Feminism and Social Realism in Shashi Deshpande’s Writings
Exploring Shashi Deshpande's Perspective on Feminism and Social Realism in Indian English Literature
by Jatinderjeet Kaur*,
- Published in Journal of Advances and Scholarly Researches in Allied Education, E-ISSN: 2230-7540
Volume 16, Issue No. 2, Feb 2019, Pages 45 - 49 (5)
Published by: Ignited Minds Journals
ABSTRACT
While Indian authors – writers, novelists, essayists, dramatists – have been making significant and considerable commitments to world literature since the pre-freedom era, the past couple of years have seen a gigantic prospering and flourishing of Indian English writing in the global market. Indian English literature is a legitimate enterprise to demonstrate the ever rare diamonds of Indian writing in English. Indian English has ended up being another shape of Indian culture and voice in which India banters regularly. Not exclusively are crafted by Indian authors writing in English surging on the blockbuster list, they are also earning an enormous amount of critical acclamation. Initiating from Shashi Pande, the panache of fine Indian writers is long and much augmented. In this paper we will discuss about the opinion of Shashi Deshpande towards Feminism and Social realism in his works.
KEYWORD
Feminism, Social Realism, Shashi Deshpande, Indian English literature, Indian authors
I. INTRODUCTION
Creative composition is taken a gander at as an integral part of the literary traditions in the Indian perspective of expressive arts. Indian literature in English had started several decades ago and is still in a constant procedure of metamorphosis. There appears to be an acceptance of Indian English literature as Indian composition speaks to another type of Indian cultural ethos. This literary body has turned out to be altogether absorbed and is by and by a dynamic component of the quintessential Indian way of life (Agrwal & Sinha, 2003). As far back as the beginning of civilization, there has been a battle to free women from male abuse. Before, the work by the women creators has dependably been underestimated on account of some male centric suspicions. Feminism is an outflow of hatred at the uncalled for treatment distributed to any lady. In writing, it eludes to any mode that methodologies content with principal worry for the idea of female experience. The inequalities against which the women's activist have raised their voice of challenge lawful, financial matters and social confinement on the essential rights of lady can be followed all through history The paper is an endeavor to look at the women's activist point of view in That Long Silence of Shashi Deshpande. The male predominance means the male centric culture in the family connection amongst Jaya and her husband Mohan. The aftereffect of marriage yield into dissatisfaction, dispose of and disharmony as there was nonappearance of adoration with just sex. Jaya was constrained to keep quiet and surrender and embrace socio-mystic nature. The customary, establishment of Indian family is decreasing as the familial relationship does not have sex equality. Male individual from the family is qualified for a wide range of solaces and reasons while female part needs to forfeit her life keeping quiet, stifling feelings and wants. The mechanical and simulated love is noteworthy where sexual orientation segregation exists in family condition. Jaya could end her hush after the help of Kamat yet chooses to keep quiet and surrender. Violence isn't the answer for the issues, to convey a change one needs to pause and to be hopeful. Women's activist movement advocates the equal rights and equal opportunities for women. The genuine soul of feminism is into take a gander at women and men as people. There ought not to be a sexual orientation predisposition or segregation in familial and social life. Setting up sexual orientation equity and sex value is the key parts of women's activist movement (Agarwal, 2007).
II. REALISM IN ENGLISH LITERATURE
Literature has thousands of strings which can weave the lovely bit of art. Each string has its own particular significance in the creative work. Similarly, there are distinctive narrative strategies for the portrayal of literature. Among the narrative strategies, Realism, in literature, is an approach that endeavors to depict existence without romanticizing or sentimental subjectivity. In spite of the fact that realism isn't restricted to any one century or gathering of writers, it is regularly connected with the abstract development in
Howells brought it into the United States. Realism has been primarily worried about the commonplaces of regular daily existence among the center and lower classes, where character is a result of social elements and condition is the vital component in the sensational confusions in literature, an approach that returns from an investigation of reality as far as normal powers. Realism, a style of composing gives the impression of recording or 'reflecting' steadfastly a real lifestyle. Realism in literature is the hypothesis or routine with regards to constancy to nature, or to genuine and to precise portrayal without glorification of regular daily existence. The eighteenth century works of Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, and Tobias Smollett are among the most punctual cases of realism in English literature. It was intentionally received as a stylish program in France in the mid nineteenth century, when intrigue emerged in recording beforehand overlooked parts of contemporary life and society. The pragmatist accentuation on separation and objectivity, alongside clear yet limited social feedback, ended up indispensable to the novel in the late nineteenth century. The word has additionally been utilized fundamentally to mean unnecessary minuteness of detail or distraction with trifling, ignoble, or filthy subjects. The 20eth century, winning models of abstract feedback drew a line amongst pragmatist and hostile to pragmatist literature, putting pragmatist takes a shot at one side of the line and fabulous takes a shot at the contrary side. In spite of this natural addressing of the limits and development of reality, the worldwide abstract scene has been to a great extent uniform in its position of otherworldly realism in the counter pragmatist class, consequently contradicting it to pragmatist fiction (Bharati, 2010). Indian fiction in English saw a spurt in pragmatist books in the '80s and '90s. Realism arrived at an end in European fiction toward the finish of the nineteenth century, however in the Indian situation; we saw its restoration in the fiction of Mulk Raj Anand, R K Narayan, Raja Rao and a wide range of stalwarts. The early Indian culture has been encountering numerous social shameful acts and the creative identity of the writers responded thoughtfully to the setbacks of the disheartened and the minimized. In the fictional works of Vikram Seth, Manju Kapur, Aravind Adiga, Arundhati Roy and in a significant number of our new age writers, realism has made a rebound with an additional power and essentialness. Manju Kapur and Aravind Adiga handle realism with its traditional attributes and their arrangements take after a mirror held against the awkward substances of Indian culture. Realism in art and literature is an endeavor to portray life as it is. It shows life with reality, omitting nothing that is ugly or painful, and idealizing nothing. To the movement in art in the 18th century. By the mid-19th century, it was a principal art form. In past, realism has been an upheaval against classicism and romanticism - artistic movements characterized by works that idealize life.
III. SOCIAL REALISM
“Social realism is a pattern in American art starting in around 1930 and alluding in its tightest feeling of artistic creations managing social-protest subjects. In a more extensive sense, the term might be taken to incorporate the more broad renderings of American life, generally arranged as American scene painting and regionalism, which could conceivably show inconspicuous basic remark”
'Social' is an omnibus word covering all parts of human action that show an awareness of others. Basically "Social Realism" is an unprecedented reach of understanding of social life. Still better, it is a scholarly power of examining into the nature and capacity of society, its different establishments and conventions, and their working. It is a scholarly entrance of social process. Social Realism includes individual, social and cultural changes in every one of the circles of existence with their complexities, and subtleties: certainties identifying with family, the class, the marriage, the school, the governmental issues, the inter-relation, economy, morality, religion, and instructive standards. It relates more to social rearrangements and social maladjustments, for example, joblessness, youth turmoil, modern indiscipline, crime, war and their causes and outcomes. Social Realism is a sharp delineation of social condition. It infers an ethical awareness moreover. Social knowledge is an uplifted awareness or far reaching understanding of the social and cultural milieu - a feeling of social certainty. Socially cognizant alludes to an awareness propelled by a social philosophy. It infers extraordinary social contribution and responsibility regarding the socialist program. Social Realism incorporates social cognizance, social sense and experience and social understanding. It is a sweeping term, showing sound and orderly handle of the socio-political web, all moved into one. Social Realism disentangles the layer inside layers of the social texture through anecdotal medium. By picking a fitting story, characters, dialect and anecdotal system, the novelist intends to show the diverse parts of society and its mind boggling working. Social Realism isn't simply realism spoke to in novels. It is, then again, the novelist's method for managing realism or once in a while managing social certainties and occasions of society for his novel's sake. In the novelists' hands it remains a
The term 'Social Realism' portrays both a particular complex approach and a general demeanor towards topic. Its essential objective isn't to delight yet to persuade the onlooker of the shades of malice. It goes for the unadorned delineation of the contemporary social life in its different angles. Society is a liquid element. Its honest, generally solid portrayal with progressive improvement turns into the genuine delineation of social display.
IV. SOCIAL REALISM AND FEMINISM
The Indian literary scene, dominated by men always had a gap - it told the story of half of humanity through the voice of the other half. A few writers picked ladies protagonists, however their portrayal of them was too romanticized to be compared with the real ladies. The affliction spouse, the sobbing dowager or the sacrificing mother were the main images found in their compositions. Acceptance and accommodation were as yet considered as maintained conservative ideals or they were labeled immoral. Traditional moral feel dominated these narratives. Traditionally, ideal from the ancient days, India's is a male-dominated culture. Indian woman was secured with many thick, slack layers of bias, tradition, ignorance and hesitance in literature as well as in real life too. She was an inanimate question, who took after five paces behind her man. According to Hindu reasoning, ladies had no privilege to think about the Vedas, and along these lines, literacy became a rare quality in ladies. The Digambara Jains hold the view that ladies can never attain salvation with the exception of by being renewed as men. This is the predicament of ladies all finished the world. Deshpande stands with regard to feminism in her novels keeping in-see the essential elements of this idea. The issues rose in this association by admirers, commentators and what the author herself dealt with have to be analyzed critically and assessed in the light of the essentials of feminism before any conclusion can be arrived at. It isn't available to anyone to delineate what feminism stands for (Deshpande, 2003). In a male dominated society, woman should be an ideal spouse, a mother and a fantastic home-maker with multifarious parts in the family. As spouse and mother, service, sacrifice, accommodation and tolerance are her required attributes. Extreme endurance and arrangement of adjustments she makes throughout her life faithfully and submissively are her admired qualities. Her individual self has extremely little acknowledgment in the patriarchal society and so self-effacement is her normal way of life. While examining feminism in the novels of Shashi Deshpande these aspects cannot totally be stopped, for a reasonable understanding of the subject in social setting. Shashi Deshpande's deftness in the craft of fiction composing cannot be under-rated. She has full understanding of her subject and the characters she has worked in her novels, delineates a maturity of reason. She stands by certain important tenets of feminism like freedom of decision and an un-hindered freedom of sexual satisfaction. Her main protagonists in the novels are young ladies appropriately charmed by the liberating impact of western education and when they embark on translating these ideas in practical life they are face to face with harsh realities of life affecting their mind. Their contention is with 'authority in the family set-up whether old or their own making (Deshpande, 2003). The latest novel from her in the arrangement, A Matter of Time (1996) is an example where her protagonist comes to realize the quality of arguments in others and in one case appears to accommodate with this 'authority' happily, at last. The issue along these lines is to test inside and out her attitude toward such issues of feminism.
VI. SASHI PANDEY’S WORK RELATION TO SOCIAL REALISM
Feminism is unmistakable from women's activist worries when all is said in done which is a reason with numerous individuals, including guys for a considerable length of time as a reaction to man centric greenery. In any case, feminism, then again, is an exceptionally recent development, nearly. Be that as it may, numerous disarrays are generated at this point over calculated casings included. It appears to be basic to unmistakably state what stands for what in such manner. This examination has attempted to recapitulate the fundamental focuses in their historical setting with the goal that these ideas try not to befuddle the issues engaged with this association. There are a decent number of remarks and audits on the works of Shashi Deshpande till date. While there is valuation for her abstract style, basic remarks on her commitment to the reason for woman through fiction, are numerous who hold different assessments on her rationality. Among them none differs about her bore as a writer of profound sensibilities to the universe of woman. There is almost certainly that she has a sharp eye on Indian middle-class woman- - her quality, her failings, frustrations and aspirations in the realm of scurry. She might have given feasible responses to all her problems, yet the woman has been treated with sensitivity and mind by her in the novels.
orientation separation alone, does not meet all requirements to be an example of feminism. Feminism is an unequivocal philosophical classification established in the existential method of individualism which took shape in a specific historical setting of industrialization and finance capital trying to make an individual anonymous and distanced, with a specific end goal to acquire everything without exception its go after commodifying. Internal clash and look for character, idea of marriage and sex freedom, parent-youngster relationship and the organization of family as additionally freedom of decision. . In such manner, it is imperative to outline the nuts and bolts of feminism first. One may start to state what feminism isn't (Shanmugam, 2012). The fundamental fixings which feminism propounds are : mission for self, look for and declaration of character, unhindered freedom of decision with its prompt articulation in uninhibited free-sex, annulment of foundations like family, group and marriage, free economic substance and battle against sexual orientation separation. Woman, languished desolation over long characteristic in a circumstance, in the wake of losing the place of conspicuousness in social structure, which risen with the approach of the idea of property and literature, specially sacred texts, assumed its part to turn it as 'common' as could be allowed. It was, notwithstanding, just at a late stage of development in property relations when feminism went ahead the scene (Rajkumar, 2016). A look at her novels reveals how poignantly she communicates the frustration and disappointments of women experience social and cultural persecution in the male-dominated society. Roots and Shadows, her first novel, highlights the agony and trauma experienced by women in male-dominated and tradition – bound society. The author uncovered the absurdity of rituals and customs which just help to perpetuate the myth of male superiority. This shows how a woman develops from 'self-surrender' and 'self-abnegation' to assert her individuality with recently rose character (Joshi, 2003). The Dark Holds No Terrors rejects the traditional idea that the sole motivation behind a spouse presence is to please her husband. It reveals a woman's capacity to assert her won rights and individuality and turn out to be completely aware of her potential as a human being. That Long Silence traces the passage of a woman through a maze of questions and fears towards her affirmation. Review the man-woman relationship impartially, the writer does not toss the blame altogether on men for the subjugation of women. She watches that the two men women think that it‟s hard to exceed the images and parts allotted to them by society. The writer delineates the agony of a spouse who is the casualty of marital rape. She also portrays the predicament of women raped outside marriage who might rather endure peacefully in the name of family respect. A Matter of Time, Shashi Deshpande's latest novel, portrays a woman who is more mature and honorable than her forerunners. While others cannot consider themselves outside the familial bond, she, winding up in, is unperturbed. Being somewhat detached, she manages herself admirably and almost ends up self-subordinate. Shashi Deshpande's worry about the problems of women and their journey for personality makes one to think about her novels as feminist writings (Viswanath, 2005).
VII. CONCLUSION
The attitude of ladies writers has changed in recent circumstances. Their works are based on observations of external behavior as well as on the internal adventure in the psychological realm of the female sensibilities. They make straight excursion into the mind of their ladies characters that are torn on account of the strains generated by the strife between the individual and the environment. Ladies novelists writing in English attempt to extend woman as the central figure and they introduce the predicament of woman. Their natural perception of and knowledge into ladies' reaction and reactions, problems and perplexities, the complex working of their internal identities, their emotional contributions and disturbances help them portray their ladies characters with all their longings and aspirations and trusts and frustrations. As an author of this post-autonomy period, Shashi Deshpande portrays Indian middle-class woman with a message. Her fiction isn't clean, abstract or only a mirror. She has esteem certain values which she has apparently soaked up from her education and up-acquiring a middle-class milieu of the times. Shashi Deshpande appears to have taken up this issue of contention between two societies in the family as her topic. With slight change in emphasis all over, all her novels under examination, are worried over issues in this contention. . Deshpande's narratives bear the authenticity of a woman's signature. She has rejected the masculine dialect and the masculine perception of temperance, relationship and content, and laid bare before us the subversive part of tradition in perpetuating the secondary part of ladies emphasizing the need of discrediting its legacies if ladies have to rise as liberated and emancipated creatures.
REFERENCES
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2. Agarwal, Malti ed. (2007). New Perspectives on Indian English Writings. New Delhi Delhi: Atlantic Publishers and Distributors (P) Ltd., 2007. Print. 3. Digambar S. Kulkarni (2016). “Social Realism: Representation of Problems of Youth and Fraudulent Society in Chetan Bhagat‟s Revolution 2020”, IJOIS, Vol. 1, Issue 2. 4. Bharati, Shivram (2010). “Gendering the Past: The Changing Face of Women in Indian Literature.” Women in Indian Literature. New Delhi: DPS Publishing House, 2010: pp. 1-11. Print. 5. Deshpande, Shashi (2003). Writing from the Margin and other Essays. New Delhi: Penguin. 6. Deshpande, Shashi (2003). “Why I am a Feminist.” Writing from the Margin: And Other Essays. New Delhi: Penguin Books, 2003: pp. 80-91. Print. 7. Dr. S. Shanmugam (2012). “A Study of Social Realism in Kamala Markandaya‟s Nectare in a Sieve”, Journal of Humanities and Social Science (JHSS). Volume 5, Issue 4, pp. 57-59. 8. Dr. Rajkumar M. Lakhadive (2016). “Recent Trends & Developments in Indian English Fiction”, International Journal of Engineering Technology, Management and Applied Sciences. Volume 4, Issue 3. 9. Joshi, P.G. (2003). Shashi Deshpande‟s Fiction. New Delhi: Prestige. 10. Viswanath, Gita (2005). “Conversation with Shashi Deshpande.” June 3, 2003. Writing Difference: The Novels of Shashi Deshpande. Ed. Chanchala K. Naik. New Delhi: Pencraft International: pp. 228-236. Print.
Corresponding Author Jatinderjeet Kaur*
Department of English, Chaudhary Devi Lal University, Sirsa jeet.daljeet80@gmail.com