Major Themes

Marital Conflict
Expectations and reality
Nuclear Family and Joint family
Father-daughter and mother-son
relationships
The inability to locate one self
Family Vs Career
Lack of communication

Lack of warmth in love life

Tradition Vs modernity
Patriarchy
Safety of ancestral homes and loss
Indian Middle class values
Writers Dilemma

Feminism
The quest for identity and freedom
a criticism of the prevailing social
conditions
Exclusion of women from the dominant male
culture, social, sexual, political and
intellectual pursuits
"Relational" and "Individualist Feminisms
Two classes :
the lower strata of women, engaged in
domestic chores to earn their living and
educated middle class women

Two authorities within the family

no radical feminist stance
Mans dilemma with womens dilemma
Women are victims of their own perceptions and
self imposed restrictions
"With whom shall I be angry? With myself, of
course." (TLS: 192)
"I don't like to call myself a feminist writer. I say
I'm a feminist, but I don't write to propagate an
ism" . Shashi Deshpande

Style and Language

Language and culture
Standard English and Indianized English
non-nativeness in grammar, vocabulary and
the use of rhetorical devices in various
functional styles
We cannot write like the English. We should
not. We can write only as Indians
Raja Rao
Englishes, not English
Language and the Character

Typical Examples of Indian Idioms

Chest beating , Straw mat, Oiled heads , That upstairs
uncle
'Yes, yes, of course, two daughters.(165)
Yes, yes...yes, I'm holding on.'(170)
'Yes, yes, go ahead, that's right, don't change your
plans, the fourteenth is fine, yes, yes, yes...(174)
'Don't, don't,' I cried out again, but it was no use; they
could neither see me nor hear me. .(175)
'You don't understand, you don't understand
anything,' Rahul cried out.(131)
No, no, this was nonsense - my 'writer's imagination'
running away with me.(167)
No, no, no.... come home, I said.Rahul, listen, I'm in the
Dadar flat, in Dadar, Makarandmama's place, Dadar...
Rahul come home...(172)

Hindi-chini bhai bhai ,

Dhoti ,Kaajal ,Goondas ,Paisa ,Chal ,
Relationships

Ai
,Avva Ma (Mother)

Mai ,Ajji (Grandmother )

Atya (Fathers Sister)
Hindu mythological figures
Relious words
Sacred cow ,Tulsi puja , Kumkum
Food Items Chapatties Dal ,Chutney,Puri bhaji
Ladoos ,Samosas

Characters
Jaya
A daughter
A woman torn between traditional role of
wifehood and motherhood
A writer
A lover
An Individual wishes to transgress values but
caught up within the value system

Jaya and Mythological Characters

Irony and rejection

1. Maitreyee (Knows her aim in life) Jaya does

not know her aim in life
2. Yajnavalkya (Allows woman free choice)
Mohan does not allow free choice
3. Gandhari (Bandaged her eyes because
her husband was blind) Jaya closes her eyes
to whatever Mohan does
4. Dasarath (symbol of retribution)
5. Sita (faithful wife)
Jaya faithfully
following her husband into hiding due to her
husbands wrongdoing
6. Savitri (faithful wife)
7. Draupadi (faithful wife)

Mohan
An educated man
A man born in a poor family but got reputation
through studies
A salaried man ,ambitious, fond of prestige and
fame in society
A man with a narrow outlook wanted a wife
who is educated and fluent in English.
A man fails to understand the feelings of a
woman
A product of modern materialism

A man lives in a delusion of happy family

A sentimental man who pretends to be stoic
A man who believes in the traditional values of
husband-wife relationship
A child spoilt by his father and mother not
through love but through cruelty and suffering
An average personality whose conceptions are
shaped by the society
A man concerned about his wife and children
A loving man unaware of the techniques of
loving and to be loved

Other characters
Mohan's sister Vimala
Mr. Kamat
Rahul
Rathi
Jaya's father
Mohan's father
Mohans brother
Members in Jayas ancestral home
Jayas brother
Jeeja and Tara

Deshpande is concerned with people, the

women and their relationship
with others, like husbands, parents, children,
and sons and daughters.
She has faithfully tried to construct
womanhood in the contemporary context,
society and the world. (2008: 114)
P.D.Nimsarkar
"My (De) Voice: Thus Shashi Deshpande
Speaks." Indian Women's Writings in English.

"You've got to read women's writing differently. If you're

going to say this is only a story about a kitchen, and
belittle it for that, that's stupid. It's the world of a human
being trying to place herself within relationships, people,
and ideas."

Further Reading
Roots and Shadows (1983)
The Dark Holds No Terrors (1980)
The Binding Vine (1993)
Matter of Time (1996)
Small Remedies (2000)
If I Die Today (1982)
Come Up and Be Dead (1983)