Abstract
Shashi Deshpande has her own way of describing the situations and characters in her novels. The theme of her novels is the inferior situation of women and the superiority of patriarchal society. She believes that women suffer due to male chauvinism and their own defeatism. The novelist delineates some hard facts to instigate women to action. The title of this novel, That Long Silence itself implies that women do not protest against suppression. Jaya was so named by her father because it meant victory, but victory does not come in her conscious existence. She was married to a man who had no qualms in accepting wrong means for wealth, while she was simple and elevated in everything. Jaya had to admit silently what he was performing — she was yoked with him — yet she was held accountable for all his wrong actions; a scapegoat as she was made by Mohan.
Keywords: Patriarchal Society, Female Suppression, Consciousness, Adjustment, Silent Revolt
Women’s Subordination and Consciousness
Shashi Deshpande needs women to be conscious of the subordinate condition they have placed themselves in for the sake of their husbands and children. They are wives and mothers, and ceased to be individual women. Jaya, for instance, realized it at one stage. When she flipped the pages of her old diaries, she found that there was wife of Mohan and mother of Rahul and Rati all over, but Jaya herself was nowhere. The female sinks her personality for the sake of her husband and children, yet she remains lower to them.
In her other novel, The Dark Holds No Terror, the heroine, Sarita, said simply that the woman must be in a subordinate status than her husband if she required a happy family life for herself. Thus, Deshpande attempts to bring a consciousness among female characters so that they may fight for equal partnership with men. She further informs that the story of gender disparity is not a recent development — it started since the beginning of civilization.
Mohan and Jaya: Foils in Marriage
The writer has implied the technique of placing foils to show the characteristics of her characters. Mohan, a man of day-today world was married to Jaya, who was rooted in traditional ethical values. When she came to realize that Mohan was engaged in a financial scam, she thought of the Nair family who had committed crimes. Mohan had a tendency to shift his blame to others. He first told that Agarwal was to blame but soon altered his stance and informed that his spouse was to blame.
Jaya, on the contrary, could not utter anything in defence though she understood that allegations against her were false. Mohan never cared for Jaya’s emotions, while Jaya was always careful not to hurt the feelings of her husband. She felt that if she laughed at anything that mattered to Mohan, it would diminish him, and who needed a dwarfed husband?
The Women Characters
Women are in the main pivot of the novel That Long Silence. Kusum, Jaya, Mukta, Vanitamami, Jaya’s mother, and grandmothers, Jeeja, Nayana, Manda, Nilima, etc. occupy the centre-stage. None of these female characters has any defect of character and every one of them is the victim of patriarchal society. Jeeja, Nayana, Manda are the domestic slaves, discharging essential services.
Vanitamami was very meek and submissive. She did not protest against the excesses of her mother-in-law, who did not even permit her to purchase saries of her choice. But when she decided to fetch Kusum in her family, she opposed the opposition in the family. Mukta was a young widow but she was very cooperative and helpful. When Mohan walked out on Jaya, she provided full support to Jaya.
The Male Characters
The women characters do not have any defect. They possess spirits of affection and forgiveness. Male characters, on the other hand, are highlighted as devoid of feelings and sense of accountability. Mohan, the most significant of them, had no qualms of conscience. He knowingly came into unholy alliance with the contractors, engineers and bureaucrats, and shamelessly told that he had to perform all that for the sake of his spouse and children and walked out on them.
Conclusion
Deshpande always chooses to describe the action and the events in retrospect. In the present novel, Jaya begins her story from the time Mohan arrived at the Dadar flat to escape ignominy of being involved in a scam. It is the vantage point from where she could well see the whole drama of her life, comprising of her childhood when her father cherished her, her convent education against the opinion of her uncle and grandmother, her marriage with Mohan, her empathy with Kusum, and Mohan’s involvement in a scam and his allegations against her.
Works Cited
- Deshpande, Shashi. The Dark Holds No Terrors. New York: Vikas Publishing House, 1980.
- Flew, Antony. A Dictionary of Philosophy. London: Pan Book Limited, 1979.
- Lavine, T.Z. From Socrates to Sartre: The Philosophic Quest. New York: Bantam Books, 1984.