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The term ‘New Women’ was coined by the Irish writer and public speaker Sarah Grand in 1894 in refer to intelligent, educated, emancipated, independent, and self-supporting women. Independence was not simply a matter of the mind: it also involved physical changes in activity and dress, as activities such as bicycling expanded women’s ability to engage with a broader more active world. The New Woman pushed the limits set by a male dominated society. Female subculture was divided by Elaine Showalter into three phases (1) Feminine (imitation) (2) Feminist (militant and anti-men) and (3) Female (discovery of selfhood). Shashi Deshpande’s New Women belongs to phase three. Her feminism aims at improvisation of relationship between man and woman.
Shashi Deshpande was born and brought up in Dharwad in Karnataka, South India in the year 1938. She got writing as a legacy from her father Sri Adya Rangacharya – the renowned Kannada dramatist and Sanskrit scholar. She grew up surrounded by books and literary personalities. Deshpande grew up in a family that belonged to the upper middle class, and so does her own family. She received her graduation in Economics and in Law. Much later, she took a post-graduation degree in English. In 1962 she marries Dhirendra H. Deshpande, a medical doctor. After marriage she obtained Diploma in Journalism, and worked for a couple of months as a journalist for the magazine ‘Outlooker’.
In 1968 they go to stay in London for a year. Writing did not come to Deshpande as a conscious decision. In England she felt isolated, with no friends, and her husband away all day. On their return to India her husband encouraged her to write about this experience. 1978 saw her first collection of short stories: “The Legacy and Other Stories” (1978). Other collections of her short stories are: “It was Dark” (1986), “The Miracle” (1986), “It was the Nightingale” (1986), “The Intrusion and Other Stories” (1993), “The Stone Women” (2001). About her process of being a writer Shashi Deshpande stated:
There was really nothing. It was really strange. Maybe it was there waiting inside and suddenly at one moment it came out. Until then, I was looking around to see what I could do. I was very unhappy and not doing anything, just looking after home and children. It was perhaps a kind of claustrophobic existence. I could feel something building up in me and that caused the outburst. Otherwise, it would have perhaps led to a breakdown. (Dhawan 117)
Shashi Deshpande has been contributing her literary jewels in Indian Writing in English for more than thirty years. Short stories and novels being Shashi Deshpande’s forte, her major works include six collections of short stories including near about eighty stories, seven novels apart from the books for the children and several articles. Thus her output is by no means inconsiderable.
Shashi Deshpande, in her fictions, deals with certain recurring themes, like- inner conflict and identity crisis, parent-child relationship especially mother-daughter relationship, and the concept of marriage and sex. Above all, the theme of silence rooted in the complex relationship between man and woman holds a great fascination for Shashi Deshpande.
Shashi Deshpande has carved a niche for herself in dealing with woman in different roles- daughter, wife, mother and an individual in a society conditioned by the rigid codes laid down by men. Deshpande is the articulator of women who are caught at the cross-roads of change in a society which is undergoing the birth pangs of transition from tradition to modernity. Rejecting the level of a feminist, Shashi Deshpande has always been writing about women. There is no feminine mystique in her portrayal of women.
New Woman challenges the old codes of conduct and morality of the society. In the story entitled ‘The Legacy’ Shashi Deshpande supported the Niyoja theory of Mahabharta, where sex is conducted to continue to dynasty of the King of Hastinapura. There is only a minimal voice of feminism in the form of fulfillment of woman. In the story, woman’s instinctive desire to have a son was unfulfilled due to sexual inadequacy of her husband. Her husband agrees to arrange surrogate husband. As a result of that she conceives a child. Thus, Shashi Deshpande reject the “idealization of motherhood”, and false sentimental notes about it. It also shows a deep understanding of woman psychology on her part.
New Woman takes her decision herself. In a story named ‘A Liberated Woman’ Deshpande creates a confrontation between a high salaried educated wife and less salaried prejudiced husband. The deep-seated prejudices and complexes of the husband are set against the modern liberated outlook of the educated woman. The husband suffers from inferiority complex marked by aggressive behavior to his wife in compensation. She knows her predicament in male-dominated society. She articulates her problems to an old friend of hers. She smothers her will to oppose openly and break her relation with her husband because of so called ethical values of society. Sidelining the advice of her old friend she decided to give an interview to a magazine to publish her story, which shows the courage of ‘New Woman’ to take her decision herself.
New Woman expresses her disagreement to the idea of arrange marriage. ‘The Intrusion’ is the most articulating story in this regard. This is the story of a newly married couple. It was an arranged marriage. On their honeymoon bridegroom makes amorous advances to the bride, who is in nostalgia. He is not trying to understand her point of view and claim proprietary right on her.
New Woman fights against the traditional perception of woman as ‘Angel in the house’. In “An Antidote to boredom” protagonist of the story is tired of her dull existence as a house-wife and mother. She feels she has a chance to entertain herself when she met a young widower at her son’s school. The socially unacceptable status of Eros emerges in the humiliated wife. She does not know whether it is automatic, natural, and authentic experience of her life or only to spite her husband and relieve her boredom. Whatever, but at last she has the satisfaction of trying something to defy the societal norms to fulfill her own desires.
By her women characters of the stories, Shashi Deshpande conveys the message to her reader and society that the time has ripen to be ready to welcome the ‘New Woman’ who is aware, self-controlled, strong willed, self-reliant, and rational, having faith in the inner strength of womanhood. Being a woman Shashi Deshpande understood the world of Woman and portrayed it perfectly in her fictions unarguably.
The short stories of Shashi Deshpande simply puts the point to ponder upon that, Woman is also a human being with same right of live and survive. At the same time, she draws the colorful picture of the ‘New Woman’ with her magical and mastered pen on the canvass of post colonial Society.
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