Representation of Indian women’s lived experience: a reading of my story and that long silence

Abstract

A large number of men have the tendency of objectifying women by thinking that women are nothing but a lump of flesh having no intelligence or ability to cope up with them in the outside world, and thus they should not have any importance in the society. For ages, a number of rules, created by the patriarchal society which is built upon misconceptions regarding women‘s intelligence, strength and capability, never allowed women to prove their intelligence outside home. In such a society, women are taught not to break barriers and accept their allotted gender roles to break the barriers as they think that life without conflict is comfortable. Women writers have portrayed the lived experiences of women through many literary works where they open up about the subjugation they have to face in order to maintain a life without conflict and struggle. This thesis aims to show the journey of women from childhood where their upbringing shapes their ideologies to fit in the society by silencing their voice, repressing their talent as well as not providing any environment for their true development. Through the selected novels by Kamala Das and Shashi Deshpande, I want to show the exploitation of women‘s individuality in patriarchal Indian society as well as how their exploitation is partially caused by their own choice of not going against patriarchy in order to maintain a safe life. The selected novels are Kamala Das‘s My Story and Shashi Deshpande‘s That Long Silence. Besides these primary resources, I have also taken secondary resources from scholarly journals and articles.