then, yielding, put it between her parted,’ exquisitely tender lips. She took a deep drag, eyes closed in ecstasy, and the two men watched her with the detached interest of scientists observing the results of an experiment. One of them ... was openly fondling the girl’s small breasts; She opened her eyes and the men laughed. She laughed too-a thin, ugly laugh that went on and on. The cigarette was roughly pulled away from her lips by the man. She tried to grab it. The man moved away. She got up, swayed, tottered and leaned against the other man.” Jaya is horrified at the spectacle. Unable to remain a mute witness to this annihilation of womanhood, she protests, but only in vain. And then she prefers to walk away in drenching rain, leaving the bus-stop shelter. The incident sends the message: if by the name of Women’s Freedom the young women make themselves easy prey to man’s lust, it would be a horrible and idiotic imitation of the obscene, lustful way of life and not freedom. That Long Silence is unique not as much for its treatment of women in general, as for its revelation of the interior world of a woman writer, its protagonist Jaya. The conflict between Jaya the writer and Jaya the housewife is exposed with a clarity that is indeed rare. Thanks to her acute self- consciousness and her capacity of self-dissection, Jaya knows why she maintains silence. For seventeen long years she has tried to mould her in a pattern that would satisfy Mohan as well as others in the society. This new self that was born after her marriage is referred to as Suhasini, the name given to her by Mohan. Though no one called her by the new name, she is ‘officially’ known as Suhasini after her marriage and has accepted the role of Suhasini, The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 137 that is, the role of a married lady. Kamat laughed when he heard of this new name, but Jaya continued to remain Suhasini, eliminating her other self that has always been true to herself. Once after her marriage she wrote a story about the relationship of a woman and a man who cannot approach his wife without his body. When the story was published Mohan took it to be an insult to him, for, as he explained to Jaya, the story was taken by people as the story of Mohan, and he was humiliated.10 Mohan behaved in such a way that Jaya was compelled to stop writing. Jaya says, “Looking at his stricken face, I had been convinced, I had done him wrong. And I had stopped writing after that.” She did not know how to explain her point of view to one who had never shared her feelings. In short, she was afraid to face the atrocities that were likely to be generated by her writings. Moreover, she did not want to confront insecurity; almost in the manner of Vanitamami she accepted Mohan as the sheltering tree. That is why she did not bother to know if Mohan was following some unethical ways for earning money. Rather she kept her aloof from reality and took shelter in a make-believe world, writing for a Woman’s Magazine under the pseudo name of Seeta. But she cannot stay long in that secure world which she had taken for granted. Mohan is suspected to be involved in a shady deal and an enquiry into the charge of corruption brought against Mohan is anticipated. On the advice of his colleague who is also anticipating similar enquiry, Mohan comes to stay in the Dadar flat and as it is expected, Jaya comes with him. The children, Rahul and Rati, being away on a long tour with their family friends, Mohan feels comfortable as he need not explain to them why he has shifted. Regarding The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 138 Jaya he takes it for granted that he owes no explanation to her, that she is compelled to follow her husband into ‘exile,’ following the footsteps of the mythical fig-ures such as Sita and Draupadi. In the silence of the Dadar flat, when Jaya delves deep into her mind scrutinizing her role as a wife and a mother and also as a contributor in a Woman’s Magazine, she is rudely shocked by the jolt received from Mohan. Unable to gauge Jaya’s silence, Mohan tells her, “I did it for you and for the children.” Mohan accused Jaya that she had extracted comfort from him, without feeling for him and now that they were compelled to leave their furnished flat and came to Dadar, she has become unhappy. Mohan angrily says that if he had done any wrong it was for the comfort of Jaya and the children, and thus Jaya also becomes a party to the crime. Thanks to this blow from Mohan, Jaya is led to a more critical self- analysis and ex-poses her deceitful role as a writer. When Jaya started writing for the column of Seeta, she abstained from telling the truth. She ceased to think of herself as an individual, and posed to be happy with the role of a wife and a mother. Now she confesses that the characters she introduced through the column of Seeta shut the door firmly on all those women who had invaded her being, screaming for attention. She could not write about those women, because they might resemble Mohan’s mother or aunt or her own mother or aunt. Through this confessional statement by Jaya, Deshpande attacks the mode of writing of some women writers who attain cheap popularity with their works that have little to do with reality. Jaya’s recollection of Kamat’s contemptuous view of her writing also adds to the same effect. Kamat said to Jaya, “I can never imagine you writ-ing this. This The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 139 you, I mean. I can see the woman who writes this. She’s plump, good humoured, pea brained, but shrewd, devious, skimming over life.” Kamat also told Jaya to take her seriously and not to write behind a false name. When Jaya is forced to see the reality after receiving the jolt from Mohan, she remembers that Kamat told her that she had been scared of writing. She confesses that she was actually scared of writing the facts of life: Middle class. Bourgeoise. Upper-caste. Distanced from real life. Scared of writing. Scared of failing. Oh God, I had thought, I can’t take any more. Even a worm has a hole it can crawl into. I had mine- as Mohan’s wife, as Rahul’s and Rati’s mother. And so I had crawled back into my hole. I had felt safe there. Comfortable. Unassailable. And so I had stopped writing. It hadn’t been Mohan’s fault at all. And it had been just a coincidence, though it had helped, that just then Mohan had propelled me into that other kind of writing. ‘I encouraged you,’ he had said to me. He was right. But I went on with my chest-beating fit of penitence; Mohan had not forced me to do that kind of writing. I’d gone into it myself. With my eyes wide open. Here is a wonderful experiment with the revelation of a writer’s conflict, a woman writer who wrote imaginary matters about women under the mythical name ‘Seeta,’ and who now seriously wants to emerge out of her previous stand. Detached from her children and her usual way of life in the luxurious apartment, Jaya asks her inner self whether the kind of life she has been living should at all be accepted. “What do you want? ... Just to live. To know that at The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 140 the end of the day my family and I are un-der a roof, safe, enclosed, in a secure world. If it is dark outside, what does it matter? I can close the door and windows, switch on the lights and the darkness wil l recede.” This awareness is something greater than the one introduced by a typical feminist. The woman protagonist emerges out of her selfish existence to embrace the outer reality. Jaya goes to hospital to contact a doctor for the treatment of Rajaram, as she now believes that life should bear a meaning for every individual. To quote Adele King in this context, In a self-referential parody, Deshpande makes Jaya a writer of woman’s magazine fiction. In Jaya’s stories they lived happily ever after although she knows the falsity of the view of life. Also, the mixture of surrealism and fantasy in some of the experiences the writer undergoes is an important aspect of the making and unmak-ing of fictions in That Long Silence.27 The novel may thus be discussed as a critique of so-called women’s writing that fails to depict the real problems faced by the women in real l ife. Deshpande does not like to be called a feminist for she does not like to see her surrounding from a biased point of view. That is why her novel includes male characters (Kamat and Jaya’s father in That Long Silence) that make no difference between man and woman, and also female characters (Jaya’s ajji, her mother) that are responsible for the sufferings of other women. Moreover, she likes her protagonist to be, above all, a humanist who is able to understand others’ point of view. Thus Jaya understands very well that when Mohan projects him as a broad-minded man who always fulfil led Jaya’s wish, it is of no The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 141 use to shout at him, to tell him that he did not approve of the job she wanted to take, the baby she had wanted to adopt, the anti-price campaign she had liked to join. She feels that Mohan had nothing to with these; but it was she whose will was not perfect. “Perhaps I had not really cared enough about these things my-self.” After this realization she also admits to herself that she has moulded her to fit in with Mohan’s dream, as she could not, til l then, form her own dream of life. Jaya also feels that Mohan has known that Suhasini is dead, and he has to encounter ‘Jaya’ from now on. “Suhasini was dead, yes, that was it, she was the one Mohan was mourning, she’d walked into the sea at last. No, the fact was that I’d finally done it-I’d killed her. No, that was not right, either; we had killed her between us, Mohan and I. But in dying she’d given me back the burden she’d been carrying for me all these years. I had finally to bear it myself, the burden of wifehood.” Herein lies the difference between Jaya’s approach and that of a feminist who protests and, if necessary, leaves her husband’s home. Jaya has felt that neither of the sexes can be eliminated from a healthy family or a healthy society. Hence the problems have to be solved through mutual discussion and not through silence or elimination. Jaya seems to accept the moral vision proposed by Robin Morgan: The women have over the centuries developed an ethic that is appropriate to the world view that is emerging out of the new physics: they see in terms of relationship and in terms of environmental of human values for centuries. Their primary value is a The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 142 reverence for life. This ethic must become the governing world ethic.28 Deshpande the humanist desires a society which will treat both man and woman on equal terms, and in such a society feminism is not required. In conclusion, the novelist’s own remarks may be quoted: And then I wrote That Long Silence, almost entirely a woman’s novel, nevertheless, a book about the silencing of one-half of humanity. A life time of introspection went into this novel, the one closest to my personality; the thinking and ideas in this are closest to my own.29 The readers would agree to the point that the writer is successful in reaching her goal and the novel is artistically perfect. Hence, as says Keki Daruwalla, a distinguished Indian poet, we need not bother much about the label to be imposed on the novel. To quote Daruwalla, “Labels are inadequate here, as they always are when confronting a work of art. One cannot dub That Long Si- lence either as a feminist or psychological novel. It has been written by a strong personality, a fine craftswoman and a novel-ist with an unerring eye for character.”30 The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 143 Reference 1. Shashi Deshpande, The Dark Holds No Terrors, New Delhi: Penguin, 1990. 2. Sarbjit K. Sandhu, The Image of Woman in the Novels of Shashi Deshpande, New Delhi: Prestige Books, 1991, 19-20. 3. Y.S. Sunita Reddy, A Feminist Perspective on the Novels of Shashi Deshpande, New Delhi: Prestige Books, 2001, 51. 4. G. Dominic Savio, “A Woman’s Heritage of the Commonwealth: A Study of The Dark Holds No Terrors,” Women in the Novels of Shashi Deshpande, ed. Suman Bala, New Delhi: Khosla Publishing House, 2001, 61. 5. S. Anandalakshmi, “The Female Child in a Family Setting,” The Indian Journal of Social Work, Vol. LH, No. I, January 1991, 31. 6. Y.S. Sunita Reddy, op. cit., 56. 7. S.P. Swain, “Shashi Deshpande’s The Dark Holds No Terrors: Saru’s Feminine Sensibility,” Indian Women Novelists, ed. R.K. Dhawan, New Delhi: Prestige Books, 1990, Set 1, Vol. 4, 35-36. 8. Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1971, 282. 9. Kamini Dinesh, “Moving out ofthe Cloistered Self: Shashi Deshpande’s Protagonists,” Margins of Erasure: Purdah in the Sub-continental Novel in English, ed. Jasbir Jain and Amina Amin, New Delhi: Sterling, 1995, 200. 10. Betty Friedan, op. cit., 23. The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 144 11. Shashi Deshpande, Roots and Shadows, Madras: Sangam Books, 1983. 12. Quoted in Meera Shirwadkar, Image of Woman in the Indo-Anglian Novel, New Delhi: Sterl ing, 1979, 26. 13. Neena Arora, Nayantara Sahgal and Doris Lessing: A Feminist Study in Comparison, New Delhi: Prestige Books, 1991, 61. 14. Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, translated and edited by H.M. Parshley, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1983,470. 15. Ibid., 351. 16. P. Bhatnagar, “Indian Womanhood: Fight for Freedom in Roots and Shadows,” Indian Women Novelists, edited by R.K. Dhawan, New Delhi: Prestige Books, 1991, Set I, Vol. 5, 129. 17. P. Ramamoorthy, “My Life is My Own: A Study of Shashi Deshpande’s Women,” Feminism and Recent Fiction in English, edited by Sushila Singh, New Delhi: Prestige Books, 1991. 124. 18. Shashi Deshpande, Interviewed by Malini Nair, “The Message is Incidental,” Times of India, No. 25, Nov. ] 989. 19. Shashi Deshpande, “The Dilemma of a Woman Writer.” The Literary Criterion. Vol. 20. No.4, 1985. 20. Ibid., p. 33. The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 145 21. Chaman Nahal, “Feminism in English Fiction: Forms and Varia-tions,” Feminism and Recent Fiction in English, pp.14-2]. 22. Robin Morgan, The Anatomy of Freedom: Feminism, Physics and Global Politics (N.Y.: Doubleday, 1982), pp. 282-84. 23. Elaine Showalter defines ‘female phase’ as “a phase of self-discovery, a turning inward, freed from the dependence of opposition, a search for identity.” A Literature of Their Own: British Women Novelists from Bronte to Lessing (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. 1977), p. 13. 24. Shashi Deshpande’s That Long Silence. “Indian Women Novelists, Set 1, Vol. V, p. 166. 25. Ibid. p. 170. 26. Adele King, “Shashi Deshpande: Portraits of an Indian Woman,” The New Indian Novel in English: A Study of the 1980s. ed. Viney Kirpal (New Delhi: Allied, 1990), p.166. 27. Robin Morgan, pp. 282-84. 28. Feminist Criticism in the United States,” Cultural Critique, 9 (Spring 1988), pp. 3-22. 29. Qtd. Creative Theory: Writers on Writing (Delhi: Pencraft International, 2000, ed. Jasbir Jain), p. 210. 30. “An Intense Book,” Review of That Long Silence, Indian Literature, Vol. 34, No. 6, Nov.-Dec. 1991. The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 146 Chapter 6 Latter Novels The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 147 Chapter–VI Latter Novels The Binding Vine1 is about Urmi, an educated middle-class wife who is grieving over the death of her one-year-old daughter Anu and in the process becomes very sensitive towards the sufferings and sorrows of other people as well. Had she not undergone such a personal loss, perhaps she wouldn’t have had any concern with the others. Thus her narrative comprises three tales—one about herself and the other two about Shakuntala, a rape-victim’s mother, and Urmi’s mother-in-law, Mira, a victim of marital rape. The novel opens with Urmi grieving over her dead infant daughter, who finds it difficult to let go her memories. For Urmi the loss is terrible and despite the efforts of her friends and family members she clings on to her grief. Although she tries to fight the loss, she feels that forgetting this loss would tantamount to betrayal: “I must reject these memories, I have to conquer them. This is one battle. I have to win if I am to go on living. And yet my victory will carry with it the taint of betrayal. To forget is to betray”. It is her intense attachment to her daughter that becomes the cause of her suffering. Her father’s death does not shock her much, as she says that her father’s is only “a The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 148 gentle memory”. She rejects the idea of having a framed photograph of Anu on the wall: “I don’t need a picture to remember her, I can remember every bit of her, every moment of her life”. When her friend Lalita asks how many children she has, she says, “Only one. A son.” But also gets fil led with a sense of guilt as if she was betraying Anu: “How could I, oh God, how could I? That was betrayal, treachery, how could I deny my Anu? [ ... ] only one son [ ... ] how could I?”. S. Indira aptly observes: “She clings to her pain and allows her memories of Anu, every small incident to flood her with longing and a great sense of loss.”2 In such an aggrieved state she happens to meet Shakuntala, mother of a rape-victim, Kalpana. She meets her in the hospital where her sister-in-law, Vanaa works. Kalpana is lying unconscious and her mother thinks that she has met with a car accident. Dr Bhaskar, the doctor in charge, on examination reports that Kalpana has been brutally raped. Her mother Shankuntala’s reaction is that of a typical Indian mother bred in an oppressive male- dominated society. She tells Vanaa: “It’s not true, you people are trying to blackmail my daughter’s name.” Gathering from Vanaa and Dr Bhaskar’s conversation, she cries in agony and fear. “No, no, no. Tell him, Tai, it’s not true, don’t tell anyone. I’ll never be able to hold up my head again, who’ll marry the girl, we’re decent people, doctor,” she turns to him, “don’t tell the police”. Most Indian mothers would react in a similar way as they are concerned about their daughters’ marriage. The novelist has evocatively laid bare Shakuntala’s agony, anger, helplessness and fear. The character has been presented so realistically that it leaves a sense of deja vu in the readers. Shakutai The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 149 (Shakuntala) is in a traumatic state and is sobbing. Urmi escorts her home and from there starts her association with her. She pays regular visits to Shakutai’s place to inquire after Kalpana’s state. It is during these regular visits that Urmi comes to know about Kalpana from Shakutai. She swings between two extremes; sometimes she is all praise for Kalpana and sometimes puts all the blame on her. Kalpana’s character is full of paradoxes. She says: She is very smart, that’s how she got the job in the shop. Kalpana even learnt how to speak English. People in our chawl used to laugh at her but she didn’t care. When she wants something she goes after it, nothing can stop her. She’s stubborn, you can’t imagine how stubborn she is. She also tells later that Kalpana is secretive in nature as she did not tell her mother even about her pay. Shakutai also expresses her surprise at having given birth to a pretty childlike Kalpana. She is full of praise when she talks about her daughter’s physical appearance. She says: She’s very pretty, my Kalpana. She’s not like me at all. When she was born, she was so delicate and fair, just like a doll. I wondered how a woman like me could have a daughter like that. Though she loves her daughter very much but she puts all the blame squarely on her shoulders, as she bursts out: “Cover yourself decently, I kept telling her, men are like animals. But she went her way. You should have seen her walking out, head in the air caring for nobody. It’s all her fault, Urmila, all The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 150 her fault”. Although Shakutai puts all the blame on Kalpana, Urmi finds it difficult to reason out with her that Kalpana is not responsible in any way for the brutal rape: “It’s not her fault, no, not her fault at all”. She fails to convince Shakutai and is enraged at the fact that this would lead to the rapist’s getting away scot-free. Here we find her reactions born of the values ingrained in her by the age-old patriarchal social setup. She was not born with these values, rather they were embedded into her by the patriarchal norms. Strictures have been laid for a girl’s speech and conduct so that she doesn’t invite men’s attention. A girl has to strictly observe the social norms of how she is to speak, dress and carry herself in society. She should speak less and if possible the least as her words might send wrong signals to men. Similarly her dress should be decent, i.e. the contours of her body should remain suppressed or hidden. A girl is always asked to behave herself in society and she is not allowed to interact much with men. Any deviation from these norms invites the wrath of the family members as it invites danger of her modesty getting outraged. Shakutai does not want a report to be lodged with the police, as she knows that if she does a much greater injustice awaits her and her daughter. A victim of rape is a loser on two counts. First, she has been raped, secondly the society looks down upon such a victim as a kulta (a characterless woman) which leaves the victim in a much miserable plight. Shashi Deshpande further reveals how the police conduct in such cases. It is the duty of the police to encourage such victims to lodge complaints with The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 151 them so they can punish the culprit. But the police officer registers the case as a mere accident to the great shock of Dr Bhaskar, the doctor in charge. He bursts out in anger, and tells Urmi: “You could see the marks of his fingers on her arms where he had held her down. And there were huge contusions on her thighs—he must have pinned her down with his knees. And her lips bitten and chewed”. The police officer knows very well that it is a rape case, but he has his own logic. He tells Dr Bhaskar that “She’s going to die anyway, so what difference does it make whether on paper, she dies the victim of an accident or a rape”. He further adds “her name would be smeared”. This is what concerns Shakutai. She knows that it will not only ruin her family’s name but also undermine the marriage prospects not only of Kalpana but also of Sandhya, her second daughter. In a society governed by Manu’s laws which depict a woman as a being full of “carnal passions, love for ornament, impure desires, wrath, dishonesty, malice and bad conduct,”3 it is Kalpana who is blamed for as heinous a crime as rape. We come to know about Shakutai’s tragic past. She was deserted by her husband for another woman, and she was left all alone to fend for herself and her children. Dr Bhaskar wonder’s how women like her who themselves have had no peace and happiness in marriage could think of marrying away their daughters. Urmi tells Dr Bhaskar that marriage provides security to a woman. The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 152 She makes an apt remark as in a patriarchal social setup, an unmarried woman is socially vulnerable. Y.S. Sunita Reddy observes: “It is indeed, an irony that to avoid brutalisation of one kind, women willingly submit themselves to a brutality of another kind in the institution of marriage.”4 Urmi wants justice to be done to Kalpana by bringing the culprit to book. She finds herself a lonely crusader in her fight. Despite opposition from Vanaa and Urmi’s mother she takes the matter to the press. She gets the case reopened and with this the identity of the rapist is revealed who is no other than Prabhakar, Shakutai’s sister’s husband. Sulu gets so guilty conscience that she immolates herself leaving behind a grief-stricken Shakutai. Shakutai too has her own tragic tale. Soon after her marriage her husband leaves her in her father’s home and goes to Bombay on the pretext of earning a livelihood. Six months are past but he does not return. Shakutai becomes impatient and joins her husband in Bombay. Soon she realizes that his husband is lazy and worthless. She gives birth to three children and decides to work for the sake of her children. Despite this her husband deserts her and the children for another woman. She tells Urmi, “That’s been the greatest misfortune of my life, Urmila, marrying that man”. Since her husband has deserted her, she is to blame not only for her husband’s desertion of her but also for anything that goes wrong in the family, for example Kalpana’s rape. The society is such that her stoic forbearance of her personal tragedy in marriage and the privations she undergoes in the aftermath are thrown to the winds. She bitterly tells Urmi: The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 153 “What can you expect, they say, of a girl whose mother has left her husband?” Her putting up with such a husband and fending for herself and her children are of no avail in an oppressive patriarchal social setup. Shakutai’s sister, Sulu, has her own tragic life. She is affectionate and helpful in nature. She helps her as much as possible and even takes upon herself the responsibility of bringing Kalpana up, but that was not to be. Sulu’s husband Prabhakar had lusted after her, and Sulu under pressure from her husband had proposed to Shakutai Kalpana’s marriage to Prabhakar. Kalpana is infuriated at Sulu and ridicules her. Sulu had been so suppressed after her marriage that she makes such a proposal. Shakutai is all praise for Sulu as very affectionate, helpful and good-natured. Shakutai tells Urmi: “After marriage she changed. She was frightened, always frightened. What if he doesn’t like me, what if he throws me out? Nobody should live like that, Urmila, so full of fears”. Shashi Deshpande suggests here how sometimes a marriage makes a woman extremely meek and submissive. Yet another saga of misery, submission and sorrow is that of Urmi’s late mother-in-law, Mira. The novelist here ventures into a completely untouched subject of marital rape in Indian Writing in English. She has touched upon the subject in her earlier novel The Dark Holds No Terrors, wherein the protagonist Sarita undergoes the traumatic experience of the nightly sexual assaults by her frustrated husband as she is a successful doctor and he an underpaid lecturer. In The Binding Vine, Mira has aversion to physical intimacy with her husband The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 154 and stil l she has to put up with his obsession for her. She gives voice to her inner self in her poems “in the solitude of an unhappy marriage, who died giving birth to her son at twenty-two”. It so happens that many years after her marriage, Urmi receives an old trunk full of books and a few other things from Mira’s husband’s stepmother, referred to as Akka. Among these books Urmi finds Mira’s diary which is “not a daily account of her routine life but a communion with herself’. When Akka hands over Mira’s jewellery to Urmi, she says, “They are Kishore’s mother’s,” but while giving books and diaries to her, she says, “Take this, it’s Mira’s”. Urmi goes through the poems in Mira’s diary and gets a glimpse of her troubled marriage. She comes to know from Akka how Kishore’s father had pursued and married Mira, a college student. The poems and entries in the diary are proof enough for Urmi to conceive the forced sexual activity Mira had to undergo in an incompatible marriage. The extent of her molestation in marriage can be gauged from the following lines: But tell me, friend did Laxmi too twist brocade tassels round her fingers and tremble, fearing the coming of the dark-clouded, engulfing night. One of the entries in diary reveals her aversion to sexual activity with her husband. She writes: The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 155 And so it begins. “Please,” he says, “Please, I love you.” And over and over again until he has done. “I love you.” Love! How I hate the word. If this is love it is a terrible thing. Through her photographs and poems, Urmi gets an image of her mother- in-law as a very lively and intell igent girl snuffed off in a forced, incompatible marriage. Mira’s inhibitions about her voicing a desire to become a poet are clear in the following lines: Huddled in my cocoon, a somnolent si lkworm. Will I emerge a beauteous being? Or wil l I, suffocating, cease to exist. Thus, Shashi Deshpande suggests here that forced violation of a woman’s body even in marriage can be as traumatic as rape, even though it is not placed in the same bracket. In her short story “Intrusion” this very concern has been voiced again as the wife finds herself in a situation wherein the husband forces her into the sexual act. The protagonist feels her body has been invaded by her insensitive husband. Here the writer suggests that such incidents are common in the Indian social setup where it is incumbent upon a wife to serve the husband in bed like a prostitute. Thus Mira’s diary is a glaring revelation of her “intense dislike of the sexual act with her husband, a physical repulsion for the man she married”. The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 156 Also in her poems we don’t find any mention of her other relations. She does not share this loneliness with others. She has walled herself in like the lady in Kamla Das’s “The Sunshine Cat.” After marriage to this man she was rechristened Nirmala. Though overtly she does not react but puts down her reaction in these lines: Nirmala, they call, I stand statue stil l, Do you build without erasing the old? A tablet of rice, a pencil of gold Can they make me Nirmala? I am Mira. With the loss of such selfhood and identity women have to undergo yet another kind of brutalisation. Mira’s diary reveals how Venu, a poet, who later rises to become a great figure in Indian literature, subtly snubs her for attempting to write poetry. When Mira gives him some of her poems to read, he says, “Why do you need to write poetry? It is enough for a young woman like you to give birth to children. That is your poetry. Leave the other poetry to us men”. It is reflective of the handicaps that women writers often face in a male- dominated society. Thus, Mira symbolizes the miserable and hopeless lot of innumerable Indian women who suffer silently and their voice remains smothered. The message Shashi Deshpande gives is that the invasion of a woman’s body even in marriage can sometimes be as traumatic as rape. A parallel can be drawn The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 157 between this novel and “Intrusion” a short story by Shashi Deshpande. It’s a story about a honeymooning couple wherein the husband forces his yet unprepared wife into the sexual act, which was tantamount to rape. The story is sensitive in the sense that the insensitive husband takes no cognizance of his wife’s sense of humiliation. In case of Harish and Vanaa also we see Vanaa’s submission just to keep her marriage intact. She longs for a son and the same is denied to her by her husband. After the birth of a second baby-girl she expresses her desire to Harish for a son. Harish snubs her by saying that she should be one of those women who crave for sons. He also asks her as to why she thinks for sure that the next child would be a son. Despite all these arguments she is ready to take a chance. Urmi gets terribly irritated at her constant refrain “Harish says.” She tells her, “Assert yourself, you don’t have to crawl before him, do you?” She is also critical of her going out to work and also doing domestic chores all by herself and thus spoiling him and in the process denying love and care to her children. This leads to her daughter, Mandira, to grow with her own notions of the role of a woman as a mother and wife. She thinks that the duty of a woman is to first look after her home and children. She expresses her displeasure at her mother’s leaving her and her sister in the care of an ayah. She even tells Urmi: “You know Urmi auntie, when I grow up, I’m never going to leave my children to go to work”. Her notions are in no way different from the traditional role of a woman. The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 158 Shashi Deshpande attempts at satirizing pseudo-feminists like Priti, who are over-enthusiastic about fighting for equal rights for women, but harbour displaced notions about women’s freedom. In a case filed by a husband against his wife for restitution of conjugal rights, the court had ruled that the husband couldn’t force the wife into physical relationship against her will. Priti is extremely excited whereas Urmi remains sober, Priti says: “Is n’t it radical, absolutely earthshaking in this country I mean? Can you imagine the consequences?” But Urmi thinks that one judgement by a single judge, which can be appealed against will make no difference to the entire womankind. She has a pragmatic approach towards their problems and she knows that all such victims cannot go to court. Thus, by making a dig at pseudo-feminists like Priti, she puts forth her own brand of feminism. Thus, Shashi Deshpande has presented Urmila as a chaste wife whose sympathy for the less fortunate women is sparked off by her daughter’s death. Despite her longings and frustrations, Urmila is not a radical feminist but one who, as Basavaraj Naikar opines: “Having entered a chakravyuha from which there is no escape, they want to make the best of their given life by hardening themselves to face the harsh realities of l ife.”5 Besides Deshpande has taken a bold step forward by exploring the working women’s needs of the head, heart and the anatomy. Shashi Deshpande has been successful in carving sufficient niche for herself as a feminist writer by articulating the anguish, agony and conflict of the The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 159 modern, educated Indian women who caught between tradition and modernity struggle for self-expression and individuality. A Matter of Time6 deals with the human predicament of three women representing three generations of the same family. For the first time Deshpande makes a man the protagonist of the novel, but this hasn’t led her to focusing entirely on the man. As usual she has given expression to their pain, suffering and endurance in marriage. The novel veers round an urban, middle-class family of Gopal and Sumi with their three daughters-Aru, Charu and Seema. It begins with Gopal entering the house and telling Sumi that he is leaving the house for good. Sumi is unable to react verbally. The next morning she tells about it to her daughter, repeating Gopal’s words in toto. She is so shocked with Gopal’s action that she lapses into complete silence, trying simultaneously to keep things normal for her daughters. But they feel restless as “Sumi, despite her facade of normality, has a quality about her—a kind of blankness-that makes them uneasy”. The crisis not only leads to an intense introspection by the women protagonists in the first person narrative but also by the male protagonist Gopal. Although the debate on her identity as a feminist writer sti ll rages, she shows she has the knack to sympathetically delve deep into male protagonists’ psyche. After GopaI’s desertion, Shripati, Sumi’s father brings them to “Big House”—their parental home. For Sumi’s mother, Kalyani, it’s not only a great tragedy, but also a matter of shame and disgrace. She gives a poignant cry: “No, no, my God, not again.’ She begins to cry, sounding so much like an The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 160 animal”. For Sumi, her grief, anger and humiliation are so deep that although she remains calm and composed outwardly but deep within she is very restless. She becomes an enigma for her parents, sister and cousins: “She accepts Gopal’s dumb sympathy, Devaki’s fierce loyaity, and Ramesh’s stupefied bewilderment, as if they are all the same to her”. They fail to deal with her apparent stoicism. Sumi’s daughters seem to have taken up the threads of their life in the Big House, but she remains totally lost and confused even in her childhood home. She confesses that Gopal’s walking out has left such a void that she cannot find her bearings and there are no markers to show her which way she should go. The incident had made a telling effect on her body and soul: “With Gopal’s going, it was as if the swift-flowing stream of her being had grown thick and viscous-her movement, her thoughts, her very pulse and heartbeats seemed to have slowed down”. Her daughters feel hurt by her apparent stoicism, as they want to share their mother’s loss and sorrow. Devaki or Devi even cries to her and tells her, “may be I’m crying because you don’t”. At this Sumi expresses her sense of great humiliation and loss: “What do I say, Devi? That my husband has left me and I don’t know why and may be he doesn’t really know, either. And that I’m angry and humiliated and confused”. Gopal’s walking out on the family comes as a shock to the readers as well, i.e., why did he marry Sumi in the first place. Theirs is not an arranged one but a love marriage. Gopal asks himself: “Why did I marry Sumi? Because I met her—it’s as simple as that”. Thus, the marriage is devoid of any initial romance, but is the inevitable outcome of a matter-of-fact relationship. The contract was The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 161 easy and its breach even easier. But their marriage cannot be said to be incompatible as their first physical consummation is fulfil ling and gratifying to both. Gopal recounts the union later: “And I knew then that it was for this, this losing yourself in another human being that men give up their dreams of freedom”. Deshpande does not assign any tenable reason for Gopal’s desertion and the readers remains in the dark as to his motive behind his apparently seeming mindless act. In the absence of any obvious reasons, Kalyani, Sumi’s mother, decides to plead with Gopal to return home. Gopal assures her that Sumi is not at all responsible for his decision, but does not offer any other reason for the act. But Sumi feels hurt when her daughters blame her for Gopal’s act of desertion: “Do my daughters blame me for what Gopal has done? Do they think it is my fault? Why can’t I open my heart to them?” Sumi, in fact, is trying to come to terms with the hard, painful reality, and expects her daughters also to do the same. Her daughters are also anxious if their father is dead or alive, but Sumi is sure about his being alive and pursuing his own goal. Sumi’s sister, Premi, tries to elicit a tenable reason from Gopal, which proves futile. Later Premi comes to know from Aru and Charu that his students at the college had humiliated their father, which could have been the plausible reason for his resignation from his job. But it seems to be so facile an answer that the same is unacceptable to the readers. Deshpande gives no concrete reasons for the act, which suggests that, perhaps, Gopal himself is not sure about the reasons behind his decisive act. The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 162 One plausible reason for Gopal’s decision is his sense of alienation and loneliness born of his abnormal childhood. Gopal is unable to come to terms with the fact that he was born of the union of his father and his father’s brother’s wife. A conflict rages in his adolescent mind for the reasons that led to this marriage. Later in life, he happens to read Hamlet and draws a parallel between his own and Hamlet’s predicament: It was when I read Hamlet, fortunately much later, that the most terrible version of my parent’s story entered my mind [ ... ]. In this story my father became a man succumbing to his passion for his brother’s wife, the woman compliant, a pregnancy and a child to come and then after the husband’s convenient death (no, I couldn’t I just couldn’t make my father poison his brother) a marriage of convenience. While his father was alive, he was unable to relate himself to his father as he considered him as his mother’s guilty partner. Later, their death leaves a sense of great void in his l ife. He gets completely shattered at the realization that his sister Sudha and he did not share the same father. And he later reflects, “that was a betrayal that cut away at the foundations of my life”. Thus, we see that Gopal has been nurturing a sense of alienation and loneliness since his childhood. He reflects: All human ties are only a masquerade. Some day, some time, the pretence fails us and we have to face the truth. The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 163 It is perhaps this realization that has led to his walking out on his family. But Deshpande does not suggest any reason for his renunciation. Although Gopal’s desertion is cause for great worry to Sumi’s mother, sister and cousin, but this sudden crisis in her life brings out her great inner strength and self-respecting, strong character. She stoically accepts the humiliation and disgrace of a deserted wife. She raises no fuss over it and lapses into a stone-like si lence. Her self-respecting nature makes her refuse all monetary help from close relatives. She takes up a temporary teaching job to fend for herself and her daughters. She is even against staying at the spacious “Big House”, her parental home. Though later she moves into the Big House for her daughters’ sake. She doesn’t rave and rant, sheds no tears and doesn’t hanker after sympathy from the relations. Sumi proves that she is made of different stuff as she harbours no grudge against Gopal by setting him completely free to pursue his own purposes by asking Aru not to sue her father for maintenance. She even decides against putting pressure on Gopal to return home for her or for her daughters. Deshpande does not blame either Sumi or Gopal for the abrupt disintegration of this family. She gives a realistic and detached, matter-of-fact depiction of the inner landscape of her men and women characters. Nowhere does she depict him as a careless or carefree husband and father. He has been described as a loving husband and caring father. He is not presented as one shrinking from responsibilities but he has not been idolized either. Subhash K. Jha aptly writes: “Gopal is not our average cardboard cad but a distressed guilt-ridden husband and father baffled by his The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 164 own sudden withdrawal from active domesticity.”7 Whosoever may be responsible but Sumi is made to suffer for no fault of hers. Shankar’s mother says: “Go back to your husband, he’s a good man. If you’ve done wrong, he’ll forgive you. And if he has—women shouldn’t have pride”. In a tradition-bound social setup like ours elderly women disapprove of such actions objectively without going into the subjectivity of such an incident. Kalyani-Shripati marriage is at the centre of this novel. Kalyani’s plight in marriage is in no way less poignant than that of Sumi’s. Deshpande depicts her as an intelligent girl with a promising future, if only she had been allowed to pursue her studies. But the circumstances led her to be married to Shripati. Kalyani’s mother, Manorama, had failed to beget a male heir to their property and feared that her husband would marry a second time. She is opposed to Kalyani marrying into a new family, as the property would then go to them. It is under such impervious circumstances that she gets Kalyani married to her brother Shripati just to keep the property within the family. Three children are born of this marriage-Sumi, Premi, and Madhav, a mentally retarded child. Kalyani’s real tragedy begins when her four-year-old son, Madhav, is lost at the railway station while she is to board the train to Bangalore. A son even though retarded, holds so great an importance in the Indian social setup that Shripati doesn’t talk to Kalyani for the next thirty years. Soon after the incident, Shripati sends her back to her parents’ home with their two daughters. Shripati returns home only after Manorama, her mother-in-law, urges him on her deathbed to return. Although he obliges but not a word is exchanged between The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 165 them. His return makes no difference to her l ife or her existence as they live under the same roof as two separate individuals. Sumi reflects: “But for many others this may well be a sound arrangement where husband and wife are living together under the same roof even if there is only si lence between them”. Here Deshpande lays bare the social compulsion and the vulnerabil ity of such women in a male-dominated society. Even if nothing is left of married life between the husband and the wife, women suffer in silence just to keep their marriage going. As Sumi reflects of her mother, Kalyani: “But her kumkum is intact and she can move in the company of women with the pride of a wife”. Deshpande also reveals the gross injustice meted out to women in matters of property ownership. Sumi is shocked to know that her maternal grandfather’s property, which should have been inherited by Kalyani, is bequeathed to her father: “Why did they not give it to her? She finds herself looking into the conundrum of justice, a well so deep, dark and unfathomable, that she draws back”. Kalyani had every right to the ownership of the property, but the same is denied to her. Further, Aru is surprised to know that women find no mention in the family tree, although they went through thick and thin while discharging their respective duties to the family. Am is again surprised when her lawyer- friend, Surekha, whom she meets to sue her father for maintenance, tells her: “Do you know that Manu doesn’t mention any duty to maintain a daughter? The duty is towards a wife, parents and sons”. How deep rooted is the desire for a son, is to be witnessed in Kalyani- Manorama relationship. For Manorama, Kalyani is a great disappointment as The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 166 she gives birth to two baby-girls. She wins favour of her mother when she gives birth to a baby-boy though a mentally retarded one. But that too proves short- lived as she loses her only son in a confusion at a railway station. Deshpande’s quote from the Upanishad sums up the Indian psyche: Whatever wrong has been done by him, His son frees him from it all; Therefore he is called a son. By his son A father stands firm in this world. Brahad-Aranyaka Upanishad (1.5.17) In A Matter of Time also, she does not leave out the issue of female sexuality. Surpanakha, the mythical Ravana’s sister, becomes a symbol of female sexuality. Sumi recalls her mother once say that she was as ugly as Surpanakha. Since then she has been thinking of Surpanakha and the unpleasant incident in which her nose is cut off when she flaunts her love to Rama and Lakshamana. She reflects: Female sexuality. We’re ashamed of owning it, we can’t speak of it, not even to our own selves. But Surpanakha was not, she spoke of her desires, she flaunted them. And, therefore, were the men, unused to such women, frightened? Did they feel threatened by her? I think so. Surpanakha, neither ugly nor hideous, but a woman charged with sexuality, not frightened of displaying it. Unlike the earlier novels, Deshpande gives voice to the man’s point of view. Gopal’s thoughts and feelings are laid bare before us. Motherhood has been given so prominent a place in l iterature and society that a father’s The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 167 ‘feelings go unnoticed. Gopal’s sense of alienation and loneliness since his father’s unholy marriage remain so even after his marriage. Earlier also he felt himself like an outsider and even after marriage the feeling does not leave him: I saw it when Sumi put the baby to her breast. [ ... ] when I looked at them, that they belonged together as I never did. [ ... ] they were together in that magic circle. Woman and child. And I was outside. A man is always an outsider. The mother-son bond is so deep-rooted in a man’s psyche that it is nearly impossible to extricate oneself from it. When Shankar expresses his inability to protect his wife from his mother’s sharp tongue saying, “She gave me birth, she brought me up, she looked after me”, Gopal reflects: “That’s a debt we can never repay, it’s a burden we can never lay down”. But Shashi Deshpande ends the novel on a tragic note. The reunion of Gopal and Sumi is an unusual one. When he returns she neither cries to him nor abuses him nor does she ask him for any explanations. Everything is normal as Sumi enters the room and finds him having lunch and reading poems. After lunch also she finds him in a happy mood, laughing and talking to the children. His presence does make difference to the others and her daughters, but for herself she realizes that they can “never be together again”. She reflects: All those days I have been thinking of him as if he has been suspended in space, in nothingness, since he left us. But he has gone The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 168 on living, his life has moved on, it wil l go on without me. So has mine. Our lives have diverged, they now move separately. Thus she has come to terms with her present with a new-born understanding to move ahead in life without any bitterness for the man who had been the cause of her humiliation and suffering. Now she is a new woman with a new understanding and consciousness, all set to begin her life anew and confidently as a teacher and creative writer. But this was not to be. Sumi and her father, Shripati, meet their tragic end in a road accident. This gives a philosophical dimension to the novel. Thus, Deshpande has ventured out of the cordon she had confined herself to and articulates the agony, pain, doubts and fears of her protagonists—male and female alike. She does not fight for justice to women at men’s cost, but presents their respective limitations as spouse. In an interview, she tells Vanamala Vishwanath that she desires to reach a stage where “I can write about human beings and not about men or women.”8 And, time and again, she has proved that she remains unsurpassed as a writer of middle-class lives. Sham a Futehally aptly observes: “Those who have read and reread Deshpande over the years are united in describing her as a ‘middle-class writer.”9 But as Shashi Deshpande’s novel is about three women from three generations of the same family and the way they cope with the tragedies in their lives, she is pre-eminently a feminist writer. Small Remedies10, Shashi Deshpande’s latest novel was published in the year 2000. Here she adopts the structure of a biography within a biography. The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 169 Madhu Saptarishi, the protagonist, has been commissioned by a publisher to write a biography on a famous classical singer, Savitribai Indorekar, doyenne of the Gwalior Gharana. Like Indu, Sarita, Jaya, Urmi, and Sumi, Madhu also is urban, middle-aged and educated. All these protagonists undergo great suffering in marriage, and when they stand up for themselves they spark off upheaval in the family and society and undergo great embarrassment and humiliation. Compared to the earlier novels Small Remedies has been wrought on a wider canvas. Taking into account the Indian composite culture the structure of the novel encompasses the plurality and diversity of this culture. In this particular novel her characters—male and female—are drawn from different communities and professions. She gives an honest and realistic portrayal of a Maharashtrian Brahmin family. Here, an Anthony Gonsalves, a Hamidabai and Joe are all, in a sense, part of Madhu’s extended family. Shashi Deshpande writes Small Remedies at a time when, similar attempts may be witnessed in Salman Rushdie’s The Ground Beneath Her Feet, Vikram Seth’s An Equal Music and Bani Babu’s Gandharvi. Madhu has been commissioned by a publishing house to write a biography of a famous classical singer Savitribai Indorekar, doyenne of the Gwalior Gharana. Writing a novel encompassing such a biography necessitates acquisition of the jargon and idiom of music and a deep understanding and appreciation of the Hindustani The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 170 classical music. But Deshpande renders the discourse of Hindustani music with great ease in her unfaltering impeccable English. But Deshpande’s main concern is not the Hindustani classical music but the gross gender discrimination prevailing not only in society but the field of classical music as well. Madhu has been asked to write Savitribai’s biography wherein she was to be presented as a heroine. But she refuses to present her as such since the latter had been a victim of gender discrimination prevalent in our patriarchal social setup . Imposing the current concept of heroinism on an old woman seemed not only impractical but out of place to Madhu. Instead she presents her as a young woman who had led a sheltered life not only as a child in her parental home but also as a daughter-in-law in an affluent Brahmin family. It is her daring independent nature that makes her seek her own identity and elope with a Muslim tabla player to live in a strange town. Although born in a tradition-bound orthodox Brahmin family, she makes a name for herself as a great classical singer. Madhu records how Savitribai felt hurt when her grandmother asked her to stop singing immediately during her performance at a family gathering. Madhu recalls: “In Neemgaon she was ‘the singer woman’ and there was something derogatory about the words, yes, I can see that now, about the way they said them”. Madhu recalls her as a frail woman and brings her to life by portraying vividly the minute details of her physique. She recalls her as: The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 171 [ ... ] a small sized woman. Even from my child’s perspective she had seemed petite. Age and illness have so shrunk her that she’s a doll- sized woman now. [ ... ] The skin is fine and delicate, even if it is crinkled like tissue paper. Her arms are slim and firm, but the hands, with their branching of veins, seem incongruously large for those delicate arms. Right from her childhood she had sensed the gross discrimination women had to undergo in a society that had one law for men and another for women. She remembers how men could lead a life of their choice with impunity, while women were jeered at and looked down upon if they showed any deviation from the assigned roles set by society for them. In a society where each family “had its place marked out for it according to religion, caste, money, family background, etc.”, Savitribai’s father with his unconventional ways stood out from society. He was a widower, bringing up a daughter on his own with a male servant at home. He was unconventional in the sense that he would observe no rituals or religious rites and would openly indulge in a drink or two every evening. But all his unorthodox behaviour never invited any censure or disapproval from society. But when it came to Savitribai, it was a different story: “Being a man he could get away with much. He could live the way he wanted to without open censure or disapproval”. People are shocked and disapprove of Savitribai’s action as she elopes with a tabla player to some other town and also begets a child from him. The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 172 Even Savitribai’s father-in-law is no different. He too could get away with his way of life without any censure or disapproval from society. He had a mistress who was a well-known Thumri singer. He visited her regularly and the people around knew this. It was not much of a secret affair and the woman gossiped about it. It was common knowledge and no furore was ever raised by society there. His choosing a wife from one’s own class and mistress from another was quite acceptable, but for a daughter-in-law pursuing a career in classical music was scandalous. Although her father-in-law never discourages her, but Savitribai had to undergo great mental torture as she was treated like an untouchable among women. The little freedom she enjoyed was a great cause for contempt and jealousy to the other women, and they would throw caustic remarks on her way back from her music classes. Only a little deviation from the social norms lays her open to much contempt and ridicule, and also to be treated like an outcast by her own kind. The tortuous experience she undergoes is revealed in the following lines: But the subtle cruelty of persistent hostility leaves deeper wounds. There’s always the temptation to succumb, to be back to the normal path and be accepted. To resist the temptation speaks of great courage. The gossip surrounding Savitribai in Neemgaon was that a Station Director who had helped her get many contracts with the radio, was her lover. He was a regular visitor to her place. In course of time a daughter is born to her from him. The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 173 As the child grows up, Madhu recalls how children would tease her by calling the Station Director her mama, a euphemism for mother’s lover. Though Savitribai, while narrating her life story to Madhu, conceals the fact that she had any lover, but to the small town the Station Director was her lover as he had done many favours to her in the capacity of being a Station Director, and had been visiting her quite frequently. In a patriarchal setup, as Savitribai was “A woman who had left her husband’s home”, she was considered an immoral woman. Like her father and father-in-law, she too had led a most unorthodox life but had also paid a price for it as a woman. To society, her way of life was inexorable, while her father’s or, for that matter, her father-in-Iaw’s, was connived at. Shashi Deshpande, does not delineate her character as a feminist one though she has led a most unconventional of lives. She is ashamed of her youthful indiscretions as while relating her life-story to Madhu, she conceals her intimate association with Ghulam Saab and also the fact that she had a daughter from him. This shows Savitribai’s anxiety over her past’s reckless action, which she considers a blemish on her character and respectability. She keeps herself aloof from her i llegal daughter Munni, lest it should tarnish her image. But this dissociation of hers from her daughter is too much for Madhu as she herself is a devoted and loving mother, grieving over her son’s death. Madhu cannot stomach the fact that Savitribai has kept herself dissociated with her daughter born out of wed-lock and has kept it a most The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 174 guarded secret. She also gave Munni her name “Indorekar” which she had adopted as her very own identity as singer and which comprises neither her maiden name nor her married one; all this smacks of her possessiveness as she claims her as exclusively her own child, neither her husband’s nor her lover’s. In her quest for identity she has become overly selfish and possessive, for she gives the child her own identity for her own sake, but disowns her when it comes to sacrificing her hard-earned name for her only child. She loves the child till her own emotional needs get fulfilled but when it comes to Munni’s own identity and happiness, she selfishly keeps her out of her life, recoiling under the guise of respectability and a good name. Madhu wonders as to why a woman who had the daring to walk out on her marriage and family, feared to make public the fact that she had borne a child out of wed-lock. All this smacks of her utter selfishness. But we cannot put the blame for all this squarely on her shoulders alone. In a patriarchal society such things are easily said than done. It takes extraordinary courage to make public such facts, and this couldn’t have helped Munni in any way. In the West such things have gradually gained acceptance, though not respectability; but in the Indian society, and that too in the older generation, such acceptability was well nigh impossible. And Madhu feels that she could make Savitribai immortal if she made public her most closely guarded secret. Hers would be a story of exemplary courage and sacrifice—a woman sacrificing for one of her own kind, a mother sacrificing her interests for her daughter’s. Hers would be a rare example, and this would immortalize her. But this was not to be. The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 175 Savitribai eliminates the existence of her daughter from her life to keep her good name and identity intact. She is guilt-ridden and is now ashamed of her past indiscretions and wants to wipe off the memory of such acts from her mind. Meenakshi Indorekar, her daughter, is no exception. She leads the life of a disowned child and is unhappy and ashamed of her existence, as she is a child born of her mother’s association with another man. Like her mother, she too wishes her past were dead. She dissociates herself from Ghulam Saab, rejecting him as her father and later does the same to her mother. Madhu recalls how as a child Munni had concocted stories of a lawyer-father living in Pune, and also underwent great mental torture when the neighbourhood girls teased her by asking her about the identity of her real father—was it Ghulam Saab, the Station Director or the man “who lives with your [Munni’s] mother?” She was desperate for a new identity that would cut her off from her past. Once Madhu happens to meet her in a bus, but she refuses to have been familiar to her as her childhood friend. Munni tells Madhu that she was mistaken, and she was not Munni but “Shailaja Joshi.” In her desperate quest for a new identity cut off from her past she has not only given up her mother’s identity but refuses to acknowledge any familiarity with her past connections or acquaintances. Unlike her mother, she is a conformist seeking the approval of society. As a child, she has already had a very painful experience as to how society makes l ife difficult for one who tries to be different or unconventional. The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 176 Shashi Deshpande’s portrayal of yet another woman character, Leela, Madhu’s aunt, is equally commendable and remarkable. She is a communist and a very independent woman. She is not only ahead of her generation but the next generation as well. She was very patriotic, had participated in the Quit India Movement, but as a leftist she was against Gandhi’s Ahimsa and Satyagraha as she considered allowing oneself to be beaten up as ridiculous. She had her own convictions born of her fiercely independent nature. With the passage of time, as she gained experience with age, she regretted some of her actions. Finally she quit the party as she felt that the party’s stand in a particular political event was improper. Although she believed in the communist ideology that boasts of making no difference between men and women and declares equal rights and opportunities for both alike, she finds that the party is a victim to male chauvinism which ignores merit in favour of gender. After the death of her first husband, Vasanth, she takes up a job to become economically independent and also to educate her brother-in-law. Living in the crowded chawls among cotton mills she would work for women suffering from TB. This led to coming into contact with Joe, her second husband, who had set up a clinic for TB patients. He was a widower with two children, spoke flawless English and was well-versed in Literature. Besides Medicine, his other loves were Literature and Music. On the other hand, Leela neither spoke nor knew anything on literature and music. The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 177 Though Leela belongs to a different caste, Joe falls head over heels in love with her. She did not believe in caste and the two married. Despite the vast difference in their inherent natures, to Madhu, the two had a wonderful relationship. As Leela was not against inter-caste marriages she had accepted Madhu’s parent’s marriage and had also offered them to stay with them, as they had nowhere to go. To Leela all human beings were equal. She was dead against making difference on the basis of class. She was also against the superior status her family gave itself. She was creative and wanted to do things on her own, and saw no wisdom behind her family’s holding on to the lands they had inherited. Though she is a diehard communist supporter, she is a victim of the gross gender discrimination practised in the communist party. She was a hardworking party activist, but when the occasion came, men junior to her reached the higher echelons of power while she was marginalised. She learns the bitter reality that hard work and loyalty to ideology were no merits, and gender was merit unto itself. Madhu gives a telling example of such chauvinism as prevails in all political parties without exception. The widow of a deceased-sitting member was given a ticket to contest in the elections. Leela, a victim of gender discrimination, sarcastically remarks: “It seems you’ve got to become a widow for them to remember that you exist”. Madhu herself is a victim of the double standards-one for men and the other for women-being practised in society. Only towards the end of the novel The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 178 do the readers come to know about her real tragedy. Being motherless, she had been brought up by her father and a male servant. She had never felt a lack of mother’s love as a child, and does not feel deprived of such love. She had seen the mothers around, leading their monotonous lives of performing household duties and scolding their children all the time. Deshpande does not glorify motherhood, rather presents its realistic picture. Whatever image of motherhood she has, it has been gathered from the movies. But to her surprise the women around her do not “conform to the white-clad, sacrificing sobbing mother of the movies”. She finds Savitribai neglecting her daughter, Munni; Ketaki’s mother unduly partial to her sons; Sunanda, manipulating and scheming; and her own mother-in-law as very demanding in nature. The real mothers, Madhu finds, are quite different from the mothers in movies. Though motherless as a child, she on her part is a very caring mother, conscious of every little need of her son, Aditya. Shashi Deshpande, through the marriage and later estrangement between Som and Madhu, gives a stark picture of the patriarchal mind-set of men. Madhu’s estrangement from Som occurs prior to her son’s death. Once. Madhu, waking up after a nightmare, discloses to him a secret that she had slept with a man when she was fifteen. Although the man had later committed suicide. Som is unable to come to terms with her act. The relationship between the two begins to disintegrate. Madhu fails to comprehend Som as she is unaware of the typical male psychology. In our society where a woman is treated like yet another commodity to be possessed and exclusively consumed The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 179 for the owner’s gratification, a woman becomes the husband’s private property. A woman is not to indelge in such acts with others before or after marriage, and is required to serve her husband with single-minded devotion and loyalty. Even if the husband is lecherous, she is not to question him. The society has a sex-centred morality. As Y.S. Sunita Reddy writes: “Our society has been so conditioned as to categorize women as immoral on the slightest deviation on their part from the normal course of behaviour.”11 Thus, Madhu is a victim not only of the double standards of society but of her own innocence. She had slept with Chandru one night in a hotel room in her innocence, and again, in her innocence, she discloses this to Som. Had she spared him the knowledge of her indiscrete act, the relation between the two would have remained normal. But Sam with his typical male psychology holds on to this lone act of sex forgetting the fact that he himself has had a full-fledged relation with a married woman before marriage. She reflects: “Purity, chastity and intact hymen-these are the things Som is thinking of, these are the truths that matter”. Here, Shashi Deshpande suggests that in our society pre-marital sex could lead to disintegration of marriage. Although Shashi Deshpande is against being dubbed a feminist writer or a champion of the women’s cause, she has brought home her ideas—obviously ti lted towards women— to the readers with great subtlety and skill. We can conclude with Malati Mathur: The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 180 In portraying struggles of these women for identity, Shashi Deshpande waves no feminist banners, launches into no rabid diatribes. She drives her point home with great subtlety and delicacy.12 The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 181 References 1. Shashi Deshpande, The Binding Vine, New Delhi: Penguin, 1992. 2. S. Indira, “A Bond or Burden? A Study of Shashi Deshpande’s The Binding Vine,” Indian Women Novelists, ed. R.K. Dhawan, New Delhi: Prestige Books, 1995, Set III, Vol. 6, 22 .. 3. Quoted by Neena Arora, Nayantara Sahgal and Doris Lessing: A Feminist Study in Comparison, New Delhi: Prestige Books, 1991, 11. 4. Y.S. Sunita Reddy, A Feminist Perspective on the Novels of Shashi Deshpande, New Delhi: Prestige Books, 2001, 95. 5. Basavaraj Naikar, “Joys and Sorrows of Womanhood in The Binding Vine,” Women in the Novels of Shashi Deshpande, ed. Suman Bala, New Delhi: Khosla Publishing House, 2001, 126. 6. Shashi Deshpande, A Matter of Time, New Delhi: Penguin, 1996. 7. Subhash K. Jha, “Knotty Problems,” Sunday, 22-28 December 1996, 54-55. 8. Shashi Deshpande, Interviewed by Vanamala Vishwanath, “A Woman’s World [ ... ]. All the Way!,” Literature Alive, Vol. 1, No.3, December 1987. 9. Shama Futehally, “Eloquent Silence,” The Hindu, 19 January 1997, 111. 10. Shashi Deshpande, Small Remedies, New Delhi: Penguin, 2000 11. Y.S. Sunita Reddy, A Feminist Perspective on the Novels of Shashi Deshpande, New Delhi: Prestige Books, 2001, 132. 12. Malati Mathur, “Rebels in the Household,” India Today, 3 April 2000. The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 182 Chapter 7 Conclusion The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 183 Chapter–VII Conclusion Lord Macaulay wanted the westernization of Indians through the introduction of the English language. Then, he had no inkling that the Indians would ever try their hand at creative writing in English, especially the novel writing. The various commonwealth countries easily adapted this genre with its comparative flexibility and amorphousness. It became a vehicle for the expression of their indigenous ethos. With this started a unique literary phenomenon: a novel having the graces of English language and technique with the indigenous content. The most challenging task before the Indian English novelist has been the writing of their works in the English language as there is the danger of language getting distorted in giving voice to the Indian ethos. The problem stems from the great difference between the Indian and the Western cultures. Like the earlier Indian English writers—men and women both—who used the English language depending upon their talent and calibre, Shashi Deshpande also writes in this medium to give voice to women’s issues. She writes: To those of us who write in English, it is neither a foreign language, nor the language of the colonizer, but the language of creativity. Whether the writing is rootless, alienated or elitist should be judged from the writing, not from the The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 184 language. My writing comes out of myself, the society I live in. It is shaped, as I am, by my family, my ancestry, the place I was born in, the place I live in, the culture I am steeped in, the fact that the writing is in English changes none of these things.1 Shashi Deshpande comes from a middle class, Marathi-Cannadiga background, and was educated in English at a local school in Dharwar, Karnataka and Maharashtra. It is these influences that have played an important role in shaping her writing and use of the English language. The kind of English language she uses is simple. She does not indulge in showy, bombastic or rhetorical English. It’s so simple and straight that it never hinders the reader in any way. Deshpande’s concern has been the expression of the Indian middle-class ethos. And her simple, unassuming English reflects it. The English language she uses is of the kind used by an average, middle-class, convent-educated individual. She writes about the middle-class people and the language used is also middle-class English, sometimes a little incorrect by the British standards. Deshpande’s writing is spontaneous. On Van am ala Vishwanath’s observation that her writing is not obviously Indian, Deshpande says: No, I don’t believe in making it obviously Indian. But all this is basically because I’m isolated-I’m not part of any movement and not conscious of readers to impress. To get wider recognition here and abroad, you have to be in the university and places like that with the right contact. I’m an ordinary woman who writes sitting at home. None of these things are within my reach. This has, I believe, done me good, it has given me great freedom. I’m happy The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 185 with this anonymity. Once you get publicity-conscious, your writing becomes affected. I’m truly happy with this freedom.2 Deshpande feels that writing in English is a drawback in this country as it alienates the writer from the mainstream. But she considers English as one of the Indian languages. She says: I believe that English writing in this country is a part of our literatures; I consider English as one more of our bhashas as Ganesh Devy calls them. I know that our writing comes out of an involvement with this society, out of our experiences here, our readership is now here, and happily our publishers are here as well. Yet, I am disturbed by the recent trend in English writing which in its pursuits of role models outside, is alienating itself from its roots.3 Being an English writer she may have a limited readers’ circle compared with the Hindi writers, but this does not make her a non-Indian. She’s also against being labeled as Indian-English. She protests: I am an Indian writer. My language just happens to be English, which cannot be called a foreign language at all because it is so much used in India.4 She is also against using the Indian version of English to provide an Indian flavour to her novels: I do not use Indianisms to make my writing like Indian. I never try to make India look exotic. I do not think of a western audience at all. I belong to Indian literature. I would not like ever to be called an Indo-Anglian writer. I feel strongly about that.5 Deshpande is different from the other Indian writers in the sense that she was never educated abroad and is firmly rooted in the Indian soil. She says: The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 186 My novels do not have any westerners, for example. They are first about Indian people and the complexities of our lives. Our inner lives and our outer lives and the reconciliation between them. My English is as we use it. I don’t make it easier for anyone really. If I make any changes, it’s because the novel needs it, not because the reader needs it.6 She is fully aware of the problems Indian writers in English face and is of the opinion that they should evolve a language of their own; this will remain distinctively Indian, and yet be English. She has always aimed at the Indian readers and not the Western. Her creative use of the language has been greatly lauded in the Times Literary Supplement: Deshpande eschews linguistic pyrotechnics and formal experimentation, but has sufficient command of her tradition to give the lie to the belief that the English language is incapable of expressing any Indian world other than a cosmopolitan one.7 Thus, she is ever vigilant to the issues associated with the contemporary society, and has evolved a literary skill that enables her to present them realistically and convincingly. It is an acknowledged fact that the novel is “the readiest and most acceptable way of embodying experiences and ideas in the context of our time.”8 The originality or talent lies in the manner a writer uses this genre to bring home his ideas to the readers. Styles and techniques have kept changing with the times. In the past much attention was paid to the plot or story overlooking psychological aspects. But, of late, the modem novelists are doing experimentation, which is far removed from the traditional story telling. Such writers have been dubbed anti-novelists who, as Somerset Maugham writes, “consider the telling of a story for its own sake as a debased form of fiction.”9 According to Paul Verghese, the principal features of the anti-novelist are “lack of an obvious plot; The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 187 diffused episode; minimal development of character; detailed surface analysis of objects; repetitions; experiments with vocabulary, punctuation and syntax, variations of time sequence, alternative endings and beginnings.”10 Different authors employ different methods of storytelling; hence a narrative technique used by an author holds great significance. The most common method used by the novelists is the plain narrative or story telling wherein the writer holds an omnipresent and omniscient position. Writers who wish to lend a ring of authenticity or reality to their story employ the first person narrative. But this method leads to limit the writer from delving deep into the minds and motives of the other characters. To overcome this limitation Shashi Deshpande has used a combination of the first person and the third person narrative coupled with flashback devices to lend authenticity and credibility to the novel. Deshpande’s development as a novelist necessitates a chronological study of the narrative techniques employed by her in her novels. Roots and Shadows, Deshpande’s first novel is essentially about the protagonist Indu’s painful self- analysis. Besides, many other themes also form part of this novel. The theme of bohemianism through the Indu-Naren episode has also been incorporated into the main theme of the novel. The sorry lot of the Indian women in general has been exposed to our gaze through Indu’s observations. In a way a large number of themes have been incorporated simultaneously in the novel transmuting it into a coherent whole. Madhu Singh is all praise for Deshpande’s skill in interweaving myriad themes into a one close-knit narrative. Comparing Roots and Shadows with That Long Silence, she points out that the former “is the more powerful of the two. In its succinctness lie its strength and the punch.”11 The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 188 Deshpande avoids the simple technique of straightforward narration and employs the flashback method instead to draw her readers’ attention. The first chapter deals with the present, but the later chapters move anachronically with the final chapter ending in the present. The narrative technique has earned some criticism from some critics who feel that this leads to confusion in the mind of readers. In novels where the writer is to present a gallery of characters along with their relationships and interactions, it becomes necessary for him to present things in their chronological order and not indulge in too much experimentation. Shama Futehally writes: This is a device which is useful either when some element of suspense is needed, or for a novel with a non-narrative structure. For this novel chronological clarity is essential, as the reader already has to cope with an abundance of characters and their complex interactions. The first chapter, where we are faced with all of them simultaneously, and without introduction, is rather confusing.12 The entire novel is a first person narrative. The narrator is a young woman writer who returns to her childhood home and finds herself in the maelstrom of family intrigues. Since the protagonist is an educated young woman with liberated and progressive ideas, even ordinary incidents acquire a new meaning. The first person narration helps the writer to probe deep into the mind of the protagonist, her hopes, fears, aspirations, frustrations etc. and thereby highlight the gross gender discrimination prevalent in society. There are reviewers like C.W. Watson, who compare Deshpande to the master storyteller Chekhov: Other South Indian writers have been compared to Chekhov. But Shashi Deshpande, in this novel at least, comes closest to that writer, and the tragi- comedy of The Cherry Orchard is constantly recalled in the description of the The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 189 crumbling house and the squabbling of the family. The writing is beautifully controlled and avoids the temptation of sentimentality, which the subject might suggest and again the control is reminiscent of Chekhov.13 In The Dark Holds No Terrors, Deshpande shifts the narrative from the first person to the third person narrative in every alternate chapter. This double narrative helps to lend great authenticity to the portrayal of Sarita’s inner self. Deshpande has commendably accomplished the task of giving a realistic portrayal of the mental trauma Sarita undergoes. In an interview, she tells how she hit upon the idea of using double narrative: The present is in the third person and the past is in the first person. I was doing it throughout in the first. But that’s often a perspective I use in my short stories. I wanted to be more objective. So then I tried it in the third. But it wouldn’t work at all. Yet I really need not distance myself from the narrative in the present, otherwise it was going to be far too intense. And then I read an American novel by Lisa Alther where she uses this method. And the minute I came across her novel I thought-let me admit it freely-Oh god, this is how I am going to do my novel.14 Thus, Deshpande succeeds in the portrayal of Sarita’s mental state with remarkable objectivity. Besides, her art lies in her amalgamating the past with the present seamlessly through dreams, nightmares, flashback, reminiscences and the simple third person narration. That Long Silence is very close to real life experience, and achieves its credibility from the fact that the protagonist Jaya is a well-educated person possessing a literary sensitivity corresponding with her fictional role. One must realize that it is a great task to create articulate women characters as they are nurtured in the culture of silence. This The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 190 Sahitya Akademi Award winning novel is about Jaya’s hopes, fears, aspirations, frustrations and later triumph. Y.S. Sunita Reddy observes: The narrative with its slow unknotting of memories and unravelling of the soul reads like an interior monologue quite similar to the stream of consciousness technique employed by the like of Virginia Woolf.15 But Prema Nandkumar maintains that the novel is “not a forbidding stream of consciousness probe in the Virginia Woolf tradition. It is very much a conventional tale full of social realism evoked by links of memory. Not misty recollection but clear-eyed story telling.”16 For the protagonist an objective analysis of what went wrong with her marriage and the reasons for failing as a writer, is a kind of catharsis. The technique is described by the narrator laya herself: “All this I’ve written—it’s like one of those multicoloured patchwork quilts the Kakis made for any new baby in the family. So many bits and pieces- a crazy conglomeration of sizes, shapes and colours put together.”17 In The Binding Vine, Deshpande adopts a different mode of narration. In Roots and Shadows, The Dark Holds No Terrors and That Long Silence, Deshpande uses a narrative structure that does not progress chronologically. But instead moves back and forth thematically, gradually narrating one incident after another till the whole story is revealed. But in The Binding Vine Deshpande interweaves three individual plots of three different stories about three women of different age, status and education. Urmi narrates the entire story in the first person. To offer a realistic and objective representation of Urmi’s mother-in- law Mira’s marital experiences, Deshpande has made use of the poetry and writings in her diary and notebooks. She has commendably and brilliantly reconstructed Mira’s unspoken humiliation and anguish at being subjected to marital rape through the mouthpiece of Urmi. The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 191 Small Remedies has been structured as a biography within a biography. Deshpande delves deep into the traumatic lives of Savitribai Indorekar, Leela, Munni and Madhu by moving her narrative back and forth between the present and the past. The novel works at different levels—the personal, the worldly, women’s rights, communal violence, and motherhood. Through the mouthpiece of Urmi, Deshpande has given voice to her own dilemma as a writer—if a biography is an exercise in truth telling, and if it is, whose version must it be? Urmi has been commissioned by a publisher to write Savitribai Indorekar’s biography and she is unable to decide whether she should mention only what Savitri tells about herself to Urmi or everything that Urmi knew about her, including her most guarded secrets. Shashi Deshpande’s novels are a realistic representation of women’s oppression, and hence are highly susceptible to being labeled as feminist. But she has all along denied any such conscious writing. Even the term ‘propaganda’ is anathema to her. While Mulk Raj Anand loves to be called a propagandist, Deshpande is against her work being labeled as ‘propaganda.’ In an interview, she tells Sue Dickman: “Somebody once asked me if I have a social purpose in my writing and I very loudly said ‘No,’ I have no social purpose, I write because it comes to me.”18 Shashi Deshpande hates to write propaganda literature. She does not intend to moralize or set forth her own brand of feminism; she is genuinely concerned about people. In yet another interview, she says: I hate to write propagandist literature. I think good literature and propaganda don’t go together. Any literature written with some viewpoint of proving something rarely turns out to be good literature. Literature comes very spontaneously. When I write I am concerned with people.19 The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 192 But she finds that a lot of men are unsympathetic to her writing while a lot of women are sympathetic. According to her, the reason behind this is “women see a mirror image and men see, perhaps, a deformed image of themselves.”20 Earlier Deshpande was scornful of the so-called committed writing in literature. But, with the passage of time, she grew mature and realized that all good writing is socially committed writing. She admits: There was a time when I was scornful of what is called committed writing. I considered such writing flawed because its being message—oriented diminishes its artistic worth. But now I know that all good writing is socially committed writing, it comes out of a concern for the human predicament. I believe, as Camus says, that the greatness of an artist is measured by the balance the writer maintains between the values of creation and the values of humanity.21 Literary men have always used myth as an important literary devise to enhance the literary effect of their works. While English and other European writers drew much of their mythological symbols from the Christian, pagan and classical myths, Indian English writers have relied much on the stories and symbols from the religious scriptures and epics like the Mahabharata, the Ramayana, the Ramacharitammanas, the Puranas the Upanishads, and also local legends and folk-lore. Sita and Savitri are the often-used symbols from the Indian mythology. In The Dark Holds No Terrors, Shashi Deshpande has used the mythological tale of Dhruva. Just as Dhruva had been forcibly pushed out of his father’s lap by his brother, in the same way Saru also gets her brother out of her way. She had subconsciously wanted The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 193 her brother to be dead, as she feels herself neglected and redundant because of her brother, and she lets her brother die by drowning. In That Long Silence, Deshpande suggests how innocuous seeming bedtime tales told to children made subtle but indelible impression upon their psyche. Jaya, the protagonist, recollects the fable of the foolish crow and the wise sparrow, which she had often heard as a child. But she does not tell this fable to her children for fear that it would distort their personalities into becoming like the priggish sparrow that was not at all concerned with what went around the world but her children and family. In That Long Silence, Deshpande uses the myths of Sita to articulate laya’s predicament. She follows her Vanita mami’s counsel that a husband is like a sheltering tree that should be kept alive even if one has to water it with deceit and lies. She has emulated Sita’s example but Mohan blames her for not being dedicated and loyal towards him. He wanted her to go into hiding, as an enquiry against him has been setup. In The Binding Vine, a mythological parlance can be seen in the stories of Urmila, Mira and Shakuntala and the tales of the mythological characters of their names. The mythological Urmila, Lakshamana’s wife, is left in a broken and aggrieved state when Lakshamana leaves for the forest with Lord Rama. In this novel Urmila is greatly aggrieved by the loss of her child. Urmila’s mother-in-law Mira, like the mythological Mira remains detached to her husband and both desire relations based on love and not sexual pleasure. Her husband, like her mythological counterpart who had been wronged and deserted by king Dushyanta, deserts Shakuntala or Shakutai. Although mythological allusions have been used by Shashi Deshpande but she does not consider it to be any conscious or deliberate literary device. In an interview to Lakshmi Holmstrom, she tells: The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 194 I think a number of us do that in India all the time; we relate a great deal of our personal lives, our daily lives, to the myths. We find parallels as a matter of course. And we do this with all the myths, any myth that seems appropriate, whether they were originally about men or women. In that sense it is a part of a language, a grammar that one knows and understands, rather than a conscious literary device.22 Although rarely, Shashi Deshpande makes use of irony and satire in her novels, and the presence of the literary ingredients in her novels may not be a deliberate use by Deshpande but there are incidents with these elements. The most striking example is in That Long Silence, an event in which Jaya’s husband Mohan accuses her of avoiding him in his most adverse situation. Jaya herself was undergoing great mental trauma, and such an allegation throws her off balance. She tries to control herself: I must not laugh, I must not laugh [ ... ] even in the midst of my rising hysteria, a warning bell sounded long and clear, I had to control myself, I had to cork in this laughter. But it was too late. I could not hold it any longer. Laughter burst out of me, spilled over, and Mohan stared at me in horror as I rocked helplessly. Later she breaks her silence by recording her story, and thus regains her sanity by relieving herself of her pent up frustrations. Another attempt at irony is Deshpande’s creation of the character, Priti, in The Binding Vine. When Urmila tells that she was going to publish Mira’s story, she was extremely thrilled as the story was going to prove a sensational one. She even plans to adapt the story into a film. Even in Kalpana’s rape, her concern is mere hypocrisy as she is concerned with the great publicity the tragedy will The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 195 generate. But Deshpande can do without these literary ingredients, as her style is very straightforward for irony and satire. Shashi Deshpande was not taken very seriously in the beginning, as her novels are not concerned with sentimentality and romance. She recalls an incident wherein a publisher had rejected her story. Further advising her to send it to a woman’s magazine. She wonders: “Why did the editor say that? It was a good story. I knew that. I was pretty confident about it. It was not a sentimental, romantic love story either, the kind that would fit smugly into a woman’s magazine.”23 She probably feels that sentimentality and romance mar the serious concerns of a novel. A close study of Shashi Deshpande’s novels reveals her deep insight into the plight of Indian women, who feel smothered and fettered, in a tradition-bound, male- dominated society. She delineates her women characters in the light of their hopes, fears, aspirations and frustrations, who are aware of their strengths and limitations, but find themselves thwarted by the opposition and pressure from a society conditioned overwhelmingly by the patriarchal mind-set. She highlights their inferior position and the subsequent degradation in a male-dominated society. Deshpande’s women protagonists are victims of the prevalent gross gender discrimination, first as daughters and later as wives. They are conscious of the great social inequality and injustice towards them, and struggle against the oppressive and unequal nature of the social norms and rules that limit their capability and existence as a wife. Fettered to their roles in the family, they question the subordinate status ordained to them by society. Although she has a small volume of writing to her credit, her works have drawn great critical attention and acclaim for her sensitive and realistic representation of the The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 196 Indian middle-class women. Her sincere concern for women and their oppressive lot is reflected strongly in all her novels. In Roots and Shadows, Indu, the protagonist undergoes great mental trauma in her childhood and in marriage due to her husband Jayant’s double standards. Ostensibly educated and liberal, he is intolerant about any deviation on her part from the traditional role of a wife. He is no different from the other less educated and conservative Indian men when it comes to playing the role of a husband. Besides, the miserable plight of Indu’s kakis and atyas is revealed to our gaze through Indu’s eyes. The heart-rending account of Akka’s child marriage reveals the miserable condition Indian women of the older generation had to live in. Shashi Deshpande has remarkably presented the inferior status of women by giving us an insight into the married lives of Indu’s aunts and other relations. Although Indu is educated and has a liberal outlook, she realizes bitterly that her lot is no different from her numerous illiterate and village-bred aunts, and she too is a victim like them of the patriarchal social setup. The Dark Holds No Terrors is a telling example of men who are intolerant about playing a second-fiddle role in marriage, and how their manhood gets hurt when their wives gain a superior status in society. Manu feels embarrassed and insecure with the rising status of his wife Saru and with it all the troubles start. But Deshpande has made society equally responsible for their deteriorating relations. In That Long Silence, Jaya’s troubles in marriage stem from her husband’s intolerance towards any deviation from her role of a subservient wife. When threatened with charges of corruption, he expects her to go into hiding with him, which she refuses to comply with. He is greatly enraged and walks out of the house. laya is very confused and The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 197 miserable as she had all along followed her Vanita mami’s advice that a husband is like a ‘sheltering tree’ which must be kept alive at any cost, for without it the family becomes unsheltered and vulnerable. She does so but finds herself and the children the more unsheltered and insecure. In The Binding Vine, Shashi Deshpande raises the issue of hitherto untouched issue of marital rape. Women like Mira, Urmi’s mother-in-law, have to bear the nightly sexual assault by their husbands silently. Other women like Shakutai, her sister Sulu, Kalpana and her sister have their own sorry tales. Shakutai’s husband is a drunkard and a good-for- nothing fellow, who leaves his wife and children for another woman. Kalpana is brutally raped by Prabhakar, Sulu’s husband. Urmi takes up cudgels on Kalpana’s behalf and the culprit is caught. On the other hand is Urmi. Her husband is in navy and during his long absence she craves for some physical gratification. Her friendship with Dr Bhaskar provides her ample opportunity, but she never oversteps the boundaries chalked out in marriage. But the painful aspect to this is that this virtue of hers will remain unacknowledged by her husband. A Matter of Time is yet another novel wherein the husband walks out on his family comprising the wife and three daughters. Sumi, the protagonist, is so shocked that she lapses into complete silence but, apparently tries hard to keep things normal for her daughters. Her desertion is a cause for great humiliation and mental trauma for her as it’s not only a matter of great shame and disgrace but a bitter realization of being unwanted. Words of sympathy from relations fail to console her. She is self-respecting and takes up a job for herself and her daughters. Though Gopal, her husband, returns but she is a new Sumi now. She has coped with the tragedy with remarkable stoicism. The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 198 In Small Remedies, Shashi Deshpande has narrated the tragic tale of Savitribai Indorekar, doyenne of the Gwalior Gharana. She leads the most unconventional of lives, but undergoes great mental trauma because of the double standards practised in society. Right from her childhood she had sensed the gross gender discrimination in the society that had one set of laws for men and another for women. Madhu, too, is a victim of the double standards of society. She gets totally estranged by her husband Som after she naively discloses to him about her single act of physical intercourse before marriage, though Som has himself had a full-fledged physical relation with another married woman before marriage. Another aspect to Deshpande’s novels is the lack of cordial relation between a mother and a daughter: In Roots and Shadows, Indu’s mother dies in childbirth hence a delineation of the mother-daughter relationship is not there. In The Dark Holds No Terrors, the mother-daughter relationship occupies the centrestage. Saru’s mother’s cold and indifferent attitude towards her develops a sense of antagonism in Saru towards her mother. She develops aversion to all the traditional values represented by her mother. Saru’s experiences in her crucial years of puberty make her hate womanhood itself. The entire novel revolves round Saru’s uncordial relationship with her mother. It is to cause displeasure to her mother that she takes up medicine as a career and later marries a man from outside her caste. In That Long Silence, Jaya also does not have any cordial relationship with her mother, and in turn her mother also does not have any strong maternal feelings towards her daughter. It is her mother’s disapproval that makes her agree to marry Mohan. Jaya, in her turn, has great attachment to her son, but does not have equal warmth towards The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 199 her daughter. She hates her mother for not living up to the ideal role of the perfect mother. Like Saru, she tries to be as dissimilar as possible, rejecting her as a role model. In The Binding Vine, we find Urmi’s relation with her mother as direct and frontal. Her hostility towards her mother is evident from her angry tone and language she uses when speaking with her or about her to others. She hates her for having sent her to Ranidurg as a child to be brought up by her grandparents. Shakutai also has a love-late relationship with her daughter, Kalpana. In Small Remedies, we find that Savitribai Indorekar’s relationship with her daughter Munni is not so warm. Munni feels unwanted, unloved and rejected by her mother and she develops a feeling of aversion towards her or her identity. Her mother dissociates herself from her daughter and in turn, she too dissociates herself from her mother. Munni even goes to the extent of taking a new name, “Shailaja loshi.” Thus, in Shashi Deshpande’s novels, “There is no mother who could serve as a model for the daughter.”24 Shashi Deshpande’s protagonists’ quest for identity gets largely accentuated due to their frustrating experiences born of the prohibitive nature of the Indian patriarchal society. In her novels, the host of male characters—husbands, lovers, fathers and other relations—display different aspects of patriarchy and oppression. While the majority of the husbands are patriarchal in their approach, the older men, particularly the fathers, are broad-minded. Surprisingly, the male friends are “feminist” in their approach and sympathise with the protagonists’ lot. Deshpande’s male characters only serve to enable the protagonists to define their identities more fully. Shashi Deshpande states that she does not “believe in a simple opposition of bad bad men and good women. I don’t believe the world is like that at all.”25 Thus, she has The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 200 constructed motifs of patriarchy and oppression by employing the method of negation and affirmation. Her protagonists are victims of the Indian patriarchy and after initial submission resist the oppressive situation, thereby reflecting the author’s view that a woman must assert herself within marriage to preserve her individuality. Shashi Deshpande’s view on marriage is different from what most of the Western feminists like Simone de Beauvoir, Germaine Greer and Kate Millett hold. In The Second Sex, Simone de Beauvoir writes, “It has been said that marriage diminishes man, which is often true, but almost always it annihilates woman.”26 Germaine Greer even goes to the extent of saying that women should not marry. Kate Millett is of the opinion that marriage reduces the status of women to a mere object for decoration and a tool of man’s sexual gratification. But Deshpande never subscribes to the views of any feminist. Her ideology may not be of the type radical feminists hold but she has her own brand of feminism which, as Jaidev says, “has to be authentic, rooted and context-bound.”27 And Deshpande is not against the institution of marriage, as her woman protagonists strive to make their marriages work in their endeavour to lead a meaningful existence. Shashi Deshpande keeps her narratives female-centred and gives an intimate insight into the psyche of the middle-class Indian women who feel oppressed and hemmed in by their patriarchal socialization. She provides new ideals for a better man- woman relationship, thereby broadening the scope of woman’s existence. She not only presents a feminist insight into patriarchal values, but also prescribes a balance between tradition and modernity as a working philosophy for the contemporary woman. To her, traditions are the values of harmony and coexistence that symbolize the Indian way of life, and modernity is the assertion of the independent, individual identity. After having passively played out their socially ordained roles, her protagonists move out of their The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 201 cloistered selves to assert their individuality as human beings. Deshpande feels that the woman must be true to her own self if she wants to realize herself. The straitjacketed role imposed on woman only bogs her down in mire of negation and suppression. She must venture out of the familial framework to give full expression to her individuality and identity. Although she is not an avowed feminist, Shashi Deshpande occupies a place of pre-eminence among the contemporary woman novelists concerned with women’s issues. Deshpande’s creative talent and ideology have established her as a great feminist writer genuinely concerned with women’s issues and anxieties. Her protagonists are modem, educated, middle-class women who, fettered to their stereotypical roles of a wife and mother, feel smothered and helpless in a tradition-bound male-dominated society. Shashi Deshpande’s novels are a realistic depiction of the anguish and conflict of the modern educated middle-class women. Caught between patriarchy and tradition on the one hand, and self-expression, individuality and independence on the other, her protagonists feel themselves lost and confused and explore ways to fulfil themselves as a human being. Deshpande’s concern and sympathy are essentially for the woman. She has given an honest portrayal of her fears, sufferings, disappointments and frustrations. Besides revealing the woman’s struggle to secure self-respect and self-identity, the author lays bare the multiple levels of oppression, including sexual oppression. Deshpande’s primary concern for the woman makes her a feminist writer. Undoubtedly Shashi Deshpande is a feminist writer but with a broad humanistic outlook. Her novels are essentially reflective of the unenviable situation of the beleaguered contemporary Indian women, which she has depicted with great artistic The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 202 finesse and astounding originality. Her commendably realistic depiction of the contemporary Indian women’s situation and the pragmatic solution she puts forward, accord her novels an imperishable importance for their affirmative eloquent message for women and the whole humanity as well. References 1. Shashi Deshpande, “Language No Bar,” The Sunday Times of India, Ahmedabad, 23 April 1985, 10. 2. —, Interviewed by Vanamala Vishwanath, “A Women’s World [00'] All the Way!,” Literature Alive, Vol. 1, No.3, December 1987, 11. 3. —, “Of Concerns, Of Anxieties,” Indian Literature, Vol. XXXIX, No.5, Sept.-October 1996, 108. 4. —, Interviewed by M.D. Riti, “There is No Looking Back for Shashi Deshpande,” Eve’s Weekly, 18-24 June 1988,28. 5. Ibid., 28. 6. Shashi Deshpande, “Interview: Shashi Deshpande talks to Lakshmi Holmstrom,” Wasafiri, No. 17, Spring 1993,26. 7. Mario Couto, “In Divided Times,” rev. of That Long Silence, Times Literary Supplement, 1 April 1983. 8. R.K. Dhawan, “Preface,” Explorations in Modern English Fiction, New Delhi: Babri, 1992, 1. The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 203 9. Quoted in Paul Verghese, Literary Criticism-A Work Book, Madras: Macmillan India, 1981,80. 10. Ibid., 80. 11. Madhu Singh, “Intimate and Soul Searching Portrayals of Marriage,” rev. of Roots and Shadows, Indian Book Chronicle, Vol. 18, No.7, 6 July 1993, 22. 12. Shama Futehally, “Outgrown Flaws,” rev. of Roots and Shadows, The Book Review, March-April 1984. 13. C.W. Watson, “Some Recent Writings from India, “rev. of Roots and Shadows, Wasafiri, No. 21, Spring 195,75. 14. Shashi Deshpande, “Shashi Deshpande talks to Lakshmi Holmstorm,” 23-24. 15. Y. S. Sunita Reddy, A Feminist Perspective on the Novels of Shashi Deshpande, New Delhi: Prestige Books, 2001, 136. 16. Ibid., 136. 17. Shashi Deshpande, That Long Silence, New Delhi: Penguin, 1989, 188. 18. _______, Interviewed by Stanley Carvlho, “Everyone has a Right to Choose a Language”, The Sunday Observer, No. 11 February 1990. 19. Ibid. 20. Ibid. 21. Shashi Deshpande, “The Dilemma of a woman writer”, The Literary Criterion, Vol. 20, No. 4, 1985, 35. The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 204 22. ______, “Interview: Shashi Deshpande Talks to Lakshmi Holmstrom,” 24. 23. _____, “The Dilemma of a Woman Writer,” 35. 24. Adele King, “Shashi Deshpande: Portraits of an Indian Woman, “The New Indian Novel in English: A Study of the 1980s, ed. Viney Kirpal, New Delhi: Allied, 1990, 164. 25. Shashi Deshpande, “Interview: Shashi Deshpande Talks to Lakshmi Holmstrom,” Wasafiri, No. 17, Spring, 1993,22. 26. Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, translated and ed. H.M. Parshley, Harm~ndsworth: Penguin, 1983, 496. 27. Jaidev, “Problematising Feminism,” Feminism and Recent Fiction in English, ed. Sushila Singh, New Delhi: Prestige Books, 1991, 57. The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 205 Select Bibliography The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 206 Select Bibliography Adhikari, Madhumalati, “The Female Protagonist’s Journey from Periphery to Center: Shashi Deshpande’s The Intrusion and Other Stories,” Indian Women Novelists, Set III, Vol. 4, edited by R.K. Dhawan, New Delhi: Prestige Books, 1995. Ahuja, Suman, Rev. of That Long Silence, Times of India, 8 Oct. 1989. Alphonso-Karkala, John B., Indo-English Literature in the Nineteenth Century, Mysore: University of Mysore, 1870. Anandalakshmi, S., “The Female Child in a Family Setting,” The Indian Journal of Social Work, Vol. LII, No.1, January 1991. Arora, Neena, Nayantara Sahgal and Doris Lessing: A Feminist Study in Comparison, New Delhi: Prestige Books, 1991. Asnani, Shyam M., “Desai’s Theory and practice of the Novel,” Perspective on Anita Desai, edited by Ramesh K. Srivastava, Ghaziabad: Vimal, 1984. Awasthi, A.K., “The Quest for Identity in The Novels of Shashi Deshpande,” Language Forum, Vol. 18, No.1, 1992. Bai, K. Meera, “Feminism as an Extension gf Existentialism: Women in Indian English Fiction,” The Commonwealth Review, Vol. 6, No.1, 1994-95. Bande, Usha, “Tolerance or Female Altmism-A study of Shashi Deshpande’s A Matter of Time, “ Language Forum, Vol. 24, No. 1-2, 1998. Bande, Usha, Rev. of A Matter of Time, Indian Books Chronicle, Mar.-Apr. 1997. Bande, Usha, The Novels of Anita Desai, New Delhi: Prestige, 1988. The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 207 Barche, G.D., “Indu: Another Sisyphus in Roots and Shadows,” Indian Women Novelists, Set I, Vol. 5, edited by R.K. Dhawan, New Delhi: Prestige Books, 1991. Beauvoir, Simone de, The Second Sex, translated and edited by H.M. Parshley, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1983. Bharvani, Shakuntala, “Some Recent Trends in Modem Indian Fiction: A Study of Deshpande’s That Long Silence, Shashi Tharoor’s The Great Indian Novel and Amitav Ghosh’s The Shadows Lines,” Indian Women Novelists, Set I, Vol. 1, edited by R.K. Dhawan, New Delhi: Prestige Books, 1991. Bhatnagar, P., “Indian Womanhood: Fight for Freedom in Roots and Shadows,” Indian Women Novelists, Set I, Vol. 5, edited by R.K. Dhawan, New Delhi: Prestige Books, 1991. Bhatt, Indira, “That Long Silence: A Study,” Indian Women Novelists, Set I, Vol. 5, edited by R.K. Dhawan, Delhi: Prestige Books, 1991. _______, “Shashi Deshpande’s The Dark Holds No Terrors: A study in Guilt Consciousness,” Indian Women Novelists, Set I, Vol. 4, edited by R.K. Dhawan, New Delhi: Prestige Books, 1991. _______, “That Long Silence: A Study,” Indian Women Novelists, Set I, Vol. 5, edited by R.K. Dhawan, New Delhi: Prestige Books, 1991. Bhavani, J., “Nirdvandva: Individuation and Integration as the Heroine’s Quest in Shashi Deshpande’s Fiction,” Indian Women Novelists, Set III, Vol. 4, edited by R.K. Dhawan, New Delhi: Prestige Books, 1995. Biswal, Aarti, “Sound of the Silenced: Shashi Deshpande’s That Long Silence,” Revaluation, Vol. 3, No.1, 1997. Chandra, Subhash, “City in the Novels of Kamala Markandaya, Anita Desai and Shashi Deshpande,” Indian Women Novelists, Set I, Vol. I, edited by R.K. Dhawan, New Delhi: Prestige Books, 1991. _______, “Silent No More: A Study of That Long Silence,” Indian Women Novelists, Set I, Vol. 5, edited by R.K. Dhawan, New Delhi: Prestige Books, 1991. Chandra, Suresh, “Feminist Aspects of Recent Fiction: Mahip Singh’s Who Walks With Me, Kiran Nagarkar’s Seven Sixes are Forty Three and Shashi Deshpande’s The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 208 That Long Silence,” Indian Women Novelists, Set I, Vol. 1, edited by R.K. Dhawan, New Delhi: Prestige Books, 1991. Chandra, Suresh, “Semiotics of Feministic Discourse in That Long Silence,” Critical Practice, Vol. 3, No.1, 1996. _______, “Woman’s Liberation in the Fiction of Margaret Atwood and Shashi Deshpande,” Meerut Journal of Comparative Literature and Language, Vol. 6, No.2, 1993. Chatterjee, Shoma A., “Shashi Deshpande: Roots and Shadows,” Amrit Bazar Patrika, 2 Dec. 1984. Choudhury, Romita, Interview with Shashi Deshpande. World Literature Written in English, Vol. 34, No.2, 1995. Daruwalla, Keki, “An Intense Book,” Rev. of That Long Silence. Indian Literature, No. 146, Jan.-Feb. 1993. Das, B.K., “Shashi Deshpande’s That Long Silence and the Question of the Reader Response,” Indian Women Novelists, Set III, Vol. 4, edited by R.K. Dhawan, New Delhi: Prestige Books, 1995. David, Rubin, Rev. of That Long Silence. Book Review, May-June/July-Aug. 1989. Desai, Anita, Fire on the Mountain, New Delhi: Allied, 1977. —, Interviewed by Yashodhara Dalmia, The Times of India, 29 April 1979. _______, Where Shall We Go This Summer? New Delhi: Orient, 1982. Deshpande, Shashi, “In Conversation: Sue Dickman with Indian Writers,” The Book Review, Vol. XIX, No.4, 1995. _______, “Interview: Shashi Deshpande Talks to Lakshmi Holmstrom,” Wasafiri, No. 17, Spring 1993. _______, “On the Writing of a Novel,” Indian Women Novelists, Set I, Vol. 5, edited by R.K. Dhawan, New Delhi: Prestige Books, 1991. _______, “An Archipelago,” Indian Review of Books, Oct. 16-Nov. 15, 1993. _______, “Language No Bar,” Times of India, 23 Apr. 1995, Ahmedabad. _______, “Literary Judgement,” Deccan Herald, 4 Feb. 1995. _______, “Of Concerns, Of Anxieties,” Indian Literature, Sep.-Oct. 1996. The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 209 Deshpande, Shashi, “The Dilemma of Women Writers,” Literary Criterion, Vol. 20, No.4, 1985. _______, “The Writing of a Novel,” Indian Women Novelists, Set I, Vol. 5, edited by R.K. Dhawan, New Delhi: Prestige Books, 1991. _______, “Why I Write,” Kunapipi, Vol. 16, No.1, 1994. _______, Interviewed by Malini Nair, “The Message is Incidental,” Times of India, No. 25, November 1989. _______, It Was Dark, Calcutta: Writers Workshop, 1986. _______, It Was the Nightingale, Calcutta: Writers Workshop, 1986. _______, Roots and Shadows, Madras: Sangam Books, 1983. _______, Small Remedies, New Delhi: Penguin, 2000. _______, That Long Silence, New Delhi: Penguin, 1989. _______, The Hidden Treasure, Bombay: Indian Book House, 1982. _______, The Intrusion and Other Stories, New Delhi: Penguin Books, 1993. _______, The Legacy and Other Stories, Calcutta: Writers Workshop, 1978. _______, The Miracle and Other Stories, Calcutta: Writers Workshop, 1986. _______, The Narayanpur Incident, Bombay: Indian Book House, 1982. _______, “The Dilemma of a Woman Writer,” The Literary Criterion, Vol. 20, No.4, 1985. _______, The Binding Vine, New Delhi: Penguin, 1992. _______, The Dark Holds No Terrors, New Delhi: Penguin, 1990. Dhar, T.N., Rev. of That Long Silence, Indian Book Chronicle, Jan.-Feb. 1990. Dinesh, Kamini, “Moving out of the Cloistered Self: Shashi Deshpande’s Protagonists,” Margins of Erasure: Purdah in the Sub-continental Novel in English, edited by Jasbir Jain and Amina Amin, New Delhi: Sterling, 1995. Dwivedi, A.N., “The Hub of the Wheel: Some Recurrent Metaphors in Shashi Deshpande’s Fiction,” Critical Practice, Vol. 3, No.1, 1996. Fallis, L.S., Rev. of The Dark Holds No Terrors, World Literature Today, Vol. 55, No.3, 1981. Friedan, Betty, The Feminine Mystique, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1971. Futehally, Laeeq, Rev. of The Binding Vine, Literature Criterion, Vol. 28, No.3, 1993. The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 210 Futehally, Sham, A Rev. of The Dark Holds No Terrors, New Quest, 28 July-Aug. 1981. Geeta, T.N., “The Story of Shashi Deshpande,” Indian Women Novelists, Set. 1, Vol. 5, edited by R.K. Dhawan, New Delhi: Prestige Books, 1991. Geetha, T.N., Interview with Shashi Deshpande, Indian Women Novelists, Set III, Vol. 4, edited by R.K. Dhawan, New Delhi: Prestige Books, 1995. Greer, Germaine, The Female Eunuch, St. Alabama: Paladin, 1976. Guha, Ramchandra, “Not by Faith Alone,” The Sunday Express, 1 October 1918. Holmstrom, Lakshmi, “Of Love and Loss,” Rev. The Binding Vine, Indian Review of Books, Oct. 16-Nov. 15, 1993. Hunter College Women’s Studies Collective: Women’s Realities, Women’s Choices: Introduction to Women’s Studies, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1983. Indira, S., “A Bond or Burden? A Study of Shashi Deshpande’s The Binding Vine,” Indian Women Novelists, Set III, Vol. 6, edited by R.K. Dhawan, New Delhi: Prestige Books, 1995. Iyengar, K.R. Srinivas, Indian Writing in English, New Delhi: Sterling, 1963. Jaidev, “Problematising Feminism,” Feminism and Recent Fiction in English, edited by Sushila Singh, New Delhi: Prestige Books, 1991. Jain, Jasbir (ed.), Creative Theory: Writers on Writing, Delhi: Pencraft International, 2000. Jain, Madhu, “Sensitive Serving,” Rev. of That Long Silence, India Today, 15 Sep. 1989. Kerr, David, “History and the Possibilities of Choice: A Study of Anita Desai’s Baumgartner’s Bombay, Upamanyu Chatterjee’s English, August and Shashi Deshpande’s That Long Silence,” Indian Women Novelists, Set. 1, Vol. 1, edited by R.K. Dhawan, New Delhi: Prestige Books, 1991. King, Adele, “Effective Portrait,” Debonair, June 1988. King Adele, “ShashiDeshpande: Portraits of an Indian Woman,” The New Indian Novel in English: A Study of the 1980s, edited by Viney Kirpal, New Delhi: Allied, 1990. King, Adele, Rev. of The Binding Vine, World Literature Today, Vol. 68, No.2, 1994. Lal, Malashri, “Good Luck to Entrepreneur,” Rev. of The Dark Holds No Terrors, Indian Book Chronicle, 1 May 1981. The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 211 Mala R., “Sexual Predicament and Shashi Deshpande’s Women,” Indian Women Novelists, Set 1, Vol. 5, edited by R.K. Dhawan, New Delhi: Prestige Books, 1991. Mathews, Veena, “Demythifying Womenhood,” Novelist Shashi Deshpande talks to Veena Mathews, Times of India, 25 Sep. 1995, Ahmedabad. Mathur, Malati, “Rebels in the Household,” India Today, 3 April 2000. Menon, K. Mahadevi, “The Crisis of Feminine: Shashi Deshpande’s That Long Silence,” Commonwealth Quarterly, Vol. 18, No. 46, 1993. Millett, Kate, Sexual Politics, London: Rupert Hart Davis, 1971. Moi, Toril, Sexual/Textual Politics: Feminist Literary Theory, London: Methuen, 1985. Mukherjee, Bharati, Jasmine, India: Viking, 1990. Mukherjee, Bharati, The Tiger’s Daughter, London: Chatto and Windus, 1973. Mukherjee, Bharati, Wife, India: Penguin, 1990. Mukherjee, Meenakshi, “Ghosts from the Past,” Rev. of The Dark Holds No Terrors, Book Review, Mar.-Apr. 1981. Mukherjee, Meenakshi, “Sound of Silence,” Rev. of A Matter of Time, Indian Review Books, 16 Mar.-15 Apr. 1997. Mutalik-Desai, A.A., “Glint and Sparkle, Love and Death: Reflections on Come Up and Be Dead,” Indian Women Novelists, Set. 1, Vol. 5, edited by R.K. Dhawan, New Delhi: Prestige Books, 1991. Naikar, Basavaraj, “Joys and Sorrows of Womanhood in The Binding Vine,” Women in the Novels of Shashi Deshpande, edited by Suman BaJa, New Delhi: Khosla Publishing House, 2001. Narayan, Shymala A., “Shashi Deshpande,” Contemporary Novelists 5th ed., 1991. Nityanandam, Indira, “Shashi Deshpande’s The Binding Vine: Silent No More,” Indian Women Novelists, Set I, Vol. 4, edited by R.K. Dhawan, New Delhi: Prestige Books, 1991. _______, Three Greet Indian Women Novelists, New Delhi: Creative Books, 2000. Pal, Adesh, “That Long Silence: A Study of ‘Displaced Anger,’” Language Forum, Vol. 21, No. 1-2, 1995. Palkar, Sarla, “Breaking the Silence: That Long Silence,” Indian Women Novelists, Set I, Vol. 5, edited by R.K. Dhawan, New Delhi: Prestige Books, 1991. The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 212 Pathak, R.S. (ed.), The Fiction ofShashi Deshpande, New Delhi: Creative Books, 1997. Patil, Ujwala, “The Theme of Marriage and Self-hood in Roots and Shadows,” Indian Women Novelists, Set I, Vol. 5, edited by R.K. Dhawan, New Delhi: Prestige Books, 1991. Paul, Premila, “The Dark Holds No Terrors: A Woman’s Search for Refuge,” Indian Women Novelists, Set I, Vol. 5, edited by R.K. Dhawan, New Delhi: Prestige Books, 1991. Plath, Sylvia, The Bell Jar, London: Faber & Faber, 1982. Rajeshwar, M., “Trauma of a House-wife: A Psychological Study of Shashi Deshpande’s That Long Silence,” Commonwealth Quarterly, Vol. 17, No. 43, 1991. Rama Rao, Vimla, Rev. of That Long Silence Journal of Indian Writing in English, Vol. 21, No.1, 1993. _______, “A Well Articulated Silence,” Rev. of That Long Silence, Literary Criterion, Vol. 27, No.4, 1992. _______, “In Conversation with Shashi Deshpande,” Journal of Indian Writing in English, Vol. 25, No. 1-2, 1997. _______, of That Long Silence, Hindustan Times, 6 May 1990. _______, Rev. of That Long Silence, Tribune (Sunday), 2 July 1989. Ramamoorthi, P., “My Life is My Own: A Study of Shashi Deshpande’s Women,” Indian Women Novelists, Set I, Vol. 5, edited by R.K. Dhawan, New Delhi: Prestige Books, 1991. _______, “My Life is My Own: A Study of Shashi Deshpande’s Women,” Feminism and Recent Fiction in English, edited by Sushila Singh, New Delhi: Prestige Books, 1991. Ramamurti, K.S., Rise of the Indian Novel in English, New Delhi: Sterling, 1987. Rani, T. Asoka, “Feminism vis-a-vis Woman’s Dignity: A Study of Shashi Deshpande’s That Long Silence,” Journal of Indian Writing in English, Vol. 24, No.1, 1996. Raveendran, P.P., “Beyond the Sheltering Tree: The Politics of Silence/Gaze in Shashi Deshpande’s That Long Silence,” Critical Practice, Vol. 4, No.1, 1997. Ravindra Prakash, “Becoming a Whole: A Reading of Shashi Deshpande’s The Dark Holds No Terror,” Language Forum, Vol. 18, No.1, 1992. The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 213 Reddy, Y.S. Sunita, A Feminist Perspective on the Novels of Shashi Deshpande, New Delhi: Prestige Books, 200l. Riti, M.D., “There’s No Looking Back for Shashi Deshpande,” An Interview, Eve’s Weekly, June 16-29, 1988. Sandhu, Sarbjit K., “The Image of woman in Roots and Shadows,” Indian Women Novelists, Set I, Vol. 5, edited by R.K. Dhawan, New Delhi: Prestige Books, 1991. _______, “The Image of Woman in That Long Silence,” Indian Women Novelists, Set I, Vol. 5, edited by R.K. Dhawan, New Delhi: Prestige Books, 1991. _______, “The Image of Woman in The Dark Holds No Terrors,” Indian Women Novelists, Set I, Vol. 5, edited by R.K. Dhawan, New Delhi: Prestige Books, 1991. _______, The Image of Woman in the Novels of Shashi Deshpande, New Delhi: Prestige Books, 1991. Sathupati, Prasannasree, “Conflict and Identity in Shashi Deshpande’s Novels,” Indian Women Novelists, Set III, Vol. 4, edited by R.K. Dhawan, New Delhi: Prestige Books, 1995 . Savio, G. Dominic, “A Woman’s Heritage of the Commonwealth: A Study of The Dark Holds No Terrors,” Women in the Novels of Shashi Deshpande, edited by Suman Bala, New Delhi: Khosla Publishing House, 200l. Seshadri, Veena, Rev. of That Long Silence, Literature Alive, Vol. 1, No.4, 1988. Shirwadkar, Meera, Image of Woman in the Indo-Anglian Novel, New Delhi: Sterling, 1979. Singh, Sushila, “Preface,” Feminism and Recent Fiction in English, New Delhi: Prestige Books, 1991. Stanley, Carvalho, ‘’I’m Concerned with People,” Interview with Shashi Deshpande, Deccan Herald, 27 Sep. 1989. Sunder Rajan, Rajeshwari, “The Feminist Plot and The Nationalist Allegory: Home and World in Two Indian Women Novels in English,” Modern Fiction Studies, Vol. 39, No. 1-2, 1993. Sunef::l, Seema, Man- Women Relationship in Indian Fiction (With Focus on Shashi Deshpande, Rajendra Awasthi and Syed Abdul Malik), New Delhi: Prestige Books, 1995. The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 214 Swain, S.P., “Shashi Deshpande’s The Dark Holds No Terrors: Sam’s Feminine Sensibility,” Indian Women Novelists, Set I, Vol. 4, edited by R.K. Dhawan, Delhi: Prestige Books, 1991. _______, “The Incarcerated Self and Derelict House,” Indian Literature, Sep.-Oct. 1996. Uma, Alladi, “Introduction: A Historical Background,” Woman and her Family, Indian and Afro-American: A Literary Perspective, New Delhi: Sterling, 1989. Venugopal, C.V. and M.G. Hegde, “Indian Women Short Story Writers in English: A Critical Study,” Indian Women Novelists, Set I, Vol. 1, edited by R.K. Dhawan, New Delhi: Prestige Books, 1991. Vishwanath, Vanamala, Interview with Shashi Deshpande, Literature Alive, Vol. I, No.3, 1987. Zutshi, Urmila, Rev. of The Dark Holds No Terrors, Hindustan Times, 14 Dec. 1980. The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 215 Synopsis The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 216 Proposed Synopsis for Ph.D. Degree in the Faculty of Humanities (English) under L.N.Mithila University, Kameshwaranagar, Darbhanga (Bihar) 1. Title of the Problem: "The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande" 2. The Statement of Research: Among Indian women writers Shashi Deshpande is especially committed to the reorganisation of female subjectivity. Her concerns related to the feminist questions are important in the interest of an Indian feminist praxis "I am a feminist in the sense that, I think, we need to have a world, which we should recognize as a place for all of us human beings. I fully agree with Simone de Beauvoir the" the fact that we are human, is much more important than our being men and women. The novels of Shashi Deshpande are realistic and are optimistic portrayal of the Indian middle class educated women. She successfully presents these women as they are engaged in the complex and difficult social and psychological problem of defining an authentic self. She delineates them with their variegated swings of mood the "ebb and flow of joy and despair. Born in Dharmad (Karnataka) in 1938, Deshpande has mapped out and uncovered the boundaries erected around woman's life from children to womanhood in the traditional male dominated Indian Society in her fiction. Depicting the middle class milieu, her novels provide a pointer to the catatonic status of women and concentrate on the struggle of women to the constricting dilemmas of pre fixed definitions and gendered behavioral norms. Her writing convinces us of the need of social restructuring in the light of gender equality and poignantly reveals how the conventional norms of Indian social system mould women's inner life stifling their individuality of the male ethos. The women characters are decisively conscious of their marginalized position in conventional social configurations and want to achieve selfhood by transcending them. Deshpande's novels remind us of the reality and traditionally Indian male dominated society and culture. The women have no autonomous existence. She is Narayan's Savitri in the Dark Room, Nalini (Rosie) in The Guide, Bimni in Sahgal's Rich Like Us animate object with manacled hands resting submissively in her red The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 217 silk lap. Woman's struggle in the context of contemporary Indian society to find and preserve her identity as wife, mother and most important of all, as human being, is Pande's major concern as creative writer. Deshpande's women do not belong to the room they are merely and addition to it. In their rejection to their mother they also discard the meaningless rituals like circumambulating the Tulsi plant. Parental home is a symbol of tradition and old world values for them and marriage for them is an alternative to the bondage created by the parental family. But unfortunately marriage proves to be another trap and women feels like caged animal. Thus, Deshpande offers appalling specter of the modern women having a sigh of relief after realising, "There was nothing he needed, so there was nothing for me to do". Her novels indicate that many women are troubled by the fact that they did have choices. Women are supposed to be submissive, dependent, emotional, receptive, intuitive, timid, passive and sensitive. On the other hand, all the active quantities are traditionally linked with men. They are expected to be dominant, rational, assertive, analytical, brave, active and insensitive. This view also encourages the view that "Boys will be boy, but girls should be girls." It is also stated that though men are also encouraged to opt for a certain type of behaviour only. Most of the time these gendered expectations are in their favour, while women are often victimised. She shows the necessity of sensitizing men too, counselling women to treat as friends and not necessarily as tormenters. Biological determinism is often used to support generalization about men and women, such as men are naturally more able in maths. and technology and women are naturally suited to domestic duties. Biological determinism asserts that certain behaviour are unjustified and unchangeable because there is a basic inequality between the sexes. These inequalities are both physical and psychological. Women are born to fulfill the desires of men. The birth of a girl is a curse and the birth of a boy in the society is the blessing traditionally. In the novels of Shashi Deshpande, we find the illustration of materialist the discursive theories. Her fiction delineates not only the biological essentialism, but also the total role theory in understanding the gender construction. In all her novels and short stories, we find that the roots of girlhood cast their shadow on womanhood constricting the tree burgeoning of women's personalities. The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 218 "The Dark Holds No Terrors" the first novel of Shashi Deshpande, exhibits the cruelty of general discrimination, which is inflicted on the girls-child-mothers, who themselves are a conditioned product of society, became a vehicle of perpetuating it. The novel shows how the independence of girls, particularly in middle class Indian society is curbed by the social diktats. Liberties, which are routinely given to a boy are denied to girls. In The Dark Holds No Terrors we have the wives of Manu's friends, who remain in the background. Saru is a catch prize, being a doctor. But when she starts earning more than her husband, frictions occur. Roots and Shadows: Deshpande makes a point that economic deprivation and physical torture are the instruments used to curb the spontaneous growth of a woman. Like Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own, this novel deals with the difficulties of women in general and woman writers in particular. Roots and Shadows comes out with its feminist approach in Indu's exploration into herself. It also moves beyond feminist boundaries into a realization of the predicament of Human existence. Indu traverses the rood of self-realization in her destination is the point of comprehension of the ministry of human life. The struggle of such women gives shape and meaning to their individual existence in a sexist society. The protagonist Indu is an educated and working woman. She is shocked to find that women prefer to mould their daughters into better women and not better human beings with the identity. Indus finds that the names of women are not mentioned on the family tree. Come Up and Be Dead – Kshama is not allowed to perform her father's last rites. The burden of social expectation force women to remain silent. Silence and compromise are often a key to a happy marriage. If I Die Today – the novel portrays the fundamental paradox of life i.e. the fear to face oneself fear and the anxiety gnawing at heart Manju struggles to be her women 'ME' within and without. Manju's unbalanced outlook of life serves as sequel to a distorted and ambivalent personality. Despite this she delights in her feminine role playing as 'wife, mother, house-keeper, cook and all that it involves.' That Long Silence– in this novel the feminist's struggle for liberation is looked upon within the frame-work of freedom crisis. The quest for an authentic self-hood on the part of the protagonist The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 219 finds an artistic expression through the heroine's rebellion against eh patriarchal care of society. The novelist explores Jaya's public and private realms of experience. Here we are exposed to the life of the sense as well as the agonised feelings of the narrator-protagonist, Jaya, a household wife and unsuccessful writer. Her creative urge and artistic zeal free her from cramped domestic societal roles. It releases her from emotional upheaval. She resolves to assert her individuality by breaking the long silence, by putting down on paper all that she has suppressed in her seventeen year's silence. The Binding Vine – Urmila is morbidly preoccupied with the problems of death and rape, She is a typical feminine voice who struggles through the gloom of her existence. No subduing but revolting, trying to sort out things for herself. In her we hear the conscious raging voice of the determined self affirming itself. 'I am not going to break'. Urmila fights for other, a symbol of sacrificing Hindu womanhood. The hope of Indian woman lies in the fact that in spite of meek acceptance of the situation we have- self sacrificing woman like Urmila. A Matter of Time–It reveals around an urban middle class family of goal. It begins with the crisis leading to an intense introspection by the protagonist. The novelist is deeply concerned as usual with the traumas suffered by woman in a middle class family, in India. Thus, A Matter of Time gives an honest account of the abrupt disintegration of Gopal's happy family and the diverse reaction of all the people concerned. It deals with a man's middle life leading to his desire for renunciation without any warning. Gopal one day announces to his wife that he is leaving the house for food. Sumi, his wife of 20 years and their teenaged daughters Anu. Charu and Seema are caught totally unawares. Sumi retreats into a shocked silence while 18 years old Aru cries bitterly to search for her one reason for this calamity. Small Remedies – It is a saga of women emancipation the novel is about the 'making of a writer, singer and a social worker'. Here the novelist envisages a hopeful future for women in their shared experienced as women and the imaginative continuum. Madhu, Savitri Bai Indoveker Leela and Hasina learn to know themselves and in the company of female folks they achieve their social The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 220 as well as spiritual identities. These women attain solicitude and sense of self through their occupation and skills and continue to defy the servility of men. Moving On – A thought provoking and elegantly written story – A Handful of characters hold us in their thrall. It is a story that begins with a women's discovery of her father's diary. As Manjari unlocks the past through its pages rescuing old memories and recasting events and responses, the present makes its own demands, a rebellious daughter devious property sharks and a lover who threatens to through her life out of gear again. The ensuing struggle to reconcile nostalgic with reality and the fire of the body with the desired for companionship races to an unexpected resolution twisting and turning through companionship races to an unexpected resolution twisting and turning through complex, emotional landscapes The women of Shashi Deshpande are conscious of retaining family ties. They are entangled in the complexities of their life, and face identity crisis. But their relationship with their husbands and family is valuable to them instead of rejecting these tie, they want to redefine on an equal footing. We suggest that a conductive social environment should be created so the women can develop their potential fully and men also can learn to avoid capricious imperialism. 3. Purpose of the Study My purpose of study is based on the gender equality in Indian Society with a special reference to the novels of Shashi Deshpande. It will deal with the epistemology of gender construction in the fiction of Shashi Deshpande. How women are dominated by men in the society and they are born only to fulfill the needs of men. But in the fiction of Shashi Deshpande, women are revolting against their exploitation and inequality. Hence this study will be a great contribution to the field of fiction in post Indo-Anglian literature. 4. Significance and Relevance of the Study in the Present Context: The present study is more significant and relevant because it has remained unattempted in the universities of India and abroad. This topic is related to the burning problems of women in Indian society, which are related to our day to day like. The study will encourage the women to recognize their rights and duties and help to establish gender equality in the society. 5. Hypothesis: The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 221 Indo-Anglian fiction is read with a great interest now-a-days. Its range is very wide and its development is very fast in the world. Indo-Anglian fiction is a key to handle the problems of our society. This study will develop our interest not only in Shashi Deshpande but also in the other Indo-Anglian women novelists of the post-independence era. I will deal with the problem of gender inequality, available in our society in the light of the fiction of Shashi Deshpande. 6. Methodology: The present study will be based on the descriptive and analytical methods. It will be based on the library works from different libraries and the textual analysis of the novels of Shashi Deshpande. 7. The Plan of Work: The present research project will be based on the following chapters: Chapter-I : Introduction Chapter-II : Shashi Deshpande and her Milieu Chapter-III : Social Condition of Indian Society after Independence Chapter-IV : Technology of Gender (Feminism) :– A General Introduction Chapter-V : Early Novels:- (i) The Dark Hold No Terror (ii) Roots and Shadows (iii) Come up and Be Dead (iv) If I Die Today (v) That Long Silence Chapter- VI : Latter Novels:– (a) The Binding Vine (b) A Matter of Time (c) Moving on Chapter-VII : Conclusion Bibliography References: 1. Ketaki Dutta: Indo Anglian Literature: Past to Present Books Way Calcutta, 2008 The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 222 2. Pathak, R.S.: The Fiction of Shashi Deshpande, Creative Books, New Delhi, 1998. 3. Prasad, Amarnath and Caul, S.K.: Feminism in Indian Writing in English, Swroop and Sons, New Delhi, 2006 4. Agrawal, K.A.: A Critical Study–Indian Writing in English, Atlantic, New Delhi, 2003. 5. Agrawal, B.R. and Sinha, M.P.: Major Trends in the Post-Independence Indian Fiction, Atlantic, New Delhi, 2003 6. Bhatnagar Manmoha, K.,: Feminist English Literature, Atlantic New Delhi, 2003. 7. The Common Wealth Review, a bi-annual Journal Indian Society for Commonwealth Studies, New Delhi, 2009. Vol-XVII, p. 2 Supervisor Scholar The Analysis of Gender Construction in the Fiction of Shashi Deshpande –Chandeshwar Yadav_Ph.D. Thesis 223