Of Silence and Struggle: The Portrayal of the Marginalized Women in the Selected Fiction of Shashi Deshpande

Marginalization refers to the process through which a particular stratum of society is deprived of its rights and pushed to the edge of society by those in power. The act of ostracization is not an isolated one; rather, it is the amalgamation of various factors like race, gender, ability, socioeconomic status, sexual orientation, age, religion and so on. Women are often treated miserably in a patriarchal society. Their woeful condition has a significant stamp on their psyche that has hindered their growth as independent individuals in society. They are often placed in subordinate positions and deemed inferior to their male counterparts. This article will evaluate the situation of Shashi Deshpande’s women characters in The Dark Holds No Terrors (1980), That Long Silence (1988), and The Binding Vine (1992) by focusing on their hardships in contemporary Indian society. Though her protagonists are educated and come from the middle class, they are struggling to strike a balance between individual inclinations and the social constraints of a patriarchal society.