Author(s): Israt Jahan Nimni, Refat Sultana Jahan

Abstract: Shashi Deshpande, one of the prominent Indo-Anglian writers, captures tension, trauma, and turmoil of the post-colonial Indian women in her writings. Her novels, especially, deal with the struggles, and daily battles of the middle-class female characters whose stories remain neglected, unheard, and silent in the patriarchal society. Though Deshpande’s female characters remain in confinement, subjugation, and silence in the male-controlled society, but they attempt to show resistance by confronting the difficulties, breaking silence, and learning to speak. Thus, they contest their subaltern conditions. Deshpande uses consciousness of the protagonists as the site to challenge the repressive forces that dominate, and control women in the Indian society. The rise of awareness and self-consciousness enable the protagonists to search for self-fulfillment, and self-identity. Thus, this paper aims to show the protagonist, Saru’s pursuit to attain selfhood, and subjectivity against gender stereotyping in a male-dominated society in The Dark Holds No Terror through feminist, psychoanalytic, and post-colonial perspectives.

Keywords: middle-class women, silence, subjugation, consciousness, selfhood

Article Info: Received: 17 Nov 2024; Received in revised form: 18 Dec 2024; Accepted: 24 Dec 2024; Available online: 31 Dec 2024

DOI: 10.22161/ijels.96.61