This book offers a critical analysis of Shashi Deshpande's skilful employment of silence as a theme as well as a narrative strategy to reconstruct women's images in her selected novels. Silences, or "strategies of reticence" are used to depict how men and women negotiate their position and identities through the often conflicting forces of tradition and modernity that govern the Indian society. Through her selected novels, Shashi Deshpande shows that silence, which is often associated with passivity, can be an empowering tool as the characters in the novels navigate themselves in a patriarchal society. This book challenges researchers of literary works and students of literature to look beyond the explicit and to read into the meanings and strategies of silences of narrative texts. Readers are encouraged to read into the silences that exist beyond the articulation of the selected texts besides being challenged to put aside binaric patterns of thinking and to adopt a more critical and fluid pattern of thinking. It poses an exciting challenge to explore uncharted territories in the reading of texts written by marginalized groups of any given society. The ability to recognize the various meanings and strategies of silences opens up multiple possible meanings and enhances one's critical reading efforts.
Chow Sheat Fun
9789833986231 | USM Press | 2009
This product was added to our catalog on Wednesday 15 April, 2009.
