Decoding muffled voices of feminist resistance in Shashi Deshpande’s ‘The dark holds no terror’

Abstract

Indian women have always been socially and psychologically oppressed, sexually colonized and biologically subjugated against a male dominant set up. Any attempt by a woman to rise above the oppressive forces rooted in the middle class margins has either been curbed mercilessly or ignored in the name of social dignity. However, the status of woman all over the world, and particularly in India, has been undergoing a rapid change in the recent decades. Shashi Deshpande, in her fiction deals with the empowerment of women. The Dark Holds No Terror focuses on the changing dynamics of man-woman relationship. The present paper attempts to articulate Deshpande’s concern about the problems faced by a career-oriented woman, her struggle to find and preserve her identity as a wife, mother and as a human being.