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Theme Of Alienation In Shashi Deshpande

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The marginalization of women in a patriarchal society has resulted in their alienation. Encyclopaedia Britannica defines 'alienation' as "A term used with various meanings in philosophy, theology, psychology and the social sciences, usually with emphasis on personal powerlessness, meaninglessness, cultural estrangement, social isolation or self-estrangement." Alienation implies an individual's feeling or state of dissociation from self, from others and from the world at large. In Greek there are two words for alienation - 'anomie' and 'anomia'. While 'anomia' stands for self alienation, 'anomie' refers to alienation from society. In fact, self alienation and alienation from society are the two basic forms of alienation. If a person's spontaneous …show more content…

It gives him an opportunity to address to such questions as to who he is in essence and what he should do or not do in the broader sense of the term. This is true in the context of the "heroines of Shashi Deshpande. Put under certain circumstances they are set on the path of self discovery. The process begins with their sense of alienation both from themselves and …show more content…

The consciousness of a changed time on the one hand, and the socio-cultural modes and values that have given Indian women a defined role, on the other, inevitably causes a sense of alienation in them which they overcome only with a determined effort. This happens with Jaya, the protagonist of That Long Silence also. In this novel Shashi Deshpande has described the sufferings of a woman writer who is also a housewife. Jaya is an intellectual woman who finds herself out of place in a society meant only for men. The novel begins with Jaya and her husband, Mohan moving out of their own flat to the old flat of Jaya's parental family in suburban Bombay. They had stayed in this flat immediately after their marriage when their financial condition was not so good. This time they have moved to this flat because Mohan has been caught in some financial irregularities in his office and so he sends his son and daughter on a holiday with a friend's family and moves with Jaya to this flat to remain out of sight for a few days. The childhood memories of the house and her isolation from the kind of life she has become accustomed to of late give Jaya a chance to look back at her life "and realize the reasons of her alienation from herself. She remembers her father who taught her to have confidence in herself. She remembers how her father always encouraged her to be resilient and courageous in life. The

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