Paper Title
Gender Discrimination in Shashi Deshpande’s the Dark Holds No Terror: A Brief Study
Abstract
Shashi Deshpande is gifted with an in born literary bent of mind which matured with her experience in life. She
has presented the state of women in India. She is at her best in creating a central character, which not only describes her own
experience as a woman, but also makes a fuller study of women in society. Her sincere concern for women and their
oppressive lot is reflected strongly in all her novels and stories. The article shows how Sarita the protagonist of the novel
The Dark Holds No Terror undergoes the trauma of a middle class working woman who has become a trap in the male
dominated society. Sarita’s life is but a series of incidents which came one after the other, all by themselves, to deprive her
of even simplest of joys. The novel observes regretfully that woman, irrespective of her class and character, has to play a
second fiddle to man and has no room of her own.
Keywords - Complacency, contrition, male chauvinism, protagonist, trauma