PORTRAYAL OF INDIAN WOMEN’S RESILIENCE IN SHASHI DESHPANDE’S NOVELS.

Abstract

Women’s writing has an important role in exploring the mental and physical torture women experience in a male dominated society. India is also a patriarchal society where men enjoy all the privilege and women hold an inferior status. Indian Women writers questioned this discrimination through their writings. Shashi Deshpande is one of the prominent Indian women writers who portrayed the struggles of Indian women in a realistic manner. She presents the sufferings of Indian middle class women by exploring the inner most feelings and emotions of them. Her characters suffer in the beginning but they always fight back and establish their identity. This paper analyses her three notable works: The Dark Holds No Terror, That Long Silence and The Binding Vine for examining how Deshpande’s novels portray the resilience shown by the Indian women in surviving the issues created by the Indian patriarchal society.