FEMINISTIC APPROACH OF SHASHI DESHPANDE

Abstract

As being a novelist of modern era, particularly, the novelist of twentieth century, the name of Shashi Deshpande is considered as a great feminist. Although she did not regard herself as a feminist but it is sure that she is a feminist of superb class. Her all the novels are replete with the profundity of woman-predicaments. Her characters; major as well as minors are representatives of woman-plight. As a dignified feminist, Shashi Deshpande has created a jerk in the male dominated society. As a woman writer she has keenly understood the sufferings of women under the clutches of men whether they are father, brother, husband or any other relatives. The revelation of the stories of woman-plight is not only informative but also an instrument of improving the social machinery. Through her novels, she has tried to focus upon a fact that woman has always been kept under the subordination of males. In childhood, as a daughter, she has been kept under the care of her father and in the same state, as soon as she grew up her brothers came forward to shower their commands. After marriage, she comes in the new home, totally the home of a stranger where she makes different type of compromises to adjust herself as a wife, daughter in-law and sister in-law. Madam Deshpande like the other feminists has beheld this miserable condition in urban Indian society and minutely portrayed it in her writings, particularly in her novels.

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."¹ Deshpande is concerned, As far as the feministic approach of Shashi her all the six novels are depiction of quest of women for their existence. Even in the age of science and technology women are suppressed and treated improperly, many a times, they are kept under exploitation. Through her characters, Shashi Deshpande has boldly focused on social discrimination. In the literary world, male writers have shown women inferior in comparison to men. They have shown men as, 'superior sex' and woman as, 'inferior sex'. But it is wrong to say that all the male writers do like this.