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Research Paper | Linguistics | India | Volume 3 Issue 5, May 2014

Attaining Selfhood through Disillusionment in ?That Long Silence?

Parul Yadav

Abstract: In India girls are supposed to be the alien's wealth and must be sent off to some stranger's house. An identity of a woman is always screened with an anxiety; which you experience when you feel vulnerable and insecure; because of the norms of patriarchal society. Though woman is divided between her natural and cultural roles; both of them still assign only a submissive; secondary and marginal role to her. Shashi Deshpande's novels represent the contemporary woman's struggle to define and accomplish a sovereign selfhood. The problem of identity; the contradiction of being both oneself and fitting a traditional role as a 'good daughter'; 'good wife' or ' good mother? occurs frequently in writing by women. Related to this theme is the propensity to define oneself in terms of others. That Long Silence's Jaya's sense of her identity is never certain. She is deplumed between Jaya; herself and specially her juvenile self; told by her father that she could accomplish something in the world. This paper is an attempt to depict Women's struggle; in the context of coeval Indian society; to find and preserve her identity as wife; as mother and most important of all as mortal being.

Keywords: identity, suppression, silence Individual, realistic

Edition: Volume 3 Issue 5, May 2014,

Pages: 1413 - 1416

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