Published Paper Details:

It is really fascinating to blend up the portrait of women in Indian literature because when put together, the picture collectively makes up for a captivating and thought provocative reading. Women in India are still caught between the cultural milieu with traditions deeply seated into her veins and the approaching modern life. Combating with the burden of domestic and social life, mothering, child bearing, struggling with the conventions, women have first to survive this harsh world. The question of equality and equal opportunity arises afterwards. In such compromising times, it is essential to identify the new areas of trouble and to check the disproportion which arises just after her marriage. The transition from girlhood to womanhood marks a great change in her life and hence the beginning of a completely new phase. Among the present-day Indian women writers in English, Shashi Deshpande stands out as a dominant name. In this paper I�ve taken up stories depicting the paltry condition of a woman, most of the times as a wife and also at times as a mother or even a daughter. The short stories included are beautifully carved out in an exquisite style. Deshpande�s writing style is simple and reasonable, devoid of any fabrication and deception. The paper is a prudent attempt to analyze the image of woman in a self-denial mode. The use of the first-person narrator gives an outline of credibility to the actions and situations and brings the protagonist closer to the reader. The stories essentially are woman-centered, women in their different roles of daughter, mother and wife, who find themselves trapped and enclosed in the institution of marriage in this patriarchal society and who unfailingly suffer from alienation and a sense of guilt and loss. Though Shashi Deshpande does not define herself as a feminist writer, and she has no intention of becoming the spokeswoman of the predicament of the middle-class Indian woman still her novels and short-stories portray social reality the way it is. Of the selected several short stories, 1 has a mythical background, with characters taken from the great Hindu epic, the Mahabharata. The others portray common daily life situations an Indian woman has to deal with in the world that strictly predefines her roles. All the female characters share a deep feeling of confinement and frustration. However, none of them will put into danger their family�s peace and stability. The female characters are alienated in their own private worlds and inner rooms, away from their husbands who find them insignificant and take them for granted.