Summary - INFLIBNET

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Summary

Shashi Deshpande is one of the prominent voices to arrive on the scene of Indian literature in English. She has , nevertheless, created a place for herself in the galaxy of Indian women novelists in English. She excels in projecting a realisti c picture of Indian middle-class educated wom en, who though financially independent, are confronting the dilemma of existence --a phenomenon that shows itself . In this regard, she is a phenomenologist, trying to understand in her fiction, the relationship of sexes from the phenomenological standpoint.

The chapter-I is introductory in nature. It gives the brief discussion of Shashi Deshpande's life, early education, works and experiences. The present study aims to discover and define man-woman relationship i n her eight extant novels from the phenomenological existentialism of Jean -Paul Sartre. What Sartre means by phenomenological analysis of being , in his essay Being and Nothingness , is that though the being-in-itself is always full, complete in -itself, while the being-for-itself is always on the way to completion. Thus, he presents the distinction between the being-in-itself and the being-for-itself. One of the problems of human existence is desire, for Sartre, to attain being -in-itself, which he describes a s the desire to be God--this is a longing for absolute identity. The desire to be God is one of the ways people fall into bad faith. Sartre's whole endeavor is to explain man's predicament in human terms. In the present thesis, the novelist's phenomenologic al ontology , i.e. there is nothing concealed behind t he phenomenon or the appearance . That is why, her novels beginning with The Dark Holds No Terrors (1980) give the appearances of human relationship s particularly man -woman relationsh ip. All phenomen a thus overflow themselves in her novels suggesting other phenomenon yet to be disclosed.

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The chapter -II is about Shashi Deshpande's early novels such as The Dark

Holds No Terrors (1980), Roots and Shadows (1983) and That Long Silence (1988).

She in The Dark Holds No Terrors presents the existential anguish of contemporary

Indian woman. In order to attain her

absolute freedom , Saru undergoes great

humiliation as a child and after marriage as a wife. She gains a greater social status

than her husband Manohar's. She suffers this masochism for full fifteen years before

saying enough of it. As a consequence, s he rebels against him when he turns into a

monstrous sadist inflicting human torture on her. Her father helps her to regain will -

power and she realizes that there is no need to hide oneself from others and be a silent

sufferer. Deshpande, in Roots and Shadows, has portrayed how Indu perceives herself

as a shadow of the female self and considers herself an object. In her family, her

husband Jayant abandons her h opes for empathy and integr ity. She experiences

emptiness, nothingness and barrenness. She comes out of her emotional upheaval, and

realizes that she is herself responsible for the marital disharmony in their lives. Indu

discovers her real self through her inner and instinctive potentiality. Deshpande in

That Long Silence depicts Jaya's quest for a sense of completeness. She analyzes her

life and her relationship with her husband and children and finds that she has

miserably failed to be herself . She begins to realize the futility of her existence in this

realistic world. Now , when she looks back on her life from childhood onwards, she

realizes that she is no longer her in-itself. She was afraid of nothingness. As a matter

of fact, she realizes that she can have her identity only if she has Mohan with her.

The chapter-III is about Shashi Deshpande's middle novels The Binding Vine (1992) and A Matter of Time (1996). She, in The Binding Vine , has shown how Urmi is marred by the unexpected death of her daughte r Anu. She is also frustrated in her married life with Kishore. Urmi is also concerned with the suffering of her long -dead

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mother-in-law subjected to rape in marriage and an unmarried girl Kalpana--a victim of rape. Thus, Urmi as being-for-itself shares their sorrow and fights for justice till the end. Deshpande's A Matter of Time is about Sumi who is abandoned by her husband, a professor named Gopal . Sumi has three teen-aged daughters and her abandonment forces her to return to her parental home in Bangalor e. The issues which Sumi faces are not Indian problems; they are universal ones '--not just the difficulties in her

marriage, but the conflicts within her family as well.

The chapter -IV deals with Shashi Deshpande's later novels Small Remedies (2000), Moving On (2004), and In the Country of Deceit (2008). Sh e, in Small Remedies, traces the two different women, wherein Savitribai Indorekar is obsessed with music and Madhu's aunt , Leela--a passionate beli ever in communism. Madhu Saptarshi has been asked to wri te a biography on Savitribai Indorekar. She herself undergoes a great suffering due to her son Adit's death. She records how Bai has been confronting the dilemma of existence. Madhu's aunt , Leela gives her life to the political party due to her independent nature. Though emotionally free from Adit's death, Madhu accepts life with Som after a lot of pain . Deshpande's n ext novel Moving On is about Manjari Ahuja who reads her father's diaries. Manjari dotes on her mother and whose entire ex istence depends on her parents' approval. But one day, she suddenly decides to rebel, due to h er passionate affair with Shyam, to such an extent that it causes a permanent rift between her and her family . Deshpande, as a phenomenologist, portrayed Manjari's ensuing struggle t o reconcile nostalgia with reality. Deshpande's latest novel In the Country of Deceit is a story of Devayani who chooses to live alone in the small town of Rajnur after her parents' death . Devayani's life is tranquil and stable . Then , she meets Ashok China ppa, Rajnur's new District

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Superintendent of Police, and they fall in love despite the fact that Ashok is much older, married, and has a daughter. She ultimately enters into a relationship with him.

The chapter -V is an exploration of Shashi Deshpande's art . It depicts the technical aspects of her novels. She has been so much accurate about the technique in her fiction. Her writings are singularly free from strain and form has never been allowed to restrain the content of her works. Moreover, she has made a niche for herself among Indian English novelists.

The concluding chapter-VI sums up the whole discussion. Shashi Deshpande's psycho-analysis reveals to her that her women protagonists pursue a double course, a synthetic fusion of the in-itself with the for-itself. All that they finally come to realize, is their dreadful freedom whether they go back to the wedlock or remain solitary . This is the absolute freedom. There are , of course , obstacles to their freedom but these obstacles are in relation to their choice--whether choose to be in relations or out of it.

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